The Shining Snake

The Devil is real. I say that with the same certainty that I say that God is real. In fact, this is an argument-provoking topic that I have had with my (very religious) father numerous times. How can you consider yourself a true believer, if you refuse to believe that there are evil forces seeking to lure souls into sin. How can you consider yourself a True Christian, if you choose to ignore the teachings of the Church which do not necessarily correspond to your mere opinion. The thing is I cannot conceive of the fact that one can believe in pure good, but not poor evil. It's a dualistic spectrum, just like there is hot and cold, and north and south, and day and night. 

I read one time that the Devil's most powerful tactic is to make you believe that he doesn't exist. This logic makes sense, because if you don't believe that there are evil spirits roaming around, nothing can hurt you, you're not afraid. Even though that may not be necessarily a bad thing, I don't think God wants us to be afraid. Au contraire, I think he wants us to be brave, and to have complete free will. And in order to achieve that, we must be aware of the choices given to us, both the good and the bad. It's easy to have a free-for-all life, where there are no consequences for your actions. However, the weird logic lies when a person believes in a God, but no in the Devil. This is kind of like an attempt to believe on the good, but not on the bad. There are good and bad spirits roaming around, and we have to be aware of both of them, so we are not fooled.

I have never experienced pure evil, I'm not sure I know what that is. When I first read this, I thought about making a joke and stating that pure evil was my sister. But I've grown past the times I compared her to a demon. The essence of evil, I can't even begin to imagine. I think of something ugly and dark who does bad things to others to feed off their suffering. No, I have never experienced that, I've never witnessed it. The evil that has come into my life often has a shining aura, it's beautiful and tempting and there's precisely where its danger lies.

What is Discernment?

In order to prepare for this post, I had to reflect on the phrase "great questions of life," it forced me to put in perspective what I deem important.  I could not help but to wonder unto the philosophical questions about life. For instance, whether there is life after death, and if that will actually come as the light at the end of the tunnel (now I'm wondering how this metaphor resembling being ran over by a train came to be). Most importantly, perhaps due to the stage that I'm in my life right now, I'm thinking of what I'm supposed to do in the years that have been given to me. There is a saying that I like very much that says that you're born twice, once when you're actually born and the second when you find out why. It has been very difficult journey for me even getting to this point of my life, and it was walked by little baby steps just one at a time.
When these thoughts get overwhelming and keep me up in the middle of the night due to uncertainty of what is to come, I just give up trying to read the future. I just hope that God holds my hand through it all and trust Him, because at the end that is all I can actually do. Because no matter if I am the best planner in the world, fate has a way of turning plans upside down in the best way possible.

Why am I taking this course? I do not need it, in fact the dean called me asking me to drop it because I don't need it to graduate. However, I want to take it. I've always felt God wanted me to be in this school for a reason, and I'm about to graduate and I have yet to find out why. However, I would like to find out. I need to find out. In plain truth, I'm looking for God in every aspect of my life, I feel like I need Him. Plus, I think taking a course on the man that gave my university its name is needed, just for personal knowledge. I would like to know what is it about his life that has made his name so famous throughout all these centuries. I hope to learn about the Jesuit values and exercises, and learn a little bit about my faith on the way there.