I'm not sure if this post comes because I've just started reading 'The Irresistible Revolution' by Shane Claiborne and feel convicted about the number of possessions cluttering up my life.
Or whether I'm just weary after packing box after box in preparing to move out of my flat.
But I've aware that 'stuff' hasn't lasted. And 'stuff' has not fulfilled the promise that it seemed to have on first sight.
You know what I mean. The item of clothing that you just had to have. The cool item of furniture that would impress all your friends. That DVD. That CD. Those shoes.
At the time, you wonder how life could ever possibly be fulfilled and doubt that you could ever be happy again without those items.
And today, many of those same items are going into a bin bag to find their future entirely dependant on the tastes of customers in a charity shop at a given moment in time.
Turns out that I can live without them after all.
Just wish I'd realised that at the time.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Being Indifferent Makes No Difference
Philip Yancey wrote that 'the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference'.
Like most things that he writes, that quotation is both insightful and inspiring. And if understood properly, should make a lot of us feel uncomfortable too.
I don't need to explain to anyone reading this that our world is hurting and there are so many in such dire need of help. Of love.
And yet I find it so very easy to be indifferent. So very convenient.
To leave it to someone else.
To argue 'Yes, I'd like to but I have to go and...'
To look the other way, turn the music up on my iPod and pretend I didn't see.
To say I'm tired.
To find any number of hundreds of other excuses.
And I find myself constantly bemoaning the state of the world whilst remaining completely indifferent to it.
And this means I need to change and make some brutal changes in my life in order to change the things in this world that I don't like. Changes that mean more than just stopping in the street to sign a petition for Amnesty International or to buy a copy of the Big Issue. Changes that put the onus on me to roll my sleeves up, get involved, forget about myself and what I might want.
What am I talking about?
I'm talking about stepping away from indifference and choosing the opposite.
love.
I'll let you know how I get on.
Like most things that he writes, that quotation is both insightful and inspiring. And if understood properly, should make a lot of us feel uncomfortable too.
I don't need to explain to anyone reading this that our world is hurting and there are so many in such dire need of help. Of love.
And yet I find it so very easy to be indifferent. So very convenient.
To leave it to someone else.
To argue 'Yes, I'd like to but I have to go and...'
To look the other way, turn the music up on my iPod and pretend I didn't see.
To say I'm tired.
To find any number of hundreds of other excuses.
And I find myself constantly bemoaning the state of the world whilst remaining completely indifferent to it.
And this means I need to change and make some brutal changes in my life in order to change the things in this world that I don't like. Changes that mean more than just stopping in the street to sign a petition for Amnesty International or to buy a copy of the Big Issue. Changes that put the onus on me to roll my sleeves up, get involved, forget about myself and what I might want.
What am I talking about?
I'm talking about stepping away from indifference and choosing the opposite.
love.
I'll let you know how I get on.
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