After my recent cycle into darkness, I am starting to feel better. Not 100%, but better. I'm still working out some things about causes, triggers, etc. No major metanoia either though.
But I did have one realization as the light started to dawn in my world again. I've been faking things pretty darn well. I actually do it a lot. It probably started as a survival mechanism somewhere. But I remember coming to a point years ago where I had to let things out. It helped me stay out of the dark. But I developed a reputation for being really angry. I kept my head pretty well, but I would verbally rail about things that upset me and there were lots of them.
Overtime, I had thought I'd gotten rid of that. Calmed down. But recently I've found that same part of me still there, still as angry. It hadn't come back. It just never left. I guess I'd been repressing it.
Actually, I hate being angry. It's really just a sort of snarling out of fear and frustration. See, it all comes back to cages. I hate being pent up. I don't know why. I'm not claustrophobic or anything, it's more an internal sort of thing. When I'm being boxed in, given a situation where there's no way out, I start to get like any intelligent animal in a cage gets. They either get mean, go crazy, or give up. And mean is the most conducive to survival. Crazy just means they've won, and giving up feels worse than anything. That's where the demons are. So anger it is.
But anyway, my point is that I had become pretty good at faking the right attitude. Even in my spiritual life, I know what a mature Christian should exhibit, and I can put that on. I can also pull off just the right mix of humility and power to make people think I'm pretty darn holy. I even learned to mix in a good deal of truth with it such that I flat out tell people I'm bad, but do it in a way that they don't believe me. I'm serious about this. I know how to pause, tone my voice, phrase my words and make what I want to say seem wise or mysterious or even beyond my years. I even fooled myself into believing it. Seriously. That's what I've just learned. I haven't really grown much at all.
Now in some ways I have, sure. I could go into those but that would make this over-long. But in this deep root area, I have not changed much at all. The fruits of the spirit are just not there. I know how to make them look like they're there, but that's not the same thing. It's not. What's real is the natural outpouring of the heart when we're not trying.
What's been coming out of me lately means I'm either possessed or have just opened up a dark corner of my internal house and found it has been rotting in there for a long time. I don't want to go into what made me realize this, but suffice to say you'll probably imagine it worse than it was outwardly, but if I told you, you'd imagine it far less than it was inwardly. So I won't say.
But this made me think of how that could happen. How could I pursue virtue and good character and not find even a little of it? I think it's because I'm pursuing the wrong thing. You see, any time we Christians lay an expectation on another, we force them, be it insidiously slight or brashly overt, to ACT like we tell them they should. It's all about the DIY. Fruits are love, joy, peace, patience... So I'll just be more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient. I won't be perfect, but heck, we're all sinners saved by grace, right? It's the try that counts and the more we try, the more we actually become. Fake it till you make it!
This is wrong. God wants us not to love him from obligation or expectation. He wants us to genuinely love him. He'd rather us reject him than pretend. This is the only explanation that makes sense. So if I'm doing something good that my heart's not into, I might as well not do it. Better to be bad and honest than good and a liar because the first leads to real life, while the other leads to white-washed tombs.
So this part isn't new. I've blogged about it before. But what is new is the realization that I am one of the tombs. If it took a trip to hell to open my eyes to that, then I thank God for it. I've got to quit this, but I can't. So I have to re-learn it all from this perspective. He does the work. I just grow however he grows me; I can't, sow, hoe, water, and prune myself.
So if you think I've fallen off the deep end, you were just one of those I duped. Please don't try to draw me back in. It's hard to stay honest in this. And I'm faking it enough already in writing this so cleanly.
Showing posts with label new. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new. Show all posts
Saturday, May 2, 2015
Friday, January 3, 2014
Peace and Action
Peace is not lack of activity. Action is not lack of peace. I fear that committing to peace will make me soft. But I know this is not true.
It's not a new dynamic entirely. I remember shedding hate years ago in a moment of bright flash, I realized that I was wasting so much energy on hating things and people. I thought it was justified, righteous even, to hate what was evil. I dropped it right then and there. I was walking through Ybor City one afternoon before it was turned into a seedy party spot. (Contrary to popular belief, it was actually safer then...full of people like me and we got along for the most part, but that's another entry.)
But even that wasn't fully dropped. I found lingering elements of hate locked away deep inside me. Levels below the first set. These only surfaced years later. I probably wrote about it here, but don't remember.
So, I know how this works somewhat. But I'm unsure of how to walk it out. How do I interact with people when the scripts I know are all strategies and battle plans? Is there any reference to draw upon? Sources for new scripts?
There are a few. The Practice of the Presence is one. Uncle George has a few too. But in my own life and time, I have some. I remember a time when I was all about actions to give a little wonder and joy. Like an imp spreading good mischief, I was always looking for a way to surprise people with a little Amelie-style goodness, far before that movie, lest anyone think I copied it. It may be time to resurrect these to some extent. I'd stand in a crowd and say hi to people then give a dollar to whoever greeted me back. I'd slip up behind some random acquaintance and slide some jewelry around her neck. Pay for someone's meal behind me and walk away. Climb into scenic overlooks and wave frantically back at people, swinging from a tree or some other feature. (People always cracked up at this.) Strike up conversations with strangers as if I knew them, never letting them tell me they didn't know me. Physical clowning was always great. Run into something, get sprayed in the face, dive into a sand trap on a golf course and then rake out all the prints but the body shape. One I never did, but saw in an obscure movie years later and wished I had: buy objects at thrift stores with people's names on them and secretly deliver them to people with those names.
Perhaps I never fully gave them up. But I have largely lost this sensibility. I think it's the slow dulling grind of daily routine that wore it away. But I think these are seeds of a new mode of activity. One which defuses and brightens, instead of stokes and obscures.
It's not a new dynamic entirely. I remember shedding hate years ago in a moment of bright flash, I realized that I was wasting so much energy on hating things and people. I thought it was justified, righteous even, to hate what was evil. I dropped it right then and there. I was walking through Ybor City one afternoon before it was turned into a seedy party spot. (Contrary to popular belief, it was actually safer then...full of people like me and we got along for the most part, but that's another entry.)
But even that wasn't fully dropped. I found lingering elements of hate locked away deep inside me. Levels below the first set. These only surfaced years later. I probably wrote about it here, but don't remember.
So, I know how this works somewhat. But I'm unsure of how to walk it out. How do I interact with people when the scripts I know are all strategies and battle plans? Is there any reference to draw upon? Sources for new scripts?
There are a few. The Practice of the Presence is one. Uncle George has a few too. But in my own life and time, I have some. I remember a time when I was all about actions to give a little wonder and joy. Like an imp spreading good mischief, I was always looking for a way to surprise people with a little Amelie-style goodness, far before that movie, lest anyone think I copied it. It may be time to resurrect these to some extent. I'd stand in a crowd and say hi to people then give a dollar to whoever greeted me back. I'd slip up behind some random acquaintance and slide some jewelry around her neck. Pay for someone's meal behind me and walk away. Climb into scenic overlooks and wave frantically back at people, swinging from a tree or some other feature. (People always cracked up at this.) Strike up conversations with strangers as if I knew them, never letting them tell me they didn't know me. Physical clowning was always great. Run into something, get sprayed in the face, dive into a sand trap on a golf course and then rake out all the prints but the body shape. One I never did, but saw in an obscure movie years later and wished I had: buy objects at thrift stores with people's names on them and secretly deliver them to people with those names.
Perhaps I never fully gave them up. But I have largely lost this sensibility. I think it's the slow dulling grind of daily routine that wore it away. But I think these are seeds of a new mode of activity. One which defuses and brightens, instead of stokes and obscures.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
New
All things new. I've heard this countless times, but today it was brought to my mind in a new light. I have often understood the regeneration thing in terms of a one-time incident. That's actually the sense of the words in 2 Corinthians 5:17. I just checked. So I'm not saying that's wrong. Just that the verse, and the one in Revelation 21:5, was spoken to me today with a new meaning. And when the Lord of Spirits speaks it, I've learned to listen as it is intended in the moment.
I was thinking about letting go of the masks we wear and about living as if the past was dead, when I realized that I often think of that regeneration as a point that happened once and everything after that point is now held to my account. So while I know we are forgiven past and future and all that, the fact is, I feel responsible for my failures after that point of regeneration. This is a heavy burden for someone who has been in the Blood for years...and by some theologies years even before that. That's a lot of time to screw things up. A lot of time to be faced with one's own inadequacy...all the more clearly visible because of the new clarity of mind that comes with the Spirit. But in the split second that these thoughts crossed my mind He spoke to me that all things are made new repeatedly. That same joy and release one feels at first understanding that one is set free from the guilt of their offenses is mine each and every moment.
It's as if I am walking forward and shedding weight and armor with every step and with every step there is more and more to keep shedding for miles and miles and years and years, a trail of shed material falling away and ever more beneath it, all the while by slightest degrees the glory of the new creation becoming more and more manifest through it.
I was thinking about letting go of the masks we wear and about living as if the past was dead, when I realized that I often think of that regeneration as a point that happened once and everything after that point is now held to my account. So while I know we are forgiven past and future and all that, the fact is, I feel responsible for my failures after that point of regeneration. This is a heavy burden for someone who has been in the Blood for years...and by some theologies years even before that. That's a lot of time to screw things up. A lot of time to be faced with one's own inadequacy...all the more clearly visible because of the new clarity of mind that comes with the Spirit. But in the split second that these thoughts crossed my mind He spoke to me that all things are made new repeatedly. That same joy and release one feels at first understanding that one is set free from the guilt of their offenses is mine each and every moment.
It's as if I am walking forward and shedding weight and armor with every step and with every step there is more and more to keep shedding for miles and miles and years and years, a trail of shed material falling away and ever more beneath it, all the while by slightest degrees the glory of the new creation becoming more and more manifest through it.
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