Makes everything else seem so small

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As I lay in my bed last night, sweltering and un-asleep, my thoughts bounced back and forth from the mundane to the life-and-death.

“I need a pedicure.”
“It’s so hot.”
“I hope those journalists are released.”
“What if there’s a nuclear war?”
“I can’t forget to buy toothpaste.”
“Cancer is so evil.”
“Who will take care of Wendolyn?”
“Ugh, I hate gnats.”

How can I have the capacity for such a spectrum of considerations?  To swing from orphans and illness to weight loss and shoes?  I mean, when I am made explicitly aware of issues like poverty and starvation and war and death, how can I spare a thought for something as diminutive as the trailer for “New Moon”?  When I think of American women being detained in North Korea, or little Haitians with no one to love them, or a dear friend who is battling a horrific lung cancer, how can I think about vacations and dating and music?

And yet, here I am.  Caught between the temporary and the eternal, the physical and the spiritual – spinning my wheels wondering if I am pursuing the “right” (often selfish) things when I know, deep down, that life is only meaningful if given away.  Carrie Underwood sure got it right: “When you figure out love is all that matters after all, it sure makes everything else seem so small.”

I guess that Jesus said something along those lines, too.

So simple.  So radical.

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4 Comments

  1. Joey on June 2, 2009 at 1:53 PM

    It’s weird to bounce back and forth between heavy and silly, but I think we need both. I think you shut down if you dwell on the heavy. That doesn’t mean you forget, it just means you live a full life. I think authenticity demands silliness.

    Something that helped me with that was meeting people in IDP camps and in slums. These people understood joy and hope better than I ever had.

    I know that’s not quite what you wrote about, but that’s where it took me. I thought I would share.

  2. Sarah Markley on June 2, 2009 at 2:54 PM

    i just read thru all of your posts for the last week or so.

    i love love love the way you write, friend! and the way you think.

    i got introduced to you way back when you made the cheese video. and i’ve loved you ever since. =)

  3. Andrea on June 2, 2009 at 3:36 PM

    Carrie Underwood said that? Wow.
    I definitely understand where you are coming from, though. I struggle every day with trying to be selfless, rather than selfish. It’s certainly not easy.

  4. Anniebelle (Annie Cho) on June 2, 2009 at 11:39 PM

    I’m right there with you, girl!

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