Categories: random
Tags: significance, Christianity
Date: 06 March 2006 22:48:47
A couple of days ago when I was writing about Lent I thought about getting more profound, but couldn't quite manage it :) What I wrote sounded like I was being all superior in my attitude, which wasn't what I meant at all, but I couldn't get my words to say what I meant so I just gave up. Then (on the same day) I read Tractor Girl's Lenten creative musings where she basically managed to say in her last sentence what I'd been trying and failing to say: "See I am Mr. Average, question is am I happy being Mr. Average or is all of this about needing to be something more than Mr. Average?"
I was writing that I wanted to use this time of reflection to think, amongst other things, about significance, my significance and place in the world, and reflect on my life and where it is/isn't going. It's so easy to slip into the whole eat-work-sleep-church-stuff pattern, and I know that being so busy with study and work and whatnot I really don't have time for much more. When I was growing up I always felt like I was on the outside looking in, never totally part of it (whatever "it" was), different. It was after I became a Christian that I came to see "different" as a good thing, and always felt that being different equalled greater significance - for me at any rate. I'm not saying that people who live their everyday lives are insignificant, just that if this is all there is then that's not enough for me. I guess I want to re-pray my early idealistic prayers that God would use me, that I would experience significance beyond myself, that I would experience life in all its fullness, and knowing that that life of fullness isn't what I have at the moment.
This has also been brought into sharp relief on SoF at the moment, following the death of a beautiful girl from a brain tumour last weekend. She had only been on the Ship a couple of months but made a huge impression, and as her story gradually unfolded and we learnt more about her, it was clear that here was someone who was not only different, but exceptional. I'm not aspiring to be like her, that would, could, never happen. But there's something about that difference in a life lived to the full that draws me. I'm not really sure exactly what I'm praying for this Lent, but something about difference and significance and perspective. And glimpses of happiness and fulfilment too. I'd like that.