About Me
What's in a name?
As I considered a blog about the journey of my faith I was drawn to a book first discovered in undergrad. In the pages of Orthodoxy written by G.K. Chesterton with a forward by Philip Yancey I found the inspiration for the direction I wished to chronicle my journey. In his introduction Philip Yancey said of G.K. Chesterton:
“Chesterton viewed this world as a sort of cosmic shipwreck. A person’s search for meaning resembles a sailor who awakens from a deep sleep and discovers treasure strewn about, relics from a civilization he can barely remember. One by one he picks up the relics- gold coins, a compass, fine clothing- and tries to discern their meaning. Fallen humanity is in such a state. Good things on earth- the natural world, beauty, love, joy- still bear traces of their original purpose, but amnesia mars the image of God in us.”
G.K. Chesterton said of himself:
“No one can think my case more ludicrous than I think it myself; no reader can accuse me here of trying to make a fool of him; I am the fool of this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne.”
Thus I come to my unorthodox title. I am trying to navigate this life as best I can discerning what I can glean from the world around me. I have a map (The Bible), I have the tales of those who have gone before me to give tips on navigation, and I have the natural instinct to know what cannot be quantified. I am no expert on life; I am no theologian; I am just a cosmically shipwrecked fool doing her best to navigate the seas of life and faith.
A.R.Sprouse
Nothing to Prove
Nothing to Prove
“Anyone setting out to dispute anything ought always to begin by saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove." G.K. Chesterton
I do not intend to dispute much of anything. I intend to merely make a journal of things I discover on this journey of faith. I admit to having spent a great deal of time wandering around in this life and my faith- and I guess like any shipwrecked fool I record those mundane details that make up my days on this island in order to leave something to prove the adventure was had. I do not know why you have come to read this blog but I hope that it gives you hope. Life is a journey with a purpose and you have a purpose in this journey even when it seems you are simply wandering around in circles. ( I have to tell myself this all the time)
I have leaned heavily on a book by G.K Chesterton to lay the foundations of this blog mostly because he seems to have already written what I would express- and much more eloquently I might add.
"The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then he is not one of the ordinary people to whom I am talking. If a man prefers nothing I can give him nothing."
I am not an inspirational speaker. I am not a pastor or any type of minister. I am not the wizened scholar with an arsenal of research behind every word I speak. I am not out to change the world with my brilliant interpretation of life and faith. I am not here to argue extensively why you are wrong and I am right- I would happily admit to being both at all times. I am as the title of this blog suggests a cosmically shipwrecked fool doing her best to navigate the seas of life and faith; what you read in these pages are my observations, my understandings, and the way in which I have pieced together clues in this life to come to a conclusion.
". . . nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is this achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue these pages.” G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy