not taking my medications

There are days that I forget to take my medications or simply don't. These are the days that I wonder about true nature. I simply act different, what I'd describe as dark and evil. Could this mean that I take medicine to simply drown my anger, hate and over all the real me -- to alter my (evil) nature? Am I better off dead? Is it me being a Christian a mere farce?

all hallows' eve: the forbidden

As much as we enjoy the costumes and sweets, Hallowe'en remains as a "forbidden" celebration for Christians. It's clearly a way to act as if the occult didn't exist. Being blind to other truths -- good or bad, weird or common, godly or demonic -- hurts our understanding of humanity, religion and even our own belief system (faith).

At times, holding too tightly to a religion shows how much we're afraid of anything we don't know or understand. It's much simpler to just call something "evil" or "bad" without much of an intelligent explanation.

In all, am I a bad Christian or worse yet a bad person for liking Hallowe'en? I don't think so. Besides I can tell what's fantasy from real, what's part of my belief system from sham -- all the while respecting the beliefs of others.

At the same time, I wonder whose belief system's correct. Is it Christianity or not?

deeply in the eyes of evil

Sexual abuse, homosexuality and corruption were always the dirty secrets that everyone knew. Growing up Catholic, one had divide the good priests from the bad. Of course, for every pervert in the garbs of a priest, there's a good servant of God. Nonetheless the Catholic Church is nowadays plagued with stories of sexual abuse, pedophilia and other sexual scandals. Maybe this is the perfect scapegoat to leave Catholicism. This might be the main reason why I don't call myself a Catholic anymore. I'm a Christian plain and simple.

There's something dark and evil that I've seen in the past couple of years in the Vatican from all places. It constantly reminds me of stories of the end of times with false prophets, preachers and uttermost evil posing as good. Maybe it's all in my psychotic brain, but I can't trust the head of the Catholic Church at all. Well at the end of the day, I'm no one to be heard, but my instincts hardly ever fail me when reading a person's soul. In all, I see deeply in the eyes of evil where goodness should abide.

witchcraft

I grew up seeing and believing in witchcraft. Maybe being part Italian didn't help not believing in the occult, evil eye, spells, cleansing of spells, possession, ghosts, demons and other crap like that. Crystal balls, Tarot, oils, good luck charms, fortune telling, using the Bible for evil (witchcraft using the name of God) and something similar to voodoo were things I saw growing up. Part of family practiced several of these acts. As a matter of fact, to make matters worse, Christianity is tainted with the occult and other pagan beliefs. In several parts of the world, Christianity and witchcraft go hand in hand. The worst part of all this is that I've actually witnessed this. Maybe I was simply born evil or from evil nature.

another Sunday (08/01/2010)

This morning I woke up, dragged myself to the shower, got dressed, took my medications (8 capsules & pills), hugged my nine-year-old (little one sound asleep), left home half-awake, bought a toasted raisin bagel with cream cheese with a large coffee and took the Q32 for a 45-minute bus ride to church. It was another Sunday morning that I'd go to church to hear the Word of God and a good sermon that could feed my soul while hoping for that solace and shelter from and within God.

Today being Communion Sunday, we shared the feast of Christ (the sacrament of The Lord's Supper) -- a piece of stale bread of delicious life and droplets of grape juice from the cup of sweet salvation -- and hence felt a little closer to God. Faith can be so illogical that it can makes us doubt it.

Nonetheless it was merely another Sunday in church as I greeted my friends -- especially Charlene who starting today is now part of the staff at FAPC (master degree in divinity, but not yet called to be a pastor). As much as I come to church every Sunday, I once again feel empty inside -- lack of faith.

After service, I didn't go to coffee hour although I could've used some coffee to fully wake up. I just took the Q32 back to where I live.

Am I lying to myself? Do I have a real faith that I can hold onto (http://project05952381.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-lack-of-faith-my-mental-disease.html)? At least, it's clearly now a roller coaster going up and down in that human mystery called faith.

Maybe the question should be how much faith I've got today or any given day. In such case, I felt empty inside this morning, but little satisfied after church.

At the end of the day, faith's simply a mental state, but does my momentary (day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute) state bring me closer to God?

my lack of faith & my mental disease

Can it be that the problem with my lack of faith is really my defective brain? Maybe I think so much that I believe too little. Maybe I'm too stupid to have this illogical faith. Then again perhaps I'm too smart to believe in God enough.

In all, it's the constant battle between my brain and my soul, the demons in my head killing the angel that I might have been as a child (if ever), in other words the clash between good and evil in me. This just drives me crazy having two opposites in me killing each other every day. Sometimes there seems to be a truce and feel at peace, but this is rare.

Sometimes people ask if there's a Heaven or if there's a God. I've lived and felt the horror of hell in my flesh and mind. Hence I'm sure there's a God -- the Lord, His Word and His Kingdom. Nonetheless knowing that there's a God in Heaven doesn't mean I've got enough faith.

Maybe I know too much for my own good. Of course, I might just too little that I'm blinded. How could I even think about leading (http://project05952381.blogspot.com/2010/07/devotionals-pt-3-rock-roll-ministry.html)? I might just be to stupid to think so.

what not to do, touch, see, listen, taste, smell, feel, have sex with, etc

I still have issues trying to understand what are proper or correct things to do as a Christian -- well aside from anything that breaks the Law of Moses of course.

Some would say that horror movies are not godly correct. The same has been said about music (for example, rock & roll), art (nudes, how sick), food (pork, non Kosher/Halal filth), clothes (miniskirts, oh such horror), flesh (sex, how dirty) and probably every single thing in the cosmos (including aliens in other worlds).

Considering all this, most of the universe if not all is from the devil and will trigger our eternal damnation. That means that we're surrounded by devil music, devil art, devil food, devil clothes (Halloween costumes most likely included), devil flesh (devil in the flesh) and a devil universe/reality. This assumption is absurd as you can read especially in Genesis 1:4, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18 and 1:21.

"1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw it was good.
11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
-- Genesis 1:1-28 (KJV)

God made everything across the whole cosmos and then proclaimed it GOOD. We make things good or bad, pure or filthy. It's all in our minds and souls. Hence trying to be completely honest to ourselves and leaving our selfish prejudice aside, what's godly correct and what's not? Maybe the best answer came from a minister who told me to avoid anything that takes us away from the Light.

I guess this means that watching a gory movie with zombies and other monsters is fine as long as it doesn't affect my faith. After all that movie's merely a piece of fiction to take our minds off our problems for an hour or two (four hours in the case of Lord of the Rings) and make us laugh.

demons, hell, evil, rock n' roll

I'm watching "Iron Maiden: Flight 666" (http://www.ironmaiden.com/) and it brought up very bad memories of the PMRC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center) and ignorance. There are idiots out there who think that rock n' roll is the devil's music. These people don't seem to understand that rockers and well as geeks have a weird sense of humor. Sometimes references to demons, hell or evil are to tell a story. In the case of this Maiden documentary that I'm referring to, dark themes only tell stories and are not an excuse to worship the devil as many idiots think. This is the same band that has poetry and quotes of the Bible in the lyrics of many songs.

Most people have short term memory especially with something so trivial as music. In the late 1980's, the PMRC was an excuse for bored wives of politicians to criticize music and feed clueless parents and society that the music their children listened to was diabolical and simply bad for children. This was a political stand that damaged many young Americans back then. Isn't it too much of a coincidence that the wife of a then-senator was the head of the PMRC and that senator later became vice-president of the US? If curious, do a Google search on the PMRC and its political ties.

I know that there are some bands that have satanic material, but we shouldn't allow one bad apple rot the whole bunch. Yes, I love rock n' roll as Joan Jett (http://www.joanjett.com/) says in her song. I worked in the music industry for almost a decade. Yes, there's a lot of corruption and sin, but at the same time there are a lot of true artists who love their art (music) and want to create a better world.