Christian Art

Life, Truth 0

When we look at a painting, or hear a symphony, or read a book, and feel more Named, then, for us, that work is a work of Christian art.  But to look at a work of art and then to make a judgment as to whether or not it is art, and whether or not it is Christian, is presumptuous.  It is something we cannot know in any conclusive way.  We can know only if it speaks within our own hearts, and leads us to living more deeply with Christ in God.

— Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, compiled by Carole F. Chase

Unenforceable Rules

Forgiveness, Life, Marriage 0

Nearly all relationship problems begin when our partners break an unenforceable rule.  Your frustrated attempt to enforce such a rule is at the root of your anger toward your loved one.  Feelings of anger, helplessness, or depression are all indications that you are trying to enforce something that cannot be enforced.  Your anger is telling you that things are not working out the way you want them to.  These situations are painful because you are not able to control them, even though you try over and over to do so….

If most of your partner’s actions cause you a good deal of emotional distress, you may be trying to enforce an unenforceable rule.  We cling to our unenforceable rules and refuse to accept our partner’s mistakes, flaws, and disagreeable traits, thinking that we should not have to put up with them.  This is like clinging to the anchor of a ship you fell off of.  As you gasp your last breath, you’re still complaining that the anchor was there to keep your boat safe, and damn it, dragging you to the bottom of the sea isn’t helping.  The anchor is wrong.  It hasn’t read the anchor rulebook and doesn’t know the right way to do its job….

When you try and fail to enforce one of your unenforceable rules, you become angry, bitter, despondent, and helpless.  Trying to force something that you cannot control to go your way is an exercise in frustration.  You can’t force your spouse to love you or to stop cheating; nor can you force your kids to treat you respectfully.  The more unenforceable rules you have, the more likely you are to feel agitated and disappointed with your marriage.  When you cling to unenforceable rules, you leave yourself open to pain every time one of them is broken.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 111-112

Our Way of Living

Compassion, God, Gratitude, Life 0

If we believe that God has given us everything, then giving will be our way of living.  We’ll still work to earn, because the gift of work is the primary means by which God gives what we have.  But earning and possessing will become folded into giving.  God gives us life, powers, abilities, and so we earn and possess.  We’ll earn and possess so we can give, as when we share our food with the hungry; we’ll give even while earning, as when we create goods and offer services with dedication, care, and wisdom; and we’ll give even by possessing, as when we open our home for others to enjoy.  Earning and possessing are not just a bridge between our desires and their satisfaction.  They are a midpoint in the flow of gifts:  from God to us, and through us to others.  We give because we have been given to; we don’t let others simply fend for themselves because we haven’t been left to fend for ourselves.

— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge:  Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, p. 107-108

The Message of Macbeth

Books, Life, Love, Truth 0

“Shakespeare did not write for your ease of reading,” she said.

No kidding, I thought.

“He wrote to express something about what it means to be a human being in words more beautiful than had ever yet been written.”

“So in Macbeth, when he wasn’t trying to find names that sound alike, what did he want to express in words more beautiful than had ever yet been written?”

Mrs. Baker looked at me for a long moment.  Then she went and sat back down at her desk.  “That we are made for more than power,” she said softly.  “That we are made for more than our desires.   That pride combined with stubbornness can be disaster.  And that compared with love, malice is a small and petty thing.”

— Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

Our Inner Child Recognizes Truth

Children, Joy, Life 0

If we limit ourselves to the possible and provable, as I saw these people doing, we render ourselves incapable of change and growth, and that is something that should never end.  If we limit ourselves to the age that we are, and forget all the ages that we have been, we diminish our truth.

Perhaps it is the child within us who is able to recognize the truth of story — the mysterious, the numinous, the unexplainable — and the grown-up within us who accepts these qualities with joy but understands that we also have responsibilities, that a promise is to be kept, homework is to be done, that we owe other people courtesy and consideration, and that we need to help care for our planet because it’s the only one we’ve got.

I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.

— Madeleine L’Engle, The Rock That Is Higher, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, collected by Carole F. Chase, February 21 entry

God Is Not Mean.

God, Gratitude, Joy, Life 0

Today, though, I choose to worship a God whose justice is beyond my understanding in all particulars but this one that my children have taught me:  God is not mean.

God gave me a husband who loves me and children who are not horribly sick and a job I like and a mother-in-law who passes on her cars to us for their bluebook prices and, two Sundays ago, eight newborn Labrador puppies who are just now opening their eyes….  God hears my prayers and answers them in my best interest, every one of them, although I sometimes don’t recognize that he has or agree with him about what my best interest might be….

God is not mean.  He chose me, despite my own frequent meanness.  He chose me when there were better people.  Better mothers.  Better writers.  Better Christians.  Better cooks, probably.  There are so many others that he could have chosen, others that I hope he will choose, every one of them.  And after he chose me he has kept on choosing me:  rewarding me, reassuring me, burying me in blessings.

Our God, I have learned from my daughters, is the God of promises — promises of healing and happiness and all good things — for those who look forward to their own fulfillment.  Promises available not only in the Word of God but in all creation, in newborn puppies with their eyes still closed and ditches and frothed milk and silly games.  In children.  In our ability to imagine heaven.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 229-232

Opportunities for God to Love Me

God, Life 0

And so, I believe I’m wrong to expect disasters, which isn’t to say they won’t happen.  But if they do, they won’t be payback, but rather — I try to believe this — new opportunities for God to show his very particular love for me.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 226

Grieving

Compassion, Healing, Life, Trials 0

It seems to me that I and most of the people I know have forgotten how to grieve like this — not only for others but for ourselves.  We have forgotten how to grieve at all.  It no longer comes naturally to us.  We have to learn it from self-help books and therapists.  Or we have to do without.

All I have to offer you is a list of don’ts.  Don’t forbid painful topics.  Don’t judge.  Don’t preach.  When people tell you of their pain, don’t say anything at all.  Don’t think, if you can help it, at least at first.  Just hear it and, if you can, cry.  Cry for them and for yourself, because you, too, have suffered such things, or will.  Cry that there is evil in this world, that we are all of us sometimes the victims and often the perpetrators of it.  Cry that people, however messed up, and even if they themselves caused the misery in which they find themselves, have to suffer at all….  Remind yourself of these truths about the pain of our world and the sins that occasion it.  Others’ sins.  Our own sins.  Because it is only this grieving, this taking of a knee, that truly comforts us, that connects us to one another and to God.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 96

Being Good

God, Life 0

As long as the natural life is in your body, it will do a lot towards repairing that body.  Cut it, and up to a point it will heal, as a dead body would not.  A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself.  In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble….

The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him.  He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis