Love Those...

But I tell you who hear me:

Love your enemies,

do good to those who hate you,

bless those who curse you,

pray for those who mistreat you.

If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.

If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.

Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them.

And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that.

And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full.

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.

- Jesus

This verse defines "love." According to the above, love is what you do to your enemies, not what we do to our friends. When we care for our friends, it's nice, but it can be lazy and easy, or even selfish and centered on insecurities and fear. Friend-love keeps us safe. You know - I like him, he likes me, we like each other, no one risks looking stupid, no one will judge, no one will get hurt. Practically risk free.

But Jesus says that love is what we do when we risk everything. Even "pagans" like people who have something to offer them. Even "pagans" like people that won't potentially hurt them or humiliate them. But to love someone with no net to catch you? Real love, that goes out to people that will never be able to love us back?

Jesus didn't hand out Precious Moments figurines on sidewalks. This is hard as nails. What kind of person would demand that  we risk everything emotionally for people who don't have our best interests at heart? Who would ask for 100% emotional investment where we might never reap the benefits? Who asks us to sacrifice it all for jackasses, snobs, and gossips?

Religion ain't for the faint of heart.

Three Days Left and Nothing to Say

I only have three days left of this blog challenge and I have absolutely nothing to say. Well, I have lots to say. I shan't say it all.

Half of it's repetitive.  I don't usually think about "new things", I just dwell on the old things in different ways for weeks and weeks until somehow it starts to make sense to me, or starts to actually affect my life. There is nothing new under the sun. Or in my brain.

A third of it is entirely inappropriate for a public blog. You know the drill - 14 year old girls sobbing their emotive, enraged, heartbroken, depressed, hyper selves over cyberspace... No, I'm not heartbroken, enraged and depressed, but sometimes my moods go there and there's really no sense or propriety in blogging when in that state of mind.

The rest? Undeveloped, too lazy to think about thoughts and poems that I've never taken the time to think about sufficiently and probably never will.

Three days to go and I can't spit out a blog post?!?? I made it 27 days and I can't go on for three more??!?

Well, if I did write a blog post, here's what it would probably be.

"Sin is what makes us love Jesus, so even though we'll never reach the end of the road, we should relinquish all control and learn that it's not the end result but the process of knowing him that is important. SOB SOB I'M SO IMPERFECT I'LL NEVER BE LIKE JEEEESUS!!!"

Happy? (Thanksgiving!)

Treadmill Morality

Isn't it interesting that we either spend our life cultivating goodness or badness? There is no in between. Either we're getting better or worse - there's really no such thing as moral stagnation.

I've Been Thinking, Overthinking...

All your friends will laugh at you if you switch majors... again.

The reason that I left Humanities was because smart people made fun of me and looked down on me because humanities isn't a "real" major.

You're only quitting the major because you're lazy and don't want to work hard or think hard.

I only switched into philosophy because I was looking for an "identity" as a philosophy major, not because of philosophy itself at all.

You don't like the responsibility of running Socratic Society, you don't like the pressure of professors knowing you and expecting you to succeed, you don't like having to have relationships with your peers in the department, so you're running away.

I hate every single one of my philosophy classes this semester!

You are just bored of thinking hard - the novelty of college has worn of and you're getting intellectually lazy. Start doing the homework and maybe the classes will be more interesting.

I have been sitting in my existentialism class all semester listening in on the poetry class next door wishing that I was in it instead.

And you spent your first semester wishing you were in English classes, your second wishing for History classes, your third wishing for Humanities classes, and your fourth wishing for Philosophy classes. So what else is new?

I really love thinking about important things, but philosophy doesn't do that like I thought it would. I thought we would talk about meaning and truth and beauty and instead we are talking about analytic vs. synthetic and a priori knowledge and bullcrap techno-jargon.

This has nothing to do with philosophy or humanities or anything - you are just perpetually unsatisfied with everything you do, and you always will be, and until you hunker down and stick with something through the good and bad time, you will always be an eternally bored, flighty student of nothingness.

I don't want to spend 4,000 dollars a semester to take classes that I hate.

You really don't want to spend 4000 dollars a semester to reinforce unhealthy attitudes and work ethics that you'll spend the rest of your life trying to unmake.

Doesn't God want me to be happy?

Don't you believe that God knows what will make you happy better than you do?

I want to write a thesis on Dostoevsky, not on theistic existentialism.

Quitter!

I feel intellectually raped in these classes, I am overthinking everything, these philosophy classes encourage and reward the most unhealthy tendency in my life - thinking without conclusion.

GOD SAYS STAY!

Excuse me...you are very loud and all...but how do I know that you are God?

Oh, the Places You'll Go...

Courtesy of Dr. Seuss.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you'll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

What William Wallace Never Told Us...

Freedom is responsibility.

Us

Isn't it weird that what we call "us" and our "personality" is so dependant on sufficient sleep, proper vitamins, lots of sunlight, exercise, and a perfect deluge of other factors?

Or is it weird that we only like to call "us" what we are, all other factors being perfect? ("This isn't really me - I didn't get enough sleep last night... I'm not usually ___, it's just winter.... Sorry I'm so cranky, it's that time of month") 

The state of "all other factors being perfect" is a rare one. I think I'll have to resign myself to the fact that who I am when I'm malnourished, sleep deprived, November living and PMSing is just as much "me" as the me that wakes up on a sunny June morning after 10 hours of sleep.

FYI - I don't like November.

Love is Not A Pretty Feeling

I get home from school. Had a longish day. Some good, some nasty, some lazy, some whatever. I left school frustrated, feeling very overwhelmed for my campus and the church and feeling so useless and sinful but wanting to do something, to be part of God's movement, to serve Him in a big way right here on campus but seeing no way, no place to do it. I prayed for open doors, to see what He wants, to do what He wants - there is somewhere, something that I should be doing here and I can't see it.

So with all these desires to pursue God and be God's and serve God and be holy and all that messing around in my brain...

My mom gets home. And says, "I listened to R.C. Sproul on the radio. He was talking about capitalism and how God says..."

And I blew up at her!

Bam!

"Butdon'tyouseethatthechurchneedstogetoutofthepoliticalrealmandwhoarewetomakethesepolicydecisionswhenwe'resupposedtobefollowingjesusandinsteadwe'relookingforpowerandwhataboutmaterialismthiscountryisacesspoolandiamdisgustedbytheculturethatclaimsthat..."

I am a self-righteous, conceited, condescending idealistic snotty Jesus freak!

God says to serve Him here. So, OK, I want that to mean "go door to door to frats; preach the word outside of the library; pray for revival". But what it really means is "Love your neighbor as yourself."

"But who is my neighbor?"

Your mother. Love your mother. For pities sake. If you can't love your wonderful, Godly mother who you sometimes disagree with about politics and the church and a Christian life but who you ultimately share Jesus Christ with - who the hell do you plan on loving?!?

Get serious, Laura.

At the Sink

Tonight I had the most meaningful experience that I've had all month.

I washed the dishes.

It felt real and right and yes it's silly because some people have to wash the dishes three times a day and chores are normal and it's like when duchesses used to have little gardens to play in so that they could pretend to be the laity for an hour because it was so "quaint." Well, it wasn't really that. It was just real. I was doing something. The dishes needed to be washed. My mom cooked dinner and I was home for the first time in a long time for dinner, and so I did the dishes and my mom got to play piano and my dad watched the end of whatever football game was on.

I don't remember the last time I felt so useful and busy and happy. Perhaps this is a little too Heideggerian, infusing everyday life with meaning... but every day life has meaning.

Maybe academia is just too removed from reality. Maybe it's too far removed from being human, which is doing and acting and fixing and folding laundry (eugh, yes, i need to do that after I finish this post... we'll see how meaningful that is...) and painting the house and making your own clothes and bringing casseroles to the lady next door and growing your own food and making things and needing to make things to survive.

Maybe it's not just academia that is too far removed from reality. Computers and supermarkets and malls and eBay and Pandora and cars and hairdressers mean that none of us ever have to do anything. Ever. We just buy things. And sit. We don't need to make our own music or cook our own food or even go anywhere on our own two feet.

It's easier, sure. But the easier something is, the less it matters. And so life gets easier and easier, and matters less and less.

But Jesus, I LIKE Arbor Mist...

Jesus, I don't understand.

You call me away from small and weak and silly things to love big and beautiful things.

But I don't have a taste for your things yet.

I like Oreos and Arbor Mist and McDonald's.

You're offering me gourmet - European chocolate, $100 dollar wine, caviar - but Jesus -

I don't really like it that much.

I know it's better.

It just tastes nasty.

So how am I supposed to survive in the interim?

You are calling me away from my cheap substitutes.

But I don't like the real things yet.

So here, now, will nothing satisfy?

Will nothing make me happy?

Will I just have to wait here, McDonald's forbidden but caviar repugnant?

I know that eventually, your food will satisfy me much deeper than anything I've ever eaten.

But if I can’t eat what delights me now, and what I ought to eat doesn’t delight me yet, then there's nothing left to delight in - and how can I do this without delight?

It's the Process, Stupid

A + B = C
Turn L on Route 16, second house on R
Laundry washed and folded.
Completed papers due on my desk at the beginning of class.
"Welcome to the 4000fter club"
complete, finish, end, finale, wrap up, destination, goal, final, conclusion, purpose meaning reason

Everything I do is so that I can be done. Everything I do is so that I will win. So that I will have accomplished something. Everything is centered on the finish line, on the completed product, on success, on what will happen at the end.

The end doesn't matter.

"I am not leading you to An End, I am leading you to Me."

Maybe I will never be "successful" or "complete" important things. Maybe I will not see the "finish line" that I want to imagine. Maybe all that He is calling me to is Himself. And right here, right now, halfway up the trail, the research incomplete, with the "end result" nowhere in sight, He is telling me that he is here.

And since He is here, then I need to be here, as well.

Jesus Looked on Him... and Loved Him

You know the passage where Christ meets the "rich young ruler"? What we remember is that Christ tells him to give up everything that he had. What we forget is that at first, when the rich young ruler asked how to get into heaven, Christ didn't even mention money or lifestyle. He just told him to follow the commandments - and only after the man said that he already followed all the commandments did Christ add one final, purifying command.

Was the young man hypocritical? Was he lying when he said he followed all the commandments?

I don't think so, because right after the man claims this massive accomplishment, it says that "Jesus looked on him and loved him." Jesus wasn't dissatisfied with the man's claim that he had obeyed all the commandments since he was a boy. He looked at him - and loved him.

Are we skipping a step? We want to serve God in massive ways that involve us giving up everything we have and following Him, but we are only listening to the final words of Christ to the rich man. We have never heard the beginning of the conversation. 

I think that before I start talking about giving up all my money and moving to Africa, I need to listen to Christ about the every day things.

"You shall not murder ('and whoever is angry at a brother or sister is guilty of murder'), you shall not commit adultery ('and whoever looks at a woman lustfully with his eyes is guilty of adultery'), you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your mother and father."

And may I one day be able to say, "Teacher - all these I have kept since I was a child." And hear Christ say, finally - "One thing you lack - give all you have to the poor and follow Me."

The Blind Man Said..

Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"

Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see."

"Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Why does Christ ask the blind man what he wants?

Why is it "faith" for the blind man to state the obvious?

What am I refusing to ask Jesus to cure because I can't imagine life without it?

When Jesus asks me "what do you want me to do for you?" - what is my answer?

And when He cures me - do I regret asking him because life was at least predictable before?

What does faith even mean in this verse?

Faith is wanting to be healed.

Like Minded Folk

It's very dangerous to surround yourself with people that agree with you. You usually end up thinking about how wonderful you and your ideas are after an evening with like minded folk. I scratch your back, you scratch mine - we can all sit in a nice circle and think nice thoughts about how clever we all are, and how much fun it is to be us and to be thinking such wise thoughts.

Come to think of it, why do we even talk about anything with anyone that we agree with? How is it possible that we spend half an hour discussing an issue that we both are in perfect accord about? Isn't it to hear our own voice, and to hear another voice validate us right back?

Why are we so afraid of dissent? Not arguing, but dissent - disagreement, differing opinion, discussion. We all migrate to groups of people that dress like us, think like us, worship like us - I don't buy that it's just because we want to feel "comfortable." We want to feel good. We want to like ourselves. We don't want our outlook or our perspective to be challenged because- it's uncomfortable, and because it means admitting that we are not right. We are wrong. We make stupid judgment calls and dumb choices. Putting our lives under the light of a different view means that some nasty dirt will show up. But if everyone around me has the same dirt - maybe the spotlight will never find it and I can stay comfy and protected by the agreement that I find myself surrounded by.

I shall not just be an echo chamber for my friends' ideas! I shall not use my friends as mirror images! I shall open up, be challenged, stifle my sensitivity, and listen and reflect and be made uncomfortable by the spotlight that reflection insists on shining into the darkest, dirtiest corners of my opinionated brain. So there.

I Call Foul

I'm overtired. I have a headache. I have homework. My alarm is set for 6:30AM.

And I have to write a blog post?!?

Well, I made it for a whole week. That's got to count for something.

All right, the clock is set for five minutes: here is what I am thinking about for the next five minutes.

Isn't modern culture funny? We drive up, tell someone what we want to eat, they make it, and one minute and thirty-four seconds later, we drive away with food. Strange.

Isn't modern music funny? Every single song on the radio is about love or relationships. But not every movie is about that. So why is the music industry dominated by romance but not all the other art industries? And is that really all that we think about, love? No wonder we need so many depression meds.

Isn't modern fashion funny? Fashion used to come and go within 30-40 year periods - or better still, ancient fashion, which went in 100 year periods. (Think Greek art...) Now, something is in style for one season. The boots you wear this fall cannot be worn next fall. And the color you buy this November cannot be worn in June. So quickly time moves!

Isn't Christmas funny? I went to Wal-Mart today and they were playing Christmas carols. Wow.

Aren't friendships funny? You can't love someone too much or they replace God. You can't love someone too little or they don't matter. You can't love someone for yourself or you become manipulative in order to get what you want. You can't love someone for who you want them to be or you like them less and less as they continue to fall short of your imaginary vision of them. Finding the line is hard enough. Then you have to walk it.

Isn't sleep funny? No one knows why we need it. Science can't explain it. Technically, our bodies shouldn't need it. But we do. And without it, we can't memorize, focus, or have any emotional stability.

Good night.

"You Don't Have to Do It Justice... You Just Have to Do It!"

If I start writing now
When I'm not really rested
It could upset my thinking
Which is no good at all.
I'll get a fresh start tomorrow
And it's not due till Wednesday
So I'll have all of Tuesday
Unless something should happen.
Why does this always happen,
I should be outside playing
Getting fresh air and sunshine,
I work best under pressure,
And there'll be lots of pressure
If I wait till tomorrow
I should start writing now.
But I if I start writing now
When I'm not really rested
It could upset my thinking
Which is
No good at all.
- You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown

Here I sit. Seven pages due on Monday. So far? A paragraph.

I should just start... I can't start until I know exactly what I'm going to write. I don't know exactly what I'm going to write. I'll never know exactly what I want to write. I should just start... Oh look, Facebook!... I'm thirsty. If I don't fill up my water bottle than I'll just be distracted until I do. OK, compromise. Fill the bottle... I have to go to the bathroom.... Just one page! Just the first page! OK, OK, OK, thesis - check. Points, check. This is a really bad thesis. I should fix it... Oh, look, Facebook!... This room is really hot. Maybe I should go the library. I always focus better at the library.... Is my cell phone turned off? Should it be turned on? What if X/Y/Z calls?... PANIC! PANIC! PANIC! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WRITE THE PAPER WRITE WRITE WRITE!!!... Oh, look, Facebook!... I'm such a procrastinator. I wonder if there are any ways to combat procrastination. Google: procrastination. Hmmm. Good info here... If you don't write it now, you'll just have more to do tomorrow. If you work on it now, you'll be done by Sunday. If you put it off it'll just be harder. Therefore... Oh look, Facebook!...

It's going to be a long weekend.

The Animal Whisperer... of DEATH!

The Snape-mobile is a death trap for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

First, there is the assortment of squirrels and chipmunks. They barely count. Darned things are suicidal. Way to stop in the middle of the road and then turn around to dive under my wheel. Clever, little creeps. Now I'm stuck with the guilt of your little act of hari-kari.

And then there was the mouse. In all fairness, the Snape-mobile did not kill the mouse. I think. All I know is, I got into the van with a friend, our delicious summer ice cream cones in hand, and there, sprawled underneath my CD player, his little pink paws stuck up in the air, was a dead mouse. That was so, so not okay. All I could picture was a whole family of them nesting in the back, and one day one of them would leap onto the brake... just as I went to slam it with a bare foot. I could almost feel the furry little body being crushed under my toes... Yeah, that one screwed me up a little while.

And then there was Mr. Bird! Smack! On the windshield! As I was listening to the Beatles! And instead of hitting the windshield and sliding off, he gets stuck under the windshield wiper! No crap. And I'm driving on, mesmerized by his little body splatted on my window... So I had to pull over, pick his limp, bloodied body off my car with a stick, wipe the blood (!!!) off my windshield with a tissue, and continue my trip to the soundtrack of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". I thought that was was as bad as it could get.

I was wrong.

Last night the Snape-mobile claimed another forest victim.

BAM! Deer under the car!

No, I did not hit the deer. I ran over the deer. (It was a very little deer.) 9:45 on 125, 55 mph, pitch black, bright headlights, and a dark shape that barely is there before WHAM! Left tire up, THUNK, and then I was past it. Yeah. I screamed. Really loudly...

The Snape-mobile - the Pied Piper of the Road...

By the way, if you're still waiting for the spiritual component of this post... I'll get back to you on that. Maybe.

ACTION?!?! part II: Wherein God Tells Me To Shut Up

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'" -Matthew 25:21

If I get one more answer to a complaint, worry, or question, I'll go crazy. Time to admit that my questions are just a smokescreen for my own reluctance to get up and start obeying. If I pretend that I don't understand than I don't have to actually act on anything... but now I stand with no excuse.

Lord, help me to be faithful with the few things that you have given me - with the boring and bland, all the daily sacrifices that seem to add up to nothing much, every moment of obedience that never seems to equal revolutionary trust... give me faithfulness as a college student with nothing more radical to give to but a research paper and some relationships.

"Wherever you turn, to your right or to your left, you will hear a voice behind you saying 'This is the way. Walk in it." - Isaiah

Lights, Camera... Action? Helloooo? ACTION?!?!

I think that sometimes I sin just because I'm bored. I do things I don't really want to do, I act in ways I didn't mean to, I give up on battles that should be easy... because otherwise... it's just... life as usual. Doing the right thing every day isn't hard... but its sameness is draining.

True confessions of a self-proclaimed drama queen - whenever there's no battle and no emotional rush life is so grey and pale and monotonous that sometimes I - invent a battle. It's not usually conscious - "Oh, woe is me, I am so very bored, I ought to sink into depression and whine to a friend because otherwise the sky shall be grey and my life shall be a pallate of differing shades of brown!". But I feel myself getting antsy, spoiling for a fight even if I won't win it, just to shake things up.

It's hard coming off of massive spiritual gains and massive spiritual battles. You have radical highs and lows, you fight important battles and sometimes you lose and sometimes you win, but you never wake up and feel like luke warm oatmeal. Things are real, God is real, temptation is real, everything is painted in such harsh and sharp colors that life may suck but it's never in danger of just being ... bland. It's like hiking. I don't mind the steep hiking as much (well, unless there's ice...) as the steady uphill that is so... boring... and hard...

So rather than be bored, you make up a battle. Or you pretend that you're still fighting an old battle. Or you succumb to the old sins because than at least something will be happening.

Adventure! Action! Tears and laughter! Sword fights! Damsels in distress!

Yes, this is where God is calling me. I do believe that my spiritual growth in "steady uphill" is stronger and more lasting than the icy-cliff-face growth. But oh God, it's so painfully - boring.

Get Out of My Head

I just really want to stop trying so frikken hard. I'm sick of trying to look good, and trying to say the right things, and trying to get good grades, and trying to make the right people like me, and trying to write wise words, and trying to Be Someone and trying to Do Something Important, and trying to impress my best friend, and trying to have everyone see the Me that I've never seen but somehow believe that if I can fool someone else into seeing it than somehow it'll be true.

Whence came all this insecurity? Whence came all this acting?

But on the other hand, I want to be good and right and intelligent which are good things to want, no? To want to be mature, and wise, and all that great stuff. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be better than one is, no? Or no?

But on the other hand, there is such a difference between wanting to be wise and wanting people to think that you're wise, between wanting to be intelligent and wanting to get good grades, between wanting to love Jesus and wanting to be a person that loves Jesus!

But on the other hand, I'm afraid that if I stop looking at myself and trying to fix myself that what I'll end up with will be a slovenly, lazy, silly, immature, unintelligent recycling bin of shredded paper. If I stop trying... than that's what I'll be. Becuase I see that my non-striving-self is selfish and immature and ridiculous. So when I am "trying to get X to like me," I am usually recognizing some wisdom or maturity or selflessness in someone else that I wish I could have, and I'm drawn to X, but the truth is that I'm not really the kind of person that X hangs out with... so I try. I try to be someone that they'll like. I act and pretend and usually end up looking pretty silly.

What am I supposed to do?

Humph, I hear the answer. (I hate it when I hear the answer to my questions...) Stop looking inside, stop looking at yourself, LOOK UP! and LOOK AROUND! You're sick of the voices inside your head? Well, stop listening to them. You aren't sick of trying, you're sick of trying for the wrong thing. Stop trying for the image, start trying for the reality. Stop trying to "be the kind of person who loves..." and start trying "to love." Stop trying to "be the kind of person who is intelligent" and start learning. Stop looking in and look up.

But on the other hand...

Or is there really no "other hand" after the command to "look up"?

The Invisible Elephant in the Room

Major lesson to Christians - you never, ever, ever know your audience.

Make a comment about the right and good Christian conservative views - the kid in the front row is just starting to check out Christianity, and he's voting for Obama.

Talk casually to a group of "close friends" about the violent, abhorrent murder of babies that women commit every day - one of them might have had an abortion.

Discuss reaching out to the "gay community" even though when you see two girls kissing it "grosses you out" - someone in your prayer group may be struggling with same-sex attraction.

We assume so much in casual discussion, but the truth is that we don't know who we are talking to, and we never will. There is never a "safe place" to talk casually or flippantly about sin that you assume is "far away" from the people you're talking to. There's never a "safe place" to demean or mock a differing political or philosophical view.

Stop assuming that everyone has the same past and ideas and sins and struggles. No, don't gloss over sin. But be aware that the moment that you say that "girls just don't struggle with pornography," the girl next to you is caught in it. When you say that "depression just means you aren't relying on God to give you joy," the faithful servant of Christ across the table has been fighting depression and loving Jesus for all his life.

A little less assuming wouldn't go amiss.

NaNoWriMo

So it's National Novel Writing Month.

I'm not writing a novel.

But I am going to try and post one blog post a day for the month of November... just for the heck of it. We'll see how interesting a blog post written under duress can be, but no matter how innane they get, I am going to do one a day this month. We'll see...

Mail

Dear God,
What is the point of my life?
Love, Laura

Dear Laura,

Love, God.

Dear God,
I wish that you'd answer my question.
Love, Laura

Wisdom of a Took and the Torah

I always sort of wondered what Pip meant in Lord of the Rings when he goes, "the closer you are to danger, the further you are from harm." What does that even mean?

So last week, we finished studying Judaism in my History of World Religions class. We learned a lot about the "Talmud" and "oral Torah", or the sets of interpretations and rules created to help people "implement the Torah into their every day life without inadvertently disobeying it." For instance, the Torah says that "you shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk." The Talmud developed a massive amount of regulations around this passage - it forbids cooking any meat in any milk, forbids eating them at the same meal, and forbids putting dairy on the same table as meat. This because you never know where you bought the meat, you never know where the milk came from, and you might accidentally disobey the Torah and cook a kid in it's mothers milk unless you "put a fence around the Torah." That is the goal of the oral Torah - to "put a fence around the Torah" and help people live purely by not allowing them the possibility of sin.

I like fences. I put up a lot of fences in my life. Usually I have a "good intention" - to stop from sinning. First off, that's wrong because I'm confusing "not sinning" with "following God," and they aren't always synonymous. I can be "not doing" all sorts of things and I'm not necessarily walking closer with God. Secondly, I'm focusing entirely on myself and my sin rather than God. Thirdly, I'm forgetting that God is the one who protects me from sin, not me. But most importantly... I am so focused on my sin, on my failures, on the danger of being close to sin, that I've failed to realize that I'm choosing control and safety over dependence on and intimacy with Him. Because either we will be in control, or God will be in control, but we cannot both be in control. My white picked fences (or barbed wire fences...) aren't about holiness, they're about power and me attempting to keep a pleasant image of myself intact. Any chance that I will cease to "look good" and "act good" and I get nervous. But God calls me to those places where a trip and a fall is only one step away, and when I fall He picks me up, and when I panic because of the danger, I turn to Him.

"The closer you are to danger, the further you are from harm." So the higher up the tightrope is, and the closer to the edge your house is built, and the darker the sky is on the night that you set sail... the more you look for Him. Risk! Strike out! Live where the only hope is Him.

No building fences around the Torah, Laura-girl. Get close to danger. Don't build a fence - let Him make you a sword.

Question

"Free from what? As if that mattered to Zarathustra!
But your eyes should tell me brightly: free for what?"
- Thus Spake Zarathustra, Nietzsche

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more ‘successful’ people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, story-tellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it – David Orr

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.
- Isaiah 55:8

Where do we go when God frees us? What do we do with our freedom?

What is success? How to strive for holiness without inadvertently striving for success or achievement?

What are we doing here?

"Glorify God"
"The Great Commission"
"Delight in Christ"
"Be Transformed by the Renewing of Your Mind"
"Love the Lord Your God"
"Love Your Neighbor As Yourself"
"Etc"
"Etc"
"Etc"

What is the meaning of life? The final meaning? What big goal are all the little choices pointing towards?

A girl is told that her purpose is to "win." She prepares for a cross country marathon by eating lots of carbs and training seven hours a day. The night before the competition she learns that it is actually a beauty pageant.

How can we know if our choices are right unless we hold them up to a final destination?

And what is it?

Walk the Line

I hate balance! I hate happy mediums and grey areas and moderation.

If something is bad it should go. If something is good it should stay. Money and friendships and school and food and music and movies - can't we always just employ the Jesus admonition and cut off that darned right hand and throw it away?

Sometimes, sure, God tell us to completely throw away something bad. I love doing that. It's so clean and swift and yes it's often painful (yes, there was the fall that I didn't watch any movies because I was going to figure out entertainment and values - no fun at all) but the problem is that it's results oriented, perfection oriented, me oriented, and usually useless in creating a day to day walk with Jesus.

Balance insists on a day to day walk with Jesus. Because like Luther's drunk on a horse, we are always falling off one side or another. And the only way to get back up on the horse after tipping off is to ask for a hand up.

I really, really hate balance. It's so easy to step over the lines because you are walking next to the lines every day. I hate stepping over lines.

And so this post circles back to the same dead horse that I have been laboring over in my head and on this blog for the past two months - it's not about my perfection, it's not about my rules, it's about being with Him and growing in Him. I hate stepping over lines so much that I'd prefer not to step over lines than be with Jesus. That's silly.

But I still hate balance!

Dancing

Swing dancing is a ridiculous thing. Unplanned, unculcated, unrehearsed, unintelligible. The lead is completely in control. His job is to dance and take the follow with him. The follow? We try to look as nice as possible in a state of confusion, instability, spontaneity, and terror. At any second the lead could pull a move that we don't know, or twirl us into another dancer, or lose the beat, or kick us, or drop us. It's horrible, and we're even expected to keep on smiling in this giddy craziness. Supposedly it gets fun, and following becomes natural and easy, and living on the edge of control becomes relaxing. Supposedly.

To follow is to be hyper-aware of the pressure on your hand and your back. It is to totally let go and be totally focused at the same time. It's silly. There's no Plan B because there's no Plan A. Planless and controlless, the girls are thrown into the arms of men that are generally entirely unprepared for the level of power that is being handed to them in the form of a girl in masking taped Converse. Our excuse for refusing to follow is that the guys don't know what they're doing - the truth is that nobody likes to give up that amount of control to anyone, no matter how responsible, prepared, and omniscient the Lead happens to be.

-----

I want to follow God but I don't want to be A Follow. I want to go where He leads, but I don't picture a dance but a hiking trip - God marks out the pathway, and I study the map and highlight any trails that look dangerous and time how long it'll take me to walk a mile uphill and pack adequate food and leave on time so that the sun doesn't go down before I get there.

But if life is a dance, then there is no map or sign or backpack or even a watch. Following God is different than being A Follow to God's Lead. To be A Follow means by definition that you just - don't - know. To be A Follow means having that connection between you and The Lead that allows you to go wherever he goes on a split seconds notice, even if it's not what you expected. Complete spontaneity, complete submission, and complete recklessness. You just can't know what God is going to do, so asking Him and trying to figure it out means that you lose the connection in the dance. All you can and should do is to focus on the pressure on your hand and trust that He won't swing you into another dancer, and He won't lose the rhythm, and He won't throw a move at you that you don't know or you can't learn.

"Religion should not so much be thought out as danced out." - R.R. Marett

Brother Lawrence and Singularity

We are made for God, and for Him, alone; He cannot therefore take it ill that we forsake all, even ourselves, to find our all in Him. In God we shall see more clearly what we lack than we could in ourselves by all our introspection; which in reality is but the remnant, unexpelled, of self-love, which, under the guise of zeal for our own perfection, keeps our gaze down on self instead of raised to God....But having given myself wholly to God, to make what satisfaction I could for my sins, and for love of Him having renounced all that is not His, I have come to see that my only business is to live as though there were none but He and I in the world." - "Practice of the Presence of God", Brother Lawrence

Is that even... legal? What about the starving children? What about my next door neighbor? And how the heck is that even possible?

"No man can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and be devoted to the other, or love the one and hate the other. You cannot serve both God and ____" - Christ

Singularity... Kierkegaard wrote a book called "Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing" (yes, that is a massive title.) The Psalmist asks God to give him an "undivided heart."

But how to be undivided in a world that we are called to engage and love?

"From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away" - Paul

Singularity... the soul undivided, the mind focused, how does it all fit together?

Delight

Funny thing. Every year or so I got this verse stuck in my head: "...and he shall give you the desire of your heart." I always forget the beginning. I always try and guess and remember what the claus is - what exactly do I have to do to get these desires?!? - but in the end have to look it up. The wierdest part is, I look it up, am puzzled, can't believe that that's really the verse, am confused, and then forget about it. And a few years later my mind starts saying "... and he shall give you the desire of your heart" again, and I remember that it's weird and whacky and that I forgot last time... but I still have to look it up, because whaddayaknow, I've forgotten again.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and.

Delight.

Are you sure, Lord? Not sacrifice? Not serve? Not be good? Not accept Christ? Not pray every day? Not destroy sin? Not obey the Bible?

DELIGHT?!?

Are you kidding?

Not Nice People

Manipulation is a funny, funny thing. I never used to think about it until... I'd catch myself doing it. Excuse me?!?! That's what mean girls do. That's what wicked witches and ugly stepsisters and jealous rejected lovers do. Not nice people.

It's weird to think about because it's never talked about. It's a deceptive thing and a lying thing, and that seems to be one of the biggest taboos in Christian sin confession. Prayer group time, what will everyone share? "I'm sleeping with my boyfriend... I'm struggling with pride... I've been really gossiping lately... I've been looking for revenge in a relationship" - everything comes up but never deceit or lying. Is it because we're ashamed, or because we lie to ourselves just as well as everyone else? If it's the first, it's understandable - "please pray for me, I've been using my emotions to manipulate my boyfriend into treating me in certain ways, and I've been casually deceiving him in order to use him to make me feel good." Yeah. That goes over well. But I'm more convinced that it's the latter - that we don't even know that our emotions are halfway manufactured in order to get an emotional payback.

There's a certain level that that's normal and okay. You're so dead tired, and you just want a hug, and you feel like you're going to burst into tears - and you see a good friend and you let yourself burst into tears because you want to be comforted, and if you don't show that you're hurting, you can't be helped. But there's a difference between showing what you're feeling and getting the natural benefits of that in a close relationship, and manufacturing or extenuating emotions in order to get benefits that your actual state of mind doesn't warrant. You've had a long day, and you want someone to sit and listen to you talk, but instead of saying "I've had a long day - I need to talk" you create imaginary problems and emotional difficulties and drama until you almost or entirely believe it yourself, and then present your friend with those traumas because that will get you the emotional support from a friend - support that you don't technically "deserve."

I only noticed the kinds of ways that I try and get my way "illegally" recently... but how long has it been going on? Do women just do this naturally? Cry a little, twist the truth a little, avert the eyes a little, use emotions to get what argument won't give us? Do we honestly think that all the ways that we use emotions are truly just our emotions, and do we really not see that we are buying love or time or praise or whatever else we're looking for with cheap tricks?

The problem is that once you see that you're doing a little dance for a cookie, you decide to stop dancing... but then you miss the cookie. Cookieless and forlorn, you wonder what was so wrong with shedding a tear here and there....

Sigh. I want a cookie.

Crutches, Anyone?

Saying that God is a crutch for the weak is like saying that food is a crutch for the hungry or that relationships are a crutch for the lonely.

Sunday Lettering

a letter i sent to a friend about our strange reluctance to read the bible. hope she doesn't mind me sharing.

you're asking yourself why you aren’t reading your bible. isn’t it strange that that is your question? the question assumes that it’s normal to read your bible. it assumes spending time with god is a natural phenomenon. it’s like gravity – it’s normal, and any time it does happen it shouldn’t be questioned and any time it doesn’t happen there needs to be an explanation.

we don't just repent of not spending time with god, but we're PUZZLED by it, and we ask why, and we are "tormented" by the fact that we aren't spending time with him. why the torment? why the questioning? why do we ask "why"? because there is an incongruity. What we imagine ourselves capable of, and who we imagine ourselves to be, is incompatible with how we act. if we saw ourselves clearly, than we would never ask "why". We would SEE why. But we ask why because we see ourselves in one particular way and our actions contradict it. "if i am like this... then why do i do this..."

why are we always surprised when we discover ourselves doing something sinful or horrible? why do we reprimand ourselves, why do we swear at ourselves and hate ourselves... unless we expect better. we expect ourselves to be good people. we expect our natural state to be doing the right thing. we don't really think that we're capable of really bad sins.

the truth is, no matter what we may say about natural sin - we don’t believe it. our shock and horror every time we fall short shows that we don’t really see ourselves as we really are. what are we?

we're NATURALLY BAD. we are broken. we are sinful. everything in us, every single piece of us, does not want to come out in the light and be seen. our natural state is doing the wrong thing. our normal behavior is perverted. why would a screwed-up sinner-girl want to spend time with god?!? every natural, normal, inborn reaction revolts. and so we don't feel "drawn" to read our bibles even though after we do it feels wonderful, and even as we do it's like stepping outside after a year of living in a basement.

so we're shocked that we don't want to be with god. what do we expect? what is our picture of ourselves?

we don't really know how deep our sin goes. maybe we never really will. but i think it goes a lot deeper and runs stronger and is more natural to our behavior than anything else.

this isn't catching how i felt it. it's not an idea or a logical thought as much as a a perspective change. switching how we see ourselves. if we're shocked at our sinful behavior than we are still, in a sense, trying to bring something worthwhile to god when in fact - we have nothing. until our sin stops shocking us, our perspective on ourselves is skewed. shock says - "how can it be?!??! i never expected this!" how can we not expect sin?!??

anyway.

Performance Pressure

GOD IS FINALLY GOING TO FIGURE OUT THAT I'M NEVER GOING TO BE FIXED AND WHEN HE FIGURES THAT OUT HE'LL LEAVE.

Worst fear right there. I'm afraid that if I keep rebelling and if transformation keeps taking so long because I'm either lazy or immature... then I'll stop making forward progress at all, and He'll leave. He'll quit. If I don't keep my butt moving towards some kind of "goodness" than He'll leave me to do it on my own. It's like some insane school progress report - no matter how stupid Jimmy is, "as long as he makes progress the, the school will continue to support him academically" - but if it looks like he's coming to any kind of a halt... he's out. It's not where he is that's the problem, it's the fact that he's not on his way to anywhere else. I usually feel that way about God. As long as I'm moving, no matter how slowly, He's there for me. If I ever just stop...

Then today I realized that that's the stupidist thing I've ever thought.

"Of course I'll never leave you. I died for you."

God died. God was killed so that I could be transformed. If my ultimate transformation and redemption is worth that much to Him before I was actually inherently worth anything, why would He quit after He's made the investment? How completely stupid to think that He would make a commitment like that to me, a commitment that involved huge sacrifice on His part, and then back out, ever, because of anything. He's in this for the long haul. Yes, sometimes I feel like I've stopped moving or that I'm moving backwards. But God was willing to invest His life for me so that I could be eventually His, and so because of that truth I'm willing to bet that even when I'm going backwards and sideways and upsidedown, He's not ever going to stop working in me and on me.

Whew.

The Tricks of the Trade

There's interesting paradox that has really bothered me over the last year or so. Whenever temptation is particularly strong, and I am particularly "weak," and temptation seems to be pulling out all its big guns on me, I'm much more able to withstand it and come out strong on the other end. But whenever temptation isn't particularly strong, or even particularly tempting, more of a vague, floating, half-baked idea that doesn't even seem to interest me much, and I'm not even feeling drawn to it.. I almost always end up completely annihilated.

This puzzled me. I used to say that the level of attack always was directly related to my willpower to fight it - if it was a massive operation, for some reason I always pulled equally massive amounts of willpower out of God knows where and usually made it out the other end. The lower level attacks, the ones that didn't bank on desire so much as boredom or lethargy, barely even showed a gun before I threw mine down.

I think that my consciousness just doesn't go into high alert for those more covert operations. When I'm bored and when temptation is a steady, gentle, constant knocking, I don't even realize I've gotten up before I've opened the door. Or sometimes it does go into alert, but the problem is that I'm impervious to it because of that same lethargy -it's not that I want whatever particular temptation is being sold to me, but I don't want to resist, either. It's a supreme boredom with the argument itself. If I could, I'd ignore both my conscience AND temptation and just shut the door and go to sleep. Unfortunately, conscience can be ignored, but temptation can only either be fought or succumbed to.

A Kierkegaardian moment - every sin has it's root in boredom.

Pride as a Cosmic Banana Peel

Pride goes before the fall - but not as an arbitrary judgment, like "If you eat that cookie I shall send you to your room!" It's logically connected, like "if you eat that cookie you will consume more calories and, if you continue to eat cookies, you will gain weight." Gaining weight isn't the punishment of eating cookies, it's just the logical conclusion.

Falling is the logical conclusion of pride. Once you stop focusing on what you're doing - working, speaking, cleaning, playing piano - and start focusing on how well you're doing it, the natural outcome of that behavior will be a drop in the quality of your work. Once you stop focusing on the task and begin to focus on something, anything, else, you fall.

Pride goes before the fall, because standing upright requires concentration, and pride is only concerned with itself.

I Just Wanna Be A Princess...

So many beautiful clothes! So many beautiful people! Classy, earthy, indie type women who all look confident and beautiful, wandering around campus and downtown, and it just makes me want to hire a wardrobe consultant so that I, too, can be classy, earthy, and indie. My mother says I never used to be this vain. The truth is, I was, but I was confident that I was beautiful, so the vanity never showed up as insecurity until recently.

Then, sitting in downtown Dover, this wonderful lady strides out of a store, and honestly, all that I remember about her is that she had this fabulous, wild, curly brown hair that spewed out over her shoulders. She must have been middle-aged, at youngest late 30's, and she didn't see me... she was walking fast and smiling, and all of a sudden, still walking, she flung her arms out and threw her head back, and the wind was blowing her clothes and hair and she looked so damn happy that I started to smile, too. Then she saw me and looked a little sheepish, but smiled and waved, and as she walked away I told myself that "that is what I want to be like!" And then I realized that I had no idea what she was wearing. She could have been wearing a denim jumper or pants belted up at the waist or Crocs. The thing was - I didn't notice.

Paul wasn't fooling when he said that women should just let it lie about clothing. Of course we all want to be beautiful, but when we bump into real, stunning, confident beauty, we don't even notice the clothes that cover it.

Real Life Magic

When you do something incredibly sinful and selfish, and then after all the necessary repentance and horrible consequences you see something wonderful happen because of that sin... it makes you doubt things, like if the predestination thing means that God makes us sin or God doesn't stop us from sinning because something Ultimately Good will happen. This is particularly hard when you've committed some devastating piece of work that, while it was occurring, hurt you and the people around you tremendously. Just because the final outcome was "good" can't - can't -possibly mean that God orchestrated the whole fiasco. I worried over this with a friend, and she used a word that I hadn't even thought of before - redemption. Making good out of bad.

Maybe the whole idea of God "redeeming sin" means that He can create beauty out of everything, that He can transform anything, and that He is ultimately an artist who can see glory everywhere, and, once we stop trying to make Rembrandt out of mud pies, He can take the mud and breath life into it. While it is in our hands, it will always be mud. Once He takes it, He can "redeem" it - transform it, reincarnate it, magically and impossibly make something beautiful out of our worst sins.

My sin was not orchestrated by Him, thank God, in order to bless me today. But once He took my sin, He transformed it into something of unrecognizable beauty. "Redeemed."

In Case of Emergency, Activate Puddleglum

Long post today.

My favorite part in The Silver Chair (and there aren't many) is when the children and Puddleglum are captured underground, and the witch is busily placing a spell on them with the help of her magical lute and fire. She's convincing them that the only world is the world they're in now, the Underworld, and anything else they think is real from above ground was invented from smaller, "realer" things from the Underworld. “'You have seen lamps," the witch purrs, "'and so you imagined a bigger and better lamp and called it the sun. You’ve seen cats, and now you want a bigger and better cat, and it’s to so called a lion. Well, ‘tis a pretty make-believe though, to say a truth, it would suit you all better if you were younger."'

Between this logic, the lute, and the fire, everyone goes down except Puddleglum.

"But Puddleglum, desperately gathering all his strength, walked over to the fire. The he did a very brave thing. He knew it wouldn’t hurt him quite as much as it would hurt a human; for his feet (which were bare) were webbed and hard and cold-blooded like a duck’s. But he knew it would hurt him badly enough; and so it did. With his bare foot he stamped on the fire, grinding a large part of it into ashes on the flat hearth. …

“'One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “'One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if their isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.'”

Philosophy majors have it tough. There's a continual onslaught of facts and ideas in every class I walk into, and there comes a moment in every argument where I have nothing else to say. You argue every point, fight every line, and then you realize that 21 years of life has nothing on 2500 years of philosophy, and you just sit, totally defeated. One option is to start to doubt. Another option is to pout and think how wrong everyone else is, and if only they listened to you they'd be right.

The third option is to be a Puddleglum, and to let logic fall away and analysis die, and realize that there is a point where your brain will always fail you. You don't have anything left - allow yourself to have nothing left. Be wiped totally clean. There are no more proofs for God's existence, no more logically valid argument for a human soul, nothing that shows that there is morality or beauty or Truth. There's no logic left but love.

"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't an Aslan to lead it." That's not the voice of stubborn insistence, I don't think - it's the voice of pure, rock hard love, the kind of love that doesn't let go even if everything else dies. There's something to be said for being intellectually stubborn, and for refusing to see the Truth when it's presented to you. But there's also something to be said for standing on something that will always be deeper and stronger and more powerful than any brainpower we'll ever have - love. Love God, and that will hold you stronger than "believing God" ever will.

"We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God." - Paul, 1 Cor. 8:1b-3

Hoarding

Hoarding things - memories, moments of beauty, fun times, powerful Bible studies - is just trying to make every moment last because you doubt that they will be provided again. It's about fear, and it's about lack of trust.

Sparrows and Spiders

This car shopping fiasco is really started to get to me. I knew that it would be hard to trust God this summer, but I had no idea how horribly monotonous and exhausting the trusting would become. One week after another, getting excited, being disappointed, second guessing God, second guessing myself, and then starting back at the beginning. Getting back on craigslist.com the day after another car fell through is like getting out of bed at four in the morning after three hours of sleep the night before - you know you have to do it, but what you wouldn't give to roll over and sleep until nine. One of those "not again" moments. It’s hard enough to do a difficult thing once, but at least then you have the propelling power of novelty. Once difficulties become monotony it’s like a sucker punch to the gut.

Anyway, car shopping has been hard. It's been really wearing me down all summer, and the last two weeks in particular, I've been getting very on edge and panicked as the deadlines start to be real dates instead of just “in the future.”

So last night I went to the beach with my mom, and as the tide started to come in, all these nasty creepy-crawlies started to pour out of the rocks we were sitting on and swarm over us. Well, maybe "poured" is strong... Maybe there were five or six spiders and twelve-legged things in all. But they crept and crawled very enthusiastically... Anyway, they had probably been cuddling under the rocks all day, and now the water was moving up and their homes were being totally washed out. It happened every day - the little creepy-homesteads (bear with me here...) got flooded and they evacuate. At first it was kind of funny, thinking about all the potential panic in crawly land as the waters rose, every - single - day ("Honey! Quick! Grab the photo albums!") and what a big deal it seemed to them. All this panic when it's just the tide, which rises every day, all over the world. Of course, it’s big to the spiders, because if they stay, they drown. But honestly – they’re just spiders.

Then that brought me to my car. All of a sudden, I saw how small my problem is. God has been watching wars and rumors of wars for thousands of years, and He thinks that that is small in perspective of eternity... so, apparently, there goes any hope of a sympathetic ear as I panic and stress and belabor the car issue. I can try and fake it to Him, and try to convince myself that having a car is really, really important, and prove that if I don’t have a car my spiritual walk will suffer and I won’t share the Gospel and thousands of souls will perish for eternity because of my lack of faith... due to not having a car... But it’s crap and I know it. It’s just a car.
Then out of nowhere came this verse:

“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?”

Of course my car isn’t important. It’s not relevant in the historical scheme of history or even relevant to my own life in five years (or five months or five days). God acknowledges what we sometimes (rarely) realize, that every large and unbearable problem is, historically and eternally, small. “Life is more than food,” He scolds, “and your body more than clothing.”

But He still provides.

“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you."

God knows exactly what we need to hear. He knows that sometimes our problems seem huge and sometimes they seem so ridiculous and meaningless. And His comfort is not to reassure us that yes, we are the center of the universe, and that yes, our problem are giNORmus, but to smile, and tell us that yes, our problems really are as silly as the crawlies flailing out of their unstable homestead as the waters come up every day. Our problems really are as simple as lilies and sparrows. But despite this - He still provides. The size of our problem doesn't determine God's providence. His goodness does. His goodness is not limited to large populations or presidential campaigns or even to the human race. He is good because He is a good God, and that spills into sparrows and crawlies and lilies and lost cameras and broken relationships and GPAs... and cars.

"So do not worry, little flock, for it gives the Father great happiness to give you the kingdom."