anti_nietzsche

About two hours ago I came back from a LONG walk with my mom. I forgot my digicam, else I would have made some pics. We walked from our house to the neighbor village, to my sister who has a house there. I was a bit grumpy, but I saw it fits well to my mission of making my life better. And I had an awesome experience in the woods which I think came from God. I was walking a forrest path with my mom, there were lot's of leafes on the ground. At an opening, suddenly wind began to blow from behind, blowing the leafes in front of us away. It was a timeless, miraculous moment, full of beauty and shall I say divinity. I'm not completely sure it was God and not "just something normal", but I like to think it was God. It reminded me to a similar beauty which I sometimes have seen and felt before. Something I also found in certain poems like some of Rilke. It's incredible. If Heaven has this I will be completely satisfied. It calms me. It amazes me. It shows me something, or better someone, who is completely infinite and omnipotent, yet full of grace and truth. I have seen this before in my old life and thought it's about love. But then I clung to it as a manifestation of my love or of someone else's love, yet it was gone soon. Now I want to think of it as a gift of God. A meaningful gift. A moment of purity and magnificence. It's worth it to be a christian. Entirely. Completely. Like Paul said, our present sufferings do not mean much in comparison to this which lies ahead.

22.11.2009
~

november time
slowly unwinding love, regret and
harmony with aging away
together with nature
with birds, plants and corn
going to sleep with it all
only God stays awake
I am thanking joy that it was here
I am thanking happiness that it helped
throughout the year
its ups and downs accepted and
cherished even, for His hands
touched my pain and my laughter

fleeting moments noticed and molten
into memories, that do not hurt.
the wind tore off some of my mistakes
and God forgave the rest

I'm going through a time of change. Jesus came to me some days ago, in the evening, and He said that I have to do something about my addiction to computer games. He said that my whole life style needs to change. At first I struggled with this, but I also quickly saw the truth in what Jesus told me. And I'm obeying Him. The next morning I helped my dad in the garden and spoke some more with my mother. She is so loving to me now, I think God's behind that to help me in this repentance from a wrong life. My dad is also very loving now, and even let me go after a while when he saw that I started to feel nervous and grumpy from the work. I feel reminded to this psalm of David that says, "faithfulness and goodness will follow me all my life". It's an awesome breakthrough of God into my life, entirely how I always yearned for it but had ceased expecting like that in the last years. And I have to admit, I didn't look for it anymore, I kinda knew that I did some things wrong with my life yet I did not accept that and thought I simply needed to get well mentally and do everything I lusted after.

I'm still playing some games, but I will heed God and seek a more wholesome life. I just can't quit the games cold turkey.

I've also been shown how my choice for God matters. Two days ago I sat in my room and thought about God, and I heard a voice that said, do you decide for aligning your whole life to God? Exactly then I found myself unable to decide like that. I thought about the computer games and how I in the last 12 years or so had aligned my whole life such that I could play games. Then I heard Jesus ask, do you decide for the way of love? And I decided myself so.

I think one of my mistakes had been to think that my decisions for God always have to be accompanied by deep emotional experiences, or a complete conviction when I choose something. But God also accepts carefulness, and the weak decisions ... He can help me solidify them later.

Now I am more eager to follow, it's kindled a fire in me which really makes me feel very warm and loved inside. It's beautiful and good. I have learned a lot in the past years and it's all coming together. God also made me see how I have a genuine desire to be holy in my heart, which Jesus probably has kindled with His love and might. It's awesome and for the first time in a long row of years I feel authentically happy and hopeful and joyous.

God made me see how I need to read more books, write more poetry, and such, instead of simply playing. Computer games are fun, but playing them isn't something productive, they don't really enrich my life.

I'm also feeling a release from my schizophrenia in all of this. I'm less inclined to try to control myself. I'm much more inclined to trust The Way of Jesus to be a good way which will produce many good fruit in my life. Yesterday night I also prayed for my dad's fate, and somehow God answered this prayer with love and assurance, it's like He said, yes, your dad has a chance, don't be afraid to trust me with this and to allow some solid hope for my dad getting to know Jesus and becoming saved too.

This awesome and today is sunday. I want to celebrate this when I go to church and do some real worship.

Today's the umpteenth time I have decided to try again to quit smoking.

I don't think God really forbids it, but if one approaches God as a benevolent God caring for your wellbeing in terms of health and finances, I think the answer of God to a prayerful question whether one should stop smoking, would be yes.

My basic spiritual idea that I always remind myself to is that I should always honor design and purpose. And speaking of design and purpose, a man's lungs are not made to contain smoke of whatever kind. Tobacco was not made to be smoked, I think. There may be uses for this plant, but smoking isn't one of the divinely intended ones, I think.

I'm not sure I follow that idea that smoking is against God dwelling in us being His temple. I have known plenty christians who smoke. I don't think that giving up smoking is as vital as, say, giving up adultery and fornication. But it is very detrimental to our health, and a loving Father simply wants His children to be healthy if it be possible.

So I'm trying again. I don't know if I will manage, but I seriously want to commit myself to this. I've done this before, so I know that after a few days the main craving will cease. I want these worries off my back, that I would selfishly limit my days on the Earth. I don't want to get lung transplants one day. And I want to get rid of all the habits associated to smoking. Money's important too, these days I needed around 120 Euros per month for smoking. If I manage to quit this will seriously help me in my wish to live alone again.

Tonight I had a wonderful little dream. I found myself in a place somewhere within a mountain full of very large and lightened caves. A woman I know from a bible study group was there, and she was very friendly with me. Then my brother-in-law came to me and we swapped some food. He told me I could have what I wanted, the trade would come later. The whole area seemed to gleam with love and loveliness. I've had a dream of this earlier, and I think it might have been about Heaven. I guess we still have some kind of job when we go up there. There is a social life, we will have our duties. But there will be peace and perfection and absolute righteousness in all of us. Just no pain and suffering. It was beautiful. Thank you Jesus for this dream. Please protect me from evil thoughts.

I found an interesting article about depressive realism today. It's in german so I won't post it here. Essentially, it was about some experiments which showed how depressed people have a more realistic and more precise perspective on the world and life than "normal" people. I find this pretty insightful and true. There's this song by Nine Inch Nails that has the lines, "you are someone else, I am still right here" as an answer to those wanting to cheer a depressed person up. It's odd, but it's the truth, if you see truth as an objective standard every opinion making must submit itself to fully.

It's frustrating if you don't have patience. But perhaps this whole idea of wanting to influence sick people with your behaviour and way of speaking ... isn't wholly accurate neither. Isn't feasible always.

I have a pretty intense fear of being blamed and shut out. Add to that some serious naivetee and a weird, narcistic belief in my own charisma, and you get one really screwed dude. I should have become an actor in theatre, I think I might make more sense to myself.

Discussions with parents continue. Now my dad wants me to stay here, he says it would be the most reasonable choice. He's most concerned with money. I don't get enough, he says. I think I can make it but it won't be comfortable, certainly. But I don't think it's too bad. If I lived on my own again my dad has already agreed to give me the caretaking money they get from the state for me. This would be another 100 bucks or so. And I would get a 100 euro job or something too. This is actually much more than what many other people get. My friend Jens I think earns around 1400 euros or so per month, but he's paying all bills himself. He has to pay for food, the internet, taxes, some insurances, two cars, a baby's needs, his wife, etc.

Does God really want everyone to submit to their parents, regardless of what they are asking? I'm having issues with my parents lately, it's not so easy. If I did what my mother says I would play little to no computer games and walk around in nature much, I would always be with people I don't feel much attraction to, etc. But I don't want this so I decide to disagree with her and follow my own ideas.

But I don't know what God thinks about this issue. I freely admit that I was too disobedient as a kid and should have heeded my parents advices more. But now .. does this still count? I have asked other christians about my situation and they usually tell me, move out Daniel, get into your own life again. And I tend to agree. But in the same time, part of me wants to stay with my parents. I normally have a pretty good relationship with my mother. We talk a lot and she's often been nice to me. But today we had arguments and debates, and it was not so nice.

My feeling is, my parents should treat more lightly, and ignore their suspicions and fears about my future. I think they should say, to me and to themselves, there is no black hole waiting to consume us, comes time comes counsel, God will help, life is gracious. But they basically listen to their fears all the time. And when it happens and I do make a mistake, they exaggerate it. Instead of saying, well Danny, it's going to be ok, you will manage, they say things like it's terrible, you will never manage if you live alone again, etc. I can't have this in my life.

We agreed that I will move out some time this winter, but then it makes me feel a little guilty. My parents get old, they are both over 70 now, and they could need me in the house. My dad has arthrosis in his knees and gets an operation this winter, a knee joint replacement. My mother would be alone all the time then, if I'm not in the house.

But it's hard to help my parents if they have such a negative opinion of me. It's very discouraging. I admit I have my flaws, but so do they, and that never gets on the table. I feel like my parents should support me, morally I mean. But instead they worry about me and tell me they need to save money for my future etc. I don't want my parents' money, I could really care less about that, I want my parents' good wishes and understanding and simple love. I want their blessing, not their critique.

Today I got some flak from my parents. Especially mother was upset, and then very sad. It was about my money again.

The whole thing goes like this ... because I am unemployed and cannot work, I live from german social security benefits. I get around 350 euros per month. It's not much, but I get by with it. I even save 30 euros per month for an old age insurance. I need a lot of money for my cigarettes, around 100 euros per month. And I spend much money on computer games.

Today my dad wanted to see my account statements, and it turned out that I only have 170 euros left, and it's only 11th of the month. I said, fine, so I can't spend any more money this month, that's ok. But for my parents, especially for my mother, this was a big issue. She wants me to get a social supervisor. That was the part I hated. I had a friend who had a supervisor because he had manic episodes in which he'd spend all his money and then have nothing left for food and such. I don't want to have such a supervisor, he would get all my money and whenever I needed something, I would have to ask.

My mother isn't always so, but sometimes she gets into fearful and sad moods that make her think I won't survive without her. This is a real big problem for me. I need my family to tell me it's going to be alright. I can't deal with someone who is constantly afraid of something in me. It makes me feel hopeless and at places despaired even. I just think it's not right to listen to your fears so much. I love my mother, but when she is in moods like this I don't like to be around her. She accuses me of being unloving and a mess maker, and I can't have that. I have trouble enough with my self esteem and with my cheerfulness as is.

I'm trying not to hate my mom. She is old and having fears about me has been a problem between mom and me for years now. I still think it's a serious problem, but mom doesn't see it, even calls me dishonest and such. I'm of the view that if you always blame someone for something, if you always see the worst in him, you needn't wonder much when this person turns out bad in the truth then. Yes, it may be that sometimes I spend too much money on computer games and such, but I am used to financial hardship. I go by the motto, don't worry about later, there will always be counsel and guidance when bad things happen. My parents are so fearful in these things. Sometimes my mother goes as far as accusing me of wanting to destroy our family and make them poor. You know, my dad has taken over the internet fees for me, and he's subsidizing my cigarette costs with 50 Euros per month. But I felt this was a kindness of him, something not necessary, just something very nice. Whenever I have some trouble my mom mentions this and claims that without their aid I would drown in real life.

I guess I must chalk it up to my parents age. They are both a little over 70 now, and most old people feel much anxiety in that age. I must just bear with it.

Something good came out of this talk too. This Friday I'm going to a counselor and will ask for help in moving. I know of a big house in the nearby city of Chemnitz which has appartments for 140 Euros per month, which would fit into my social security grant, ie I would get an additional allowance that would cover this rent. And I think I am eligible for help with furniture and such, there are groups and societies which support unemployed people like me with used furniture, ovens, toilets and such.

I just want to have a hopeful tone in my life. I don't want to focus on fears and depressions. I need people telling me things will be alright.

This is a challenge for me. I think I must simply forgive my mother, but then I ask myself if she might be right about me and get a lot of self doubts. I can't harden my heart to my mother, but honestly, it sucks. I wish someone would see me like I really am, and would be a real friend. But only God is such a friend for me. It's not enough, I need to also have humans who know me as I am. I'm not saying God is expendable, but that He can't really replace other humans, and He knew that when He made us male and female. I guess mom will be alright again soon. She's been in this mood before, and after a while it left her alone and she became cheerful again.

The bad thing today was that mom invoked God when we were debating. She said it's not a pious thing to play computer games. She implied, it would anger God. I don't think so, but I have trouble enough with doubts and such that I don't want to hear such things from someone I usually trust.

I am a baptized christian. This is something I can always go back to. Like Luther said, I must crawl into my baptism every day, every morning. I am chosen for salvation. God opens doors for me.

I am not exempt from trials and suffering. Every human who cares for righteousness must go through suffering. Like Ghibran wrote, it's a bitter medicine, but it does good to my soul and to my heart. God means it supremely well.

And I can be consoled knowing that for a christian all suffering is temporal. Sometimes it's hard to see other people being happy while I am not, but this doesn't call for rebellion but for patience. It's necessary in life to learn some acceptance of the things we cannot change, so that we can more bravely overcome those things that must be changed. I love the serenity prayer.

Two nights ago I laid in bed and had a vision. I prayed to God to show me the way, and suddenly I had a mental image before my eyes ... a big, shield with a golden lion on it, half covered by desert sand or dirt. And besides it, some golden swords. I think this means, I had forgotten the nature of christian faith ... I had stopped believing in God's goodness and in His omnipotence. I have to believe in both, and cannot allow anything to distract me from such a faith.

Sometimes I listen to my fears, but this is immature. There is a fear of God that is good, but it's different from the slimy, icky kinds of fears I encounter in me sometimes. The fear of God that is good allows for trust, patience and steadfastness. The fear of God is the only pure fear.

Three days ago I bought myself a new computer game, Dragon Age: Origins. I played it for a while but today I had to decide to delete it again from my hard drive. Technically the game is good, the graphics are nice, there are many things to do. But the athmosphere of the whole thing is way too dark. It's creepy, actually. You don't fight some skeletons, goblins, orcs, the usual fantasy setup of creatures, you fight with demons, spirits, magicians. Granted, these beings remain your ENEMIES, but still. There is one adventure where you have a demon possessed child, and the quest was solved by the boy's mother mercy killing the child with a knive. Sorry, that's too much for me. I do enjoy a good fantasy game, but I recognize limits. The game oversteps these all the time. Before I deleted the game I was on a quest in a huge wizard's tower. I fought blood mages there, creepy summoners of demons and spirits. And the game makes it seem like it's the most normal thing of the world. We've come a far way from humble wizards conjuring a flame arrow.

I fought with my conscience for a while because the game was otherwise well made. But eventually I had to submit. It's the kind of game utterly improper for a christian. I believe I am more lenient there than other christians, but this game falls short even of my standards. It's so full of ridiculous things .. the game world's God marries a human prophetess, magicians destroy heaven, little children fall for demons and kill the population of a full castle, and so forth. This is something I just can't accept anymore as a christian, so the game had to go.

Now I feel a little sad. I do enjoy role playing games, of which there aren't that many out there on the market. I seriously think about starting to make my own RPG with some of the creator kits out there, maybe Morrowind's creator kit. I want to make a good RPG without magic and strange religions. Just a combat game like Mount & Blade or something.

Since some years I am trying not to think evil. It's hard to describe the schizophrenic experience ... I was battling with unwanted thoughts, so I tried to put good thoughts in my mind instead. I felt I was required to perform well before God, so I tried to always be kind and such. It's easy to be kind with your words, to be polite and to be friendly. We can construct ourselves there.

But we cannot construct true faith and love. If someone comes to me and tells me, God wants me to be nice to everyone, this is pretty easy to do. But if I hear it said to me that I should trust in God, this is something else entirely. I cannot construct faith. I cannot pretend it.

That's because faith, and true love also, must come from the heart. It is about complete honesty, and real repentance. It's about really recognizing the good in God, while our selfish souls object, moan, and resist.

This is what christianity is really about, a rediscovery of the truth and of ourselves in the light of God. St. Paul likens those who leave the faith as people who have seen themselves in the mirror, but turned away and walked off and forgetting what they had seen. Christianity isn't only about God, it's also about humanity. God is our chance to return to our purpose, to our great and important meaning. It's the way that opens our own hearts to our sight.

We do not have to be afraid of ourselves, if we have God and really open our hearts to Him. God wants to pull out the weeds like pride and greed. But we need not fear that. We are simply washed and cleaned. And like in the parable of the prodigal son, God wants to clothe us and put a ring on our finger. God wants to make us honorable again. So that we may again live by true hope, true faith, and true love. There is nothing to fear anymore the more we have of these three greatest virtues. Remember, they are not constructs. They cannot be taken away once they take root in our heart. They become part of us.

If we stay with God and keep being somewhat humble, God will bring us to have more and more faith, hope, and love. We are grounded in these virtues, and by this we will be increased, we will be made new and solid.

I'm trying to trust more in God when it comes to my illness and to the things I sometimes end up thinking or doing because of it. Rationally, this has always given me some trouble to understand. On the one hand I felt like the demons (or schizophrenic voices, if you will) were responsible for my evil thoughts. On the other hand, when I examined my own inward thought life in detail, I ended up seeing myself responsible for the evil in my thoughts. But then, often when I tried to muster courage, reform myself and repent, this did not work entirely. I was often paralyzed by the thought what could happen. I wanted an assurance of God that He would forgive me should I fail. Well, I can rely on God's forgiveness, but I believe it is based on honestly trying your best. I'm not a big fan of Goethe's Faust, but Goethe had a point when he let Faust say that only those who always keep trying and progressing can be saved. So I must always keep trying too.

Today things got icky with ugly and evil thoughts. I felt like complete trash. But then I remembered a visit God had given me last year and this year, and read a psalm, and then things got better. The bible has become like a fuel station for me ... particularly the psalms. Anytime I am reading and recitating them, I feel refreshed and renewed.

I am trying to think better of God, as someone who is really inspiring, liberating and thoroughly amazing. For some years now I had been under the spell of these psalms that say that God hides Himself and even seems to live "in the dark". Now I'm trying to think of Heaven as a place that is alit. Some years ago I had a kind of vision of Heaven as a big mountain on whose sides and slopes people were living, and there were small paths around the mountain lit by lanterns and lampions. A really nice place.

On other news, I got my new tapestry for my room. It took a while, but now I'm happy to have it. It's a very colorful tapestry picturing the risen Jesus from whom many colorful rays are emitting. I like the combination of religious motifs with colorfulness. I once read somewhere that in Heaven there are a hundred times more colors than we have to contend with on Earth. If that were true it would be really amazing.

Indira, I keep thinking of you and praying for you. If nothing bad happens I will visit next year to your birthday. But I won't come as a lover, just as a friend. I know my schizophrenia has darkened our relationship many times, and I think if we can talk for real the problems might dissolve quickly. I noticed that some days ago when I had this dream about the woman with boyfriend that still wanted to have sex with me. This was totally like it was in 2000 at your site. Something abused me there and so the whole mess happened. I know you probably don't believe in devils, but even if it's just been my schizophrenia the problem was very real and heavy for me. I'm sorry to have written so much of death and sex and all that crap. All the best and God bless!

29.10.2009
~

searching, still searching,
in the brown (or green)
anthilldarkprisonmind,
and I know curiosity
killed the cat

slowly I resurface nowhere
(or at least nowhere else)
and I keep living
and I keep loving
and I keep failing

earnesty snows but humility
pours down like gentle spring rain,
how I wish I had already
survived the coming winter

searching, still searching,
my mind creaks like a door,
I don't know the life in me
but I know He is in there somewhere
hiding my face, my wounds
and my pride

In the past weeks I had some strange experiences again. Stuff like suddenly, very lucidly, hearing music outside and when I go to the window and look, nothing's there and the music stops playing. I also have weird dreams, about a woman that already has a lover who is nevertheless interested in me and wants to have sex with me.

Since some months I have a friend from Portugal, a woman who is schizoid, and she says she has many such experiences too.

I wonder if that's the devil's stuff. Sometimes I think it is, in some of those happenings anyway, but sometimes I fear it's just an absurdity that I can never explain to myself and simply have to ignore.

The real problem of me having schizophrenia lies in becoming too caught up in my own head. That is always my problem because I always tend to want to solve my issues myself, through thinking. Before I got ill, that was my usual habit, and it actually worked to some extent. I just accepted all kinds of badness that happened to me and said to myself it doesn't matter at all. I did the same with sins, ... I knew I did bad, but I refused to feel any guild about it. It worked, as far as emotions went. The loneliness I lived in didn't hurt.

Now things really get to me much easier. When I sin I end up feeling afraid of God and out of touch with His grace. And I still have much sin in me. I only need to look into my thought life, which is full of evil thoughts and laziness and pride and such. Perhaps I am still somewhat delusional about man, about the true nature of the humanity of which I am a member. This is when I gravitate even to calvinistic thinking which I normally loathe. But I don't think about that for long, it always ends up seeming like a bottomless pit to me and after all I am not alone in rejecting this view. I've met many really kind christians who believe differently and who can prove their view from scripture just as well, and sometimes better, than what calvinists can muster up as evidence. I read a good website about this once some week ago, unfortunately I lost the URL.

Today around noon I had lot's of bad thoughts again. Then I went into my bedroom, picked out a bible and read some psalms out loud, and that helped and I quickly felt good and inspired again. I still have bad thoughts coming, but I can trust in God, I think.

About a week ago I had a dream in which I was a little kid again. I sat in my room, and suddenly I decided with all my strength to believe in God. And suddenly I felt wonderful. It was as if my whole being came back which I lost to the demons and the schizo, and I felt alive and good and warm and safe.

Earlier I had often struggled with the thought that perhaps I would be better off psychologically if I didn't believe in God and would just do my own thing. But then I was also thinking of my fears of hell and of the afterlife, and how I needed God to have a "fire insurance" there. But now ... I feel as if I owe it to God that I am still alive even, and that neither the schizo nor the demons were able to ruin me fully.

I'm also thinking of a woman sometimes which I had met in the hospital about a year ago. She had severe depression, and once when we talked she told me that though God would not heal her, He would let her know that He's there and that He really cared.

I want to believe more strongly, so that I become more stable, more firm in my convictions. Incidentally, I've also recently prayed about God showing me ways that would result in success if I went after them.

I know that when I am faced with my mental problems, my first reaction is to isolate myself and to try to fight off these problems through spending more time in my head. But recently I'm shown again that I can and should "access" God's support in those struggles. I have the bible and its psalms, which always give me some help. And I have other christians like my mother and the others I got to know in the bible study group.

When I move to Chemnitz next winter I think it will be paramount that I will surround myself with christian friends to whom I can confess anything about my schizo and the demons. I must prepare myself for the times when I will not have my mother anymore.

Since yesterday I feel pretty confused. I had been thinking too much, I guess. I thought about homosexuality, and how a homosexual can be a christian. On the one hand, I believe the bible really says that homosexuality is a sin, on the other hand I don't want to believe that God expects homosexuals to deny themselves for their whole lives. But I guess that's what it comes down to. I see no other solution that remains faithful to the bible. I mean, thieves have to stop stealing, murderers have to stop killing ... and those who are sexually immoral, have to cease being so. I just see no other way, as long as we want to remain orthodox in our beliefs.

I think this requires humility. It's so easy to become judgmental. It's so easy to follow a spirit of judgment rather than a spirit of true grace. I don't want to be judgmental, but neither do I follow cheap grace.

I notice a trend in me to be too focussed on feelings. I always want to feel good, and sometimes I've done evil when that was required to feel better. I think I am unstable and fickle.

I've got loads of emotional problems since I believe in God. I suppose certain atheists would consider me a good example why one shouldn't have religious beliefs. My emotions are such a mess, and as a result I am very mistrusting. It's hard to navigate yourself through life when the guidance of emotions fails. When heart and spirit aren't well aligned anymore. The result is the fear I know so well.

In other news, I have unmasked one more voice I initially thought to be God, to have come from my illness. Two days ago in the evening it talked to me crap like "I don't delight in talking to you", "you are proud", etc. And today that voice even screamed to me.

I'm going through a difficult time with my voices and unwanted thoughts. I find it hard to concentrate on God and in the same time going about my life. I feel a little like a dog with a carrot before his mouth that he can never reach. I'm speaking of my emotions. Before I got sick, and for a time between 2003 and 2005 I've had much easier feelings. I was feeling free and I simply did what I wanted, and I had no fears. Especially in the 2003-2005 period I felt very careless. I just don't get why I can't feel the same easiness of emotions when I try to live with God. Why does it all have to be so dense inside of me? This is a very real problem for me. It's like I have before me a door, and I know that if I would step through it I would instantly feel much better. The door has a label that says, "Don't care so much anymore, do again as you want and not so much as you think you should. Simply follow your heart." But I can't go through that door. The past is over. I cannot cut myself loose from God because I know the penalty. And I don't really want to, but my mind doesn't understand it. Because the feeling back then seemed so much better, my mind is drawn to think of it again and again. This is the reason for the carrot metaphor. I keep thinking, if I just would return to my old life anything would be fine. Then the wise Daniel comes up and says, no, you would only return to your sins, and you would make God angry with you. You might even risk your salvation. And because life has taught me lessons there, I accept that.

I should strengthen my ability to cling to God through love, and not only through fear. This is my only choice really, because I know the fear will always remain unless I learn to replace it with honest, real, devoted and wise love.

But this way of loving, after all these years, is still somewhat alien to me. I mean, I have seen others practice it, but for myself, no, I'm still pretty unable to exercise it. It always seems to be so much of an effort. It means self denial, again and again.

I wish there were a way to loose these feelings, to get some real self control that isn't always costing all my strength to maintain it. I suppose I need more trust ... I know that if I trust God, He will strengthen me.

But it's not only hard, I do have sunray moments. Today in the morning I had trouble with the voice, and suddenly decided to talk to it. I said, Jesus is protecting me, give up, go away, Jesus is with me. And suddenly the voice seemed to start to loose control over me. It seemed to loose focus and started to babble and to screech. And a warmth built up inside of me which helped.

About a week ago i had been praying to Jesus, and then I suddenly heard a voice, I mean not one in my head, and it said, "First I want you to visit regularly the divine service and your monthly bible study group, that's all for now". The voice was firm and authorative, but in the same time very kind. I had heard it before, last winter for christmas when it said, "Enough for the religion now, go down to your family and be with them, it's christmas", or something similar, I don't recall exactly.

I have decided to believe that this is Jesus. He's just always able to tell me what I really need. And although He may critisize me it's never without a sense of love in His voice which allows me to submit willingly.

I wish I knew a real good book about christian psychology, psychology done with christian ideas in mind. I'm particularly interested in everything about acceptance, how important it is to everyone to feel accepted by God. A chaplain once told me schizophrenia may have as its core a fear of not being accepted by God and other people. And only when we feel really accepted can we really blossom emotionally, particularly we schizos. And now that I think of it, I believe God always wanted me to feel accepted. Yes, the christian life has duties and I am truly supposed to resist sin, but the whole matter of sin and purity isn't the whole of christian life. The bible says in Jesus there is a yes to all the promises of God to us. He kind of gained them for Himself as the new human, and now He is perfectly willing to pass them on to us.

I've often felt in my christian life that God would not really accept me. And that this was so, was hidden from me. I didn't think about it much. But this is really the area where I can know something about God. Yes, in other things God is very mysterious, but I do believe that it is the normal experience of the christian to know himself accepted by His Father

I'm beginning to think it was a mistake not to attend the new believer's classes my church offered last winter. When I was baptized my pastor agreed that I would not need such teachings because I had already read up myself. But although I guess I know a bit more than other new christians, I think I had and partially still have a host of strange ideas which I never examined, and which are not very orthodox. I could have profitted a lot from the wisdom of those who studied the religion such as my pastor. I'm gonna see if I can attend such a class next year.

This an old recording of Ofra Haza singing Im Nin'Alu. I discovered it today. I think I've heard it earlier, some time in the 90's, but then it was another version, slower and more emphasized. I like this version better.

The lyrics translate into english as this (snagged from http://www.hebrewsongs.com/song-imninalu.htm):

If there be no mercy left in the world,
The doors of heaven will never be barred.
The Creator reigns supreme, and is higher
than the angels
All, in His spirit, will rise

By His nearness, His life-giving breath
flows through them.
And they glory in His name
From the moment of genesis,
His creations grow,
Captivating and more beautiful.

The wheel in his circle thunders
Acclaiming His Holy name
Clothed in the glory of His radiance,
The six-winged cherubs surround Him,
Whirling in His honor
And with their free wings sweetly sing,
Together, in unison