the life of lovely
I will quote what I remember Archbishop Lazar Puhalo saying about God, which gives great encouragement to us:
‘God doesn’t send anybody to hell
God doesn’t punish us either in this world or the world to come
And as St Anthony the Great says
It would be great error to think that God could love people in hell any less than He could love people in heaven
Because hell is a condition, it’s not a place
The malice we feel, is the fire that burns
The malice in our own conscience’
By Lazar Puhalo
It’s one more day until my depot injection of 150mg Invega Sustenna. I take this depot every 28 days.
I have been thinking about humility, and love for enemies. There are enemies within the church, as well, as older Greeks in Greek Orthodox churches are often uneducated and disrespectful.
But the same goes for the Vietnamese. One Vietnamese lady called me a psycho because I was mentally ill. She would not hang around with her friends when her friends were around me.
There is a profound lack of respect in the community towards people who are disabled. Nobody wants to talk to you if you have a disability. No girl wants to go out with you either, if you are a disabled male.
I am a lot more glorious than most people. How is an education going to save you from the fires of hell? What’s the point of marrying, fornicating, having kids, working a 9 to 5, enjoying yourself, laughing at the disabled, when you are going to hell?
Many people in hell wish they could warn sinners about what awaits them, but they do not have permission to appear to them, as the request of the rich man in hell in the gospel was denied in sending Lazarus the righteous to the rich man’s brothers who were still on Earth, while they still had time to repent.
I looked on one of my previous posts. It was titled ‘law of attraction.’ Heck, I feel better looking into new age teachings than thinking about Christianity. Christianity paved the way for my mental illness. The bible coloured my mental breakdown.
Jesus said very austere things in the bible. The bible is not recommended to be read by a mentally ill person, although a lot of mentally ill people have read the bible at some point.
I don’t read the bible now, but I do read Unseen Warfare by Theophan the Recluse. I don’t think he was a Saint, as the Orthodox church makes him out to be. He is totally out of touch with the mentally ill.
Then again, the Orthodox church is not for everybody. My former priest warned joining the Orthodox church would make my mental illness a lot worse.
I do like Eckhart Tolle. He is a wise and peaceable man, although he is not a Christian. Ironically, the most Christian person in the world is the Dalai Lama, and he is Buddhist! Ha, the irony.
I guess I will go back to distancing myself from the teachings of Jesus. The law of attraction is much more palatable.
I am appalled by the world’s lack of humility. I saw on the news, one of the tennis players got booed by the crowd for an ugly confrontation. I can’t believe this. There are so many ugly confrontations like this in the world. So many rapes, so many bashings, so many murders.
And whatever for? Can’t we all settle our grievances peacefully? Sure, I may be a conqueror in the world of Civ 5, but I never express violence in the real world.
Let us all embrace humility, for without it, none shall enter the bridal chamber. Without humility, none shall enter paradise. Without humility, none shall go to heaven.
Why? As an ascetic once said ‘As Satan was bound and cast out of heaven due to his pride, so to re-enter paradise, we must have humility.’ What is humility? A craving for insults. A thirst for dishonours. Seeing dishonour as praise. And if you can’t forgive the slightest fault in those who have perpetrated evil against you, you have no humility.
Stop blaming others. Start taking responsibility and blaming yourself. If you remember your sins, God will forget them. If we accuse ourselves, God will not accuse us. But if we accuse others, God will accuse us, at that great and fearful day of judgement.
Remember James 2:17: faith without works is dead. What is a good work then? Accepting abuse from others. Forgiving those who violate our freedoms and our rights. Have the humility to accept the teaching of the Saints.
Russia has invaded Ukraine! I can’t believe it! They are practically the same race and people, why kill each other? This is the destructiveness of communism, where a nation is turned against its people.
I had a bad dream last night, or several, during the night. I suffered indigestion at 4am in the morning, and I dreamt I was married to the wrong lady, that my qq had been deleted by the Chinese, and that I was in a borderlands 2 simulated reality.
I play borderlands a little. About 2 hours a day if any at all. I don’t play computer games 8 hours a day like I used to. Perhaps this is due to the lack of enjoyment that I experience as part of my schizophrenia.
I still can’t believe there is a war going on. Why doesn’t America step in? Why didn’t America subjugate North Korea, and release all the captive Christians? Maybe it is because America is not ready for a World War.
According to Orthodoxy, there will be the third world war, then the Anti-Christ will come. I most certainly will bow down to him, because I have no hope in Jesus, and to save my own skin. God help us.
Our sins as a human race has become so great, that the world is beginning to fall apart. Lord, may I not live to see the end. Amen.
Today is Sunday, otherwise known as church day. I probably won’t go to church, even though I got up early enough in the morning.
The buddha said ‘if you can’t help anyone, at least don’t hurt anyone.’ I might as well later on go and pick up rubbish and put it in the bin. I feel like a thoroughly useless individual.
I possibly have vulnerable narcissism, which means I bottle up a lot of hatred and am hypersensitive to criticism. As I advocate humility, I probably myself am not fully humble. I feel like a tortured soul.
Humility doesn’t come easily for me. As I didn’t join the Orthodox church from a young age, I had no spiritual director to direct me in the ways of humility.
I think, as much as I tell otherwise, that the Orthodox have a lot of humility. It takes a lot of humility to work a 9 to 5. I don’t even put in the effort to find work, so I am a slothful, sinful individual.
But I suppose nobody wants a schizophrenic working for them. That further makes me wish I were humble.
Humility is the patient acceptance of all the unfavourable situations in life, with thanksgiving to God, as God is trying to resurrect our soul from the dead. Maybe that is the best I can say on humility.
As the world gets more anxious and angry, the only antidote is humility and hope in God’s mercy.
The world cries out for something to fill its emptiness, and sometimes, the Lord Jesus Christ will not fill that void, until the sinner cries even more ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me!’ as the blind man did in one of the gospels.
Although the blind man used ‘Son of David’, the blind man really meant ‘Son of God.’ So likewise, the Orthodox Christian cries out incessantly, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’
Jesus sometimes doesn’t come, so the penitent may learn persistence, devotion, and cry out all the more. But when Jesus does come, the fragrance that arises is peace, joy and love.
Many of the ascetics of the Orthodox Church regularly cried out this prayer to Jesus, until their spiritual blindness was removed, and they could see the Lord Jesus Christ clearly.
If we are too weak to cry out incessantly, we must embrace humility, as humility is the mother of all virtue, and pride the father of all vice. When we have humility, we sort of have acceptance of our situation, which may or not change, due to our previous sins in Christ.
The world may never change, but I hope somebody reading this blog may be encouraged to ask Jesus Christ to have mercy on them.
Last night, I had a dream about what hell is like. In the dream, it depicted hell as falling down a hole, getting bones crushed as the souls hit rocks on the way down, and at the bottom was lava, and the souls there would cry out to God ‘Lord, have mercy!’ and when they did, they’d be taken back to the top of the hole, only to fall down it again and again unto infinitum.
I think I had other dreams during the night too, but this is the one I remember. Hell was not dark, it was bright, just getting bones crushed and skin set on fire. Maybe the real hell is a lot worse, according to Orthodox literature.
I probably had this dream because, as much as I think myself righteous, I really am not, so I set my eternity ablaze with torment for myself. Oh well, I don’t think there is anything I can do.
I think, even if I spent several eternities in hell, my repentance would not be sincere. I think a lot of souls would still blame God for the trials they had in life and in hell, and if they were let out, they’d be like demons, rather than repentant souls.
I used to spar. Then I ran out of energy. This was taken over a year ago. Maybe I had more energy in my 20s.
Why fight? The Daoists say ‘be like water,’ in the context of being flexible. Bruce Lee says ‘be like water,’ in the context of violence and getting your own way. I no longer believe in Bruce Lee’s way of thinking.
I pray for Bruce Lee’s soul everyday. He was a violent man, so he is likely still suffering in hell. Poor guy, I think rejecting Jesus’s offer of eternal life is the ultimate in foolishness.
Now, it is true, I do not do a very professional blog. I did cancel my 10 dollar a month subscription, as I didn’t generate enough of a following. What person could possibly be interested in an unremarkable guy who can only do 10 half push ups?
I have no idea what I am doing. Theology? Maybe I got a little knowledge on Orthodox theology, or maybe that is my pride talking. Sure wish I had enough skills to have a job.
I would say ‘faith without works is dead,’ as said in James 2:17. This is the reason I do not believe in Justification by faith alone. I would call it a heresy, along with the heresy of charismatic speaking in tongues and the theory of evolution.
But it wouldn’t matter, as I have no way to verify what God thinks. I just put forth what I’ve been told by the Old Calendar movement among the Orthodox. I have no idea what God is or is like, all I know that I’ve experienced both heaven and hell in my own body, with my thought processes. Sometimes I am disciplined, maybe manic, so I experience heaven; most times I am depressed, so I experience hell.
I would wish I could hold onto heaven or a concept of wellness for longer while on earth. Maybe the reward is all stored up for me in heaven. But as one of the Saints said ‘how can I know whether I’ve pleased God or not?’ This is what greatly troubles me.
As I cry out with Job, ‘when is my day of reckoning? When will God release me from this burden? When do I stop depending on medication?’ I suppose these are questions from my sinful human nature, which doesn’t look at things from a transcendent perspective.
Sure hope everybody else’s boxing day is superb…
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