- Not The Only One!
- 16 Jan 25
- Post #174
- ” Base Camp / Ground Zero “
- Howdy!
- As always thanks for checking in and thank you to all of you who have been sharing the blog with your friends and colleagues. This is potentially another one just off the cuff. I’m not sure what pops into your mind when you read the title. Honestly there are just so many possible destinations with this one. When I think about base camp the very first thing that pops into my head is maybe some sort of military institution. It also conjures up thoughts of someone, not me ☺️☺️, but someone being at the foot of a mountain, and they have pretty clear intentions of climbing it or freezing to death in the process ☺️☺️. I don’t know about you, or if it’s just one of my weird things, but for me the words ” Ground and Zero ” are forever synonymous for me with September the 11th. It was just one of those days burned into my memory forever.
- However and wherever your mind takes you, it’s some kind of a place that implies that we get to go up from here, or to somehow move forward. We aren’t going to dig a hole, we are at the lowest point. Another example may be someone who has been writing checks that their body’s can’t cover. Yeah!, that’s an old Top Gun line, but it doesn’t have to be about fighter jets as much as it is about living on the edge and you know at some point it’s going to catch up with them, and secretly there is a part of you that wants to be around to see it happen ☺️☺️. I think a lot of the time it has to do with unhealthy habits. Things such as drinking or smoking, maybe gambling or being the stereotypical womanizer ☺️☺️. My question has always been, how can we drink ourselves into a coma and not realize that we have a problem?
- Well it goes to perception and us not having a very good idea of who we actually are. See!, it’s quite normal to think more highly of ourselves than we should. I mean it goes to image and self esteem. I believe that it’s a subconscious thing that we lie to ourselves, because people who go around all the time telling themselves that they suck! , don’t usually do very well in the game of life. Most of us have something in our closet that we aren’t to proud of, but for the most part we chalk that up to one of those rare and not really myself on that day. ☺️☺️. It’s funny, because we still believe ourselves to be pretty good people, even if there is a pattern telling another whole different story all together ☺️☺️ . We really don’t want to go down the road of being judged for our worst moments and for some, they truly are isolated one time events. Still, most truly believe themselves to be good people. So!, where is Ground zero taking us today? It’s funny that you should ask☺️☺️.
- Well, it looks like some people can never see themselves as Ground zero people. They are the ones who push back against being called a sinner. It’s a little ironic, but our president elect has a problem with seeing clearly in the mirror, but he is not alone, and not by a Longshot ☺️☺️. I’m not picking on Mr. Trump, but I think that sometimes we get heady and think that because we donate large amounts of money to charities or have some other acts of self righteousness, good deeds that we just couldn’t be considered to be one of those lowly sinners. I don’t know if it’s funny or if it’s sad, but we would gladly make God a liar, just so that we could be in the right! Wait!! Does that mean that we would make a better god than God, because we can’t agree with his interpretation of who He says that we are? We somehow know best or better….until we don’t ☺️☺️. I’m not sure, but in my mind, if you can’t come along side and agree with God , then that means that you are stuck in some kind of ” Base Camp” purgatory. You can’t actually move forward if you never had a starting point. It really implies some kind of a loop or that hamster wheel thing. ☺️☺️ You don’t just get to magically snap your fingers and end up at the pearly gates and bargain your way past St. Peter, or whoever you think may be manning the gate☺️☺️
- Still, I think if we were to scratch beneath the surface , ever so slightly we would see one of two things at work here, and they would be pride and or entitlement. Sometimes things travel together like peanut butter and jelly, they may beg for a glass of milk along the way, but a good old fashioned ” choke and slide” are just the primo of bosom buddies ☺️☺️. So , what does pride and entitlement have in tow? , arrogance? , perhaps, but usually some deep connection to a lack of humility and believe it or not, it’s side kick is shame. Shame is that accusation that that you just aren’t good enough and it takes up the position of you being undeserving or incapable of ever being excepted and more importantly, never loved by God. Shame knows our secret and the thing that holds us hostage and a prisoner to the hamster wheel. ☺️God’s love is a direct threat to all of your deficiencies and especially the one’s that claim that you just aren’t good enough. What is that one strong and annoying thing that eats away at us and tells us that, maybe God can love and except others, but we are that one exception? . Why are we that one person in the whole world that is not covered by His mercy and grace?
- There have been times when I have set across the table from someone and there face is a puzzling mixture of confusion. Their expression is I’m strong and I’m not a caveman. See a caveman is someone who has caved into this whole belief system about God loving sinners. It’s a line that they just can’t cross, because they believe that they are somehow better than that. I can’t become the thing that I have spent my entire life waring against and making fun of. I can’t place my finger on it, but there is something here that’s just slightly creepy. I’m not an idiot, so how can I believe that there is something more here at play, than what is right in front of me?. It’s like they know something that I don’t know, and it makes me feel like an idiot, which I know that I’m not….but what is it and why can’t I get past this uneasiness? I feel like someone is using a word that I don’t know the meaning of, and I’m to embarrassed that I don’t know the meaning , and I’m hoping that just playing along, somewhere and someway it will become clear along the way.
- It’s not my first time being exposed to this religious stuff. I have encountered it more times than I would care to admit and each time it makes me more uncomfortable than the last. I have learned ways to cope with my discomfort and it’s stoic. I demean it, I deflect it, I make fun of it, and at the end of the day, I run from it. I have to many unanswered questions and things that just don’t make sense to me and maybe I’m just way more comfortable with them not making sense, because after all, I have built my life around me and I’ve gotten along just fine without becoming something that I despise. I know that’s a harsh word , but it’s spot on. I despise them and most of what the religious say that they stand for and believe. It’s just way to many loop holes, contradictions and the hypocrisy just seems to be never ending.
- Sometimes I may find a comic who is funny with the whole self deprecation thing, but I mostly find it offensive, when I hear religious types talking about their unworthiness and how about God has made all of these wonderful changes in their lives and about how they are somehow new people. This ” Born Again ” thing! What a ludicrous take on life ☺️☺️. I once heard someone talking about their life and it sounded like it was something across between a train wreck and some kind of creepy old haunted mansion, that God had just somehow turned into the most amazing thing since sliced bread ☺️☺️. Why can’t I just get it, or understand it, or see and know what they know? There is obviously something here….but what? I keep coming to this point of belief and it’s like this invisible line that I can’t see or detect, but somewhere deep down I know exist. I truly want to know what they know, or at least to be able to consider it honestly or just to throw it away for once and for all. It just won’t let me do that. It’s not something up to me or something that I can except on my own terms, and maybe that’s the rub!
- It’s about me and it has always been about me, and why shouldn’t it be about me, when it’s my life, after all. I don’t know about this perception of it being about someone else, this invisible God , that people says exist . I guess it’s just some weird terminology that I’m just not privy to. It’s a foreign language within a language that I speak and know, but it still just doesn’t make sense. How does someone die to self ? I know it’s not about suicide, because they are all still here, praising this Jesus person, who they all swear that He exist and have some kind of a thing they have going on with him, which they frame in the context of a ” personal relationship “. How do you get ahead be taking last place and being a servant, makes absolutely zero sense to me. I’ve always seen this religions stuff as a weakness, it’s a crutch for people who aren’t mentally or emotionally strong enough to accept what life throws at them. You can call it a thaw if you want, but I do believe that there is some supreme power that put all of this in motion, who knows, maybe some alien race, that just forgot about us, who truly knows?
- This all represents someone who I honestly know, a real genuine person, who is not out here on this limb by themselves. Will you find the ” Donald ” there? Absolutely, with a whole lot of other prominent well intentioned people, and yes , a lot of them faithful church attendees. We all miss it for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of pride and wanting to do our own thing , our own way. See, that is the basic definition of sin, doing it our own way. We fail to grasp that every time that we tell the tiniest of little white lies, that we aren’t just lying to someone, but it’s a transgression against God Himself. When we gossip, lie, cheat steal and all of the rest that I’m just not going to put a name to, may be done to or against another person or people group, but ultimately it’s against God. Christianity is not a forced religion per se , you can’t force someone to believe something in their head that their heart is divorced from. It’s not a bunch of rituals that You can just check off as done! It’s not something that you can earn, purchase or by being the most pious in the room. It’s not a reward for the good things that we do or have done or will ever do, but it’s a gift of God’s extravagant love and generosity towards us. It’s about what God has done, in forgiving us for every mean and heinous thing that we have ever said or done , and will do. Pride stands at the door, between You and God and it has every excuse in the world and it’s clever. It will mix in some half truths and misrepresentation about God, who He is , and what He wants from you and for you.
- I’m not some PHD type, so there are a lot of things that escape me.☺️☺️ However I can answer the latter for you. God wants your heart first and foremost, and He wants only the best for you. He wants to be a loving father to you and I know that can be a sore spot for so many and present company included.☺️ We were entrusted to earthly father’s who weren’t always known for stepping up, but please don’t let that stand in your way of having a real genuine relationship with a heavenly father, who loves you only wants the best for you.
- It may sound like a cliche, but Ground zero is a launching pad, and we can’t ignite those engines and ramp up those rocket boosters , if we don’t have a jumping off point, and it absolutely has to be about recognizing who we are and* agreeing with God about us being eternally separated from Him by our sin. It’s not God’s problem or sin , but it’s ours and ours alone. It’s across the board, doesn’t matter who you are or what your pedigree may be. God’s answer to our problem, was to gift wrap His son in burial clothes for us to be forgiven. Maybe this is the point of contention for you. If you have no wrongs in your life, then there is no reason for the need for forgiveness or a savior, but definitely time to see a good eye doctor ☺️☺️. Pride says that I always pay my own way , I always pull my own weight and that I never get myself into something that I can’t get myself out of, thank You California for no fault divorce ☺️☺️. All joking a side, we all need that base camp experience to get life in it’s proper perspective. It’s like buttoning up a shirt or sweater and if just one button ends up in the wrong place, the whole thing is off. If we aren’t just one more sinner amongst all of the other sinners, then we see ourselves as something, someone special. Life doesn’t play out for us like it does for everyone else and when it does we have a snarky response that usually goes something like _ _ _ _ happens, what a brilliant response? ☺️You may find yourself climbing a latter in life and missing out on in life all of the things that truly matter. The things that make you a better person from the inside out, instead of all of the window dressing for those looking in from the outside. Things like why am I here? What’s my purpose in life? And how does all of this work together, because it does work together, not as random as aliens from another universe, as cool as that may sound ☺️☺️, more Hollywood stuff ☺️.
- If you don’t know for what purpose that you were created , how can you know where you are headed in life? God can and has done some amazing things with the dust of the earth. Before we return there, God has great wonders in store for us, and the primary one is for us to be known by Him , but also for us to know Him in the most personal and intimate of ways. God’s truth!, you are a sinner, whether you acknowledge that or not and God absolutely loves sinners, which I am extremely thankful and grateful for. Today, acknowledge who God’s says that You are and start the journey to becoming a beloved child of the Father’s.
- Till Next Time ✌️ Peace!
- Sandy The Southerner
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