Day 4008 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Psalm 62:9 NIV

Measuring the meaningless

This is what our society is. It’s something that’s become our national pastime, cultural highlight. Every single day anymore all we seem to do is agree to lose more of both our lives and ourselves unto this idea that tells that the best thing we can possibly be doing is debating with the goal of diving in the hope of destroying what is what was once someone seen as a neighbor, a friend, a family member, a coworker, a human no matter. But no, we see not life in those measures anymore as it seems that anyone is always able to be deemed an enemy of this state of our assumptions assuming that we’re right in whatever this is that we’re doing.

And that despite the glaring reality that shows us daily that all we’re doing is both trusting in people and seeking to ignore if not annihilate the same.

Thus proving in real time that one line which says that a house divided cannot stand.

And indeed, we are falling apart in some pretty remarkable ways here inside these endless days of our doing things, thinking things, saying things without thinking about what we’re saying nor what it’s probably doing unto those unfortunate souls caught within earshot of our mouths acting as mouthpieces for what are hearts set at first to stun and then destroy. Though in all truth I don’t even know that we care to define nor defend the difference anymore.

Rather it seems we’re only increasing in our willingness to just jump to the inevitable conclusion in which all those who don’t think like us and side with us are just not with us.

Permanently.

All while those who are with us as are welcomed only whenever they do sound like us and think like us and live like us and love like us, a love and life allowed for only those who look like us and believe like us, they’re welcome so long as they continue to measure up to the same measurement we don’t even use for us. Simply because, as we’ve been talking, our ego has us roundly convinced that we’re already as good as it gets and it’s in this that everyone else is thus measured against us.

Who are still but mere humans no matter the height or horror or heroism seen, shown, hidden or grown inside what are again probably lives which think themselves more important or impactful or influential than any of us ever really need be.

Because the world doesn’t need us.

In truth, all we even need from ourselves is to get ourselves out of our way so that we stop giving away all these days unto the doing of so much that has us losing the same. For we are indeed losing so much as measured in both time and opportunity unto the doing of things which at best make no difference and at usual only make things worse. Because, well, that is both who men have always been and yet what we today have still become.

We’re just animals who ought to know better then than trusting ourselves so much as our ego likes to. I was actually just talking about this idea the other night after watching a show that talked about some of the things men have done, created, wanted, won within what’s become a world in which sin is so common that not doing wrong is seen as not doing right. It was oddly enough a show about the origins of the werewolf story, many of the possible ideas linked to people behaving like animals for a variety of reasons.

All of them having to do with humans losing their ability or interest to be human.

Something we see ourselves still continually doing in what’s becoming a world so jungle-like that even going to the store feels something like taking one’s life into the proverbial wood chipper and hoping at best for some ice cream and not becoming the newest victim of some crime spree. All because all of us are in such this hurry to hate one another that harming one another is something increasingly seen as at least plausibly justified thanks to all the lies we buy of the beliefs others have in how some of us are good whereas the rest so bad that they’re kind of just getting in the way of our finding a better day.

A story which leans gory at some point as we continue to measure ourselves as all that matters most, leaving then the rest to take their place wherever we put them upon this ongoing unraveling of life’s very own sanctity into a swelling insanity that oughtn’t be so seen as it is even in the halls of congress.

Those once arguably considered some of the best of us. Those who are anymore just so above the rest of us that they think their only duty is to the god in the gut and whatever’s left of their ideal of some country that only at best half would anymore agree to be a part of anyway.

All because of this measuring that I’m talking about.

It’s this undertaking in which we grow to feel ourselves as if undertakers sent here only to cast asunder those whose lives are lived as if but blunders when compared to our belief in our own beauty and benefit. And in this theory we each seem to see this necessity of our measuring the possible importance or plausible benefit of those around us as is measured against us who are, again, the very epitome of human potential, intellect and ability.

Apparently.

Doesn’t matter that none of us are nearly as important as we so clearly so love to assume we are. No. For anymore what seems to matter more than anything is our achieving these ideals for which we’re breathing in what’s become a life in which our lives have only meaning whenever we’re seeing them copied or criticized in the public eye. A journey which causes us to daily dive unto living for people and either their praise or persecution.

And in truth, I don’t think most really care as to which anymore as both can be easily used to misconstrue the entire story unto our glory as gained either the easy way in people praising us or with a bit more work as is done unto making sure the world knows all about all that’s been done unto us.

Indeed, we are anymore either victor or victim and we don’t care which as both manage to fit the story we’re writing.

A story about us and how amazing we are at living a life itself amazing.

And don’t get me wrong, life is amazing. Not what we’ve done to it. Not what we do in it. Not any of it having anything to do with any of us really. Not to say that there aren’t some who are doing good things as I know that there are. It’s just that for whatever reason we seem a creation quite continually intrigued by those doing those things which ought not be done.

It’s almost as if we prefer the horror and heartbreak.

Almost as if to say that we might know who we are and where this story really goes.

A truth which you’ll never find as we’d never say that we’re of the mind that’s able to measure just how little we mean and what that means in regard to what we’re doing as compared always against only what we should be doing instead. For that’s really the only measure that matters. It’s us against us. Who are today as is best compared against who we were yesterday in what ought to be the hopeful reality that today finds us better than our yesterday’s bitter.

But does it?

So far mine hasn’t. Rather I woke up in a right funk, a true frustration, an anger so alive that I at first could only find the ability to say and think all these things that are in no way helpful unto life. We all have those days. Seems anymore that so many have of them so many that they can’t manage to fight those thoughts and feelings into submission. And granted, I suppose that such is a battle we’re all bound to lose.

Just sad to see society losing itself in the losses.

All while still assuming that those losing their minds are somehow still those still best to find what matters most and measures best in life.

As is still measured in between us rather than just within us.

Because the latter can’t matter when we’ve made our minds that it’s always to be another who’s best to blame for the things that go anything other than our way. It’s always another to hate whenever life gets hard. Always another to hurt whenever we’re hurting so much that we can’t bear be alone in the misery that is likely of our own making. Always someone we’re willing to drag down to this rock bottom we so often choose to call our home so that down here we’re not alone.

Could just work to dig ourselves out via bootstraps and sore backs.

But no, no it’s still widely considered far better to blame another rather than better ourselves. Because again, we can’t be any better having already become as wonderful as we think ourselves to be. Leaving then the living of life as being done from somewhere in the vicinity of 8,000,000,000 ivory towers all topped off with they who are but an individual idealist who believes themselves the only ideal.

Again clearly not considering just how lowly all of us both really are and ought to be.

Why?

Because what do we gain in thinking we’re something? How are we benefitted by our believing that we’re incapable of betterment? What is there in regard to continued growth when our every hope seems to be nothing more than all the world becoming like us? What hope can there really ever be when all we really seem to see is just ourselves as being far more important than history has ever proven any to have ever been?

A history in which we find that every king has died. Even the very King of kings. And so too every president, every politician, every celebrity, every nobody. History is filled with an impossible to measure number of lives who have all lived for some amount of time only to have found that time runs out. Taking life as lived here with it wherever it goes as it leaves us to go wherever we might.

A choice we don’t get to choose except should we see this life as our life to lose as is done in a humility that humanity has long since lost the stomach for.

Simply because we’ve all become so impressed with ourselves and their plans and goals and dreams and such that we can’t imagine laying it all down unto the image of Calvary becoming our glory. For while we are a people who love such filth as horror movies in which we watch humans being bludgeoned and butchered for our twisted amusement, there’s nothing all that amusing when it’s us in need of life losing.

No, we find still we’ve too much to lose. Too much to let go. Too much we already know about what is a life already going so well that we can’t see well enough that this well that is ourselves has long since run dry and our time all but the same. Indeed, we’ve done plumbed unto the bottom of our every self-held hope in some self-help assumption that we can help ourselves despite it being ourselves that sold us this idea long ago that we needn’t any help as we cannot possibly improve upon our self-perceived perfection.

Each of us awaking unto this daily measuring that has us thinking that we’re what matters most.

All while accomplishing so little in life that we’d be lying if we said we were truly proud of what we’ve already done and who we’ve always been.

Why?

Because we’re still here with what’s then still time on the clock in which we could be working still on whatever might still matter more than whatever the past has proven a now fading memory of what will soon be what once was a priority, a plan, a promise or pursuit that we either caught or bought or betrayed in one way or a million more. For as much as our bodies are still breathing, our minds too are still thinking.

Wonder what all we could accomplish if we were to turn that thinking unto the doing of something other than thinking so highly of ourselves as we so often do.

Might we cure cancer? Find a way to house all the homeless? Ensure no kid ever gets hungry? Create a culture in which nobody gets hurt by the sinfulness of a stranger insistent upon their danger, their destruction wetting their own depraved appetite? Bring a country back together? Reunite those stolen with their mothers and fathers? Restore the ozone layer and allow for our future to be healthier? Find a way to make sure all of us feel happier?

What all could we do if we didn’t continue to lose so much time, effort, interest unto this incessant measuring of who of us matters more?

A most worthless undertaking to be sure.

Why?

Because none of us matter all that much. Could have. Should have. Might still some day. But as it sits, no. None of us matter as none of us can so long as we assume that what matters is only what we’ve measured inside this mind that has us doing all this fighting and arguing and comparing and complaining and competing unto the proving that we know what we’re doing and are always the only ones doing everything right.

Are we?

Are we doing life right? Are we doing right by one another? Are we even doing right by ourselves in all this thinking that all we’re doing is all that matters or means anything? What can anything we do mean anything at all when all we do is only what little we want to as is anymore only done only to make ourselves either look or feel good unto only those looking back at us in some mirror somewhere?

When did we decide that we’re the best at living life when life is neither anything we gave ourselves nor anything we’ve ever proven perfect at living?

In fact when it comes to living a life all we’re all perfect at doing is losing one.

And yet we continue to look to people for some sort of sordid proof that humans are good at this? And yet those most see as best at this are only those who are either rich or famous or elsewise important as are themselves measurements of only a worldliness so very worthless seeing as how this world is but a battle ground meant to inspire us home.

A truth we’ve all forgotten and thus gotten wrong.

Because all of us have lived a time in this life in which we fought to find that feeling of our being here important, special, influential or elsewise needed. All because we still seem to assume that all of life needs some kind of outside agreement that it’s worth being lived. And it’s within this assumption that we’ve each got the gumption to measure ourselves against those measuring themselves against us. Thus leaving all of us only looking at all of us for what we hope to glean as being what the very best of a life should mean.

How should we know? I mean, we should know as He came to tell us, show us what life means and what that means. But having each of us missed His message, what then can we know?

For here life is still something we try to hold. It’s something we fill with all these hopes that measure up to our having here everything we want and all we want to be. It’s a time in which we fight to find ourselves only feeling as if we’re liked and loved by those who don’t even love themselves enough to look unto He who came to save us all from all that we’ve instead sought to allow enslave us. Mostly ourselves.

Why?

Because that’s what matters in life so much as we know to measure it. It’s again all these measurements of what’s meaningless such as worldly praise, social success, our having a bunch of fame, a bunch of friends who only agree to be our friends so long as we prove our success in our too praising those living just like the world has convinced us all we should.

Should we?

Should we really be living so worldly as we are seeing as how He’s promised to be coming back to separate the wheat from the weeds? Talked about that many posts back, this idea that we’re not to be of the world but rather to come apart from a world coming apart in this ongoing act of tearing one another down trying to drown each other in a hate so hot that life’s grown hard to even watch unfold anymore. Simply because all that most seem to assume matters anymore is just the level of influence and affluence another may or may not have.

Who cares?

Sadly, we all do to some extent. Now hopefully that extent is shrinking as we head toward the other extreme as is seen in not building up a life in accord with the world’s blueprints for such but rather laying one down in agreement with His measurement of what matters most and thus means the same.

And that cross continues to say that it ain’t us, at least not the flesh-strained side of us.

No, what matters most is the hope He holds for the Spirit perhaps still lost inside. A hope that He honestly has no reason to hold out forever having already held out forever unto a people who seem to continue refusing to reach for it as they instead live every day to still fill their hands with all this world’s wants and wealths as are won as easily in our thinking continually about only ourselves and how much we matter and how much more we might would we had more of what most here find to be delight.

Why delight in the ways of a world we’re all promised to leave?

And why measure ourselves against those many who are still living as if they won’t?

All because they still think they matter simply because the world agrees they might so long as they continue to live like the world wants them to in the common pursuit of such profit as popularity and political power. Both of which are a lie as none here is more important or worth more than another.

Rather we’re all but a vapor that’s here for a breath and gone in the next.

Perhaps we should spend a little more time wondering as to where we’ll go rather than what we’ll be sad to leave behind. Because as whispers, well, all we can leave behind is but the same.

I pray we make them good ones not just those that this world considers important. For what matters here is meaningless and the sooner that we start walking in agreement, the sooner we start walking home rather than leaving one.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold