wyhr.orgWendy’s World

“When I was a kid, Grandpa Portman’s fantastic stories meant it was possible to live a magical life. Even after I stopped believing them, there was still something magical about my grandfather. To have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that the honorable and good and brave person I knew him to be — that was magical.”

~ Jacob Portman, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Wendy: Enjoying a glass of cool, white wine while reading a book to unwind from her week of work.
Dave: Removes the wine stopper to pour himself a glass. Then holds up a screw cap.
Wendy: “It was a screw off.”
Dave: “That means it is also a screw on.”
Wendy: Stares in utter disbelief then says, “My judgement may be impaired.”
Laughter.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
~Eleanor Roosevelt

I work in a manufacturing environment that sits next to our national office. As a result you wind up with people in uniforms from the manufacturing environment and people from the national office who wear business casual. It’s easy to perceive this as a class distinction. Folks in the manufacturing environment allow themselves to feel this class distinction, to feel inferior. The same could go for people who work in cubicles versus having an office. It’s a perceived class distinction. You can choose to believe it or choose not to. It all comes down to fear and self-confidence. Are you going to allow a uniform or a cubicle to define your worth?

“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.