"Truth loves the light and is most beautiful when most naked."
The problem with truth is no one really has it. So everyone, as in every human being, runs around thinking they've got the "Truth" when really they've just got a little truth. Totally changing the quote in my header line to this, because I feel like a new season is upon me (haha who knows if it's true?). Besides, I like the idea of nakedness. Fun part of not being in school is the freedom to determine a season of life separate from semesters, quarters, breaks, and when things are due.
Blogging is difficult when you're going through a lot of stuff. I've been struggling with defining what would be helpful to process here. I find myself sincerely disinterested in writing a post and rushing one at the end of the day or not at all. Also, it's hard to fight that feeling of performance on here, considering apparently I have a larger audience than I thought. Remarkably however, though there is a lot to process, it hasn't been burdensome, and I remain grateful instead of angry. So great is the Lord's grace that has carried me through a lot to get to a point where I can be happy and joyful, even with the hard things in life. So great is His love and affection toward me...ME!
Hmmm...so let me discuss the following long ass quote from John Owen:
"Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ in the cross, lie at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. Now, it is certain that that which I speak of proceeds from self-love. Thou settest thyself with all diligence and earnestness to mortify such a lust or sin; what is the reason of it? It disquiets thee, it hath taken away thy peace, it fills thy heart with sorrow, and trouble, and fear; thou hast no rest because of it. Yea; but, friend, thou hast neglected prayer or reading; thou hast been vain and loose in thy conversation in other things, that have not been of the same nature with that lust wherewith thou art perplexed. These are no less sins and evils than those under which thou groanest. Jesus Christ bled for them also. Why dost thou not set thyself against them also? If thou hatest sin as sin, every evil way, thou wouldst be no less watchful against every thing that grieves and disquiets thine own soul. It is evident that thou contendest against sin merely because of thy own trouble by it. Would thy conscience be quiet under it, thou wouldst let it alone. Did it not disquiet thee, it should not be disquieted by thee. Now, canst thou think that God will set in with such hypocritical endeavours, -- that ever his Spirit will bear witness to the treachery and falsehood of thy spirit? Dost thou think he will ease thee of that which perplexeth thee, that thou mayst be at liberty to that which no less grieves him? No. Says God, "Here is one, if he could be rid of this lust I should never hear of him more; let him wrestle with this, or he is lost." Let not any man think to do his own work that will not do God's. God's work consists in universal obedience; to be freed of the present perplexity is their own only. Hence is that of the apostle, 2 Cor. 7:1, "Cleanse yourselves from all pollution of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." If we will do any thing, we must do all things. So, then, it is not only an intense opposition to this or that peculiar lust, but a universal humble frame and temper of heart, with watchfulness over every evil and for the performance of every duty, that is accepted."
I used to think "Elder Son" was more of a danger for mature Christians like the Rick Warrens and Tim Kellers of this world. People who are not just part of a ministry but help found ministries and general do good throughout society. But I realized that isn't true at all. Jesus said that if you have hatred in your heart for another person, you have murdered them and that if you lust after someone who is not your spouse, then you have committed adultery. Why can't it be applied that if you even think that going to small group regularly, hanging out with Christian friends all the time, etc. can save you, then you are in fact being an "Elder Son", spitting on the Cross and mocking the blood of Christ.
If you haven't noticed I've been reading a lot about and by the Puritans. And it's making me think a lot about how I operate theologically, which of course influences my ideas about ministry and evangelism. Specifically, this passage makes me re-think my own experience processing the greatness of my sin (...that sounds like I'm implying I'm done, but we all know I'm absolutely not). I came into Navs with all my addictions, neediness and shame. When the true power of the Gospel was shown to me at the Penn State retreat of my freshman year, I confessed to God and those around me. I set myself with all diligence and earnestness to mortify such lust and sin. And I hated sin as "galling or disquieting" and it filled my heart with sorrow, and trouble, and fear. But I didn't hate sin for sin, I hated sin because I realized it was bad and out of a spirit of self-love, not because I thought God was good and that I loved Him. Because of this, I came back to sinning over and over again. And I was usually very surprised when the more obvious sins of my life came back. Like I thought I was over it. I went on like that for a few years because God said, "let [her] wrestle with this, or [s]he is lost".
Then, all of a sudden, I fell in love with God for who He is and what He had done, not because I wanted His peace and wanted to be seen as "good" and mature or I wanted to be well-liked by my Christian friends. It is truly the work of the Spirit and no one else. I can't pinpoint when the exact moment or season this happened, but it probably had something to do with counseling and starting to wrestle with God and just God, not my parents, not my friends, not even my idols. You can't trust anyone you don't know, and I was starting to know and trust God. God had called me to Himself.
I really like the point the passage makes about how much this twisted kind of mortification of sin is self-love and noticable with the neglect of every other thing in life that still have everything to do with our sinfulness. If I'm really working on not looking at porn anymore (and succeeding), but then don't daily read the Bible, don't pray unceasingily, don't go to church, drink to the point of incoherance or even just spending money freely without gratefulness to the God who gave it to me thinking I earned it, then what use is the one victory? What kind of heart could I have obeying God one way but blatantly and obstinately disobeying God every other way? What sucks is outwardly, I think I'm doing it right or at least I'm not that bad, that I'm being a Christian, but really I've just diverted my energies from an obvious sin to a more sinister and insidious and dangerous kind. Sin that can go on for the rest of my life un-challenged and all the while corrupting every part of me to the point that I won't be myself anymore. I'll be some other demented kind of person with no true self, for my true self is only in Christ.
By the true, powerful and redemptive grace of the Spirit, I'm in a better place, which is always good. But I would be a fool if I didn't look back and see how wrong I was all the times I thought I was alright and assume that I'm done. In fact, what's great about Owen is how he emphasizes that the mortification of sin is a lifelong, daily practice. It's a constant putting to death, with the understanding that indwelling sin will never be dead in this world. I am always capable of taking my temptations to the extreme, lustful thoughts to sex outside of marriage, bitterness to hate to murder. It is a constant, perpetual going to Jesus and letting the Spirit do its work. The paradox is the key and understanding it will take a lifetime. Nevertheless, the mortification of sin is work for believers (who have had a real encounter with Christ and a real surrender of their lives) to do, not people who don't hate sin for sin but in fact love it and relish in temptation and use the Gospel for their own ends of relief and self-justification.
I cannot believe how much I'm learning from Mortification of Sin. Everything that John Owen says may seem familiar, but no one, NO ONE, ever says it like this anymore. And it's not just the old English ^_^. It's weird to realize that I'm reading this now because I'm ready to read it and not at any other time was I ready for such truth to pierce my heart. (And I credit Ben for turning me on to it). I'm not done with the book yet, and I could write on and on for so many other passages. This is probably one of the most important books I've read in my life. Read it if you feel lead to.
Showing posts with label papers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label papers. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Hebrews Throwing it Down!
It's so quiet today. It's funny how a snow storm just keeps people at home....ah someday I'll be able to do that.
This is one of those posts that's like a paper that doesn't have connected paragraphs ala Xaris's free writing style. FREEDOM!
I've been reading Hebrews and I've been wrestling with some thoughts. I like how Tim Keller always says everyone needs to take the Bible as a whole, you can't just leave stuff out and create your own religion. If you want to believe the part about Jesus loving you and dying for you, then you can't just ignore the parts where God tells you your money is not yours and that sex is sacred within the confines of marriage between a man and a woman. Wrestling with it, Job style, and coming to a sense of God's awesomeness is the point. Anyway...
"It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whim it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case - things that accompany salvation. God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them." -Hebrews 6:4-10
This is scary to me. Below is from the Christian Happiness sermon I keep talking about:
"Indeed, Christianity is now so low in the world, and there is such a want of the lively and vigorous actings of grace, even in those that are godly, that one, upon a cursory view, would think there was no such a tendency in religion as we talk of; but however the case is now in this degenerate age, yet there has been a time in the first ages of the church when the Christian religion had so great an influence on the minds of almost all that professed the name of Christ, that they did not regard all the worst the world could do to them. They slighted and despised all the tortures and pains that could be invented against them, and even the very women and children disregarded them and triumphed over them, and showed themselves to be happy, and were joyful in the midst of flames or on a gridiron, and enjoyed much more pleasure and satisfaction there than the wicked man does in the greatest affluence of the highest sensual delights: so that we see this certainly is the nature and tendency of Christianity. However, for want of due exercise it fails, and it is always either for want of a sufficiency of it, for want of the exercise of it, or from the natural imbecility and weakness of human nature, that it cloth not always produce those effects."
Also just read this on Calvinism.
First of all, I look at the Hebrew passage and think about why the writer is being so harsh. And it's because it was a pretty harsh time for the young Christian church. I remember Tim Keller's series on Hebrews called "Christ our Treasury" I think, and he just said this everytime about the epistle's audience. So in a sense, I can understand the sentiment. But man, it's so hard to think that people who fall away were never really Christians (1 John 2:19), but also that they're crucifying Jesus all over again. I can think of so many people in my life who have "fallen away" and it breaks my heart. It's just troubling though considering my own stupidity and depravity, how it is that I'm "chosen". One can never really figure out why and no answer in this world will satisfy. It isn't to say that everyone who seems like they've fallen away really has the fallen away. Whatever, I guess my point is this is really hard to live out. Hard to realize the real consequences of believing and unbelief, especially when it comes to people I actually know and love. All I can do is thank and praise God and trust in His wisdom.
"You will keep in perfect peace,
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in You." - Isaiah 26:3
This is one of those posts that's like a paper that doesn't have connected paragraphs ala Xaris's free writing style. FREEDOM!
I've been reading Hebrews and I've been wrestling with some thoughts. I like how Tim Keller always says everyone needs to take the Bible as a whole, you can't just leave stuff out and create your own religion. If you want to believe the part about Jesus loving you and dying for you, then you can't just ignore the parts where God tells you your money is not yours and that sex is sacred within the confines of marriage between a man and a woman. Wrestling with it, Job style, and coming to a sense of God's awesomeness is the point. Anyway...
"It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.
Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whim it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed. In the end it will be burned.
Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case - things that accompany salvation. God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them." -Hebrews 6:4-10
This is scary to me. Below is from the Christian Happiness sermon I keep talking about:
"Indeed, Christianity is now so low in the world, and there is such a want of the lively and vigorous actings of grace, even in those that are godly, that one, upon a cursory view, would think there was no such a tendency in religion as we talk of; but however the case is now in this degenerate age, yet there has been a time in the first ages of the church when the Christian religion had so great an influence on the minds of almost all that professed the name of Christ, that they did not regard all the worst the world could do to them. They slighted and despised all the tortures and pains that could be invented against them, and even the very women and children disregarded them and triumphed over them, and showed themselves to be happy, and were joyful in the midst of flames or on a gridiron, and enjoyed much more pleasure and satisfaction there than the wicked man does in the greatest affluence of the highest sensual delights: so that we see this certainly is the nature and tendency of Christianity. However, for want of due exercise it fails, and it is always either for want of a sufficiency of it, for want of the exercise of it, or from the natural imbecility and weakness of human nature, that it cloth not always produce those effects."
Also just read this on Calvinism.
First of all, I look at the Hebrew passage and think about why the writer is being so harsh. And it's because it was a pretty harsh time for the young Christian church. I remember Tim Keller's series on Hebrews called "Christ our Treasury" I think, and he just said this everytime about the epistle's audience. So in a sense, I can understand the sentiment. But man, it's so hard to think that people who fall away were never really Christians (1 John 2:19), but also that they're crucifying Jesus all over again. I can think of so many people in my life who have "fallen away" and it breaks my heart. It's just troubling though considering my own stupidity and depravity, how it is that I'm "chosen". One can never really figure out why and no answer in this world will satisfy. It isn't to say that everyone who seems like they've fallen away really has the fallen away. Whatever, I guess my point is this is really hard to live out. Hard to realize the real consequences of believing and unbelief, especially when it comes to people I actually know and love. All I can do is thank and praise God and trust in His wisdom.
"You will keep in perfect peace,
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in You." - Isaiah 26:3
Monday, October 20, 2008
Dreams of my Father
First of all, from the man himself (I'm so proud that my boyfriend sent me this).
I went to a Redeemer seminar yesterday to hear Dr. Peter Heslam talk about bringing the world closer to the Kingdom of God through business. Right up my alley no? Because I'm a dork and I have all this time on my hands below are my crude Paint renditions of the diagrams he showed us.
The one on the right is referring to the problem of Poverty, and how it can be pushed out through business with the 4 different types of capital: Institutional, Relational, Moral, and Spiritual. The left describes how Spiritual Capital is foundational to all the others i.e. Spiritual leads to Moral leads to Relational leads to Institutional and Institutional informs Relational informs Moral informs Spiritual. Institutional is all about having good governments, low corruption, free markets and whatnot. It seems counter-intuitive, but studies show that the lower the corruption is, the freer the markets are for a country. Relational is having the intelligence to know how to do business with people aka not screwing people over. It's hard to trade with another country if you're at war. Therefore, peace = good for business. Moral capital is what it sounds like, just being honest since the main currency to keep the economy running is trust (which is what is disintegrating right now). Spiritual capital is really what we Christians know as religion and the Christian life in general, but Dr. Heslam is trying to translate Gospel language to a secular world and chooses to say "Spiritual" for people who are scared of religion in hopes that later on they'll be convicted about the sustainability of their spirituality without religion.
He talked about A LOT of interesting points in like 30 minutes. But mainly he talked about the value of bringing us closer to the Kingdom of God through business without necessarily having conversions. That unbeknownst to the Chinese he talks to, who deem Spirituality as Confuscianism, they are living out the will of God by adopting these foundational ideas, and he can be a witness to Jesus in the meantime. It was really cool having to use all the things I'd learned from my development and Colonialism classes at school to understand the bigger picture of what he was saying (I smell another paper). It spoke so deeply to my soul and the dreams I have about the power of business for the glory of God that after talking to Mike Chen (who we all know is such a good listener and was at the seminar) about some of my ideas, I literally wanted to cry (and did so when I admitted it out loud). I am such a friggin' feeler. It's so rare to be able to think and expound upon with others who understand and are working with me to bring about the specific vision God has personally shown me in so many times of insipiration while at school. To similarly think that at the root of Capitalism is evil, but it can be redeemed by the grace of God, that it could work for the good of those who love Him and surrender to Him and then furthermore the world.
I was invited to do a recruitment event for tonight at NYU. I immediately was excited, some may say inexplicably so knowing my experience with work so far. I couldn't quite understand it either. But it's a lot like welcoming freshmen into Navs. It's being transparent and honest and welcoming people into a company (which apparently comes from the latin of "breaking bread together"). And from that vantage point, I'm able to influence my own company as they see that I'm willing to invest in it. It's part of Redeemer's whole thing about being for the city, but not of it.
My co-worker went with me to the 6pm service yesterday too and she responded very well! It was such an answer to prayer. She's a Christian, but I can tell she has idols in her life that she has not really admitted to (don't we all ^_^). I look forward to what God has in store for her and the deepening of her faith.
Obviously, it has been a good birthday season so far (and I've only written the half of it!). God is good and faithful. That would be true anyway even if I had a bad birthday, but it's great to say when it feels so easy. Blessed be His name.
I went to a Redeemer seminar yesterday to hear Dr. Peter Heslam talk about bringing the world closer to the Kingdom of God through business. Right up my alley no? Because I'm a dork and I have all this time on my hands below are my crude Paint renditions of the diagrams he showed us.
The one on the right is referring to the problem of Poverty, and how it can be pushed out through business with the 4 different types of capital: Institutional, Relational, Moral, and Spiritual. The left describes how Spiritual Capital is foundational to all the others i.e. Spiritual leads to Moral leads to Relational leads to Institutional and Institutional informs Relational informs Moral informs Spiritual. Institutional is all about having good governments, low corruption, free markets and whatnot. It seems counter-intuitive, but studies show that the lower the corruption is, the freer the markets are for a country. Relational is having the intelligence to know how to do business with people aka not screwing people over. It's hard to trade with another country if you're at war. Therefore, peace = good for business. Moral capital is what it sounds like, just being honest since the main currency to keep the economy running is trust (which is what is disintegrating right now). Spiritual capital is really what we Christians know as religion and the Christian life in general, but Dr. Heslam is trying to translate Gospel language to a secular world and chooses to say "Spiritual" for people who are scared of religion in hopes that later on they'll be convicted about the sustainability of their spirituality without religion.He talked about A LOT of interesting points in like 30 minutes. But mainly he talked about the value of bringing us closer to the Kingdom of God through business without necessarily having conversions. That unbeknownst to the Chinese he talks to, who deem Spirituality as Confuscianism, they are living out the will of God by adopting these foundational ideas, and he can be a witness to Jesus in the meantime. It was really cool having to use all the things I'd learned from my development and Colonialism classes at school to understand the bigger picture of what he was saying (I smell another paper). It spoke so deeply to my soul and the dreams I have about the power of business for the glory of God that after talking to Mike Chen (who we all know is such a good listener and was at the seminar) about some of my ideas, I literally wanted to cry (and did so when I admitted it out loud). I am such a friggin' feeler. It's so rare to be able to think and expound upon with others who understand and are working with me to bring about the specific vision God has personally shown me in so many times of insipiration while at school. To similarly think that at the root of Capitalism is evil, but it can be redeemed by the grace of God, that it could work for the good of those who love Him and surrender to Him and then furthermore the world.
I was invited to do a recruitment event for tonight at NYU. I immediately was excited, some may say inexplicably so knowing my experience with work so far. I couldn't quite understand it either. But it's a lot like welcoming freshmen into Navs. It's being transparent and honest and welcoming people into a company (which apparently comes from the latin of "breaking bread together"). And from that vantage point, I'm able to influence my own company as they see that I'm willing to invest in it. It's part of Redeemer's whole thing about being for the city, but not of it.
My co-worker went with me to the 6pm service yesterday too and she responded very well! It was such an answer to prayer. She's a Christian, but I can tell she has idols in her life that she has not really admitted to (don't we all ^_^). I look forward to what God has in store for her and the deepening of her faith.
Obviously, it has been a good birthday season so far (and I've only written the half of it!). God is good and faithful. That would be true anyway even if I had a bad birthday, but it's great to say when it feels so easy. Blessed be His name.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Unstuck in Time
First of all, I got this today from a fellow worker. Thought I'd share.
Secondly, I had another one of those I-could-write-a-writing-the-essay-paper-about-this trains of thought recently. I warn you that this is going to sound incomplete, only because I'm not really connecting my thoughts, and really I don't have a point. Such is the freedom of blogs and not being in school ^_^.
Here's another quote from Sallie Culbreth :
People get discouraged because of the enormity of what lies ahead. Recovery is a huge undertaking that you may not even take the first step toward because it seems pointless. That's one of those lies that you must aggressively talk back to. No - you won't get there today or tomorrow, but you WILL get there eventually if you keep focused on those small victories, those courageous steps, and those tiny celebrations of joy that you find along the way.
I would argue Sallie is a little too people centric sometimes (she's all about the warrior metaphor with all its fighting and empowerment), but the newsletter that this came from was really encouraging. She's obviously talking about abuse recovery here, but really we're all recovering from the fall. We are all coping with a broken world.
I saw Donnie Darko recently. At the same time I've been reading Slaughterhouse Five. And it's weird that both have those themes of being unstuck in time. In the book, Billy Pilgrim learns how to view life not as sequential moments in time but instead just an amalgation of all those moments. So, if someone is dead at one moment, you don't see them as just dead, because they were a perfectly alive person for so many other moments in their life. However, Donnie still keeps the sequential element of moments intact, though the manipulation of those moments to the betterment of life is also at play. Donnie believes that God controls our paths in time, but in the end he chooses to do something that ultimately makes him take the place of God, by skipping out on Him somehow. Overall though, the movie dealt with the fear of being alone driving the need to believe in God.
This all made me think of what I had heard somewhere before (forget where), that God (the Father I suppose) doesn't necessarily view time as sequential. He is the same God of all times and all places, so he probably views time more like the way Billy was learning to view time. To us one moment of pain can seem endless, but God sees the entirety of our lives and His plan for us. He has the ultimate perfect perspective of time. But He can completely relate to our point of view because He became a man who experienced a sequential life, yet was still God and had supernatural knowledge of other moments in His life and everyone else's.
The way Billy sees time though, is missing God, so life ends up meaning nothing. Nothing but the momentary joys and beauty. It has no purpose.
Well, I haven't finished Slaughterhouse Five so I couldn't fully incorporate the book, but the themes are probably relevant. It's times like these that I wish I could write better. I kind of get to understand the whole idea of creating something new with old ideas. Alas, I hit my peak in the 5th grade (last time I was really praised for my writing and encouraged to develop it). I forget sometimes that I used to want to be an Editor, as recently as sophomore year in high school. Not that I regret my choice, but it's nice to realize that my brain can still work well within other subjects aside from business.
Secondly, I had another one of those I-could-write-a-writing-the-essay-paper-about-this trains of thought recently. I warn you that this is going to sound incomplete, only because I'm not really connecting my thoughts, and really I don't have a point. Such is the freedom of blogs and not being in school ^_^.
Here's another quote from Sallie Culbreth :
People get discouraged because of the enormity of what lies ahead. Recovery is a huge undertaking that you may not even take the first step toward because it seems pointless. That's one of those lies that you must aggressively talk back to. No - you won't get there today or tomorrow, but you WILL get there eventually if you keep focused on those small victories, those courageous steps, and those tiny celebrations of joy that you find along the way.
I would argue Sallie is a little too people centric sometimes (she's all about the warrior metaphor with all its fighting and empowerment), but the newsletter that this came from was really encouraging. She's obviously talking about abuse recovery here, but really we're all recovering from the fall. We are all coping with a broken world.
I saw Donnie Darko recently. At the same time I've been reading Slaughterhouse Five. And it's weird that both have those themes of being unstuck in time. In the book, Billy Pilgrim learns how to view life not as sequential moments in time but instead just an amalgation of all those moments. So, if someone is dead at one moment, you don't see them as just dead, because they were a perfectly alive person for so many other moments in their life. However, Donnie still keeps the sequential element of moments intact, though the manipulation of those moments to the betterment of life is also at play. Donnie believes that God controls our paths in time, but in the end he chooses to do something that ultimately makes him take the place of God, by skipping out on Him somehow. Overall though, the movie dealt with the fear of being alone driving the need to believe in God.
This all made me think of what I had heard somewhere before (forget where), that God (the Father I suppose) doesn't necessarily view time as sequential. He is the same God of all times and all places, so he probably views time more like the way Billy was learning to view time. To us one moment of pain can seem endless, but God sees the entirety of our lives and His plan for us. He has the ultimate perfect perspective of time. But He can completely relate to our point of view because He became a man who experienced a sequential life, yet was still God and had supernatural knowledge of other moments in His life and everyone else's.
The way Billy sees time though, is missing God, so life ends up meaning nothing. Nothing but the momentary joys and beauty. It has no purpose.
Well, I haven't finished Slaughterhouse Five so I couldn't fully incorporate the book, but the themes are probably relevant. It's times like these that I wish I could write better. I kind of get to understand the whole idea of creating something new with old ideas. Alas, I hit my peak in the 5th grade (last time I was really praised for my writing and encouraged to develop it). I forget sometimes that I used to want to be an Editor, as recently as sophomore year in high school. Not that I regret my choice, but it's nice to realize that my brain can still work well within other subjects aside from business.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
"Pa, paaaaaaa, this is the sound of settling"
I realized that I wish work would be more like The Office. There, nobody seems to be doing any real work (like me) but they're having fun. That's because work isn't part of their identity, more like just something they do. Like brushing your teeth. In a sense, they are the opposite of being fulfilled by the joy and peace of God, but they look a lot closer to it than I am. Finding my true identity is definitely key.
I really like well worded, profound passages. I've been reading Dandelion Wine by: Ray Bradbury. It was in the Sci-fi section of the Library, but I knew that it actually didn't belong there, despite the author's usual genre. It's weirding reading about a 12-year-old boy in the summer of 1928 and his revelations and adventures in a generic small town in Midwestern America, while riding in train after train trying to be an urban professional grown up in a cosmopolitan metropolis. My summer is much different than his. So maybe in a sense it does belong in the sci-fi section...at least for girls trying to be women.
Ray Bradbury has such an exuberant style. It can be pretty ridiculous, but it's kinda like any beautiful over-the-top movie. You have to let your guard down and let the movie move you. Here's something I read today: "He felt the tremble.... Why? But she was bigger, stronger, more intelligent than himself, wasn't she? Did she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of darkness, that crouching malignancy down below? Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult? No sanctuary in life? No fleshly citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights? Doubts flushed him. Ice cream lived again in his throat, stomach, spine, and limbs; he was instantly cold as a wind out of December gone."
This was referring to Tom (10-year-old brother) looking into the utter darkness of a ravine with his mother holding his hand, for the first time truly feeling the fear that drives us all. Of course, I've been reading 1 John lately. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The man who fears is not made perfect in love." - 1 John 4:18
I completely know the answer to the question marks, but I still feel them. "Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult?" I was also reading Dynamics last night. And it was a part where he was talking about the Holy Spirit and the lack thereof in the church. (Reading this books reminds me of why professors asked us to write about every frickin' thing. It's to learn how to relate information and shape it as our own. But now that I have to do it, it's so hard to really do it right.) He made an interesting point that the Holy Spirit is like being face to face with God, all the time. ALL THE TIME, face to face, YOU and GOD. After that I read some Puritan prayers about the Holy Spirit. Obviously, I've been having good times with the thought.
This whole post is the makings of a 10 page paper. But without all the connecting paragraphs, thoughts, and quotes, it may seem like they really have nothing to do with each other...that's slightly frustrating. But I'll try to refrain from (and prevent any possible joy to my Writing the Essay professor) the thought that I wish I could write this paper...that's just ridiculous, Xaris, really!
I really like well worded, profound passages. I've been reading Dandelion Wine by: Ray Bradbury. It was in the Sci-fi section of the Library, but I knew that it actually didn't belong there, despite the author's usual genre. It's weirding reading about a 12-year-old boy in the summer of 1928 and his revelations and adventures in a generic small town in Midwestern America, while riding in train after train trying to be an urban professional grown up in a cosmopolitan metropolis. My summer is much different than his. So maybe in a sense it does belong in the sci-fi section...at least for girls trying to be women.
Ray Bradbury has such an exuberant style. It can be pretty ridiculous, but it's kinda like any beautiful over-the-top movie. You have to let your guard down and let the movie move you. Here's something I read today: "He felt the tremble.... Why? But she was bigger, stronger, more intelligent than himself, wasn't she? Did she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of darkness, that crouching malignancy down below? Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult? No sanctuary in life? No fleshly citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights? Doubts flushed him. Ice cream lived again in his throat, stomach, spine, and limbs; he was instantly cold as a wind out of December gone."
This was referring to Tom (10-year-old brother) looking into the utter darkness of a ravine with his mother holding his hand, for the first time truly feeling the fear that drives us all. Of course, I've been reading 1 John lately. "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The man who fears is not made perfect in love." - 1 John 4:18
I completely know the answer to the question marks, but I still feel them. "Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult?" I was also reading Dynamics last night. And it was a part where he was talking about the Holy Spirit and the lack thereof in the church. (Reading this books reminds me of why professors asked us to write about every frickin' thing. It's to learn how to relate information and shape it as our own. But now that I have to do it, it's so hard to really do it right.) He made an interesting point that the Holy Spirit is like being face to face with God, all the time. ALL THE TIME, face to face, YOU and GOD. After that I read some Puritan prayers about the Holy Spirit. Obviously, I've been having good times with the thought.
This whole post is the makings of a 10 page paper. But without all the connecting paragraphs, thoughts, and quotes, it may seem like they really have nothing to do with each other...that's slightly frustrating. But I'll try to refrain from (and prevent any possible joy to my Writing the Essay professor) the thought that I wish I could write this paper...that's just ridiculous, Xaris, really!
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