“Show me, Lord, my life’s end

and the number of my days;

let me know how fleeting my life is.

You have made my days a mere handbreadth;

the span of my years is as nothing before you.

Everyone is but a breath,

even those who seem secure.

“Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom;

in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth

without knowing whose it will finally be.

“But now, Lord, what do I look for?

My hope is in you."

— Psalm 39:4-7

THE GREAT GATSBY

"He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was....”

"'I wouldn't ask too much of her,' I ventured. 'You can't repeat the past.' 'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'"

"There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart."

“It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.”

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

CONVERSATIONS WITH A WORKAHOLIC

“Is this the craziest time in my life?” [Marc] Jacobs asked. “Yes, it is. But there’s always a reason why any given moment is the craziest moment in my life. That’s just how it is. Always a fresh hell. Which is fine. So long as it’s a fresh hell, and not the same old hell, you know?” With that, he smiled, his shoulders loosening. “The same old hell, now that would just be boring.”

— Excerpt from "Re-Making His Marc" by David Amsden, W Magazine (Feb 6, 2014)

CONFESSIONS OF A WORKAHOLIC

"I have an iron will, and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. . . I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being, and then I get to another stage and think I'm mediocre and uninteresting. . . . Again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that's always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I've become Somebody, I still have to prove I'm Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will."

— Madonna, Interview for Vanity Fair (1991)

Five years ago, in my last semester at Parsons, I wrote a blog entry (click here) of my journey in my academics sided by this nagging, insatiable hunger to keep going in my specific industry, with every gift and skill set afforded me, until I found myself satisfied professionally. In coming across this quote by Madonna, not for the first time but currently very timely, I'm reminded again of the life I could've drowned in had Christ not saved me from the black hole of my potential ego. I respect what she said because it comes from a heart of extreme self-awareness, something I believe not everyone has. And yet, as clearly as I can relate, I'm glad those words are not my own, and never will be. Lord, I thank you for every step, every opportunity, every experience you've ever supplied me with and will continue to provide. Be glorified in my joy, my reach, my deeper satisfaction in You.

AN ETERNAL WEIGHT OF GLORY

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

— 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (ESV)

IN THE BEGINNING / HAPPY NEW YEAR

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

— John 1:1-14 (NIV)


Interesting side note: "What does John mean by 'the Word'? The Word was a term used by theologians and philosophers, both Jews and Greeks, in many different ways. In Hebrew Scripture, the Word was an agent of creation (Psalm 33:6), the source of God's message to his people through the prophets (Hosea 4:1), and God's law, his standard of holiness (Psalm 119:11). In Greek philosophy, the Word was the principle of reason that governed the world, or the thought still in the mind, while in Hebrew thought, the Word was another expression for God. John's description shows clearly that he is speaking of Jesus (see especially 1:14)—a human being he knew and loved, but at the same time the Creator of the universe, the ultimate revelation of God, the living picture of God's holiness, the one who "holds all creation together" (Colossians 1:17). To Jewish readers, to say this man Jesus "was God" was blasphemous. To Greek readers, "the Word became human" (1:14) was unthinkable. To John, this new understanding of the Word was the Good News of Jesus Christ."