June 27th, 2009

Lately I think my spirituality has been stagnant.. Well actually I've been struggling myself. Perhaps I have these questions in mind that are too complicated, and I think my struggle is a struggle that is quite uncommon. Maybe I really need some Christian friends who perhaps have experienced the same struggle, or can understand my complicated struggle and willing to share his/her views.

First of all, I noticed that people do show biasness. Christian friends included.. Or is it that i'm just being skeptical? I dunno.. Over many things i've been quite skeptical because I noticed inconsistencies amongst many. It seems that many people just draw the lines arbitrarily. For example, for the Indonesian election case, they said that we should be responsible as Christians to take part in elections and understand politics. There are events going on, seminars perhaps that gives insights about the politics in Indonesia. No, i'm not skeptical about those events. But I'm skeptical over those people who think as if those who didn't participate in such events are guilty and not being responsible. I'm also skeptical over those people who think that those who refuse to choose are not being responsible. Why do I say so? Because they're inconsistent! When some people tend to think that those who refuse to choose are not being responsible, then do they with the same force rebuke those who choose but are irresponsible about their choices (don't research well about politics). When some people tend to think that those who refuse to participate in seminars that gives insight about politics, they could be biased too in a way that they didn't rebuke those who (so far) didn't follow politics, and only now that they started to learn. Well there is a starting point of everything they might say, but after attending the seminar, what is important is not to draw the line that 'because i attended the seminar and make my choices based on what I think is wise, according to the facts presented on the seminar , therefore i've been responsible'. Well..what about someone who didn't attend the seminar but follows other's choices? Perhaps that other person is known to be a responsible and wise Christian. Hm.. well..but the process of struggling is more important than the result, well it can be argued that way. And thus this reduces to the point that 'we Christians should struggle about politics of our own country.' One can say that 'but we are not called to do everything!'. Hm, but it is the privilege of a citizen to choose.. You see, this can be a very complicated issues with many lines being drawn here and there. So the point reduces to, 'If we have the privilege, and we don't do something about it, we're wrong'. Of course this will be very broad. We have a lot of privileges.. and how do we prioritize which privilege should come first. With the internet, we have access to the world! We have so much privilege to communicate with a lot of people. Do we use this privilege to bring glory to God? Hm..knowing that our vote counts as a single vote, is it wrong to see by the number (that our vote won't change anything?) Why don't we exercise our other privileges that seems to be more impactful?

My thoughts often goes these ways. There are many things that I'm skeptical about. I'm skeptical to those who always reminds us to attend an 'excellent' seminars. Certainly, they're attending those events to learn. Well, there are many excellent resources available on the net. If you're willing to learn, have you shown it by showing some passion to learn those excellent and free resources on the net? All in all, it is about personal integrity as a whole. Well, it is understandable that people are limited beings. We are always incapable to be 100% consistent and integrated. As for me, this tendency to look on other peoples inconsistencies often lead to withdrawals. It is an uncommon thing to be a person's struggle. Often, my struggle too is, sometimes I think a lot that I'm able to see the 'top view' of things, that makes me tend to ignore or don't put weight to certain claims that I think is just incomplete. A simple example is that I am not very bothered anymore about people saying 'what is your motivation in...' when I already have a concept in my mind that motivations sometimes are not single and can contain other motivations. I view them as a pie chart perhaps, and the proportions are not fixed from time to time. Well, it is good that we can introspect ourselves to know our motivations, but still, there are 'hidden assumptions' that there is only a single motivation and that we can know that single motivation by reflection. The thing is, if you're able to see things from the 'top view', identify unseen factors, you will be able to see things differently and ignore incomplete statements that don't consider those unseen factors. In other words, you already have a mindset, a model that you hold superior and is a super set of what is being claimed of another person. For example in a debate, two person can hold two extreme views A and B. I already had this concept that many people are debating in a useless manner, accusing the other being more towards the other extreme. The situation is however, it is often that both parties couldn't really answer when asked 'if A and B are extremes, what should be the middleway between A and B?'. Most often people think that they're in the middle. But how do they prove it? There are many debates or arguments that can be reduced to this kind of model, esp often in a relationships.

Well perhaps all these complaints are not relevant at all. Perhaps im also biased in my thinking. Perhaps these are all defense mechanisms. But well, this is my deepest struggle now..