the Microcosmic Us

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how unbelievably complicated the universe is. Everything can be dissected into something smaller. It blows my mind to learn about the human body and all of the things that are going on inside of it. Every action and reaction is part of a system that makes something bigger than itself function. One system allows a bigger set of things to work in its own bigger system and so on.

If I stare at the ground out for long enough I might see bugs crawling around. If I think about each bug individually and all of the tiny parts that make up that bug and what makes those parts function and how that bug somehow functions within the natural environment, affecting all the other bugs and all the other things like dirt and flowers and trees and people and how incredibly connected everything is it makes my head reel.  

I started to think about microcosms and how our cells are like microcosms of our bodies. Are our bodies microcosms of something? Some bunch of people functioning for a purpose bigger than they even know?

When we read the Old Testament at the beginning of the schoolyear at PBU we were told that a lot of what the Hebrew people did was all for an example or a picture. For example, they sacrificed animals to atone for sin in order to foreshadow the coming of Christ—who fulfilled the need alluded to by the picture offered by animal sacrifices. Their cycle of disobedience and repentance as a nation is can be understood by us as a relate-able example of what happens when we disobey God. The Hebrew people, by being a part of God’s plan, gave us pictures and examples of what a relationship with Him looks like. They were a part of a bigger system without even knowing it. A lot of times, these things were just happening to them.

What if we are in the midst of something similar? What if everything we are trying to do and be is all just so that we can be blown away with how it fits into the system? Some grand picture of something else entirely? What if that system is just a part of a bigger system? And somehow we still worry that we can screw it up too bad to be important.

the First

I’ve decided to take up blogging. I’ve done it before in preparation for and in duration of the trip I took to India, but this blogspot is intended for something a little different. This is not my personal online journal, though I do plan to share personal experiences. It is not a way for people to check up on me. If you want to know how I’m doing, you’d better ask. It’s a collection of thoughts and essays that I sometimes write (mostly to organize my own ideas) and can be read as a periodical. I have decided to call it Chimerical Corporeality because it describes the place in which I live. I dream of flying but for gravity. I feel part of something much larger although I am stuck in my own skin. I imagine boundlessly, yet actualize limitedly. 

I once told someone that if not for Jesus Christ I would be nothing more than a frustrated idealist. And I think this is what will come across most clearly in my writing, and throughout my general existence. When I am within the hope He offers, I thrive. Apart from Him I shrivel and die. I can be neither visionary nor practical without Him. To some His name is meaningless, perhaps something people tack on to things in order to sound true to religious convictions. But for me He someone I cannot leave out if I tried, and would never want to anyway. In Him that which is chimerical is corporeal.