Bob and Salvation

BY: CHRISTIAN HOLMES (@HOLMESYWRITES)

Just to give you guys and gals a quick heads up, this is the follow up blog to the short story I posted on Wednesday. If you have not read it yet please click on the link here - All In The Suit That You Wear - this blog will make a lot more sense to you after you read the story.

So, without further ado, let's get this party started right!

Alright, here's the scoop. Really the whole point of life, for the vast majority of spiritual people, is to find salvation. Reach a nirvana. Everyone wants to find peace. It's almost like everyone wants to find the meaning of life. Of course, finding such a thing is truly rare. Not to mention, it's hard as hell to do such a thing. And in Bob’s case, that truth was no different.

The thing that made Bob unique was that he never truly grew up, mentally and spiritually, in the story. He was stuck with the mindset of a teenager. He knew his drinking was bad for him. Bob knew that it was ruining his relationships with others in his life. But yet he still did drink until he was drunk as a skunk day after day. His parents were enablers of his behaviour because they never truly allowed him to grow up and go out and face the world in which he lived. Since they never helped his development mentally, Bob had the mentality that he could do whatever he want because he had his parents to fall back on if something went wrong.  

As the story develops, Bob quits drinking moreso because he was forced to, rather than wanting to actually stop. When he stop drinking his life lost purpose because since he was basically cradled by his parents his entire life, he never actually figured out who he was. At least that's the picture I was trying to paint.

In my eyes, in order to find a deeper meaning to your life, at some point you gotta become independent and break away from your caregivers. There are some situations where that is not possible and that's alright, it's nobody's fault. But for the people that have the ability to live on their own, it can be a big key to finding their purpose, because for the first time in your life, you have full control of what goes on. It's your money (most of the time) that you're using to pay for your cost of living. You call the shots, you dictate what you're doing with your life. Bob, never got that type of control, since a vast majority of his life was controlled by his parents since he was living under their roof. Bob never had that ability to make life altering decisions. Yeah, I guess his decision to keep drinking at the end of the story was life altering, but there's only so much say his parents could have on something like that.

So when Bob became a punk, it was almost like he was finding that meaning to his life that he yearned for. Yes, maybe it wasn't the meaning that others wanted him to find in life, but it was forcing him to start doing things for himself. It was forcing him to call the shots for once. Was Bob still doing bad shit in his life? Of course, he was, but he is trying to change for the better. Even though, his version and your version of changing for the better might be two completely different things.

When I first wrote this short story, the way it ended was Bob turned back to drinking and gave up on salvation because he did not believe it would ever be at hand. Bob thought that his death was imminent and if he was going to die one day, he may as well die happy doing what he loves. The two main reasons why I ended it that way was, number one - it got the reader to think of Bob’s life decisions and how it altered his life experiences, and number two - I hoped that it got the reader to think is giving up on deliverance from sin/evil was actually a good idea. And then, as time went on I added that letter to the end, because I wanted to make a statement that hope for finding salvation was never truly lost for Bob. He just needed to realize that. And that what I plan to tell in the sequel to this short story. Hopefully I'll have that written before I take off to college, if I don't I apologize in advance.

Now this might get a little preachy, so if you're not a big fan of the Christian viewpoint… don't worry it's Christian’s philosophy - pun intended. If you don't get the pun, read the first name of the author for this post. ;)

You see, the way I see it, salvation can truly be at hand. We just have to take time to realize it. Trust me, sometimes that can be hard. Especially considering the society we live in. We're too quick to point fingers at others for their wrongdoings, rather than trying to help them out.

You see, my biggest problem with people from ‘the church’ is that they think just because they go to church, pray twice a day, and obey the Ten Commandments, that they're automatically better than those who do not. Now not all Catholics/Christians are that way. Believe it or not, there are plenty of good religious people within those communities. But there are too many people that are lost in their self-righteousness and totally miss the idea of the New Testament and what Jesus came to preach in his ministry.

You see, Jesus was a righteous man. He did not look down on those who were considered sinners, he welcomed them into his ministry with open arms. He did not care of their past sins. His simple request was for these followers to sell all their belongings, give the money to the needing, and follow him during His preaching of ‘The Good News’. If there was one thing Jesus came to preach against, it was self-righteousness. Why do you think Jesus disliked The Pharisees so much? Jesus disliked The Pharisees because they were self-righteous, and for that he called them fools.

If there's one thing that Catholics and most Christian denominations live their lives by its The Word of The Lord. And where does that come from? Scripture! I'd like to know where in Scripture is self-righteousness encouraged? Doesn't God punish the self-righteous? For the most part yes, but what does he usually offer the self-righteous? A chance to be righteous. A chance to rewrite their wrongs. You don't have to look much farther in Scripture then the story of Saul to prove such a thing. I'm not going to explain. I'm going to simply encourage you to do that for yourself and let you believe what you want to believe.

To finish this off, the way I was brought up in the faith was to reach out to those who needed to be reached out to. I wasn't brought up to look down at those who have lost their way. Christ says to help those people. The Scripture says to help those people. It's not to tell them that they'll never find salvation because they're a sinner. Isn't that why Jesus died on the cross? So we could find salvation?

Look at it this way; I'm not a Bible scholar (although I've read a pretty good amount of the Bible and I've studied it extensively since I was brought up in the Catholic School Board System), I'm just an 18 year old blogger going off to college in a few weeks. But please let me clarify—I love the Church, I love the Bible, and yes, I believe in sin. But the question I always like to ask myself, if Jesus showed up to a church full of self-righteous Christians, would they actually let him in? See, remember He was called a glutton and a drunkard by religious men. But the Son of God never supports self-righteousness—not now, not then.

This is why I think the story of Bob is so important. When I originally wrote this I missed the opportunity to make a powerful statement. But now, I didn't. You see, Bob represents a lot of people in this world that are lost, but just need a helping hand. Yeah, in this case he didn't find God, but he found the morals that all Christians should possess. Bob is another example that salvation is truly at hand when the man discovers His plan.

And for those who say otherwise… just remember. Just because you call some people blind, doesn't automatically give you vision.