One of the blogs I look at frequently is the Happiness Project, in one post the discussion of the paradoxes that keep coming up in life was particularly insightful. The opposite of a great truth is also true. I try to embrace these contradictions:
1.Accept yourself, but expect more of yourself.
2.Keep an empty shelf, and keep a junk drawer.
3.Take yourself less seriously—and take yourself more seriously.
4.Use your time efficiently, yet make time to play, to wander, to read at whim, to fail.
5.Think about yourself so you can forget yourself.
6.The days are long, but the years are short.
Often, the search for happiness means understanding both sides of the contradiction.
Take, for example, Item #1 above. W. H. Auden articulates beautifully this tension: “Between the ages of twenty and forty we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”
Archive for the ‘Awareness’ category
Paradoxes in Life
October 23, 2008Opportunity of a Lifetime
October 22, 2008There is so much excitement in my heart as I begin to think about this coming Sunday. I’ve talked to several people who call Lifepoint their home, and they are excited as well. This past Sunday a large vision was cast for a more interactive and integrated 2009. More work with the community; more work with the disenfranchised; more work with the less fortunate and more work to make the community of Middle Georgia a better place to live and make a difference.
The most glaring challenge was to come together and give $75,000 over and above the regular giving, to begin to fund the incredible endeavors of next year. So much is going on in the world and in the church that we need to be more aware than ever before of opportunities to make a difference.
More incredible than anything else is the great knowing that I have of the true impact of our actions – as we give we become a part of the fulfillment of the commandment of Jesus that we “love one another as ourselves”. In the days and months to come, the “change” we’ve heard so much about from both candidates can only truly be realized as each of us look into our heart and see where our “treasure” should be. Then we can and will see palpable change!
What Is Poverty?
October 20, 2008Sunday night is a time that a group of people from Lifepoint go out to a place in Macon on Cherry Street and 3rd called the Fountain. There is obviously a Fountain there – although it doesn’t work – and it is a time and place for a meal to be given to those who otherwise would likely go to bed hungry. The most incredible thing is that the relationships that have developed are little miracles happening throughout the week.
Previously I posted about Kamara, who is a part of the gathering at the Fountain. This Sunday I was unable to make it to the Fountain and, because he’s my friend, sent word to let Kamara know why I wasn’t there and that I was thinking about him. This kind of consideration is something that I take for granted, but it had a great impact on Kamara. He was blown away that I would be concerned about what he thought and me not showing up on Sunday night. Poverty is living without friendship. When Scripture says for us to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is giving us the opportunity to enrich those around us with the gift of friendship.
This need for friendship is why sites such as Facebook and MySpace are so popular. The currency of friendship never loses value and will withstand any economic crisis. Watch this video and understand that the gift of friendship is the most valuable commodity on the planet.
[this is a repost – the video had problems]
Eli Stone
October 14, 2008Got to see the premier of the show, Eli Stone, tonight. I was floored. The preface of the story is that a lawyer has had an aneurysm that has given him hallucinations -but they have been truthful premonitions. He had the aneurysm removed and the erratic behavior stopped.
The great point for me was that the head of the firm, in remembering the “old” Eli, said that he had done all he could to make the firm a machine that worked like clockwork. Along came Eli and brought chaos to his previously ordered life. The strange thing was that the head of the firm, along with other co-workers, missed the “old” Eli and his behavior. Somehow, the chaos had given them all a sense of purpose. With the “new” Eli free of aneurysm and hallucination, life suddenly was dull and pointless.
So often in church we try to constrain the spiritual to the explainable and the expected. Too often in fact we find that our souls long for the unexpected and uncontrollable direction of the spirit. Our lives desire to live on the cusp of chaos. We all know it and yet we all try to find a feigned shelter in a predictable life. Throw off the desire to know what the ext moment holds and embrace the chaos of a life lives with no knowledge of the next moment. That is what faith is all about!
The Fountain
October 12, 2008Had a remarkable opportunity to go down to the Fountain on 3rd Street in Macon. There is a relief effort going on that has focused on the Fountain area as ground zero in their attempts to help some of the homeless and disenfranchised population of downtown Macon. I met Jesse, a guy who has a quick mind and a desire to discuss the scripture; I met Kimarra a musical producer who desires to put his fingerprint on Hip Hop; I met Scotty who is simply a joy and a whole lot more. The point is that in just a few moments I created relationships that transcended economics and geography.
Several of the guys asked where I was from. When I replied Perry, they were amazed that I had traveled so far to bring food to them. This is where the church as a whole has failed. When people are surprised that we would feed them, something is wrong. I know that there will always be difficulties when we try to become a part of others activities. (ie. the Red Cross, the Salvation Army – all have strict guidelines and a menagerie of forms) The essence of Christ is to love. When we simply love people we incarnate Christ to them. In fact, when I saw Jesse, Scotty, and Kimmara, they incarnated Christ to me as well. Their love and acceptance spoke volumes as to the impact we each have on one another every day.
Even when we don’t feel like it, or are aware of it, our actions and body language transmit to others. Let us do our utmost to position ourselves to present the best display of our knowledge of Christ possible as we walk out our lives today.
For Young Men Only
October 9, 2008
For Young Men Only is a book that I was asked to review from the Multnomah Publishing company, a division of Random House. The book is insightful in it’s premise to be a “guy’s guide to the alien gender”. After almost fifteen years of marriage, I have learned some of the concepts from the book the hard way – through experience. Since the demographic of the book was out of my present capacity (yeah I’m old!), I decided to enlist the help of a good friend of mine. He is in the trenches (high school) and is confronting these issues daily. Instead of doing a cover review of “Oh the book is great”, I thought that a first hand account of the books main audience would do more than I ever could.
In his own words, I give you Sean:
Well here I go, the book was amazing! If I had to pick a book to give to teenage boys, this would be the book. The real life surveys made the book seem more realistic. While I read the book, it felt like they were inside my head and answering my questions as the book went on. I even wish girls could read this book so they could get an adequate view point on a guys perspective. Some of my girl friends read some passages from this book and they told me what the book says about girls is totally true. I would really recommend this book to any lonely guy in need of relationship help, but I would also recommend it to any one! As a not so good with girls guy I felt like I have a better perspective on how a girls feels and acts by this book.
Could not have said it better if I had been paid! This book is available at Amazon, Family Christian and your local Christian retailer. You can also find out more by clicking here. If there is a teen guy under your roof – get this book!
The Art of Peacemaking
October 2, 2008I do not need to list the myriad of concerns around the world in regards to Peace. I am consistently amazed at the need seemingly present in religious circles to have a “crusade” or “fight the good fight” or use the “sword of the spirit” to “defeat our foes”. Though we proclaim that our message is Peace our language is anything but.
Don’t missunderstand me, I realize that the endeavour of peace is not a simplistic undertaking. Time, conversations, more time, listening and work are needed – but not force or violence.
One word that must be included in the conversations about peace is the word, “Justice”. Robert McAffee Brown speaks volumes about the search for peace when in Making Peace in the Global Village he says,
“We need to measure our world and the imperative for peacemaking, with an eye to justice. Whatever is unjust threatens peace. Whatever fosters justice is an act of peacemaking.”
These acts that foster justice can be done by anyone at anytime and each is an act of peacemaking – each moves us closer to a realization of global peace. Sometimes when we think of world-wide peace, we tend to become overwhelmed, but the imperative is that the big things are never done by big organizations or big governments, they are always done by small people who, like yesterdays post, have big dreams.
Dream a Little Dream
October 1, 2008When I was younger, I managed to find myself in trouble quite a bit because of daydreaming. People said that I needed to focus on what was going on and “pay attention”. Now that I’ve added a few more years, I have found great value in daydreaming. I like to think that prior to God’s work of creation, however that happened, He indulged in a little daydreaming. Once satisfied then He did whatever it was that He did.
Dreaming is an incredible gift for us, but even more so if we realize that we all dream differently. We can have the same facts, environment and desire, but our dreams will be completely different.
T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia makes a distinction between day dreamers and night dreamers:
“All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous, for they may act their dreams with open eyes to make it possible.”
Today dream a little dream – in the open day – for your dream can, and should, become a great dream that influences many for the good.
Suffering
September 30, 2008“We do not want suffering; we want success. We identify not with those who are low and hurt but with those who are high and healthy. We don’t like lepers or losers very well; we prefer climbers and comers. For Christians, the temptation to be conformed to this world is desperately sweet and strong. Yet, says the apostle Paul, we are children of God if we suffer with Christ. … God does not give his hardest assignments to his weakest children.”
There is such pressure for us to become pressed into a form that is not authentically ours. We have people all around us friends and family and co-workers who try to tell us how we should be. Then we pay people to come and listen to us in therapy and tell us what we should be or do. The stark reality is that we need courage to become who we are. Within each of us is a divinely unique essence that God wants displayed in this world. In our day and night dreams we see flickers of it. When we connect with a character in a great film or story we feel a brief moment of what could be. Too often we see those experiences as fantasy instead of the open window into our real reality.
What we perceive to be weakness is in fact strength – strength that has the capacity to remove any obstacle in your way of becoming the true authentic you.
christopherhildreth 