Passionate and Forgiving
Passionate and Forgiving. I bet a lot of religious connotations come to your mind when you read those words, especially on a page like this where you know I'll be talking about those connotations. But you'd be wrong this time, sort of.
No, I'm bringing those up because I want to talk about myself for a bit. During "small group" last night I believe I exhibited both concepts in a certain way but they may not have been interpreted the way you're thinking when you read those words. It's been bothering me since, mostly because I don't really like offending people by making it seem like I'm intimidating and argumentative (which I don't actively try to be).
I've known that I'm a passionate person for a really long time. I don't believe in Astrology anymore, but I believed for a very long time that I was the quintessential Scorpio (and, whether I believe in Astrology or not, I am still the quintessential Scorpio). It's not that I like to argue, or even that I prefer to disagree, or take the "con" side every time (like a local DJ); it's just that I attack things with fervor. In the theological and religious sense, I tend to attack people's points of view with fervor, as you might see if you read past entries here. I don't mean to attack them at all, but in real life it sometimes comes across that way, and makes me look like a big jerk. So I'm sorry for that, but it doesn't make me any less passionate.
As for forgiving, this word has so many train cars full of baggage behind it that it's nearly impossible to fit it on the human track. In this instance, I'd like to discuss the sense that I'm forgiving in the way that I allow for apparent things to be apparent - I don't seek revenge against Biblical words or concepts for representing an alternate point of view than I believe in. It's this piece of me that suffers a lot while writing this blog because from time to time I'm very unforgiving to certain views and concepts. Forgiveness in this sense is a sort of tolerance or allowance, and it led me to another thought while I was sitting in the car this morning.
These tattoos I wear on my arms have come to mean so many different things to me but I never thought they would represent "passionate and forgiving." On the one hand (ha ha), the justice fighter exists to battle on the side of tolerance and acceptance, particularly in the case of the minority or elbowed-out (or so I think). On the other, the sleeping dragon certainly represents my usual calm demeanor that can be easily awakened into the passionate burninator of peasants that I sometimes become.
Sometimes for me it's hard to resolve these two things - my existence, and my thought process, become a bit of a paradox when it comes to theological discussion. Faith is a unique concept in the sense that, as I'm become more and more aware, the amount of knowledge a person has does not correlate to the amount of faith they have. I'm not so bold as to say "quite the opposite," but you'll probably read into this paragraph that I'm implying it nonetheless.
Nonsense! People have faith regardless of knowledge level! There are faithful scholars just as there are faithful neophytes! No, that's not the issue here. Faith is something that you can't really "get better at with practice"; it's not a skill that can be honed, regardless of how you interpret it in the Bible. I envision faith as more like a light switch. Now, before you go running off claiming that I said you had to be either "on" or "off," I want to also add that it isn't always that way either. Some people have those fancy dimming switches and I believe that I'm one of them. In my case, the light is definitely "on," but the degree to which it is on fluctuates so often that I can barely keep my thoughts and feelings straight.
One more thing before I conclude this little diatribe of mine. I want to say that Jill forced me to face a truth last night that it was hard for me to think about at the time but it is something that I'm going to give more thought over the next few weeks. The truth is that it's hard for me to look back on how I felt in the past with the mindset that I have now. It's hard to view the things I said, did, and felt in the past tense with what I've learned and experienced since then. There's nowhere this is more true than with my faith, which is why it's such a slap in the face type of truth. Now I have to try to reconcile the steps I took with what I believed at the time and mix it in a big bowl with salt and flour to bake a big loaf of retrointrospection bread. Lots of fun!
No, I'm bringing those up because I want to talk about myself for a bit. During "small group" last night I believe I exhibited both concepts in a certain way but they may not have been interpreted the way you're thinking when you read those words. It's been bothering me since, mostly because I don't really like offending people by making it seem like I'm intimidating and argumentative (which I don't actively try to be).
I've known that I'm a passionate person for a really long time. I don't believe in Astrology anymore, but I believed for a very long time that I was the quintessential Scorpio (and, whether I believe in Astrology or not, I am still the quintessential Scorpio). It's not that I like to argue, or even that I prefer to disagree, or take the "con" side every time (like a local DJ); it's just that I attack things with fervor. In the theological and religious sense, I tend to attack people's points of view with fervor, as you might see if you read past entries here. I don't mean to attack them at all, but in real life it sometimes comes across that way, and makes me look like a big jerk. So I'm sorry for that, but it doesn't make me any less passionate.
As for forgiving, this word has so many train cars full of baggage behind it that it's nearly impossible to fit it on the human track. In this instance, I'd like to discuss the sense that I'm forgiving in the way that I allow for apparent things to be apparent - I don't seek revenge against Biblical words or concepts for representing an alternate point of view than I believe in. It's this piece of me that suffers a lot while writing this blog because from time to time I'm very unforgiving to certain views and concepts. Forgiveness in this sense is a sort of tolerance or allowance, and it led me to another thought while I was sitting in the car this morning.
These tattoos I wear on my arms have come to mean so many different things to me but I never thought they would represent "passionate and forgiving." On the one hand (ha ha), the justice fighter exists to battle on the side of tolerance and acceptance, particularly in the case of the minority or elbowed-out (or so I think). On the other, the sleeping dragon certainly represents my usual calm demeanor that can be easily awakened into the passionate burninator of peasants that I sometimes become.
Sometimes for me it's hard to resolve these two things - my existence, and my thought process, become a bit of a paradox when it comes to theological discussion. Faith is a unique concept in the sense that, as I'm become more and more aware, the amount of knowledge a person has does not correlate to the amount of faith they have. I'm not so bold as to say "quite the opposite," but you'll probably read into this paragraph that I'm implying it nonetheless.
Nonsense! People have faith regardless of knowledge level! There are faithful scholars just as there are faithful neophytes! No, that's not the issue here. Faith is something that you can't really "get better at with practice"; it's not a skill that can be honed, regardless of how you interpret it in the Bible. I envision faith as more like a light switch. Now, before you go running off claiming that I said you had to be either "on" or "off," I want to also add that it isn't always that way either. Some people have those fancy dimming switches and I believe that I'm one of them. In my case, the light is definitely "on," but the degree to which it is on fluctuates so often that I can barely keep my thoughts and feelings straight.
One more thing before I conclude this little diatribe of mine. I want to say that Jill forced me to face a truth last night that it was hard for me to think about at the time but it is something that I'm going to give more thought over the next few weeks. The truth is that it's hard for me to look back on how I felt in the past with the mindset that I have now. It's hard to view the things I said, did, and felt in the past tense with what I've learned and experienced since then. There's nowhere this is more true than with my faith, which is why it's such a slap in the face type of truth. Now I have to try to reconcile the steps I took with what I believed at the time and mix it in a big bowl with salt and flour to bake a big loaf of retrointrospection bread. Lots of fun!
Labels: forgiving, passionate, small groups
posted by Todd Newton at 11:40
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