Why I’m blogging?

         

Been thinking about blogging for a long time. I don’t consider myself much of a writer and really don’t have much experience with it. I guess turning forty had something to do with it. About a year before I turned forty I kind of went through an identity crisis of sorts. I guess I started thinking really hard about what I’m really doing when I’m doing what I’m doing. My life pretty much consists of my role as a husband, a father, former church elder, a registered nurse, and probably lots of idleness in between. I considered these roles as my identity or metaphorically speaking, the container that I have built as my identity, but deep inside I wasn’t too sure about the substance in the container. Since my college years, I’ve considered myself pretty religious and tried to do what I thought were the right things. I even majored in theology because it just felt like the “right” thing to do and it was interesting to me. Although I had religiosity, I also felt the emotions that came along with believing in a God that was somewhat involved in my life. The concept of the God I interacted with, probably had a lot more to say about me and my worldview than of God. It was oftentimes common for me to feel that I never measured up to the ideals I felt God and I expected of myself. This has resulted with bouts of shame and guilt throughout most of my life.

I’ve been through a series of stages in this journey but for the most part, my beliefs no matter how they’ve evolved through time seemed to manifests itself in the context of certainty. I finally came to a point where the contradictions in my life became too much and I had exhausted my resources to deal with my inconsistencies, contradictions, and unsettledness. My unsettledness was hurting my family as I projected my frustrations towards them in subtle and not so subtle ways. I could not understand why I was a complete opposite of what I believed. My certainty did not provide an answer to my humanness and something needed to change or my brokenness will lead to further brokenness. I decided to submit myself to a God that I wasn’t sure existed. I did this at the turn of the New Year in 2013. What I said to the God I wasn’t sure existed was, “to do what it takes, even to the point of wounding me” in order to help me know what I’m really looking for as well as resolve my unsettled and what I felt was a shameful life. Ever since that time, my life has not been the same, I would admonish anybody to be careful what you ask for, especially from a God you may not sure exists. I went through some deep darkness of the soul and a few times may have been on the verge of a mental breakdown. 2013 was by far the roughest year I’ve ever experienced. The anxiety, depression, loneliness, feeling of failure, hopelessness, are just a few neurotic characteristics I experienced. Through it all, I began to discover my true self and the wounds that I have been carrying around for a long time. My definition of the true self is the child in us trying to find a home. That’s the best way I can define it for now as I’m in the process of better understanding the true self in contrast to the false self. I guess it feels like I am entering a new era in my life’s journey. It’s one with more reflection and contemplation about meaning and purpose. Statements from Jesus like “in order to find one’s life you must lose it” or one must “leave your father, mother, or family” in order to follow me are statements that are beginning to take on a new meaning in what feels like a new era in my life. I mention Jesus as part of my reflection and thoughts because I cannot seem to shake this spiritual figure from my life. His teachings and example have begun to truly challenge me and I have had to decide whether he is serious and whether I should take him seriously. Jesus messes with my head and he won’t let me stay the same. Jesus seems to have insights into the depths of life that push me beyond my illusions and into what could possibly be the truth about life.

This blog are my rants about my questions, doubts, new insights, evolving beliefs, deconstructing my paradigms, reconstructing these paradigms, it is the process of working on changing the “old wineskins into the new wineskins in order to hold the new wine” that Jesus talks about. It is also comparing and contrasting the old era and the new era in my journey. In the old era, I have learned the rules and doctrines and kept it well, but after a while I began to feel that I have been found wanting. As in the words of the Dalai Lama, “learn and obey the rules very well, so you will know how to break them properly”.  Jesus seems to have known how to break the rules properly and that has made all the difference in this world.  He went beyond the laws and institutions which has made some people feel safe as important as they are to some and into the spirit that moves our soul to find connectedness, meaning, purpose, and reason for our existence. This blog is also about me, attempting to try to be vulnerable and authentic as I can possibly be as I learn to shed my “false” self in order to reveal and live my true self. This blog is about my journey which is going to be filled with a human being who is not certain about much anymore but of a human that is entering into the wonder and mystery of what I define as grace. I guess grace for me is believing in the ultimate good and that the good is trying to have its way with me no matter what I believe about myself or how discouraging any current situation or this world may look. The good that seeks to transform and elevate despite my shortcomings is what I would call grace. Grace is kind of like a guide that keeps me going on a path towards purpose and meaning and it keeps reminding me to never give up on getting there. My hunch is that purpose and meaning have something to do with love and that ultimately our existence may be about growing into and experiencing love. Learning to love and learning to do it well, is what I feel we were created for. That is the home that I am wanting to find. The beginning to finding that home, is unlearning and relearning the path which can lead me there. This blog is a small attempt to jot down a few things about that journey.