How have I become this person I am today?
While on my trip I asked myself an important question, do I believe that Jesus died for ME, do I believe in the Christian ideal of God. I was sick of toying with this idea. I was sick of being unsure it was time for me to look inside of myself and believe in my bones.
I was leaving Seymour when I told Jesus that if he really was this marvelous person that I need to live for and believe in to get to heaven to give me a sign on this day. And on this day nothing peculiar happened, this is where I started my new life as a disbeliever. I mean I do believe this man existed but I don't believe that he is "THE SAVIOR" or whatever.
Anyways with that somewhat established I do believe that the words of the bible had a great positive impact on my life. How cool to hear these well written metaphorical pieces of philosophies and ideas at such a young age. The youth group I went to was very laid back and some times they would focus on a few quotes in the bible about the importance of fellowship and tolerance of others. Often times inspiring me to sit at new tables during lunch and meeting new interesting people with different ideas about life. I was also inspired to sit down and talk to and give money to the homeless when I would go to a show in Grand Rapids. Sometimes I would ask if they believed in God. The bible helped me find beauty in the world and people even if we had very little in common. Other times we were taught not to ask for things in prayer and not to cling on to frivolous things such as boy band obsessions, money, material objects. And this was hard but I learned that buying things and money was not the key to happiness, I didn't need Abercrombie. The bible taught me love and tolerance for humanity, and to be humored and excited about differences.
In my current life I desire to be even more loving and tolerant of humanity, a basic message I learned from the bible. I no longer do this for god, I do this for myself. And in my one life I am the most important person in my life, but I believe in inertia, that stagnant people can be inspired to start living for happiness and themselves to inspire other people to inspire other people to inspire other people to inspire other people to inspire other people because objects at rest only stay at rest until the are acted upon by an outside force.