Another Sunday, another chance to go to chirch and think about, chirchy stuff (chirch=church but for birds??) Religion/morality, another thing that fascinates me though it doesn't come easily, like music or mathematics or, shoot there was a rather good one that I was thinking about, what was it... smelling? I am not the best smeller... but I'm really good at it!
Well, I don't know. Art, I think it was, if that makes sense. But, church's focus on being a good person, anyway, always hammering how we could be better or try harder even though it feels like, well I always thought, I'm improving in the process-- is saying that admitting failure, in the face of everyone at church preaching a need for some kind of deliberate improvement? I don't feel like much of a sinner, but everyone's saying to repent...
This sense of morality confuses me. How can they say that there's such thing as sin, and in the next breath announce that there's a youth activity tomorrow? I'm taken aback-- youth activity!? they want us to have fun!? But I thought they just told us not to sin!
Logically I know that fun isn't sinful, logically I know that context separates vengeance from justice and sinful fornication from sacred marital intimacy, but emotionally there's no such thing as context, killing drive is killing drive and mating drive is mating drive... they're emotionally the same, and isn't spirituality supposed to be about emotion? That's what people say, that's how people describe faith. As though spirituality is supposed to be primarily emotional, irrational.
But I don't believe in God through emotion, I believe in God through logic, through rationality-- albeit logic based somewhat on emotion, in a sense; logic based on context, context of emotion, if the Spirit can be properly called emotion. The Holy Ghost manifesting truth, which dances around the edges of a very specific form.
No, but really, we've got no clue what the youth activity tomorrow is going to be. Probably Mario Kart 64, or something.
In Sunday School they were talking about the atonement, and somehow this meant writing down things on the board as part of the lesson-- love, repentance, faith and faithfulness; we can be selfish and braggardly about our EDUCATION, our TALENTS, our WHATEVER, all written out on the board. We can be selfish and braggardly, negative thing negative thing. But how can we turn these things into positive things, for other people?
Here it is. It's a subject I think a lot about-- in my Patriarchal Blessing the Lord told me personally to "live for" my gifts and talents to bless other people, but... in the presence of, the way morality is presented at church, the need to repent and try harder, it feels like we're bringing something amoral into the realm of morality, which feels immoral to me-- gifts, talents, live for 'em, why not; practicing your piano is your true form of worship, that is the law, are we not men.
Our education, or our talents, or our whatever, how do we turn these things into positive things to bless other people? It's a subject I think a lot about, and they're writing about it on the board right now. "It's impossible," I whisper.
And fortunately she mishears me, and it was an exactly write answer [pun.] THE GOSPEL. she writes on the board, at the top. Followed by others, SHARE at the bottom, WHATEVER again in the middle between the two (I paraphrase a bit of the board here, if you couldn't tell.) I guess there's a hierarchy: it's alright to share, but motivations need to be pure.
And, forced to come face-to-face with my motivations for things, if I truly do what I do to bless the lives of others-- I was forced to come face-to-face with that last night, where I spend half an hour in sweaty hot gradually blinding agony, just to get a decent shot that showcased both of my hands, and my big toe, and the little baby clipon that becomes a bowtie-necktie hybrid when it's worn by a full-grown man. And... well, I hate to sweat, so I really don't think I went through all that for myself. So that's good to know. Motivation-wise.
It's also good to know that within 24 hours, that post is already well on its way as one of the blog's most viewed posts of all time, according to the analytics, surpassing even that ever-popular one group of posts where we aggregated all the DeviantArt art of cats which were also pirates... it's at number 7, and is already neck-in-neck (heh) with number 6, and by midnight it should well surpass. And, perhaps go beyond; it's a very clickable title? It's just very reassuring to know that all that work paid off and found its audience, anyway. I really do, hate, sweating...
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