The Mad Hatter Makes a ~gasp~ Resolution

In the past, I have tried my level best to start my day with a list of things to do. The list may not necessarily be written down someplace but I do always have an idea of what needs doing, cleaning, fixing, whatever-ing next. Then there are those moments when I know there is something that needs doing but it conflicts with something equally important that needs doing. That's when I go all deer-in-headlights. Drives me nuts! I mean, which one is the "right" thing to do?

Sometimes I try to think about what I am doing in terms of what "hat" I am wearing. You know, that saying about how we all wear many hats? I think Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) came up with it. Essentially he said we can compartmentalize and prioritize what needs to be done based upon which hat we are wearing at that time. Seems pretty simple, does it not?

Unfortunately, that "hat" thing just leads to major anxiety for me. How does it lead to anxiety? Well just think about it...I'm trying to figure out which is the right thing to do, right? What will be the outcome if I do X instead of Y? Or if I do Y before X? Or...? Or...? Or...? It's enough to make a happily odd girl go slowly insane if not require professional help and a handful of anxiety meds per day. And who can afford that? 

Add to that the fact that the Lord has said that anxiety is a sin, has He not? So I have to do things slightly differently. I keep the list but it's not carved in granite. I've simply decided that my life has got to be more than getting stuff done and checking things off a list. I have to be flexible and gentle with myself and learn to live with the chips as they fall where they may. 

Basically, I have to remember to give up control while remaining in control. I can't let anyone force me into a position where I lose control anymore. There is no need for it. To possibly misquote a character from Sean Russell's Gatherer of Clouds, "To lose control because one feels out of control is a very confused response, I think."

So I think this coming year's resolution (I hate those things) is going to be keeping control and learning how to master the passions in my soul. It does me no good to allow these things to come to me and separate me from God by causing me undue anxiety and nervousness. The last part of the verses from Philippians I noted above says, 

"Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." 

Emphasis mine. This next year, as I come to the end of yet another journey (graduation in December 2011, YAY!) I want to be at peace with God. That is truly it. I just want peace. Not the peace of the doormat getting walked on all the time nor the peace of the soldier who is always ready for battle. Just peace to live my life the way God wants me to live it. This is not to say that I won't fight if the need arises because there are things I will not abide and I will not be walked all over. No. There has to be a balance and I am looking for it.

This coming year, I hope to find it.

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

Relevant Reading

Artwork borrowed from Fayrenpickpocket @ Deviant Art

Philippians 4:4-7

Gatherer of Clouds
The Ascetic Podvig of Living in the World
Are Passions Natural?

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

Christ is born, glorify Him! Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him! 

Christ is on earth, be exalted! 

Sing to the Lord all the whole earth; and that I may join both in one word, 

let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, 

for Him who is of heaven and then of earth.

 Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy; 

with trembling because of your sins, 

with joy because of your hope!

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

An Imperial Greeting from a Modern Orthodox Emperor

 

*Click image to increase size

Did I Miss Something?

Sometimes I think I may have missed something. Hm. I guess I need to back up and explain that one.

Currently, I am listening to the book, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I personally think Hawking is great. He has a great sense of geeky humor that I totally get (so what does that say about me?), is brilliant at what he does and has the talent to make ridiculously complex mathematics, physics and cosmology understandable to the layman. He is also quite talented at marketing himself. We're talking about a man who has been confined to a wheelchair for decades and unable to do anything except think. He can't even write down the equations he comes up with in the middle of the night, but has to remember them and wait for someone to write it out for him! And what does he think about? Creation. How did we get here? Where did we come from? Why does the universe have such order from the largest scale down to the smallest?

I love listening to his books and make it a point to watch all the documentaries about cosmology on the science channels. I don't have the talent or skill to be a theoretical quantum physicist but I certainly enjoy listening to their theories. And the way Hawking breaks them down makes the basics actually fun for me. Everything I've learned from just watching science shows about him and his theories have only made me more aware of the awesome creative power of God Who not only made the BIG, BIG things like galaxies but also the tiniest parts that make up those galaxies like quarks.

The reason why I think I may have missed something is because I have some friends who aren't fans. Why? Because Hawking isn't a believer. I was talking about something in Hawking's book and a friend said, "I don't bother with him. He's not a Christian and I just don't want to hear what he has to say." So they dismiss what he says and disregard what he has contributed because he doesn't have faith? That is so annoying to me. A lot of people don't believe in God, does that mean we get to dismiss everything they have done? That their contributions to whatever field are not valuable, that THEY as human beings are not valuable because they see the universe differently from me? How limiting and arrogant that is. Frankly, I don't care if he believes in God. I can't make him. I am fairly certain the gospel has been presented to him at some point--most people in thew Western world have heard it--but he has not responded to it as far as I know. Who knows if he will in the future or not? If he does will he have to recant all his science and theories for these people?

So I am thinking I must be missing something because I definitely enjoy Hawking. He is a genius and I've learned lots from him. Many people have and have neither lost their faith nor started sacrificing goats in their backyard. I don't comprehend this insular attitude. Why hide from M-theory, branes and quantum physics?

I think a lot of the issues people have with Hawking lie in the fact that the man does not seem humble. He does sometimes project a very "I am smart and you aren't so just listen to me" attitude, but I have gotten that vibe from plenty of people who are tops in their field. It's a human failing; deal with it. I've been there and done that myself. And Hawking has come out and said that he was wrong on more than one occasion. I don't know if that means he's humbled himself sufficiently or not. You put a bunch of crabs in a pot and they always manage to pull the one nearest the top back down.

Hawking's theories and beliefs have no bearing on me and mine. As a Christian, I believe God created the heavens and the earth. He created them according to laws and rules He put in place which we call mathematics and physics. Those laws sustain life as we know it and probably life as we have yet to discover because God made it that way. While this doesn't mean we will find God in those laws and rules and it also doesn't mean we cannot discover those laws and rules and use them.

Stephen Hawking is a brilliant man. He can teach us a lot about what it means to persevere and succeed in spite of the odds against you (his doctors told him he had two years to live back in the mid-1960's). He loves what he does, that is obvious. Dismissing him because he is not Christian is not a Christian thing to do and, I think, it leaves one the poorer for it.

Interesting Times for a Colored Girl

Wow! What an interesting year/semester. Some of THE most fascinating (and tiring things) have happened to me along the way.

Let me es-plain.

No...There is too much. Let me sum up.*

I discovered that no matter how much pure unadulterated unfettered dramedy one has to live through, I've not had so many trials that I cannot still find peace and praise the Lord. (Hebrews 12:4, 7-12) I mean seriously, some of what happened the past, oh, six months, would make a great sit-com if it was happening to someone else. There were moments when I wanted someone to pass the popcorn cos I just knew there had to be a camera crew nearby. Those tests and trials may not have been martyrdom by the ancient sense of the word, but still they made me into something entirely different than I was before. And I like who I am now. Survival will do that for you. And I have done more than survive this year. By the grace of God, I thrived.

Besides, I learned so much! Not only in school, but also about myself. I mean, some of what I've managed to, well, manage, has been amazing to me simply because I just knew I wouldn't be able to do any of it.

But I did. Imagine that.

I can only praise God that He did not fail to give me a way to escape (1 Corinthians 10:13) when things got tough and I wanted to give up. And He made sure I actually knew that I had an escape route I could use. He even occasionally smacked me upside the head with some interesting circumstances to make sure I used said escape route. Yeah, I have never gotten hints too well so He is getting really good about making it very plain for me. LOL!

This is not to say that I haven't wanted to run screaming in the opposite direction more than once. Giving up always looks easy. But then I'd have to live with myself. Yeah, that's not going to happen. Not to mention I would have been escorted out of my family of overachievers. Frog-marched even. To quote:

i cdnt stand it
i cdnt stand bein sorry & colored at the same time
it's so redundant in the modern world
Ntozake Shange, no more love poems #1, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf

Frankly I didn't have a choice. It is a-frakkin'-mazing what you can do when your choices are limited to "survive or die". Trust me. That is how I looked at this year. Survive or die. And then I called the Lord's bluff. May I just say, He doesn't bluff. He's always holding a Royal Flush. Always. I like that. So, here God was holding the winning hand and I had decided to trust Him and hold on for the ride.

As I said, it was a little tiring. It wasn't like I was just sitting there either. I mean faith without works is dead and stinky. (James 2:14-26) There was stuff I had to do; primary to that was obey His commandments (hear and do, as I teach my own son). Isn't that what He said to do to prove our love for Him? He tells you to do something and, if you love Him, you do it. (John 14:15,21) Simple.

Yeah you believe that if you want to. There's a whole bunch of stuff I have to grit my teeth to do. There's a whole bunch of stuff I wish someone would bribe me to do. There's a whole bunch of stuff that I would just really rather slice my skin off in strips with a dull, salty knife than do. (I kid you not.) But He never said I had to like it. He just said If you love me, you will obey my commandments. I don't succeed all the time, but praise God, He accepts my most paltry efforts and forgives my sin when I fall.

I've learned that I can "suck up" just about anything when I am being obedient to Him, because it isn't about my comfort at that time. It's about Him being glorified and showing Himself strong. Heck at least I have my house and a nice warm bed. King David had to live in caves and worry about being killed by a madman. At least I don't have to live in a cave. ~rimshot~ LOL! (Keeping a sense of humor is paramount too, but then again, I'm loopy.)

Anyway these are just a few of the things these last few months have taught me. I hope that was coherent. I knew what I was trying to say anyway.

Lord have mercy on me, a sinner!

Relevant Reading
Hebrews 12:4,7
1 Corinthians 10:13
James 2:14-26
John 14:15, 21
2 John 1:6

*Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride