Life's Often Overlooked Blessings and Thais This Saturday...
Here is a post form my Noble Pursuits blog. I conceived the notion that it might be a timely addtion to this blog as it deals with things close to my heart despite the subject of the blog. I hope that my readers find it duly appropriate, I pray they enjoy it. In keeping with the topic mainly associated with this blog, please allow me to courteously remind everyone that the Met's Live in HD broadcast of Jules Massenet's Thais starring the radiant Renee Fleming and talented Thomas Hampson this Saturday, December 20, 2008. I hope to go and see it, but I am not sure if I shall be able to watch what promises to be an excellent performance, so I expect to read many posts reviewing the event coming Monday (or whenever everybody finds time to write of it).
Not long ago as I let my mind drift away, allowing it to flow freely from subject to subject, I found myself asking how people could make Christmas lists for all of the things the year has not already brought them and not make another list of the things with which God had so generously blessed them. Of course, I divined the obvious reason for this abnormality in human behavior immediately thereafter, and that is because if we as humans have not practiced discipline and modesty in the area of want, we cannot see what things we still possess. I could perhaps give a lengthier, more explanatory exploration of this, and I may puprose to do so in future, but that would be to digress from the topic at hand. I populated my list as follows. May God continue to enlighten me to the blessings of ordinary life daily.
First and foremost, God allows me to spend this most sacred holiday with my immediate family. Of this I am very glad, for there are too many in the world today, particularly the soldiers protecting our country, who are not afforded this grand privilege. Let us pray that these honorable men and women who deserve our deepest gratitude and highest respect shall be able to come home soon, but only after our work abroad is finished. I can also add that I shall have a warm house in which to congregate with my family for Christmas Day, and this is more than so many of the homeless people in the world can say. I am the first to admit that there are many of these people of nefarious repute and that they have no intention to labor to rescue themselves from their present condition of ill fortune, but there are yet many who are people of virtue and who would willingly do whatever they could to help themselves. Let us pray for these latter ones, that in the coming year God will provide for them a way to deliver themselves, and for the former also, that they may accept wisdom on the matter and educate themselves to cast away the chains of helplessness and look to God for providence.
I also must thank God for His divine providence and care for me that I have had the opportunity to aid and work for a ninety-five-year-old man who has offered me so much in the way of knowledge and wisdom. It is through this man that my ardent liking of piano music has grown this past year. I pray that he remains in a state of good health until I may see him again next year. I petition God that he may have a blessed Christmas though he has no relatives.
Third, I offer God my gratitude for the two marvelously wonderful acquaintances, Leah and Samantha, that I have made in so short a time of creating my blogs. They are nicer than I ever expected anyone with an identity on the Internet to be to me. I thank them for making my foray into blogging a pleasant one. I pray that God lets me have the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of their distinguished company for many years to come. If they become professional singers, I shall track their engagements with genuine, avid interest. May God bless them both immensely for showing kindness to a stranger according to the promises He has made.
Finally, for brevity's sake, though there is so much more I could put on this "Christmas list" for which I am thankful, let me conclude with thanking God blessing us with the gift of life. We go on, day after day, without ever thinking about the impressive capabilities with which God designed us to function. We are not mere robots! We have the enviable ability to reason upon multiple levels about different things based on incoming data. We alone possess this amazing attribute of all of the other animals which God created. Let us be thankful that God chose us to be His precious children, and not the apes, whom the evolutionists would have us believe are our cousins or fathers, depending on how one views the relationship between time and evolution. Perhaps sometime soon I shall write of this excellent creation of God's world. I pray that God provides me with the wisdom and eloquence to effect that end.
-Tyler.
Not long ago as I let my mind drift away, allowing it to flow freely from subject to subject, I found myself asking how people could make Christmas lists for all of the things the year has not already brought them and not make another list of the things with which God had so generously blessed them. Of course, I divined the obvious reason for this abnormality in human behavior immediately thereafter, and that is because if we as humans have not practiced discipline and modesty in the area of want, we cannot see what things we still possess. I could perhaps give a lengthier, more explanatory exploration of this, and I may puprose to do so in future, but that would be to digress from the topic at hand. I populated my list as follows. May God continue to enlighten me to the blessings of ordinary life daily.
First and foremost, God allows me to spend this most sacred holiday with my immediate family. Of this I am very glad, for there are too many in the world today, particularly the soldiers protecting our country, who are not afforded this grand privilege. Let us pray that these honorable men and women who deserve our deepest gratitude and highest respect shall be able to come home soon, but only after our work abroad is finished. I can also add that I shall have a warm house in which to congregate with my family for Christmas Day, and this is more than so many of the homeless people in the world can say. I am the first to admit that there are many of these people of nefarious repute and that they have no intention to labor to rescue themselves from their present condition of ill fortune, but there are yet many who are people of virtue and who would willingly do whatever they could to help themselves. Let us pray for these latter ones, that in the coming year God will provide for them a way to deliver themselves, and for the former also, that they may accept wisdom on the matter and educate themselves to cast away the chains of helplessness and look to God for providence.
I also must thank God for His divine providence and care for me that I have had the opportunity to aid and work for a ninety-five-year-old man who has offered me so much in the way of knowledge and wisdom. It is through this man that my ardent liking of piano music has grown this past year. I pray that he remains in a state of good health until I may see him again next year. I petition God that he may have a blessed Christmas though he has no relatives.
Third, I offer God my gratitude for the two marvelously wonderful acquaintances, Leah and Samantha, that I have made in so short a time of creating my blogs. They are nicer than I ever expected anyone with an identity on the Internet to be to me. I thank them for making my foray into blogging a pleasant one. I pray that God lets me have the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of their distinguished company for many years to come. If they become professional singers, I shall track their engagements with genuine, avid interest. May God bless them both immensely for showing kindness to a stranger according to the promises He has made.
Finally, for brevity's sake, though there is so much more I could put on this "Christmas list" for which I am thankful, let me conclude with thanking God blessing us with the gift of life. We go on, day after day, without ever thinking about the impressive capabilities with which God designed us to function. We are not mere robots! We have the enviable ability to reason upon multiple levels about different things based on incoming data. We alone possess this amazing attribute of all of the other animals which God created. Let us be thankful that God chose us to be His precious children, and not the apes, whom the evolutionists would have us believe are our cousins or fathers, depending on how one views the relationship between time and evolution. Perhaps sometime soon I shall write of this excellent creation of God's world. I pray that God provides me with the wisdom and eloquence to effect that end.
-Tyler.
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