I believe I have sometimes fancied Christianity the key to placid happiness. A level playing field. The answer to a mature, academic levelheadedness.
Instead I wonder if it does not create a more ferocious sorrow as well as a more violent, untamed joy. We are no more numb to occasional dark despair than we are free from spontaneous song. Rather than drugging the senses, Christianity redefines them.
Faith, by nature, cannot be indifferent. It is incapable of being a state of neutrality. It is, rather, the wild, unexplained mystery of contentment. Emotions not dead, but vibrantly recreated. Passion is no longer dull, but deep with the colors from beyond our cosmos and imagination. Bound by freedom in a quiet, confident trust in the Creator. If we can breath through real tears and real laughter, it is through the power of faith. Placid happiness is breakable, and worse, stagnant. When covered by contentment, faith's sorrow and joy are as deep as the Cross and as strange as the Resurrection.
4 comments:
How true! I was so glad to read this and know I am not the only one who feels this way.
Elizabeth
Gah. This is SO TRUE. People seem to think that Christianity = Purtiansim, all boring and proper and no fun. SO not true. Not only do you have more peace as a Christian (lol among other important things like being saved) but you also have way more fun.
This is so true, and something I badly needed to read. School forced me to read William Blake, and I kept thinking that this exactly is what he gets wrong. So I'm glad to read it put into words by someone else.
Can I ask you for something? I help prepare a magazine for the youth of my church, and I'm in charge of the English corner (I'm Czech). It's a learning tool as well as a way to get acquainted with what Christians from abroad are thinking and dealing with, and to this end I use texts by Christian bloggers and supply them with vocabulary and a short paragraph about the author. So I wanted to ask you if I could use this text of yours. It's really perfect - short enough, yet deep enough. And because I have been thinking about the issue lately myself, I think others would like reading it, too.
Please, let me know what you think at marmota.b(at)hotmail.com
P.S. I have been following your blog on and off for some time already, having it in my bookmarks. Now I've realised that I probably haven't commented yet, and haven't followed you "officially", so I'm amending that.
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