It kind of creeped up on me.
There I was, 8:30 pm. Good Friday. By myself, outside, watching the moon. Thinking. I would say that I was suddenly transported, but I was still in the same place. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally.
Suddenly I was transcended.
The largeness and utter and, at times it seems, obscene complexity of life washed over me in a moment. There is that thing, reflecting light from a big flaming ball of gas millions of miles away. It’s more or less a rock that spins around the earth. Somehow, though, that rock influences the masses of our oceans. And I’m just this guy. On a porch in Cleveland.
I expected to feel insignificant. I am an ant, with a small life, making small differences to small ways. Pushing my ball of dirt around, doing a lot of things that are monumental to me, but not really monumental in the grand scheme of things.
The feeling that came, however, was one of significance. I am a small part of something huge… cosmic. And yet I matter. I am important. Not just to the people I’m close to, but to existence itself. I am a major character in the story of life.
All of us. We’re all part of something that defines and yet escapes the definition of “large” or big… and we’re significant.
This is the definition of holy. This is the weight of glory.
What is man that you should think of him,
and the son of man that you should care for him?
For a little while you made him lower than the angels
and you crowned him with glory and honor.
- Hebrews 2.6-7
4 comments:
I love your posts. :)
I sometimes let my mind carry me away like that. Usually it leaves me feeling very guilty about the things I put first in my life. It makes me really reflect on when my life is finished, will I have left a mark anywhere or just existed for myself?
Very good blog. Thanks for allowing me to drift away in thought again.
I'm going to be very lame and not comment on your post...but I somehow lost your page. I changed my blogger name too. So how about you add me, if I add you? Got it? Yeah, I thought so.
So you let everyone know you've updated this blog and I, as an everyone, come nose around and find this post, just under a year old; obviously I can't not comment because I've been having frequent thoughts very opposing your own.
I wonder on the idea, the exigent, oppressing reality of a generally insignificant populace. We all know from Sunday School that God cares about everyone. Sure. I'll buy that.
But.
If only those people who are destined to live vivaciously in beautiful stories would ever accept Christ and our generally insignificant populace will reject-wouldn't Jesus still have come?
So many of us are condemned to be minor characters in someone elses novel; white noise in "that-guy-I-used-to-know's major motion picture. They walk aimlessly, in live tiny lives for nothing but to die with nothing said beyond "A good man" because no one has anything memorable to say. Forgotten. Dead. Meaningless in the course of the vast universe.
So what do we do for these people? What kind of hope can we give them? Are we allowed to be honest with the not-so-smart and homely kid and simply say "You will die without accomplishing anything grand."?
What do you do with depressing thoughts like this? Hmm? It's made me a little angry lately-and sad. What do you say?
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