Window World

I stumbled across this little piece while writing up an assignment (first one of the semester!).  I believe I wrote this about three years ago, while my family and I were in our Hidden Rock Road house, for those who know where that is.  Enjoy!

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My bedroom window - a tall frame for the world outside - is a wonderful thing. 

It begins the day by encouraging the shy sun to tiptoe onto my bed and caress

my face (she whispers "good morning - rise and shine!").  When I get up, the

window gleams and beckons to me, and I can almost hear it calling me to peek

out and see the sleepy world:  the mountains are clinging to their thin sheets

of fog which have slid down from above their proud heads to their knees.  The

neighboring houses blink and rub misty sleep from their eyes as their occupants

begin getting ready to leave for work and school.  Birds flutter impatiently and

excitedly about, urging the trees to wake up (the trees wave their arms, trying

shoo the pesky singers away). 

When the sun is at her boldest, peering down at the valley and the surrounding

mountains all at once, my window nearly bursts with the vivid colors showing

through:  the deep greens and blues on the mountains; the golden-red brush

hugging the narrow black-gray pathway behind the houses; the tans, whites,

browns and oranges of the houses themselves; flashes of bright red or silver or

shiny black or blue when cars rove through the neighborhood.  There are people

too, walking or jogging or biking or walking their dogs; a few children racing

home for lunch; a boy skateboarding along the sidewalk.  Each of the

neighborhood dogs is fully awake now, and they make certain everyone nearby

knows so.  (The trees are awake as well; I don't think anyone could sleep

through THAT boisterous barking.) 

The frame darkens a bit as the tired sun slips downward on the horizon.  As she

descends, rainbow colors take turns painting the sky and reflecting onto the

mountains in pastel blues and purples and pinks.  The sun pauses to rest on her

rough rocky chair, and for just a moment the mountains blaze in sudden glory

and their faces are rimmed with gold... but the sun can't stop for too long; she

must continue on her course.  The trees and long prairie grass wave and

whisper "goodnight," to the retreating sun.  As the world dims into the mists

and shadows of night, silence reigns.  Silence.  Then voices, too quiet for any but

the attentively listening ear, begin an angels' song that drifts down from

between silver clouds.  I hear it (faint through my window) and gaze up,

longing to find the source of this heavenly singing; white-silver faces look back

at me from far off in the depths of the silky blue night sky, and weave a lullaby

through their song.

In awe of all that I've seen and heard today, I lay down and close my eyes and dream of the richness of the world just outside my window.  

Don't you remember?

  So... I really enjoy journaling.  A lot.  In fact, I typically have at least two journals at any given time that I'm actively writing in.

This year, I've been using a slightly unusual format for one of these journals:  Instead of writing in the date as I write, I noted 366 dates on every page, so when I'm going to write, I just find the day's date and note the year.  The idea is that if I am good and keep up with this journal for at least another year or two, I'll get to see each day what I was up to/thinking about/praying about in the previous year.

Even when I'm not writing in this journal, I enjoy looking back to see what was going on a year ago or five years ago or however many years ago, today.

Today is an amusing day in my mind, as far as comparison by year is concerned:

June 1, 2014 -- Mom and I are flying to California for a mom-daughter trip, ending with the wedding of two of my friends:  Sam and Sarah.




  
(Here's one of Sarah and me, pretty close to when we first met, which wasn't too long after Sarah and Sam had first met, to my knowledge.  I think I met Sam the summer this photo was taken, though I didn't really get to know him until the following year.)

June 1, 2013 -- I was a bridesmaid in another dear friend's wedding, this time in Temple, Texas.  (Jackie's dress was SO lovely!)

 

May 26, 2012 -- My family and I drove out to California to attend Joy's wedding.  Joy is Sarah's older sister, and during the wedding reception, I happened to chat both with Sam and his older sister, Jessica, who was pregnant at the time.  (Joy and her husband just announced this week that the baby they're expecting in October is a boy!)












Anyway, I think there are some amusing connections there.  :)  Do you remember what you were up to right about now this time in a previous year?

Because I'm Happy...

Right now I'm studying for a DSST (similar to CLEP) test, Ethics in America.  Well... technically I'm supposed to be studying that right this moment, but I keep getting distracted.... So here I am!  Anyway, here's the most recent thing that's making it a little more challenging for me to focus:

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As I've been reading Moral Philosophy:  Theories and Issues (which really is excellently and understandably written, in my opinion) and listening to lectures online from a Harvard professor on the same topic, I've begun to notice a trend.  There's a commonality among many of the theories and viewpoints I've studied thus far:  Happiness.  For example,

                    Moral Egoism:

It's always morally acceptable for a person to do
what he/she believes to be in his/her own self-interest.
(If I make someone else happy while making myself
happy, that's great!  Furthermore, if making someone
else happy makes me unhappy, that's bad.)

                    Utilitarianism:

People should be morally guided by whatever will
maximize pleasure and well-being of the majority.

                    Moral Subjectivism:

Whatever a person believes to be right or wrong IS
right or wrong for them, as influenced by their happiness
and emotions.
                    Kant:  Claims that all who are rational
necessarily pursue or desire happiness.

Now, these and so many other ideas are based on the worldly and seemingly logical thought that the pinnacle of human experience is happiness.  That so, it also seems only logical to do whatever one can to be as happy as possible as much and for as long as possible.  Right?  Of course right!  Right, unless you aren't supposed to be living as someone who's a part of this world.  (Ephesians 4:17-32, 1 Peter 2:11-12)

During Bible study this week, one thing that really stuck with my was from a discussion we had concerning the fruit of the Spirit.  Basically, we went through and considered the difference between the worldly concepts of love, joy, peace, and so on; and the biblical concepts of the same.  When we came to joy and peace it struck me that the world has, I think, rather warped definitions.  To the world, peace seems to mean a lack of hostility, noise, chaos, etc., whereas true, biblical peace is something which can only come from God Himself, and is characterized by a calm and quiet spirit.  To the world, joy is synonymous with happiness -- if you're sad or unhappy or hurt, you cannot possibly be happy or joyful.  On the other hand, biblical joy really has nothing to do with happiness or some lack of happiness.  Rather, it has everything to do with choosing to let God's peace and control take over in your life; to be content in whatever situation is going on, whether good or bad, easy or challenging; and to focus on serving God and others before yourself.

Please don't get me wrong!  I'm certainly not meaning to insinuate that I dislike being happy - I love hugs and being around people who make me laugh and doing fun things! - or that happiness is somehow a bad or wrong thing in and of itself.  The point I guess I'm trying to make here is that happiness seems to have become such a god in virtually every society, such an all-consuming goal, that these theories I'm studying and people in general forget that there is a higher calling and greater purpose found in loving and obeying God.

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Whew!  Okay, if you read all that and were able to follow my unedited, rambling, I-sure-hope-she-actually-has-a-point style, kudos!  Seriously.

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Quick side note here -- I genuinely enjoy Pharrell Williams's song "Happy" and find myself singing along every time I hear it.  The title of this post just happens to coincide directly with the most commonly sung phrase in that song.  ;)

Real or Not Real

I wrote this while I was in the ER, on February 20.  I may or may not have been on pain medication, which fact I'm counting on to cover for the title being straight out of a certain book authored by Suzanne Collins, which I don't really like very much (but that's another conversation).  Anyway, here (word for original word) is what my slightly delirious brain caused me to scribble down in between middle-of-the-night checkups.

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It seems to me, if a thing is said to be real, it may only truly be so when its reality has been tested.  Until that point its reality is only a supposition, which by nature may be flawed, thereby making it (in part) unreal.  If any part of this thing is unreal, the integrity of the entire thing cannot be trusted.

The point when one may surely trust the thing as being real is when the false stuff has been burned up and knocked off by other things, situations, people, etc., which have themselves been proved really real by a similar process.

This would, of course, lead to circular reasoning on my part but for this:
There is an ultimate, final Tester.  God, who is Himself Truth and its Creator, is the solid line past which no untrue (false or "not real") thing may venture, even to the tiniest smudge on the solidity of reality.

Now we, as flawed (fallen) humans with our incomplete ways of thinking and going about things, will surely faltering in providing "reality checks" and such.  This by no means lessens the purity of things that are real and true; only our perceptions of them.

One day -- a day I do greatly look forward to -- you and I will be able to finally, fully comprehend real reality in its loveliest sense, I'm sure.

Theory of Abnormality

Here's a slightly sillier thought for ya:

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Assume the words "different," "weird," and "abnormal" are synonymous here.

A lot of people get accused of being abnormal by others who typically consider themselves to be normal.

However, by my observations, and general consensus, most people, if not all, have some sort of abnormality about them.

This being so, it is more normal to be abnormal than it is to lack abnormality.

Therefore, so-called normal people are the truly weird ones, and those they accuse of weirdness are more normal by commonality, if not popularity.

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And there ya have it, you fellow weirdos.

Off Guard

"...On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is?  Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth?  If there are rats in a cellar you are more likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats, it only prevents them from hiding."  (Mere Christianity, p.163)

I never really thought of it this way before, how when I act or react in ways I shouldn't (that is, ways that aren't Christlike) it isn't that I can be excused by having been caught off guard.  No, rather, it's that my core self sprang up first.  This is the self that needs to be traded in each instance for Christ-likeness, since it's a remainder of my old self which must not be allowed to remain.

Feelin' It

Because my faith isn't based in or founded upon emotions -- though they truly are a result or side effect of things revealed by this faith -- I have no excuse for my actions or attitude on the basis of emotions.  "I just don't feel like being Christlike today." "I'm not feeling up to praying (or spending time in God's Word, or sharing my testimony, or being joyful) right now.  Maybe I'll be more in the mood for that later."

Seriously, what is that?  Why is this even an issue?  It certainly is an issue for me, at least, and I'm sure I'm not alone here.

Regardless of where it comes from, why it's there, and all that, I firmly believe it is a remnant of the old me -- my fleshly, worldly self.  And therefore, this attitude absolutely must be discarded and replaced with a spirit of submission to God's will and an attitude of joy and thanks.