"Sleepless Dream" - Poems, 004
I remember thinking at the time that if at least 1 in 10 believers who read the poem were caused to re-evaluate what they're taking for granted as "true", then I would have done something useful and good with my life... But the tone of it now makes me think it'll only cause people to see me as a thinks-he-knows-it-all ;P ...
But truly, I'm doing exactly the opposite with the poem: I'm asking the reader, including myself, to consider that perhaps he doesn't know it all.
Sleepless Dream
Religions are based upon what is true,
Though they are used to deceive all of you,
Belief sings its own incredible song,
Though makes you believe all others are wrong.
Believers must on the righteous path keep,
Almost content in their ignorant sleep,
But emotions won't cease to hypnotise,
Until you see within, and past the lies.
And despite all beliefs, what Is remains,
So even these words are but inky stains,
Your faith, your hope, support needed for now,
To walk uncrutched, you alone can allow.
Although you may soon no longer be led,
Don't simply believe the poem you've just read.
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Lovely poem. Seems you're waking up :) Thanks for sharing this!
Glad you liked it =) ... I certainly felt like I'd woken up at the age I wrote this! Hehe.... Now I feel like it's a constant struggle against anaesthetics ;P .. Well, maybe not quite so bad ^^
You kinda remind me of me when I was younger!
No flies on you!
And super creative.
xox
Thank you for the compliments.. =) ... And also thank you for teaching me a new expression, hehe.
But wait... Are you saying that, now you're older, that you are no longer super-creative, and now have flies on you?? ;P
I enjoyed this poem, even as a Christian. I agree that religion deceives. I to had to look within, past the l lies. I may have found something different, but I can appreciate someone who is bold enough to question and seek Truth. The art is gorgeous too; is that yours?
The art is from Pixabay ;P ... I do do my own art though, which I post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday ;)
Happy that you liked the poem... I'm always curious though as to what makes people believe in whatever they believe. What convinced you of Christianity?
I know, I love to find out the same thing about others. I actually was just having a discussion about this with a friend tonight. A friendly, fun discussion where we both leave loving each other the same as before the convo.
I'm not your typical Christian. I don't like religion. I see it as man's attempt to put God in a box that we can understand and accept, but it doesn't work that way.
I incorporate what my Christian friends would consider New Age stuff into my experience of God. God is energy. God is light. God spoke, that's vibration and frequency. God is in all, and in Him all things consist. At that point, my religious friends break out into a sweat. Lol
I believe the Bible (most likely because that's what I was raised with), but also because of the numerous OT prophecies fulfilled in Yeshua. But, I guess my greatest reason, is because I have an actual moment by moment relationship with Him.
So, whatever I've got wrong in my ideology, if anything, doesn't seem to matter because He still seems to want to hang out with me and love me and guide me.
So, why do you believe what you believe?
It's nice to know that you're at least what is called a "progressive Christian" =)
It'll often happen to the more open-minded... What they're brought up with, or however they learn about religion, becomes replaces with updated ideas because the old ideas don't fit in anymore with their worldview, which is being constantly changed generation to generation by changing society... You can see it happen throughout history.
About prophecies... Think about it like this... I could make a prophecy right now about almost anything and if I waited long enough, it would come true. Doesn't mean anything really...
As for the relationship despite anything else...: I remember having "conversations" with God... At some point, I had to admit to myself that it was me answering myself, because God's answers somehow always agreed with my worldview. Even when I was contradicted by him, it was me playing Devil's advocate as I'm prone to do in any other situation.
Of course the thought afterwards was, the devil is making me think these thoughts of doubt. Leading me astray...
But nope - It's all in the mind. The mind-games we play with ourselves is baffling and many people don't get out of the terrible vicious circle.
So I decided two things: To be okay with uncertainty. With no knowing (and thus becoming more practiced at admitting to myself when I didn't know something) and second: To trust the scientific method (repeatable, well-designed experiments) as the only source of truth. It's wonderful in that, science done properly is not trying to prove anything. It's observing, making hypotheses, and trying to disprove them!
So what do I believe? I don't. I only go as far as the evidence goes.
I can respect those opinions. They are logical. But, too much of what has happened in my life, including my conversations with God, although not miraculous in and of themselves, are miraculous as to their timing. And those things are too significant for me to just say there's no Source or Higher Power or something influencing my life.
This is a silly example, but...a few months ago, I'm driving through Northern California for the first time. I'm seeing mountains; I've never seen snow-capped mountains in person before. It was moving, tears streaming. I was thankful for the moment. I felt like God said He loved me (not a big deal, could have made it up in my head).
As I drove, the sun was setting the sky became a brilliant, fiery red, with a mixture of all these other colors. THE MOST AMAZING sunset I'd ever seen. As I'm looking at how beautiful it is, just enjoying it, I hear "that's you're engagement ring" (back story: months earlier I had thought to myself that if I get married again, I'd love to have an opal, my birthstone). Here in the sky, an "opal sky", God said He's giving me my ring!
In THAT moment, I turn on the radio and a worship song is blasting "I see the world in light, I see the world in wonder, I see the world in life, bursting in living color".
For me, none of those things are miraculous in and of themselves, but the timing and meaning behind them tell me there's a God, one who loves me.
I love science too. My brain is an analytical brain. I got my BA, double major in Biology and Chemistry. So I get the love of the scientific method. But, I became increasingly frustrated with how it and the men using it could only explain very little. It always felt like we were kids playing with grown up ideas that were way over our heads.
Just my thoughts. I really enjoy that we can share our opinions. I have no desire to sway you. I like learning and challenging my thinking. So Thank you :)
Thank you for such a candid response, and for sharing what was obviously a beautiful, personal moment in your life with me.
As always, what I say next will seem like I'm trying to wash out the colour and magic, lol, but just hear me out.
First, I'm curious: Why Christianity? I know many, many people who believe in some higher power but it takes a lot more belief in crazy things to go all the way to messiahs and ressurrections, and especially Christianity's main thing: being born guilty.
The timing of things is something that convinces many people (including me when I was younger) ... But the explanation is like this: Incredible coincidences happen all the time. It's crazy but statistically, right now, 1000 people just experiences an incredible coincidence in their lives. Let's say it happens every second. Or every 30 seconds, on average.
This, combined with how we humans love to think the world revolves around us (we are all the main characters in a book with our name as the Title, like David Copperfield ;P) ... So when things things happen, we naturally are prone to think that it means something ... That there is something behind it. Despite no evidence to back it up, we take it as proof of what we already believe.
And that is my next point: Confirmation Bias. I'll do a post about it at some time... Basically, we are prone to easily notice and accept information that helps back up what we already believe. And just as easily, we tend to ignore(not on purpose... we just don't notice) information that might negate our beliefs.
To me, these moments are still magical! Even though they aren't caused by any higher power... Or actually, especially because they aren't. They are rare moments that, sure, happen to everybody, but that one moment in MY life was MY moment and means something to me. It's unique in that way, and is valuable.
The frustration with science is inevitable, I think, but it's all we've got. And better it than just jumping to conclusions with beliefs that we personally like.
Again, thank you for the interaction... This is one of my favourite things to talk about =)