being in your twenties

i had this quote written on my school folder (because i thought it to be original and ironic): 'i know that i know nothing'. i think back then i theoretically understood that as we learn more about a thing, the more we discover the vastness of knowledge that we not yet have. 

today this notion rings more true to me than ever. 
people say things like that your twenties are there to find out who you are and what you want and a time to ask questions and to find answers. i guess there is something to that.
however, so far my experience has been that as i have figured stuff out more, new problems presented themselves to me and one answer held ten new questions.
on some days i find that thrilling -- the idea that i am growing, yeah becoming - that feels important and exciting. other times i feel stressed by not knowing what i should do, how i should prioritise things, how much time i should invest into my friends near and far, how much should i worry about my career, about family planning about taking steps to fulfill my dreams. 
there is this little voice that tells me that really at this point i should know better what i want to do with my life, that i should have a plan, should have the next years mapped out  - after all, i don't want to wonder for years and years what i should do with my life and then never actually do anything. 

as i am writing this i get the impression that all this might be about accepting that mistakes are inevitable and that it is okay to get things wrong. 

and more than that it is about trusting God. to trust when i say to him, "here is my life, i don't know the way,  please lead me"  that he will guide my steps, that he is in control and that my existence is not an accident and that my life won't be wasted.

“it’s never too late to be who you might have been.” – george eliot

“a self is not something static, tied up in a pretty parcel and handed to a child, finished and complete. a self is always becoming.” –  madeleine l’engle

"for i know the plans i have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future." –  jeremiah 29:11

biodiversity loss, noah, worship

this june i started a masters degree in sustainable development at soas, which so far i greatly enjoy. yesterday i was reading about the topic of biodiversity loss. hunting, over harvesting, uprooting, pollution and other factors (mostly originating from human activity) are resulting in an incredibly fast reduction of biodiversity. e.o. wilson, an american biologist writes:

"even with cautious parameters, selected in a biased manner to draw a maximally optimistic conclusion, the number of species doomed each year is 27000. Each day it is 74, each hour 3."
(wilson 2001, biodiversity threatened. in the diversity of life, p.268). 

in a different article he writes this:

"by and large, religious leaders also lack a record in environmental stewardship of which they can be proud. even though the fate of the creation itself is at stake, very few are committed conservationists."
(wilson 2003, nature's last stand. in: the future of life, pp.42f)

via weheartit

last week  i was in sheffield for the first session of my second year at christ central's school of leadership. the school of leadership is a two year course designed for anyone in some form of leadership in the church or in the wider world. the aim is to give a solid grounding in biblical theology, a deeper understanding of church history, time to consider leadership issues and an opportunity to grow in one's personal calling. (for more information - visit their webpage here).
this week we learned about the pentateuch - genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers and deuteronomy.
the content of what we talked about is way to vast to depict here however, i just wanted to share one thing that particularly spoke to me.

i assume most of you are fairly familiar with the story of noah.

if not, here is a very brief recap of what happens:

the story starts when God tells noah that he will flood the earth to basically wipe out humanity because the people are so wicked. however, noah is righteous in god's eyes and God wants to save him and his family. so noah build a ship - the ark - and he, his family and a female and male representative of each animal species are saved from the flood. when the flood has ceased and noah and is family disembark from the ark God makes a covenant (which is like a promise or a contract but stronger) with noah.

then God said to noah and to his sons with him: "i now establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you - the birds, the livestock and all the ark with you - every living creature on earth." 
and God said, "this is the sign of the covenant i am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: "i have set my rainbow in the could, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. whenever i bring clouds of the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, i will remember my covenant between me and the earth. i will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures every kind. never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, i will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. 

there is a lot that can be said from this, but what impressed me particularly was that God doesn't just promise to have grace towards humans but towards every living creature of every kind.

via weheartit

i am not at the end of my thinking about this at all, but i cannot help but think that if God regards every living organism important enough to speak blessing over, to give promises to, then clearly we should treat creation with respect and care and it should bother us that the diversity of what God created vanishes by every hour.

there is many psalms that speak of creation singing praises to god, for example psalm 96 says:
let the sea resound and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes. (v.11-13)

what happens if nothing in the seas and nothing in the fields is left? does our careless killing of thousands of species deduce from the worship that is given to God?
i am not sure if these conclusions really can be drawn at all, i might be very wrong making this jump. however, i do believe that it is time for us to consider what it means to be stewards of this earth.

this is my becoming.

one summer night in july i was driving home from work and everything felt a bit pointless.

the money i made never was enough, the job i work wasn't showing the best i got and the time i had did not seem like it was well spent - far away away from the fiancé, stuck in a never ending to do list.

despite those feelings i rolled the windows down, and sang along to my head and the heart cd that was playing:

the world's just spinning

a little to fast

if things don't slow down soon we might not last 

so just for the moment, let's be still

singing always cheers me up (i heard it releases endorphins). 

and i remembered a quote by cheryl strayed:

"the useless days will add up to something. the shitty waitressing jobs. the hours writing in your journal. the long meandering walks. the hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people's diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. these things are your becoming." (tiny beautiful things)

sometimes i need to refocus and remind myself of the fact that jesus has a plan, that he is sovereign, and that no time is wasted that is spend gazing upon him. maybe some of you need that reminder as well. 

so there you go: in all things God works for those who love him. 

thoughts on a thursday: please ... don't keep calm

i am pretty sure pretty much everyone in the english speaking world (and beyond) has seen this print.

there are numerous variations such as 'keep calm and go shopping', 'keep calm and eat chocolate', 'keep calm and smile smile smile', 'keep calm and love jesus', 'keep calm and don't give a shit' - or my personal favourite 'keep calm and use the force'. 

i think these posters express pretty well the general sentiment of our generation. people generally keep calm.

we keep calm, ignore starvation and keep on wasting our resources.

we keep calm, ignore the climate change and keep on driving big cars.

we keep calm, ignore responsibility and just want to have fun.

however, i believe that by doing that we are denying essential human attributes: compassion, empathy, anger, hunger for change and the respect for our own life as well as the lives of others.

stephane hessel writes the following in his book indignez-vous (time for outrage):

The worst of attitudes is indifference, to say "I can do nothing there, I'l just manage to get by." By including yourself in that, you lose one of the essential elements that makes the human being: the faculty of indignation and the commitment that is a consequence of it. 

They [young people] can already identify two big new challenges: 

1. The huge gap which exists between the very poor and the very rich and that does not cease increasing. It is an innovation of the 20th and 21st centuries. The very poor in the today's world earn barely two dollars a day. The new generation cannot let this gap become even greater. The official reports alone should provoke a commitment. 

2. Human rights and the state of the planet.

he is right - it is time for outrage. -- so, get angry.

get angry about the injustices and absurdities of the world.

get angry about the fact that we can buy clothes that are produced in sweat shops.

get angry about the fact that we waste 4000 litres of water on one steak whilst children in parts of the world die because they don't have clean drinking water.

get angry about the oppression of women and disabled people.

get angry about racism.

get angry about the fact that our society values money over people.

so please, i urge you, do anything, but just don't keep calm.