Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Noise is the Drug. Society is the User.


I believe your craft and God's calling are headed for an intersection.  Currently the intersection is vague, nondescript... empty.  That's what you are looking for... the empty space. 

You wont find it in the clutter or the noise.  Noise is the drug.  Our society is the user.   Doped up on chaos we think we can find our place haphazardly, freely, without pain or trial.  Like the addict who needs just one more hit, we go from job to job enticed by the cacophony.  Why do we do that?  Why do we invest our lives in companies, businesses, churches, bosses that only add to the noise? Why wouldn't we find the intersection of calling and craft where we can make a difference?  There are others but there is at least one answer:  Because finding the empty space isn't easy.  It requires dextoxing from the clutter.  Searching. Waiting.   Waiting some more.  If that isn't hard enough, once you find it, then you have to make something of it.  

Yet, there is art that must be made and only you can make it. 

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"Every craftsman searches for what's not there to practice his craft.  A builder looks for the rotten hole where the roof caved in.  The water carrier picks the empty spot.  The carpenter stops at the house with no door.  Workers rush toward some hint of emptiness, which they then start to fill.  Their hope though is for emptiness so don't think you must avoid it.  It contains what you need." 



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5 comments:

Angie Mozilo said...

This is food for thought. It is hard to listen for the silence, especially when so much of the noise is necessary to the everyday life and lives that God has made us stewards of. It is so easy to get lost in that noise and just let the currents of it move us along. When the noise settles and the currents subside, we are forced to either find another current, or wait in the doldrum until God provides a way out. Either way, it is a test of patience.

Anonymous said...

The laughter of a child, or the sound of a child crying from the ravages of war? The drug or the cure? The problem is mankind is screaming so loudly that it cannot hear its anguish, nor can it hear a savior's call.
Is the cure more religion, preachers, and churches? Or is that the disease that has contributed to more cries for help? Too many voices cause the message to become noise itself, unclear and unrecognizable. The beauty of Psalm 46:10...Be still and know that I am God. This is not just an invitation to simply be stand and be silent, but rather to simply stop and acknowledge him.

Unknown said...

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore benefit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.

Lao Tzu

Jonathan Foster said...

One more useful space... an empty tomb.

Unknown said...

Exactly- it is what was NOT there that makes it so significant!!