Wherein I write part of a long sentence, my life.
and here I am, with my systems and observations and guesses and accuracies and foolishisms and conclusions and deductions and eliminations and intuitions and clevernesses and imperatives and importancies and theories and hesitations and nuances and adamants and assumptions, living with other people, missing the point of this living, rambling on about ideas that are intensely personal for someone else, offending the dissenters, apologizing, even with closest friends but how much worse with acquaintances, whose all future times to be loved are now received with an unfortunate memory of me, with resentment, with knowledge of me that is perhaps past or perhaps present, with distrust that I can do not but respect, with a wall only they can break down, but never will until the time has passed, at which point they will be beyond my reach, beyond reconciliation, beyond redemption of the friendship that I did hold with them, until arrogantly I set it aside to make my point BELIEVED, YOU WILL AGREE, oh excuse me, I meant only to make my point heard, and it appears the hubris of Man has eaten me away once more, and my systems have failed to extricate that bitter poison from my soul and thus my mind, perhaps because the system comes from that same poisoned source, my soul, and how can I trust my mind if it dwells in continual acid, although I am not trusting my mind, I am trusting the unpoisoned source, His Holiness, for surely it is He who gives me my knowledge, and I bring this into my heart once again, reaffirming my correctness, all the while re-eroding my affection, becoming a white iron ready to burn away all opposition, descending into the arms of Satan to push others away, but being caught by the Warrior who sacrificed Himself for the lowest of all, me, miraculously being caught and brought out of the former’s reach, to not abandon the faith for meaningless love, to not abandon love for loveless faith, which is no faith at all, going against that same faith, whose primary command is to love, to love not only some but all our neighbors, who it was revealed to the Pharisee to mean every soul, yes even the Buddhists, yes, Father, you know it but I do not understand it, yes even the Marxists, yes even the pedagogue, yes even the sluggards, yes even that Pharisee himself, yes even the liars, yes even them all, though how to love is a mystery, and of course all are to be loved if I am loved, but oh what a thought, it is too great for me, I love no one and nothing but my own glory, and so I spiral down into guilt for a bit, but His love has worked long and hard to shine its light into the darkness of spirit that I can inhabit, and I rejoice at the remembrance of His good works, and a tear forms, giving release from my shame, and giving meaning to the cross, and showing the way forwards into this orthodox love I have so wanted to seek after, wanted without much success, as has previously been shown, falling away either to the left or the right, balancing in the middle very rarely, but oscillating, thankfully, never falling all the way to one side or the other, being shackled by the finished work of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the shackle that truly frees, that frees with a freedom hardly dreamt of, that Sartre thought he had witnessed, but missed countless times, when it was right in front of him, him being shackled with a more sinister shackle, to my grief, to my sadness, to my bereavement, that sadness being caused by seeing one with whom I find community determined to undermine his own feeling of community with terrors of the Other and the Look, which doubtless had some grand philosophical basis, and indeed they do, I myself have seen some of it and appreciate its insight, such as the desire to be the Subject, which is the desire for Freedom, yet it reminds me of me and my systems, it reminds me of distractions upon distractions, losing sight of the reality of people and the completeness of love’s answer, though claiming to observe reality with all new closeness and thoroughness, but again who am I to attack, for I have not yet even completed an entire Kierkegaard, I am an uninitiated boy, flirting with the outside of the ideology without committing with vigor, to begin learning it, thus I am unable to truly repel it, not truly understanding it, that not being my job, it being just a hobby, which, of course, is entirely reasonable, the final interpretation of existentialism not being my responsibility or anyone else’s, as can be seen by the continued, endless interpretation of all philosophy, which again brings to mind the necessity and finality of Scripture, being not philosophy but revelation, yet still interpreted, though with arguably more success than the introspective masters, which brings me peace, and with peace that settled wisdom arrives, that God truly does love us, and His words were and are created with love, and we are ambassadors of this love to the world, so our words can and ought to contain love paired with truth, the aforementioned “orthodox love,” even when received with disagreement, or hostility, or perception of bigotry or ignorance, even when both the love and truth is missed, though we ought to be careful that these reactions are, in fact, baseless, lest we slip, once again, into being deceived by the subtleties of pride, that ever-present danger, the danger that overthrew Job’s unhelpful companions, who often did speak truth, but still only deepened his sorrow, though fear of failure need not hold back our boldness to live honestly and in accord with what we believe to be truthful, which includes gentleness and peace, thus rejoicing in those who hear, and knowing that is all we can do, and indeed going out and doing it,
Thoughts of a Novice 