Or as my co-workers call it, Zombie Jesus Day! Also, this Sunday is the day of my first Branches and Roots blog post and, to be completely honest, this is the post I am the most nervous about putting out onto the internet for the world to see. You see, when I begin to talk about myself in a setting like this, I tend to try to sound affluent and intelligent. As a writer, there is tendency to write about yourself in your best writing as if you are writing a memoir. We wants our words, especially the ones about ourselves, to appear to be worth read. But, as is the case with many memoirs, attempts to sound well-read and worthwhile are only successful in coming off as disingenuous and pretentious. See some of my earlier blog for examples.
Simple hint for young writers: don't try to sound smart when writing. Your writing will sound smart or it will not. You, for the most part, do not control that and forcing the matter will turn off a reader quicker than almost anything. Write they way that satisfies you, not the imaginary audience that wants you to sound witty, clever, or smart.
That all being said, my Branches and Roots blog posts are going to be me writing about myself, and, no matter how they turn out, I'm going to try to get the most out of them that I can. Sorry to any loyal readers out there, but these blogs are for my own sake more than they are for yours. I do hope, however, that you enjoy reading them as much as I do writing them.
I'm tempted to write something about Easter Sunday today since it is certainly appropriate, but I'm hesitant for a couple reasons. With particularly "Christian" days such as Easter and Christmas, I've always had this expectation that some sort of revelation or life-changing experience would occur, as if God marked down those days especially in his date book to be particularly talkative and revealing. Waking up in the morning or walking out of church on those days, I would force a sense of "this is the first day of the rest of my mentality" and begin to plan how I would begin to turn my life around. My thoughts end up in the self-important and pretentious camp, and I start to track from what really matters about Easter and Christmas. So, let me get some things straight before I continue: We all know why Easter is important and I'm guessing most of you reading this blog have heard everything I could possibly say about the manner by a pastor or priest this morning, probably in a better fashion than anything I could put to words on a blog.
So, what am I writing about this Easter Sunday?
Well, today, my pastor talked about the image of God and what the miracle of Easter reveals to us about our images of God. He brought up Acts 17:29 which reads, "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone- an image made by man's design and skill." In the passage, the writer of Acts is referring to the city of Athens and their many gods and their excess of spirituality. Their image of God was cast in the gold, silver, and stone of which the passage talks. While we in the modern age do not build gods out of precious medals, my pastor was lead by the spirit to point out that the verse bring a much more important message to the modern Christian.
We are the offspring of God. He created us in his image and not the other way around. With this in mind, how can we, as the creations of God, even dare to use our own imaginations to create an image of God? Even one that just remains in our head. How can we disrespect everything our complex and wonderful Father is by containing it within the limited space of the human imagination? Everything I equate with God (Father, Savior, Sheppard, etc.) is merely images my simple brain uses to try to contain the enormity that is the idea of a holy God. The next verse of Acts says that God views are attempts at creating an image of him as acts of ignorance and stupidity.
As a writer and an overall imaginative and emotional person, this revelation hit me hard. The main way I associate and communicate with God is through my image of him. How am I supposed to know what to expect from something I can't even wrap my head around? It dawned on me today that is exact how the nature of God works. By creating an image of God for ourselves to relate to, we are asserting control over who God is, and there is nothing that God has ever done or said that would make us think that we have any control over who he is. I am who I am because of who God is, not the other way around. All those years of Easter in the past where I thought Christian holidays were important to God was just another example of my weak attempts to reflect my own image onto God. God, as evidenced through the Bible and not through my preconceived ideas of who he is, is ready and willing to intercede in our lives every single day we are alive and breathing. Easter is a great day to remember what Jesus did on the cross for us but I think that is no more important than every other day of the year since, just like every other day, God is with us.
Thanks for reading everyone. I know that writing my thoughts down in this blog help me a ton in working out my thoughts on matters that are beyond what my mind can really grasp. I guess most Branches and Roots posts are going to drone on like this one does, but, either way, I hope you have a fantastic day in the presence of God.
Happy Zombie Jesus Day!
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