Well, it's that time of year again. This time it seems so typical for everyone to be "thankful" (I wonder why) and "united", whatever that might mean. I can't say I feel that way - or at least not the same way.
The holiday season has become corporate. Even the real, true, heartfelt "meaning" of Christmas and Thanksgiving has become something gridlocked into picture-perfect family dinners, frame-by-frame cathartic realisations of the "joy of giving", captured by none other than the American cinematic imagination. It seems that people quit being so damn greedy and self-interested for this meager month and a half, then resume their lives as quietly as if nothing had ever happened - only to replay that same amnesiac recreation every year on end. If people really cared so much, you'd think they would at least pretend as much the rest of the year round. Though I guess in a sense that is really that fabled holiday cheer. Good thing we can all, for a little while, shut up and at least pretend not to be so damn insincere.
Though in true Thanksgiving spirit, I really do admit that I haven't been very thankful. I'm not even used to being thankful - which, I guess, is why we have a week off and a special meal designated for such a purpose. But I realise, in a kind of lightly ironic way, that we don't need to be thankful for everything all the time. We've only got so much in the end. I mean, in a sense, all I really have is myself - if only I weren't so unreliable. And I'm undeniably certain that I don't deserve most or any of what I have, or what, by God's mercies, I've come to have. I guess my thanksgiving is less about giving thanks (in the traditional sense) and really just looking at my life and being glad that I can never be thankful enough.
Next year I'm sure there will be another post remarkably similar to this one, and the year after that, and who knows for how long after. The repetition is only half the deal, though - and God fills it up with so much more. When I said I was thankful for struggle, it was true - but only in the sense that God brings me through struggle and in how well He's sustained me so far. When I said I was thankful for struggle, it was true - but infinitely more, just as God is so much infinitely higher and infinitely stronger than us. And I'll be damned if I'm not thankful for that.
So again, I suppose, it all goes back to God. That's something to be thankful for in itself.
Thank God for Life; thank God for the Truth. Thank God there's a Way.
Amen.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Thanksgiving (Part I)
So lately I've been chasing a lot of expectations - and that's just it. These things are to me more than just hopes or "good ideas", they're things that I genuinely expect to come true. And because of that I'm often surprised, taken off guard, and sometimes even shaken when they fail to materialise in the way I expected them.
I guess it can't be blamed - there's a certain way in which I'm sure I'm wrong even to expect certain things - reason, stability, balance - without doing a bit of work on my own. Then again, I do frequently try to justify myself before "myself", the "me of the moment" that asks those unanswered questions and second-guesses I assumed I had already answered and decided.
Charlie Dates, the guest speaker at Revival, was speaking on Psalm 23 - "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." It seems in reflection now that such a thing might be harder to do if the evil you're trying not to be afraid of is in yourself. Though I suppose that King David might have had this in mind. As might have Mr. Dates. One thing that I continue to remember, though, is that in his message, Charlie Dates said that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death - we don't sit around in it, we don't set up camp and build a family there, we walk through it. I hope I can remember that fact.
I'm sure when future Peter looks back and reads this he'll have a great deal of confusion as to why I'm being so incredibly vague (and, after having read this sentence, will probably remember just a little bit). But the truth is, I'm thankful for struggle. I hate it, but I'm thankful for it. I know when Peter looks back at this it will be at a time of challenge and change, and I just hope that I remember why I wrote this. I hope that when I reread these long lost thoughts, I find that I will have been faithful not only to God but to myself.
I hope that when I find nothing left to be thankful for, I still thank God for thanksgiving.
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Now playing: As I Lay Dying - Confined
via FoxyTunes
I guess it can't be blamed - there's a certain way in which I'm sure I'm wrong even to expect certain things - reason, stability, balance - without doing a bit of work on my own. Then again, I do frequently try to justify myself before "myself", the "me of the moment" that asks those unanswered questions and second-guesses I assumed I had already answered and decided.
Charlie Dates, the guest speaker at Revival, was speaking on Psalm 23 - "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." It seems in reflection now that such a thing might be harder to do if the evil you're trying not to be afraid of is in yourself. Though I suppose that King David might have had this in mind. As might have Mr. Dates. One thing that I continue to remember, though, is that in his message, Charlie Dates said that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death - we don't sit around in it, we don't set up camp and build a family there, we walk through it. I hope I can remember that fact.
I'm sure when future Peter looks back and reads this he'll have a great deal of confusion as to why I'm being so incredibly vague (and, after having read this sentence, will probably remember just a little bit). But the truth is, I'm thankful for struggle. I hate it, but I'm thankful for it. I know when Peter looks back at this it will be at a time of challenge and change, and I just hope that I remember why I wrote this. I hope that when I reread these long lost thoughts, I find that I will have been faithful not only to God but to myself.
I hope that when I find nothing left to be thankful for, I still thank God for thanksgiving.
----------------
Now playing: As I Lay Dying - Confined
via FoxyTunes
Monday, November 3, 2008
A week of ambivalence
I know in general, I'm a very sarcastic person. Some people might call me a misanthrope, but I'd like to think that' s a little too rough for what I do. Some people might call me a cynic. That might be a little more accurate. At least I have a good sense of humor.
These last few weeks I've been very....stuck. I'm tempted to call it almost a species of depression, though I know that's both untrue and inaccurate. I myself might say I'm bitter - but that still doesn't name the feeling correctly. I guess the most truthful way I can name it is that I've been having a hateful week. A "Peter" week. At least, a certain side of Peter - the tortured Russian author side.
It's not a new feeling. It's not a new process. It's helped make me who I am, I'm sure of it. But it's the first time it's really hit like this since I've been at college. Maybe it's just a vague manifestation of some subconscious homesickness? I feel like this time it's different - like I'm caught in the near inescapable bubble of hedonism and self-conscious pleasure-patrolling that is college - and I'm trying to burst it from the inside out. In fact, there's a good chance I'm just exaggerating that unsympathetic ambivalence now that I'm thinking and writing about it. But hey, what better way to quantify irrational feeling than with superexpressive words and such pitifully colorful language as is sure to follow?
More than I hate to be around those kind of people, I hate to be around myself when I'm vulnerable. That's a new thought - didn't hit me until just before I wrote it, actually. I hate to see that I'm still so easy to spark, and I hate to see my raw disregard for anything and everybody else hurt me first. I hate to see that I can still fall just as fast as everyone else - like the dumb "sheep" that we all are. I hate to see Peter struggle to be Peter.
....But at least I'm known for something.
----------------
Now playing: Hillsong - You Are My Strength
via FoxyTunes
These last few weeks I've been very....stuck. I'm tempted to call it almost a species of depression, though I know that's both untrue and inaccurate. I myself might say I'm bitter - but that still doesn't name the feeling correctly. I guess the most truthful way I can name it is that I've been having a hateful week. A "Peter" week. At least, a certain side of Peter - the tortured Russian author side.
It's not a new feeling. It's not a new process. It's helped make me who I am, I'm sure of it. But it's the first time it's really hit like this since I've been at college. Maybe it's just a vague manifestation of some subconscious homesickness? I feel like this time it's different - like I'm caught in the near inescapable bubble of hedonism and self-conscious pleasure-patrolling that is college - and I'm trying to burst it from the inside out. In fact, there's a good chance I'm just exaggerating that unsympathetic ambivalence now that I'm thinking and writing about it. But hey, what better way to quantify irrational feeling than with superexpressive words and such pitifully colorful language as is sure to follow?
More than I hate to be around those kind of people, I hate to be around myself when I'm vulnerable. That's a new thought - didn't hit me until just before I wrote it, actually. I hate to see that I'm still so easy to spark, and I hate to see my raw disregard for anything and everybody else hurt me first. I hate to see that I can still fall just as fast as everyone else - like the dumb "sheep" that we all are. I hate to see Peter struggle to be Peter.
....But at least I'm known for something.
----------------
Now playing: Hillsong - You Are My Strength
via FoxyTunes
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