Look at a Woman and it's all Downhill

When you are with God, pure belief will grant you a fulfilled life.

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely
Say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward I heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets
Who were before you.” (Mathew 5:11)

I’m sorry if this starts out with me being so deep you might think you’ll die before you get your feet planted on the ground. But I just thought I could somehow paraphrase or understand the meaning of the passage above.

Believing in God is a gift. If people insult you because of that gift, don’t feel lessened or insulted. Just be happy that you have something they don’t, and you have faith, which is one of the hardest things to obtain.

Plus, them finding faults in your belief in Jesus will later go on to haunt them because Jesus can do a lot of things.

Karma.

And Jesus.

Chapters five and six basically go on to explain subjects such as murder, adultery, love for enemies.

It’s kind of like teachings of sorts.

Yes, it is a fact that anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But keep in mind that anyone who is angry at his brother (or anyone, for that matter) will be subject to judgment, too.

They say that adultery is a sin. But even thinking about a woman lustfully is committing adultery in your heart.

Everyone has heard to always keep an oath to God, and I guess an oath to other people as well. But, just don’t make oaths, period. “Let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No,’ ‘No’. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Love your enemies. Well, no idea how we will come to following that one. But if anything, accomplishing the impossible would be a great achievement.

Do not do acts of kindness just for the sake of announcing your awesomeness and ‘sincerity’ to the world. Do them just for the sake of doing them. And let your actions be kept secret, so only God knows, and then he will reward you.

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat of drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important that clothes?” (Mathew 6:21)

Enjoy life as it is, as it comes to you. Be happy that you’ve been given the privilege to live. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Focus on today, the present, the now.

This is what Jesus said, and he said it with an authority that had the crowds amazed.

Okay, so I have liked the Gospel of Mathew so far. It’s actually quite interesting, given that the story is always changing.

What I’m wondering is, who in the world is this Mathew guy?

Because, so far, not once has his name come up.

So maybe he’s not an actual character in the endeavors, and is maybe the guy who wrote this in the first place?

Is this my ignorance again, or am I just one of the many with no idea of how this guy came to have his name printed on top of each page?

That is something I’d love to know.

No joke.

But either way, my time with ‘Mathew’ has been fun.

If only I knew who he was.

Jesus. Finally.

Mathew 1-4

You will only hear once about a virgin woman who mysteriously develops a fertile sack with not even a mention of sex.

Yes. It happened.

I know. Who would even want a child having not even experienced the comfort of what we call “sex”?

I wouldn’t know.

I can just imagine.

Thinking about this does not make me a pervert.

Well.

As it happens, that one time was with Mary somehow acquiring baby Jesus in her insides and Joseph thinking that his “virgin”, holy wife was anything but.

But Joseph dreamt with an angel of God which made it clear it was purely God’s son, and he should have no worries about staying with Mary. In other words, “Stay with Mary so that she doesn’t look like a two-way tramp, and keep up the bravado so that Jesus, and he will be named Jesus, is born in a normal, loving family.”

You can tell God’s angels always get what they want.

Then comes the fact that Jesus’ presence is spread by Magi, whose real identity I never really know. Is he a priest, a prophet, a random holy man?

I feel so ignorant questioning identities from the Bible that should probably be common knowledge for other people.

So King Herod hears about this kid that everyone is waiting to worship, and well, you can somehow understand his antagonism towards this little being that obviously receives more worship as a baby than Herod has probably received in his whole life.

So he sets out to have Magi bring Jesus to him, but Magi had been warned by a dream, and after seeing the child and worshipping him, they instead leave to Egypt, where Jesus will soon go, after Joseph is ordered again by some other angel.

That’s when Herod sets to having every baby within the age of two within a close vicinity to be brutishly murdered, in sincere hoping that one of them would be Jesus.

Fail.

The comes John the Baptist, which you can intelligently infer to be a Baptist.
Go me.

He was a very popular person:

“People went out to him from Jerusalem
And all Judea and the whole region of Jordan.
Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him
In the Jordan River.”

And so Jesus came to be baptized by him, but he was like, “Are you kidding me? You’re freaking God’s son. If anything, you should be the one pouring holiness onto my hopelessly-drenched hair.”

Not in those words, exactly, but the meaning is a given.

But for some reason, Jesus declines and says it has to be the other way around, so John ends up following his everyday duties and baptizes God’s son.

Now, finally comes the Devil in all his evil glory. He tempts Jesus, after having not eaten for forty days straight, to turn stones into bread. He takes Jesus up to a very high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms, and said that if Jesus worshiped him, he could have it all. He took him to the highest point of the temple and said,

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written:

“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
And they will lift you up in their hands,
So that you will not strike your foot against stone.”

Well guess what?

Jesus is not stupid.

And I mean, can someone seriously be stupid if he has the ability to “cure diseases, those demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed”?

No.

Have you ever known someone with that amazing ability to cure, and the righteousness of a never-sinning life?

No, because no one is perfect.

No one except Jesus.

Death's Earth-shattering Existence= No More.

I have yet to understand this book. By understand, I mean, is there a religion based on this? One guy wrote it, and yet people all over the world decide to follow its morals and teachings. Is it because deep down we know it speaks the truth and good acts? And who is this Lao Tsu guy anyway? If I sound like an ignorant bonehead, I’m sorry for my inability to regard common knowledge and my ability to constantly sound stupid.

Any who, all in all, I pretty much enjoyed this text. Maybe it was the fact that a page consists of mostly two paragraphs double spaced and very cool words that amount to mean so much more than they seem.

In page 76 it says,

“If men are not afraid to die, it is of no avail to threaten them with death.
If men live in constant fear of dying, And if breaking the law means that a man
Will be killed, Who will dare break the law?”

If you are offering someone a bargain, or blackmail, if the blackmail doesn’t mean a thing them, you won’t get what you want. If I get grounded, and my mom decides to take away television privileges (which are basically non-threatening considering my life is mostly books) I would not see that as punishment and continue on my merry, happy way.

Basically, you can’t lose something, or fear it’s loss, if you never wanted it in the first place. You can’t fear something that is of no major thrill or life-threat to you. You just can’t.

I don’t get the meaning of it, in the way that I have yet to figure out how this is supposed to appeal to us in regular life. Is it a recommendation to jail executioners to eradicate food privileges instead of answer with obvious death.

Or maybe not.

Back to the whole text, and maybe I’ll sound less dense.

I think the Tao is mostly based on the nature of things, how everything balances out and makes the universe that much more poised. We should not fight nature, or try to accommodate the universe. We will be more in harmony than if we act against it.

I also got the idea that Tsu had a concrete belief on thinking for one’s self, and making own decisions, rather than be constantly be subjected to following specific rules.

We are supposed to follow our hearts and be true to ourselves. We’re to live simply, modestly, and be happy with what we have. We have to believe that we are plentiful in everything that we have, in a way, being happy no matter what the circumstances.

Dominant Relationships

I still can’t get over the fact this was written by one man. One man who had apparently a life-time worth of thoughts and deep feelings all jumbled up in his over-indulged mind.

I’m really surprised with the things this man came up with. Not only does he word them in a way that flows with an envying grace, but the things he says also make sense.

“Knowing others is wisdom
Knowing the self is enlightenment.
Mastering others requires force.
Mastering the self needs strength.”

When you think about it, this actually makes a lot of sense.

When you can interpret other people’s motives, understand them and come to comprehend what they’re feeling, or who they are as a person, you are intuitive. You need wisdom, insight and perception to truly penetrate another persons shield.

Knowing yourself is more like uncovering a treasure that you already have the key to. I mean, it is you. But you also need to have the illumination to clarify where exactly the key is used, to find the true hidden treasure. You need to know how to look, and how to express yourself to the point where you know it’s you.

As it comes to mastering others, it really is based on having an advantage over someone in a base of control. When you thing of mastering someone, you think of being dominant in comparison to that other person and having power over that person and what they do, all revolving around you. No one wants to be mastered, I think. At least not willingly. And if you are going to be rejected when taking a slight chance at the dominating act, you’ll have to use force.

Now we go on to ourselves. How can you master one’s self? Master as in ‘master’ the concept, understand? Or master as in concluding a dominant and submissive relationship in which you have total control? Either way, it’s yourself. If it’s the latter, basically all it takes is strength, but not in the lifting-weights kind, more as in inner strength. Think of it as will power. Our minds tend to wander and encourage certain acts, when we know they might not be the right decisions or even a viable option. If you have enough strength to keep yourself from desires, to understand yourself, and control your emotions as well as desires, you’re set.

Perfection. Not in the Foreseeable Future

Some of the following ‘lessons’, are whatever is you see fit to call them, were beyond me. Yes, they do sound all soft and deep, and intelligent, but what they are actually trying to say is beyond m reach. Or maybe I’m just too slow.

Well.

Like in page 15 where it says, “Accept disgrace willingly. Accept misfortune as the human condition.”

Accept being unimportant and do not be concerned with loss or pain.

Okay.

Does this mean we, as human beings, are supposed to somehow not feel, have no views or reactions to being unimportant, and blind ourselves of such gravities we call loss and pain? Why is that?

And is it possible?

To not possibly be concerned with loss?

In the case you lose a loved one to a random and out-of-nowhere befalling accident or tragic death, we’re supposed to ‘not be concerned?”

But I think I might have taken things a little too far. As for the being numb to pain and loss, I plainly don’t understand the chances of that ever happening if we have any say in it.

As for accepting disgrace and misfortune as the human condition, I may have a certain interpretation to that.

In life, expectations are our downfalls. Expecting certain positive outcomes and then finding out the low harsh reality makes the truth that much more unbearable. When you are sure you are going to get into the Ivy league college you’ve pined for since birth, when you get the rejectance letter, it seems as if the earth itself has crashed and burned into ashes and sharp edged pieces of fallen hopes.

You were so sure, that when the bad news came, you could barely believe it, and it brought great doom.

If you lack high expectations (or any, for that matter) the outcomes of the future will have that much less impact on you for the bad, and more for the better. Had you been clear on whether you would get into the Ivy league and just held tight with no balance between a certain outcome, the rejection would be a pity, but you wouldn’t be so up high that the fall would be an accelerating hurl to concrete.

As for the fact that you happen to be accepted, well surprise, surprise for the better.

I think that’s basically the meaning of it.

We are not perfect, and everything is not always going to go our way.

So if we don’t plead for things or make ourselves up to believe we are naturally psychic and good will come upon us, there won’t be that much misery and heartbreak in the end.

Striving for More=Gambling Away House and Treasured Teddy Bear

Behold emo manga dudes.





I have no clue what Tao itself is.

Shouldn’t I at least have a bit of information beforehand to even get the first line which consists of, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal tao.”

Yes. Because I really do understand that ‘that-which-i-don’t-understand’ that can be told is not the eternal ‘that-which-i-don’t-understand’. That really makes sense.

All I know is that no matter my lack of understanding for what the lines say in ‘chapter’ 1, it all sounds so deep and right that it is fun to read, no mutter the inconsistencies of my lack of knowledge.

It appears that mystery and manifestations are sort of the same except for they come from different sources, as it is so put. And they appear as darkness, which is ‘the gate to all mystery.’

How deep is that?

Chapter two starts out with, “Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.” Probably saying that the only reason we have standards on some things and view some certain things as ‘pretty’ is because we have ugly. If there was no ugly, everything would be the same, nothing would be ‘pretty’ when compared to others, and so ‘pretty’ would not even exist. I guess since it also says ‘under heaven’ it signifies that in heaven there are no such ridiculous terms as ‘pretty’ and ‘ugly’ and there, they don’t exist.

The same thing goes for good and evil. Would evil not exist, good would have yet to have a presence in our minds, and vice versa.

And so many other things apply to this:

Diffficult and easy.
Long and Short.
High and low.
Voice and sound.
Front and back.

These all complement each other.

If we are not used to seeing things and desiring them, we will not try to be clever and commit acts to obtain them, or go through extreme measures for them.

Therefore, if we lack knowledge, or desire for things, we will not be tempted to ‘try to interfere.’

And all will be well.
Eight basically deals with how to deal with things in a good-natured way, sort of with virtue and being just and all that.

It says not to fight and not to blame, which I could so deal with.

Nine quotes, “Better stop short than to fill the brim.” And then goes to say, “retire when the work is done.” I guess an example of this, no matter how ‘inappropriate’, would be gambling. Ever heard of the times where the guy is scoring big he might just get triple a decade’s paycheck, and you’re rooting for him. The guy gets to the top, he might as well call it quits. But he is so cracked in that high of satisfaction and stupefied adrenaline and happiness that he pushes his luck and goes for the kill. And that’s when he meets his downfall. All of that work in the beginning, for nothing. To have it lost due to just a single moment of carelessness and greed and stubbornness crawling their way in.

Now he ends up losing his two-floor Victorian house and his eight year old son, and his ‘can’t-live-without’ teddy bear, owing it to the final winner. All because he couldn’t stand halving the cup fully filled.


So stop while you’re succeeding, when you know you’ve reached the goal you’ve set, and never strive for more with unlikely risks. It will grant you your doom.

Twelve speaks of our senses and how the sage is ‘guided by what he feels, not what he sees.’

I wonder if this has a sort of indirect reference to following your intuition and what your heart tells you, and not always base beliefs on hard-core facts and only things you can see with the naked eye.

Because it takes more power to have faith, and believe in something with your whole being because you have the will, than waiting for evidence that something exists to fully put your faith in it.

Of Songs and Sins

The only thing I can say is that I have started to enjoy all these poem-like books in the Bible. Whether it be the conciseness it obtains, or the actual meaning and value of each and every verse, I don’t know. But is seems as if each and every poem, or what you see fit to call it, has a meaning to it and goes deeper than you might imagine.

Psalms 23:3:

He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of
righteousness
for his name’s sake.

We always hear the word Holy and always relate it to God. Everything containing a connotation of being above-all and powerful, and righteous, pertains to a description of God.

Here we see a description of what God does in his life.

What he is basically saying is that, with God, our souls will always be pure. We will never be masked by any negative shields or unwelcomed shortcomings, because being with God, having him in your heart, is like having a drink of pure, cleansing water.

Bad thoughts or influences that might change our ways for the worst will never come to affect us because our souls will always be ‘restored’ for the better; As long as we have Him in our hearts.

We are in synch to try and pursue a right way of life, if not only for us, but for the gratification that we are God’s sons, and for Him we will do anything, good deeds or helpful acts and right choices that we do in His name, for Him.

Psalm 23:4:

Even though I walk through
The valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me
No matter the circumstances, whether you are going through the Downs of Downs or fighting a battle in your heart or giving in to grievances, God is always here.

Yes, the repetition of his name and His Holiness may be getting repetitive, but it is a fact. Yes, you can indeed make a fact, but this is more a fact delving into the depths of faith; Faith that in life, when you come across an unsuspected throwback or test of fear, God is always with you. Through the dark and the light, He is always there for you, helping you overcome evil, finding true righteousness, and just along for the ride we call Life.

Psalms 23:5-6:

My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of
the Lord
Forever.

I basically just quoted the whole chapter, but oh well.

What I have come to find, and what you all may have noticed as well, is that this passage is most likely dedicated to honor the Lord and express his importance to us, the impact he has on our lives.

With Him, our cup is so full it overflows, we are that filled with His fullness. You can’t help but succumb to the goodness and love that make Him up, having those lovely emotions revolve around you throughout our life.

And just believing his presence is with you and the power of his existence, is all you need to be with Him forever.

Then we see a different sort of inquiry in Psalm51:1:

Have mercy on me, Oh God,
According to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

In this passage, David is basically repenting, but not from a certain cause. Well, yes, he’s asking for forgiveness from committing adultery with Basheba, but I think that is just an incentive for the passage, which delves into a more broad level of asking for forgiveness, but for everything.

He asks to be cleansed, washed of sin; a sin that has been with him since the day he was born.

We are all sinners, it is unquestioned.

But we have the chance to ask to lessen them to the point where they exist, but we know of their existence in our bodies, and try our best to overcome them.

With God in our hearts and souls we can see through the darkness and fog crawling its way in the form of sin, and overcome the want and temptation with Him helping us throughout the way.

Ruthless Has Feelings

I used to like David.

I really, really did.

But my all-too-naïve perception of him faded once I got the entire story.

How can a boy with humble beginnings and such a ‘kind’ heart and belief in the Lord, end up becoming a ruthless man that kills someone just because he is not invited to a sheep shearing?

And then manages to steal said guy’s wife?

Right.

I don’t give Abigail any credit on her prize, either.

What started as a story of courage and bravery has now turned into the epic of a man’s downfall from purity, if it may be called that.

Now, he is making it his personal duty to constantly raid communities slaying all, so that word of his behavior does not get back to Achish.

Another thing that tugged my heartstrings was Saul’s death, as well as the death of his three sons, including Jonathan. Sadness came for Jonathan, whom I have learned to care for since he makes himself out to be such a kind, loyal man.

David felt the same way, and makes it so, in Second Samuels chapter 1, “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan, You were most dear to me. Your love was wonderful to me. More that the love of women.”

I have yet to truly understand whether I am fond of David.

But maybe he does have feelings after all.

Whirl Wind

I guess most people see the story of David as a whirlwind of a ton of different emotions, lessons, shows of character. I mean, you take tiny little guy whose only way of living is helping his lonely dad with the cattle, and then you have a seven-foot giant whose mere height over-rules the fact that he is worshipped for his complete and utter essence of destruction.

Now, take a scale, a mere vote, and who wins?

Obviously it’s going to be the skimpy kid with a severe fetish for slings and stones that is going to knock the mighty giant unconscious.

Well.

That’s how it goes.

So here, we have just witnessed the pure existence of courage, in the form David.

And surprise.

I wonder if this is supposed to be an indirect way of saying that in life we should learn to overcome our fears, and surpass whatever means in search for reaching our goals. Basically, just taking risks in the unthinkable and maybe you’ll be lucking out? And maybe it has nothing to do with luck, but more with God?

Any who, this certain success leads to Saul upgrading David in his services, happy that he had finally found someone worth doing the job.

All the while, David is soon becoming friends with Saul’s son, Jonathan, who makes a covenant with him, for some reason or other. I have yet to understand the pure reason and need for all these random covenants, but it is God, so what can I say?

Okay, that was random, sue me.

Back to the point, David was sort of a legend. Working for Saul’s army, they used to come back from an assignment or battle with the men saying, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his Ten thousands (1 Samuels 18:7).

Uh-oh.

Did they have to compare the two of them? Did they really have to say their names in the same sentence while visibly anointing one’s superiority and awesomeness (big word, huh?) over the other, namely, Saul?

People are stupid.

And because people embrace their stupidity and display it like a second skin, Saul began to feel a little green monster crawl up the side of his already mesed-up existence.

No one likes Mr. Jealousy (Cue singy-songy voice).

Apparently, Saul is not too big on following the trend and views himself as a nonconformist.

Because boy, did jealousy crawl its way up his ass.

I’m talking, want you dead, tie-you-up-with-hemp-rope-set-you-on-fire-and-get-high-off-the-fumes-of-your-burning-flesh type of jealousy.

The guy has problems.

But David had something Saul lacked.

God.

And plainly said, Saul never succeeded in killing him, the reason behind it completely fathomable.

And maybe the help from his best friend Jonathan when he warned him that his dad (Saul) was going to go all whacko on his ass.

But then again, that was probably God, too.

And then there’s the fact of the chopped bodies David found, the remains of Saul and Jonathan, at the end. Why did they have to be cut into pieces, seriously?

This is a story with a number of emotions in a jumble of sorts. There’s courage, jealousy, loyalty (to God, and in Jonathan to David), betrayal (Jonathan helping his father’s enemy), forgiveness, in the form of David finding Saul in a completely shameful state, and not killing him.
.

It’s kind of cool in the way it seems to mix up all these different actions and acts of kindness, or unkindness, for that matter, in one simple story.

A story that might not be so simple after all.

Paramount Being

All I have to say is chapters 38 through 41 consisted of basically God speaking and jumbling on about how amazing he is over anything else and how no one else can come to go up against him.

And Job says so in Job 42: 3 :

“You asked, ‘who I’d this that obscures my counsel
Without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too
wonderful for me to know.”

Well, in a way I can’t criticize or question God’s motives.

Yes, in the previous entry I did voice some inconsistencies on how the Lord tests people, but I can’t go any further than that.

Maybe it’s the matter of me being Christian and having grown up knowing and confiding in His word and trusting it whole-heartedly.

Maybe it’s just having been raised to believe in His power, His Holiness, and His being Almighty altogether to even begin to voice a little critique that comes to my mind.

Because, objectively, have it be someone that I don’t know or have no previous relation with, I could analyze his every move and judge the reasons to why he does such sometimes questionable things.

But I can’t.

Because, no matter the circumstances, I believe that He is Holy, and All-powerful, and right in whatever he chooses to do.

So yes. He did test someone by dumping him into a deepness of never surfacing plight, and when finally cursed, gives him repentance and gifts in return.

Maybe we all have a number of guesses as to why God does such things and begin to worry about his handling of matters.

But he’s God.

And as sappy and religious-like as this may sound, I intend to put every belief and faith into Him, never questioning Him or what he does, because in the end, He is the one who one-handedly amounts to being the unsurpassed, paramount being ever.

Show Me How to Suffer

Job is suffering.

And for what?

A test? A random act of cruel punishment? A diversion to see the faltering end? A game in which the Devil plays with the pawn that is Job?

Throughout Job, up until what I have read recently which makes its way up to chapter 37, I have yet to see anything different come up except Job suffering up to part of the Devil’s schemes.

Yes, God let the Devil issue unfortunate doings to Job’s life, just so he could prove that Job was holy, feared Him, and would never curse Him.

You’d think after everything else He has let the Devil put him through, and yet failed to see a hateful word towards God come out of Job’s mouth, God would cease the Devil from practically torturing Job until he sees death as the ultimate haven.

But that has not happened.

Job is still suffering, pining for a reason why God would amount him such evil doings, and the pain does not end.

I wonder.

Why does God test people if he knows what’s going to happen?

He has this psychic ability (of all the abilities the Almighty God acquires) and why seek to send people through ruin, knowing they will surpass it and end up honoring you either way?

Isn’t knowing that enough to have you refrain from drenching them in earth-shattering pain and agony?

Job never cursed him:

“As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice,
The almighty, who has made me taste bitterness in my soul,
As long as I have life within me, the breath of God
in my nostrils,
my lips will not speak wickedness, and my tongue
will utter no deceit.”

Never, does he curse him. And yet he swallows in anguish.

Frogs Stampeding and Babies Killed

I always knew about Moses and the sea. Having it be stated and known throughout the world, no matter whether you believe in it or not, I knew about it. What I did not know, in terms of explaining my lower-than-low ignorance, was the actual detailed story behind it.

Sure, I knew he was escaping from the Egyptians, but I had yet to figure out the reason was because they were being held as sort-of slaves, and no matter what Moses did -----having his staff become a snake, turning river-water into blood, unleashing a stampede of frogs to clog all living head-quarters, have darkness impede the all-guiding light, and killing all the Egyptian first-born babies. You know, the usual---- the stubborn Pharaoh never let them “go sacrifice for the Lord for three days,” no matter how many times he said he would; he would always go back on his word.

I also never quite had the story defined for the existence of the curren jewish holiday ‘Passover’ (which I know has to do with eating food, or not eating food. Beat me). That is, until know. I am guessing now it still has to do with Unleavened bread, considering it was when the Lord was to kill every firstborn Egyptian baby, and painting their wooden doors with sheep’s blood (gross) in order for the Lord to know to “Pass over” their houses. I felt so excited knowing I had learned something new today.

But there are some things that took me awhile to figure out. AS in why in the world the Lord kept making the Pharaoh’s heart cold in order for him to refuse the Israelites from going to the dessert to sacrifice for Him. It’s like, “why do you want problems, God?! Can’t you make the guy have a warm heart and let them go so this can end peacefully?” Apparently, he is not too big on ‘peacefully.’

But then, I found out the answer to my question. In Exodus 14:4, the Lord says, “And I will harden the pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.”

It turns out, the reason he did all these things was to have a reason to build up some proof so that the Israelites could truly, with all their heart, have no doubt that he was the Lord, the Almighty, powerful one, as it says so in 14:31:

“And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”

I noticed that in this quote, and probably before as well, the ‘he’ is not capitalized when they are referring to the Lord. Is it because it’s the more human form instead of the God form?

Then comes the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites (cool name, by the way) in which whenever Moses has lifts his hands, the Israelites are winning, but when he gets tired and puts them back down, the Amalekites start to win.

That’s when Moses says:

“For hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord. The Lord will be at war completely against the Amalekites from generation to generation.”

I wonder if that’s why when you worship at church, most people put their hands up. And no, this is not an ignorant question, considering I go to church myself and just see that done when you are truly into it and are up-taken to worship him with all your being. Lifting our hands just works like that, in church reference.

But I wonder if maybe when you do that, it is sort of an invitation and the pass to have the Lord with you at all times, battling out everything with you, helping you throughout the way.

In the sense that, by raising your hands, you’re accepting him, and in return, he is there to help you and guide you at all costs.

Deep, huh?

Finally, in chapter 22 it goes to list The Ten Commandments. For your information, it includes not stealing.

So, people who are participating in the occasional five-finger discount in your local mall in normal stores just because you’re too lazy to take out your plenty-filled wallet out in, you are deceiving God!

Just saying.

Suffering Misery and Bitter Souls

I never knew the bible could be so poetic. Seriously, the words, and how they are strewn together in Job are incredibly astounding.

Okay, so first and foremost, the whole reason for this chapter is for God to prove the righteousness of Job, and therefore the Devil (being his evil little self) decides to in a way, ruin Job’s life to prove to God that Job would curse Him given the circumstances.

Up until chapter 10, after having his cattle disappear, as well as his children, and getting an awful skin disease, Job still has yet to ‘curse’ God. Sure, he gets overly pissed and rants about how he does not deserve this, but not once does he get truly mad at the Lord.

Job 3:20

“Why is light given to those in misery,
and life to the bitter soul,
to those who long for death that does not come
who search for it more than a hidden treasure,
who are filled with gladness and rejoice
when they reach the grave?”

Deep, or what? Right now, as you can see, he is in an obvious state depression and a mind-set that questions life in bitterness. This is sort of like the regular question of why some people are happy and other are not in life, as well as the question of our existence if we’re going to spend most of it hoping for the day it will end.

Another one I liked was Job 4:5, where Eliphaz says, “But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed.”

This is basically like the lesson in life of getting back up when you fall down. It is true that in life, whenever we fail at something, or don’t do things like we are ‘supposed’ to or how we want them to do and excel, we always feel down and burden ourselves enough so that we don’t try again. We get discouraged by any single mistake that ends up deciding our path, something that we should not let happen.

Finally, a quote by Job that just kept me gasping at the pure profoundnesss of it and relative comparison, was Job 10:8 :

“Your hands shaped me and made me,
Will you now turn and destroy me?
Remember that you molded me like clay.
Will you now turn me into dust again?

This demonstrates the description of being built, only to be torn down again, piece by piece, which is how Job feels right now.

“Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle
me like cheese,
Clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?”

I just loved the description of this one, the flesh clothing the body and constructed with a puzzle of joined bones?

Genius.

I have come to find, that besides just being a religious text focused on telling the story and portraying beliefs, the Bible is also an amazing collection of awesome literary art.

I wish I talked like that.

Of Disgusting Means and Sacrifices

A note to men: If you are not circumcised, be prepared to be personally isolated from your people. I kid you not. That is, if you live thousands of years ago when Abraham still lives. In modern times, well, all I can say is this law doesn’t appeal to you. Or does it? Just to be safe, cut it off!

Sorry for the imagery. Ouch.

It turns out, Yes, God did make a covenant with Abram (Now called Abraham) that depended on his descendants’ circumcision.

Well.

Two men go to Abraham's house with the Lord, and tell Abraham that he will indeed have a son, no matter how old he is.

The same two then go to Lot in Sodom and when the go, the people from Sodom ask Lot if they can have sex with the two men----I keep wondering if he people who ask are, in fact, men, and if was normal for men to ‘do it’ back then. Hmm.---- and he says no. Right then I’m starting to think that maybe Lot is not so bad after all.

That is, until he opens his big mouth and says, “Look, I have two daughters that have never slept with a man. Let me bring them to you and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” So his daughters, having lived with him all his life, are not under the so-called ‘protection’ of his roof? What a little scheming, disgusting SOB.

But the horny, gay guys don’t want to listen to him, and reach out in an effort to, I don’t know, kill him? But the two men inside hold him back, and make the people blind so they can’t reach the door. They tell Lot to run away with his daughters and wife because the Lord is going to burn the city.

So Lot and his daughters escaped for Zoar. I don’t understand why the Lord saved him, considering he is such an annoying human being who would give away his daughters to whoever pleases. Geesh. Probably because of his relation to Abraham, which I never quite understood what it was.

Lot and his daughters are hiding in a cave, and the daughters, for reasons unknown to me, decide that since there are no men to lay with and keep the family line, they will get their dad drunk and each one lay with him one night so they can reproduce. A lovely goal with extremely far-fetched, disgusting means. Incest, much?

Now Abraham and Sarah have the son God promised them, so they get rid of Ishmael and Hagar, who leave and God gives them water to survive.

One day, God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, in a sort of test to see if Abraham truly feared God the way he should. When Abraham went to do the deed with no hesitation, the Lord called him from heaven to stop, seeing that Abraham did fear him, and stopped him from killing Isaac.

Because he showed his loyalty to the lord, He decided to bless Abraham always and told him his descendents will take possession of cities.

Sarah died one day, leaving Abraham to pine in her absence, as well as Isaac. When Abraham was getting old, he told his servant he wanted a wife for his son, but that she had to be from his native land, and Isaac could not go there. He said it was very important for him to bring back a wife for Isaac or else he would be realeased from the oath he made with the Lord.

So the servant went, an found a helpful girl named Rebekah, whom he later took back to willingly marry Isaac.

Now, whoever said arranged marriages were total contradicters of free will didn’t know beautiful people like Rebekah or Isaac.


So maybe this would be a happy ending. But this is not the end, is it?

Anymore Complicated and We'd Be Doomed

There are a lot of fathers of sons, whose names seem like a puzzle to me considering the names themselves are so weird, and the order in which they are related are beyond me. All I know is that Noah’s sons have clans. That’s all I got.

Once upon a time, everyone in the world spoke the same language, which would obviously make everything all the much easier in the long run. When they decided to build a city, the Lord came down to see them, and saw that it was all too easy for them speaking the same language, understanding each other. So he decided to mix things up by giving each one a different language and having none understand each other.

The Lord scattered them throughout the world. They had stopped building the city since then, and it was called Babel, because of the means with which it was started.

I really don’t understand why he did that. What is so wrong about having it easy?

One day, the Lord calls on Abram, son of whoever and whoever, and tells him:

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.”

So Abram took his possessions and his kids and set out for the city of Canaan. God knows why the Lord decided to bless him with that reward.

I mean, I didn’t see him do any good deeds, so why should he randomly get chosen to start a great nation? Seriously.

Another thing I don’t understand is why the Egyptians would kill Abram of they new the beautiful woman was his wife and not his sister. Hints, anyone?

It turns out the Pharaoh then took her as his wife and because of the, the Lord inflicted serious diseases on the Pharaoh and his people.

How could Abram even put up with another man having his wife as his own wife? Did he not get jealous?

Abram’s wife could not get pregnant. And the Lord said he needed an heir of his own flesh and blood, so Sarai gave Abram her maidservant, Hagar, to lay with him and have his son. But of course Hagar had bitter feelings towards Sarai for what she made her do, and Sarai started treating her so harshly, that Hagar, pregnant, left.

That’s when an angle told Hagar to submit to Sarai, and because of that, Hagar’s descendents would increase.

The son was born, and Abram called him Ishmael. Ring a bell, anyone?

So a man is told he will rule a certain place, he says his wife is his sister, has a Paroah take her as his wife, sleeps with his wife’s maidservant, and has a son. Yes, that is very, very normal.

The Sistine Chapel and Other Gayness Enforcers

I try so hard to make it go away
But my attraction to men I know will never fade
I know I am weird, my mom makes that clear
And so do the guys on the streets, who keep calling me queer

I reach out to you
But you’re slipping from my grasp
I know you make me drool
But do I make you gasp?

I am attracted to you
You gorgeous piece of man meat
I swear I will not attack you
Unless you keep running away from me

I would not be scared
If anything, I would be ecstatic
If a man like me showed me he cared
Instead of getting weird and acting so damn spastic

I’ll make you love me
Even if it means me floating on a cloud in my birthday suit to display
And you’ll reach out to hold me
Because I really don’t care that you’re not gay.

Rainbows with Meanings

Adam and Eve had two children, Cain and Abel. Cain was very appreciated by God and Abel grew jealous and killed him. (There’s a book by Jeffrey Archer titled “Kane and Abel” and it is about a rivalry between two men. My point is, it’s awesome, read it.)

God tells Cain, “If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master,” before Cain kills his brother, obviously not having understood that particular lesson.

He is punished by having to restlessly wonder the earth and having the crops not yield to him. But he would not be killed, because whoever would end up killing Cain, would suffer vengeance.

Then the text goes on to point out basically how Cain got a wife and reproduced, and the chain went on and on. The same went for Seth, Adam and Eve’s other soon which they saw as a replacement of Abel.

After men had reproduced a lot and began to increase in number, the Lord saw how “the great man’s wickedness had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”

So he decided to do the only thing that would make all the evilness go away.

He decided to wipe them all away, the men, the animals, etc.

Except one.

Noah was a righteous man, descendent of Seth, and “he walked with God.” The Lord told him about his plan, and made him make an arc out of wood, taking only his wife, his sons, his sons’ wives, and a female and male of every living creature with him, to reproduce later on when a flood had killed the rest of existence.

I turns out, maybe being good, and having important people like will end up saving you. I’m just saying.

In the six-hundredth day of Noah’s life, the flood came pouring in, him safe in the deep confines of the arc, protected.

When he sets food on ground, the Lord promise He will never again wipe out Earth, and makes a covenant with Noah. He tells him to reproduce and thrive, and the every cloudy day when there’s a rainbow, He will remember the covenant between Him and Noah, and all the other creatures.

I will never look at a rainbow the same way.

Sexism Has A Source

Everyone’s heard the story of Adam and Eve. There’s a serpent, and it tells the Eve to eat from that tree. Eve is stupid, and therefore eats from the tree God specifically told her not to eat out of. Adam follows suit, and soon they are left in only their skin to protect them (In clearer terms, naked).

God decides to show his more human side in Genesis 3, demonstrating pure emotions when he quite literally gets pissed at both Adam and Eve for deceiving him. Here we see a different “God,” referred to as “Lord God,” being in human form and being the Lord that rules, and such things.

When he finds out about what they have done, God tells the serpent:

“Curse are you above all livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of our life. And I will put enmity between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

So it turns out snakes, or rather serpents, weren’t always the slithering little scary creatures we are used to seeing in everyday life. Actually, there was a time when there was a smart, talking, walking, interactive one who so happened to do a bad dead and ended up crawling on its stomach for all eternity.

Yes. God indeed has power.

That same day, He also made so that childbearing is painful, work is to be done I order to get food, and husbands shall rule over their wives.

What is it with these sexist conditions? If God is neither a man or a woman, why should he make it so that it seems as if he favors man and views women in a low light?

And why did he make childbearing painful? Just to make us women’s lives that much harder, considering we have to have awful cramps, suffer through childbearing, raise a child, and be a house mother while we are also encouraged to work and make a living?

All the while men don’t have to shave in order to look attractive, and all they have to do is work and get money and then that deal is made.

Now, I am still not awaiting the time when I have to have my own child, however far from now that may be (and I’m hoping it’s a while).

I have come to one conclusion (or merely something I have figured since my early existence) which is: Men are a lazy, arrogant, laid-back specimen whose only problem in life is money, while women are meant to suffer, forever.

Time According to Who?

We all have our theories as to how this world was created, whether it be the scientific theory that it happened when two huge masses seemingly crashed into each other, or the notion that God, in all his divine glory created it with his own magnificence. Either way, Earth exists, we are here, and life is a huge webs of splendor and problems all at once.
“In the beginnings, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1.

Yes, this is truly marked up to one’s beliefs, but disregarding that fact, everyone should at least have a bit of knowledge about the Bible, either in agreement or not.

Genesis basically means the beginning, which clearly captures the true meaning of the first book of the Bible. This is when earth, in all its true form, was made by God:

In the time span of only seven days, God managed to divide the heavens and the earth, the light and the darkness, divide the sea into one entity, created sea and land animals, and man himself.

Seven days. The time-span in which He could amount to all of these things astounds me, and yet it makes me wonder.

We all know dinosaurs existed. No, this is not completely random, and yes, I do have a point.

Anyhow, the Bible says that in seven days God made animals, everything else, and man. So what about the dinosaurs? They obviously existed before humans, as it is known, but if it was in the time span of seven days, does that mean man and dinosaurs once co-existed?

And if yes, then man should have been extinct when the dinosaurs themselves were exterminated, and what, God created them again?

I think not.


The bible never talks about dinosaurs (and why would it?) so it would seem as if from the beginning of the world’s creation man existed, and so, what about the dinosaurs?

This may sound utterly unstable and it sounds pathetic even to my own ears, but still, my argument is of some value. I swear.

What I’m thinking is, what if it wasn’t really seven days? Seven days for us, I mean. We, humans, tend to view a day as a period of twenty-four hours consisting of night and day.

But for God, in His immortal, long-lasting existence, He might have a different understanding towards the phrase “seven days.” To Him, for all we know, one day could be five hundred years or such, I don’t know.

So God said, "Let there be animals," on the sixth day. On a sixth day to him. So let's say the sixth day happened, and then another five-thousand years happened (in this case, five-thousand makes up the 'God' 'year') and then man (Adam) was made.

Ever thought about that?



So what might have started as a stupid-sounding question about dinosaurs not being in the Bible, might have ended with a very deep conclusion, if I do say so myself. (Insert mocking snorts here).

Those two first chapters taking up two pages don’t talk about what happened in so little time. They are worded in a way that we would think so and take the meaning of ‘seven’ literally in measurements we can only understand. But what we don’t know is that this is based on God’s view, his basic understanding of it all, which we can’t help but try to see his way.

I just managed to find a total different meaning to the expression ‘twenty-four/seven.’ Yes. I am proud of myself too.


oh! And
PS: "She shall be called "woman" for she was taken out of man". Seriously? Just because a child comes from out of their mom's stomache, that does not make it fit to name them "Child". Are you freaking kidding me? So now we know the reason towards the chauvinistic, sexist views in further history and in the present. It all started with certain little nasty named Adam. That pig.

Vanity and Other Atrocious Qualities

We are an intricate race.

Ha!

Makes you feel special, doesn’t it?

By intricate, though, I mean that we, humans, can at times be ignorant, selfish, greedy, self-righteous pigs, with no sense whatsoever for anything, or anyone, else around us.

Yes. For those of you who think you’re perfect, you’re not.

It seems Zeus and his son Hermes weren’t that sure of this fact, though, considering they took their time to disguise themselves as beggars, fall from the heavens into this mud-mass we call Earth, and see what people where really like.

It seems they wanted to see the negative aspects of our beings since they came as beggars. What did they expect?

After knocking on a few (and by few I mean hundreds) doors and having them shut in their faces when asking for a hint of money, you’d think they give up.

But giving it one last try, they knock on a little hut on the outskirts of town, where they come upon Baucis and Philemon (How the writer comes up with these names, I don’t know).

The first words out of Baucis’s mouth are, “Poor Strangers!”

Finally, someone with a heart.

When they let Zeus and Hermes in, they are asked, “Do you know us?”

And Philemon replies with the obvious, “Yes. Why, you are the children of God.”

Aww.

Bascially, Philemon and Baucis are the epitome of hospitable hosts, providing food, insisting their guests sit on chairs, offering desert, etc.

When they poured wine, and Zeus and Hermes’s glasses remained full, they knew.

Is it just me or is that completely out of nowhere? I don’t get it. When they poured the wine, the glasses didn’t overflow when they put more? So, the phrase of how their cups were filled is beyond my line of comprehension. And how in the world does a cup being filled mean that whoever’s cup it is, is actually a god? Please, insight me.

Because of the grace with which they were accepted and cared for, Zeus and Hermes used their abilities to make Philemon and Baucis’s “poor little house become grander and grander” and have marble paved stones sprout were there was humble ground.

Hermes tells them they can ask anything of them, and the couple asks that they die at the same time. I never would have thought of that, but it is actually a pretty intelligent wish.

Imagine the person you love and care for dies and you have to live weeping with grief from that awful loss, or have them suffer and bare the experience they go through because of you. Very smart, indeed.

Their wish is granted and they start to sprout leaves and end up turned into trees.

Huh?

You want to die together and so you are turned into a freaking tree?

That makes total sense.

Well, maybe there’s an underlying meaning to it, but whatever it signifies beats me.

As for another possible teaching, if there is one, I think it means that, we may not be perfect, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying our hardest to be good people. And doing good acts and having clean, healthy goodwill will be rewarded.

So, even if you might get turned into a tree, at least it was for good reason.

A Good Heart = Trees.

We are an intricate race.

Ha!

Makes you feel special, doesn’t it?

By intricate, though, I mean that we, humans, can at times be ignorant, selfish, greedy, self-righteous pigs, with no sense whatsoever for anything, or anyone, else around us.

Yes. For those of you who think you’re perfect, you’re not.

It seems Zeus and his son Hermes weren’t that sure of this fact, though, considering they took their time to disguise themselves as beggars, fall from the heavens into this mud-mass we call Earth, and see what people where really like.

It seems they wanted to see the negative aspects of our beings since they came as beggars. What did they expect?

After knocking on a few (and by few I mean hundreds) doors and having them shut in their faces when asking for a hint of money, you’d think they give up.

But giving it one last try, they knock on a little hut on the outskirts of town, where they come upon Baucis and Philemon (How the writer comes up with these names, I don’t know).

The first words out of Baucis’s mouth are, “Poor Strangers!”

Finally, someone with a heart.

When they let Zeus and Hermes in, they are asked, “Do you know us?”

And Philemon replies with the obvious, “Yes. Why, you are the children of God.”

Aww.

Bascially, Philemon and Baucis are the epitome of hospitable hosts, providing food, insisting their guests sit on chairs, offering desert, etc.

When they poured wine, and Zeus and Hermes’s glasses remained full, they knew.

Is it just me or is that completely out of nowhere? I don’t get it. When they poured the wine, the glasses didn’t overflow when they put more? So, the phrase of how their cups were filled is beyond my line of comprehension. And how in the world does a cup being filled mean that whoever’s cup it is, is actually a god? Please, insight me.

Because of the grace with which they were accepted and cared for, Zeus and Hermes used their abilities to make Philemon and Baucis’s “poor little house become grander and grander” and have marble paved stones sprout were there was humble ground.

Hermes tells them they can ask anything of them, and the couple asks that they die at the same time. I never would have thought of that, but it is actually a pretty intelligent wish.

Imagine the person you love and care for dies and you have to live weeping with grief from that awful loss, or have them suffer and bare the experience they go through because of you. Very smart, indeed.

Their wish is granted and they start to sprout leaves and end up turned into trees.

Huh?

You want to die together and so you are turned into a freaking tree?

That makes total sense.

Well, maybe there’s an underlying meaning to it, but whatever it signifies beats me.

As for another possible teaching, if there is one, I think it means that, we may not be perfect, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying our hardest to be good people. And doing good acts and having clean, healthy goodwill will be rewarded.

So, even if you might get turned into a tree, at least it was for good reason.

Lessons Learned

It is always clear in books and movies that the protagonist has been deeply neglected by his/her parents and therefore has the courage to go on in life and become a ruthless, yet accomplished business person with an A sized mansion.

Or they grow up to be cold, deficient people with no happiness whatsoever and a dreading ache for every countable day, and person.

Suffice to say, things like ‘parental indulgence and neglect’ can affect someone in more ways than one.

This is the case for Phaeton, son of Phoebus Apollo, the sun. As stated before, Phoebus is the ignorant father who seems to have more important things in his life than his own flesh and blood.

Of course Phaeton feels like crap, not only being constantly ignored by someone that is supposed to love him, but also for the lack of proof that Phoebus is, indeed, his father.

“If it’s true, how come there’s no proof of it? It’s unfair to us, you know, that there’s no proof.” Phaeton tells his mother one day. Well, obviously he’d feel this way after this random kid in school beat the ‘shit’, as he so put it, out of him for merely saying who his dad was.

Resolute, Phaeton travels to the valley where his father resides to tell him himself.

Now, you would imagine the guy wants nothing to do with him, but suddenly Apollo says, “My son, you are welcome. Let me grant you a favor.”

Well.

That was so not the reaction I was expecting.

Isn’t it an unwritten rule that the negligent parent wants nothing to do with their son/daughter when said son/daughter search them out to reconcile?

Apparently, Apollo does things differently.

So Phaeton decides he wants his dad’s car, in other words, to control the sun, for just one day. Obviously, Apollo wasn’t expecting that, and says that it’s his job, therefore, to pick something else.

But Phaeton isn’t having it. He has lived a life that his father chose not to be a part of, and you can’t judge his plain resentment.

So Apollo finally lets him, but not without the following advice:


“Don’t fly too high.”
“Go slantwise”


But I guess anger and fueled greediness makes you deaf, because whatever advice came out of Apollo’s mouth, went through one of Phaeton’s ear and out the other.

He didn’t listen. He lost Control. Chaos erupted.

I don’t know whether this is meant to explain a son searching for his indignant father and being let in, therefore encouraging people to go after what they want, or if it’s about said son not listening to his father and erupting into flames of chaos because he chose to not follow the rules.

So two things were learned:

1) If you have a father that knows of your existence but doesn’t feel the need to let you into his life, search him out until he grows fond of you (or exasperated enough) and decides to grant you a wish (to get you off his back in the latter case)

2) If said wish is taken, please do try to listen to your ignorant father’s requests because you just might end up frying to death from the deathly flames of the sun

Well.

That was educational.

Pheaton Iamic Pentameter

With restlessness he begged to seize the sun
But control was lost and chaos begun

Disguises are Useless

There has been a time in everyone’s life, when they fall for someone they barely know. I’m not talking about seeing a stranger at a Starbucks and suddenly realizing your undoubted love for him. I’m talking about people you see every day, and no matter how much you like them or would love to get to know them, they barely even know you exist. It’s like you’re just a crushed tiny bug on their windshield: practically nonexistent.

Vertumnus is in love with Pomona, even though he barely talks to her and his attraction is most likely based purely on looks and what he has observed from afar. Stalker potential? Possibly.

He may disguise himself as a farmer who loves agriculture and adores flowers and plants (Pomona’s only visible interests) or pretend to be an ordinary fisherman with a penchant for tanned skin and gorgeous hard-working hands, and yet she pays him no mind.

Finally, he decides to do the smart thing, and instead of dressing himself in a disguise as a guy, he decides to change his approach to a more effective result by dressing like an old lady, and ‘subtly’ informing her that she has to be more open and that keeping to herself is a “ sad violation of nature.” He recommends this guy named Vertumnus, of course, and when she asks the point of it all, he drives into the story of Cinyrus, Myrrah, and Aphrodite.

Myrrah has never loved, and she, like Pomona, keeps to herself. That is until Aphrodite tells her to stop being such a wimp and to admit that she is indeed in love, with her own father, Cinyrus. She tries to deny her love, of course by saying that it’s her father and that it would be against the law.

The first word that comes to my mind is: incest. I guess you can’t really control your feelings, but your own flesh and blood? Do you seriously want to take the risk of having deformed four-eyed children because you just so happened to fall in love with your own father? Judgmental, I am not. I like to think of myself more as being a realist.

Oh my god, I’m sorry but this thing has seriously got me thinking whoever wrote this was in love with their father themselves, or else why go to such lengths to bring this upon us any way? The mom leaves, and then the maid tells Cinyras that pretty girl is waiting for him. “Is she attractive?”

So not only do we have a girl that is attracted to the man that gave her life, but a man is willing to cheat on his wife with no second thoughts. This is truly inspiring.

They do it once. They do it twice. They do it again. Of course, Cinyrus is blindfolded throughout the entire time or else he would go completely insane, which we find when he takes off the blindfold one night and sees his lover’s true identity. So he decides to drown her. How loving.

She runs away and begs the gods to transform her entirely and they grant her wish: she melts.

Back with Pomona and Vertumnus, the story he just told her went nowhere. I don’t even understand how that pointless tale relates to his situation in getting Pomona to notice him.

Pomona notices his wig and tells him to take it off. Free from every disguise, Vertumnus is exposed as who he really is. And Pomona notices him for that and is happy with him.

I guess there’s a teaching in this story, and if there’s not, well I’ll just go on as if it was meant to be that way. We are who we are for a reason. If we want someone, we should let them see us as who we are and have them appreciate us for our own true beings. And if they can’t appreciate it, well then they are not worth it.

Bon Appétit

It is safe to say Erysichthon is an egotistic, selfish, arrogant, supercilious, annoying, all-mighty grade-A jerk. Not only the way he speaks, but what he says makes you dislike this guy instantly. One would probably praie him for being his own man and not fearing the gods and everything, but this man is completely off his rocker.

Since he has no cares in the world (and probably nothing to do on a daily basis considering his attitude) he one day decides to cut off the tree sacred to Ceres. He needs the wood, so that perfectly justifies his cutting down an innocent tree. This reminds me of modern society and how we are killing our planet by personally blowing everything into dust and cutting and breaking down bleeding forests while we bask in the sweet glory of modern technology and the obliteration of our only home.

I am not bitter.

Anyhow, he cuts the tree against the narrator’s advice, and then gets visited by the Spirit of the Tree that has ‘revenge’ stuck on his forehead. “You will never get away with this,” it (or is the spirit a ‘he’?) says. Erysichthon just laughs. How annoying, I hope he dies.

Unfortunately that hasn’t happened.

Yet.

Ceres then decides to get Hunger, which is indeed a person, to go “visit” Erysichthon and accompany him until he dies. I would have never even imagined making casual emotions and feelings into people that could somehow trespass their being into someone else. I think it is the most creative occurrence I have ever seen. Ever.

So Hunger agrees and goes to Erysichthon to curl up against him “in an embrace as strong as love, but quite the opposite of love. She breathes her spirit into his spirit.” And then the hunger begins.

He wakes, starving, dreaming of any type of food to fulfill his undying hunger. He is so hungry, in fact, that he decides to sell his own mother, like modern gamblers that resort to betting their jobs and kids when they are in too deep. I guess when you are in need of something, or too addicted to its only being, you will do most likely anything to fulfill your lust and longing. But his own mother?

Fortunately, the mother had a long-lost relationship with Poseidon, and begs for his help. In return, Poseidon turns her into the young girl she was when she worshipped his waves, and all’s well with the mother’s future. This is one of the times where I wish I had a god as a best friend, you could always be protected. And if the god is cute, well it comes with a bonus, no?

It all ends with Ceres placing a plate in front of him, and having him place his foot on it. The narrator says, “He will destroy himself.” Is this what I think it means? Is he seriously going to cut into his own flesh and blood and use his body’s meat as a food source?

Well, as Ceres so put it, “Bon appétit.”

Of Birds and Happy Endings

Everyone has heard of the typical story where the guy decides to fight for his country and cross the Atlantic Ocean to go to war, while the girlfriend (or wife) is left mourning in perpetual tears and praying daily for his return. Clearly, these scenarios mostly always end in tragedy and in death, while some, very few, end in unexpected happiness.

In Alcyone and Ceyx, the story is similar, except that instead of war, it’s the sea, and instead of being killed by blood-hungry men, Alcyones dad, who happens to control all of the vast blue sea, is the one that brings death upon Ceyx. Yeah, what a nice father-in-law, no?

When Ceyx tells Alcyonw about his journey, she says, “If you die my life is over and I shall be cursed with every reluctant breath I draw.” Basically, her life without out Ceyx is shattered and completely hopeless. Seriously? Just because a guy you like (or love) leaves for whatever reason takes up his mind, what kind of self-deprecating girl lets that affect her own happiness? Sure, you love him, but does that seriously make for a reason to drown in your own tears and curse God for your desperate and heartrending existence?

I’m not saying you should be cold-hearted or too laid-back to even register the fact and let it affect you. I’m just saying you can’t base your happiness (or life) on someone else.

When they are on the ship, it says that Poseidon enters the scene, therefore causing the terrible storm that will lead to Ceyx and his henchmen’s doom. What I fail to understand is the fact that Poseidon is the one that controls the seas, and yet Alcyone had said that her father was the one who controlled them, “My father’s winds are wild savage.” But Poseidon isn’t Alcyone’s father, right? I’m sorry to have to point out that in that point of the story I am completely and totally lost.

The winds and ocean blurs in a terrible and malicious storm and that is when Ceyx knows he is going to die. It would really be annoying to know are going to die, especially when you promised your wife you’d be back safely in two month’s time. Another reason you shouldn’t make promises you are not sure you can keep: Your girlfriend is going to end up heartbroken when you die. So refrain from making them in the first place!

Alcyone counts the seconds in which it will take her husband to get home. If only she knew she was wasting her breath.

Aphrodite pities Alcyone’s heart melting hopefulness, and decides to subtly inform her that her husband is in fact, dead. This puts Aphrodite on the top of my list considering she is taking it upon herself to put someone out of their misery.

When she finds out from Morpheus who has transformed into Ceyx, she gets kind of hysterical, or maybe it’s just common procedure to cry and argue when someone important to you has died. What really got to me, and not in an emotional way, but just sounded like a really cool quote, was when she was ranting about how she had asked him not to go and said, “I’m drowning now in the air.” Maybe it’s just me, but the fact she is drowning in pure air makes it fascinatingly deep to me. Oh, well.

You’d think it would be like all the normal tragedies out there where a happy ending is completely out of its reach. Wrong. It turns out, they actually end up together by becoming birds and flying away together to nest in their own happy glory.


I’m not kidding.

And I also ended up happy because I overcame my inner confusion and found, plainly stated in that last line, that Aeolus is Alcyone’s father and he controls the winds.

So in the end, we all get our happy endings.

Metamorphoses

Whoever decided to make this either just made up random words that I came close to identify as meaningless gibberish, or he just knew some sort of cool sounding and yet effusive language that sounds a lot like Latin. Either way, when the narrator went to talk in that weird language of his, I was lost. Which means I was lost for kind of the entire time.
Of what I did understand when he managed to speak in plain English, is that our world started in chaos. He talks about the slender moon and how the world has ceased to hang by just its plain surrounding, or the ocean stretched his arms to the land.
Sometime ago, no one could swim through that ocean, walk across that land, all objects were at odds. Even though sometimes this guy tends to drift on into sometimes-weird rants, you can kind of understand the whole point of this.
Which is the beginning of earth as it is now, how it used to be run by emptiness and disarray made up what we now call earth. It talks about the beginning, God, the creation of live as it is. The world heavier than leaves, carrying mounds on it shoulders. But in the end, it all became somehow arranged order in the world, because some god caused it. Right.

Bye, Bye Krishna...

The Bhagavad-Gita is, simply put, wising (if that is even a word). Some of the teachings actually make you stop and think about how you relate to them on a regular day basis. What he says actually makes sense when we look at how we act normally, and find faults in our reasons for doing certain things and our resolve. Basically, it actually teaches and shows some human traits which we need to downplay.


As for the actual story of Arjuna and his doubt on whether to go to war or not, he ends up swinging along with sacred duty. As Krishna said, no matter how much you try to do something because of what you might think is right, nature will always take its toll and make your attempts futile…

As much as sometimes I could barely understand the symbolism in Krishna’s words, or what he meant when he spoke of certain things, I came to fin the teaching quite refreshing actually. It not only opens you to the true dire nature of our kind and our sometimes-selfish reasons for certain actions, but it enlightens us to change or at least pull back on them. Of course, he also talks about worshipping him and believing, kind of leaning in toward more touchy subjects in terms of faith and religion, but other then that, it was pretty much the standard for the perfect teaching.

True Meaning of Faith = 17 & 18

Passionate

What would life be like had we not certain beliefs? What if when our boyfriend/girlfriend tells us they’re going to be staying extra late at work we don’t believe them and trust their acts completely? What if when life brings hardships and we face obstacles, we don’t have the faith to know that it will all be okay? What if we didn’t have face? Then life as it is would cease to be the blissful haven it’s carved out to be.

In Teaching Seventeen, Krishna says there’s a “threefold nature of faith inherent in the embodied self—lucid, passionate, and darkly inert.” While explaining the relation to being lucid, he explains how a person’s faith amounts to their lucidity, their clear perception and understanding. In a way, it relates to people whose cups are not yet filled by society’s current judgments and ideas, and have the rationality to fill their own cup based on their beliefs and personal faith.

He then goes on to compare these types of men, in relation to food. When you taste food that pleases ‘lucid’ men, they promote “strength, health, pleasure, and delight.” As opposed to passionate men, who are brought in by pungent, harsh, burning, food that cause pain, grief, and sickness. In the case of men of dark inertia, the food is unsavory, putrid, spoiled and stale. Basically, he is classifying the three types of men in their classified categories, where ‘lucid’ men are moral men that life a plentiful and wholesome life, ‘passionate’ men are pulled towards harsh and painful situations that will lead to endless grief, and men of ‘dark inertia’ are plainly too spoiled, in a way like decayed and corrupt fruit, that are of no use and are saddled with selfish wants.

Lucid men give sacrifices, not for the possible chance of getting a reward, not for the passion and dark inertia that await for some kind of recompense, but just for the sake of doing good, unlike the other two types.

Basically, Krishna dives deeper into the wants and reasons between these three types of peoples’ act. Passionate men do good, only for their own benefit of gaining admirers, respect, and worship for their act. Men of dark inertia resort to acts of ‘good-will (not so much in their case) due only to some sick type of sadism whish brings them satisfaction. They never do it just because, for someone else’s happiness.

The whole point of this teaching is to understand the reality of our kind, the cruel, the good, the inspiring. People who are just so caught up in reaching fortune and accommodating to everyone’s best interests, they do things to be accepted. Others just live life down an endless dark path. And others, the ‘lucid’ ones, that at least help and care, for no other reason than their own free will.

In the Eighteenth Teaching, Krishna introduces us to the term ‘renunciation.’ In today’s words, we can mostly recognize it as ‘quitting.’ He views it as unnecessary and inappropriate. Acts are established in the same categories as the men in the previous teaching.

Whenever we act out of pure passion, without thinking, straight from our impulses, resolve is passionate, not the one we aim for.

Success is also brought into the picture in the way that, when one has a goal, and you achieve it, it is your own personal accomplishment and definition of success.

In verse 53, Krishna states that, man, “freeing himself from individuality, force, pride, desire, anger, acquisitiveness; unpossesive, tranquil, he is at one with the infinite spirit.” When we don’t let ourselves be bound by these unbecoming feelings, and let peace drift within us with nothing to break down our shields, we can achieve pure, untainted tranquility.

When you are with Krishna, you will transcend all dangers, but if you are all caught up in your individuality, on the belief that all you need is you, and you, on your own, can accomplish anything, well, you got your wish: you’re on your own. You will be deafened. You will be lost. You will be susceptible to nature, even when you have a clear resolve to do something, it will be tampered with.

This all brings us back to how being one with lord is the only way to handle it all. He is your refuge, your haven, your passage towards eternity.

Now here is where I have trouble in clarifying if the ‘lord’ he is talking about is, Krishna, himself, or God, ‘The Lord,”, etc. Either way, the explanation of how sacrificing for him and adoring only him with complete trust, life will be just a blink in time.

Krishna also states:

“If he listens in faith
Finding no fault, a man is free
And will attain the cherished worlds
of those who act in virtue.”

Faith is key for almost everything. Here, Krishna is making the same rules as in the Christian religion, where the ticket to Heaven, is pure faith, belief in God. In that same way he makes it out to be the key factor in reaching one’s entity with him. Believe, even if you haven’t seen with your eyes or heard with your ears.

It takes more courage to believe in something just with faith, with your soul, with no visible proof, than to take something of visible nature to truly understand a concept.

That is the true reality of Faith.

Branches Unknown

Arjuna asks Krishna to reveal his immortal self. Who would have thought you can’t actually see Krishna himself, but in other forms…Typical. According to him, he is not visible with the naked eye, he is reflected by the forms, animate and inanimate in this world.

Sanjaya goes on to describe Krishna’s view as:


“If the light of a thousand suns
Were to rise in the sky at once,
It would be like the light
of that great spirit.”

So maybe Krishna really is as amazing as he makes himself up to be.

He finally decides to show Arjuna his true form, revealing the ultimate manifestation of his power. Arjuna here, finally understands who Krishna truly is, no shield to screen him from exposing his true, divine self. We also learn, that no one has ever seen this form, only Arjuna.

You don’t achieve the priveledge to see his form by “penances, lore, or sacrificial rites.” Only with loyalty, can one truly come to see his form.

In that same way, it demonstrates how with trust and true loyalty, people will come to rely on you and expose themselves in ways never before. Same with faith. Wichever god or immortal being you believe in, real dedication and fidelity consist in your living after the life after death to your expectations.

In lesson fifteen, Krisha, I think, compares life to one of the following things. It could be possible he is comparing it life. The branches point in all different directions, their roots reaching downward to life on Earth. It’s as we climb these vines that we ask ourselves what is the point, how do we get to the top, why go up if there’s achance we’ll be thrown back down.

There is also the mere chance of it being a type of symbol for God (In this case, Krishna). How, no matter how many of us believe in one of them entirely, with all our beings, some of us still question them and ourselves.


“Its form is unknown
here in the world;
Unknown are its end,
its beginning, its extent”

We ask ourselves how it is possible that such beings exist, and sometimes wonder about our own lives. He goes on about his glory, and about our human spirits later becoming eternal, as whoever is devote to him is eternal. With faith and knowledge, one has understanding, a purpose, and a goal, that is eventually fulfilled.

Supercilious King

It is important to be smart. Suffice to say, if you want a quality that will get you somewhere in life where you can be sure it will guarantee you a good house and a stable income, intelligence, it is. Another word for the term is knowledge, as stated in lesson seven, along with judgment. We learn, that, with knowing only those two things, nothing else in the world has to be known.

Krishna tells Arjuna to meditate, not exactly in those words, but implies it. He tells Arjuna that those that “seek refuge in me, cross over this magic.” The magic of nature, and a connection to nature, is meditating, reaching the supreme divine spirit of man.

Lord Krishna describes four types of men, one of which is the disciplined man of knowledge. According to Krishna, the former is disciplined, noble, and finds refuge in him (Krishna). Here I don’t really understand how they take refuge in him. Is he a god, a soul, an all-mighty divinity? Who is Krishna?

He enforces the fact of knowledgeable men having faith, and in doing so, goes on to quote,

“But finite is the rewards
That comes to men of little wit;
Men who sacrifice to gods reach the gods;
Those devoted to me reach me.”


Here he leads is comparing himself to the gods, in which he himself has people devoted to only him, as well. So I am guessing he is actually a god?

Then he goes on to explain how the people that are faithful in him and devoted to him, “cease from evil and act with virtue,” and they know the “infinitive spirit, its inner self and all its action.” Basically, he’s saying that everyone who believes in him is whole in almost every which way and they have discipline. They “know him at the time of death,” therefore trust him to take their lives into his hands when the time comes.

The eight chapter focuses on how when death becomes you, you have to be ready and in good graces with Krishna, with mind and understanding, so that you will come to him, relieving your inner being in imperishable existence.

When men reach him, “they attain absolute perfection.”

“The man of discipline
Transcends all this an
Ascends to the place
of pure beginning.”


In the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary it states that discipline is controlled behavior resulting from disciplinary training; self-control. Here, it mostly means applying virtues, following your faith, and understanding where you are and where you are going. When you have faith, life has a purpose. Whether you believe in God, Buddha, etc, now you have something to drive you forward in life, I those cases, reaching for heaven, reaching for the possible afterlife. But you have a goal. They say that without faith, society would cripple as it is now, because then, we wouldn’t have a reason to try.

Lord Krishna then goes on to mention his glory, his being the universal father, purifier, the way, the Lord, the witness, and too much things that would take too long to list. In essence, he has a reason to be the egotistical, narcissistic, self-exuberating god. It’s true. And he goes on to say that by believing in him, no matter what the circumstances in life (you could be a violent criminal with a penchant for stealing old ladies purses, for all he cares---he said so himself), if you are solely devoted to him, you are a man of virtue. Virtue means a right resolve and the ability to find eternal peace…Now isn’t that just dandy?