If only

"If only"

is the hammer

I smash

my thumb

with.

the thing I might want least right now

tips.

that's what I don't want right now.

I think that if I took all the tips that are foisted on me, I could easily spend 26 hours of every day improving my life in small baby steps. And also driving myself insane. Seriously though: have you ever thought about it? One site tells you how to get whiter teeth with just 15 minutes a week. Another encourages you to increase your vocabulary in only 5 minutes a day! Then the magazine in the grocery store is promoting gratefulness: take just 20 minutes sometime this week to write a few thank you notes. That's all. Just 20 minutes. Oh, but did I mention that you should also be getting firmer abs in only 8 moves every morning? And that if you want to get your finances in order, just a one-time investment of a couple hours plus an hour a week is all you need? You could be squeezing in leg lifts during conference calls at work, too. And decluttering your closet in three simple sessions.

And all of these tips just made me more aware of how you simply cannot solve all of the world's problems in 5 easy steps or 20 minutes a week. Things are complex. And sometimes that means that you can't just boil it down and try a few "tips." Maybe they need to be completely re-examined and explored in long, ongoing dialogue. I subscribe to a newsletter on preaching and they love love love to bring up a different preaching problem every week and pretend to solve it in a single newsletter with a sidebar containing, well, more tips. I hate it.

Are we allergic to the idea of hard work?

And today at the gym was a magazine announcing in big blue letters: 1,432 tips Smart new health, fitness, nutrition, beauty & sex tips! Are you kidding me?!

except you ravish me

         "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any one hear my voice, and open the door, I will come to her, and will dine with her, and she with me." Revelation 3:20.

Lord Jesus, I hear your knock but find that I cannot answer it. Is it for fear or for shame? Is it for pride or for weakness? I cannot tell. But I can hear, if even faintly, your knocking---your pierced hand rapping on the wood---and your voice coming through the door. Yet I am inside, unmoving, my legs as lead, my hands dead against my side. My heart itself seems to have grown cold and quiet, heavy and unbeating in my chest. I cannot answer you, I cannot rise, I cannot find the knob, I cannot open that door. I cannot let you in!

But Lord Jesus, how I want you to enter! I am voiceless and motionless, but how I long to dine with you, and you with me! So Jesus, behold me---dying if not dead. And Jesus, hear me---silent and pleading. And Jesus!---be polite no more, but batter my heart!

"Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you 

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

.: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne :. 

 

It's all about me. It really, really is.

I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say. And it is. But if I don't ever say it aloud, it's always in my thoughts.

This self-consciousness, wordless most of the time, seems to be constantly playing variations on the same tune behind every scene of my life. I live with an almost incessant (and insipid) soundtrack of my own creating. I am composer, content, musician, and audience. And I really don't want to play anymore.

I know that there are times for thinking about yourself. I try to live a self-examined life and to pay attention to where my mind and body are at. But this self-conscious song isn't about true understanding of myself, or qualitative improvement of myself. It's about impression management, highlighting my accomplishments and good qualities and minimizing my faults and failures. This is a dishonest way to live. I am a person, not an image... Why do I think that if other people think it's true then it is? 

A week ago today I realized that self-consciousness is my bitter enemy and self-forgetfulness is my goal. I want to live a life that isn't spent obsessing about how other people view me.