the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Things I have been learning about Yahweh:

• One of the most toxic things about the Christianity I grew up with and have been having to unlearn and relearn the reality of “Jesus dying for us” – mainly relearning that Jesus dying ‘for’ us doesn’t mean Jesus dying ‘instead of us’. There’s many Bible verses referring to substitutionary atonement and that the wages of sin are death – which I think are still important and true, so I understand how an interpretation of Jesus dying ‘instead of us’ could have come about. However, at the same time, the Bible never explicitly mentions anything about it was our death that should have been on the cross, that it should have been us on the cross instead of Jesus, or that Jesus died ‘instead of us’ or ‘in our place’. He definitely died FOR our transgressions and our iniquities were indeed laid on him, but it never says anywhere in scripture that that was our destined punishment in any way. Because if we are/were slaves to sin, under captivity of darkness and Jesus came to redeem and reconcile us back to him, since when does it make sense that those under captivity are to suffer a punishment? No, the ransom does not come from those under captive – it has to come from someone else and for someone else to give the payment to darkness to liberate us, which Jesus undertook.
• I really like this commentary in the Orthodox Study Bible (OSB) of Proverbs 15:33. In the OSB, Proverbs 15:33 says this: “God is far from the ungodly, But He hears the prayers of the righteous”. The commentary says “God is far from the ungodly, not in place but in will. The will of God and the will of the ungodly are far apart. But He hears the prayers of the righteous because their will and His will are in harmony.” I really appreciate this commentary because it makes so much sense ! If God is omniscient, if through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made per John, and if nothing can separate us from God per Paul, then all the rhetoric of God being distant from us falls apart. We are the ones who may spiritually and emotionally distance ourselves from God, but He himself is never distant from us – and that is so important with regards to Jesus redeeming and reconciling us back to Him.

Things I have been learning about people:

• Lately with all that I have been hearing about the world and happening my own circles, it has been an interesting time in my heart lately holding knowing the inherent worthiness and good nature of people with the tension of the evil and dysfunction that can occur (and mainly all the deep pain underneath it all).

Things I have been learning about the world:

• I have discovered that there are motion-sickness reducing glasses ! They look incredibly silly (although I’d argue you can style them in a really stylish way), but I did not really understand how they worked, since they’re an external cure. I found out though that essentially they provide a horizon for our eyes to look at, since a lot of motion sickness occurs from a mismatch between what our brains see/register and our internal balancing mechanism causing stress. With this artificial horizon (created with liquid inside the glasses moving around), what we see can better match what we feel and so our body won’t produce that stress response resulting in motion sickness. Science is fascinating !!

Things I have been learning about myself:

• Since I’ve had a few more photography adventures lately, I had been thinking about how and why I got really into photography as a teenager, and I realize it is because it brought me a lot of peace and wonder into my heart. My childhood and adolescent years were a haze due to family dynamics, but photography was one of the things that I think really got me out of my head and into body, or “helped me to feel alive,” which is amazing that art can do that for us.
• I have been super excited because I found out Ed Sheeran has this separate account where he shares his morning routine of listening to vinyl in the morning ! For each video, he briefly goes over a vinyl he is listening to and why he likes it. It is a locked account and apparently he only lets in followers every once in a while, and I got in recently ! So I’ve been going through the albums that he’s been talking about, and it’s felt cool listening to things that my favorite musician enjoys or has been inspired from.
  
  It’s also made me reflect on his documentary that was on Disney plus. In the documentary, he realized early on his touring that it was quite lonely touring on his own. And I loved how he immediately knew what would help – it wasn’t doing a certain individual behavior, creating a certain mindset, or worse yet taking up numbing substances – it was hiring his close friends ! We aren’t meant to be alone as humans, and so I thought it was such a smart and heartfelt move to invite those closest to him to journey around the world. More reasons to appreciate Ed !

Thanks for reading !