Rereading some wisdom tonight — Sermon on the Mount, and Conclusion to Walden.
“Judge not lest ye be judged” (or “… that you be not judged”). That’s almost all you need right there.
But it also reminds me, in thinking about humility.
Matt 7:7: “Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, …” — reminds me that I do need to seek, that’s up to me, and to have the faith that by seeking (by going through the process), I will find.
And the humility — God providing for me — 6:25 through 34 — “do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself” — and Chapter 19 about not laying up treasures on Earth. See, at once that says to me don’t fret the job, just leave it.
Yet part of me says I don’t know — I am humble enough to not presume to know — what and how God is providing for me. Maybe this teaching job is where God wants me to be for now. Who am I to presume I know what’s best for myself, and that I should take such rash moves as quitting my job? Yet, Jesus does say to seek, and Thoreau talks about dreams undreamt in common hours.
M: Jesus is saying, don’t fret about the material world, and the spiritual world is always perfect.
Stories on the news — murders, crime, no longer seem to me to be stories at all. Maybe the public, the average hearer of news, does identify with the extreme tragedies — do they empathize with victims or recoil (to boo and hiss, perhaps?) at the attacker?
p. 347 Thoreau: “If you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences.”
and p. 344: “I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extra-vagrant enough, may not wander far enough beyond the narrow limits of my daily experiences, so as to be adequate to the truth of which I have been convinced.”
[from journal of Tues., 10 May 2005, Journal 50, page 35–37]
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