La coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point
Translation: The heart has it’s reasons, that reason ignores completely. Pascal.
I’m listening to French music from around 1940-1970’s. It’s sultry and warm, like champagne bubbles that fizzle over the top of a glass. It makes me really happy; I just wish I knew what they were saying. No hablo French. Lo soliento.
A kiss to build a dream on…
-song by Louis Armstrong
It isn’t in French, but it has the same feel. Go listen to it. Now. If you don’t get drunk from the sound of it, something is terribly wrong with you.
French music makes me wish I had vintage high heel shoes, and pretty little stockings, red lipstick, and black hats with black bows. Tall mirrors leaning against walls, with sweet blue paint chipping away, chandeliers with crystal drops dripping splashes of red and green and blue light onto the floors. And a white cat that purrs while sleeping. I also wish my name were Amelie, or Hattie, or Laurie.Maybe I can learn the French alphabet. I doubt I learn more than that, I know “mercié”, and a few inappropriate phrases because of MTV.
So, perhaps I have caught you up in my romance of the French. Even with the narrow streets, and buildings that stand shoulder to shoulder like skinny children in a line, there is a kind of charm in the old buildings, and cafes, and small stores…and I remember most the art and book vendors on the streets, the smell of baking bread, a woman walking a white bunny down the street- I couldn’t even begin to make that up- and the Eiffel tower, which was most remarkable in person.
This newfound fascination with French music began after I watched the movie An Education, in which a young girl loves literature, and authors, and French music, and Oxford. And watching her smoke, lying on the floor, singing the French words, I found myself loving the music myself. Will I be smoking on the floor singing the lyrics by heart, no, but Pandora is more than sufficient for now.
I ramble way too much. I meant to mention my newfound discovery of French jazz and blues before blogging on something else completely differently, but as I have said, rambling is my specialty, of this I am certain.
Am I allowed to talk about French music only to swap completely and talk about Isaiah? I’m about to because here, you’re in Martha world, and I find myself doing things like this all of the time. It’s really nothing unusual.
While reading Isaiah chapter 1, I found myself considering what Hayley had asked me several days ago concerning good doing bad and bad doing good. Every night for the past several nights, I have literally found myself thinking over this, debating with myself, pondering over the real differences of Good vs. Bad and where God fits into it all.
If you haven’t read Isaiah chapter 1, it’s all about Israel being a sinful nation, rebelling against God, and really about the sickness of corruption that had taken over the people, leaving them- and the city - desolate, burned, etc. It goes on that the Lord is sick of “the multitude of your sacrifices”, and burnt offerings, and it seems, because their “hands are full of blood.” And it goes on that the Lord wishes them to makes themselves clean, and to remove the evil of their deeds from his eyes. He asks them “learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression…” This eventually leads to the verse 18, which says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
So we see evil and wickedness being exchanged for forgiveness.
But I kept thinking the question over last night after reading. What is good? And I don’t mean according to the answers in ethics that explain “good is like a feeling, of “yea” or “ew” ; basically that good cannot be measured because it isn’t exactly known what is good or what is bad because different cultures have different ideas of the two: what is good for one people may be bad for another. No, I’m talking about God’s good. The good that is just, righteous, holy; the type of good that does not vary from people to people, because it is true to all people God has created. According to this idea of good being just and holy, none of us are good, right? I mean, none of us are God, so how could we be good?
I considered bad people who do good. When they do good, is it really good? I mean, if Good is associated with God’s being, how could someone bad do good. For example, a bad person giving money to orphans ( a good). I think of it this way: if they are bad/wicked, then they never had the intention of giving money to better the orphans, because that intention of doing good/desiring good would make them good, but clearly, we know- at least in this example- that they are wicked. So whatever the reason, though they seem to do good, they aren’t really good, because their intentions weren’t good, they were wicked. So good is absent.
Then I started to think about those people who drown others for fun, torture, murder ect. And I considered that we always say, “how could someone do that?” which usually someone answers, or our own conscience answers us with, “they had not a drop of humanity left.” But, what is humanity but wickedness, evil, and bad? In our inherit nature, we are terrible. Look at little children who know how to lie, steal, and cheat without ever been taught; how are they capable of such things at such a young age, why, by their innate human wickedness, their humanity. We associate humanity with charity, but we as a human species aren’t charitable, or kind, or generous. Why we
go to war with each other, hang each other, shoot each other, stereotype one another, judge one another based on racial prejudices. We ignore the starving and uneducated, we buy too much, waste too much, use too much…And after considering that we’ve been using the word “humanity” all wrong, I considered that it is true, none of us are good, because we are all human, and none of us are even close to being God; therefore, we aren’t even close to obtaining his goodness.
So how is there any good in the world? Which, we know there is. And if good, true goodness, is obtained through God, how is it there are people who don’t know God, yet seem to be good? How is that possible? For instance, I lived in Malawi, Africa for two months, in the middle of nowhere in the bush…in a tent. These people did not know God, yet they had warm, generous hearts. Don’t get me wrong, they had their share of wickedness, but it’s the goodness, real goodness, that I find surprising looking back. Last night I began to consider the beginning when the world, and man, were created.
And I thought, they ate from the tree of Good and Evil. So man knows Good and Evil. Inherently we are wicked, sinful, BUT we are aware of Good. And if we are aware of it, knowledgeable of it, as the people in Malawi were, then we are capable of acting out in Good. So Humanity really is both wickedness and Good, because we know both Good and Evil. And if I just gave you a massive headache through all of my jabbering, I’m sorry.
So, we know both Good and Evil because of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God is only good, and though he must know wickedness, he does not act upon it. And if God is good, really good, and we are good, really good, well then, we really are made in God’s image, because there is no other way we could have obtained such a dichotomy in our nature otherwise. Because as God is good, and though he knows wickedness, because of his Goodness, he is not capable of acting out in evil. Because he is Good, he is not Good and Bad.
What’s the point in me saying all of this? There has to be a God. It is not possible for something Evil to be Good too. And it is not possible for something Good to be Evil too. Just as it is not possible for something to be ice and fire. But we see that we as humans are capable of being both. So, there must be a God based on the fact that we, such a violent, selfish, and evil species are capable of love, kindness, and occasional selflessness. And if there is a God, who is Good, and Just, and Righteous, who allows us into His presence, then we must be capable of learning his goodness, justice, and righteousness.
I just read a blog from a fellow friend about salvation as the transformation of the mind, and I believe it ties in well with what I’m trying to say. We are all wicked and good, so even in salvation; we will still be wicked, because we will still be human. But in salvation, the Holy Spirit resides in your soul, as a counselor and helper. Maybe this doesn’t mean anything to you, but as a Christian, I can’t tell you the guilt I experience when I realize how wicked I am, and how incapable I am of being like Jesus. It’s insufferable to desire one thing, only to be another. But to realize that I am both Good and Evil because I am all human, but in two parts. One part bad, and one part Good, and that with God, I can learn to be good, I can be saved, I can be made like snow, is a gift .
Salvation is about transformation of the mind. My mind is Good and Evil, and it can only be transformed by God. Just as if you have a glass, half full with dirty water, and half full with clean water… the class as a whole is tainted by the dirty water, just diluted by the clean. The only way to make the water cleaner is to begin a new glass, and to use a better filter to keep the dirt out. Using the same glass will dilute the filthy water, but the filth is still there. And refilling a new glass without a proper filter will just cause a new glass, with new dirty water. Renewing your mind is like getting a new glass, and leaning on the word, prayer, and having a real, personal relationship with Christ will create a filter that will dilute out the bad, and fill your glass with Good, God’s good.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
If I confused the heck out of you, I apologize. But this is usually how I reason through things. I just keep adding little details until I come to some weird conclusion. What are my conclusions?
1Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
2. People are both Good and Evil
3. God knows both Good and Evil, but is only Good in nature.
4. Because people are both Good and Evil, a HUGE Dichotomy, there must be a God for people to have Good as a part of there nature, otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible
5. It is possible for people who don’t know God to be good, because we know both Good and Evil
6. Being saved means a change in mind, and that can only happen with God…to acquire the characteristics of God (goodness, holiness, righteousness) one must get a new clean glass, and fill it up with God’s teachings, and get that wicked human half filtered and cleaned through confession and God’s mercy and forgiveness.
7. Even after being saved, you’ll still have a wicked nature, because no one is God, so no one is only Good. Being bad after being saved doesn’t mean you weren’t saved, but if bad seems to be taking over, that can mean you’re not growing.
8. Spiritual growth means meditating on God’s word, prayer, and spending personal time with Him, because in knowing him more, you learn of his goodness, and the more of his goodness you experience, the more you are capable to act according to God’s nature and not Man’s nature.
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