wow

What a beautiful morning it is. I woke up as usual, showered and then sat in my chair. I have this tacky, red velvety chair inherited from my dad. He had it before we became a part of his family and we've kept it through the years. Of course my mom changed most of his house around when it became their house..but this item somehow survived through the years. I can't seem to part with it, I mean it's not even comfortable and it's bulky and tall and has an unsightly dark brown frame, but it's a chair that reminds me of our old house, the house I grew up in and when we used to do things as a family. Once upon a time, when my dad was still full of life... when he was passionate about life, and painted, took photographs, when we'd take trips to the lake...

i love that chair.

I often sit in it to do my quiet time in the morning, or just sit and ponder and it's set up right beside my bedroom window. My bedroom looks out from the second floor of the house, I enjoy the elevated view even if it's of a suburban neighborhood in which every house looks identical. Anyway, this morning I was pleasantly suprised to see the skies were dark and grey, filled with clouds... The drive to work was exhilirating, I blared music with my windows rolled down and found comfort in the cold, wintry air... and I felt God. Today was a day that He had specifically crafted... each intricate detail the work of His hands- the temperature, the scents, the colours, the clouds... my soul.

So I'm wrapping up the last few pages of Miller's book, Searching For God Knows What. Like Miller's other works, it is a written in a very accesible way, and some might consider his style to be sophmoric or what have you, but I think he expresses some significant ideas here... I've been pondering some of them the last couple of days, one major string of concepts in particular has grabbed my attention.

See the main concept of Miller's book, to give you a little context, is that we seek our value and self worth in other people. This is no radical idea, but I really don't think people give it much thought.

At least for me, this is true. See I didn't realize the extent of how much the opinions of others determined my self worth, or if I did, I didn't see it as necessarily being a problem. I always told myself, "we all want to be loved and accepted and appreciated" and left it at that...without seeing the imperative.

In one chapter, Miller imagines being an alien who comes down to earth and sits with him and his roommate Grant. The author thinks an alien might make some observations about our "normal" ways of life, with some objectivity i suppose. He writes (in alien voice):

But after I got over all of this and sat down to have a beer with some people, really finding out what they were interested in, what they loved and hated, there would be one thing I would notice that would kind of explain everything. And by everything, I mean all the stuff that makes a person want to live his life a certain way or the stuff that drives a person's thoughts... I told Grant that I would say to the head alien, "The thing that defines human personalities is that they are constantly comparing themselves to one another." That is how an alien would see the world, in my opinion It is obvious to me there is something wrong with us; there is something incomplete.

Miller carries on this imaginary pow wow with his roomate Grant and the alien. They are watching the Trailblazers game on t.v. and the alien just can't understand why 20,000 people go to see who the better team is. They flip through shows like Rank, that ranks people based on their physical features, and Survivor, The Bachelor, Fear factor...etc. All of course have similar themes... comparing people... comparing their value, worth...

More on this later...so stay tuned.