Kenny and Jocelyn: Our Conversation on Our Beliefs, Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I want to share something very special with you. It is the continuation of a conversation that Kenny and I have been having over myspace. Each of us takes several day to compose our letters, but they are worth the work, because we ultimately end up understanding ourselves, our beliefs, and our universe better. It is important that you put this section of our conversation into it´s proper context. Kenny and I have already established that we both believe that god is love. We come from different religious/spiritual backgrounds but we have much in common. If you want to dive right into my latest response, skip to the black font at the bottom of this entry. To better understand mine and Kenny´s foundation of beliefs, keep reading!

MY PREVIOUS RESPONSE: "I do not consider myself religious (since I follow no exact doctrine) but I am incredibly spiritual. I believe that love is the ultimate goal that we are all searching for. I belive that the means of achieving this goal is through your mind. I believe that my thoughts are my reality (not my senses or the material from which I am made). I believe that through constant focus on positivity, one can create a world around them that is magnificent to behold! Thus, I am training myself to relax and emmanate love to that the universe can reciprocate this love and bring me closer to a place of infinite truth and happiness. I believe that every religion embraces these basic concepts: the ultimate perfection which is around us, within us, the epitome of love. Some call it god. I believe that every religion also has a name for the attainment of this perfection within yourself: heaven, nirvana, etc."

SELECTIVE PARTS OF KENNY´S RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE: "What is God to me? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that God is love. God is my Father (not in the literal sense but in the spiritual sense); He is the Creator of all things, and He desires to have relationship with us. This is what I believe God is. Now one might say that I am making God out to what I want Him to be but that is far from the truth. He is to me what is said in His Word, the Bible, and the Bible also talks about judgment on me for my sin, my wrongdoings against God. If God is love then why would He punish me? Why would God who is love punish someone that He loves? Because God can not have anything to do with sin and I am a sinful and wicked man. How do we correct our relationship with God? Wouldn't God give me a way to try and reconcile myself with Him? This is where Christ comes in. Christ is the Son of God sent as a holy sacrifice for my sins. Because Jesus Christ and God loved me so much, Christ was willing to die so that I can have a right relationship with God. Christ is the one I follow, and I give my life completely to Him. I must be an idiot because I am following someone who is dead, but Christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. My goal is to follow Christ and to die to myself and devote my life totally to Him. It is a continuious work that I am not even close to completing. Christ had true love (love being to me what I quoted a couple messages ago), so when I become like Him, I have love in the center of my life. [...] The last thing I want to say before I end this long message, :), is that I don't want what I believe in, to become a "religion" in the sense that I get stuck in routine I do at certain points in the week. I want this to be a lifestyle for I believe that this is truth and not some "religion"."

THE LATEST MESSAGE: ¨Why would God who is love punish someone that He loves? Because God can not have anything to do with sin and I am a sinful and wicked man.¨ First of all, what do you mean by “sinful” and “wicked?” To me, those sound awfully harsh applied to yourself and the general human race. Do you mean that you do bad things? That you ere from what is right, from what is god, from what is love? If this is the case, then I agree; to ere is human. Second, by “punish,” do you mean that everything you give you get? That the universe –a broader version of god- responds to your actions with more of the same? As in, you hurt someone and the universe repays you with pain? That you give pure, sincere love and this love is then reciprocated by the universe through the love that you receive from your friends and family? In this case, I would also agree. I guess that when it comes right down to it (assuming that we are on the same page about all of the above) is that deep down in my heart, I am trying to figure out if god is the universe. Yes, I have come to accept that god is love and that god is within everything and everyone, but love is perfect and love is pure. Love doesn’t make mistakes because it is always giving, and this giving always balances the lives of those who give it freely. Then, the dissonance in my heart comes from the negativity I find in the universe: the wars, the death, the pain, the suffering. I am trying to understand how this can come from –no, be made from- something so pure and perfect as love. But wait…perhaps this war, pain, and suffering is really good. Perhaps it is a means that the universe (god) uses to teach us the means of reaching love. Well, that makes sense: that war and suffering is actually good because it is part of our learning. But my next question is, why do we need to “learn” in the first place? Why can’t we always have had and known this perfect love. Why can’t the universe be eternally harmonious and balanced in the kingdom of love? (We are, of course, talking in a very metaphysical, un-materialistic kingdom.) Perhaps (and this is a very big, unsure perhaps) the chaotic start of the universe called for a slow “coming of order” to the universe. Perhaps we are still walking this path forward balance and harmony. That makes a lot of sense. But I detect one catch: time. I am speaking of time linearly. I have said that the universe “started” at some moment and that, ever since then, we have been walking down a path. I have been imagining it like a straight line that starts at one point (the chaotic beginning of the universe) and reaches another distant point (the final, perfect balance of all that is). Well, time isn’t quite so reliable as all that. Time is subjective: each person perceives time in his or her own way. (Think of that one day when you were having the time of your life reading or sketching when hours seemed to fly by in seconds. But when you asked your mom how her day went, she says it dragged on for an eternity with the endless cleaning and other stresses. You each perceived the same “block of time” differently –in your own personal way.) Ultimately, time is a concept –a tool- that we use to organize our thoughts; our experiences; our minds; our realities. So, really, time is not the dependable, straight line that we make it out to be. It jumps back and forth, adjusting to each persons personal needs and experiences. If time is so unreliable in day to day life, then how can it possibly rule over and be applied to the universe? How can the universe have a linear “start” and “finish” when time is only a vague concept that some life-forms use as a form of organization within it? My answer is that the universe (in it’s biggest form) is independent from time and, thus, has no start or finish. Does this blow my theory to dust? Does this mean that the universe is not walking down the path that takes us from chaos to balance? Maybe. Perhaps, instead of throwing out war and suffering as bad, love has embraced them as a balance of itself. Perhaps the oriental side of the world has it right: yin and yang, black and white, male and female, balance in everything –even a balance for love itself. But then I come back to the question, if love is everything in the universe, then how can it “balance itself?” (because if love is everything, then love is still suffering, war, and pain) Black and white are two different things, but love and love (it’s balance of war and suffering) are one and the same. Is this balance? Can something balance itself? Can love balance itself? --- Speaking of defying scientific laws, how can love give and give and give and never run out? Material things are finite, but love is infinite. If love can be an exception to one scientific law, then love can be an exception of another. In other words, yes, love can balance itself. --- This leaves me in awe of the omnipotence and “otherworldliness” of love. It defies everything. What is this love that gives and gives, and balances itself, and creates and is the universe."

:-)

What do you think?

Love,

Jocelyn