Thankfulness begets Happiness

My friend Julie posted this awesome clip from the Conan O'Brian show, I'll post it down below, but the gist of it is that the guy thinks we don't appreciate enough of the world around us, and it's because we think it should be given to us.  And if we were all a little more in awe or thankful for what we have, we would be a much happier society.  Something about that thought really struck a cord.

I've been going through a sudo-depression phase for a little bit after I graduated (though I recently figured a lot out, see last post), and I think the root of it was that attitude I stated up above. Let me tell you, as soon as I realized how blessed I was, my mood changed almost instantly.  I definitely didn't feel sad anymore, I was like hell ya life is awesome!

I realized I was so thankful for all my friends, how they support me, how they make me laugh, how they make feel welcome, how they provide me with so much purpose, how when I leave for work I can't wait to get back to see them.  I'm am beyond blessed, it's almost unreal.

I realized I was so thankful for having a family that never struggled financially, how much more stress that would have caused my already hard to manage family, how walking out of college debt-free sets you up for the rest of your life, how I can count on them to help when it counts,  how their knowledge of the world has made me wiser, more knowledgeable, and allows me to help others.  I am truly blessed to have been influenced and formed into a hard worker from my family.  For them I am blessed.

I realized I was so thankful for all the growth that God has put me through, how I've changed to think more positively, how he's allowed me to achieve my dreams, how I can't get enough of sharing his wisdom with people.  How he's formed me to be deeply empathetic, to care, to want whats best for others, how that brings so much joy to my life, watching others succeed.  How he made me analytical, a skill for detail, and how that allows me to be a better friend and follower.  I am thankful for being able smile and make others smile.

I am most thankful for love, how God loves me and how he injected me with a lot of it, I am most thankful that God continually provides me with opportunities to love and be loved, its an action at the core of my functioning being.  The root of my joy, the path I want to follow.  I am so thankful for so much more, I'm so so thankful, for I've been truly blessed.

Lessons From Only 6 inches of Water

You ever here those stories about those people that drown in six inches of water? or is it a foot? It doesn't matter, the point is when you read that all you can think of is, why didn't they just stand up?  I was confronted with that very question maybe a week ago.  About myself.  Something just clicked. It was in that moment where I realized all my problems were like 6 inches of water.  They weren't a vast ocean in which the hero must cross to conquer the world-shattering evil. They were just six inches of water.  I realized that all my problems weren't out of my control, they could be influenced by choices I could make.  All I had to do was stand-up.

For one I was feeling this deep seeded loneliness, feeling that no one was going to be there when I got older, or even in a few months.  Well I realized I could do a few things about that. One, ask people to live with me, they always reserve the right to say no or change their mind.  And it's my regret if I'm alone and I never asked anyone if they wanted to live with me.  Two, just call people and set-up doing stuff, you can't possibly swing and miss catching everyone all the time. I have a bunch more free time, I don't know why I felt like work loads were going to continue on at maximum capacity when that's just not the case. So if I want people or even certain people in my life it's time to be proactive and make sure the're there.

Lesson One: If you want it fight for it.

Second thing was the seemingly hopelessness of my family relationships, the ever expanding black hole of negativity that I felt that emanated from that place seemed to abate.  This was for a variety of reasons, but one was I really and truly (and finally) saw my parents as broken people.  Ok that sounds horrible, but think about it in the "I saw them for who they were, not for who they represented to me" kind of way.  And I realized all the demands they have and want of me, comes from a place of deep need.  And it was upon that understanding, where I seeded my pride over in the relationship.  By seeding my pride over I mean, stopped making the entire situation about me, feeling like I was the victim, that I was the one being oppressed, and from those feelings putting up tons of barriers to interacting with them in love.  They are in great need and the Lord has put me in this family to effect positive change.  And the only way I could do that, is to realize it's not all about me.

Lesson Two: Its not all about you

Third thing was this great purposelessness for my life, the sort of, "I graduated college now what?" dilemma.  It just felt like, man I've completed everything that was asked of me. Wrong.  How short-sighted is that, 22 and you felt like you've completed life. Ya right, good try kid. God basically slapped my apathetic and self-pitying self in the face and said are you crazy, wake up! There is work to be done! I have a plan for you, I've always had a plan for you, so instead of being caught up where your going to be in 5 years, where are you going to be tomorrow?  Trust in me is what God said, follow my baby steps and you will find that mature and complete life in me you want.  The fix was a little bit of faith, a little listening, and a little bit less worrying lol.  God is good, he has put me in a wonderful place, with wonderful people, with work to be done. With purposelessness removed, game on!

Lesson Three: Entrust the if's and when's of your life to God for he will not lead you astray

A Journey of a 1000 steps starts with one.

Unattainable Goals and Growth

Coming to college I set 3 goals. One was to graduate and have a job. Check. Two was to find friends that I would want to spend the rest of my life with. Check.  Three was to find myself, my identity. Empty box.  The truth of the matter is I failed, I didn't discover who I was, I didn't have this dawning understanding that ended with "yup that's you Matty".   But the reality of the situation is that I set an unattainable goal.  A goal that I could never reach, that isn't reachable.  Knowing who you are is a process, its not a new stage of enlightenment, its like a flower unfurling its petals at the start of every spring only to have them die at the end of fall,  a microcosm of birth and death. As parts of us grow out of the things we once knew and loved, our core kills off those parts of us, replacing them with new growth in different and new areas.

If identity is a process and always shifting how can you know it? Exactly, how can you know it? the knowledge is not easily obtainable, but what is obtainable is the understanding of our growth patterns.  What exactly does that mean? Well think of a Sun flower, it has no conception of how it grows, but year after year, cycle after cycle, it keeps becoming a more mature and complete Sun Flower, eliminating its diseases,  growing stronger & taller to adapt to it's surroundings.  But imagine the Sun Flower was uprooted from it's place of growth in say a field and was then put in a forest without sunlight, a place of decay for it.  The core of the Sun Flower may come back cycle after cycle and not know how, but it will never be stronger then the year before.  This is what I mean by growth patterns.

 The core essence of us can only be glimpsed at through interactions. As a person we can know where we're at, we can know how we feel, we can know how others make us feel. That is as far as certainty goes.  But what we can definitely see is how our physical surrounding effects us.  The people, the places, the decisions we make, all of it affects us. This we can map, I like to hang out with these type of people, I like to do this on the weekends, I find enjoyment in this, I feel a sense of fulfillment at this place in my life.  And so like the Sun Flower we grow, we go through many seasons of ups and downs, but growth happens.  It is our job to find that place that we can grow even if we don't know how it's happening.  And not set unattainable goals that can derail us from that growth.

What is Love?

What is love? Why do we strive so hard to find it? Why does it feel like in one moment it will last forever and in the next it can vanish in an instant? Why does it embolden us, but at the same time bring us to our knees?  How can we decide that were in love, but at the same time believe that there is the one. How is it that love can be tough and gentle? How is it that love at it's beginning can be the greatest motivator and at it's end life's necrosis.  Why can love be sustenance and yet be addictive or form dependence?  Why can love reveal are hearts, but cloud our judgements?  Why will we bargain for it when it can be given so freely?

Love is the way it is because it is the very definition of living. It cannot be understood in all its facets, because it has no set form only a function. Its dwelling place is not on this earth, but with the Father.  Its etherness only rationalized for our partial understanding.   Love is the mingling of life lines, its taking a risk into the absurd, delving below the surface of the mind into the furthest fathoms of the soul.  It is a gift from God, it is the ability for souls to touch, become intertwined, a connection that is not limited by space and time.  And hence it's destructiveness, God is the perfect giver of love, but he gave imperfect humans the ability to.  God intertwines with the soul, transforming it, restoring it, filling it with the beauty of life as envisioned.  At times humans can do the same, but the intertwining of the souls doesn't work perfectly, because humans lack a perfect understanding of who the person is and what love is.  And with that, as much as the intwining process feels like paradise, the unthreading goes beyond torture.

So what's the purpose? If we can't love perfectly, why love at all? If we can fight with each other, break-up, hurt, and wound each other using love, why pursue it?  The answer resides in God, for when God's love resides in us, we are touched by God, grafted to him, and though at times we may wish to unravel from him, push and tear away, he never lets us go. And through that connection with God, we can use Love to connect with others and bring them to that everlasting love in God.

Many of my friends are in the throws of Love, both its divine and its corporeal.  May God watch over them, raining down blessings and splender.  Through them I am blessed.

When preparing my Image for praxis, this is the song I felt closely drawn to, the topic this week is the prodigal son, I feel like this song is most appropriate considering the love the father has for his son in the parable.

Rembrandt

- Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Dutch baroque artist, painted The Return of the Prodigal Son shortly before his death in 1669. Painted after his son, Titus, had just died.

- Rembrandt was a deeply spiritual man, who had a great reverence for the bible, but also lived in excess, a spend thrift and art collector, but at the point in his life when he painted this image of the prodigal son he had gone though many a similar situation as the younger son.  Spending all of his wife’s inheritance until bankruptcy. And seeing the tragedy of his own son and wife passing away.  The painting and its meaning are deeply linked with Rembrandt’s personal experience.

- Looking at the painting, there are two things I want to draw your attention to, that directly relate to the theme.  There is striking contrast between the light cast on the father and the son, and the shadows that the other subjects in the painting dwell within. I believe this is intentional to highlight the deep personal interaction that is happening between the father and the son, the father does not show mercy, love, compassion, forgiveness, for anyone’s sake other than the son’s.  Regardless of who the other subjects are, this moment and its consequences are between the father and the son.

- The second thing I want to draw your attention is the appearances of the father and the son.  The son left with the father’s money and wishing him dead, and returns in tatters.  One of his sandals broken at the strap, his hair cut short as a slave would. But more importantly is the position of the son, on his knees,his face is adverted symbolizing his sorrow, shame, remorse, and perhaps anxiety over his father’s response.  This is contrasted by the father, in which, Rembrandt paints the father’s face focusing most of our attention on him. Wearing a scarlet cloak symbolizing his love.  You see it in his occluded eyes. You see it in his arms, as they tenderly embrace the undeserving son. You can sense unrelenting mercy and love and forgiveness.

-These highlights represent one of the themes of the parable of the prodigal son, and the paintings theme, repentance, not only in the straight-forward sense, changing one’s mind and heart to God, but in a deeper, and more complex sense that repentance is a journey, laden with emotions, thoughts, and actions, as well as consequences.  The end point being as scripture puts it “refreshment and forgiveness”.  This painting is just a moment along that journey.

-One final note, In an earlier iteration of this painting, Rembrandt painted both the son’s and father’s faces, but in the final iteration choose only the father.  I thought about it for awhile, it’s tempting to see the painting in a literal sense, a father welcoming a wayward son home. But this is THE father, who’s divine love will never let us go.  Who’s mercy restores.  Ultimately, this painting is about us, to say we are all works in progress, and we must all look to the father for direction.

Crawling

I'm scared by how close my life seems to parallel this song...