What I want this blog to be about [Despre ce vreau să fie blogul acesta]

Over half a year ago, this blog was primarily meant (and, as long as the Lord wants, it will remain so) to describe how life in the UK is, through the eyes of an an unworthy son of the Romanian Orthodox Church, who had been given the chance to spend some time in the UK as a Chevening Fellow.

Everything – from cars and traffic, beautiful landscapes, girls with cute smiles, shopping and prices, strange things to be aware of, good and bad examples, to the horror of secularism, and the oases of Orthodox spirituality – was and still remains an issue worth writing about. How long I will be able to keep writing here or when I could come back to the UK – these are aspects of little importance for now.

This MunteanUK is a pretty weird passion of mine, written both as a regular travel blog, and as some kind of unofficial journalistic project. Beyond this descriptive character of my blog, there’s something else that began to matter more and more to me.

Little by little, taking British realities as a pretext, and without setting out any ‘propagandistic’ goal, I began to use this blog for bearing witness to what I’ve become, to the Truth I believe in, and Whom (because He is a Person – Jesus Christ– , not a concept, an ideal, a universal law, a principle, an impersonal force or power etc!) I want to follow, without preaching anything to anyone.

I couldn’t tell which is the actual purpose of stubbornly keeping this blog, apart from the Utopian dream of earning a living as a blogger :-), something that will probably never happen, as long as I’m writing about so many unpopular things (our souls, God, the meaninglessness of life how most of my contemporaries know it, responsibility over our destiny, sins, tough questions like the one in the picture which illustrates this post, and so forth).

I’m trying my best to earn, in spite of my sinfulness and worthlessness, an Orthodox outlook on each and every aspect of life (more about this – here), and what I experienced in the UK offers a tremendous opportunity for reflection.

I AM HAPPY, therefore I don’t need to preach anything to anyone. Only unhappy people need to prove something to others or justify their beliefs, only unsecure people keep accusing me that, by simply stating my absolute belief (which makes me seem so intolerant, so uncomfortable to the relativist world we live in!) I am ‘restraining their freedom.’ I doubt this is really the case.

Everybody gives away their freedom by their own free choice. Faith, love, salvation, happiness, a meaningful or meaningless life, a good day or a bad day – are all a matter of free choice. Life is what anyone choses to make of it, and so is – exclusively during our short life span! – our Maker Himself.

Our choices are obvious, as He has let Himself entirely in our hands throughout our lives, to do what ever we want to Him: 1) to crucify Him all over again, to banish Him from our every thought and our hearts that were designed to long for Him or 2) to love Him, to call Him, and let ourselves taken care of.

The right answer is entirely up to each of us, but what we answer is irrelevant to His unquestionable existence. The answer counts for each of us, and yes – call me intolerant all of you politically correct humanists! – our eternal fate depends on this answer. This is no conversion by threat (as I am not trying to convince anyone of anything!), this is the truth!

Far be it from me the thought that I am doing everything right, that I am behaving perfecly humbly and patiently, and that I don’t have countless things to take the blame for! But I will always affirm that, no matter what is wrong with me as a sinful human being, no matter how many and how bad my mistakes would be, the truth of what I believe in is beyond any doubt!

What I claim here is not just something personal convincing me of the truth of what I believe in after having experienced The Lord firsthand!), but millions of Saints who prove the same things, along with countless people (that I keep meeting) who have turned away from their religiously indifferent (and meaningless!) lives to the happiness of being with Christ.

I myself could go to hell, I am not claiming that ‘I’m already saved’, nor sinless, but it’s just sheer hypocrisy of anyone to use as a scapegoat any of my real or imaginary faults to stay away from the Lord. It’s simply their own choice, which I’m not imposing on any free human being.

Anyone can ask the secular people I’m living among or those that I am gladly working with, and see that, in spite of being relatively weird (as any Orthodox is looked down upon), I’m always trying not to preach anything to anyone. I just want to do things my way (that is His way – a path walked upon by millions of His followers), and let others do things their ways.

I simply don’t want to have anything to do with more and more of these other ways; I don’t have the time or energy for just hanging around, killing my time or having fun. I am taking everything seriously, and this makes me happy.

In the meantime, how many of you, those who simply don’t want to believe (as there is no ‘I can’t’ in matters of faith!) could you say that you are at least partially happy?! You may be feeling good every now and then, but those experiences can’t have anything to do with true happiness...

How many of those whose main purpose in life is a hedonistic one (to ‘enjoy themselves’) are really happy, as long as I so often find the ‘life sucks’ attitude on their blogs or though their personal lamentations? I bet most of them have grown tired of the predictability, and shallowness of their lives.

Undoubtedly, life without God sucks, but so many people would prefer any false explanation for why their lives are so miserable rather than this only true one!

My feelings towards these people embracing other ways have not changed (on the contrary, living in Christ has opened my heart more to love everybody as they are), yet I am honestly living too much of a full life to be able to offer any time to their ways.

“Oh, what a boring life (mine) that would be,” many skeptics would decree, hidden between a cloud of cigarette smoke or sipping from a beer bottle, just after having lamented about their being fed-up with their own robotic lives. Sorry to disagree with you all ‘living’ like this – I actually live my life to the fullest, precisely after getting to know Who is He that brought me to life, and I AM REALLY HAPPY.

This is the real happiness that I can only wish to anyone. But it’s the kind of happiness that anyone can take for themselves, by their free choice. If they want to. If they don’t want to, it’s not as though I (who am happy to be with Him, irrespective of darker or brighter times I am going through) or the Lord would lose anything.

I’m not planning my life further away than the next 20 minutes (although this is due to change soon :-), I am not making lists of ‘people to see,’ neither of ‘people not to see.’ I’m just taking everything as it comes, and it’s great to do so, since my life honestly keeps being an action movie.

I don't need films to get away, I don't need games to play, I don’t need any kind of drugs to sedate myself, I don’t need anything from outside of myself, in order to feel good with myself, as long as I know Him, Who can fulfill every wish.

I don’t want to be anywhere else than where He leads me to, and He did take me to some wondeful places (see a list of them here), thus anyplace is alright for me, as He is omnipresent. Therefore, this is my blog: a testimony that I give about the way God has changed my life (for quite some time now), using the UK realities as a background.

What does this have to to with the UK? Well, in the secular UK, these changes in my inner self became even more profound, and my choices have become crystal clear: first and foremost I chose to be with our Lord Jesus Christ (Who can only be experienced through living by His words; other than that, He remains unapproachable by the reason and logic of a proud secular mind!).

I will never be ‘the same old myself again’ (if anyone misses me, since I... don’t miss myself :-), and I don’t miss any ‘good old times’. All I want is never to be without Him. Whatever actually happens with my life, may His will be done!

And the great advantage of being happy with Him is knowing that His wish (even when manifested under the form of an apparently absurd event occuring in our lives) is for my own good.

I was sure of this even in the most dreadful experiences I’ve been put through, whilst I can only feel sorry (but never despise them!) for those who live without Him: even when they (imagine that) have it all, by just not giving credit to Him, by just refusing to admit His existence, they are making themselves unhappy by their own choice.

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]