Thoughts/Visions
We are no more than God's thoughts, no less than God's vision. As I sat in the Live Oak Friends Meeting House yesterday morning, I began meditating on these words. I wish I could say that they were by some famous philosopher or theologian, but no. I'm not much of a meditator (?) and so as I was floundering for something to guide me in the silence of my first Quaker meeting, I made them up (though I'm sure I'm not the first). I began to repeat them to myself as they flowed in nice smooth circles around the empty spaces of my mind, sweeping away dust and thought debris in an ever expanding circle of quietness. We are no more than thoughts, no less than a vision. A reminder of both my smallness and my potential, my temporality and my specificity.
I don't really believe in a God who thinks thoughts, don't really believe in a God with a singular limited consciousness in the linear verbal communication sort of way. And yet there is something nice in the whispyness of a thought that reminds us of the vitality of our spark rather than the sadness of a short lived weed or flower. It's a nice metaphor. In a thought there is continuity, one leading to another: one thought feeding the next, making it more, but of little value in and of itself. A sentence of Faulkner alone on a page. When seen in the incredible brilliance of the thinker, the thought has infinite value, a piece of an uber-complicated logic puzzle; each fragment: key. But alone it can seem a bit of jibberish (like much modern art).
I was at summer camp this past week as the arts and crafts director for 63 ten and eleven year olds. In reality, there were three of us acting as arts and crafts directors, which meant there was plenty of time to just relax and play once our two-and-a-half hour daily time slot had been filled. Each day we took one line of the Lord's Prayer as our theme, sometimes reverently, sometimes not so reverently. One day we threw bread at the teacher when he asked for his daily bread, another we put on cammo and went trespassing on other campsites before asking for forgiveness.
The Director of the camp had early on told us that his philosophy was simple: Camp, for us, as staff, was about having fun with the kids. Camp, for the kids, was about doing all the things they couldn't do at home (those would be, after all, the things they would remember most) like dancing on the tables, raiding the cookie pantry and spraying shaving cream on each other.
But when it came down to it, Camp for everyone was about finding a safe place to be their authentic self, whether that meant dancing the handjive to Jersey Boys, playing four square for three straight hours or braiding an entire spool of lanyard string into tiny plastic crosses. Listed like that these seem like tiny quirks, unnoticeable, insignificant whims in the trajectory of a life, but when witnessed as a whole: when you stand in the center of the room and have 63 children and 10 counselors shouting silly cheers at the top of their lungs directly at you while you try and pick out the best cheer, you hear in the din the whispers of the kingdom.
In that way, I believe each of us contains the fullness of God's vision, each thought the brilliance of the thinker. And it is our duty to find that light within ourselves as well as all those wit whom we come in contact. I wasn't led to Camp to teach the Gospel in words but to be authentic with a child and ask nothing less in return. To dance with abandon and invite everyone else to join in. I wish every day could be summer camp. I think God does too.
I don't really believe in a God who thinks thoughts, don't really believe in a God with a singular limited consciousness in the linear verbal communication sort of way. And yet there is something nice in the whispyness of a thought that reminds us of the vitality of our spark rather than the sadness of a short lived weed or flower. It's a nice metaphor. In a thought there is continuity, one leading to another: one thought feeding the next, making it more, but of little value in and of itself. A sentence of Faulkner alone on a page. When seen in the incredible brilliance of the thinker, the thought has infinite value, a piece of an uber-complicated logic puzzle; each fragment: key. But alone it can seem a bit of jibberish (like much modern art).
I was at summer camp this past week as the arts and crafts director for 63 ten and eleven year olds. In reality, there were three of us acting as arts and crafts directors, which meant there was plenty of time to just relax and play once our two-and-a-half hour daily time slot had been filled. Each day we took one line of the Lord's Prayer as our theme, sometimes reverently, sometimes not so reverently. One day we threw bread at the teacher when he asked for his daily bread, another we put on cammo and went trespassing on other campsites before asking for forgiveness.
The Director of the camp had early on told us that his philosophy was simple: Camp, for us, as staff, was about having fun with the kids. Camp, for the kids, was about doing all the things they couldn't do at home (those would be, after all, the things they would remember most) like dancing on the tables, raiding the cookie pantry and spraying shaving cream on each other.
But when it came down to it, Camp for everyone was about finding a safe place to be their authentic self, whether that meant dancing the handjive to Jersey Boys, playing four square for three straight hours or braiding an entire spool of lanyard string into tiny plastic crosses. Listed like that these seem like tiny quirks, unnoticeable, insignificant whims in the trajectory of a life, but when witnessed as a whole: when you stand in the center of the room and have 63 children and 10 counselors shouting silly cheers at the top of their lungs directly at you while you try and pick out the best cheer, you hear in the din the whispers of the kingdom.
In that way, I believe each of us contains the fullness of God's vision, each thought the brilliance of the thinker. And it is our duty to find that light within ourselves as well as all those wit whom we come in contact. I wasn't led to Camp to teach the Gospel in words but to be authentic with a child and ask nothing less in return. To dance with abandon and invite everyone else to join in. I wish every day could be summer camp. I think God does too.
posted by Jason Sierra at 12:01 AM
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