Attention Central Kentucky Readers, “Seasons of Melancholy” is on sale in most of your favorite Lexington bookstores!!!
Today my most recent book went on sale at the Morris Book Shop and the Wild Fig Bookstore. So, if you like to shop at either one of those bookstores or you just really want to support me, go visit one of these locations and pick up a copy today. To all those who will procrastinate, who haven’t left this article and rushed off to buy my book, the bookstores may be out of copies. Not to worry, they can order you a copy and have it shipped to the store. You can fall in love all over with the tangible aspect of real books! The smell, the texture, the clerks, other readers, etc., there is nothing quite like it.
“Seasons of Melancholy” can also be found in Blessing Bakery and Bookstore @the Bar, in Lafayette Place. Very soon I will be hosting a meet the author at this location: June 14th from 11am – 3pm. There will be more on the meet and greet later on, so stayed tuned and keep your calendars open.
I am so thankful for companies who are willing to work with independent authors and publishers, and I urge everyone to visit and support these shops and shop owners. If you haven’t been to a bookstore in a while it is a great feeling to be surround by so many words, ideas, and thoughts wrapped in so many different visual covers. It is an honor to now live among these writers who were kind and courageous enough to share their thoughts with us. Writers write to be read…so go pick up a book today and get started. I’d prefer it if you got started with my book, “Seasons of Melancholy”. Happy Reading!
During the recent Gallery Hop in Lexington Kentucky (April 18th, 2014), Living Stones Fine Arts Collective was able to set up in the heart of downtown at the Livery. It is an amazing venue for any occasion and we were grateful to have the opportunity to showcase our art there. Over the months leading up to the Gallery Hop I had been working hard to get the publication of my new book, “Seasons of Melancholy”, to line up with the show date. My hard work paid off as I was able to get hard copies of the book the day of and actually made some sales before and after the reading. I received great feedback about the book before and after the reading.
Living Stones Fine Arts Collective is not just a visual art group but rather a true collective in every sense of the word. There are several writers, a couple of musicians, and nearly every genre of visual artist you can imagine . I was able to make good use of the show by presenting a book of poetry and also giving a reading of some of the poems in front of a gracious audience.
I am proud to present to my second chapbook, “Seasons of Melancholy”, to everyone worldwide today!!
It was recently shared at the Gallery Hop in Downtown Lexington Kentucky on April 18th. I had the great opportunity to read the Grief Season. The turn out was great turn out and the response was so encouraging. I am very proud and humbled.
“Seasons of Melancholy” is a collection of personal poetry and a reflective memoir. I have been waiting to publish this collection for years and it has finally come to fruition. I can’t tell you how excited I am that I get to share it with everyone.
The most exciting aspect is that I am getting to pursue my passion of writing and publishing. It is my goal over the next year or two to be publishing a few other authors as well.
I would love to have your support as I rush headlong into my dreams and vocation. Each book purchased is another stone in the foundation of Shammah Publications.
I am setting a personal goal of 100 books to be purchased in the first month…so if you purchase it and you love it, tell a friend! If you refer a friend to purchase the book as well, send me an email (j.wesleymullins@gmail.com) with both of your contact information and you will both receive autographed copies of “A Seed Planted” free of charge (a $12.00 value).
Also, if you send me an Instagram photo of you and one of the first 100 copies sold of “Seasons of Melancholy” ( @wesmullins ), I will send you a free autographed copy of “A Seed Planted” (a $12.00 value).
I have already been working on two new projects. One is a poetry chapbook, that will follow the progression of “Seasons of Melancholy”, and the other is an Apologetic Series, set to encourage everyone to turn off the constant distractions in life and turn on their amazing minds.
So here’s to all my faithful readers and my new faithful readers. Thank you so much for everything! We are about to embark on a great journey…buckle up!
As an apprentice in apologetics I am constantly surprised at the level at which William Lane Craig, of Reasonable Faith, engages his intelligence and his discipline in the pursuit of logic and reason. It causes me a to become necessarily sober. I may experience an intellectual “high”at times in my life because I can logically solved an issue I had been wrestling with or I have a revelatory notion about a current logical fallacy I was working through. After listening to this interview I realize that I am years away from thinking through all the thoughts about God that can and need to be logically ingested, processed, and shared. This encourages me as there are new frontiers of thought that I haven’t breeched yet.
We can look to the 16th Century Molinism (Middle Knowledge of God) by Luis de Molina, and then at all the philosopher for the last 3,ooo years ( Plato, Aquinas, Augustine, etc..), and we can easily see that we are standing on the shoulders of intellectual giants and we have no intellectual superiority over ancient philosophy. We may have more information and technology but that has not translated in to an ultimate or perfected philosophy. It has been the opposite, with the emergence of Post-Modernism it appears we have philosophized ourselves into irrelevancy. It is a good indication that logic is not dependent upon environment, culture, era, or education; logic is transcendently objective, therefore if you can logically explain a proposition without breaking any laws of logic or committing any fallacies then you have a logical argument ad infinitum. In contrast, science alone can change its knowledge base of truth from experiment to experiment without committing any integral infractions. This can create an unstable foundation to establish truth, not to mention that science has to presuppose logic, truth, order, and intelligence in order to even make any claims of truth about existence and the universe (I digress).
It makes me so thankful that I am saved by Grace and not on my own physical or intellectual merits. I know the limitations of my temporal existence and my intellectual capacity, and I could never ultimately comprehend all the necessary thoughts on my own time or understanding. Also I have the necessary pursuit of staying alive, providing for my family which takes away time that I could be thinking.
It is so intriguing to ponder about these things. I have previously rationalized thoughts about God in my own prejudiced understanding of my worldview or personal philosophy. These were born from my experience and environment, but there are other necessary and logical complexities of philosophy that have not enter my mind. William Lane Craig inspires me. He does have 2 doctorates to my none, so I’m doing okay. Ha!
It simply reminds me we need to always be learning and wrestling with our thoughts and experiences to understand Our relationship with God, others, and the universe more succinctly.
In this video, which I think may be the most exhaustive interview that I have ever watched (or listened to) on the topic of the God and our existence, Dr. Craig explains the points of view from Theism circumspectly and varying disciplines of Christendom without showing or displaying his own philosophical bias. He will at times indicate which he thinks is correct, or is more logically sound, but his language is even and without negative inflection to ideas he personally dismisses.
I have left this interview knowing that I will go back in time and review it again.
Robert Kuhn did a marvelous job navigating the questions with real time analysis that was fair, challenging, and productive. He asked legitimate questions without malice or agenda. It was a pleasure watching two highly intelligent men having a meaningful and engaging conversation about the biggest questions of our existence. It is the quintessential dialogue with mutual respect and dignity.
There are no barbs, no agendas, and no egos. It is how people should interact with these topics, but we are so emotionally charged with our own perspectives that it is hard to see the other side. I don’t think that very many people have the patience to actually engage at this level because it takes years of intellectual discipline to think about and express such deep thoughts.
I recently came across this debate and have a few comments. I am going to just address Relativism and Determinism in general. I hope that I have not misrepresented the views of the Relativist or Determinist.
Here are some definitions whereby I draw my critique of a person holding such views.
Relativism – a : a theory that knowledge is relative to the limited nature of the mind and the conditions of knowing.
b : a view that ethical truths depend on the people and groups holding them.
Determinism – (philosophy) : the belief that all events are caused by things that happened before them and that people have no real ability to make choices or control what happens.
I contend that it is both illogical and impossible to apply these philosophies to one’s life. I have written a small, concise critique in prose form. It is my passion to write apologetic arguments via the medium of poetry and prose.
My inspiration for this prose essay comes from the comments that the Relativistic Deterministic Atheist Dr. Bernard Leikind says regarding God’s treatment of Job, in the book of Job, as immoral. I was bewildered by his assertion and judgement against God. Where does he get his authority to make the assertion and that he made it means what exactly?…It has no meaning. He muted the truth and moral weight of his argument by the very fact that he invoked the disciplines of a doctrine that allows any and every person the ability and responsibility to be their own moral authority and moral reformer.
Determined to Fail
The Relativistic Determinist condemns himself to suffer his inconvenient existence in silence, having relinquished his authority and volition. His words and actions are of no useful consequence. He has rendered himself both moot and mute. Any thoughts or utterances are mere reflexive actions with no purpose other than satisfying the indifference of the dying universe. He speaks because he must, but his words are hollow and without weight, as they lack conviction and Truth.
His existence is necessarily unnecessary. There is no behavior that cannot and will not be performed by other humans. Life is illusory and fleeting. Does he actually exist? If he has no will, no thoughts, or volition, then he has no consciousness, perceived or otherwise. The Descartes’s phrase, “I think, therefore I am” cannot be construed to an absurdity such as this, “I have thoughts, therefore I am.” A person having thoughts and a person thinking are not congruent, especially when the thoughts do not belong to the person. A human having thoughts may verify the existence of the universe and human life, but not the seity of the individual.
Why do men and women amputate their epistemological roots and anesthetize their human experience to exclude transcendence and absolutes? It is done in arrogance and pride, despite our desire for ultimate transcendent knowledge and absolutes truths. We voluntarily severe the cord that anchors us to Rock rather than continue to climb to the summit, because we become contemptuous and disenfranchised with our current view. We allow personal rejection and suffering to create insulated, artificial atmospheres that sheath us like bubble wrap. It suffices as protection against the rushing wind, but will utter fail when ground becomes an absolute, brute fact. To us who have life, death will come to extricate payment for that life; breath from our lungs, beating from our hearts, and existence from our existence. It comes to extract us from us, and we become nothing, again. (If we were any thing to begin with.)
Will you go quietly in to the dark, cold of oblivion*? You, an obedient mass of expired atoms involuntarily being extinguished for absolutely no reason at all, it will have been an inconvenient life of hopelessness. If you hadn’t begun to exist, then you would have never had to suffer the whimsy of a capricious cosmos. I say that you did not live at all, but merely existed as an perchance afterthought of random nothingness. On the bright side, entropy will erase every memory or syllable ever you uttered, regardless of how noble, just, or morally perfect it seemed. In a 100 million years nothing will matter, not even matter itself. If nothing will matter then, does the behavior of matter from nothing matter now?
I challenge you to honestly lock arms with determinism and relativism. We must follow each of these and fulfill them quintessentially in order to see the result or perfection of a person following that belief.
In Relativism, the end result is a sociopath; a person devoid and resilient of empathy, sympathy, and socially acceptable (moral) restraint.
In Determinism, the end result is a clinically depressed humanoid or randomly programmed machine; a person who acts/reacts only because they must, they no longer have will or desire to pursue passion or individual thought.
Both of these are the antithesis of the outcome they claim will be the result of applying said doctrines. In each of these, the follower will be free from Religion and absolute restraints. He/she will have taken on almighty God and will have won, but at what cost. Allow me surmise this conundrum with an anecdotal quote from the Avengers movie.
Steve Rogers: When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn’t say what we lost.
All atheist theories and doctrine restrict, isolate, and remove aspects of human life, our human experience, and/or knowledge of our human condition. I feel it is an intellectually dishonest approach to science or life. One has to presupposed there isn’t a God in order to create philosophies, ideologies, and doctrines that are explicitly devoid of God or Intelligent creation. The physical, non-physical, and logical evidence and order of our universe’s complex existence can never lead to the understanding of random meaninglessness…unless one is determined to develop/create such an understanding by his/her own volition.
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.”
It is the most probable, logical conclusion that, there is a God, there is Hope, and we were created with intrinsic value and purpose.
If you quintessentially fulfill the Christian worldview, then what you have is the God-man Jesus Christ; perfect, holy, and absolute Truth. It is the goal of the Christian faith to do (act) justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God**. Jesus said that all of the Commandments and law hung on two commandments: 1. Love God with all your heart 2. Love your neighbor (others) as yourself.***
Christians are to live their lives unto Jesus, by His example and with His guidance. There is no logical way that Christianity leads to prejudice, racism, violence or hate. Those are attributes of our human condition and they are the cancer and corruption of any ideology or belief. If there are Christians behaving in a non-Christ-like manner, it is not Christ that compels them but their own volition and will. Believing in a transcendent God, absolute Truth, and objective morality does not lead to religious elitism, violence, and hate, but I can guarantee that belief in our random, meaningless existence will. When everyone believes in nothingness, there will be nothing left to believe in, or that will be believable. Only Christianity offers redemption and salvation, no other religion or worldview offers the most desired status in our existence. The very reason for religions and worldviews is to try to redeem man from his behavior, yet they all fail to do so. The blind cannot lead the blind.**** It requires a transcendent insight and absolute Truth to understand, undo, and redeem what we have done.*****
Think about it…
* “Do Not Go Gentle Into the Night”, a Poem by Dylan Thomas
**Mic 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
***Matthew 22 36-40. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
****Luk_6:39 And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?
*****Isa_42:16 And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.
(I am sitting, slouched on a dingy, upside down milk-crate, in a dark and sullen dead-end alley. A few exposed incandescent light bulbs, dangling from the sides of the run-down buildings, emitting only splintered orbs of light.
A steady rain falls, drenching me to the bone. Matted hair sticks to my forehead permanently, and my clothes cling to my paling skin without release. Pools of water strewn along the alley way cast Infrared rainbows that dance, as the black drops pound them unmercifully into submission. This is the only movement in the alley.
I stare at nonsensical graffiti. My thoughts are violent and raging, yet I remain emotionally listlessly in my tormented posture, unmoved and deadened. A frozen sneer dwells on my face. Angst and Anger rise from my bluish, cold skin like steam from hot pavement after a storm.)
(Jesus enters from the street. He steps in the alley way. I sense His presence but refuse to turn around…)
Me:(spewing) ‘bout time!
Jesus:(silent)
Me:(irritated and enraged) I said, it’s a-bout time!
Jesus:(silent)
(Jesus approaches me, but I remain seated and with my back to him.)
Me: Nice! You’ve come all this way to say nothing…typical…
(I rise from my makeshift chair and walk up to Him, yet my eye line never reaches above his chest. My eyes dart to and fro, and I fidget nervously.)
Me: This is why people hate you! This is why people despise you!
Jesus: Why?
Me: huh? (taken aback by His question and His voice.)
Jesus: Why? …Why do they despise me? Why do they hate me?
Me: You leave them alone! You abandon them! You only come around when you feel like it, when you think its right or needed! You show no concern for me or my emotions…You don’t even care about what I’ve gone through…how could you…?
(trails off..)
Jesus:(sharp rebuke) I not only know the day, but the exact second you walked in to this alley. I was here when it happened. I walked in to this alley with you…
(I interrupt.)
Me: So what???!!!
Jesus:(silence)
(I can feel his eyes pierced my soul to its melancholy core.)
Me:(desperately screaming) You left me here!
Me: You left me when I needed you most! People don’t do that when they care about someone.
Jesus: I didn’t abandon you. You knew right where I was; I invited you to follow me. You made a conscious choice.
Me: I wanted you here…
(trails off…)
Jesus: I spent weeks, months, sitting right beside you. I sat next to you on that wooden produce crate over there. I watched over you as you slept and mourned your losses. I sang you to sleep at night. I listened to every broken word you said, and I encouraged you…without condemnation.
Me: Well…why did you leave? It wounded me…I was so disappointed…You…
(Jesus smiles softly and turns toward the street again)
Me:(pleading) Where are you going? Why are you leaving me again?
(Jesus stops, turns his head slightly.)
Jesus: I am acquainted with Grief…I don’t live here.
1439 Leestown Rd, Lexington, KY 40511
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The Precipice of Wes 