The Instigator of Diversity and Personality (or Are You Settling for just the Hor's Douvers?)

****September 9, 2006****
As another month or two goes by, I find my mind inspired to again place its thoughts in written form. If I wander, please bare with me - I've only had about 5 hours of sleep as I begin this.

About a week ago, I found myself in one of those "Christian" chat rooms on Yahoo. I was a little tired and bored, so I thought I might find some stimulating conversation that would give me some mental gymnastics to do before going to bed - sometimes that helps to calm me down and go to sleep, sometimes it doesn't. While I'm in there I notice a conversation going on between a "Christian" and a person who follows the beliefs of Wicca. Now, before I carry on with the main idea of this post, I want to take a small aside to point something out.

If you've ever gone into the chat rooms on yahoo, or anywhere else for that matter, have you ever noticed that quite frequently you find people in the room that really don't match what the particular topic of the room might be? I mention this particularly in the case of "Christian" chat rooms. Often I find in there people who are not carrying on any conversation that would follow along a "Christian" point of view, and also people who say they are not Christian at all. People that go in there I find interesting. You will frequently find Muslims going in and asking if anyone wants to know about Islam, or Atheists or even Satanists coming and becoming rather offensive and combative as they attempt to debunk the Truths of Christianity. However it is the Wiccans and other spiritualist people that enter the rooms that I find the most interesting.

For the most part they are rather congenial people, and easy to get along with. They are well spoken and polite (usually) in any discourse that might arise. However I wonder why they come in. They claim to accept all beliefs as valid but say that I cannot have mine because I say that mine is right - a definitive. Often, though they come in not to discuss beliefs at all, but to "see if there are kind Christians" or to "find kindred spirits." I have noticed that many times you will see two or three Wiccans enter a room at one time, and begin to have some sort of discourse amongst themselves, or begin to talk about mundane things that end up drawing one of the "Christians" into the conversation. At this point they begin to subtlety introduce things about their beliefs that they know a Christian will disagree with. At that point, usually one party or the other will begin to argue and the whole conversation degenerates into a simulated shouting match. The end result being the the Christian thinks that the Wicca (or any non-believer for that matter) is either just playing around and in general unintelligent, and the nonbeliever thinks the Christian is a jerk, or worse.

But here's how I see it. I mean, Wiccans and many other non-believers think that we, as Christians, are a bunch of bigoted, intolerant, and non diverse people. They believe that we all think the same thing and that we're a bunch of non thinking automatons. If you look at some of the religious christians, and some of the past of christianity, say from around the middle of the Roman Empire through the Crusades and the Inquisitions and the past the Renaissance and into some of the Twentieth century they're right. When you consider that the groups like Aryan nation and the Ku Klux Klan all claim the Bible as being the basis for their claim that the only race worth anything is the white race, I agree with them. Here's where the Devil has done some incredible things. The master of lies has done what he does best - take a couple of morsels of truth and twisted and deformed it into a lie. Using man's own fallen nature, Satan gives each person a piece of truth that sort of tastes good, depending on the person's life experiences, and feeds it to them telling them that it's the real meal deal when they're missing out on an incredible banquet.

****September 16, 2006****

I realize that I took a week break in writing this post, but life got busy, and I lost my place. To continue on what I was saying I happened to run into a great example of what I was just talking about. This weekend I was fortunate to win a cruise from work, so myself and a friend from church drove up to Seattle to board the ship. When we got there we found all sort of wonderful food. One whole deck of the ship is nothing but a long buffet. Outside, by the pool (which is on the same deck) is a place that did hot dogs and hamburgers. We found out about this deck from another friend of mine from work who had arrived on the ship earlier and had explored and found the deck. He showed us the grill place, and when I got in line he said, "Don't just stop there, go all the way back there's more back there."  Now, I like bratwurst, and the grill place had it, but I also like many other foods, so we took his advice and continued back finding the buffet with wonderful roast beef, braised veal, desserts, fruits, drinks and all other sorts of food. It was wonderful and my friend and I ate our fill there, then when a little farther aft and found a pizza place too. It was incredible. But that's not where the story ends. As my friend was still eating I went and explored some more and found some other friends from work (several of us from my district won places on the cruise) who were enjoying the hamburgers and hot dogs - they thought the grill place was all there was. When I told them of the riches of the whole buffet still to come they were rather disappointed that they hadn't gone farther, and that no one had told them about the buffet, and rushed off to take their fill.

This is how I feel many non believers are living their lives. They're just eating at the grill place, or worse still just munching on hor's douvers that are sitting around (like the cruise ship has stewards walking around with Bahama Mama's and other cocktails and munches late at night). They're getting food that can fill them a little, but it really isn't the best or even fully filling. Sometimes, those little snacks just make you want more to eat, and then you don't have room for what you're really waiting for.

****September 23, 2006****

I know, extra long time in writing this one - but I'm hoping that good things come from letting the dough proof - that takes time. Anyway, to finish up the thought of missing out, I find it interesting that on Saturday, at Church of Rock the youth pastor at my church brought this exact same thing up. She talked about the all familiar God shaped hole. We all search for so many thing to fill this void and emptiness we have in our lives. We all are searching for that one thing that just seems to tie everything together, bring closure to the loose ends, to set us at peace with the events that come up in our lives. Those are the hor's douvers in the world - Sex, Drugs, and Money. It seems that everything that we use to fill that void falls into those three categories - I would even be so bold as to say that Sex and Drugs are just one category (maybe I'll explain that in another post down the line). But even through all those, the sex addict needs more to fill him or herself, and only seems to loose another piece of themselves each time whether they deny it or not. The drug addict gets the high, and then needs more of the drug because of the tolerance the body builds up to their poison of choice, only to find each crash harder than the last. Finally, you have the money-grubber, always finding a way to get just one more dollar, only to find that in the process they've usually lost everyone and everything they really care about, and so they keep going for more. Each "thing" gets you somewhere, and then pushes you off the cliff into a void that leads no-where fast and has some impressive consequences. The sex addict contracts a disease that kills them or puts in danger the ones they "love" or really do love. The druggie overdoses or kills themself in a momentary lapse of judgment. The money-grubber finds that amidst all their possessions they have nothing and turn to self murder or the other two "fillers" and ends up the same way. Looking at that, do I really want to find my diversity, my fulfillment in those?

Enough about the hor's douvers - Let's talk about what's worth having. That seven course meal that gives you that feeling that you could just sit there and enjoy the view because you are well and truly stuffed and the only thing that could be better is a nice cup of tea to enjoy the beautiful sunset or a clear night sky. When we turn not to sex drugs or money to fill that emptiness inside us (we all have it - look inside yourself and you'll see it - that quiet craving that you've squelched because you're not quite sure what it's saying and you're afraid to listen to it) but to the Creator of our souls how much fuller does life become? I mean, you look out at the different cultures, languages, skin tones, animals, plants, and the awesome vistas that populate our planet it's astounding. But if that's all you're seeing, take off the blinders! All those wonderful things that fill your eyesight - as beautiful as it all is it comes from something even more beautiful. I am certain that when Beethoven composed his symphonies they were each  a labor of love - of a passion to express and share the deep music within him so that others could enjoy it alongside him. And when Michaelangelo painted and sculpted with such attention to detail that came from a desire within him to bring forth a thing of beauty to be marveled at not just by himself but by countless others. Some would say that to praise the music or paintings - mere created things - because without them the person who made them would be nothing. These people are pure fools - I'm sorry to use such a strong term but it's the kindest I can think of. The music is wonderful and the sculptures and paintings sights to behold, but the praise is due to the one who composed the melody and put paint to canvas. Without these people - intelligent beings - the invisible and inaudible would go unseen and unheard.

So it is the same with God. He alone is the full meal deal, that fills us with awe and wonder because we are His painting and his symphony. And just like the painting or symphony you never get the artist's or composer's full intention save the artist Himself interprets or conducts the piece Himself. And so that seven course meal that fills us is God, through His Son Jesus Christ - the author, the composer, the artist of our lives. He alone fills us so much that even when rains come and dampen the brightest blue sky, or worse yet the raving winds blown down everything we know into dust, still we can look around and say, "I am still content for this is but a movement in the symphony." He, and He alone can take the smudge smeared on the canvas by a prankster and work it into a masterpiece greater that the Mona Lisa or the great ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God, and only God is that one thing that when we feel that need to get more of Him, we build up no tolerance to His incredible, situation surpassing joy. "Through Him, all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made." If this is so, only through the Trinity - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (or Ghost) can we come to an understanding of what Diversity and Personality are. For He, the God-Man Infinite Creator and Inspiration of Life started the whole thing - the True Instigator, and the grand buffet.