Wind Blows Deeply

I often find it interesting the sorts of phrases people use in search engines and then end up on my blog. The latest one, which took me a bit aback, landed me entry #104 on the google search for: free photos of bride’s first night
Who knew?

purpose [per'pes] -n- 1. something one intends to get or do; plan; aim; intention 2. an object or end of which a thing is made, done, used

… of my life
to love

… of God
I may never know — and really, that’s not quite the right question to be asking

… of this blog
to create yet another mask for which you can look at me by — I dare not bare all, sometimes not even to myself
it’s sort of like the moon – most of us only see one side of the moon, a select few have seen the other side, and no one knows it in entirety
and for yet another simile, the end result is like looking through a piece of wavy glass – the object is still visible, yet very much distorted

…. of my career
The Oath of Maimonides
Thy eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. May the love for my art actuate me at all times; may neither avarice nor miserliness, nor thirst for glory, or for a great reputation engage my mind; for the enemies of truth and philanthropy could easily deceive me and make me forgetful of my lofty aim of doing good to Thy children. May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain. Grant me strength, time and opportunity always to correct what I have acquired, always to extend its domain; for knowledge is immense and the spirit of man can extend infinitely to enrich itself daily with new requirements. Today he can discover his errors of yesterday and tomorrow he may obtain a new light on what he thinks himself sure of today. O, God, Thou hast appointed me to watch over the life and death of Thy creatures; here am I ready for my vocation, and now I turn unto my calling.

today i slept in. that meant no shower, no breakfast. just up, dressed, grab a michelina’s, a literally run out the door. thirty steps out the door and i have a huge wave of nausea pass over me – no puking, mind you – just some decent nausea with a little woosiness thrown in for good measure. this continued all the way to work.
so then, all day at work, the nausea is gone, but the woosiness persists. i’m still sort of in training, but i’m making the stupidist of mistakes – asking for clarification on things that i knew down-pat during my first week.

besides all that, the past while i’ve had that discontented, almost anxious, sort of feeling. melancholy is a bit too strong of a word. a general unrest, something i can’t quite put a finger on and because i can’t quite put a finger on it, i therefore cannot fix it either. (or tell someone else what it is so they can fix it for me.) how ’bout i blame it on the weather? … cold, grey, rainy for days on end. that ought to do it, right?

I very well may have blogged on this topic before, but it has been haunting me for some time now. So, after some procrastination, I have plopped myself down in front of the computer and am determined to get this thing written.

I happen to think I’m a darn good pharmacist. And, at times, I truly enjoy being a pharmacist. I’m just not sure I’m completely passionate about being a pharmacist–and somewhere in my deep dark recesses I seem to think I should be passionate about what I do.

I’m not confident in the fact that I’m doing what God wants me to be doing (more on this later), but I trust that He will use what I am doing in His plan. I don’t know if I’m right, but I’ve formulated the idea that God wants us where we are fully using the talents and abilities He has endowed us with. Perhaps my problem exists as I blur the line between my definitions of passionate and passion and passions and calling and vocation.

And I’ve been reading Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, and for 3 days in a row (August 3-5) Chambers has discussed purpose. A few excerpts…

The great thing to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s purpose, not our own.
At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as the what God’s purpose is–”I am meant to go here or there,” “God has called me to do this special work”; and we go and and do the things, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is as much scaffolding compared with the big compelling of God.

… if you have let Him bring you to the end of your self-sufficiency then He can choose you to go with Him to Jerusalem, and that will mean the fulfilling of purposes which He does not discuss with you.
As Christians we are not out for our own at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause. We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him whatever happens.
The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship.

The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God know what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes.
If we are in communion with God and recognize that He is taking us into His purposes, we shall no longer try to find out what His purposes are. As we go on in the Christian life it gets simpler, because we are less inclined to say–Now why did God allow this and that? Behind the whole thing lies the compelling of God. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends.” A Christian is one who trusts the wits and the wisdom of God, and not his own wits. If we have a purpose of our own, it destroys the simplicity and the leisureliness which ought to characterize the children of God.

So that’s that. I still question my materialism. I don’t understand why I take my family and friends for granted. I regret that so often I fail to allow God first priority. I do not want to live with these regrets–or any regrets for that matter.

Justin, a friend of a friend … whom I first met at a Manitoba social (if you don’t know what this is, ask me later), and I recently got into a discussion on blogging via instant messager.
Not really knowing Justin (and not having asked him if I could do this), I went ahead and decided to post a bit of our conversation. I found it rather intriguing.

[your blogging philosophy: blog for the reader or blog for you or blog for _____?]
Mainly for myself. If people like what I read, good for them. I share what I find amusing, or wish to have an opinion on. But I don’t publish my blog on any public lists, and I have it hidden away from the main page of my site. I suppose I have quite a few posts about my blogging philosophy
I don’t blog looking for sympathy. I don’t blog as a matter of gossip.
I don’t blog for the vicarious emotional whores out there.
I blog mainly to keep people up to date with what’s going on with my life.
I used to send out mass e-mails, now I just blog.
In other words, I have no clue.

[have you found blogging takes the place of or takes away from in-person conversation?]
There’s no excuse for not speaking personally to someone
Blogging (along with every other medium) is just supplement to other forms of communication in my opinion. It supplants nothing.
I think that’s where people get easily confused. I think people tend to replace human interaction with instant messenging, et al. It’s quite tragic really.
E-mail, blogging, instant messaging, etc all have their specific purpose.
Well, some people are just more articulate with the written word… but the internet being as it may, and blogs being a passive medium, it allows for extended opinions without interruption or immediate confrontation.
and misunderstanding
… which is caused by the lack of human interaction and inflection.
I think that messaging in this manner, whether it be blog comments, usenet, BBS’s, etc takes a very formal point/counter point structure (or in many cases, descends to the level of a 3rd grade argument at recess)….
I think this written word really allows people to formulate their arguments more
providing a strong gamut of opinions, whereas an oral conversation falls victim to the immediacy and appropriateness of whatever argument you’re capbable of remembering at that time.

The link to Justin’s blog has been added to my list of links. Have a look if you like.