Lisa Colón DeLay

Peter Adermark via Compfight

A shinny new sports car!

Fast. Convertible. Hot stuff. As it growled away I thought,

“What a Fig Leaf!”

In about 30 seconds you can see (or hear) the things people do to cover up… to compensate and distract themselves and others from their insecurities. It’s all a Fig Leaf dance done to hide shame.

To see it in ourselves can take a bit more time. Funny how that is!

We are always, it seems, pushing back somehow on the sense that we aren’t enough. (Even by drawing a comparison, which is what I did when I spotted a sport car fig leaf, reveals my cover up attempt, “I’m not as bad as that.” I said in my heart.)

Consciously or unconsciously we send signals to whomever might listen, even if the listener is us:

• I’m smart enough

• I’m talented enough

• I’m wealthy enough

• I’m pious enough

• I’m capable enough

• I’m attractive enough

• I’m good enough

• I’m strong enough

• I’m loved enough

• I’m dedicated enough

• I’m worthy enough

I. am. okay.

Each way a Fig Leaf. Each way a stab at trying to reconnect and find home. We all long for connection and acceptance.

Social creatures as we are, we still want to look like we have it all under control and can go it alone. The sinking feeling that perhaps we cannot sends a jolt of pain that has us picking fig leaves and making coverings for ourselves.

The truth is being vulnerable feels like being naked. We hate it. We feel exposed. We’d rather hide.

If something or someone reveals our mistake or shortcoming, we take it personally–as a reflection of some core flaw. Fig leaves are everywhere.

I don’t have a sport car to show off, so my fig leaf might not be so obvious to others. But it’s there! Oh, and I have much more than one fig leaf too. I too feel like I’m not enough, and plenty of ways and failures come up each day to point it out for me.

The only thing that helps to give me traction and drop a few leaves is admitting it and risking and then relying on my closest relationships to reorient me–including my relationship with God. Those who really love me reinforce that I already am worthy of love and acceptance. God reaches out in Scriptures, through others, and in the Living Word (Jesus the Christ) to drill home the fact that he covers all shame with empathy and love.

Guilt = I did something wrong (admit it, fix it, move on)

Shame = I am something wrong (we stay stuck, we go numb, we disconnect, we over-protect ourselves)

If you want to drop a few pitiful fig leaves, start by taking a risk and reveal why you cover up. You don’t have to do it in public, but apparently you have to do it to be well.

Brené Brown (who you’ve probably realized by now has inspired this post) says that “We are only as sick as our shame.”

I’m reading this, and I recommend it to anyone who has a Fig Leaf or two.

PRAYER FOR THE SHAMEFUL

God, hear my prayer!
I keep scrounging for things to make me feel better.
I remain unfound by your love in times when I deeply need it.
Be my Hope and Deliver
Let your love wash over me and renew me
That I can be born again into a greater Light and Love
And even as a new born baby is vulnerable and so dearly loved
Let me sense that I am your child in the same way
I am strongest and most protected when I realize I am in your arms
Let me sense your acceptance and closeness.
Remind me of who and where you are.

Click for Verse of the day

Don’t miss the next post coming soon. Click on the phrase “CLICK for new content”  in the right sidebar (top) for special deliveries.

I’m been thinking a lot about how we come into knowing we are Beloved of God. When and if we can absorb that simple but huge concept and step into it, we tend to feel excited to share that reality, spread the love and help others get in on such good stuff!

How do we do it?

Here’s what I found….It’s impossible to make someone receive love or to make them know they are loved, just as much as it’s hard to receive love when we don’t feel ready. It can’t feel forced. It’s part mental ascent and part experiential, and our experiential baggage gets in the way! We can’t still be cynical and mistrusting to actually feel loved. It’s a leap. Right off the cliff toward Love.

You think you’ll die a brutal death, until you do it. Then you realize you have been able to fly on the breeze of God’s love the whole time, and just never got there.

So, I don’t have a good answer to how it works have someone receive your love, but I do know that we put ourselves in a place to be transformed and healed by preparing our heart to offer love freely. We decide that the pain won’t outweigh the gift. The reward. 

Can we be betrayed? Yes.

Can we get hurt? Yes.

But we can’t offer much if we can’t offer ourselves, wide open. We can’t love others when we are not equipped to receive love. When we are hedging our bets or playing it safe. Or, and this is the surprise…we can’t feel more loved by over-giving.

BUT over-givers try this, anyway. Is this you? You give and give and give. You serve and help and meet needs, but because you are not ready to receive an emptiness starts to seep in. Then, maybe resentment. Then maybe bitterness and cynicism. The spirit closes.

It’s because love and service given isn’t and hasn’t truly been freely given. It’s been given in hopes of something…it’s changed to be some sort of bargain or  potential transaction. It’s some sort of agreement known or unknown that wagers “if I give enough I will be given to. I will feel Love. I will receive and be filled.”

No. It can’t happen this sort of way.

The challenge is to do the radical renovation of tearing the walls down. Prepare to receive.

Now, what would this look like for you? Share your ideas.

(voicemail or comment)

image found here: aledocofc.blogspot.com

It’s always an honor to hear someone really share their pain. Not wallow, mind you. Not over-exposing their fiery emotions and gory  details. Something real and raw from a tender and seldom seen place.

The heartfelt wounds that still hurt from some kind of past or unnoticed pain. The cries of the heart. The reaching out to be heard, and then the comfort realized.

It always strikes me that at the very time when someone is most revealed and open they are at the same time supremely vulnerable and yet exquisitely lovable.

Truly human. It’s not just an honor because it is so rare …(it happens usually through time and trust and other options are unfavorable)…it’s an honor because there is within that moment a genuine glimpse of glory.

“The glory of God revealed is the human most fully alive.” -Irenaeus of Lyons

We have a rebirth–a fully alive moment–in those sort of times: Vulnerability through the struggles and between destinations. There the messy becomes beautiful. Redeemed.

Even though it feels really risky, the chance to be truly seen and heard in our vulnerability engenders compassion because what is common between us transcends the boundaries that keep us isolated.

—

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Yes, this is the start of a Blog Moratorium in Tribute to the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary Massacre , but for personal refletion too.

It doesn’t get past me that just as I gear up to spend 13 weeks teaching about the Problem of Evil a horrifying massacre of 6-7 year olds and their teachers and staff occurs.

I have a lot of information about how Evil works right on tap. But, I just can’t go there.

I know that we all react in shock about events such as these. We ask, “How could Evil be so close and innocence shattered so senselessly?” There is rage, anger, hatred. Emotions aplenty. And I know too that Evil runs right down each one of us too. It’s never merely “out there” or far off. If so labeled it shifts, it seeps, amorphous and eludes being so easily understood or classified.

The pain is so raw. The horror so near. The terror so frightening.

A nightmare.

Too soon people have started barking about gun control, and mentioning mental illness, and our crumbling society …all looking for reasons to make it all go down easier. But, right now, I’m just heartbroken. The weight of the brokenness of the world is here and present. Christmas is coming, and yet we lie ruined. Truly ruined. Hope feels like a faint whisper barely intelligible. A wisp.

I’m taking off for a few days. No blog posts. I’m going to reflect. Quietly. By myself. Away from it all and on the interior. Before the year is out, I’ll make another appearance. Thank you for your prayer for me at this time too for things I won’t mention at this time.

In the meantime, join me in prayer for the community and families of those affected by this violence.

Dear God,

Soothe our broken hearts.

How much pain, O’ God!

We cry out in agony…undone.

Have mercy on us

Bring us peace.

Bind up our wounds

Wash us with your Grace.

Grant us the strength to carry on 

And the resolve to not give up

Renew our hope in you and grant that we may forgive

So we ourselves are spared more pain.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Amen

The challenge is to grow, right? For leaders and creators this can be a genuine existential issue.

That’s because once you “get stuck” your work suffers. When that happens, you suffer.

Plus, the double whammy. Lots of us bolt when we hit the first BIG obstacle on our journey of personal growth….pain. (obviously because it hurts, duh, right?)

Can you be brave enough to look inside your heart/mind and see things you don’t want to, or feel long-buried pain? Can I?

That’s the challenge that this next exercise can dredge up.

You may not think you have the time for it. But, since your baggage goes with you, like it or not, there comes a time to choose life and growth. Now is that time. I’m doing this right along with you.

The pain of being stuck and stymied will at some point outweigh the pains inherent in growth. (Pay now or pay more later.) But, with that growth is new-found relief and a greater understanding of one’s self. A bona fide Victory. And it also means you have more to give in your work and in your relationships. You will have a greater ability to triumph in adversity and accept love more fully. And you will even become less reactionary to perceived or actual threats (This is also commonly referred to as maturity, but who’s counting, right?) This is all a boon, my friends. Just you wait and see!

An angry person is a hurt person and unhealed person. Take a look around, if that doesn’t describe you, it describes someone nearby.
(I try to remember this information when I read so much rubbish on the interwebs….or when I find myself far too frustrated–that is to say, in need of healing and growth.)

So, come with me in the next few days, and weeks, and let’s do this together.

Oh, please, do the 90 second exercise in the previous post, and set it aside, if you haven’t done it yet. If you have, this is the time to pull it out and slowly read over your answers for a bit. Mull them, note your insights. Then, onward!

Start thinking about creating this very useful tool you will fashion: Your Spiritual Autobiography.

Guidelines for Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography
Your story is your own; no one else can tell it. Below are some more ideas/exercises to help you consider your spiritual life, and how you may wish to write about it. It’s not a story of your life, or a timeline of people, places, and events, but rather a crafted personal account of what and who have made you who you are now.

I’m getting so much out of this little book!

(I really recommend getting a copy. I saw one on Amazon for $1.50 (used). What a bargain!)

Henri Nouwen gathered his thoughts and pennend notes for his personal use during a difficult 6 months of reflection and healing. They were meant as private notes, but after 8 years a few friends encouraged him to have them organized and published sensing other soul searchers would be encouraged by them. His pain is often palpable and humble and his words are like food for kindred spirits. I’m grateful he was so brave.

page 59

Love Deeply
Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply. You might be afraid of the pain that deep love can cause. When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply. The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful. It is like a plow that break the ground to allow the seed to take root and grow into a strong plant. Every time you experience the of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide no to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds.

The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. They will become part of your self and thus gradually build a community within you.

Those you have deeply love become part of you. The longer you live, there will always be more people to be loved by you and to become part of your inner community. The wider your inner community becomes, the more easily you will recognize your own brothers and sisters in the strangers around you. Those who are alive within you will recognize those who live around you. The wider the community of your heart, the wider the community around you. Thus the pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.

Although the act and habit aof worry may come from biological sources, retraining our habits can move us from worry (negative) toward meditation (positive). Make sure to check out the difference and similarities between the two that are shown in visual form in the last post.

Use these three words to start retraining yourself.

STOP.

VISUALIZE.

REMEMBER.

Stop.
This means the second you realize that you’re caught in a “Worry Spiral” put yourself on pause.  Try to back out of this cycle and see it for what it is. Imagine yourself 3 years from now. Ask yourself ” Is the situation really worthy of the heavy cost that worry will bring me?” How else could I respond? What lie might I be believing as I worry?

Visualize.
This has helped me quite a bit. When I feel stuck in my worry. I to imagine that I’m pulling out all my worry from me, like a bunch of crumpled, dirty paper chunks. Then I imagine handing over to Jesus to hold. He takes what I give and it changes into light. Give it a try for yourself. It’s form of prayer. Or think of something that would help you more than my example. What could you repeatedly visualize to hand over your worry? Go back to this each time you are caught in a Worry Spiral. Note how you feel before and after do this.

Remember.
Remember you are walking with God. There is no place God is not. Each time you practice handing over your worry to God it will be easier to remember to do it when needed in the future. What other ways can you remember to center your repeated thoughts to not spiral but instead revolve around our loving and all-powerful God?

In the Old Testament thousands of everyday and seasonal reminders where built into the Jewish culture to be ever mindful of God’s provision, care, presence, goodness, and love. From food, to ways of dress, to festivals, to rituals, and much more various reminders where infused into life. We don’t live the same way now, but we can bring in our new, personal remembrances.

What have you done lately to break your “worry spiral”?

Today, I’m elucidating the anatomy of Worry in contrast with Meditation using this handy dandy visual I made.

Notice the differences.

Worry and Meditation have commonalities.

• Both activities involve circling/cycling, repeated thoughts, but how they circle is very different and give us different outcomes.

(monotheistic) Meditation centers on the good supreme God, and often the One described in the Bible. The love and presence of God energizes the one meditating. Thoughts and cares are kept in close contact with God, not one’s self or self-interests. Prayer, worship, and centering are interrelated with meditation.

In Worry (in Christians or any one) thoughts are repetitive and  ingrown, not centered on apart from self and move toward collapse, snuffing out our energy and health. Worry thoughts stay with the self, and do not move outward or around a stabilizing idea or deity. This causes degeneration into a Worry Spiral that undercuts growth, health, and well-being. Other problems may arise like illness, anxiety disorders, depression, paranoia, and much more.

In part 3, I’ll unpack how to move from Worry, which is negative, to Meditation which is peace and life-giving.

Did you read the previous Post? Please read Part 1 of this series where I discuss some common misunderstanding of Worry.

Do you think I got it right? What does Worry and Meditation look like for you?
Please, let me know.

• Recycling is when you take what appears to be garbage and you reform or reuse it again. But what’s this “up-cycle” stuff?

• Upcycling is when one converts waste materials or useless items into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

The act and habit of worrying can be upcycled and in the next few posts I’ll unravel that.

First–
Stuff you might not know about WORRY:

1. Out-of -balance hormones can spike worry. A dip in progesterone in women or a drop in testosterone in men, for instance.

(This means that you can’t always get a handle on worry just by “thinking your way out of it”. There’s biological component.)

2. Anxiety (often seen as worry and other related problems) can be a genetic predisposition that runs in families, like heart disease can.

3. Changing habits can lessen worry, much like eating a good diet can help slim you down even if you come from a family that’s…um..big boned.

The Hopeful News…
If you have a knack for worry (negative), then you may have a great capacity to meditate (positive). Prayer and mediation are almost synonyms, and overwhelming evidence shows that the use of prayer/meditation improves one’s level of anxiety, well-being, and health. Worry is a Soul issue. That means it’s more than mental or spiritual (the Soul is the whole of you and who you are). Soul Care address this. So, here we go!

Getting to a good place is NOT like throwing a switch, so I’ll start to tackle ways to move toward Upcycing worry more this week.

(photo source)

Part of my journey, spiritually, has been to move from a fundamentalist upbringing, to an Evangelical / post-conservative theological formal training, and then toward “the mysteries” (i.e. mystic tendencies). What brought me there? Tremendous pain. I usually don’t talk of it for too long. Maybe there’s a memoir in me that should come to light, but the progression is palpable.

In “the mysteries” this means that I don’t think of suffering as a problem, sorrow as un-wellness, or bouts of profound unhappiness as a sign that I have too little faith. In fact, most of the biblical characters were kind of tortured souls. It’s a more recent construct that we should think the life of faith has a “Sunshine Mountain” feel to it.

So, I wanted to write out a few thoughts about what Mark Lepper posed out there on the Twitter-verse (see lower image).

My initial Twitter response (you see below) was less than 140 characters, so I thought I’d add a bit more.

@thelepper Nah. That notion helps us cope, but we can’t possibly verify it. It’s part of “the mysteries”

For just a moment…

Imagine your child kills himself. The most horrid thought (you needn’t linger there).

In the first few days, probably 20 people will tell you, “Everything happens for a reason.” Or, they’ll say, “All things work together for good…” You know the verse, right?

Rubbish.

(Probably most people don’t realize how out of context that verse is used that way. Erroneously they utilize just a part of it as a “band-aid platitude” to offer kindness.)

There are a great many things that have no good explanations and will not. The reasons won’t be revealed later either. On earth or in heaven. It really doesn’t work that way. And it really shouldn’t. Otherwise movement toward maturity would be at stake.

Really, it would be too confusing for us that God would answer these questions, so don’t count on an inquiry at the “ask the author” line in heaven, my dear friends.

When the pain of suffering wallops you and you can’t shelve your doubts long enough to work through the real hardship of it, one temptation is to consider that God must be malevolent or AWOL, instead of considering that we can’t possibly know the answer.

It is in the unknowing that we become enlightened to the ways of God.

It seems the two most common tactics (ways of coping) in tragedy are…

1. Try to believe that something horrible or evil has some sort of good redemptive reason, or will eventually come to something good because of it.

(Though it is true that God makes it his business to redeem everything…eventually….somehow…. we can’t think of this backward when we come into pain, and try jumping ahead. Pain can serve a point.)

2. Realize that so much is unexplainable and let our hope and faith erode or dissolve.

But there is a third option. And maybe more than just one more (you can let me know). Another way that’s been employed since humans have had optimism and spirituality (read: a very long time) is…

“the way of the mysteries”. And it’s not a cop out.

It’s farsighted. It’s a perspective that holds that the beauty we witness in this world is almost out of place in the nastiness and madness of it. It’s the idea of (good) ideals we all seem to possess that point to a greater, underlying and sustaining beauty and goodness obscured by the ways of the world, suffering, and the hardships of being human.

To embrace our situation as the mystics do is to not shun hardship or revel in it, but rather to let the pain refine us and make us wise. Oh, and it hurts. It hurts like hell.  And it, in some real sense, beats the hell out of us, and makes us endearing and compassionate. Beautiful.

The trouble is that if we’re satisfying with answers like, “Hey, friend! Don’t worry there’s a reason this horrible thing is happening,” then we are of very little good to those who are truly suffering.

In fact, our notions of “reasons” are often so pale and wanting. They just couldn’t possibly be sturdy enough. They don’t reveal what is legit and accurate.

Only when we can sit there alongside in the pain of those who hurt, and even take a part of the sorrow itself do we find we can make our way, honestly. And too, we must sit in our own pain. It’s uncomfortable. It’s dark. Sometimes horrid.

But to have the permission to hurt can send us toward wellness. It shows us that great sorrow comes on powerfully, and hurts badly, but does not have the final word. In the process of living well and deeply do we like a tender shoot become oaks of maturity and grace.

Please friends, be careful and don’t make a mockery of pain by disrespecting it or minimizing it (for yourself or anybody else). There is no human life without pain. There too is no growth without it. That’s the bit about incarnationality: The divine enters the human experience. That is our model.

So very deeply have I hurt, but now deeply can I love.

It’s true that redemption is chosen.

To be chosen it must first be acknowledged.

(that’s my longer answer)

Here’s a little reminder that everyone gets tired.

Everyone gets unbalanced.

Maybe you’ll be touched deeply and start crying when you hear a rapper slinging rhymes, which is really weird, but I did that.

Maybe you’ll just feel a heaviness in your heart that you can’t pinpoint. A slow burning ache, like the weight of the broken world is pushing in and perched on your sternum.

Maybe you’ll see relationships so broken and confusing and full of turmoil that you’ll start to disconnect.

Maybe you’ll snap at your kids, or get angry at a stranger whose story you can’t possibily know.

And grace will leak away from you and your ideals will be shelved, and you’ll wonder if you’re really a person who still believes in goodness anymore.

Here’s a word for you…and for me….

It hurts to be alive.

There are mysteries we want to know but can’t unravel.

You. Will. Get. Tired.

In this sorrow we are not alone, because we are the same.

(If you’d like to share your worry today or your burden, please do. In the comment section or using the contact me tab. I’ll pray for you, and maybe you can pray for me.)

Milos Milosevic via Compfight

Today, I’m taking your questions…

About Life, about Creativity, about God, about work, about ministry, about you, about me…whatever.

Do you have any burning questions smoldering about anything?
What do you wonder about?

I’m not promising that I have all the answers and fixes. But, let’s see if we can help each other out today, somehow.

I’m happy to have Addie over at the blog, and I know you’ll enjoy this, my friends! Thanks, Addie. To read the other articles in this Series by some amazing people, click here.

Addie Zierman (@addiezierman) is a writer, mom, and Diet Coke enthusiast. She blogs twice a week at How to Talk Evangelical, where she’s working to redefine faith one cliche at a time.

The Ways Blogging is Healing Me
Addie Zierman

In the spring of 2011, I hauled my 8-month-pregnant body to the podium at Hamline University to give my graduate reading. The baby’s feet were jammed up in my ribcage, and my lungs had so little space left for expanding that I had to pause after every couple of sentences to catch my breath.

The manuscript that I read from that night was my memoir, How to Talk Evangelical. I’d started my MFA program as a young, evangelical wife, freshly back from a year of teaching in China. I didn’t know that I was already up to my ankles in the slow-sinking sand of Depression. I didn’t see that wild, angry crisis of faith coming. I smacked into it at full speed.

My manuscript is a reflection of a five-year journey away from and back toward God. I was writing into the anger, into the pain. I was digging through the past, pulling sharp shards of memories out of my heart and into the light.

It was messy and raw and a little volatile, and when I was done, I felt very weak – like someone who has just gotten better from a long bout with a terrible flu and is maybe ready to try eating…but probably just half a piece toast.

One year later, when my agent told me that I needed to start a blog, I felt defeated before I even started. I thought, I am not a blogger. I thought, I have two really little kids and NO TIME EVER.

I thought that “platform” was about numbers and followers and selling a book. But it turned out to be something entirely different.

And here it is: I’d spent five years ripping up the rotten, mildewed boards of my warped view of God. A theology that could not sustain the weight of my pain.

But as I began writing my blog, I realized that we were not so much building a platform for a book as a new platform of faith. A sturdier foundation. Something I could stand on; something that could hold me up.

In keeping with the theme of my book, I began to write, twice a week, about evangelical terms. Cliches. Things like Jesus freak and on fire and feeling God’s presence. I wrote to shine a light on the ways we miss it in the evangelical culture, but instead, I found the light turned in on my own dark places. My own failings and doubts. My own unhealed pain.

The discipline of putting something out there twice a week, every week, feels like a kind of faith in itself.  These days, the old ways of “quiet time” feel foreign and forced, but the blog has given me an unexpected way back in.

Term by term, day by day, I get up and look at the pond while the sun rises. I write a sentence. Erase it. Write two. Erase. Painstakingly, word by word, God is giving me new language, a new way to talk about longing and struggle and doubt. A new way of seeing him.

Where I’ve struggled to be honest about my pain in church and small groups and the usual places where Christians gather, I am finding a new place in the borderless internet. I am finding voices who echo back my heart, and reading them every day is like eating good, hearty bread.

I write, and it feels holy. I read, and it feels like community. And yes, there are days when it’s hard. When my heart gets bogged down with numbers and stats and rejection and the who-said-what of it all…

But most days, it feels like we are all building it together. Like we’re pounding it all out, nail by nail, board by board, with a carpenter from Nazareth.  Like every day, I am finding my footing a little bit more.

Originally The Muses refer to nine goddesses in Greek mythology who control and symbolize nine types of art known to Ancient Greece. As daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne (memory personified) Muses are associated with artistic inspiration. It’s actually a rather clever pairing The Divine & Memory…a kind of divine memory or “remembering the divine nature of being creative” perhaps. Note the word used within “amuse”, “museum”, “music”, and “musing upon” still carry a bit of this in their meanings.

What I appreciate about the idea of Muses in association with creativity and inspiration is the notion that brilliance is not sourced in us. Instead by careful listening and doing the work we join up with something transcendent as we engage in creative pursuits.

This serves as a needed inoculation from the perils of both failure and success. Creative types…and by that I mean me (and maybe you)…are notoriously melancholy and can succumb to discouragement when we assume too much responsibility for our creative endeavors. When some of the pressure is off we do better.

Have you heard from your Muse lately?
What are you most proud of creatively?

Photo Credit: Pulpolux !!! via Compfight

For instance, sometimes I crave and ingest sugar. Sometimes I numb-out with tech, or some distraction. Sometimes I grow irritable and wallow a bit. I could go on and on, but I’ll stop before we both get too embarrassed.

What are some of the neurotic things you do?

The whole collection of 5 Volumes is here on KINDLE.
(For a brief description click the volume number)

Volume 1: What is the Soul? & What is Soul Care?
Volume 2: Identity and Belonging
Volume 3: The 8 Paths of Learning
Volume 4: Slumps, Burnout, and Frustration
Volume 5: God’s Grand Story (I saved the best for last)

Enter the proverbial vehicle analogy:
When a car runs out of gas it doesn’t mean the car is abnormal, it just means that it needs the maintenance of being filled up regularly. Your “soul tank” empties out too. This Series gives you what you need to be a healthy and joyful message-bearer.

Here’s a video introduction to Volume 5, with a whimsical homage to author and influencer, Donald Miller.

If you have any problems with ordering, let me know!

public domain image

I wonder if much of the time, without knowing it, we operate as if the top model is correct. The one that puts us in the middle. We just ending up seeing the world and treating other people as if they revolve around us.

The second model is correct, but actually incomplete. That’s because compared to the known universe it’s hardly a spec. Our stories and even our problems are small compared to what’s really going on. Our stories and our pain matter, but they are not the center.

Enjoy your weekend. Keep things in perspective, okay?

Some poetry for reflection:

Psalms 8:3-5
“When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.”

Easter Table - Nikolay Bogdanov-Belsky

Easter and Thanksgiving are the times we’ve visited my side of the family. For as much as I hope these times will be worthwhile and joyous…more often they prove to be interactions marred by family of origin baggage and tensions forged in the kiln of pain and chaos.

I yearn to create new traditions in my nuclear family, but obligations and traditions with extended family crowd out those preferences.

I wonder now, as I recover from too much driving, what do we do when all the well-suited symbolism of new life and rebirth fail. When they don’t pan out in real life. When what you wish for, like a clean start, or even some version of new found tranquility proves unavailable.

The joy of Easter is there in the background, in a larger –what-God-is-up-to–sense, but interpersonally you just wish you could be somewhere else. That has to be more common than the Easter greeting cards let on.

My husband and I watched The Passion of the Christ on Good Friday, a day before we left on our Eater trip, and I was struck by something. The pain. So. much. pain.

This holiday is marked with the pain of God coming into our experience and absorbing all the agony. We tend to jump to the end. The happy ending of the joy of his resurrection. That’s the spot we focus on. O’ the joy!

For Christ’s followers it was actually more of a chaotic time rife with sorrow, dashed hopes, bewilderment, unbelief, and then surprise, okay, shock. Joy? Yes that too. But many other things.

First, he kept popping up in locked rooms, probably necessitating the “Peace to you” language, because he was freaking them out so much. He gave them hope enough to spread the Good News, but much was left undone. In fact, the hardest times were ahead. And, Jesus didn’t stay long.

Real life is complicated.

There was infighting, arrests, beatings, Steven is the first martyr, wild Saul starts imprisoning and killing Jesus’ friends–then he reverses course. Death where is your sting, says St. Paul? Well, guess what? The pain still smarts like the dickens.

* * *

I must say I have some envy for those who experience serenity and all the related majesty and renewal of Eastertide. Sometimes those symbols fail me. This was one of those times. Perhaps they do not in any long term or big picture way, but in the nitty gritty ways and means that life plays out…yes. And that makes it difficult. So much of life just doesn’t work right. So much is still broken, empty tomb or not.

You probably thought you were going to read a happy ending. Maybe I would turn my frown upside down. But, right now, I can’t find the right ending to write about. Maybe the symbolism hasn’t failed me, maybe I have failed it. I suppose like many stories, this one isn’t over yet either. But, the dot-dot-dots (…) are each so weighty and confounding.

I’ve appreciated Caleb Wilde’s blog for quite a while now. It could be my own experience with grief, suffering, and the dying process that makes Caleb’s sentiments on death and unique perspective a kind of solace to me.

If death and dying has touched your world, I think you’ll feel the same way about his blog. If it hasn’t, at some point it will. That’s just the facts.

Speaking from experience, I suggest purposefully familiarizing yourself with the inevitable issues of mortality (your own and your loved ones’) before they arrive without warning and manage to capsize your world, crush your faith, or in some other way batter you. And for purposes of minister and soul care it’s quite helpful too.

This is part one of our chat. Check back this week for part 2.

(click for video)

Thank you so much for stopping by today.

It’s a really big day for me, for at least 3 reasons…hold up! 5 Reasons. (I just found out it’s The Year of the Dragon starting today AND National Pie day. Eating pie like a dragon seems like the proper thing to do and Very exciting!)

Here’s 3 more reasons.

1. Author Shawn Smucker’s interview is now live, it’s awesome, and it’s the first of two parts (see the previous post).

2. Doomsday debunker and writer of a bunch of books, Jason Boyett, posted the pre-lease of his interview with me about his fun (yes I said fun) Doomsday book. For now, it’s only available at his site, here, (and it’s unlisted on youtube until that goes live, on January 30th to the general public).

Since it’s time-sensitive info…go ahead and get the word out! (We might only have 11 more months before ultimate doom and annilation, so be a darling and help some people not freak out, k?)

3. I have a guest post at Confessions of a Funeral Director. No, I’m not a funeral director, but it is a kind of confession.

Please stop by and read my deathly guest post at Caleb’s poignant site. He’s, by far, my favorite undertaker. And I mean that!

And check back for a fascinating Ninja Interview with Caleb which will be up soon.

(by Chris O Brien click for CC source)

You can’t die of a broken heart. It’s despair that kills you.

Having a broken heart, means you are alive. It means that something matters, and you haven’t gone numb (which is what usually happens to people after a while…or escapism, which is sort of the same).

Having a broken heart means that risk was rewarded with pain. But not pain unto death. Pain that gives way to experience you can’t find another way.

I used to think God was trying to kill me of a broken heart. Dashing my hopes and dreams. Allowing my son, or my father, or me to suffer until I couldn’t take it anymore. It felt like the beatings wouldn’t end.

At the end of that bit of brutality (as I perceived it) I realized I could be borne out of it, like a phoenix. And that was the point. To come to a resurrection. On the other side was life, not death. All the scars would be a kind of beauty, not a pitiable shame.

Don’t worry about your broken heart. It has to break apart to get to the fleshy part. The part so tender that only God can hold it…and be the only one who can and will protect it in a way you never could understand before. In a way that you can never do alone. You are brave enough for that. You. are.

Do. not. despair.

On the recent topic of Heaven (and soon, Hell) here at the old blog, I must bring up the baffling and sappy rendering of the heaven that we hear about quite a bit in conservative North American Protestantism.

If a boy nearly dies, and then tells you details about heaven exactly as you have taught him, what’s next? I’ll tell you what, a best seller (for people who need a spiritual vitamin B12 shot for their excruciatingly literal translations of biblical passages, and who pay no mind to historical context, linguistic idioms, let alone Hebrew and Greek).

Now, I realize young children tell silly stories. That’s part of their job. The trouble comes when the stories get massaged and coupled with a near-death tragedy to elicit a faith response from the more gullible among us. I do want to think the Burpos are on the up-and-up, but something stinks.

I heard Pastor Burpo and his little boy on a television program. What a cute kid. Some of the story seemed amazing, if not miraculous, but I got a bad whiff of something when Colton (really his dad) detailed heaven as, well, super lame.

People get around on their huge wings. Okay, I hope that’s not how it works. Boobs have been bad enough. The proverbial pearly gates make an appearance. The word “wicked trite” comes to mind, but maybe I’m just too cynical. A blue-eyed Jesus wears a purple sash over his white robe, and rides a giantic rainbow colored horse. Okay, bad wardrobe, and how could the genuine biblical Jesus from the ancient Semitic region possibly possess a double recessive gene for blue eyes? (And don’t say, because both Mary and the Holy Spirit had blue eyes, ’cause I’m not buying it.)

I don’t think Jesus rolls like that. But, I give the kid credit: An elephantine rainbow horse is pretty cool. Of course, I would have to know if it pooped rainbow too. That’s awfully critical info. God (the Father) has a body and sits on the throne, with Gabriel serving as a kind of right hand angel man on his left side, in a smaller throne…as we might expect, right? It all sounds like a bad Star Trek episode. Well, sort of.

Reader reviews often complain that only 3 pages of the book speaks of heaven in any details. But the book has done well. Very well. It spent 52 weeks on the bestseller list, and the family has since produced a children’s picture book, and you guessed it, a movie is in the works.

When the parents are asked about authenticity, their answers center on referring to the hope the story brings. This begs the question, is the point of the book to create hope in a plenty of people already know what they want heaven to be, instead of a faithful depiction of God (who, by the way, is non corporeal) and the Bible? (Which would be far more confusing.) Both can’t be true.

If you want to read a copy for yourself, and decide, here it is.

But, I offer you some thoughtful reflection on the the topic from arguably the foremost New Testament scholar alive today.

In our darkest moments it’s difficult to shake the feeling of aloneness. God may seem so hidden.

In those worst times several things have helped me devotionally and/or spiritually. One of them is the power of community. I use the strength and prayers of others as my own. I may read (and pray) the lamenting scriptures (like Psalms) when I feel too spiritually dry or weary to pray. I agree with the prayers of others for me and hold those prayers in my heart. When I can’t find the words, or feel the feelings I’d like to I share in the source and inheritance of the community of Believers for strength that is beyond grasp for me alone.

Today, I am listing two resources that are very helpful for this. Maybe you know someone in the middle of a dark, weary, or dry time. Maybe you are there yourself. You may feel quite alone. Strangely, that feeling itself can teach us. Since God’s presence is everywhere, that potent sense of alienation that overtakes our heart can refine in us the faith that does not come through our senses. We can have a “knowing place” even if we feel otherwise numb.

The first resource book is a collection of stories from people who have felt alone in the throes of depression. Together, they harmonize in a chorus of hope, and in the reality of the provision of our Creator. I think you will appreciate their entires.

The second resource is one I’m reading now. I’ll include a few quotes, I’ve read recently, to give you a sense of the power of this book–both for understanding or ministering to those suffering from the pain of mental illness, or for a tether of grace sustaining your hope for a brighter day in recovery from your present darkness.

Forgetfulness deprives our consciousness of great solace…my memories give me hope.  p 90

Any coherence in the midst of chaos, any sense in the midst of nonsense, in the work of God. p110

…[W]e really have to admit that all our love and all our hopes are ultimately borrowed for God anyway. p116

Please share your thoughts.

Do you have a song of lament today in your heart? You have permission to share it here.

Psalm 10

¹ O Lord, why do you stand so far away?
Why do you hide when I am in trouble?
² The wicked arrogantly hunt down the poor.
Let them be caught in the evil they plan for others.
³ For they brag about their evil desires;
they praise the greedy and curse the Lord.

⁴ The wicked are too proud to seek God.
They seem to think that God is dead.
⁵ Yet they succeed in everything they do.
They do not see your punishment awaiting them.
They sneer at all their enemies.
⁶ They think, “Nothing bad will ever happen to us!
We will be free of trouble forever!”

⁷ Their mouths are full of cursing, lies, and threats.^[a]
Trouble and evil are on the tips of their tongues.
⁸ They lurk in ambush in the villages,
waiting to murder innocent people.
They are always searching for helpless victims.
⁹ Like lions crouched in hiding,
they wait to pounce on the helpless.
Like hunters they capture the helpless
and drag them away in nets.
¹⁰ Their helpless victims are crushed;
they fall beneath the strength of the wicked.
¹¹ The wicked think, “God isn’t watching us!
He has closed his eyes and won’t even see what we do!”

¹² Arise, O Lord!
Punish the wicked, O God!
Do not ignore the helpless!
¹³ Why do the wicked get away with despising God?
They think, “God will never call us to account.”
¹⁴ But you see the trouble and grief they cause.
You take note of it and punish them.
The helpless put their trust in you.
You defend the orphans.

The 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy a week from this Sunday. We will once again see images and recount the horrors of that day, and try in memorial to accept the reality of this world. Most of us don’t encounter death and our own mortality too often. Most of us don’t constantly see suffering, and witness grief and loss.

Please take some time today, or this weekend to remember that the events of 9/11 still bring pain to many. Loved ones are missed, and we can’t gloss over the national tragedy that left a collective hole in our hearts, even ten years later.

This seems a fitting time to discuss an author who is very acquainted with death. It’s his job to be, and his perspective can be very helpful to us. As promised a couple of weeks earlier, the following is my personal interview with blogger and upcoming author Caleb Wilde, a 6th generation Funeral Director, seminary student, husband, and expectant adoptive dad.

My Questions for Caleb:

1. Being a 6th generation funeral director, you have quite a unique vantage point on life, loss, and mortality. How do you think you live life differently than other Christians because of where God has placed you?

Caleb: In traditional religious calendars, the day in-between “Good Friday” and “Easter” is called “Holy Saturday”.  “Holy Saturday” is the day the disciples’ hopes and beliefs were engulfed in death and silence, as they viewed their Messiah’s death without the knowledge of the resurrection.

In some sense, I live the life of Holy Saturday.

As funeral directors, we’re paid by families to be a human shield to death, whereby we make death somewhat easier, less real and more proper.  As this human shield, I’m affected.  I’m affected by the brokenness, by the grief, by the hopelessness I see in faces, by the newly fatherless/motherless children, the tragic deaths and the accidents.

All this has made my personal faith more sensitive to questions of God’s goodness and justice.  It’s not easy for me to understand ideas of “eternal hell”, or ideas of “meticulous divine providence” or even “absolute foreknowledge” or “omnipotence”.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m still a Christian.

2. What do people misunderstand most about your work?

Caleb: We’re a lot like pastors.  Our jobs are really quite similar, except that one is recognized as “ministry” while the other is “business.”  That’s probably the largest misconception … there’s no way funeral directors can meet with grieving families through the most difficult time of their lives and come out on the other side as “business people.”

Everything else is true, though … we are dark and we are odd people.

In ancient times, death practitioners were ostracized from normal society by rule.  Today, we’re partly ostracized from the norm of society by practice.

3. The constant stream of customers (people dying, and their families burying them) can make one grow numb or cold toward the concept and process of death and burial. Do things still surprise you or impact you? What kind of things?

Caleb: There’s something so unnatural about death that (save the very old) it’s difficult to become numb.

4. You’ve probably thought about what you’d want your own funeral to look and sound like. Can you tell us about that?

Caleb: About two years ago, I started taking one minute video clips of myself, so that by the time I’m 70, I should have a montage of age progression videos that can be used for my funeral.

I’ve also talked about recording a message from myself to my family and friends that could be shown at my funeral as the eulogy.  But, by the time I’m ready to die, I figure they’ll have holographic projections, so I’ll wait for that tech until I record my final goodbye.

5. The saddest funeral I ever went to was for a 13 year old boy who took his own life. What have you learned about people during the time of more tragic circumstances that you’ve been a part of?

Caleb: Funerals/death are a perfect storm: you have death, the inheritance money, high emotions and family you might not like too much who are around you all the time.

Funerals intensify people’s real character.  You see the best in people and you see the worst.  The bad people will do horrendous things at funerals, like start fights, curse out their family members over money.  And you can see Jesus in the good ones.

6. Do you find your work mostly depressing, hopeful, profound, mundane, etc.? Would you recommend this vantage point to others?

Caleb: It’s a tough ministry that has little boundaries.  Many funeral homes are also generational, so many of us work with our dads, grandfathers, uncles and cousins, which can make this at-need work that much more difficult to set up healthy boundaries.

Similar to any ministry, I think there should be a passion for death work … a calling of sorts, whereby you know this is what you’re supposed to do.  And being a “calling”, few have witnessed this vantage point.

It’s unique.

7. Do you want to stay in the family business? Why or why not?

Caleb: Next question : )

8. Tell us a bit about how you view suffering, pain, and death from your unique perspective…which probably has a lot to do with the message in your book.

Caleb: I’ve built my understanding of God around suffering, pain and death.  It’s a local theology.  And my understanding of God, suffering, pain and death in light of my faith is the content of my upcoming book, “Confessions of a Funeral Director.”  Hopefully, it will be out in less than a year.  You can get an idea of how death has affected my view of God at my blog, www.calebwilde.com.  My book, though, will contain much more narrative than my blog.

9. What’s your best idea for a Smart Phone app.?

Caleb: I live near Lancaster County (PA), home of the Amish and Mennonites, so there’s a lot of intermarrying in these parts.  Not to mention, most of the towns in the rural areas of Pennsylvania have families that have lived there for centuries, so many of them are related.

I have an idea to partner with Ancestry.com and create an app the lets you bump smart phones with another person and it will tell you how you’re related to them.  My theory is that this will greatly help the evolution of humans by creating a purer gene pool.   The apps name is “Bump it before you Hump it”.