Thoughtful Thursday

Marriage is one of those great paradoxes.

In the one hand you must hold it tightly, unyielding to external assault, persevering against internal ruin, tenacious in your maintenance. It is a flame in your arsenal of light.

In the other hand you must hold it loosely, understanding it as an earthly gift, a construct for a time and place, and refuse to give to it all the weight which eternal things claim.

We often see the results of holding it too loosely or holding it too tightly. The world errors in the first way and the church errors in the second way, often treating marriage and healthy families as the means to saving the culture and the world. The Bible is clear: only the gospel is that means. Our marriage to Christ is the only eternal marriage.

C.S. Lewis on love: “Like most of the other things which humans are excited about, such as health and sickness, age and youth, or war and peace, it is, from the point of view of the spiritual life, mainly raw material.”

Its goodness and importance are undeniable. Its idolization is untenable.

Somewhat Thoughtful Thursday

Matt and I have been working with our neighbors to help them plan and plant a garden along the side of their house. It's been a little stressful, mostly because I worry if they actually like it. I know I have a strong personality and when I'm meeting someone new, if they acquiesce to my ideas too quickly, I worry that they're not really standing up for what they want. But matt is much more confident in these things and led the project well. Gardening is, I think, less enjoyable for them than it is for me. Risks and potential failure is par for the course with my gardening - I even like it to some extent. I'm fastidious about checking my little plants; I revel in each new bloom; and I pull up plants that are faltering with a thousand ideas for their replacement (although, sometimes I pull them up too quickly - matt's patience has helped me give the poor little guys a greater chance).

To someone who doesn't like gardening, enjoying it (manual labor, risk, time and attention) seems foreign. And since I've only gardened the last 5 years of my life, I wonder if I really do like it or if I just got caught up in it (such was the case with sewing - until I realized that - no - I actually don't like it). So many times I get caught up in the idealism of a particular hobby. 

In pondering my current gardening passion, hazy childhood memories float back. As a small child, I weeded our vegetable garden. In adolescence, I spent hours in my favorite tree. During high school, I was enamored by the azeals in our front yard [which we did nothing to preserve]. I asked my mother recently if she liked gardening to which she answered with a resounding "no". Yet she always spoke of herself as a farm girl, tying her identity in some way to the land on which she grew up.

The land, the air, the sun, and the soil have always represented to me a place of peace. The quietest moments of my life were spent outside. Many studies have documented the healing power of flowers and when I think about the craziness of my first years on earth, it's no wonder I crave their presence in my life.

I do love gardening. And the best way to explain it is this: I love making beauty out of chaos. 

Thoughtful Thursday:

amazon link

Last Friday (Good Friday), I began to read this book loaned to me by a friend. I finished it Saturday morning. I wrote the review below on my Goodreads but I thought I'd share it here. The review itself is somewhat transparent. I constantly struggle with how much of my story to share publicly. For the most part, I wait until I'm face to face with a person that needs to hear what I have to say and leave it at that. This book goes where I don't often go and I detail my recommendations for reading it at the end of my review.

"It is difficult for me to write a review for this book because it is shockingly similar to my own childhood - right down to the weird coping mechanisms, the KJV mania, the life-long bathroom issues and the quiet introverted English major named Matt who rescued me. I won't give you a summary of its contents. Plenty of reviews do that for you.

I read this book in 24 hours though I did not ENJOY reading it per se. It was emotional, difficult, and I dislike the lack of true reflection. On some level, she writes disassociatively, giving you facts and circumstances, clearly recollecting memories through the lens of her adult self. In that way, it's not a pure rendering or as brave a book as I believe she could have written. I imagine it was too painful to actually try and write it from the perspective of her child-self. But I can attest to its thematic honesty as an eye witness testifies in a trial.

The book is not written particularly well, but the content overpowers you enough so the lack of coherent structure is not distracting. There is hardly any resolution at the end, nor is there enough wrestling with the meaning of the messages she's left with [earning love] and their counter-messages [unconditional love], etc. The book describes the wounds and the weapons but very little of the medicine.

The copy I was given contained, in the back, an interview which resolves much and saves this book from being disheartening and unsatisfying. The interviewer asks excellent questions about the implications of the story and how the author perceives the world now, deals with the wounds, and continues healing.

I would recommend this book for pastors - who may have people under them with hyper-sensitivity to authoritarian sounding methods or cultural pressure - it will greatly help you understand some members of your flock and their tendency to push back. 

I would recommend this book for those who grew up in fundamentalism with a caveat that they set themselves up in a safe place with plenty of time, some tissues, and a plan for comfort from trusted friends. It may drag up old wounds, which may need resolving, or, at the least, may require some time for grieving again."

Thoughtful Thursday

I'm slightly annoyed at myself for the Thoughtful Thursday idea because I'm not at all thoughtful today. So I'm pulling a Wonderful Wednesday on ya'll. Which means next Wednesday might be thoughtful. And then pretty soon my titles won't be relevant at all :]

Boxwood basil, chives, and thyme in tea canisters (with rocks on the bottom for drainage). Set up by my co-worker for our student worker. Prettiness in the office. And wonderful.

Thoughtful Thursday

Some of my favorite verses of poetry: EVER.