wham

i once had such romantic visions of what life should be. Life should be learning how to make a fiddle from an old Firefox Series book. Life should be a wife and kids. Life should be the quiet of Springy piedmonts and dilapidated barns. Life should be big tables and big meals. Life should be dancing and more dancing.

I was reading the last chapter of the cookbook "Raw Food Gourmet" - sort of my last contemplation on the matter. The name of the chapter is "Raw Spirituality".....and by the end of the first paragraph I realized this woman is totally deceived. In essence, her brand of raw fooding (to acheive less toxic distraction to get closer to God) is a religion unto itself. The Raw Food religion. Where staying raw is the tribulation. Where one is purified by what goes into their mouths. Then I realized this is not so uncommon. In fact, man was designed to do these sorts of things - to seek for Truth in the wrong places. To think something is truth when it is a lie.

All I could feel after reading this woman's heartfelt and genuine expression of how raw food is a responsible spiritual decision was great sadness.

But then again, those Springy piedmonts and those bright-eyed frolics only coerce sadness, too nowadays. Not the earlier excitement, deep-seated contentment. Not the previous feelings of being vivified.

King Solomon says so many times that it is all meaningless. And I can't help but agree. The more I see how blind I am, the more I see how ALL OF THIS has nothing to do with this. All of this has everything to do with the things of the Spirit. All of my physical dependencies, my exterior idols, my strong attachments to the "things of this world" are beginning to rise to the surface. This sadness I feel is, honestly, the realization that I have to let go of the world and the things of it. Because in my deepest of hearts I know that to attach to the temporal is futile and meaningless.....but to strive for the things of the Spirit - THAT is what lasts. Anything else is death.

I will not find nirvana in etc. etc. etc.

Nirvana can't be what I seek.

Because Nirvana is the extinguishing of the flame because the day has come.

(right?)

Life is what I seek - a Truth which extends beyond emotion or aesthetics. I seek a Truth which I feel is only in Christ. that is what I have known in the Word of God. A Truth that latches onto me. Not the fleeting joy of some Berwald Quartet in a sunlit parlor. Not in the recognition in my best friend's face or their familiar voice. Not in my readiness to do something.