Blue Like Jazz The Movie Trailer
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Man vs Nature
I love this stanza from canto four of Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, which many may remember from the movie Into The Wild, which I adore, but it often worries me how much this quote describes who I am. I mean, we all remember how the movie ends, right?
But I can't help it. Each mile driven really does lessen the weight in my chest (Donald Miller). And I'm never happier than when in Nature. But there's a time and place right?
Yeah, walking through the garden with God having long talks with Him was a slice of heaven for Adam, but at the end of the day, he was still lonely. Even in paradise.
I just really wish I could look deep enough into myself to know if I love the solitude in nature a bit too much. But even if I found out I did, what would I actually do about it?
These thoughts worry me often. Nonetheless, this stanza is beautiful, and seemingly perfect. Enjoy! In the correct proportions of course. We are indeed relational beings. Maybe I just need to find a helpmate to enjoy nature with...that would be nice.
There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
LORD BYRON, Childe Harold
But I can't help it. Each mile driven really does lessen the weight in my chest (Donald Miller). And I'm never happier than when in Nature. But there's a time and place right?
Yeah, walking through the garden with God having long talks with Him was a slice of heaven for Adam, but at the end of the day, he was still lonely. Even in paradise.
I just really wish I could look deep enough into myself to know if I love the solitude in nature a bit too much. But even if I found out I did, what would I actually do about it?
These thoughts worry me often. Nonetheless, this stanza is beautiful, and seemingly perfect. Enjoy! In the correct proportions of course. We are indeed relational beings. Maybe I just need to find a helpmate to enjoy nature with...that would be nice.
There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
LORD BYRON, Childe Harold
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
True Love: Why Marriage Will Be The Death of You
This is from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, except he has it being said by a man to his wife as he whispers some lines to her while she is sleeping. It's from chapter 13: Romance (Meeting Girls Is Easy).
Despite his humor, especially the humor in his chapter titles, this is the chapter I reread most often. I've probably read it at least 50 times--no exaggeration.
In this chapter, the lines the husband is whispering to his wife while kneeling at her bedside, are from a play he was writing called Polaroids, about a couple losing their child and whether or not that horrible loss would break them up.
The husbands lines are the most beautiful, honest words that I've found, ever, on marriage, specifically a Christian one. It shares what we do wrong in marriage and what we should be doing instead.
The dialogue feels like poetry, that has an older style wisdom and yet captures how we feel now, and what we still try to make marriage into: something that it's not and never should be.
But for this instance tonight I am going to be the husband, and I'm going to whisper some lines, the last few lines, of the speech, to God, to Christ, in a prayer, and I ask you all to join me if you will.
From the bride to her Bridegroom:
Dear God,
"I will stop expecting Your love, demanding Your love, trading for Your love, gaming for Your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to You, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this alter of dying and dying again."
Love,
Zoe
Amen (So be it, truly)
And we are dying to self by the way, and the ways of the world: what the world tells us love and marriage are. Because we are Not Of This World (John 17:16) and thus we should love not as the world does, but as God and Christ do: Unconditionally.
Despite his humor, especially the humor in his chapter titles, this is the chapter I reread most often. I've probably read it at least 50 times--no exaggeration.
In this chapter, the lines the husband is whispering to his wife while kneeling at her bedside, are from a play he was writing called Polaroids, about a couple losing their child and whether or not that horrible loss would break them up.
The husbands lines are the most beautiful, honest words that I've found, ever, on marriage, specifically a Christian one. It shares what we do wrong in marriage and what we should be doing instead.
The dialogue feels like poetry, that has an older style wisdom and yet captures how we feel now, and what we still try to make marriage into: something that it's not and never should be.
But for this instance tonight I am going to be the husband, and I'm going to whisper some lines, the last few lines, of the speech, to God, to Christ, in a prayer, and I ask you all to join me if you will.
From the bride to her Bridegroom:
Dear God,
"I will stop expecting Your love, demanding Your love, trading for Your love, gaming for Your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to You, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this alter of dying and dying again."
Love,
Zoe
Amen (So be it, truly)
And we are dying to self by the way, and the ways of the world: what the world tells us love and marriage are. Because we are Not Of This World (John 17:16) and thus we should love not as the world does, but as God and Christ do: Unconditionally.
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