You would not believe the amount of internal chastising I received after I posted yesterday.
"How dare I declare myself to be good? How dare I say publicly that I might have something valuable to say, to declare it a ministry? That's absurd! Only God declares ministries! You don't have the authority! You have to suffer miserably through life, miserably wondering till the day you die if you are in God's will and how God is using your life; that kind of suffering keeps you humble and saves your soul from sin.
"But you, you arrogant blogger! You think you have the authority to declare! Well, I have one thing to say to you, missy, and that's that "Pride goes before a fall!" and I predict God will soon whack you a good one over the head for claiming anything so good and so powerful for yourself. Tremble!
"Besides, it's just tacky. And no body's going to understand the fact that referencing Dr. Peck and Buddha together was tongue in cheek. They will just think it weird."
This part of me really does not want to let go of my old idea of God's judgement and the twin roles of suffering and humiliation. It's fear, is what it is. If I approach everything in life with fear and trembling- if I am in constant suffering- well then, I risk nothing, don't I?
Nothing can be taken from me, because I have nothing. And because I have nothing, because I am nothing, then I have no role to play in the world around me. I am safe from God's judgement and I am safe from expectation.
And it is an initially very frightening thing to declare that I have intrinsic value, just as I am, value to God and value to the world. That really does set one up for failure on a large scale, there's no denying that reality.
But, the beautiful thing about failure is that, firstly, it's inevitable, so I might as well not worry about it. I will fail. Secondly, it's the engine for everything meaningful in life. If there were no failure, there would be no wisdom, no perspective, no adjustment.
Anyway, regardless of the fact that I have openly admitted that I think of this blog as a ministry, I am not constantly going to be going on in a philosophical bent. That would be boring, quite frankly, and after a while, I would be forced to make stuff up. And while that would probably be a great exercise for my already active imagination, I'd much rather just go on being myself. It's easier.
Besides, one of these days I'm going to get around to blogging about the really delicious cheesy corn chowder I made or the festive fall leaf garland that drapes the fireplace mantel.
