Single Serve Society

 

Single Serve Society

 

I am really really tired of the prevailing attitude of humanity. People seem to be really lazy, or lacking in intelligence or intuition about life and our planet and the way they affect it. It frustrates me to no end because I MUST live on this planet among people and because of the overall attitude/way of life, it is almost impossible to be able to live the way I want to/people should.

It strikes me every single day, multiple times a day. The amount of waste that people produce just for a single home is astounding if you think about it. For the most part, in our country, people waste. We waste food, we waste electricity, we waste water. We waste resources, in general. Mainly this seems to stem from the desire of businesses and corporations to make money and make a profit from their items. Therefore, they use what is cheap, not what is BEST (for people or the environment.)

This morning when I brushed my teeth, I realized that I was almost out of toothpaste. Another plastic container, thrown away. I try to reuse as much as possible but truly, what can I do with a squeeze tube for toothpaste? I am at a loss, so into the trash it goes.

My kids are currently getting free school lunches from our school district due to the pandemic (they actually qualify for free lunch anyway, but the district is providing lunch to ALL children who want it, which I really applaud them for.) So we have started picking up the lunches and breakfast too.They are wonderful. Good food that kids want to eat, and so much of it. We are grateful every day to get the “mystery lunch sacks” as my children call them. We talk about how grateful we are and should be – that the food was given to us, that it is good food, that people went to a lot of trouble. Be thankful for the blessings.

But even with all that, I look at how much plastic waste there is from single serve items and it breaks my heart. People think I am ridiculous when I tell them it makes me sick to my stomach when I throw away plastic (since much cant be recycled and SO MUCH of the items we buy comes in plastic containers.) But the only thing I can think is where all this trash is going, and how much of a waste it is, truly.

There has to be a better way. People lived for thousands of years without plastic. Sometimes, the so-called advances of science and technology actually put people backwards. The waste that has been produced from: plastic bottles, medical supplies, item containers, shipping materials, food containers…. . . it just boggles my mind.

When my son was born 7 years ago, we started out using disposable diapers. Why? Because that is what had always been done in my generation. With my older daughters, now 12, I actually NEEDED to find good cloth diapers because of a condition my daughter had, and they were nowhere to be found. Yes I suppose I could have made some but I didn’t know how, or what to use. I didn’t want to make the skin condition worse. Luckily, a few years later, people started wising up and realizing disposable diapers are a stupid invention that hurts the earth. Reusable diapers started to become available and after a month or two with my son, I invested in those reusable diapers and was as happy as could be. They weren’t too expensive, they worked well, and I wasn’t hurting the environment. It was something to feel good about. He used the fabric diapers and we washed them until he was out of diapers around age 2.

 

There are ways. There are ways to do things better, smarter, healthier. But it is hard to, because society/businesses cram things down our collective throats. Our country is consumed by the throwaway mentality.We could come together and just get rid of the stuff that is harmful, but I doubt that will ever happen. Society has no interest, as a whole, in doing things better (unless it involves money). It saddens me greatly, and is yet another reason why I prefer to live in my own world, separate from people as a group. I realize my thoughts are in the minority. My overall attitude doesn’t match up to my peers.

I have small children, so it is unlikely I will be able to escape the throwaway world. I will still have to buy food from the store that comes in bad containers, and I will have to throw them away. (I started at one point to keep all the containers that could be reused, but after just a short while, we had such a glut of unused containers, I had no idea what to do with them any longer.) We still try to reuse and recycle anything we can. I have containers of old clothing/pieces of cloth for projects. A general “recyclables” bin where kids can put pieces of anything they find – plastic, metal, pieces from belts and shoes, broken toys, buttons, beads, paper tubes and wrappings, any number of items. But truth be told we can only hold so much. Eventually a lot of it winds up in the trash.

The using of safely burnable items doesn’t bother me nearly as much, or items that decompose quickly. Paper plates and napkins decompose fast, and don’t leave much of a mark, Plastic sits forever, ruining everything around it. Even food, although there is waste, decomposes extremely fast, and can leave little mark behind. So food & paper are the least of my worries. If I had a woodstove, I would be burning more. I do remember having a woodstove as a child, and we would regularly burn paper trash along with our firewood. Currently, I have built a firepit at the house I’m living in, and during warmer months, I can burn paper in the pit. At least that reduces our footprint some.

I think a large part of why people don’t recycle (or simply reuse) is because they don’t think ahead. They don’t think about the consequences of using these items and throwing them away. Out of sight, out of mind. Our last house was right behind a dump facility, and trash would regularly blow into our yard over the fence. A daily or weekly reminder of people’s waste. None of us is guiltless of this, but it’s a lot easier to forget when you simply throw it in a bag and its taken away. Out of sight, out of mind (except if you live by the trash dump, like us.)

I also think that people don’t look at the bigger picture. They want ease and convenience for themselves. They don’t think of the impact to other people or how it could be harmful. Also, “everyone else is doing it”, so it is the norm. In one college class I had, we discussed a similar topic and one younger student scoffed at her grandparents, who saved all their plastic butter containers, and other containers. “Why would anyone do that?” She asked aloud. Well, in my mind, there are a lot of reasons. But to a 19 or 20 year old who has grown up in this single serve society, I’m sure it seems super strange to save any containers. Why not just throw it away and get a new one? No thought to the repercussions for all.

When my daughters were small, we used to go to the library weekly and get books to read. One was called “A Spoon For Every Bite”. It was about a man who used a new (metal) spoon for every single bite he took. He accumulated a huge pile of spoons. Although the lesson wasn’t about waste, I couldn’t help but be struck how much this is actually like our society today. Selfish, wasteful, ungrateful.

I look forward to the future, to a day when I can fully control my life and the way I live. I’m leaning more and more to going “off the grid and providing for myself as much as possible. I’ve always had an interest in nature and going back to earth, to what has been naturally provided to us by an intelligent creator. Medicines and cures from our plants, light and heat from our trees. Furniture from our wood, clothing from our animals. Going back to the way things were supposed to be, before technology supposedly “enhanced” our world. Having meaning in life, being grateful, enjoying the work you have done to provide for and support yourself. The simple joys of watching the sun come up, eating food you helped grow, using medicines you created. My own world, my way. Far away from the waste and glut and capitalist consumer driven greed.

Awareness is crucial in managing bipolar disorder off meds

Our circumstances can make us depressed. Seems like a fairly obvious statement, yes?

Sadly though, this fact is overlooked in the mental health field a lot, and even in our own personal lives. I know after being diagnosed with bipolar, I started to buy into all the messages out there – I NEEDED meds, it was bipolar that was making me depressed, I should monitor my moods so that I could alter my meds, etc. Sure, I had counseling but it mainly focused on – bipolar! Everything in a round about way came back to bipolar. I thought I was gaining clarity by listening to these messages. After all, these doctors and nurses and counselors were the experts, right?

During that time I was making videos a lot and still journaling so I have a lot of detailed accounts of how I was feeling and what was going on in my life. It is amazing to me looking back how unaware I was the vast majority of my life! I had a great deal of INSIGHT into my FEELINGS but very little AWARENESS of WHY I felt that way. I made one video about depression in 2010 and how nothing was going on in my life to make me depressed, and that it must have been bipolar. Yet, I was completely unaware of my surroundings and how they were affecting me.

During that particular time I made that video, I recall exactly what was going on, and my life was NOT going great at all. My husband and I were having major conflicts. It had been going on for months though so I think I just discounted it as having an effect on me, when I now see it was one of the main causes of my depression. Also, we were living with relatives at the time which was becoming stressful. We were looking for our own house, also stressful. I was taking care of twin 2 year olds, stressful. I can’t believe I didn’t take all that into account when looking at my mental state and the way it would fluctuate!!! I just thought, ohhhh, it’s bipolar…that stinks…maybe tomorrow would be better. In a way it kept me from addressing things in my life that were affecting me, because I was putting too much emphasis on the wrong things (bipolar/biological/medical problem) and not enough on other things (relationships/family life/stress level).

I guess I felt compelled to make this blog today because I think the current message in the mental health field is doing a disservice to those diagnosed with depression or bipolar. Here is my 2 cents…

I believe that many mental illnesses (including depression and bipolar) begin with an inherent sensitivity. This is something currently being researched in the mental health field and I do believe this is barking up the right tree, so to speak. I believe this sensitivity makes a person more likely to be affected by external stimuli. This can then manifest as many different things – anxiety, depression, mania.

For example – take an average person and a person with bipolar. Put them in a situation where they are going through a break-up. The average person will feel sad and maybe even depressed. The bipolar person may dwell on it incessantly, feel suicidal, perhaps even attempt suicide. The same stimuli but much more intense emotions related to that stimuli. (Keep in mind this is just a random example, of course this isn’t true of every average person or bipolar person! I’m just making a generalization.)

So, if I were to go to my psychiatrist and tell them all this, (in my fictional example) one of the first things they would be concerned with is: medication! Upping meds, changing meds, etc. They have the viewpoint that these things must be dealt with by pharmaceuticals. I used to believe that and I went along with it all. Now, I feel differently.

So many times over the course of my treatment, everything got lumped under the category “It’s because you have bipolar.” Is it? Well, no not really. Does being depressed because I have marital conflict mean it’s related to bipolar? Hardly. If I addressed the bigger issue (marital problems) could I help mediate the effects on my “illness”? I say yes.

Bipolar or not, we are all human beings. We feel low when we get divorced, lose a friend, have a family member that dies, lose a pet. Now, those are BIG things. But even little things affect us too. Having a stressful day at work. A sick child. An upcoming deadline. Interpersonal conflict. Too often, these things are not addressed in psychiatry or in counseling as far as ways to cope with these issues in healthy, non-medical means. Somehow, everything always comes back to an illness, even if it is a legitimate problem. To this day, within the bipolar community, whenever I say things that others view as extreme, they caution me that I must be having an episode. I deeply appreciate the care and concern. But it really goes to show just how ingrained the idea has become even within OURSELVES and TO ourselves that mental illness is WHAT we are. That we are helpless. That we cannot change or improve without meds. That any sort of variation means we better get some new meds, pronto, and that will help our situation.

Now, I think at times, medication plays a role but that often, when we learn to be aware of ourselves, our moods, our surroundings and WHAT is causing these feelings we can address them in a more pro-active way. Many people in the mental health system (including myself) did everything “right”. We went to counseling, we took the meds, we followed the regime for YEARS. But that is only addressing one small piece of the puzzle. We are multi-faceted individuals and must deal with our lives in a holistic manner, instead of focusing everything on ONE THING – our illness. That doesn’t help us, but instead keeps us trapped in a cycle we can never get out of. I often wondered WHY I wasn’t getting better despite doing all the “right” things (and believe me, I have heard the same thing from others about a million times! People want to know WHY these meds aren’t fixing their depression or their mood swings, WHY they aren’t getting better. Ultimately it can lead to a worse feeling of depression, because on top of the initial depression, there is depression for having “failed” to get better.)

I am now almost a year off meds and am so much more aware of myself than I was at the beginning of my mental health journey almost 5 years ago, and I am so thankful for that. Like I said, I could identify my feelings but not WHY I felt that way. I now understand: all the variation of mood, how various social cues trigger my moods or affect them (positive or negative), how the behaviors I engage in affect me, how all of this affects others. It’s not something that occurs overnight but is a learning process that occurs over time and with observation. Does that mean I’m now “fixed”? No. But it puts me ahead of the game because I can anticipate things before they happen. I can be prepared. I minimize the chances of being caught off guard. When bad things do happen, I can learn from them and try to adjust things/situations in the future. I know my weaknesses and limitations and try to take those into account when making plans or scheduling particular outings or things of that nature. For example, I now know that working hard on something can trigger elevated mood or “mania” for me. So, I don’t avoid working hard, but if I notice signs, I can either enjoy the ride or if it becomes extreme, back off and try to do calming activities to mediate the excitation happening in my brain. If I start feeling depressed and notice I’m ruminating on negative thoughts, I can purposely cut off the train of thought and engage in something more uplifting – some happy music, or watching a funny video, or talking to a close friend. If I weren’t aware of the effects of my environment on me, I couldn’t do any of these things! Awareness is SO important. I think it is THE most important thing in dealing with mental illness, period.

So my advice to anyone new to the mental health system or newly diagnosed is this – FIRST, take stock of your own life. No one knows you like YOU. You are the best advocate for yourself. We may like the idea of a fairy godmother or white knight swooping in and fixing us or fixing our lives but that isn’t reality. We must be our own advocates in life. Understanding yourself better can help you understand your moods and ways of coping or self-medicating (drugs/alcohol/self-injury/bingeing/social withdrawal, etc.) that are unique to you. You can in turn begin to address these things. SECOND – Don’t believe the hype. Even if you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar (or even if you just think you may have it) not everything about you is “because you have bipolar”! Bipolar in itself doesn’t make a person inherently – quiet, loud, obnoxious, generous, loving, selfish or any other thing. We all have to accept that we have our own traits regardless of bipolar. Don’t fall into the trap of believing “I’m a thrill seeker…it’s because I have bipolar!” or “I don’t like people. It’s because I have bipolar.” Not only is that boxing yourself in, but some of it isn’t even true (bipolar is simply a tendency for extreme mood experiences and shifts.) While you may be able to say you’re a thrill seeker while in an elevated mood state, if you’re like that all the time, it’s just your personality. (I’m going to go ahead and say that most people realize a lot of their own personality traits, good or bad. We don’t all admit them openly to others though!) Lumping all these things under the heading of “bipolar” may make you feel better for a while and you may feel validated that it’s not all in your head, (I know I did) but eventually it will consume you. Bipolar will become the only thing you see about yourself and in a weird way, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You believe you’re nuts and so you act nuts, so people treat you nuts and so you believe you’re nuts…It will make you feel worse and not better. And that isn’t what any of us want, bipolar or not.

LASTLY, Many times, bipolar or not, addressing the true issues in life can bring more happiness than simply relying on a pill. There is no miracle pill to cure bipolar or depression. But healing starts with AWARENESS. A person can never change something they are unaware of. If you walked around with spinach in your teeth all day and never looked in a mirror, would you think to floss your teeth right away? Probably not. You wouldn’t even be aware of it. But if you thought to yourself while you were eating your salad that you better head to the bathroom after you eat and make sure your pearly whites were white instead of green, you’d head off any unforeseen embarrassment. Point is, be aware. Aware of YOURSELF, aware of what is AROUND you. Notice how things affect you, what your particular “weaknesses” are, what triggers your moods (both down and up). Is it having too much to do in a short time? Is it dealing with money troubles? Relationship troubles? Is it being involved in a cool class? Experiencing something new? Really take a step back and assess your own life. You can be your own best friend or your own worst enemy. Only by truly looking at yourself as a whole can you begin to understand how to take steps that will bring the improvements you seek.

Psychiatry & Counseling - The Great Divide

I started another post but couldn’t really address that topic without addressing this first. The divide between psychiatry and counseling, in short, needs to be bridged. Anyone who has ever spent time in the mental health system knows that it is incredibly flawed. Now, everything man made is flawed because there is no way for man to create a perfect system when we ourselves are not perfect. However, it could be vastly improved.

The separation between psychiatry and counseling goes waaaaaayyy back and is too much to get into here. Essentially, psychiatry began as a form of medical science, and counseling was an offshoot of that as more of a social science. It’s continued that way over the decades for no real reason other than tradition, and is doing a great disservice to mental health clients. Many people in the mental health system (and certainly the majority who are diagnosed with a serious mental health condition) partake in both psychiatry and counseling services (and sometimes even more services such as dealing with case workers/social workers, etc.) Yet often, there is no communication between the psychiatrists and counselors. This is a BIG problem. Psychiatrists are the ones prescribing mind altering, behavior altering psychotropic medication, yet they (for the most part) do not address “life issues”. In order to deal with your “life issues” you must turn to your counselor.

Now I’m just going to talk a little about my own personal history to make a point here.

When I was a teen I was in the mental health system for a time, and I recall then the horrible discrepancy between psychiatry and counseling. The counselor I had dealt with the “social” issues and the psychiatrist with the “biological” issues. The counselor was the one meant to help me actively work on or deal with my issues, while the psychiatrist was giving me medication to treat these issues, and I doubt they ever spoke to each other about my case. See the problem here? Biology and social factors influence each other tremendously, and a holistic view should be addressed when dealing with mental health patients. However, it seems to be one of those things that no one WILL address. Maybe because if clinicians did address it, it would be to admit the system is lacking and really does not work efficiently.

Fast forward about 10 years. If you’ve followed my blog or videos, you know that I was hospitalized in 2010 and diagnosed with bipolar (essentially self-diagnosed). There were no counseling services available while I was an inpatient (about a week stay). I met with the psychiatrist daily or every other day and he/they prescribed me medication (I saw a woman once, then a man the rest of the time). I spoke briefly with a social worker once (who was the closest I got to a counselor). I had to retell my story to about 5 different people in the system and that was mental agony in itself. Essentially, I had to wait until exiting the hospital to even begin counseling, so those 5 times I retold my story were of very little help to me anyway. As you can see, there was a whole lot of jumbled up stuff going on then.

The only real “counseling” that occurred while I was hospitalized was between patients! Some of us would sit and discuss why were there, what had brought us there, etc. (in private, on our own, not assigned.) One woman, God bless her, was on somewhere around ten psychiatric medications at the time. Was that really necessary? I doubt it. They had been prescribed by different physicians as well. A very egregious lack of communication on their part. Another woman who was there for suicidal ideation, told me that talking to me had helped her more than any treatment she had received while there. I too felt after leaving that I really had received no help, other than some hastily prescribed medication and appointments for counseling and psychiatry to begin as an outpatient upon leaving. I remember addressing the lack of counseling with some of the staff. I was told that the hospital was simply to stabilize people and get them back to their lives where they could get long term help. Yet for some reason, counseling didn't seem to be viewed as important enough to begin while an inpatient! Basically, the psychiatrists gave out diagnoses, threw medication at a person and figured that was enough to help them until they could get into some regular services. 

However, I think often, the opposite would really have been the best. SO many people were there for suicide related reasons (the vast majority). Wouldn’t it seem that they would benefit more from a counselor to discuss things with than hastily prescribed medication? If it was a persons first admission, how could a clinician possibly have enough information in one short 30-45 minute session to know A) what the diagnosis is definitively and B) what to do about it? But again, the great divide prevails. I think part of the problem is that psychiatry and meds are often viewed as a quick fix, an "easier" fix, while counseling takes time. But that is such a wrong view. Meds are not generally a quick fix, nor are they something to take lightly. In my own view, in retrospect, I'd say even with a "serious" mental condition like bipolar, I benefited FAR more from counseling than medication. Counseling (when done correctly) can help teach a person how to live better, recognize things in themselves, make changes. Psychiatry relies on "correcting" problems in the blink of eye with altering brain chemicals, many times without even educating the patient about prescribed medications or alternatives. So often medication does not correct the problems and at times only masks them (or sometimes makes them worse.) Sadly, there are no pharmacological cures for mental illness. Why? because it isn't simply our biology...it is our social world, and our environment that also play a part of the symptoms we exhibit and the way we behave. You can't "treat" biology without addressing the social and you can't understand the social without understanding the biology when it comes to the brain.

Throughout my years of outpatient service, the majority of the time, I have had a psychiatrist and a counselor who not only did not communicate but did not even work in the same building or part of town. It was very much a singular effort on their parts rather than a joint effort when dealing with patients, and that is the commonplace way of dealing with clients in the mental health system. (I’m not saying anything negative against either my psychiatrist or the main counselor I had for several years. They were both very kind people that I liked.) But nevertheless, the fact remains that I have heard countless personal stories of others who have gotten so fed up with the system, they didn’t know what to do. Sometimes they quit meds, sometimes they quit counseling, sometimes they gave up entirely. The “med-merry-go-round” as it is known, is frustrating enough for patients, then add in dealing with multiple people, for multiple different things…and UGH. Just UGH. So, in short, Psychiatrist = meds, Counselor = listening/therapy strategies.

Psychiatrists and counselors very much rely on each other yet they are completely separate. You don’t tell your psychiatrist your problems for the most part (or, if you do have a caring psychiatrist who does listen, you still hear “You should probably tell your counselor about that.”)  If you try to discuss meds in the context of counseling or personal issues, you may get some advice from your counselor but ultimately, given that they don’t prescribe medication, the answer is “Talk to your psychiatrist.” Why is this? Mainly, because psychiatrists are licensed to dispense medication and not to counsel, and counselors are licensed to provide therapy but not medication (there are some exceptions but for the most part, this is how it works.) See the problem there??? I do.

In order to function in a more complete and indeed a more beneficial manner, the mental health field needs to move away from traditional roles of psychiatrist and counselor and integrate the two into one person. Anyone dealing with anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, or anything else, should be able to see ONE person who gets to know their case and manages it as such. They would know all the details of the person’s life, all the outlying factors, internal factors. They would be able to judge whether the person even NEEDS medication (because, many times, they don’t. Medication is, I believe, overprescribed and dispensed in a flippant manner although they are serious drugs, but that is for another post.) Sometimes, all a person needs is someone to listen to them and understand, and to help them in non-pharmacological ways. I think until such an integration happens, sadly, those receiving services from the mental health field will always be getting the short end of the stick.

Is faith in God important? Can we believe in God?

I’ve been doing a heck of a lot of writing lately, both blog-wise and journaling. The stuff I have posted here is just a fraction of what I have actually written and truthfully, there are about 20 more blogs I have notes on with intention to write that I have not gotten to yet. It seems once I start to explore one thing, another pops up. And since I’m trying to limit my posts to one topic at a time, I end up with a lot of stuff!!!

Two things I know I want to focus on in this blog going forward are discussing mental issues (I really don’t like the term mental illness, but I use it because that is what mental issues, disorders, problems etc. are mainly referred to as now) and God/spirituality. Whenever I start talking about anything psychology, or societally related, it always circles back to God without me even trying. I think because in the end, there is no man made fix. I’m always reaching back back back, looking to the root cause of things and ways it can be fixed. But it really can’t be by any man made means, or it would have been done by now.

So this post is going to focus on faith, and how faith in God is important.

Someone I know is taking a religion class on the New Testament for their degree (required by the school, not the person’s degree program.) This person has never really been a believer in God or Christianity, in fact they don’t know anything about the Bible. So now they have been reading the New Testament for the first time, asking me lots of Bible related questions and so we’ve had some interesting discussions. Last night the topic arose of “How can I believe in God when there is no proof?” And my answer was something I only recently came to understand fully – that a person must have faith in God, in order to see that proof.

What is faith, really? You hear Christians talk about faith all the time, faith in God, faith in Jesus. Faith, faith, faith. The New Testament is absolutely filled with scriptures talking about the importance of having faith. But most people never stop to think about what that really means.

If you were to say you had faith in your friend that they would be able to lose weight, or ace an upcoming job interview, what would you mean by that? You’d mean that you believed in them, that you had complete confidence in what they could do or achieve, even if you had no definitive way of knowing that they WOULD lose weight or get the job. To have faith in God MEANS to believe in him, whether we can see him or not, whether we have any proof or not.

So now I have to address the idea of what constitutes proof. I think it is so hard for scientifically minded or academically minded people to believe in God because they want “proof”. Generally this means some sort of physical, tangible thing. So if it cannot be tasted/touched/seen/smelled/felt then it is concluded that it must not exist. As an academically minded person myself, I find this thinking to be very strange. There are countless things that cannot be measured with physical means and yet we know to exist. When we feel we love someone, can that be measured with scientific or medical means? Is love truly in our “hearts” as the saying goes? We know it exists solely within our minds. The same is true for any ideas we have at all. They exist within our minds, in a place that cannot be measured. Yet nothing of man-made origin would exist without them. Can a doctor cut into our anatomic brain, remove a slice and examine it under a microscope and say, “Ahhhh yes. There is Nicole’s idea about faith. I can see it now.” No. The only way we even know ideas exist are because we see the OUTWARD manifestation of those ideas, which are created with our physical bodies and discerned by our senses, NOT because we see the ideas themselves. Ideas are esoteric, but we know they exist.

By the same token, if we have faith and believe God exists, we can see his hand in what we know, his supremely intelligent design. Years back, I took Human Anatomy & Physiology, not an easy class. I had to study an 1100 page medical book from cover to cover, dissection labs, the works. It was a very in-depth, holistic view, down the complex chemical processes that occur each second in order to sustain life. When you begin to see how everything is connected, you cannot help but be filled with awe. Nothing is superfluous. Everything has a purpose, a function. It all works together. The absolute magnitude of processes that occur simultaneously is truly mind boggling. When the slightest thing becomes out of alignment, it can cause sickness and death almost immediately. I honestly cannot believe that anyone who has ever studied medicine could deny God. We take our bodies and minds for granted every day. But if you stop to think about the process of anything in nature – the formation of planets, the growth of a plant, human life – the answer to me is beyond clear. The Bible even addresses this to skeptics of God:

“The heavens are declaring the glory of God; The skies above proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day their speech bubbles forth,
And night after night they reveal knowledge.” (Psalms 19:1, 2)

“For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable.” (Romans 1:20)

A person doesn’t need higher education to be able to look at a sunset and be in amazement, or to wonder about the magnitude of the universe or marvel at the birth of a child. These are things each one of us is capable of seeing and knowing and believing. The idea that only certain people who are geniuses can understand things, is simply not true. God allows himself to been seen, if a person truly wants to “see” him.

It is interesting to note, that even in Jesus’ time when he WAS giving them physical proof, in the form of miracles such as curing the blind or raising the dead, many STILL did not believe, and they still had no faith at all. So, seeing is not always believing, as the saying goes.

Mankind seems, as a whole these days, obsessed with the idea that their knowledge and wisdom is superior. The apostle Paul had some great words in his letter to the Corinthians about man’s idea of wisdom and God’s idea of wisdom, and reminds us not to be led down a false path.

“And I came to you in weakness and in fear and with much trembling;  and my speech and what I preached were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of spirit and power,  so that your faith might be, not in men’s wisdom, but in God’s power.” (1^st Cor. 2:4, 5)

“Now we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit that is from God, so that we might know the things that have been kindly given us by God. These things we also speak, not with words taught by human wisdom, but with those taught by the spirit, as we explain spiritual matters with spiritual words. But a physical man does not accept the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot get to know them, because they are examined spiritually.” (1^st Corinthians 2:12-14)

Now, don’t get me wrong. Knowledge, and wisdom are important. We should always strive to gain knowledge and wisdom. However, we should never be so arrogant as to assume that WE are the most intelligent things in the universe. We need to remain humble and be willing to acknowledge that we do not have all the answers, we do not have all the knowledge and the wisdom. If we try to elevate ourselves to a level that clearly does not belong to us, it simply shows pride and arrogance in our own smarts and abilities.

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it is written: “He catches the wise in their own cunning.” And again: “Jehovah knows that the reasonings of the wise men are futile.” (1^st Cor. 3:19, 20)

“At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” (Matthew 11:25, New International Version)

So, getting back to the idea of faith. I myself have always had an inclination toward the sciences, with an unending curiosity and quest to find answers. I would consider myself to be a very intelligent person and enjoy research and study and learning the intricate processes by which things occur. But I realize not everyone is so inclined. I believe that the proof that God exists is clear to any who are genuinely seeking it, and seeking him in their lives – no matter what that person’s knowledge level may be. The realm of science and medicine and academia (in general) wants people to believe that they are the ones who have all the answers, and that if you believe in God, you are both uneducated and a fool. Yet, scientists constantly revise their own thoughts and theories about how things work, year by year, and it is always changing. Scientists and doctors and professors – the so-called “intellectual” or “wise” ones, according to our society, have not been able to cure the world of disease, get people to live peaceably with each other, or thwart every human’s ultimate foe – death, no matter how hard they try. It’s just a repetitive cycle as one generation dies and another rises up and takes its place. Paul reminds us about having faith in God, and warns us about being overly trusting of man's abilities.

“Therefore, just as you have accepted Christ Jesus the Lord, go on walking in union with him, being rooted and built up in him and being stabilized in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with thanksgiving. Look out that no one takes you captive by means of the philosophy and empty deception according to human tradition, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ.” (Colossians 2:6-8)

“It is better to take refuge in Jehovah
Than to trust in humans.” (Psalms 118:8)

God is timeless and unending and has created all that see and know. He was there at the beginning of it and will be there always. If you have faith, you can be assured that what he promises will undoubtedly come to pass.

“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, is a God for all eternity. He never tires out or grows weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the tired one
And full might to those lacking strength.  Boys will tire out and grow weary,
And young men will stumble and fall,  But those hoping in Jehovah will regain power. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary;
They will walk and not tire out.” (Isaiah 40:28-31)

“And the One seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new.” Also he says: “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”  And he said to me: “They have come to pass! I am the Al′pha and the O·me′ga, the beginning and the end. To anyone thirsting I will give from the spring of the water of life free.” (Revelation 21:5, 6)

“For all the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)

Interestingly, I saw an omega sign in the sky the other day and thought of God. For those unfamiliar, here are Alpha and Omega (first and last letter of the Greek alphabet, hence the scriptural reference to first and last.)

Here are the photos I took from my backyard. First when I noticed it and second as it started drifting away. Yes, probably made by a plane but interesting how they made the Omega sign. And yes, it reminded me to have faith.