Own the Pain

A friend and mentor used to say, "own the pain".  It's a phrase that struck home with me and has recently come to have an even deeper meaning.  I've expressed the idea to people before but most don't seem to get it.  Just a few minutes ago an explanation came to me that seems so much clearer.

It refers to a situation where we have been wronged or hurt.  We can react in many different ways, but most of us have a sense of justice that makes forgiveness and healing hard to do.  Even those of us who have been so beaten down as to turn inward when wounded will not be able to forgive, but will close down and bottle up.

But owning the pain is about deciding to bear the pain inflicted on you on behalf of the person who inflicted it.  It is an act of love.  It is a participation in the suffering Jesus endured for us.  Truly it is to do for another what Jesus did for us.  It is to be Jesus to the person who hurt you.

It is to stand before God and the world and say, these are MY wounds and MY pain.  To take them, as unjust as they may be, and let love overcome the hurt and damage.  It is to willingly accept the suffering without a word to the one who hurt you.  They don't need to be sorry.  They don't even need to acknowledge you are hurt.  It is to cry and ache and pray through it for them.  It is to bear on your heart and body the marks of Jesus.

It is to be Ashitaka taking San's dagger to your chest and enfolding her in your arms even as the blood runs down.  

It is to vanquish hate.

It is to stand before the Judgement Seat and say that you find no fault in that person.  To answer not that you forgive, but that there is nothing to forgive.  It is to participate in a real way in someone's salvation.

Un"traditional"

Christmas is always a very reflective time for me.  I despise the hokey cheer and even more the consumerism packaged as love and friendship.  To me this is not Christmas.  It might be for some people, but I wish they would just call it something else and leave my holy day to me and those who want to keep it.

This is why I don't get bent about people saying Merry Christmas or celebrating other holidays, even the made up ones.  Great.  If you don't believe what I believe then stop getting in the way.

I don't understand how...no I do understand.  I was going to say I don't get how things get passed off as part of Christmas that have nothing to do with it, but I get that and don't want to belabour it.

Instead I want to focus on what it means to me.  I don't pretend that this is some historically accurate date, or even that it wasn't placed on this date that coincided with other cultural holidays.  That doesn't change what I celebrate.

I think of a young tradesman, struggling with the stigma of a used wife, the scandal of someone else's baby.  The young woman thought to be unfaithful.  The oppressive politics of the day.  The long trip.  He couldn't leave her, legally because she was his wife and had to register too, ethically because she might have the baby any time, and morally because people were judging them.  I think of the frustration at finding no place in such need.

I think of the innkeeper who found what space he could for them.

I think of the birth, alone.  No midwife or doctor.  Did they know what to do?  Had someone prepped them before the trip, just in case?  Even knowing who the child was, doesn't wipe out human fears and concerns.  I've been in many cases where I knew God told me to be, but I had no idea how it was going to work out.

I think of the stable, how God would be born amongst livestock.  He a sheep for slaughter, himself.  I know the smells of livestock, and it can be a comforting smell of genuineness and peace...you don't understand until you've been around it for a while.  I can imagine the animals there yielding their worship to him.  Helping in their way.  Of course I don't think they did anything anthropomorphic, but I have watched creation bend and serve God.  How much more in this instance!

I think mostly of shepherds, living apart from the hustle of life and culture.  The abiding goodness that tends to grow in people like this, even as their roughness and uneducation makes them seem backward and undesirable to many.  It is a subculture of its own.  I think of their excitement.  I wonder who stayed behind with the sheep while the others ran to find the child.  I think how they are the most unlikely herald: the least likely to be believed by the educated, yet the least likely of all to lie about it or spin it.

I think of times when God has broken through my reality and blazed in front of me.  How much more in this setting!

I think of the gift that this was.  For the limitless God, the moving creating breath of God Himself to shed it all and be confined to the most helpless state of a helpless creature.  I think of what this means in the fabric of the universe.  I think of what this means to my life.

I have had real living experience of this person, this God.  And to know that this same person did these things for me is stilling, overwhelming, emotional.

It makes all the traditions of our culture meaningless at this time.  I don't care for trees or decorations or feasts or treats or gifts or family time or warm memories.  I want to slip off into the night and stare at the sky and let the moment of this event flood all over me.  I can't truly help it anyway.  It keeps flooding in even if I don't want it to.

So when you see me at this time of year you'll know why I'm quiet, why my eyes seem wetter than normal, why I keep slipping away to private places, staring out windows.  This is my Christmas.  And you're welcome to share it with me.

You can keep the rest of it.  I have no use for it.

Through the Roof

In common usage, this phrase means something other than what I mean.  I'm talking down not up.

I was recently reading the story of the friends who lowered the paralysed man through the roof to see Jesus.  In the story, they tried to get him in to see Jesus in hopes that Jesus would heal their friend.  But they couldn't get through the crowd.  So they went up on the roof, and it says they actually dug a hole in the roof to lower the man down.  When Jesus saw their faith, he said the man's sins were forgiven.  This of course sparked controversy with the religious leaders who questioned Jesus, so he healed the man to demonstrate his authority to also forgive sins.

What struck me in this story is the friends.  First they took a friend there.  Imagine the scenario.  In this time, handicapped people were considered to have sinned or to be bearing the punishment for the sins of their parents.  It didn't just happen to people in their minds.  So to be friends with this person was a thing in itself, but not outside of reasonable understanding.  We see this today in similar forms.

Healers in that day were also fairly common.  Historic records talk of this thing periodically, so it wouldn't have been all that strange for a healer to pass through town and draw a crowd.  In days before modern medicine, this was a significant hope for people.

But what really gets me is the ingenuity of these friends.  This is where I resonate with them so strongly.  They could have just waited their turn and hoped patiently to see Jesus, but they weren't content with that.  The need of their friend took precedence over everyone else's needs in their mind.  Wow.  No one teaches that!  I'm not saying they would deny everyone else their chance, but they weren't going to be content to passively sit back.  They had a hope of helping their friend and they were going to make it happen to the greatest of their ability.  Their attitude was not to sit back and patiently wait on God.  They were pushing in and when they couldn't get in, they came up with something else.

I wonder which one had the idea.  They're looking at each other.  The paralysed friends is probably speechless or consoling them that it's ok...they tried.  But one of them looks over up at the roof.  Maybe there were stairs to a flat deck, maybe it was just a thatched roof that they had to climb up on.  But one of them says, "what about up there?"  Were they all in agreement, or did they have to argue it.  Was one the driving force that had the great idea or was it a group of mischievous friends?  Were they scrappy working men who built houses and knew what to do or did they figure it out as they went?  However it happened, they ended up on the roof.

There they found the spot where Jesus was and then began to tear out someone's roof!  Was this an easy repair or something that would take work?  Did they have a plan to fix it later or did they just act and leave the consequences for later?  Mark says they actually dug through the roof, which makes it seem like it wasn't simply removing a few palm fronds.  It could have been abode or dob.  This would be making a serious hole!  Even if it was thatched, you don't just pull off some leaves.  To make thatch water-tight it has to be thick and well hung.  It's also no easy thing to repair, since you have to layer the thatch from bottom to top up the roof slope.  So either way, these guys did some property damage.

Imagine the owner's reaction when he sees his roof torn out and this hole opening up in it!  How would you react?  These guys could have been arrested or charged with criminal activity.  Surely they knew this to some degree.  But it didn't stop them.

And their action was rewarded.  Jesus was impressed with their faith.  I have never been encouraged to act the same way.  No one has ever taught me to help a friend at all costs.  The closest I've ever encountered is teaching about sacrificial giving, but that is even watered down into simply giving more than we would like to a ministry.

But these friends demonstrate real human faith.  We don't even know how they felt about Jesus.  But if there was a chance their friend could be healed, they did everything they could think of to make that happen regardless of what happened to them.

This is the faith I want to live.  This is the faith I am living.  God has called me to it and I have committed.  These hands, this mind, these dreams, ingenuity, creativity, blood, breath, words, money, materials; everything in my power is given to this.  I will tear out roofs, make roads, and go to my death in this cause, God help me.  Try me and see.

Run

Today I ran.  I run nearly every Friday.  Just me.  In the woods.  No shirt, low tech minimal shoes.  I don't run alone though.  God runs with me.  I can feel the Spirit Lord rush behind me, through me, over me.  Meet me at a bend, whisper to me, shout to me.  I follow his voice.  I run until he stops me.  Sometimes I run fast and hard. Sometimes I run slow.  Sometimes I pause.  Sometimes I am dropped on my butt in awe.

I don't just run.  I also climb, jump, balance, swing.  I am the animal I was made.  I am in tune with my ancestors.  I can feel their joy in me.  I interact with the real world.  Today I ran with deer.  Bounding around me along the trail.  I have argued with hogs.  I have followed raccoons.  I have petted armadillos.  I am becoming less a threat to them and more a part of their world.

I learn too.  Today, I vaulted the table again.  Twice.  I had been hampered by my own mind since falling hard several months ago.  I knew I could do it, but couldn't manage it.  Today I did it.  It was awkward, but successful.

I also ran up a new tree.  Four steps, nearly vertical, no hands.  I have tried many times.  This was the first.  I ran and ran.  I got two steps.  The next time I ran harder and got three steps.  But still not high enough.  Today, I got nearly there.  Then I decided to stop climbing and run the whole way.  The realization settled on me and I felt the flow engage as I focused hard on the first foot plant.  Then lifted my eyes to the end goal and I was soaring into it.  Beyond it actually.  It will only get easier from here.

It was the same with the side jumps.  Jump horizontally from one vertical surface to another.  I could manage one side and then slowly learned to land the other.  Now I can jump from one tree to another and continue forward motion.

This is the physical manifestation of my spiritual discipline.  In this practice, I am healed and made whole, even as my body aches.  Even the rips and tears in my skin, the bruises, the sore muscles are healing.  They are part of the warrior.  I am a man and need to feel physical pain to be wholly who I am made to be.  It confirms I exist and that I can survive.

I am this thing called man.  Half spiritual, half physical, ruler of the natural world, heir to the heavens.  When I run, all is merged into one whole and it is good.

Reckless and Painful

The things we feel strongest about are the things we struggle with ourselves.  I recently realized how a few strands of the complex nature-nurture paradigm sort out for myself.  Funny I never saw it before, because it seems so obvious.  Certainly some of my lack of conformity and counter-culture proclivity is natural.  But more than I thought of it is learned.  Not learned, in the positive sense, but in the defensive sense.  Conditioned, I guess is a better word.  This web is complex and I can't sort it all out here.

If you read this blog much, it will be apparent to you that I often struggle with doubt and self-criticism.  I have a pessimistic outlook and must actively look for the good.  I always thought there was something wrong with me, an imbalance of some kind, or just a strangely Puddleglum-like demeanour.  But I'm starting to suspect this may not be the case.  Ultimately, I am what I am now and can't sort out what all is natural vs effects of events and conditions.

But what I can take away from this is that I can like myself.  You see, I have always truly understood that I didn't measure up.  I never cut it.  So I looked for ways to get around it or avoid having to be faced with it.  Ironically, instead of giving up, I learned how to hide it well.  To put on the expected face and even to function at quite a high level.  I've recently learned this is common of people who are raised in an overly critical environment.  Again, I'm not saying it is all someone else's fault, but I previously never considered that it might not be all my fault.  So this is gained ground for me.

Even though I knew God loved me, I could truly never understand why.  This is overwhelming and inhibiting in some ways.  I am now learning to let go of some of that intense self-criticism and see the way God sees me. See myself the way I see others.

This also explains some of my deep hatred for those who prey on those weaker and helpless.  My deep desire to build up and care for the lost and rejected.  I subconsciously can't abide to see another facing what I feel.  To see it ignored. 

It isn't subconscious any more.  Now instead of needing to do it, I can choose to do it.  And I do choose it.  I don't have to.  I could shelter and hedge and prevent further hurt.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to continue to love recklessly and choose to take the hurt that may come with it.  This is what Jesus did.  And this is what he's calling me to do.  So what may have been bad will be turned to good.  My pain will be others' solace.

This in no way excuses those who may have done something wrong to me.  "Woe to the one through whom it comes".  But I will learn to forgive and will pay my pain forward in love.  This is the power of Christ's redemption.  I am freed from fear of pain, freed from the need for self-preservation.  This truly makes me righteous and dangerous, and I can love recklessly and painfully.

I am scarred and broken.  I am wounded and hurt.  I will always be weird and misunderstood.  I will still have bad spells.  But I understand a bit more of who I really am now.  A bit more of the name on the stone has been revealed.  There is power in this.

Woof

My new life is amazing.  I mean that literally.  I am so often amazed now.  But I have also never been more aware of my gross inadequacy to comprehend.  The metaphor of sheepdog has never felt more apt.

In this new life I am more keenly aware of joys and pains, but I am powerless to understand them.  In the joys I wag uncontrollably so that every fiber trembles with it.  In the pains, I want to help but am not capable.  These paws just won't grasp and I can't understand all the words.  And so I slink down and lay at your feet, unable to do more, but waiting for any sign that I can understand.  At one of those words I will jump to action.  I start at every sound, rife with anticipation.  If a bite would help I would bite.  If my head on your knee would help, I would place it.

I am sitting.  Waiting for the command. For the opening.  I will spring to whatever action is required.  In the meantime, I can't even determine if you can understand me.  Do you know what I am saying to you?  Do you know that my greatest joy is to be a part of yours?

The hardest thing for me is the waiting.  I am doing my best.  I must sit.  Stay.  Hold.  The Master knows what he's doing.  I am just the sheepdog.

Rough

This has been a pretty rough weekend.  It happens.  Not that anything particularly bad has happened.  In fact, some very good things have actually occurred and it may get better still before it's over.  Truthfully, I wouldn't be surprised if the bad has been simply because the good was on its way and certain goods illicit spiritual resistance.  Perhaps in the amazing God way, the resistance furthers the good in spite of its intent to do the opposite.

Still it has been rough of a kind I haven't had in a long time.  It started building a while back with tensions in a part of my family.  That didn't go well at all and the best that could come of it was an open acknowledgement of the problem on my part and a refusal to sit under it any more.  This nonetheless hurt to do and revealed to me something about the relationship which I have long known to be the case.  I don't blame anyone here...really.  I don't think anyone meant for these things to happen, but there has been a long history of unspoken disappointments on both sides.  The long and short is that it awakened deep fears and pains in me.  Deeper than I knew.

Add to that a recent occurrence with another part of my family which piled on to already great tensions and hurt.  I was not involved directly and the conflict is between others, but I see the wounds and the aftermath.

Then add in some difficulties arranging certain upcoming events, sickness in some of the family, minor injuries in others, and top it all off with a supposedly all natural, safe, vitamin energy drink which might as well have been crack in a system like mine that can't tolerate anything beyond primitive whole foods, and you have the perfect makings of a bad head.  It doesn't take much for my demons to see an opportunity like this and they are all about exploiting it to full advantage.  This leaves me a tremoring wreck of doubts, fears, anger, confusion, and sadness. 

Of course most of the time, I can put on a brave face and go about my day, and for years I've managed pretty well.  But this weekend I kept losing it at random moments.  Fortunately I was alone each time.  But perhaps this is not fortunate because then no one sees the state I'm in, which only serves as fuel on the fire when they cast a weird glance and simply go about their business oblivious to the tortured captive crying out from behind my eyes.  This is of course fully exploited by my tormentors who keep whispering accusations and lies to me.

In my stronger moments, when chemicals aren't altering my awareness and mood, I can brush past these gaseous scavengers and don't give it a second thought.  But times like these, I am reminded of my sins and flaws and weakness.

Even still, I am more aware of God with me and in others than I have been in the past.  My tribe is still expanding, my influence and reach is growing.  In fact I happily confirmed one more in my family this weekend.  Even in my throes, God is able to work through me, confirming yet again that what good is in me is not of myself. 

And about midway through writing this, I was able to experience the peace and quiet joy of confession.  I have long heard from my Catholic friends about this, but have never really had the opportunity to experience it.  Of course, I didn't talk to a priest in that sense, but appealed to the natural priesthood of a trusted sister who was able to listen, and demonstrate absolution in her acceptance of what I am writing here, only to a level of detail which I will not write here.

Thank God for all he is.