maybe i'm the only one who does this, but have you ever started reading a book, and immediately, whether because of the author's tone or style, or maybe something completely undefined, you start to feel like like you have something in common with the him or her...like, if you lived next door to each other, you would have been friends?
when i read G.K. Chesterton's books, that is how i feel. there's something about the way he writes, i can't help but think that we would have enjoyed may cups of coffee while discussing books and life in general together. i just picked up 'orthodoxy' again tonight, and as i wasn't very far, i started back at the beginning again. as i read, i found this:
"how can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? how can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honor of being our own town?"
when you hold these up to Peter's words, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul," (1 Peter 2:11), it's easy to understand how so many people who love God can get caught up in temporal thinking. this world is all we've ever known. It's all we've ever seen. it is far too easy to forget that there is another world coming.
i am always amazed when i meet someone who has never been out of canada. it amazes me that someone could be satisfied living a life without seeing the rest of the world we live in. like being given a whole yard to play in and only staying in one corner. i realize that for some people, it's just being content where they are, and perhaps i am too much like my father, in that i am always wanting to go somewhere...anywhere! but it seems impossible to me that there will ever be a day when there is no where in the world where i will want to go (even if it is simply calgary to see my little people!)
but how does one remember that this world, although all we can see with our eyes, is only a fragment of our existence? that is my question for tonight. and for tonight, my only answer is that i have to do it on a minute by minute basis. for this moment, i choose to remember that there is more than i can see. for this moment i will choose to listen to God's heart instead of the other clamoring voices. for this moment... may my heart's desires always mirror those of my God.
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