What's In a Name?

I must admit, I shouldn't be blogging right now. I should be translating my impossible Greek sentences, reading some essays, writing an essay, reading The Bhagavad Gita, or starting a research paper.

Hmm. Nope. Not happening.

What should I tell you about today? The boy in writing class who reminds me of Ryan from The O.C.? My advising meeting today where I chose my spring classes? The dilemma over whose car to take to Virginia this weekend?

I know. I'll talk about why my blog is named what it is.

The first few weeks of this semester at Belmont held the annual humanities symposium. Apparently it's a big deal, and lots of speakers come and hold convos that students grudgingly attend, usually just because they need convo credit. But anyway, Mary Oliver came to campus this fall, and the fact that I'd never heard of her didn't stop me from going simply to experience what all the buzz was about. For weeks beforehand my teachers read her poems aloud in class like she was Ghandi or Oprah or someone equally as revered. I like poetry and all, but sheesh.

Some of her stuff is really retarded in my opinion. But there's this one poem I heard in so many classes I imagined it was God's word to me. I just kept hearing "...Idle and Blessed..." and it swirled around in my head for a few days. It was perfect timing really. We had just studied the beginning of Genesis in Old Testament class, where God blesses creation and, most importantly, humanity. I couldn't believe how huge the blessings are to theology -- you know, God reveals so much about himself in how he acts in those first few chapters of His Word.

But when he blesses Adam ("Adam" being the Hebrew word for man), when he says to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and all that, what was Adam doing? A whole lot of nothing. He hadn't even spoken yet in the text. He hadn't acted. He hadn't even been named anything other than "man." He was simply created, then blessed.

Wow. God creates and blesses. We just are. Idle, and blessed.

I think that's powerful, because in my own life I strive for too much. I'm always fearing, striving, pushing, accomplishing. If you know me, you know it's hard for me to be idle. If I'm not being productive, I'm planning to be productive. Sometimes I translate this into how I live spiritually. I think "I'll get a degree in Christian Ethics and Medical Physics and God will bless my career." Or "I'll volunteer and God will bless my time." Or "I'll go do something huge for the Kingdom and God will bless me for my efforts." Even on a more basic blessing level, like the blessing mankind received in Genesis 1, I think God will be okay with my existence only when I please Him or look nice or smell nice.

Subconsciously, of course.

But that's not God's nature. That's not what Genesis says about theology. My job is to be in relationship with Him. He does everything else. It's not about me, really. I may not be named anything other than "man," in the grand scheme of things. That's not important. What is important is that I learn to stop playing God, stop trying to earn my blessing and validation, and just be. Only then do I begin to see the beauty of God's nature in the smallness and weakness of my own.