Welcome back, 70s. These days I try to keep things very simple: love God, and love my fellow human beings as best I can. I have friends of various theological stripes; we can AGREE to differ (very unWay-like!).
It is good to question what you hear; there's a lot of rubbish in churches, sounds good, doesn't seem to have any Biblical support or (so far as I understand) has a chunk of what might have been Biblical support, missing. Modern songs are rather wacky and there are some I walk out on, "needing to have a toilet stop" or some such.
When I first really started to get my mind back, I attended a local Bible school which was once a week for a year; some bits were interesting, some very strange. I discussed some of those ideas with the vicar in my church and he poo-poo'd the ideas too, which gave me confidence.
Slowly examining your beliefs is a good thing. I love rummaging around in a selection of Bibles for a decent answer. I'm happy to change my mind if I can see Biblical support for something. Church liturgy and tradition leave me cold though I accept there is a place for ritual, tradition, etc as long as it doesn't take the place of what it represents.
It's good to keep checking, too; we all come to it with a set of biases (Wayfers worse than most churchy people) and as we grow and develop our understanding, some of our other beliefs may change too.
Do please share if there is anything in particular that you've learned, that might help someone else here.
Hi Ex70sH, I really appreciate the honesty in your post. And I can relate to what you said about coming to Grease Spot to read of the struggles of others. When it comes to my beliefs I have to admit there’s so much in a state of flux – but as weird as it sounds that’s something I’ve grown accustomed to.
I’m a technician by trade – old school variety – and work with wires and components, programs and checklists – so I’m more of a basic nuts and bolts / hardware technician. If you ask me – I think it takes a lot of faith to work in IT and I’m just not cut out for that. I know just enough IT stuff to get by in the work that I do and on occasion have joked with some coworkers that the operating system of my laptop is Magic – just because there’s so much going on in the background and it becomes too much for me to track and understand. I don’t get into studying theology as much as I used to – for the same reason. There’s so much to track and try to understand.
It’s so true what Twinky said about we all have a set of biases. I enjoy checking out Grease Spot for the variety of perspectives. I’m a Christian but there’s an awful lot of questions in my head concerning the faith. But after leaving TWI I no longer get hung up in seeking answers to everything. I strive to be a good technician and sometimes feel I have to triple-check and even quadruple-check some aspect of a project I’m working on – might even call on another tech to check my work. But still things fail…wear out…break…$hit happens…can you tell I tend to think there’s nothing perfect in this life…so we just do the best we can…this might disappoint some folks – but I no longer have this goal of understanding the Bible to the nth degree; I’m really on a pragmatic kick now and often that’s what draws me to Grease Spot. I love to hear what others are doing, thinking, and feeling since they left TWI. Life’s journey is now my overarching project and I enjoy swapping notes with others.
I think we all struggle with what we should believe.
A friend of mine on social media posted this quote from Paulo Coelho, a famous Brazilian author. To me it fits this struggle....
"None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are."
I think we all struggle with what we should believe.
A friend of mine on social media posted this quote from Paulo Coelho, a famous Brazilian author. To me it fits this struggle....
"None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are."
Paulo Coelho
Intriguing insight... I would only caution that it doesn't preclude studying history, even our cult history, to understand it more as life today goes on.
Intriguing insight... I would only caution that it doesn't preclude studying history, even our cult history, to understand it more as life today goes on.
Totally. In fact studying history such as ours make us less doomed to repeat it ;) For me it is necessary to close the cycles.
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Twinky
Welcome back, 70s. These days I try to keep things very simple: love God, and love my fellow human beings as best I can. I have friends of various theological stripes; we can AGREE to differ (very unWay-like!).
It is good to question what you hear; there's a lot of rubbish in churches, sounds good, doesn't seem to have any Biblical support or (so far as I understand) has a chunk of what might have been Biblical support, missing. Modern songs are rather wacky and there are some I walk out on, "needing to have a toilet stop" or some such.
When I first really started to get my mind back, I attended a local Bible school which was once a week for a year; some bits were interesting, some very strange. I discussed some of those ideas with the vicar in my church and he poo-poo'd the ideas too, which gave me confidence.
Slowly examining your beliefs is a good thing. I love rummaging around in a selection of Bibles for a decent answer. I'm happy to change my mind if I can see Biblical support for something. Church liturgy and tradition leave me cold though I accept there is a place for ritual, tradition, etc as long as it doesn't take the place of what it represents.
It's good to keep checking, too; we all come to it with a set of biases (Wayfers worse than most churchy people) and as we grow and develop our understanding, some of our other beliefs may change too.
Do please share if there is anything in particular that you've learned, that might help someone else here.
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T-Bone
Hi Ex70sH, I really appreciate the honesty in your post. And I can relate to what you said about coming to Grease Spot to read of the struggles of others. When it comes to my beliefs I have to admit there’s so much in a state of flux – but as weird as it sounds that’s something I’ve grown accustomed to.
I’m a technician by trade – old school variety – and work with wires and components, programs and checklists – so I’m more of a basic nuts and bolts / hardware technician. If you ask me – I think it takes a lot of faith to work in IT
and I’m just not cut out for that. I know just enough IT stuff to get by in the work that I do and on occasion have joked with some coworkers that the operating system of my laptop is Magic – just because there’s so much going on in the background and it becomes too much for me to track and understand. I don’t get into studying theology as much as I used to – for the same reason. There’s so much to track and try to understand.
It’s so true what Twinky said about we all have a set of biases. I enjoy checking out Grease Spot for the variety of perspectives. I’m a Christian but there’s an awful lot of questions in my head concerning the faith. But after leaving TWI I no longer get hung up in seeking answers to everything. I strive to be a good technician and sometimes feel I have to triple-check and even quadruple-check some aspect of a project I’m working on – might even call on another tech to check my work. But still things fail…wear out…break…$hit happens…can you tell I tend to think there’s nothing perfect in this life…so we just do the best we can…this might disappoint some folks – but I no longer have this goal of understanding the Bible to the nth degree; I’m really on a pragmatic kick now and often that’s what draws me to Grease Spot. I love to hear what others are doing, thinking, and feeling since they left TWI. Life’s journey is now my overarching project and I enjoy swapping notes with others.
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chockfull
I think we all struggle with what we should believe.
A friend of mine on social media posted this quote from Paulo Coelho, a famous Brazilian author. To me it fits this struggle....
"None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are."
Paulo Coelho
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Rocky
Intriguing insight... I would only caution that it doesn't preclude studying history, even our cult history, to understand it more as life today goes on.
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chockfull
Totally. In fact studying history such as ours make us less doomed to repeat it ;) For me it is necessary to close the cycles.
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