C.S. Lewis quote

‎"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink & sex & ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." -C.S. Lewis

Children of the Light

lately I’ve been loving the song “Children of the Light” by Hillsong.  here’s a portion of the lyrics that have been on my heart this past week:

Children in the wilderness
Following the love You poured out for us
Covered by the Name that we confess
Jesus Savior, forever

Roaming through the dark of night
Clinging to the word that burns deep inside
Eyes fixed on Your Name and endless light
Jesus Savior, forever

Children of the light
Blazing through the night
Taking back what the devil had stolen

Calling on Your Name
Breaking every chain
Jesus everlasting freedom

you can watch it here:

an afternoon hiatus

I feel like I took a hiatus from life this afternoon.  not on purpose.  it just…happened.  which I think was my body’s way of telling me that it had finally reached “empty”.

I woke up around 3:45am today and couldn’t fall back asleep.  after church, I came home and crashed on my bed, hidden under my electric heating blanket and with my electric fireplace blazing heat into my room.  and I laid there for 3 hours.  doing…absolutely nothing.  you would think one would fall asleep during this time.  I guess I forgot to mention that as soon as I got home from church, I had a cup of fully caffeinated coffee.  because I hadn’t had coffee all day yet.  and I have no self-control in that area.  #epicfail.

I watched 1 episode of “Beyond Boarders”, a surf documentary series put out by Steelroots – a Christian extreme sports ministry.  and then I was curious to see what Steelroots was currently putting out, so I pulled up their website on my phone – and they are no more.  that was sad.  they put a super cool video on their site though, explaining that they had closed down production for now.  what I loved about it is that they also totally encouraged viewers to go be the Gospel to others.  if you’re interested to see it, you can go here: http://steelroots.com/

anyway, I had no motivation whatsoever to get out of bed all afternoon.  this is totally not like me.  but at the same time, I didn’t feel guilty about it – because I can’t even remember the last time this happened.  I eventually got up to say hi to my roommate who came home.  I made my bed.  turned off the heating blanket.  stood in my room staring blankly at nothing in particular.  looked back at my now-made bed.  and threw myself down on it again for another 1/2 hour or so.

I really have no point to this post.  but I suppose that’s OK.

prayer

saw this post on a friend's facebook status:

"If we love people and have the power to help, then WE ARE GOING TO BE BUSY. (If Jesus lived today his cell phone would ring non-stop) Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy LIFE; it offers us a less busy HEART. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an Inner Quiet. B/c we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love. So when things get busy it actually drives even more into a life of prayer." -Paul Miller (The Praying Life)

lent

"Unfortunately, the Lenten season often gets reduced to the question, “What are you giving up for Lent?”...but it can only take us so far. The real question of the Lenten season is, “How will I return to God with all my heart?' " -Ruth Haley Barton

my love for allegory

i'm not a very allegorical person.  i don't understand allegory and most of the time, it goes right over my head.      allegorical songs, allegorical poetry, allegorical short stories... yeah.  they don't do much for me.  i often get done reading/hearing them and want to yell at the author, "I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU'RE REFERRING TO, SO IF YOU WANT ME TO UNDERSTAND THIS YOU NEED TO SHOOT STRAIGHT WITH ME!!!!"  pretty sure there were times in college where i did throw books down in frustration and yell something to that effect.  to which my roommate, who was an english major, (hey Boone!!) would come in my room, laughing, and patiently tried to explain what the author was saying.

and then i would conclude the discussion with, "well why didn't they just get to the point and say that?"

i remember once i had to write an allegorical poem for a class in college.  i was thrilled to get to try my hand at it (that was a completely sarcastic, untrue statement).  annoyed that i had to do the assignment, i sat down for like 3 minutes and wrote down everything random that came thru my head.  i read what i wrote, thinking maybe since it came from my own head, maybe i'd understand my own allegorical poem.

i got nothin'.

then i wondered if people who write allegories actually understand their own allegories?  maybe they write something, then sit back and scratch their head and conclude, "well...maybe somebody will pull something out of this..." and then send it off to the publisher, who also doesn't understand the allegory but concludes that since this author's previous works were a big hit, there must be somebody who will understand it.  so the publisher publishes it and critics and analysts read it and conclude that it must mean this and that and proclaim that the author is absolutely brilliant.  and then the author reads what the critics and analysts conclude and, confused but wanting to act like it was totally what they meant when they wrote the allegory, accept the praise and say, "yes...that is exactly what i meant."  except they probably wouldn't say that.  they'd probably say it in an allegorical way so that the critics and analysts would continue to be astounded by their "brilliance".

i wish i had my allegorical poem that i wrote.  i would share it with you.  but i don't have it.  and i don't feel like making one up right now.  and i'm hungry and i should go find food.  how's that for a totally anti-climatic end to this story?

is vague the same as being allegorical?  i don't think so.  i can be vague.  and that's what i want to be in the remainder of this post.

the reality of public has created hindrance.