The happiest place for me in a soul weary state is the bookstore. Yesterday I felt worn out, stale and burnt out, and I knew I needed permission to go somewhere and get lost. I wanted book reading and it wanted me.
Hello, bookstore.
When I go into a place like HalfPrice Books, I sense the subculture. I feel it as soon as I open the door. There's Doctor Who stuff everywhere, and notecards with all kinds of Zen sayings on them. I am not drawn to those things at all, but it's comforting to know that every time, every time, I go there, someone is asking about these things. 'Where are the Doctor Who magnets?' (Somehow this is always very pressing.)
Sometimes I like being among things that really aren't like me. I think it has the power to level out the thinker's heart.
Well, this is a week of songs.
That's all I know to say.
This is a pretty good one.
Who wrote the rain?
Who wrote the sun in?
Who calls your name?
Where are you running?
I've been coming back to old things lately. Things of my life from a long time ago which have been life giving this whole time, even in newness. I actively return to them (and write about them) because sometimes, quote often actually, I forget.
Hello, frail heart.
One big example of this for me is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am seeing again in a fresh way how saturating and singular in my heart this gospel is really supposed to be. You're not supposed to live with one foot on one side of a line, one foot on the other. You're all in.
The sweetness of the Gospel though is that the word 'supposed to' is not the word that rings first in the Christian's ears. Grace brings you to 'Amazingly, I get to'. For me, that is why hymns are so powerful. I think that people who wrote hymns were doing this amazing thing of blending what grace compelled them to understand about their changed selves and how to express it to a broken and suffering world.
Life isn't so serious like it was last week.
I think that when you pray about taking life less seriously, God enjoys finding ways to show you what He's keeping in its place. Then He opens up the rest of the world to be funny. I am finding it in small places all around me. In general though, things are more buoyant.
Doesn't it also help a little to think of the day sticking around longer and longer as spring and summer come to us? I say yes.
Sometimes I am so serious.
Too too serious about things that other naturally think are funny. Lately this has been on my mind.
When I was a little girl, my dad would need to pull me aside and say, "Jessica, I can tell you are worried. You and me, we're the same. But I don't want worry to fill your life." And then he would tell me about both spiritual and practical things that would help me find my way out of it. That was real care.
You can make this academic, but it shouldn't be. On a very real level, you're supposed to hear it like I did when I was a kid, when my dad would pull me aside and help me and say it plain. Keeping things light is also a release from a burden you were never meant to bear.
On some level it's just in the make up of my natural bent toward life.
But I know I can't just stop there. I think there's more to it.
