Today I woke up at 9AM for my 7AM meeting with Salil. Thus began my Wednesday.<br><br>So I had a feeling that today was going to be a strange one, mood-wise anyway, which became an all-out wrestling match between how I feel versus how God actually sees me. This is newer territory for me, believing that I am loved regardless of performance or mood, so maybe that's why this day has zapped me dry- even though all I did for a good chunk of the afternoon was reading a book called "Abba's Child" by Brennan Manning. He wrote alot about what I mentioned in the previous blog, "Uncivilized Savagery Faux Masquerade," about how unless I know I am God's beloved, and that He is a relentless pursuer of me, I will always project my failures and faulty perspectives onto Him, which is a crazy ridiculous undercover form of idolatry- I basically make Him into what I'm limited to seeing instead of getting to know who He says He is. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not run after a God that I can manufacture in my own mind- if I rely on my own devices to piece together how I see Him, it's just as effective as carving out a Jesus out of wood and calling that my God. It's silly.<br><br> Okay, so before I shoot off on a tangent, the entire point about not relying on my own devices to assume who God is and how He sees me is best summed up in something Henri Nouwen wrote (okay, who's Henri Nouwen? He's an author. And a lover of Christ. And he wrote a book called "Life of the Beloved." Which is where this quote is from.): <i>Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." [My dark side says] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. <b>Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life</b> because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence."</i><br><br>So I got stuck on that page all day, and decided to follow-up on "Savagery" with the same message for today, and that is to renew our perspectives on ourselves as God sees us, as ones whom He formed carefully and wonderfully from the beginning of time, created to walk with Him in the coolness of the shade in the garden, whom He so loved that He sent Christ to the wolves on our behalf EVEN BEFORE WE KNEW HIM. I don't know about you, but now that I'm beginning to realize how much more I don't yet know about how much He loves me, nothing else seems to matter apart from finding out.<br><br> So that long-winded rant brings us to today's design post. I knew this entire day that I just wanted to have the word "BELOVED" without anything else. I toiled, tweaked, trashed, tinkered, and tried everything with type to appease me, but nothing worked, so I took a break and rode my bike around my block a couple of times to have some quiet time. Only then did the irony of what I was doing become clear: I want so badly to simply convey that we are the Beloved because I know that self-rejection derails us from accepting God's love, but I couldn't settle on anything because I was (always am) worried about how the stupid post looks, how it would look on a shirt, if it will sell, if people will say crap about it, if my design peeps will roast me for an idiotic love affair with Helvetica, if it's spiritual enough, if it's too out there, if what I'm gonna write about it is good and epic, blah blah blah. Basically, it came down to this: can I still believe that I am the apple of God's eye even if my hands produce things that I tear down as inadequate? I don't know, and that's I guess my next speedbump in this journey. In the end, this little vid sums up everything I'm thinking and feeling:<br><br><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" width="500" height="417" id="viddler_72aa42ad"><param name="movie" value="http://www.viddler.com/player/72aa42ad/" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed src="http://www.viddler.com/player/72aa42ad/" width="500" height="417" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" name="viddler_72aa42ad"></embed></object><br><br>So, the design post was an attempt at simplicity, and this explanation is an exercise in complications. If nothing else, I hope that the big, overpowering BELOVED is what sticks- because honestly, none of this would be worth it if Jesus wasn't there to assure me who I am at the end of the day. I may not yet fully understand it, but I'm not gonna leave it alone til I do. 2009-06-18T10:11:55Z 19 23 31 /images/090618RefreshBeloved-990.jpg /images/090618RefreshBeloved-640.jpg /images/090618RefreshBeloved-244.jpg JesusBranded is still Beloved even though this Christian Shirt was a struggle. 59 6 59 /images/090618RefreshBeloved-shirts.jpg 2009-06-18T10:11:55Z refresh-beloved 2009