The Way of the Christian Samurai

Just a quick note.  The Way of the Christian Samurai: Reflections for servant-warriors of Christ, is currently free on Kindle until May 4th (2024).

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Expanding upon the condensed

I have often wondered if others struggle with the "conversion" from perceived entertainment material, and the scale of reality.  Almost everyone has a form of entertainment that we enjoy.  Reading, playing games, and/or watching movies.  But each of them are limited in what can be expressed compared to what our brains actually process.

For example, in the world of Fallout, the lore states that vaults are supposed to be able to house up to 1,000 residents, but we never get to see more than, maybe, a couple of dozen other vault dwellers in game.  Within a book the scope of what the author can convey is limited to (roughly) 1k bits per second.  A television series, or movie, is more efficient in that it can convey almost a full visual spectrum of what is happening, but there is still no sense of smell, taste, or touch.

It has been several days since i started this post and i am not entirely sure where i was going with it, but i hope that it will help others to think about things.  There is always more to what can be seen, heard, expressed within the story, show, movie.  Even within the sermon preached on Sunday.  Take the time to think about it for yourself.  I like to call it, 'rubik' it out.  Like the Rubik's cube.  Look at each side of it.  Sort it out.  And do not always take just the face shown to you, all the while, being careful to not insert something that is not there.

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Celebrate Life

 "We believe that every day on this crazy planet is worth celebrating." ~ Blue Man Group 

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Death comes for us all

"To win any battle, you must fight as if you are already dead." ~ Miyamoto Musashi

In all of human history, written or unwritten, there is one truly universal experience.  Death.  It is something that i believe everyone dreads at some point in their life.  It is an unexplorable, untestable, mystery.  Do we cease to exist?  Is there an "ever-after"?  This all contributes to a natural hesitation of giving literally "your all".  

For me, this proverb lends itself to say, "just how far are you willing to go?"  "What is the true price are you willing to pay?"  If you are in a place where 'life and death situations' is a real possibility, more often than not, anything less than every ounce of  your will to do your duty, complete your mission, can result in not only the failure of your job/mission, but likely contribute to the death of others, and likely yourself anyway.  But, it is only natural to come head to head with that eternal, most serious, fear.

In those situation, the only way you can "give it your all" is to come to own the fact that we all die.  It is only a matter of what day/time.  So, give yourself over to the knowledge that, in the history of time, you are already dead, so, give it everything, and fight as if you are already dead.

Now, a deviation from this one train of thought i have also come to know, and live by.  I LIVE as if i am already dead.  I am diagnosed as "severely depressed".  So much so, every time i see my Psychiatrist i am given a set of questions, basically asking if i am planning on harming myself or others.  I have been asked, more than once, if i have certain... instruments, at home.  But, as a Christian, my belief is that, it is not up to me to determine when i will leave this life.  That is ONLY for God, only for my Lord Jesus Christ to say, "it is time".  So, for me, i live my life, every day as if i am already dead unto MYSELF.

If you have navigated by this page, and you are struggling, PLEASE do not fight this fight alone.  You are not weak to seek help.  

If you, or someone you love, is contemplating suicide:  Call, or text 988 - from anywhere in the United States.  If you are at your wits end, and you are not in the United States, i am researching other services around the world to share as well.

988l Suicide & Crisis Hotline

Veteran suicide prevention

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Shōgun - life & death

As the theme of my blog here might lead you to believe, i can confirm that i have been watching the show Shōgun.  I have been intrigued by the samurai since the very first release of Shadowrun in 1989 and i learned of Street Samurai.  Even though the similarities between a cyberpunk "samurai" and one of Feudal Japan end, almost at the use of the word.  However, since then, i have spent time delving into learning more about both worlds.

"We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that." - Toda Mariko (Fictional character, Shōgun, Netflix, 2024)

When i heard Mariko say the line above, it struck a cord with me.  I know without question that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and i am fully confident that He has provided humankind with free will.  However, mankind is finite, and with so many of us running around, our desires often conflict with each other.  Then, toss in the rhythms of nature (weather, tectonic plates, etc.) life is unpredictable and, no matter how much power and/or influence a person might acquire, we never control everything.

We do not choose to be born.  We do not choose our DNA.  But, we can choose HOW we live.  We can choose how we react to the things that come at us every day.  I do NOT, and WILL NOT, EVER, endorse suicide, but we can choose how we face death which is indeed a universal constant among us humans.

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 "Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us." ~ John Stott

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Birth leads to growing, leads to living, leads to teaching, leads to sacrifice, leads to victory

If you don't preach the holiness of God in such a way that your people don't see themselves as the sinners they are, then they'll never truly see how great a Savior they have. ~ Chan Kilgore 

I am quite fond of Christmas.  So much so that anytime i think of the season, any anxiety i feel ebbs, a sense of true joy (which is a rarity for me) begins to flow through me.  The thing is though, Christmas is only the announcement of the coming of the Hope of mankind.  We cannot leave the image of the precious newborn baby, and the imagined peaceful setting, the singing of the Angels to the shepherds.  The young boy grew up, and but for a pair of brief glimpses of Jesus growing up in Luke 2, we are led to the ultimate purpose of Christ's humbling Himself.  To live a holy, perfect, life, to offer Himself up in our place for punishment of the sins we have committed, and then to rise again on the third day to defeat death.

Christianity is unique among all the faiths of the world.  It is the only faith where the object of our worship, took the initiative to not only come up with the plan, but then ensure that the plan was fulfilled in perfect Holiness, and Justice.  The Worshipped provides the path for those who have faith in that plan, and even that was not of the worshipper, but of the object of that worship.

The birth, led to the life, that led to the demonstration, that led to the teaching, that led to the sacrifice, that led to the defeat of our ultimate enemy.  These brief post cannot possibly adequately convey all that has truly taken place, but i do pray that if you find this, and you feel the tug of God on your heart.  Pray.  Ask Him to reveal Himself to you, and seek out others to worship among.  I am praying for you as well.

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