Having driven across Kansas a few times lately, I am reminded of how many derelict buildings dot the landscape. Their ragged neglect evidenced by roofs caving in, windows with gaping smiles and blooming weeds, the protégé of tumbleweed. The truth is, upon detecting these dilapidated places, I feel sad. I feel the same way about them as I do about ruins in Ireland. They can sometimes have an odd splendor to them, but often they are just forlorn- forlorn and solemn. They are abandoned. Someone gave up on them. Thinking they would perhaps invest their time and money in a more trendy place, or at least in a place that wouldn’t need the roof patched. Or maybe the owner had to move off to an exotic place like the Bahamas for health reasons, or maybe they are now deceased, and left the property to their only son in Toledo who is a busy Doctor and doesn’t have time to care for it. Or maybe the previous owner was dirt poor, and it now belongs to a bank that is having a hard time selling the property for equity.
Really, abandonment is weird. It is usually a word that has unpleasant connotation attached to it and leaves us wondering “What went wrong?” But the word suddenly turns out to be a good thing if something is abandoned that needs to be. Who likes rain dripping on their heads while they are trying to drink a cup of tea? That old house ain’t worth your time! Why hold onto a shack if you can live in a palace, or a house with a garage and swimming pool? Why hold onto things like guilt, fear or bitterness? It’s much better to throw those little guys out the window.
Another weird thing about abandonment is that it seems to graduate to a higher level when it is done with good intent. When I was in Greece this last summer I talked to a guy who was part of a Bible study called The Barbarians. I asked him why they were called Barbarians to see if it fit the image in my head of maniacal bonfire dancing, and men with braided beards ripping off chunks of meat from mammoth-sized turkey drumsticks. The guy said they were called Barbarians because they wanted to be “passionate, fully abandoned to God.” That answer didn’t really fit into my Barbarian paradigm, but I’ll give him the benefit of doubt… because it does sound rather glorious! If there was a girl version of the Barbarians I’d join. It kind of fits into my Live Hard goal, after all. Resurrect that hidden savage. So… viva la abandonment! The good kind, I mean.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
About Esther
I have been reading through the book of Esther again. Even though Esther has found her beautiful self pasted on millions of Sunday school flannel boards and repeatedly cliché-style referenced in women’s Christian lit, I remain intrigued every time I read through the original book. Reading through it this time two things stood out to me. One is about her, and the other is not.
About Esther: she was beautiful, clever, feared God, and obedient to the leadership God placed in her life. My guess is that she must have had a winning type of personality, charming Xerxes and the rest of his ilk like she did. It seems to me that she deserved the best. But she didn’t have the easiest life: parents killed tragically, exiled, torn from a loving guardian, placed in a palace full of competitive women, and then married off to a man who slept around and who possessed carefully guarded machismo (Step lightly or get shipped off and replaced!). Esther’s people were being annihilated before her eyes, and she probably had a foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach that she would be next. It seems to me that Esther’s story falls into the same category as good people getting cancer, or honest business men finding their hard earned cash performing a disappearing act overnight. If I had lived during Esther’s time, and if she had been one of my home girls, I’d say she didn’t deserve any of that rough stuff to happen to her, but, the way that God orchestrated everything in her story is breathtaking. The story resembles a tightly fitted puzzle which leaves the best pieces for last. All those hard things that happen to Esther make sense in the end. All the ugly loose ends are neatly tied, and it makes you want to praise God for His majestic strength and omniscience. At the end of the book the hard things in Esther’s life don’t look meaningless after all, and we are not left pitying her state or feeling like her life was permeated with injustice. I think the last 3 chapters are a taste of heaven. All the hard things in this life will someday resolve into meaning and we’ll have a new light shed on this life’s twists and turns.
Not about Esther: Esther 3:15 really bugs me. It says that while the king and Haman sat down to drink, the city of Susa was in confusion. Their Edict was causing mass chaos and slaughter, and they decided it was a brilliant time to grab a bite to eat. It reminds me of the scene in The Lord of the Rings where Pippen sings his haunting ballad while the king pops grapes into his mouth, and while the king’s dear son fervently battles away in a ruined city. It grossly emphasizes a lack of concern, accentuated by the fact that those kings were the primary source of the tumultuous events taking place while they dine. To think about it is upsetting, but I suppose it is a reminder about priorities, and points me towards double checking my grape-popping habits. I came across this quotation from C.S. Lewis the other day, and I think he completes this thought nicely. “My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends… or a bit of work that tickles my vanity…, when suddenly a… headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly… I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that… my only real treasure is Christ.” This New Year I want to focus on proper priorities, and I’m looking forward to the time when all the happenings of my years will make perfect sense.
About Esther: she was beautiful, clever, feared God, and obedient to the leadership God placed in her life. My guess is that she must have had a winning type of personality, charming Xerxes and the rest of his ilk like she did. It seems to me that she deserved the best. But she didn’t have the easiest life: parents killed tragically, exiled, torn from a loving guardian, placed in a palace full of competitive women, and then married off to a man who slept around and who possessed carefully guarded machismo (Step lightly or get shipped off and replaced!). Esther’s people were being annihilated before her eyes, and she probably had a foreboding feeling in the pit of her stomach that she would be next. It seems to me that Esther’s story falls into the same category as good people getting cancer, or honest business men finding their hard earned cash performing a disappearing act overnight. If I had lived during Esther’s time, and if she had been one of my home girls, I’d say she didn’t deserve any of that rough stuff to happen to her, but, the way that God orchestrated everything in her story is breathtaking. The story resembles a tightly fitted puzzle which leaves the best pieces for last. All those hard things that happen to Esther make sense in the end. All the ugly loose ends are neatly tied, and it makes you want to praise God for His majestic strength and omniscience. At the end of the book the hard things in Esther’s life don’t look meaningless after all, and we are not left pitying her state or feeling like her life was permeated with injustice. I think the last 3 chapters are a taste of heaven. All the hard things in this life will someday resolve into meaning and we’ll have a new light shed on this life’s twists and turns.
Not about Esther: Esther 3:15 really bugs me. It says that while the king and Haman sat down to drink, the city of Susa was in confusion. Their Edict was causing mass chaos and slaughter, and they decided it was a brilliant time to grab a bite to eat. It reminds me of the scene in The Lord of the Rings where Pippen sings his haunting ballad while the king pops grapes into his mouth, and while the king’s dear son fervently battles away in a ruined city. It grossly emphasizes a lack of concern, accentuated by the fact that those kings were the primary source of the tumultuous events taking place while they dine. To think about it is upsetting, but I suppose it is a reminder about priorities, and points me towards double checking my grape-popping habits. I came across this quotation from C.S. Lewis the other day, and I think he completes this thought nicely. “My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends… or a bit of work that tickles my vanity…, when suddenly a… headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly… I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that… my only real treasure is Christ.” This New Year I want to focus on proper priorities, and I’m looking forward to the time when all the happenings of my years will make perfect sense.
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