I wrote this blog all the way back in January and then for some reason never posted it. I was cleaning out my drafts box and thought, huh...those were some interesting thoughts. If I were to have one of those fancy voting things on my blog I would ask how many of you write and re write your blog and then publish, have drafts waiting the in the wings, never draft or save anything just go straight to publishing? Can I take a vote on this one without the fancy doo hickie voting thing?
This used to be the slogan of the church I attended many moons ago, "Your decisions determine your destiny." I used to buy that so wholeheartedly. I used to think that this was doctrine. There were so many slogans that I lived by back then not really even giving a second thought to what they really meant. I am not the same young girl that I was back then. I no longer just take slogans like that at face value. I have become in many ways a closet cynic. I try to pretend to be the eternal optimist but I have seen more real life in the last few years that can't be explained away by a slogan, and I am no longer so quick to fall for the band-aid answer that used to come my way by every Christian known to man or to me. The friend who is diagnosed with a terminal illness, did her decisions determine her destiny? The person who married a person that she thought was "the one" and he turned out to be a bastard who left her right after giving birth to her third son, did her decisions determine her destiny? The person who's spouse just chucked it all for a night on the town did HER decisions determine HER destiny? I THINK NOT!!! There is pain there that is caused by nothing other than the fall of man. Not something that was intended, even by God Himself, but none the less their reality. I can no longer swallow the pat answer, the band-aid. I want reality. I want the unknown. I want truth. Slogans are a thing of the past to cover up the fact that really none of us know more than the rest and no catchy phrase is ever going to change that.
Do you have an old slogan/phrase from the past that really bugs you?
4 comments:
first, i want to tell you that i posted a blog kind of aimed toward you... but wanted you to know that it is all in good fun, and i hope it didn't hurt your feelings:)
second... i usually just post, unless it is a long and thoughtful post, or a story i am telling, then i might save and go back to add or edit after i have thought about it some, or if i am interrupted (which rarely happens in this house...hahaha!) i will come back to it later.
third... i will think about your slogan question, its a good one. i used to have the "if it feels good, do it" mentality, but i don't necessarily know if at the time i knew that that was the slogan for my life:)
laura- i commented already.hope you enjoy that.
your method is like my own but for some strange reason i had so many drafts in there from forever ago. dunno what that was all about.
if it feels good slogan is definetley not one that is well thought out now is it??
I have heard many, many slogans & statements that are offered up, many of them dug up out of a 'leadership' book & then liberally applied with equal doses of 'verses' (proof-texting anyone?) to back up what the slogan says. And the more its repeated, the more it takes on a "this is God's way" or like you said, a "theology" of its own. (I've got nothing against John Maxwell - but I don't think we should quote him or anyone, equal with the Gospel of John...)
I chafe at these because underneath the thin veneer of the slogan is a self-focused, performance based, load of shinola that says:
If you make good decisions, good things will happen. If you don't, bad things will.
What's implied when people go through life difficulties? You're only 'reaping' what you sowed. If you'd made different decisions, you wouldn't be experiencing this. Call it "Christian karma theology" or "watching out for #1 & then judge the crap out of everyone who doesn't do it right"... either way, its largely a Western, Americanized, business-model religion that chews up & spits out people left & right in Jesus name.
I've taken too much of your space - but I feel the heart of what you're saying - & have my own list of slogans that maybe one day I'll air. It's funny because even thinking of repeating them makes me think of the people who said them as a mantra... & reminds me that teachers will be held to a high standard for what they've passed on to others.
Thanks for listening No..el. And if you read to the bottom of this, you rock. And I would like to talk more about this topic with you, cause I like the person that you are, even if it means you're coming over to the 'realist' instead of the eternal optimist side. :)
louie you can take up my space anytime.
this new world of realism is still a bit hard for me to swallow but in time i might just get used to it. then again, i may just swallow the pill of being naive and call it a day.
thanks for being a non slogan speaking person. i really, really appreciate that about you.
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