wyhr.orgWendy’s World

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.”
~Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict

This dialogue in The Vampire Diaries caught my eye. I wanted to share. It’s about giving up and what I feel when faced with the impossible.

Stefan (vampire): “I’ve seen a lot of evil, Matt, more than you can imagine,” Stefan said. “I’ve even lived it. It’s always going to be a part of me, no matter how I fight it. Sometimes I think the whole human race is evil, much less my kind…I can’t tell you there’s a point or if things are ever going to turn out all right.” Stefan looked straight into Matt’s eyes and spoke deliberately. “But I’ve got another question for you. So what?”
Matt (human) stared. “So what?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So what if the universe is evil and if nothing we do to try and change it can really make a difference?” Matt’s voice was gaining volume in disbelief.
“Yeah, so what?” Stefan leaned forward. “So what are you going to do, Matt, if every bad thing you’ve said is true? What are you going to do personally? Are you going to stop fighting and swim with the sharks?”
Matt was grasping the back of his chair. “What are you talking about?”
“You can do that, you know. Damon (evil vampire) says so all the time. You can join up with the evil side, the winning side. And nobody can really stop you, because the universe is that way, why shouldn’t we be that way too?”
“Like hell!” Matt exploded. His blue eyes were searing and he had half risen from his chair. “That’s Damon’s way, maybe! But just because it’s hopeless doesn’t mean it’s all right to stop fighting. Even if I knew it was hopeless, I’d still have to try. I have to try, damn it!”
“I know because I feel the same way,” Stefan continued. “There’s no excuse for giving up just because it looks like we’re going to lose. We have to try–because the other choice is surrender.”

“Growing up, everything is pushed on you,” she said. “You’re trying to be the smartest, trying to compete with everyone.

Heroin, she said, was an escape.”*

Escape is defined as getting free, freeing oneself.
Transcendence is defined as going beyond one’s self.

The two are very similar in my mind and it reminded me of what I read in The Sacred Romance. We are in fact seeking to transcend. We were made that way. We were designed with heaven in mind. We weren’t meant for this world and that’s why we constantly try to escape it via alcohol, love, food, drugs, work, sports…

It’s sad.

It’s sad because we don’t go to the only One who can curb our craving for escape, who can give us a taste of heaven. We don’t go to God and He’s the one we need.

*This quote was from a New York Times article titled Young and Suburban, and Falling for Heroin.

I know, I know. I finished this study up months ago. The thing is – there’s an epilogue. Since it was such a great study I felt compelled to complete the whole book (this is not a common occurence). I’m glad I did because I found this:

Were there but some deep, holy spell, whereby
Always I should remember thee…
Lord, see thou to it, take thou remembrance’s load:
Only when I bethink me can I cry;
Remember thou, and prick me with love’s goad.
When I can no more stir my soul to move,
And life is but the ashes of the fire;
When I can but remember that my heart
Once used to live and love, long and aspire–
Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;
Be thou the calling, before all answering love,
And in me wake hope, fear, and boundless desire.
~George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Another tidbit from Uncommon:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

~Mark Twain

I’m reading Tony Dungy’s new book, Uncommon. Basically, it’s his perspective on how to live a life of significance…and it’s not about how he coached the winners of Superbowl XLI. This quote should sum it up for you:

“Both (Reverend Billy Graham & Coach Landry) began as ordinary men–submitted and available to God–whom God then used to touch the lives of others. Interestingly, that is often  how God works: through ordinary, available people who have submitted their lives to Him. He transforms the common work that we do into something majestic and eternal. Something uncommon.”

It’s so true. God has given each one of us a unique set of experiences and talents that only we can use right now where we’re at. We all have the opportunity to make an ordinary life uncommon.

P.S. – This book is jammed full of good stuff so stay tuned for more quotes.

Last Monday I had one of the worst stomachaches of all time. I’m not exaggerating. It equalled a gallbladder attack*.

Some people are scared to puke, the flu isn’t a picnic and who isn’t embarassed to admit they have diarrhea. But since I wasn’t purging anything from my body, I just sat there and got worse. Two hours later, I crawled upstairs to the bedroom and started to cry. I cried and, as a last resort, asked God to take it away.

And then it was gone.

No lie, the pain was gone in minutes. I still felt a bit achy, but the pain I was crying over stopped. Could it really be that easy? Could God just take it away? The answer to both questions is yes.

So why did I wait so long to ask God?

* And, yes, I know what that’s like seeing as I had my gallbladder removed in February 2007.

As a young, married female I get asked this question a lot (for those of you reading this, feel free to stop asking). But I wanted to share with you THE most absurd moment when I was asked this question.

Background:
It’s taken a few doctors to figure out that my gallbladder needs to be removed. It’s February 2007. Since November-December, I haven’t been able to eat much food and have been surviving on bread. Since it’s the morning of my operation, I haven’t even been allowed to eat bread or drink water for the past 8-12 hours. So there I sit in the pre-op room getting hooked up to IVs and waiting to get operated on, in walks a nurse. This nurse is holding a urine collection container and then explains she needs to do a pregnancy test.

Really?
Lady, I haven’t eaten for 8-12 hours. I gave blood a week ago – shouldn’t we have confirmed that I was/wasn’t pregnant then?

Really?
Pee in this cup after no food or water for 8-12 hours.

Really?
Your going to wait until the morning of of the operation to determine if my urine, slightly less accurate than the blood test done a week earlier, will show that I’m pregnant so that I can’t have my gallbladder removed. Did I mention I that I haven’t been eating and am in extreme pain, hence the operation?

Really?
Thanks but no thanks. Someone pass me the yellow food coloring and some water.

“You know, I think as children we are taught that courage is John Wayne courage. It is loud and it is brash and it wears boots.

But that’s not courage.

Courage is being diagnosed with Parkinson’s and writing chainsaw-juggling jokes about it.

And Richard’s discussion of his diagnosis is, at least to me, a reminder that while life may be unpredictable and unfair, its greatest beauty is in the capacity of the individual to stare into the face of that difficulty and smile.

And make chainsaw jokes.”

~Stephan Pastis, Pearls Before Swine creator