break the spell

So I had a choice to make about 5 minutes ago: do my marathon training like I should be doing or sit out on the back deck and do some catch-up on the blogging..hmmmm. I think I made the right choice.

My family is in town right now and I am loving it. My parents and grandmother came up to spend the week with my sis and me. First of all, I love when guests come to town because we do all of the super-touristy things that I'd never do on a typical day here, like going to bluegrass shows at the Ryman, riding on the General Jackson Showboat, walking around the Opryland Hotel etc. But what I love even more is that it doesn't really matter what we're doing, I love being with my family. It's weird how you sometimes don't get homesick until you actually go home. I think it can be the same way with people. You sometimes don't realize how much you miss them until you're around them. 

Grandmommy is in our kitchen right now baking a chocolate pie. You just can't beat that...especially when we're talking about a 91-year-old woman here. She's amazing.

So some have been wondering what the name of my blog means. It comes from a quote by Kaj Munk that goes like this: 

"What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: "Faith, hope and love"? That sounds beautiful. But I would say - courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature...we lack a holy rage - the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity...a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God."

 

Man, if that doesn't get you fired up...

I'm just starting to wonder what would happen if God's people would start to wake up and dream again. To start raging against complacency. I'm reading this awesome book right now called "Wide Awake" by Erwin McManus. I've never read a McManus book before, but have always wanted to. It's talking a lot about dreaming with our eyes open. About digging deep and discovering the amazing potential that God has placed in you that just might be lying dormant right now. I fear settling. In ANY area of life. Complacency is the enemy of the Church. 

I'm starting to awaken to the possibility of another way of life than the typical. Maybe I've sub-consciously chosen to settle for the typical. I think we all grow up with this picture of the "American" way of life, and assume this is what we are all to follow. But one of my favorite quotes from this book says, "Sometimes the limitations you are willing to accept establish the boundaries of your existence. If your dreams are supposed to be bigger than your life, then your life will always be limited by the size of your dreams...Is it possible that you are not living the life of your dreams because God has asked you what you want and you are asking for way too little?" It's made me wonder what limitations I have sub-consciously placed on my life. What "assumptions" have I made about how life is supposed to be that are limiting what God wants to do in and through my life? I don't know...I'm working through that right now. And I'm asking for God to give me a dream. He's definitely been giving me some "holy rage" lately about so many things in this world, but I can't stay in that place. The world needs me - the world needs YOU - to dream and to stop sleepwalking and settling and live up to the greatness that God has put in each of us. McManus says, "The future is not waiting for us. It's waiting within us." So I'm asking Him to give me a dream. 

That's what restlessly seeking recklessness means.

And there could be nothing more fitting than leaving you with the lyrics from one of the more awesome songs of all time by Mute Math.

TYPICAL

Come on, can’t I dream for one day

There’s nothing that can’t be done

But how long should it take somebody

Before they can be someone

‘Cause I know there’s got to be another level

Somewhere closer to the other side

And I’m feeling like it’s now or never

Can I break the spell of the typical

I’ve lived through my share of misfortune

And I’ve worked in the blazing sun

But how long should it take somebody

Before they can be someone

Because it’s dragging me down

I’d like to know about when

When does it all turn around