resurrection

I have an internal alarm clock system and find it impossible to sleep past 9:00 a.m., so upon my late arrival home Friday night I took sleeping medicine. I ended up taking too much and slept till 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. That, in turn, created another late night. I was up till 4:00 in the morning watching various movies on Starz such as Parent Trap. To say the least, this was a rough morning but nevertheless I found myself at church to appease my mom this Easter Sunday. I haven't been in easily over a year. I sat in the pew beside my brother, twiddling my thumbs and watching the morning light find its way through the stain glass windows in streaks illuminating dust particles throughout the air. In an attempt to drain out the senior choir, I began browsing through the pamphlet. I came across a list of people who asked to be kept in the congregation's prayers.

There was a man who was electrocuted while building houses in Mexico. How's that for irony? Humor brings insight and tolerance. I find that irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding. And then that got me to thinking about the whole concept of Easter and resurrection... In my opinion it's not the concept of life after death but instead life before death which is important and requires an equal amount of attention. I looked to my left and saw senior citizens slumped in their seat who looked like they deserved to be on a ventilator. Don't get me wrong, I find it remarkably admirable that these people have their faith to hold on to, but the thought that they force themselves out of their homes to make it to the church because they feel obligated to seems miserable. It becomes a question of whether or not these pietistic Christians spend their lives striving to achieve a glorious life after their death and while doing so set aside their own personal will or happiness. And considering everything beyond life is one huge question it seems imbecilic to have such a mentality. And this concept ventures far beyond the matter of faith. We need to start living. Living lives for ourselves. Not do what we feel obligated to do, not do what we think we should, but instead do what we think we can't. It's such a waste of our precious time and energy to please other people. So today I stopped doing just that and started thinking about what feels natural and what feels right to me and started making myself happy. It felt good. Only my opinion though.