Random Musings
I have spent most of my day in that world which is at once familiar and strange and weird and inexplicable, that world which, for one to inhabit it he must be both indolent and restless, hopeful and melancholy, rational and befuddled – in short, an absurd mass of contradictions; that world which, if you have never been there, no amount of elaborating will suffice to describe it for you. I have been in a world, that is to say, of random musings, and being particularly susceptible, therein, to sudden impressions, I have decided to record a few of my wandering thoughts. This is an unwonted reaction, and I am faced immediately with the overwhelming concern that these ramblings will be no more interesting to the reader than they are satisfying to me, and that both of us, therefore, will walk away from the experience singularly unfulfilled. But on further thought, that plight is not at all unusual, and I suppose my contribution can only be indicative, not causative; which consideration greatly alleviates my sensations of guilt.
Much of my life has been spent in pursuit of connectedness, even from childhood. Other children seemed quite content to observe that dandelions were yellow and that falling on the sidewalk and skinning one’s knee was painful and that it was forbidden and immoral to steal the eraser from the desk of one’s schoolmate, and so on, without pausing to consider whether there were some unifying fabric behind all of these observations. I was often plagued with what relationship the yellowness of dandelions had to the forbiddenness of stealing. If these were all random truths, what criterion was left by which to apprehend further truths? In other words, unless we could formulate some system of rules for the interrelationship of one level of reality to another, so that all was a harmonic whole, there could be no further understanding of things that are, nor yet any meaning to the understanding we already had. Although I never formulated them quite so precisely, these were the distressing thoughts that plagued my early childhood.
My parents had a World Book Encyclopedia that I spent many delightful hours reading. I enjoyed the specific content of many of the various articles, but more thrilling to me than that was the very concept of some systematized, unified body of human knowledge. I became disillusioned, however, by observing the randomness of the systematization, the selectiveness of the fields of knowledge which were referred to, and the fundamental contradictions in what was posited as truth, variable to the angles at which the reality in question was held for observation.
I eventually grew accustomed to think of reality as a vast field of dots, connected by lines which might be capable of being traversed either one way or both, variable to each specific instance. These dots I used to represent non-composite, fundamental realities, and the lines I supposed to be representative of causality, dependence, reciprocity, and so on. My attempts to interrelate differing realities consisted largely of positioning myself mentally on one “dot” and attempting to trace the lines, giving thought to how each line in question was traversable, and deciding what essential reality must be the next after I had traversed a particular line in a particular direction. In this way, I hoped to connect all the dots of reality so that I could logically proceed from yellowness to stealing to pain, and so on, by way of causality and dependence, accurately labeling each dot along the path.
At various points in my life, my fetish for exhaustive systematizing has led me to several inchoate designs, none of which advanced beyond the stage of preliminary preparations, nor indeed is likely to in the future. One of these was to attempt a systematic theology of general revelation. That is, to examine in detail the created world, beginning with a basic observation of the surrounding universe, viewing it at first macro-cosmically, and then micro-cosmically, before relegating the micro-cosmoi to their places in the macro-cosmos. From there I planned to consider the metaphysical realities of moral agents who inhabit this intricate cosmos, the whole time drawing necessary conclusions about the Creator and Designer of such a manifold reality. At the end, I merely hoped to demonstrate that an unbiased examination of general revelation must necessarily lead one to the door of special revelation – that is, to leave one with the confidence that God has indeed spoken to man; that in this speaking, he could expect to find a revelation both of justice and mercy; that this revelation holds forth the only true answer to the overwhelming need that daily confronts him, and that the indefinite continuance of the state of things as they are could only be a forbearance intending to lead one to seek this indispensable revelation.
Another design that I entertained for awhile was to examine the essential likeness and dissimilarity between the divine Logos and the human logos, the former differing from the latter primarily by virtue of its constitutive element which the other lacks altogether. With God, to speak is to constitute. The human logos apprehends or posits reality; the divine Logos creates reality. When God speaks, he accomplishes, through Christ, that which he has spoken. For this reason, Christ is called the Logos: he is the one who reveals and accomplishes the will of God. When God said, “Let there be light,” light sprang into existence through Christ. And when God said, “I will have mercy,” mercy came into being through the grand accomplishment of Christ. Human speech, on the other hand, can only reveal one’s will; it can create worlds – but only worlds in which is lacking constitutive reality. From this framework, I had hoped to reduce reality to a three-tiered system, the primary level being the essential nature of God himself, who alone is a self-existent and self-perpetuating reality; the secondary level being that brought into existence by the divine Logos; and the tertiary being that brought into existence by the human logos. Secondarily, I hoped to establish the plausibility of real volition and moral agency within a tertiary level of reality which could exist at the same time as a closed system functioning as a single element of a secondary level of reality ordained, created, directed, and sustained by the divine Logos. In which arrangement a moral agent might make a choice which had real negative morality for which he was justly culpable; however, the immorality of the action must extend merely to the tertiary level of man’s creation, and the event itself could co-exist within the secondary level of God’s creation as a good and right reality. However, lacking time, energy, and confidence in the value of such flighty endeavors, I forbore to give to them any real effort.
On a different note, I have spent some time imagining to myself a world in which, every time the duck flew by, everyone raised his left heel, and, with his right hand, struck three times in rapid succession. If I grew up in that world, and one day, the duck flew by and I just stood there, would everyone think me frightfully stupid or even insane? I feel as though there are many things I do that make no more sense than striking my heel when the duck flies by, and yet, if I forbear, people look at me askance. Does the whyness of everything strike me alone as ultimately important? Surely not – and yet most people seem quite content to do things because things are done in that way, to think the thoughts that all their life it has been told them they must think. Let them give me one real reason that it is more beneficial or consistent or right to think that way, and I will be content. If you even ask them for such a reason, they look at you as though you had just requested a monkey who drinks flagons of mead in a vacuum full of pensive chimeras.
Of all the philosophical works I have read, I think I enjoyed Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason the most. And yet, when I finished it, I felt as though I had walked through the most captivating palace ever built; but when I stepped outside I plummeted through empty air, and, on my way down, looked up to see the entire massive structure being held up by a poor little sparrow, frantically beating its wings. Epistemologically, the work was unsatisfying. It assumed too much for which I saw no justification, like the goblin spinning silk from a pile of straw.
Beauty has always been a mysteriously captivating thing for me. The point at which this wonder became most salient for me was in the observation of a beautiful woman’s face. Throughout my childhood I was intrigued by the fact that a woman was so distinguishable from a man even by virtue of her face alone. There are certain obvious differences by which to distinguish at a glance a woman’s body from a man’s; but what mystified me was that a face was quite as easily distinguishable, and yet with no salient determining features. Women and men share all the same basic facial anatomy. In both sets there are examples of fat faces, thin faces, large noses, small noses, big ears, small ears, pointed ears, long eyelashes, short eyelashes, and so on. Why would virtually any instance of a compilation of all of these similar features present itself so naturally and instinctively and obviously as masculine or feminine? Moreover, why did some feminine faces immediately strike me as beautiful, and others as very plain? I could never distinguish any common characteristic in those faces that I thought beautiful, nor yet any common characteristic in those I thought ugly. Although, when I gave enough thought to the latter, I discovered that even those faces which I had thought ugly had their own beauty, albeit in a less intrusive manner.
From my first reading of some of the English poets, I fell quite in love with the beauty of poetry, although I could never understand why. I spent countless hours lost in the exhilarating rhythms and flawless cadences of Shelley and Tennyson, and drank in deeply the sensuous richness of Keats; but in the end, I could never quite express why I found rhythmic speech so captivating, and this lack of rational basis disturbed me much.
This same mystifying beauty is the sole substance of music. How many countless hours I spent fabricating reasons for the pleasant effects of certain sequences of pitch and rhythmic patterns – and yet, finally, I was able to give no satisfactory explanation. I think that there is almost no empirical sensation more moving to me than that of the well-ordered beat of a drum set. Pitch is almost inconsequential; the appeal is exclusively that of rhythm. Drums always struck me as the very beat of life: movement and progression all structured and ordered and thrilling and vibrant. However, I never indulged my secret love of drums very frequently. And when I did there was usually attached some feeling of guilt.
The reason for this is that I grew up with the impression that drums were not suitable for worship. I think I retained some ethical misunderstandings from Kant. I felt as though worship were some sacrifice of duty, and that if it were not a sacrifice, or if it involved pleasure other than the pleasure of ascetic renunciations (for that, too, is a sort of pleasure) then it would be unacceptable. But apart from worship, well-played drums were thoroughly unsatisfying and farcical. When I listened to “secular” music with a stirring drum beat, I felt as though I were watching a massive rocket about to launch from Cape Canaveral: the gigantic engines roar, huge flames leap out from beneath, the titan structure slowly begins to lift off the ground – such a display of strength and beauty can have nothing other than the moon and the outer limits of space as its destination. And then the rocket settles back down a few blocks away, and the astronaut jumps out and runs into the convenience store for a pack of cigarettes. The destination is vastly unworthy of the means employed to get there. To have the thrill of the drums lift my soul and fill my senses with a staggering awe and exhilaration, only to drop me off at the thoroughly bland scenario of some wretch moaning at the loss of his girlfriend, or some other such mundane thing was worse than pointless. Even romantic love, perhaps the most mystifying of natural human pleasure, is a far cry from the majesty that music, by its essential thrilling nature, promises to exult in. Music is too lofty to exult in anything trivial.
My ramblings must finally converge on one topic: Jesus alone. All of my life spent in searching for meaning, rationality, significance, truth, harmony – all of it must end in vanity and delusion if the very thing the world was created to magnify is hidden from sight. All things interrelate simply because all things have their final reference point in Christ. It is altogether fitting that the beauty of one face should be feminine and that of another masculine because the harmony of the two uniting in a mutually complementary joy is expressive of Christ and the church. It is altogether fitting that rhythm should be exhilarating because its end is to express and convey the wonder of seeing the glory of Christ, when mere words fall short. And so on. I understand the essence of things no more clearly than I did when I was young. But I have now glimpsed the goal of all things beautiful and mysterious in the sight of my precious Savior, and I can therefore embrace the mystery of inexplicable things which exist to shout his glory.
I used to be a poet. For no other reason than that this poem from that previous era of my life happened just now to enter my mind, I will use it to conclude. It also displays my aptitude for incoherent rambling.
An Insignificant Crisis in the Life of J. Dwight Nelson
15 Responses to “Random Musings”
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Hey, Neppie, This made me feel as if I know you better now. Thanks for writing your miscellanies. It causes me to think, which is always good. I love you. I am so glad that you always point everything to Christ; you are right, He is the reason for all things, and even what we do not understand has a purpose that He has ordained. Have a good day, and get some sleep, since you posted this at 3:36a.m. :)
Fuck you. You seem so smart but yet you hold on to these delusions of Gods and Devils. Mankind has no use for such things. Believe your lies if it makes you feel better about yourself. Do you truely believe or was it just spoonfed to you since birth so that you know nothing else?
Hey, thanks for your honesty. Yes, to answer your question, I do believe in the God who created us. I think you do too, no matter how desparately you strive to delude yourself — intentionally or not. One day, he will judge the world that he created. The bad news is, we all are guilty before the holy God. The good news is, he gives grace to the worst of sinners. Paul was cruelly antagonistic to Christ before God opened the eyes of his heart. Manasseh was a murderer and idolater before God granted him repentance. And as for myself, my heart was blacker, more filled with hatred, pride, and selfishness, than anyone else’s before God showed me his free grace. I am glad that you do not pass yourself off as a good, moral, religious person, as so many do. Christ did not come to save those who already considered themselves religious and upright — those who were “spoonfed” a system of theological truths without any real heart-deep belief in Christ. He came to save God-haters, God-deniers, atheists and brazen sinners. I know this, not because I was spoonfed, but because he opened my eyes to see the glory and grace of his Son, he gave me Christ’s righteousness, which alone is sufficient to find favor in his eyes. I, who was by nature a God-denier, am now God’s child. And so you may be too, if you cry out to Jesus. If not, know certainly that you will one day bow before him. I hope that you may do so joyfully.
I say these things sincerely, with the love of Christ in my heart for you.
By what lantern have you traveled? What have you really learned besides worship and superstition? What do you know about us, and how we came into existence? Give that to us and it might be worth something. Then again it might not be worth nothing.
Let me confess up front that I have traveled by no lantern which I think would interest you, and I have learned nothing which may be isolated from what you term “worship and superstition”. I can really see no neutral ground from which to evaluate worldviews or philosophical outlooks, for the simple reason that, to propose to acquire information through the unaided use of reason/observation is not in itself a neutral idea. I could only agree to a discussion on those terms (proposing to accept as truth whatever appeals to human reason), if I disavowed, at least practically, my one non-negotiable: the authority of the word of the God who created me to inform my belief system and even to shape the way that I reason and think.
However, this does not mean that I have nothing to tell you which might benefit you. It only means that whatever I have to say certainly cannot come from me. If it is to be true, certain, and beneficial, it must come from God.
And God has indeed spoken to us. He has told us those very things which you ask of me: how we came into existence, and so on. And to have the One who brought us into existence explain to us why, and what he now expects of us, is worth more than just something — it is worth everything.
If you doubt the foundational principles of what I am saying, let me propose that you carry out a simple test: Pray in your heart to the God who made the universe (if he indeed created us, he certainly can hear our cries); do your best to be humble before him (if he is the Creator and we are mere creatures there is nothing more fitting than that we be humble before him); and ask him to speak to you (if he created you, you may presume that he has interest in being actively involved in instructing you). Then, just begin to read his word to mankind, the bible (if he condescended to speak to us, we must be willing to listen on his terms, that is, to listen to his self-revelation as he has chosen to give it, through the bible). If you are interested in doing this, I would suggest that you read the gospel of John (one of the most dazzling and yet succint portrayals of the beauty and glory of Christ in all the bible). Ask God to speak to you as you read it, and see whether this gospel is self-authenticating or not. See if the God who wrote it can do more than just write words on paper. See if he can write the truths about who he is on your heart. This is obviously something that I could never do, something that would be more certain and stable than my simple human reasoning to try to convince you of a point. Opinions are a dime a dozen.
God’s clearest self-revelation to mankind came when he sent us his Son to become one of us, to take on human flesh, and ultimately to die in our place on the cross. Through Christ we learn about who God is: we learn that he is just, and must punish sin/disobedience to his commandments. God poured out his wrath against sin upon the only one who could be a sufficient atoning sacrifice because he was himself sinless. Through Christ, we also learn about God’s love and mercy. God put his own Son to death so that we might receive mercy. He took our sins, which demanded his punishment, put them on Christ, and punished him in our place. And he took Christ’s righteousness and put it on our account, then showered us with the favor, love, and merits that that righteousness deserved. He sacrificed his Son to give us mercy. He did this for everyone who believes in him and cries out to him for mercy and forgiveness, trusting in his righteousness alone for a favorable relationship with God. And we see the power of God when he raised Christ from the dead, and set him at his right hand, forevermore triumphant over sin and death. That is what God has told us in his word. Read it with a humble, searching heart, cry out to him for faith, and see if he will not confirm it in your own heart just as he has in mine and in the hearts of so many others.
“For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:5,6
This is just a little passage that I hope will whet your apettite to read the book of John.
Well actually god didn’t really sacrifce anything. If god gave up his one and only son he wouldn’t be in heaven right now siting at the right hand of the father so it says. He would cease to exist in any form. If jesus was actually god himself in human form then all he gave up was a generic bag of skin that was his human body before heading right back up to heaven. If that was god’s intention to live as a man and see what it was like thats still shit because hes still god. He still preformed miracles with his powers, walkedn water and what have you. Easy to look down on sin and all us scum bag humans when your fucking superman. Maybe he shouldn’t have given us free will if hes just gonna cry about it. Also if the only way to heaven is to accept jesus and love god thats kind of like basiclly rapeing your soul. “Love me or your going to burn in hell!” What if jesus WAS just some false profit? Noone really knows. All we have is some book written thousands of years ago by a group of people that believed it. It caught on and caught on, changed around and rewritten countless times, and now people devote their entire lives to it. I think the “Not haveing strange gods before me” comes into play here. If you have it all wrong then god has to be pissed that this jesus fellow is getting all the praise. I guess noone really knows until they die. So im living it up now because when I’m in my casket just sitting there not knowing what to do I can at least think back to all the fun I had when I was alive instead of wasting my little time here-
Well, if you’re right then the best thing you can do is live it up now. But if living it up now is all you have, that’s really pretty sad. A few ephemeral thrills that are only masking the deep pain and confusion and hopelessness, that themselves grow old and unsatisfying all too soon, and that must of necessity slow down and cease some day as eventually old age and death catch up. To give all that up would be less than nothing if there were offered to you a joy that would only increase throughout all eternity. If this life were the very worst it ever got, then it would be worth living for future joy in Christ.
And God did sacrifice his Son. He came down to take on human flesh. Yes, it was as a man that he died. He was atoning for man’s sins so he had to be a man himself, and a spotless man at that. But that does not mean that he was some “superman” who could not understand human weaknesses. He knew what it was to hunger, to thirst, to grow weary. He knew how it felt to be rejected and hated by his closest friends, his family, his own people. He knew what it was like to be mocked and spat upon, to suffer pain, to bleed and cry out in anguish. He knew fully what it was to be human. That is why he is able to sympathize with all of our needs. And yet he is God, and so has unlimited power to help us and to supply our needs. The apostles that came after him performed the same kinds of miracles in his name, and they suffered greatly. Just the fact of his having performed miracles does not mean that he was unable to suffer as a man. And the fact that, as God, he is eternally existent does not mean that he cannot genuinely die as a man. This man died and this man God raised up by his power, when he had conquered sin, and seated at his own right hand. When he opens our eyes to see these truths, we can do nothing but love him.
Hebrews 2:9-18
“But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,
‘I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.’
And again,
‘I will put my trust in him.’
And again,
‘Behold, I and the children God has given me.’
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Dude, Krishna is getting pissed at you right now…better bust out your mat and get with the apologies…
I am truly sorry that you feel this way. All I can do for you is pray that God will show you the same grace he showed me, and open your eyes to see the glory of his Son, Jesus Christ.
My point here is with so many major religions out there how do you know your right? I’m sure if you go to the Middle East and ask a devote Muslim who is right he would say that he is. India and Asia would feel just as strongly about Hinduism Buddaism or Taoism. Every single one would fight, preach, die and sacrifice all for what they happen to believe in or what they where told to believe in. I’m sure if you where born in Pakistan you would not be a christian. You seem like the religious type so you would most likely be a Muslim. You would feel just as strongly about Islam as you do for Christanity now. Everyone is a product of their environment. I have the luxury of being able to step outside the box to see this in ways noone set in there religious ways are able to. Of course I am bias too. I am bias to the belief that is is no god, devil, aliah, krishna, bookabooka man, or what have you. I did grow up with a default belief in god and christanity but came to my own conclusions early on. Please don’t think I just choose not to belief. There is no core belief. If god does exist I really wish he would let me know.
I do see your point, and I appreciate certain things about your position. Your last statement in particular I can empathize with, “If god does exist I really wish he would let me know.” It honestly comes to terms with the fact that the only way we can know God is for him to let us know. Knowing the God of the universe, that is, knowing the one true God and his Son Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man, is never something that we can initiate or reason our way to because we happen to be smarter than our neighbors. Some may have a more “religious” bent than others, and some may prefer to disavow all possibility of any supernatural or even unmaterial reality, and leave a conundrum the questions of our origins, our purpose, that universal struggle with feelings of guilt, confusion, and pointlessness that is merely an illusion if all is material (although, even the possibility of illusion is only illusion if all is material, so the mystery is really inexplicable). Of all of these sorts, some may see the world the way they see it merely because of environment, upbringing and so on, some may react to the emptiness and unbelievability of what they were brought up in, and choose a different outlook. Some may see themselves as “outside the box,” and of these, some may be honest enough to admit that they themselves suffer from bias and environmental influences as well. But however varied the possibilities, there is one factor common to everyone: no one has been able, of himself, to find the true God. No one has truly even sought him. All of the major world religions, including evolutionary humanistic materialism, have been contrived to get away from God – to reason him out of the picture – to fabricate a scheme that makes sense of everything without admitting the God of the universe. Romans 3:10-23, for instance indicts the whole world as guilty of running from God, not to him: “There is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks God…”
If this is true, then the response must be, “How is it that anyone then believes in the true God?” How is it that anyone would trust in Christ alone for righteousness if everyone without exception is looking for a system of beliefs that will allow him to escape the necessity of acknowledging the true God?” Or, to frame it more simply, as Christ’s disciples did, “Who then can be saved?” To which Christ responded, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25,26) As Christ elsewhere taught, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Please excuse my circumlocution. All I am really trying to say may be boiled down to two basic points: First, I can’t give you any rational arguments or empirical evidence of Protestant Christianity that would be sufficient to persuade you. Because the God of Protestant Christianity is the one true God, every rational argument and empirical datum, when correctly perceived, does indeed accord with what I am saying (at least as much as is from the bible). But all of the arguments and data I could pile up would not be sufficient to convince anyone. Only God can do that. He has to show himself if we would ever see him. The most fundamental way that I know he is true is that he has revealed himself to me. He did this by opening my eyes to see the truth and glory of His Son, Jesus Christ, when I read the biblical account of who he is and what he has done. Second, I want to say that, if you genuinely are searching for truth, if you truly want God to reveal himself to you, then take heart. That in itself is a sign of God’s beginning to work in your heart. If you’re not satisfied with the certainty of the way you’ve chosen to view the world, and are constantly nagged by doubts of whether God does after all exist, then understand that it is his grace which is sending you those doubts. The fitting response is to cry out for God to give you faith, to open your eyes to see the truth, to assure your heart that we can know him. We don’t have to stake our eternal destiny on a guess, a flip of the coin, or a complex of environmental shaping influences. We can know God himself, and we can know our future is secure with him. But only if we ask him humbly and penitently to show us Christ. To show us our need for him and his sufficiency to fill that need. “My Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:40.
If you are searching, don’t give up, but cry out to God to do exactly what you have said you wish for – to let you know him. If you truly want to know him, this is a sign that God may be starting to draw you to himself. Call upon him to show himself to you, look for the answer in his Word which he has already given us, and he will respond and reveal Christ to you in such a manner that you no longer need to wonder and clutch at straws, for you will know him certainly and personally and as really as the world in which you live is real.
So I was watching this informercial thing late at night. It had these televangelists at some airport in the Phillipines. There were telling people that god would cure anything wrong with them with a cash donation and they were touching peoples forheads and the people were passing out. Whats wth that?
It sounds like a farce. Christ performed many miracles, and healed many people, and gave his disciples the power to do other similar things. He still heals people miraculously today, as he sees fit. But no one can say with authority that God will heal anyone of any problem if they just come to be touched, anointed, prayed over, etc. It presumes too much that God has not said. God may or may not heal someone, according to his own purposes. The apostle Paul healed many people, but when he prayed for God to heal him, God told him instead that he would not heal him but give him grace to deal with the sickness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Furthermore, if this televangelist was demanding a cash donation before healing anyone, there is considerable reason to be suspicious of him. This is nothing like the example we have of Christ and the early apostles, who healed to demonstrate the power and mercy of God, and never asked for cash donations in order to heal someone.
The world is full of fakes, frauds, and false prophets. This may include the televangelist you, saw, although I don’t know anything about him. Don’t let that fact deceive you into thinking that nothing is genuine. God is real and his power is real, and the existence of fraudulent imitators can never change that.
I think it was the heat
Happy Halloween!