Slices just make up the story - Psalms
I'm finding myself being more frank through this blogging process than ever. When I would journal, I would put down pain, but would feel a compulsion to have all the answers in the end. This still comes out, but I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea that there may not be nice neat answers. Or there may be, but they unfold outside of my peripheral and take a life time to understand?
In the class for this blog, last week, the beauty of the Psalms was explored. Perhaps they allow us to express and have anger, pain, misconstrued ideas of justice that change as we mature, childish impulses that could kill in so many ways if left unchecked, beauty, worship, praise, humbleness beyond measure, or just a desire to be done with it all because the wind is so cold and the ground so hard. Perhaps expressing a thought within a blog entry doesn't mean that's the whole story. It doesn't need tidiness and respectability. I mistakenly judged Maya Angelou for a lack of tidiness. In reading her autobiography I became frustrated that she was talking as if the thought she was writing was legitimate. As a young girl she might have had such a thought, but keeping it alive now? Surely, she would know that white people weren't the originators of sex at the time of her writing this book! But then, I didn't take the time to grow with her as the story unfolded; instead I put the book down. Maybe I'm afraid that if I am angry that this is all I will be. It's just a blog entry, not the whole book.
I was talking with a woman in my Religion and Protest class last night who expressed a similar freedom. She had given up on God until she realized that she didn't have to have all the answers. People intertwine God's ways with their own and sometimes with devilish actions and thoughts. It makes no sense - how can clean and bitter water come from the same spring? Life is messy and it's not her responsibility to make ultimate sense of it, but to love through it. Jesus makes sense and that's enough. Sometimes I feel a responsibility to instill certainty in those who love God and those who don't. I want them to feel that life is solid and makes sense all of the time. I give them certainty and name it Jesus. Perhaps God isn't very concerned with concreteness? Or perhaps this is just one of many persuasions that he wants to unfold in the misunderstood and loving moments he has with us?
In the class for this blog, last week, the beauty of the Psalms was explored. Perhaps they allow us to express and have anger, pain, misconstrued ideas of justice that change as we mature, childish impulses that could kill in so many ways if left unchecked, beauty, worship, praise, humbleness beyond measure, or just a desire to be done with it all because the wind is so cold and the ground so hard. Perhaps expressing a thought within a blog entry doesn't mean that's the whole story. It doesn't need tidiness and respectability. I mistakenly judged Maya Angelou for a lack of tidiness. In reading her autobiography I became frustrated that she was talking as if the thought she was writing was legitimate. As a young girl she might have had such a thought, but keeping it alive now? Surely, she would know that white people weren't the originators of sex at the time of her writing this book! But then, I didn't take the time to grow with her as the story unfolded; instead I put the book down. Maybe I'm afraid that if I am angry that this is all I will be. It's just a blog entry, not the whole book.
I was talking with a woman in my Religion and Protest class last night who expressed a similar freedom. She had given up on God until she realized that she didn't have to have all the answers. People intertwine God's ways with their own and sometimes with devilish actions and thoughts. It makes no sense - how can clean and bitter water come from the same spring? Life is messy and it's not her responsibility to make ultimate sense of it, but to love through it. Jesus makes sense and that's enough. Sometimes I feel a responsibility to instill certainty in those who love God and those who don't. I want them to feel that life is solid and makes sense all of the time. I give them certainty and name it Jesus. Perhaps God isn't very concerned with concreteness? Or perhaps this is just one of many persuasions that he wants to unfold in the misunderstood and loving moments he has with us?
posted by Learner at 3/02/2006 03:22:00 PM
1 Comments:
Excellent and well put!! These are just sections or segments in one of the greatest novels that has ever been recorded. Seek God, do not seek man. It is awesome to see you so open and honest through your blog. Keep in tune! Be good.
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