Every now and then life delivers a blow that momentarily breaks you. Horrible experiences are like amyloid plaque, they build up on you as you pass through this nutso life.
@MidnightRider Yes. Especially since reaching mid-life I sometimes feel a brutal despair—there so little we can do about the agonizing separations, the vulnerabilities…so many incomprehensible realities and unanswered questions. I find the world of my thoughts to be more real than the world around me. I’ll think: perhaps I’m crazy? But then I’m like: nobody notices…guess they are to? Then I let all that go and try to enjoy being alive. Very strange.
@WellWellWell3 @MidnightRider Yes it does. I live in Western NC and we are still recovering from Hurricane Helene. My family came through it relatively easily. We lost power and our frozen food but nothing more. Others lost everything. The damage is surreal.
But I don't feel the despair like you describe. I give those things over to God. I don't fully understand what happened and I ask the same why questions. We volunteered at our church to give out supplies. Helping others helps us.
@danielbsmith I mean I am so glad this method of operation works for you. The problem I have with it in my brain though Daniel? How do I give over to God what God allowed to happen in the first place? Is God ever culpable for being a poor steward of the ant farm that he built Daniel? He works in mysterious ways is a copout.
@MidnightRider What about all of the good things in life? Fine food, a first date, dancing, music, art. Who is responsible for them?
@danielbsmith I don’t think it’s an invisible man in the sky. I know you do and I acknowledge that, but I’m just not there with you, my man.
@MidnightRider @danielbsmith as a Christian I also wonder about evil , don’t think we Christians don’t ask those questions, why wars ? Why diseases? Why did God create a world in which humans would go to hell knowing they would rebel against Him ? Of course we ask them , but the reasons to believe there is a God are also powerful.
@Jorro @MidnightRider @danielbsmith we each have to decide what lens we will use to make order out of chaos. That’s one’s existential task. I spent the first part of my life focused on poetry & love, it was quite orderly. Sometimes now tho I just think it’s chaos out of chaos with humans—even me. The only order I see is in nature, and we destroy that.
@WellWellWell3 @Jorro @MidnightRider I think that says more about humanity than about nature though.