Permission?
After church today, she came home thinking she would spend time sewing on items she has piled up for clients. Though she tries to make Sunday a day of rest or at the least, one in which she spends time doing something she loves to do as a way of meditating/vegetating/relaxing/thinking spontaneously about what she had learned that day in church, she was feeling a little pressured to get things finished for her clients.
She dragged out a pile of repairs she has for one of her favorites and started planning the task. It would require a fusible tape that she has lost track of during the many gyrations that have accompanied her re-arranging furnishings and stuffs to meet her ever evolving goals toward a more appropriate way to utilize her home for business and living.
Of course that required her to go out to her garage-that-is-still-yearning-to-be-a-studio and is now piled high with all her sewing tools and implements. In the process she happened to notice what a beautiful day it was due to the rain they had received two days in a row. And also in the process, she sat for a few minutes while the dogs ate and checked her Facebook happenings.
She made the mistake of following a link from one of the permaculture gardening sites she likes/follows and watched a horrifically depressing video hanging there.
As you may know by what she posts on her FB wall, she is daily struggling with issues that revolve around the awful state she see's the world as being in and fears no one else is seeing it.
Even though the video started to make her feel ever more hopeless...she felt like it still hit her nail on it's head when it likened the process (that the world is in the midst of) as being not just ill, but terminally ill and that it WILL NOT get better. That it (the state of the world) should be being approached in a way as if grieving it's sure demise.
One of the people being interviewed on this video, Carolyn, " suggests thinking of the Earth community, of which we are a part, as being terminally ill. Take time to reflect on our lives, make amends, and value the time we have. Both guests suggest learning how to live in community, being present for one another."
And since she just personally went/is going through the most horrific grieving process she has ever had to be a part of, (including her Mother's somewhat expected death in 1996, her beloved Stevie-dog's death in 2011, the loss of her three kitty cats, progressively, not all at once, soon thereafter, and all the boys she has lost in love over the years), this time, the untimely/unnecessary loss of her sister; she knows just a tiny-big bit of what it is to grieve...
The nail the horrifying video hit on it's head for her was that she has finally been coming to the calm of realizing that the world is God's. That no one knows when it will end or how. He will do with it just as he decides. And that she personally can't do much to change it.
The lesson she was to learn from church this day was to not grieve, not complain, not worry, not try to fix. The lesson was to give thanks. God is looking for each one of us to "In everything give thanks, this is the will of God for you". 1 Thessalonians 5:18
"The Bible says that our call, as a people, is to introduce a place for the entry of His rule to work instead of what is the present prevailing rule of Hell, of darkness."
She hasn't given up hoping that there might be a way to influence change, but that the change might be just in how she sees things for herself.
The world seems determined to destroy itself. Rather, humans seem determined to destroy it for everything else. People seem to be, for the most part, psychopathic.
The lesson in church today started out describing the process known as Perfecting, interpreted for it’s Biblical meaning here as the maturing of the Christian, ( in her own words, “knowledge upon knowledge”).
Everyday she gains new knowledge.
As she watches the world turn and turn itself into a mess, she has long hoped that she could have an influence toward the outcome she has had the hopes for it to be.
But just like hoping you can save a loved one from themselves, all we can do is the best we can in our own lives and hope it rubs off somewhere.
Like the scientist mentioned above who found out he was the psychopath he was studying in the images he was looking at, and like him, realizing that the outcome of his life was not necessarily determined by how his genes were fixed but rather how they were influenced to be expressed; the world she has been so worried about destroying itself, however unlikely or however not the will of God it might be to correct itself or to get well from "terminal illness", the point is not to "perfect" the world. The point is to continue to "mature" in knowledge, to aim for perfecting oneself for the pure joy of knowing that it is God working His high purpose in us.
"The Bible doesn’t say that everything that happens to us is something He designed and is good. It says that in it, through it, and beyond it, He can work good where He’s invited....'In everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you.' What’s the will of God concerning you? That in everything we give thanks. That’s the will of God concerning you. The thing that happened isn’t necessarily, but that you give God praise in the middle of it. Why? Because you feel good? No. But praying without ceasing introduces a song of praise into a situation that’s so tough you find yourself standing facing it with tears. Begin to sing, not because you say, 'Well, I guess I need to submit to this because God intended me to have this horrible event in my life.' But by the song, by the praise, we begin to infest the situation with the possibilities of His presence and His power. Rather than resigning the situation unto the best way we can muddle our way through it, or pry our way through it. ... 'We’ll just do the best that we can.' The best that you can make of it is not going to be very good. The best that He can make of it will be something that will bring the reason the Bible tells us to "in everything give thanks;" not because God foisted or worked this number on you to get even with you or somebody else, but because the Lord says, 'Into the poison pollution of this planet, if praise is lifted up there will come the presence of My power. So lift up song because it invites God’s presence. Lift up praise.' " [excerpted from http://www.livingway.org/library/faq/faq019.htm]After thinking about sewing, noticing what a beautiful day it was, thinking about "learning how to live in community, being present for one another" watching her doggies eat and then wonder if they might be bored this Sunday while she busied herself sewing for others; she asked the doggies if they wanted to go for a ride and pick up a friend on the way and go to the park and have a walk? They said yes, the friend said yes, the park was beautiful, the weather too.
The world isn't likely to end tomorrow. Life is short as it is. It will end someday, for everyone, some sooner than later. The world is a mess, yes it is.
She also found out in church today that she has had an influence on Jimmy.
He said he has been reading all her grizzly (her word) posts on Facebook and it has made him change how he is eating and he wanted to let her know how happy he is that he has made this change and that it wouldn't have been except for her. And then later in Sunday school class Pastor was eating a piece of broccoli and she said, "Look at you eating green." To which he answered back, "Yeah, I heard you and Jimmy talking about eating right".
She doesn't want to believe that those two being interviewed are right and that we should all be grieving that the world is terminally ill and will never recover.
She doesn't want the radiation from Fukushima wrecking it's havoc on the Earth, Monsanto gaining custody of the seeds of the world, "the correlation between the development of wireless technologies and the collapse of more and more bee colonies" to be true.
She doesn't like to see what Wal-Mart shoppers take home to eat, or that the animals they eat are so badly treated.
She doesn't like that Wal-Mart ruins the economies of many a person, city or state.
Why Are We Waiting and what are we waiting for? We don't need permission to live the lives we hope for. We don't need to wait to give thanks for what we have or pray unceasingly.
The doggies won't live forever.
Just as she believes that genes can be changed by nurture, that a psychopath doesn't have to become a committer of horrifying crimes, she believes in the power of thanks giving.
This is the day of Thanksgiving. Rejoice and give praise. Why are we waiting, and what are we waiting for?
You have permission to rejoice.
Take the doggies for a walk. Spend time with a friend.
Does God not say, "Into the poison pollution of this planet, if praise is lifted up there will come the presence of My power"?
"In everything give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you."
She thinks He does. What do you think?
