to be unintentional

I have a thought.

I have had this thought peeking its head around corners for the last few months, reminding me of its existence, yet seeking deeper and deeper into vagueness as time went on.

The thought is this: to be unintentional*

Back in the day (about a year ago), being intentional was big in Church. Don't just let life float by you, waving at it as it passes by (thanks Johhny Depp**). Be intentional. Don't just want to read your Bible, read it. Don't just wish you'd pray more, do it. Get up at six in the morning, or at five in the afternoon, open your Bible, close your eyes, and get down to it.

Be intentional.

beintentionalbeintentionalbeintentionalbeintentionalbeintentional

My truly lovely small group leader had the words pray, love, something-else-that's-also-important, and be intentional on her pin-board. It is really cool, and really true, and she carries an authority that would be wasted without intention. Being intentional is a part of her.

And yet, true and right and very Christian as it is - being intentional - a voice in me said be unintentional.  

Be unintentional.

do you know what that means? To be intentional, as far as my little brain understood it, meant to do things that you intend to do, on purpose, with the result that those things you intended to do got done, with the result (since Church was saying it) that God's intentions were realised through our doings and becomings.

so to be unintentional? not quite the opposite. to my little heart (which sometimes strained [strains?] at the seams with intentionality and confusion about realising the Lord's intentions), to be unintentional meant to relax - to let the Lord realise his intentions without my efforts and anxiety, without me knowing what I'm doing, or trying so very hard to know and to do and to fit my puzzle piece at the right moment into the right pigeon hole so I can breathe a great deep sigh of relief that at least that was over, and hope I don't get any more assignments of the devil, to piously carry out with clenched teeth and deeply suppressed groans of frustration.

To be unintentional meant that I could sit down, take the squawking birds out my ears and my hair, and put down the suitcases I didn't know I was carrying and couldn't remember picking up in the first place, and to breath an actual cry of relief.

Sometimes repentance looks like giving up. Giving up the fight, giving up the effort, giving up the works.

And my hope was and is that when I miss it completely, and finally come to the end of my strength and admit defeat, declare that I surrender the war on me, and go take a nap, the Lord's intentions will be realised.

I have a testimony about that, which combines intentionality with unintentionality. One Sunday, on the way back from SOS, still in a bit of a daze, I walked by two ladies sitting on the sidewalk, and turned around to sit with them and talk with them and pray with them. They turned out to be Zimbabweans, new to the country. This was a non-anxiety laden encounter. I then breezily walked off, pushed myself into the nearest old-age home to ask someone (anyone!) if I could pray for them, who regarded me from above their glasses (which should have been horn-rimmed for literary effect) and begrudgingly allowed me to do so and dash out again in a flurry of righteous embarrassment. Having fled that scene, I found the ladies mentioned above in the street before the old age home, one of whom told me that her back pain too had fled the scene when I prayed for her, and where could they find my church.

So that's what I meant by unintentionality. I did not get a word of knowledge about backpain, I did not rebuke the backpain and command it to leave because I didn't know about rebuking things and I also didn't know about the backpain. I did not rummage up enough 'faith' to withstand the backpain because, as I said, I didn't know about the pain. And I didn't pray about it at all.

All I did was go with the feeling (a feeling external to myself) that I should return to them, and sat and prayed with them. And left. I think you could call it obedience. I guess that's what Sias meant when he said "God desires your obedience not your performance".

absence leaves

I have not been writing here much the last while, and this intends to change. A few months ago i had some pressing ideas which I wanted to pin down, but did not for one cowardly reason.

I realised that I might look back on what I had written and feel stupid. Or feel that I had been stupid. Now I look back on that and realise I have been stupid.

I learnt in the past few months (or the Lord taught me), that it is okay, even  good, to fail. He showed me a cracked jar, and that the light shines through the cracks. The cracks are good, serve to bring Him glory and let His light shine. This helped me immensely to relax.

I enjoy writing, and some of my thoughts are actually important and can make a difference. (What I just said is the kind of thing I would be afraid of looking back on and being ashamed of). But it's true. We all have important thoughts sometimes, that can influence each other and the world at large for the better.

I look forward to putting these thoughts into words and stringing them together and rearraging them and so forth. I hope you and the aforementioned world at large enjoys it (apparently Russia is quite interested in my blog).

:)

Secret Sevening

Today, I went for a wander. I walked about the campus, earnestly in search of the entrance to the tower, the tower that grants one vision over Jerusalem. I found the entrance and it was decidedly like one of those abandoned towers one finds in the Secret Seven or the Hardy Boys. The dusty glass doors were shut tight and the shutters hung askew. Had there been rays of sunlight to fall through the dirty glass panes, dust motes would have been lit up as they floated in that leisurely fashion so reminiscent of abandoned buildings.

But the Secret Seven never give up. This was only more reason to set off on a search for that promised view, and set off they did. I thought the security of my venture slightly devious dubious, but that did not thwart me on my journey of discovery. Behind the tower, an ancient chair of black plastic adorned the outdoor living room of some highly suspect individual who was evidently trying to hide something (like the quiet spot and the chair for instance). The chair was placed on a trapdoor of some sort, evidently to distract attention from it, and distract it did for no one thought of moving the chair and descending to the deep dark depths of who knows where. Instead they belted it out of there to find a place less reminiscent of teenage boys having fun with herbs and smoke. The suspect individual mentioned above did not make his appearance, as suspect individuals are known for not doing.

Scoping around I wandered more and more into solitude, and the sound of male voices was not at all reassuring. The nice bit about being in the Secret Seven was always that if three of us got injured there would be one person to accompany them and the last to go find help. Not being in such a well-organized group, numerically speaking, I was a bit worried about who would go for help, when the voices stilled and I scoped a young lady running by. This did not appear to be the kind of girl who generally goes for sporadic runs without something chasing her, but this is what she seemed to be doing, since the carriers of the voices were not involved, and neither were carriers of other voices in sight.

She ran by. I followed her, at a leisurely and nonchalant speed (or I would have if I was one of those people). We came out to an open-air auditorium, with several gates that form what one could call an arch. One would not notice it much had the person you had been following (semi-nonchalantly, shall we say) not proceeded to climb the arch.

I reached her almost before she reached the top, and asked if I could join. See, such freedom – to run without being chased, to climb without having a mountain, resonates with me, and the child in me (me, really) wants to climb the arch too, instead of passing through like any normal person would. (No offence to normal people, you’re great. And you’re probably not that normal either, be careful around arches and blue skies and such. But actually please don’t, please stop and run for the sky).

She was running for the sky. She had spotted one, one which to me seemed really ordinary. It was in the sky, it was white and grey and it moved and changed shape and brought promises of rain, but otherwise it was really ordinary. But to her, this cloud was worth running like someone not being chased, climbing an arch despite the evident lack of signposts pointing “up this way,” and despite the danger of being followed by strangers who don’t understand clouds, and perhaps had never really seen one.

Together we tried to remember the names of East European countries and how they split up. She apologized for her English and I apologized for my Russian. Jerusalem feels like home, we agreed.

And then I descended the arch and she started walking across it to the other side. I asked her what she was doing, and without walking back she replied, “Just walking. Bye.”

Open Letter to Heath McNease

Dear Heath

I sent you some fan mail a while ago which was very confusing, I agree. I was very tired and so my thoughts flowed through my fingers in a rather disjointed way. I was trying to tell you the following:

You are really cool. I have gotten to know you in a very distant way through your music and your YouTube videos. I never used to be into listening to music as a hobby, but when I do listen, it sometimes ends up a research project… Basically, I have listened to The Weight of Glory so many times that it feels like it’s part of my brain. I have watched your Calls That Never Come video quite a few times and showed it to friends and family. Some of them just squinted and didn’t laugh but those who share my sense of humour (my dad being foremost) laughed all the way through, especially at the Jet Ski. My dad, in fact, was silent with laughter at that point, and almost blind with it too.

What I like about you, Heath, is this. You’re real. You don’t fit into a box, at least not into the boxes I know of. You don’t seem to try hard to be Christian, to appear to be Christian, or to be cool. You just are. And that is an inspiration to me, and to many others, I hope.

Carry on.

Be like that.

Marie

Blog is back, or is it?

For some strange reason, this blog has been on my mind a great deal the last few days.

I don't want to blog. Not really. I don't see the point.

I want to read Narnia, paint pictures for myself and my friends, practice jazz piano, study Greek, Hebrew, and linguistics, make lists of things I need to do, cook lovely healthy food, and learn Korean.

This past term, I have managed to do all of the above and work consistently on a documentary with Wesley van der Westhuizen. So I should be able to blog every now and then as well.

The only problemo is this: of all the things I did get done last term, I got a very little done. I wrote about one song, practiced a very little jazz, painted about seven pictures, studied enough greek and hebrew, did the doc for linguistics but think I did not study enough, cooked a great deal of lovely healthy food (one has to procrastinate on real work, no?), and learnt one Korean word (i heard some more but one stuck). So technically I did do all of the above but I'd like to do more. And I'd like to feel a bit more on top of my work.

The idea for the future of the blog is to share some profound thoughts, not to document my daily life or mood swings, and not to document my deepest dreams and desires. That's for my journal.

I just don't know if it will happen.

It feels like I should do it, because it's on my mind a lot and I like writing. However, those are poor reasons faced with the problemo outlined above and considering that the other things I want to do are things that I actually know what doing them will acheive.

This just seems like an egocentric waste of time. If it's not, please contact me and ask me to blog.

Dear reader,

These pages before you have been filled with sheep, and ponderings, and the occasional lyric. I long to ponder some more upon these pages, fill the spaces with words both eloquent and well put (well put).

But, alas, time is so limited. And the more I learn the more I know how little I know or understand.

I do so love putting thoughts into amusing musings.

So here I am again.

I highly doubt that this shall be a regular occurrence, but I do hope I shall find the time and the thoughts.

The secondary obstacle to my writing is the disorganized nature of my genius. To write well one has to think well. Lack of application delivers poor work, so I'm told.

But fun doesn't require serious appplication. See?

Do not despair, words of wisdom and folly may still come.

That Final Undiscovered Country

I think it was Lewis, C.S. Lewis, who referred to the future as 'that final undiscovered territory'. And that is the topic that has been impressing itself lightly but nevertheless on my consciousness.

The greatest portion of my life still lies ahead of me, should matters take the non-tragic course and I am not made a young martyr or come to a similar end before I reach a ripe age. I have an idea of what this portion of my life may look like, but that is merely a figment of my imagination, encouraged but what I would like it to be.

But we have no idea. I would like mine to be filled with children, joy and travelling. But at any moment the sea ahead of us (if time could be likened to an ocean stretching out before us) could present a tidal wave that changes our course entirely, or sinks our little ship and obliterates that future.

For a while before the possibilities of the future occupied my mind, I had been preoccupied with the idea that one shouldn't focus on the past or the future, but only on the present. And then a friend helped it occur to me that all along the 'present' we experience is actually the past, as everything we experience we experience after the fact. What we see, what we hear, we sense afterwards thanks to the speed of light and sound.

Which renders the present an uncertainty. The only certainty about it is the Lord, because he is there.

Which led me back to this: 

don't focus on the present, you can't. Focus on the Lord.