The Train

Funny what taking the train does to me. For 140 minutes a day, I sit there, mostly reading and listening to my ipod. When I'm not reading, I'm staring out the window at the morning sun illuminating the high Fraser, or the vibration rings coming to the shore of the Burrard Inlet - it's a beautiful start to any day.

I'm always drawn to the people as well - my fellow commuters. And without fail, I always get to thinking about the 'system' in all its futility. Where are we going? Why are we going there? The mass sea exits the train at the station and scurries off to their cubicle to do something that merely fills their time and pays their bills. Something only few will admit means absolutely nothing.

I spend a lot of time trying not to be noticed staring at my fellow travellers, so the stares are quick and pointed. I see tired faces, rough faces, sad faces, happy faces. I love the line in As Good As It Gets, when the artist says to his model: "If you stare at someone long enough, you begin to see their humanity". I love doing this every day. They are so precious these people, yet their minds are far from knowing it, grasping it, and enjoying it. They are also so very deep and infinite in fact, but who knows it?

There is so much sub-par living, it is sad. It is precious to see them doing what they think is best to do and what they need to do, but overall they labor in vain, and it is sad. I understand why God came to us then: we're wasting our times in vanity. Everything is vanity.

Death

Once in a while I scare the hell out of myself and think about death. And not just glazing over it, but actually facing it, thinking about what it is to die. I simply cannot fathom the understanding of death by an atheist. How do you consider yourself nothing more than matter and come to accept that death is completely and utterly ceasing to exist? How does one imagine that some day there will be nothing, absolutely no remnant, of themselves anywhere. I tend to think they are taking a scientific stance for the sake of it, and aren't really facing the horrific reality of their religion. To their credit, they also aren't creating a fantasy to help them sleep at night.

For me, with all I know and understand about the universe and God and what he's done to keep me from dying the horrific death of most - even with all I know and the lengths I have travelled to know it - I am still afraid of death. I cannot get it into my head that I will die. It seems, with all I know, though, that I cannot grasp it because I know my own eternity, and the thought of death is just so contrary to what I have become.

I explained to a friend today that yes, I have an unshakable and firm belief, but yet, I have fear, if that makes any sense to you.


I recently finished writing a book (part of why this is the first blog entry since the end of March), in which I tell my own story and all I've learned on it. I tell of Adam and the falls, about Jesus and the recovery, and I talk about acceptance and peace. I sum everything up in the last chapter, saying that the purpose of a Christian in taking their journey to God is to discover themselves by discovering Him. It is to understand our own eternity now that death is a thing removed. In finding this and understanding this (because of the freedom from death), we are free to begin living by our eternal nature, the spirit, and lay aside all the futility of 'the flesh'. The 'flesh' loses its power over us as we embrace the spirit.

The chapter is called 'Remember Who You Are' and uses the analogy of the ancient story of the Lion King, when Mufasa tells his runaway son to do this and insodoing return to what he was.

(In the book I also question the spirit's ability to die, surmising that it cannot for it has no body to be diseased or to falter or anything of the sort. I guess that a spirit created is a spirit forever and hypothesize that this is why places like the 'Lake of Fire' exist for these spirits rather than zapping them into nonexistence.)


So, while the knowledge of our own eternity is beneficial and enormously freeing, does it completely remove fear of death? I can't believe that we are to live life and go all the way through it having beliefs about death and only beliefs. I don't trust belief. I don't trust my mind, for it is futile and only cares about appeasing itself. How, then, to prove eternity?

Perhaps this is why Peter and Paul went around in the power of the spirit preaching and trying to prove the resurrection of Jesus, for by this we have the hope of resurrection... of eternity.

I plan on searching the Spirit (the good one) for eternity, for some promise of it, some greater hope. Some proof. And then it is my goal in life to prove eternity to everyone else.