A new appreciation of honors has welled up in me. Never has the saying, “Pursuing the Truth, (the John 3:14 Truth) been as tangible to me as it was today. Honors always pushes me to develop a taste for great literature by reading great literature and Silence is one of those works. Over the past couple of days all my classes have tied in to my spiritual life. Verses I read in the morning were mentioned as I took notes in my afternoon class. How cool is that! The verse mentioned was Matthew 22:37-40, “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I wrote the verse in my journal Monday morning. I was trying to memorize it and I made up handy illustrations to go with it to help me memorize. I took it seriously enough however, little did I know it would take on a whole new meaning the next day.
You can imagine my excitement when the verse was mentioned in class today. You can also probably empathize with my disappointment as I started to understand how the verse applied to the Priest’s situation. The priest was almost caught between the two commandments. He was faced with the decision. Would he love God, and watch people die or would he, seemingly, turn away from God and love his neighbor? What a terrible situation. Eventually he chooses to trample despite the fact that he is risking eternal damnation. This of course leads you to the verse, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Luke 15:13). As I was talking over spiritual martyrdom with Amanda I realized, oh my goodness this is the very situation Jesus was faced with. Yes, it may seem obvious and we did talk about it in class but at that moment I truly realized what the Way the Truth and the Life faced. He faced abandoning God in order for me to have a chance at a relationship with God. He faced spiritual death in order for me to spiritual life. That is heavy. That is beautiful. Keep plugging guys. We'll journey through sources and sources, and pages and pages, but it's all worth it when things suddenly make sense in the most unexpected places.
I love reading what you write. I don't even know if I want to post after this-
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about that! I also liked how Kala talked about Silence causing a circular question that really keeps a person circling while still giving them a clearer picture of the middle. Some of this stuff we are struggling with we can't have a definite answer to, and the moment we pull out a Bible verse or a well rehearsed cliche is the moment we leave that circle and put all the deep thoughts into a box labeled (CAUTION: DO NOT OPEN. EXPLOSIVES). Sometimes by entering into a place where I can't quite put our finger on it and I can't quite label it but all is exactly where I want to be...and in that place to look up and see the beauty in the chaos- that is what honors is all about.
**That and friendships where you can have the least confrontational moment ever in the history of life- Thanks for always being a good friend**
You are so right about cliche answers killing profitable questioning. I had forgotten about what Kala said, but she was right and that is a good point. I never thought about how Honors was really a pivotal point in my life when I let go of cliche answers that attempt to answer questions that cannot even begin to be approahced by the cliche.
Delete**And as for friendship, that was, I believe therough the power of prayer--you know how non-confrontational I am. And, maybe the weather helped it to be more pleasant. :)
AMEN! I love that we have these deep theological conversations at midnight about a question we have each been wrestling with since Honors. The knowledge that Christ loved us THAT much astounds me. I know we hear about Christ's sacrifice in Sunday School, but when you find the parallel in a work of literature it gives a whole new depth to the term 'suffering'. Loving the Lord and loving your neighbor are so closely intertwined in the dilemma of Silence... just thinking about all the implications this book has on faith... I just don't have the words...
ReplyDeleteRachel's post above is really the best way to describe what this book does to you!
If I may, I like it when in honors we can take the literature we read and parallel it to the Bible and then take it further and parallel it to how we live it out. When we speak of suffering, i automatically think of the Love of God. He was the ultimate example of suffering and if that is what suffering can be defined as... wow! I don't know if i am even making sense, but I just had to get my two cents out there... although, maybe its more like one cent :)
ReplyDelete