June 12, 2011
Ultimate gift
"The ultimate gift of the Gospel is NOT the new heavens and new earth, the ultimate good of the Gospel is NOT the redeemed body, the ultimate good of the Gospel is NOT forgiveness of sins, NOT redemption, NOT propitiation, NOT justification...these are all means!! The ultimate good of the Gospel is God Himself beheld in the Glory of His crucified and risen Son, enjoyed because of His infinite beauty, treasured because of His infinite worth, and reflected because we're being conformed to the image of his son. Christ suffered once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God...there is no end after that...everything before that is means" - John Piper
June 1, 2011
Eat, Pray, Love
To be honest, I’ve been talking too much my whole life, but I’ve really been talking too much during my stay. I have another two months here, and I don’t want to waste the greatest spiritual opportunity of my life by being all social and chatty the whole time. It’s been amazing for me to discover that even here, even in a sacred environment of spiritual retreat on the other side of the world, I have managed to create a cocktail-party like vibe around me. I’ve found myself creating appointments to see acquaintances, having to say to somebody, “I’m sorry, I can’t hang out with you at lunch today because I promised so-and-so I would eat with her.. maybe we could make a date for Tuesday.”
Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss. So I am not going to be the social bunny anymore, I’ve decided. No more scurrying, gossiping, joking. No more spotlight-hogging or conversation-dominating. No more verbal tap-dancing for pennies of affirmation. It’s time to change.
God isn’t interest in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality.
So what is my natural character? My dream of finding divinity by gliding silently through the place with a gentle, ethereal smile - who is that person? That’s probably someone I saw on a TV show. The reality is, it’s a little sad for me to admit, that I will never be that character. I’ve always been so fascinated by these wraith-like, delicate souls.. Always wanted to be the quiet girl. Probably precisely because I’m not. It’s the same reason I think that thick, dark hair is so beautiful- precisely because I don’t have it, because I can’t have it. But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with thick, dark hair, he would have made me that way, but he didn’t. Useful, then, might be to accept how I was made and embody myself fully therein.
This doesn’t mean I cannot be devout. It doesn’t mean I can’t be thoroughly tumbled and humbled with God’s love. This doesn’t mean I can’t serve humanity. It doesn’t mean I can’t improve myself as a human being, honing my virtues and working daily to minimize my vices. For instance, I’m never going to be a wallflower, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t take a serious look at my talking habits and alter some aspects for the better – working within my personality. Yes, I like talking, but perhaps I don’t always have to go for the cheap laugh, and maybe I don’t need to talk about myself quite so constantly. Or here’s a radical concept – maybe I can stop interrupting others when they are speaking. Because no matter how creatively I try to look at my habit of interrupting, I can’t find another way to see it than this: “I believe that what I am saying is more important than what you are saying.” And I can’t find another way to see that than: “I believe that I am more important than you.” And that must end.
Learning how to discipline your speech is a way of preventing your energies spilling out of you through the rupture of your mouth, exhausting you and filling the world with words, words, words instead of serenity, peace and bliss. So I am not going to be the social bunny anymore, I’ve decided. No more scurrying, gossiping, joking. No more spotlight-hogging or conversation-dominating. No more verbal tap-dancing for pennies of affirmation. It’s time to change.
God isn’t interest in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality.
So what is my natural character? My dream of finding divinity by gliding silently through the place with a gentle, ethereal smile - who is that person? That’s probably someone I saw on a TV show. The reality is, it’s a little sad for me to admit, that I will never be that character. I’ve always been so fascinated by these wraith-like, delicate souls.. Always wanted to be the quiet girl. Probably precisely because I’m not. It’s the same reason I think that thick, dark hair is so beautiful- precisely because I don’t have it, because I can’t have it. But at some point you have to make peace with what you were given and if God wanted me to be a shy girl with thick, dark hair, he would have made me that way, but he didn’t. Useful, then, might be to accept how I was made and embody myself fully therein.
This doesn’t mean I cannot be devout. It doesn’t mean I can’t be thoroughly tumbled and humbled with God’s love. This doesn’t mean I can’t serve humanity. It doesn’t mean I can’t improve myself as a human being, honing my virtues and working daily to minimize my vices. For instance, I’m never going to be a wallflower, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t take a serious look at my talking habits and alter some aspects for the better – working within my personality. Yes, I like talking, but perhaps I don’t always have to go for the cheap laugh, and maybe I don’t need to talk about myself quite so constantly. Or here’s a radical concept – maybe I can stop interrupting others when they are speaking. Because no matter how creatively I try to look at my habit of interrupting, I can’t find another way to see it than this: “I believe that what I am saying is more important than what you are saying.” And I can’t find another way to see that than: “I believe that I am more important than you.” And that must end.
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