Kicking it up with InfiniteRand

Long time since I've posted anything, something of a long time since I've written anything. This prompts the question of who would have any interest in reading what I have to write. My brother gave me a good suggestion, thinking about writing for my daughters. While I try to be open with them about a lot of things, there are some things I keep to myself, and even more that I just do not have the time or occasion or expression to share. At the very least, what I write might be useful for them to have, even though I suspect even if they have it they are probably not likely to read it, after all how many go through all of the family photos except once in a blue moon, but in their lives they are likely to have a blue moon once and again.

Of course, that makes me think it's probably best to have some backup set up in case Google gets tired of this blogspot abandonware or gives some opt-in prompt that I neglect in my old age, consigning my words to oblivion.

Anyways, that is the minimum, I have two intelligent and curious little girls, and whether or not they read my words having the words would be a comfort, and it might be a discomfort for them to think that I stopped writing around the time I had them (the timelines do not line up for that, in fact my last post was before I met their mother, but people have a way of overlooking blurry timelines in these type of things, although I hope that is something I can teach them to avoid). So there is that minimum. And perhaps there are more that might enjoy my words, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... (I want to say that is from some British sitcom but I can't recall the name, maybe Coupling?)

Why I stopped or at least paused my writing? Many reasons, if I'm honest sloth is among them, fear of writing something bad, fear my creativity might be gone, apathy, feeling that my writing is worthless (so rather than giving up my writing for the sake of my kids, my kids have given me a counteraction against one of my hindrances, and yes kids, I expect you to learn all of those big words), questioning my place in the big scheme of things. None of that is especially new (well me not writing is not especially new at this point).

Perhaps what it is, and there is a little supporting evidence of this, is at the time of my life when I decided to get serious about being married, I decided to put focus on the rituals, procedures, and habits necessary to help me find a wife. I can go into this more a different day, but much of this rubbed against my anxieties, social and otherwise, and it took a considerable mental effort to push on this.

Essentially, to make it short, making a concerted effort to find a wife was stressful for me.

This is also why I resigned as a member of the national board of the MCYM, despite that being one of my preferred social and to some degree creative outlets (more on that a different day, in fact pretty much all of these sentences could be fleshed out into a paragraph or two, but I have promises to keep...), the stress of the obligations of my duties as a national board member (which perhaps I took too seriously) was a weight that I knew would be difficult to me to bear in addition to these new stresses.

While I did not make a decision to stop writing them, that stress did decrease my output (although it would be interesting to go into my notebooks and to see to what degree at what point, of course for that be accurate I would need dates on everything which I don't have). Then the stress of marriage, married life, eventually parenthood, all vital things I wanted in my life, these did not directly work against me writing but what they did do is leave less energy to fight against the old fears and anxieties associated with writing, which as always grew the longer I stayed away from writing. While this can be looked at as some unfortunate accident, I do remember at times reflecting on the trade-off between the married/fatherly life I was pursuing and the effort needed to sustain me as a writer, ultimately I made a choice. Not a choice to stop writing, but a choice to pursue the family life I wanted and believed was a vital part of my life's vocation, even if my writing life suffered.

I made a choice and I still believe it was the correct one. I look at my wife and my girls, and we have built something beautiful together, something blessed by God and sacred.

There's some simplification there, and so other factors that I know played a role, but I think this assessment is true enough to let it stand.

This leads me to say, there is no reason why I shouldn't write now, although it shouldn't be at the expense of this life I have built, if the two do not work against each other, why not write? (From the assessment above, you might say well it sounds like they do work against each other, but the relationship between different responsibilities, hobbies, duties and stress is more complex and subtle than that, they will sometimes work against each other, sometimes they will help each other, and sometimes each must be given a certain amount due, and sometimes some must be pushed to the background)

And it is worth coming back to the minimum reasons for me to write, in addition to my girls, there is a certain feeling of sacred duty to God. I often think of the story of the king who gave his servants different sums of money to invest, God has given me some talents of creativeness and some tendency toward writing, and so I ought to use it if I can, and share it if I can. God has given me other blessings more precious to me in the form of my family, and that sacred duty comes first. But if the clouds of my anxiety and the mysterious inner workings of my mind align just right, so that writing is possible without the neglect of family, then I ought take the chance, and I think that it is God's will for me to do so.

More could be written about this, but time conspires against me here. I do have other duties related to my family life (to be less vague, I have to do my job), while I have taken time away from that to write this, in some ways writing has cleared my mind more to help me tackle those duties. If I used that as an excuse to spend all my time away from my work, it would be counter-productive, and so I must set a limit and come to an end. (Although the story never ends...)

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Christ is risen, indeed

It was the pastor of St.Paul's, Monsignor Nolan, who taught me the traditional Easter greeting and response:

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed.

I'm not sure who's tradition that was, but it's a nice one. Now lest you think I'm in some bizarre time warp and/or zone, it is in fact the day after Easter where I currently am. Still that does not change the fact that Christ rose from the dead, nor that his death and resurrection saved us all.

Sometimes when I think about that, everything else pales in comparison. Jesus' death and resurrection is a testament to God's eternal love and His sovereignty over the universe.

Historically there was a brand of thought that concluded since Jesus took away sin that all moral responsibility was abolished by Christ's resurrection. Historically most theologians laughed and giggled at such logic. After all, Christ gave us freedom, and if sin is our distance from God, we then have an option to cling to our sin. God then does not condemn us as punishment, but simply restrains Himself from stopping us when we ourselves choose the path to Hell. Least that's how I figure it

Moreover, if we love God, (and when you accept that God is eternally loving and supremely good, I think that you cannot reconcile anything less than a love for God with an acceptance of this reality), then to not try do good would be to deny our love. Christ's resurrection has freed us from sin, enabling us to love him and draw close to him with all of our hearts, minds, and souls, but in order to love God, and because of our love for God, we are compelled to strive to do His will. And this means we must take care of each other and indeed ourselves, as God loves us all.

But reflecting on the enormity of Christ's resurrection, of the culmination of the supreme miracle of Jesus' life, Passion, and death, a concept encompassing humanity, divinity, and the triumphant cross which bridged the two...it's more than the mind can wrap itself around (but there's good reason to believe that any real system of reasoning cannot fully encompass reality, after all the universe is infinite, and our minds are not).

Thinking about the miracle of Easter, which is not a task simply confined to one day or one week or one season... but though the compulsion to do good remains because of our love of God, the compulsion to fear evil seems a bit silly. It is a silliness that we all fall victim to on occasion, but even the fears and anxieties surrounding that failure seem insignificant compared to God's love, which bears all the burdens of our sins and redeems us, which forgives any slight and turns all things to good, which raises us from the dead and grants eternal life.

Jesus Christ, who is God, came down from Heaven and became man. He bore the cross, for the sake of our sins and not his, and was crucified and three days later He rose from the dead. He conquered death and gave life eternal to all. If we trust in Him then what can this world do to us? How can even our baser instincts and frailties prevail if He is with us, now and until the end of time. (and beyond maybe, if that concept makes any sense. I'll admit, when I go off into the realms of theology, mysticism and metaphysics, I often am in unfamiliar territory. But if I can draw upon the guidance and advice of those I trust, love and believe in, it seems like a good gamble. After all, what is life but an experience of mystery and is not Love the answer to all things?)

Let me not pretend that I am some special wise man, let me not pretend that I am the bearer of some secret. I have suffered in my life, but others have suffered more. I have faith, but I know others with far more. I am certainly nothing compared to God, and compared to man... how should I know? and fortunately it is not my place to judge such rankings.

Yet I believe God loves me with a unique, perfect Love, which I cannot match but will spend my life trying to further experience and return. And I believe that God loves each of you, uniquely, passionately, and infinitely. And I believe if I just trust in that love, everything will be alright and when I fail to trust sufficiently, when I despair or harden my heart, I believe that God will still be reaching out to me and I trust that He will save me.

That I could have more faith, that I could have more understanding, that I could have more compassion or more strength of will... but it's okay. God remains and will take care of us all. Christ is triumphant and will redeem us. We don't need to fear. God is with us, always, and forever.

May God Bless you all, and happy day after Easter

Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango

Let me dispense with both the explanation and the apology for my lack of posting. While occasionally interesting, most of it has been said before.

Instead let me just say that I will defeat that devil whom Beelzebub put aside for me. (because one cannot forget among the new flashy animes the mega-awesomeness that is Neon Genesis Evangelion, nor among the new songs of music and the like the super-awesomeness that is Bohemian Rhapsody

Ah the devil, my old nemesis, to be truthful, I've never quite understood what my exact understanding of the devil was, much less actually understood what he was. Sometimes I've looked at him more metaphorically, sometimes I've felt that the theological dimensions ought be left to the Church, because I was surely not going to spend the time to get a good grasp of them, still others I've felt him (I use him as a shorthand, as an ex-angel Lucifer would be non-gendered) real but not something that I needed to worry about.

A semi-turning point in my understanding of the devil came at last year's Malankara Catholic Association's North American Convention. During said convention there was a speech by a Catholic priest who had served as an exorcist for many years (he no longer was one full-time after being moved from India to the US, but he occasionally was still consulted). I try to take people as being earnest by default, unless I have reason to disbelieve them, and I take Catholic priests to be my spiritual guides, however I will say I do not necessarily agree with every priest on every aspect of the faith or of life (after all there is plenty of disagreements about many different matters within the Catholic Church, only a small section of even the official theological positions are held to be absolute dogmas (for example there are an immense number of Church writings about Mary, the Mother of God, but only a small subset are dogmas "De Fide Credenda" (of certain faith), most notably the "Marian doctrines of the Catholic Church").

The priest in his speech, talked about his work as an exorcist. His description of the exorcisms he had participated in seemed fully truthful, and he had the appearance of an honest man (though there's always the chance I could be deceived, but that's true of everyone and everything), so I'd say I believe he was telling the truth. However, the events he talked about were well beyond anything I have experienced in terms of the supernatural, and yet, I have not seen much of the world and much happens in it that is incredible, but I believe much of this incredible. I'd say I trust in his descriptions of demonic possessions, as they are rooted not only in his experience but correlate with the Bible and the Catholic faith which I hold dear. Yet demonic possession still seems like an extraordinary event, and not something that I've seen anywhere in my life. At that point in his speech I sort of looked at this is as sort of a description of something remote from me, though perhaps filled with lessons for myself and others (for example, the priest talked about how all these demonic possessions had roots in the sinful behavior of the possessed or people around him.)

But the priest went on to talk about how the Devil was a very real presence in our lives and a real danger to us. Now of that, I'm not sure what to make of it. His talk of the Devil's dangers didn't really seem to offer a great deal of advice besides a general recommendation to avoid sin. So while I've tried to take the messages of his speech to heart, I'm still not really sure what to do about the devil.

There have been times when I've been tempted to believe that my mental illness was caused by demonic possession or otherwise influenced by the Devil. But my experience of the disease and its treatment suggest otherwise. The priest's speech also warned that people should not jump to the demonic possession label, that it was only after a thorough examination of other possible emotional, psychological, physical or spiritual causes was exorcism turned to. A nice phrase of his was that the Church uses "the rigour of the skeptic, but not the non-belief". Overall, my mental illness, while frustrating in its stubbornness and perhaps not a classic example of a particular disease, does make sense as a mental illness. So I really can't say I've had any experience directly with the devil.

Indirectly? Well, what does indirect experiences with the devil mean exactly? Temptations? Perhaps, but humans naturally have plenty of temptation, so who's to say what's devil brought. So I'm not sure what to really take from that priest's speech, or what to make of the devil, or exactly how I feel really about the whole thing. But one of the great things about carrying the memory of what you've heard forward in your life is you don't need to make a final decision about it at any one point. Later on, when events or circumstances remind me of it, I'll perhaps mull over things and make a firmer decision about the speech.

Still, even without a final decision on it, it seems rather cowardly to regard the speech as truthful and containing advice, but to not actually act on any part of it. I guess one thing is I've tried to take "the rigour of the skeptic, but not the non-belief" position more toward the devil when it comes to my general understanding of how the universe works. In terms of my daily life, I guess the thing to keep in mind is that evil is not just a passive thing, whether devil borne or borne out of human nature or by others, its something that can actively work against you and those that you love. And thus you have to guard against it to some degree in your behavior. Now, I'm not saying that you should be paranoid about your actions, I've been there and that's lead me further away from God rather than toward Him, but as something to bear in mind rather than to fret about, it might be a good idea to reflect on things and try to correct yourself when it comes to motivations to do wrong. And when you feel a great desire to do something, think about what that desire is rooted in.

And yet I've often received a lot of advice that a person should not worry too much about life and let things happen, trusting God that things will work out. Some aspects of that advice I find very valuable to me, other implications, such as not trying to change things in your life, I find not suited to myself, but useful for others. Yet I think even in this framework of sort of going with the flow, you can carry an awareness of what the flow is and how it's like, and if it's generally carrying you in a direction that's good, then that's fine, but you need to have an awareness that this can change, and that sometimes the flow will go in the wrong direction, and then trusting in God means trusting in God's ways and if those contradict with the flow, it means trusting in God to aid you as you try to correct the flow of your life.

None of this philosophical rambling is directly related to the Devil, I suppose, but the point is if evil is an active force in the world, whether you take a relaxed attitude toward life or are always looking to change things, you must not just be wary of evil that you can fall into, but rather be an active force for good, in your life and in the world (though by being good in your life you inevitably become a force for good in the world, because the good path is God's will, and God's will is to save the world).

But what does that really mean? Well, mysterious are the ways of God, and sometimes the path He sets before us seems mysterious as well. And we can walk with Faith, Hope and Love, but that seems still sometimes like not enough of a direction. Sometimes the direction we must travel in life, the direction of God's will just seems impossible to grasp. But that's okay, God knows that we cannot grasp all of His will, it's okay to be confused, we try to do the best we can, and trust that God will make it all work out.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.