the cause of spiritual stupidity

I began reading C.S. Lewis's George MacDonald: An Anthology a few nights ago and I am nearly finished already! It has been a long while since I have been able to sit and finish a book in a reasonable amount of time, and it will be refreshing to reach the end of this book and be reminded again what such an accomplishment feels like. I have been sick (with a cold, but I'm mostly better now) for over a week now, so other than work and school I have otherwise spent most of my time at home filling waste baskets with goobered tissues and hawked spit wads of unspeakably nauseating phlegm. All with the book in my hand. (A bonus of being sick?)

This is the first stuff I have read of George MacDonald. And I like his stuff.

The short excerpts that Lewis has compiled from MacDonald's sermons and fantasy novels can be witty at one moment and violently piercing the next, but still a quenching well of truth in either circumstance. I quickly began to mark the excerpts that spoke to me the most, only to realize twenty pages in that I had marked off more than half of what I read, a mark (or two or three) on every page. So I stopped marking, and just accepted the fact that the entire book spoke to the each eager fiber of my being and it would be pointless to distract a future reader with a sleuth of black inkpen soaking every page.

"The care that is filling your mind at this moment, or but waiting till you lay the book aside to leap upon you--that need which is no need, is a demon sucking at the spring of your life. 'No; mine is a reasonable care--an unavoidable care, indeed.' Is it something you have to do this very moment? 'No.' Then you are allowing it to usurp the place of something that is required of you this moment. 'There is nothing required of me at this moment.' Nay but there is--the greatest thing that can be required of man. 'Pray, what is it?' Trust in the living God....'I do trust Him in spiritual matters.' Everything is an affair of the spirit." - from The Cause of Spiritual Stupidity, an unspoken sermon

"A man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself." - from The Way, an unspoken sermon

"So long as we have nothing to say to God, nothing to do with Him, save the sunshine of the mind when we feel Him near us, we are poor creatures, willed upon, not willing....And how in such a condition do we generally act? Do we sit mourning over the loss of feeling? Or worse, make frantic efforts to rouse them?" - from The Eloi, an unspoken sermon

I'll be the first to admit my frantic search to rouse feelings. Much of this disease is not the result of some unequipped childhood or a single traumatic event, but is a direct result of the fact that so many aspects of my life have been completely absolved of the guidance of God through my unwillingness to have anything to do with Him. So instead, I forfeit my will to be, and I am "willed upon" by unhealthy outlets that own me and govern my time. Time that I could otherwise choose to spend by saying something to God and having something to do with him, sure acts to the regain of feeling.

I remember walking out of one of my classes the other day and reaching unconsciously into my bag for my iPod, but alas(!), it wasn't there. I remained calm on the outside, but inside I was daunted and uncomfortable by the fact that I'd be spending the next 30 minutes (until I got home) without my iPod! This is slightly disturbing and deserves the amount of thought I am putting into it (again) because the silly thing still owns me; I do not own it. I have enslaved myself (and my feelings) to a plastic device with wires and a shiny screen. "Oh, but it plays music." Yes, yes it does. But all in moderation. My iPod went "out of tune", so to speak. It wasn't there to passively enhance my active thoughts, but to actively encourage passive thoughts. And this is just a 3-by-2 inch object. I have other much bigger and grander items at my disposal, such as my computer, television, dvd player, mirror (I gawk at my pretty self daily...), and the incredibly annoying and time sucking world wide web (including my own blog...). Maybe it's time to pull the plug on a few distractions and say something to Him. You know...have something to do with Him more often than when its merely convenient or expected.

"Never wait for fitter time or place to talk to Him. To wait till thou go to church or to thy closet is to make Him wait. He will listen as thou walkest [without thou's iPod]." - from Righteousness, an unspoken sermon

effective living

"Get wisdom, get understanding;
do not forget my words or swerve from them." - Proverbs 4:5

I am just now beginning to understand the power of being intentional about the things that I do. My life up until now has merely been a string of circumstances, some good, some not so good, but all of which "just happened". Instead of taking responsibility for my actions, I have made a habit of pulling the "God's will"-card whenever I feel like I have lost control of something. And I usually, conveniently "lose control" when things aren't going well. That way, I don't have to take responsibility for my part in the equation of life. I just hand all the power over to God and say "Oh well, Your will be done"--a passive shift of responsibility.

But I think I get it now. God's will isn't so much an inescapable plan for my life as it is an optional source, or blueprint, that I have the choice of tapping into. When I accept his blueprint on which to create my life, the result is nothing short of majestic. An effective and beautiful way of living emerges gloriously like a sunrise in a world of darkness.

"The path of righteousness is like the first gleam of dawn,
shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
But the way of the wicked is like the deep darkness;
they do not know what makes them stumble." - Proverbs 4:18-19

I have not been righteous. I stumble often. And that isn't an accident. That is what I have chosen. In Proverbs 4:5 Solomon writes, "Get wisdom, get knowledge." If I want wisdom, if I want knowledge, I have to actually to go and get it and not sit around hoping that maybe someday it will just fall in my lap: "Hello, I am wisdom!"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe describes what happens when we pursue righteousness:

"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred...unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way."

God's will doesn't "just happen". I have to choose it. The guy next to me has to choose it. Everyone on the planet has to choose it. And when just one person chooses to build their life according to the blueprints of God, beautiful things happen and his glory shines through, piercing the darkness like a new sun, a new day.

I choose righteousness.