Questions

I was reading a blog I read and I came across a list of questions. Real, honest, reflective questions. I'm going to copy them on here and add a few of my own. Pick a couple and answer them. You can make up a name if you want to be anonymous. I'd like to read your answers. I'll answer some myself down in the comments.

1. What do I wish to be remembered for?
2. Is this really as good as it gets?
3. How was it that I could be so successful, so fortunate, and yet so frustratingly unfulfilled?
4. If your life was absolutely perfect, how would it look to you?
5. What is my passion?
6. How am I wired?
7. Where do I belong?
8. What will I do about what I believe?
9. Who am I?
10. What do I value?
11. What gifts has God given me? How can I use them?
12. What would I be willing to die for?
13. What injustices do I see in the world, that I simply cannot stomach anymore?
14. What is it about my life that makes me feel trapped?
15. When you are in bed at night staring at the ceiling, what questions are you asking yourself?
16. Where is God working in my life?
17. What what parts of myself am I uncomfortable?

Plans

"Table for Two" by Caedmon's Call (from the album 40 Acres)

Danny and I spent another late night over pancakes,
Talkin' 'bout soccer
And how every man's just the same
We made speculation
On the who's and the when's of our futures
And how everyone's lonely
But still we just couldn't complain

And how we just hate being alone
Could I have missed my only chance
And now I'm just wasting my time
By looking around

But you know I know better
I'm not gonna worry 'bout nothing
Cause if the birds and the flowers survive
Then I'll make it okay
I'm given a chance and a rock
see which one breaks a window
See which one keeps me up all night and into the day

Because I'm so scared of being alone
That I forget what house I live in
But it's not my job to wait by the phone
For her to call

Well this day's been crazy
But everything's happened on schedule
from the rain and the cold
To the drink that I spilled on my shirt
'Cause You knew how You'd save me before I fell dead in the garden
And You knew this day long before You made me out of dirt

And You know the plans that You have for me
And You can't plan the end and not plan the means
And so I suppose I just need some peace
Just to get me to sleep.

I've always loved this song. Especially these last lines. I so often get caught up in my own ideas and plans and fail to consult God. Other times, I'm so stressed about how everything is going to work out that I lose sight of the fact that God is in control. What insightful words to sing in my head this afternoon...

focusing

I am an extraordinarily distracted person. At any given moment, my brain is whirling in 33 different directions, like pennies rolling on their sides across a floor. If we're talking and I keep glancing away, it isn't because I have a hard time with eye contact. It's because something else caught my attention. And gosh, I'm sorry.

I hate that about myself. It is genuinely difficult for me to pay attention and truly focus on something or someone. I don't want to make any ADD excuses for myself because really, I think it is my own fault (not to illegitimize people who truly do struggle with ADD or ADHD, that is real. I do not have it.).

There is some kind of war going on around us, I think. So many things vying for our attention that we cannot think straight. Can't think in complete sentences.

Paying attention to people is a spiritual discipline, one I need to develop. I wonder, in a Screwtape Letters fashion, how much of my distraction is the result of evil forces in the world? Do I fall into the trap of meandering thoughts because someone else is trying to make it difficult for me to focus on other people and on God? Or am I just lazy and selfish?

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh ME?

So I was reading in Ecclesiastes and I came across these verses, "For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of animals goes downward to the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:19-21)

The author of Ecclesiastes is explaining that human life is brief, meaningless, and a mystery. In these particular verses, he wants to explain that really, our lives are not any more important than the lives of animals. The point is that we are all born, we breathe the same oxygen for our duration on earth, and then our bodies die and rot away. He adds, who even knows that animals don't have an afterlife? (Maybe All Dogs DO go to Heaven!)

So what say ye? Are humans and animals equal? Does the squirrel I ran over last week matter just as much as me? Or is the author of Ecclesiastes just saying that human life is meaningless?

Maybe this explains why I get so depressed at zoos...because I am actually thinking of myself being forced into a cage...

Warriors and Peacemakers

I like that God calls us to peace. I like that we are to sow unity and reap kindness. I like it when everyone gets along.

When I was a kid, my sisters (I'm the middle) would beat me up. They could be pretty brutal and I would always just take it. My parents used to get frustrated because I wouldn't fight back; I remember them saying, "JUST HIT HER BACK AND SHE'LL STOP!" I couldn't do it. I hated it.

So I like this nice, safe, peaceful God. And I am conflicted when I read passages like Joel 3.

Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare war, stir up the warriors. Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up. Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior.’ Joel 3:9-10

I say no. Don't stir up the warriors, let the soldiers stay at home, leave your peaceful farm equipment as it is, and let the weakling just be a weakling. Let peace reign.

I am learning though, that sometimes people need a champion. At the time that Joel wrote this passage, Israel needed to know that God would fight for them. They needed a warrior.

And I have to let God be God even when I am not comfortable with a valiant, violent, warrior God. So now we pursue peace knowing that God is not as warm and fuzzy as we'd like.

It reminds me of the famous line in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, when the Beaver, describing Aslan, says, "’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you."

Despite my predispositions, good does not necessitate safe and sometimes, we all need a warrior in our corner.

Sam and Esther

I can't figure out how to embed this, so just follow the link to a video on YouTube. Here's the thing. This video absolutely destroys me. My soul aches when I watch this.

But I don't know what to do about it.

Do I go to Africa? Do I quit school? Is it enough to talk about it, to bring others to awareness? I'm not sure. I know that the step towards feeling something is the first right step, but after that, I'm lost.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? What are you feeling/thinking/hoping for?

Because, good gracious, those kids count just as much as I do. I can't act like there is nothing there. I can't pretend that being sad is enough.