Schuyler Fisk Soothes My Soul

So it's the week before Spring Break and things are crazy and my room's a mess and things just seem...overwhelming.

So I'm laying in bed covered in dark chocolate wrappers and listening to this song over and over...

Not Exactly Original

So it's raining out and I'm listening to Jennifer Knapp and guzzling coffee and pretending to read Paradise Lost...

But instead I'm thinking about this poem, because I think it was written for a day exactly like this one...

Lines for Winter
By Mark Strand 
 

for Ros Krauss

 

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

you find yourself—

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back

and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are.

No Longer in Love

So this post has been brewing in my mind for a while...

It all started when I read this comment on a Facebook post a week or two ago:

"We try so very hard to create perfection in our lives because we believe it will give us something more. In actuality, all we are doing is putting our imperfections on a pedestal. Sometimes, you just have to look at it and say, ”close enough”, and get on with life."

A few days before that I'd written my little rant about modern Christianity that if you missed you can read here. At the end of that post I talked about how I've changed since I first started blogging. And that I didn't really know how to describe that change, but that I just knew it had taken place. 

So when I read the above statement about perfection it got me thinking...it's been a long time since I have been obsessively consumed with being perfect. I'm no longer in love with flawlessness.

If you're new around here then you've missed this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, this post, and this post. 


Just kidding. I don't really expect you guys to read all seventeen of those. So I'll sum them up for you.


Basically all of them in some way ranted about my lack of perfection and my extreme desire to be completely and totally flawless. Looking back I can't believe how consumed with being perfect I was! I see the idolatry I committed over and over again by focusing fully on my flaws (Did you like my alliteration there?!?).


When I look back at my year and a half of posting I see a girl who has spent a long time being way too hard on herself. Introspection, conviction, and bettering oneself aren't wrong. But being imprisoned by guilt and the desire for perfection is.


How did my making myself miserable glorify GOD? How was I supposed to have the time and energy to focus on Him when I wasted all of that time and energy trying to be perfect? 


Now I've learned to strive for peace instead of perfection. Peace with GOD. Peace with the people in my life. Peace with myself. 


This is such a more beautiful place in life to be.