The Visitor

Yesterday we received a visitor. I received a call from The Ravishing Mrs. T.B. on the way home, asking me "What would you put a turtle in?". "A box with some water, to start with", I answered, thinking this a rather inane question.

Foolish me.

When I got home, I found we had a visitor - a box turtle. Apparently he was in the midst of crossing our semi-rural suburban street when Nighean gheal saw him and called The Ravishing Mrs. T.B. , who ran into the street to get him. The Ravishing Mrs. T.B. noted that the turtle "took off" when it realized she was coming for him.

So, for now anyway, we have a new visitor to our house until we figure out what to do with him.

Nighean gheal is also excited because apparently a truck (with large tires) came very soon after the rescue occurred. She was quite excited, telling me she saved turtle.

I'm glad for two reasons: One, my daughter had the presence of mind to see a problem, recognize the solution, and know what to do; Two, that she appreciates the value of life.

And Three, that she got to be an animal rescuer like she wants to.

Love

I completed reading The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer this weekend. In reading it, I realized that we have a great deal to do with love

Love, as understood by the Christian, is to be αγαπε - the willing of good for another, even without the expectation of return - as God loved us. The thing that challenges me is that it seems, at least in my limited way, to make love into a duty - something I should do.

I also understand love is seen in action (See 1 John), that things that truly express love are not the material: time spent, consideration, showing concerning, listening.

The question is within me - I don't feel like I am loving, nor can I apprehend the true reason why I do love, or sometimes what that even means.

CS Lewis in Mere Chrisitanity says that if we do not have a quality, we should act as if we do, and eventually, through God's grace, it will become real.

The problem seems to be that I do it because I feel I have to, or am commanded to, rather than from any "feeling" of true "Love" inside of me? Hormonal? Only seeking what I can get in return?

Then I get more puzzled: do other people feel this? Am I defective in my understanding of love? Too self centered?

I think this translates into some of my difficulty with God's love. I think He loves like I do, out of some duty He feels to His creation rather thatn freely and completely, loving us while we were still strangers and enemies to Him.

How do I revist and renew my understanding of love as something flowly freely from within, flowing out of the overflow of a thankful heart to God, driven from the well of Christ?

Unified Field Theory

It has occurred to me over the last few days that my life lacks coherence, a unified whole. 

All the different things I do, all the different things I would like to do, are just pieces and parts - they do not build towards something, nor are the controlled by something. It feels as if I have a fragmented life. 

 How do I honor Christ in this? 

If the point of my life is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and He is to control all that I do in my life, and my life is to honor Him in all that I do, how do I apply that to daily living? 

 What I need is a unified field theory of living - as described in Wikipedia, it is "An attempt to unify all the fundamental forces and the interactions between elementary particles into a single theoretcical framework; a theory which would explain the nature and behaviour of all matter." 

Francis Schaeffer, in The God Who Is There, seems to approach this by suggesting the relationship between philosophy, literature, art, music, theology, and how they interlock as a general indicator of the culture at large - something he seems to do as well in A Christian Manifesto. I need the same thing - that all of my activities, or things I would like to do or feel called to do or have to do (I made a list and came up with 45 separate items) are directed towards the goal of serving and honoring God, instead of being stand alone one-offs - I do something, and it is finished. It relates to nothing else. 

 The key, as I ruminate on this, is what my purpose or mission statement is. 

By knowing the statement and purpose, one can plug in the various ideas as it relates each part of the purpose. If I take honoring God, serving God, and enjoying God as my purpose, and my primary subgroups are my family and my church family, and most of the activities in my life have either fallen into the learning or creating categories, how do I evaluate each activity versus the goal? 

This is my struggle.