Sometimes a Latin dictionary comes in handy:
When dealing with your fiance's pet: Feles mala! cur cista non uteris? Bad kitty! Why don't you use the litter box?
When registering for wedding gifts: Furnulum pani nolo. Thanks, but I don't want a toaster.
When taking a bath: Ubi est mea anaticula cumminosa? Where's my rubber ducky?
Back in the day, I had some friends who thought quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur! Anything said in Latin sounds profound!
But now as I'm packing up my apartment in preparation to move to Kansas City, or Our Town, as I like to think of it, I find myself questioning my a) need and b) desire to hang on to such a relic of my former linguistic glory.
But it's not just space on the bookshelf that matters. This dictionary represents a time when I was awkwardly searching for my intellectual, social, and spiritual worth and identity. It was a rough couple of years.
But the people I was trying to impress (aka the boys I liked) aren't a part of my life anymore.
The doubts I had spiritually have been relentlessly proven wrong.
I am certain of God's faithfulness to me, and my purpose in His kingdom.
I have moved a posse ad esse. From possibility to actuality.
I am not hiding from the past, or from struggles that the Lord lead me through, but I don't want a reminder of my old self taunting me from the bookshelf. I choose to put off those things.
I also don't want to have a place of retreat for my brain and heart to linger, when life with my future husband becomes frustrating. I don't want old voices whispering through the pages, "This is who you used to be...think of whom you could have become..."
I am committed to choosing to be who the Lord says I am today.
A posse ad esse. From possibility to actuality of faith.
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2 comments:
Oh, Sarah... you think so deliberately and clearly, and you express the results so well!
I must confess that in weaker moments, when I am temporarily living far from the realization of the current set of slight momentary afflictions only preparing me for an eternal weight of glory (the sought-for kabod, in a different ancient lingo), I have been known to recall with a satisfying degree of sarcasm the only Latinish motto I have ever memorized, "Illegitimi non carborundum!"
I suppose I could claim it's only a slightly coarsened version of Romans 12:2... but I know that finding it in my mind is more an indictment of falling under, rather than living in, that verse.
Onwards and upwards... how do you say that in Latin? :c)
I bet the cat found that so romantic to be reprimanded with such beautiful eloquence.
These are great thoughts for anyone to be reminded with. I'm glad you articulated them Sarah. Thanks for the book recomendations (For Women Only). Someone had mentioned those before. I'm going to have to pick them up and dig in a little, but not if it is the latin version.
: )
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