Off the cuff

Stuff I've been thinking about:

  How when a person hurts you, or bothers you a whole, whole lot they tend to take on in our minds, only one dimension or a stereotype.  The pain caused by that person makes them flat.  That person becomes, "He doesn't do anything.  He never helps me.  She doesn't like me.  She's a bully." and sadly that's where they remain, unless we take out the light and the three-D glasses.  It is far too easy to reduce people to a sentence.  It is far harder to expand the conversation and ourselves.

I have been told that having a higher education can and may open doors that would not otherwise be opened to you if you didn't have that higher education.  In this way it is a bit of freedom.  But, on the other hand, I have also noted, where having a higher education becomes a hindrance to freedom (and I am not talking about the accumulation of debt).  I think there is the modern (as in not post-modern) of you get a degree and you use that degree.  I have a few friends with PhD's that do not like doing what they are doing with that degree, but instead of feeling the freedom to explore anything, the DEGREE speaks louder than they do.  What if you looked at the degree as just a part of your life's journey and not strictly the dictation of what you will and have to do.  I thought about Olympians, and why they go for the medal.  They aim for the gold, why?  Because it's an accomplishment not many in the world may do, but what do they really do with this accomplishment?  They can feel proud of themselves.  It satisfies something in them.  Satisfies something in others.  They sacrificed a lot to feel this.  The medal does give them a voice and a platform that they did not have before.  Maybe it's the same for higher education?  It's a large sacrifice, one they can been very proud of (and other people can be very proud of them, too), and they can speak from a place of authority because of their accomplishments.  But with that being said, I know women who have said, "I have this degree, it is good, but it is not all of me."  Some have chosen a completely different route than the degree would lend itself to traditionally, but nothing in life is wasted.  I went 4 semesters to a four year university.  I did not finish anything there, but the life I lived there and the relationships I have built there have and will sustain me for a lifetime.  Don't get me wrong, if the degree works for you in the field you are in, then great, but the bottomline, don't let it speak for you.  Don't let it hold you back because you think you owe it to that degree. I wanna ask, so if you set the degree aside, if it wasn't there, then what might you do?  Be more true to you, than it.

I was reading Ezekiel, chapter 37, of the Bible.  God was very, very active and specific in the visions of Ezekiel putting dry bones to good use all so others would know who God was.  I told my husband last night that sometimes I think God is too subtle for my liking:-).  There's nothing subtle about Ezekiel 37.  No wonder I gravitate to the stories in scripture that convey the Red Sea parting, a burning bush that is not burnt, water into wine, one loaf of bread becoming many loaves without the use of a stove or baker.  All those things are so in your face.  Sometimes I need God to be in your face.  I have learned from the long walk of my faith to see things through a crack, but sometimes I would really love an obvious, "What the...?!?!" And we'd go from there, ya' know?:-)