21.7.09

A memory that didn't happen.

I have a memory but it's never happened... yet. I don't get what it is, but this is in my head:

I am in a vehicle, not a car nor SUV, but a mix. We are driving in the midst of rolling emerald hills and the grass is wet. Above us are charcoal patchy clouds: it is overcast. I stick my head out the window and my hair blows in my face. I smell rain. I sit in the passenger seat. Someone is driving (I don't know who this is, but in my dream I do.) I feel safe and loved. There is an ultimate feeling of joy and content.

We are the only ones driving along this road. The music is playing and we travel into a place that we don't know--it is an adventure. Everything we need is in the car. We have no home behind us. I'm just so excited to be where I am, ultimate joy and peace.

There are certain songs that bring this memory to my mind. I have driven through very similar hills once in Cali, once in Italy and Germany, but they didn't compare to the hills in this memory. I don't know where these hills are and if they are even on earth. But I've never been able to escape or forget the exact emotions and scenery that I see in this memory. Maybe it's just something I made up. But a very curious thing.

I've had this memory since childhood and I even wrote about it in a blog in December 06. I wrote the above before I read this again, and I am astonished at their similarities:

"I've got this vision inside my head. I think it has always been there. I am driving in a SUV type car, on a curvy road. I am not alone. There is one other person with me, but I don't' know who that is. Everything we need is packed in this car. There is no home behind us. Only the past is behind: good memories, life lessons, and most importantly, love. Green hills are on either side of me and in the distance. They aren't mountains, just hills, not too big, but beautiful nonetheless. The sky is overcast. We are the only ones on the road. The music is turned up. We aren't talking much, but mostly soaking up this great feeling. It is indescribable and full of contentedness. This is not in America."

Weird huh? : )

20.7.09

We are far too easily pleased.

If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

The Weight of Glory
By C.S. Lewis

2.7.09

What's the difference?

At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man's differing relationships.

At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a women's differing relationships.

-John Piper