17.8.10

Fragile



I was re-reading an old yoga book the other day and the yogi, Rodney Yee, was conversing with the writer, Nina Zolotow, about why she practices yoga. You can see the conversation here on page 4. Essentially, the writer wanted to feel more confident and less fragile, and the yogi asks, Why? So I've been thinking about that.

Why don't I like feeling fragile? Babies don't mind being fragile. Strip 'em down to their nakey, and they glee up like it's Christmas. But of course, they don't know they're fragile. Can I go back to not knowing I'm fragile? In the conversation, Yee says that yoga isn't to keep you from feeling fragile, but to let you be fully mindful of your fragility but okay with it. I haven't practiced yoga long enough to say whether he's right or not, but I have been a Christian for a while, and I think I can see how faith in God would make me okay with fragility. Maybe eventually. Not today obviously.

Two things recently have increased my awareness of my fragility (and of course it's my own fragility that really bothers me, not any one else's, sadly): I re-watched Louis Giglio's talk about the size of the universe and the complexity of creation, and my papa died. Now, Giglio's talk you're just going to have to see for yourself. A-stound-ing. I usually love when God explodes out of the box I keep trying to cram him in, but this time it was uncomfortable. I wanted to get out the super glue and try to piece together the shattered box again. Just watch it. You'll see.

But the Papa thing didn't shatter the box, it shattered me.

I am one of the very few people my age who, up until a few months ago, still had all four grandparents. My parents are still married, as were all the grandparents. Crazy, eh? I grew up in a ridiculously loving and supportive home and family, and though people hate me for it and say I'm a loser because I didn't suffer enough as a child, I'm not sorry one bit. But a few months ago, my dad's dad got sick enough to tell the doctors and nurses he was going to head home to heaven. He's was getting a new body --his had just broke-on-down. Now, I love that this guy was my heritage, and I fully intend to get my sassy pants on in the same way when I'm old, but I wasn't ready to say good-bye. So I spent a while stuck in a black hole of self comforting and self medicating. I over-slept, over-ate, procrastinated, made excuses, and drank a few extra. It was pitiful and disgusting, and I just kept it up, watching myself be pitiful and disgusting.

It doesn't really make sense either. I certainly know better. In the Christian tradition, you don't really lose anyone unless they reject God's love completely. The gospels even allude to a "great cloud of witnesses" around us -- those who turned in the earth suit -- so the whole dying thing has really become more of a re-arranging of dimensions for me. Whether I see him in the earth suit again doesn't matter; I will see him again, regardless. But I was fighting that fragile notion.

So here are the real questions. Am I not fragile and just get convinced that I am? Should I be ending this post with this declaration? The truth is, I am not fragile. Not at all. I'm created in the image of God for crying out loud. Or is that declaration just an effort not to feel fragile?

22 comments:

  1. You blog really got me thinking, I have been talking with misty a lot about death and heaven, what it is and what it’s not. When someone you love dies it cuts straight to our own mortality (at least it does for me) and makes us want a solid answer as to what’s on the other side of that divide. Anyway, here is where my mind went with this tonight. Thanks for the excuse to think

    A philosophical response;
    I guess you would have to define the terms of our fragility. In a living form we certainly are fragile. My life can be snuffed out almost instantly. That hit home for me very personally when I finally came to a stop after being thrown down a mountain by an avalanche. I wondered briefly if I was even still alive. In that sense I experienced my fragility firsthand. In another sense though, as an eternal being how can I be fragile? If I cannot be undone then what could possibly begin to undo me? Yet if I am an everlasting creature, how can I even begin to beg the question of my mortality?

    A Religious Response;
    As I see it, in the Christian tradition our fragile state, or mortality, is the one thing we have going for us. Christ seems to favor death as the ultimate vehicle for salvation and on top of that he commanded his disciples to turn their ideas of what power was upside-down. He glorified servants and children, both examples of creatures under the power and at the whim of those around them. The figure of Christ heralds fragility as the means to our salvation, going as far as to take on the form of man to suffer his own brokenness yet in his brokenness we are healed. It is not from, but rather in our brokenness and fragility that he saves us. So there you have it, everlasting creatures who will find that everlasting life inside of death. Oh the irony.

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  2. Thank you for your fantastic response, Hans. This brought a lot of clarity for me: "our fragile state, or mortality, is the one thing we have going for us." This rings true, and the upside-down power struggle--trying to leave off of "power over" and choose "power under"--is part of my concern with my fragility. I feel less fragile when exerting power over--even if it's just a few thoughts in my mind about how the guy that flipped me off in traffic is really just a sexist and hates all women drivers and therefore it is out of his own pathetic neuroses that he exerts his opinion about me. That feels better, feels less fragile, but clearly grows from a need for power over, and certainly not out of love.

    Also, I think this feeling fragile is more than just physical fragility, though admittedly that's what got my attention. I think that since even Christ says "...be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell" that in a very real sense we can be undone, though of course not all at once like a car wreck to the physical body. I think that it's very likely that we can be undone by refusing to feel fragile. If I were to become someone who chooses to avoid my fragility so often that it becomes unlikely that I will ever choose otherwise (Boyd's snowball effect), I *could* possibly be undone by the "power over" choices that I make when I refuse to feel fragile. But now a new dilemma: Thinking that I can be in that fragility--not just okay with it, actually BE Christ-on-the-cross fragile--makes me want to exert myself to be fragile. You know, go for it. Be fragile, girl. But that's starting to feel like a power over strategy. To be fragile because fragile is powerful.

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  3. I know for myself, allowing myself to be fragile has always hinged upon the fact that I am all together too proud a gal to admit that I was wrong or might have, gasp, made a wrong decision and thus needed a rescuer. My pride wants to be the strong, independent type that has it all together and who needs not to lean on anyone. But I have come to the realization that when I meet the God of the Universe face to face, it is ONLY my willingness to lean on Someone that will be my salvation. If I were to stand up there and list off all the ways that I am not fragile and how I have it all together....hanging onto my pride in other words.....well, God can't do anything with that. But, if I stand before Him and simply display my fragility and hold up my own, personal invitation that Jesus gave me? Well, you know what would come next. :) Our God is so good and He wants us to be fragile, and dependent on Him and lean so heavily on His Grace that is oozes around us like Jell-o around the banana chunks inside and then all you see is Jell-o.
    Grace; it's a good thing!

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  4. I wish we could all go back in time....and sit around Nana & Papa's big dining room table ...only be the age we are now, with our husbands! How we could glean from one another! And the wisdom we now have as adults! I loved my children from the womb; but now I love their husbands too. And we all have some pretty amazing thoughts- brought about from our own fragile experiences. Ones we would NOT choose to go thru- but God used them to show us more of His many sides and graces. I love it when God does that! Thank you so much for all your thoughts. It is inspiring me to start writing more on my own blogsite. I have been feeling VERY fragile lately. Not realizing what you, Cheryl were going thru yourself. I guessed that you were experiencing it Hans, because you were as close to death as it gets! But the feeling that as good as I plan... it sometimes isn't in God's plan is unnerving. I try to walk/hear/talk w/the Lord, but my greatest desire is to KNOW the wisdom outflowing from Him! (Ephesians) Then I would KNOW! Until then... fragile is my state of being at the moment. xo Mama

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  5. Thank you each for your thoughts. What I'm getting from you guys and from myself is that fragile is not something we like feeling (I mean on our regular days and not just when we're feeling super in tune with God's opus), but that we seem to have a clear sense that we *should* be okay with it. What I want is to ditch the "should." I guess that's the whole point hanging out in green room before the heaven show: to learn about the "should" and then learn how to shed it.

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  6. To be honest the time I felt the most fragile was not when was buried in snow wondering if the next 5 min would see me dead or alive. The closest I have ever come to shattering into a million pieces is when I didn't know if misty was gonna stay or go. But a new relationship with her was born from that pile of ashes and I now reguard that period of our life as pivotal. I felt so.... Out of control then, everyhing that had value to me lay in misty's hands and she got to decide what to do with it. But now I know that misty loves me, even when I'm broken, even when I'm not worth a damn. I think that's where can draw stength, god is going to keep us around even when were fragile, broken and dead. Part of me wonders if that is what some of the symbolism in sacriments is about. The body of Christ being broken but also a reminder that our brokenness is also covered by his blood. Its ok to be fragile I think as long sooner or later u break, even shatter. I'd rather be broken into a million pieces and get put back together by the creator then live in the illusion that I can keep myself whole.

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  7. I am excited to join this conversation on my sunny Friday. I am stuck inside at a desk, so what better way to stick it to the man than to blow off work for a bit, and philosophize. I do love a sunny Friday.


    Fragility, to me, is something to be strived for in everyday life. But you’re right Cheryl this fragility can definitely become a power over, and completely negate its original purpose. This is where my recent journeys lie. I feel in my heart that I am suppose to strive everyday to be more “fragile”, to die to the world, as Christ did, not to tell them what they have to DO to be saved, but to SHOW them through my actions that they already are. Let me explain.


    Within the last six months I have come to realize something very relevant to the topic at hand, that fragility is embraceable without power. Yes, you may get hurt, and to be honest you will at some point or another, but to forgive and move forward will allow the fragility to be a power under as apposed to a power over. It is the crucial moment. The ultimate demonstration of dying to another as Christ did. It is never the sacrifice to bring bread to the neighbor, or to help out at the homeless shelter that is the hardest. Wouldn’t it be the time when the man sexually harasses you after giving him his free soup that day? What then? Isn’t this where we make our choice for power over or power under? To choose to hold the pain and refuse forgiveness, only reinforces our feelings of “power”. i.e. “I’m not like that man, nor will I ever be. I am a decent human being who would never do something like that.” To me that’s where the dirty water lies. If I could just let go of my pains, frustrations, and judgments, and finally realize that, though I am not a criminal I am a person who has made numerous bad choices (sometimes repeatedly), I can finally be “fragile” without needing to feel powerful. This to me is Christ’s ultimate revelation. That no one, no matter WHO is better than the next, and only through his death and grace are we ALL saved. Never a select few.

    This is not easy on any account, but I think that it’s the true challenge left for us as Christians. Not to crusade our way around the world using fear as a means to salvation, but rather a loving hand; a hand that is always there to pick up the fallen. Of course at some point we as human beings have to cut out if it becomes abusive to us in anyway, but the important point here is that we leave graciously and forgive, otherwise our “power over” cycle is prone to resurrect.

    I suppose I like this idea, it really has given me the strength in my relationships and has allowed me to forgive yet still be “fragile” and vulnerable to another. After all isn’t this where love truly shines and is accepted? When we can finally show another human that our love for them is greater than the love for ourselves….

    Hope that made sense to somebody…and Cheryl I may write you a little more on the idea of death, resurrection and heaven. I have a few thoughts that I would love to talk with you about. Till then,

    Cheers,
    Misty

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  8. Man this is great stuff for my inner compost pile. The Holy Spirit earthworms are churning through all this organic richness to make good soil for more planting. Pile it on, people!

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  9. I have been mulling this over all day. In In Misty’s replay she stated "Of course at some point we as human beings have to cut out if it becomes abusive to us". My initial response was to be incredulous. My thought was that if God called us to die for our enemies how could we "cut out" when the going got tough. Surly God would have us stick in there suffering all the injustices in the name of being the last the lost and least who inherit the earth. But the more I think about it the more certain I am that a dichotomy exists in the relationship between the fragility of a Christian who is willing to take the last place so that his enemy may be first and the woman who refuses to suffer any more at the hands of an abusive husband. Within Christianity the idea to embracing our fragile state and embracing our least-ness last-ness and lost-ness is that nobody is in a better place to realize they have no cards left to play in the business of their own salvation than someone who has nothing left. All we have to do is to let go of the broken pieces of our lives so we can see, and the world can see, the salvation that has been there from the foundation of the world.

    In another sense the state of accepting and embracing ones own fragile state in an atmosphere of hostility can be detrimental to the development of a relationship or even the individuals psyche. To become less so another can become more is Christianity but to become less because another makes you feel that way is deplorable.

    Having defined two separate states of fragility, I believe it is paramount that we do not make the mistake of thinking one the other. Living in a state of abuse under the rule of a tyrant cannot be called Christianity. So, in retrospect, I now believe Misty’s afore mentioned statement to be right on.

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  10. I'm in total agreement with this, as how can you love anyone as you love yourself (as Christ says to) if you don't love yourself because of the abuse. Sometimes the most loving thing for the abused and the abuser is for the former to put a foot down. But the tricky part is knowing the line. I am a person who would like to see the line approaching and put my foot down before things have gone too far. But in my estimation, it seems the line of abuse isn't noticed until it is crossed -- and usually not until long after.

    This leads me further. It is exactly this self-awareness (where's the line? has it been crossed? am I still showing love or just being taken for granted?) that seems to be the enemy of fragility. Self-awareness breeds the "should" thoughts. And the "should" thoughts battle it out amongst themselves far too often in my own mind. It feels like the double mindedness that James refers to that makes one "unstable in all their ways." I want very much to be child-like, but how? Just noticing that I'm more childish than child-like means I'm kicking in with the self-awareness again.

    I want to assure everyone, I'm not crazy with these voices in my head and all :-) I have managed to listen to the Holy Spirit plenty of times to just stop wasting time with the "shoulds" and just pick a decision and go for it because I do have the faith to know that even if I pick wrong, His love for me fills in all the cracks.

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  11. wow....I am thinking....crying....processing... and being helped. Thank you all. I will post something soon. For now, I am thinking. Mama

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  12. So, I am wanting to stick on the "get out of an abusive relationship" thread for a sec... I think this is what you are all saying but just to clarify, God by no means calls us to be door-mats simply because we choose to wear the Christian hat. Correct?!
    I know that this is something that I have worked on with much effort in my own life and I believe whole heartedly that Christianity is "strength under control". As a Christian, I consider myself to be a follower of not Mr. Roger's but of John Wayne! I follow not a wimp, but a defender of evil and a righteous avenger of good! Jesus was not a pushover who let them walk all over Him and crucify Him because He wasn't supposed to or able to fight back? NO! He had an eternal plan that meant He had to choose to die in order for it to be fulfilled. He was in control and in charge the whole time He walked this earth. I believe that we can also live our lives that way.
    We may make a choice that might resemble weakness to the typical bystander who may not know the strengh that lies underneath, but in reality it takes power, under control, to execute said choice.
    The love that we are living out, day after day after day, is NOT weak. We are children of the most high God, which in and of itself should make us hold our heads a bit higher....and we only choose to take crap from someone if it is done in love....w/o bitterness....and resentment growing inside of us. Love is strong. Love is powerful. Love is a decision. Love is not a feeling. Love MUST be honest, if it is really love.
    I had to learn that the hard way, but if you aren't being honest, then you aren't truly loving the other person or yourself and you are really just pretending to forgive and lying through you straight, white, Christian teeth. A person who is in an abusive relationship who says they forgive the other person and then continually allows themselves to be hit...is not being honest! They may WANT to forgive, but in reality they haven't forgiven...aren't able to forgive, and the truth WILL come out eventually either in anger, or grief, or violence, or a mental breakdown years later....
    In my opinion, it never pays to stuff things down, not communicating honestly and just saying that you forgive unless it is really, REALLY the TRUTH! and not just a quick response to a fake apology.
    I'm sure you all agree, but true forgivness can only be achieved with a mixed cocktail of God's help/love, true honesty spoken in love and time....and then more of God's help sprinkled on top.
    Didn't quite intend for that soapbox speach to be so lengthy, but I'm not going to apologize for it! =D (You all can take it.) xoxo

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  13. I'm with you on this Tam, and I really like this:
    "We may make a choice that might resemble weakness to the typical bystander who may not know the strengh that lies underneath, but in reality it takes power, under control, to execute said choice."

    I believe this is a great description of the power under to which I have been referring. Now I have a question for all of you.

    In my last comment/reply I said that being self-aware was a problem in terms of being okay with fragility. I've been thinking a lot about this today. Do you think it's possible for adults, with God's help of course, to go back to being not self-aware? I can see that children are not self-aware, in the sense that they don't think AT ALL about what others may think of them or what they're doing, nor do they waiver back and forth in their minds about what they "should" or "should not" do.

    Is it even possible to get back to that? To be really unaware of ourselves, let's say only aware of others and of God, and therefore perfectly okay with being fragile...I know Boyd says that the self-awareness and the judgement of ourselves and others that it leads to are a result of The Fall. What do you think?

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  16. I agree with my super sexy hubby on this one, although Im stuck on my iphone all weekend so I will have to wait till I get back to my office on moday to join the fun. So for now I will just sit back and enjoy everyone elses rants.

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  17. Yes and no, the story of the fall defines us as a creature separated from God by our own choice to take the reins of our own destiny, our nature revolting at the thought of giving up control over our environment. We are not geared to be able to give our "self" up. Children are blissfully unaware of their selves because they have not yet discovered that they are independent creatures from the environment surrounding them. Soon after they discover their un-connectedness they begin to learn how to manipulate the outside world to conform to their desire. What begins as an act of self preservation quickly becomes the building blocks of mans selfish nature, although, one could argue that man's selfish nature is simply his desire to be alive. In Mathew and Mark, when Jesus extols his disciples to become like children, he isn’t necessarily asking them to give up their self awareness or (like the commonly held idea) to blindly follow like a child would. The view of children in those days was that they held no value whatsoever. Most children would not live to see their 3rd birthdays due to disease and living conditions. As such they were not considered real people until later in their years when it was certain they would survive. In this context it seems Jesus is asking his disciples (again) to give up on themselves as he did. (Phil 2:5). Ok, I’m going to jump into my own philosophy here for a sec. When the Rich man asked Jesus what he must do to enter the Kingdom Jesus told him to get rid of his treasures. Jesus knew this man placed his faith in what he had earned; his faith was essentially in himself. When Jesus asked him to give up his treasures he was really asking him to drop dead to his grasp on his own life and trust that He (Jesus) was in control. I think this was a loaded question. Jesus deliberately asked him to give up what he knew he couldn’t for the purpose of pointing out that there isn’t a damn thing WE can do to be saved, that it is only him (Jesus) who will wash away the handwriting against us free of charge. This is also why I think Christ continually harped on coming under the world, washing each other’s feet, serving ones enemies and so on. They all have one thing in common which is they all put everyone in the world ahead of me. It puts me dead last in every line I will ever get in. Reflect back to the fall for a sec and consider mans nature. Jesus knew that putting ourselves eternally last was the one thing we could never truly do. It’s like what Cheryl harped on a few comments up when she mentioned using power under as a twisted power over. Even in the attempt to put ourselves behind the entire world we end up using our sainthood as a manipulative power to control the world around us and we're right back where we started. The whole point Jesus is making I think is to convince us there is nothing we can do at all. He is asking that we just give up trying and start trusting. And here is our Hope. In the black hole of our despair with nothing to save us, a hand with a scar in it reaches down and picks us up. Holding us tightly He pulls us out of the dark and into the Light where we can see the face of our savior. Here, I believe, is where we decide if we will put our fate in the hand that pulled us out of the dark or if we will choose instead to jump back down into that pit with all our failed treasures, wanting in the end to be the masters of our own fate, no matter what that fate may be. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe God wants us to be like his Son, doing what we can to be the least and the last to a dying world so they can see through us the hope we all have in the upside-down kingdom

    So, my answer is no. I personally do not think we can go back to a state in which we can quell our personal identity to the point that we lose the awareness of our self and only see the needs of the world and our Lord. However, I do believe that this will be the condition of the new Man when this world comes to its beautiful end the new haven and new earth are wrought forth.

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  18. I spent the weekend surrounded by piles of C.S. Lewis books (some for work, some for this thread, but all for fun). For me, nothing clears the air like some Clive. Here's where I got with it:

    Of course I didn't find that Lewis said anything about being "Fragile" because that's just a word I'm using to avoid words like "salvation" and "broken" and "Christian walk" that mean everything and therefore nothing. But here's a word for you: Vicarious (on behalf of another).

    My Quotable Lewis book now has more scribbles (let's say "marginalia"--it sounds so pretty) around these quotes:

    "*He saved others, himself he cannot save* is a *definition* of the Kingdom. All salvation, everywhere and at all times, in great things or in little, is vicarious."

    and...

    "In the Incarnation we get, of course, this idea of vicariousness of one person profiting by the earning of another person. In its highest form that is the very centre of Christianity...It is a law of the natural universe that no being can exist on its own resources."

    In Hans' excellent description of a child's coming to self-awareness I'm going to insert one thing and I'll put it in caps: "Children are blissfully unaware of their selves because they have not yet discovered THE LIE that they are independent creatures from the environment surrounding them."

    Through one man, Adam, sin entered the world; through one man, Christ, it was defeated. I'm seeing the interconnectedness of this fragility. Being fragile is imperative, but it cannot be acheived on one's own -- or for one's own self.

    I must be fragile as Christ was fragile, but I cannot be fragile alone. Fragility, by definition, implies others. Being fragile will save me but not if I'm fragile for that reason. But the kicker for me is that my fragility will save others, and not just because it makes me nicer. As Aslan says in the Lion/Witch/Wardrobe, "There is a deeper magic...when one lays down his life for another."

    Of course, the answer to one of the big questions of the Bible--"Am I my brother's keeper?"--is "Yes."

    I know, I know, you all knew all of it already. But thanks for not calling me to say "Duh."

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  19. I agree, I like the all caps addition of the lie of our non-conectedness. So, your great thread here is leading us down a road to a question I suffer under. What IS salvation? What does it mean to be saved? What does it mean to be unsaved? To what extent does our culture and language affect how we view these questions? For the amount of time and weight we give to personal salvation why are the scripturs so vauge and cryptic on the subject? If the everlasting condition of our soul (I use the word fast and loose here) is contigent on our understanding and application of some soul-saving formula, why aren't the the scriptures litered with information about how to achive this salvation? Or are they? These are what I'm wrestling right now...

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  20. I think the language of our culture (American, Western, Christian) about salvation is a real problem. We have a culture that gravitates towards buzz words and Christian words have not escaped the suction of the marketing black hole. But I really think that cultural trappings attached to words are a problem with any human culture.

    I have symbolism on the brain as I am writing a literature lesson this week, so I will say I have always been grateful that the Bible speaks so much in symbols as they tend to retain at least some of their flavor when buzz words don't. (I always compare in my mind the clear highway signs that have a tree or a car portrayed as being blown over by the wind with the abstract written signs posted between Santa Fe and Albuquerque that say "Gusty Winds Exist.")

    Heaven, Hell, Saved, Damned--as abstract and unclear as they may seem to us at times because of the sometimes contradictory metaphors attached to them, they at least retain something of the concrete symbol. Maybe it's because they are rooted in archetypes, but that's a whole other blog thread, I suppose :-)

    But here's what I mean: as you know, to the first century Jewish mind, the Greek idea of Hades was prominent, where all spirits go after death, not just the "bad" ones. I can't remember if Jesus was the first to use the context of "gehenna" but when he did he named the garbage dump outside the city, and therefore clarified the symbol with a concrete picture of a place where not just everyone goes.

    But sadly, just because symbols are more clear than abstracts, it doesn't mean they are easy to put into words. I think that at one time, the terms were clearer, but just as the gene pool gets diluted and DNA can be altered for good or bad as influenced by the physical choices of each generation, so too all languages get diluted. Remember that when Adam named the animals, he used the language God had given him (something long before Hebrew) and Genesis says that each name was the essense of that creature. I think language, and therefore all symbols started out pure, but we're downstream a good piece and things have gotten muddy.

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  21. Yes!!! I love it. I love that you incorporated language as one of the major hurdles we have to get over as well as our cultural biases. Something I learned that I found interesting is that the idea of a human soul is a Greek idea and is not found in the pages of scripture. (The Soul being the essence of a person that exists no matter what condition, living or dead, that person is in) Same with the idea of the holy Trinity, although I believe that idea came later from the council of Nicea. It’s interesting how much of our core doctrine is based on interpretative ideas about the scriptures. I’m not saying any of it is wrong but I think it does have to be looked at through the proper lens. I also really liked your thoughts on symbolism. If you really want a truth to transcend time, the best way to package it is to make picture out of it. Unfortunately our western culture looks at stories and myths as either true or not true which destroys the deeper meanings in much of the scriptures. Like the trinity and the idea of a soul, both are beautiful images about the natures of God and Man. Just because they aren’t found in print on the pages of Bible doesn’t mean they can’t paint a picture that shows us more about said natures then a biographical paragraph ever could.

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  22. Hans, I like how you stated, "Just because they aren't found in print on the pages of the Bible...". I believe that is why it can be so important to have an actual "relationship" with God. Day-to-day. Learning more of Him, spending quiet time away from the craziness of life, stopping the incessant talking and perhaps taking a moment to listen to the wind...to His voice. He is soooo much more than just what has been written in the Bible. The Bible is most definitely the main jumping off point and then with that as your reference....go out and see Him everywhere. Experience all the many, innumerable "works of God" that have been written, painted, composed, birthed since the Bible first came together. God is love. God is Grace. Jesus was God. And maybe, just maybe another work of God will be written by one of us in the future!

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