Cost of Living

If you think you go into the abyss and fight the dragon but come out with no scars...you are delusional.

Mankind is dysfunctional. Down to our core desires. We DESIRE to be giving, magnanimous, even.

But we WANT to be so wealthy that we can be generous to those around us WITHOUT any serious financial hardship on ourselves.

And we are absolutely
CONVINCED that we would be. We are completely SOLD on our own inner goodness.

We WANT to be the Leader whom everyone would follow into battle, look up to, but we want to do so without the risk of taking a bullet square in the head

Finality

re: the bronze serpent God required Moses to craft and the people to look upon. And Christ on the cross. "I must be lifted up like the serpent"

Things we fear:
• death
• Torture
• Unfair treatment
• Abuse
• Captivity
• Thirst
• Hunger
• Pain
• Alone
• Betrayal

The Israelites in the desert. Plagued by snakes. Sought help from God. Why? The serpents were not just an irritant. They caused Death. Finality.

What could be worse than Death, we ask. Well, in many people's cases, a Continuance is perceived as worse than Death.

Think about it. There have been times when your situation in life, at a given moment, was simply intolerable. Unbearable for any extended period of time.

A man or woman in a knock down drag out dispute, going bankrupt, losing their home, income, health failing, relationship just miserable. Parents dead or dying. Kids lives falling apart at the seams. Etc.

And at those times, those moments, you have likely "felt" as if you would rather die than Continue is such a state of mayhem and suffering.

Now imagine something. Imagine there was no Death. Only Continuance. And imagine that there was a point at which you would be Locked into a particular mode of life. With no chance of reversal. None.

Imagine being in one of those moments of pure emotional, psychological and physical hell for which the thought of death seemed a welcome relief. But the Lock was closed on you, and all that remained for you was a Continuance of it. No death. No escape. No return to what once was. Only a continuance of that existence.

Stare into THAT abyss for a while. Deeply. And you will understand Despair.

So in those moments or periods of life, what IS it that keeps us from welcoming Death? Well, it is the confidence that this turmoil, this chaos will not be final. That it will pass. The argument will end. The sun will set. The financial ruin will settle and there will be something to eat. Some shelter available.

This is Hope.

Thus Despair and Hope are antithetical.

There are many things in and about life that we can control to some degree. Death is not one of them. It IS the one thing which is common to all mankind. And the ONE thing which is inescapable.

Perhaps the Serpent, being the liar and deceiver he was and is, actually Believed that Adam and Eve WOULD die at that moment. After all, his purpose was to lie and steal and destroy. And he does not know all of God's plans.

Perhaps it was a surprise to him that Death did not come upon them suddenly. What IF God "gave" Adam and Eve a taste, a preview, of Death for a certain amount of time? If so, what was the preview intended to show?

It would certainly demonstrate the utter Despair of being locked into an unending Continuance of a life separated from the Goodness of a loving Father. Cast out of a life of warmth and peace and health and happiness. And into an abyss of chaos, turmoil, torture, and misery.

Perhaps God was saying "Here, look upon what you have chosen, and ponder it as Final." Perhaps God is still demonstrating that to us today. "Look upon" that which you have chosen. Drink it in. Now ponder the absolute Despair of its Finality.

Man was manufactured to fear Death. We fear snakes because of it. We fear heights because of it. We fear starvation, cold, flames, sickness, war, fighting. All of these BECAUSE they bring the potential of Death to us. "Something" Final.

And we do NOT like Finality. We prefer the notion that things can change for the better. Finality, combined with a state of suffering, equals Despair. It is the predicate for all sales pitches for products and politics. "THIS will make things better for you." Or even "THIS will stave off Death."

The ONLY thing that prevents mass suicide of the human race is the common notion that whatever we are experiencing right now is probably better than what waits for us at Death.

What is the state of a man as he is drowning?
Despair.
Over what?
The sinking thought that something is about to be Final. And there will be no changing it. Thus Fear is the only sensible response.

If you were a crack addict
• You are hungry, but convinced that you need crack before food.
• Your body is covered in scabs from the deterioration caused by the drugs.
• Your heart is failing. Your mind isn't working like it used to.
• You lost your job. They gave up on you after you no-showed so many times, and when you did show up, you were tweaked out of your mind.
• You have no income.
• No "home." The bank gave up on you after you couldn't pay the mortgage for 6 months.
• Your wife gave up on you years ago. After you disappeared and ran off with strippers to get high so many times and squandered your paycheck on drugs and booze instead of paying the car note and utility bill.
• Your kids gave up on you after you made too many promises that you defaulted on for getting high.
• Your friends abandoned you after you stole from them, and borrowed money you never paid back, and scared their kids, and took advantage of the opportunities they extended to try to help you.
• Your mother gave up on you after you stole the money from her bank account, and her purse, and wrecked her car, and screamed at her, and sold her grandmother's wedding ring.
• Your father is dead after a long slow sclerosis which only reminded you of what an awful, abusive alcoholic he was throughout your childhood.
• Your car broke down a long time ago.
• You have a girlfriend but she only sticks around for the drugs you are able to share, and you only stick around because she stays with her mom and that gives you a place to crash when you have to. She isn't faithful to you, and it makes you angry. But you aren't faithful to her either, and it makes you feel guilty.
• You "know" you could put your life together IF you could just maintain that high AND find someone who would pay you well to work when you are amp'd up and able to function.
• It is a living hell until you manage to find a way to get that next fix. Then you get to experience some happiness for a little while.
• If you "couldn't" get that, then the rest of the misery would be unbearable.
• The one thing which overcomes that chaos of your life, which would mean despair for you, is that euphoria you get from the drugs.
• So, the ONLY thing that drives you, motivates you, gives you HOPE...is the confidence that you will be able to find a way to get that fix. And all facets of your life point to that.

But...you're NOT a crack addict, right?

Have you ever been in one of those miserable moments where you are arguing with someone you love, and they are saying the most hateful, hurtful things imaginable, or violently attacking you, and you would just about do "anything" to make it stop? Including saying hateful, hurtful things to them, or attacking them back?

It is a miserable feeling. What could make it worse?

Well, for starters, it is worse when you cannot escape it. Why do you think one of the tried and true horror-movie tropes is the old trapped-in-basement scenarios?
"Misery"?
"Alien"?
"The Shining"?

Name your movie, but the plot will always hinge on Captivity. Always. Why? Because suffering and chaos and turmoil are not a problem...IF you can escape them.

The worst moments of your life could be immeasurably worsened if you were a Captive to them. And some of us have been for a time.

But is there anything worse, still?

Yes. If you couldn't escape AND there was no chance of it coming to an end. If you could not escape the torture, at least you could welcome Death, right?

But wait...

What if Death brought no relief?

What if Death was merely the pressing of the button that Locked you into THAT miserable existence?

Locked you into THAT one moment in time. Permanently. A mere continuance of what you longed to be released from?

Some might suggest a "Groundhog Day" comparison. Inaccurate. In that movie, the character didn't have the ability to escape, BUT he "did" have the ability to make things better.

That is not what I am suggesting here.

It may be another fanciful surmising of what is beyond the grave, but what if that is not what awaits us?

Somehow, we all fear and avoid Death. Another day we could try to delve into the origin of that commonality across all social structures of all time. But suffice it to say for now that the fear of death is a bedrock of the human psyche. And that there is a REASON behind that.

God has said:
• "Fear Death."
• "It brings Finality, Permanence, to the chaos and turmoil that is the natural result of separation from the God who brings Order and Safety."
• "It IS worse than what you are going through now. Because it is both a continuation, and even a refinement of that chaos into its pure, undiluted state."
• "And it is Permanent."
• We are subconsciously aware of its Finality, So, we instinctively search for a solution to the problem.
• But, on our own, we can't find one. So, we are left with nothing but an endless cycle of trying to Avoid it as long as we can, and trying to put the idea out of our minds that it is something "worth" fearing.

Then along comes the Demon:
• "You shall not surely die"
• "God is a liar."
• "It can't be any worse than what you are living through right now."
• "Don't Fear The Reaper."
• "You are at Least as good as anyone else entering the finality of Death, perhaps better than many."
• "IF there is any judgement, your crimes will be no worse than everyone else's, and There is safety in numbers, friend."

So we, just like our grandmother Eve, take the bite.
• "Mmmm, tastes good."
• "NOW I have Hope."

But Hope in something antithetical to what God has said is no better than hope in building a large, multi-million dollar home on a foundation of shifting sand. It is pure nonsense. "Folly," as the Proverbs refer to it.

In all of the struggles of life, men and women operate from an underlying psychological platform of Hope that even amidst the worst of our moments or periods of suffering, stress or pain, we have a chance of escaping from it. That even if we are caught up in it, it will be momentary, and we will "live to fight another day."

Without writing a movie script here, possibly one of the scariest, most horrifying movie scenes of all time could be this:

(Roll camera)
You ARE the crack addict. You are down from your high, fighting and screaming hatefully with your addict girlfriend, both of you in the throws of desperation for your next fix. She is sleeping with your friend who has more money and drugs than you. She is hatefully exposing your inadequacies. You are angry and vicious. her mother is telling you to get out of the house before she calls the cops. Its cold and dark and you have no prospects of being able to score a hit tonight.

And bursting through the door is a demonic looking figure with a remote clicker which has a button it. When pressed, this button Locks you into that moment. All of the emotions, anxiety, physical pain and deprivation, loneliness, feelings of betrayal. All of the things you would walk out of that house and look for some sort of relief from, suddenly become a permanent condition of your existence.

The clicker.

It is a device which brings Captivity and Finality to the Chaos. Inescapable Finality.

It would be a difficult concept to fully develop in a film. Because we have a hard time understanding absolutes. (See "Slogging Toward The Absolute" by Thomas Beltzer). And there is nothing in our existence more absolute than Death.

All movies today are "Comedies" in the classical sense that they resolve with some amount of hope. Victim escapes. Bad guy loses. Maybe with a cliff-hangar possibility of return for the sequel. But hope nonetheless. This is largely because people don't want to pay money to be driven to Despair. It doesn't sell well.

But Hope is what humanity is addicted to. On some level, we are all addicted to it. Maybe it is the hope that we can steal enough tools today to get enough money for another hit. Or maybe it is the hope that we will get this new job and get out of financial trouble.

Or even hope that we can do or say the right things to turn a broken relationship into a happy one. Make no mistake, though. You are ADDICTED to hope.

You'll pay good money for the movie and the lotto ticket. You'll spend the time necessary to "doll up" because you are meeting up with a guy who "could" be the solution to your loneliness.

And you are addicted to Hope because the ONLY alternative is Despair.

We rest a tremendous amount of hope in ourselves, which is precisely what the Demon whispers. Modern pop-psychology and memeverbs reinforce it daily.
• YOU can do it
• YOU control your destiny
• You have more power than you know
• Speak your dreams into life

And the like. Most of these contain a kernel of Truth. And almost all people are, in fact, able to master some amount of the world around them. Mastering the world around you, a dangerous place fraught with difficulty and struggle and turmoil and violence, is a necessity for mere survival. Mastering the world around you, by default, involves building things, acquiring things and structuring relationships so as to avoid or at least mitigate pain.

Yet, no matter how much of life's difficulty we are able to avoid or mitigate, there remains that one nagging thing common to all of us, which "absolutely" transcends any power we can ever acquire, or any mastery of our world we could ever hope to achieve. Death. And the "healthy" human psyche fears it. Those who don't, well, they end up dead.

Imagine an opening scene of a movie in which a happy man and wife are walking along a sidewalk one night after having dinner at a nice restaurant. They turn a corner and there is a man standing there with a clicker in his hand and a large video screen next to him.

"Look at me," he says, and immediately they were frozen in their tracks, unable to move. He seems to be dancing just aThere is a faint sound of background music playing on the video screen.

["Please allow me to introduce myself,
I'm a man of wealth and taste.
I've been around for a long, long year.
Stole many a man's soul and faith..."]

Playing on the screen is a re-run of the most awful moment in their 20-year relationship. They were fighting. Physically and verbally. Their smiles and happiness after a nice dinner date have now disappeared. Their eyes are fixed on the screen, and the memories of that time come back to haunt them. They are confused, and more than a little disturbed.

As it plays, they try to turn away, but they cannot move. They can't even turn their heads away. It plays. And plays. For the hour the fight dragged out, as the shadowy man breathes heavily, watching gleefully as the fight unfolds. The video stops before the fight stops, At the height of the madness. Then begins to replay.

As they watch, frozen in horrified disbelief, the man raises the clicker, finger over the button And says:
"If I press this button, you will be sucked into the screen, returned to that moment, with no memories of today. You will be caught, trapped in this replay. Forever my captive. And the only experience of existence you will ever know is what I choose to replay and watch."

The woman begins to cry. The man cannot turn to console her.

But he is able to speak to the shadowy man. "This isn't making any sense! Please just leave us alone!"

"It makes perfect sense when you think about it," he says, with a laugh. "Remember that movie 'Night At The Museum' with Ben Stiller, where they fell into MC Escher's drawing of the endless staircase? Its just like that."

[music plays...
"I was around when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate."]

He pleads with the dark figure not to do this to them.

"Why not?" the dark man asks.

"That was just a bad spot in our life. We are better now," Everett replies.

"Ok, I'll tell you what, tonight was your time to die. I can only give you one other option, and that is Death. What will you choose?"

The couple are speechless at the gravity of the choice.

After all, its not every day you are spellbound by a shadowy figure in a dark alley and presented with such a terrifying choice.

After a few seconds of silence, the wife asks "This is so confusing, how can we make a decision like that when we don't even know what happens to us after Death?"
[music playing...
"pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.
But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game."]

Quickly the Shadowy Man responds "AFTER death??? Ha! You people never cease to amaze me. There is no AFTER death. Death just IS."

Everett, still confused, asks "What are you saying? That we just cease to exist? That we can die and there is no memory of anything? Its just all over?? We wouldn't have to live inside that hellish video?"

A bit irritated at the implications of the question, the Shadowy Man snaps "Hellish?! What do you know about Hell??! Tell me! What do you KNOW about Hell??"

Everett, hesitant to reply, says "I don't really, you know. It was just a figure of speech, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Softening now, the Shadowy Man says "Its OK, friend, don't sweat it. Its just sort of a personal thing to me, you know. My apologies. But to answer your question, let's just say there are two schools of thought on that. One side says that you die, and then you continue to exist, either in some sort of Paradise, or in Hell. The other side says that you just die, and its all over."

Colleen, tears rolling, asks "which one do you believe?"

The Shadowy Man was Smiling now, but not a normal, genuine one. It was a smile that was like one of those car salesmen who was obviously trying a little too hard to 'look' sincere in his assurance about the great deal they were offering you. One of those. Subtle in its deceptiveness, but noticeable, still.

[music playing...]
"I stuck around St Petersburg
When I saw it was time for a change.
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank, held a general's rank
While the Blitzkrieg raged and bodies stank."

"Well, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret here," the man said, "from your own experience, young lady. Have YOU ever seen or talked to anybody after they died? Has anybody you know ever come around after they died and said 'hey, this ain't the end of it. I'm here in Paradise!"

Colleen, sheepishly, "No."

"So, there you have it," he replied.

"But who are You?" Colleen asked. "Are you...d-dead?"

Now somewhat more into the swing of the music, and mouth-ing the lyrics to the song, the Man responded with a smile, but not looking directly at her because he was more interested in watching his dance steps, "Do I 'LOOK' dead to you?! Dead is Alive. Life is Death. Yin and Yang. Its all the same. Things begin. Things end."

"Why should we believe you?" Everett quipped.

"I'm not saying you should," the Man retorted. "Just believe in YOURSELF. See? Its not about me. Its about You."

[music playing as the Man is dancing a jig now...]
"Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners Saints,
As heads is tails, call me Lucifer,
Cause I'm in need of some restraint."

Colleen, now near a breakdown, blurts out "I don't believe you!"

Immediately, the Man's dancing stops, and he speeds to a stance directly in front of her face, too close for normal conversation, eyes dark with a tinge of red, and snorts threateningly "are you calling me a Liar?!"

"No, no, she's not," Everett says, attempting to break the tension, as Colleen weeps uncontrollably.

The Shadowy man holds his finger over the button, teasing them, smiling as he dances lightly.

"How could you do that to anyone?" Colleen quips.

"What?! You don't think YOU would push the button yourself?! Think again, young Missy."

Pointing to the replay of their fight on the screen he says "if I had handed you the clicker at that moment right there, you would have pointed it right at him and pushed the button without a second thought. Don't fancy yourself as any better than me!"

------

The clicker merely removes the hand of God, which restrains evil for a time.

What do people do when they are angry? Really, truly angry. They say the most hurtful things they can come up with. WE do that. They DO the most hurtful things they can think of or come up with. Go back to Cain and Abel. Cain smashed his brother's brains out.

People do awful things when they are NOT angry at each other, but when they are angry, even worse. We do hideous things to one another when we are self-absorbed, or greedy, or hungry, or sad, or afraid. When we are in a state of Despair.

Now imagine that person you had the intense fight with, having the clicker in their hand at that moment, with their finger on the button, looking for the Most hurtful thing they could possibly do to you. The ability to lock you in the dungeon of THAT moment.

• (You might like to think that "you" wouldn't push the button. Think again. You have pushed many buttons in your short lifetime. Maybe not the final one. But the ones available to you as weapons. You have. And you will.)

Death is that. God, in His grace, is showing us what it is like to have the clicker pointed at you and the button pressed.

Man likes to comfort himself by thinking that we don't know what is beyond the grave. But God has made it very clear. More of the same, but without the restraints of His Grace and Mercy. Man, left to his own vices. A Captive in a prison cell where utter turmoil of his own making is Final.

Yet the Serpent whispers "you shall not surely die, Eve."