I know it has been a while since I’ve written. I’ve been feeling under the weather, but thanks to my friend Sammy, I’ve decided it’s high time to post again… (thanks Sammy!)
I’ve been thinking about many things over the past weeks, but the thing at the forefront of my mind this instant is nothing more than a vocabulary word: Modicum.
I came upon the word yesterday while sitting, eating lunch, next to my roommate who was doing some work for a professor. She had a dictionary lying on the table, so I decided to read through part of it (nerdy, I know). I turned a few pages until I came to a word I had never heard before: Modicum.
Do you know what Modicum means? Hint: It rhymes with chewing gum, but you won’t find “chewing gum” listed as a synynom for Modicum in the Thesarus. =+)
Modicum- a noun, denoting a small or moderate amount. E.g.- I enjoy a modicum of ice cream every now and then.
Modicum…a noun. Modicum…the way I often live my life.
Am I content with modicum, or do I press in harder…stretch myself further than I ever thought I could before?
May I be willing to take the risk.
Am I willing to move beyond the dull-drum of easy mediocrity of “modicumness”…into a place of life where I am free?
May this be my life’s calling.
Do I want people to look at my life and say that I lived a modicum for a life…or do I want them to say, “Here is a woman who knew what it meant to be alive?”
No, I do not want modicum. I believe I am fashioned for more than modicum. I long for a life other than modicum. I will live to be alive, not to maintain the modicum line.
However seemingly insignificant my life is, I cannot shake the belief deep inside of me that our lives are meant for much more than we can even begin to comprehend. No, for deep inside of me I have an urging that drives me…a fueling that pushes me to trust that somewhere, on the other side of the reality, there is a me that is capable of living more fully than I have ever dreamed.
So I will press into this…a life beyond the modicum.
Living and being alive–may we recant modicum and live truly alive lives.
Blessings and Peace-
Saralynn
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February 10, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Sammy
Saralynn-
Modicum… an interesting word indeed! Your reflection on it reminds me of the words of Bishop Phillips Brooks that I once read. He says, “Do not pray for easy (modicum) lives, pray to be stronger persons. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle but you shall be a miracle.”
Thinking of a modicum personality…says “I will be as much as I can be and do as much as I can do.” But any person can do that. Any person can be modicum. However, someone who believes in Christ and has a fire burning inside of them does what s/he cannot do. S/he will often attempt the impossible and through God s/he will perform it.
Could modicum also imply a mere existence as opposed to a life? I think that is what you suggest. That we then must strive to live and not to merely exist. To thrive and not to merely bloom. To waft and not be merely bottled up. That dead fish always flow with the stream but only living ones are able to swim against the current.
Modicum…prideful contendedness. An unwillingness to stretch and to die so we may truly live. A burrying of talent in the ground of inertia. An embrace of nobility juxtaposed by a forfeiture of its obligations.
A life beyond the modicum…Finished and done with low living, sight-walking, tamed visions, colorless dreams, mandane talking, small planning, dwarfed goals, cheap giving. No longer needing plaudits, popularity, power, position, or preeminence.
Life beyond the modicum…living by faith, laboring with power, leaning on God’s presence, loving others with great patience (it is valentines), and living by prayer.
Yes, I too recant the life of the modicum. I too truly seek to live and not to merely exist. So here we come…the modicumless!!
February 10, 2006 at 10:07 pm
JVD
Sammy - when are you starting your blog? JVD
February 11, 2006 at 5:40 am
Sammy
JVD
Thanks for the reminder again. You are a faithful friend.