A Reason To Live

What is a reason to live? My only answer is eternity. I do not know what to say to other people though. I am content living the way I live and I am happy. So if there is no eternity I am better off living how I live anyway if happiness is the goal (and that seems to be the common goal if eternity is denied. Though some have come to the conclusion that all that matters is pain and the point of life is to suffer as much pain as possible (or at least as one can bear). Hurt). When I used to seek pleasure I was always miserable when I attained it and also when I lacked it, so that was not the way for me. I am content living peacefully in a small way. As an insignificant nobody. I am not on the street though. If I were on the street it might make me miserable. But it has not yet come to that. I am calm and am not being tortured. I do not yet know how to be happy while being tortured, I only know I am happy at rest.

Sometimes I think how my life would be better if I had a wife. But I know that I am not capable of that so it is better not to worry about it. Be at peace with silence. I feel at peace with the world, with God, with everything. I feel a great joy looking at the birds and looking at the clouds (for I remember a time when the clouds were angry at me) though the sensual pleasure is not as great. Pleasure is a momentary rush which ebbs and flows, but joy and peace are lasting. And significant. I can not live for pleasure like the rats in the cage. That is madness, but I can live for joy.

I want to be like a little child, before he has lost his innocence. I try. I have done so many bad things, but now I try to be good. I am as innocent as a guilty man can be. The blood on my hands is mingled with the blood of Christ. My blood-stained hands. The one stains, the other cleans. Like bleach. I do not want to sound arrogant. I am such a backward person. My thoughts belong at least a hundred and fifty years ago, but could only exist in the age of the internet. I am a man of the twenty-first century and a man of the fourth century at the same time. I told my father tonight that if I was not crazy I would want to join a monastery. This was after telling my father that I had just read an article and if what was in it was true that Thomas Merton was a bad monk and that now I did not want to read Seven Story Mountain, the book that he got me and my father told me that I was taking it too serious (as if I was crazy for judging a man on his sexual morals and his treatment of his fellow monks, as if to say all men are sexual and moral perverts).

Is everyone as perverse as they seem? I know I was, but is everyone really? I read a study that said that ninety-eight percent of grown men watch pornography (in the first world, or perhaps just in America). Is that true? That includes those in relationships and marriages. Am I alone like a lamb bleating in the desert for his keeper? Sometimes the mother come. And sometimes the wolf. I cry out. He sayeth "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me. As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep." I think good of everyone, but I fear that everyone else is either a goat or a wolf. Are you a wolf? I know we are meant to be as wise as serpents, but we are also meant to be as simple as doves, to become like little children. Are little children wise? They know nothing, but cry out "Abba". Father. I do not think dirty thoughts. My mind is clean. I hope everyone is like this, but I come across so much filth in the world. As Dostoevsky wrote in his greatest novel, Alyosha was pure and innocent and was afraid of dirty talk and the little schoolboys (children of eight or nine) learned this and would talk dirty around him and when he would cover his ears they would force his hands down and shout obscenities into his ears. I am like Alyosha, honestly, except I have more knowledge of the filth that so offended his pure ears. As far as I know when I was a child, my mother never held me up to an icon of the Theotokos as my father was tormenting her and in a mix of hope and despair prayed to her and asked her to protect me. The crazy saint. I spend most of my time thinking about the good God and the faith and religious things. But sometimes I go out of the cloister and into the world. And I read about the world and about politics. I am as far to the right socially as nearly anyone, but I despise libertarian economics as well as communism, so I do not know exactly where I stand economically as far as politics go. But I think social issues are more important, with abortion at the top, so I would vote for Republican candidates as being more against abortion as the lesser of two evils. But when I read about politics I am far too often scandalized. People are filthy. The talk about sexual perversions is everywhere and seen as normal. It is more common to find a woman of age who is into BDSM than one who admits to being a virgin. I know I am not a virgin, but that was because I was raised as a child of unbelief and only came to take religion seriously in my mid-twenties after some time stewing in a mess of perversions. So I guess I should lower my standards from a virgin, to a woman who is no longer a whore or a sexual pervert.

Robert at The Rose of Paracelsus posted a quote from a famous moral theology manual which tries to normalize sodomy and say it is not sinful as long as . . . you can guess, but it is literally filthy. He did not know at the time of making the post that I was aware of that quote and it is of everything that I have ever read from anyone in the Church who was not commonly considered a heretic, the most disgusting and vile thing I have ever read and the thing I am disgusted by more than any other teaching of any commonly respected theologian who ever lived. And a lot of priests read that and accept it as good and true and moral (including sedevacantists!) There are some scandalous things taught be theologians but that is the worst I am aware of (Other theologians teach differently but this man was respected). It makes me want to retreat into a bubble and read only about the desert fathers who would not as much as look at a woman fully clothed. Men who I am sure are in heaven, rather than think about men who endorse "imperfect sodomy" as not sodomy, and not even a sin. Men who if I had to guess would say they are in the other place.

I am not going to call all men to believe. I call on them, but I understand if they do not. But I will call all men to live their lives as if they did believe, especially when it comes to seeking sensual pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. I only know from my own life. But seeking sensual pleasure was for me the greatest cause of anxiety and misery in my life and rejecting pleasure and learning to live without it has caused the opposite, a lasting peace. It has come to the point where the more sensual pleasure I avoid, the more peace I have. There are two components of peace working in my life. The belief that I am at peace with God, through repentance and confession and penance, which one can accept or reject (I wish all to accept it, but I know that many will reject it as mindless superstition). And the end of the slavery to sensual pleasure, which I believe will give many a real peace, even if they are not Christians. Most children are happy unless they are abused, and when they become more corrupted they become more miserable. The more they learn of sin the more unhappy they get. I believe the baptized are at peace with God but the unbaptized are also happier than they become when their innocence is lost. So I advise all men to try to regain that innocence. One can not unlearn what one has learned about sin, but one can end its mastery over one's soul. One can end the addiction. Every sensual pleasure is a drug and once it is kicked one will be happier without it that with it. The lack of all sensual pleasure paradoxically creates the greatest joy in the soul. I speak of pleasure as sensual delight. And with the suppression of sensual pleasure comes a greater spiritual pleasure which is not as high at a peak but sustained and persistent. And one can move the perverse things that one has learned from the front and center of one's mind and instead of them being the reason for one's living, instead make them silly shameful things that one used to do but has grown wiser than.

I tell myself I want to learn how to be happy when I suffer and am in pain. I do not have enough practice. I am not being abused and I am not ill, so I do not know how to practice suffering. I do not want to be violent to my own body. The most I have done is fasting. I am not fasting now, but I plan to take it up heavily for Lent this year. One meal and one cup of coffee would be a good goal. I would probably have to keep myself going with tea though, at least at first.

But what is a reason to live? God alone is all that matters to me. That is one thing I cannot overcome. All that matters in the end is God. My weakness is that I cannot imagine a world without God. I can imagine different Gods and different religions, but I cannot imagine no God. And with a God, I cannot get around the immortality of the soul. Sentience must be paired with immortality, otherwise it is a cruel joke or a complete waste of time. If one might think that eternal damnation is unfair, a thought which I can understand, I cannot but think that it is necessary for the world to have any purpose. Somehow in the mind of God it was acceptable to let many souls fall into eternal hellfire. I believe this, though I am not at the point where I do not wish that it were not so.

As frightening as the reality of hell is, as happy as the thought of heaven is. To imagine unending bliss without any more suffering. A crown of glory given to those who carry their cross. One can not speak much about heaven without sounding presumptuous or shallow. But the thought of it brings joy to the soul. If we have the pleasure of the joy of watching the sparrows chatter or the mourning doves coo, imagine if we have these joys and greater joys that never end but only increase as the time goes by and every moment of one's life is seen as a stepping stone towards such joy. Not pleasure, but joy. I see heaven as an eternity of joy and not an eternity of pleasure. If this makes sense, perhaps there will be pleasure as well, but the central happiness is joy. I think many see heaven as eternal pleasure, as if it is sleeping with a new beautiful virgin every night forever and ever. If there is anything as shallow and dirty as sexual intercourse in heaven I will be slightly disappointed. For if I were in heaven I would prefer to touch a woman's hand and look into her eyes and smile and that is enough. To gaze at the pure soul of Gemma for just a moment, or forever and ever, with the beauty of God in her face, no less than to look at the face of God himself. I can not speak of heaven. It is not filthy, it is the smile of a virgin, not the sighs of a fallen whore. Of what use is a virgin if all she is for is the destruction of her virginity?

There is someone who has lost her will to live. I have nothing to say to her. I do not know what to say. I would advise her to enter into the great silence. Into the great silence. And leave the world behind. There is no beauty left in the world. It is fallen. The only beauty left does not belong to the world as of herself, but is only that within the world that points to God. The beauty is the beauty of God Himself and how he is reflected in His creatures.

What does one see when one adores the Blessed Sacrament. One sees a little bread. But in the quiet of the night God is truly there looking back at you from the monstrance and if you ask Him to help you He will help you transform into a better person. He will give you peace, even in your suffering. Maybe I speak too broadly, I can only speak of myself. I would spend hours a day looking at Jesus if I could. Saying prayers and asking him what I always ask of him "Oh Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine heart". I do not know if I am sounding arrogant. I want to be innocent. Jesus was innocent and more pure than snow, yet He knew everything there is to know of sin, but was still innocent. I know a little, and the Lord knows I know only a little. As wicked as I was, when I venture out into the world I see depravity that makes my own depravity seem tame. But I sound like I think I am better than other people. What is one to do? If one believes one is at peace with God? What of others who do not share your religion and are therefore not at peace with God? His blood. Sprinkle it upon us and upon our children.

I am a glutton. I eat too much food and drink too much coffee. It is not making me unhappy, but I would be better off if I were more penitent. I may not have the will until Lent. I should go back to my rice and lentil diet with one egg. That would be a good way to live. I am looking forward to Lent. I want to be good. And temperance makes me happier, even though all men are drawn to be slaves to their desires. So that is my reason to live.