I don't want to be famous or popular or known for anything other than that I was deep and wise and had a soul that was wildly beautiful, full of mercy and light.
-Jen Lemen
I am screwed up. In every single area, throughout every single part.
BUT:
I am not wholly ugly. There is something beautiful in me. And the most glorious thing about that beauty is its potential for growth. In fact, it has great potential. That's the exciting thing about loving Christ. The best is all in the future. The potential is limitless. He doesn't ask for much. Only that I love Him so that He can fill me up with mercy and light, with all that is pure and strong and lovely.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Boredom
(I don't know who first said this, so I can't give credit. Which is a shame, because credit is certainly due.)
" 'I'm BORED' is a useless thing to say. You live in a Great, Big, Vast world that you've seen NONE percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is Endless. It goes on forever inwardly. Do you understand? The fact that you're alive is amazing. You do not get to say, 'I'm bored'."
I wish I'd read this last night, because I definitely thought "I'm bored" even if I didn't say it aloud. (I then went on to waste two hours watching Everybody Loves Raymond and Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, neither of which are inherently bad, but were both tainted with the shame of my succumbing. Not All nights, but definitely last night, to watch TV was to succumb.) Today I will NOT be bored. Why? Because this world is anything but boring.
Did you know that there is a species of chameleon that is small enough to fit on the head of a match?
The existence of these little guys is just the first thing I thought of to illustrate my point. But if this fails to impress you, what how about something a little more refined--say, George MacDonald?
MacDonald had four intriguing themes which he worked and reworked and wrote into his many remarkable novels, poems, and sermons (italics--Nick Page, parenthesis--mine):
1. The obsessive pursuit of the ideal. (Never mind the fact that this world is generally screwed-up. Pursuing the ideal is not chasing after some misdirected desire for perfection--misdirected because perfection is unattainable. Pursuing the ideal is what we were meant to do as humans. No, things aren't perfect and they never will be, but that doesn't mean that they can't be made beautiful. "God is the God of the beautiful--Religion is the love of the beautiful, and Heaven the home of the Beautiful." -MacDonald. Remember--the definition of "beautiful" is wholly subjective and entirely limitless.)
2. The sense that God must be pursued in the everyday world. (If this thought seems annoying, depressing even in it's , that's because what's annoying/depressing us is some misconstrued idea we have of God. The "God in our head." The "God that's so mixed up with our confusing memories, emotions, and feelings of the past, present, and future that He isn't God, but some strange extension of ourselves". This is when it's time to Stop thinking, reflecting, meditating, whatever and it's time to Start over. Make it simple. Don't twist yourself up in your thoughts. Instead, find Him in life rather than in your mind.)
----My Caveat: Sorry I'm not fleshing these thoughts out more. There's really nothing to flesh them out with--with which to flesh them out. They're new thoughts and I'm trying them out.----
3. The idea that God is present and active all the time. (Whoa. What if we really believed this? Why do we let ourselves get so bogged down? I know the problems seem serious--and they actually ARE to a certain degree--but why do they have the power to weigh us down? "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." -Unknown.
4. The belief that death is only the beginning. (That's where it all begins. So yes, what we do here matters, but--it's only a bit, a very brief part. Those things we thought would kill us might actually do just that. But once they have, we'll forget they ever existed.
"There are far better things ahead than any we have left behind"
There's enough to mull over in those four statements to keep any person occupied for any length of time. And if you're sick of thinking over them alone, well then, phone a friend, do some research, read another book, or forget about them for a while and find something else to occupy your mind.
" 'I'm BORED' is a useless thing to say. You live in a Great, Big, Vast world that you've seen NONE percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is Endless. It goes on forever inwardly. Do you understand? The fact that you're alive is amazing. You do not get to say, 'I'm bored'."
I wish I'd read this last night, because I definitely thought "I'm bored" even if I didn't say it aloud. (I then went on to waste two hours watching Everybody Loves Raymond and Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, neither of which are inherently bad, but were both tainted with the shame of my succumbing. Not All nights, but definitely last night, to watch TV was to succumb.) Today I will NOT be bored. Why? Because this world is anything but boring.
Did you know that there is a species of chameleon that is small enough to fit on the head of a match?
The existence of these little guys is just the first thing I thought of to illustrate my point. But if this fails to impress you, what how about something a little more refined--say, George MacDonald?
MacDonald had four intriguing themes which he worked and reworked and wrote into his many remarkable novels, poems, and sermons (italics--Nick Page, parenthesis--mine):
1. The obsessive pursuit of the ideal. (Never mind the fact that this world is generally screwed-up. Pursuing the ideal is not chasing after some misdirected desire for perfection--misdirected because perfection is unattainable. Pursuing the ideal is what we were meant to do as humans. No, things aren't perfect and they never will be, but that doesn't mean that they can't be made beautiful. "God is the God of the beautiful--Religion is the love of the beautiful, and Heaven the home of the Beautiful." -MacDonald. Remember--the definition of "beautiful" is wholly subjective and entirely limitless.)
2. The sense that God must be pursued in the everyday world. (If this thought seems annoying, depressing even in it's , that's because what's annoying/depressing us is some misconstrued idea we have of God. The "God in our head." The "God that's so mixed up with our confusing memories, emotions, and feelings of the past, present, and future that He isn't God, but some strange extension of ourselves". This is when it's time to Stop thinking, reflecting, meditating, whatever and it's time to Start over. Make it simple. Don't twist yourself up in your thoughts. Instead, find Him in life rather than in your mind.)
----My Caveat: Sorry I'm not fleshing these thoughts out more. There's really nothing to flesh them out with--with which to flesh them out. They're new thoughts and I'm trying them out.----
3. The idea that God is present and active all the time. (Whoa. What if we really believed this? Why do we let ourselves get so bogged down? I know the problems seem serious--and they actually ARE to a certain degree--but why do they have the power to weigh us down? "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end." -Unknown.
4. The belief that death is only the beginning. (That's where it all begins. So yes, what we do here matters, but--it's only a bit, a very brief part. Those things we thought would kill us might actually do just that. But once they have, we'll forget they ever existed.
"There are far better things ahead than any we have left behind"
There's enough to mull over in those four statements to keep any person occupied for any length of time. And if you're sick of thinking over them alone, well then, phone a friend, do some research, read another book, or forget about them for a while and find something else to occupy your mind.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)