HI! Here I've posted some cut-paper illustration(ish)s that I made for my wedding. I'm a newlywed, yes I am! And we decided to have some fun with the design aspect of our wedding... I drew up some fun little signs with which to label the tables at our reception. I made them out of whatever colorful paper I could get my hands on and then I had them displayed via some weird little card holder thingies. Each one represents the stories or the personalities of the people who sat at that particular table. A lot of couples are doing fun stuff like that with their weddings nowadays - it's more interesting than having "table #1" and "table #2." Last year, I was at a wedding where tables were named after locations in certain movies. I believe my table was named after a planet from STAR WARS! I've also heard of a couple who had each table at their reception themed after a different old-skool board game. Isn't that fun?
But as for deep musings, all I can think of at the moment is how much married life is teaching me. For the past few months, I have had a hightened sense of destiny. What do I mean by that? Simply this: big life decisions put into perspective just how much potential our individual lives really hold. Loving another human being; starting a family; contributing to one's community; influencing a culture; changing the face of history. Grandiose? Yes, and why not? Call me crazy but I think us humans are innately called to some sort of greatness. Just look at the typical wedding ceremony, for example. Cultures differ greatly on how a wedding is performed, yet almost all seem to recognize a sacred element therein. We innately desire a profound, spiritual meaning to undergird the pinnacle moments of our lives. This desire reflects a reality: we want to experience the divine because we were made to experience the divine.
Yet too many times we've heard the words "your destiny awaits..." right before an advertisement kicks in: "... so don't wait! Pick up the phone and order your set of LEAFY-PRO garden tools today!" But just because people have taken advantage of your brilliance in the past does not change the fact that you're brilliant. God thinks so. He'd rather die than go a day without you. If you believe that Jesus, as God incarnate, died for the redemption of humanity, you also believe that God is super-crazy in love with you, to the point of sacrificing everything he holds dear if only to bring you near to him. If you don't believe all that, at least ponder some fun observations: human beings are demonstrably more sophisticated than animals. We bear many similarities, yes, but at the end of the day, there are no dolphins out there writing screenplays for a 6-part hollywood epic that takes place in a galaxy far, far away. Even if there were, we obviously develop systems of living that are far more complex and involved than the system of mere survival. One important similarity shared by humans and animals, however, is our literal need for companionship. Could we assume a correlation between this need and our respective levels of sophistication? If our creativity is rightly seen as a mark of the divine, perhaps companionship with divinity should be recognized as intrinsic to our heredity.
Ok, that's enough big words. I'm not trying to argue people into my worldview (what do I have to gain from that?). Rather, I'm attempting to briefly portray the very palpable evidence that humans are to play an infinitely unique role in the cosmos and that we are thereby right to think of one's "destiny" as good and attainable.
So in light of that, let it sink in today. Take a breath, forget the lies of a culture that confuses "human value" with "usefulness," and rest in this sweet reality. You have a destiny and it's good.
