Love Wins

I keep seeing this around. It's on my calendar. It's painted on a rock. It crops up.

I've been thinking about it. It doesn't offend me. Why would it? I have no objection to the idea that love wins.

I was shopping the other day and I saw a shirt that said "All you need is love." I almost bought it so that I could embroider "and wisdom" after it. Just cause I thought it would be funny.

Because of course love wins, but only when it is conjoined to truth.

Love isn't love without the wisdom to know how to love.

"And give Thou to Thy servant a heart that hears to judge Thy people, to understand between good and evil." 1 Kings 3:9

"What is love without wisdom but folly?" Conjugial Love 183:4

"When love approaches wisdom and conjoins itself therewith, then love becomes love; and when wisdom in turn approaches love and conjoins itself therewith, then wisdom becomes wisdom. Love truly conjugial is nothing else than the conjunction of love and wisdom." Conjugial Love 65

"He therefore, who looks with the face to the Lord receives wisdom from Him, and through wisdom love; but he who looks backwards from the Lord receives love and not wisdom, and lovewithout wisdom is love from man and not from the Lord. And this love, because it conjoins itself with falsities, does not acknowledge God, but itself as a god." Conjugial Love 444:6

And on and on it goes. There are innumerable passages about love needing to be conjoined to wisdom, for without wisdom love becomes evil. And yes, evil can win. But not really. Not for long.

Love must be conjoined with wisdom.

Love and wisdom together win.

“The conjugial union of one man with one wife is the precious jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian religion" CL 457

The Affirmative Principle

Does the Word have some sort of expiration date I didn't know about? A best used by but maybe could still be okay for a little bit after just not as good? Like food, does it become unhealthy to consume after a certain point?

Why would the Lord write something that would go out of date? After the Lord's first coming the old testament did not expire. 

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Matthew 5:17

Even after the Lord's second coming, the old and new testaments are not to be thrown out or disregarded. The Lord's Word is never going to be unhealthy. If we are allergic to it that is not because there is something wrong with it that needs to be changed. We can't substitute gluten free doctrine just so we don't react poorly to it. Of course we have sensitivities to the Word! It is not going to sit right with us, because we are not right!

And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. Revelation 10:9

The only way to approach the Word is to assume that the Lord is telling us the truth. That He is not misleading us or gave us some kind of Where's Waldo where we have to look through it for something we recognize.

There are therefore two principles; one of which leads to all folly and insanity, and the other to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or to say in the heart that we cannot believe them until we are convinced by what we can apprehend, or perceive by the senses; this is the principle that leads to all folly and insanity, and is to be called the negative principle. The other principle is to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or to think and believe within ourselves that they are true because the Lord has said them: this is the principle that leads to all intelligence and wisdom, and is to be called the affirmative principle. Arcana Coelestia 2568:4

I'm not saying that understanding the Word is easy. But it's easier if you assume that is is right. The hardest thing we have to do in life is make decisions. Decisions are really hard, man! My last blog post was about how marriage is the opposite of dating. One of the things that makes marriage SO much better than dating is it's one less decision to make. With dating you have to figure out a HUGE decision: Do you want to spend the rest of your life with this human? With marriage the answer is always yes. You have already made the hardest decision. But it's made. All you have to do now is make a million more decisions, but that one is set in stone.

The same goes for reading the Word. If you constantly have to be wondering if the Lord actually means what He says then it's exhausting hard work. Just assume that He knows what He's doing. AND He knew what He was doing a couple thousand years ago when He told people to write down His Word. Our problems aren't new. He even knew about every single thing we're facing in 2018, and He wrote about it a long time ago. And it's still active and living today. There is no expiration date on the Truth.

Stop dating the Word. Be committed to it. It makes life so much easier if you do.

Reflections on painting

Sometimes I tell myself to wait. Like today, I wanted to make some reflections about painting. I'm two paintings away from being done my month long commitment to paint. I should wait for two more days to reflect on this. But I should never stop myself from writing on the rare occasions when I feel inspired to write before I even begin.

So I'm reflecting on painting, two days before the end.

I just went through my album and looked at each of my paintings. Some I didn't want to look at for very long, and others I lingered on for a few moments before clicking to the next. And you know what? I like my paintings. And I can see improvement. When I take the time to paint something, it turns out well!

I was worried that switching back to watercolors after 24 days of oils would be a challenge, but challenges are good. My watercolors are fine, and I miss oils, but even over 4 days of watercolors I am improving that skill again! I painted watercolors every day two years ago, and very sporadically since. I have only done 4 watercolors this September. The first two are okay, but I really like the most recent two. There are always things I could improve, but that's a dumb thing to observe. I'm gonna focus on the fun techniques and skills I'm learning and just linger on the good feelings of actually being good at something!

Yesterday's watercolor!

You know Ron Weasley? You know how when he looks in the Mirror of Erised he sees himself as Quidditch captain and head boy? He's only an 11 year old boy longing for some recognition. He feels overshadowed by his 5 older brothers.

I hate to say that I feel overshadowed by my siblings because I love them and never felt a lack of love or recognition because there were many of us. If anything, I got more love from having such a large family.

Ron definitely loves his family too and there's no lack in the Weasley household, but he does long for something of his own, and then of course (spoiler alert) he goes on to help save the wizarding world from the evilest wizard ever. I think he succeeded in doing something original.

Where was I going with this? Ah, yes. I still strive for some sort of originality, something that makes me unique from others. I already wrote a blog post about wanting to be unique in my writing and realizing that I only need to tell the truth to write well. Is it the same for painting? Do I tell truths with my paint brush?

I don't know. A thought just struck me so I'm gonna write it and see if it rings true: Write truths, paint loves. I dunno, you clearly need truth and love to write and love and truth to paint. So whatever. It was just a thought.

I don't need to stand out to be worth something. I don't need to save the wizarding world or even my world. I just need to keep moving along, writing the best that I can, painting the best that I can, and being okay on the days when my writing sucks and my paintings aren't working. I'm still good at these things, even when I'm bad at them.