"For You Yourself have taught me."

I'm not a 'good' blogger. That is, if a good one is defined by posting regular updates. Funny, considering the name of the blog is based on Crowder's words, "I need words", that it turns out it's really true.
Maybe it's just a lack of inspiration?

Speaking of inspiration for writing, I'm taking this course called: "Visionary Literature: From Dante to Bob Dylan". Yeah, seriously. But it's not about literature, really. It's more about the Visionary aspect. We're to ask questions such as "What makes a work 'visionary?" "What makes a writer a 'visionary'?" "What INSPIRES vision?"

What a weird, man, my prof. He says that some of the authors we're studying go through many lengths to encounter these 'visions' from which they receive inspiration for their work. For some, the vision seeks them out and not the other way around. Some go the 'religious' route, some use Ouija boards to call out the spirits, other just take massive amounts of drugs (i.e. Dylan).


After my first full week of school, I have made one clear observation: This year is going to be different. On a spiritual level. Not only are my classes challenging me on an intellectual level, but even more so on a spiritual one.

I've attended only ONE lecture for this class so far, and yet I know it'll be draining for me for the rest of the year. Not because it's boring or because I don't find it interesting, because I do. But I've never encountered a course like this before.

For some reason I have a feeling this class is not about literature as much as it is about transforming every student into a visionary. My prof asks us if we've ever had an 'epiphany' moment, if we've ever experienced how we can be one person one day, and then a completely different person the next. He speaks of his friend, the shaman, who performs real healing, of the author in our reading list who wrote his work completely in a trance, of mentally disciplining ourselves to be fully 'present', and not distracted by thoughts focused elsewhere, on the past, or future.

Suddenly I found myself identifying with a lot of these things, but never in a school context. Suddenly, this man is speaking a language I understand on my own terms regarding a spiritual realm that I am familiar with encountering only in a Christian setting. Do I have a revelation from time to time? Do I believe in real healing? Don't I believe that the spiritual realm is a real thing and not something silly to be laughed at or taken lightly?

I've never had a non-Christian speak so plainly to me about what goes on outside what is physical, even mental. And then to try and gage how the rest of the class was responding -- not physical, or mentally, but spiritually. I'm quite certain a good handful of my classmates' mental paradigms were being shaken.

I've really come to realize the power of a book or the words of a professor to influence the way we perceive the world and how we come to understand the things we believe.

Sitting in that class was such a spiritual work-out, because my sensitivity was super heightened at the fact that there was so much to guard myself against. And yet, I think about all the rest of the students, just receiving in my prof's teachings so eagerly and without filter and I realize the amount of free reign that the enemy has on the world -- especially the world of post-secondary students.

Now I'm just left to figure out what position I take in that class. What gear or level of permeability I set my spirit to that is not just safe for me, but allows for me to contribute something that is beneficial, and challenging. There is SO MUCH being sent back and forth in the conversation of a small fourth-year English class seminar. How do I know what is Right? How can I test what is being spoken to me and decide what is Truth?



Then I am reminded:


As a praise team, we're reading through Psalms together. Last week one of the chapters we were to read was 119. The long one. And there was this passage that spoke to me.

"Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statues.
I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts.
I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.
I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me."
vv. 97-102

THIS is why we read the Word. This is how we test every thing. This is Truth.
Heaven and earth may fade away but His Word will never fade away.

God is my ultimate Teacher. His Word makes me wiser than my enemies, gives me more insight than my teachers, more understanding than the elders. He Himself teaches me.

This is my prayer for my classes (especially this one) this year: That His Word will be a lamp unto my feet. That I might bring His wisdom, insight, and understanding to my class, instead of soaking in the lies and foolishness of the world. I don't think it's going to be easy.

God never makes it that easy.




What adventures I have before me!
Hah hah!