I was once told you could tell a true lover of reading, by whether or not they re-read books... this made so much sense to me, and in that moment reading took on a whole new light. I already enjoyed reading, but it almost felt like a harvesting effort, rather than simply for the enjoyment of picking the fruit offered between the rows of words.
I'm re-reading a book currently. Mountains of Spices, by hannah hurnard. It's an allegory which in it the "King" has just taken one of his transformed daughters named "grace and glory" up to the mountain of pomegranates, or rather the mountain of 'love'. The pomegranate here represents love (duh?). Without going into my crazy appreciation for the colorful combination of words she uses to describe this place's beauty, I want to share some thoughts I had drawn from reading this chapter...
I think actually I'll just type my maybe sloppy notes i jotted after finishing it.. then touch on a few spots..
"Love... Love is giving of oneself to others.. Others over ourselves.. As we've crowded out love with anything contrary to perfect, fruits stop growing, and the disparities in wealth only continue to widen. He came as the complete expression of love, his appearance glowed with the love we can only anticipate one day being reunited with. But as evil makes haste, and disparities widen, a cleansing is on its way, the uniqueness of our time is obvious.. and Jesus will return and we will feel that love once again, true life.. but first comes birth pains. Living a life (every aspect) of love is what we're called to, for others to enjoy and crave our fruit, and ourselves to experience true joy and gladness. That feeling, love... ever felt it, how? Now imagine perfect love free from the tics of pain, anxiousness, fear, or any other lovesucking creature. That is what awaits, but if what awaited you, we're already here, would you choose to wait? Heaven is now, earth in all its beauty is where we all as one can claim citizenship, and one day, under our creator, it will be so... free from evil.. which lying at the root of every species is the love of money.. 'The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.', blocking off healthy growth with whatever will break soil being the root...
Don't love it, free yourself from the lust for it, give it freely as the spirit guides, and in your giving you will be blessed, you will have manna for the day.. that's the promise.. and apparently manna was the bomb"
So...
I truly wonder if we have a clue just how unique this sliver of human history is that we are able to experience. I sit here, in a perfect chair made of a cow, relaxing behind four panes of glass enjoying the stars and moon, free from the wind & rain. I have music in the background, music that on my demand can be from any culture, time period, genre... anything.. should I choose. On my lap (also in my pocket), sits a device that can instantly tell me just about anything I want to know in the world... if I just ask siri nicely.. not to mention live-stream revolutions happening on the other side of the world. I could go drive to the nearest city and choose food from just about any significantly populated country. I could go downstairs and instantly have boiling water (no kiddin), cubes of ice by the dozens, a box that with a few buttons heats anything.. I mean comeon...
I could go on longer than you could hold your pee in.. my point.?.. try and understand that we live in an extremely unique period of human history... with that device in your pocket or on your lap - like all things i believe created by man - it is capable of equal amounts of bad as good. With it we aren't allowed to hide from knowledge of the disparities in the world. Wider and wider they grow...
The requirements of love for me are i struggle for... i've learned i'm not good at it (i'm human). So when I stare Love in the face, learning it's definition in reading the life of Loves expression made in the likeness of a man, i'm reminded, & recentered. He walked this earth, for three years, and every single first impression of people who believed in what he had to offer (love), was one not of the usual substance... and those that stayed near him grew comfortable in his offering, and themselves went out to share that love... 'taking nothing with them'... he was enough.
I'm trying to figure out a creative way of saying that me writing this, I'm writing it to myself (truly)... nothing.
I don't know why I'm so blessed to have such comfort.. really. And I'm daily soaked in a new world of work where those 'disparities' are about as unobvious as maybe three hovering humming birds... right in front of your face... wearing cowboy hats.
You know it's there...
i live suspended in this balance almost every day, and while I'm suspended I believe for the cause of good, it means too that my own weaknesses are magnified as I scramble for strength amidst the suspension. In ways I feel stronger.. in ways - even in the process of growth - I don't..
But what I read tonight in allegory - the story of love and it's unique supremacy of the ultimate good among man - I saw the purity in Love and it's offerings, and my insides shrunk in humble thanks for knowing the God of love. And Jesus, the living, and then dying, but then living manifestation of that Love. He's a gift for us...
It's a damn shame thinking of all the ways the name of Christ has been used, abused, jammed into unwilling ears.. instead of simply offering the expression of that which we say we believe in... love...
It's a beautiful thing meeting a person who doesn't make the same claims to faith as myself, maybe they don't even have a faith, but they love genuinely those around them... I always learn something from these people.. and find myself craving more..
So, I guess the thing I'm struck with tonight, I'll leave you with.. I'm thankful in new but familiar ways for an example to look to in Jesus, the example I can glean eternal wisdom from as I live in a suspended world of such obvious disparity.. in an age that is undeniably unique. And as ever growing evils battle evergrowing love for the right to exist on this planet... i'm locked in imagining the new earth, that which awaits those who will one day experience the wholeness of that which they struggled for on earth... and I see the purpose of love, to bring that earth to bear, to bring the love of our eternal dwelling down into the suspension... and free from fear of death, free from ourselves, we grow fruit who's source of nourishment, whose roots are founded in eternal virtues... the greatest of which is love. I imagine our existence in eternity is merely where we find ourselves locked into that which exists only in the roots of our lives here on earth.. the roots don't lie.
So if love is chosen, the source of love which we experience in glimpses on earth, we'll walk alongside existing wholly in the direct path of that Love... for always..
Anyway..
Choose Love people..
Over n out
