Some Quotes...

I have recently been reading through the book entitled The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a sort of Catholic saint from the seventeenth century. The book is a compilation of Lawrence's conversations with and letters to other saints, as well as his ways of living and some spiritual principles. Besides the fact that I am greatly enjoying the many Old English phrases, the content of the book has proven to be quite beneficial to my every-day living. Here's a few quotes from the book so far:

"Thoughts spoil everything. All evil begins there. We must take care to set them aside as soon as we observe them not to be necessary for the task of the moment or for our salvation, so that we can begin again our converse with God, wherein is our only good." (p. 24)

"We should in all confidence ask for his grace without regard to what we think, relying only on the infinite merits of our Lord." (p.29)

"It" is "enormous self-deception to believe that the time of prayer must be different from any other." (p. 29)

"We are to be pitied for being satisfied with so little. God...has boundless treasures to give us, and" yet "a moment's sense of devotion is enough for us! We are blind who so bind the hands of God, and we stem the abundance of his grace. When he finds a soul imbued with living faith, into it he pours grace on grace, a flowing stream, as it were, which, checked in its proper course, and finding a new outlet spreads wide with force, abundantly." (p.36)

"At supper and in the midst of conversation, lift your heart at times towards him. The smallest remembrance will always please him. It is not needful at such times to cry aloud. He is nearer to us than we think." (p.41)

Impression.

Why can't I speak like a human being? I'm such an idiot. Replaying the words in my head dozens of times did no good when the moment finally came. Object-Verb-Preposition-Predicate-Indirect Object. Easy enough, right? Instead, I had to mess it all up into a "Preposition-Verb-Indirect Object-Predicate-Object" mess of jumbled and mispronounced  words, which made no sense to even me. I was supposed to say, "How are you?" not "You are woh?" 

Yes, that is the description of my ability to have a terrible first impression, and second impression, and third impression, and fourth impression, and fifth impression, and sixth impression, and, now today, a seventh impression. 

Fortunately, I have a family at home that loves me for who I am. 

Pedestals.

I have always found it intriguing how people put other people on pedestals. Sometimes the pedestals are pedestals of admiration, like a well-accomplished musician, a hero, a pastor, or a movie star. Other times, they are pedestals of intimidation or fear.

Through my high school years, there was one teacher in particular who always seemed to intimidate my fellow class mates. They would say things like, "I really don't agree with the way he graded my final, but I wouldn't dare confront this teacher about it." Even other teachers would instill this attitude in the students by saying things like, "Oh, you'll never be able to talk to him about it. He's a brick wall." And people believed and lived by this sort of fear for him.

I've always been taught to see people as people, whether they are a homeless person, a small child, or the president of the United States. So, with this particular teacher, I never saw how other people thought he was so intimidating. If I had a problem with him, I would schedule an appointment with him and work it out. If I didn't agree with his teaching style or something he said, I would voice my opinion in a respectful manner and be done with it. 

There have only been a few times when a person has made me intimidated enough to somewhat fear them and feel like I could just shrink in their presence. The first person was Chris Thile--only the most talented mandolin player my ears have ever had the opportunity to hear. I went to a Nickel Creek (the band he's in) concert, and afterwards, met him. I think I said something like, "Uh, you, uh, um, cool. I mean, I like, er, uh, your skills. Mandolin, I mean. Cool mandolin skill you have." He just chuckled and signed my cd. I probably replayed those stupid lines of mine in my head about a million times before I finally forgave myself for blowing my one chance to impress the mandolin god. I worshipped the ground he played [mandolin] on and for a few years, he was my hero. The songs he has written are just so dense and packed full of depth. They're like books that can be read over and over, while still bringing forth something new and undiscovered each time they're read through. 

As you can see, I loved Chris Thile. Than I found out that he became an alcoholic, divorced his wife, and abandoned his faith. WHAT?!?! He wasn't perfect?!?! Yes, he was a full-blown, all-around human. I still love his music, but I realized that my whole saga of seeing him as greater than I was pointless. Futile!

Since then, there are still some people that have the potential to intimidate me, but I just remind myself that each human is a creation of God and must be treated with equal respect and dignity. Admiration for someone is fine and healthy, but raising a person high on a pedestal is useless and accomplishes nothing. 

Nice to meet you.

I tend to just love people, whoever they may be, and, once I've met someone, I enjoy the process of getting to know them greatly. After the initial hand shake and "nice to meet you," I feel pretty comfortable. But what I don't like is when I'm in a group of people and have half conversations with people I haven't officially met yet. There's that big feeling of, I can't really enjoy talking to this person until I've shaken their hand. Generally, I wait a few minutes to see if the people I do know in the group will introduce me to the person I don't know, like any good friend would do. But if that doesn't happen, then I must find a way to extend my hand and say, "I'm Emily. Nice to meet you." After that happens, it's like a uptightness is released. But if that doesn't happen, usually do to the fact that I don't want to interrupt the existing conversation, I get agitated. I know, it's odd. But it's true.