Monday, March 17, 2008
It's been a while.Blogging is good for the soul but there are times when even I...
yes I...
am so far deep in the muck that breathing is the only landscape.
Face down.
Planted.
Full length.
I guess it's better than 6 feet under looking up at the dirt... pushin daisies...
But some days I am not too sure.
This emotional... feeling... experiencing... life...
is at times beyond expression... and the pain is soul deep.
Inescapable.
What is the truth?
Where is the meaning?
Am reading a book.
Again.
"Searching For God Knows What " by Donald Miller, who is also the author of " Blue Like Jazz" and " To Own a Dragon". ( fantastic reads all around)
Among other things he talks about how we have reduced the bible to a Self Help Manual or a treatise on right and wrong. We have systematically created lists and systematically go about checking them off.
Really.
Just think about it.
God has somehow become like Santa... he's making a list and checkin it twice.
Naughty?
Nice?
Check your list of do's and don'ts for the day.
Do pray.
Don't yell at your kids.
Do go to church.
Don't steal.
Do honor your parents.
Don't kill.
Do... don't ... do... don't
They did.... ooops..naughty naughty...
I didn't... way to go.... two thumbs up....
They bad.
Me good.
Me right.
Them...wrong.
Check the list.
See?
What if you made a list of the physical features of your lover? Your parents? Your best friend?
Brown hair.
Green Eyes.
Slim build. Small feet.
Long Eyelashes.
Narrow waist.
Full lips.
High cheek bones.
Long legs.
What if you carried it around with you everywhere you went.
It is all true.
But has no meaning.
Separate from relationship.
Miller talks about how we have managed to separate truth from meaning.
What is the purpose of truth?
What is the purpose of the Bible?
What is the meaning of it all?
What are we missing?
What am I missing?
He goes on to speculate about what drives us and I think he hits the nail on the head.
We are desperate for something to give us meaning.
We search for it every second of the day.
We seek it out in our family, friends, co-workers, classmates.
Our religions.
We try to find it in our gifts, talents and percieved strengths.
We try to avoid it in our weaknesses and failings... obsessions and appetites.
We whisper it in the dark and scream it in the car on the way to church.
We wear it... read it... record it... watch it... advertise it.... hide it.... broadcast it
We collect it around the watercooler...
Gather it in our bank accounts.
Document it in our preformance reviews.
Someone tell me again who I am.
It's why we work so hard to make the rules... keep the rules or break the rules.
The problem is... it never lasts.
Human love...value... definitions... must be given over and over and over...
They are incapable of satisfying.
Think about it.
Telling someone you love them once is never enough.
Hugging someone.
Praising someone.
Encouraging someone.
Sexual satisfaction.
Emotional satisfaction.
Physical satisfaction.
These are vessels that constantly need topping up.
Why?
Can it be as Miller puts it that we need to look through the truth to find the meaning?
Was this what was lost in Eden?
Were we separated from what gave us meaning?
Are we so deep into self-help...self-worth...self-esteem... that we can't get it?
a painting does not give itself worth.
a pottery urn doesn't assign itself value.
a crystal vase does not fill itself.
a rare orchid cannot give itself it's rare status.
a diamond has no capacity to define itself.
A husband is incapable of bringing meaning to his wife.
A child has no power to establish worth to its parents.
A father is powerless to bestow value on his children.
I cannot give myself meaning.
Thus....
I cannot deprive myself of worth or value if I cannot bestow it in the first place.
So.
If I cannot give it.
I cannot take it away.
I am not a list.
What if it is all about relationship?
All of it.
What if it is all about restored realtionship?
What was lost.
Is lost no longer.
What if God.
Who gives all things meaning.
With intent.
Has always.
Eternally.
Been about.
This.
Love.
Meaning.
Us.
HIM.
Together.
No wonder when Paul wrote the " Love chapter" in his letter to the Corinthians of the day, he said it was possible to understand all mysteries and have all knowledge.... and be without love.... and it was all nothing!
Getting it right and knowing true things was not what it was all about.
Truth without meaning reduces everthing to a list.
You have to look through the truth to the meaning behind it.
What am I searching for?
Someone to tell me who I am.
Cause I can't.
Neither can my husband, my children, my family, my friends, my enemies...
No one.
It is only the One who made me that has the power to explain me..to give me meaning.
God.
I pray a lot.
I have to.
It seems like my whole life has become a prayer.
It's not about self help.
It's not about fixing the messes.
It's not about understanding everything.
It's about meaning....
try it.
You just might find yourself for the first time.
...the second or third time around...but who's counting?
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