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A me-centered universe

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I’m sure you’ve heard the term me–centered. it means self-centered/selfish. Looking out only for the needs of yourself. And Sometimes we aren’t even aware of this attitude in our selves, I’ve been accused of being self-absorbed simply for taking something too personally or being preoccupied with my own feelings.

I’m just laying this out for context, I don’t actually want to discuss being selfish. I’m more interested in the question: What is the center of everything?

It could be us in that we observe the world from inside ourselves. Everything you take in from around you is regulated by what’s inside you. Air is regulated by your lungs, food by your digestive stem, sound by your ears, and light by you eyes. (Darkness is the absence of light and you don’t need sight to see it.) And I think the good and bad things around you are all processed by your mind, heart, and soul. One could say “Me is the lens I see and feel everything through, therefore me is the center of everything.”

It reminds me of how scientists used to think the earth was the center of the solar system. We saw everything going around the earth after all, the sun and moon both moved across the sky. The planets moved more slowly. It was just logic. Right? Wrong.

Oddly enough, a man named Copernicus came up with a different theory. And years and years later we actually have pictures that prove the earth is not the center of the solar system. Turns out the sun is.

Great for the sun right? But what does it have to do with the subject? Well, in thinking about what to write, I remembered what C. S. Lewis says in the end of his book Perelandra. (The sequel to Out of the Silent Planet.) Lewis basically introduces the idea that the universe is set up for each thing, each creation is made for every other creation, and every other creation is made for every individual thing. Like a puzzle, each piece is part of a bigger picture, but the bigger picture is not complete without that pieces and all the other pieces need it to do their job.

What is so brilliant about this idea is that I can see it all through creation. The ecosystem for one example, animals need plants, plants need animals, our air needs both  oxygen and carbon dioxide which come from plants and animals (and people.) And all that is connected to the water cycle, but I could go on for pages about that. I think I’ve made my point.

You may not be the center of everything, but in a way, everything is set up for your existence. It can be hard to see at first, but think how many things other people do for you on a daily basis that you never thing about. Someone made the car you drive in, the phone you use, the screen you’re reading this off of, someone built the roads you travel on, wrote the books you love, designed the work or school system you’re a part of, grew the food you eat, routed and purified the water you’re drinking, and made the clothes you’re wearing. Maybe you don’t like everything other people have caused in your life, but have you ever realized how much you rely on them to live at all?

Our lives are woven together like a tapestry. You affect way more people than you think. Often in ways that the best detective  couldn’t trace back but if we could look at time from the outside we’d see we had a hand in the most obscure details.

The sun is the center of the solar system, but it’s rays reach out through  the whole space. And I’ve heard that the whole universe as we know is balanced perfectly for life on earth, only on earth, without the rest of the universe the sun would not be able to exist. (Don’t quote me on this I’m not a scientist, I just love it.)

I don’t actually believe anything is the center of the universe, because then you’d have to fir everything else around that thing, I believe instead that everything is overlapping into everything else. I believe God should be not just the center of  my life, but in every part of it.

The fact about centers is that they narrow things down, I prefer things broadened out.

That’s all for this longish post. Until next time–Natasha.

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Starlight

Why are we so opinionated?

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I know that people are very opinionated nowadays, that is to say, everyone has always had opinions, but not everyone used to express them constantly. And according to some people we all express our opinions too much. I mean, who really cares what we think?

But hold on a second.

I have never been a person who liked to watch the news, but since we moved I’ve seen it nearly every morning, and it hit me: The media is constantly providing us with stories, facts, products, and ideas; and we sit and give our opinion on each, because, what else are we going to do?

When you think about it, it’s pretty unnatural for us to be as absorbed as we are with other people’s lives who we’ve never met and probably never will. not that it’s bad to like someone you’ve never met; but most of the time all we are doing is commenting on their lives, and what do we really know about them?

The majority of new stories could be filed under the International Gossip Chain category. But we’ve all come to think it’s just normal to hear about things that don’t concern us. (It used to be the news told us about public affairs.) But I’m not here to complain about the news; it’s just a sample. I find that in everyday conversation I run into the same phenomenon, often people have opinions on whatever the subject may be whether they know anything about it or not. (And yes, guilty.) I am not even saying that’s wrong, only that I am amazed at how many different opinions, likes, dislikes,  and impressions about things we can fit into our minds. The thing is, quantity does not equal quality. A lot of the time we form opinions out of ignorance of the full facts, or on something we’ve never experienced for ourselves.

It is true that every voice matter…as long as that voice is saying something of substance. no one is actually entitled to an opinion. No one owns an opinion because it was handed down to them from their forebears, or gets to use an opinion because someone who worked for it gave it to you for free. (I am, as you can tell, using the term entitled literally.) no, get to know things yourself, go out there and find out the truth. Like I pointed out in my previous post Parrot Talk, people should think for themselves. I don’t expect to be taken seriously until I can lay out a well-reasoned position. That said, I believe I’ll sign off for now–Natasha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The majority of news stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t be too nice

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

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I titled this in a very unusual way; but I think you can all guess where I’m going with it.

I just read Martin Luther’s “Before the Diet of Worms” speech. Worms (also spelt Wyrms) is a place in Germany, the Diet is apparently the Emperor and his cabinet,( the paper doesn’t say, but I gathered that from what I read.) I was struck by the points he made about in our effort to not allow fighting and arguments, we might fight against the Word of God itself.

As John Eldredge has pointed out in his book Wild at Heart; there is such a thing as being too nice. You know those people in movies who drive the audience (and often the other characters) nuts because they won’t stand up for someone else or even themselves? Or the type of person who Philippa Gordon, in Anne of the Island, calls uninteresting because “She never says but good of anybody.”

We all know there’s wickedness in the world, and while dwelling on it is gloomy and unhealthy, a person who will never speak of it at all seems hardly wise, smart, or realistic. And they also seem weak.

I have actually been lectured on how I need to know what’s going on in the world, which always means the bad stuff I notice, but I do dislike to think of the unpleasant things. I am not at all saying we should go looking for the wrong stuff in this world. It will find you. And when it does, as it did Martin Luther, we need to be willing to take a stand.

That’s a common phrase to hear nowadays, but taking a stand is a serious thing. It always has risks; it always could turn out badly, from our perspective anyway. We could be mocked, or ostracized, or we could simply fail to change anything.

And what’s more, we need to realize that not everything is worth standing for. For me the test is always in if it is biblical, if it is affecting an important thing, and if the potential benefits out weigh the potential damage. But I’ve taken very few stands in my life. If that seems surprising given the nature of this blog, then let me just say that it is much simpler to address the questions I have myself, via the internet, then to know when it’s a good idea in real life to make an issue of something. I have less to lose, and I am not fighting with my audience. That is not to say honesty on social media is not scary no matter who you are or how many followers you have, but real life is always more daunting.

When we take a stand we must care more about the truth then about what we want. But we also need to be loving and kind to the people we are standing against, remembering that they are human being just like us. Kindness does not equal niceness, it is unkind to be nice to someone who really need a good shaking up. It is also unkind to shake someone who really needs a hug. It about what is needed, not what either party wants.

A stand can be quiet, or it can be loud. It can be silence, or it can be yells and shouts. Both are right in their own time and place. But yelling doesn’t make something a stand. And quiet doesn’t mean kindness. It’s all in the reason.

But never taking a stand is worse then not making it perfectly. We are so anxious not to offend people. We are so concerned with who likes us. (Even now I can’t help wondering if I’ll get any likes or comments on this post.) I have seen a problem either ignored, or handled in the nicest possible way, so many times, and very few times have I seen anyone really take the harder route.

You know, we’ll never be complete human beings until we will fight for something with all our might and main. Sometimes it will even be with ourselves. But we can’t sugarcoat everything. We can’t keep turning a blind eye, unless we want to turn blind next.

This has been a little less encouraging than usual, but I hope you’ll take it not as criticism, but as a challenge to look around and face things with courage. I know the Martin Luther inspired that feeling in me. I just want o pass it on. With that–until next time.

Natasha.

Classified

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

It’s been a few days, but I had a creative dry spell, no point posting if you have nothing to say. But the other day I was thinking, (I say that a lot when I start these posts,) of how hard it can be to put myself in any designated people group.

Yesterday I was a an ASL class, and we were told to describe ourselves with a list of sign words, and I kept using opposites.

I like to think I’m unpredictable. But my family probably would disagree. I don’t fit into any category except perhaps homeschooled, which is general.

Maybe you aren’t aware of this if you don’t know homeschoolers, but we have our own set of stereotypes. So do churchgoers. We have both what we think most people think we are like, and what we think of each other. There was a survey once that found the people who responded all thought they were fairly average, but everyone else was strange. Or maybe you feel everyone else is normal, and you are strange.

Well, the most normal people in the world are the most boring. But for some reason we all feel we need to have groups, so we can understand others, and they’ll understand us. But seriously? Who really understand anyone in another group if they have not mingled with them and heard what they have to say?

Religious people are famous nowadays for being close–minded. And I’ll readily admit some of them/us are; but the fact is religion doesn’t make you close minded, you can be that way no matter what you believe in or don’t believe. Fear is the real cause.

I hate being generalized. When someone writes me off because of my age, or even my intellect, or my homeschooled education; they assume I think one way and they think another way. Or maybe we think the same because I’ve had a good bringing up. (Does anyone but me remember that phrase bringing up?) but even though it drives me crazy, I went through a phase where I was constantly trying to decide what group I fit into, whether by age, skills, temperament, beliefs, or personality. I seemed to be searching for an identity but each of these things was only a part of me, and I had on and off moments.

I could say I’m artsy, crafty, and creative; but what about the times I don’t feel inspired to do any of those things?

I could say I’m intellectual, but what about when I just don’t want to think or learn and when I want to curl up with a book or a movie and forget about the outside world.

I could say I’m radical, but what about when I feel mellow?

There you see? This isn’t just me, we all feel this fluctuating of our interests and our traits. You could say the human soul is like the tide, it rises and falls, in and out, some days its string, other days it’s just not.

And whatever words you would use to describe yourself, remember that no list can cover it.  A list is other people’s options that they give you, sometimes they’re good, other times they aren’t.

We love to create classes of the population. It’s what cliques, fandoms, parties, and demographics are about. And maybe you technically fit into one, but I think what’s inside a person can’t be put into one class or another. To paraphrase Gianna Jessen’s words, “No one cans ay to you this is how far you will go and no further.” Remember that though the message of not being prejudiced can be over preached, it is still true.

It bothers me when I hear others make generalizations about thousands of people, saying they are all idiots, or evil, or biased, or whatever.

Judge not lest you be judged, right?

Well, I hope this made sense, and you got something out of it. I was just thinking through writing. Until next post, don’t get classified–Natasha.

Parrot talk

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

Okay, my previous post about faith was surprisingly well received, and I still had more to talk about, so today I thought I’d talk about what I briefly mentioned in “In Faith.” A thing I’m calling “Parrot talk.”

What’s funny about it is that not two days after that post, I was listening to two people talk politics and I ventured a remark, I was immediately blasted with a retort that I shouldn’t talk, for I was just saying what I’ve heard my parents say over the years.

Perhaps my reader might wonder if that is a legitimate claim. I have addressed it before in my posts. You see I’ve long had the general idea that people will think that because I’m homeschooled, Christian, Conservative, and under 18, I’ve been so immersed in my parents’ ideals that I believe there is no other way and no one else could ever be right.

Now, I figure I’m not the only one to receive this impression, otherwise this post would just be me bellyaching about one incident. But I’ll bet some of you have heard it too, maybe from an authority figure, maybe just from an older person who seems to believe all people two generations younger than them are ignorant idiots. At its best, this kind of thinking assumes that certain people raise their children to be prototypes of themselves, programmed and sent out into the world to get on other people’s nerves.

Maybe that is true, some people do that. But you can’t assume that everyone who thinks a certain way demands that their children follow in their footsteps.

I have a confession, I myself tend to assume public schoolers don’t think for themselves. There may be reasons to assume this, but I can’t know it’s true in every case, anymore than someone who doesn’t know me well can accurately say I don’t think for myself. (And you would have to not know me at all.)

You have to actually listen to people to know. There are ways people talk that will show you where they stand.

I think the best indicator of parrot talk is a lack of curiosity on the speaker’s part. They don’t wish to know anything about the other point of view; they have not studied the subject to see what else is out there, and to know what the foundation of their own viewpoint is; and they accept everything pertaining to their ideology without considering if it really makes sense  or is even a good thing.

At the root of this is insecurity. People who parrot talk are afraid of the world and they want to keep it in a box that they have labelled clearly  and understand.

I’m not afraid of the world. I am only afraid of what the world will do to itself and the innocent people in it. (By the world I mean the lost, and wicked ideas of the world’s inhabitants, not the world as in the earth.) But I believe that we can all choose not to be a part of the worldly thinking and behavior. It is, again, up to you.

I have studied the foundation of what I believe, if anyone asked me a question about it, I would feel confident that I could answer. And if I could not, I’d still not be shaken because I have enough foundation to know that there are answers, but there’s no way I could know them all, my mind can’t hold that much knowledge.

I do have doubts sometimes. But what no one ever tells you is that the doubts grow less and less, the further in you go, and when they do come they don’t last very long. I am not perfect in the practice of what I believe, and I don’t know anyone who is, no matter what beliefs they have.

But I do know what I believe, and why, and I think its worthwhile to find that out. And for those of you who have done that, don’t let anyone make you feel like a nothing because of your age, your position in life, or your family. You have a mind and you do have the right to come to your own conclusions, so long as you have done the work to earn it.

Because to believe is a right, but a belief with a firm foundation takes work. There will be tests in your life that you will pass or fail and they’ll prove what you really believe.

So, with that said, I have done.–Natasha

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