Photo: Tin Sparrow
One. Week. Left.
[video]
Christ said it was difficult for “the rich” to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, referring, no doubt, to “riches” in the ordinary sense. But I think it really covers riches in every sense – good fortune, health, popularity and all the things one wants to have. All these things tend – just as money tends – to make you feel independent of God, because if you have them you are happy already and contented in this life. You don’t want to turn away to anything more, and so you try to rest in a shadowy happiness as if it could last for ever.
But God wants to give you a real and eternal happiness. Consequently He may have to take all these “riches” away from you: if He doesn’t, you will go on relying on them. It sounds cruel, doesn’t it? But I am beginning to find out that what people call the cruel doctrines are really the kindest ones in the long run. I used to think it was a “cruel” doctrine to say that troubles and sorrows were “punishments.” But I find in practice that when you are in trouble, the moment you regard it as “punishment,” it becomes easier to bear. If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.
Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists: the people who hold a pretty stern view of it becomes optimistic.
-C.S. Lewis, Timeless at Heart
[video]
The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks through. He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment.
I’d forgotten what it’s like to be 16 – the feel of your skin, the awkwardness of your step, the disdain of your seemingly meager existence. They say when you’re doing it right, acting allows an individual to experience life as someone else; one will literally eat, breathe, and sleep as another human being.
It’s fascinating, really, because you realize that people’s behaviors, mannerisms, characteristics, and idiosyncrasies don’t stem simply from a hodgepodge of genetic material. Rather, we’re the direct by-products of our specific circumstances and events. Bad acting, then, most readily occurs when the actor plays “sad” or “shy” because we almost immediately recognize its falsehood. When an actor grounds his performance in truth, we know; we believe. He has filled the life of his character with utterly distinct events that irrevocably shape how he reacts to certain individuals or situations.
I guess all this is to say that it’s easy for me to very quickly write someone off as “abrasive” or “sensitive” or “weird.” Sure, I’ll try to be cordial with those people because that’s what Christians are supposed to do, but I won’t ever really make the effort to invest my time or energy in them. I’m just thinking about how awesome it’d be to sit with one of them and just listen – to his life and history and story. I get the sense that I wouldn’t feel the same way about him after.
credit - aly bucholz
what a week. i need sleep.
Amen.
I still remember the year you quietly wept in your room after mistakenly thinking that we had all forgotten about your birthday.
FOUR SEASONS RESTAURANT – NIGHT OF MARCH 5
Friends: Oh my God, it’s your birthday today?
Matt (looks down): Yeah, yeah it is.
Friends: Well, this is awkward…
Matt (holds back tears): No, it’s fine. It’s really fine.
Happy 23rd Birthday Matt. I promise to never forget – and that includes fake forgetting – your birthday ever again.
O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.
My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.But for you, O Lord, do I wait;
it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.For I am ready to fall,
and my pain is ever before me.
I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.Do not forsake me, O Lord!
O my God, be not far from me!
Make haste to help me,
O Lord, my salvation!
[video]
Twin Peaks - San Francisco, CA