A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Sometimes the most beautiful things appears out of nowhere, especially when least expected. During church service, right after worship, they always invite the kids to join a children's program outside of the auditorium. Today was no different. One by one, I watched as kids made their way to the auditorium's exit. One of the last kids was a little boy carrying with him a Bible that was just a little too big for him. For some odd reason, this really moved me. There was something very innocent about that scene. In this day and age of pluralism and tolerance, most adults wouldn't be caught dead carrying a Bible out in public, unless they were going to a place where everyone else was expected carrying one. But because this church is embedded in a very public place (can't get more public than a large shopping mall), people are tend to be more conscientious about it. So, this sight of a kid, carrying his oversized Bible out of the auditorium was truly a beautiful sight!
[Isn't It Love playing on Archos]
I was very sad leaving service today. Obviously I wasn't expecting to be, and attending service at The Meeting House for the past little while has been rather uplifting. I'm certain the speaker would not have intended the content of his materials to cause such a reaction, because it is typically a benign topic. So, he introduced the fact that all humans were created with specific impulses/tendencies. Last week, we examined the impulses of affinity (the natural tendency to want to get to know God) and infinity (the natural tendency to know that we are infinite beings, with death being the only hurdle that prevents us from achieving that state). Today, he touched on the affinity of intimacy, specifically sex (the tendency to want to be in more than just a master-servant relationship with God, but in one that is much closer). It's not too hard to see how sexual bonding and the process of orgasm is a reflection and fulfillment of the type of relationship that God wants with us and has created. Yet, today, it really hit me hard just because I felt like those words were like salt being poured into a wound that I felt was healing. For some time now, I've been resigned to the fact that I've been selected to be excluded from this experience. I have been thinking that the longings that I have in my heart (that I subjugated to a set of attributes that also make me passionate for serving my global community) is just a potential stumbling block that would stay with me for the rest of my life that I could overcome, like the thorn that Paul was talking about. I even agreed with a quote from C.S. Lewis that flashed on the screen today prior to the message, saying that the longings that we feel are just an index of our current situation. I agree that the intensity of these longings that I feel right now may have been amplified by the fact that I'm not in a situation where these longings could be fulfilled. But to hear the message say to me that God deliberately created this impulse in us with the purpose of having it fulfilled really rocked me. Why can't my worship and service to Him just be enough? Why did this 3rd impulse have to be part of His divine architecture as opposed to just a creative and enjoyable way of populating the earth? If that's the case, I feel so excluded, yet I was okay with that, ready to live out the rest of life with that want buried. Consider it my ultimate sacrifice to God - what would cost more than my deepest desires? It just felt like God wanted to unbury this and have this issue revisited. I have no answers, just more grief.
[God Is Not A Secret playing on Archos]