A Worldview from a Beautiful Place
by Lewis
Along with several thousand other Christians, I spent much of last week in one of America’s most beautiful places, Malibu, California.
I was there for the annual Pepperdine Bible Lectures, a week-long series of classes, talks, singing, meetings and fellowship that is both amazing in its scope and glorious in its setting. There is content, too, but I’ll write about that in another post.
From the cafeteria patio at Pepperdine, I had a more than 200-degree panoramic view of the deep blue Pacific ocean, I was comfortable in shorts every day and every evening, and the skies were constantly clear.
But did that serve to clear my mind or cloud it? Enjoying a warm breakfast while overlooking the ocean is relaxing and inspiring, but does it make for better thinking, or does it create a warped perspective? How much — and how — does where we are impact our worldview?
Tags: lectures, Malibu, Pepperdine, Worldview
May 18th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Hey, I recognize that swimming pool and baseball diamond! It was nice to call Malibu home for a few days.
Our worldview is impacted by many factors, of which location and comfort are only two. I also don’t think we can answer definitively for which causes warped or clearer thinking. In the face of crisis, people can deny reality, give up attempts to overcome it, escape from it in all sorts of ways, bring all their meager resources to bear in fighting it, and/or trust God to bring them through it.
Sometimes when we’re stressed out, it’s hard to get perspective, so taking time out to relax and refocus can help us hear God more clearly. (Yay, Malibu!) On the other hand, sometimes we are so immersed in Sybaritic delights (translation: creature comforts) or fulfilling occupations that our attention wanders away from the things that matter more.
Keith and I were watching the famous Last Lecture — the words of a man who knew he had a super-limited time to live. Until that point, he hadn’t squandered his life, but dedicated it to meaningful pursuits. However, the stress of knowing death was imminent crystallized and prioritized his thoughts and prompted him to tell the world (and more importantly his children) his view of important life lessons.
The reality I see is that God calls me to pay attention, no matter what circumstance I find myself in, to his guidance. There’s a reason why Jewish people have made the shema their core verse to recite in prayer. It calls them back to focus, over and over again: