Monday, April 21, 2003

Ok, so a whole year goes by since last posting...
I still have a sense of restraint, writing here. LOL if I would DO IT more often it wouldn't be such a challenge. The unfamiliarity of it all chafes.
May 3 I have a speaking engagement for a Mother's Day Tea. The theme is from the Gospel of John, Chapter 4 - The Samaritan woman meeting Jesus at the well. Noooooooooo problem, right? we'll see. I seem to want to tie in the thought from Jeremiah where God says to the prophet regarding Israel something like "Do you see my people Israel?? Do you see what they've done? They've forsaken ME, and hewed themselves broken cisterns that hold no water!"
We of today try to fill our lives with things other than God Himself - we keep striving for significance, for satisfaction - and continually fail to acquire these things. God means to fill us with Himself, and we will not be content otherwise. All else is a chasing of the wind, bringing nothing real or lasting.
Mr Rodgers used to quote the verse from Psalm 34 - "O taste and see that the Lord is good!" To so many of us, however, God is just an ideal, a vague concept that we know we ought to respect and worship - but to Taste? to See? Wasn't it Alexander Pope who said something along the lines of "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing/Drink deeply, or taste not of that ____(something)__ spring." (Me and my vague recollections).
I think in our culture we've conditioned ourselves to be satisfied with the soundbites, the fast-food version of everything. The discipline needed to "drink deeply" just isn't cultivated anymore. I too struggle with this! This "instant, now, immediately, or I'm going somewhere else" mentality. Relationships fade, or otherwise are so shallow that they don't reach past the surface to the living material within.
Drink deeply. Taste and see. Depth takes time. Must ponder this more in weeks to come.