The Precipice of Greatness

It's well past time for a new post. And a surprise for so many of you who have been asking...my music page is finally updated. Sorry for the wait. Check it out here.

And, as usual, some music to start out. Really digging The National Parks new album.

I've been thinking a lot lately the last few months about what it means to be excellent...really, truly excellent; how to avoid mediocrity in physical, mental, emotional and spiritual ways. I came across these quotes from C.S. Lewis and they gave me quite a bit to work through.

"Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure the search would never have begun...life has never been normal...

They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moments that never come...men...propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffold, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache; it is out nature."

How about that? That is the most accurate arrangement of words to describe the human condition that I have ever come across. It causes me to reflect on how often I feel like I am just on the verge of something - whether it be understanding a concept, finishing a composition, running a goal distance, etc. - and how that sense of being being so close in turn drives me to push harder.

I am constantly amazed at what incredible feats mankind has accomplished, from the Pyramids of Giza and the Colosseum to 3D printing of human organs. We've built fantastic buildings and established means of transportation to travel from one end of the world to the other in a relatively short period of time. Not only do we travel the depths of the ocean and scale the highest peaks, but we analyze ecosystems in both places. As I watched the fireworks on the Fourth of July, I couldn't help but think that's so much math, and somebody figured out the perfect arrangement of numbers to put together such a spectacular presentation of light with varying colors and displays.

There are countless other things that we have figured out that are, quite literally, awe-some. To me, it makes it difficult to deny our inherently divine nature, and even still we've only scratched the surface of the potential that we have. To be honest, I expect nothing less than excellence as we are, literally, children of God. He has spread His gray matter all over the Earth, and it's not just at Ivy League schools. We should not only use it but cultivate it.

"They wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moments"

Think of the things that you've always wanted to know or things you've always wanted to do but haven't for some reason/limitation or another. What dreams have you had for building your life into something that is, truly, excellent? I dare you to do it. Invest in your vision.

"This is not panache; it is our nature." 

Hopefully that gives you something to think about in the upcoming week.

And for all the talk of how incredible mankind is, let us not forget the most important thing of all...a loving Heavenly Father who has this great plan to help us find happiness and joy not just on Earth, but eternally. This last little excerpt from C.S. Lewis beautifully describes (in ways I have never been able to put into words) the feelings I have listening to some heavenly orchestration of music, or looking out over mountainous forests of trees, stargazing on a clear night, or even those exquisitely deep and abiding feelings we have in relationships that run too deep for us to really comprehend.

"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited."

"Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fantasy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache."

I'm so grateful for the beauty of the Earth that stirs even the smallest inklings of reminders of our heavenly home. Heaven is never further than some beautiful secluded place with a prayer in your heart.

That's all for today - do excellent things - and if you're looking for interesting, short reading check out the "Study and Faith" page from BYU... :)

(C.S. Lewis quotes are from The Weight of Glory and Learning in War-Time . My dad also used several of these quotes in a devotional he recently gave at BYU-Idaho, and if you're interested you can watch that here.)