Tag: God

Bargaining with God and life

haggle

I get into this thing sometimes and I catch myself trying to cut a deal.

It’s bargaining. I do it with myself and in prayer.

I’ve noticed that the 5 stages of Grief are also the same as the Stages of Change.

If you’ve ever started something new that should be a good thing and then felt conflicted?

It’s because there is a loss of something involved. Maybe something familiar. Maybe dream. Maybe a place. Maybe a group of people or a person. It’s a process of grief to move through, even for seemingly simple things. Change and grieving are linked.

Stage 1: Denial

(Nothing’s really changed. Nothing big really happened. Everything is normal.)

Stage 2: Anger 

(I really don’t like this. I feel frustrated and upset. I want to lash out or numb out.)

Stage 3: Bargaining

(How about if I do this, you can come through for me in this way. Or. If I do this, maybe this other thing will happen.)

Stage 4: Depression

(I don’t want to deal with this. I’m going into my shell. Go away.)

Stage 5: Acceptance 

(It’s going to be okay.)

I wonder what would happen if we prayed with each stage in mind. Like a roadmap. When we got to the bargaining part, we might just smile, because the script is already there. How funny. Maybe we don’t even have to do it. Or we can do it and in the ritual of it we could heal.

Then, perhaps, in the depression stage we can just sit in silence with God and not feel so alone. Then–I’m guessing here–the Acceptance is more thorough and includes not just accepting the newness but feeling accepted where ever you are too. If only I could catch the stages before they get to me.

However it works, the process will happen again and again. They don’t tell you this stuff when you’re a kid. You stumble into knowing that most of life is like reincarnation in bits and pieces of us. The same patterns. The same stages repeated. The same getting there again and again. For the first time and repeatedly.

What change are you in right now?

# # #

photo source

A Fig Leaf for You & a Fig Leaf for Me

Mustang

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

 

Open Diary: Living Past the Moment

Inspired by the open heart of Henri Nouwen, I am including my own thoughts openly.  In some ways prayers too. Though these are notes I am writing to myself, some of them may have resonance with you. I hope so. 

Open Diary

You’ve been good at anticipating and predicting. By nature you use your intuition to navigate and decide. By nurture you’ve had to use your skill to survive in your world. You’ve tried to keep out of harm’s way by doing this. You’ve tried to thrive.

But there is a price. It is that you get yanked out of the moment that you are in. You’ve living elsewhere. Life is happening but your mind is in the future planning or figuring things out. You are cheating yourself out of the richness of the now. The present.

Just as you notice a smile from your child or the beauty outdoors your mind races ahead outside of the moment. Settle yourself. Find yourself where you are. Right now.

Keep coming back to the place where you really are.  Literally, come to your senses.

# # #

Don’t miss the next post, or others in this series. Get an email delivery by clicking in the sidebar!

Open Diary: On Being Empty

Inspired by the open heart of Henri Nouwen, I am including my own thoughts that also are in some ways prayers too. You may think of this as an Open Diary. I will share them with you, not every day, but once in a while. Though these are notes I am writing to myself, some of them may have resonance with you. I hope so. 

Open Diary

You have given and you are empty. Not forever empty, but for now. Weary but not forgotten by God. You must, like you tell others to do, find your center and the place where Love resides. This Love is not you, but Other. Not only Other, but God who is and within and part of your being. Hold on to your first love and be known and healed.

Don’t try to be everything everyone hopes you are or wants you to be for them. Be sincere and true and let God find them where they are as well.

There is always a curve in the walk. A turn in the road and you are only given a piece of what lies ahead. This is because God loves you and knows you. Trust God in this. Be well in your soul as you set your heart into God’s hand.

Being empty means you are ready to be filled.

# # #

Don’t miss the next post, or others in this series. Get an email delivery by clicking in the sidebar!

When Prayer feels like nothing at all

My friend shared this quote with me.

Feeling it was too good a gift not to share…I just had to present it to you, today.

Abbot John Chapman wrote:
‘The time of prayer is passed in the act of wanting God. It is an idiotic state, and feels like the most complete waste of time, until it gradually becomes more vivid. The strangest phenomenon is when we begin to wonder whether we mean anything at all, and if we are addressing anyone, or merely repeating mechanically a formula we do not mean. The word God seems to mean nothing. If we feel this curious and paradoxical condition, we are starting on the right road.”

This quote can sound like one of two things, mainly:

1. Super weird, if not heretical.

2. Just what you need to hear and strangely comforting.

….okay maybe option 3. Confusing. (you’ll have to let me know)

When prayer feels useless, it’s not. But, prayer doesn’t have to look and feel like you’ve been taught: active, powerful, transforming.

Takeaway: You don’t have to feel guilty when you feel nothing at all.

Some feel repelled by the silence or felt absence. It pulls them toward agnosticism or even atheism, but silence and other mysteries can also bring us toward the contemplative stream of spiritual growth.

What did the quote sound like to you?

# # #

Don’t miss the next post; it’s coming soon! Get an email delivery by clicking in the sidebar.