(no subject)
Dec. 24th, 2008 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
falcongrrlOkay, it looks like I'm probably going to get to these every other day or so.
3 - For You light my lamp, the everlasting God makes bright my darkness.
This one's difficult for me. I'm not sure why; it doesn't sound that different than the phrase before it. Maybe it's because I've been darkness, and I've called out for help. It does come, but it doesn't always come easily. Maybe that's due to my own blockages in terms of letting God in and accepting health (typo for help, but both apply here). Still...that sense of being deep in the darkness and then, presto, let there be LIGHT! And there is LIGHT!....Hasn't happened for me. It's more like dawn, a gradual lightening, and a gradual awareness of having made it through the worst places. Maybe this is the opposite of what I said last time; I'm not sure. We'll call it a different facet of me, maybe, a more doubting part.
Though the older I get, the more faith I'm able to have that the dawn will come because it did before...and because I have people willing to keep reminding me. You know who you are. ♥
4 - Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; for the one who is gracious, compassionate, and just.
This one's tough too at first glance...because as Harold Kushner wisely wrote so many years ago, bad things do happen, and they happen to good people.
That said, I think that it's possible for any of us to get caught up in that endless grasping for more. More lovers, more approbation, more material goods, more money...more and of course its twin, better. And I think that if we chase after all of those things, it's easy to find ourselves lost in Dante's selva oscura.
So how I read this, at this point in time and in this season, is that compassion for others and their experiences, and a longing and willingness to work for social justice, can help us to make a difference and to feel a part of the positive energy of the world.
Upright? Gracious? I'm not sure what those terms mean to me, today, in a modern context. I think, to further confuse the issue, I tend to conflate upright with uptight. *grin* I don't think it's meant to be that way. I guess, for me, upright is making the best moral choices you can and teaching your children and all those close to you by your own example. I can work more at this. And gracious might well be connected to gentleness, grace, and generosity. Giving myself and others the benefit of the doubt.
3 - For You light my lamp, the everlasting God makes bright my darkness.
This one's difficult for me. I'm not sure why; it doesn't sound that different than the phrase before it. Maybe it's because I've been darkness, and I've called out for help. It does come, but it doesn't always come easily. Maybe that's due to my own blockages in terms of letting God in and accepting health (typo for help, but both apply here). Still...that sense of being deep in the darkness and then, presto, let there be LIGHT! And there is LIGHT!....Hasn't happened for me. It's more like dawn, a gradual lightening, and a gradual awareness of having made it through the worst places. Maybe this is the opposite of what I said last time; I'm not sure. We'll call it a different facet of me, maybe, a more doubting part.
Though the older I get, the more faith I'm able to have that the dawn will come because it did before...and because I have people willing to keep reminding me. You know who you are. ♥
4 - Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; for the one who is gracious, compassionate, and just.
This one's tough too at first glance...because as Harold Kushner wisely wrote so many years ago, bad things do happen, and they happen to good people.
That said, I think that it's possible for any of us to get caught up in that endless grasping for more. More lovers, more approbation, more material goods, more money...more and of course its twin, better. And I think that if we chase after all of those things, it's easy to find ourselves lost in Dante's selva oscura.
So how I read this, at this point in time and in this season, is that compassion for others and their experiences, and a longing and willingness to work for social justice, can help us to make a difference and to feel a part of the positive energy of the world.
Upright? Gracious? I'm not sure what those terms mean to me, today, in a modern context. I think, to further confuse the issue, I tend to conflate upright with uptight. *grin* I don't think it's meant to be that way. I guess, for me, upright is making the best moral choices you can and teaching your children and all those close to you by your own example. I can work more at this. And gracious might well be connected to gentleness, grace, and generosity. Giving myself and others the benefit of the doubt.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-25 04:07 am (UTC)That could be a rather deep way of looking at that. Illumination is not necessarily explanation - I can crank up the wattage of the light in my room, and a book of calculus is just as impenetrable to me as it is in the dark. That said, there's at least a chance I could make sense of such a book with the lights on: very little at all with the lights off. I can't even be sure I'm holding the right book. On the other hand, the magnitude of the task becomes clearer when I can see the book in hand: any false illusions I might hold in the dark, of being able to breeze through the material therein, are rapidly dispelled.
Anyhow, just pondering. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-25 04:57 am (UTC)Or something. I'm not feeling coherent, but I think you're making a lot of sense.
And Merry Christmas!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-25 03:08 pm (UTC)I think to me, the point isn't that the good get the rewards, but that being good is the reward. The one who is gracious, compassionate, and just has a light that I don't have -- ie, grace, compassion, and fairness. >:)