The principle that underlines such conduct in the church in Corinth is spelled out in the second-century gnostic Gospel of Philip:
-Veselin Kesich, St. Irenaeus: the Church's Conflict with Gnosticism, Formation and Struggles; The Birth of the Church AD 330-200
Sometimes I feel alone. Sometimes I feel no one understands and doesn't care to understand. But I don't see how. I suppose that's how it goes being stuck in only the head we are given. We can only guess and assume what others think and feel but the truly know isn't for us.
I feel as if my friends don't understand why I live the way I live. Why I work at the preschool making 22k. Why I don't want to have sex before the marriage vows. Why I want to work in the garden every Saturday without chemicals or engines or tilling, or buying new things for it.
Is God irrelevant? Does God not fit in our lives today? Do we just pick what makes us feel good about theology and toss out the other stuff? Is sex just an act couples do when they feel safe enough with each other, or just attracted enough?
Is sex just chemicals? Is sex just pleasure?
Is a job just money? Is money our worth?
Should I buy the cheapest thing to save money? To advance myself while holding down others?
If I want to live my life a different way, a more meaningful way why is it so hard? Why do I feel an unspoken pressure from my community? I don't want to make a big deal out of it I just want to buy shoes and clothes not made in sweatshops. I want to buy food not made by factories and mega scale farms.
Why is it when I say no to the cultural push towards "more" I feel the push back from my friends? I don't want more for the sake of more. I want meaning. I want purpose. More than money more than comfort more than pleasure I want purpose.
I can't be the only one who feels this way. Why do I see the older I get less and less of a need for God from my communities?
Almost to the point where I am viewed as oppressive if I believe in the limitations of this world. Oppressive if I believe in saying no to more.
Is God oppressive?
The bible says it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Is it actually oppression?
If I don't want to have sex before marriage does that make me neglectful, selfish, and distant?
Does that mean I refuse to express affection towards who I love?
Is affection simply giving a pleasurable touch, or kiss? can affection be more than that?
Can affection be restraint? Can it be respect? Can it be shown by holding to boundaries?
Am I the only one who thinks the cheap feeling of sex outside of marriage feels worse than how good the chemicals during sex feels?
How did I get like this? Is it because I drank too much of the poison religion was selling as a kid? Is it because I bought all of the lies the church preached growing up? If I was raised an atheist would I as an adult believe and buy into all the things I was taught as a kid?
Does something actually hear me when I sing and pray?
are light and darkness just two sides of the same coin? Is there right and wrong? Is morality a universal law or just a man made idea?
Keeping the faith turns out to be a much harder task than I originally thought. In a very different way.
Do I deny myself, sex, money. comfort, pleasure simply because of phariseutical religiosity?
Do I make life much more difficult and complicated than it needs to be for no reason?
Or is what I believe true? Do these things matter?
I press on towards my beliefs, but the older I get and the more people around me seem to not understand why I live the way I live I begin to see myself living more and more by faith and not by sight.
It is not because I see the benefits of the way I live. Rather I could see the benefits of living against my beliefs because more people would be more comfortable around me.
It is because I believe in the way I live. I have faith that it matters. I have faith that there is purpose and meaning to the way I live. I believe in it. I really do.
It is so hard though. Logic and efficiency push back and the tension sometimes seems too great to bare. Sometimes the questions of doubt are surfaced. Why allow all of this tension? Isn't it just oppressive? Isn't it just a lot of work for no gain? Why try to swim upstream all the time when going with it is so much more simple?
But I believe this narrow path is worth exploring, worth taking, worth walking out. It is harder to love your enemies. It is harder to pay more for clothes. It is harder to wait for sex. It is the narrow path but I believe when traveled it gives life and life to the fullest. I believe through the narrow path life is actually opened up broadened. I believe if I lose my life I will find it. I think Robert Frost was right about the road not taken.
I believe what Jesus says.
Sabrepulse - A Girl I Know
Light and darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this, neither are the good good, nor the evil evil, nor the life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.The historical Jesus was of no interest to the "spirit people." Only the heavenly Christ was important to them. By separating Christ from Jesus, gnostics denied the Incarnation, bodily resurrection, and the Eucharist.
-Veselin Kesich, St. Irenaeus: the Church's Conflict with Gnosticism, Formation and Struggles; The Birth of the Church AD 330-200
Sometimes I feel alone. Sometimes I feel no one understands and doesn't care to understand. But I don't see how. I suppose that's how it goes being stuck in only the head we are given. We can only guess and assume what others think and feel but the truly know isn't for us.
I feel as if my friends don't understand why I live the way I live. Why I work at the preschool making 22k. Why I don't want to have sex before the marriage vows. Why I want to work in the garden every Saturday without chemicals or engines or tilling, or buying new things for it.
Is God irrelevant? Does God not fit in our lives today? Do we just pick what makes us feel good about theology and toss out the other stuff? Is sex just an act couples do when they feel safe enough with each other, or just attracted enough?
Is sex just chemicals? Is sex just pleasure?
Is a job just money? Is money our worth?
Should I buy the cheapest thing to save money? To advance myself while holding down others?
If I want to live my life a different way, a more meaningful way why is it so hard? Why do I feel an unspoken pressure from my community? I don't want to make a big deal out of it I just want to buy shoes and clothes not made in sweatshops. I want to buy food not made by factories and mega scale farms.
Why is it when I say no to the cultural push towards "more" I feel the push back from my friends? I don't want more for the sake of more. I want meaning. I want purpose. More than money more than comfort more than pleasure I want purpose.
I can't be the only one who feels this way. Why do I see the older I get less and less of a need for God from my communities?
Almost to the point where I am viewed as oppressive if I believe in the limitations of this world. Oppressive if I believe in saying no to more.
Is God oppressive?
The bible says it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
Is it actually oppression?
If I don't want to have sex before marriage does that make me neglectful, selfish, and distant?
Does that mean I refuse to express affection towards who I love?
Is affection simply giving a pleasurable touch, or kiss? can affection be more than that?
Can affection be restraint? Can it be respect? Can it be shown by holding to boundaries?
Am I the only one who thinks the cheap feeling of sex outside of marriage feels worse than how good the chemicals during sex feels?
How did I get like this? Is it because I drank too much of the poison religion was selling as a kid? Is it because I bought all of the lies the church preached growing up? If I was raised an atheist would I as an adult believe and buy into all the things I was taught as a kid?
Does something actually hear me when I sing and pray?
are light and darkness just two sides of the same coin? Is there right and wrong? Is morality a universal law or just a man made idea?
Keeping the faith turns out to be a much harder task than I originally thought. In a very different way.
Do I deny myself, sex, money. comfort, pleasure simply because of phariseutical religiosity?
Do I make life much more difficult and complicated than it needs to be for no reason?
Or is what I believe true? Do these things matter?
I press on towards my beliefs, but the older I get and the more people around me seem to not understand why I live the way I live I begin to see myself living more and more by faith and not by sight.
It is not because I see the benefits of the way I live. Rather I could see the benefits of living against my beliefs because more people would be more comfortable around me.
It is because I believe in the way I live. I have faith that it matters. I have faith that there is purpose and meaning to the way I live. I believe in it. I really do.
It is so hard though. Logic and efficiency push back and the tension sometimes seems too great to bare. Sometimes the questions of doubt are surfaced. Why allow all of this tension? Isn't it just oppressive? Isn't it just a lot of work for no gain? Why try to swim upstream all the time when going with it is so much more simple?
But I believe this narrow path is worth exploring, worth taking, worth walking out. It is harder to love your enemies. It is harder to pay more for clothes. It is harder to wait for sex. It is the narrow path but I believe when traveled it gives life and life to the fullest. I believe through the narrow path life is actually opened up broadened. I believe if I lose my life I will find it. I think Robert Frost was right about the road not taken.
I believe what Jesus says.
Sabrepulse - A Girl I Know