Ruins

"A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day. It's called the Augusteum. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the barbarians came they trashed it a long with everything else. The great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor. How could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, would be in ruins. It's one of the quietest, loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up around it over the centuries. It feels like a precious wound, a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same. Settle for living in misery because we're afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked at around to this place, at the chaos it has endured - the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured, maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, it's just the world that is, and the real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation."

~Eat, Pray, Love

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goodbye 2010

As I sit and look back on the past year of this blog, it is funny the thoughts that come to mind. I can literally remember every post and the purpose behind each writing....which, in itself, brings both joy and pain. 2010 has been one the best and most difficult years that I have ever walked through. Rereading my posts, however, I see a clear picture of "me" in them. Each one is spun with a happy ending, an encouraging thought, maybe even an insightful epiphany. It makes me wonder why I do that, why I write that way. And that is when it hit me....it isn't that IT IS always happy, encouraging, or insightful, but I write with hope...hope that it can be. So it is with hope that I say goodbye to 2010 and look forward to 2011. Hope that I will take the lessons God has given me this year and make me stronger, better, and brighter for the years to come. Just a few things I've learned this year (in no particular order): *I am a social person. I love people. I love to
Read more

My Everest

There is a Thanksgiving episode of Friends where Joey convinces Monica to make a turkey even though no one else is eating it that year. Joey swears that if she will cook it, he will eat the whole thing. You see a shot of Joey, looking stuffed, sitting behind a turkey that looks completely eaten...until he turns it around and reveals the other side had not been touched. His famous quote (at least in our household)....."You are my Everest." While I have been able to jokingly use that line in many different circumstances, it proves itself most true when it comes to running. I am NOT a runner by nature. I can remember walking all of my miles in gym class with the teacher yelling for me to hurry up. I am admittedly not an athlete (I mean, come on, who has time for that? I was too busy being social!). And honestly, I just can't do it! I have never had the lungs, never had the strength, and piled behind all of those excuses, I have never had the desire. In the past two
Read more

You Can Have Me

Image
I write about God a lot. Not because I live my life perfectly, not because I fail miserably, but because my heart and my mind are constantly in battle, fighting to find, seek, relate, and discover my purpose in Him. Tears filled my eyes the first time I heard this song, and the more times I hear it, the more I fall in love with the lyrics. Most of the time it is words that move or inspire me, but this song....challenges me. "When did love become unmoving? When did love become unconsuming?" When I heard that chorus for the first time, a part of me felt like it was what my heart has been screaming at the Lord for such a long time. Duties, responsibilities, life-lessons, loss of innocence, pain, strength, perseverance.....all things the past years have given to me in my journey into adulthood. All things that left me relying less on faith and more on myself, to accomplish, succeed, and pretty much ..... just get it done. No wonder I am unmoved. No wonder I am unconsumed
Read more