Ruffling Feathers
It has been a fairly quiet few months around this blog, hasn’t it?! I’ve been fighting a deep exhaustion. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, considering all the changes we’ve made in the past year.
While I’ve been buried in a dark cocoon lately, a few other metamorphoses have been brewing…
When I was young, someone described me as “complacent” – in a good way, I think. Peaceful. Eager to please. Not wanting to ruffle feathers.
Lately, though, I’ve been Forming Opinions, and there has been no place for them to come out. Here are a few that have been collecting… exploding here in an untidy, splattery list:
– I’m grateful for evidence-based medicine. It saves lives, and if more doctors paid attention to good research, more lives could be saved.
– I’m grateful for the right and ability to raise my own organic food. If more people grew gardens, we wouldn’t need so much medicine. (Sometimes health is not a choice at all; sometimes it is.)
– Many forms of evangelism feel more like an attempt to justify the evangelist, rather than actually loving people as they are, as God does.
– Confession: I didn’t want to live on a farm. But I’m finding plenty of reasons to love it.
– I’m not a bit sure the earth was created in exactly seven 24-hour days, and I’m still convinced I’m saved.
Why does having an opinion feel like a grumpy thing to do? To me, none of these statements should be a shocker, but lots of people get really heated up over them. Michael and I continue to settle into our farm – our first long-term home – and our new, rapidly forming paradigms keep popping up like asparagus in the unwieldy patch in our yard. It seems like a shock to the blog to start posting these things here. I considered starting a new blog – The Grumpy Blog – but I don’t have time for the setup, so here they are.
And now for something that’s not a bit grumpy (except maybe the oldest boy, who was freezing cold on that first day of spring, and who wanted my keys so he could load everyone in the van):
With much love from your curmudgeonly, sporadic blogger friend.
Okay, so I have loved the word curmudgeon since I first heard it and then heard it applied to someone that I really like and who really is curmudgeonly. He has a really soft marshmallow heart inside and despite the curmudgeonliness (is that a word, spell check says no 😉 on the outside I can see it through his eyes when he curmudgeonly does things for me. So, if you are curmudgeonly, and better yet sporadic in blogging, I receive you with open arms. I appreciate honest and real (when kind, which you are) and it is fine to have opinions (when they aren’t crammed down others’ throats- which you don’t do) and to realize the world is very messy and we don’t know everything (at least I don’t so don’t choose me for a trivia partner). So there. Love you and love the picture of your kids.
Hi friend! Glad you’re wrestling with your thoughts and beliefs. Keep wrestling and seeking truth. God will reveal Himself in your journey for truth and belief. Stay the course, don’t get too distracted from Him and love on that family of yours!
~Hugs,
April 🙂
P.S. go dig in over at Answers In Genesis and see what you find.
You totally captured what I feel when these kind of topics come up….it’s so easy for discussions about things that are not necessarily “personal” to make us feel so defensive – as though we are the ones under attack or something….or as though God were! He certainly doesn’t need anyone to defend him, but I think somehow He does take great pleasure in us wrestling with difficult subjects, seeking truth, seeking love….seeking understanding and wisdom to apply every shred of truth that he reveals….I sure loved reading your blog….keep it up 🙂
Yep, we’re all working our way through, some at different places than others. Gotta give lots of grace, huh? Even to the people who don’t give it to us!!! And even to ourselves — one of the people we’re sometimes least likely to give it to.
I’ve never used the word “curmudgeon” before, but I definitely like it, too! Have to add it to my vocabulary!