Rubbish & Vision
What kind of vision must Paul have had to look at all
the things we treasure and call them "rubbish"? What did he see to make
him look at them in this way? What feelings surged through him to leave
him feeling this way about them? What did he know that led him to
understand them to be rubbish?Get the sense of what he has said. Imagine
yourself walking into your brand new house and seeing a pile of dirt
and trash on your living room floor. You wouldn't leave it there to be
admired would you? You wouldn't hesitate to get rid of it. There'd be no
inner debate. Without regret and without a moment's hesitation you'd
dump it.
Without denying their essential goodness this is what Paul thought of
the all the good things in his life's experience. In comparison to what
he had found and what was there to be uncovered he saw the goods of
this phase of life to be just so much clutter, so much needless baggage.
But one can't see, feel and understand this way just by wishing it were
so. You can't simply will yourself into this way of seeing life. Nor is
it simply a matter of character. Men and women of character as grand as
Paul's didn't see life's worldly goods in the way Paul did.
The explanation for his Philippians 3 is that he saw something. No,
he met someone and having seen him the whole universe was changed,
nothing ever looked the same. G.K. Chesterton said, "A man came into my
world more than eighteen hundred years ago and since he has come I can't
look at a tree without thinking of him" To the degree that we see what
Paul saw we too will judge this world's goods as trivial at best.
But the vision doesn't come by grunting and sweating and wishing and
worrying. And saying we judge life's precious things as comparative
rubbish is not the same as feeling it and acting on it. It's that deeper
level sense of things we're in need of.
Now, where's my map so I can find the place marked "the Damascus Road"? Maybe if...
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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