Day Six! A Good Thing to Find?

A friend sent me this article yesterday. I hope you'll forgive me if I cross-post my reaction from my other blog; it seems relevant to the conversation we're having here:

The article astounds, baffles, and exasperates me. A girl agrees to tie herself to a man two decades older than she is with a 15 foot rope, live a celibate life with him forever (in a YURT no less) and people are flocking to her for relationship advice?

Shouldn't there be some point at which we look at the people we're seeking counsel from and think, "Do I really want to end up where s/he is?" How many of us want to end up tied to an old guy in a yurt???

I wonder if this is where my parents thought I was headed, all those times I came home and explained how they needed to spread salt around their house to absorb any negative energy, lest they suffer harm when Mercury came into retrograde?

At the very least, spiritual exploration gives us funny stories to share at cocktail parties. You know, once we've left the yurt and vaccummed up all the loose salt from our parents' living room...

In other words, who am I to judge? Except that to some extent, we ARE supposed to judge: not in the condemnation/denouncing sense, but rather in terms of asking ourselves the question I pose above (the one I failed for so many years to ask): "Do I really want to end up where s/he is?" and the all-important follow-up: "Given my answer, should I seek their counsel?"

It makes me wonder why I was so quick to line up for weird advice?

One of the fun things that jumped out at me when I started considering this idea of wisdom and where to find it, was how closely Proverbs describes the benefits of finding wisdom and the benefits of finding a wife:

"Whoever finds me [wisdom] finds life and receives favor from the Lord."--Proverbs 8:35

"He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord."--Proverbs 18:22

It suggests a parallel, I think. Or perhaps it just struck me this way because the job of "wife" seemed utterly unattainable, and I'd been so dumb in my past relationships. (Clearly, the book "He's Just Not That Into You" was written with me in mind). These passages suggested that the future could be different. They inspired me to seek out people--wives especially, but people in other areas, too--who were where I wanted to be in life, and discard advice from people I didn't actually want to follow.

Today, let's consider where we're getting our wisdom, and ask ourselves tough-love questions about whether our advisors are standing where we want to end up? (Note: mostly what I'm talking about here, for me at least, are books, tv shows, magazine articles...things we look to as "expert advice" that may not be all that expert. I'm NOT suggesting that anyone call up their mother or Great Aunt Hilda and say, "I'm not listening to you any more!!!" We still want to abide by the "Love is kind" rule wherever possible!)

Today's song: I just discovered the gorgeous music of Brooke Fraser. If you're looking for something cool to listen to, check out "Shadowfeet."

An administrative note: I won't be posting tomorrow (Sunday). I'll be in Chicago, away from my computer. At first this really bugged me, but then I had one of those "intersecting thoughts" that probably came from God (It's unlikely I'd have come up with it on my own): If we're seeking God together for huge, wonderful answers to prayer, it's probably not a great idea to blow off one of the Ten Commandments! (The one about keeping a sabbath where we don't work is the one I'm thinking of, but I'd also suggest avoiding murder, adultery, and coveting to whatever extent we can.) So instead of a usual post, I thought of this:

How about if Sundays are the days we live as if we KNOW our prayers are being answered? If instead of saying, "Please God, could you do/bring/change_____," we instead say, "THANK YOU God that you're doing/bringing/changing ______; thank you that you hear and that you answer.... "

It seems like something worth practicing :)