The fault in Default

One of the things that I absolutely love to see in people is that precious desire to learn the lessons of life and godliness, day after day.

Generally speaking, It is my belief that most people (in this country) are passing through their lives on Default.  In other words, their existence become a constant and may I say boring, flow of stimulus and established reactions.  No real changes there.  It’s quite rare to find someone who considers daily how and where within their personal lives, they can grow towards becoming a better person (all nuances of “better” entailed).  And the tragedy of this is that there is a sort of unspoken finality to the Default mindset in people.  Once people pass through those precocious teenage years and step over the quarter life mark, something interesting happens.  People suddenly begin to see themselves as a set package of traits that have become fixed like a finished puzzle, its pieces rigidly locked in place.

But that is not how it should be.  People grow physically, until they die.  So I ask why can’t we aim and strive to grow spiritually and emotionally too?  We are not a set package of traits.  The puzzle continues beyond the horizon.  A reticent thirty year old can still become a gregarious forty year old.  And who is to say that the man who treats women poorly cannot turn his life around and learn to respect them?  But enough preaching. This is not a message to be told from one man to another, rather it is a principal to be repeated within the individual.  And with this, we all must recognize that we have not yet reached what we will become.  And thus what we should become is still within our reach.

(concerning the resurrected and thus perfected life) “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

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On a seperate and completely unrelated note.  I would also like to mention that I think Music is one of those few things that express the human soul and disposition far better than simple prose.  Is that obvious? There are times when I agonize over how to communicate my awe or internal trembling over some truth or epiphany, and only when I hear a song, or an appropriate melody do I feel those secret words and elusive phrases, which were so frustratingly pent up,  released as notes and cadences.  I don’t know if I’m alone on this, but sometimes I think I understand why JRR Tolkien wrote the creation account of Silmarillion as a majestic and holy Song.  Because of course the world would find its meaning and significance borne upon the shoulders of a melody. Who could imagine otherwise? Because even though Words can touch the depths, Music can carry us into them.