I've been wanting to blog about this for some time and every time I can't quite get it to work. Then something else occupies my mind and I forget about it. But here goes again.
Gender is something that really defines us, but at the same time, I don't think is so static. While we are physically one or the other (and for the record I don't believe it is possible to be mentally one gender and physically another) our whole existence is not so set as we may think.
I totally believe it is possible to be very in touch with aspects that we associate with the opposite gender and still be fully healthy and fully man or woman as the case may be. For example, there are very masculine men and there are men who embody more traditionally feminine characteristics. Some men are sensitive, artistic, nurturing, emotional, etc. Some women are also aggressive, strong, competitive, protective. This doesn't necessarily make them any more or less men or women, because I don't believe each gender to be so polarized. I think that is a gross generalization that we apply to people and I believe it is unhealthy.
I think that by saying this set of characteristics define "man" and this set define "woman" lead to many of the sexual and identity issues we face in society. Where those would not be issues if people were freer to be who they were. God does not make mistakes, people do. And by pinning things down so rigidly we stack the deck against certain people who don't fit the profile.
I myself have never fit the profile, though not in the homosexual sense. Many of the traditionally male associated attributes I don't understand or like. Interestingly, my wife is the mirror image, exhibiting many traditionally male characteristics herself. Now, don't get me wrong here. This isn't some kind of twisted role reversal. I am fully man and she is fully woman. At the same time, we both embody very male and female characteristics as well, so get over that. If you know us, you understand what I mean. My wife is far more apt to watch sports or gore and less apt to talk about her feelings or thoughts than me. Though she is sweet and nurturing. I am more apt to express myself verbally and physically. Though I am fiercely protective of my family and enjoy tough physical activities.
To put it another way, we all have access to all aspects of humanity, from both genders. We are parts of one whole. I believe God designed it that way, like everything else, to represent an aspect of greater reality. God is necessarily beyond gender and exhibits the complete form, the ideal, of whatever we echo here in this world. Next to his complete masculinity every man is utterly feminine. Next to his femininity, every woman is utterly masculine.
I could go on, but it gets immensely complicated. I could blog entirely on the beauties of femininity and again on the virtues of masculinity. Suffice to say, I believe the physical aspects of gender to be entirely a part of this world. But I believe the deeper truer aspects of gender to be parts of one whole which we all echo in various degrees and combinations. Celebrate the differences. Experience and enjoy the complex interweavings of gender and leave people to be who they are out of love and respect, and because deep inside, we are not so well gendered as we might think. But don't take my word for this. Many famous Contemplatives have discovered the same thing.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Integration
Integration is crucially important. I think we live far too fragmentally. It's not good for us. We compartmentalize our lives, our bodies, our minds. All things are separate. In some recent conversations with friends I began to realize how integration was something we were all seeking. We all approached from slightly different angles, but we were not that far apart.
I think most people may not even realize how we fragment ourselves. We have our home life in which we are perhaps at most rest. If we live in a tumultuous house, then we have some place that we are most ourselves.
Then we have a personality for work. Some people are very different at work. For me, some of that was necessitated by appearance. I just couldn't look like myself at work. It was not accepted. But now I have built enough credibility and maneuvered into a place that I can relax into my own appearance somewhat more. Time alone helps because I entered the professional world early and the tastes of my generation hadn't caught up yet. Now my generation is more in the mainstream and while not everyone looks like me, at least they are familiar with the look and aren't put off by it.
Then we fragment socially. Church is horrible about this. If you don't go to church you probably don't know what I mean...which is good. But if you've spent any amount of time in churches you'll know there is always some bit of a persona that people carry off. Some more than others. In the best sense, it's simply things you don't talk about or say, that you might normally. At worst, it's a whole fake persona. I wouldn't ever go so far as to say that is true in all churches, just out of sound logic, but I have actually seen one...just one...where there was no persona. So there may be others.
In other social aspects, we fragment from other people by keeping distance. We may have some really close friends, but many of us don't have as many friends as close as we would like. I'm not talking about anything wierd or perverted. Just an open easiness that lets us be who we really are with each other. The primary unit of humanity is not the nuclear family, but the tribe. Without being a part of a pack, we will never truly be whole.
We can also fragment physically. We have separate times for work, play, fitness, and entertainment. In varying degrees of course, these can become full fragments of our personality. For example, I know a whole part of Tampa where most people will drive home from work, change clothes into workout wear, load their equipment, and drive to an appropriate workout place. Perhaps the silliest is runners and bikers who will drive to a place to run or bike, even if it's only a couple of kilometers from home!
But I want integration of all parts. Faith colors my study and meditation, which feeds into my physical practice, which affects my work (both home and office), and I enjoy all. None are excluded for any other part of life. It all flows seamlessly together like a river where varying currents may come to the surface but none stop flowing. All is water.
There are many ways to achieve this, I'm sure. For me, it is a lifestyle of Contemplation, Practicing the Presence. This is coupled with a warts and all approach to relationships, even at work. Add to this the physical discipline of Parkour, which integrates mind and body, and it's pretty much a complete package. Even hobbies start to flow into it, such as gardening, and woodwork. What integrates is good, what doesn't is not attractive.
It's imperfect by far. I am still far more fragmented than I want to be. But I am trying to learn to forgive myself...not in the sense of any one specific flaw, but by simply not holding myself to such a high standard. Of course, I think one of the first steps toward integration one must take is to let go of one's self altogether. It's not something that happens in sequence, but is a primer that must continually be primed. A base flow, to use the language of my scientific discipline.
I think most people may not even realize how we fragment ourselves. We have our home life in which we are perhaps at most rest. If we live in a tumultuous house, then we have some place that we are most ourselves.
Then we have a personality for work. Some people are very different at work. For me, some of that was necessitated by appearance. I just couldn't look like myself at work. It was not accepted. But now I have built enough credibility and maneuvered into a place that I can relax into my own appearance somewhat more. Time alone helps because I entered the professional world early and the tastes of my generation hadn't caught up yet. Now my generation is more in the mainstream and while not everyone looks like me, at least they are familiar with the look and aren't put off by it.
Then we fragment socially. Church is horrible about this. If you don't go to church you probably don't know what I mean...which is good. But if you've spent any amount of time in churches you'll know there is always some bit of a persona that people carry off. Some more than others. In the best sense, it's simply things you don't talk about or say, that you might normally. At worst, it's a whole fake persona. I wouldn't ever go so far as to say that is true in all churches, just out of sound logic, but I have actually seen one...just one...where there was no persona. So there may be others.
In other social aspects, we fragment from other people by keeping distance. We may have some really close friends, but many of us don't have as many friends as close as we would like. I'm not talking about anything wierd or perverted. Just an open easiness that lets us be who we really are with each other. The primary unit of humanity is not the nuclear family, but the tribe. Without being a part of a pack, we will never truly be whole.
We can also fragment physically. We have separate times for work, play, fitness, and entertainment. In varying degrees of course, these can become full fragments of our personality. For example, I know a whole part of Tampa where most people will drive home from work, change clothes into workout wear, load their equipment, and drive to an appropriate workout place. Perhaps the silliest is runners and bikers who will drive to a place to run or bike, even if it's only a couple of kilometers from home!
But I want integration of all parts. Faith colors my study and meditation, which feeds into my physical practice, which affects my work (both home and office), and I enjoy all. None are excluded for any other part of life. It all flows seamlessly together like a river where varying currents may come to the surface but none stop flowing. All is water.
There are many ways to achieve this, I'm sure. For me, it is a lifestyle of Contemplation, Practicing the Presence. This is coupled with a warts and all approach to relationships, even at work. Add to this the physical discipline of Parkour, which integrates mind and body, and it's pretty much a complete package. Even hobbies start to flow into it, such as gardening, and woodwork. What integrates is good, what doesn't is not attractive.
It's imperfect by far. I am still far more fragmented than I want to be. But I am trying to learn to forgive myself...not in the sense of any one specific flaw, but by simply not holding myself to such a high standard. Of course, I think one of the first steps toward integration one must take is to let go of one's self altogether. It's not something that happens in sequence, but is a primer that must continually be primed. A base flow, to use the language of my scientific discipline.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Pollenation
Well in the pollen aftermath, I learned a couple of things. I think they fit into the unmodify method quite well. But I still need to have the originator explain it to me better to be sure. Verdict is still out on that one. What I did learn is that we often need simple crutches to get us over those humps of will and belief. Or rather, belief and will go hand in hand so that I must believe something for it to be true, but can't just will myself to believe it. So sometimes we need crutches...but that's such a dirty word...points of faith, let's say, to get us over those humps.
For example, I know from experience that pollen bothers me. I can accept the possibilities that it doesn't have to, that it is harmless, and that I could somehow outgrow the allergy. But my experience has been so the other way, that subconsciously and consciously, I can't just stop thinking that it will affect me...so it usually does. Maybe it would anyway, but I inadvertently close the door on other possibility...it's a fine shade of difference. But when I have something that overrides the very latent worry about the pollen, the affect of the pollen goes down...not away, but down, and medicines even work better in lower dosages.
Further, if I find something that I do believe may help, and do not do it, the concern that that thing might have helped makes the condition worse. But if I give in to that help and accept it, the condition improves. So, say, if I think I have developed a sinus infection as a secondary effect of the allergy, but do not act on it because I am not sure, the doubt/worry makes the condition worse. But if I go ahead and take steps to relieve the sinus issue or confirm that it is not an issue in this case, the symptoms improve even before treatment has had time to work.
I think this further proves the mind-body connection and is more in line with the unmodify method of health management. It truly is an experience-based thing, and not wishful thinking...at least as I understand it.
I'm not out of the woods on it yet, but the trail is becoming clearer and I am starting to feel as if I might suddenly push out into one of those clearings where I will find others who came in by different bushwhacks already enjoying the sun of this enlightenment, just as happened with Parkour.
For example, I know from experience that pollen bothers me. I can accept the possibilities that it doesn't have to, that it is harmless, and that I could somehow outgrow the allergy. But my experience has been so the other way, that subconsciously and consciously, I can't just stop thinking that it will affect me...so it usually does. Maybe it would anyway, but I inadvertently close the door on other possibility...it's a fine shade of difference. But when I have something that overrides the very latent worry about the pollen, the affect of the pollen goes down...not away, but down, and medicines even work better in lower dosages.
Further, if I find something that I do believe may help, and do not do it, the concern that that thing might have helped makes the condition worse. But if I give in to that help and accept it, the condition improves. So, say, if I think I have developed a sinus infection as a secondary effect of the allergy, but do not act on it because I am not sure, the doubt/worry makes the condition worse. But if I go ahead and take steps to relieve the sinus issue or confirm that it is not an issue in this case, the symptoms improve even before treatment has had time to work.
I think this further proves the mind-body connection and is more in line with the unmodify method of health management. It truly is an experience-based thing, and not wishful thinking...at least as I understand it.
I'm not out of the woods on it yet, but the trail is becoming clearer and I am starting to feel as if I might suddenly push out into one of those clearings where I will find others who came in by different bushwhacks already enjoying the sun of this enlightenment, just as happened with Parkour.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Pollen
It's finally warmed up this year. Plants are budding out. Life is returning. It's been an extraordinarily cold year. But now the dry time has hit. We probably won't see much rain until June or July. And right now, the oak trees are blooming. All across this region, the oak trees have gone from dead brown to orange and yellow. Their shaggy flowers dispersing the yellow powder that produces acorns. There's so much of it that cars, houses, sidewalks, are stained yellow. You can actually see it blowing by in the bright light.
For many, this is a minor nuisance, but for increasing numbers this means runny noses, itchy eyes, scratchy throats. It's miserable. I am one of these for whom oak pollen is essentially toxic. I don't know why. Allergies are on the rise. More and more people are affected. I've tried everything, but nothing will really solve the problem.
Perhaps it's that more and more people are surviving childhood and that is allowing weaker genes to pass along. Where when infant mortality was higher, the weaker children didn't make it. Or perhaps, as the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki suggests, it is a result of our polluting our world. Perhaps the pollen is actually becoming more toxic, or the pollution we breathe and eat and drink is weakening us so that we can't resist these allergens. I have no idea.
I do know that I have been unable to will this away. I have been unable to treat it entirely, though medicines do help. I have prayed for it to be removed from me, but God has not. So I must bear it. I keep praying, of course, for patience, for resistance, for strength, for it to go away, for rain to wash it out of the air...but ultimately, I just have to endure.
In Japan, cedar trees cause similar problems, so the government cuts them down in populated areas...another aspect of the community spirit and care for each other that is prevalent in that culture. But here, there's no chance of that...it might hurt pharmaceutical sales, which would damage our economy!
But maybe, as Miyazaki suggests, it is cleansing our world, and the toxin will cease after the world has been purified. This sort of Gaia response is not so far fetched to an ecologist. It won't be in my lifetime though. Perhaps I should live in the tundra, or the desert, or somewhere without oaks...but then, it would be another plant.
So in the end, as Easter is upon us and we contemplate the death of Jesus, it is perhaps fitting. If this is all I have to bear, I suppose it is negligible to the sufferings he endured. Even to the sufferings of many around the world today. I am weak and soft and self-centered. But I commit this, as I must do all things, to Him. He is my hope, my salvation, my comfort. May I keep perspective and accept what I cannot change. The Unmodify Method I've described in recent posts has been difficult for me in this. But I'm trying to embrace it.
Happy Easter.
For many, this is a minor nuisance, but for increasing numbers this means runny noses, itchy eyes, scratchy throats. It's miserable. I am one of these for whom oak pollen is essentially toxic. I don't know why. Allergies are on the rise. More and more people are affected. I've tried everything, but nothing will really solve the problem.
Perhaps it's that more and more people are surviving childhood and that is allowing weaker genes to pass along. Where when infant mortality was higher, the weaker children didn't make it. Or perhaps, as the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki suggests, it is a result of our polluting our world. Perhaps the pollen is actually becoming more toxic, or the pollution we breathe and eat and drink is weakening us so that we can't resist these allergens. I have no idea.
I do know that I have been unable to will this away. I have been unable to treat it entirely, though medicines do help. I have prayed for it to be removed from me, but God has not. So I must bear it. I keep praying, of course, for patience, for resistance, for strength, for it to go away, for rain to wash it out of the air...but ultimately, I just have to endure.
In Japan, cedar trees cause similar problems, so the government cuts them down in populated areas...another aspect of the community spirit and care for each other that is prevalent in that culture. But here, there's no chance of that...it might hurt pharmaceutical sales, which would damage our economy!
But maybe, as Miyazaki suggests, it is cleansing our world, and the toxin will cease after the world has been purified. This sort of Gaia response is not so far fetched to an ecologist. It won't be in my lifetime though. Perhaps I should live in the tundra, or the desert, or somewhere without oaks...but then, it would be another plant.
So in the end, as Easter is upon us and we contemplate the death of Jesus, it is perhaps fitting. If this is all I have to bear, I suppose it is negligible to the sufferings he endured. Even to the sufferings of many around the world today. I am weak and soft and self-centered. But I commit this, as I must do all things, to Him. He is my hope, my salvation, my comfort. May I keep perspective and accept what I cannot change. The Unmodify Method I've described in recent posts has been difficult for me in this. But I'm trying to embrace it.
Happy Easter.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Imprinting
This is a tough topic. I'm going to muddle through it and hope I don't spill too much of myself on the screen. Since this is a topic that reaches beyond what I have words for, I think it will be best to stick in the realm of metaphors. If you have trouble with Contemplative writing of this kind, do us both a favor and skip this entry.
I often refer to myself as a sheepdog. The metaphor has been especially powerful for me lately. In my life, I've noticed certain times when I seem inexorably drawn to someone. I just can't get them out of my head and I am overwhelmed with deep love for them. Not in a romantic way, but real love. These bonds are not at all easily broken. In fact, I can't really think of one time that I have broken it. I don't think I could. The people may go, but the bond stays in me if nowhere else.
One example, I was so impressed upon by God once when I was giving a presentation at a school of second graders about this one child in front of me. I don't know her name, I don't know anything about her, but I have prayed for that child for the past 10 years or more. I've never forgotten her and I could never even find her if I wanted to. But I pray for her to be safe and to grow and to be whole and loved. This is a weaker form of what I mean.
The bond with my friend that I mentioned in the previous post is similar but stronger for having interacted with this friend for so long. Then it happens periodically with the kids I minister to. I love them all and am fiercely protective of them, but every so often there is one that I am really impressed upon. Usually, I don't initiate the connection. In fact with kids, they usually do it because they are so much more apt to respond to those feelings, even though they don't understand how to verbalize them. Heck I can't even describe it. But I feel it deep in my soul in a way I don't with most kid-like clinginess. It's like my heart is bound to that person and something spiritual occurs. I've even seen it go both ways in which I feel myself healing from unrelated heart issues simply by interacting with someone I am attached to. I don't need any reciprocity and am joyed when I see development in the other person in the areas that I have been shown in their heart.
I've struggled with how to explain this in a way that doesn't come across creepy, espeically when talking about kids, but nothing has worked. Then, as often happens with pop culture, I was reading the Twilight series with my wife...I know, mixed reactions, I'm having them myself...but I have to admit it has entered our cultural consciousness very much like the Matrix and Star Wars and it will not go away. There is a lot of truth in those books, packaged amongst the preteen romance and the faddy vampire stuff.
Anyway, the idea that struck me about this was the idea of imprinting. How perfectly apt to my sheepdog metaphor! The wolves have this process of imprinting which is based in real developmental psychology, but fantasized into a spiritual attachment of a positive kind. I hesitate to use that term, since in the vocabulary of Spiritualism, spiritual attachments are pretty exclusively negative. But this concept of imprinting is so well described in the books even down to the confusion with creepiness. It isn't that at all. In fact it is so much the opposite. Someone I am "imprinted on" for lack of a better term is perhaps safer with me than anyone else in the world because I only want what is good for them, only want to help and heal and protect. Just like Jacob and Renesmee.
I've looked for other ways to describe this phenomenon, but they just aren't there. There is nothing in Christian literature that I have yet to find, though the concept is not foreign to Christianity. Jesus is said to have been deeply moved with compassion for people and mystics often talk about being given a heart for someone. I think it must be a process whereby God connects people who need each other for something, even if one of them doesn't realize it.
I'm not trying to make a doctrine out of this. I'm just trying to give a window into something that I wish was more widely recognized. And this metaphor melds well to the situation and with other metaphors that I find helpful.
In the meantime, if I seem inordinately attached to someone, please play it out against this metaphorical backdrop and see if it doesn't fit. It's all positive as far as I can run with it. And at the very least, I feel that someone has recognized the concept in some form or it never would have come out in the book.
I often refer to myself as a sheepdog. The metaphor has been especially powerful for me lately. In my life, I've noticed certain times when I seem inexorably drawn to someone. I just can't get them out of my head and I am overwhelmed with deep love for them. Not in a romantic way, but real love. These bonds are not at all easily broken. In fact, I can't really think of one time that I have broken it. I don't think I could. The people may go, but the bond stays in me if nowhere else.
One example, I was so impressed upon by God once when I was giving a presentation at a school of second graders about this one child in front of me. I don't know her name, I don't know anything about her, but I have prayed for that child for the past 10 years or more. I've never forgotten her and I could never even find her if I wanted to. But I pray for her to be safe and to grow and to be whole and loved. This is a weaker form of what I mean.
The bond with my friend that I mentioned in the previous post is similar but stronger for having interacted with this friend for so long. Then it happens periodically with the kids I minister to. I love them all and am fiercely protective of them, but every so often there is one that I am really impressed upon. Usually, I don't initiate the connection. In fact with kids, they usually do it because they are so much more apt to respond to those feelings, even though they don't understand how to verbalize them. Heck I can't even describe it. But I feel it deep in my soul in a way I don't with most kid-like clinginess. It's like my heart is bound to that person and something spiritual occurs. I've even seen it go both ways in which I feel myself healing from unrelated heart issues simply by interacting with someone I am attached to. I don't need any reciprocity and am joyed when I see development in the other person in the areas that I have been shown in their heart.
I've struggled with how to explain this in a way that doesn't come across creepy, espeically when talking about kids, but nothing has worked. Then, as often happens with pop culture, I was reading the Twilight series with my wife...I know, mixed reactions, I'm having them myself...but I have to admit it has entered our cultural consciousness very much like the Matrix and Star Wars and it will not go away. There is a lot of truth in those books, packaged amongst the preteen romance and the faddy vampire stuff.
Anyway, the idea that struck me about this was the idea of imprinting. How perfectly apt to my sheepdog metaphor! The wolves have this process of imprinting which is based in real developmental psychology, but fantasized into a spiritual attachment of a positive kind. I hesitate to use that term, since in the vocabulary of Spiritualism, spiritual attachments are pretty exclusively negative. But this concept of imprinting is so well described in the books even down to the confusion with creepiness. It isn't that at all. In fact it is so much the opposite. Someone I am "imprinted on" for lack of a better term is perhaps safer with me than anyone else in the world because I only want what is good for them, only want to help and heal and protect. Just like Jacob and Renesmee.
I've looked for other ways to describe this phenomenon, but they just aren't there. There is nothing in Christian literature that I have yet to find, though the concept is not foreign to Christianity. Jesus is said to have been deeply moved with compassion for people and mystics often talk about being given a heart for someone. I think it must be a process whereby God connects people who need each other for something, even if one of them doesn't realize it.
I'm not trying to make a doctrine out of this. I'm just trying to give a window into something that I wish was more widely recognized. And this metaphor melds well to the situation and with other metaphors that I find helpful.
In the meantime, if I seem inordinately attached to someone, please play it out against this metaphorical backdrop and see if it doesn't fit. It's all positive as far as I can run with it. And at the very least, I feel that someone has recognized the concept in some form or it never would have come out in the book.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Emotion
Things have been busy lately. One thing after another. Spring usually is for me. So many ideas come and go through my head, but I haven't had time to sit down and record them. And once they're gone, they are hard to recall, being incorporated into my personality or discarded altogether.
But the overall tone of things lately has been about harmonizing and trying to exist fully. About trying to embrace what is real and what is important both positive and negative. I'm finding it ever so easier by degrees to embrace the possibilities and love both the good and the bad things in appropriate ways. It is a good growing process.
But I'm also finding that in the process, I am flooded with emotions. When I allow myself to feel, they come at me almost unmitigated, and in the embracing of the moment, I have to allow myself to feel them. I am finding it to be very similar to a time in the past when I had allowed myself to fully experience my own reactions in an effort to stop internalizing them where they would wreak havoc on my psyche. Though the experience is very similar, the circumstances are not and I am different too, but it does feel good to re-find this obviously elemental part of me.
The trick now is to learn how to balance them without losing the ability to function. anger must be tempered and appropriate, sadness has its time and place, and love can't be expressed too openly. Sometimes, the tempering may not even be good or natural. For example when a reaction is right, but society tells us we shouldn't have it. I have a friend that I am sometimes overwhelmed with love for. Not romantic, but a very deep familial love. I want to express it and know that it would be good for it to be expressed, but the friend doesn't believe this to be true, or is too knotted up still to accept it. The danger I can see is in this is losing the ability again in an attempt to conform too greatly.
So for now, I am loping along, learning to trust and to surrender and to feel. The sheepdog metaphor seems more and more appropriate. Dogs have much less trouble living rightly. They can distinguish good and bad in their own way and can even learn a lot of our own subtleties about good and bad which they can only be taught by humans. They are not afraid to express their feelings. They are happy and loving and sad and ill and excited and it all comes out every fiber of their existence. If we were allowed to be more this way, the world would be better. I will change it one at a time.
But the overall tone of things lately has been about harmonizing and trying to exist fully. About trying to embrace what is real and what is important both positive and negative. I'm finding it ever so easier by degrees to embrace the possibilities and love both the good and the bad things in appropriate ways. It is a good growing process.
But I'm also finding that in the process, I am flooded with emotions. When I allow myself to feel, they come at me almost unmitigated, and in the embracing of the moment, I have to allow myself to feel them. I am finding it to be very similar to a time in the past when I had allowed myself to fully experience my own reactions in an effort to stop internalizing them where they would wreak havoc on my psyche. Though the experience is very similar, the circumstances are not and I am different too, but it does feel good to re-find this obviously elemental part of me.
The trick now is to learn how to balance them without losing the ability to function. anger must be tempered and appropriate, sadness has its time and place, and love can't be expressed too openly. Sometimes, the tempering may not even be good or natural. For example when a reaction is right, but society tells us we shouldn't have it. I have a friend that I am sometimes overwhelmed with love for. Not romantic, but a very deep familial love. I want to express it and know that it would be good for it to be expressed, but the friend doesn't believe this to be true, or is too knotted up still to accept it. The danger I can see is in this is losing the ability again in an attempt to conform too greatly.
So for now, I am loping along, learning to trust and to surrender and to feel. The sheepdog metaphor seems more and more appropriate. Dogs have much less trouble living rightly. They can distinguish good and bad in their own way and can even learn a lot of our own subtleties about good and bad which they can only be taught by humans. They are not afraid to express their feelings. They are happy and loving and sad and ill and excited and it all comes out every fiber of their existence. If we were allowed to be more this way, the world would be better. I will change it one at a time.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Freedom and Faith
Thinking about health as I described in the last post has opened a lot of new ideas to me, and some older ones too. I'm starting to think we don't actually originate as much of what goes through our minds as we'd like to think. There are just too many coincidents that seem to speak to the same issues at one time.
Anyway, I was listening to someone talk on the radio about freedom in the Christian sense. This is something that I don't think we often take as seriously as it is presented. Jesus talks repeatedly about freedom and faith. These are probably two of his most prominent subjects. There is countless imagery about it throughout the Bible. And yet, we continually lock ourselves back into chains with rules and expectations. I think the truth is that real freedom scares us. we see a version of freedom corrupt trust fund kids, hollywood stars, and politicians. This may taint us against it, but I think it really just forces us to realize our total lack of security so we look for paper walls to set up.
Of course, one of the virtues of freedom is that it doesn't force us. We are free to think of ourselves as unfree and to act as if we are not free. But I was most struck by this simple sentence, "For freedom you have been set free." It is translated a little differently in other places. But this version in particular resonated along the same lines as the Health topic. For freedom. The purpose of being freed is to be free...nothing else. I'm sorry, as dangerous as that may sound to the security and order that people crave, I can't take it any other way. I am free. Free in truth. All things are permissible for me. And no one has a right to restrict me. Not pastors or priests or politicians or even bosses.
Now I know someone reading this will be thinking the same objections I hear screaming in my head, so rather than try to address them all individually, I would rather illustrate what I mean. We don't live in a society of kings and lords and birthrights, so this is a bit hard to understand for most people, but it works well. A king's family was born with rights. They could freely go places, they could freely speak. They weren't expected to bow or defer to people. Of course this can be abused, but stay with it. Those freedoms were part and parcel of who they were. That of course didn't mean that they should go do anything they pleased. Actions have consequences, noblesse oblige, etc. But even in situations where a prince, for instance, obeyed other authority or limited himself, it was not at the expense of his rights. He limited himself not because he had to, but because he chose to. This is the subtle key that stood out to me. If I truly understand my freedom, I can be fully comfortable in any setting and I can accept limitations because they are my choice, not because they are forced upon me. It's really a change in perspective.
Of course a false perspective is a delusion, so the perspective must be true to be healthy. This is where I was stuck with my friend's health concept. I have to understand the shape of my reality and my freedom to have confidence, i.e. faith, in it. To wish things away is just hollow PMA hoohah and fails in the end when things I can't deny force their way into my constructs.
But what if...just what if, I really was far freer than I ever imagined? What if I really was freed from illness, from fear, from the very laws of time and space? This could be possible, and by my friend's theory, the very act of questioning opens a space by which the cold energy, the counter-entropic forces, could rush in. So now I just need confirmation. That's where this teacher came in and spoke directly to the matter. There was confirmation in my own tradition, in my own faith, which I firmly believe to represent reality...to be true.
Jesus came to set captives free, to heal, to restore. He modeled true freedom. He told us that we simply have to believe that we have been freed to manifest amazing things. Peter walked on water until he wavered in his confidence that he could! Yet, we misunderstand, and return to our own vomit. And in our desperation for security we explain away, we metaphorize, we chop and reassemble what is the absolutely most amazing feat. The thing that the Greeks and Norse looked to the heroes for, the Enlightenment looked to logic for, the Progressives looked to future generations for, the New Agers and Pagans look to spirits for, had already occured! It had already been made possible. The worst thing is that I knew this. I couldn't have articulated it, but you can read my old writings about what I called majik and wonder. But for too long, even I had thrown off my own wonder in favor of the puke pile...but it was killing me.
I don't know what it means, how far it goes, or what happens next, but I believe that there are so many more possibilities than I saw even 10 minutes ago. I am capable of amazing wondrous things. And you are too. It isn't about buying a ticket or following a path. It's about believing what is true and discovering how much truer things can get. As a mentor of mine said, I'm being invited into the Wardrobe. And like Neo, wonderland is about to go bye-bye.
Anyway, I was listening to someone talk on the radio about freedom in the Christian sense. This is something that I don't think we often take as seriously as it is presented. Jesus talks repeatedly about freedom and faith. These are probably two of his most prominent subjects. There is countless imagery about it throughout the Bible. And yet, we continually lock ourselves back into chains with rules and expectations. I think the truth is that real freedom scares us. we see a version of freedom corrupt trust fund kids, hollywood stars, and politicians. This may taint us against it, but I think it really just forces us to realize our total lack of security so we look for paper walls to set up.
Of course, one of the virtues of freedom is that it doesn't force us. We are free to think of ourselves as unfree and to act as if we are not free. But I was most struck by this simple sentence, "For freedom you have been set free." It is translated a little differently in other places. But this version in particular resonated along the same lines as the Health topic. For freedom. The purpose of being freed is to be free...nothing else. I'm sorry, as dangerous as that may sound to the security and order that people crave, I can't take it any other way. I am free. Free in truth. All things are permissible for me. And no one has a right to restrict me. Not pastors or priests or politicians or even bosses.
Now I know someone reading this will be thinking the same objections I hear screaming in my head, so rather than try to address them all individually, I would rather illustrate what I mean. We don't live in a society of kings and lords and birthrights, so this is a bit hard to understand for most people, but it works well. A king's family was born with rights. They could freely go places, they could freely speak. They weren't expected to bow or defer to people. Of course this can be abused, but stay with it. Those freedoms were part and parcel of who they were. That of course didn't mean that they should go do anything they pleased. Actions have consequences, noblesse oblige, etc. But even in situations where a prince, for instance, obeyed other authority or limited himself, it was not at the expense of his rights. He limited himself not because he had to, but because he chose to. This is the subtle key that stood out to me. If I truly understand my freedom, I can be fully comfortable in any setting and I can accept limitations because they are my choice, not because they are forced upon me. It's really a change in perspective.
Of course a false perspective is a delusion, so the perspective must be true to be healthy. This is where I was stuck with my friend's health concept. I have to understand the shape of my reality and my freedom to have confidence, i.e. faith, in it. To wish things away is just hollow PMA hoohah and fails in the end when things I can't deny force their way into my constructs.
But what if...just what if, I really was far freer than I ever imagined? What if I really was freed from illness, from fear, from the very laws of time and space? This could be possible, and by my friend's theory, the very act of questioning opens a space by which the cold energy, the counter-entropic forces, could rush in. So now I just need confirmation. That's where this teacher came in and spoke directly to the matter. There was confirmation in my own tradition, in my own faith, which I firmly believe to represent reality...to be true.
Jesus came to set captives free, to heal, to restore. He modeled true freedom. He told us that we simply have to believe that we have been freed to manifest amazing things. Peter walked on water until he wavered in his confidence that he could! Yet, we misunderstand, and return to our own vomit. And in our desperation for security we explain away, we metaphorize, we chop and reassemble what is the absolutely most amazing feat. The thing that the Greeks and Norse looked to the heroes for, the Enlightenment looked to logic for, the Progressives looked to future generations for, the New Agers and Pagans look to spirits for, had already occured! It had already been made possible. The worst thing is that I knew this. I couldn't have articulated it, but you can read my old writings about what I called majik and wonder. But for too long, even I had thrown off my own wonder in favor of the puke pile...but it was killing me.
I don't know what it means, how far it goes, or what happens next, but I believe that there are so many more possibilities than I saw even 10 minutes ago. I am capable of amazing wondrous things. And you are too. It isn't about buying a ticket or following a path. It's about believing what is true and discovering how much truer things can get. As a mentor of mine said, I'm being invited into the Wardrobe. And like Neo, wonderland is about to go bye-bye.
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