Context
When I drive to Texarkana on Saturdays to attend my Quaker meeting, I usually obey the posted speed limit. Since a great deal of my trip takes place on a two-lane highway, this means when people pass me, they then pull in front of me.
A gentleman driving an older sedan with cracks in the windshield did this today. Shortly thereafter we came upon three vehicles on the opposite shoulder, one of which belonged to the Caddo Parish Sheriff's office and had its lights flashing. Louisiana law requires us to move over or slow down for vehicles with flashing lights on our own shoulder, but there are no obligations pertaining to vehicles on the opposite side. Nevertheless, the guy who had just passed me slowed down considerably, even going a few MPH under the speed limit. I was tempted to pass him, but restrained myself.
Commentary
My first reaction to the driver slowing down ahead of me was, "My driving decisions make my life easier." Consider: except for the "move over or slow down" rule mentioned above, I never have to change how I'm driving when I see a member of law enforcement. Other people have to make numerous adjustments.
Not that my method is entirely stress-free. When people pass me on the two-lane, they sometimes express annoyance, and I'm not completely immune to that. Nonetheless, I'd have to say my method of driving is the one that brings me the most peace.
Making all our decisions according to which ones will bring us the most peace is not a bad way to go, although it is complicated by the need to predict how we'll feel in the future on a regular basis. If nothing else, we can evaluate our current path to see if it's bringing us peace and make adjustments accordingly. Who knows? Doing this often enough might improve our powers of prediction.
So what do we define as peace? I'll admit that for me it has the air of "I know it when I feel it," but I'll try to be more definite. I think we can all agree that peace is not worry or stress or guilt, but I would venture to say it's not necessarily happiness or satisfaction, either. As mentioned previously, I often get a great deal of visceral satisfaction when I do the wrong thing. There's always psychic damage to clean up afterwards, though.
Absence of conflict is a reasonably good definition of peace, but it depends on how you define conflict (wheels within wheels!). I often find that making a good decision for me causes opposition from other people. What really tears me up is when I make the right choice for myself and someone else makes the right choice for her/himself and we still end up in conflict! These disputes can usually be resolved by recognizing our differing needs and perspectives, but still!
I also can't really say that making good decisions means I won't be conflicted about them. Change, even good change, is often very stressful. However, I usually find that once I've made my initial commitment and taken the first few steps, most of the strain falls away. Peace manifests in the feeling that a way is opening up for me.
If peace is the revelation of a path we can follow, then I have to say that neither complacency nor resignation fits the bill. Complacency does its level best to never move at all, and resignation implies that one is not deciding where to go. I do, however, have to leave room for the radical resignation that says, "I'm giving up everything to follow God's will."
There, I did it. Stuck God into the middle of a perfectly good (psychological? philosophical?) treatise. I can't help it, though. For me, even seeking peace is related to my religious beliefs that there is a God, that He cares about me, and that He has a plan. When I say "a way is opening up," I mean God's way. Realistically, I don't believe it's actually possible for us to thwart God's will. On the other hand, I think we can cause ourselves a lot of stress and worry by trying to.
What did you see today?
Showing posts with label John. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John. Show all posts
6/04/2011
7/27/2007
I saw some people sitting around talking
Context
I went to give blood today. The person who attended to me struggled with almost all of the tasks associated with drawing blood and the end result was that my pint had to be discarded due to air contamination. Most of the time she was struggling, four or five of her coworkers were sitting around talking.
Commentary
Because of the Quaker testimony on integrity, I try to make the Context part of my blog as straightforward and fact-based as possible. Now that I'm in Commentary, I can tell you I was royally pissed off about the situation this morning.
I am what they call a baby blood donor, so I try to donate regularly. I enjoy the chance to do something that helps out and normally causes me very little trouble. Today's missteps at the blood collection site not only inconvenienced me, they made it impossible for me to donate for another eight weeks, which is likely to inconvenience some babies! So I'm a little perturbed about that.
However, I found the woman's coworkers blasé attitude even more disturbing. It's entirely possible that there was nothing they could have done to improve the situation, but from my viewpoint they looked like their work was of no consequence at all to them.
So that got me thinking about salvation. You don't really want to know how my mind works, because you'll become just as crazy as me, but here's what happened: my husband and I had a discussion about religious universalism yesterday in which I was generally in favor of it (my opinion on this topic changes almost daily). His main objection to universalism is that it fails to give enough importance to God sending his Son to die for us. In response I said, "yeah, but salvation doesn't seem all that important to some people."
That made me wonder why salvation is more important to me than many people I know, so I resolved to spend some time thinking about it today. Here's the progression I then went through: I think salvation is important because I believe in sin, which I know is not true of all everyone. Most of the people I know who don't believe in sin are moral relativists. I think moral relativism starts from a good place, i.e. "there are different moral standards in different contexts." However, it too often seems to end up at "since there's no absolute morality, it doesn't matter what I do!"
Do you see how I got back to the blood center workers? I believe that the moment we start believing that what we do doesn't matter, we start doing wrong. I also believe we get really depressed because it sucks to not matter, but that's an issue for another time.
What did you see today?
I went to give blood today. The person who attended to me struggled with almost all of the tasks associated with drawing blood and the end result was that my pint had to be discarded due to air contamination. Most of the time she was struggling, four or five of her coworkers were sitting around talking.
Commentary
Because of the Quaker testimony on integrity, I try to make the Context part of my blog as straightforward and fact-based as possible. Now that I'm in Commentary, I can tell you I was royally pissed off about the situation this morning.
I am what they call a baby blood donor, so I try to donate regularly. I enjoy the chance to do something that helps out and normally causes me very little trouble. Today's missteps at the blood collection site not only inconvenienced me, they made it impossible for me to donate for another eight weeks, which is likely to inconvenience some babies! So I'm a little perturbed about that.
However, I found the woman's coworkers blasé attitude even more disturbing. It's entirely possible that there was nothing they could have done to improve the situation, but from my viewpoint they looked like their work was of no consequence at all to them.
So that got me thinking about salvation. You don't really want to know how my mind works, because you'll become just as crazy as me, but here's what happened: my husband and I had a discussion about religious universalism yesterday in which I was generally in favor of it (my opinion on this topic changes almost daily). His main objection to universalism is that it fails to give enough importance to God sending his Son to die for us. In response I said, "yeah, but salvation doesn't seem all that important to some people."
That made me wonder why salvation is more important to me than many people I know, so I resolved to spend some time thinking about it today. Here's the progression I then went through: I think salvation is important because I believe in sin, which I know is not true of all everyone. Most of the people I know who don't believe in sin are moral relativists. I think moral relativism starts from a good place, i.e. "there are different moral standards in different contexts." However, it too often seems to end up at "since there's no absolute morality, it doesn't matter what I do!"
Do you see how I got back to the blood center workers? I believe that the moment we start believing that what we do doesn't matter, we start doing wrong. I also believe we get really depressed because it sucks to not matter, but that's an issue for another time.
What did you see today?
1/15/2006
I saw that everyone needs God’s Word, just in different ways.
Context
I’m reading the Gospel of Luke these days for a couple of reasons. One of them is, given the fact that Luke was a physician, it can be argued that Luke is the gospel for smart people. John could probably give Luke a run for his money, but he’s not who I’m reading right now.
When Luke talks about the devil’s first temptation, he only quotes Jesus as saying, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Luke 4:4 NRSV. For you Matthew fans out there, that means Luke skips the part about “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4b NRSV.
Even though I'm a member of the Religious Society of Friends, I teach Sunday School at my husband’s church, First Evangelical Lutheran. I missed Friends’ worship yesterday, so I decided to attend worship at First as well.
Commentary
I’m wondering if the reason Luke doesn’t include the “every word that comes from the mouth of God” part is because he expects a smart person to figure out what else we need to live. I already know the Matthian version of the story, so I don’t have to figure it out if I don’t want to, but sometimes it’s interesting to work with a passage of the Bible to see if you come to the same conclusion the writers did.
As a person who’s concerned about poverty (not that I do much about it, but I am concerned), the “man does not live by bread alone” idea troubles me. When it comes to missionary work, it seems to me that you need to feed people before you can preach the gospel. And yet, I don't behave as if that's true. My strongest missionary support goes to Lutheran Bible Translators. Partly that’s because my husband and I have a personal connection to one of the families working in Botswana, the Megahans. I don’t think that’s everything, though. Part of me just can’t help but think that no matter how bad off you are materially, your life will be better if you can experience the Bible in your native tongue.
My experience at First today led me to believe that definition of “native tongue” can be stretched pretty far. When I want to be, I can be a pretty focused person. Twice today, I was reading or considering material for future Sunday School classes and people interrupted me. In both cases, the people in question didn’t just say, “hi!”; they made it seem that it was odd for me to be concentrating so hard. I was annoyed; I don’t come to church to be social (I don’t do much of anything to be social); I come to church to learn and teach the Word of God. I started thinking, “maybe that’s what Luke’s talking about. Besides bread, I need the Word of God. These ladies need fellowship.”
But what if fellowship is these ladies “native tongue?” Can fellowship teach us the Word of God? Do we need to share with each other what God is doing in our lives and what we wish God would do? If not, why do I have this blog, anyway?
One more story: as I was thinking about these matters after the worship service had ended, a little girl I know walked around the corner looking upset. When I asked why, she said she was sad because she didn’t get to take anything home from church. I won’t get into the long story of why she thought she should get something to take home every week, as I’m not sure I understand it myself. Anyway, after a while I handed her my bulletin, and told her, “I get to take one of these home every week. It has lots of words in it [the little girl in question can read, but she’s not going to be plowing through the book of Job any time soon], but it also has a picture. That picture will always tell you something about God. In fact, this whole bulletin is about the Word of God. Every week, you can take home the Word of God from church, and no one will tell you ‘no.’” I also told her that she could carry the love of every person in the congregation home with her which, as John will tell you, is a great way of knowing the Word of God. Hey, maybe his is the gospel for smart people!
I’m reading the Gospel of Luke these days for a couple of reasons. One of them is, given the fact that Luke was a physician, it can be argued that Luke is the gospel for smart people. John could probably give Luke a run for his money, but he’s not who I’m reading right now.
When Luke talks about the devil’s first temptation, he only quotes Jesus as saying, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’” Luke 4:4 NRSV. For you Matthew fans out there, that means Luke skips the part about “but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4b NRSV.
Even though I'm a member of the Religious Society of Friends, I teach Sunday School at my husband’s church, First Evangelical Lutheran. I missed Friends’ worship yesterday, so I decided to attend worship at First as well.
Commentary
I’m wondering if the reason Luke doesn’t include the “every word that comes from the mouth of God” part is because he expects a smart person to figure out what else we need to live. I already know the Matthian version of the story, so I don’t have to figure it out if I don’t want to, but sometimes it’s interesting to work with a passage of the Bible to see if you come to the same conclusion the writers did.
As a person who’s concerned about poverty (not that I do much about it, but I am concerned), the “man does not live by bread alone” idea troubles me. When it comes to missionary work, it seems to me that you need to feed people before you can preach the gospel. And yet, I don't behave as if that's true. My strongest missionary support goes to Lutheran Bible Translators. Partly that’s because my husband and I have a personal connection to one of the families working in Botswana, the Megahans. I don’t think that’s everything, though. Part of me just can’t help but think that no matter how bad off you are materially, your life will be better if you can experience the Bible in your native tongue.
My experience at First today led me to believe that definition of “native tongue” can be stretched pretty far. When I want to be, I can be a pretty focused person. Twice today, I was reading or considering material for future Sunday School classes and people interrupted me. In both cases, the people in question didn’t just say, “hi!”; they made it seem that it was odd for me to be concentrating so hard. I was annoyed; I don’t come to church to be social (I don’t do much of anything to be social); I come to church to learn and teach the Word of God. I started thinking, “maybe that’s what Luke’s talking about. Besides bread, I need the Word of God. These ladies need fellowship.”
But what if fellowship is these ladies “native tongue?” Can fellowship teach us the Word of God? Do we need to share with each other what God is doing in our lives and what we wish God would do? If not, why do I have this blog, anyway?
One more story: as I was thinking about these matters after the worship service had ended, a little girl I know walked around the corner looking upset. When I asked why, she said she was sad because she didn’t get to take anything home from church. I won’t get into the long story of why she thought she should get something to take home every week, as I’m not sure I understand it myself. Anyway, after a while I handed her my bulletin, and told her, “I get to take one of these home every week. It has lots of words in it [the little girl in question can read, but she’s not going to be plowing through the book of Job any time soon], but it also has a picture. That picture will always tell you something about God. In fact, this whole bulletin is about the Word of God. Every week, you can take home the Word of God from church, and no one will tell you ‘no.’” I also told her that she could carry the love of every person in the congregation home with her which, as John will tell you, is a great way of knowing the Word of God. Hey, maybe his is the gospel for smart people!
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