Take Heart!

10 days since I was able to post last. Sorry about the delay-- The beginning of this semester has been quite a bit more hectic than I had planned for.

That, and I seem to have developed romantic feelings for someone. Hoboy.

This Sunday I woke up early so I would be able to do a bit of pre-semester preparing. I was all set with a banana for breakfast as I met my parents downstairs telling me we were going to see my little sister's choir group, the Croixaliers (of which I was a member for two years).

It was a bit of an unpleasant surprise. It wasn't that I didn't like seeing the Croixaliers perform-- I just didn't want to be drowned in the nostalgia of people that weren't even in the choir at the same time as me.

However, during the service, I began to look mindfully into my past and I had realized something I never really did before.

That choir just about saved my life.

Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration... You, as diligent readers, must have noticed that I have a flair for the dramatic. However, I should elaborate.

My years at my high school were filled with instances of favoritism and flukes, with only a few of such instances working in my favor. It was unpleasant always getting shafted. Naturally, I was surprised when I made into the choir the first year-- Especially when my equally gifted older sister wasn't so lucky.

I enjoyed it, but I never knew why. I would look forward to it, but it would be full of me trying to be socially acceptable and just keep my big mouth shut. I was only sometimes successful.

I didn't care very often what the others thought about me.

I was a smartass, and a lot of my peers in high school had legitimate reasons not to like me. I was making the wrong decision at every turn and it was harming my self image and letting my conscience decay. I was pursuing short-term satisfaction at the cost of my friends, my family and multiple unlucky girls who were unfortunate enough to get tangled in my life at the wrong time. Long story short, I was treating everyone like shit and wasn't noticing the damage it was doing to my soul until it was too late. Eventually I dropped the "HATER'S GONNA HATE" mentality. I slipped into a lethargic depression, and converted for a short amount of time to a very depressing atheism.

When I walked through the doors to the music room, at first it felt like all of the others in my group were judging me. I walked away from every practice with my instincts telling me that no one else thought I was supposed to be a part of that group. Three, four, sometimes even five times a week I would sing with these people and feel ostracized, like the only fork in the entire silverware drawer that has a crooked tine. That didn't last forever, though.

I knew that even though I had royally fucked my past, I had the potential to keep going and rewrite what I was living for. I knew it all along, but realized it late in the game. I began to study past traditional Christianity and look more mindfully into the Bible while the pastor was preaching during the services that the Croixaliers sang at. Soon enough, I had found a back door into Christianity, and realized a few of the more key truths about it. I realized the religion as a whole is not a bad concept. Mohandas Ghandi said it perfectly:

"I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Reading into the Goodness (rather than the Lawfulness) of the Bible through new lenses, it felt like I could put on a mask and become something different... something better. I felt like I could actually do something right in putting my talents toward something good-- even if it wasn't something my beliefs coincided with 100%. People began to notice a very subtle change in my behavior. I realized this, and finally had something to live up to. It dawned on me that I did have the capacity to do some good and I could be something better than what I was. Jesus said in the book of John, chapter 16 and the second half of verse 33:

"In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have transcended the world."

What he says here can be taken to mean many different things, but at the moment that I read it, it became clear what the words meant for me.

"Life is Suffering" says the Buddha. I know, however, if I live in the 道，the "dao" or "way" of the Universe which is wisdom, justice, and (most importantly) love, I can take heart in the Way that the wisest of men have traveled on and I can transcend this World, which is Suffering. (I will expand on what I mean by this in later posts of this blog.)

If I hadn't rediscovered that aspect of myself, that potential, and if I hadn't reforged that spiritual side of myself (albeit not being the exact same after the process) than I would have continued to do horrible things and I would have alienated myself from everything that was important to me. I would have become a shut-in, antisocial train wreck.

Even if something right now in your life is causing you to feel uncomfortable, judged, insecure, unloved... Take heart! You can transcend it. It may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.