Filed by Lance at 10:31 pm under General, Love, Pop Culture, Social Issues, The Arts, The Media

In honor of our British opponents in today’s World Cup match, let’s start with some 90’s BritPop:

She’s in a family full of eccentrics
She’s done things I never expected
And I need more time

I read this a little while ago from the Book of Isaiah, and the author’s surprise and wonder struck me:

As when fire sets twigs ablaze
and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.

Isaiah 64:2 - 3, NIV

As a directing student watching actors, one of the benchmarks for true creativity that I was given was, Did it surprise you? Watching an actor interact, you could always tell if they thought up their moves beforehand, or if they were actually reacting to what others were doing. If they did something unexpected (within the limits placed on them by the play), they were really doing it.

It’s an idea I’ve found to be really true in my life recently. As much as we plan and as much as we work toward a goal, when it actually happens, and things start to actually click, it’s like God has come down and the mountains tremble. As much as we envision a moment in our heads, when things fall into place, it’s something unexpected.

Maybe that’s something T.S. Eliot had in mind when he wrote,

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.