My new best friend, Mrs Madeleine L’Engle, has quite an interest in science and temper tantrums and theology (She’s the one who wrote A Wrinkle in Time, which we told you about today)… I read this quote today, only a few hours after hearing about your struggle against putting plow to earth, telling your best friends that their opinion isn’t God, and deciding whether to put your own story in its proper place in the order of things so that you can be healthy and whole…
so I thought this might be helpful to you… and lots of other friends of the skinnytree who are going through similar ordeals over ideals:
“In a world where fewer and fewer people believe in God at all, where life is for so many an unimportant accident with no meaning, where we are born only to slip back into annihilation, we need to stop arguing [even with ourselves and our deepest desires] and affirm the goodness of creation, and the power of love which holds us all. As far as the evidence of science shows today (and the evidence of science is always open to change with new discoveries), evolution [or perhaps the science behind nutrition and psychiatry] seems a likely explanation… If new evidence should prove that evolution [or Bastyr or MHGS] is not how it all happened [or should happen] that won’t do anything to change the nature of God, any more than Galileo’s discoveries changed the nature of God. Nor would it shatter my faith. …Not only are stars and people and fireflies born, not only do they die, but what we as creatures do during our life span makes a difference. We are not just passive, acted upon; we are also actors in the great drama of creation. …God urges us to be willing to change, to go out into the wilderness, to wrestle with angels, to take off our shoes when we step on holy ground. And to listen. God asks us to listen, even when what el [sic] asks of us seems most outrageous.”
So…(sigh) there it is, as I see it.
Or maybe: You want to point at those meanies that criticize you for taking such risks and say it: “So there!” But probably its best to do that quietly, to yourself for now: revenge can be sweet but often requires that you make an ugly face… and there is no need for them to see your gentle smile so contorted. Besides, the mothers and aunties are always telling you, “you keep making that ugly face it just might get stuck like that.” And I think that is probably one of the truer things in life.
But it is true also that:
You (all of you!) are very much inclined to change, even created to change, to evolve, to grow, to be an actor in the drama of creation. Science will only validate this over and over… just as surely as your story will, my dear.
And I am so pleased to hear that you are
That you are that…
You are!
And then there is the old Avett Bros bit about “when you run make sure you run to something and not away from, lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere.” Don’t worry about the running from… sometimes it is okay to run toward safety (which I am finding does require a certain abrupt leaving which can often look like “running away" while it is yet simply a running from), toward what it best for you. When they try to tell you that you are wrong to dream a big dream and follow it, it is a lie and lies like that will always follow you, but they are still just lies. Maybe that isn’t what the song is about, but that is often what it makes me think about, and that matters too.
One more thing for you who are so easily judged because you don’t try as hard as they want you to:
Firstly, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again until you have all looked into it: sometimes trying harder is simply not the answer
Secondly, my new discovery is that the folks who are judging you for doing whatever it is you need to do today were always slated to judge you at some point in your life… You can’t make them love you more, you can’t change their opinion about you… you can only change your mind about the value of their remarks—and you may find that in the end you love them more as a result of this change in yourself.
I know the grammar of this post makes it a bit awkward but I simply had to rush it because, well, I can't let perfectionist tendencies run our lives... So go back and reread if you have time, or go with what you got the first time--that may very well be all you need for now.
