Sunday, February 02, 2020
Monday, February 09, 2015
The Closest Thing to a Valentine's Day Post I'll Write
What is love? Listen to this story from long ago and yesterday.
A father decides he wants to retire from being king. He plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters and live with his youngest daughter, who is likely to very shortly marry a foreign king. Do you see any problems here? An ex-king living with a frienemy king, leaving behind a divided kingdom? Or maybe this plan is the father's way to stop his daughter's marriage. Either way - he's not thinking or acting correctly.
It gets worse.
He decides the best way to divide the kingdom would be to ask his daughters to say in public how much they love him. Whoever gives the best speech will get the best part of the kingdom. His exact question is "which of you shall we say doth love us most?" Do you see any problems with these ideas?
It gets worse.
After his first daughter's speech, he immediately gives her one third of the kingdom. He's not even following the rules of his own twisted game. As you can tell, he's not much of a father or king. His second daughter says her speech. His youngest daughter refuses to play the game and as best she can tries to stop the train wreck her father started. What does she get for honesty? Her father banishes her and attempts outright to stop her marriage. But the foreign king sees her good sense, honesty and ability to love and marries her anyway.
It gets worse.
The father still attempts to retire from being king. Trouble is he wants to give up the responsibility but not the perks. He tries living with his other daughters, neither of whom wants to pay for his lavish lifestyle or have a former king hanging around gumming up their plans for ruling a divided kingdom. And these are ambitious women. One of them is going to "get rid" of the other, some how. I don't need to go into all of the gory details. And they are gory. This is one messed up family.
Eventually, the father ends up homeless and ill, wandering in the wild in the middle of a storm. His youngest daughter searches for him, finds him and keeps him safe. Which of his daughters loves him?
It gets better.
As he is waking up and coming to himself, he can hardly believe he is seeing the daughter he banished, the daughter he treated so poorly - to put it mildly. "I think this lady to be my child Cordelia." She responds simply, "I am. I am." Words that echo our Savior's words declaring his divinity in the Garden of Gethsemane during his betrayal. Lear, her father, says to her, in true humility, for he truly is coming to himself and fumbling to repent his wrongs, "If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you don't love me, for your sisters have (as I do remember) done me wrong. You have some cause, they have not."
He cannot comprehend that anyone could love him with all the bad he did. He did not understand Cordelia's love at the beginning and he does not believe it possible now.
Cordelia's response is the most divine moment of the story - full of the Atonement of Christ. It is the answer we all hope to hear when we beg forgiveness. Lear says the truth when he says Cordelia has a cause against him. Her response, "No cause. No cause."
Her love for her father is of the kind that she chooses not to strengthen his weaknesses by paying attention to them, but rather to always acknowledge his fatherhood and kingship - even as their parent/child, king/subject roles are reversed. She forgives so totally and completely and immediately that for her it's as if the sin never happened.
This infinite forgiveness is a divine quality. I doubt any of us are currently able to do this. It is a terrifying ideal to strive for, to be like Cordelia.
But we can all be like Lear - in a place of vulnerability and humility, knowing we are at the mercy of God. And we can accept forgiveness.
This is Love. Or at least some parts of it.
A father decides he wants to retire from being king. He plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters and live with his youngest daughter, who is likely to very shortly marry a foreign king. Do you see any problems here? An ex-king living with a frienemy king, leaving behind a divided kingdom? Or maybe this plan is the father's way to stop his daughter's marriage. Either way - he's not thinking or acting correctly.
It gets worse.
He decides the best way to divide the kingdom would be to ask his daughters to say in public how much they love him. Whoever gives the best speech will get the best part of the kingdom. His exact question is "which of you shall we say doth love us most?" Do you see any problems with these ideas?
It gets worse.
After his first daughter's speech, he immediately gives her one third of the kingdom. He's not even following the rules of his own twisted game. As you can tell, he's not much of a father or king. His second daughter says her speech. His youngest daughter refuses to play the game and as best she can tries to stop the train wreck her father started. What does she get for honesty? Her father banishes her and attempts outright to stop her marriage. But the foreign king sees her good sense, honesty and ability to love and marries her anyway.
It gets worse.
The father still attempts to retire from being king. Trouble is he wants to give up the responsibility but not the perks. He tries living with his other daughters, neither of whom wants to pay for his lavish lifestyle or have a former king hanging around gumming up their plans for ruling a divided kingdom. And these are ambitious women. One of them is going to "get rid" of the other, some how. I don't need to go into all of the gory details. And they are gory. This is one messed up family.
Eventually, the father ends up homeless and ill, wandering in the wild in the middle of a storm. His youngest daughter searches for him, finds him and keeps him safe. Which of his daughters loves him?
It gets better.
As he is waking up and coming to himself, he can hardly believe he is seeing the daughter he banished, the daughter he treated so poorly - to put it mildly. "I think this lady to be my child Cordelia." She responds simply, "I am. I am." Words that echo our Savior's words declaring his divinity in the Garden of Gethsemane during his betrayal. Lear, her father, says to her, in true humility, for he truly is coming to himself and fumbling to repent his wrongs, "If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you don't love me, for your sisters have (as I do remember) done me wrong. You have some cause, they have not."
He cannot comprehend that anyone could love him with all the bad he did. He did not understand Cordelia's love at the beginning and he does not believe it possible now.
Cordelia's response is the most divine moment of the story - full of the Atonement of Christ. It is the answer we all hope to hear when we beg forgiveness. Lear says the truth when he says Cordelia has a cause against him. Her response, "No cause. No cause."
Her love for her father is of the kind that she chooses not to strengthen his weaknesses by paying attention to them, but rather to always acknowledge his fatherhood and kingship - even as their parent/child, king/subject roles are reversed. She forgives so totally and completely and immediately that for her it's as if the sin never happened.
This infinite forgiveness is a divine quality. I doubt any of us are currently able to do this. It is a terrifying ideal to strive for, to be like Cordelia.
But we can all be like Lear - in a place of vulnerability and humility, knowing we are at the mercy of God. And we can accept forgiveness.
This is Love. Or at least some parts of it.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Chemistry Awesomness!
Friday, August 21, 2009
iPod? Is that you?
My iPod is sending me messages.
As background, it should be known that I manage a costume rental shop and am attempting not to be stressed about Halloween by preparing in sufficient time. But as most people, there are days that I just don't want to go to work.
Yesterday while getting ready in the morning my iPod was set on random and played the most interesting series of songs: "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, followed by "Whistle While You Work" and "Heigh-Ho (it's off to work we go)" from Snow White.
What is my iPod trying to say? Or am I simply finding meaning in random events?
As background, it should be known that I manage a costume rental shop and am attempting not to be stressed about Halloween by preparing in sufficient time. But as most people, there are days that I just don't want to go to work.
Yesterday while getting ready in the morning my iPod was set on random and played the most interesting series of songs: "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas, followed by "Whistle While You Work" and "Heigh-Ho (it's off to work we go)" from Snow White.
What is my iPod trying to say? Or am I simply finding meaning in random events?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Hitting a Deer
Hit a deer last night. We're ok. The car's not. I hope the deer died quickly - or wasn't hurt at all. But judging from the car damage, I can't imagine it not being severely hurt. I've never hit a deer before. I've never killed anything so big. It's funny how prejudiced we can be. Arriving home after hitting the deer, I killed, with my bare hands, a mosquito, almost without thought. Why the remorse over the deer, and little to none over the bug? Is it that the mosquito could hurt me with a bite and could be carrying infectious diseases? Is it that it was small and I've killed tons of them? Hmm.
Sliding Down the Stairs
Took these videos a long time ago. Should have posted them sooner. Don't know about anyone else, but seeing these boys shoot down those stairs just makes me giggle.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Just joined the network. And already I have 12 friends. It's nice to know that on the web you can count your wealth like that. Well, I'm now getting into bed. Tomorrow is another day!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
And He's Off!
Sent the Bean away today. Watched him till the last minute going through security. Helps that he's so tall. Even from a distance his head is high enough to see. Little bit of a blip in getting him there. Someone misspelled the last name, and so for a while there it appeared as if he didn't have a ticket and might not be able to make it back in time for school to start. But then the extra "i" was discovered through a panicked phone call home to Mom who remembered the error. And so he got off fine. I'm really going to miss him. When we hugged goodbye, he said "See you at Christmas." The expanse of time struck - I'm not going to see him for Halloween (70 days away, btw) or Thanksgiving. I hope he has a great year at school.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Breaking News
It's been far too long since I've posted, but I just learned of some critical breaking news. It's even more important that Russia invading Georgia or the Olympics. Combined.
In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?
In The Know: Are America's Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?
Country Music Stars Challenge Al-Qaeda With Patriotic New Song â??Bomb New Yorkâ??
In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?
In The Know: Are America's Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?
Country Music Stars Challenge Al-Qaeda With Patriotic New Song â??Bomb New Yorkâ??
Sunday, February 17, 2008
A Bunch of Pictures.
In no particular order, because I don't have the patience right now to make it orderly, here follows a bunch of long overdue pictures:
Disneyland Rowing Team:
The Zombie's Mom:
Harry, Hermione and Ron were here. So was I:
This is the place we all were, at different times:
Cartoons come to life:
A stylin' do from the soon to be World Famous Fashion Hair Designer, Nephew Thomas:
The World Famous Fashion Hair Designer on his White Charger, with his mother:
The newest Disneyland Crew Team recruits: (Daniel's not nervous, just uncomfortable.)
See, I told you Daniel was a natural born sailor.
Here we are in the Alps.
At the firestation.
From Christmas:
Disneyland Rowing Team:
The After-Disneyland-DVD-in-the-Car Zombie:
The Zombie's Mom:
Harry, Hermione and Ron were here. So was I:
This is the place we all were, at different times:
Cartoons come to life:
A stylin' do from the soon to be World Famous Fashion Hair Designer, Nephew Thomas:
The World Famous Fashion Hair Designer on his White Charger, with his mother:
The newest Disneyland Crew Team recruits: (Daniel's not nervous, just uncomfortable.)
See, I told you Daniel was a natural born sailor.
Here we are in the Alps.
At the firestation.
From Christmas:
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