The Man Born Blind

Today, Andrew records his first solo episode from his new apartment!  He opens with a talk about the World Cup and his past experience with Argentina!  He then moves on to talk about the difficulty he has had moving to a new space and some thoughts he gained while thinking of his own spiritual blindness.  No answers to this one, just thoughts to ponder.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. You are listening to the Eternal Creatures Podcast, the podcast for people who view the world just a little bit different. And today's episode is dedicated to the sparkling water drinkers of the world. Um, why? Because frankly, we're better than y'all. We just are. Um, our water bubbles, yours doesn't. Ours has zero calories. I'm looking at my sparkling water right now. Zero calories, zero sugar, zero problems. Thank you very much. Uh yeah, I just wanted to express that to y'all. Look, sparkling water. Is it useless? Yes, it is. Uh, is it a little bit annoying because it sounds like there should be a flavor, and there is not? Absolutely. Um, but who cares? Sparkling water is the way of the future, and uh, those who drink it are better than people who don't. Okay. Uh sorry, I can't even be convinced of that. Look, I just started drinking sparkling water, and frankly, I it's annoying to me. Um, my friend Liz got me into it. I say my friend Liz, you all know Liz. Um, Liz got me into this drinking sparkling water thing. And look, it it it's it's unnecessary, it's annoying, but at the same time, you get used to it. It's it's fine, whatever. It's it I have it here. It's something other than normal flat tap water. Uh, I don't know. I'm cool with it. Anyway, moving on. So, as you can probably tell, the episode is a little bit quiet and maybe a little bit echoey. I don't know if you can hear an echo to this thing. I really don't know what you can hear right now because I am doing the terrifying thing of recording a podcast episode with just a mic and a phone. I don't have any headphones connected. I don't know what people are hearing. This might turn out terribly, but we will see anyway.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I will I'll make my setup a little bit better going forward, but here we'll go.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Anyway, um, oh, why am I doing it this way? Because I am in my new apartment. Yay! Uh, this is just me today. There is no cast. Um, we are actually on a sabbatical for people who uh don't know. Um, we have not recorded since late May, I believe. And frankly, just because I did officially move, like I said I was going to in the last episode, I officially moved, but also everyone's been doing their thing. Luke has been traveling. Liz has been uh, you know, doing her stuff. Uh, she she left her job like she said she was going to, and so now she's looking for a new one. She also went on a vacation because she needed one. Let me just tell y'all, it's been a lot. A lot has been going on. So we just needed the month off. We have not recorded with Keith, uh, like I said, since late May. Nothing's wrong with Keith. We love Keith. Shout out to Obiden God Studios. Um, I'm just recording from home by myself for right now. But you know what? That will hopefully change pretty soon. I'm not uh uh I hope to come back in July and continue the podcast. So I don't know, more on that later. More on that later. Some big changes may be coming. But uh for now, how am I doing? Uh thanks for asking, uh, podcast audience. Um, I'm doing great, actually. Uh I'll talk a little bit more about the move later. But basically, the World Cup is on, and I love the World Cup because I'm a big soccer fan or football for the people who are not American, even though the World Cup is hosted in America this year, which is fantastic. Um, except for the people who live in the cities where the World Cup is going on. But yeah, no, so I've been watching those games. It's been great. I love the World Cup. It's such a fun, I don't know, man. It's such a fun experience. Uh okay, do I want to go here? Let's go here. I find it very interesting, but also very refreshing and necessary that during the 250th year of America's existence as a official country, that we are also hosting the World Cup while the Trump administration is going on. Yep, that's right. Liz and Luke aren't here right now, so they can't tell me, they can't tell me what to say, and they can't stop me from saying things that will end my career. I'm just kidding. I'm not really gonna get into that. But the reason I say that is because I think that the part of what makes the World Cup so special for me is that America is actually not that good. And so for a country that is currently in this very like make America great again mentality and this um this sort of America first mentality, and Lord, let's not even talk about immigration. I like the fact that we are on like we're not that good it at soccer because it's just not a big come a big sport in this country, but no one cares. World Cup fans don't care. In fact, my greatest experience in the World Cup had absolutely nothing to do with America. It was last World Cup, which I believe was 2022. In the last World Cup, Argentina and France made it to the finals. So my friend hits me. Because I'm looking forward to watching it. I've been following this World Cup. This is one of the first World Cups I've followed from beginning to end. I cannot wait to watch the World Cup. So my friend hits me. And this is a friend of mine that likes to go out. Now, if you know anything about me, which most of you don't, I don't like going out. Oh, jeez. And he had me do it for a USA game. And I was not looking forward to doing this for the USA game. Because at the time I was living in the DC area, and so to get to the USA game, I had to get up, crack of dawn, get on the metro, which is not where you want to be at the crack of dawn, especially on a weekend, and go to a bar of all places. And the reason you had to get up at the crack of dawn is because if you didn't get up at the crack of dawn, you're not getting a seat. So you're going to stand in a bar all day, or at least for two hours, watching a football game. So you gotta get there early. Well, guess what? This is the World Cup final this time. Because I did this for a random USA versus Netherlands game. So this time I gotta do it for the world for uh the World Cup final. So my friend hits me. I'm like, what is it? He says to me, hey dog, our friend, one of our friends from church is Argentinian. Our friend is going to watch the World Cup at this Argentinian cafe in DC. You wanna go? Now, I have two options here. I have two options. In my head, I'm saying, no, absolutely not. I don't want to go. I don't give a rip that we're going. I don't want to go to this cafe. If there's anything I know that is if a normal American bar is packed, this cafe is about to be bonkers. But he's like, dude, it's gonna be so cool, and we get to hang out with people. Like, I'm gonna go watch it with him. Everybody's gonna be great, and it's gonna be a lot like your English pub. Now, I am a big England fan. The reason I'm a big England fan is because I watch English football. I watch the Premier League, which is their like ever annual league. Obviously, the World Cup is every four years, but the Premier League is an annual English league. My team is Manchester United. I talk about this with my former British pastor. He is a uh he is a uh he's an Ipswich fan or something like that. Love the English League. So because I love the English League, I like a lot of English players and I follow England. England's not in this final, but to watch England games, I would go to this British pub and watch it with all the Brits in this Northern Virginia area who would go and have this amazing cultural experience. And it's super fun because Americans don't give a rip like that. So I'm not gonna go to most bars, except for this USA World Cup bar. I'm not gonna go to most bars and get this really awesome experience. So, in order to get like the re as cultural an experience as I can, I go to this British pub and watch these games with British people. It's great. So he is convincing me, I'm not gonna lie. And so I decide, all right, fine, I'll go. Sure enough, it's everything I don't want it to be. I get up, crack a dawn, take the metro out to this area of DC. Um, DC's already sketchy. Um I get to this to the cafe, I find my friends, yes, but it is a long line. And when I tell you that this cafe is packed wall to wall with Argentinians, oh my gosh. And we do not have a seat. I am blessed that I got there just early enough to cram a standing spot by the door, but close enough to the close enough to the TV that I have a good view of the TV, thankfully, but I am by the door, and we are crammed. When I tell you wall-to-wall Argentinians, the game begins. I probably get there, we probably get there like an hour, hour and a half before the game. It like we're mad early. But the game begins. And what commences is one of the greatest experiences I've ever had in my life. Period. Period. It is so much fun watching fans of a sport that you love but are way more into it than you. First of all, it's one of the greatest World Cup finals games in history. It's like five goals. If you watch soccer, it can be, it can easily be one nothing, nothing, nothing. It goes all, it's it's like five, six goals. The stars are shining, Lionel Messi scores, Mbappe scores. If you don't watch soccer, none of these words mean anything to you. They sound like passwords. It's okay, I don't care. Debo is making saves, it is incredible. It's going to penalties, and guess who wins? You get to you get you, you guessed it. Argentina. The every goal, the place goes insane. Somebody got their money out, they got us empanadas. It was amazing. After the World Cup, after they finally win, they're lifting the World Cup, Argentinians just jumping around, dancing, screaming, crying, they're having the greatest day ever. After that, we leave, we jump in a friend's car, we go over to the Washington Monument. Because what I didn't know at the time was that Argentina has an like a statue that's similar to the Washington Monument. And every time Argentina wins a soccer game, they go over to that monument and they just jump around and have a great time. So sure enough, we go over, everyone goes over to the Washington Monument, every Argentinian in DC, which is way more than I thought, by the way. I had no idea that this country had such a stronghold in the DC area. And so we go, we we go over there, hundreds of people, if not thousands, hundreds of people, probably not thousands, but maybe a couple thousand people are just jumping around, screaming, celebrating, singing words in Spanish that I don't know. When I tell you, just an amazing cultural experience, it is it was phenomenal. It was phenomenal. And ever since then, I've loved the World Cup. Love the Woke Cup. I don't know if I'll ever have an experience like that again. Why? Because it was just such a fun human experience. And so, yeah, yeah, man. This is the memory that the World Cup brings me. And ever since then, I've had a soft spot in my heart for Argentina. Go Argentina, go England, go the World Cup. All right, let's get into let's get into the pod. Let me take a sip of water. Alright. So I've been thinking. I've been thinking a lot. I'm calling this episode the man born blind. Why? Because I've been. I feel like this move to this new apartment. I've not really taken it well. What do I mean by that? I've struggled to kind of adjust to the move. Why? Or how do I know? Well, because all of my typical vices that I had been fighting very well, or a lot better at least, in my parents' place, have come back. I've always struggled with porn, so that's been an issue. I know you guys have uh I I've talked about this in an earlier episode, so I won't get too deep into it. But whether it's issues with porn, staying up late, staying up way later than I need to, even if I have to work, late night eating, falling asleep to YouTube, or having to listen to YouTube to fall asleep. All these things that I've done before that are reminiscent from when I left Fairfax. Now, if you guys have listened to my interview, you know that I struggled a lot when I left Fairfax and moved to Richmond. There was that period of time where I was really, really struggling and just I was in like a depressed state, all this kind of stuff. And I wouldn't say I've gone that far, but I was not used to. I was not used to, I don't know what it was, but I didn't think that I would have an issue because I've moved so much as a kid that why would I think moving from Fairfax to Richmond, literally like a two hours away, why did I think that I would have such a poor reaction? Now I haven't had the same poor reaction to that level, but I've had a version of it since moving here. And it's caused me to question. It caused me to question, what the heck am I like, why am I reacting this way? Why am I having such a hard time going to sleep? Why am I having such a hard time settling down? The first day, the first day I actually got to stay here, because when I first moved, I had to run around, but the first day I actually got to stay here, I had just a mini breakdown of fear and anxiety. And I don't know why. Well, I know why. I know why. Because this is the first time I've it's not the first time I've had an apartment, it's the first time I've been completely in charge of my apartment. And I'm not gonna get deep into my personal life circumstances, but they're not the best for having an apartment. When I first moved to Fairfax, I was going off the high of I have a new career, I'm starting a whole new life, I'm really confident about where I'm going in life, this is gonna be great. And now I'm living here under essentially the exact opposite circumstances. I have no idea where I'm going in life, and I'm very nervous about it. And then I got mad. I got real mad during that breakdown, during that, um, during that first day of like real fear. I got mad because I'm like, man, am I really still going through this? Let me tell you something about my Christian upbringing. I feel like credit to my parents for raising me in the church. I have no problem with that, but I feel like there is something about my brain that just does not process God very well. I call myself the man born blind, at least that's what I'm naming this podcast, and I feel that way. And part of the reason is because I was I'm my devotion um has this week has been going through uh Jesus healing the blind man. But I feel like that guy, not that guy specifically, but I feel like everything that Jesus says about blindness in that time frame, in that story, I feel like that guy. And I've always felt like that guy. Growing up in the church, I felt like as soon as I left the kids' service, I felt like I am surrounded by truth, but I still don't care. What does that mean? It means my whole life, instead of just praying to God, I've always talked to myself. And I will talk to myself in like, I will like talk to myself in a way where I'm like pretending other, like taking other people's perspectives in order to like process things or reason things instead of just praying. When scripture is read in in service, I will completely zone out. Completely zone out, even in sermons, even like interesting sermons. I will listen to the whole sermon, but as soon as the scripture is read, I will completely zone out. And my whole upbringing, I have feared being associated with Christianity. I don't know why. Maybe because I just wanted to be seen as cool. All my friends are Christian. I go to church all the time. I don't know why I want to do this. It's just frustrating, dude. It's frustrating because I almost feel like I don't have the mind that allows me to process Christianity properly. Because then there's all these other people who have been in church since they were kids and essentially just grew up the ranks. They went to different, they went to youth group, they eventually led youth group, they eventually led the youth program. Like they just, there are other Christians that feel like they have gotten it at a much earlier age than I have, or they cared at a much earlier age than I have. And for me, I feel like I I would go to church, but I was almost, it's almost like I was not given the brain to absorb the truth. So of course, that when this relatively normal thing happens, I like moving down the street, by the way. I'm not even that far away from where I used to live. I still can't trust God. I still can't trust him. And so it's caused me to think. What's up with me? What am I missing? But to be fair, maybe Maybe this is the struggle that I needed. Maybe these questions are the questions that I need to stay humble. Or to recognize that I can't I don't have it all together. Because growing up, I had it all together. I'll be real, I had it all together. I always knew what I wanted to do with my life. I always I was always good at school. I was always like I I had good grades. I had I was good at my um I was good at my um extracurriculars. When I did start working, I was a diligent worker, I was a great kid. Like I just always I mean not saying I was never mean or a problem or anything like that, but I was I was just I relatively had it all together. And if there's anything I thought that I wouldn't have an issue with, it would be moving. I've moved so much as a kid, and it didn't affect me as a kid. And I feel like, why is it affecting me now? The one thing I never fully got growing up though, and I'm sorry, I'm kind of jumping around. But the one thing I never really understood was like why I why I never fully understood Christianity. But as a kid I thought, I'll just get it when I grow up. And so it kind of makes me wonder, is the is my inability to process Christianity my only real struggle in a relatively easy life? And maybe that struggle is necessary. The other question I had about moving is are bad reactions to moves the expose I need in order to wake myself up a little bit. So I've just kind of been thinking about my flaws. I've been thinking about my flaws. I've been thinking about like my bad reaction to my moves and then my like relatively mundane understanding of worship and prayer. Oh, here's the reason why they link is because part of what I've done since moving here is completely drop a lot of my prayer routines, my um my worship routines, my morning getting up and doing devotional and reading scripture and all that kind of stuff. I've really struggled to do that since getting here. And it's been replaced by all these bad habits. And so I'm like, what kind of Christian am I that doesn't want to do all the good things that keep me from doing the bad things? And so last Monday, God gave me the title of The Man Born Blind. And ever since then, he was like, all right, let's think about that. And so I've just been kind of processing it for the past two weeks about the concept of the man born blind. About, and what I mean by that is like, what is it about God and what is it about Christianity that I don't understand? And I wanted to bring to you three thoughts that I think I found out. And see what you guys think. Not that you can talk to me right now, but just see what you guys think. The first one, the guidepost to Christianity is beauty. Specifically, beauty that creates beauty. What does that mean? Well, when I wrote it down, I was kind of thinking. Why do I want to be a Christian? What is it about being a Christian that I want? And to me, I don't really know all the time. I don't really know. To me, I think it seems right. It seems like the right thing to do. It just seems like the good way to live. But no, really, why do I think it's the good way to live? And the truth is the more I've been in church, the more I've realized it just creates a beautiful life. And I mean a beautiful life that creates more beauty in life. Because there's a lot of beautiful things, but a lot of the things that we as people do, I feel like sometimes, I don't know. It's like consuming beautiful things. And so it's something beautiful, but we're not really treating it the way it should be. And so what it turns into is something destructive. I think a lot of hedonism is that way. And this was what I was kind of mulling over. Thank you. This is what I was thinking. When I was when I as I've kind of been like during my breakdown earlier in the earlier a week or two ago, I was thinking, what the heck am why do I care about this? Why do I pray to you, God? Because frankly, uh I I you I don't feel like you're doing anything. I feel like you're just I'm just screaming into the sky and I'm hoping that something happens one day and I'm just walking. And it sucks. And so I kind of started thinking, I was like, I went through the the reasons for why I think Christianity is the thing I want to follow. And uh I start so I first thought about atheism. I was like, atheism, eh, the the world is too complex for me to be atheist. I'm sorry. As someone who studied science in school, as someone who uh did wildlife conservation as a major, as someone who studied evolutionary biology in one of my courses, I look at all that and I'm like, it's still God for me. Sorry. Sorry, still God. It's not just, you know. And look, I'm not gonna get into my opinions on evolution, but atheism just doesn't make any sense. This world is way too complex, and it just doesn't make it. Hedonism seems crap. It seems crap. I've tried hedonism. I I I have. I've tried just doing things, and I'm not saying I've tried serious hedonism. I'm still a homeschool kid after all, but but uh my parents trained me away from hedonism. But but like I've done things that you're not supposed to do as a Christian, but are fun in the moment. And what do they do? Nothing. They're fun in the moment, but they just make you feel bad afterwards. And I've hung out with people who've done the same thing. I've done the porn thing, I've hung out with people who are drunks, I've hung out, I've hung out with people who live by hedonism, and it just seems to suck. It just creates a life that looks fun, but then just leads to a dark morning. It looks crap. So why do I like Christianity? Well, because it creates a lot of hopeful people. Frankly. Seriously. I mean, my books have changed a lot. When I first got when I first became a Christian again, I started off with uh theology books because I wanted to learn about all the theology. I've dropped a lot of my theology books and I've replaced them for stories of saints. And saints are just Christian, right? I'm not trying to be like super spiritual here. Saint Saints are just Christians, but I've dropped them for a lot of stories of people who have overcome faith and them talk, or not overcome faith, but who have overcome issues with their faith and have gotten into a life that is more consistent in following God and some of the learnings that they've gotten from that. And frankly, a lot of them come out really, really just calm, beautiful, hopeful people. And that's who I want to be. And so, if Christianity creates that, not to mention all the fruits of the spirit, the love, the joy, the peace, the self-control, the patience, these are things I want to be. I want to live a life that creates a more beautiful person. And Christianity just seems to have that in a way that very few other religions have that. Or in a way that very few other religions center it, and no other religions have a God that examples that himself through Jesus. So I just, you know, it just seemed like the logical thing. And so I think that's part of also what made me realize that my reaction to moving was a bad thing. Or was not a bad thing, but that my reaction to moving shows that I am missing something. There is something I am not understanding about this life with God. Because my life has become crap. And has it really become crap? Factually, no, it's not. Factually, no, it's not. So what is it that I'm missing? Which leads me to the next thought. The next thought I had is I wrote down, imagination is the language of faith. How so, you might ask? Well, let me tell you, it's you and God dreaming of a new world and building it. Okay. So what do I mean? So this is not fully my idea, but it connects to something that I'll show you whose idea it is, but it connects to something the next stage of my move here. So after my breakdown, after I've started noticing some of the bad habits I've picked back up or that have increased since being here, I'm like, yo, what is wrong? So I start with the logic because that's who I am. I think logically sometimes. I'm like, all right, science brain, factually, my life is good. Factually, I am okay. So what is it in my brain that is making me feel like that is making me have all this anxiety, that is making me use all these toxic coping mechanisms, that is encouraging me to do everything, to work out instead of pray. Essentially to do everything that is against all that God and I have built up back when I was living with my family. I'll come back to this. I'll come back to this thought in a second. My third thought is that peace is built, not protected. What do you mean by that? Well, sinful men, which is who we are, sinful men don't hold peace. The spirit creates it. Okay. Why is that important? Because as a Gen Z guy, I live in a culture that is all about protect your peace. Protect your peace, protect your peace. If you have friends that interrupt your peace, get rid of them. If you have stuff that is getting in that is like not causing you, creating joy for you, get rid of it. Do all this stuff, but make sure, you know, if you have excess stress in your life, get rid of it. And so I go into my life thinking that stress is a bad thing. That the sign of a problem is stress. That the sign of the problem is that I am not comfortable, essentially. I was reading this article from Christianity today that talks about the word resilience and how like during 2020, a lot of Christian books like really adopted this idea of resilience, of like, guys, life is hard, but you fight through it for God. You fight through it for the Lord. And uh, but the article is called Is Resilience Enough? And the way I was living, I'm like, no, no, it's not. So the article talks about a couple Christian books that talk about resilience, but then it brings up this non-Christian book, and it's kind of a it's a scientific book, essentially. It has it's based around the theory of evolution, but it brings up a concept that this person thinks is really interesting, that this author thinks is very interesting, and that is this observation that humans are anti-fragile. Anti-fragile. Or maybe it's not that humans are naturally anti-fragile, but that we have the capability of being anti-fragile. What does that mean? Well, fragile essentially is something that breaks under pressure, you know, like me when I move. And then there's kind of resilient. I don't know if that's the word they use, but resilient is essentially something that's like strong. It stands up against pressure, but it doesn't really, it doesn't really impact. Like it's not weak, like it doesn't just crumble under pressure, but it's like a rock. But it also doesn't move to pressure. It just takes a lot more pressure to crush it. And then there's anti-fragile. And anti-fragile is something that becomes stronger under strain, like muscle is the example that's used in the magazine. And so they're like, muscle is anti-fragile. When you strain it, in other words, like when you work out, when you tear the muscle, it grows back stronger. And humans, we are the same way. When you put us under pressure, if we overcome the pressure, we come back stronger. We come back stronger, we come back more confident, we come back more resilient, all that kind of stuff. Unless you're very fragile and then you break. Uh think Judas after um after betraying Jesus. When the real weight of his betrayal of Jesus came and he offed himself, that's essentially fragile. He cracked under the pressure of the weight of his guilt. Not trying to shame Judas, I'm just trying to do this based off of definition. And so you can be fragile, but for humans, when we overcome strength or when we overcome times of difficulty, we get stronger. And frankly, during this week, a lot of my devotions were talking about how God uses um turbulence and times of hardship to like strengthen his people. And I hate that. I don't like that. It sucks. Which is part of why I was questioning in the first place. Going back to my original question, why would I follow this God?

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Well, part of my reason was because if this is the God who exists, then what choice do I have?

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So let's go back to my original two thoughts. That the guidepost of Christianity is beauty and that imagination is the language of faith. Why would I follow this God if He's gonna put me under strength, under if He's gonna build this world where I'm crushed? If I'm going through hardship, or if I'm reacting poorly to bad things, or if I am, you know, if I'm struggling, then that's what I have to sit through, and that's what I have to endure. I have to just sit here and be sad until until one day I'm stronger, and it's all for your glory and my good, apparently. Well, maybe. And then I sat with God a little longer. When I was reading this article, I was walking and I was walking home. I was thinking, you know what? Humans do become stronger under pressure. Think about all the athletes and all the amazing people that have grown to do great things in spite of a really jacked-up past. So as humans, we seem to be designed to get stronger if we overcome pressure. Remember, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But we're not guaranteed to become more loving. Right? We're not guaranteed to become more kind or more caring or more generous. In fact, behind the people who overcome darkness and poverty to become great, you can kind of hear in some of their rhetoric is that they can become a little selfish. They can become a little money hungry, they can become a little paranoid. And how, and of course you would. How could you not? That's what you you you were taught under this really oppressive circumstances. How would you not become more resilient and more and live in a way where you try and protect yourself instead of be open and more generous? But that is not the world God wants us to live. That's not the world God wants us to live. And that is not the world, the those are not the kind of people that are gonna make the world more beautiful. The people who will make the world more beautiful are the ones who are like Jesus, who want to heal, who are more generous, who are more caring in no matter what the world brings. The vision that God has of bringing heaven to earth is so beautiful that you know what? If handling my pressure God's way is the way to make myself into that kind of person, he doesn't promise that I'm gonna become rich. But he does promise that he will redeem me. And I think a part of me is so afraid of being the opposite of that person, of being an unkind, uncaring person who I'm walking through the world, enjoying life, and I think I'm doing great, but really I'm just kind of leaving a trail of pain, or at any moment I can just care more about myself than others and ruin people's lives. Like, yeah, maybe I'm not gonna ruin a whole lot of lives right now, but what if I do actually get that success? What if I do actually get powerful or rich or something like that? What if I do actually advance in my career and now I have more impact over people, and I am just leaving this trail of semi-good, semi-destructive results throughout my life because I don't care about people the way Jesus cares. What if one day my wife looks at me and is like, yo, you've never really loved me? Like you never really cared about me, so I want a divorce. What if I look at my kids and they're like, yo, dad was nice, but he's really, you know, he's really uh he was he was kind of neglectful. You know, he kind of just did what he wanted. Or he was really irritable. He was all you never knew what emotion he was gonna get. I think sometimes bad emotions kind of show you how you're reacting to life and show you, hey, there's some darkness in your heart. And it's darkness that's really not gonna let you. It's really not gonna let you be the person you want to be or that I want you to be. And so and that's what I've been dealing with. The reaction to my move showed me like, dude, I am really fragile right now. I'm really not as strong a person as I thought I was. And there's something to being shown that you're not strong in areas that you think you're strong that is even more gut-wrenching. When you think, oh, of course I can move, I can move anywhere. I've moved so much that of course I would be good. Yeah, but why is it that every time you move, you stop being the person that you want to be in private? Huh? Okay. Yeah, y'all, it's been a long week. Sorry about that. So what do I do? What did I do? What have I done? Let's go back to my second point. Okay, so so I want to. So I still want to be a Christian because I feel like I want to follow the life that creates more beauty in my life, but also in the world of others. How do I do that though? How do I do that if I can't even handle things that I think I should be able to handle on my own? Going back to this, imagination is the language of faith. I've been I've started reading Orthodoxy, among other things. I have started, uh I've started a new scripture plan, but I've also started reading Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton. And I want to read to you all. He has a very interesting uh position in the beginning. In the beginning of it, in the in the early parts of his book, he has this very interesting idea that logic breeds insanity, or that reason breeds insanity. That it's not artists and poets who become insane. We look at them as nuts because they're artists, and I mean, look at them. Why does he have a nose ring? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, artists look nuts sometimes, but they but Chesterton is essentially saying those are not the people that go insane. The people that go insane are the people that have reason. And it didn't make any sense to me. But here's the reason he said, and this is actually an interesting idea. The general fact is simple. Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea. Reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. Dude, when I freaking read this today, I was like, I was like, oh, this is why I had a suck had such a rough move. Because to me, it wasn't about the move. I've paid rent before. I had plus I had the same reaction when I moved to my former location. But when I moved here, I was just so concerned with the issues that made me unconfident about my decision to move that I was like, oh my gosh, what the heck am I gonna do? How am I going to like what if this happens? How am I gonna make this happen? What is this? What if this is gonna do? Like, what, what, what, what, what, ah, and I was so concerned about that that I was driving myself insane trying to protect my peace. Trying to protect the life that makes me comfortable. But I don't think God calls us to make the unknown more realistic. In fact, he really doesn't. It's the opposite of what Scripture talks about. The whole faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is beyond reason. My second point in this, and sorry, I read this in a weird order. I probably, I'll be honest, I feel like God told me the order I should have read this in, and I didn't, and now it's and now I have to go back and do some of this explaining. But my second point was that imagination is the language of faith. So what do I do? So what do I do? Maybe I imagine a beautiful life. Maybe me and God get on the same page of dreaming of a new world and building it. In other words, saying, look, God has my life under control. At some point after my breakdown, I had to think to myself, okay, if God has my life under control, he has not lost track of anywhere I have been. And now I'm here in this situation where I really feel unsafe and I'm stressing out about it, but I can't do anything else about it. And trying to figure out how to keep this together, I can't. All it's doing is driving me up a wall and making me afraid. So what do I do? I believe. I believe. No, he did not promise that this apartment, I'm gonna keep this apartment. No, he did not promise that I'm going to live in the suburbs my whole life. What he did promise is that he's going to redeem me, and that the good work he has begun in me, he will continue until it's completion. That the cleaning of my heart and that the the changing of my heart, that he has promised, and that will build me into the person that I want to be. Okay, great. But what do I do while he's building? And I almost feel like he's like, and this is more of a recent realization. I almost feel like he's saying, I don't know, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? Part of the issue with moving to this apartment is that I can't afford the podcast as easily as I could before. Which is why I'm doing it on this mic on my phone. Why? Because I want to do the podcast. For right now, this is what I want to do. Why? Because right now it is my favorite way in the world of communicating thoughts about God and talking about what God can do in a relatively mundane life. Let me go off script for a little bit. And I'll probably close the episode like this. Yo, the reason the World Cup, my World Cup Argentina um experience was so beautiful is because it shouldn't exist. It shouldn't exist. There is nothing about any of what happened that day that should have happened. This is a country I've never been to, I don't root for, I've never met any of these people. I can't even really speak to half of them because they all because most of them probably speak Spanish. I'm not even in Argentina, I'm in America. Why are there so many Argentinians in DC? I have no relation to these people. And yet it was still one of the most beautiful moments I've ever had because it was just a purely human experience of enjoying a game. A game. Why did that game move people so much? Why was it moving these people to tears? I don't know why, but it was. Because they just loved being Argentinian. And I feel like I got to step out of myself, out of my American life, and into a microcosm in my country, by the way, a microcosm of their world, and watch them live all the things that they love. Their food. I mean, it was in one of their cafes, their food, their families, their people, their sports. And despite not being in the country, they were so happy to celebrate it. That they even mimicked their celebration around their monument, around our monument, that looked very similar. And I was so happy for them. And even that ability to be happy for somebody else's success. The U.S. was out of the World Cup ages ago. Weeks ago, by the time that this came. I was so happy that they were so happy. And it was such a beautiful moment. And that shouldn't exist. But the day that I actually broke down, you know the thing that actually, like the day I had the mental breakdown, and I was crying and I was on the floor and I was sad. But you know what actually helped me? It was thinking that life is cool. It was sitting out on my balcony and looking out at the world and thinking none of this should exist. This tree shouldn't be here, this house shouldn't be here, this I should not be sitting here in this rocking chair on this porch at all. In this town. Why? Because why does any of this exist? Why did God create anything? According to Scripture, because it is good. And if he created it, if he created life because it's good, why don't I think it's good? What am I missing? Maybe it's because I'm so caught up in trying to protect a piece that's not there to be protected. It's there to be built. It's there to be created. With a very creative God who died so that he could be with us and create a whole new world and create a beautiful world. In the world that we corrupted. So that he could work with us when he never had to, and so that we could be with him, so that we could overcome the weight of our sin, the fear, the pain, the death, and that can be physical and spiritual. Physical as in I like here on this earth. Like that death of purpose. Like, yes, our spiritual death will be in heaven for him with him forever, but our purpose, our in our current on-earth death, the death that we die when we are so focused on our own fears in life that we forget that we were here to imagine a new beautiful world with him, and let our imagination lead us to say, okay, what of these imaginations can I create? Maybe I have a very limited life. And some of y'all have a much more limited life than me. My life is limited by money. Your life might be meant limited by chores, might be limited by children, might be we all have our limits, but our limits help shape what we do. And faith says, who cares if it's not that great? Let's do it. Some of us, we're going to pursue these random projects like a fricking podcast, and we're going to, and we're going to try, and we're just going to do it, and we're going to put it out there. Some of us aren't. Some of us, the beauty we're going to do is using all of our wisdom to raise amazing children that will grow up and live their own lives. Some of us, that is our limitation. And we don't know. I don't know why my life is going this way, and your life had kids at early at my age. You know what I'm saying? I don't know why you're in a relationship and why you're not. I don't know why your parents are living and your parents are dead. I don't know any of that. I don't know why sin and pain and death affects different people the way it does. I don't know why some people go to church and they just seem to understand the love of God, and I don't. I can't even under I can't even listen to scripture. I I wake up from my like zoning out in scripture to hear, thinking to myself, what did he just read again? I don't know why that happens. But guess what? If I don't think that this life is worth something from Monday through Saturday, who cares? Who cares? I'm excited for Sunday. It's Friday right now. I'm really excited for Sunday. Because to me, I think growing up, I always thought Sunday is the thing, Sunday is here to go to church and learn something that is going to help me live. And I'm starting to view Sunday more and more. Yes, there's learning, yes, there's a sermon, but as a celebration and a reminder. Among other things. But where we get to go into a space as a family, as a church family, and celebrate God's existence. And remind ourselves about how good He is. And remind ourselves to be strong. Because this life is good, man. This life is good. I don't know why you were born with the parents you had. I don't know why you were born without money. I'm not sure why I was born with money. I'm not sure why any of this stuff happens. But all I know is that God did a lot so that we can see this world the way he sees it. That is freaking good. That is freaking beautiful. And he doesn't want us to s to live our life trying to protect a comfortable life. He wants peace to come from the comfort of knowing that he's got everything under control. And because of that, we can seek a more beautiful life by using the dreams and imagination that he has given us for the assignments that we have today and for the potential future that we can create through some of the actions we can take today. That is why eternal creatures exist. That is why eternal creatures exist. Is because even though I don't always get church the way I should, or even or the way I want to, let's say, not even the way I should. Dude, the more I try, the more I just try, and this is how good God is. I say I don't understand church, but going to church was the first thing that got me back to Jesus. I started with what I understood, and I understood more the more I walked with him. To the point where now I'm here. So I want to close this with a music recommendation. It's a new album by um this woman, Eliza King. I love Eliza King. She is one of the first people that I think brought me back to loving worship again. She's a very regular singer, guitar, um, songs, or singing, of course, songs, guitar singing, just a beautiful voice. It's not fast, it's not hip-hoppy, it's not anything like that. It's just beautiful. And she has an album that I truly believe is the heartbeat of this of this project that is called Eternal Creatures. And right now shows up as a podcast, but maybe it'll be something else in the future. This album is called, I believe it's called Simple Holy Life. I'll probably post it on uh the Instagram, Eternal Creatures Podcast. Um but if you want to know the heart of this podcast, I would encourage you to just listen to it. I would encourage you to just listen to it. It's the perfect album that before church on Sunday, and I encourage you to do this before church on Sunday, spend time with God before just and just just to appreciate what he's done in your life before you appreciate what he's done in the world, and just do both. Almost like preparing yourself for the celebration of church. Or the celebration at church, shall I say? But I was listening to it today, it's just a beautiful project. 28 minutes, not even that long. Simple Holy Life, Eliza King. I'll post something about it. But that's all I want. And that's the heart that I want this podcast to have. And that's the heart that I want from Eternal Creatures, no matter what it becomes, whether it's a podcast for much longer or it turns into something else. This the heart of the title, Eternal Creatures, that it is it, I that's what I want. I want Eternal Creatures to help us remember that we are a part of something and that a simple holy life is freaking beautiful. And it's enough. It's enough. We can do a lot with that. But it starts with giving our lives to God. And I'm not perfect at that. And look, I will come back with more thoughts. I'm not saying these thoughts are perfect. And they definitely weren't always given in the clearest way. So I hope you enjoyed listening to this. But and look, I'll get better at recording these things, all right? I'll put some headphones on, I'll do, I'll learn how to edit, I'll do things. But for now, I'm just happy that this is recorded. Man, if you enjoyed this, man, just uh leave a like, follow the pod, and then go journal. Go just write something down, whatever, whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind. Go talk to God. Until the next time. Eternity is for the beautiful, eternity is for the timeless, eternity is for those who walk with God. And everyone's welcome. First episode in the new apartment, probably won't be the last. See y'all later.