My Thought for the Day

"Closer To Fine" - The Indigo Girls

I'm trying to tell you something about my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
The best thing you've ever done for meIs to help me take my life less seriously,
it's only life after all

Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it,
I'm crawling on your shore.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questionspointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paperAnd I was free.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questionspointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
I went in seeking clarity.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questionspointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questionspointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine.

We go to the bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questionspointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

I've had really interesting conversations about what is "right" and what is "wrong lately." What is "black" and what is "white." And centered in these conversations is the idea of, what is our responsibility to ourselves, our families, our communities, our country and our world.

We seem, as a country, to want definitives. As Americans, we don't like having to take a "side." That would require an action on our part. We'd rather passively accept what is spoon-fed to us and then forever gripe about the wrongness of the people doing the feeding. We don't want responsibility.

At the same time, we don't want people forcing us to do one thing or another. We demand absolute freedom and make a mockery of conventions.

Over the past several years, I've seriously been looking at the world outside of the lexicon in which I was raised, and I still haven't come up with a "definitive."

Today, this song struck a chord with me. Because for once, I feel like it's okay that I don't have a definitive answer. And I might just be better off without some.

Bah Humbug!

I am eternally grateful that I don't live in Hawaii. Christmas would be a real bummer there. It's almost painful to listen to Christmas carols when it's freaking 80 degrees outside!

So much for Frosty!

*Disclaimer: for those of you who are up North and suffering from cold, snow, ice or all three, I apologize my Southern climate is confused as to what time of year it is.

Cow Pastures and Billboards

I was surfing the blog world of some of my friends' friends, listening to some swingin' jazzy Christmas music, and ran accross a blog that made me think. He was talking about forgiveness. It's such a maldefined word these days. It's elusive. It's concrete. It's oppressive. It's easy as pie. It's wiping a slate clean. It's lording superiority. The list goes on and on.

The forgiveness he was talking about is the Christian definition of forgiveness, which has gone through so many translations, who knows what the truth is. Is it the ancient Arabic definition - selflessness and a sense "justice" has been served, or is it the Greek - "ethos" and "pathos?"

I'm thinking both have their points and both define forgiveness - if forgiveness can actually be encompassed by a definition.

I was particularly struck by the author's struggle with other people's definition of forgiveness. I cannot even begin to say how much I struggle with this myself. The South is not a geographical area that espouses forgiveness. It espouses piety, selflessness, sacrifice and self-soul-beating for "evils" thought, committed or yet to happen. If John Calvin were alive today, he would be ecstatic with the churches of the South. Their congregations pulse in time with Calvinism. You are worthless. You are nothing. You are horribly, definitively, eternally wrong and will continually do wrong. Your only aspiration can be to TRY to rise above your sins. You MUST forever be praying for forgiveness - but you'll never actually receive it because you're in a cycle. And don't think, even for one nanosecond, that God loves you as you ARE. You are the disgrace he so nobly chose to redeem.

Ugh! What rot!

My definition of forgiveness is based on acceptance. Accepting that we are not perfect, but profoundly desired after by our Creator. He created each of us as unique, individual spirits to reflect His prism being. We are part of a portrait so large, no canvas could capture it. He revels in our differences, for they reflect His. Why is acceptance so hard to accept? How does this fundamental fact go so wrong for so many? It's baffling to me.

Don't get me wrong. I quite frequently fight with all the different sides of me. I'm a different person day to day sometimes. But why deny all that God embodied you with? Your soul - strange as it may be to other people - is God's "precious."

I am at odds with most churches in my area. I'm too accepting. I love people for who they are, not who they pretend to be or wish they could be. I easily "forgive" people their faults and most of the time don't even think they're faults. More like, lapses in essence of being. People have imitation vanilla moments, but usually return to their pure vanilla selves - eventually.

I'm a freakin' Times Square billboard in a cow pasture! Everyone around me follows the crowd and behaves all meek and mild, and I stand out brilliantly different.

I quite enjoy that - most of the time.

I just wish I had more billboards to hang out with. At least they wouldn't leave a trail of "patties" in their wake.