Blog 001: The Half Hearted Mind
I aspire to think well. When I was nine years old, I was placed in math competitions against my classmates, which were put on by a local university. I won first place multiple times. These trivial, seemingly pointless games, would prove to be the Capri Sun-adrenaline pumping excitement I needed in order to realize thinking is fun. Somewhere along the road I learned that it is more fun when done well. More funner some might say.
I want my thoughts to move effortlessly in my brain, akin to the movement of Roger Federer’s feet along the baseline. I want my thoughts to be worth contemplating, giving them the honor to live past their maker and to establish their home on the page as the ink wraps its arms around the fibers. I want my thoughts to lead me to action and captivate my heart. Thinking well is hard work, but I desire to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind. So, I will gladly take this journey. And you, well, you are more than welcome to come along for the ride.
Before we talk about thinking well, we must contemplate the opposite. For this, we’ll call upon C.S. Lewis. In The Great Divorce, the narrator says,
“Of course. Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith. Just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for a moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are not sincere in that sense are not innocent.” (p. 38)
We are malleable creatures. We think our beliefs are firmly found until someone with wit, who’s read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, comes along and caricaturizes everything we believe in. What then? Some days, we treat our minds like an Amazon shopping cart on Cyber Monday, letting things sit there without evaluating its worth, or even worse, consuming all that meets the eye. Our minds are precious. I forget this often. This paragraph by Lewis is brilliant because it reveals a way in which lazy thoughts can eat away at our beliefs. Our heart, therefore, has no room to breath and suffocates. Or rather it is blinded, and follows anything that can give it light. The heart needs to be reeled and trained, like a well guided ship. Oh, the heart is so good, for from it flows the springs of life. And yet, it’s left to wonder because the mind is weak and cannot lead. The mind, a masterpiece of a machine, comprehends the world around us faster than 5G speeds, but if not used properly, can prove to be the very source that will lead us astray and breakdown when we need it most, similar to 5G speeds. Then, the cobwebs will give birth to unwanted thoughts. And soon, if we never make an attempt to wrestle with them, we enter into a ring with Deception and he is all but scared. He crouches at the door and we must master him. In Paradise Lost, John Milton says,
“The mind can make a Heaven of Hell and a Hell of Heaven.” (Book V, Line 300)
What do we make of the battle ring inside our heads? How do we win? It feels as if telling someone to think well is like asking them to take a step towards the sky with no stairs. How can we possibly get better at thinking when we need to learn how to think, in order to think better? We must renew the mind. We must meditate on the words of honey for they lead us to the source of life. We must let the Master master us through the captivating glory of his Son. We must learn from Him, as He is the Word, the creator of words, the great master of words. His speech perfects and completes, never lacking in substance. For his pure words are truly sufficient. They breathe life.
I am deeply grateful for the incredibly wonderous gift of thought. To whoever reads this, thank you for making it this far. I hope this blog will continue to spark inspiration and help you along the way to your destination. Assuming you and I are apart of some beautiful narrative, I am simply trying to play my role in helping you until my last scene. For my time is limited here and so is yours. Well, you know, keep going about your day. For each day, the time and grace given is sufficient for all things pertaining to his will.
Until next time, friend.
The waves body slam the shore
The rocks embrace, ready for impact
After minutes of stress and shear forces, they take a breath. “Whew”
The set is over.
The rocks celebrate as they dry. Unfortunately, they forgot their towels. The sun will have to do.
But the waves aren’t done.
They will come back, every fifteen minutes that is
Like a wound-up car, they are storing their energy
They are invisible, ever so slightly increasing their stature.
But you, the reader, must know, this is a friendly game
They do this every day.
Some cuts and bruises of course, but no harm done
This game is centuries old, millennia even.
The Spirit was probably witnessing this game as he was hovering above them
Every now and then, they see Him.
Or, rather I should say, He tickles them as he empowers them towards the shore.
They call him Ruach
They saw Him flood the Earth and part the Sea of Reeds.
The waves say this was the most fun they’ve ever had
Now, they don’t see Him do those things as often, but they see Him in other beautiful creatures.
Like the wind, He comes and goes, always with his companions.
Sometimes, the waves and rocks wonder, “Why is He in some and not others?”
No time for that. Time to get back to playing.
And the rocks all yelled, “Braces yourselves!”
Weekly Recommendations
Food
Cauliflower Steak by Gordan Ramsey
Music
As She Dreams by Goth Babe
Podcast
A Christian Sense of Time… by From Babylon, With Love
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
