[Alberto]"We can't all let ourselves be washed away by the tide of history, Sophie. Some of us must tarry in order to gather up what has been left along the river banks."
[Sophie]"What an odd thing to say."
[A]"Yes, but none the less true, child. We do not live in our own time alone; we carry our history within us. Don't forget that everything you see in this room was once brand new. That old sixteenth-century wooden doll might have been made for a five-year-old girl's birthday. By her old grandfather, maybe . . . then she became a teenager, then an adult, and then she married. Maybe she had a daughter of her own and gave the doll to her. She grew old, and one day she died. Although she had lived for a very long time, one day she was dead and gone. And she will never return. Actually she was only here for a short visit. But her doll - well, there it is on the shelf."
[S]"Everything sounds so sad and solemn when you talk like that."
[A]"Life is both sad and solemn. We are let into a wonderful world, we meet one another here, greet each other - and wander together for a brief moment. Then we lose each other and disappear as suddenly and unreasonably as we arrived."
Alberto goes on to discuss the Renaissance, the rebirth, and the "rebirth of antiquity's humanism," and the lifting up of the individual. Marsilio Ficino said during this time: "Know thyself, O divine lineage in mortal guise!"
My Dad painted a huge painting called "The Second Question." The first panel of this painting simply asks: "Who are you?" The reason it's called The Second Question is because the first question should be "Who is Jesus?"
I think sometimes I get caught up in being introspective and trying to know who I am. I switch the order of the questions. I know a lot of people who do the same, who constantly are on a search for who they are. Often I forget Paul's words, that in Christ we live and move and have our being. The footnotes of my Bible explain that here Paul answers three of the great mysteries of the ancient world in terms of philosophy and science: life, motion and being.
There is an order to things. Ask first who is Christ, seek to know Him before I can seek to know who I am.
This is not so much a light bulb moment as a rediscovery of something I need to be reminded of, and clicked again when I was reading about the Renaissance. This book is much better the second time around & when read side-by-side with Sovereignty of God.
[confession: sometimes when I comment on other blogs, i get nervous for them to read what i write, so I just comment with a fake name. i know, it's silly.]
Today at work, Sabrina and I cleaned the windows with coffee filters that were the wrong size for our big coffee machines. Instead of tossing them we use them for cleaning to save paper towels/dishtowels. That's right, we are innovative. We listened to "Say a Little Prayer for You" whilst cleaning and we busted some moves out. We also heard "Fire and Rain" which I discovered makes me full of happy feelings. Is that song from the Remember the Titans soundtrack? Any song from that soundtrack makes me happy & i don't really know why... that movie must have really made an impact on my life as a child?
p.s. 46 days.
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