i think i'm a hedonist

"Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief" -Proverbs

While we are earth-bound, there is always a white tinge of joy in every dark cloud, but there is also a dark cloud of sadness staining every sunny sky. We all long to be completely and utterly satisfied, filled with an eternal happiness. Epicurus went so far as to say that

"Happiness is man's greatest aim in life."

I think there's a lot of truth to that. After all, even if you think your greatest aim is someone else's happiness, it is still because it makes you happy to see them happy. In fact, I don't think God would have it any other way. Because He loves us, His greatest desir is to see us fulfilled and happy - with or without Him. We try so hard to be happy without Him and without His ways. All sin is seeking our own happiness apart from God.

The problem is not that we're seeking happiness, it's that we're not very good at it.

"Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible."
-Augustine

What could be a worse hell than having one's greatest aim become an insurmountable impossibility? Aristotle surmised that true happiness could be found in the intellectual virtues and true friendship. John Stewart Mill settled for a system of ethics where each could at least pursue their own idea of happiness. The fact of the matter is, though, that,

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing"

-C.S. Lewis

Do not be ashamed to seek pleasure. Only, seek it well.

For us who are in Christ, our greatest pleasure is to be found in loving God and loving others. As for myself, I take these words to heart:

"Be happy, young man, while you are young,

and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.

Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see,

but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment"

-Ecclesiastes

I have chosen to delight myself in the Lord, and I know that He has given me the desire of my heart: Himself.

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smelly things

remember those scratch-and-sniff things? of course they still exist, but i haven't smelled one in a while. now all we have are those horrid cardboard car scents: those leaves of aesthetic tragedy. the one i'm thinking of has a strawberry scent. it might have been strawberry shortcake - that little red-headed girl with strawberries painted all over her ginormous hat, a hat ten times the size of her head. this reminds me of those markers you can buy that smell, too, often like berries of some sort. i can remember the blueberry ones the best. which scents do you remember? when Jodi and i (and sometimes Justin, Dan, Kaia or some other participant) would take empty milk jugs and stealthily place them on Mark Vust's doorstep (our Resident Director), i would sometimes smell the rotting milk. it didn't smell good. i'll give you that. but it was certainly a powerful scent. smelling things reminds me of how much i love life. like when i'm in a forest ...

Bye-bye Bible

Perhaps we should all be Jedi Knights. Their principle of non-attachment, which is strikingly like the Buddha's attempt to rid himself of earthly desires, is very appealing. "We will have to find out the cause of sorrow and the way to escape from it. The desire for sensual enjoyment and clinging to earthly life is the cause of sorrow. If we can eradicate desire, all sorrows and pains will come to an end." This makes a lot of sense. Actually, it makes perfect sense. He is right. It can be scary admitting Buddha is right, because what if he's right about everything? Well, even in this case, perhaps he is only right insofar as what he says is true. Does that mean his route is the best path to take on the proverbial road to enlightenment? Right now it might appear that way. You see, I realized recently that I became very attached to something I owned. It's my Bible. Or, was my Bible. (Give me a moment to regain my composure...) I had my NIV study Bible for at least ...

faith-full eyes

faith is a passionate intuition -william wordsworth as a child i was a master lego-builder. this was back in the day when one could take pride in constructing a lego masterpiece, before all of this "put these three pieces together and you have the entire star wars trilogy." no, sirree, this was manual labour. as the foreman of my building project, i grew very attuned to my materials. i would train my eyes to only see the colour i was looking for, whatever the colour may be. sure, it would still take me a while to find the piece i was looking for, but when it was in my field of vision it would jump out at me because of my expectation of it. to the pure, all things are pure -titus 1.15 . if you truly desire to see God’s beautiful tapestry being woven in your life, then see it. it is there. we’re not talking about believing in aliens here. the reason we are able to have faith is because, consciously or unconsciously, we have encountered the substantiation of God...

random anxieties of existence

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