Dining on Ashes

You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for. -Ray Bradbury

Incorrect assumptions lie at the root of every failure. Have the courage to test your assumption. -Brian Tracy

Let's try this again.

The quotes from Bradbury and Tracy pretty much sum up why I write this blog. I've talked a lot about how I'm here to question my own assumptions (and sometimes the assumptions of others) in relation to faith and religion. Recently, I also told someone that I write this blog because I need to write. This isn't just me imparting information, this is me. Period.

I was also recently told (more or less) the following about my writing:

I don't know the key to success but the key to failure is to try to please everyone. -William Henry "Bill" Cosby Jr.

Assuming this quote is true and assuming it applies to me, that means I've been unsuccessful in my mission here. Believe me, there are days I'd just as soon come to the same conclusion and toss it in the trash can, but the following won't let me:

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I will show you a failure. -Thomas Alva Edison

I can't surrender the Messianic blogosphere or the community of faith because I'm not even close to "satisfied" with how things are going in a lot of the arenas encompassed by Messianism. I suppose I won't be this side of the Messiah. That means, even if I don't always want to, I'll keep writing and teaching until he returns, if God is willing to have me do so.

There's another reason I'm there, though:

Talking about "peoplehood" at the dawn of the twenty-first century may seem like an anachronism. After all, this is the age of the global village, knit together by instant communications, international travel, and mass culture. The alternative to a totally homogenized life on a shrinking planet is usually thought of in terms of radical individualism and personal freedom. But that philosophy tends to produce loneliness, isolation, and a hunger to belong to something larger and more durable than oneself.
-Anita Diamant
Choosing a Jewish Life

While Diamant is talking about the motivation for a Gentile to choose to convert to Judaism, she is also describing the need of all people of faith to have community with others who share their perspectives and their attachment to God. By definition, the Messianic movement is isolated, both from mainstream Judaism and from mainstream Christianity. On a human level, we only have each other...for better or sometimes, for worse.

Oh. About the title of this blog post:

Idiom: Dine on ashes: If someone is dining on ashes he or she is excessively focusing attention on failures or regrets for past actions.

To employ a quote from fiction, Remembrance and regrets; they too are a part of friendship and understanding that has brought you a step closer to understanding humanity.

While I'm dining on ashes tonight, I'm also nursing a small spark inside of me, and remembering this commandment from the master:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” -John 13:34-35

Afterword: The phrase "Dining on ashes" is a quote from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and was delivered by Kirk to Spock (hence the photo of Nimoy at the top). The "Remembrance and regrets" phrase was uttered by Captain Picard to Data in the Star Trek the Next Generation episode "Pen Pals" (1989).