the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Things I have been learning about Yahweh:

• I really appreciate the Orthodox Study Bible’s definition of what ‘ungodly’ means. In Proverbs 28:1 it says “An ungodly man flees when no one is pursuing. But a righteous man is confident as a lion”. The commentary is as follows: “An ungodly man is one who lives contrary to God and his God-given nature”. I appreciate this commentary because it recognizes that evil is not a ‘root’ – it is an outcome. It is when we first live contrary to the goodness that God created us in that makes a path for ‘evil’ to occur.
  
• A reminder I was noticing while reading through Proverbs 30 again is that Scripture often points us to the wisdom that the natural world holds (in this case, many animals, and also in a sense how they reflect God as well)
  
• Something I appreciate my current home church pastor sharing with regards to reading scripture is reading through the lens of “is this developing any of the fruit of the spirits in me?”/”what fruits of the spirit do I see here?” For my usual scripture reading, I read from two sections of the Bible. Currently I am in Proverbs (almost done) and in Judges. Proverbs is a much easier read than Judges, so I have this little card I made to help me remember to be looking for the fruits of the spirit as a sort of bookmark in my Bible:

• Speaking of Judges, this particular passage stood out to me one morning from Judges 10:14-16: “Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen for yourselves; let them deliver you in the time of your distress. And the sons of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned ! Do to us whatever is good in your eyes; only deliver us this day. So they put away the foreign gods, from among them and served the Lord alone. And His soul was grieved by the misery of Israel.” My first though when reading this is that this is a God know knows boundaries and grieves – boundary work is grief work. In this story of Judges, God technically has the power to do whatever he likes (and some actions I would argue are more symbolic than historical but that is another post for another day), but at least in this instance – which I believe is the God that Jesus displays – He knows that the most loving thing to do for resistant followers is to let them have their way for the time being. And sometimes in our lives, when relationships are not working the way we wish they could be, boundaries need to be set in place in order to do what’s loving for everyone involved, and often it is a sad thing.
• Also one more thing about the book of Judges… there is a famous story in it about a father, Jepththah, who makes a vow that if he wins a battle, he would sacrifice to God the first person who greets him when he returns home. We later discover that it is his daughter who does so, and so he sacrifices his daughter who is his only child. In my mind though, I’m wondering, ‘Who did he expect to sacrifice to begin with? A servant? A wife he was not happy with?’ It’s all very strange. Plus, I think a good lesson to pull from this story as well is that even though the Spirit fell upon him during this time, it does not mean that all his decisions were Spirit-led, as one of the distinguishing traits of the God of Israel from the other gods of that time is that God was not one to remotely even want child sacrifice.

Things I have been learning about the world:

• An unfortunate thing I learned recently is something called “environmental racism”. In one of my favorite podcasts, there was an episode where the host interviewed a toxicologist. She shared that in the US, there are more carcinogens in beauty products that are advertised to black girls and women than there are to other races in the states. It’s like they can’t even get a break. I don’t really know what I can do to help except what the guest also shared, which is to continue to share knowledge and lead a life by example where she applies the knowledge of what she knows is toxic and adjusts her life accordingly. One thing I notice, though, is that unfortunately at this time in US history, healthier products tend to cost more, and we also know that lower incomes also unfortunately tend to affect minority groups. So in a certain sense, it is almost as if these minority groups have fewer options to choose from in general, which also sucks.

Things I have been learning about people:

• I learned what the difference between a journalist and an anchor (at least in France) is ! A journalist is someone who goes out into the field to s hare news, while an anchor tells the news at the studio. And that makes total sense, as the job title itself is “anchor”!
• “I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light and learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. A choice each must make for themselves. Something no hero will ever defeat. And now I know, that only love can truly save the world. So I stay, I fight, and I give, for the world I know can be. This is my mission now. Forever.” – Wonder Woman. I like this quote a lot. I can’t help but recognize how Jesus-y this quote sounds like. Yes, technically Jesus would be a hero in this sense, but also, he leaves the decision up to us to a certain extent ( I have my own thoughts on what exactly ‘free will’ is with regards to a trauma-informed view, but I’m still formulating my thoughts on that). In any case, Jesus also is love, and because he is love, he is the only thing that can save the world. Thus, our part is to continue to contribute to the world that we believe can happen, and this is how we fight evil with love on our side.

Things I have been learning about myself:

• Lately, I have been trying to get back more seriously into reviewing my French again – going to French meet-ups, signing up for classes, and the like. I finally went to a French meet-up for almost after 4 years (because of COVID) and it was really fun ! It is a place where I can meet not only other French lovers, but also language lovers in general. And something that I had sort of forgotten about myself (which maybe is just tied to not having practice the language for a while) is that speaking and listening to French actually takes a ton of mental energy because it is not a language I’m using everyday. I will say though, even though Mandarin is also not a language that I use everyday, I feel like I have enough of a foundation of it so my head does not burn up all its energy trying to decipher things. To be honest, I should also be making all this effort to improve my Mandarin as well, as I am also trying to work on obtaining my Taiwanese citizenship (such as taking classes, finding conversation partners, etc…).
• Also lately, because of how fun I have been finding it writing reviews on my Freewrite Traveler Device and sharing my photos, I recently was granted a Yelp Elite status ! Something empowering I felt to do was to go back to a business where my friend and I were harassed and to give them a 1 star review. I first left comments exactly the racist comments that were said to us, but apparently that was against Yelp’s guidelines, even though I was not the one who said those things. I was naïve back then, but it feels nice now to at least stand up for myself back then through this way, with this status.

Thanks for reading if you have !