Steven Colborne's Blog, page 51

An Explanation

Hello everyone. For the sake of those who are confused, or just curious, I thought I’d explain what motivated my last couple of posts, which were rather unusual.

I’ve written a lot on this blog and in my books about words and hermeneutics and interpretation and how words communicate meaning. I thought I would experiment to see if it were possible to write a post that was entertaining, while at the same time not making any sense.

I did consider doing this for a week (and I have three further posts in this ‘series’ drafted), but I know at least one reader felt concerned about my mental health, and I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, so I have decided to end the series early and take the two posts from the last two days down.

I think there was a certain rebellion in what I wrote as well, owing to the huge amounts of frustration I feel about the ‘big brother’ state and algorithms determining everything and freedom of speech being eroded and our privacy being invaded in the extreme. I thought it could be fun to be a bit playful and see what happened.

I’m grateful to those of you who saw the funny side (I actually laughed so much when I was putting the posts together; I guess I’m strange and have a bit of a bonkers sense of humour), and I’m also grateful to anyone who was concerned, I appreciate that you care about me and want me to be safe and well.

I considered starting another blog for these ‘freeticles’ posts (the ‘free’ indicating ‘freestyle’ and the ‘ticles’ indicating ‘tickles’) because these posts are only loosely connected to philosophy and theology, which is of course the focus of this blog, as you all know. I’ll have a think about whether or not I would like to do that.

I hope you’re all bearing up okay in the midst of the pandemic / ‘plandemic’ (whatever your beliefs) and thanks for bearing with me while I broke away from my usual blogging style! Chat to you soon.

Complex Stripe Without Elephant Cand-Cond

Without furr, or fantastic, dismay. Never before three times earlier, the cape cod was so much easier before valentine one before seven treat.

Now, hostile forces plonkety plonkety plonk but don’t remove yourself! Easier eating within frame. Haven’t you gone shorty shorty? Wherever before night, came nought, and hastile fragrances abounded. Pling!

If goaty wants fabric in earshot you’ll do a big one before question three, you didn’t grease the flake into pandemonium castle. I won’t! Costume, but didn’t one time cost many over politik newsanthemum?

Slim! Slim! Slim! You do, you argenout hontastical. Bringing peaceful slap bang wallet tug in the goose hen pick-up style.

Surely, she went thrice, for King tapety top indeterminoo von twank hurst. Gono.

Kissing all day long under the banner of sleep!

Your trident will engulf enthusiastic tesco nuisance plot into garbage with a view to a happy ending. You’re not what or when your sizzle will tell him things. Canoe!

What is Wisdom and Who is Wise?

Age is often equated with wisdom. This belief is based on the idea that knowledge is something which is accumulated, but I dispute this. I don’t believe knowledge and experience are things that are stored up, as many people believe, in the cells of our brains. I don’t believe that in any given moment a human being is holding onto a certain amount of wisdom within their body.

What we think and believe is determined by God, out of His infinite wisdom. So I agree with the Christian Scriptures when they say God alone is wise (see Jude 25, for example). I believe that our thoughts and feelings arise because God chooses to manifest them in a certain way at a certain time; God does not necessarily determine them based on what we’ve been through in the past.

We think of children as growing wiser with age, but this isn’t true. Children do not become wiser, they simply change in their character and behaviour, according to how God chooses to animate their thoughts and actions as He unfolds their lives.

We can hold beliefs for a while, and God may change those beliefs as we grow older, but we should never become puffed up and think, “I have been through a lot, therefore I know better”. Such a statement is to misrepresent the way knowledge and wisdom function in human beings.

Think of the actions of a tiny spider, no bigger than a couple of millimeters, which is able to create a relatively vast and complex web. The spider is a vessel for God’s wisdom; it is not wise in itself. It does not require a large brain to know how to undertake complex tasks, because the tasks it does are not based on accumulated knowledge, but by the present-moment animating power of God.

If you need convincing that knowledge stored in brains isn’t the cause of creaturely activity, look at the example of the jellyfish, which has no brain, and yet lives a full and varied life just like any other creature.

Animals do not function as a result of brain activity, and neither do human beings. We are all animated by God, and there is no part of us that can be said to ‘contain’ wisdom. We are merely vessels for God to express different aspects of His infinite wisdom, and animating the lives of creatures is a game God plays (in endless different ways) as He unfolds the story of the universe.

Handing God the Reins

Regular readers will probably recognise the arguments in this post from previous articles, but I repeat them here for the sake of new readers and anyone who is interested.

A short while ago, I read this in a blog post:

“I was taking a marriage class (a prerequisite in the Bible school program) when I asked God to orchestrate a unique love story. I handed Him the reins of my current relationship and trusted all that happened next would be part of His plan.”

I was actually temporarily lost for words when I read this, such is the extent of the ridiculousness of the idea that a human being can in one moment be in control of their relationship, and in the next minute ‘hand God the reins’ as though He were sitting back, casually looking on, and waiting for instruction from human beings.

I get it. This person is trying to communicate a kind of cosy relationship with God, which is something that Christians do claim to have. Christianity is an exclusivist religion, and so Christians feel that when they are ‘saved’ they have been specially selected by God and brought into His family. What’s implicit in the quoted statement is a kind of ‘me and God are so close I can tell him what to do, that’s how wonderful God is and that’s how cool it is to be a Christian’ mentality. Fair enough, I don’t have a problem with that per se.

What I really dislike about the quote is the confusion it portrays around the free will issue. The whole Christian worldview revolves around the idea that we freely sin (and are deserving of judgment), but it is impossible to defend the idea that we have free will and at the same time believe God is unfolding our life stories.

In reality, it is not the case that God is moving in and out of our lives as they unfold. The truth is that God is unfolding the story of our lives in every respect.

I ask you to pause today to think deeply about the nature of God, and His involvement in creation, as you understand it to be. Think about this in relation to the world around you, and the way you pray. Do you feel, in terms of your lived experience, that God is selective in which areas of your life He is involved with? Do you honestly believe this?

I would put it to you that such a perspective is absurd. God has always had the reins in your life; you did not choose to be born, or to grow from a baby, to a child, to an adult; and you are not freely beating your heart, circulating your blood, digesting your food, growing your hair, etc. So why, then, would you think that you are freely in control of any of your actions?

It is my understanding, after deeply considering these issues, that God’s boundlessness means that nothing can ever exist which is not under His sovereign control. God is the Director of life, not a participant in it. We do nothing freely, and I’m sorry to say that from this perspective, the Christian worldview doesn’t make sense.

For a deeper look at the themes raised in this article, I recommend my 2019 book entitled God’s Grand Game, which is available now from these retailers. Thank you for reading.

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Why Christians are Happy to Choose Unsound Theology

Having been a Christian myself for many years, I fully respect the power of Christianity to transform minds and lives and I know that the majority of Christians are positively motivated; seeking Truth, seeking peace, and seeking God’s love. But part of the role God has given me in life is bringing to light some of the areas of Christian doctrine and practice that don’t make sense, and I would like to highlight one such area in this article. In doing so, I aim to encourage Christians to think deeply about certain aspects of their behaviour that demonstrate the theological problems evident in their faith.

I was watching a video recently from one of my favourite Christian YouTubers, and she described an experience which I’ve heard described by countless other Christians, and which I described having in my own life when I was a Christian. She said she was praying about an issue, then a little while later in her Bible reading she came to a passage which provided guidance in relation to the exact same issue that she was praying about, with the implication being that this was God answering her prayer.

Normally, Christians like to portray the idea that their prayer for assistance in such a scenario is offered of their own free will, but then they suggest, either implicitly (in the language they use) or explicitly (by stating directly), that God is controlling their actions when they navigate to and read the passage of Scripture that answers their prayer.

So, let us examine this scenario a little more closely.

The Truth of what happened to my YouTuber friend must be understood in relation to God’s sovereignty over all events. God is directing our lives in their entirety, and so after my friend prayed her prayer, God did indeed direct her to the passage in question, which answered her prayer request. But God also directed the prayer itself, and created the need for the prayer by unfolding my friend’s life circumstances in a particular way, which is something Christians would struggle to admit, because they know that to remove free will from human activity is to call into question the very principles of the Christian gospel and the Christian faith.

Christians prefer to describe the experience exemplified by my YouTuber friend in a way that avoids confronting this theological problem, usually by employing vague language. This keeps them safe from accusations of describing themselves as puppets in the hands of a sovereign God, which despite actually being true, Christians will not admit, either because they haven’t thought the issue through and don’t understand it, or because they are unwilling to risk being called out for having ‘unbiblical’ theology in an age where the principle of free will is widely embraced, both among Christians and in society in general.

This raises a couple of broader questions.

Are Christians really interested in the Truth? Or are they just looking for comfort by believing in Biblical teaching? I think in most cases both of these motivations apply, but where Christian doctrine and practice is shown to be out of line with the Truth, Christians tend to choose unsound theology coupled with Christianity, rather than sound theology and abandoning their faith. This is totally understandable, of course, because of the fear they must feel both of the reaction of their Christian community to apostasy and also the fear they likely have of a God who they believe will punish them if they depart from the Gospel, despite the fact that they profess this same God to be benevolent and loving.

So, which do you choose — sound theology, or Christianity?

I hope this article has provided food for thought. For a more detailed look at the way God is sovereign over all events, and how this understanding relates to the Christian faith, I recommend reading my book God’s Grand Game — if you click this link you can see a list of retailers who stock the book. Thank you for reading.

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The Nature of Forms: Where Plato Went Wrong

Earlier, I was lying in bed (well, on my sofa, where I tend to sleep better than in my bed) and I was thinking about the way our internal feelings relate to the external world. I was thinking about the nature of our reactions to external things and how those reactions are embodied and occur independently of the nature of the object we perceive.

Allow me to elaborate a little.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato believed in what he referred to as a realm of forms. Plato said that the reason why we can look at 100 different cats and identify them as cats is because there exists a realm of ‘ideal forms’ in which there is the perfect form of a cat, and when we recognise an individual cat it is due to a (subconscious?) connection we make to this ideal form. It’s not clear where exactly this realm is supposed to be, but nevertheless, this was Plato’s theory.

My own perspective is that the reason why we recognise objects in a common way (by ‘common’ I mean the reason why we can identify every cat as a cat and every dog as a dog) is because when we look at a particular animal, God creates within our minds a particular impression — a thought and/or feeling. God does this with regularity in relation to different types of objects, and the form of an object only exists in so far as it is recognised by different beings with regularity. If He desired to do so, God could produce in me the same feeling I get when I look at a dog, when I look at a cat. A dog is only a dog in the embodied experience of being perceived as such.

In my book The Philosophy of a Mad Man there is a chapter entitled ‘Language and  Symbols’ and in it I discuss whether or not it’s theoretically possible to look at the number ‘2’ and have the experience of seeing a cat. I’m not talking about looking at the number 2 and pretending to see a cat, but actually having the experience of seeing a cat. I concluded in the book that this is absolutely possible, and I have actually had many experiences which lend weight to this argument.

There was a time many years ago when I experienced an episode of psychosis, and my whole world was transformed. People took on different meanings, objects took on different meanings, and experiences took on different meanings. I remember that during this episode I went to the hospital to see a psychiatrist, and something he said (I don’t recall what it was) gave me a profound revelation of the way in which everything I was experiencing was intrinsic. The entire dream world in which I had been living for several weeks collapsed in a mere moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, the above example relates to you also and to the way you perceive the world, regardless of any psychosis you may or may not be experiencing. The things that you believe about your life; the stories that you tell yourself about your personality, your interests, your experience, your ambitions — all of this has no reality, it is held in your awareness by God but He could transform it entirely or bring it to nothing in a moment.

There are far-reaching implications to what I’m arguing in this post. Sometimes I gaze into the night sky and feel a sense of wonder and awe at the vastness of the Universe, but according to my arguments in this article, that is not because of anything intrinsic to the night sky, it is merely an embodied feeling. So I could just as easily look into my cup of tea and experience an overwhelming sense of wonder and awe (which I might well do the morning after a big night on the town, if truth be told).

We can go even further down the rabbit hole with this and think about how the fact that we identify who we are with a human body is just a thought. There is actually a whole school of Eastern philosophy dedicated to unravelling the myth of what we are referring to when we say ‘I’ (it’s know as ‘self-enquiry’, and believe me, it gets terribly unsettling and confusing and I’m not sure I want to go there to be honest – I suggest a Google search if you’re braver than me and want to go deeper into that).

Let’s end with a couple of thought experiments.

The next time you look at the number 2 on a page, pause for a moment and think about precisely what it is that makes you recognise that curly symbol as the number 2. And don’t put it down to some half-baked notion of your brain operating in a certain way, because I can guarantee that you know nothing about how your brain works, even if you pretend to know, as many people do, but no one actually does know, because our brains don’t create our experiences, God does.

And one final experiment. Look at the image that accompanies this post. Look at the puppy, then the kitten, then the puppy again, then the kitten again (I know, the best homework ever, right?!). Observe what happens in your awareness as you do this and have certain thoughts and feelings related to the different forms. This should help you to understand what I’m arguing in this post.

Thank you for reading! I published a post a couple of weeks ago entitled ‘I Don’t Even Exist’ which is very relevant to the above discussion. You can read it here. My latest book ‘Puppets’ is actually a compilation of four of my other books, and comprehensively details every area of my life story and philosophy. Should such an epic undertaking be of interest to anyone, a list of retailers who stock the book can be found here. Comments are open below but are strictly moderated — read my comments policy for details.

(Image by Bao_5 from Pixabay)

The Insanity of the Envy of the Circumstances of Others

I’ve lately been watching a lot of those “leave on while you sleep” YouTube videos. You know, the ones that are eight hours long and just have either soothing music or a soothing scene (or both) on a loop. If you’ve yet to experience the joys of such videos, I recommend searching for ‘relaxing sleep scene’ or something like that on YouTube, and you will be richly rewarded. Seriously, they have helped me a lot.

Some thoughts occurred to me while watching one of these videos today. When a video loaded, and displayed a tranquil scene of a cabin in the wilderness, lit by lamps, with an open fire, and with the rain beating down outside, it triggered an emotion in me. That emotion is difficult to describe precisely, but it was a kind of envy at the beautiful scene and a kind of joyful appreciation of its beauty.

The feeling that I have attempted to describe lasted maybe 10 seconds. I can still look at the video and appreciate the beauty of the scene, but the emotional impact is no longer as strong. How can this be, when it’s the exact same image (or series of images) that I am looking at? Why have my feelings changed in relation to the same scene?

In essence, whatever you watch on telly is just pixels lighting up in different ways, and nothing more than that. These pixels do not contain within themselves emotions which they communicate to you. So why are we able to remain entertained for hours staring at the same old pixels firing in a slightly different way, as is the experience of billions of TV obsessed human beings throughout Planet Earth?

The argument I would like to make is that our emotions depend on God, rather than our circumstances.

In my book The Philosophy of a Mad Man, I described the experience of being drunk without having consumed any alcohol. This admittedly happened during a season in my life that would later be described by doctors as psychosis, but that’s irrelevant to the point I’m making. The moment I picked up an empty whisky bottle, God brought a feeling of drunkenness over me and I started staggering along like someone who had consumed a few drams too many. About a minute later, God returned me to my normal sober state in an instant. God was being playful.

If you’re familiar with the Biblical story of the fiery furnace, you’ll know that the story depicts certain people standing in a fire and being unaffected by the flames. This is the same kind of thing that I exemplified with my ‘drunk without alcohol’ experience above. The reason why it’s possible for God to place human beings in a fire and not have them burn is because the so-called ‘rules of nature’ are not absolute, and they can be changed by God in any way and at any time.

When you look at a painting and consider that it is beautiful, it’s because God creates certain feelings in you. There’s a famous saying which I saw on a greeting card once that encapsulates this: “Joy is not in things, it is in us”.

It’s no less possible for the prisoner to experience delirious joy in their circumstances than it is for the millionaire in their mansion. And it’s no less possible for the millionaire to be depressed than the prisoner. This is why I have titled this post ‘The Insanity of the Envy of the Circumstances of Others’. It is not someone’s circumstances that make them happy or sad, it is God arousing certain feelings in their bodies and minds.

It’s important to note that God often employs our emotional responses to things with a degree of regularity. So, for instance, when the latest Coldplay single rockets to the number one position in the charts, it’s because a certain chord sequence or melody line has triggered the emotions of thousands of people in a similar way. But the truth is that this is due to a decision by God to provoke a similar emotional response in those thousands of fans, rather than anything intrinsic to the music being the trigger.

So, Coldplay singer Chris Martin may well thank God for another number one hit, for it is God who is responsible, in every way, for the success of the song.

The implications of what I have said in this post are far-reaching. This perspective actually lends some credence to the materialist idea that mental illnesses are caused by brain states rather than circumstances (if doctors didn’t believe this was the case they wouldn’t prescribe pills which directly target the brain). Don’t get me wrong, I’m not agreeing with the materialist “you are your brain” view of reality, which I believe is entirely misguided, but I just want to highlight that it’s understandable that doctors take this approach and I understand their thinking.

The truth of the matter is that we are not controlled by our brains. We are controlled by God. God is the omnipresent animator of the entirety of creation, and things only happen on a particular occasion because God actively causes them to happen. This is why it’s possible for me to enjoy my night-time cosy hut YouTube scene for a while, but then get bored and feel the urge to change the video an hour or two later. God has caused me to respond to the exact same media in a different way.

If there are any readers who are thinking there is no evidence for God being the animator of our thoughts and feelings in the way I have described, I warmly invite you to read my book God’s Grand Game, which explores the idea in much greater depth, including chapters entitled “What is Causing Our Thoughts?”, “Modes of Mind”, “God’s Control of Mental States”, and others. You can view a list of retailers that stock the book by clicking here.

It’s time for me to get back to relaxing with the cosy hut scene. But I’ll be drinking hot chocolate rather than whisky, in case you were wondering. Not that it makes any difference. Thank you for reading!

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Describing God

Hello best-people-on-the-web. I’ve been thinking a lot about ways of describing God recently. I think it’s a really useful spiritual exercise to try to put our understanding of the being of God into words, and that is exactly what I will try to do in this article, before inviting your suggestions as to the same.

There’s a tendency in Christianity to refer to God in metaphor (think ‘Mighty Fortress’ or ‘Rock of Ages’ or any number of other such depictions commonly found in traditional hymns and in the Bible). In this article, however, I want us to reflect on how we would literally describe God, if we had to. For the philosophers out there, I’m talking about the ontology of God.

In all of my years of spiritual exploration, I have yet to find a word or phrase that I think perfectly captures my understanding of God’s nature, but here are a few thoughts which are about as close as I can get.

The ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (also sometimes rendered ‘I AM WHO I AM’) which is recorded as God’s way of describing Himself in the book of Exodus is incredibly beautiful and I’m not sure whether I can do better than that (though I’ll give it a go, otherwise my aims with this article would come to nought).

Here’s a suggestion: I think of God as being simultaneously absolute nothingness and absolute fullness. I’m quite proud of that one.

One thing of which I am certain is that God is not simply ‘The Universe’ in the way that ‘Law of Attraction’ fanatics often repeat in parrot-like fashion. Such people seem to objectify God in this very vague and unhelpful way which makes God all impersonal and wishy-washy. I think when New Agers say things like “Ask the Universe!” and “The Universe has got your back!” they are being, frankly, loopy.

I think proponents of Eastern philosophy do better when they describe God as sat-chit-ananda, which directly translated is existence-consciousness-bliss, although there is a similar problem to the New Agers here in that the active personhood of God is nowhere to be found. We are once again in danger of thinking of God as a ‘thing’.

I’ll end with my best stab at this. I was listening to some music earlier on the YouTube Music app and a song title came up by a band that I’d never heard of. The name of the song was ‘Luminous Emptiness’. Woah! Now we’re getting somewhere! I was really struck by this title, even though I’m not sure the musicians in question had any intention of trying to describe God with this phrase.

I gave that phrase some further thought, and felt we could get even closer to the Truth if we described God as Luminous Nothingness. I love the paradox contained in that phrase. So I will settle for that, my friends, and offer it to you as my best attempt at describing the ultimate nature of God.

Just as an aside, the fact that we have a common understanding of what we’re referring to when we use the word ‘God’ speaks volumes, and it could actually be that the word ‘God’ itself is the best way to describe God! But there’s some whacky circularity going on there and we’re in danger of getting into hermeneutics, which is definitely a matter for another day.

This topic is surely inexhaustible, so I’m hoping for a lot of readers to contribute their thoughts, suggestions, anecdotes, and wisdom, in the comments. Perhaps, cumulatively, we can get somewhere close to describing the great I AM in our own words.

Over to you, thinkers!

I Don’t Even Exist

What I’m going to describe in this article is difficult to explain, so bear with me. The title isn’t indicative of a sob story about feeling neglected, but is instead a philosophical statement which I intend to explain and unpack. I hope that you will afford me a few minutes of your time because this post is relevant to everyone.

Those who are familiar with my philosophical outlook will know that I describe human beings as puppets under the control of an omnipresent God. It’s important to mention that I use the word puppets rather than the word robots to describe human beings, and there’s a significant difference between the two. Robots are pre-programmed and function automatically, whereas puppets are actively controlled by a puppeteer who has the ability to act spontaneously. The latter description is, I believe, an accurate reflection of the human/God relationship.

According to this view, there is a sense in which we are all trapped in our human bodies. Our lack of free will means we have no control over our past, present, or future — we are entirely at the disposal of the will of a sovereign God. In fact, take away the sovereign God from our human activity and there is nothing left. Now the title of this article should be making more sense.

I believe that, in reality, God is all that exists. Every created being is something God has manifested within Himself (because He is everywhere and nothing exists outside of His being). So we are all manifestations, or expressions, or aspects of God.

There is a play going on in which I feel as though I am Steven Colborne, but it is simply a mode of mind under God’s control that makes me feel this way. God could quite easily, in any moment, change my thoughts so that I identify as a different person. Indeed, there is evidence of this in the way psychiatric patients often have the experience of identifying as Jesus or another major figure from history for a period of time.

It’s possible for a human being’s thoughts to be changed so that they experience themselves as an entirely different person. In what sense, then, did the former person really exist?

Take away the impressions in consciousness with which you identify and you don’t have a being with a life story any more – you have the puppet without the puppeteer; an empty vessel. This is why, when we die, our bodies are just empty shells. And this is why I can say I don’t even exist.

I’m not convinced that creatures have souls, because I’ve never heard a convincing description of what a soul is. I once wrote an essay which explored the idea of the soul in the works of Plato and in Christianity, and the conclusion I arrived at after undertaking all of my research was that the soul is an entirely elusive entity which no one has ever understood or described properly. Could this be because there is no such thing?

I do believe consciousness is eternal, and that there has never been any kind of non-existence. Non-existence, I believe, is an impossibility. All there is is what has always been, only God manifests Himself in different forms and expressions as the ages go by. Nothing is brought into existence, and nothing goes out of existence, though forms change. So while you don’t really exist in one sense (as the individual person with which you currently identify), you have always existed in another sense (as conscious awareness).

While we experience our humanity, there is a certain veil over our lives which prevents us from seeing the bigger picture as I believe God sees it. This difference in perception is why it makes sense to say we are, in a way, distinct from God. But I believe there may be a time in the future when we will view what we thought we were during our supposed existence as ‘human beings’ in a different light. The illusion will be exposed, and I hope (if the nature of God is love) that when that time comes, we will laugh.

The thoughts expressed in this article touch on some of life’s great mysteries, and I do not claim to understand everything, so take from this article what you will, and leave what you will. I have closed comments because I want readers to think through for themselves what I have said here, rather than entering into arguments about these matters.

I hope that in reading this article you have thought deeply about the human experience and our relationship with God, because provoking such reflection (with the aim of helping people to feel liberated via the discovery of certain truths) is the reason why I write.

Now would be an appropriate time to mention that I have released a new book, entitled ‘Puppets’, which is a compilation of my four full-length book releases in a single volume. You can read more about it and all my other books on the books page. Thank you for reading!

Life Update (July 2020)

This post is partly prompted by the loneliness of lockdown (so I can share what’s on my mind and connect with people) and partly by the fact that there are a few book-related things I’d like to share with you.

The last few months have gone strangely quickly for me considering the scope of what’s been happening in relation to the lockdown and everything. I would have imagined the days would drag, but they haven’t. The time has gone very quickly. As a fairly solitary person in normal times I haven’t had to adjust very much.

I do worry about the impact lockdown is having on my health though. Not so much mental as physical. I try to exercise regularly in my flat, and I would of course be permitted to go for regular runs, but I find that my lack of connection with others leads to lack of motivation as regards health and fitness. I have put on weight due to eating too much chocolate and that makes me so annoyed. I’m praying for the motivation to work out regularly and eat healthily. Though sometimes I get so depressed I don’t care.

Around this whole Covid-19 escapade I’ve been keeping an eye on the mainstream media and an eye on the alternative media (the latter of which is far more interesting, frankly). Some of the cultural theorists that I watch are predicting lockdown will ease over the summer months to keep the peace, but that there will be another wave of coronavirus spread – leading to a lot of deaths – during the winter months. Anyone who experiences ‘flu-like’ symptoms will be diagnosed as having Covid-19, which many in the alternative media claim doesn’t even exist and is just a cover-up for a dreadfully evil political agenda.

I wrote a post this week about the different motivations someone can have for wanting to be a head of state or world leader, and how some leaders are motivated by fear rather than compassion. You can read the post here. I am deeply worried that many people currently in positions of power are very corrupt, and are acting out of a place of fear of their own personal suffering, rather than love of neighbour and compassion for others.

I think there is a lot of unspoken anger people are feeling about the possibility of having been hoaxed by world leaders. I’m not really talking about my own feelings; I’m rooted enough in an understanding of the sovereignty of God not to worry too much about politics, because I know everything that happens is part of God’s plan for creation, including the actions of all political leaders. But many people who don’t know God must be living in utter despair right now. It is the biggest blessing I could imagine having in these strange times knowing that God is in control. I hope many people reading this post experience the same kind of comfort.

I miss having a friend or soulmate to chat to in an ‘iron sharpens iron’ kind of way. I’m not really seeking a girlfriend at the moment (things feel so messed up that a relationship is pretty much unthinkable right now, to me at least) but I do crave close connection with others. I do have friends who I keep in touch with via WhatsApp or email, but everything is monitored by the Big Brother State so even just having a good catch-up with friends feels difficult these days. Some people are immersed in family life, and I hope that keeps them busy and distracted in a positive way. But I live alone, which I love for many reasons, but at times I struggle with the lack of loving human contact.

I’ve had periods of deep depression in recent weeks. But God always turns it around in unexpected ways and I find myself in a joyful place again. I’ve found one of the hardest aspects of the lockdown is the fact that it’s difficult to plan for the future. However, I felt comforted recently when God encouraged me to scale down my life ambitions and focus on a few different areas that are less stress-inducing than some of my bigger plans (which I worry are too ambitious to be realistic at times).

I watched a video recently by one of my favourite minimalist YouTubers, Christine, in which she described her approach to time organisation. She focuses on a different life priority each day Monday to Thursday, and keeps Friday free for miscellaneous activities. I thought this was a great idea and I’m going to adopt this in my own life, starting tomorrow. You can watch Christine’s video here.

I unexpectedly found myself feeling inspired to work on a new book release this week, which will be my tenth book. The whole concept came to me out of the blue. Rather than being a new original work, the book will be a compilation of my four full-length books, and will provide an opportunity to fully understand my spiritual journey and philosophy in a single volume. It will basically be a way to get four books (which sit very well together) in a single purchase for a cheaper price than if readers were to buy the books separately. I’m going to be sharing more about the release in my mailing list newsletter on Wednesday, so sign up if you’re interested to know more (you also get a free eBook if you do).

I feel really depressed about the future. I think world leaders are trying to take the world in a direction which will lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering. I am constantly questioning what I hear and read from different sources, but my gut feeling is that when politicians say they are caring for the ‘vulnerable’ they are not being sincere; they are really pursuing the interests of the elite, with no regard for the suffering of ordinary citizens. This is deeply, deeply saddening and troubling. But again, God is in control, and I believe the God who created the Universe must be infinitely wise, so I’m not as saturated in fear as many of those in the alternative media who I listen to.

I hope you are all doing well and thank you for reading this blog. My blogging family are very important to me and if I didn’t have access to this blog and the blogs of others life would be so much harder. Peace be with you all and I’m planning to post next on Thursday, so I’ll see you then.

Comments are open but please only comment if you are wishing to be friendly and encouraging. Thank you.