Something I will never change my mind about

I prefer thinking in absolutes, but of course this is usually impractical. That doesn't keep me from looking for things I can just say and not have to qualify, or things I can devote myself to being without feeling like I have to be careful not to be too much of that thing.

I am very happy to announce that I found another one. I really loathe the expression, "lifelong learner" for some reason (too alliterative?), so I'm shortening it to "learner". There are a few reasons it's everlastingly appropriate to commit to being a learner. First of all, we'll never know everything, so we'll never, ever be like, "oops, I'm done early, what should I be now?" Secondly, in his book Onething, Sam Storms writes about how even angels in heaven are always learning. He mentions how in 1 Peter 1:12 they desire to look into the things of redemption. He goes on about continued learning in heaven for a while, saying there's always more about God to learn, and our perfect happiness will yet "always [be] subject to improvement," oh, and that our learning on earth is a foundation for all we will learn in the afterlife. So, apparently learning will be fun.

Another thing about learning is this quote by Abraham Lincoln: "I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." Well, I don't know about you, but I would want Abraham Lincoln to think well of me (assuming he was using the gender-encompassing form of "man," that is).

Lastly, and bestly, the idea of always learning gives me a great framework for interacting with super annoying people. I wish I could remember the source of this last idea; it certainly wasn't me. It suggested that you view every interaction as though the other person were divinely sent into your path to teach you something new and enlighten you in a way only they could. People who say provoking things were sent to teach you to be patient and kind in spite of obstacles, people who need help were sent to show you how to lovingly offer aid, etc etc. It sounds cheesy, but just wait until you're face-to-face with someone who doesn't seem to like, get it. If you can step back just long enough to reframe it as a chance for you to improve your people skills, a personal lesson (free tuition!) that no one else is getting, it actually helps.

Some days feel useless, especially during the summer, but I can honestly say I have learned something every day since I graduated, which means every day so far, even without realizing it, I have lived into my self-assigned role of learner, and that is a relief. And Abraham Lincoln would be pleased.

You were probably an accident (not really, though)

I estimate that (VERY, VERY conservatively) 75% of people in the world were unintended/an accident. I actually think the statistic is more like 100%, but sometimes that seems crazy and so I softened it by randomly choosing a more reasonable figure. But seriously, even if two people are married and willing to have a kid (which, let’s be honest, that can’t be more than 50% of parents, amiright? I mean, affairs and love children and all that) they don’t know which, um, attempt at parenthood, will, like, succeed. So they can’t’ve specifically meant that kid. The best they can do is ballpark it. Even parents don’t necessarily know the conditions of a child’s conception. And if they do, they still don’t know what that kid will be like; their interests, their hair, their face.

It really blew me away to think about how if you just go into a place with people and look at them, 100% are the personification of a sexual encounter (do not bring up test tube babies plz kthx) and conservatively 75% of them are the personification of some sort of mistake. Humans are good at making mistakes. A Wendell Berry poem someone read to me tonight said something like, "thank God for ignorance, for humans cannot destroy what they don't know about."

However, God knew and intended each one of us specifically. Every freckle. He created us in His image because it was His good pleasure, and He wanted us to know Him and love Him the way He knows us and loves us. All the planning that went into creating you is… lots of generations. Here are some fave lyrics from Sleeping at Last, a band I just really kind of love:

You were a million years of work
said God and his angels with needle and thread
they kissed your head
and said
“you’re a good kid
and you make us proud
so just give your best and the rest will come and we’ll see you soon”

How amazing that I was planned from the beginning. I exist. I didn’t have to be, but I am because God wanted me to be. Lastly, this is paraphrased from a Facebook group I was once a part of, when Facebook, like, had groups (I don’t really know what’s going on with that now): “If you ever feel down, sad, alone, or weak, like you have never done anything significant, just remember that you were once the fastest and most victorious of all the millions of little sperm.”

Tallness and Humility

We know that God opposes the proud (and arrogant) [but gives grace to the humble]. James 4:6. Charlotte from Charlotte's Web defines humble as "not proud; also, low to the ground."

On a Maundy Thursday processional (or was it recessional? some typa walk) this year I had this thought as I walked behind people who were taller than me. God can't have fellowship with pride because it is so opposite His nature. (Duh). But I realized that it's not to be mean that He insists His people be humble. It's not because He wants to manipulate us into a certain kind of behavior. To put it in terms we can understand, it's more like some natural law.

Just as tall people have to stoop to pass under low branches when the path takes them there, the proud must be humbled to be near to God and to do His work. Short (humble) people are already the right size for the tasks and responsibilities given us. Kingdom work can take you into some tight corners. Not everyone is equally cut out for it when we begin. Ego size definitely has to do with it, and a large ego is nothing but a terrible inconvenience that hinders progress.

An extension of this metaphor is that it is indeed possible to resist being humbled/ not bend over, but you're just going to be hit in the face again and again with branches until you begin to get it.

Honest thoughts on Honesty, Part I

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. –Oswald Chambers Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Honesty runs so deep in me that the value I give it is more a core part of my being than a decision I make to live it. I refuse to knowingly say things that are false. If my opinion would be unpleasant, I just don't say it, as a way of not being a total jerk all the time.

I can go on and on about how honesty is the most important thing in any relationship, and no matter how unpleasant things are you at least have to face them to move forward. I really believed this for a long time. Part of me still does. But good ol' Hugh Prather, in that book that I said is like my own journal, had some comments about honesty:

"'I must be honest.' 'I must be true to myself.' These words are almost always a preamble to a speech of abandonment or betrayal."

"'I want to let you know how I've been feeling.' But God is Love. To be what we were created to be, we don't always have to give an update on our negative emotions."

"If there's a question whether to say it, don't say it."

That first one about abandonment and betrayal, I understand completely. But I couldn't let it go at that. As I kept reflecting, I realized that the quote applies in situations that cannot be changed. There are some abandonments that are better for all parties. These, of course, are the ones between people in a non-marriage romantic relationship who do not belong together.

And those words about honesty and being true to oneself are just as likely to be a preamble for a confession of love (which of course can feel like an abandonment or betrayal as the speaker seems to be jumping ship on the just-friendship you probably both enjoyed for a while). At the end of season 2 of The Office, an episode I just rewatched, incidentally, Jim just says to Pam straight out, "I am in love with you," and everyone watching gasps (and if they're me, cries a little bit just like Jim) but knows it's a million times better that he said it. That he's a better and braver man for having admitted it to her, even though it's messy and mostly unwanted. Because the alternative is that he forever holds his peace and watches her marry a guy that is a way worse for her and spends the rest of his life wondering what the outcome would have been if he had been honest.

So I do think honesty is important for that kind of thing, if only to not be living a lie and not to create regrets that seem way harder to get over than other kinds of regrets.

Now, about the other honesty. This year for class we had to read La Princesse de Cleves, a really old French novel that has some great (if heartbreaking) passages in it. In typical French fashion, the princess is married to one man but has unbearably passionate feelings for another--she tries not to even be in the same room as him but since they're part of the same court this is often hard to pull off. She really wants to remain faithful to her husband and virtuous.

Pause. Would you tell your spouse about something like this? Like totes having the biggest crush ever on some other person?

Unpause. She tells him and it ruins his life because he is so jealous and upset that he can't get past it, and he obsesses about who it is and then sort of tricks her into telling him (she doesn't want to say) and is swallowed up by hatred when he knows. He falls ill from this distress and dies shortly after.

I'm stuck, here. I don't know whether I think honesty is best. I guess if I go by my other, non-love-triangle truth-telling standards, I think the amount of detail matters. I think you don't have to talk about how often you think of the other person and what they are wearing in those thoughts (jk), but you might be able to be like, "look, I have this awful problem and I want your help if you want us to have a good marriage... I have this temptation I need to resist and I need all the support I can get."

Okay but that was a book. For less ridiculous situations, my conclusions are super boring and along the lines of, "if it's an ongoing issue and it's something they can change, tell them in a nice voice that lets them know you still totally like/love them but you really wish they would change this one thing as a favor to you" or "if it's something they have no control over at all you might do better just to hold your peace about it and pray and seek some kind of refreshment elsewhere, like by chatting with friends who have experienced similar people problems".

Only marriage has that exclusivity thing, but I ultimately think (gulp, what would I know about this? Just guessing I spose) that marriage is more like a friendship than a dating relationship. Dating is about being sexy exciting and having a good time together and proving how neato you are. This might be the whole first week of marriage, but after that it will probably be scattered instances of this sort of thing but mostly friendship (C.S. Lewis once described marriage as plain and businesslike). Friendship is about smaller things that accumulate more over a lifetime, and about enjoying living with people even once you know they have a lot of ways they could improve.

This is long already, I'll save more thoughts for later.

What we are in the dark

We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L

This is from Oswald Chambers, author of My Utmost for His Highest.

1 Samuel 16:7 says "The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

"Baby cause in the dark
you can't see shiny cars
and that's when you need me there
with you I'll always share"
-Umbrella: The-Dream, Christopher Stewart, Kuk Harrell, and Jay-Z (as made famous by Rihanna)

It seems really Gnostic or something to say that all we are is spirit, but that's all we are. I mean we definitely inhabit bodies, but those bodies are not necessarily a reflection of who we are. We didn't choose them. Sometimes I just look in the mirror and cannot believe that is what people see when they look at me. I can't believe how easily this body I live in bruises, and as recently as five minutes ago I discovered something new about my nose that I had literally never noticed before in my two decades plus of seeing this face in reflective surfaces.

I know God sees all, which is to say he sees both outside and inside, but a metaphor to help me understand what he sees is that our exterior is utterly transparent to him. He sees right through all the things that are opaque enough to others to fool them if we want to.

I read something insightful today: "One reason we struggle with insecurity: we’re comparing our behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel.” -Steven Furtick

But God doesn't see anyone as a highlight reel, even if we become deluded enough to see ourselves that way.

I guess I'm writing because this thought is sort of convicting to me. Sloppy thinking is worse than having a messy room. What matters is the kind of housekeeping we do on the inside. Do we let things sit around until they're rotting? Do we let bad ideas run rampant like disobedient children, screaming and breaking things, because we're too lazy to step up, or are we good disciplinarians? Do we forget to plan (metaphor: um, go grocery shopping?) until it's too late and it makes us late for stuff?

The best part of this is that its about as equal opportunity as it gets. We all have a mind, and we all have thoughts and decisions, no matter what we look like and no matter the physical state of our bodies. May we remember to get to know the content of our friends minds and their desires rather than just the way they would be seen by strangers.

because I love the way you lie

...But you'll always be my hero

Even though you've lost your mind

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn

well that's alright because I like the way it hurts

just gonna stand there and hear me cry

well that's alright because I love the way you lie.

I love the way you lie.

I love the way you lie.

I've been listening to Skylar Grey's version of "Love the Way You Lie" over and over again. [You should grooveshark it--I couldn't find it on amazon or itunes.] It makes me sick, but I love it. Which, like, is totally the point of the song; I'm really getting the full experience. The original song is too harsh for me. There's a line where Eminem is something like, "and if she leaves again I'm going to tie her to the bed and set fire to the house." And he always sounds so angry anyway. So, it's a song about domestic abuse, shattered glass from fights, and how, "you always win, even when I'm right." He lies to her with "fables from his head." She sings that "it's sick that all these battles are what keeps me satisfied." (btw should it be "keep" instead of "keeps"? I can't decide if the verb refers to "all" or "the battles.")

We always love people who hurt us. Sometimes that makes us love them more. Maybe we feel brave and magnanimous for giving back love in the face of the pain they cause. I feel like there is no depth or height that we wouldn't go to, to excuse someone we want to excuse. At the beginning of the song, it goes, "Even angels have their wicked schemes, and you take that to new extremes," which is definitely comparing the abuser/liar to an angel, even if unfavorably.

This goes back to my idea that we decide in advance how we want to feel about someone, and view all of their actions in light of that, instead of evaluating each one independently (I think this is called the inductive approach, although it might really be the deductive). This ability allows us to continue to trust in God's character even when it seems like He doesn't care about us or has forgotten. It also allows us to forgive people that we don't understand (PTL) if we listen to their side of the story and hear in their own words why they did what they did. There are so many people I don't understand, but if I can just believe them that they meant well, we can get along, even if I was hurt before I knew their intent. Whether we should spend all our time with people we have to struggle to get at all is another issue, but at least we don't have to avoid them entirely if we're willing to listen.

"But you'll always be my hero/ Even though you've lost your mind" is so chilling to me. I don't feel this way about anyone, but I can so easily imagine it. I can picture wanting so badly to see someone a certain way (as a hero) that you overlook terrible, inappropriate, ill-thought-out behavior. This kind of thing is why someone felt like they had to author He's Just Not That Into You. Sometimes you would do better to look at a person's actual actions and use those to decide the kind of person they are, rather than listening to their self-assessment, which is, to say the least, biased. This can be especially true with a person you don't talk to regularly. That not-talking-ness might be a sign right there that they don't really care for you (not always, but maybe).

People are always telling you who they are, whether they mean to or not. You owe it to them, and to yourself, to listen.

My dad wants me to read stuff by Joseph Campbell. He always reads what I recommend to him (the most impressive example of this being all 7 Harry Potter books), but I rarely return the favor, probably because when I was little he gave me a book that had some really explicit sex scenes (I assume it had been many years since he read it himself and he just forgot) and I felt terribly awkward about it for a long time. Anyway, I want to read this book so I can engage with where my father is coming from as we talk about God and Jesus and stuff. He's still hoping I'll outgrow being a Christian; the other day he admitted that he'd been waiting for years but I just continued to be serious about my faith, but he hasn't given up hope yet.

This book is Transformations of Myth Through Time, "thirteen brilliant lectures from the renowned master of mythology." I just finished the first essay. He says the first, um, like, thing, in mythology is the relationship with the mother, and the second thing is the differences between men and women. Sure, why not. I'm glad the first thing is something everyone could theoretically participate in. Side note: I think people have to be more or less good on the first thing before being really good at the second. As oh-so-many relationship authors have advised, "if a man can't get that first, basic, primal relationship in order, how is he going to be able to handle something more complicated and less natural?" (Obviously this applies to women, too.)

What really caught my attention from Joseph Campbell was the following: "Actually, in a marriage, woman is the initiator. She is the one closer to nature and what it's all about. He's just coming in for the illumination." I've definitely heard a male friend say something similar, but it somehow has more weight in black and white on the printed page coming from a famous, published author. I wonder if most guys think this, though.