Philippians 2:20-21 - I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
Wowwwww, okay. Thank you.
For a while, I’ve been thinking of starting a new blog/website/social media presence in which I ‘reimagined’ scripture, read it out loud with more emotion and nuance, and made funny memes about word choices in the King James Version. But when I sat down to do it, I felt a ton of resistance. No, not resistance really, but desolation. I felt viscerally that something wasn’t right.
For Christmas, my sister gave me The Autobiography of St. Ignatius, which I read and liked but evidently did not completely digest or retain. She gave my husband The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ. [Please note that I did not provide the author for the Autobiography of St. Ignatius, but am happy to do so upon request.] I am now reading that book, and in Martin’s two-paragraph summary of the book that I literally just read, he points out one of the key points that I somehow failed to integrate – that when St. Ignatius was laying in bed recuperating his legs and alternating between daydreaming about impressing a Lady and impressing God, the Lady one gave him negative aftereffects (desolation), but the God one left him with a positive, full, serene feeling (consolation). My blog idea was giving me desolation.
I couldn’t figure out why. I had great taglines that sounded good, and sounded like they were doing good (Illumination from a different angle! Evangelism for introverts!)… but what felt like something that should bring me and others closer to Jesus was making me feel further away. Ironically, as I put together an ugly brown website (that went nicely with the 14th century painting I had chosen as a cover image) and started to plan out the social media strategy, I started acutely missing Jesus – which took me by surprise, because I had been staring at medieval representations of him for the last three hours.
I realized that representations are not the real thing. What I was doing, the way I was representing him, was not the real thing. I had been trying to depict Jesus (and the disciples, and the a bunch of people in the Old Testament) as less one-dimensional than the typical Sunday-morning lector, but I wasn’t adding depth, I had just flipped them on their axis. And – most importantly – I had been daydreaming about all the success and followers and attention that my new project would bring me. I wanted to help others, sure, but I was primarily seeking my own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. This all happened a few days ago, but it hadn’t completely crystallized until I read today’s reading. Pretty targeted communication, I would say.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
Wowwwww, okay. Thank you.
For a while, I’ve been thinking of starting a new blog/website/social media presence in which I ‘reimagined’ scripture, read it out loud with more emotion and nuance, and made funny memes about word choices in the King James Version. But when I sat down to do it, I felt a ton of resistance. No, not resistance really, but desolation. I felt viscerally that something wasn’t right.
For Christmas, my sister gave me The Autobiography of St. Ignatius, which I read and liked but evidently did not completely digest or retain. She gave my husband The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ. [Please note that I did not provide the author for the Autobiography of St. Ignatius, but am happy to do so upon request.] I am now reading that book, and in Martin’s two-paragraph summary of the book that I literally just read, he points out one of the key points that I somehow failed to integrate – that when St. Ignatius was laying in bed recuperating his legs and alternating between daydreaming about impressing a Lady and impressing God, the Lady one gave him negative aftereffects (desolation), but the God one left him with a positive, full, serene feeling (consolation). My blog idea was giving me desolation.
I couldn’t figure out why. I had great taglines that sounded good, and sounded like they were doing good (Illumination from a different angle! Evangelism for introverts!)… but what felt like something that should bring me and others closer to Jesus was making me feel further away. Ironically, as I put together an ugly brown website (that went nicely with the 14th century painting I had chosen as a cover image) and started to plan out the social media strategy, I started acutely missing Jesus – which took me by surprise, because I had been staring at medieval representations of him for the last three hours.
I realized that representations are not the real thing. What I was doing, the way I was representing him, was not the real thing. I had been trying to depict Jesus (and the disciples, and the a bunch of people in the Old Testament) as less one-dimensional than the typical Sunday-morning lector, but I wasn’t adding depth, I had just flipped them on their axis. And – most importantly – I had been daydreaming about all the success and followers and attention that my new project would bring me. I wanted to help others, sure, but I was primarily seeking my own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. This all happened a few days ago, but it hadn’t completely crystallized until I read today’s reading. Pretty targeted communication, I would say.
— MeganPrestonMeyer
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