Seeing through subjective spectacles February 24, 2009

With the aim of becoming slightly better read, I have begun an adventure into the “Classics” section of Borders (other bookshops are available!).  Thus, I find myself currently reading Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. And using words like “thus”. I’m quite enjoying it so far, although I do occasionally find myself a little frustrated by his elongated descriptions of the fictional countryside of Wessex. I find his prose far more interesting when it turns to people, and his observations about them. My favourite is as follows:

 

“In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in.”

 

I reckon this is true of how most of us view a lot of things in life. We are subjective. We don’t always see what is there, but what we want to be there. Instead of who people really are, we sometimes see only who we want them to be.

 

I think we can make this mistake with God too. We try to make him what we want him to be. But to do so, turns God into some sort of fictional, created being, and therefore what we end up believing in isn’t God at all, but an entirely imaginary character.

 

God doesn’t fit into our wants. He doesn’t fit into our box. He’s not going to change because it would be more convenient for us, or because we think it would be better for us, or because we think we’d find it easier if he was a different way. He cannot be coloured or moulded.

 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

 

- Isaiah 55:8-9

 

God is eternal, beyond our full comprehension, glorious and never changing.

Relocation, relocation, relocation… July 22, 2008

Hello there. Apologies once more for the blogging hiatus. I fear it may continue for a little while longer. I am a couple of weeks into my move to Cambridge and have been dashing back home and up and down the country at the weekends for various weddings. All this means that my brain has been far too busy and exhausted to settle to writing anything even as vaguely comprehensive as my usual offerings! I am due to move in a little more properly to my new abode in the coming week or so, and I hope that at that point I shall be able to blog a little more effectively once more.

 

In the meantime there is not a lot to say but that things seem to be going well so far. I have ceased getting lost on my way to work, my colleagues are friendly and the sun is shining! I have also nearly finished reading Captivating – the book I mentioned before – and it has given me much to think on. I still thoroughly recommend it to any Christian women – even if it doesn’t ring as true for you as it does for me, it makes some interesting points and has certainly got my brain ticking over, even now.

 

In the absence of anything useful or otherwise entertaining, I shall leave you now with a video clip, from Top Secret. I watched this with my sister years ago, laughed rather a lot, and then forgot about it. I’ve just been reminded and so delight in bringing you this brief clip:

 

Some thoughts June 23, 2008

One of my friends lent me a book recently called Captivating. It’s about being a Christian woman. But it’s unlike any other book I’ve ever seen on the subject.

 

It’s amazing, and kind of frightening, and it made me cry. All because it is so… true. I haven’t got very far with it yet, but it’s talked a lot about how we feel as women. The things we don’t even really let ourselves acknowledge that we feel. Like the idea that we’re both not enough and too much, all at once. Not enough of all the good things; not funny enough, smart enough, attractive enough, and too much of the bad things; too emotional, too dependant. So we feel like we’re somehow failing, and we try to put up a facade so nobody will find out about our weaknesses.

 

The same things can’t surely apply to everyone, but for me this book has been completely spot on so far. It’s really making me think, particularly about the way I view myself and how I relate to others. It’s made me realise that I frequently hold back from people, especially members of the opposite sex, and I just tell people what I think they want to hear. The things that I think will make them have a positive opinion of me. And I try to hide things about myself that I think won’t go down well, because I worry that I will somehow let them down and they will think badly of me. But in doing that, I’m not really letting people know me at all. I’m underestimating my friendships, and in some ways inadvertantly insulting my friends and myself all in one go.

 

I’m going to try to work on that.