Ok, so I went on facebok today. Multiple times. I've decided to give it up for lent- inspired by my friend, John. I did it last year, but I figured I wouldn't this year because it's a big way to connect with people back home. Facebook, however, does not hold a candle to the communication that phones and skype enable, so I'm sure I'll be fine. I'm also thinking of giving up texting? But that might be difficult, what with roommates and things. Maybe next year. Anyway, back to facebook (isn't that how life just feels, anyway? it's kind of pathetic, but I digress). I was looking at my mini-feed and I saw this quote from Bob Marley as one of my friend's statuses:
"Just can't live that negative way...make way for the positive day" and went on with little hearts and people were "like"ing it and there was profoundness proclaimed and blah, blah, blah... All in all it was just really hokey sounding. Even when I talked to Kevin tonight, I mentioned it and we laughed about it. Reading Chesterton I think leads skepticism and pickiness about what counts as "profound". Anyways, looking back, I really think I was mistaken. Just because I might read what some would consider "higher literature" in comparison to Bob Marley lyrics, there is some definite truth in that. I've kind of been in a funk lately. Not sure how this funk came about, but it's been almost all-encompassing. It's really no fun, and I hate being in funks because I more prone to complaining, and I don't like complaining, and I can almost guarantee that 98% of the time, no one wants to hear any of it. Getting to the point, funk= bad on many levels. Then there was a crazy coincidence because Kevin was like hey don't worry about stuff, and then I was like hey that makes me have songs stuck in my head. One is "Don't you worry, about a thing, 'cuz every little thing, is gonna be alright..." Which is Three Little Birds, by Bob Marley, again. Which is just ironic. The second is this incredibly cheesy Jesus song that I learned when I was little and it went "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself," and then it repeated. I don't remember absorbing this message as a child, but I do remember it's obnoxious level of perkiness. The ridiculous part of this is that I had been thinking about the scripture that song was based off of (Mt 6:24-34), and then BAM. It's the gospel at church the next day. Now that's just craziness. I believe that coincidences happen... and yeah I just don't think that was one of them.
So back to my all-encompassing funk of worry and such. I don't know why, but, surprisingly, I had an "aha" moment in the shower tonight. Which is weird, but at the same time, I'm kind of weird, so it's not really all that surprising, I suppose. I realized that of all of the gospels I've heard and remembered, this was one that I had always heard and taken as "advice", when really... it's the gospel. It's not advice, it's instructions on how to live like Christ. Living like Christ has always gotten me out of funks. So I stopped and looked at parts of my life and thought about what I do need to be thinking about today, what I'm assigning unnecessary stress and over-thought to, and how I live for Christ in the here and now. I know that when I live that way, I entrust way more to God, and lose a lot of control (or what feels like a lot of control to me). It's a tough, grown-up Christian moment, when you realize that you have to reject lukewarmness. You have to reject all control that keeps you from being surrendered to God's will. I don't think the Allies would have let Germany off with a warning at Versailles, or let them just kind of withdraw some of their armies from occupational territory. As much as I hate to admit it, and as inconvenient as it is, my faith, along with my willingness to conform to a plan that is so much bigger than me, cannot be relative. I also think that, to many, it would seem almost against Catholic teachings to hear, "Father, what can I do?" and hearing "Don't worry." But we don't have to. Like Bob Marley said, (and please don't take this as encouragement to base doctrine or dogma after this guy), "don't you worry... everything is gonna be alright", and "make way for the positive day". Both of these verses hold some serious truth in them, and it really was the thing I needed to at least start digging myself out of the hole that I found myself in the past couple of days.
p.s. medical update coming soon.
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