Eyes Open, Heart Aflame

April 2, 2017

Day 92: The Mourning Dance Of Joy: 
"The young women will dance for joy, and the men—old and young—will join in the celebration. I will turn their mourning into joy. I will comfort them and exchange their sorrow for rejoicing."
—Jeremiah 31:13

I appreciate Anderson's lesson today mostly because I was feeling a bit unsettled by my thoughts yesterday—particularly the idea that enjoying our earthly life is somehow frowned upon. That we should always be focused on things above.

Anderson explained that his family had experienced a painful tragedy and a counselor that they had been seeing suggested that they "take up a new hobby—something mindless and repetitive that would engage both the right and left sides of [their] brains." They choose ballroom dancing and through that experience they were able to laugh together and "exchange [their] sorrow for joy."  In sharing about his ballroom dancing experience he encourages us to "live in the moment" and to find pleasure in it.

I found that idea refreshing because it validated my perspective that this earthly life is to be enjoyed and appreciated. That we can live in the moment and not constantly be pining for some perceived better existence, some greater reward as if the air in our lungs and the beat of our heart is not enough.

I am not saying that the scriptures are faulty. I think they serve a purpose. I just wish that they were not used is such a fashion as to diminish the life we live on earth. There is so much guilt attached to finding joy in earthly pleasures. Even seemingly innocent activities like dancing can be portrayed as sinful if someone perceives it to be distracting you from God, luring you away from "things above." I have personally experienced such use of scriptures, or should I say abuse.

I am at a point in my life and in my walk with God where I can no longer just accept every word of the Bible as it has been formerly presented to me. Things that I used to take for granted as undeniable truth, I now question. Perhaps I shouldn't, but this is where I am at right now. I accept that. I am happier wrestling through my questions than I ever was blindly following. When I come to the end of my life, I want to be able to say that I lived with my eyes open and my heart aflame.