He is Risen?

I remember back in church, we used to ask one another:

"He is risen?"

"He is risen, indeed."

I think I find myself still in that questioning state.  Not because I do or don't believe that Christ rose from the dead.  Frankly, I think the physical is often less important than the symbolic.  Sure, most will disagree with me, but the symbolic message of someone conquering death and conquering "sin" is way more vital to me than the fact or fiction of a given testament.  I don't mean to demean the religious importance of having Christ raise from the dead, but at the same time, the act of belief means that there is some uncertainty no matter what.

In church today, the comparison was used that we don't "see thoughts", but we "know they exists just like we don't "see God" but "know he exists" (I would prefer s/he, but it would be misquoting the analogy).  However, I realized that I don't know that thoughts really exist.  However, I do know that the idea of a thought exists, and its significance is not in my knowledge of it by my understanding of it.  I understand thoughts to be profound ways that human beings compute with their brain cells daily activity.  Do I know for sure that this is actually what a thought is?  No.  In fact, someone way more scientific then I would actually try to describe it in its intricate details, in a way that somewhat can be seen.   I am starting to feel the same way about Christ.  I can't say anymore that I am a Christian by any means.  At least mainly because my understanding of what it means to be a Christian is to believe with your whole heart, mind, and soul that Christ died for your sins and you must accept that in order to get the "key" to enter heaven's gates (I could have another side tangent about that but will save it for another day).  What I can say is that the idea of Christ and his resurrection is something that moves and inspires me.  Someone who sacrificed their life and made a payment so that we could live is beautiful.  This is simplifying even the symbolic nature of Christ's death and why he died, but I wish that at this Easter service I could have learned or discussed or simply been allowed to truly ponder what the story of Christ really means.  Instead, I was given an ultimatum, another bipolar extreme.  "You either believe that Christ died for your sins and accept that or you get the fires of hell."  This bipolar extreme is so madly uncomfortable to me, and in that discomfort stems a hope that none of it is real.  I should say it is more than a hope now.  I believe it is not real.  Why?

Life seems so much more than a pair of bipolar opposites.  We are not just male or female, white or black, short or tall.  We are a spectrum of beauty that I can't even begin to describe.  This is why the idea of God to me could never simply be about a choice or a belief that decides heaven and hell, saved or not saved, in or out.  I believe that life is to intricate and to varied for such an ultimatum to be true.  And just like a thought or Christianity's belief in God, I do not see this necessarily, but the idea of it is something that shapes and falls in line more with my understanding of life.

Turning Over A New Leaf

A lot of times, my moment's of "Turning Over a New Leaf" are started by me falling for someone who ends up not falling for me in return.  However, since my emotions are left wide open to the world, rather than leaving them heartbroken, I let them grasp on to the rest of the things in the world (that probably far better deserve my emotional attention).  I thought this was going to happen a month ago, but to my surprise, I somehow became more apathetic.

I usually take a break from dating once I have put my heart out there and gotten no response.  It allows me time to to heal, but it also allows me time to focus and recuperate from the experience.  Usually, I feel pretty stupid for falling for someone so quickly anyways, that I feel the break is necessary to get me back to sanity.

When I went to take a break in March, rather than getting back to sanity, I feel like I lost it even more.  I normally jump into productive mode and start trying to figure out how I can work harder, better, faster, and stronger than I ever have before, but this time, I felt incredibly exhausted and even more shut off than I had in the past.  I was tired of trying to find someone to love, tired of trying to find someway to be useful in working against so many corrupt systems, tired of giving into the systems themselves, and tired of also trying to fit into a mold of "good living" that I had created.  So, I tried to go back to a normal world.  I didn't overwork, I went right back into dating, and I pretty much just tried to live and let live.

Well, not really to any surprise of mine, I fell for someone else, and I have found myself back in the conundrum of choosing how to deal with it.  I am not as tired this time, but I am confused.  Confused at how numb I am beginning to feel.  Sometimes, the numbness is helpful as it gives me a peace of mind and normality to my life that I have not really had.  It allows me to just be and to live simply.  Like everyone else.  On the opposite end, the numbness causes me to become a type of person that I don't want to be.  I have always desired that no matter where my life leads me, I never want to be numb.  I want my mind and heart to always remember my human state, but I have also wanted to continue to be led by hope that being human doesn't just mean being stuck.  Being human means life, and within life is given the great opportunity to choose to love and be different.  I hate the idea that human beings are just somehow supposed to get through these "troubled" or "dark" times and wait until some heroic figure (the divine) comes and takes us to a promised perfection.  Rather, I hope for an idea that says human beings were gifted with more than just the "knowledge of good and evil".  They were also gifted with the ability to choose between the good and evil.  I hope that within each of us, there is a love that someday will find its way at the center of every system.  I want humanity to progress.  I want us to get better.  I want us to love more.  I want us to hope for the best.  I want us to become nonviolent.  I want us to live in peace.  And most of all, I want to believe that these things can happen for the human race.  I don't want it to be something that comes after a "rapture" or the "end of the world".  I want it to grow continually within us.  I want our children to see a better day and our grandchildren to see an even better day.  Sure, there will be step backs, and maybe that future will never be fully perfect.  However, I want to believe that it is truly good and not something to be feared.

Spirit, soul, and mind, please do not be numb.  Rather, please be alive and full of hope.  Believe in goodness and pursue it daily.  Believe in love and live it out fully.  Believe in everyone no matter who and how hard.  Hope, and do no let hope die.

Profit and Nonprofit

As I have been attempting to push a fundraiser for the Nonprofit I volunteer for, I find myself more and more taken aback at the Nonprofit Model.  Here we are, a small organization attempting to do humanitarian work having to beg for money from a community that is already primarily low-income. Our other option is to beg money from very rich donors and asking that they scoop down and help us, as sort of philanthropic saviors.  When really, I think the idea of being "rich" is already giving into a system that I disagree with.  

Here is why, and for the first time I am beginning to fully understand my very basic socialist ideas.  We say that we wouldn't mind being "wealthy" or "rich", because we could finally use our money for "good" and not "evil".   Yet, the very act of acquiring wealth and then giving it to those who don't have is an act of "salvation" and feeding into a "savior" complex, which I think, although can create some good, is in the long run destructive.  Why?  It still gives into a hierarchy that says "I (the rich person) am on top and you (the poor person) am below".  A rich person may not idealistically agree with the hierarchy concept, but systematically, it is impossible to get rid of that hierarchy, and so, although personal ideologies of rich people may be good-natured, the very fact that they are rich and other people are not will always be a system of socioeconomic injustice.

What this has to do with Nonprofits?  Nonprofits in America can only survive and be sustained off of large donations from rich people.  Which means, nonprofits (although doing tons of good in the world) are still feeding into a system of socioeconomic injustice.

I know I am probably missing lots of arguments for working in the here and now with the system we have, but at the same time, I am really questioning my adherence to such a system that even allows there to be a difference to be profit and nonprofit.  Why?  Just the nature of profit vs. nonprofit fits into a capitalist mold that I don't agree with.  Rather, I think all organizations should be not-for-fiscal-profit but for-humanitarian-profit.  Our work, whatever we do, should always be for the benefit of humanity.  Serving coffee and providing food at a grocery store should never be about how much money we can get or "profit" we should accumulate but about how best we can provide and serve our fellow humans.  Of course, this would only be okay though in a system where people are paid living wages for the work that they do and not in such a competitive environment that forces "service" jobs to be unsustainable.