a lot

forewarning: this is going to be very long. it has to be, for me, for continuity’s sake. and so i apologize for your eyeballs glazing over and your vision getting messed up from staring at a screen for so long. but you know what? all you have to do is close the window and walk away, and suddenly, i’m not accountable anymore. this is not a free will discussion. never mind.

there has been a lot going on in my life. in particular, i have my most important and only term paper due in just over a week, and it is hanging over my head like… well like the sky except made of molten lead. what i really should be spending my time on is this paper, but since i am enrolled in an institution that epitomizes whole-soul education, i feel somewhat okay with putting that paper on hold until i get this post written. especially because the aim of this post is to tie together all these masses of things i have been hanging on to (“things that i have been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually curious about and therefore things that i have been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually burdened by”) for months now.

so let’s back up. to may 30th, of this same year. i turned nineteen. i remember feeling particularly adult because the phone calls i got were deliberate ones from people who i actually have important relationships with (as opposed to feeling particularly unadult because i did some sort of fun activity with people i know at the time but may or may not actually end up talking to in the next four years). david got me this lunk of a book: Infinite Jest. i have attempted to write posts about it before, but you obviously can’t see them, since they’re unpublished and just sit in this “edit posts” that exists somewhere in google’s messes of webspace. this is a book i have wanted, one i’ve spent a lot of time looking up on amazon and hovering the mouse over the “add to cart” button, but for everything i read about it, i failed to realize the fact that the thing’s 1079 pages long.

it was at this point i became an orphan. or rather, my family became daughter-widowed. i got sucked into this book. i brought it camping, which made camping less fun since at that point the book was my best friend and it’s a best friend that couldn’t swim or jump off waterfalls or tube like kellyn trummer can. (this is my public formal apology to everyone involved who actually is my best friend and who wished that the book could have been used to make more s’mores).

but the thing was incredible. i doubt i will ever encounter a work of fiction like it. this isn’t a book review, this is a personal investigation, so i won’t spend time praising all the literary concepts (something i’m hesitant to do anyways, i’d rather just bask in the glory of Infinite Jest than pick it apart with analytics). when i finally finished it, i was met with a deep sense of loss. withdrawals – attempts to engage everyone i knew in conversation about it, looking up everything possible about it online, dreams about the characters et al. (i am writing this and thinking: this is nuts. thank God i got my life back. but it is significant to note the impact that that which you spend your time on impacts you).

David Foster Wallace, the author of Infinite Jest, committed suicide on September 12th. i was eating bagels with eric dozier and megan gularte when i found out; i read the headlines on eric’s iphone. and i. was. sad.

i am going to reference a buttload of electronic clippings here, and i encourage you to read all of them thoroughly, if you have the time, because they point out a lot of really insightful, poignant, plaintive sort of observations about Wallace’s life, works, and death, and they tie together the threads of those well.

here’s the original article i found on eric’s phone: http://www.newsweek.com/id/158935

when i google DFW, about eight trillion blog posts come up. everyone misses him, and it’s understandable why. partially because we all admire him, and partially because we all have the same questions about him. both of these tie in nicely to me trying to deal with the feeling that nothing i do or say matters; there is nothing i can do that hasn’t already been done. (Ecclesiastes 1:9: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”). hold on to this thought, it will come up later. this is really some of the point of me taking all this time to blog. i should probably title this “On Purpose.”

here’s the introduction to the paperback reprint of Infinite Jest, definitely worth reading for anyone: http://www.laweekly.com/2006-11-16/art-books/jest-fest/ (i cried during this. but i cried during Infinite Jest. and i cry every time i read A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. and i cry every time i read another “RIP DFW” article. and i cry all the time anyways. but it’s still worth your time).

here’s a laughable bit… http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27769 … The Onion does a mockery of the length of Infinite Jest by publishing this news story that DFW wrote a 67-page breakup letter. oh my gosh, there’s so much irony here. this is where i originally attempted type up a blog about DFW… (this scrappy bunch of digitalia is dated september 5th)

“this morning i was trying to hunt down contact information for my current favorite author (David Foster Wallace) and stumbled upon:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27769
here's the context for it: it's a funny article because David Foster Wallace is notorious for the 1079 page monster of a fiction novel called Infinite Jest, something i spent a large chunk of my summer poring over. the thing's got like, one and a half times as many words as any normal book does. it's insane. so this Onion article is accurate in it's jest (blatant pun intended) over that, but it's also really fitting for me, a thinking/writing mind going through deeply-felt relational struggles.
i want to write a 67-page break-up letter. i want to leave nothing unsaid. i could write one, too, just, i have a life right now.
so that's the emotional rant portion of this blog, i definitely hope that the contrast between the ten lines i've written here and the 67 pages i'd like to write says something about the inner turmoil i'm facing (to say, or not to say... that is the question).
anyways, i'm playing a lot of soccer lately. college soccer. i never thought i'd be playing college soccer. and now i am, and it's funny that after fifteen years of playing this game, i am learning more than i have ever learned before about it. you think it's only passing and running and scoring, but you can always learn more. i am feeling this way about school, too, which is appropriate. i think the more i learn in school, the easier it is for me to learn things on the soccer field.”

that’s my september 5th state-of-the-union blog that never went public. and now, i am rolling in the irony of it all. on september 5th, i’d planned to unleash all the philosophy i was learning in terms of soccer and relationship analogy. this week i quit soccer, and this week i helped bring that relationship to a close (both situations which were, ironically, quite analogical to each other). it is humbling to realize that the things i want to freak out about, the things i want to use to prove to myself that i know everything, are not even parts of my life a month later. it’s very embarrassing, also. can you type a blush? can you type a humbling? how does that work?

okay back to David Foster Wallace for a few more minutes. why am i so interested in this man? i wonder if it’s evident that he has been this template-backbone of all my learning and thought lately. i have essentially been using him and his circumstances to figure out life. i know that a) this is really crazy and obsessive and b) that i didn’t even really know him (like all those other bloggers who just liked his writing, too, but this isn’t to say we didn’t want to know him) and c) that we can’t possibly figure out life. but i am thankful to this man for being something that i can almost use as an archetype. i am thankful for the things he wrote, for the wisdom he left in the world. he was essentially this postmodern liberal advocating (in all the strangest ways) conservative fundamentalism. i am so struck by this – that the man knew so much, that he rebelled back and forth and back and forth and bounced between idea after idea, each with the utmost consideration, and that he still concluded at the same things that i, a relatively uneducated Christian nineteen-year-old, claim to believe in. go read E Pluribus Unum, one of his essays (part of the collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again) and tell me the man shouldn’t have come to Christian capital-T Truth.

this blog, that shane martin pointed out to me, voices the same wonder: http://salvomag.typepad.com/blog/2008/09/by-bobby-maddex.html

so what David Foster Wallace leaves me, and everyone else with, are a bunch of questions. there are all the things we wanted to ask him while he was still alive: “what does someone who thinks all these things really believe?” and then, there’s the questions that come after his death: “why? what does being able to know and think and understand and process like that really mean, if [suicide] is all you come to?” the way his own work foreshadows his suicide is almost scary. but you would think that those are things you can come to knowledge of, and then proceed to avoid. example: black widows are lethally poisonous. so: don’t hang around black widows. DFW was clinically depressed, and so I have questions about how faith would have played into that. i have always had questions about how spiritual matters play into chemical makeups, though... another day, another day.

i’ve learned about a trillion new words through reading DFW (Infinite Jest’s extensive vocabulary mandates presence of a dictionary), but an important one is solipsism: the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. and i know, from some of DFW’s essays and from the first web article i cited (“[DFW] once argued that the linguistic philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein—one of the most terrifying thinkers who ever lived—was an artist because ‘he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism’”) that Wallace recognized solipsism as an evil. so there’s more questions: could he just not escape solipsism? did he really think that solipsism was the conclusion, and there was no way out of it? but he knew that there was more to life than self – didn’t he? he knew everything. the. man. was. a. genius. he had degrees from Amherst in english, philosophy, modal logic, and mathematics.

why am i taking the time to do this now. why am i taking the time to think about this now? it’s midterms. i’ve had some big life changes. my exercise schedule is off. i have academic challenges ahead, i have decisions regarding which future career paths and which opportunities to spend my time on. it’s kind of an identity crisis, but it’s kind of life. these things are not uncommon to anyone i associate with (“oh, the silly college kids, trying to figure everything out…”), and so these questions – ones about purpose and identity and nature and ends – all the big whys and then whats – are on our minds, our hearts, and in our conversations. it is a huge grace, for me, that these thinkings are all culminating now.

i read Calvin today. forty-eight pages of him. and i couldn’t help but appreciate the acuity to which it addressed all these persona crises. i took my pen, put a big box around this section, and wrote “DAVID FOSTER WALLACE” in the margin next to it:

"… Indeed, man's mind, because of it's dullness, cannot hold to the right path, but wanders through various errors and stumbles repeatedly, as if it were groping in darkness, until it strays away and finally disappears. Thus it betrays how incapable it is of seeking and finding truth.
Then it grievously labors under another sort of vanity: often it cannot discern those things which it ought to exert itself to know. For this reason, in investigating empty and worthless things, it torments itself in its absurd curiosity, while it carelessly pays little or no attention to matters that it should particularly understand. indeed, it scarcely ever seriously applies itself to the study of them. Secular writers habitually complain of this perversity, yet they are almost all found to have entangled themselves in it."

why did David Foster Wallace commit suicide? the man did not know Love. what are “matters that [the mind] should particularly understand”? Love. what is love? God is love. DFW could become and become and be and be and give and give and "get" and "get" but he never received this love from anyone.

i’m an idealist. i want to say that Love can fix everything, that the right sort of love will save everyone. that because God is love and God has the power to save everyone, that anyone who knows God’s love can be saved. oh wow, this is getting into an election/predestination discussion. are there things besides willingness, besides the decision to accept the love of God, that affect/prevent/assist salvation? (and by salvation, i kind of mean dying-and-going-to-heaven, but i also kind of mean experiencing-the-true-joy-and-peace-that-comes-only-from-God) (in the case of DFW, i more so mean the latter).

but i cannot assert completely the things i want to say. i do not know his heart. i do not know anyone’s heart. i do not know what or how love has or has not worked a heart. i do not know his depressive struggles. and my heart goes out to what i do not know. what would it have taken? a hug? a listen? a Bible? (DFW knew the Bible by the back of his hand, also…) therapy? what happened? childhood? relationship? chemical imbalance? genetic makeup? there are so many particulars.

and at the same time as i am wont to use Calvin to slap as a huge band-aid on the whole David Foster Wallace debacle, it really disciplines me. “…often [I] cannot discern those things which [I] ought to exert [myself] to know. For this reason, in investigating empty and worthless things, [I] [torment] [myself] in [my] absurd curiosity.” there is a fine line between sorting through, processing, and tormenting. there is a fine line between an “absurd curiosity” and something that God is telling me is really important to take heed to. you read the last post, you know (you didn’t!? shame on you. JOKE). we’re all just trying to figure out what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives. we learn and learn and learn and somehow, that doesn’t seem sufficient direction. all i do – what i am doing right now, what i am about to go do, what i did today – seems vain.

what changes that? what changes the vanity? read more Ecclesiastes. read the rest of this blog. don’t, if you don’t have the time, because all i ever write is just absurd curiosity. stop now, i’ll tell you right here.

trust in God changes the vanity. trust in God calms everything. trust in God redirects everything. trust in God turns the proud into humble. it turns the C.E.O. of a multimillion-dollar investment firm into David with the slingshot. it turns young, unsuspecting Mary into the mother of Jesus Christ. it turns me into the woman i will become (i have this strange, dry-humor instinct to put some quip about being head of a candy company here).

wow. i have like, three more pages of material i was going to use to get to that point. which just goes to say: prayer works in ways our own intellect cannot. i’m going to do it anyways, sort out all the material, again, for continuity’s sake (for my sake. if you do not understand by now: i really need to be doing this). i’ll probably have to reiterate that same paragraph at the end, just to really tie it all up. but first:

my mom is super good about sending me random stuff in the mail. the other day i got a packet with my ballot, an egalitarian magazine, a newspaper clipping about an author, a photocopy of some devotional book, a Livermore ArtWalk flyer, an orthodontist appointment reminder, and my CPR certification card. today, i got a smaller envelope, and this was in it. it’s the sort of thing i think is super cheesy but still appreciate enough to forward to everyone on my email list.

My Ten Commandments (i don’t really know where this is from, so i can’t tell you whose ten commandments they are. i think they’re supposed to be funny. i still don’t know if i laughed or not. hopefully this isn’t heresy or anything. i still believe in and live to uphold the real Ten Commandments)
Thou shalt not worry, for worry is the most unproductive of all human activities.
Thou shalt not be fearful, for most of the things we fear never come to pass.
Thou shalt not cross bridges before you get to them, for no one yet has succeeded in accomplishing this.
Thou shalt face each problem as it comes. You can only handle one at a time anyway.
Thou shalt not take problems to bed with you for they make very poor bedfellows.
Thou shalt not borrow other people’s problems. They can take better care of them than you can.
Thou shalt not try to relive yesterday for good or ill – it is gone. Concentrate on what is happening in your life today.
Thou shalt count thy blessings, never overlooking the small ones, for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one.
Thou shalt be a good listener, for only when you listen do you hear ideas different than your own. It’s very hard to learn something new when you’re talking.
Thou shalt not become bogged down by frustration, for 90 percent of it is rooted in self-pity and it will only interfere with positive action.

wow. see what my education is doing to me? actually, you don’t, sorry, it’s in my head. my brain is trying to assess the theological soundness of each of these. that’s an ordeal. forget it, for now, we’re taking one thing at a time. what i’d like to say to these is that each can be answered by the grace, peace, and love that comes with faith and hope in God. matthew 6 tells us not to worry. and that actually answers all of those. whoa wait, this is really relevant. trust in God. trust in God and these are all lifted off your back. trust takes away the need to fear, the need to take on a lot, the need for ambition, the need for hoarding good, the need for frustration, the need for dwelling, the need for self.

so that’s my mom’s way of infiltrating my entire being from six hours north. snail mail. with Bible knock-off catchphrases.

okay. here’s the backstory. i have these three things that are/were parts of my life:
1. soccer
2. Torrey class sessions
3. art classes
note: these are all things that get me really revved up emotionally.

my soccer coach told a teammate that he looks down his bench and picks the "players with the most heart" to play on the field. now, this was frustrating for us benchwarmers, who feel like we do have a lot of heart. heart is what got us to this point, since, obviously we don’t have the athletic forte that other starting players do. we also felt that since we are more soft-spoken personality-wise, our “heart” got overlooked, or rather, not heard over those more naturally vocal players whose “heart” comes out in the form of commentary and venting. more vocal players are good to have on the field, since communication is necessary for playmaking, but vocal-on-field quality is not contingent, i think, on vocal-in-general quality. this is to say: we all have the capability to communicate well on the field, but because of our personalities off of it, some of us were not given the opportunity to. which gets weird when you start feeling judged on your cheering. i don’t want to write this bitterly. i’m not. it seems that you can’t just “have heart,” but you have to be able to somehow vocally demonstrate that you have heart (if you’re not on the field).

in Torrey sessions, you get graded, for the most part, on your talking – the way you talk. it isn’t so much about talking a lot or talking loudly (as verbalization in soccer seems to be), but about talking well. about expressing points concisely and clearly. in order to be successful, students must have both 1) understanding and then 2) the ability to show that they understand (communication skills). and there is a lot to be said for learning to be articulate, but sometimes, there are things we all know anyways, in our hearts, and we are just dancing around trying to find the right words of saying it. so someone, whoever found the right way of expressing that concept, gets kudos for the moment, even if the rest of us all knew what they were talking about the whole time (it is critical here, in the group setting to keep in mind a wise rob Stevenson quote: rob Stevenson: “you can get anything done so long as you don’t care who gets the credit.”

in art classes, your work is representative of what you see. you are taught skills to recreate that which you see. so this is dependent on two things: 1) your ability to see and 2) your ability to recreate. without the skill, you cannot express your understanding of sight. this is frustrating for me, because i see every stupid plane change on the object, and i have some skill to recreate it, but not the attention to. (this last sentence: venting. i can’t stand graphite. i can’t wait until we move on to charcoal. charcoal covers bigger area and takes less time to represent plane change, and so it is easier to show that i understand what i am seeing).

(actually, all of these situations: venting. actually, this entire post: venting. trying desperately to show in a way that i have some level of skill at – writing – that i actually understand what i am seeing). in all three of these situations, there is an inner comprehension and an outward expression. a question of mine and many others, lately (especially in light of Mid Rags): why is it so important to be able to show that you understand?

this is Torrey-ing Torrey: "why is this important?"
it is way more challenging than any strictly academic situation (because we know if it was purely academic, we'd own. where we fail is a question to our humanity: what was in the way of our succeeding? what prevented us from completely understanding? or what disallowed us from being able to show that we did understand?) (this is whole-soul education. everything is whole-soul education, whether or not anyone says it. it's just whethere you recognize it or not...) (relevant here somehow is my urge to switch to a math major so i can just do problems, get a grade, pass, and get a degree. but the catch is, there will still be days when i am moody, days when i didn't have time, days where i was concerned about something else, days where i am fitting something else into the equation). it is way more challenging because we are learning to show our hearts.

verbalizing, articulating, communicating are evidence to man of our hearts. there is this responsibility to make our hearts known, and it can be really really stressful. but of course, we can find freedom in the knowledge that God knows the heart. so do we settle? why try at any of it? isn’t it enough just to be a good person and do the right thing? to be nice to those you encounter and to love quietly?

why does it matter if i can articulate? why does it matter that i show my heart on the soccer field? why does it matter if i can say the right syllogism of terms in an intellectual conversation? why does it matter that i can succeed academically in these respects? why does it matter that i prove in graphite pencil drawing every single plane change i see in a still life? who makes the call on me seeing them, in the long run (God does, see below)? if i know that i understand correctly, and if i trust that God knows i understand correctly, then why does any of this matter? we are to treat people well anyways, we are to treat another as ourselves regardless of what understanding they exhibit. that is what God does, that is what Jesus does. (is it? i am thinking of pharisees vs. prostitutes and tax collectors.... this gets so complicated. love is so hard).

why it matters: because then i will be able to accomplish tasks x, y, and z (involving/requiring skill in some form of communication).

this implies a separation between individuals based on skill level and capacity: people who can’t accomplish tasks x, y, and z are distinct from (worse than, we’d say) people who can. this also implies degrees of separation from the simplicity of the gospel. i am sure that tasks x, y, and z can, do, and will further the kingdom of God, but they are not directly that which Jesus was doing, since Jesus used the simplest of speech and communication and technology. Jesus was not Pele, Jesus was not (who is a really good orator? these days that’s a total bias), Jesus was not Michaelangelo. and He was way better.

i don't disagree that we can have unity in the body with hierarchy of skill. but it seems easier to have unity without these separations (since because of sin, we get entangled with jealousy and pride and have difficulty accepting and appreciating fully our distinctions from each other). so: do we attempt to try anyways? do we try to succeed at all these things and do so while breaking free from these entanglements? or is it better to seek freedom from these entanglements first?

i suppose it comes down to: how does more get done.....? which allows for greater success in the Kingdom?

say i'm in a big mucky-muck position. i.e. i’m in charge of GodBlogCon. and the point is: social web media reaches a ton of people. the thinking: if we can get this done, then it will be a platform from which ministry will grow enormously. it requires self-sacrifice to get something like this done. that's a self-sacrifice that the Christian attitude requires that we give, and so we are willing to give it: our lives (our time and energy) up for the good of the Kingdom. en masse.

but: say i don't have my act together. or say that i get corrupted by my position. say that i get more and more greedy and prideful as i go on, even if i started out with completely pure motives.
a) then that's bad, because no fruit can come of that, but…what if…
b) knowing that that sometimes happens, i took all sorts of precautions to make sure i didn't get become corrupted. what if i was SUPER diligent and disciplined with prayer, worship, time management, meditation. “i can do all things through Christ who strengthens me?” that's crazy responsibility, to take on that much without ambition getting in the way.
so i think that it CAN be done, through and only through and with and only with the grace of Christ, but it's still really really hard, because we are temporal critters. and that there is the challenge.

BUT: say i'm a mom/teacher/friend/lover. and i just live simply and love. whatever my place, whatever my position. there is a valuable simplicity here. sharpened communication skills do not play a vital role in my success.

why do i want to live simply? i originally will say: because that's what Jesus did. yes, i get it, Jesus was chill. he was a hippie. he walked around. he ate some bread and fish. he spoke truth. i guess truth is the ultimate simplicity.
my ideas of simplicity, i'm ashamed to admit, involve pride. i think i would like to live simply because, to me, it's safe. because i want to have my garden and my house all put together because i think it's pretty that way, because i think it's nice, because i can manage it and manage it nicely.

i am weighing both of these (gaining/sharpening/using communication skills versus not really doing that but still wanting the same end: love and God), and i am feeling like my motivation is this: i want to figure it out and i want to figure it out so that i win. of course i want the easy road. but there is no easy road. there is only the road we have been called to by God.

Luther, in The Freedom of a Christian, talks about how we are both lords over all things and servants to all things. “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” he says that this reflects our twofold nature – spiritual and bodily. and so i suppose that in all these circumstances, inner comprehension links with our spiritual nature and outward expression links with our bodily nature. lord and servant are two seemingly opposite things, and here is all i can come to: F. Scott Fitzgerald says that “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” this is one of my favorite quotations ever. it is completely idealistic and completely inclusive (two qualities i obviously value). an intelligent person is one who both understands and communicates; a good person is one who is both a politician and a mother (shameless sarah palin plug. i like her. i don’t have much reason to or to not. don’t get on my case about it). Luther is also really big on God knowing the heart. which is critical, so i’m sticking it in the middle of this discussion of which course of action of life to take.

it really does come down to God knowing our hearts, and to trusting him to set up a life that is best for us. it comes down to what God's calling is for us. it comes down to us knowing that that calling can change at any second. humility, i think, is the way of living that would let anything go in a second once told it wasn’t what God wanted. i will believe what i know to be true until God shows me otherwise, i will do what i know to be right until God presents another opportunity. my mom got really into sales and marketing stuff out of college, and now she works at the church. was it wrong of her to do one thing over the other? no. her relationships from the times before she did what in this context we would consider “more simple” are still her ministry. God uses these positions that he has us in towards Himself. He is the ultimate networker.

who am i to say i know what's best for the kingdom? my knowledge falls short. no matter how many factors i put into the equation. in fact, the more factors i put into the equation, the more prideful i get that i thought of those factors.

oh wow.

oh, wow.


i am trying to figure out how to tie the rest of this in. it originally stemmed from the verbalization bit, when i was thinking about soccer and torrey and hadn’t even brought art in yet. OH. i’ve got it.

my father says that “there is wisdom in a paucity of words.” paucity = small amounts. i got this said to me a lot as a chastisement, which is understandable, since this is the tenth page of this monstrosity blog. if what my dad says holds, then i am not wise at all. and i’ll take that, tonight, i will. David Foster Wallace: wordy as all get-out. it takes a lot of words to write 1079 pages. was he not wise? some would say no, because some would say wisdom leads to Truth, and, see earlier, DFW didn’t seem to hit Truth quite right. suicide does not seems wise. i don’t know what it seems. mostly sad. despairing. despair is not wise; hope is, hope is from faith which completes reason which seems wise, right?

i did a biblegateway.com search on the words “loud” and “quiet.” it’s interesting, they are usually paired. there are two circumstances in which they match up:

1. in discussion of women. the adulteress in proverbs 7 is “loud and defiant.” the woman Folly in proverbs 9 “is loud; she is undisciplined and without knowledge.” but the woman in 1 peter 3, who is to be praised, possesses “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” quiet, discipline, and obedience are associated with what is desired, and loud is associated with what is shunned.

2. in Jesus stories. (http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/index.php?search=loud&version1=31&searchtype=all&limit=none&wholewordsonly=no&startnumber=51 - a list of them all). Jesus is loud in the Bible. He’s really loud because he is calling on God, or commanding something supernatural. anytime Jesus is loud in the Bible, he is matched with a quietness from the people. again, quietness is associated with obedience. here, however, loudness is shown under the reign of discipline – disciplined to do what God (the true source of all wisdom) would direct it at.

quietness is typically associated with rest and peace. i think that obedience can link to rest and peace. Job 6:24 begs, “Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong.” Isaiah 32:17 claims that “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.”

sometimes, i find myself at these points where there is nothing left to say. grace abounds. Jesus is Lord. love one another. okay. i do not need to say more. because those things are righteous. the effects of following Christ are righteousness and therefore peace. if everyone loved one another as Christ loved us, all would be peaceful and well in the world. 1 thessalonians 4:11-12 begs us to embody the ideal: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” i think that this encompasses both understanding and skill.

conclusion? understanding plus skill equals righteous action equals peace.

1 john 3:18-20 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”

no thoughts on that, it just rocks. and it finishes this really well. i’m going to bed. i will probably never blog again.


RIP, David Foster Wallace.

Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.”