The ersatz. substituting one for another.
Living the Aphotic life (withight) (hadal is the darkest of all) (these are terms for the ocean depths. But I use them to describe without conscious perception of God.)
Spiritual direction as per Eymard.
An Unholy Trinity
Every age in history has its resident demons. In our age there are many but some of the dominant nasty critters for men are drugs/booze, pornography/sex and video games. Close behind are sports and gambling and political manipulation. What a stew! And it does become a stew because there is one overriding taste in all this which is a like a two million SHU hot pepper lip burner called selfishness.
The Two Thieves at the Cross
One thief mocks jesus as he believes the only things that can help him is a world juridical or revolutionary power. Get your friends to come and get us down, after all if you are a king you can do that.
The other thief sees things beyond the worldly and material and juridical and pleads to be part of the true kingdom which if that of Jesus and beyond man's justice.
Which thief are we? Are we both or are we one or the other?
Talking to Jesus in Prayer
We must talk to Jesus . Just as we need to talk to a woodworker who is an expert. In order to have him address what we do not know we need to be honest enough to ask questions that reveal our lack of understanding. But with people we e may be afraid. With God there is no need to be afraid.
Living Outside yourself
Jesus said that the truth would set us free. What truth is that? Truth is the personal understanding of the objective order of what is around us which includes the role things and relationships play in the Divine plan. The problem with the idea of truth is that it eludes us. We rock and roll through life being carried along by the river of life. Pretty soon we wash up on a strange bank alone and out of breath. Now what? How did I get here? What I had been doing and the choices I had made which I thought were somehow matching the circumstances of my life have left me high and dry.
This is all about truth. People around me who were moving me through life, many of whom are strangers on a daily basis, all of a sudden seem to have abandoned me. My job, my money, my health or the love of my life either are no longer there or just can't seem to help me get my footing. In the modern world family seems to be disconnected from me and they all have their own problems and messes they are trying to clean up. Where am I going? My interior seems to just spin like a hamster in his exercise wheel going round and round and round ending up nowhere. The lack of truth can be a dangerous vacuum.
When we find ourselves either momentarily or especially for extended periods of time in this situation we have to escape the static lack of momentum in life. We have to find our truth. This is not an individual definition of what relationships should be. It is the choice to stop and make notice of the truth that is outside of me that I have been missing. If my own truth was working I would not feel confused or depressed or frustrated. It is necessary to find the truth by which God wishes me to order my life choices. I then have to point myself in the direction of where that truth should lead me and escape the worn out approach I have to life. I cannot change everything in my life. But I have for now end up avoiding the chaos by focusing like a laser beam on something new or something that I had set aside which God is calling me to do.
The first step toward any new goal and objectives is to make sure that it comes from God. Assess how God is using other people to move and guide you to something new. Pray and ask for the Divine Assistance. Turn away from what is cementing you into the ground and overcome your past conclusions and decisions which keep you spinning. This is how you live outside of yourself. The new perception of truth is just that. It is NEW. It is something that was not inside you. As you grasp for it and reorder your life you are overcoming yourself.
What things doing we have to remember as keep moving. The first is the willingness to work. Many people do not want to work. Many times that means they are doing the wrong thing. Work is one of the prime sources of dignity if it serves a good purpose. That means that innate in the work is a true relationship to the world around you. If work is nothing more than a search for money or esteem then "what goes up must come down, spinnin' wheel got to go round." The merry go round will just keep you dizzy.
The second is that you must learn the importance of having a diverse group of friends and acquaintances. This again involves work. The work of being friendly. The work of helping others while expecting no pay. If you have a choice between working for no pay or not working choose to work without pay. Sometimes we call this volunteerism. The more of this you do the more people will see in you the type of virtue that they either want to be around or they know someone who needs your type of sincerity and skills at a job or in a project that allows you to live in the truth of God by increasing the spectrum of your life "OUTSIDE YOURSELF." The point here is that you are transforming your interior by divorcing yourself from yourself and the limited way you have been living. While you do all this you are avoiding what is dragging you down.
The third juice in our cocktail is to to be a curious person. If you do not want to find truth and are satisfied with the fuzz in your belly button do not expect to expand your life. God made everything around you to reflect His identity to you. From the corn production in Argentina to how many soldiers were in a phalanx if it happened in the world and made some impact it may be worth your mind giving it some attention. This prepares the mind to see the logic in all things which gets us back to the Divine Plan and it also establishes in many cases new relationships with others which expands that diversity of people in life. Most of life's disappointments involve either how we treat others or how they treat us. So the more people we know the more good people we will find.
In conclusion, if you perceive that things very much need to improve in life focus on what is outside of you. Narrow down that focus and define it with a goal and/or objective and take a run at it. "Drop all your troubles by the riverside. Ride a painted pony let the spinning wheel fly." Get back on the merry go round of life and this time enjoy the view and the others on it with you.
Living outside yourself for periods of time until the circumstances of life change or you can reorganize what your have been asked to handle. Sometimes this is momentary but sometimes this can last for great periods of time. Certain strains like chronic illness may never completely leave. you, but this is rare.
The lady who killed her own kids brcausea ashe was in love with a man who did not want kids. She allowed this desire for someone else to take over her mention and emotional functioing. Instead, she should have desired the truth of God which is objective..outsdide of ourselves....and focused on loving her children which is the true inner vulfillment of our vocaation. Instead she allowed theher inner structure to feed on lies. the cure is to refocus on the truth outside of ourselves.
Disease
Loss of Love
Suicide...Entering the Forbidden Zone
Suicide is a major problem in our society. It is especially a problem with males. Both teenage males and middle aged males have been hit especially hard by this complex decision which reveals the loss of hope that so many have been infected with from the current zeitgeist.
There are as many paths to suicide as there are victims. So let us concentrate on the fatal flaw of traveling down the decision making process to escape from stressful life situations to the point where as the French say les carrottes sont cuites ("the carrots are cooked"): there is no going back.
We can look at this from two angles: one is that there is a God who created me and has done so in order that I may know that God now and forever in an increasing dimension. All the experiences of my life, therefore, pleasant or not, allow me to choose in the interior of my soul to be led deeper into the knowledge (and union) of God because he is allowing them to happen to me. In fact, God the Son, actually entered into creation and submitted himself to the same outward sufferings and joys that I go through in life to assure me that this sustains and leads to a greater union with God. Ultimately the victory of life over death of Jesus in His Resurrection assures me that the sufferings of life are "worth" it.
The other view is that there is no God and therefore my experience of myself in the composite of my mind and body and its interaction with whatever is near me is the sole determinant of whether I use the assets under my control to determine whether I should exist in this self-conscious manner or end it because it is not very pleasant and I do not see my life experience getting any better or even that it will get worse.One can even end up in a solipsistic state believing that I am literally the only thing that exists so whatever I am deciding is okay. In a particularly revealing moment my college roommate told me that he could not imagine anything greater than him. "Well our landlord is so don't forget to pay your share of the rent."
Simply put, once an individual with either set of these beliefs makes the decision to escape from the unpleasantness of life by suicide they then can experience an euphoric high which serves to galvanize their rational decision to end their life even if that rationality may defy what they portended to believe (as a believer in God) or as a person who formerly had found some value in life. This new sense of reality now drives their future actions based on the decision to end their life because they want to sustain the "escape factor high" and never return to their former set of circumstances which they believe can no longer bother them.
If the individual does not then perceive any alternative that challenges that high with the possibility of some greater type of "feeling" it is dangerously scant that they will change their end's design. If they do not think the current vortex of being a failure or not being loved or not being respected or as some have said "of just being bored" which they are spinning around in one may have crossed the bridge. Yes we have heard the phrase "bored to death." The world famous singer Dalida was voted as the second most popular person in France and killed herself because she said she had become "bored with it all." Sometimes the root of this conclusion is that the individual does not see that they have a purpose or value to others which is part of the very reason to exist by God's design. Once this is forfeited heading into something "unknown" becomes an attractive alternative.
The Croisé thesis is that suicide is bad and to live is good. So the question becomes: "Can an individual be influenced to not enter the "forbidden zone" of relinquishing survival alternatives and placing trust in the "euphoria" created by their reasoning process?"
A healthy strategy is to try to give the individual tools that keep them from entering into the euphoria trap. A series of rational components which help assure the individual that the set of circumstances they are perceiving as unchangeable must be employed. Those closest to them may help by constantly portraying a value system which validates individual worth and looks at social influences as negligible. Values such as friendship, love, forgiveness and helping others are things under an individual's control. No one else can dictate success in these areas. Trust and faith in God falls in the same category. If an individual is constantly grounded in these they will become more resistant to complete self annihilation. Consistent behavioral discipline encouraged by example and not through force leads to personality bonding to others.
That is what we do to help others. What about helping ourselves? We must ground ourselves in an objective set of beliefs which match the pattern of reality established by God's own design. The natural truths of nature can only be perceived at their height through the addition of truths of faith. It is only when we are committed to approaching God to ask for help to discern his plan for our individual life that we can fully grasp it. Again, the entire model for this is the life of Christ. We must imitate that life and the lives of those who also accomplished complete imitation whom we call saints the apex of whom is St. Mary the Mother of Jesus of Nazareth.
Pray is the font of ultimate truth about the application of faith in an individual's life. Determining which goals and which daily objectives are apt can only be defined through placing oneself in God's presence and seeking that which He chooses to reveal. Subsequent following of such wisdom then depends on fellowship and the graces obtained through public worship and the sacraments.
Short of physio chemical abnormalities which are usually best dealt with by the prudent use of pharmaceuticals the key to never reaching the Rubicon of suicide has been stated in the above case. Before any of us reach this point we must daily and repeatedly seek God above any and all things no matter how distracting they are. Following the commandments of the Old Testament and then the new commandment to believe that Jesus is God made man sent to save us is the antidote to the failure of seeing value in one's life and obtaining the ability to sustain oneself in the face of some perceived set of circumstances which sap us of the normal sense of being content as we view God's good green earth from our own little hill.
Porn In The USA
Why Do Guys Get Addicted To Porn?
We know factually that there is a huge problem with pornography. This has affected men in our culture for decades. It has increased because of the ready availability of pornography through the internet. It is now uncensored in any way and is available to young people with the click of three buttons. But why are men (and women in a lessor sense) driven to spend inordinate amounts of time perusing the endless avalanche of images of sex acts? There is a clear reason and you are about to hear it.
Bing!
Man is designed to live in a union with others which is a reflected of the relationship of the Holy Trinity in Heaven. This is available in all relationships with people as each person makes daily decisions on how to interact with others (both short term and long term decisions). When an individual chooses to follow how God has designed all reality to fit together then that individual is becoming aware of the type of union God has between Father, Son and Spirit because they know it in their own life.
Bang!
The greatest union people have with each other according to God's plan is in marriage. This involves a total sharing of oneself with another with involves material goods, future plans, sacrificial service in good times and bad and IN GIVING ONE TO ANOTHER IN THE SEXUAL UNION which binds the two together through pleasure (both physical and spiritual) and results in the creation of new life which are to be watched over and cared for with the similar sense of sacrifice and duty. When two people do this they most completely reflect how God relates within "themselves." This is why finding someone to love and completing the marital state is so compelling to humans. Doing so lets us know what God is like in the greatest way.
Boom!
Marriage was intended by God to be permanent. Because of original sin, the affects of which have been handed down generation to generation, the union between spouses has been hobnailed and damaged in ways that is almost impossible to repair in every way.
The intimate sexual act and the sharing of bodies is supposed to be exclusive to a married couple and reflects the complete union between the two. But no one lives the union in a completely perfect way. The Church teaches that there are few who are living saints because the grace to do so is rarely offered and rarely accepted (Council of Trent) so they seek it in their mind. This can occur when someone meets a women that is not their spouse and for the moment that women seems to be kind and appealing. So a fantasy comes into the mind of the guy picturing himself with that women in a moment of intimacy as if it was his own wife. This is the emotive part of body and soul seeking a resolution to not experiencing love from their own spouse every moment of the day and night. Of course that women in the fantasy could never offer perfect love either if he spent every day with her but the mind and soul are searching for it on this momentary basis.
This experience with intensified in pornography. The women one sees at work or at the bank or waiting on you at the restaurant isn't naked. Being naked in front of someone else is something specifically for the intimacy of married couples. Seeing someone actually performing a sex act is absolutely something specific to married couples. But because this intense union is so pleasing men will then inside their imagination (image...picture...get it?) place themselves in the pornographic scene having sex with the new "perfect love of my life."
This is why men seek image after image after image after image without stop. They are seeking this fantastical union with miss perfect with what result? It isn't real because it doesn't exist. Even if we throw in the sexual orgasm that normally comes with the marital act.
This is the cause of the addictive problem with pornography. It is the search for perfect love even though you don't even realize what you are searching for. You think it is more connected to the orgasm but that is only consistent by God's true plan with a spouse. This is why Croisé is here. To give you the insight to your own behavior which matches the way your are made by God and the affect of sin which needs to be thought through and overcome by turning to God, accepting the responsibility for the error of our ways and reforming our emotions through the sacramental life and the freedom that prayer before God gives us. Now you can set goals about your sex life and your living a better marriage because along with all this new perspective to think about is that your wife or any women you are emotionally involved with knows intuitively that if you are into porn at some level you are not into her. Otherwise you would not be searching. This is the ultimate destructive element of this bane to the life of modern man.
So boom! Explode your current attitude and behavior and let God give you the control you need to be holy and have a happier more fulfilled and more "in control" life and if it applies a better and more trusting marriage or romance. Bonne chance.
Time to Get Past the Hurt
Anger
Charity Forgiveness
Pity
Time To Get Past the Hurt:
Healing from What Has Hurt Us Most In the Past
Along the path of life many people have caused us pain. It could have been a family member, a bully at our school or in our neighborhood, someone who ripped us off financially or the jerk who sold us that waxed and buffed lemon. Often we yearned for the attentions of a certain female who in the end just had no interest in us. Sometimes we have hurt ourselves by attaching ourselves to dreams or goals which were completely unrealistic and never materialized.
Most times we merely learn the lessons of life and stay away from the unfriendlies and plan a little better but sometimes the hurt becomes so great that it robs us of the ability to live a life sustained by happiness the ability to enjoy other people. Well you can no longer let the actions of others or yourself destroy your peace and joy. It's time to use the otter's approach. We have to learn to let it all run off our back. But when that back is raw and scarred how to we do it?
There are two great affects in you if you have experienced the above. One is that you lose confidence in your ability to negotiate your way through life. The other is that you become the safe deposit box for a lot of anger. Both of them can occupy our mind and block out progress in life. If anything you just read rings any bells then you may want to stop and discern how much either of those two things has affected you. Croisé has some suggestions which can help the one who is ready to be healed.
To succeed at this you have objectively look at your life. And to increase your objectivity you have to find the quiet safe place to look at what has happened to you. If you were in a dark movie theater and you thought someone could come from behind you and assault you at any moment you would not pay much attention to what was happening in the movie. THE GREATEST PLACE TO WATCH THE PASSING SCENES OF YOUR LIFE IS IN A CHURCH MOST PREFERABLY BEFORE THE FACE OF CHRIST. This is the most secure environment you can have. Although many memories will come forward at many different times you still need a place to look at them which has been provided for you by God. That is what a church building is for.
As you look at the crucifix and ask the Spirit of God to help you, you will see that you have been treated many times in your life like Jesus was treated: humiliated, denied His right to speak when the truth needed to be spoken, physically assaulted, plotted against, ignored and betrayed. These events formed who you are in some way. The more frequently and more severely they occurred, the greater affect on your current life.
You will also see the times in your life when you were the perpetrator. You may have lied to get your way. You may have manipulated others to accomplish your goals. You may have been the bully or the thief or the betrayer or traitor. But when you know that Jesus endured all those things so that you could them in your life you know you do not have to run.....or change the channel.....you can stay and watch more in order to see how things must change.
Whether others have done very bad things to you or whether you have chosen the dark path you may very well have a lot of anger against others or yourself. Anger is the emotion that is the signal something should be done in a situation. What should be done? Should I hurt someone because of what has happened or should I forgive them? Should I hurt myself because I messed up my life or should I forgive myself? With the Spirit of God as our guide (and sometimes a person experienced in the spiritual life) we must decide what must be done with the anger because the anger may be blocking our progress down the road to peace. We may be focused on the emotion and not the solution because no one ever showed us how to forgive. No one may have forgiven you, even for small things in life. Or you may have seen parents who did not forgive each other for large transgressions.
So you decide to forgive the creep that hurt you or forgive yourself. That means that you will treat that person as though they did not hurt you. That is what forgiveness is. It does not mean that you allow them to hurt you again. This may give rise in them a new sense of how to treat you if they are still involved in your life.....or it may not. They may be too confused to understand it all just like you may have been without the help the God's Spirit and the example of Jesus. Either way you must treat them as though they did not hurt you even if you need to avoid them in order to prevent them from victimizing you. The second tic on the clock is this forgiveness.
Whether or not they responded to your forgiveness or whether or not you have responded to the forgiveness that Jesus has offered you for yourself, in this whole thought process you realized that you may have done what you did because of the past hurt in your life. And you now can see that the others who hurt you may have done the same. They had bad examples in their lives and thought they had limited choices. It is sad either way. Now you can pity them and have a justifiable pity for yourself. This shows an incredible new understanding in your mind about life and about the effect of sin in humans and the importance of doing what is right because everyone benefits.
If you are realizing these things in the concrete examples of your life and not just in some kind of broad sense of universal truth you are moving along quite well. But you must continue to embrace all these things in order to more fully participate in life on earth as God wishes. You will now experience inside your soul a fullness where there had been emptiness. Pity is the sign of the love of God manifest in you because it will motivate you to now love others despite the hurts of the past.
But now the final spiritual test is here: you must extend yourself in action to those who hurt you or those that you have harmed. And you have learned such a great lesson that you must also no longer treat others for an ill gotten gain. You will now love others not for what they do or do not do for you but rather you will provide for others what they need in life only because they truly need it. Do you love me says Jesus to Peter. Do you love me says Jesus to Peter. The final time he changes the word to mean "Do you love me not for yourself but only to accomplish the mission I will send you upon which will not serve you in your need but the needs or others." This is what charity is. It is love as God loves. It is the way in which God has created us to know what God the Father, Son and Spirit are like in heaven.
Now you choose charity and when you do you are choosing healing: the healing of others and the healing of yourself. Enlightened by God's Spirit and strengthened by the friendship and presence of Jesus Christ you can choose to transcend your past. And the more and more you go before the face of Jesus you will overcome the weaknesses you have so that you can move from anger to forgiveness, from forgiveness to pity and from pity to charity. Bon chance!
How to find the life you think you have lost.
Recovering from major life status trauma, romance chaos, divorce, career smashup, death or separation from an essential personality influence or reorientation of financial security and family crisis issues all involves some of the same strategy and application of new realizations.
Okay here it is. You knew what was coming. Yes, inside your mind and shortening the breath in your body you knew what this article was going to say: that says volumes about what you already know you need.
From the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis:
Book Three, Chapter Sixteen
"Whatsoever I can desire or imagine for my comfort, I look not for it in this life, but hereafter.
For if I alone should have all the comforts of this world, and might enjoy all its delights, it is certain they could not last long.....
You can not be fully satisfied with any temporal good, because you were not created for the enjoyment of such things."
Most of the mistakes we have made in the past (or the errors of others that affect us) come from the pursuit of the things of this world, including love relationships, based upon our particular sense of what we thought would bring us pleasure and security. The whole point of the quote above is to state boldly and emphatically that the things of the world are not ends in themselves......EVER. They are always ways in which we are to come to know about the love of God in heaven: the love of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And how we use them also teaches other people about how they can experience what Jesus called "The Kingdom of God."
The story of Adam and Eve helps us reflect on what happens when we use the things of the earth for our own purposes and not in order to know God. God said no. Adam and Eve said yes. Result: Cain kills Abel.
The irony for all of us is that what has wrought frustration, or pain, or insecurities in life mostly flow from our lack of the ability to stand back and wait and see what is to happen in life while we patiently live out our daily duty. Instead of jumping into a romance head to heels after three margaritas, we should have looked at what type of person we were really connecting ourselves too before it seemed to be too late to say no to what was going on. What was a complete mismatch was something that could not be discerned for what it was because emotions or previous created expectations took over the mind. Eve thought those apples would be so good. She could taste them. But she also knew rationally that it was a bad thing to do. How many times we say??
We also plan and organize our lives many times based on what we need to do in the practical side of life (job, money, recreation) which we believe will help us obtain what we see as long and short term pleasures. Hey it would be great to have a kid. They seem like they are so much fun and someday they can carry my genes into the future. And the process is pretty fun, too. Yeehaw! But we do not carefully, slowly, methodically and prayerfully (because we should get God's opinion maybe) look at this from all angles with the long term in mind. We may not even have done this with our career. We thought such and such kind of work or business would be our bouncing board to membership in the golf club, chrome wheels and that Crownline which you could enjoy on all the weekends. Or maybe we just wanted a simple apartment and to go to a movie now and then. But it all got much more complicated. It might have been that I did not even realize my mother in law has no respect for me or that my religious faith or lack of faith was someday going to be an issue in raising the kids or that living in that apartment at some point became to lonely to bear.
No matter what the thorn, the saving principles are the same. They must be recognized and followed in a new way otherwise the past mistakes will repeat over and over and over. How many divorces and affairs do people zombie through in life?
God is first, I am second.
Duty is third if the object of the duty is good and holy. Duty comes from the Old French word deu meaning when something is expected at a certain time. We take on responsibilities and their results are expected at a certain time: work, mowing the lawn, praying and going to Church on Sunday, fighting for the Duke when enemy ships are near (Oh, wait that's that Old French thing!), sitting and talking to my wife about the life we share, my obligations to my parents when they need me, attending my kids activities to a proper level and fulfilling financial obligations that are due at certain times (yep, all the bills). Duty is made up of accumulated responsibilities from young adulthood onward.
What if you got off track and people no longer respect your abilities or your word to deliver something at the appointed time? To cover their tracks some get involved in all sorts of addictions: porn, gaming, gambling, credit card binging, pet adoration (they always look like they love us no matter how irresponsible we are). And now I'm sitting here not knowing how to get back to where I was years ago before things got off course or when my parents helped out when I made mistakes.
Don't for one minute wish you were back where you were years ago. That's what got you in the mess. The life you thought you would lead was probably not possible because you did not realize that life is not lived for ourselves but for God through our relationship with others. The tendency we have is to merely reorganize a couple things in life so that everything else seems the same. If a little more money can come my way or if I can get a new girlfriend or wife to replace the old one (and she might even have a few bucks) then I can put off the idea of living out the duties that God wishes of me. In fact, I guess on second thought I didn't even know God really wanted me to do anything at all. I never added that into my calculus. My parents did not even tell me about that. Oddly, you never really realized how important you and your decisions are to everybody around you.
So its time to do so. Read. Read this entire website. It can be the new lens to look at life through. Go read the lives of the saints. Pointedly and purposefully deny in your mind and heart that what is going on around you in society is good and true and right, because most of it isn't. What was going on in any society anywhere at any time was never all that good and true and right. But God decided to break into society and offer a chance at salvation. A chance to have any individual life improved and restored to its original purpose of knowing the Kingdom of Heaven. If you can be committed to this idea then you are on your way to a life with less stress, more self love and greater respect and enjoyment from other people. You might even enjoy planting a few gardinias on the garden path! You probably never imaged that. In other words you create and share the beauty with everybody on the path because you won't be trying to squeeze every ounce of self pleasure out the certain things you chose to value. That would kill your gardinias because like those responsibilities above they need to be weeded and watered. If your accumulated addictions take six hours a day (or more) there will be no time for that.
You also need to pray. Learn to pray. When people ask to be taught to pray sometimes they are told "just do it" with no real explanation. That is good and bad. Yes, like riding a bike you just have to do it. But some help is there, too. Jesus told us to pray the words of the Our Father. The Church gives us the "Hail, Mary" from scripture. Those are some easy ways to stop, recognize that God is listening and then say something. Over time you will desire more and more prayer because prayer is very consoling. It is enlightening as you can read about on the Prayer Page of this website. It is the most important thing to do to increase your knowledge of life and to ground yourself in solid decisions about goals and objectives.
The most important place for prayer is in front of the Most Blessed Sacrament (the Body of Jesus which He left us at the Last Supper through his Apostles) because like the other important relationships that pull you away from the rest of the things of the world (like best friends and lovers) it gives you an undivided ability to ponder true things. Jesus said the truth would set us free. Pilot asked what truth was. He really did not know even though he was looking at it right in the face. Then he washed his hands of the whole problem. We cannot live like that. We cannot keep washing away the daily circumstances that are making demands on us. We must discern the truth and then choose to live by it. Nothing else can help us handle the crazy, intense circumstances that echo down the halls of life. We end up living in the fear that we'll actually have to do something like Pontius Pilot or when we do actually act we will end up making monumental mistakes like he did.
Stop putting off the new truth. Even if you have lived part of the truth, only the whole truth and nothing but the truth can really bring peace and confidence inside. That is the greatest security that there is. Pilot just wanted to get through his time in Jerusalem so he could move up the ladder in Roman politics. He showed us how forgetting what daily life means and how to live it has great affect not only on us but on other people. The time to recommit your time to some study, prayer, holy friendships and the truth is here. Don't wait for that ship from Rome to bring you to a sense of security and self purpose that will never come.
Oh, history records nothing certain about Pilot after he served in the important position as governor of Judea. Bon chance.