A Sad Then Happy Ending

I feel sorry for Jesus. Actually, more than just sorry.

You see, I got my wisdom teeth out two weeks ago and eventually the swelling had went down and I could start eating normal. Just yesterday, I had woken up with chipmunk cheeks and my mouth in pain. I went to the dentist to see what was wrong only to get a deep cleansing. I was and still am in terrible pain. I kept thinking how I would do anything to stop the pain. Last night I was thinking I'd rather die and was wondering why I'm being put through that sort of pain.

What is my point exactly?

If I was in enough pain to want to put an end to it all from something as small as that, then I can't even imagine what it was like for Jesus on that crucifix. He was on there longer than two days and left slowly to die with nails driven through his feet and hands. I can't even bear to imagine the sort of pain.

People even mocked Jesus: "And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS" (Matthew 27:37). They wrote this on his crucifix and were making fun of him for thinking he was God's son. They also made him wear a crown of thorns as irony.

People were cruel.

Before Jesus died his last words were: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). He was asking God why he should be put through such pain. Everyone waited to see if Elias would save him and started wondering if this was truly God's son.

People waited and soon an earthquake happened and the graves were opened. Jesus had been resurected and then gone into the city to show himself to the people. People were fearful and realized that Jesus was truly God's son.

A Miracle of All Miracles

I am overly depressed today. Apparently we're going to be doing more Bible reading. I almost screamed for mercy when I heard the news. So now I'm taking down the Gospel the night before its do because I was too lazy to do my assignments throughout last week.

Yippee.

Please just ignore my whining.

Matthew goes back into the past and writes about believe it or not, Jesus. He goes clear back to the city of Bethlehem where Jesus himself was born in the little manger. He then continues telling how the three wise men followed the North Star and gave gifts to the newborn child.

King Herold (aka Herold the Great) soon hears about the baby Jesus and hears that Jesus is to be King of the Jews. Mr. Herold gets dearly upset with the threat and jealousy gains him over. Therefore, he sent orders to have all sons in the forms of babies killed. Knowing this, Jesus and his loving parents escape to Egypt for their son's safety.

After the insane King finally died, Joseph moved his family back to Israel and then to Nazareth where Jesus grows up.

Soon, John the Baptist came along. I'm sure you've all heard of him as he's very popular. He was in fact the very one who baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. Because of the opportunity to be baptised, Jesus recieved the blessing of the Lord.

Later, Voldisatan comes into the story. The one-who-must-not-be-named. Voldisatan decides to test Jesus leads him into the wilderness for forty days with no food nor water.

Guess what?

God's son makes it!

Well, of course he does.


Satan then tempts to drag Jesus down with him, tempting him that all the world could be his. In other words, Satan says, "Come to dark side, I have cookies." Really.

Jesus doesn't fall for it and goes back to telling the people to repent: "Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near." (Matthew 4:17)

God's son basically becomes a preacher and one everyone could look up to. He taught the Gospel, healed the sick, raised the dead, and preformed many miracles.
What some people in the olden times didn't realize was that Jesus was himself a miracle.

Less and Less

It's the end of the Tao Te Ching and I must say, not that bad of a book. It had more than enough interesting things in it that taught me a lot. Or not really, but whatever.

But I did very much like this book and I could understand much better than the bible and what Confucius wrote. I realized the Tao had a lot to do with balance and I liked that. I agree that the world is a big mess of balance if you know what I mean. I mean, the Tao certainly kept me reading.

One that I found very interesting has to do with action: "Less and less is done, until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone." (Tao Te Ching ll 48) At least this part has to do with action.

Some of you may be thinking it means being lazy and don't do anything. Just sit in front of your family TV and eat a whole bunch of potato chips and life will be good.

No.

Instead it is a way or idea of action without action. It is saying live life the best you can and the way you want to. Don't waste time. Spend your time with people and doing things who or that are worth it. Lose yourself in life.

Simple, eh?

In the same chapter 48, it always explains, "In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped." This too is simply saying that when you're on a hunt for knowledge you learn something new every day. When you live the way of the Tao, you do less and less. You become more relaxed in a sense and just follow the way of life. Tao is a new experience I suppose and does good.

Living with the Tao ways I don't think life would be too bad. Maybe even better.

Balance

So here we go again.

I don't know if it's just me but I am finding that everything seems to get more interesting as I read on. The meanings are deep and in more ways true than we may think. To me, each little section refers to humanity and real life.

For example:
"That which shrinks
Must first expand.
That which fails
Must first be strong.
That which is cast down
Must first be raised.
Before receiving
There must be giving" (Tao Te Ching ll 36)

This is similar to the saying that somewhat goes "You cannot have good without evil" or "There is no such thing as evil if there is no good" or however the saying goes. All I know is that it's true. Without good, evil doesn't exist.

Now apply it to the above text from chapter 36. You can't shrink if you didn't first expand, you can't fail without first being strong, you can't be a loser if you weren't at first popular, and you can't receive if you never gave.

Make sense?

I agree with this saying. It's almost like you can't have something without its opposite. You need a balance with everything in life. You can't have one without the other.

Tao is Knowing or Believing?

One of the things I like about the Tao is how everything is short. Each chapter is per page and the text only takes up half or even less of the page. It's better than The Analects in my opinion.
As I was reading through our assignment for the night, I found one teaching that really stood out to me: "Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form. Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound. Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible." (Tao Te Ching ll 14)

It yet again, is reminding us that the belief Tao cannot be seen, heard, touched. Tao is simply a named belief. It does however give us enough evidence of what we can hear, feel, and see.

Then when it says, "Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao." (Tao Te Ching ll 14) Does this infer that Tao is not calling for our faith but for our knowing its existence?

And I suppose the rest of the chapter 14 talks more about how Tao is not a thing. Perhaps more like an idea or belief and something that's just there. It doesn't give off light nor darkness and it proposes that it is made of nothingness and just exists. In Science class we learned that everything is made from Atoms. The Tao proves it wrong. The Tao is formed with nothing. Perhaps because it is an idea and nothing else, but digging deeper, why did they have to say it comes from nothing if you would already automatically know that since it's an idea? Maybe the Tao is perhaps a thing? But then maybe again it's not a belief because didn't it say it was something you know? And what is there to know?

Are you getting this?

Is it making any sense?

The Link

Already another book. We're now onto the Tao Te Ching. I was glad because The Analects were really giving me a run for my money. Then I started reading and I was like "Oh, great. Another complicated book." I've realized that no matter how much I don't want to read anything that only has to do with meanings that it will never happen. I will forever be stuck reading books I've never heard of. Whatever happened to Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlett Letter, and stuff like that?

So anyways, I will say that the Tao is at least more poetic sounding. It sounds kind of nice if you read it out loud. But it doesn't change the fact too that it is impossible to understand. At least for the likes of me.

I found this one phrase, "The valley spirit never dies; It is the woman, primal mother. Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth. It is like a veil barely seen. Use it; it will never fail." (Tao Te Ching ll six)

This one is very deep and seems to have something to do with nature and life. I think. So why am I thinking of vampires?

Because I will tell you, this has nothing to do with vampires. I must simply be going crazy. The word "veil" is what I think got me thinking about the mythical creatures in the first place. Or maybe it's the fact that all that reading too many books has its effects.

Now I'm straying.

So deciphering this, I came up with is that it's talking about mothers and on how they have the power to give life but the life comes from heaven above and is linked to the mothers on earth. The connection between the two places is almost like a thread or invisible. The mother has the thread running through her. She's the middle point.

For the part where it says, "The valley spirit never dies" is simply talking about, uh, sorry I'm stumped. Perhaps it means the power to give birth never dies? Nature never dies? Grass never dies? I don't get it!

This has got to be the worst interpretation ever.

Diverge

As you probably already know, The Analects were written by Confucious. And in case you don't know or haven't realized their is a religion based on the text that the mandarin man wrote, called Confucianism. It's considered one of the Buddism practices. Based on that, you can tell Confucious was a very influencing man of his time in China in order to have a religion based on his beliefs.

Now, coming back to the present from the past.

I found this complicated text: "By nature people are similar, they diverge as the result of practice." (Chapter Seventeen 17.2)

What the heck does that mean?

It's short yet difficult to comprehend. I had to read this several times to finally get a little understanding of what it says.

My understanding is that when born, people are all the same. They haven't had any other experiance to be different than one another. As they get older, every person starts to have experience in trying new things, making mistakes, and so on. This results in different personalities or the more growing apart of people. It makes people more different. For example, perhaps two people are almost the same then one of them takes up the hobby of piano. That person is now different so they are no longer similar.

Another example is that two kids are born the same yet in seperate households. One of the kids end up in an abusive household while the other is lovingly cared for. The abused kid ends up growing to be more aggressive and more likely to do horrid things while the other grows up taking care of others and is more likely to do good.

They started at the same stage but in the end were pulled apart.

I must say, even though the phrase isn't exactly advice, I like it. It explains humanity in an interesting way and makes me understand everything a little bit better.

Overthrown

I thought it would be easy to decipher these words of advice the Analects are giving off, and boy I couldn't be more wrong. Our teacher in English proved this difficulty in class a while ago. He kept giving us lines to find their deeper meaning and I failed miserably in doing so.

So here I am, trying to find the important meaning in this line of advice: "The Master said, 'The common people can be made to follow it, but they can not be made to understand it." (Book Eight 8.9)

I find it rather easy to understand although I'm sure if I was in English I would be disapproved of for teh reason I didn't look deeper. In this case, I'm going to dig a little deeper.

By the word common I think of normal people of no higher status. Sort of like commoners. For example, in the U.S. the common people would be those under rule of the president and other high above the top people. You look at the second part, "can be made to follow it" and it reminds me of how laws are placed and enforced so no one wants to break them. They are like dogs and can be told whatever to do.

The rest of the phrase says, "but they can not be made to understand it". First glance tells me the common people won't understand what they are told to do, and that's taking it literally. But looking more into it and then putting it together with the other half of the line I grabbed hold of another understanding of the text. What I can understand is it saying that people under rule or who are overpowered by others can be convinced and persuaded to do things all though they aren't either bright enough or powerful enough to understand it's wrong to be controlled as slaves. Another possibility is that it could mean they aren't able to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Am I wrong?

Deeper Meanings

We have finally finished the Bible. Hooray!

Now, we are reading the Analects. The Analects are certain teachings and ways of living and of life. They were clearly important in the olden days and they still are today. Which is why we're reading them. Also because they are very challenging to decipher which is exactly what our teacher is looking for.

The Analects are very new to me as I have found many interesting things. I've realized throughout the book there is always someone called the "Master" and some student. The student usually asks questions and the Master always has some very challenging, confusing, long, important answer.

More importantly, I've noticed it does not matter how you read the book. For example you can start on the middle of the page, the end of the book, or anywhere else. The Analects are simply short phrases of rules or ways to follow in life with no particular story to follow, if you get what I mean. It's like a never ending list.

As I continued reading I noticed a two words that seemed to always repeat and be talked about. In other words I seemed to have found a very important key term. The two words were "The Way". Reading on I realized it must be some sort of righteous path that the people worked to follow and apply to their lives.

I don't think I'd mind living "The Way".

Oh David, David, David

I never thought David was that bad of a guy. He was cool and heroic. That all changed when I continued reading the story of David.

David in the end, when he's now old, manages to steal this man's wife and then in return, David kills the husband.

So I suppose David didn't physically kill the man but he did plan out the death, therfore making it murder. He had the wife's husband placed at the very front of the army in battle knowing he would be killed.

Then he does a test to know if God's really there by testing the death of his own son! I sure wouldn't like this man as my father. His son died making David come to the conclusion that God no longer exsisted. This is coming from the man who with faith took the evil spirits away from Saul and defeated the giant Goliath!

And to add on to the murder list, David kills Saul. Nice, right?

So adding this all up to get our total it looks like David committed adultry, murder more than once, and lost his faith in God.

All I can say is David, David, David.

The David Guy

The story of David. Interesting...I guess. I mean, the story's got giants, war, and uh, other things. I mean, does it not sound exciting? You know it does!

The story of David is all about a guy named David who wins a fight with this really tall guy, Goliath of Gath, who was from the Philistine side (aka the enemy side). David wins it all with a small stone and some kind of cloth like thing as I recall. Yeah, I'm not kidding. You know what makes this story even better? The fact that I now know how to stop the kids from bullying me at school. All I need is a rock and a piece of cloth. I can do great damage.

Reading the story though, made me realize that anybody can do anything, no matter their size, race, ect. It's never impossible to beat someone down with just a rock. It's possible to do anything, like build a time machine. Okay, maybe not, but you get my point. You can do anything if you put your mind and strength into it.

There was this one part of the book that said, "And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." (1 Samuel 16:23) It explained in a sense that David had the power to take evil spirit from man if he plays a harp. Did God give this power to David? And why did God see it worth it that Saul have his evil spirit taken away from him? And this makes me wonder. Was Saul a part of a "plan"? Did God plan already for David to defeat Goliath and come into better power than Saul?

Towards the end, because of David's good deed, Saul put David in a higher place then he was before. David was in the services of Saul. So I think David now lives in the palace. Anways, a saying started going around which was, "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands" (1 Samuel 18:7) This obviously made Saul jealous and this is where the whole thing about Saul starting to want to kill David starts. Why? Because David had God on his side along with wisdom and likeness stuff radiating off of him, making people like him much better than Saul.

Some people get a little too jealous.