BEAUTY

I am currently reading or even though it has been over 40 years should I say rereading a short little book titled. YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL by J.B. Phillips.  I first read it in a Philosophy of Religion class my freshman year at MSU.  For some reason it is one of the few books I kept from my college years.  And yes another quote and thought that I want to keep track of is coming..........

"True beauty always seems to bear with it a note of gentle sadness, sometimes very poignant; and it may well puzzle us why this should be so.  If the beautiful is so desirable and so welcome it should surely bring unqualified joy." 

Have you ever experiences this?  I have! It has always puzzled me.   I've looked out over a beautiful vista and experienced the beauty and joy of the scene. I've been so taken by the beauty that I have wanted to cry. At the same time a feeling of melancholy accompanied the joy of the beauty.  It has always puzzled me how one can be so happy and also sad at the same time.  The seem to be emotions at conflict with each other but maybe they are not.  Continuing on in the book Phillips goes on to explain a possible reason the above is so.

 "Is it possible that beauty is a hint of the real and true and permanent, so that we feel without conscious process of thought:  'This is what life should be, or what it is in reality.' And therefore to compare that with our ordinary everyday experience with all its imperfection and ugliness gives rise to a poignant pain?...Or is it the eternal spirit of man remembering here in his house of clay the shining joys of his real Home?"

 I find this explanation very interesting.  Do we have built into our subconscious a memory of  our real home. Over my year of reading during devotional times this year about our transitory life on earth and our real home being our eternal life with God. When we experience true beauty on earth does it trigger our memory of what was and should be? Is the sadness a longing to regain what we once had.  If so as a Christian the hope and joy is it will be once again. This Jesus promised.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Its another Christmas. I don't have much to say but wish you all a Merry Christmas.

THINGS TO PONDER FROM "THE WALK"

I mentioned reading THE WALK which was written by Richard Paul Evans in a previous post.  I have now not only finished this short book but also the second in what will become a series.  I don't know how many books it will take to write of Alan Christofferson's journey from Seattle to Key West.  A long walking journey for sure, but an even longer journey in discovery of  the point and purpose of his life after losing his wife in a tragic accident. 

Here is a selection of thoughts offered in THE WALK that I want to ponder.  I post them here so I can find them when I want to return to them.              

• “Everyone has a purpose for coming to earth...I've spent my whole life figuring it out. ..It took me years to realize the searching was the path. It was simple. My mission is to live and accept what comes my way until I get back home. My real home.”
• “The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose to live is to accept pain. Some people go to such lengths to avoid pain that they give up on life. They bury their hearts or they drug or drink themselves numb until they don't feel anything anymore. The irony is, in the end their escape becomes more painful than what they are avoiding.”
• “I believe that in spite of the chains we bind ourselves with there is a primordial section of the human psyche that still yearns to roam free.”
• “I have decided on the destination; the path is but detail. I have begun my walk.”
• “Kierkegaard wrote that 'we understand our lives backward, but must live them forward.' He was right of course, but in looking back on the hammer strikes that chisel and shape our souls we understand more than our lives and even ourselves—we begin to comprehend the sculptor.”

ITS A BETTER DAY!

I'm still not into Christmas celebrations, but I definitely woke up in a better place yesterday and an even better place this morning.  I'm even sitting out on the lanai enjoying a morning breeze and some sunshine.  Maybe the dreariness of the past few mornings has been a big cause of how I look at the coming day.  I never did like gray as a color for the  sky or much of anything else.  Grey is a nothing color and it leaves me feeling like nothing.  Boy am I blessed to not be living up north anymore where gray days are the norm rather than the exception this time of year. 

Anyway, life is feeling a bit better right now.  God is so good.  It seems lately when things begin to get "gray" he puts something to read in my path that helps brighten things up.  This time is is a short book I've been trying to get from the library and a couple of weeks ago I placed a hold on it.  Friday it came in and Saturday I picked it up.  I didn't start reading it till yesterday since I knew if I didn't finish reading the book I was in the middle of I would never get back to it and finish it. (A bad pattern of mine).  I had a strong desire to read this little book. I don't really know where that came from since the main reason I originally wanted to read it was it is the first book in a series of two and a friend had given me the second book to read.  I've had the second book for months but couldn't find book one.  (Another reading trait of mine is I don't like to read book 2 before book 1.)  I powered my way through the book I was reading.  It was a long one and last night I started my new one.  I'm already half way through it.

Oh in case anyone is interested the short book is THE WALK by Richard Paul Evans.  Yes, he is the master story teller of short books.  I've read a lot of his other books which were I though nice easy reads and I enjoyed them, but this one is in my opinion the best.  As they say it is "speaking to my soul".  It is the story of a man who thought he had everything and then lost it all.  His escape from the pain of all he lost takes him on a very long walk from Seattle, Washington to Key West, FL. His story resonates with me. At my age I could not think of walking across the country to escape from the pain of loss or to redefine who I am in this new life. I did however drive away from my past life and move 900 miles down the coast searching for a new meaning.  In the book Alan has just begun his journey.  He started out the week after he lost the love of his life. In my case it took me two years to make my escape and I've been on my journey for a little over a year.

I don't yet know how Alan's journey will progress and I definitely have no idea where mine is taking me.  I just know that I am on a journey and if no one else is with me that I have one companion who has promised he will never leave me.  Daily I look to my companion and thank him that he will keep his promise to always be with me and ask that I have the faith and trust to believe in that promise.  That companion is God. The one who I believe put this short book in my hands at this time when I needed to hear the story of another's escape from loss and pain and rediscovery of self.  Alan's story may be fictional, but that doesn't detract from the truth it tells and the hope it provides.

YES IT'S DECEMBER AGAIN!

It's hard to believe that another year has gone by. Once again it is December and people are well into the planning of their Christmas holiday celebrations.  I always loved the Christmas season and I certainly know the real reason for celebrating at this time of year, the birth of our Savior. This Christmas however I am finding I just want it all to go away.  I don't want Christmas cards or Christmas carols.  I am not interested in Christmas parties or even Christmas presents. Yes this year I am Scrooge himself reincarnate. 

Christmases are for families and my family is forever fractured.  Never again will there be a Brown family Christmas as there was for over 35 years.  How do others adjust to this type of change?  I certainly know that I am not the first nor will I be the last to face these holiday adjustments.  Families are fractured for all sorts of reasons and others seem to accept, adjust, and move on.  I just don't know how they do it.  Today a friend who just lost her husband to death said they were told in her grief group that the third year was the hardest.  If that is so and the same is true for separation and divorce maybe next year I will be able to face the holidays again.  But this year I just want them to go away!

Bring on January!  I've had enough of December.

(I really do hope tomorrow I wake up in a better place.  I don't like feeling this way, but I've tried to fight the feelings and that was just making them worse so I decided to just go with the force of them and then move on.)