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Nov. 7th, 2001 09:52 pmMmm, I have half a week to cover. Psion time.
5th Nov - Monday
A beautiful crisp morning, the fresh air was wonderful just to breathe. (Past tense, given that someone's destroying it with smoking right now.) It felt like a shared experience, and I asked why; an image ofJesus standing in a clear desert, the stars He'd helped create carpeting the skies above, beautiful and impossibly remote. Walking down the road I was looking at the verge (grass and fallen leaves sparkling like emerald and tigerseye) to avoid gazing at the Sun full-on - the glorious life-bringer of Earth, lending beauty to these plants my gaze alighted on, is too dangerous to look at: the closer we look, the more dangerous it is to our sight, but without it our sight would be a worthless gift, or at the very least much reduced, coping by starlight alone. Until we froze. Maybe it's the same with God; despite the wonders and glories we could see (/do) if we looked at Him straight on and saw Him precisely and exactly, we can no longer cope with the sight; we've adapted to living in the shadows, and a full-on look would burn us out, as the Sun's gaze would burn out the very instruments we use to appreciate its gifts most. So this is why we must watch the reflections and the shadows to see God's will, why it's so often not clear; we're no longer equipped for it to be clear. There are tricks we can use, and some manage to learn them well, like focussing the Sun's light on a piece of paper to get a better look, a clearer reflection, and so some people see God more directly than others; and some have a higher tolerance for light saturation so can look closer.
I was admiring the smooth curves of the train, the way even the dents in the side added to the sinuous beauty of it, and a thought came into my mind - 'we made this, this is ours'. Then the train moved on and for a moment the Sun blinded me. No, it's the complex interplay of colour and texture and light and your eyes and your brain, which I gave you - humans merely moulded it into this form, copying what they liked best from nature - the smoothness of gemstones, the brightness and colours of silver and leaves and flowers and twilit skies. We copy what we consider to be the 'best' in nature, at the cost of the variety and detail, of the highlighting contrasts and the complex structure that defines light and shadow. And as all food webs finally lead to the Sun, everything in everything finally leads to God.
A prayer from last night:Thank You, Lord, that You never change, that I'll never turn around to see You having turned, having wandered away from Your ancient character.Thank You, Lord, that You'll never turn normal on me, that You'll always be love and kindness, mercy and judgement, the beginning and the end.Even though I will no longer make the claim of understanding You, of being able to predict You and know Your motivations, still Your changelesness comforts me, although my understanding of what You are not changing from is still imperfect.Thank You, Lord, for always being a friend, not just a friend but a lover, strong and warm and dangerous and faithful and close, knowing me completely, all of me, forever.
I came across a good metaphor the other day. Walking through the town, we passed a pelican crossing. A parent checked to see if the road was clear and began to walk across. The small boy with them cried out 'Not yet! It's not right yet!' and refused to start walking until the green man was showing. Both were correct; the boy hadn't the experience to know when this rule could be broken, in fact (as my mother pointed out) didn't even have the perceptive abilities to judge it, as he wasn't tall enough to see through the people whether there was a car coming or not; the parent however could see the whole situation and therefore could break the rule in perfect safety because they could see when it was right to do so. It appears to me that the same applies to us and God; God sometimes seems to 'break the rules', especially in the OT, but also in Acts 5:1-11 (hmm, I can remember that referance without looking it up now), but this is because He knows everything, He can see when it's right; we not only don't have the experience, we don't even have the perceptive ability - the 'height', if you like - to see this, so it's not even something we can learn, we just have to follow the rules (against killing, in this case). So it may appear that God's doing 'wrong', but in the wider context it's right (by definition at the very least!), and it doesn't excuse us from following the rules in the future.
6th Nov - Tuesday
Nothing to report, really. Busy. In addition to more A-levels than most people would bother to take, I have a project for school (The Timetabler, a coding project), one for whenever I get to a net connection (archiving LJ), and one for home (HTMLising my poetry (and then short stories, and then prettifying the site a bit more)).
Today
And now I'm not doing any of it, whee...
Must remember on Friday after break I'm off to see the random lady who runs the old people's home to sort out her computer problems.
5th Nov - Monday
A beautiful crisp morning, the fresh air was wonderful just to breathe. (Past tense, given that someone's destroying it with smoking right now.) It felt like a shared experience, and I asked why; an image ofJesus standing in a clear desert, the stars He'd helped create carpeting the skies above, beautiful and impossibly remote. Walking down the road I was looking at the verge (grass and fallen leaves sparkling like emerald and tigerseye) to avoid gazing at the Sun full-on - the glorious life-bringer of Earth, lending beauty to these plants my gaze alighted on, is too dangerous to look at: the closer we look, the more dangerous it is to our sight, but without it our sight would be a worthless gift, or at the very least much reduced, coping by starlight alone. Until we froze. Maybe it's the same with God; despite the wonders and glories we could see (/do) if we looked at Him straight on and saw Him precisely and exactly, we can no longer cope with the sight; we've adapted to living in the shadows, and a full-on look would burn us out, as the Sun's gaze would burn out the very instruments we use to appreciate its gifts most. So this is why we must watch the reflections and the shadows to see God's will, why it's so often not clear; we're no longer equipped for it to be clear. There are tricks we can use, and some manage to learn them well, like focussing the Sun's light on a piece of paper to get a better look, a clearer reflection, and so some people see God more directly than others; and some have a higher tolerance for light saturation so can look closer.
I was admiring the smooth curves of the train, the way even the dents in the side added to the sinuous beauty of it, and a thought came into my mind - 'we made this, this is ours'. Then the train moved on and for a moment the Sun blinded me. No, it's the complex interplay of colour and texture and light and your eyes and your brain, which I gave you - humans merely moulded it into this form, copying what they liked best from nature - the smoothness of gemstones, the brightness and colours of silver and leaves and flowers and twilit skies. We copy what we consider to be the 'best' in nature, at the cost of the variety and detail, of the highlighting contrasts and the complex structure that defines light and shadow. And as all food webs finally lead to the Sun, everything in everything finally leads to God.
A prayer from last night:Thank You, Lord, that You never change, that I'll never turn around to see You having turned, having wandered away from Your ancient character.Thank You, Lord, that You'll never turn normal on me, that You'll always be love and kindness, mercy and judgement, the beginning and the end.Even though I will no longer make the claim of understanding You, of being able to predict You and know Your motivations, still Your changelesness comforts me, although my understanding of what You are not changing from is still imperfect.Thank You, Lord, for always being a friend, not just a friend but a lover, strong and warm and dangerous and faithful and close, knowing me completely, all of me, forever.
I came across a good metaphor the other day. Walking through the town, we passed a pelican crossing. A parent checked to see if the road was clear and began to walk across. The small boy with them cried out 'Not yet! It's not right yet!' and refused to start walking until the green man was showing. Both were correct; the boy hadn't the experience to know when this rule could be broken, in fact (as my mother pointed out) didn't even have the perceptive abilities to judge it, as he wasn't tall enough to see through the people whether there was a car coming or not; the parent however could see the whole situation and therefore could break the rule in perfect safety because they could see when it was right to do so. It appears to me that the same applies to us and God; God sometimes seems to 'break the rules', especially in the OT, but also in Acts 5:1-11 (hmm, I can remember that referance without looking it up now), but this is because He knows everything, He can see when it's right; we not only don't have the experience, we don't even have the perceptive ability - the 'height', if you like - to see this, so it's not even something we can learn, we just have to follow the rules (against killing, in this case). So it may appear that God's doing 'wrong', but in the wider context it's right (by definition at the very least!), and it doesn't excuse us from following the rules in the future.
6th Nov - Tuesday
Nothing to report, really. Busy. In addition to more A-levels than most people would bother to take, I have a project for school (The Timetabler, a coding project), one for whenever I get to a net connection (archiving LJ), and one for home (HTMLising my poetry (and then short stories, and then prettifying the site a bit more)).
Today
And now I'm not doing any of it, whee...
Must remember on Friday after break I'm off to see the random lady who runs the old people's home to sort out her computer problems.
