The things we learn from bubbly

I really like pretty things, which is going to be a problem one day when I'm older. But right now, I really just love this place.

The last few weeks, the following quote has popped into my head at random times. I remember saying it to a friend of mine at a 21st party last year, where we'd ended up at the restaurant of a farm that specializes in bubbly. Nice, nice. They'd decorated the interior with bubble and champagne bottle motifs, as well as in vibrant colours, with lots of wonderful and unusual couches, lounges, chairs, paintings, vases etc. scattered around. Stuff that didn't shout cool - but only because it didn't need to when it was so obvious.

I've now realized in the last few weeks, that this 'when I'm older' temptation doesn't need to wait for the time when I'm in the position to buy lounges, couches, tables, you know, like bulky kinda 'adult' stuff. It's already arrived. In the last few weeks I've realized that I spent more money this year on pretty clothing, driven further to visit friends and cool places, spent more when we do go out, gone to classier/ more extravagant places than I ever used to*.

And I'm falling into the trap of the Illusion of Bubbly. Perhaps its apt that the comment I'd made came as it did as a bubbly farm, 'cause doesn't the world appear like that? Oh-so-nice, fun, pleasurable, sweet, sparkly, but deceptively so, for it's fleeting and transitory.

I'm not saying pretty (fun/cool/nice etc.) things are wrong. God has given us many things for our pleasure, and He also knows how he's created us. I'm someone who's stimulated by touching, smelling, tasting, hearing, but most of all seeing, and He definitely gives me ample opportunity to indulge my senses throughout the day. But, at the same time, I'm going to have to make sure (and I think this will be a continual struggle) that I don't end up idolizing this instead of God.



* I could defend this, by saying that I never really used to buy that much clothing anyway, I've only started driving in the last two/three years, I work part-time now so I have more money to spend, and that the places we used to hang out predominantly were cheap little student holes. But that's beside the point.

PS Check this out for a previous blog on play