The virgin entry.

Oh, the pressure...to "pop the cherry" of this blog. Gotta tell you, ladies, I'm a bit nervous. Now, I know we discussed reading books in tandem...discussing things we glean from their pages. And I'm still all about that. In fact, Kate, I just started reading "Velvet Elvis" this weekend. I think, for the most part, you'll like it. It may read a little "Jesus-y" to you, but there are some NUGGETS in there. And Rob Bell brings up some really interesting thoughts...the whole concept of faith being like a trampoline, rather than a wall...that each spring represents a belief of yours...and as you jump through life it stretches and molds to your weight. I won't get into it too much, since you don't have the book yet...but I was floored by a question he asked...that if Christians were to find out that "virgin birth" also meant (in Jewish tradition) "getting pregnant on the first time," and that Jesus really had an "earthly" father, Larry...what would happen? For those that let their minds expand, and continually question, Bell asserts that this wouldn't rock their worlds, but shift the springs a bit. Stretch them out, bring them closer...But those that have built a wall of faith, well removing that CORE brick, that foundational brick would greatly jeopardize the wall's integrity, thus allowing it to crumble with the slightest storm. Now, for the discussion part. Each day I get these "Daily Digs" e-mailed to my work address. Some are not worth discussing, many are. Today's was a quote by a monk, Thomas Merton. (I think he was a monk, I could be totally wrong, in which case, I sincerely apologize). Anyways, the quote was,

If what most people take for granted were really true—if all you needed to be happy was to grab everything and see everything and investigate every experience and then talk about it, I should have been a very happy person, a spiritual millionaire, from the cradle even until now…What a strange thing! In filling myself, I had emptied myself. In grasping things, I had lost everything. In devouring pleasures and joys, I had found distress and anguish and fear. - Thomas Merton

I gotta tell you, I don't quite understand the quote. So, there's the first component of discussion for you...what exactly do you think Merton's getting at? The article that follows the quote by Merton gives me an idea at what he may have been saying...The whole idea that having things, more and more things and experiences isn't enough...The article then includes a quote by Victor Frankl, a psychologist who survived Auschwitz. In Man’s Search for Meaning, he writes:

Again and again I admonish my students both in Europe and in America: “Don’t aim for success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Later, he says,

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: The last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Oh, and one more quote for you... Christoph Blumhardt, a German pastor, puts it like this:

If we are not active as part of a whole, working toward a higher goal, we will deteriorate inwardly and outwardly. Only if our hearts are in a task greater than ourselves will we thrive in earthly matters too. Society will deteriorate, physically and spiritually, unless each of its members has a task to fulfill for the sake of the common good, for creation, for God.

So, how do you balance these ideas? And is Merton saying there aren't riches in travel? In experiencing various walks of life? I really like the whole idea of not aiming for success, but we are driven people, (specifically these women here on this blog)...how can success NOT be a goal? I mean, for us both (all), success is not an end point, rather it's a journey of small victories. In discovering ourselves we find success all along the way, at the various watering holes, resting places and forks in the road...is that a bad thing? And now, my sweets, the ambiguous entry will end. And the pressure of creating the virgin entry will no longer exist for anyone. For the virgin ain't no virgin no more. She's a whore. Let's keep violating her with our thoughts.