Fifty Years

While attempting to lay down and take a nap, apparently the only time good ideas will come to me, I was hit with the dawning realization that I have approximately fifty years of life left, give or take.

If my mom is lucky she has about twenty - thirty years and with the way my step dad keeps trashing his body he'll be lucky to have anything more then another five to ten years.

Mortality is bizarre, the fact we are limited in life isn't necessarily the most odd thing but coming to grapple with the fact that I will not be living past the 2060's is one strange concept. Stopping to think about it, there is an equal if not greater chance of me dying before then...could be ten years or my heart could stop beating before you are able to finish reading this very sentence.

Insane I have to say.
Insane.

Since we have such a short amount of time left what do we do with it? What point is there to actually utilizing the time for anything? Do we have a greater purpose beyond using the time and circumstances for anything other then our pursuits and our pleasures? When the time comes to give an account for ourselves can we just declare "I am" and hope it works all out?

To a lesser extent that is the greatest tenant of humanism:

"I am, I will be, I will continue. All things exist as they will be. I exist for my will to be done and it will be."

I admit that is a slight over simplification but I think it serves the purpose of discussion.

One of the biggest themes of Christianity, the Bible, the teachings of Christ, however you want to put it, is the death of self serving attitudes.

The Bible does not say human life or the enjoyment of sex and drink is wrong. That is a misconception that can be traced back to stoic philosophies. The real focus Scripture has is that we bring our lives into balance.

"You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect"
-Matthew 5:48

To be honest English as a language sucks. Translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek is a tricky thing at best and quite frankly I hate most translations.

In the above passage the word 'perfect' would be better translated as complete or whole.

The idea Jesus was trying to convey in Matthew 5 (also know as the Sermon on the Mount for all you would be Rhode Scholars) is that traditional wisdom on religion sucks and it sucks bad. Some ideas concerning traditional wisdom that Jesus said sucked were:

-not murdering people but holding grudges
-not cheating on your spouse but letting your mind and eyes wander onto someone else
-using double speak to avoid the truth
-simply loving your friends and hating your enemies
-Seeking revenge on those who have wronged you

In other words these actions and reactions are not part of who we should be. It is beneath the men and women we were meant to be. Petty fights, senseless passions and worship of the self are all fleeting ideas that never lead to any true satisfaction and a real complete self.

At best it is a cheap fix to giving ourselves meaning.

The typical thought is that 'boys will be boys', 'politicians will lie anyway', 'I can't help how I feel', 'what they don't know won't kill them'...incidentally most of these are actually double speak and ways for people to cling to both an idea of religion while eating their cake (see Revelation 3:16 about being spat about for this kind of thing).

It is not like God's law/rules/whatever make a person worse, it just shows us for who we really are...selfish pricks. The Law acts as an equalizer, making us look at who we really are deep down...flawed humans who are desperately drowning in our own selfish pools of self pity.

Humans aren't necessarily evil, just severally flawed...wait, was that double speak in and of itself?

Point being is that we have limited time and most people use it to indulge what ever we think will make us happy and consequently we put on a smile and are unhappy. The sex, the games, the beer may help us smile a bit but on the inside we are dying.

We may not know why, but we are not content with who we are. I am a Christian and I'm not happy. I struggle with depression and feeling lost and worthless, content saint I am not.

I write poetry that tends to be about life sucking. I keep a blog where I can moan and complain about how unfair life is. I don't just think the glass is half empty, I pour it out onto the floor and slam the glass down on the bar demanding to know where my drink went.

Is this the life I want? Is it a life any of us want? How much real decision do any of us have at any given point?

We can float about to a certain degree but we have monetary obligations. We want so we buy, we want more so we get credit so we can buy more. Or maybe we just screwed over by life and we're left with debt we can't pay.

There is always something waiting around the corner to side line us and get our eyes off the bigger picture.

But at the end of the day we are not responsible for what life does to us, what other humans do to us...but we are responsible for how we react and what it is we do with our responses.

In Matthew 5 Jesus says we should:

-Forgive everyone no matter how badly they hurt us. The deeper the blow the more desperate we are in need of forgiving them and allow healing in our soul.
-Knowing we are human but also knowing that commitment is more important then running ourselves ragged with sexual baggage. The more you expose yourself to that life the less you feel, abandoning yourself to the mercy of pleasure is a sure ticket to Hell on earth.
-The truth may hurt but living a duplicitous life is a way to ensure life long misery.
-Love everyone, it is the only way to make it through life with a shred of sanity. Giving yourself to loving God and then loving others is the only way to find a shred of meaning but...that still has no guarantee.
-A life wasted on vengeance is a life wasted entirely. A heart consumed with hate has no room for love.


Fifty years.
If I am lucky at that.
Decisions that shape me and the future in ways I can never know.
I am responsible only for my actions, no one else.
Every day I choose to either move towards completion or back into chaos.


"In a word, what I'm saying is, GROW UP. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Love generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you."
-Matthew 5:48

"If you want to give it all you've got," Jesus replied, "go sell your possession, give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me."
-Matthew 19:21