One wonders whether any thoughts are actually original? Perusing some blogs this morning, I came across these words:
"new ideas do not come to me in a vacuum... my heart needs relating, not solitude. People's ideas inspire me. They launch me into a new place, usher me into a new space. They bump my whole perspective over a couple of degrees and then invite me to see things from a new angle. I only hope that occasionally my ideas take someone else somewhere else too- call it a payment of a cosmic debt."
The Bible says:
"He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed". (proverbs 11: 25) and,
"Let Love be your greatest aim".
Then scribbled in one of my numerous journals:
"You can give without loving, but you can not love without giving. Love means giving up- yielding my preferences, comfort, goals, security, money, energy, or time for the benefit of someone else".
These words are also borrowed, the reference impossible to record as I likely took them from another's writing and hoped to allow them to take me "somewhere else" in my journey. We borrow Christ's words, we wrestle with them, debate over them, desire to make his thoughts our thoughts. We borrow the reflections of people in our lives, take their wisdoms, insights, viewpoints and absorb and discard them at will. And rightly so, for we were created for relationship.
My own, unborrowed prayer remains the same: for Truth. For revelation of the true meaning of the scriptures. Not what is popular, or traditional, but the TRUTH about freedom in Christ. To live in the place where perfect love casts out fear.
Something borrowed, Something true.
2 comments:
Interesting post, Joyce. I enjoy writing, always have, but could never be, say, a novelist, as I am incapable of writing into a vacuum. I have almost never kept personal journals for the same reason. It's all about the stimulus-response cycle, and our undeniable need for each other. Tempting as a hermit's life may be when things get rough, it's not our natural state and without each other we'd still be in that cave.
Hi Joyce
One of the books I'm into relates the story of a Near Death survivor. The gentleman was an athiest before the event but since came to believe otherwise. In trying to convey some of his thoughts, the man relays a passage he read by the poet Rilke,
"Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for answers that cannot be given. For you wouldn't be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything, live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along some day into the answers."
This struck me as connected to your blog entry. Both the quote and the blog entry made a strong impression on me personally. Keep writing.
Rod
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