while personwatching at an outdoor theater in Illinois last summer, I saw an example of what love is not, and then turned and saw that in myself.
I want to think about humility tonight so I'm reingesting what God showed me that afternoon.
Wrote:
Love is not petting someone for agreeing with your opinions, boosting your ego, making you feel right or powerful or better than any other human being.
Don't seek this self-glorification in love--you won't find it in the real thing. You don't deserve it in anything. And no one deserves to be your flunky.
Love seeks to glorify God together.
Love learns, is open to growth
is humble.
Love for God's created ones is not buying and settling up for yourself first, living in comfort and building up your identity, prettying yourself and priding yourself on your opinions, tastes.
Humility is deep, deep, deeper still...
Look, see the danger of priding yourself on understanding, or on having opinions, of trying to "make something of yourself"
only God can make something of me.
subtle traps; pride is so see-through and empty.
and all beauty is found in holiness
its Source.
everywhere you see beauty, feel the tingle of tender color in a breeze, a breath, a strain
is a clue, a hint, a taste, just one hue
of the explosion, the color cloud
of the Glorious Son of God.
Monday, February 21, 2005
Saturday, February 12, 2005
generations
Was looking at some old pictures today, of my grandparents when they were newly married and in missionary training in Mexico, of my dad when he was a college kid coming out of the jungles of Bolivia to go to college in the frozen north of the U.S.. I looked at my mom's wedding book, at the program from their wedding, the songs picked, the Scriptures read. And their faces, their choices, their ways of thinking and being and treating one another... all of this got me thinking about how tremendously true it is that our choices have untraceable ripples.
The way my grandparents chose to live, chose to be within their family, their personalities and ways of looking at the world... these things have permeated my life through my father. They're a part of who I am too, or they've shaped me to resist them. They've shaped so many things. Who I want to be and who I don't want to be, what I think is important and what I have decided is not important. And back and back you could go, and see why my grandparents turned out as they did, and theirs before them, and back and back...
What a tremendous plan God has. Absolutely tremendous and so incredibly, incredibly intricate. The details He has to orchestrate to shape personalities, the events that individuals experience as so so big in their lives, and then they move on, and either remember or forget, and die. But their reactions, the results, the Selves they could never have consciously put together on their own.... these have infinite effects.
The Sara Groves song "Generations" actually spontaneously started playing in another room of the house--by someone else's choice, not mine, right after I'd been looking through these pictures and thinking about this. "Remind me of this with every decision...generations will reap what I sow... I could pass on a curse or a blessing to those I will never know..."
To me right now this is a reminder that even when I may feel there is no one here for me to lead by example, no one for me to be an example to or to help or consistently serve, still I am affecting someone. Of course I am responsible to God, but I AM having an impact on people, too--the 'audience' that will be affected somehow so many years from now, by who I choose to be. I choose to be a Christ-follower in these moments, to let God shape me in these moments that will add up to years, because it is Right. But it's good to know too that it goes even beyond Him and me.
I want to pass on a blessing somehow by being God's, by being joyful, by being a lover of Jesus, by loving others deeply. That's going to be used somehow. It's a thread that God can pick up and weave into His delicate, intricate, tremendous and beautiful Plan. This whole thought is so crazy-amazing.
The way my grandparents chose to live, chose to be within their family, their personalities and ways of looking at the world... these things have permeated my life through my father. They're a part of who I am too, or they've shaped me to resist them. They've shaped so many things. Who I want to be and who I don't want to be, what I think is important and what I have decided is not important. And back and back you could go, and see why my grandparents turned out as they did, and theirs before them, and back and back...
What a tremendous plan God has. Absolutely tremendous and so incredibly, incredibly intricate. The details He has to orchestrate to shape personalities, the events that individuals experience as so so big in their lives, and then they move on, and either remember or forget, and die. But their reactions, the results, the Selves they could never have consciously put together on their own.... these have infinite effects.
The Sara Groves song "Generations" actually spontaneously started playing in another room of the house--by someone else's choice, not mine, right after I'd been looking through these pictures and thinking about this. "Remind me of this with every decision...generations will reap what I sow... I could pass on a curse or a blessing to those I will never know..."
To me right now this is a reminder that even when I may feel there is no one here for me to lead by example, no one for me to be an example to or to help or consistently serve, still I am affecting someone. Of course I am responsible to God, but I AM having an impact on people, too--the 'audience' that will be affected somehow so many years from now, by who I choose to be. I choose to be a Christ-follower in these moments, to let God shape me in these moments that will add up to years, because it is Right. But it's good to know too that it goes even beyond Him and me.
I want to pass on a blessing somehow by being God's, by being joyful, by being a lover of Jesus, by loving others deeply. That's going to be used somehow. It's a thread that God can pick up and weave into His delicate, intricate, tremendous and beautiful Plan. This whole thought is so crazy-amazing.
Friday, February 11, 2005
on hiding in words
From the poem "House of Words," by Herbert Morris
"I, finder of refuge, maker of refuge,
in words, whose life, indeed, was spun of words,
spun and respun, spun once more, then respun,
a life which has itself become a refuge
(words, in a world bordered by blood, on one side,
by the tumult of passion on the other;
the thinness, yes, the thinness of one's life..."
I hide in words and abstractions. And I put barriers between myself and the living God by doing this. When I feel far from Him again, feel unforgiveable and give up on myself, I can look back and see that I've slipped into making Him an abstraction again, making Him a concept in a labelled jar on a shelf, or making Him a trunk full of baggage that is not really Him. I get tired and fireless when I follow a 'lifestyle' or a 'conceptual framework' or a discipline rather than following Jesus. Jesus is not an identity for me or a word for me to throw around like a common label. He is a Person. And He goes deeper than words. Really. Deeper than these words. Deeper than any catchy turn of phrase or dramatic sentence. He's REAL. What a relief to know there is actual purity in the universe. Pure intent, pure motives, pure honesty, pure communication, TOTAL purity. I think that's part of the definition of holiness.
"I, finder of refuge, maker of refuge,
in words, whose life, indeed, was spun of words,
spun and respun, spun once more, then respun,
a life which has itself become a refuge
(words, in a world bordered by blood, on one side,
by the tumult of passion on the other;
the thinness, yes, the thinness of one's life..."
I hide in words and abstractions. And I put barriers between myself and the living God by doing this. When I feel far from Him again, feel unforgiveable and give up on myself, I can look back and see that I've slipped into making Him an abstraction again, making Him a concept in a labelled jar on a shelf, or making Him a trunk full of baggage that is not really Him. I get tired and fireless when I follow a 'lifestyle' or a 'conceptual framework' or a discipline rather than following Jesus. Jesus is not an identity for me or a word for me to throw around like a common label. He is a Person. And He goes deeper than words. Really. Deeper than these words. Deeper than any catchy turn of phrase or dramatic sentence. He's REAL. What a relief to know there is actual purity in the universe. Pure intent, pure motives, pure honesty, pure communication, TOTAL purity. I think that's part of the definition of holiness.
reservations
blogs are a little scary to me. I'm wary of wallowing, of dramatizing, of getting self-centered or trying to sound a certain way for whoever. Because these are things I know are in me. these are reasons I stopped doing just about anything artistic for public consumption.
i just set this up so i could comment on Mel's blog. But I find myself weirdly drawn to it, I guess just the desire to create something. This isn't going to be a consistent thing. I don't have the time, energy or desire for an online obssession. I don't like what it would do to me. I don't really want to be aware of an audience while I write, other than the Audience of God.
But the urge I feel to share thoughts of God in order to make myself think, and maybe, who knows, to get some True Thoughts from other people... this is pretty strong today, and so for today at least this is an active Thing. Sporadic, it will be. Mostly things I have already written, it will be. Stopped if I become self-focused, it will be. Mmmm. The pull of sharing is strong in you, young blog.
i just set this up so i could comment on Mel's blog. But I find myself weirdly drawn to it, I guess just the desire to create something. This isn't going to be a consistent thing. I don't have the time, energy or desire for an online obssession. I don't like what it would do to me. I don't really want to be aware of an audience while I write, other than the Audience of God.
But the urge I feel to share thoughts of God in order to make myself think, and maybe, who knows, to get some True Thoughts from other people... this is pretty strong today, and so for today at least this is an active Thing. Sporadic, it will be. Mostly things I have already written, it will be. Stopped if I become self-focused, it will be. Mmmm. The pull of sharing is strong in you, young blog.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
for Mel
Hey Mel, this is for you. I am now official so I can become a PostingWhirlwind on your blog. I love you and I thank God for you. Thank you for your sistership.
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