Last Saturday was a day of surprise. I got to sleep in until 9:45 when the combination of my sweat, my cat's croaks, and my mother calling me inside the house roused me. "Whew," thoughts I. "Let's have a day of rest from work!" says I.
NOPE. (That's reserved for Sunday.)
Weeds must be pulled and plants must be watered. But what's a weed but a plant in the wrong place, performing the wrong function? Perhaps we'll be weeding in heaven...
"I'm home from yoga!" says my umma, and we're off to shop for a gift for her old boss's wife's birthday party. [She likes to cram birthday stuff for the last minute. Actually, make that anything that involves writing a card. Huh.] While we're there, I found a nice pair of shorts to replace my bloody ones.
Story time! I'm a teacher now. I thought I'd have more facial hair before people would call me Mr. Pollard, but God had different plans for me. Anyways, one of the Kindergarteners to whom I am teaching P.E. developed an intense nose-bleed at the end of class. She doesn't speak many English words, and she didn't understand that pressure was her remedy. Her cure was crying loudly and rubbing her bloody hands all over her face. In my attempts to wipe her face, apply pressure, and keep the other 11 kids in control, she bled on me. End story. (Though the rest of the kids immediately quieted and grew somber when they saw her bloody face. Huh. Interesting...)
While my mom drove us over to Kohls, I was reminded of one of my terrible tendencies. I tend to become really passive-aggressive when I'm irked. This needs to stop. It's really immature of me to clam up and refuse to address problems, especially since I see this problem corrupting loads of relationships left and right.
I was reminded tonight of one important thing pertaining to this: being aggressively passive isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it takes much willpower to restrain one's self from judging a person immediately for wrongdoing. Sometimes it takes time to heal wounds, and early attempts to reconcile would be ineffective.
Sometimes, as I quickly remember almost every time I start teaching, you have to pick the metaphorical hills you'd die upon (upon which you'd die). It's ok to let some things slide sometimes, your honor, Judge OCD. Like correcting other people's improper grammar usages. (Really? I thought usages was spelled "useages." Now it just looks too patriotic. Ahem. It's probably accurate to connect "improper grammar" with Americans. [I totally kept typing "gramma" instead of grammar right there. Also, "Americans" isn't really that accurate. I'm a Californian and a citizen of the United States of America.] Or... courtesy. Or how soon is kosher to reply to text messages or e-mails before it becomes rude. Or how simple passivity is the best way to allow a friendship to dissolve. It is good to be passive about displaying disgust, despair, unlawful or overexaggerated anger, or greed. Sometimes it's tactful and wise to remain silent and quiet. More of my musings on this topic.
Will & Rick invited me out for a night on the town. MY town of Long Beach. I'm often reminded by nights like these of how little I know of things, even my own hometown. We had fish tacos and garden salads with thick raspberry vinaigrette, and salmon. Everything divided nicely into three's that we joked that the owners of Gladstone's must be trinitarians. Our nightly conversation consisted: the lawfulness of cigarettes vs. cigars, tattoos, incense-burning in church, Wheaton University and its professors, Roger Wagner (pastor of Bayview OPC in Chula Vista), my thorny friend, archery, the appropriateness of vibrams in steak houses, the covenants of God, and the TV show Arrested Development which was filming certain scenes for the 4th season on Long Beach's Pike "Whale-watching" pier.
That was a bit irrelevant. I just like those two guys enough to throw a shout-out for them. Read their bloggings, reader!
Now, to get to the real point, this is where Jesus demonstrates that He's better than my passive-aggressive tendencies: He's the ultimate example of picking the right hill to die on. Though I can't tell you why He would, He was carted out of the city, to the place of meeting, where God met His people at the tabernacle and where the scapegoat was released, to die on a hill named Golgotha (that is, the Place of the Skull), reminiscent of the triumphal march of a Roman general, where He paid retail price for my sins. It blows me away.
Here's the kicker, though. Jesus was aggressively passive when He was being crucified!
Jesus's work is often divided by theologians into two categories: active and passive obedience to the law of God. The active obedience was accomplished when Jesus purposefully fulfilled the law and obeyed the authorities over Him, honored His parents, sanctified the Sabbath, and feared the LORD with His whole heart, soul, and strength, to name a few. Jesus was passively obedient when He was tried by a false-priest Pilate, condemned by the Jews, slain by the Romans by the wayside, hung between His best men: robbers, buried in a Jewish tomb, sanctified the Sabbath by resting a full day after Good Friday, and rose again from the dead on the feast of firstfruits. This passivity must have been unbearable, since Jesus even claimed to have more than twelve legions of angels at His prayed command (Matthew 26:53).
"No man takes [my life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received from My Father." -John 10:18
This is all I require to remember that Jesus is better than my passive-aggressive tendencies.
NOPE. (That's reserved for Sunday.)
Weeds must be pulled and plants must be watered. But what's a weed but a plant in the wrong place, performing the wrong function? Perhaps we'll be weeding in heaven...
"I'm home from yoga!" says my umma, and we're off to shop for a gift for her old boss's wife's birthday party. [She likes to cram birthday stuff for the last minute. Actually, make that anything that involves writing a card. Huh.] While we're there, I found a nice pair of shorts to replace my bloody ones.
Story time! I'm a teacher now. I thought I'd have more facial hair before people would call me Mr. Pollard, but God had different plans for me. Anyways, one of the Kindergarteners to whom I am teaching P.E. developed an intense nose-bleed at the end of class. She doesn't speak many English words, and she didn't understand that pressure was her remedy. Her cure was crying loudly and rubbing her bloody hands all over her face. In my attempts to wipe her face, apply pressure, and keep the other 11 kids in control, she bled on me. End story. (Though the rest of the kids immediately quieted and grew somber when they saw her bloody face. Huh. Interesting...)
While my mom drove us over to Kohls, I was reminded of one of my terrible tendencies. I tend to become really passive-aggressive when I'm irked. This needs to stop. It's really immature of me to clam up and refuse to address problems, especially since I see this problem corrupting loads of relationships left and right.
I was reminded tonight of one important thing pertaining to this: being aggressively passive isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it takes much willpower to restrain one's self from judging a person immediately for wrongdoing. Sometimes it takes time to heal wounds, and early attempts to reconcile would be ineffective.
Sometimes, as I quickly remember almost every time I start teaching, you have to pick the metaphorical hills you'd die upon (upon which you'd die). It's ok to let some things slide sometimes, your honor, Judge OCD. Like correcting other people's improper grammar usages. (Really? I thought usages was spelled "useages." Now it just looks too patriotic. Ahem. It's probably accurate to connect "improper grammar" with Americans. [I totally kept typing "gramma" instead of grammar right there. Also, "Americans" isn't really that accurate. I'm a Californian and a citizen of the United States of America.] Or... courtesy. Or how soon is kosher to reply to text messages or e-mails before it becomes rude. Or how simple passivity is the best way to allow a friendship to dissolve. It is good to be passive about displaying disgust, despair, unlawful or overexaggerated anger, or greed. Sometimes it's tactful and wise to remain silent and quiet. More of my musings on this topic.
Will & Rick invited me out for a night on the town. MY town of Long Beach. I'm often reminded by nights like these of how little I know of things, even my own hometown. We had fish tacos and garden salads with thick raspberry vinaigrette, and salmon. Everything divided nicely into three's that we joked that the owners of Gladstone's must be trinitarians. Our nightly conversation consisted: the lawfulness of cigarettes vs. cigars, tattoos, incense-burning in church, Wheaton University and its professors, Roger Wagner (pastor of Bayview OPC in Chula Vista), my thorny friend, archery, the appropriateness of vibrams in steak houses, the covenants of God, and the TV show Arrested Development which was filming certain scenes for the 4th season on Long Beach's Pike "Whale-watching" pier.
That was a bit irrelevant. I just like those two guys enough to throw a shout-out for them. Read their bloggings, reader!
Now, to get to the real point, this is where Jesus demonstrates that He's better than my passive-aggressive tendencies: He's the ultimate example of picking the right hill to die on. Though I can't tell you why He would, He was carted out of the city, to the place of meeting, where God met His people at the tabernacle and where the scapegoat was released, to die on a hill named Golgotha (that is, the Place of the Skull), reminiscent of the triumphal march of a Roman general, where He paid retail price for my sins. It blows me away.
Here's the kicker, though. Jesus was aggressively passive when He was being crucified!
Jesus's work is often divided by theologians into two categories: active and passive obedience to the law of God. The active obedience was accomplished when Jesus purposefully fulfilled the law and obeyed the authorities over Him, honored His parents, sanctified the Sabbath, and feared the LORD with His whole heart, soul, and strength, to name a few. Jesus was passively obedient when He was tried by a false-priest Pilate, condemned by the Jews, slain by the Romans by the wayside, hung between His best men: robbers, buried in a Jewish tomb, sanctified the Sabbath by resting a full day after Good Friday, and rose again from the dead on the feast of firstfruits. This passivity must have been unbearable, since Jesus even claimed to have more than twelve legions of angels at His prayed command (Matthew 26:53).
"No man takes [my life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received from My Father." -John 10:18
This is all I require to remember that Jesus is better than my passive-aggressive tendencies.
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