Existential Christianity

Existentialists believe that people look outside to find meaning in life when in reality, existence precedes essence. Existentialists think meaning can only be found in self, not in the actions done by others or the in the patterns of society. Existentialists assert that people can live their entire lives not making one decision on their own. They think man finds comfort in finding meaning and having purpose. Man is afraid to confront the fact that life is meaningless. Non-existentialists fear silence or anything that reminds them that there is no significance in life.
Though many think of these thinkers as atheists, they actually seem to hold onto some type of faith. In other words, there can be an existential Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist. Now, how can that be possible if they criticize those who seek meaning in places other than self?
This has been in my mind for about a week now since my English class started a unit on existentialism and absurdist drama. It's very interesting, all this philosophy and delving to the core of life and the human thought. But, I'm the type that gets sick of it eventually and ask what the point of all this is.

My answer is, at least as a daughter of God, the relationship between God and man is not solely dependent on the solutions to the afterlife. Following God involves constant self-reflection, and recognizing that one's life is "nothing but vapor." Life "means" something when God comes into the equation. However, He is not some outside force, but One that dwells within the believer. Therefore, his or her existence justifies the belief in God. Skeptics may think God is man's device to comfort himself, but in actuality, following God is giving up comfort. It is a constant struggle. If there is one thing I learned this year, it's that complacency and inactivity means something is wrong. There really shouldn't be such thing as a "spiritual plateau" where we wait for God to work in us. We (i tend to use "we" but this all applies to me) often forget all we need to do is "ask, seek, and knock," for more of Him, because He is waiting to "give, find, and open" for us.

i think this was more of a journal entry for myself. i went off tangent slightly.
Ask
Seek
Knock (isn't that cool?)

Forehead to chin,

Her finger traces

Down hills and slopes of

Recounted tales and

Still raw wounds –

Red like the cherry blossoms

Her mothers sang and spoke to.

She stands before the mirror,

Longing to hear the silent rebuke.

It pleads her not to stand still,

Not to sit down,

Not to let those scars heal.

She, herself, will walk

Down hills and slopes

Her daughters will trace

Forehead to chin.

Mirror

I want to share this with you. I read this too many times, and i still love every word of it. Sylvia Plath is ... talented.

Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.

I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

After reading jacky's post about loneliness, this poem almost narrates loneliness itself. I noticed while i was typing this up. Loneliness is, in essence, a mirror. A time for self-reflection. A time for the raw flesh to be revealed with all its red, no matter how ugly it is. The "liars" she speaks of, are the outlets that keep us busy. We look to the liars to avoid this mirror, although, we are only delaying the fated encounter as we know it. Wow, I never read it this way until now.

snip snip

I've been eating too much leftover thanksgiving food lately. I can feel my muscles deteriorating to fat, yet i refuse to work out. We'll see how long this lasts.

I've just been thinking for awhile, the image of a woman cutting her hair. It's seen many times in the media (let me point you to Mulan, and the countless music videos about women going through difficult times) as a symbol of- at least for me- independence, a new slate, a new identity. There's something so thrilling about watching a girl spy dye and cut half her hair off in a gas station bathroom.
That image means something quite different to me nowadays after I started looking at it in a new perspective. Perhaps, the woman is exercising the only power she has left, or thinks she has left. She alters what she has control over. She finds she is not so independent, so powerful, so... her own, that she tries to catch just a glimpse of what's left of her by clutching the pair of scissors (this reminds me of Britney Spears' notorious behavior). And i believe there's the same principle behind suicide.
Cutting your own hair as a mini suicide. Did i go too far?

love this

confession

this will make you laugh,
i find myself really wanting a relationship nowadays.
to keep it clear, i want a boyfriend.
.. a teenage dream.
.. a time i can think back later and laugh at.

to my... pt2

lips stay rough against your teeth,
you foolish girl lost in self-justification,
you lost yourself in a sea of murmured words.

every syllable falls crisp to your toes,
you foolish girl you kept your head to low.
you thought not seeing things meant not knowing things.

now i watch you wading through the waist deep waters,
you foolish girl you have kept your head to low.