The Solution to Pollution is Dilution

Watered down. The key to removing potency from many things in this world is to decrease its concentration. It works for acids—to shift a pH closer to neutral, you "do as you aughtta; add acid to wattah." It works in cooking: to make hot sauce for wings into mild sauce, you add a splash of the sauce to some water & mix. Heck, anyone who's ever gone to a church's social function knows all too well about dilution from one phrase: church juice. It's essentially coloured water, regardless of whatever the juice's packaging might originally have said. Dilution.

Why is concentration so important? How come a thick pile is more potent than the same amount of stuff spread thinly over a larger region? Perhaps the ratio of effecting agent to effected target has something to do with it. Perhaps may also perhaps be an understatement here.

It seems to be that the concept of concentration can be viewed much like a military battle. Which do you think has a better chance of success: 10,000 soldiers fighting 500 fronts at once, or 10,000 soldiers fighting five fronts at once? A stronger, united force seems to have greater impact on a localised region than a dispersed "unified" force.

So what the heck am I getting at, with all this rambling? Well, a couple things; yet these couple things are really one.

First part: I feel diluted these days. I feel largely useless in life, missing out on many endeavours, falling short of success in many potential areas al because of a lack of sufficient force. I think about it, and I see that my dreams are evaporating. They evaporate because my dreams require more energy, effort and resources than what I alone can muster. Many of my writing projects are put on hold. Scripts lie half-finished—or less; books barely get written. Photography and filmography gather dust in my retinue of things to do. No productions are in line for my future, alas. Spiritual similarities also abound: I feel strongly that my Christianity has become rather ineffective, due largely to a lack of sufficient access to a like-minded community. I feel choked by weeds.

How come? Why? What the heck is going on? Life, perhaps? Things often tend to get in the way, yet my priorities are my own & ultimately, the choices I make in my daily life are essentially made by me alone (albeit, God should also have a hand in that too).

I think that Satan is an environmentalist. He's been using the solution to pollution within the church for years now. Back in the day, the primary method of marginalising Christianity's impact on the world was through brute force and suppression. Cut some heads off, feed some Christians to starving lions, dip others in searing hot tar & then light the human torches on fire for garden parties in Imperial Rome... Y'know, brutal stuff. Unfortunately, the Church seems to respond backwards to violent oppression & instead of backing down, it tends to regroup & redouble its resolve.

Now, Satan being aware of this peculiarity, decided to let the church grow in power and in popular acceptance—so much so, that the Church became the de facto world (aka "European") government for something like a thousand years, and because of this, the Western world has adopted much of Christianity's values and morals: justice, peace, freedom, equality and the like. Needless to say, such concepts are very good, and from out of this universal adoption and the overwhelming extent of Christianity's presence in western culture, the Church began to adopt the mentality of being popular.

Because of Christianity's prevalence, even a generation ago, one was considered to be a "good person" if one went to church—whether or not one believed anything that the Bible taught. Heck, many of my friends' parents decided to go to church so that their kids (my friends) would be exposed to Sunday School teaching—and not because the family thought it important for the children to learn about the Bible, but because it was the "proper" thing to do with your children. Unfortunately, here starts the discussion of dilution.

The significant cultural impact that Christianity has had on western society has resulted in populating church buildings with people who really don't give a crap about Christianity at all—from the guy/girl who's "proclaiming the word of the Lord" at the front to the guy or girl in the nice clothes sitting towards the back, pretending to listen while they're actually wondering who America's next top model will be. Christianity has (or maybe even "had") become "nice," and as a result, the Church as a western whole has begun to shift from maintaining spiritual potency towards maintaining cultural popularity.