A Day with Plato

A Day with Plato

On a day not so unlike today, giving off feelings of newness and intrigue, there was a wisp in the air that could not be described. A man approached in what would be obviously ancient garb. He walked with a kind of sophisticated step, however his shoulders were moving with little gyration, making one think of nothing but humility. The strong faced, bearded man came staring into the working gears of my mind. The fact he had accepted his invitation to council with me and discusses theological matters like those at the council of Nicaea. Sitting down, he simply stared waiting for the beginning of the Socratic journey that is before us.

            The first thing was to greet as was the tradition of almost all cultures throughout time. Being very appreciative of him coming to listen, telling him that there is some good news that may perhaps bring relief to his wandering mind. The news that was being referred to is only relevant to him because of the epoch he was born in. He came from a time that was more or less unaware of Jewish culture. He knew nothing of the age of Christ. The entire purpose for this meeting is to bring into the mind of the one of the greatest influencers of thought, the coherency and persistence of truth that can be found in Christianity. If there was a world in which Plato who brought philosophy as a newborn into this world, believed and understood the worldview concerning Christianity, this would be a different world.

            So, the bearded Plato, with a slight grin his head at a slight tilt and his right eyebrow raised, as curious as a cat in a room full of empty boxes asks me, how does this “Christianity” answer the problem of a deity? Does it say that there are a plethora of deities all governing a different thing, or perhaps that you have a monotheistic view that you must sacrifice to in order so that it remains content. The simple reply is the beginning of a potentially profound discussion. I quickly began to use his own tactic of Q: and A: dialectic, and so the discussion begins.

            Plato, do you remember when you came up with the formation of what is concrete and what is subjective philosophically? Well of course I do, he replied. So you also remember the nature of all things intelligible and knowledge and intellect are of a more concrete nature I suppose, and that also if I recall you believe that a man’s soul is perfectible of able to be made more pure if it is ambivalent toward all things emotional. You believed that things outside of intellect and knowledge, things that are simply of this world are conceptually “shadows” of the true reality correct? Again with an affirmative response, as he cocked his head again the other direction with a curious look, retorting what are you getting at, I do believe in what all that you say. I then began to elaborate on how these are things that have been tested by time and some have stood true even without revelation of Christ. In a similar way as Einstein’s theories still are accurate in this current age although he lacked the technology to verify what he believed, Plato lacked a key factor but still hit the nail on the head in a lot of areas.

            Plato, There has been a great new understanding of a human incarnate deity that had come to the Jews. In him, and through the overarching creator that has become spread across the world, truth has been revealed. As you believed in a reality that of which is far more true than ours is, in the teachings of this religion, it is explained that there is a place called heaven (similar to your Elysium retrospectively) that of which God has created that exists in which everything follows down logically from the supernatural to the natural. In the explaining of this, elaborating on the fact we are made in the created image of a monotheistic deity being as some philosophers have said “The greatest conceivable being”. The characteristics of this deity are the virtues that you found to be so highly supreme in regard to all things, however his super intendancy is not restricted to simply those things, although he is those things, he is also the creative genius and the emotions that man feels but in a perfect stat. Let me ask you, can you truly do away with emotion? The answer was an abrupt “well, frankly I’m not entirely sure”. Then let us look at this critically. An emotion we will define as a particular feeling that of which you are experiencing relevant to your relationships or environment or concepts outside of the “environment”. By this definition, seeing as though we cannot truly remove environment or relationships, it seems as though we cannot remove them. Perhaps I am being daft, correct me if I am wrong? Plato nodded his head in agreement. So then if we cannot truly remove relationships because the relationship we will always have is with our self and the dialogue in our mind. The environment is not something we can earnestly speaking, completely destruct or do away with, for even if you are alone in a cave, you will still be afflicted with the emotion that of which you will have about being in said place all alone with [the relationship of] yourself. Would you agree then that we cannot do away with emotions since we cannot remove them? With a slightly noticeable tightening of muscles in the right corner of his mouth he nods with signs of contempt. I would like to suggest to you then that emotions and such other things of neither good of bad pejorative connotation that all men have and cannot be done away with were just passed down from God and his pure state which is Holy and Righteous. In this religion there is neither supremacy in the intellect nor the supremacy intuitive.

            Considering man has these things along with an inevitable ability to do evil, man is contingent would you agree? He answered; of course man must be contingent especially in light of the reality of “ ’ouk oude” in Greek, or more commonly known as “ex nihilo” in Latin. Plato conversed with me for a while on the necessity of man to have come from somewhere; this is partially why he came to the conclusion that there must be a higher truer reality than this one.

            Out of this I began to have discernment about it being opportune time to intellectually offer Christ as a means of salvation to a man in such a desperate need of not simply truth, but of The Truth. Plato I asked, have you ever noticed that there is perhaps a daunting feeling of emptiness that has plagued you and so many of those who were your cohorts in life? Plato responded distraughtly replied, that he believes all men are at times subjected to such a folly of the mind. That it should not be allowed to cause you to think or act differently, just something that the mind must arduously work away from. So I then asked do you thing purpose it is because there is a creator out there, so unlike the Greek anthropomorphized gods, that simply wants to be in relation to you. He who is not contingent has made he who is contingent simply to bring His own glory down and to be in relationship, not to bully or to make a man to abuse him, but to love him. Love truly is the embodiment of your highest virtues and nobilities. The creator is referred to in this religion as love itself, a never wavering or abandoning love that of which is constantly calling out to us. This is the hope which is what I believe is necessary to fill that empty void in the hearts of man. Not that any amount emotional indulgence, or as you would say, artisanal or fleshly indulgence, or intellectual arrival at truth, but an acceptance in a Creator that of which is above all things. Plato broke out into tears expressing himself as one who has been spending his entire life learning and seeking after an intellectual answer to the problems of life that of which could not fully be understood. Morality, ethics, such things needed a base that is outside of this reality to be true, but he could not find such a base except a more true place then here. He told me that this has given him a new ideological perspective on how to view purpose. That he has a long way to go but an eternity to think about. Shortly after this, Plato begins to hear his name be called out but a familiar voice. In a brief eclipse of the present, he found himself lying down in a meadow being called by a young Aristotle to talk with. Plato now has something to think about, that is, if he remembers his dream.

Selflessness or Love?

      C.S. Lewis brings up a remarkable point in one of his daily devotionals. He brings to light the realization that if we ask someone what is the greatest action or character trait we can show or portray to other people, people would answer selflessness. What's the problem with that right? Well it seems that it does truly show that our culture has become so narcissistic that even when we are talking about how to be "pious" we are still absorbed in the idea of self. The answer really implies that by my neglecting of self I am showing everyone else nobility and Christ. The reality is that we should be showing love that is the answer, not SELFlessness, which is making it about others instead of making it all revolve around self. 

     I think this shows a level of feeling inadequate, we desire sometimes to be so Christlike we in our own minds make it about how we can keep from granting our own desires or ambitions. We fear being selfish to a point where in the attempt to love others, the motive is to be the opposite of selfless instead of love itself. This is all very revelational especially to me because I am one of those people who feels the need to see my actions as selfless or selfish, trying to judge myself and every action and motive. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but my phrasing and mindset is wrong, I should be trying to show love in every action and thought. Christ doesn't call us to be selfless toward others and toward God, he calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to love God with all our heart and soul and mind. We can't get lost in the notion that it is about us even when making it about others. This is something I felt needed to be shared on a more widespread note. 

      No need to rant on about this idea, be blessed hope you enjoyed it!

My Testimony

Childhood

     When I was a child my life was pretty simple. I went to a private school and attended a small Lutheran church with my mom and dad. What made it interesting was being part of one of the very few Hispanic/Caucasian families in town. Oh and my dad was 50+ years older then my mom. From the start people would always give us terrible looks and that definitely began to stir up a sense that I am not  accepted. Some people of course would be kind but you could always hear others snickering in the background about how wrong and messed up our family is because of the age and racial difference in my parents. They were good parents but also fought a lot and there was a lot of racism in my dad's side of the family as well. Most of my dad's siblings would sneer and make immigration remarks toward my mom inadvertently. Between that and the feuding my parents had at home, mom crying and screaming wishing that she could go back to Costa Rica, and dad getting frustrated with her, left me in quite a confused state of belonging and what life should look like. I did become a Christian in the midst of all this though at some youth convention I ended up at. No big deal though really, or so it seemed, because my life stayed the same. Don't get me wrong, my life wasn't that bad, perhaps incredibly awkward at times but nothing like a lot of people go through and have to tolerate at home.

A New Season

     Halfway through my sixth grade year of school my dad had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, after switching from a doctor who told him that it was simply his age that had been making his body hurt and feel different. Although his symptoms were not normal and he refused to run any sort of test. We went to Costa Rica for a month or two visiting my mom's family that summer and he was absolutely miserable reading up on how to deal with this form of cancer and what life was going to look like for him from here on out. When we returned home he was taken in for more testing and was diagnosed with multiple myloma. This is an incurable bone cancer. My dad was going to die. From that appointment in mid-summer he was given until Christmas or so to live. The stage four cancer was already brutally destroying his bones and infecting all of his bodily tissue. As we began to even then mourn his death expecting the worst wondering how mom and I would make it, Christmas rolled by and he was still here and going strong. He was then put on a new kind of chemo that was in testing. Being on that for over a year, I got to see the very worst a persons immune system can look. Understanding that someone who's normal healthy weight was around 170 was down to 129 for a while looks like death walking. As time went on mom and I become brokenhearted and running out of faith. God wasn't answering our prayers in healing him so it looked as if we were on our own.

What's next?

     Those was the big question for mom and I, "how much longer can this last?" or "Are we ever going to make it through this?". You see, as time went further down the road of this digression, he began to lose who he was. His mind going from being a manufacturing engineer for Boeing, to being someone who forgets where he is and whether he had taken a pill already or not. This being said, unless you have lived with someone who has bone cancer very long it's hard to understand the kind of agony that goes with it. To wake up at four in the morning to the sound of a man with a high pain tolerance screaming in writhing pain was normal. Mom had forgotten to change his fetonal pain patches of high dosage one night and so the pain was out of control. He ingested 9 loritab painkiller pills before even getting a handle on it if that puts it in perspective. To have to sit on the floor hiding food to eat while watching him because his throat had gotten so weak that he couldn't eat most solid food because he would choke, and if he saw the food he would want it. In the midst of agony and progression toward death, I had happened upon someone who had also lost their father to cancer and experienced what I was experiencing. She was murdered by car crash, being in the hospital while suffering internal trauma, I got to talk to her all week because I was home sick with walking pneumonia and quarantined to my room. I was able to talk to her until the moment she passed away. This 19 year old death was the first of many events that would transpire that year for me. Following it was a car accident where someone hit mom and I and put our car out of commission. Our roof was leaking, the washer and dryer broke down. Our refrigerator had a blown a fuse, water was leaking into and rotting the wood in the garage. This all was leading up to potentially the worst event of it all to me.

Christmas Cheer

      The Christmas of my 9th grade year, He had been sleeping through the usual practice of opening presents. This was the Christmas of a large snow storm and my mom and I were essentially trapped in the house. He woke up at about 10 in the morning hallucinating as he often did and was talking to his mom who was deceased and crying. In all of his wailing he wasn't able to get up by himself, because the cancer had made him to weak. Mom and I actually had to help him up to take him to a porta-pot he had to use. Anyway, he hated life so much at this point he was trying to get us to give him the bottles of pills so he could kill himself. He wanted to call all of his family to tell them goodbye before he said this, and so we let him. As he told all of his family I'm dying and i'll be gone soon my heart completely broke. As he was continuing to ask for the pills, he then reached the conclusion that without any pills he would also die more quickly and so he refused to take any. Mom and I knew that this would just leave him in indescribable agony, along with, extreme constipation, anxiety attacks and the like. It took several hours of trying to convince him that I was his son and that he shouldn't leave yet so that he would take the medicine which eventually he did. This raised the greatest uproar in my own mind, questioning whether my own quality of life was worth it.

Where is my God

     To be quite frank, after all the things I had to see and the daily picture of death I had to become ok with, I truly began to question what the nature of God is. I had no question that he was real because I had experienced him myself. Going to church by myself for four years, I learned to worship God because I really didn't have anything to lose. I started asking all the hard deep questions when I was still young and in the middle of this trauma. What is the purpose of life, what is faith, what is the point of prayer, is everything predestined, what IS God's will. These questions plagued my mind, and so I spent hours upon hours fighting God and trying to understand him. Trying to understand why this happened to me and my family. Trying to answer if God is just making me have to check if my dad is breathing every time I walk in his room and he is asleep on his hospital bed in our house. I found that there truly was no hope or peace, or joy without God. Because there came points where I just didn't know if I could make it, feeling so alone and completely dead inside. I felt like a ghost that people could see through. Sick of putting up a mask for everyone around me, at school, church, and any sort of public event. There came moments crying out to God asking him to just take my life. I had a 40 day period that I was severely depressed upon arriving home. Contemplating walking down my gravel driveway and never coming home was common. I had no peace until I came to a point where I was completely broken and crying and on my knees asking God to give me a moment of peace in all the chaos. He would. He had never left me, regardless of how much I fought him and yelled and wished he would do something, this was something I had to walk to walk through. When I called on him, He was always there. Sitting on the ground looking at a dying man who used to take care of me, whose flesh was bruised and torn from merely picking him up off of the floor when he fell, listening to him wheeze as he could barely breathe, I was ok. I had peace in Christ. His love for me was enough, and because I understood what it meant to see pain even in my misery God gave me the opportunity to minister to others and love them. This truly meant something for them, knowing that I was going through something like this and could still be ok and worshiping God, then they felt that they could make it to with God's help.

God is Good

To go through something lasting, painful, and significant doesn't mean God has abandoned you. It just means that his world is filled with sin and crap is gonna hit the fan sometimes. God never leaves or abandons you when you call. It may feel like it, but he doesn't. I wasn't saved in the middle of my time of trial, but I learned who God was and found answers to those hard questions I asked. This is a very summarized version of my testimony in an attempt to have brevity, but through everything I saw and experienced, in the midst of it, I could see God was there. In hindsight, life never really was so overwhelming I couldn't handle it. In my weakness I needed God, and when I realized that I really couldn't do it on my own, that my mind will and emotions really wasn't enough to get me through this God truly shined. My testimony is one of hope. That although over 4 years of watching death is enough to break any man's countenance God is bigger then it, and it really won't last forever. God is good, praise him in all things, because without the hope of His love everything is lost. I am praying for anyone who reads this and needs encouragement. Be blessed.

Grace more abundant

Grace in perspective

     God's grace is not something that we can really comprehend in terms of anything man has done, or even aspires to do. God created us knowing that we would fall short, and that our free will would be our greatest downfall.

     We know this because God had a predetermined plan for his son to die on the cross to give all of us sinners a second chance. We can define grace as, a free, predetermined gift that of which cannot be diminished or made greater, neither forced upon us or earned.

     Grace is not earned, merely accepted or refused (Romans 3:23-24). Having something given to us that gives us freedom from the bondage of this world in our spirit is incredibly difficult to fully grasp.

 We are not bound by sin any longer, we can choose something better, although all fall short (Romans 3:23). we do not have to live by this world's standard of sin and death any longer (Romans 5).

Peace and Joy through Grace

     Because of the acceptance we choose in Christ, we have become holy and can experience the greatest conceivable joy. The greatest conceivable joy comes from knowing the greatest conceivable being, which is God.

 Grace is empowering, because it comes by love. We can have overwhelming peace knowing that we could have been the most vile, ill-reputed human, and still are loved and accepted into God's family if we so choose.

 When we can come to terms with ourselves in accepting that we really cannot do ANYTHING to make God love us or accept us, and that we are fully paid for by the blood of Christ, then we can have peace and joy in any circumstance.

 If we can can mentally reach the point that Paul reaches regarding grace, knowing that whether he is being stoned, put in prison, or persecuted by his own followers, God still loves him more then anyone could ever imagine, and has freed him of the old self, then we know the love of God.

Somebody love me.

As a culture have began to lose our self esteem and our innate sense of purpose. Man looks for companionship and a sense of belonging, this is undeniable. Love is what is sought after, and is more passionately pursued then anything else in the world. Anywhere that it could possibly be found, regardless of what it takes from us and what it makes us.

 This world has corrupted love in its purest form for so long that I'm not entirely sure we know what it really is anymore.

"Somebody love me" is the underlying statement in a heart expressed in the form of seeking others affections. Well OF COURSE IT IS! some would say. Really take a moment and think about it though, to compromise any presupposition has become acceptable in our world for love.

 Man will do drugs, have sex, lie, cheat, steal, and even kill at times so that others would accept and if they are lucky "love" them. To try to find acceptance in a world full of rejection and death is something so hard to find genuinely. Because of this man will do WHATEVER it takes at crucible points in life.

Where is this all going? Ya I want love and acceptance..so what!? What's the kicker, that's the punch-line here. There exists something to offer containing objective truth about yourself and reality.

 Yes, I am a Christian writer and I offer you the most realistic perspective as I can. Through a Christian perspective to this world issue, and what I believe to be the only true solution to this problem.

Christ died so that we may go to heaven, right? I mean that's the preached gospel and why a lot of people may have become Christians, because eternity in hell can be avoided by saying a few simple words according to the eccentric religion.

No, I'm gonna tell you now that, that is a lie. Christ did NOT die so that we can go to heaven. He died for a more noble cause then that. The question must then be asked, what in the world could possibly be more noble then that?

 Christ died so that man could have and be in a personal relationship with the one true God again. The by-product of this is that if you do happen to choose him you will go to heaven, but this is not why. Christ loved you so much, that out of his free will he became a bridge over the abyss sin has created so that we can get to know the greatest conceivable being.

        Habakkuk 2:14 For the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea

How does all this relate to someone loving me? If you could only imagine the most amazing unreachable person to you in the world (an actor, actress?), now imagine them seeking to be your friend and trying to teach you everything they can and be a part of every aspect of your life. You have just created a small fiction which in a way represents how we should see God.

The creator of the IDEA of LOVE desires you to be intimate and close to Him. Someone who could never leave or forsake you, someone who knows every evil thing you have done or thought while no one was watching and still has the most captivating desire to choose you to be his son or daughter.

 This is a great comfort if you can wrap your mind around it. I'm not here to say that you need the Bible memorized to know God. Abraham who birthed the nation that became Israel so to speak, walked and talked with God in a relationship with no guide to show him what to do.

Genesis 12:1 The Lord had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land that I will show you.

 Now I do want to emphasize, being in a relationship with God will not keep you from sinning, people from dying, or "bad" things from happening, but it gives us purpose and hope regardless of what does happen.

 Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is confidence in things hoped for and assurance about what we do not see

 Since the world is fallen, sin will happen, but to be close to the one who desires the greatest purpose for your life, that is something we can hold onto. Please, read the Bible though, We can see who God is through it and how incredible the nature of his love is.

Understanding love in a self pleasure seeking world.

When we think of love, a person that we are attracted to, or an ideal, on object, an activity, a savior, a personified inanimate object comes to mind. I can't say that, this all isn't what comes to my mind, but if i think about love objectively, something else prevails. How can you define love in one word? I believe by studying the  bible, philosophers who seemed to have it right, people that understand life, it seems to come down to selflessness. I can't think of one instance where love isn't selfless or where it shouldn't be. The qualities of love follow selflessness. I had a friend define love one time in such a different way I could never forget. He defined it as toward people specifically "the act of trying to help someone reach their full potential within your own limits for the sake of love alone." That is such an interesting definition. It has several interesting dynamics to recognize.  To love is an action, and a perspective. As that same friend told me, you have to be able to love with your motives and with you affections. Now this means to understand the purpose and concept of true love, id est, the different types of love, and also be able to effectively convey it with your affections not doing it for personal game or for anything other then the same of God's glory and love itself.

To be competent in what love is it takes an understanding of the four different types of love in the original Greek. Check it out sometime. Read Chapter 13 of Corinthians. Even if your not sure about your religion, Mahatmat Ghandi who was in no way Christian agreed with most of Christ's and the apostles teaching, give em a shot. Don't let a Christian you know, define Christianity. Check it.