Heart Issues

 In a short story I wrote, I said this:

Can we allow within ourselves some force that is greater than we are, something that might cause us to fall headlong into it?  We find it easy to give love when we want to—but can we bear to be loved?

The thing is, we give all we want to—or not—and maybe that’s because we perceive that we are in control. It is harder to receive love as a gift and allow it to draw us into it, to relinquish our control. To love and be loved is the greatest human need, so it’s a paradox, in a way, that we resist it so.

At our church’s last Bible study session for this fall, our pastor, Dr. K, led a discussion in which we all agreed that love is the most important response of the human heart to God. By nature, God is love. He draws us in to participate in his nature, in his love, to be honest in our feelings, to allow ourselves to be broken—and healed. Love enables us to be who we are, in him.

Dr. K said God primarily makes himself known by word—“thus saith the Lord.” Our response, too, comes by word.   Proverbs 4:20-23 says

… pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to a (person’s) whole body. Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

And Oswald Chambers says, When love or the Spirit of God comes upon a person, he is transformed. He will then no longer insist on maintaining his individuality. …. Once your rights to yourself are surrendered to God, your true personal nature begins responding to God immediately. Jesus Christ brings freedom to your total person, and even your individuality is transformed. The transformation is brought about by love— personal devotion to Jesus. Love is the overflowing result of one person in true fellowship with another.

And you are freed and transformed to be who you truly are. What all this means to me is that my response to the issues of my heart determines the course of my life. 

I borrowed the picture from this site.

Truth---"Tell It Slant"

Here’s a great poem by Emily Dickinson about truth. 

Tell it Slant 

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies;
Too bright for mind's infirm intent,
The Truth's superb surprise.

As Lightning to the Children eased,
With explanation kind;
The Truth must dazzle gradually,
Or every man be blind. 

To tell the truth “slant” is, I believe, the most effective way to do it. If you just go up to somebody and say “Hey—God loves you!” that person is apt to go suddenly wide-eyed, turn on his/her heel, and get away from you quickly.

In fact, I remember a similar situation when I was a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin many years ago. Simply being there was a culture shock, since the freshman class was comprised of about a thousand people more than my entire home town. Contributing to the spinning of my head was the fact that professors were slinging truth and half-truth and not-truth at me as fast as they could talk. I was dizzy trying to figure out which was which.

One beautiful day in October or November, a student stopped me on the sidewalk as I was on my way to class, deep in agonized thought. He said, “Have you had the wonderful experience of asking Jesus Christ into your life?”

I was completely bamboozled, not to mention shocked, and said, “Yes.” I walked on. People didn’t do that kind of thing so directly where I came from, and I could hardly believe anybody would do it. My home town was a lovely, nurturing place to grow up, full of loving people. But most of them were shy about directly discussing God, for some reason. It was the time, I suppose. People don’t seem to be that way so much now, and I’m glad.

So what is the best way to present the truth about God’s love to people? How do we “tell it slant” in a way that makes people listen? It's a delicate and difficult question. I’m going to think about it and write more about it soon.

*I borrowed the picture from this site.

A Moveable Feast

I just read somewhere that Good Friday is “a moveable feast.”  Hmmm, I said. What does that mean?

Ernest Hemingway wrote a novel called A Moveable Feast, which is a collection of memoirs about his years in Paris. Someone wrote that Paris is “a moveable feast.”  Somehow, though, I don’t think it is a moveable feast in the same sense as Good Friday. Maybe Hemingway moved around Paris feasting on…things.

When I looked it up, Wikipedia said a moveable feast is a holiday whose date varies, depending on different things—as opposed to a “fixed feast” like Christmas, always December 25.  The date for Good Friday, it said, depends on the date of Easter, which is also a moveable feast.  According to FashionGets.com,

Easter is considered to be a moveable date because the first council of Nicaea in 325 AD declared it to be the Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox. It was then changed by the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

That information was not quite confusing enough for me, so I also considered this mind-boggling erudition, found here:

The tables which appear here and, in more detail, in the Book of Common Prayer can be used to determine the date of Easter. These tables were compiled by the then Astronomer Royal, the Revd James Bradley (1673–1762) for the Calendar Act 1750 (by which the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in Britain), and the effect of them is mathematically identical to the more complicated tables devised in 1582 for Pope Gregory XIII’s reform.

In another sense, a website called “Moveable Feast” is about an organization in Baltimore that delivers healthy meals, groceries, and nutrition counseling to people who suffer from AIDS. There’s a similar organization with this title in Lexington, Kentucky.

Oh, dear. What to do with all that?  The thing is, a moveable feast changes around, whereas a fixed feast does not.  The title has an important ring to it. Of course, we don’t call holidays “feasts” in America these days, although we often do feast on holidays.  I like thinking of Easter and Christmas as feasts of love and sharing. And I like thinking of a group whose purpose is to nourish people with AIDS—a feast of feeding, loving, giving.

The picture comes from Lemuria Books’ website.

Posted by Judy Callarman, Scrabble Has-Been at 6:05 PM 0 Old Blogger comments   Links to this post

Summer Blahs

I think maybe I have ADHD this summer. I have gotten only halfway through the very good book I’ve been reading for the past month. Usually, I would have finished it and almost another one by now. My writing projects are on hold because I’m sort of not interested.  

What could be wrong with me?

Here are a few things I’m considering:

1. For sixty days this year, we’ve had horrid weather.

2. It has been at least 100 degrees, usually 105 or so, for the past few weeks.

3. As a result, the grass is dead everywhere, and bushes and flowers are wilted.

4. Everything smells dry and sort of burned.

5. The stock market has gone crazy and my retirement fund is suffering.

6. Cantaloupes have not been good this summer, even with sitting on the cabinet for a few days.

I do see a couple of positive signs, however, that tell me there’s hope I’ll recover from this malaise:

1. The sun is coming up later. That’s good. Maybe autumn will arrive, eventually.

2. School is about to start. Life will be more on a schedule for a while. We can hear the high school band practicing, several blocks away.

3. Nectarines are still delicious.

I have figured out why my asparagus ferns are the only plants thriving in our yard this summer.

I learned that the asparagus fern,  Asparagus densiflorus Sprengeri, is a native of South Africa. No wonder it likes Texas weather now!

Picture from http://www.hear.org/starr/images/image/?q=070906-8680&o=plants

Posted by Judy Callarman, Scrabble Has-Been at 12:09 PM 1 Old Blogger comments   Links to this post

Worship

It’s been a long time since we did a word study here on “Connections.”  I believe one is now in order.  Here is the word for the day: worship.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote this: “A person will worship something, have no doubt about it. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we worship we are becoming.”

According to Dictionary.com (the Thesaurus part), worship (as a verb) means to honor or glorify. Some synonyms are  admire, adore, bow down to, celebrate, chant, deify, dote on, esteem, exalt, extol, idolize, laud, love, magnify, offer prayers to, pay homage to, praise, pray to, put on a pedestal, respect, revere, reverence, sanctify, sing, sing praises to, venerate.  In other words, it means not only a brief act of celebration, but also a constant state of adulation.

Emerson also wrote this: “A man is what he thinks about all day long.” When Emerson wrote this, he didn’t just mean men, of course.  What we spend the biggest part of our time and money on is our most important priority.  That is what we think about most.

God wants our every thought. He wants to be closer to us than our breath, part of our blood and bones and mind.  He wants us to dote on him, to respect, esteem, and revere him, to seek his guidance in everything. He wants us to desire for our lives to glorify him.  That is worship.

*I borrowed the picture from this site: http://godwordistruth.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/what-kind-of-worship-god-desires-from-his-people/ 

Posted by Judy Callarman, Scrabble Has-Been at 8:40 PM 0 Old Blogger comments   Links to this post