stuff

Now when I had mastered the language of this water, and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone out of the majestic river! I still kept in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; one place along, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest, was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines, ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded, and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one place by a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forest wall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowed like a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching it every passing moment with new marvels of coloring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river’s face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them. Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked upon it without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: “This sun means that we are going to have wind tomorrow; that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody’s steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like that; those tumbling ‘boils’ show a dissolving bar and a changing channel there, the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder are a warning that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously; that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the ‘break’ from a new snag, and he has located himself in the very best place he could have found to fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch, is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get through this blind place at night without the friendly old landmark?

No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.

-

mark twain, on becoming a riverboat captain

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a friend of mine asked why my tumblr has been so impersonal as of late (which very much is representative of my words in real life hah) so I will challenge myself and talk about my life a little more intimately.

the first time I read this quote, what seems like many years back, it was about music.

I remember the first chord I played on my dad’s old classical guitar, how what was torturous at 7 had suddenly become like magic. place my fingers in certain places, make those strings vibrate, and six individual sounds combined to become one. magic. but by the first time i read twain’s words, I had played millions of chords, studied and struggled through thousands of riffs, learned progressions on progressions in many keys. I had scrutinized all my favorite tracks, paused and dissected and imitated each instrument, studied and analyzed and experimented upon. I had played and led many worship sets, a thousand times told the drummer to keep tempo, the bassist to keep it simple, the guitarists to watch volume, taught harmonies to vocals, did eq in the sound booth. I went on to plan, record, produce, and master many different tracks, went through the long process of adjusting mic gains, treating rooms, cutting through takes and retakes, quantifying for tempo and pitch, notching out for vocals, panning, adding reverb, darkening tone, balancing instruments, sampling, converting to mp3 and re-eqing there, relistening and nitpicking again and again. no longer could I easily listen to music without automatically breaking it down, analyzing each layer of the cake, reading each part of it like twain “read” the river. by the first time I read twain’s words, I understood them because in many ways, music had lost that magic, had become like a science.

the quote comes back today because this morning I feel these words are no longer just about music, but about most of my life. in observing things so many ways, in trying to work out how to best love, serve, be faithful, in analyzing and interpreting and learning by experience how to do my life better, I have lost much of the wonder with which I once saw my relationships, opportunities, and even myself

not to say that considering and being intentional about one’s life and efforts is a bad thing; i consider it very important to think and contemplate and ponder before doing anything, so that everything I do is my best offering. but surely there is a way to retain the simple joy and almost ignorant wonder of a child as I continue to grow in wisdom and knowledge, both theoretical and experiential. but I haven’t figured it out yet, and as of now my knowledge is only weighing down my heart.

On the contrary, the one who actually sets himself above God is the person who presumes to come to God to give rather than get.

- John Piper (via sincerelydebbie)

Don’t be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn’t do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.

-

Malcolm X

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I actually glanced over this quote on Tumblr and dismissed it this morning before church (I’m too much of a tumblr snob to reblog, LOL)… but I come back to it because this quote, surprisingly, very much relates to the Word at CCSC this morning. 

“He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing. So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:18-19)

This is God’s command to His holy people, the Israelites: as He is a God of mercy, compassion, and justice, a God with a special heart for society’s mistrodden… as He is, as He loves, so must His people be. He commands the Israelites to love the foreigners, who were essentially social orphans, in remembrance that before the Lord’s deliverance, the Israelites were in that same place.

one possible application for us as modern day, born-again, new-creation new covenant followers of Christ:

Brushing elbows with hundreds of unbelievers in the dorms at school, I feel like it is especially easy to condemn the wrong, and unfortunately the wrongdoers, that are all around. You’re walking back with your buds from some ministry event on a Thursday night, and you see a bunch of girls shuffling back from frat row in heels and little to no clothes in 50 degree weather…. and we look down on them. “how can they live like that? they must have major insecurities/acceptance issues/negligent parents/etc… I’m so glad I’m above all that”. we view their sin with such terrible pride, such haughty self-righteousness. While we are indeed saved, made righteous, set apart, we posture our hearts as if our abstinence from their more blatant sin makes us any more holy than they are, when the reality is that the ugliness of our pride is equal with all of their sin. Was not much of Jesus’ teaching, especially his sermon on the mount, a condemnation of the religiosity, the outward “righteousness” without inward, emotional purity of worship?

But let us continue to remember that like the Israelites in Egypt, we were all once foreigners, but to the Lord. We were once enemies to His will, we loved our sin, we worshipped ourselves and reveled in our self-indulgence. We were not His own, we did not have His favor or His Spirit, we had no knowledge or understanding of His love for us… and in this lowly state, spiritually worse-off than the Israelites in Egypt, out of His mercy He rescued us. He wouldn’t leave us where we were, but by His love was persistent in pursuing us; then, after we were saved, He continued and continues to change us, to refine us, to make us in practice more and more like His Son. Think of yourself five years ago, three years ago, just one year ago; it is a free gift from Him that we have come so far. By grace and grace alone, He rescued us from our spiritual orphanhood in Egypt, and has brought us into this growing, saving, fulfilling relationship with Him.

And if we truly understand this, if we’ve truly experienced encounter by His grace and Gospel, our heart’s response to “foreigners” will not be one of pride and self-righteousness, but of love. But not simply a passive, emotional love; the Word doesn’t simply command that we “must love foreigners”, but that we must show love. Our response to His grace is a supernatural love that overflows, love that is not content with sitting, but is moved to action.

May we all, especially myself, come before God in humility, asking to more deeply understand how great His love for wretches like us. An understanding of His grace that moves us to love as He loves. 

(Source: daniellemertina)