“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” – Philippians 4:12
“So much need is there for change of scene, new points of view. How many notice so glorious a phenomenon as the rising of the sun over a familiar landscape? All that is necessary to make any landscape visible and therefore impressive is to regard it from a new point of view, or from the old one with our heads upside-down. Then we behold a new heaven and earth and are born again, as if we had gone on a pilgrimage to some far-off holy land and had become new creatures with bodies inverted; the scales fall from our eyes, and in like manner are we made to see when we go on excursions into fields and pastures new.”
- John Muir
I remember thinking at some point when I was living on the mountain (both literally and figuratively) that I had found the ‘secret of being content in any and every situation’. And that was a kind of joy and wonder at everything around me. It was a sort of detachment from the things that vex me, so that I could look at them from above, then swoop back down and be entirely in everything with new eyes, and with a body “inverted”.
Well, so much for that. My life seems to be a cycle of learning and unlearning. I learn things like Paul’s secret of being content, and then consequently unlearn it in the course of a year. It’s so… irrational. I am a completely irrational person.
Here is something I learned recently. Or rather, something I rambled on about on the phone yesterday and then realized was kind of true. There are so many things I ‘need’, and no one place or group of people is going to give me all that. I ‘need’ a place where I can go hiking. I ‘need’ to be close to the ocean, close to mountains. I ‘need’ to see trees out my window. I ‘need’ to have a place where I can be alone. I ‘need’ a strong community of people around me at all times. I ‘need’ someone whom I can constantly spill my soul to. I ‘need’ people who will hug me regularly. I ‘need’ to feel needed. This is quite a list of demands, and it’s very unlikely that I will find all of these things at once. Every place I’ve lived has been lacking in at least one of these things. Although, Capernwray was pretty darn close... And camp… Dang it. Why do those places have to be so temporary? Perhaps it’s too much of a good thing. Anyway, that’s not my point. Here is my point: How presumptuous of me to demand all of these things in my life?!
“We feel that we have been blessed far beyond anything that we have deserved; and though we cannot but pray for a continuance of all these mercies, we acknowledge our unworthiness of them and implore Thee to pardon the presumption of our desires.” – Jane Austen
So I will leave you with this summary of a rather disjointed post. Life is frustratingly cyclical. It is a process of learning and unlearning, dying and being made new. (“I am making everything new!” – Revelation 21:5) And thus, by that logic, we can’t always be on the “up and up”, but must inevitably sometimes be on the “down and down(?)” so we can’t complain when we don’t feel great about everything in our lives. And “everything is full of blessings”, (that’s from Tintern Abbey, of course!) so why should we presume to desire more than what God has given us?!
Now put that in your evangelical pipe and smoke it. (If you get that reference, you should leave a comment on this post)
