Wednesday, December 03, 2008

This life is but a vapor

I was talking with a good friend today and this statement came out of me:
"Life is but a vapor, suck the juice out of it daily"


I've been thinking about this vapor thing for quite some time. You try and hold onto things in this life and they have a way of just slipping through your fingers, you just can't quite get a grip. Even on a conservative level, you try and value the right things and work the plan but then it can all evaporate and leave you with nothing tangible to hold onto. There are a myriad of fleeting goals that are obvious: search for wealth, power, sucess, notieriety, status, prestige, accomplishment etc. But even in the plan of simple job, simple family, simple friends, simple church . . . all that can be taken away too. At times, it just all feels like a vapor, nothing sure to hang onto.

My faith in God and his eternal Kingdom are quite sure, the reality of that realm in some ways seems more tangible than this one in the flesh. The more I am sure of that world, the more this world looks somewhat pointless. Now, I'm not a dualist. I have full recognition that this realm and that realm are tied together in a cosmic sense and will be united again at the Resurrection and the coming of the new creation. What I'm processing is how arbitrary this life seems to be. I know that choices I make here affect the eternal realm, but exactly what and how is more of a mystery to me now than ever.

I suppose somewhere along the way I was supposed to pick up "mystery" as one of my assumptions about this life. But I suppose in a world of self-help guarantees and humanistic sciences, "mystery" is left out of the curriculum. It's amazing to me how much the American church reflects more about self-help and humanism than it does the Kingdom of God, but that's another topic.

Perhaps this is all because my birthday is a few days away, but I'm wondering about the mystery of this life and the vapor that it is. What I do know is that there is good and its in relationships, that's where you need to suck the juice out of.

peace,