Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
in cs51 lecture
i am sitting at the end of an aisle. the guy across the aisle sat next to me in the writing placement test during the first week of freshman year. i don't think he knows this. he just got up and left the room. today i found THE RANDOMEST place at harvard. someday i will take a picture of this place and post it here, so you at home can enjoy it too. the guy isn't back yet. now he is. his hair is shorter than it was 3.5 years ago. i think his name is chris, or maybe kris.
Monday, March 3, 2008
i've been thinking
there have always been certain doctrines and concepts in the gospel that have been my favorites, and while some of them may shift in and out of the top 5 spot as time goes by (as time goes by!) and i learn new things, there are the stalwart few that always give me chills: the all-encompassing love of God, the love that parents can feel for their children, the need to bear each other's burdens, joy. lately it seems that every spiritual lesson or discussion i have has boiled down to one concept - charity - and over the past school year i have been developing an ever increasing appreciation for the word.
i went to a service at memorial church on martin luther king jr. day, and while many wonderful things were said and i left completely inspired to learn as much about dr. king and read as many of his speeches as possible, my overall impression was one of muted revulsion (that might be kind of harsh, but i can't think of term that describes it better). i really enjoyed the keynote address (a woman who became a preacher in her 50s and started at harvard divinity school on september 11, 2001) until she started talking about charity. i can't remember exactly what she said, but her main point was that "charity" is becoming an increasingly meaningless term that is thrown around to describe the handouts and the attitudes of pity that people feel towards the poor. she read the relevant section from 2nd corinthians 13 and replaced every instance of the word "charity" with "caring," trying to encourage the congregation to think of the former in terms of the latter, that charity isn't just doing good things, it's feeling and caring and being involved emotionally in the well-being of others. i appreciated her message and what she was trying to do, and perhaps that's the only way you can reach some people, to rephrase tough concepts in words that they might more readily understand.
my insides were wrangling themselves into horrible little knots, however, the longer she kept talking about the outdatedness of "charity" and how what charity really means is caring, and how if we simply care about things and people we will understand what paul meant by "the greatest of these things." caring is definitely a wonderful manifestation of charity, but charity is so much more than that. the pure love of christ - it cares, it mourns, it doesn't leave room for jealousy or for hate or even for being annoyed, it necessitates the sweetest humility, it inspires constant kindness, it rejoices in everything true (not just spiritual truths, but academic and personal and other truths as well), it "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." exercising charity is the closest we can come to godliness while here on earth, and is one of the most important things we can ever possibly learn. i think that in matters of most spiritual significance we shouldn't try to come up with replacement words that appeal to our understanding but rather increase our understanding to include the full meaning of our spiritual words. caring is part of charity, but charity is so much bigger than any one other word could possibly convey.
"Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself. And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again. It makes the thought of being a basher repulsive. Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other."
- Marvin J. Ashton ('The Tongue is a Sharp Sword')
i went to a service at memorial church on martin luther king jr. day, and while many wonderful things were said and i left completely inspired to learn as much about dr. king and read as many of his speeches as possible, my overall impression was one of muted revulsion (that might be kind of harsh, but i can't think of term that describes it better). i really enjoyed the keynote address (a woman who became a preacher in her 50s and started at harvard divinity school on september 11, 2001) until she started talking about charity. i can't remember exactly what she said, but her main point was that "charity" is becoming an increasingly meaningless term that is thrown around to describe the handouts and the attitudes of pity that people feel towards the poor. she read the relevant section from 2nd corinthians 13 and replaced every instance of the word "charity" with "caring," trying to encourage the congregation to think of the former in terms of the latter, that charity isn't just doing good things, it's feeling and caring and being involved emotionally in the well-being of others. i appreciated her message and what she was trying to do, and perhaps that's the only way you can reach some people, to rephrase tough concepts in words that they might more readily understand.
my insides were wrangling themselves into horrible little knots, however, the longer she kept talking about the outdatedness of "charity" and how what charity really means is caring, and how if we simply care about things and people we will understand what paul meant by "the greatest of these things." caring is definitely a wonderful manifestation of charity, but charity is so much more than that. the pure love of christ - it cares, it mourns, it doesn't leave room for jealousy or for hate or even for being annoyed, it necessitates the sweetest humility, it inspires constant kindness, it rejoices in everything true (not just spiritual truths, but academic and personal and other truths as well), it "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." exercising charity is the closest we can come to godliness while here on earth, and is one of the most important things we can ever possibly learn. i think that in matters of most spiritual significance we shouldn't try to come up with replacement words that appeal to our understanding but rather increase our understanding to include the full meaning of our spiritual words. caring is part of charity, but charity is so much bigger than any one other word could possibly convey.
"Real charity is not something you give away; it is something that you acquire and make a part of yourself. And when the virtue of charity becomes implanted in your heart, you are never the same again. It makes the thought of being a basher repulsive. Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other."
- Marvin J. Ashton ('The Tongue is a Sharp Sword')
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