"...Blood is fire pulsing through our veins, we're either riders or fools behind the reins..."
I've tossed around the idea of "contentment" quite a bit in the past year. I've thought about the virtue of being satisfied with where you are in life, as well as the merits of refusing to settle for less than the possible. [ Mostly I think it's good to sing along with U2 and be in the place where you still haven't found what you're looking for. Otherwise it seems like you will think you've "arrived" in a way which contradicts Paul's determination to not think he'd obtained perfection yet, but to press on towards something greater.]
I fear that I am too easily pacified. I will see needs in the world, be drawn to care about certain individuals, and wish to make the effort to change. I want to radically love people, wear myself out in ministry, converse with those whose lives are only distantly connected with mine and ultimately change the way I live in order to become the sort of person I believe to be good.
Instead I'm afraid I channel my energy towards cheap catalysts which weakly mimic actual good. Knowing that it's a bit "out there" or "radical" I might tattoo of a phrase like Imago Dei or Kyrie Eleison somewhere on my body in order to fully embrace their symbolic meanings in hopes that my life will incarnate such truths. Knowing that I must really care about the meaning of that phrase or symbol (in light of the fact that it will look tacky in 20 years) almost makes it worse. I feel as if I've done a great deed. Realistically, have I done anything more than quell an intense desire to do something through self-oriented action? Perhaps. ( it's a rhetorical question ;) )
Thoughts for your consideration.
"Socrates was perfectly right when he declared that there is a direct short-cut to winning a reputation: 'make yourself the sort of man you want people to think you are' " - Cicero, On Duties
"contentment"+"refusing to settle for less than the possible".
ReplyDeleteLove it :-)