We Are No Accident

Day 8 (though really day 2 if I'm being completely honest)

"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard

Cowardice must be a flaw of mine. This quote speaks all too easily to me. I abhor criticism; I get hurt over the smallest things, remarks that cut like the sharpest knives over my sensitive skin. Why is it that life has to hurt so much? There seems no end to the pain people have to go through.
Recently in our honors class we have been discussing the philosophy of the German philosopher Schopenhauer. He denies that free will exists and most of the people in the class tended to disagree with that statement. However, the truth is that their adherence to atheism, to evolutionism in the macro sense, all indicates this randomness and pointlessness. Life under this has no point; life and people and civilization as we know it would be "an accident" of the universe. It reminds me of the point that my mother stressed over in "Life of Pi." My sister and I had both read the book before we went to see the movie, and as such we were not surprised by the twist at the end. My mother, on the other hand, kept thinking over the parallel stories and the phrase "As it is with God." "As what is with God?" she kept asking. It took a while, but eventually we looked up some of the literary commentaries for her and she figured out a concept even my sister and I had overlooked. When Pi says, "As it is with God" he means that life is a better story when we tell it with God involved. All the pointlessness, all the pain and suffering, all the ups and downs have some sort of bigger picture and purpose to them! Pain is therefore not meaningless; we aren't just suffering without any promise of salvation or rest at the end. And yet, so many people have a problem with accepting the existence of a God, especially a benevolent God. "Then why is there suffering?" they ask, "Why is there suffering if God is supposedly all good, all knowing, all powerful? Why doesn't he stop it?" How I wish I had the answers. My best explanation cannot cover everything.
My father likes the phrase "We're spiritual beings experiencing the physical, not physical beings experiencing the spiritual." I take comfort in it too, because for me it shows that life is bigger than this. My life is not just this. How wonderful to think that my life extends beyond this world! I was meant for something better and bigger than this! My very being does not belong here; my very being is not home yet! I am a spiritual being experiencing a physical world, not a physical being trying to reach out to the spiritual. Religion, if you want to call it that, is not just me trying to cope with the world. Religion is a relationship to me. Religion helps me reason about why I'm here and why I have to go through the things I do. But it's bigger than that. My relationship with God is a learning experience. If I am a spiritual being, then why do I waste my time fulfilling the desires of my physical body? Would it not be better to build up the spiritual in me?
The point is, I have no answers. Jesus and his life, his purpose for me, is what I plan to live for. That is my bigger purpose. I can still be afraid of criticism and pain. I can still be struggling with what I want and what I should really be doing. But I would rather be struggling for something, towards something, than believe that live, that my life, that everyone's life is an accident. Because if it is, then we doom so many. And we wonder why suicide rates are going up...