The Profane and The Profound.

Organized Religion is an oxymoron. Even in the Religious Texts in which you read about them, they misunderstand some divine proverb, or begin practicing Dogmatics with little concern for such banal matters as "Morality". Organized Religion is any respectable Demagogue's personal outlet, provided they have the qualifications to preach. A licence to preach - can you imagine such a thing? It's out there. Essentially, that means if you adhere to a curriculum or rubric long enough? You can wind up behind a podium with an eager-to-please crowd on the opposite side, that applauds to whatever you say as it believes you're on a higher spiritual plane than it.

As such, I've never been a very "religious" person in the traditional sense.
Rather, I have always believed in the existence of the "Profane" and the "Profound".

The "Profane", whenever used in a non-secular sense, has come to mean "Dealing with Worldly Matters", but has this sort of negative connotation. Fortunately, I've read some Ayn Rand, and I know all too well that this is not the case. I can stand to be the Man who Loved the Earth. I love living - without tea, lovely people, cooking, music, culture, myself... Well, actually, just imagine all that were gone.
Isn't it such an empty thing?
A common theme of "Spirituality" is the seperation of the flesh from such Wordly Things.
And why?
We're told that if we do not enjoy them in this life, we'll enjoy them tenfold in the next, or be treated to something better, or reincarnated as someone who can enjoy such things.

I disagree.

I've been given access to these things, and I refuse to let them gather dust. This is a world for me to enjoy, and I will cater to my own senses. I will cater to the senses of others, because I love them, and I will do so shamelessly. I am, for all extents and purposes, a very "profane" person. I even love the misfortunes of life, for I can fix my mistakes and I can relish the flavor of loss amongst the people who will be beside me when it comes to me.

But let us talk, next, about the profound.
Were I to take the place of a presumed Demagogue at a Pulpit to spout off the prior discussion of the profound, people would be outraged. They would say that I'm a heathen or something of the sort, and that all my earthly pleasures exist beyond the world in a "higher" sense, in some promised Heaven or Samsara.

But, every so often, you will come across one of these people doing something extraordinary. A Buddhist, stone-faced, as he burns alive without regrets at a streetcorner to protest injustice. Templars who are wrongly murdered, whos executioners are plagued by misfortune soon-after. People somehow blessed with a moment of super-human strength, or lucky beyond luck and seemingly favored by some higher entity.

I cannot explain these things, and for that reason, I would simply rather acknowledge them. There exists something higher, I believe, and I don't exactly know what it is. I don't know if there is an "Afterlife", but I know there is something higher in this world than itself. Beautiful flowers can grow out of desperation, faith, plea and need.

I don't neccesarily like the idea of attaching a name, or people, or religion to any of it. I'd rather just see it, and know it exists in some form or another, and pay my respect to whatever it calls itself by living my life in the "Good" that seems to warrant it.

I think that's just kind of how I live.
I love the religiously-condemned Earth - Myself, Friends, Senses, Places, Foods, Weather, Failure - all of it. And I do it all carrying a moral compass, for I know that a miracle may be needed someday, and people are better off for having met you if you help them.

I'd pray outside an Icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Iglesia de Dios just as soon as I would pray at a Buddhist Monestary, were one here. It's not so much "Religious" as it is "Profound". I wish my friends to be auspicious, and inspired, and lucky - I will speak my desire for it in a place where one is supposed to.

I can't quite word it well - I was raised to believe that one shouldn't walk around daring serial killers and monsters to whisk you away, because the more you talk about things, the more-real they become. I think that's how prayer is - Speak it, so that it may become real.

...Rereading some of this, it doesn't exactly look professional, but I've just climbed out of bed, and taken my second dose of super-antibiotic...Excuse it, if you will.

The antibiotic doesn't seem to be working very well - There's an appointment to size-up my head for tubes soon.