Healthy Living

Pressed Down and Shaken

by Terry Barlow
09/02/14
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“Give” Jesus said, “and it will be given to you, pressed down shaken together and running over.” Was reflecting on that process of pressing down, shaking together and running over as a process that fills in the hollow empty places that APPEAR to be full but are not really full. Crooked vendors hoped to add to their profits this way. Often in those days the folds in the garments of the buyers would serve as containers for the grains and fruits being purchased. When we feel pressed down and shaken, when we feel like running over (to the other side?) sometimes, maybe it is because of this solidifying, consolidating process, intended to fill in the emptiness in the personality with real substance. Some people appear at first to be filled with happiness. Met someone like that recently. Someone whose so-called joy wasn’t contagious. (Probably that’s all of us at some time or another) After all, we may smile and laugh a lot, which is commonly thought to be evidence of happiness, right? Except that there is also a saying: Excess of sorrow laughs ( issues forth in laughter.) It may, in fact, be just the opposite. Those smiles may be masking a broken heart. That laughter may betray a hollowness. There might be something plastic about it, otherwise described as another variety of “neuroplasticity.” Those hollow places may not have been pressed down or shaken yet, because it requires that we cooperate with the process. On the other hand a long face doesn’t necessarily indicate unhappiness either. Excess of sorrow issues forth in laughter, but excess of joy cries ( may issue forth in tears!) And, as Paul Harvey used to say, that’s the rest of the story (and the quote).