Now It's Time to be Serious...

Ok, so I said a few posts ago that I have been really thinking about what I believe, why I believe it, etc. This all started well, I guess really, when my dad died and nobody had a good answer for me. But my spiritual journey really got interesting this last year in unemployment, starting med school, etc. I picked up a book called Soul Survivor in August and didn't put it down. I loved it. Suddenly, things that never got answered, things that I just couldn't fit together, did. Here is the analogy I have for all of it, and excuse me for using science, what can I say, I am a nerd. In organic chemistry lab, we would go into class, not really knowing what to expect. Many times we had to take something like a Zantac, and using what we knew about what made up the Zantac, we could eventually isolate some compound in the pill. So we would spend probably 2 hours doing that and then we would be expected to perform experiments on that compound. Now, if we isolated the correct compounds, it should melt at a certain temperature, it should look a certain way, when analyzed, it should come out pure, with no other compounds present. (Now, was that the case for me personally, many times, no. Maybe if Clint had been my o chem partner...) Anyway, I guess that's how I feel my religion should be. I want to isolate it. I want to try to take out all the stuff and be left with what is pure. I want people to be able to test me and analyze me and find nothing extraneous. Just me and my God. I know that isn't possible but that is what I want to strive for. Mainly, I want to provide answers to sceptics and love and peace to everyone. That is what I want. At the end of the day, it comes down to faith. I can't reason with people about God if they don't want to open their minds to the idea of him but if nothing else, I want to love them. I also am questioning our role, as Christians, in war when Jesus preached nonviolence. I am tired of relying on a government to take care of the poor when Jesus told us to do that.
Something else I have been struggling with lately is...meat. I know, sounds weird. So here it is. I just finished The Lion and the Honeycomb by Leo Tolstoy. Great book even though he is a bit off, I think. One thing he talks about is that he gave up eating meat. Not because of Christianity or anything but because of the treatment of the animals. He talks of going to a slaughterhouse and how horrible it was. I asked myself if I went to a slaughterhouse, if I could keep eating meat and I decided I couldn't. I would probably go running off crying. Honestly, I think it would really mess me up. I can't stand the thought of animals getting hurt. I told Clint this, and I stand by it, that if he killed a deer, I would eat it. My reasoning is because that deer had a good life. He ate in the fields, maybe fought and won over some cute does and then one day, it was all over. That I can handle. Cows being left to walk around in their own poop, being fed a diet of corn (which is not their natural diet and probably makes them sick). Chickens that go their entire life in a pen that is so small, they can't flap their wings. I can't do it. Sigh. So for now, I am not eating meat. I don't know when I will start eating it again, we will see.
Well this is plenty long. Hope everyone is having a great week!