A Writers Block

Eww.... what's with all the big words?? This is one I have struggled to pin down for a long time. I read this tonight and it seemed to make sense in a new way. Maybe because I'm a hopeless romantic. Maybe it's because I want to feel lovely and loved, or maybe it's just because God is the Lover of my soul and He took the time to tell me He loves me tonight. "In 'Beauty and the Beast,' it is only when the Beast discovers that Beauty loves him in all his ugliness that he himself becomes beautiful. In the experience of St. Paul, it is only when a person discovers that God really loves him in all his unloveliness that he himself starts to become godlike. Paul's word for this gradual transformation of a sow's ear into a silk purse is sanctification...." I pray that in this process I will become less and less a Beast who can only see ugliness and more and more the Beauty who sees the loveliness in others.

Okay... now that you've choked over the title and had to make yourself start reading, just let your mind wander around in this mush of thoughts. I've been reading in James again. Funny how God just dropped it in my head again. Not that it's a hilarious read... on the contrary, I find it incredibly difficult and convicting. But I've also had some light shed on things I haven't really seen before... like what God really desires and what we've been sidetracked by. First, the icky part... 'what is religion'. I really don't like that word but it's not because of it's true definition but more because of what human nature has done to it. "The term "religion" refers both to the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction. [It] is commonly identified by the practitioner's prayer, ritual, meditation, music, and art, among other things." - that's just one