Monday night, we chanced upon a program called The Passionate Eye. It was airing an episode entitled Tsunami Caught on Camera, a compilation of videos of survivors of the 2004 Tsunami that began as a result of a 9.3 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Indonesia. The Tsunami hit 14 countries and had a death toll of approximately 230000 people-a great deal more than the approx 20000 deaths from the Tsunami in Japan this past April.
The footage and testimonials from the survivors is bone-chilling, terrifying, and devastating. I cried almost the whole program, just watching the people get swept away by the water and knowing that they most likely died. It makes me so grateful to live where I do, far away from any coast or large earthquake activity. Here are just a few pictures of the devastation:
A stirring reminder that we are subject to powers greater than ourselves.
I don't know whether it's because my students and I were discussing Moses and the Israelites the last little bit, or it's just something that has stuck with me, but the topic of idols has been in my head. The dictionary defines an idol as:
Upon the word idol being stuck in my head, I thought of all the ways we use it. Teen idol, pop idol, American idol, Oktoberfest idol, immunity idol (Survivor), the list goes on!
The encouragement of these things or people being idols comes from, essentially, the mass media. Magazines like People, OK!, Star, HELLO!, In Touch, Star, US Weekly, and Vanity Fair, all share intimate details of celebrities lives, and people actually buy these magazines and read them.
People (myself unfortunately included) religiously watch tv shows that have no real substance and, more often than not, portray things like pre-marital sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and violence as normal and accepted. When our 'idols' do something in a magazine or on tv, we may be persuaded that what they do is ok for us too.
So think about what idols you follow and whether they are worthy of your attention or if you should leave them behind and do as Moses pleads in Deuteronomy 4:15-16 "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves...Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female".
"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us"
--Joseph Campell
"'We
hold fast by letting go.' Letting go of our
attempts to control things, our attempts to maintain control over every aspect of our life. We've all heard the saying about if we love something, we should let it go, and then we'll know whether it 'belongs' to us when we see whether it comes back to us. So much of our discontent and our dissatisfaction comes from our unwillingness to let go of trying to control things and trying to cause just the results that we think should occur." --Tom Walsh
Sometimes you have a plan. Sometimes that plan means the world to you. Sometimes you think that you cannot possibly live unless that plan comes to fruition. Sometimes that plan is wrong. Sometimes you need to let go of that plan in order to see another plan that is in front of you. Sometimes we forget that there are greater things at work in our lives other than ourselves.
There are people who have come and gone in my life who I have wanted to hang on to. People who I thought would be by my side forever. When I was younger, I lived in denial. I could not believe that they were actually gone and that they were not coming back. So I continued to communicate with them as if they were here. As I have gotten older, I have made similar mistakes, hanging onto friendships and relationships that were destined to fall apart.
And now, now I try my hardest to let go. I try my hardest to find peace in knowing that they are happy, even if that happiness does not come from me. I try my hardest to believe that something or someone will come along that will not want to let me go.
I need to stop trying to control my destiny and need to accept that my life is not my own. "Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." Luke 17:33. I am losing myself in the work that I am called to do, and thus I am finding myself more deeply than I ever have before. So let go. Be patient. Have faith. There is a plan for you and this plan is the right plan. Lose yourself in the work and you will find peace.
