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May. 15th, 2007 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofallgeeksA friend of mine just made a post about Oprah and "the secret" -- I've no idea what that secret is, but she seemed to indicate that it had to do with "asking the Universe for what you want," and made murmurs about the old ways and druids and pagan spirituality. At some point she said something to the effect of "asking the Universe for what you want isn't bad, and I generally believe the universe intends for your needs to be met." Then she got a bit more Christian about it and likened it to praying, and how some people will suggest she "ask God" when she has a need or a problem.
I had a reply, but it didn't have much to do with the actual meat of her post -- disappointment with not getting the job she wanted -- and as she was clearly trying to be positive about the whole thing I didn't want to drop my negativity into there.
The thing is, I don't believe the Universe intends for your needs to be met. I don't think the Universe really cares much at all. Theologically-speaking I have to believe that God has our best interests in mind*, but that doesn't mean our best interests are what we think they are or what we think we want. And even at that, even if it was exactly what we want it to be, I'm not sure it's in our best interests to be handed things without effort. So it all ends up the same: I, personally, don't believe anything works to your benefit except yourself. If you don't do it, it won't get done. Other people, even with the best of intentions, can't be depended on because they have their own interests, their own needs and desires. All I can rely on is my own will.
I think this is a great personal failing. I lack practical faith. I lack any real working sense of trust -- not that I don't trust people, but that try as I might I don't depend on them. I don't expect them to disappoint me, and I certainly don't expect them to act against me, but... I don't depend on them. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. And my faith in God is equally as weak, equally as deistic. The Great Clockmaker, who created reality and set it to run by it's own intrinsic laws. Add to that the fact that I don't believe that this world is the sum of existence, and that my faith gives no assurances that we are to be happy in this life... It can get to be a pretty bleak outlook.
I don't know how I came to operate this way. The World was often a hostile place when I was a kid -- I was picked on a lot, for example -- but I had my family, my friends, people I *could* depend on for support. And I consciously don't want this outlook. It's just an attitude I've observed, an internal mechanism.
*By 'have to' here some may imagine I mean "I am bound by the religious organization and society which I have associated myself with," imagining perhaps that I believe this not by my own will but by some ind of blind adherence to doctrine. This is not the case, and I hope none of you would be in the group to assume it was; I hope you know me better. Rather, here I mean 'have to' in that the alternative is simply unbearable -- if God isn't benevolent, if He is uncaring or, worse, the evil Genius of Descartes' imagination, what hope am I left with? In a wholly-uncaring or malicious world, what chance is there for anything good? So I have to simply because I can not bear to be so utterly alone.
I had a reply, but it didn't have much to do with the actual meat of her post -- disappointment with not getting the job she wanted -- and as she was clearly trying to be positive about the whole thing I didn't want to drop my negativity into there.
The thing is, I don't believe the Universe intends for your needs to be met. I don't think the Universe really cares much at all. Theologically-speaking I have to believe that God has our best interests in mind*, but that doesn't mean our best interests are what we think they are or what we think we want. And even at that, even if it was exactly what we want it to be, I'm not sure it's in our best interests to be handed things without effort. So it all ends up the same: I, personally, don't believe anything works to your benefit except yourself. If you don't do it, it won't get done. Other people, even with the best of intentions, can't be depended on because they have their own interests, their own needs and desires. All I can rely on is my own will.
I think this is a great personal failing. I lack practical faith. I lack any real working sense of trust -- not that I don't trust people, but that try as I might I don't depend on them. I don't expect them to disappoint me, and I certainly don't expect them to act against me, but... I don't depend on them. If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. And my faith in God is equally as weak, equally as deistic. The Great Clockmaker, who created reality and set it to run by it's own intrinsic laws. Add to that the fact that I don't believe that this world is the sum of existence, and that my faith gives no assurances that we are to be happy in this life... It can get to be a pretty bleak outlook.
I don't know how I came to operate this way. The World was often a hostile place when I was a kid -- I was picked on a lot, for example -- but I had my family, my friends, people I *could* depend on for support. And I consciously don't want this outlook. It's just an attitude I've observed, an internal mechanism.
*By 'have to' here some may imagine I mean "I am bound by the religious organization and society which I have associated myself with," imagining perhaps that I believe this not by my own will but by some ind of blind adherence to doctrine. This is not the case, and I hope none of you would be in the group to assume it was; I hope you know me better. Rather, here I mean 'have to' in that the alternative is simply unbearable -- if God isn't benevolent, if He is uncaring or, worse, the evil Genius of Descartes' imagination, what hope am I left with? In a wholly-uncaring or malicious world, what chance is there for anything good? So I have to simply because I can not bear to be so utterly alone.
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Date: 2007-05-16 07:10 am (UTC)One of the great quests of transitioning from the worldly to the spiritual man is submission to the will and superior knowledge of God... to be willing, in our extremity (as Christ did in his) or (even harder) in comfort to be able to call upon him for help and honestly tell the Lord "nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."
Y'know, believing in God's pretty easy. Trusting in him to actually take action in our behalf, or even just believing what he says... that's much harder.
*paraphrase alert!