The world is sick. Rape, genocide, corruption, stealing, revenge, murder... the list is endless. But what I think we often forget, is that we are a part of the world, and indeed we are all also very sick. There are people who understand their depravity, their utter lostness and sickness. Many are depressed, numb, self-destructive. Than there are those who have no idea how corrupt they are. They walk around clueless to their evil. Many are judgemental, shallow, feel entitled, spoiled, totally ungrateful.

Now I also recognize that in all of us, we have the capacity to do good. But, you would not call a murderer a good man just because he helped a few old ladies cross the street. Some might call this analogy a bit extreme, but I actually think it is uncomfortably close to the truth.

If your perception of how good you are, is based on your point of view, and also how you compare yourself to others...think about how subjective that is. Truly, without an absolute standard of good (or of bad for that matter) we are all lost in a vastless ocean of relativism. And yet, from Hitler to Mother Teresa (a old cliche comparison I know) most of us think that compared to most of us we really aren't that bad. If there is one things we humans are adept at doing, it's justifying our atrocious behaviors and actions. We relativize ourselves till we reach a happy and mostly positive medium about ourselves. "Well so and so cheats on his taxes in this way, so me cheating in this way is not so bad." "Well pratically everyone gossips, so my comment about so and so is not that bad." "Well he cheated on me, so to hell with him if I sleep with so and so." "Well most people barely give anything to charity, I am quite generous giving $20 bucks to that such and such cause."

I can't remember who said this, but it was something like "anytime we do anything worthy of being called good, we borrow from the Divine." In other words, the only way to be more than animals is if God made us to be more than animals. And I think he did. He made us to be his children. The great miracle then is that you are more capable of more good and beauty than you or I can possibly understand in our current pitiful state. We need God to see our real selves.

"If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts in the long run are hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day...and so our case is hopeless again." -CS Lewis

After a time of reflection.

I work in the intensive care unit of a large hospital.

I work daily amongst tangible grief, despair, tragedy, sorrow and death.

But I am not depressed. I am convinced that we are all going to die.

I am not exaggerating when I say that every week I talk to people who need to be convinced of their coming death. I live in a world where people actually need constant reminders about their coming death. Correction, there are inescapable reminders all around us, what we need is realization.

Realization...that you will die. Realization that death is coming anytime, perhaps even tomorrow.

I think the reason people blow this question off so easily, is that when they look at the question, it seems so confusing, vague, and pointless. Scary. I can relate to this hardship. But the truth is worth finding out.

Why am I alive? What is the point of life? What should I do with my life? Why is it so hard sometimes? What happens when I die?

There are answers.

God, God. Help us see. Take away the heavy fog that blinds us. Help us see what is real. Help us to seek truth, and not suppress it. Reveal the lies that we believe. Give us real wisdom, intelligence, understanding, perspective. Help us God. We cannot do it alone.

One real answer.

Either there is a God given point to life...or this isn't a point.

That is what is on my mind right now. I don't see a way around it. I've looked at other alternatives, none of them satisfy. Cheap glitz and glam is what I would have to settle for to ignore this revelation. I am not willing to settle for some old or fashionable answer. I want the truth.

And the truth once you get a glipse of it, is a difficult thing to get around, no matter how unpopular or not in vogue it is. Part of me wants to go back to ignorance...because well, it seems like there were more people to talk to there. In a child like sense it was more 'care-free' overall. Certainly there were dark moments of unresolvable dread, fear and anxiety...but those moments were easier to ignore and distract myself from than this tenacious truth.

For all its consequences, feeling like a freak, alienated etc., the truth is mercifully a beautiful thing, filled with enormous hope. It makes the world, the universe, my, our existence... so much better. I can't think of a much better way to put it then, there is hope beyond the grave! There is life after death. Real life. What God intended and wanted, but that we so terribly throw away and reject. It seems like a myth, but it's a real one. The story of the prodigal son is true for all of us. It is the real human story, that is why our arts and stories are filled with the same theme. Luke 15: 11-32 look it up.

Life is such a beautiful gift.

And it was never meant to just start and end in dust. It is intended to be a ever increasing, ever joyful, never ending story. But it has to start with God.

If it doesn't start with God, think about what that means. Really. Are you okay with made up answers? Assuming in your own limited judgement that you are just good enough compared to the next guy or gal, that you will just take your chances with whatever may come? I think that's a dangerous gamble.

There are real answers, and thank God they are far better then we mere humans could ever hope for.

I think C.S. Lewis figured it out- An excerpt from Mere Christianity.

All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts--to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I have been describing, and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth--only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair. Most of us have got over the pre-war wishful thinking about international politics. It is time we did the same about religion.

We have a lot of back tracking to do in the way we think.

There is rational and logical basis in God. There is also a non-rational and non-logical basis of God; but it exist only because of our limited knowledge and understanding. Faith exist in both categories...it is most definitely not just in the non-rational, non-logical. There is a infinity of difference between God our creator, and the little green man on your box of Lucky Charms.

I am reading a fascinating, mind-opening book called 'Escape from Reason by Francis A. Schaeffer'

A great journey in explaining why we think the way we do.