I have learned so much from animals and nature. There's is a world only ruined by association. This means it functions much closer to perfection and where the affects of ruination are felt they are handled more like they would be handled in a perfect state.
Right now, I'm thinking of how animals and even plants (which are far more responsive than people think, only on a much slower time scale) do not judge. If they form opinions, they do not affect behavior in any large degree. They take each action or event as it comes, they tolerate massive amounts of wrong, and they are slow to learn fear or hate while being quick to forgive.
I wonder if I can learn to live like this. Can I not expect, not interpret, not figure? Can I learn to simply be and watch and react appropriately? I've spent years thinking about things in hopes of reaching peace through ultimate understanding. If I could see how things all work, I'd be able to rest in that just like when you understand your surgery or illness you feel less anxious about it. Not that I ever thought I would get to the end, but it was the distant goal that defined a paradigm.
But now I'm starting to realize that this may not be the answer. Like Solomon returning to rest in meaninglessness, I'm finding that understanding brings no peace.
No matter what I learn, I feel like I've done all this before. Had these realizations, cycled around, and nothing has really changed.
I recognized the cycles before, but I envisioned them spiraling upward where each cycle was a little closer to truth. But I doubt that now.
Now I want to get off the train. I want to watch it draw away from me and take all it's energy and activity with it. I want to look and simply see what is there, not be preoccupied with things that aren't there. Wars and rumors of wars, a chasing after the wind, trying to capture shadows. I want to see feel what is there without having to analyze, systematize and categorize. I just want to feel and let the feeling go into the next, good, bad, sad, or indifferent.
I want a simple and gentle yet unabashed honesty, like animals, to the greatest degree I can.
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peace. Show all posts
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Sunday, August 7, 2016
PokemonGo and perception of reality
Someone I know was recently upset at the treatment he'd received from general public while playing this game. This aligned with things I've been thinking lately, so I decided to jump off from there.
If you don't know, Pokemon Go is a location-based, augmented reality video game. Location-based means the players have to go to physical locations where the game will release certain aspects of play. Augmented reality is where a smartphone, for instance, will lay digital content over the camera image and the real can interact with the digital on the screen. Think of it like a live green-screen.
So we've got lots of people walking around playing this game and it's caused a lot of sideline problems, like trespassing, property rights, etc. But that's not my point. I'm more interested in arbitrating the latent battle that has already begun to break out, as evidenced by my friend's comments and the vitriolic backlash from sympathizers with him against those who offended. These games aren't going away, so we might as well learn how to live peaceably.
I think the controversy comes down to a fundamental mismatch in views of reality.
But before I get to that, I want to be clear, no one should ever harass another person for any reason. Regardless of your opinions on the game or the people playing it, or not playing it, respect the other and be decent, if nice is too much to ask. That said, I'm going to attempt to illustrate what each side of the argument perceives.
The players love the imaginative aspect of the game. They like the merging of innocent fantasy and reality. They like the interaction with technology. They like video games in general, and here is finally one where they can get outside and interact with the real world. Maybe they even get a little exercise. When they play, they are looking at the real world through the screen and find it a novel way to enjoy themselves. Their imagination fills in the gaps of the game and they see the two in a merged fashion. It's a harmless way to bring a little magic to the mundane.
Those who oppose it see people, many of whom self-identify as geeks (i.e. people overly enthusiastic, often in an off-putting way, about a topic, many of which are not physical or sports-related) walking around, sometimes absently, staring at blinking lights on a plastic box. What's so fun about that?! It's just one more way to disengage from reality and pretend to do something real. They don't perceive the merged reality, or the fantasy. They view the world in a more concrete fashion. Players aren't catching anything. They aren't seeing anything. It's all fake! Hopefully, if you're from the other camp, you can see how this would appear. The players appear to have almost lost their minds! Take the screen away and you've got the exact image of the homeless dude who babbles to invisible people as he walks around...though perhaps players are cleaner.
Again, I'm not justifying rude remarks in any way. Just trying to help one side see the other's perspective.
I recently had a similar discussion with my son when he was saving replays of video game exploits to share with friends. He kept wanting to show me his accomplishments and I was decidedly uninterested. He couldn't understand until I told him to cover the screen and pretend to do whatever he had done to get that accomplishment. Then I copied him with the screen covered. He was shocked at how stupid it looked. Essentially all he did was touch buttons in a sequence, and I was supposed to be impressed by that.
But to him, it was a much greater experience. The thing I tried to get him to see was that the experience only existed in his imagination, aided by complex coding of pixels and key sequences. When talking to people on the same plane of imagination, it was great. From outside that, it was worse than mundane.
So I'm stopping there. No judgement on either side, except to say that you must first understand your adversary before you can defeat them. And in so doing, you'll find that most of the time, you really have no adversary at all...it's just in your imagination.
If you don't know, Pokemon Go is a location-based, augmented reality video game. Location-based means the players have to go to physical locations where the game will release certain aspects of play. Augmented reality is where a smartphone, for instance, will lay digital content over the camera image and the real can interact with the digital on the screen. Think of it like a live green-screen.
So we've got lots of people walking around playing this game and it's caused a lot of sideline problems, like trespassing, property rights, etc. But that's not my point. I'm more interested in arbitrating the latent battle that has already begun to break out, as evidenced by my friend's comments and the vitriolic backlash from sympathizers with him against those who offended. These games aren't going away, so we might as well learn how to live peaceably.
I think the controversy comes down to a fundamental mismatch in views of reality.
But before I get to that, I want to be clear, no one should ever harass another person for any reason. Regardless of your opinions on the game or the people playing it, or not playing it, respect the other and be decent, if nice is too much to ask. That said, I'm going to attempt to illustrate what each side of the argument perceives.
The players love the imaginative aspect of the game. They like the merging of innocent fantasy and reality. They like the interaction with technology. They like video games in general, and here is finally one where they can get outside and interact with the real world. Maybe they even get a little exercise. When they play, they are looking at the real world through the screen and find it a novel way to enjoy themselves. Their imagination fills in the gaps of the game and they see the two in a merged fashion. It's a harmless way to bring a little magic to the mundane.
Those who oppose it see people, many of whom self-identify as geeks (i.e. people overly enthusiastic, often in an off-putting way, about a topic, many of which are not physical or sports-related) walking around, sometimes absently, staring at blinking lights on a plastic box. What's so fun about that?! It's just one more way to disengage from reality and pretend to do something real. They don't perceive the merged reality, or the fantasy. They view the world in a more concrete fashion. Players aren't catching anything. They aren't seeing anything. It's all fake! Hopefully, if you're from the other camp, you can see how this would appear. The players appear to have almost lost their minds! Take the screen away and you've got the exact image of the homeless dude who babbles to invisible people as he walks around...though perhaps players are cleaner.
Again, I'm not justifying rude remarks in any way. Just trying to help one side see the other's perspective.
I recently had a similar discussion with my son when he was saving replays of video game exploits to share with friends. He kept wanting to show me his accomplishments and I was decidedly uninterested. He couldn't understand until I told him to cover the screen and pretend to do whatever he had done to get that accomplishment. Then I copied him with the screen covered. He was shocked at how stupid it looked. Essentially all he did was touch buttons in a sequence, and I was supposed to be impressed by that.
But to him, it was a much greater experience. The thing I tried to get him to see was that the experience only existed in his imagination, aided by complex coding of pixels and key sequences. When talking to people on the same plane of imagination, it was great. From outside that, it was worse than mundane.
So I'm stopping there. No judgement on either side, except to say that you must first understand your adversary before you can defeat them. And in so doing, you'll find that most of the time, you really have no adversary at all...it's just in your imagination.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Other Side
I'm pretty sure I've never blogged about this. At least not in any discernibly direct way. But I'm going to give it a shot. This blog is primarily a way for me to process thoughts or feelings. As such, it tends toward the confusing and angry, occasionally the mystical. But that of course is not all I experience. It's just that times of clear understanding or emotion don't need processing; they're just experienced. So I don't write about them. This other side makes up a significant portion of the contemplative Christian experience, at least for me and for many I read about and talk to. It's hard to describe, so I'm going to muddle on.
Right now, I'm coming off a brief mild illness. Just a cold. But it follows a stressful period and I have received it gratefully as an excuse to rest. I've been overwhelmed by a sense of peace in it. Just a deep soul-whisper of "thank you" for bringing me into the rest I could not give myself. Throughout it I've felt at ease. I've felt cared for. The back of my mind has been haunted by strains of music of a gentle love toward me and from me toward my God.
Please know that for me, this word 'God' is loaded very differently than most may use it. It's like the deepest self-giving love you may feel for a loved one, combined with an awe or respect given a hero or excellent father, and a sublime (look this word up) reverence as if looking into something huge and vast and powerful, yet gorgeously beautiful. There is nothing of punishment, nothing of justice.
Jody Foster echoes it in Contact when she cries in the fetal position in her journey. CS Lewis describes it in the Pevensie children burying their faces in Aslan's mane. It is a safety and a rightness found because of the power sheathed in gentleness, like a small Tarzan baby sound asleep in a gorilla's arms.
This is not why I became a Christian, but it is why I stay a Christian. This is why I can't accept any form of Christianity that takes away from this. This is irresistible love. This is looking into the dark chasm of the universe and finding everything you've secretly hoped for and never even admitted to yourself looking right back at you and smiling with a face that is more human than your own.
Right now, I'm coming off a brief mild illness. Just a cold. But it follows a stressful period and I have received it gratefully as an excuse to rest. I've been overwhelmed by a sense of peace in it. Just a deep soul-whisper of "thank you" for bringing me into the rest I could not give myself. Throughout it I've felt at ease. I've felt cared for. The back of my mind has been haunted by strains of music of a gentle love toward me and from me toward my God.
Please know that for me, this word 'God' is loaded very differently than most may use it. It's like the deepest self-giving love you may feel for a loved one, combined with an awe or respect given a hero or excellent father, and a sublime (look this word up) reverence as if looking into something huge and vast and powerful, yet gorgeously beautiful. There is nothing of punishment, nothing of justice.
Jody Foster echoes it in Contact when she cries in the fetal position in her journey. CS Lewis describes it in the Pevensie children burying their faces in Aslan's mane. It is a safety and a rightness found because of the power sheathed in gentleness, like a small Tarzan baby sound asleep in a gorilla's arms.
This is not why I became a Christian, but it is why I stay a Christian. This is why I can't accept any form of Christianity that takes away from this. This is irresistible love. This is looking into the dark chasm of the universe and finding everything you've secretly hoped for and never even admitted to yourself looking right back at you and smiling with a face that is more human than your own.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Practicum Part 3
I knew it would come. I think I have my resolution. It came today in what I can only describe as a moment of spiritual revelation. As usual, this will not translate into words very well. But I'm documenting it anyway.
A new person started at work this week and guess what? Yep. Not married, but I have it on good authority. It will be a hard road working amongst these rough field guys, and doubly so because he was sort of foisted on to them by a management decision. I'm pretty sure this detail of his personality hasn't, shall we say...come out.
So today as I was leaving I had a desire to reach out and be friendly, even though this person doesn't work for or with me. It was simply an offhand greeting with a little more friendliness than perhaps is typical. Simple, but a reaching out nonetheless. It stems from a desire to be Christ-like to others. Caring for widows, orphans, and foreigners.
So then on the way home it hit me that I had a desire to reach out simply because he was an outsider and I understand how that could be hard. Then from somewhere deep it flooded over me that it is wrong to create difficulty for people. Not just wrong here, but wrong in my conundrum about marriage. How could I imitate Jesus who didn't "break a bruised reed" if I was at all harsh or declarative about things I believe. I would never do anything toward this person but show them respect and kindness, regardless of their situation, so it should be the same for everyone.
It wasn't an intellectual understanding. It was less clear and more full. Full of emotion and rightness, so I knew I had my answer. Even this blog over this topic may be too much for people who don't at all understand where I'm coming from and I debated deleting these posts. But then I thought it may serve more good to leave them as they stand in case someone stuggling with a similar issue may stumble across (or be guided to) them. Perhaps it will be helpful. Or maybe it could help someone who has been mistreated understand those who have been hurtful. Plus, like Paul, if I must boast, let me boast in my failings because in them Jesus is shown to be who he is: the fullest revelation of God and the perfection of humanity.
So if my recent blogs have confused or estranged anyone in my seeming judgementalism, I sincerely apologize. I ask that you come to know me before you judge me, just as you want others to do for you. This was not about hatred or politics. It has been a true chronicle of one person's struggle to deal with a surprising reaction in myself.
While I have not at all changed my beliefs on it all, you can be certain that I will not force them upon anyone or treat anyone wrongly because of my issues, God help me.
I am a complex and growing person, just like everyone else and we all have our issues that God is perfecting in due time. I will aid this in myself and in others if I can. But it is in his hands, not mine. And where I am unsure or where my issues rub up against yours, I will try my best to not make things more difficult.
A new person started at work this week and guess what? Yep. Not married, but I have it on good authority. It will be a hard road working amongst these rough field guys, and doubly so because he was sort of foisted on to them by a management decision. I'm pretty sure this detail of his personality hasn't, shall we say...come out.
So today as I was leaving I had a desire to reach out and be friendly, even though this person doesn't work for or with me. It was simply an offhand greeting with a little more friendliness than perhaps is typical. Simple, but a reaching out nonetheless. It stems from a desire to be Christ-like to others. Caring for widows, orphans, and foreigners.
So then on the way home it hit me that I had a desire to reach out simply because he was an outsider and I understand how that could be hard. Then from somewhere deep it flooded over me that it is wrong to create difficulty for people. Not just wrong here, but wrong in my conundrum about marriage. How could I imitate Jesus who didn't "break a bruised reed" if I was at all harsh or declarative about things I believe. I would never do anything toward this person but show them respect and kindness, regardless of their situation, so it should be the same for everyone.
It wasn't an intellectual understanding. It was less clear and more full. Full of emotion and rightness, so I knew I had my answer. Even this blog over this topic may be too much for people who don't at all understand where I'm coming from and I debated deleting these posts. But then I thought it may serve more good to leave them as they stand in case someone stuggling with a similar issue may stumble across (or be guided to) them. Perhaps it will be helpful. Or maybe it could help someone who has been mistreated understand those who have been hurtful. Plus, like Paul, if I must boast, let me boast in my failings because in them Jesus is shown to be who he is: the fullest revelation of God and the perfection of humanity.
So if my recent blogs have confused or estranged anyone in my seeming judgementalism, I sincerely apologize. I ask that you come to know me before you judge me, just as you want others to do for you. This was not about hatred or politics. It has been a true chronicle of one person's struggle to deal with a surprising reaction in myself.
While I have not at all changed my beliefs on it all, you can be certain that I will not force them upon anyone or treat anyone wrongly because of my issues, God help me.
I am a complex and growing person, just like everyone else and we all have our issues that God is perfecting in due time. I will aid this in myself and in others if I can. But it is in his hands, not mine. And where I am unsure or where my issues rub up against yours, I will try my best to not make things more difficult.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Poured
"Christians devour each other." This is a quote I once read in an article by a Christian who was quoting his athiest friend who was observing why he isn't a Christian. It's very true.
I feel poured out. Stretched at every point. People want things and they want more and more and more. Like my cup is draining faster than filling. And then some people ask for things they don't really want you to give them.
I do public work. So what I do isn't just inconsequential money-making tasks. It's things that enable most of you do your inconsequential money-making tasks, and I do them at a level that is involved in the decisions and planning. So it is not boasting to say that what I do affects all of you who live in the same area and has lasting impacts into the future. It's just so invisible to your daily lives that you don't even know it's going on. But I digress.
My point is that even in this, a coworker was saying today, "It's as if they ask us to make something better because they have to, but they really just want to keep doing the same old thing, so they make it something super difficult to actually accomplish with little resources, and when we figure out a way to do it anyway, they say, 'oh s***!, we never thought they'd actually do it!' So they have to make it artificially difficult."
So I get it from all sides. And in the place I should find rest and comfort, I find people saying, "well if your joy isn't complete you just have to..." It's all on my effort. Even if that effort is simply believing something, or thinking something, or seeing something differently. I don't know if these people are well-meaning candy-eyed types who have never really known darkness, or if they're just clones spitting whatever script they can access from a motivational poster, or if they are just as screwed up and think they need to mask it by saying the 'right' thing.
Well, I'm stepping out and saying that for some of us, it isn't that easy. If I were to hound you about running and tell you that you just need to run faster. You just need stronger muscles, a better heart, more endurance! You'd look at me and say, "easy for you to say." Well why is it any different with a mental or emotional condition. I can't help it! I know all the stuff you're saying. I just can't make it any different! Don't you think I've tried? I promise you I'm not one of those people who just want to play the victim. and even if I was, maybe I couldn't help that either!
Why are you so quick to explain and categorize and answer? You obviously don't get it, or you're a liar. Either way, you make it abundantly clear that I can't reveal this part of me to you. So you rob from me a place to find rest. You force a tired soul out into the night again because there's obviously no room in your inn for the likes of me.
Even still, for your sake, I hope God doesn't lay my blood on your hands because I don't think you know what you do. And I've been to hell, just went back for a visit actually. Trust me, you don't want to go.
I feel poured out. Stretched at every point. People want things and they want more and more and more. Like my cup is draining faster than filling. And then some people ask for things they don't really want you to give them.
I do public work. So what I do isn't just inconsequential money-making tasks. It's things that enable most of you do your inconsequential money-making tasks, and I do them at a level that is involved in the decisions and planning. So it is not boasting to say that what I do affects all of you who live in the same area and has lasting impacts into the future. It's just so invisible to your daily lives that you don't even know it's going on. But I digress.
My point is that even in this, a coworker was saying today, "It's as if they ask us to make something better because they have to, but they really just want to keep doing the same old thing, so they make it something super difficult to actually accomplish with little resources, and when we figure out a way to do it anyway, they say, 'oh s***!, we never thought they'd actually do it!' So they have to make it artificially difficult."
So I get it from all sides. And in the place I should find rest and comfort, I find people saying, "well if your joy isn't complete you just have to..." It's all on my effort. Even if that effort is simply believing something, or thinking something, or seeing something differently. I don't know if these people are well-meaning candy-eyed types who have never really known darkness, or if they're just clones spitting whatever script they can access from a motivational poster, or if they are just as screwed up and think they need to mask it by saying the 'right' thing.
Well, I'm stepping out and saying that for some of us, it isn't that easy. If I were to hound you about running and tell you that you just need to run faster. You just need stronger muscles, a better heart, more endurance! You'd look at me and say, "easy for you to say." Well why is it any different with a mental or emotional condition. I can't help it! I know all the stuff you're saying. I just can't make it any different! Don't you think I've tried? I promise you I'm not one of those people who just want to play the victim. and even if I was, maybe I couldn't help that either!
Why are you so quick to explain and categorize and answer? You obviously don't get it, or you're a liar. Either way, you make it abundantly clear that I can't reveal this part of me to you. So you rob from me a place to find rest. You force a tired soul out into the night again because there's obviously no room in your inn for the likes of me.
Even still, for your sake, I hope God doesn't lay my blood on your hands because I don't think you know what you do. And I've been to hell, just went back for a visit actually. Trust me, you don't want to go.
Monday, February 17, 2014
Lull
I haven't written in a while. Sometimes a lull occurs and I am grateful. Not that things have been bad or perfect, or even dull. Just relative peace in my mind and life. I'm actually inspired back to write by a chance comment from an unknown reader. But I don't know where this will go.
Holidays are finally over and it takes several months to recover some normalcy. Some things never come back. I wonder how many things, good or bad, are lost because of the American Holiday Season. Some people like the change. I think they wait all year to do the things they do in that season. But I don't. I don't see life as that long. Truthfully, it isn't a conscious decision, just the way I am made: I see multiple pathways in everything and that includes the negative. I may very well not have another opportunity, so I take them where they come. This melds into and shapes my worldview to do only what God asks of us in the moment that he asks. It's a curious chicken/egg, Daoish, paradox of influence.
But anyway, the point is, I do all year things that most reserve for the one time a year. Therefore when the holidays come and everyone stops doing what they normally do for some unexplained cultural reason, my life grinds to a halt. After 3 months of that, people (including myself) have forgotten what we were doing before that time and have to start all over. What is recalled takes months to ramp up momentum.
In other news, my hand and wife are healing, so even more activities that have been on hold are slowly coming back. Really, I think if it wasn't for these lulls, more would be accomplished.
Another factor contributing to the lull is that we finally completely dropped a major source of irritation and provocation...namely the church we've been going to for many years. Being someone who commits slowly and moves circumspectly, I am also slow to completely drop something. I keep trying and biding until all remnant of good is squeezed out of something and the one last straw falls.
The long and short is, I'm now much happier in that regard. We've started checking out another place which is a very different character, yet not entirely alien. I have no intention of jumping in too heavily, and anyone who wants to argue that I should do otherwise is welcome to step to. I'll challenge anyone to walk in my shoes for a while and tell me they'd do otherwise. Same goes for anyone who says you shouldn't change churches because we're all flawed. I know where they're coming from. I've been them before. Just keep jawing what you don't know...you'll see. And if not, then our paths are different and all the best on yours.
Seriously, I wish people would think a little more before they start spouting advice. Does anyone ever really give good advice? I remember hearing a friend whose job included listening to people's problems say he was done giving advice. I thought I understood, but thought he was taking it too far. Surely sometimes we know what someone else doesn't, I thought. But now, I'm starting to see his point more clearly. We are never in exactly the same place as another. we might be passing nearby, but our lives come from and are going to different places, making it very difficult to ever truly tell someone else what to do with any accuracy. Further, too many people can't see them selves clearly enough, or refuse to admit their own reality, to even see what wisdom you might offer.
I recently had a friend call me repeatedly (I have to tell him I HATE the telephone) to try to get "advice" but each time I clearly saw what he wanted to do and that he was just looking for an excuse to say he'd talked it over even though he'd really already made up his mind. Self deception at it's finest. And this is a smart and relatively good, well-adjusted person!
No, I think the best we can do is listen and reflect, perhaps share a story or thought sparked by what they say and maybe help each other discern our own paths at the moment.
Holidays are finally over and it takes several months to recover some normalcy. Some things never come back. I wonder how many things, good or bad, are lost because of the American Holiday Season. Some people like the change. I think they wait all year to do the things they do in that season. But I don't. I don't see life as that long. Truthfully, it isn't a conscious decision, just the way I am made: I see multiple pathways in everything and that includes the negative. I may very well not have another opportunity, so I take them where they come. This melds into and shapes my worldview to do only what God asks of us in the moment that he asks. It's a curious chicken/egg, Daoish, paradox of influence.
But anyway, the point is, I do all year things that most reserve for the one time a year. Therefore when the holidays come and everyone stops doing what they normally do for some unexplained cultural reason, my life grinds to a halt. After 3 months of that, people (including myself) have forgotten what we were doing before that time and have to start all over. What is recalled takes months to ramp up momentum.
In other news, my hand and wife are healing, so even more activities that have been on hold are slowly coming back. Really, I think if it wasn't for these lulls, more would be accomplished.
Another factor contributing to the lull is that we finally completely dropped a major source of irritation and provocation...namely the church we've been going to for many years. Being someone who commits slowly and moves circumspectly, I am also slow to completely drop something. I keep trying and biding until all remnant of good is squeezed out of something and the one last straw falls.
The long and short is, I'm now much happier in that regard. We've started checking out another place which is a very different character, yet not entirely alien. I have no intention of jumping in too heavily, and anyone who wants to argue that I should do otherwise is welcome to step to. I'll challenge anyone to walk in my shoes for a while and tell me they'd do otherwise. Same goes for anyone who says you shouldn't change churches because we're all flawed. I know where they're coming from. I've been them before. Just keep jawing what you don't know...you'll see. And if not, then our paths are different and all the best on yours.
Seriously, I wish people would think a little more before they start spouting advice. Does anyone ever really give good advice? I remember hearing a friend whose job included listening to people's problems say he was done giving advice. I thought I understood, but thought he was taking it too far. Surely sometimes we know what someone else doesn't, I thought. But now, I'm starting to see his point more clearly. We are never in exactly the same place as another. we might be passing nearby, but our lives come from and are going to different places, making it very difficult to ever truly tell someone else what to do with any accuracy. Further, too many people can't see them selves clearly enough, or refuse to admit their own reality, to even see what wisdom you might offer.
I recently had a friend call me repeatedly (I have to tell him I HATE the telephone) to try to get "advice" but each time I clearly saw what he wanted to do and that he was just looking for an excuse to say he'd talked it over even though he'd really already made up his mind. Self deception at it's finest. And this is a smart and relatively good, well-adjusted person!
No, I think the best we can do is listen and reflect, perhaps share a story or thought sparked by what they say and maybe help each other discern our own paths at the moment.
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.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Man of Peace
Sometimes things get away from us before we notice them. I'm convinced most bad things start as good ideas that get perverted in the application...probably by small unnoticeable steps. I recently found myself being quite tense and angry. Every little thing began to bother me.
Fortunately, I rather quickly realized that it wasn't a problem with the entire world, but with me. Among the quite probable multiple errors I made in this, one I noticed was that I felt as if I was resisting a constant tide. It was me standing strong, fighting forward, alone against the fray...metaphorically, in my mind.
Like I said, I don't think this is wrong in itself. I think we need more people who stand up for what is right, demand that as far as their influence reaches, things are done well and honestly. The probelm is this is very tiring, alienating, stressful.
The truth is, I don't have to fix everything, including myself. In fact, I have to fix nothing. The yoke should be easy, and the burden light, not the opposite. Funny how fighting to take off burdens becomes a burden in itself.
But I don't want to dwell on the principles, I want to talk about the specifics in this case. I am laying down my arms. I have misunderstood the militaristic imagery of the Bible in my own way. I have realized that I can't be any kind of hard-minded. This includes how I think of myself. I am shedding the Holy Knight's armor for the friar's habit. I no longer want to be the warrior monk, not even the standoffish Ranger exuding a watchful quiet that whispers of latent danger. I want to be Brother Elias and Lawrence. Bombadil. Unaffected by the churning of the world.
I don't mean to close myself off to the world, but to approach it differently. I had become so focused on defending my flock that I lost sight of the fact that the flock isn't in any real danger. Not circumstantially, but existentially, catagorically. They are safe because they have been removed from the possibility of harm.
I love the epic story so much, it's easy to cast myself in that light. But the truth is, the danger has been eliminated. Truthfully, there never was any real danger. God has always been in control, nothing occurs outside his will, and even the most dastardly schemes to do harm are woven back beyond impotence to actually work good and the will of the Father. This is the Gospel. The world is restored.
The people I most admire overcame terrible circumstances and even walked into horrific death, not as steely gladiators, afraid of nothing, but as simple people so convinced that the world had been set right that even their present suffering was not a blip on their radar.
This is who I want to be. And I can't do that with my fist clenched and my fangs bared. So I'm laying down my guard, laying down my weapons. I'm sure there is a place for those feelings, but I can't use them right now. They are too tainted, carry too much possibility of consuming me. So while I may still feel those urges, I am offering myself up to a new perspective and can only pray that I do not go the way of Mendoza in the Mission. I want to be a man of peace.
What this means for me is that I will not associate myself with or flood myself with images of fighting. I will not style myself that way any more. My physical training will shift: rather than preparing to face the foe, to be ready to snatch the helpless from the jaws of the beast, I will move out of joy and celebration. I will look for and acknowledge the good. I am choosing a path of peace...not pacifism, but understanding conflict, it's roots, and moving beyond it. I have to learn to let God fight for me and not the other way around. I think I'll find that there will be no fight to have because all the variables are in God's control.
I'm sure this makes little sense and is far too internal to be of much use to anyone else. But this is the key to my cage. I'm opening the door and walking out to find it was never locked.
Fortunately, I rather quickly realized that it wasn't a problem with the entire world, but with me. Among the quite probable multiple errors I made in this, one I noticed was that I felt as if I was resisting a constant tide. It was me standing strong, fighting forward, alone against the fray...metaphorically, in my mind.
Like I said, I don't think this is wrong in itself. I think we need more people who stand up for what is right, demand that as far as their influence reaches, things are done well and honestly. The probelm is this is very tiring, alienating, stressful.
The truth is, I don't have to fix everything, including myself. In fact, I have to fix nothing. The yoke should be easy, and the burden light, not the opposite. Funny how fighting to take off burdens becomes a burden in itself.
But I don't want to dwell on the principles, I want to talk about the specifics in this case. I am laying down my arms. I have misunderstood the militaristic imagery of the Bible in my own way. I have realized that I can't be any kind of hard-minded. This includes how I think of myself. I am shedding the Holy Knight's armor for the friar's habit. I no longer want to be the warrior monk, not even the standoffish Ranger exuding a watchful quiet that whispers of latent danger. I want to be Brother Elias and Lawrence. Bombadil. Unaffected by the churning of the world.
I don't mean to close myself off to the world, but to approach it differently. I had become so focused on defending my flock that I lost sight of the fact that the flock isn't in any real danger. Not circumstantially, but existentially, catagorically. They are safe because they have been removed from the possibility of harm.
I love the epic story so much, it's easy to cast myself in that light. But the truth is, the danger has been eliminated. Truthfully, there never was any real danger. God has always been in control, nothing occurs outside his will, and even the most dastardly schemes to do harm are woven back beyond impotence to actually work good and the will of the Father. This is the Gospel. The world is restored.
The people I most admire overcame terrible circumstances and even walked into horrific death, not as steely gladiators, afraid of nothing, but as simple people so convinced that the world had been set right that even their present suffering was not a blip on their radar.
This is who I want to be. And I can't do that with my fist clenched and my fangs bared. So I'm laying down my guard, laying down my weapons. I'm sure there is a place for those feelings, but I can't use them right now. They are too tainted, carry too much possibility of consuming me. So while I may still feel those urges, I am offering myself up to a new perspective and can only pray that I do not go the way of Mendoza in the Mission. I want to be a man of peace.
What this means for me is that I will not associate myself with or flood myself with images of fighting. I will not style myself that way any more. My physical training will shift: rather than preparing to face the foe, to be ready to snatch the helpless from the jaws of the beast, I will move out of joy and celebration. I will look for and acknowledge the good. I am choosing a path of peace...not pacifism, but understanding conflict, it's roots, and moving beyond it. I have to learn to let God fight for me and not the other way around. I think I'll find that there will be no fight to have because all the variables are in God's control.
I'm sure this makes little sense and is far too internal to be of much use to anyone else. But this is the key to my cage. I'm opening the door and walking out to find it was never locked.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Jesus Prayer
It's been a long time since I've blogged. This is because I've entered the busiest season for me. This one was made more busy by a certain conglomeration of circumstances: family, work, illness Not the least of which was surgery on myself.
But now I am back. I'm still in the throes of activity, but find a spare moment. Honestly, there's not much to tell, since I've been preoccupied there hasn't been much time for examination. Perhaps this is a good thing.
Two things I have noticed. One, I'm developing a fondness for Canada caused by a long spell of recovery in which I became fascinated with Canadian TV. While this is silly, it's worth noting since I previously viewed it as pretty much a frozen wilderness with a fringe of basically American culture. While obviously TV isn't a full or necessarily accurate picture, it is a window, and a careful observer (which I consider myself) can pick out elements that transcend the showbiz of even educational TV. This is what has led to the fondness.
The second thing of note is the Jesus Prayer. As usual, I won't quote it, go look it up (can't make it that easy; knowledge without even 30 seconds of effort is devoid of value.) It's basically one line, packed full of meaning, said repeatedly as a means of focusing our attention.
I've tried various forms of discipline in the past. They work for a bit, and then the newness wears off and they become hollow. Some people may find them more valuable, but for me they fade in favor of ever more real interaction. But lately, this prayer has been good. It has helped me stave off wandering thoughts, and quiet my mind. This is a big problem for someone like me whose mind wanders leagues afield and at the pace of an overstimulated ferret.
But most notable is that while I was prepping for surgery in which they would essentially hollow out my face from the inside...not a pretty prospect...I kept saying this prayer. It was easy enough to remember and pick right back up after an interruption. As I was being put under, it was my last thought...I wonder if it might have even become audible as I was fading. But then most astonishing to me was that it was my first thought upon regaining the slightest bit of consciousness. Almost as if it had been rolling through my subconscious mind the entire time.
Of course I can't say that to be the case as I was totally unaware of it. But I was happy to find that my thoughts were not of monkeys wildly gesticulating behind the nurses or other such half-dreamed impressions. Instead it was this one solid line of truth echoing through my reality. Even when I could least control my mind, this razor sharp prayer cut through and remained strong.
Thank God, and thank all the saints who crowd around me whispering this line from across the centuries.
But now I am back. I'm still in the throes of activity, but find a spare moment. Honestly, there's not much to tell, since I've been preoccupied there hasn't been much time for examination. Perhaps this is a good thing.
Two things I have noticed. One, I'm developing a fondness for Canada caused by a long spell of recovery in which I became fascinated with Canadian TV. While this is silly, it's worth noting since I previously viewed it as pretty much a frozen wilderness with a fringe of basically American culture. While obviously TV isn't a full or necessarily accurate picture, it is a window, and a careful observer (which I consider myself) can pick out elements that transcend the showbiz of even educational TV. This is what has led to the fondness.
The second thing of note is the Jesus Prayer. As usual, I won't quote it, go look it up (can't make it that easy; knowledge without even 30 seconds of effort is devoid of value.) It's basically one line, packed full of meaning, said repeatedly as a means of focusing our attention.
I've tried various forms of discipline in the past. They work for a bit, and then the newness wears off and they become hollow. Some people may find them more valuable, but for me they fade in favor of ever more real interaction. But lately, this prayer has been good. It has helped me stave off wandering thoughts, and quiet my mind. This is a big problem for someone like me whose mind wanders leagues afield and at the pace of an overstimulated ferret.
But most notable is that while I was prepping for surgery in which they would essentially hollow out my face from the inside...not a pretty prospect...I kept saying this prayer. It was easy enough to remember and pick right back up after an interruption. As I was being put under, it was my last thought...I wonder if it might have even become audible as I was fading. But then most astonishing to me was that it was my first thought upon regaining the slightest bit of consciousness. Almost as if it had been rolling through my subconscious mind the entire time.
Of course I can't say that to be the case as I was totally unaware of it. But I was happy to find that my thoughts were not of monkeys wildly gesticulating behind the nurses or other such half-dreamed impressions. Instead it was this one solid line of truth echoing through my reality. Even when I could least control my mind, this razor sharp prayer cut through and remained strong.
Thank God, and thank all the saints who crowd around me whispering this line from across the centuries.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Heat
I have a passion, a fire. My temperament is this way. I control it well and don't lose my temper often, but I am excitable and quickly heat up about things, good and bad. I have a hard time letting an injustice go unaddressed.
I have in the past been quite angry...not in the uncontrolled anger management sense, but in the seething beneath the surface, fiery oratory sort of sense. I have been called a match: quick to fire up at the least abrasion, but short lived and relatively harmless. I would quickly pop off on people. Tell them what I thought. Call them out. Politely, but directly. In nicer times, I could frame it as a joke and lay some low with pointed humor that accomplished the same thing as the angry version, but with less direct confrontation. It has served me well and I took it as a gift.
Of course any gift can be perverted, and so I took my tendency to pop off or become quickly agitated. I even thought this heat inside was to be used to call crusade for good. To call out injustice and wrongness. I wouldn't stand for it and everyone needed to know that they couldn't get away with that junk around me because I'd call it right out in front of everyone.
But lately, I've begun to wonder if this is not such a gift. I'm not sure. Really. I have just begun to see that maybe there is virtue in quietly handling the wrongs, perhaps even letting people go their own way. Perhaps not always...there may well be a time to stand up and call it out. But maybe there is a time for noticing without mentioning.
Previously I viewed this as tolerating what shouldn't be tolerated. As a disservice to the one I refrained from speaking to. After all, Truth must shine forth, and we have a duty and calling to hack away at the darkness.
Don't get me wrong, I've never attacked people like many legalists do. My crusades are about grace and forgiveness. But fuelled with a blazing angry passion.
The thing is, it's really hard to win. I took this as confirmation that the world was corrupt. As in the Mission, I was DeNiro's reformed conquistador, ready to shed blood, even my own in defense of what was right. I'd rather stand up and take a blow to the face for speaking out than sit by and let a wrong go. It was not my job to win...just to fight.
But now, I'm seeing a lovely grace, an almost asian-master sort of goodness, in letting things flow. Perhaps speaking boldly out is not always the way to go. Perhaps there is collateral damage that could be spared. Perhaps there is something to a more pacific attitude. Perhaps this is not over-tolerance, a moopy spine. Certainly it could be, just as my passion could be perverted to plain anger and hate. But maybe this is a time for me to learn how to be meek in the truest sense.
Jesus did speak boldly. He did enrage and agitate and even physically overturn. But he also nurtured and helped and loved in a soft and tender way.
Perhaps the Greystokian animalistic nobility, the chivalric gentle warrior, is not God's ideal. Perhaps it is far less inspiring. Far more suffering (in the old sense). Far more humble (in the old sense of lowly).
Please teach me the answer, Jesus. What am I to learn from you in this yoke? Help me to be pliable and open to you. I fear I will lose my strength, my identity, and I don't know how else to be. But I must lose mine to gain yours and I will be what you make me.
I have in the past been quite angry...not in the uncontrolled anger management sense, but in the seething beneath the surface, fiery oratory sort of sense. I have been called a match: quick to fire up at the least abrasion, but short lived and relatively harmless. I would quickly pop off on people. Tell them what I thought. Call them out. Politely, but directly. In nicer times, I could frame it as a joke and lay some low with pointed humor that accomplished the same thing as the angry version, but with less direct confrontation. It has served me well and I took it as a gift.
Of course any gift can be perverted, and so I took my tendency to pop off or become quickly agitated. I even thought this heat inside was to be used to call crusade for good. To call out injustice and wrongness. I wouldn't stand for it and everyone needed to know that they couldn't get away with that junk around me because I'd call it right out in front of everyone.
But lately, I've begun to wonder if this is not such a gift. I'm not sure. Really. I have just begun to see that maybe there is virtue in quietly handling the wrongs, perhaps even letting people go their own way. Perhaps not always...there may well be a time to stand up and call it out. But maybe there is a time for noticing without mentioning.
Previously I viewed this as tolerating what shouldn't be tolerated. As a disservice to the one I refrained from speaking to. After all, Truth must shine forth, and we have a duty and calling to hack away at the darkness.
Don't get me wrong, I've never attacked people like many legalists do. My crusades are about grace and forgiveness. But fuelled with a blazing angry passion.
The thing is, it's really hard to win. I took this as confirmation that the world was corrupt. As in the Mission, I was DeNiro's reformed conquistador, ready to shed blood, even my own in defense of what was right. I'd rather stand up and take a blow to the face for speaking out than sit by and let a wrong go. It was not my job to win...just to fight.
But now, I'm seeing a lovely grace, an almost asian-master sort of goodness, in letting things flow. Perhaps speaking boldly out is not always the way to go. Perhaps there is collateral damage that could be spared. Perhaps there is something to a more pacific attitude. Perhaps this is not over-tolerance, a moopy spine. Certainly it could be, just as my passion could be perverted to plain anger and hate. But maybe this is a time for me to learn how to be meek in the truest sense.
Jesus did speak boldly. He did enrage and agitate and even physically overturn. But he also nurtured and helped and loved in a soft and tender way.
Perhaps the Greystokian animalistic nobility, the chivalric gentle warrior, is not God's ideal. Perhaps it is far less inspiring. Far more suffering (in the old sense). Far more humble (in the old sense of lowly).
Please teach me the answer, Jesus. What am I to learn from you in this yoke? Help me to be pliable and open to you. I fear I will lose my strength, my identity, and I don't know how else to be. But I must lose mine to gain yours and I will be what you make me.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Holiness
It's been a while since I've posted anything. After my last upheaval, which is not yet resolved by the way, there has been a lull. A peace. Not that I've been perfectly content or that things have stopped forming in me, but that I have been resting somewhat. My mind has been given a break. And since this blog is really a way for me to process my own journey, there hasn't been much to tell.
But one thing that has marked this time has been a desire for holiness. A set-apart-ness. This folds in righteousness, goodness, and all other virtues. But mostly it has been a soft glowing desire for true holiness. Like an old fire embering and pushing out the best kind of heat and a soft pulsing glow. And it is old in me, ready to consume new dross and to blaze in the world on good fuel. But not right now.
Now is a stoking I think. Long-tolerated sins are becoming known to me. Strong sinewy flaws deep in my being are exposed. I am examining the flex and stretch of the fibers; how they move and where they connect.
I am returning to basic disciplines, which are so easily overstepped, remembering old lessons and heroes, mentors, models. This is more than a little fuelled by the election of a new pope...a Jesuit who chose the name Francis...the first, no less. The first from the New World...the far west. A man of the people who is admirably humble.
While I am not Catholic for several reasons, I have great respect for them as the preservers of our Christian history. The ones to whom it has been entrusted. The root institution from which all our other reformed, protestant, revertist, evangelical, charismatic, and every other type are intimately tied. While the branches and changes have often been necessary and the Catholic church has been guilty of gross errors and injustices, are we not all guilty and all forgiven? I personally can't disrespect them simply because my teachers and mentors have many been of or close to this denomination and this denomination has preserved their teaching so that I can learn from them even though centuries stand between us.
In that, I have respected Jesuits for their practicality and justice. For their mission to the world's end even in deadly and unknown times and places. And for their prayer through action. At one time I considered becoming as closely aligned with them as I could as a non Catholic.
Then there is Francis. One of my teachers and a heart which I greatly identify with and aspire to. He has inspired me so much so that many life decisions were the direct result of following his ways applied in my life.
And this pope embodies them both. And to top it all, a thing I will never forget, him humbly bowing before the world and asking for prayer. This cemented in my mind that this is who I want to be. Let all else fall off if my life can exude this humilty.
God, may it mark a permanent change in me. Away with the course, brash, dirty, mean parts of me. Let the peace and gentleness you instill in my deepest heart radiate through my mind, body, mouth, and into my life.
But one thing that has marked this time has been a desire for holiness. A set-apart-ness. This folds in righteousness, goodness, and all other virtues. But mostly it has been a soft glowing desire for true holiness. Like an old fire embering and pushing out the best kind of heat and a soft pulsing glow. And it is old in me, ready to consume new dross and to blaze in the world on good fuel. But not right now.
Now is a stoking I think. Long-tolerated sins are becoming known to me. Strong sinewy flaws deep in my being are exposed. I am examining the flex and stretch of the fibers; how they move and where they connect.
I am returning to basic disciplines, which are so easily overstepped, remembering old lessons and heroes, mentors, models. This is more than a little fuelled by the election of a new pope...a Jesuit who chose the name Francis...the first, no less. The first from the New World...the far west. A man of the people who is admirably humble.
While I am not Catholic for several reasons, I have great respect for them as the preservers of our Christian history. The ones to whom it has been entrusted. The root institution from which all our other reformed, protestant, revertist, evangelical, charismatic, and every other type are intimately tied. While the branches and changes have often been necessary and the Catholic church has been guilty of gross errors and injustices, are we not all guilty and all forgiven? I personally can't disrespect them simply because my teachers and mentors have many been of or close to this denomination and this denomination has preserved their teaching so that I can learn from them even though centuries stand between us.
In that, I have respected Jesuits for their practicality and justice. For their mission to the world's end even in deadly and unknown times and places. And for their prayer through action. At one time I considered becoming as closely aligned with them as I could as a non Catholic.
Then there is Francis. One of my teachers and a heart which I greatly identify with and aspire to. He has inspired me so much so that many life decisions were the direct result of following his ways applied in my life.
And this pope embodies them both. And to top it all, a thing I will never forget, him humbly bowing before the world and asking for prayer. This cemented in my mind that this is who I want to be. Let all else fall off if my life can exude this humilty.
God, may it mark a permanent change in me. Away with the course, brash, dirty, mean parts of me. Let the peace and gentleness you instill in my deepest heart radiate through my mind, body, mouth, and into my life.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
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.
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.
Friday, September 30, 2011
You Have All You Need
This has been coming at me from so many angles lately and drumming through my mind. It is true on many levels and I don't even know how to describe it.
I was under a spell...illusioned...taken in by a ploy. The ploy told me that I didn't have all that I need. Not all I needed. It sounded very much like something I would acknowledge and believe, hence the deception. But this often happens that when I am oppressed by something...in this case the awareness of my own finality and vileness...a message is sent to me that will not desist.
I am a new creation. Jesus restored me and has given me life "to the fullest." There is no longer an condemnation for me. While I knew all of this on a different level, now it hits home in a deeper way which many will not understand because they are not inside me.
I was eating a poisoned apple. 99% true with one bit of lie. But any poison makes the apple unfit. And one bad one spoils the bunch, to extend the metaphor. So I was there believing some very true things: I am sinful. I am willfully so. I do not properly regard or react to the grace and gifts given to me. I am naturally depressive. I do have trouble understanding reality. I am angry often. But that's not all I am. This is how I look from the eyes of this world. But the new me, the one that is alive in Jesus' life is whole and perfected and has the entire universe of God's power at my disposal.
Jesus did not come to leave me unprepared. Orphaned again. Left to my own devices. He fixed it. He fixed everything. So I can believe that or I can believe that he did not. That his power is not enough for me.
I needed to hear this from the right places, enough times that it sunk in. I am unstoppable. I have the rest that I seek. I have the joy. It is all right here. There is nothing I lack, nor will there ever be.
I was like the dwarfs at the end of Narnia who refuse to see the provision around them...not for the same reasons as they, but the effect was the same. I could not see nor experience the goodness and the completion because i was too focused on something that is dead and has passed away.
I have all I need.
I was under a spell...illusioned...taken in by a ploy. The ploy told me that I didn't have all that I need. Not all I needed. It sounded very much like something I would acknowledge and believe, hence the deception. But this often happens that when I am oppressed by something...in this case the awareness of my own finality and vileness...a message is sent to me that will not desist.
I am a new creation. Jesus restored me and has given me life "to the fullest." There is no longer an condemnation for me. While I knew all of this on a different level, now it hits home in a deeper way which many will not understand because they are not inside me.
I was eating a poisoned apple. 99% true with one bit of lie. But any poison makes the apple unfit. And one bad one spoils the bunch, to extend the metaphor. So I was there believing some very true things: I am sinful. I am willfully so. I do not properly regard or react to the grace and gifts given to me. I am naturally depressive. I do have trouble understanding reality. I am angry often. But that's not all I am. This is how I look from the eyes of this world. But the new me, the one that is alive in Jesus' life is whole and perfected and has the entire universe of God's power at my disposal.
Jesus did not come to leave me unprepared. Orphaned again. Left to my own devices. He fixed it. He fixed everything. So I can believe that or I can believe that he did not. That his power is not enough for me.
I needed to hear this from the right places, enough times that it sunk in. I am unstoppable. I have the rest that I seek. I have the joy. It is all right here. There is nothing I lack, nor will there ever be.
I was like the dwarfs at the end of Narnia who refuse to see the provision around them...not for the same reasons as they, but the effect was the same. I could not see nor experience the goodness and the completion because i was too focused on something that is dead and has passed away.
I have all I need.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Breaking Chains
This phrase is common in Christianity. There are so many references to freedom, to setting captives free, to removing oppression. This IS Christianity. I'm going to try my best to avoid railing about rechaining and the obligatory system of religion people erect under the name of Christianity. So if that's your understanding of the thing, you aren't wrong, but that isn't the truth of it...
...I actually stopped writing this for several days because the idea didn't seem fully formed yet. Maybe it still isn't. I'm not sure quite where to go with this honestly. It was a powerful impression that became half visible in the mist and then vanished before I could get a clear view of it. I'll try just talking about notable occurrences and maybe it will tie up.
I actually had a dream that was not a nightmare last night. This is a first in a very long time. It wasn't the kind of dream that I would seek out or wake from feeling like I really enjoyed it. I haven't had one of those in about 15 years. But at least no one died, no one was chasing me, there was no violence, and no demons or other evil beings. And it was bilingual...in Japanese and English.
For one thing, I had an opportunity to see a good friend again recently who happens to be a powerful dreamer, and we talked about why I dream so horribly. It was just a passing conversation, but speaking out loud some thoughts I hadn't really formed before really seemed to help. It might have had an influence.
Also, I had the opportunity recently to spend some time alone in the wild. I took my newly constructed paddle board for a long paddle up a swampy river. It was running clear at low water, so I could see all the HUGE fish swimming under me. Swam a couple of times to cool off. Felt the bracing effects of fear as alligators up to 10 feet long startled, swam and submerged within 4 meters of me. Raced turtles. Stared vultures in the eye at close range. This is precisely what another friend who happens to be gifted in dream interpretation prescribed when I told him my dreaming predicament several months ago. So that probably helped as well.
I've felt pretty good lately. Allergies have been minor or nonexistent.
My new bike is lighter and faster than my old one, but the gear ratio is much tougher and forcing my legs to get stronger.
My new team member started at work and we get along very well. I found myself able to understand Japanese on TV again almost as well as when I lived there. I don't know why this has occurred.
I saw a fun adventure movie recently that surprisingly had a character which I very much admired. He was a missionary who held his faith in a bold and fearless way all the way to the end. After the movie I found out that both my son and God-daughter thought that character reminded them of me! I was very happy to hear this since that is exactly the kind of person I want to be!
I did not die last year as I expected.
Perhaps, I feel like chains are breaking for me. Deep chains. Chains I didn't even know bound me. I'm feeling a freedom and peace that I have not felt in a long time.
...I actually stopped writing this for several days because the idea didn't seem fully formed yet. Maybe it still isn't. I'm not sure quite where to go with this honestly. It was a powerful impression that became half visible in the mist and then vanished before I could get a clear view of it. I'll try just talking about notable occurrences and maybe it will tie up.
I actually had a dream that was not a nightmare last night. This is a first in a very long time. It wasn't the kind of dream that I would seek out or wake from feeling like I really enjoyed it. I haven't had one of those in about 15 years. But at least no one died, no one was chasing me, there was no violence, and no demons or other evil beings. And it was bilingual...in Japanese and English.
For one thing, I had an opportunity to see a good friend again recently who happens to be a powerful dreamer, and we talked about why I dream so horribly. It was just a passing conversation, but speaking out loud some thoughts I hadn't really formed before really seemed to help. It might have had an influence.
Also, I had the opportunity recently to spend some time alone in the wild. I took my newly constructed paddle board for a long paddle up a swampy river. It was running clear at low water, so I could see all the HUGE fish swimming under me. Swam a couple of times to cool off. Felt the bracing effects of fear as alligators up to 10 feet long startled, swam and submerged within 4 meters of me. Raced turtles. Stared vultures in the eye at close range. This is precisely what another friend who happens to be gifted in dream interpretation prescribed when I told him my dreaming predicament several months ago. So that probably helped as well.
I've felt pretty good lately. Allergies have been minor or nonexistent.
My new bike is lighter and faster than my old one, but the gear ratio is much tougher and forcing my legs to get stronger.
My new team member started at work and we get along very well. I found myself able to understand Japanese on TV again almost as well as when I lived there. I don't know why this has occurred.
I saw a fun adventure movie recently that surprisingly had a character which I very much admired. He was a missionary who held his faith in a bold and fearless way all the way to the end. After the movie I found out that both my son and God-daughter thought that character reminded them of me! I was very happy to hear this since that is exactly the kind of person I want to be!
I did not die last year as I expected.
Perhaps, I feel like chains are breaking for me. Deep chains. Chains I didn't even know bound me. I'm feeling a freedom and peace that I have not felt in a long time.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Headache
I've had a headache for two months now. I'm not kidding. It gets more or less intense, but it hasn't gone away. It's a constant companion reminding me of my frail flesh. I'd love to be rid of it, but haven't found the way.
I've been to two different doctors, done three antibiotics, tried OTC decongestants and pain killers. At best, they give a few hours of lessening, but no remedy. I had a CT scan that said it's a sinus infection, but I have none of the usual symptoms. In fact, my nasal allergies have completely disappeared. I feel great other than this nagging headache. I've got another appointment with a different specialist next week.
I've looked into self-healing. I believe this is possible. I've tried meditation, which can relieve the pain temporarily. I've tried the Unmodify method, to no avail. I'm constantly praying. And I've asked for prayer several times from others.
I don't know if this is a psychosomatic thing, or if there is really something wrong. No one who should know seems too worried about it, so I haven't been either. I started to be afraid of tumors or other weird illnesses until I realized that these would actually be a relief to me since I would be forced out of my complacency and may even face the end of my journey here. For me, this is a serious relief and something very hopeful. Knowing the end of my struggle was coming soon would be such a relief at long last. I have no desire for long life in this miserable dimension. I am merely serving my tour.
I also realized that this pain has kept me focused on God, kept me seeking him at every turn. I also realized that there are many who go through life with far worse pains for far longer. I have a new compassion for them. I also realized that many couldn't afford the medical care or even have access to it, that I do. And this is both a blessing that I have access to it and that I am able to sympathize more with those who don't.
Is there some deeper meaning? I don't know. Can I heal myself of this? I doubt it. Does that mean I am not doing the healing properly? Probably. Is God still in control? Yes. He is my healer whether that be through medicine or meditation or instantaneous cure. I have had my moments where the pain gets the better of me. But for the most part, I am surprised at how calm I have been through this. I definitely want it over. I want to learn what I must from this and move on. But if I must wait, I am finding that I can, and not in anxiousness or anger. Just waiting.
I've been to two different doctors, done three antibiotics, tried OTC decongestants and pain killers. At best, they give a few hours of lessening, but no remedy. I had a CT scan that said it's a sinus infection, but I have none of the usual symptoms. In fact, my nasal allergies have completely disappeared. I feel great other than this nagging headache. I've got another appointment with a different specialist next week.
I've looked into self-healing. I believe this is possible. I've tried meditation, which can relieve the pain temporarily. I've tried the Unmodify method, to no avail. I'm constantly praying. And I've asked for prayer several times from others.
I don't know if this is a psychosomatic thing, or if there is really something wrong. No one who should know seems too worried about it, so I haven't been either. I started to be afraid of tumors or other weird illnesses until I realized that these would actually be a relief to me since I would be forced out of my complacency and may even face the end of my journey here. For me, this is a serious relief and something very hopeful. Knowing the end of my struggle was coming soon would be such a relief at long last. I have no desire for long life in this miserable dimension. I am merely serving my tour.
I also realized that this pain has kept me focused on God, kept me seeking him at every turn. I also realized that there are many who go through life with far worse pains for far longer. I have a new compassion for them. I also realized that many couldn't afford the medical care or even have access to it, that I do. And this is both a blessing that I have access to it and that I am able to sympathize more with those who don't.
Is there some deeper meaning? I don't know. Can I heal myself of this? I doubt it. Does that mean I am not doing the healing properly? Probably. Is God still in control? Yes. He is my healer whether that be through medicine or meditation or instantaneous cure. I have had my moments where the pain gets the better of me. But for the most part, I am surprised at how calm I have been through this. I definitely want it over. I want to learn what I must from this and move on. But if I must wait, I am finding that I can, and not in anxiousness or anger. Just waiting.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Moment
People often say, "live in the moment." But I don't think they really take the time to think that through. It's not a bad idea really, but it is dangerous. Have you ever really tried to live in the moment?
First of all, what is a moment? How big is it? If I focus on it, like Augustine of Hippo, I can begin to feel how my expectations squeeze down smaller and smaller into this infinitely tiny point and immediately squeeze back out into memories. There actually is no moment to apprehend because as soon as I apprehend it, it is past. The closer I zoom in my scale, the smaller the point gets and the faster the future becomes the past. It's maddening really. If you have any skill at thought experiments, like Einstein, try it and see. But be careful not to get sucked in and lost. Of course Cartesian geometry teaches us that points have no mass, so why should time be any different.
Perhaps this is why the Buddhists teach that the mind should be cleared, that we should strive to live in that nothing that is something that is constantly becoming nothing again.
But even on a more human livable scale, living in the moment is dangerous and difficult. It precludes planning pretty much altogether. If I think about this moment. This time right now, I am relatively content. But I can't think out so far as an hour, because I'll be hungry. I suppose I could then go satisfy the hunger, but that might take some planning to have a good meal. I don't live in a fairy land where meals appear, or in an Eden where I can pluck my sustenance down at the nearest tree. Can we truly live this disconnected? I doubt it. I couldn't even thaw meat!
So some planning must be ok. Some foresight. But how much? Jesus says that we should think only of our needs of today...that could be a moment. And James the brother of Jesus says we should say, "if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." because beyond that is boasting.
I think the distinction is in how much we fret over things that have not happened. How much we assume that may not pass. We should always be aware of our mortality, our moment by moment dependence of factors beyond our control. We should live focused on what is at hand, but planning is wise, storing away is wise and natural. Joseph saved Egypt by his planning. But in each moment we should be able to assess our needs and be thankful.
When I stop and breathe, I am surprised by how much I can accept. Even now with allergies bothering my nose, and sleep overtaking my eyes, I can breathe and say with Incubus, "in this moment, I am happy."
First of all, what is a moment? How big is it? If I focus on it, like Augustine of Hippo, I can begin to feel how my expectations squeeze down smaller and smaller into this infinitely tiny point and immediately squeeze back out into memories. There actually is no moment to apprehend because as soon as I apprehend it, it is past. The closer I zoom in my scale, the smaller the point gets and the faster the future becomes the past. It's maddening really. If you have any skill at thought experiments, like Einstein, try it and see. But be careful not to get sucked in and lost. Of course Cartesian geometry teaches us that points have no mass, so why should time be any different.
Perhaps this is why the Buddhists teach that the mind should be cleared, that we should strive to live in that nothing that is something that is constantly becoming nothing again.
But even on a more human livable scale, living in the moment is dangerous and difficult. It precludes planning pretty much altogether. If I think about this moment. This time right now, I am relatively content. But I can't think out so far as an hour, because I'll be hungry. I suppose I could then go satisfy the hunger, but that might take some planning to have a good meal. I don't live in a fairy land where meals appear, or in an Eden where I can pluck my sustenance down at the nearest tree. Can we truly live this disconnected? I doubt it. I couldn't even thaw meat!
So some planning must be ok. Some foresight. But how much? Jesus says that we should think only of our needs of today...that could be a moment. And James the brother of Jesus says we should say, "if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that." because beyond that is boasting.
I think the distinction is in how much we fret over things that have not happened. How much we assume that may not pass. We should always be aware of our mortality, our moment by moment dependence of factors beyond our control. We should live focused on what is at hand, but planning is wise, storing away is wise and natural. Joseph saved Egypt by his planning. But in each moment we should be able to assess our needs and be thankful.
When I stop and breathe, I am surprised by how much I can accept. Even now with allergies bothering my nose, and sleep overtaking my eyes, I can breathe and say with Incubus, "in this moment, I am happy."
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