I agree with a lot of Deepak Chopra's ideas. He has some great quotes. In our living room, I found an interview with him cut out from the Chicago Tribune (sometime Jan-May 2011?), and it's neato:

"...even if you took five, 10 minutes of quiet time every day or every other day or once a week and asked yourself simple questions like Who am I? What do I want? What is my life's purpose? Is there a contribution I can make to my community or to society? What kind of relationships do I want to have? What is my idea of well-being and how can I achieve it?

"I don't ask that you even know the answers, but if you start to do this kind of reflection, it has a very interesting way of not only moving you to the answers but of changing your behavior. Instead of saying 'I'm going to have all this willpower, and I'm going to try so hard,' which is all mental fatigue, reflective self-inquiry spontaneously leads to change."

Yep.

My experience with this kind of thing: a few times in my life I have decided to write down everything I eat for a day. Each and every time without fail, I eat much healthier without even meaning to or intending to. I meant to just faithfully record whatever was there, but observation always changes it. Obviously this is true of attitudes as well. A personal example: the second you are open enough to honestly ask, "am I being a brat right now?" you are demonstrating the courage to face the truth and very often you are rewarded with the truth, and a better and more authentic life as a result, whatever you ended up deciding as an answer.

Lastly, I think personal reflection is very important. Someone could accuse me of doing it too much and potentially be right. But I was comforted by the following. I read in a book that they did a survey of 85-year-olds and here were their top 3 would-haves:

1) I would have spent more time reflecting in meditation and contemplation.

2) I would have risked more.

3)I would have done more things that would live on after I die.

I know at least one person besides me reads this. So whoever is reading this, do you spend time in contemplation? Do you take risks? Are you doing anything that will live on after you die?

Heart washing

We talked in my church a while ago about Proverbs 3:27, which is something like, "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he," and how what you believe defines your reality rather than the other way around.

Many people secretly fear everyone else is laughing at them silently, or just humoring them by being (or pretending to be) their friend. But fixing this problem won't come from researching ways to avoid ridicule, by being funnier or smarter or faster, but instead by acknowledging that if someone is laughing at you, that's really their decision, and deciding that you will not let real or imagined laughter determine your decisions in life. (Like in my last post: it's not in discovering an answer but in realizing the question needs some work).

In the first ever post of this blog, I said something about how human life is always physically messy. I found something in 1 Peter today that was awesomely related. 1 Peter 3:21 is about baptism: "and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also--not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience before God..." In this particular case, action is secondary to thought and intention. The action of cleaning oneself off is less important than the decision to think rightly (think cleanly/clearly?) about the world. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. If his body is dirty, but his mind is clean, he is clean.

I've been reading a fantastic book lately (when I have time). Spiritual Notes to Myself by Hugh Prather is like reading my own journal, except often with fresh thoughts I've never had. [side note: His simple statement that it's possible to gossip without malice was a pleasant epiphany for me.] Last night I read, "we spend all this time in the morning trying to look prepared--getting the hair right, the clothes right--but we leave home with our minds in disarray."

He talked about how "our physical appearance and outward behavior are everything to the ego, while the thoughts behind our actions are of little concern. Yet in reality, we dwell in our minds, not our actions [...] On a spiritual path, [...] form is secondary to content. So if I find myself preoccupied with the question of what to say or do, I am already caught up in the ego. Release the question and let God do the thinking. [...] There is no question about an action taken in peace." That might sound a little intense, but I am so with this guy when he says that. I buy it when people say our choices have to come from peace. That's a conversation for another time though. I hope the connection with inner/outer cleanness is obvious. Baptism is important as a representation of the state of the inner mind, not primarily as a physical washing. It's the invisible kind of getting ready in the morning.

If I knew who I was going to marry..

I used to think that if I just knew who I was going to marry, life would be grand. Also, simpler. I wouldn't have to think about whether or not I'd get married, and I could get used to the idea of this person very early on and then learn more about them, and I wouldn't have to second guess my choices.

But what I've learned instead is that, as human beings (spiritual beings having a human experience, as some would put it.. lol) that cannot see the future and even have faulty vision of the past, that are severely limited in space as well as in time, we cannot know. I feel like there's something about the experience of emotional/romantic intimacy that makes you wonder if it's forever, even if you just started dating someone and you can see ways you're incompatible. So I think we come up with the idea of marriage on our own, and rather quickly. But even if it wasn't just you, even if you thought God told you directly, you'd still doubt it, because it is in human nature to doubt, to forget slightly, to overanalyze and question and pick it to pieces. To assume the other person can render it impossible. Of course, even before and during all the rest of this stuff, to think that you misheard God. So I've realized instead that we live in a world where it is not possible to know for the time being.

I think this is sort of how life is. We have a given question and we want an answer, but instead of getting an answer, we get the realization that we live in a world where we don't get the kind of answer we sought.

I think this is also kind of how prayer is. We pray for things, and whatever those things are, we realize that the point of prayer wasn't the answer to it but the realization that intimacy with God is way better than whatever we prayed for. Sometimes instead of what you hoped for, you get a story and see that you live in the kind of world where you can't know (yet) why things turned out a certain way.

This conclusion that I cannot know is more satisfying than thinking that it's possible to know and I just don't. Still not very satisfying, though. I think if I could love all ambiguity/surprises, I would have figured out the secret of happiness. In the meantime, I enjoy planned (and only planned) ambiguity/surprises. This is why I like moving to a new city where they don't speak English and I don't know anyone, but I can't handle it when someone says we're going to get bubble tea and instead we get ice cream.

Not by what he sees with his eyes...

Isaiah 11:3 says, "...and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears." I think we assume this is referring to Jesus, but even if somehow it were not, we know this is a good guy because he delights in the fear of the Lord. That = the right thing to do.

Hebrews 11:27 is talking about Moses leaving Egypt and it says, "...he persevered, because he saw him who is invisible."

As an ENFP, a big thing about me is my passion for possibilities. I tend to see things as they could be, and get really excited about what is not, but what could be. As I've been visiting many of the rooms of Fischer and some in Mac for my summer job, I really see this. My eyes see that each room is blank, stripped completely bare, but my mind sees adorable room setups and unlimited potential. I wish I had lived in a triple anywhere because they are so cute, but more specifically, I wish I had been a boy so I could have lived in one of the triples on the end of the east wing of Fischer, or on T7, where you can see everything from up high and it's beautiful. I wish I had lived in Mac seven times so I could try out each of the different kinds of rooms and each different possible view from the windows, which are all shapes and sizes and look out over different buildings in different directions. Don't get me started on Williston.

I think a person misses a lot of life, and a lot of what's important, when they don't acknowledge the unseen. I do need to be clear and say that the "unseen but real" is not exactly the same thing as "the possible," but they do overlap.

The Bible teaches us that the wise person is the person who does not make decisions based on present circumstances, which flare away like dry paper in a fire, but instead makes their decisions based on God, who is changeless and everlastingly loving. We're allowed to dream big because of God; he always dreams bigger anyway.

I don't always see my dreams come to fruition, but as cheesy as it sounds, I honestly believe that's because God's dreams are bigger/more awesome than mine, and it's His that I get to live out instead whenever I am willing to let mine go.

I'm pleased that wisdom means seeing beyond what's visible, sometimes even beyond what's really there. I can't help but do that already. Too bad there is more to wisdom than that.

One more thing:

"If you treat an individual how he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be." -Johann Wolfgang von Goeth

I don't know where this quote is from, but I think Mr. von Goeth is right, and furthermore, I think this can apply to all kinds of things, even whole situations. This is kind of the whole deal with faith, right? Believing for something brings it into being. We've all seen too many examples of this idea seeming to fail to believe the power of believing is limitless. But I think it should be and maybe can be.