Finding Some Faith

A few weeks ago i had coffee with a friend of mine who believes in god and the sovereignty of the bible, but has renounced god because he hates him and thinks god is mean. We were joined by his friend who is an atheist, and his sister who believes that god is the answer to everything and will take care of you if you just do everything he commands. I stat back and sipped my drink as the siblings argued over who was right and the atheist laughed at them for caring in the first place. I'm no debater, and i don't like to argue this kind of thing, so besides a comment every now and then I mostly just listened. And through the arguments and exasperated hand motions and sighs, something became apparent. No one cared about Jesus. No one even bothered to mention him. This bothered me because i had always liked Jesus, and I realized that through this big mess of my quest for god, Jesus had been my one saving grace. He was the reason i couldn't just dismiss Christianity. His complete grace and love for me was the one and only thing i trusted. Infact, all of the qualities I've been able to attribute to Gregory, were really just the one's I've always liked about Jesus. His joy, love, sorrow, how much he cared about me and would be beside me even when life hurt. As the weeks went on, it sunk in that some where along the line, i had found some faith. Faith that Jesus was good, and loved me, and the odds were that God was a lot like that too.

I don't know about heaven, i don't know about hell, or most of what is truly right or wrong in this world, or any other type theology, but i know that Jesus cares about me. I think I'll always believe that. And I really hope that's a good enough starting point.

Existential Dreaming

I tend to have weird existential dreams. Here's the one i had last night:

I was a criminal mastermind, caught, and being driven to where i would be put to death by electrocution. (Analyze that one freud!) I was keeping my composure, determined to stay cool and collected till the end, until the car turned the corner to the building where i was going to be put to death. To the right of me was a field of yellow wild flowers, and to the left, the cold stone building. Suddenly, all in one moment, the realization of death hit me. In a few moments, I was never going to see anything again. I would never feel, never smell, never breath, never think, I was never going to exist again. It paralyzed me. A cold sweat swept my entire body in an instant and I braced myself to keep from collapsing as pure, unrestrained, unescapable terror gripped me down to the deepest part of my core. A fear deeper and more real then i have ever felt before. The driver in the front seat asked me what was wrong and i looked up, regained my composure, and replied: "Nothing." And the car drove on. And the dream ended.

I always thought i would be ok with nonexistence . That i would welcome the idea of death being nothing more then the end of it all. No heaven, no hell, no anything. The atheist's paradise. Just dreamless sleep. But now that i know what that prospect feels like, it's one of the most terrifying hells i can think of.