peace like a river, and other things that confuse me with their unintended truth

whoever first said, or sang, that they had peace like a river had obviously never seen a river before in their life.
rivers are many things. few, however, would personify peace.
rivers are turbulent. rivers rush. rivers flood. rivers carry poisonous minerals, large volumes of human waste, dead animals, many broken things of all descriptions, and, for all that, an occasionally dizzying array of life and vitality.
an interesting interpretation of peace. next we'll be singing about how we have hope like an ozone layer.

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the people who belong to the establishment will always be right, and will always be justified by their own parameters and feel nothing but assured of their rightness.
because extremes are useful for illustrating points, let's use the pope. he's infallible, based on the structure that his religion has created. he can say and do anything even remotely dependent on that structure, and he will just simply be right. it doesn't matter if you're a devout catholic or an atheist, the pope will still be right in his own place, in his own world, in his own mind. he doesn't have to try to understand you. he doesn't have to think about things like abortion, or homosexuality, as though they involve people with different structures and different abilities and different thoughts and different realities... because his reality is all that matters. he won't hate, just condemn with love, and then only because love is one of the necessities of his own establishment.
there should be a new rule... that people who achieve power over the lives of others should be required to try to understand them a little... that probation officers be required to think a little about how the offender might be feeling every once in a while... that police officers do something not necessarily by the book because the book, in one instance, might not be the best way to do it.
and there's the heart of it. all these people, no matter how secure they are in the structure and institution they choose, still need the ability to understand that they, too, can sometimes be wrong, and that the way they do things, the way they've always done things, the traditions and patterns and reliable regulations that give the illusion of order, can also be, on occasion, incorrect.
there is no infallible rule. and even if there were, people would finda way to abuse it, whether consciously or not, to achieve the basic societal drive for more power.
love is the only way out. not rules. not punishments. not excommunication. not indifference. not systems and structures and theories and practices and traditions. love.
the only problem is that it doesn't fit in the structure, and as such, we're painting ourselves wrong from the beginning. after all, it's nobody's job to love, and nobody likes doing more than their job requires of them. but it's everybody's responsibility to love, whether we like it or not.

i'm failing.

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everyone needs to be saved. there is not a person alive who doesn't need salvation in some way, shape or form, every minute of their lives.
generally speaking, this salvation is found in idols.

an idol is something that will not save you.

a poor man most likely thinks he needs to be saved from his poverty. his god, whether he acknowledges it or not, is money. with just a bit more money, he'll say, my life will be perfect.
the man in the house down the street from this poor man has the life that the poor man wants. a good paying job, a car, a satelite in his back yard. but he hates his job. and he's lonely. with a good woman, he says, when i get a better job or that promotion i've been gunning for, he says, then i won't be as miserable as i am now. i will chase these things because i need to be rescued from the way i feel about who and what i am.

if you've ever had a fantasy about winning the lottery, you will know how compelling the idea can be. if i just won that 15 million dollar prize, i could do anything... i would be free, i would be happy.

it's all an illusion. these things, though they will make your life more comfortable, will not bring you fulfillment, wil not give you peace. they will not save you.

and you do need to be saved.

i was thinking about this as i chased my own particular vapors this week. the things i want, the things that tempt me, that claim to offer me some kind of wholeness, are consistantly failing to be any kind of salvation whatsoever. and the arguments in their favor seem flimsy by comparison of the one stark fact that stands in their way.
if life remains as it is, i will kill myself.
i would be lying if i said this wasn't the path i would like to take most days. but something about it rings false, feels hollow, just doesn't measure up, though to what, i'm not sure.
if this is something i would sooner not have happen, then i must find, among all the things that i think i want and that maintain my belief that life is bearable, the one thing that will save me.

it won't be the cd i want to buy. it won't be the movie i want to see. it won't be the slurpee in my hand, the money in my wallet, the food i eat. people live for all of these things. i live for all these things. it's an existance. nothing more. i am tired of an existance; i want a life.

yet i find myself arguing for the contrary... you can't, i tell myself, or you will lose all these things that you love. if i love these things, why am i not happy? if i can not get rid of them, what makes me think i own them any more than they own me? if these are my excuses to live, why am i still here, and if i get rid of them only to find something less in the search for this answer, what will save me then?

these are brutally demanding questions. i don't want to wind up lost and without any comfort whatsoever. i know people who have tread that path, and i know people who have failed in that pursuit. i know my weaknesses well... i do not know my strengths. perhaps it's because we've so seldom spoken. perhaps it's because i keep convincing myself they're not real.

i am still chasing vapors. i am still clutching my hand around them and wondering disconsolately why there is nothing in my hand. i am still hurting myself.

only i can stop.

first i must learn how.