I just read this on the Desiring God blog and wanted to share. Because it reminds me that life is beautiful. If only I would shift my perspective a little bit, then I’d see things with new eyes. I want to live with a sense of wonder, truly believing that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). During this time when I’m prone to isolate myself and coop myself up, I need to remind myself of these things. I need to remember that the moment I step outside and take a breath of fresh air, I’ve walked into a world that is ALIVE. And so, I remember that I am alive. I get out of my self-focused bubble, and I hear sounds and smell smells and see seemingly ordinary things with a fresh sense of wonder and an eye for beauty. Sounds become melodies, smells become aromas, and sights become living, breathing art.
I think of that line from the movie Paris When It Sizzles (such a fun movie, which I’ve yet to finish!), when Audrey Hepburn’s character says, “Ah! Every morning when I wake up and I see that there’s a whole new other day, I just go absolutely ape!”
I will remind myself that “anyone who is among the living has hope” (Ecclesiastes 9:4). And will ask, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:5,11 & 43:5). And I’ll say with Paul, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). Oh, how I wish to abound in this HOPE!
Here are those ten steps on how to stay alive to the beauty of God’s world:
- At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above me and about me.
- Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death, when he said: “There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”
- I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.
- I shall not turn my life into a thin straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.
- I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.
- I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic” existence.
- I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”
- I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.
- I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is just now.
- Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life in the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega.
[Originally from: http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/10-steps-to-stay-alive-to-the-beauty-of-gods-world ]
I especially like 6 and 8, and of course, 10 :) Oh, and 3 and 5, too. Well, they’re all great!
