Search

I have been ruminating on the infinite lately.

I have never been one to hold much faith in Christianity, although I do like the basic laws, like not stealing, not killing, not covetting your neighbor's wife, not bearing false witness...I have a little problem with envy. I can't help but want things but I try to temper this with taking the long view. I'm a longterm planner and I know that eventually I will get what I want.

That is not what I want to talk about, however. Recently, my family went through a...I don't quite know how to describe it, but my nephew has some medical problems that cannot be fixed or cured. The prognosis isn't great.

But of course we love him, and we love his parents.

The whole experience has left me sort of bereft. I'd like to preface this statement by explaining that I know the situation my brother and his wife are experiencing with my nephew is not happening directly to me and I can't begin to know how they must feel. In my heart I know they are good people and I can't imagine why this has happened to them.

Which leads me to my crisis of faith. Which is ironic, because I never had much to begin with. And yet, I guess I never believed that the universe was random either. I think I believed there might be some haphazard design to it all (and still this might be true). My point is that while many people recieve solace from God in times of crisis in their lives, I did not. Instead I began to ponder what happens after we pass on.

Perhaps this is a stage that people experience repeatedly throughout their life; I can remember as a young child wondering about this and asking my dad while holding back tears because even then I couldn't imagine anything without my parents. My reality hardened rationality insists that since I can't remember anything before I was born, this must be what happens after we pass as well.

So what is the meaning of all of this then? People like to say that God doesn't give people more than they can handle and I say, Bullshit. Life can be overwhelmingly hard and where some people get the strength to get through it, I'll never know, but I certainly don't believe that some benign force is feeding us willpower. I think that it is instinct that forces us to survive, get through things, and move forward.

I can honestly say that I will never know what we as a species in this universe were meant for. I don't know if there is a true purpose. But I do know that I have found meaning in my life through my family and in creating a home for me and my loved ones to enjoy.

I don't know if prayers get answered. It hurts me to think of all the wasted effort of praying if those desperate pleas are ignored. But I also cannot discount the power of positive thinking, because life is so much easier when you get on with it, when you choose a course of action. If prayer helps someone to achieve a goal, obtain some emotional balance, and most importantly feel better, then I cannot find fault with it. I have found myself saying a few prayers lately, mostly along the lines of "Please look out for so-and-so, they need some help/luck/good wind to blow their way".

As for me, my worry over this stuff, that lost feeling I get sometimes when I look up at the sky, I hope it will fade. It's unnerving. But I'll just have to live with that.