So I keep thinking about Tolstoy. I've never read any of his fiction, interestingly enough. I probably should as he is often heralded as the greatest author of all time, but I have read some of his essays and I find them very thought provoking. Thoreau, too, had lots of useful things to say. We spend so much of our time concerning ourselves with the trivial, but now reading these various authors, and the New Testament, I have a better understanding of why I am here and what I am meant to be doing than I ever did in the past. It is so clear to me, but how do I make others understand?
Let's see...Let's start with a few basics. First of all, to reference Tolstoy, the great depression of life without God is to know that all life is futile. If there is no God, if life is nothing more than the physical world we exist within, then there is no point to any of it, and it is all futile. What is the point in experiencing life's pleasures when you know in the back of your mind that it is all for naught, that it will all come to an end and mean nothing and leave nothing left? For Tolstoy this idea was so bitter a pill for him to swallow that he literally fell into a great depression over this fact and could find no more pleasure in life. I have never fallen into that path, although I value his thoughts on it, and he is right, without there being more to existence than the mere physical life we experience, why even bother going on living? It is a pretty futile endeavor, ultimately. No one has ever been able to convince me there is not more to life than the physical though. It just seems so blatantly obvious in every one of my experiences, not to mention I have felt the Holy Spirit, but that is a very different story. Those who've never experienced it think it is delusional I suppose, but there is every reason to know it is real and true, which leads me to my next point. The prime directive of life, as presented by Christian doctrine and the words of Jesus specifically are to love one another as yourselves, love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind, and practice charity. This is what our job is in life. This is how we need to interact with one another. Love each other, even when it is impossible to do so, and live a "good life".
What is a good life? It's a life filled with compassion for one another, above all else, and even when it is hard or seems next to impossible. This is ALL that matters. But this is not easy. It is a daily challenge, it is a challenge from moment to moment, but what is interesting is that the bible also teaches something else that most people don't really understand. It teaches that we are not really here to enjoy the material world. If we love the material, we cannot fully love God. When I think about this concept, I remember back to when I was learning about other religions besides Christianity, and one of the concepts behind reincarnation is that we go through many lives striving to get back to the source of life, which is God almighty, and until we've learned all that we need to learn and found the truth of life we cannot return to him. So, we go through all our incarnations until we are quite literally world weary and can finally ascend. I think this is what Jesus was trying to teach us, not that we should disregard the material world, but as long as we let the material dictate our lives and rule us, we are not really loving God with all of our hearts, all of our minds, and all of our souls, and we are not loving one another as ourselves. That kind of love comes from spirit and combines with spirit and thought. The material world is nothing but a distraction from that.
That brings me to more on Tolstoy and something I have been reflecting on a lot lately, do we have any social obligations to our government? The Quakers and Tolstoy, and then later Ghandi, believed in the power of non-resistance of evil. This is the idea that you should not resist acts of evil with further acts of sin and evil, because it begets further evil, whereas nonresistance of evil stops evil from being further perpetrated, by interrupting the flow of evil from one to another. It's a hard concept, but one I think I pretty much agree with. I'll take it a step further and say this, the Quakers further believe that any contribution to or participation in government sanctions the perpetuation of evil acts do to the use of military forces and the perpetration of wars carried on by that government. According to the Quakers beliefs, and I think likewise Tolstoy, the only way to be non-participatory in acts of evil carried on by the government and to avoid the sin of violence against others is to be non-participatory in that government - in any fashion. I've pondered whether this is a valid argument...If I am contributing to a government that I know does sinful acts that I consider against the prime directive, am I then participating in those acts by proxy and do I then inherit those sins? There is evidence that this could be the case. Certainly there is strong support for the notion of being non-participatory in the acts of the governing forces, but then if we are non-participatory are we likewise sanctioning their actions by not contributing our efforts to changing them, in fact we have a strong responsibility to speak out against that which we believe to be wrong, but as an argument, not as acts of aggression. Nonresistance of evil is just that, a passive resistance by nonresistance. This is something that continually goes round in my head, and in general, while I don't completely agree with Tolstoy or the Quakers, I certainly believe that the political efforts, arguments, and agendas of those I see around me are ill designed and ill effected in relation to that prime directive, so for now, I am taking a non-participatory stance with a position of verbal disagreement on that which is in conflict with what the Lord preaches.
Ok, all that being said, the area that really needs strengthened in my life is my commitment to charity. So much of what I do is still so entrenched in the material and in maintaining the status quot and looking to endeavors in the future as nothing but the future, far and distant, but it is important to implement charity in both my present life and my future endeavors. So, it is time to grow some strength and endurance, focus some energies on becoming strong and learning to endure, accept, and face pain, so that I never have to fear anything in life, because besides pain. what is there really to fear in life? Death? Death is nothing to fear. Other people's deaths maybe, the loss of loved ones, and loneliness maybe, but I believe all that is temporary, we have the Lord's good news and we should rejoice in that! So if I can start to make my body bear the pains and struggles of life more easily, I will never need fear. I will more easily reach for anything that seems just and right in life. So there you have the plan - love, charity, strength, learning, overcoming fear and pain, and praising God. It's all about stripping away connections to objects, strengthening connections to people and loved ones, and giving and helping everyone I can.
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