PLEASE DO QUESTION IT.
Questioning the purpose of belief in God is a very healthy pastime; especially for young people right across the world.
It is essential to enquire, consider it a pre-requisite for your life and put it way up on your list of priorities, even at the top, above celebrities; above chart-toppers. Let’s face it, all else follows behind if we’re true to ourselves, it has been my experience that we are all dissuaded or distracted from this very basic priority from an early age, usually because our peers have no answers, or cannot be bothered.
It does not rear its head until usually a life-threatening moment, a loss of a loved one, or approaching old ae. Of course its human nature at work, we do not heed the call sometimes till we need too, till we have a life issue staring us in the eyes. Why wait?
The Story of a Prince
It reminds me of a story I read many years ago, the story of a Prince. Like many stories handed down through time we are not supposed to take the story itself as paramount, we have to glean the meaning, It does not change, time does not touch it, a classic above all classics. It is a bit like listening to Otis Reading singing “Sitting on the dock of the bay” timeless, even though he is gone, the song lives on, it is okay; I won’t explain why that song is relevant, it would take up four pages.
The story, in a nutshell, is about a prince who was born into a noble family; he was never allowed to leave the palace where he was born, protected from seeing the reality of life outside. He had no idea that people got sick, or even died. He had no idea that some people had no food or struggled every day to live. He never saw suffering, till one day when he was a teen he disobeyed his father and climbs over the palace walls at a secret location, he walked into the nearest village, boy was he in for a shock!
I will not tell the whole story here, suffice to say the effect on the prince was tenfold when he saw sick and dying people. This story is relevant even in 2009 and beyond., for like some of Shakespeare’s writing gives us a mind blazing clue to our own life, in the here and now, some of the works of the bard will never age, even though he himself has gone.
Basically the story tells us that we should not distract ourselves from the realities of life, moreover we should face the fact that we are transient, if you have lived but a few years you would have already noticed some disturbing anomalies going on around you, we do not dwell on it and devise ways to distract ourselves.
I never followed a religion or took up an ism of any kind, for I saw what they have done, how they have twisted and turned it, till it was on its head, killed in its name, made money from it, subjugated whole societies in its name., but I will not criticize those that take up the Bible or Koran or any type of religion, to me it is a trade-off, good does come from it, that is how we stepped out of the dark ages into the so-called humanitarian societies. We would be in a sorry state without great religious works. I am well aware of extremists but I will not be discussing that here.
We are supposed to leave behind those dark and violent times of the past when human life was valued only by its worth in gain.
The problem is we never really left behind the violence of the past, we dressed it up in a new gown, we learned how to use stealth and bureaucracy to do the same job, and only more tidy, with less conscience.
Questioning the purpose of belief in God is a personal journey; a lonely and fraught trip down a long bumpy track to the center of your life, it’s not every body’s cup of tea, there is a chance that you will be asked to lose something dear to you, but the price is well worth paying because the revelation is not as you imagined it to be. If you were to pile up all the diamonds and gold in the world and measure it against what happens to a person when they are confronted with the truth. I am afraid the gold and diamonds would not even begin to touch the very bottom of the pile.
Imagine yourself as a blackboard; most of your life has been chalked in for you, written on by others, by your peers and parents, teachers etc. nothing original there. You are history, the past.
We all applaud someone that comes up with something perceived as original, a song, a design; even a thought process. Sometimes we criticize or as for Charles Darwin become divided and shocked. For the mind to be free from shackles of the past is not easy. Takes true grit.
To understand what God is up too, why he stands by and watches with a perceived disinterest or caring is because we perceive god in a personal way, nothing wrong with that for it is a great springboard to delve into it. We must not be afraid to push back the boundaries to it, have the courage and even wipe away at your blackboard. Do not be afraid to write gibberish if you feel inclined too.
The main thing is you write it yourself, because once you take up the challenge yourself the old past will be scared of you. Will tremble in its boots. It will be afraid that you will discover something truly you.
Imagine an artist wakes up one day to a huge blank canvas, where will he start, where is the inspiration going to come from? I have read stories that some artists have a fear of a blank canvas when they have a block. Like a writer block. The expression is one of the most beautiful and scrummy dishes that we possess innately, intuitively without prejudice or distinction? There is a clue? Ask yourself where this most wonderful of experiences come from originally? Did Simon Cowell invent it? Did they discover it deep in an archaeological dig on the African continent? The answer has to be a resounding NO. It is here and now. For every human being without prejudice.
All this gives us a clue to our origin, I am not talking about our physical makeup or sexual orientation, as we are getting back to basics, take the 1st smile on a babies face to his loving mother, the sound of a child’s laughter rings like some magical music, I will not elaborate anymore suffice to say that the physical world around you is littered with clues.
To hear, or see something truly original is something that stirs deep within us, it can make us cry, grown men can be brought down to their knees, and it can inspire us. Then you ask me. ” But where is God”. Makes me smile when I answer. Where do you think he is, do you think he is buried in an archaeological dig in Africa?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knw1IIZbcYc
