Easy Comes, Easy Goes.
Oh what a beautiful day.
Yet there's an underlying sense of sadness in me.
Maybe it's because I'm hooked on another song- well a variation of one particular song.
I went home alone today- while it was peaceful until I got to Times Square, I felt extremely... out of it. I feel so burned out. Before, I could handle living on five hours of sleep a day but sitting through the sermon was excruciating today. I want to go out with people and have lunch with them yet I'm tied down by finals and for the past few weeks have been turning down invitations to hang out which is really killing me because I want so badly to know people there. And there's only one week left. One Sunday left.
As I have said before, I'll miss worship here. Today's worship was extremely intense- our worship alone is half an hour so I'm usually really tired by the time the sermon comes along from just really praising God with whatever that's been given to me.
Just as hard as it is to ask for forgiveness, so is it to forgive someone.
For some reason, I thought it would be easier but it's not.
If you ever watch tv, the slogan for T-Mobile is 'Stay connected!'
While I was walking around Manhattan yesterday running a few errands and just getting out of the apartment, I realized that things like Facebook, Blogspot, Xanga are only means to communication and not connection. What we seek is connection yet all we can seem to get ahold of is communication.
Why is it that all the good things in life are buried so deep down- it takes so much effort and work to get ahold of them?
It's easy to go to church, say hello to a few familiarized faces and leave. Or perhaps go for lunch and then return to work. Yet it's hard to become vulnerable to people and have people open up to you.
It's easy, in the realm of fashion, to create a trendy collection yet difficult to do something that's never been done before- almost impossible.
It's easy to destroy farmlands of wheat and replace them with rows of cookie cutter houses yet the land that once nourished, will always be barren.
It's easy to kill off a character in a film or novel that comes to reconciliation with the main figure of the story, yet difficult to show how the two characters move on in life with a history of so much hurt (cough).
We're always attracted to the easy for the easy requires less effort yet we all know the most valuable things in life come in times of hardship and hard work: environmental rejuvenation, solving problems of poverty... However we all end up settling for something less.
Our laziness drags us down more than our desire for something deeper and fulfilling.
It's as if we think good things come in short periods of time- or that we deserve good things with the least amount of effort. I think it's our generation that has this belief that all good things are deserved and not earned- lotteries, reality shows etc. We all admire the works of Da Vinci, Botticelli, Caravvagio, Monet- no one can dispute their beauty and talent. Yet we all know those paintings weren't done within the course of a week. You look up at the Sistine Chapel- you may hate it, it's gaudy, too many colours, too many things going on at once, the figure that Michelangelo so loved to paint are too billowy in musculature but you cannot deny it's splendour for the sheer amount of time and skill invested into the ceiling. It's beautiful, partially because of the time spent in it.
As my philosophy teacher says, we hate hard work, difficulty and challenges because it requires being in the uncertainty of it all- we don't like the searching and the confusion yet in hindsight, we realize how it has brought us forward and made us more mature. A former student once said to him, "do you teach to the lower 98% of the class or the 2% of the higher?"
To that he responded that that question was a dilemma all teachers face and yet he believes he should teach to that small percentage of students that give a darn and hopefully inspire some of the 98% to rise to the challenge.
Still we hesitate.
Yet there's an underlying sense of sadness in me.
Maybe it's because I'm hooked on another song- well a variation of one particular song.
I went home alone today- while it was peaceful until I got to Times Square, I felt extremely... out of it. I feel so burned out. Before, I could handle living on five hours of sleep a day but sitting through the sermon was excruciating today. I want to go out with people and have lunch with them yet I'm tied down by finals and for the past few weeks have been turning down invitations to hang out which is really killing me because I want so badly to know people there. And there's only one week left. One Sunday left.
As I have said before, I'll miss worship here. Today's worship was extremely intense- our worship alone is half an hour so I'm usually really tired by the time the sermon comes along from just really praising God with whatever that's been given to me.
Just as hard as it is to ask for forgiveness, so is it to forgive someone.
For some reason, I thought it would be easier but it's not.
If you ever watch tv, the slogan for T-Mobile is 'Stay connected!'
While I was walking around Manhattan yesterday running a few errands and just getting out of the apartment, I realized that things like Facebook, Blogspot, Xanga are only means to communication and not connection. What we seek is connection yet all we can seem to get ahold of is communication.
Why is it that all the good things in life are buried so deep down- it takes so much effort and work to get ahold of them?
It's easy to go to church, say hello to a few familiarized faces and leave. Or perhaps go for lunch and then return to work. Yet it's hard to become vulnerable to people and have people open up to you.
It's easy, in the realm of fashion, to create a trendy collection yet difficult to do something that's never been done before- almost impossible.
It's easy to destroy farmlands of wheat and replace them with rows of cookie cutter houses yet the land that once nourished, will always be barren.
It's easy to kill off a character in a film or novel that comes to reconciliation with the main figure of the story, yet difficult to show how the two characters move on in life with a history of so much hurt (cough).
We're always attracted to the easy for the easy requires less effort yet we all know the most valuable things in life come in times of hardship and hard work: environmental rejuvenation, solving problems of poverty... However we all end up settling for something less.
Our laziness drags us down more than our desire for something deeper and fulfilling.
It's as if we think good things come in short periods of time- or that we deserve good things with the least amount of effort. I think it's our generation that has this belief that all good things are deserved and not earned- lotteries, reality shows etc. We all admire the works of Da Vinci, Botticelli, Caravvagio, Monet- no one can dispute their beauty and talent. Yet we all know those paintings weren't done within the course of a week. You look up at the Sistine Chapel- you may hate it, it's gaudy, too many colours, too many things going on at once, the figure that Michelangelo so loved to paint are too billowy in musculature but you cannot deny it's splendour for the sheer amount of time and skill invested into the ceiling. It's beautiful, partially because of the time spent in it.
As my philosophy teacher says, we hate hard work, difficulty and challenges because it requires being in the uncertainty of it all- we don't like the searching and the confusion yet in hindsight, we realize how it has brought us forward and made us more mature. A former student once said to him, "do you teach to the lower 98% of the class or the 2% of the higher?"
To that he responded that that question was a dilemma all teachers face and yet he believes he should teach to that small percentage of students that give a darn and hopefully inspire some of the 98% to rise to the challenge.
Still we hesitate.
1 Comments:
Connection isn't just about easy and difficult
Post a Comment
<< Home