stress = me. apparently, despite my best efforts, my dad has been able to convince something within me subconsciously to stress out. i hate it. the scenario is that i have to find a job and a place to live, and quickly would be nice. the thing is that i have about a month to figure it out but somehow my dad has convinced me that its just not going to happen. not that i agree at all. i will tell you verbally and knowingly that he is wrong. i will find a job, i will find an appartment, and it will be ok. but somewhere inside something believed him and sent a stress out signal to the rest of my body. here's exactly what that random place within me bought into:
my dad believes, i think genuinely, that the world is hard. we do not get handouts. hard work and struggle is the only thing that gets us anywhere and even that doesn't get us far. you will not be given a second chance. people look out for themselves and could really care less about your well being. something like that i think with all the et cetera's that go along. and the sooner you learn it the better.
example: a teacher of mine in college assigned a paper when i was not in class and then when everyone else turned it in and i had nothing, since i had known nothing about it, he gave me a 0. no grace, no second chance, no late paper docked a letter grade, just a 0. (the class was my class on catholocism by the way... and i still find irony in the fact that to brother__ the idea of grace seemed foreign.) anyway, upon relating the story to my father he did not join in my irate cry for justice but instead said something to the effect of "thats life" and i couldnt help but feel that he was whole heartedly on the side of my professor.
i on the other hand could not disagree more strongly than i do. certainly there are those in life who act like my prof did that day but they are by no means the majority, nor right in acting so. i recently read a book entitled velvet elvis, written by rob bell, which i have already recommended to you in a previous blog. in it he speaks of heaven on earth. this sunday at church bo brookby spoke in a similar manner when he refered back to the garden of eden. each claimed that god desires this earth to be free of sin, of evil, of death, like heaven on earth, or a return to the state of the garden. this i buy. bell claims that as christians we are called to be a part of the change. we are to bring heaven to earth and every time we love, every time we extend grace, every time we exibit the characteristics of christ, when we live according to the laws of heaven we make this earth a bit more like it was meant to be...like it is meant to be...like it will become...like it is becoming.
example: i happened to be taking another class at the same time as the aforementioned one on the catholic tradition on faith and imagination. the same week as the paper that was due in that other class i had a major paper due in this class as well. having been overwhelmed with other work i had really not prepared a paper worth anything at all for the class and passed the professor the day the paper was due. i told him that i really had nothing for him that was worth his time and asked to be granted a day more to improve upon it. he gave me a week. i want to go back and say that again. he gave me a week. can you feel it. i can. the same rush of relief, the same gratitude, the same grateful happy loved encouraged every good exciting feeling i can think of joy came over me. it felt right. this is how we were meant to live. his response did not shelter me from the real world. it was the real world. the good part of it anyway. the part that i think has always been there.
anyway i believe that we are to exhibit this. grace, love, encouragement, that which is good in the world. i dont expect the bad because i know what side will win in the end and what side is breaking through all over the place. and i dont care if i run into the graceless because i know somewhere right around the corner is the other side. when my prof decided to give me a grade that he know would virtually make it impossible to pass his class i wanted to cry... but not for me. i wanted to cry for him. he thought he was teaching me a lesson about life. never mess up. but i know that we cannot avoid it. in this broken world we fall. we cannot be taught not to fall anymore than your computer can be taught never to freeze, the parts of your car to never break, the earth to stop spinning round the sun. i wanted to cry for him because i knew something that he become blind to. this world was like heaven. it exibited god. it was heaven. perfect. not because it was taught to be but because it was made to be...as god is making it, as god is making us to be perfect. god does not teach us our way to heaven...he changes us, makes us new and will keep at it till we get there.
you may say that the fight is close or that the "too bad life sucks" side is winning, but i will disagree. always. most of me anyway. till i can get rid of that little hidden part that bought the lie.
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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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