Goodness

It's hard to write about God's beauty when we live in a world that is often ugly. It's hard to write positively about God at all without sounding idiotic. The  reasoning for this I find is that most of the time, when God is written about by Christians, there is a certain tone and word choice that's really just....a turnoff. We speak in this sort of overly positive, Churched sort of way that no one, including most Christians, can ever relate to. We are never as rosey-lensed as we sound in our writing- real life is gritty and grimy, and worst of all gray. We write about things in a black and white- but rose tinted fashion that assumes that everything through the perspective of a Christian is actually perfect. Bad guys are always bad guys, and good guys are always good guys. Beauty is always beautiful and ugly is always ugly. The problem is, the world doesn't function that way, and deep down, neither do we. We are as gray, and gritty and grimey as the rest of the world whether we would have our writing show it or not.


I'm the typical cynic in most situations, so this may be no exception, but I find that beauty is often mistakenly hard to find. Or easy, if you know where to look. But ugliness, that's everywhere. We can pretend like it's not, but pretending doesn't change anything outside of ourselves. I created this blog to show the beauty I find in the world, but I also understand that things aren't perfect. Just because I have a relationship with God doesn't mean that everything that's bad is actually somehow good and all things I touch turnn to treasure in heaven or something. I realize this. I realize that often good opposes good and two negatives does not equal a positive. Even if we have a clear and distinct vision of right and wrong, those factors often don't have a clear and distinct separation in the real world. Black and white is most of the time gray. 


I feel like before I go on, I have to make this distinction. I have to let it be said that I've seen 20 ugly things to every beautiful thing. I recognize that sometimes things just suck. I think the thing most people forget though, that amongst the "suck" is beauty, and it's often the silent wallflower to the suck. But it's there. If you can look past the outerlayer of things that seem bad, often you can realize that there's goodness in there somewhere, and that goodness isn't always a lens to look through, but sometimes it can be. 


I just had to have it said.

Valentine's Day

Isn't it odd that often times singles resent Valentine's day? Isn't it odd that Valentine's day has anything to do with specifically romantic love anyway? Before you pass this off as yet another: "A day to show someone you love them should be everyday" sort of things, just pause, and ponder the questions I just posed, then rest easy because this is not one of of those sorts of things.


I don't resent Valentine's day, once, in 7th grade, I had a valentine. He gave me a neclace and when we "broke up" I gave it back and made him cry. Thus begins the complex issue of "love" that this Valentine's day poses. I'm quite content to consume brownies I made for myself and spend time with friends who are both single and not. I'm quite content knowing that I have the perfect company of my God and that it's likely most males I know right now are more like the 7th grade boy I once knew than the object of Biblical masculinity I wait for. It's easy to not resent singledom when you've learnt how dramatic and messy young relationships between two perpetual children can be. It's also easy not to resent singledom when you've come to the conclusion that most of the reason you're single is of your own will. I refuse to fall for any male who is not a man (in the mature, biblical sense) and who isn't in the process of pursuing me in a dignified and mature way. So there, no reason to resent Valentine's day.


It's possible too, that the reason we celebrate Valentine's day is not so that every girl can be given flowers and every boy a good lay ( sorry for the bluntness) but possibly it's for the mere notion of love which is utterly seperate in certain occasions from sexual attraction. Lust and love are very different and these days Valentine's day is considerably based on lust. If it is truly based on love then let the romantic notion flourish but not diminish the friendly notions either. Let the single person feel equally as appreciated as the significant other. Let lingerie and fuzzy handcuffs be as common place as a good conversation or shared meal with a plutonic friend, or relative.  If Valentine's day is really based on love, then let the person single and taken feel equally involved as though it weren't merely about lust.


So therefore, let me not feel excluded from this day of passion and flourishing love merely because I didn't buy extra burt's bees for the evening or breath mints for the night. Let me feel very much included because I love to the fullest that a non-comitted person can. That I make the choice to serve others just as people in committed relationships choose to serve one another. Let us all realize that singlehood is temporary and someday you will be waking up next to a stinky morning breath and doing someone else's dirty laundry. Let us single folk love Valentine's day as much as the utterly infatuated highschool couple who just discovered the power of sexual attraction and who have yet suffered it's messy effects.

petits miracles

What does it mean to be a servant? Does it mean take and find what you are good at and contribute it to something bigger than yourself? Or does it mean take and find yourself and contribute that in the way it is needed? 


I have learnt it is the latter. Servanthood often does not give you an option of how to serve. Servants give of themselves how ever they are required to. I had this notion that I was going to use my graphic design knowledge to woo the Church I go to. Surely I would be the greatest servant, offering of my finest abilities.  I quickly learnt it was not going to happen that way. 


Discouraged after not getting my expected results, I turned to the Lord in Prayer. It became clear to me that if I really wanted to serve my Church, I needed to do just that. Serve. Not dictate in what ways I was willing to be helpful, or only offer my help in ways that benefited me. So I volunteered for amost every volunteer spot open, hoping that I could be used in some way- letting go of the thought of using my art. 


The next day I was contacted and asked to help with graphic design. Nothing is offical yet, but I have learned that often times we do selfish things, then try to shrink wrap them in self-less labels. When I earnestly learned that this instance was not about me, I was able to use one of my gifts to truly contribute.