Faith vs Integrity

The life of faith is in a race with integrity. The trick is to die before the vector of integrity is tempted to intersect faith before the finish line. Development of integrity can cost you your soul. Dying in unscrutinized belief is the safer bet. Have no fear. Your faith is the sure safety that nothing will change until you get your catastrophe.

Meanwhile, be content in the outcomes of faith which we have witnessed now for two millennia. Don’t complain, and please no worries. This is the life you choose through belief.

“The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual, is a humble person. The truth is the surrendering and humbling of the self breeds pride and arrogance. The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a prince disguised in meekness, who is destined to inherit the earth and the kingdom of heaven too. He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen will perish”—Eric Hoffer

“Ye are the light of the world”. What do you say to that when everything faith touches lives in a constant state of regression? Living in the past, hoping the future ends. Would a good god condemn you for truly not believing? Seems to me such integrity should be rewarded.

Advertisement

God Works Through Epilepsy? –La Fort Fractures

Ellen White, prophetess and co-founder of the Seventh Day Adventist church had a large stone thrown at her when she was nine. Knocked immediately unconscious, regained consciousness for a few minutes, then slipped into coma for three weeks. From descriptions and lasting deformity appears she had a La Fort, or basilar skull fracture and permanent frontal lobe brain damage. Epilepsy is a term that had not been invented yet, but descriptions of her visions are like many seizures I have witnessed in the field. Eyes pegged upwards and trembling, falling, postictal phase, then waking up to gibberish prophesy an extension of her devoted Christian life. Modern medicine can calculate severity of injury based on duration of insult. Not so in early 19th century. HERE is an interesting read about her head injury and descriptions of her visions. After her death visions no longer blessed the church, nor with anyone since. (Since the next head injury) The rebuttal—God works in mysterious ways. Post traumatic epilepsy is a crucial link to revelation, as well as congenital epilepsy.

Finding My Faith Groove With So Many Choices

I once had the difficult decision of selecting the right faith. I really like the Seventh Day Adventists. Nice people, eat right, and family values. But worship on Saturdays is just a big red flag right from the start. Bama Football is on Saturday, so I looked for a Sunday church. Plus the fact that Saturday worship is so important that sinning against it meant going to hell. I thought it was a little early for that!

Mormons seemed pretty cool, but the meeting put me to sleep. Funeral home ambience is the closest I can get to an accurate description. If that is the requirement for conviction, I just don’t have the stamina. Wow they cry a lot.

So many people are becoming Muslim these days I thought I’d give that a quick look. I signed up and got a free monogrammed prayer rug for my five a day devotional prayers. Sounded pretty cool, but highly impractical as a teacher. Word got out to the parents that I would drop and pray during class time and later that week I attended the longest school board meeting in the history of school board meetings. A hot topic for sure, was the kids didn’t know what the hell was going on. Two of them stopped, dropped, and rolled, and 9 of them got under the desks for earthquake drill. And I learned too, that we live in a Christian community and carrying a Janbiya to school is a nono. I didn’t know there was a difference being all children of Abraham. But wow! I did manage to keep my job though.

Unification Church sounded pretty cool. I mean, who doesn’t want to be unified? I went to the first meeting and they took my phone and I spent three days in a locked conference room with little food and no contact with the outside world. I learned some cool chants and was able to “send out” and “receive” a fair amount of love and actually got to act it out. The “insertion” part was cool. There was a calm aura all around. The Handkerchiefs, Holy Garments and Holy Water thing was weird. I can’t throw it away! Where do I keep this shit? When I got done for the weekend I felt like I’d been spiritually flattened and needed to check into a rehab somewhere. I still haven’t told my wife where I was.

So I guess the search continues. Next week I check out Assemblies of God to see if I can get rid of this limp, and then I’m doing the Jehovahs Witness. Hoping to get in on the “144,000” thing. I wonder if I get a special poker chip or something to save my spot? I am hesitant to go into a building with no windows though.

33,995 Christian denominations and 37,000,000 others to go. That shouldn’t take too long since they all claim they’re right.