The Power of Letting Go

Someone reminded me recently of an object lesson I saw showing that holding or cupping sand allowed a person to retain more in his or her grasp than gripping the same amount of sand in tightly clenched fists. It just pours through the openings between the fingers.

The principle is that the tighter you hold onto something, the more control of it you lose; conversely, the more loosely you hold onto it, the greater your capacity to hold it.

It applies in life, possessions, money, ... and other people.

This was a picture of what my life was.  I had a tight-fisted, obsessive white-knuckle grip on everything and everyone in my "sphere of influence."  Especially everyone.

My poor kids.  I was compelled to control every last thing they did, said, thought, believed, watched, listened to, ... all the ways they spent their time, everything.  Everything was fear-based.  I was so afraid they would reject the lifestyle that I wanted for them, the God I believed in.

Rules, frustration, anger, punishment, nothing worked.

As I gripped tighter and tighter, their resentment grew and grew.  And I ended up creating the very thing that I feared the most. They wouldn't talk to me anymore; they knew I would freak out.  They embraced different beliefs from me. They talked to their father, opened up to him.  He acted as a go-between; they rarely spoke to me directly.  I seethed in jealousy, frustration, anger, and self-pity.  I really thought they hated me. I couldn't figure out why.

I did the same thing with my husband. My insistence on being his conscience - on being everyone's conscience because obviously they didn't see life the way I did - led me to be suspicious, accusatory, and quite frankly, never satisfied.  My expectations were of near perfection. I was always ranting about something or other - even his closeness with the kids.  I accused him of the most terrible things; my accusations were completely unfounded. He withdrew, pulled away from me, dove further into addiction, and lied to me about it so that I wouldn't jump all over him. 

I felt alone - WAS alone - in every way that was important to me.  I'd forgotten what happiness was, it had been so long.

When my desperation drove me to seek help in therapy, and I learned the concept of letting go (the books call it "detachment in love") I remember for a time physically having to take a step back from a conversation that was going awry, and assuming the "I surrender" position: hands in the air.  It reminded me to "unhook" - to let people be who they were.

In my mind, I had to literally give them permission to be separate entities, not carbon copies of me.  I had to decide what was more important - being right, or being happy.  Having a relationship, or having control.  That was the beginning.  That was the end of my old lifestyle and the beginning of a new one.

SomeOne opened a door. It took a while before I found it - but it was opened at least.  I'm so glad someone - someone with skin on - was willing to sit with me and help me work through the issues I had that were keeping me in slavery to fear.  I believe God set that up when I cried out to Him with all my heart, because within a month this person was brought into my path.

I'm not going to kid.  It was a long process and I wanted it to be a "quick zap."  No dice. I had to go THROUGH the process, not skip to the end.

I had spent a lifetime accumulating these compulsions, and it was going to take a while to expunge them from my life.

Slowly though, I learned to let go of my unrealistic expectations.  I learned to "look for yes" with my kids, to remind myself that they had a right to their own feelings and to their own thoughts. I gave up the burden of feeling responsible for their choices, as though they were a direct rejection of me and my beliefs. I had been carrying the weight of their responsibility for so very long that I had lost myself in the process.

When I started to detach from the people in my life - which doesn't mean I cared less, just that I let them be who they were and accepted them that way - I started to enjoy them more, to cut them more breaks, to lighten up, and to concentrate on looking after myself.

Eventually I was able to apologize to them (and mean it) and back it up by treating them differently.  They were blown away by the change.  They still are, I'm told. 

Including my husband. As he entered recovery from his addiction, that amazement grew and we found that we could share lessons learned on our respective journeys.  The stress from feeling like I had to be his conscience, his guardian, his protector, his watchdog - subsided as I learned to release my grip on controlling every last minute.

I started to enjoy life, to feel a bit more comfortable in my own skin.

Best of all, I got my husband back.  I am so very grateful. I missed him so terribly.  He's more content; I'm more content.  And my kids started to open up to me again as I gave them the space they needed to be themselves, even if that differed from what I thought or believed.

Today, we lead such different lives.  It's not perfect by any means.  But we get along so much better, we talk, we laugh - we're a family and each knows that the other loves him or her. The lessons of acceptance I've learned have translated to other areas in my life and my stress level has vastly reduced.  We're happier.  I'M happier.

I can't explain how letting go works; I just know it works.

Out of Hiding

Kids do it all the time. A common cry when any conflict arises is that the other person started it.

Nothing more powerful than perception.  Nobody wants to take responsibility and possibly punishment.  Laying blame is a convenient way to hide one's own.  The truth that both parties are likely to blame equally for an interpersonal conflict gets obscured.

It's been around since the dawn of time.
Recall the question, "Did you eat the fruit that I told you not to eat?" 

Since that day we've been hiding from our own faults, afraid to admit we are wrong, afraid we'll get judged, punished, or whatever.

Once we get into a relationship with God, we keep doing it.  Only this time, we get into the "Everybody else but me" song and dance.  Consider the lyrics to this song from the late 70's / early 80's:  "I went to church one day last month, the preacher preached real good / He talked about true commitment and New Testament brotherhood.  He talked about watchin' the things we say, gossip that can wound and slay / I sure wish Joe had been there that day, 'cause he really needed to hear it."  (Don Francisco)

The truth will make us free.  Admitting we have a problem, whether it's spiritual, emotional, interpersonal, physical or financial, is speaking in truth.  Denying it is not (contrary to popular belief) "speaking in faith."  It is in admitting our weaknesses that we can come to the point of asking for His strength.  Humans can hide in denial for many years.


Much of my Christian life was spent like my friend here.  I was a hypocrite.  After years of saying publicly that I hated hypocrisy.  Typical.

The word hypocrite has two parts: hypo and critical.  Hypo means less or lower.  Critical speaks for itself.  A hypocrite is someone who is less critical of himself than of anyone or everyone else around him. He is blind to his own faults or failings, and sees them magnified in others.  My own particular brand of hypocrisy not only saw those faults in others, it tried to fix them in others.  This never worked; I tried for decades and it just backfired, time and time again.  People resented me, people avoided me, people just plain didn't like me.  I could hardly blame them.  I didn't like me either.

God used some pretty nasty experiences in my life to get me desperate enough to admit that I might need some help - that I might actually have the problem, not "them."  Once I did - and I did so only out of desperation - He stepped in and started to change me from the inside out, relieve me of my obsession with fixing people, and rebuild relationships that I thought were toast. 

He took me out of hiding and let me see the light of day.  I like this.

Taking the Plunge

"Are you gonna go?"
"No, are you?"
"Well, someone's gotta! We've been standing here for a long time!"
"What if we fail?"
"Well, what if we don't?"
"Okay, if nobody else is gonna go, I will!  Geronimo-o-o!!"  SPLASH!

"Hey - that looks like fun  -  I think I will too." Splash!! "Yahoo! this is great - come on in, guys!!"

Any new venture is pretty scary.  I know because I've been tossing this one around for a long time.  But as I was trying to decide today whether I should go ahead and take the plunge, so to speak, I decided to go to a site I often go to as a check against my own status of recovery and this is what I read:

Relax. Our best is good enough. It may be better than we think. Even our failures may turn out to be important learning experiences that lead directly to - and are necessary for - an upcoming success.

Feel the fear, and then let it go. Jump in and do it - whatever it is. If our instincts and path have led us there, it's where we need to be. ( from the Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie © 1990 Hazelden Foundation )


It was just what I needed to give me the impetus, that last little nudge to launch out into the deep, so to speak.

So, I sent a message to a local pastor who had told me months ago that he and the leadership team of the church would be open to letting a 12-step group meet in the church. 

The need, I told him in my message, was not for "just another 12-step group" but for something that as yet does not exist on PEI.  I pitched him the proposal and am waiting to see what he'll say.

I've also been reading a book on walking in God's will ... and it seems to dovetail with this new venture.  The author, one Steve McVey, says that the basis for discovering God's will is anchored in His sovereignty.  

He is in control of the universe and the universe (try as I might to deny this) includes me.  If I step out and do something and it's NOT His will, He'll find a way to show me.  He's never surprised, never has to resort to "plan B" because He exists outside time and sees the beginning from the end.  

That's such a relief for someone who has to know what's going to happen well in advance.  It's a relief because I can let go of my need to know - and just trust Him.

So in the days and weeks to come, there could be a marvelous opportunity coming for me to reach out to people who, just like me, are getting unwrapped.  Or who want to.  And as it unfolds, should that be God's plan - you are welcome to share in it with me, or support us in prayer - because we're going to need a lot of it.  (Gulp!) 

Under the Armor

I like to read stories from the Old Testament.  It's full of colorful yet very profound examples of how God worked in the lives of the people who dared push past their preconceived notions and seek Him.

This morning I was reading in the book of Second Kings, and I came across a well-known story, one I learned in Sunday School.  It was of Naaman the leper, the one who had a little servant girl who told his wife (her mistress) about a prophet in Israel who could cure him of his leprosy. Yes, the photo to the right (above) is a fellow who has leprosy, a debilitating disease, and in those days, there was no cure. 

I relaxed and let the story pull me in.  I wondered what God was going to teach me that I didn't already know.  He's funny like that.

Naaman was a high-ranking military official, like a general in our culture.  He was second only to the king, and when he heard of a possible cure for this disease, he asked permission from his boss (the king) to go to Israel.  And he told him why.  The king (being a bureaucrat) heard what he wanted to hear and sent a letter not to the prophet, but to the king of Israel to have him either take the credit for the healing (or the blame in case Naaman wasn't cured.)  He sent plenty of money, obviously bribe money to try to entice the king of Israel to do as he was asked.  ("What's in it for me?" is a very old question.)  

When Naaman got there, the king of Israel read the Aramean king's letter and was very upset.  He thought it was a trick to get him to displease the sender, and worried that there would be an attack.  After all, before him stood the general of the foreign king's army AND his significant entourage, enough to attend to all the animals that carried the bribes he brought with him.

The prophet Elisha heard what had happened and he sent a message to the king of Israel.  "Send him to me.  Then you will know there is a prophet in Israel."  When Naaman got to the prophet's house, his servant came out with a message for him.  "Wash seven times in the Jordan River and your leprosy will be cured."  Naaman was furious!  The Jordan was a muddy river, prone to flooding, and there were rivers far more clean even in nearby Samaria.  He was about to leave in a rage, when his servants talked some sense into him.  "If this prophet had asked you to perform some great and difficult feat, you would have done that, wouldn't you?  How much simpler it is to just 'wash and be clean'!" 

How much simpler indeed.  It was the simplicity of it that offended the great man.  He had come looking to buy his way, to impress his way into the good graces of whatever god this nation served.  He expected to at least speak to the prophet in person, perhaps to have the prophet wave his hand over him and - puff of smoke and abracadabra - his leprosy would be gone.  But he hadn't counted on this.  This was too simple.  Yet his servants were so earnest - and what they said did have some merit ...

Naaman relented.  And this is the picture that struck me this morning.

General Naaman had to take off his armor to go into the Jordan. This armor was head-to-foot and up until now, he had been able to hide the extent of his deforming disease from all but his family and close friends. 

But this, this was different; this was humiliating.  He had to strip down to his underwear, and expose the repulsiveness of his disease to anyone who might just happen along, as well as to his entire entourage. He had to submit his will to the will of another.   He had to let go of his preconceived notions of a god who expected some give-and-take. He had to become vulnerable in his area of deepest weakness.

When he got up for the seventh time out of the muddy waters of the Jordan (excuse the artist's rendition) his skin was like that of a child.  All his leprous spots were gone, just as his wife's servant-girl had predicted! 

Better than that outward healing, a transformation had taken place on Naaman's insides.  He had come to know a new God.  A "God of his understanding" - one who met him at his point of need and touched him where nobody could touch him before, who was no respecter of persons and who cared about him personally.

Naaman made a decision in his grateful heart, right there and then.  He had to say thank you - not just to the prophet but to God - and for the rest of his life.  

He went back to the prophet and tried to pay him.  No dice, came the response.  This is free.  Overwhelmed, Naaman then made a request (which was granted!) and the request itself and his reason behind it is how we know his heart had changed.  

He wanted DIRT. (Dirt??)  Enough dirt to load up two mules with it - so he could carry it back to Aram with him.  Why in the world - ??  

He wanted it because he wanted to use it as a reminder, possibly as a base to create an altar back in Aram to worship this God, and NO OTHER god, for the rest of his life.  As I was reading the story, I noticed that he even asked forgiveness from God (through the prophet) in advance for his duty to fulfill a ceremonial function in the line of his work:  having to accompany his boss to the temple of his former gods - having to bow his head when the king of Aram worshiped.  He wanted there to be no mistake - his heart belonged to his new God and to Him alone. 

This new God had gotten under his armor.... under his physical armor and under his intellectual armor.  This God had touched his heart, had proven His power, had ripped away his prejudices and his objections in a simple, miraculous act of generosity.  

He would never be the same.  

Some bridges must never be burned

During a time when drunks were jailed, kept in hospitals or mental institutions, or forgotten on the streets, a drunken stockbroker named Bill Wilson decided that he was powerless over his addiction and asked God for help while in hospital for the 4th time.  He called out to God to show Himself, and experienced what he called a "white light experience" as God showed him that He was real.  

Since Bill was a stockbroker, he traveled a lot.  After this spiritual experience and early in his fight against temptations to fall back into drinking, he found himself in a hotel in a different city , and in that hotel there was a bar.  After battling several urges to go into the bar, finally he called members of the local religious organization of which he was a member in his own town. After several calls, he met Dr. Bob Smith, to whom he explained his new-found knowledge that alcoholics need to help each other recover from their obsession to drink.  Thus began the seeds of Alcoholics Anonymous, back in 1934.

AA has kept its mandate and helped millions of hopeless self-confessed drunks recover from their addiction.  The primary purpose of AA is "to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers." 

I wonder what might have happened if Bill Wilson had fully embraced the church and turned his back on his alcoholic brothers, thinking "that life is behind me now."  Many of us, it is probably safe to say, might never have been born, and countless thousands, even millions, would still live in hopelessness and despair.

The idea that one who has been delivered is in the best position to deliver others from the same thing, can be seen in the story of two starving lepers who decided one day to throw themselves on the mercy of their oppressors.  They set out after their city had been besieged by an invading army for weeks to the point where mothers were resorting to cannibalizing their babies to survive. When they arrived at the enemy camp, to their amazement, they found it deserted, with food and supplies aplenty.  Something (or Someone) had frightened the invading army so much that they had all left everything behind to beat a hasty retreat.  

The lepers ate their fill, unable to believe their good fortune.  And then they started feeling guilty.  "Our people are starving and here we are filling our stomachs!  Yes, we're outcasts - but we know where they can find food and lots of it!  Let's go back to the city and get them to come back with us!"  They did, and after the king sent emissaries with them to make sure they weren't sent by the enemy to trick them, they brought an end to the desperate situation of their town.  

What would have happened, though, if the lepers had decided to clean themselves up and get dressed in the clothing that was left behind by their enemies?  Upon their arrival back in the town they would have been killed, that's what!  But because they didn't remove themselves from their identities as lepers, it gave their story enough credibility that they were able to save their people from certain starvation.

A similar thing happened a few centuries later.  A notorious man, known throughout the countryside around his small village for his insane and violent behavior, met with an individual who exorcised his demons and left him in his right mind.  "I'll follow you wherever you may go," he exclaimed in gratitude.  But his deliverer said, "No.  Stay here.  Show the people who know you best what great things God has done for you."  And he did.  And many people were convinced that God still touched people and transformed their lives.

A dear friend of mine wrote a song a long time ago.  It is a parable about a spider who built a grand web in a very good spot for catching flies.  He started the web by anchoring a single strand from the ceiling.  The web was huge and caught many flies; the spider grew fat and never wanted for anything. One day he was surveying his kingdom, and saw a strand of web that looked out of place to him. To quote my friend's song -  " 'What need have I of this strand?'  A pull - and then a cry!  Down came the web, the home that fed, now dead the spider lie..." (© D. L. Shannon, circa 1972)

The bridge across which we ourselves crossed from the dark, oppressive world of our own failure, addiction, and loss is the bridge we must never burn.  We may wish to distance ourselves from it.  We may fear that should it remain it will tempt us back across to the abyss. 


But it is the only way others who are in that very same world will be able to get out of their own prison.  If we lose touch with that, if we forget the passageway we traveled from there to here and think we don't need it anymore, we run the risk of becoming disconnected from the very people we are suited to help.  We may think we are better than they, as if by our own efforts alone we were miraculously transported into the light.  We forget Who built the bridge.  And we risk falling into a deeper pit - a self-righteous, delusional one - than the honestly painful one from which we were delivered. 

Worst of all, who will be able to carry the message to the ones who still suffer?

Firing God

I read a story of a person who was searching for God.  This person had an image of God that was of this oppressive, cosmic sadist who got his jollies out of torturing human beings, who was going to crush him into the ground if he stepped out of line, and who never wanted him to ever have fun or enjoy himself because feeling good was sinful.

Another man spoke to him privately.  "Is this the person you think of when you think of God?"  The seeker  nodded.  "Then you need to fire your god," said the old-timer.  "The God I know loves me, cares about my well-being, likes it when I laugh, and loves nothing better than spending time with me!"  To which the seeker said, "Well if I fire my god, what will I do?  he's the only one I know."

"That's okay," the old-timer said.  "You can use mine until you find one of your own."

Sounds sacrilegious doesn't it....  I thought so when I first read it.

And that got me to thinking - perhaps it's not.  Anything that takes our eyes off the God of the universe is, according to the canon of scripture, an idol. 

Have we made an idol of the rules-based, hell-fire-and-brimstone God? 

Ever since God created us in His image, we seem to be creating Him in ours.  If our experience of the first authority figures in our lives is one of abuse of authority, rigidity, coldness, and/or punishment, then naturally our internal picture of God might very well be that.  It's the picture that for centuries has been touted by the church - in order to keep its members in line.

But anyone in an intimate relationship with God will tell you that He's not like that.  He's more like the God that the old-timer described.  And turning our backs on the rigid sadistic old codger who scares the daylights out of us, isn't losing our faith ... it's coming to faith.

Little wonder that with so may examples of the stereotypical fellow who shoves his fingers into our faces and tells us we're going to Hay-ull if we're not perfect (why is it that it's not just hell, it's Hay-ull) ... people stay away from God in droves.  We know we're not perfect. 

God does too. 

One of the most compelling statements ever stated in the last hundred years in the church is this one forgotten sentence, "God has no grandchildren."  It's usually used to tell people that just because you grew up in the church, it doesn't make you a Christian any more than hanging out in a garage makes you a jeep. 

But there's more to it than that.  It also means that every person has to discover who God is and enter into a relationship with Him, for him/herself.  God invites such curiosity.  Honest questions are welcome.  It's okay to have doubts; doubts are just honest questions about things you don't know anything about because you've never experienced it. 

God is all about people experiencing Him.

If Jesus were as negative and nasty as some people are, people we've seen on TV who say they represent Him, I really don't think that the disciples would have felt like they had to shoo the children away from Him.  (Looks like the disciples didn't "get" Him either, by the way.)

So maybe we need to take a good look at that approachable type of deity, and ask God to show us what He's really like.  He will do that if we ask Him honestly with as few prejudices as possible. His goal is to be found by us... to enter into relationship, friendship with us.  And He'll work around our preconceived notions and hangups, putting them to rest as He walks through that journey of discovery right beside us.

What have we got to lose.... by casting down our old notions of who God is and asking Him to reveal Himself to us?

Travel Light

Sometimes "stuff" gets in the way.

It can be material stuff - or baggage from our past, or things we hold onto that we like, activities that we like to do so much that they crowd out the important stuff... anything.  

You've probably heard something about what Jesus said about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.  All my youth I had this picture of trying to thread poor old Mr. Camel through the eye of a darning needle.  But that's probably not what Jesus meant.

Jerusalem was a walled city and to protect it from marauders, the gates were closed at sunset.  Of course travelers were still on the roads, some in caravans and some to make a profit in the marketplace.  Of these, there were businessmen who brought their wares on camels.  So after the gate was closed for the night - if these businessmen arrived - they would not open the city gates for them in case they were hiding looters.  But there was a way to get inside: through the "Needle Gate."

The Needle Gate was barely the width of one camel and the height of one man.  Much easier to guard.  So, anyone coming through that gate with camels had to field-strip their camels, one at a time.  Take the items for sale off of each beast of burden right down to the bare animal.  Carry the wares through and set them aside against the wall, make the camel get on its knees and lead it through the Needle Gate on its knees to the other side.  Then the next one. And the next.  There was no way a pillager could get through such a complicated process without being detected.

So when Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the needle's eye - well, that's what He meant.  

Travel light.  Not encumbered by stuff... whatever that stuff is.  Jesus could just as easily have said, if He were talking about today's society, that it would be easier to go through that very same Needle Gate with a camel than it would be for some folks to get into the kingdom and still hang onto their blackberries, or their hockey equipment, or their grocery carts, or their champagne bottles, or their dustrags.  In short, whatever the addiction is becomes the very obstacle to entrance into a relationship with the King.

Realizing we are powerless over those addictions is the first step in stripping them off and setting them aside, inside the gate of His care and protection, for scrutiny.  The humility required to come through that narrow, low gate on our knees is the very thing that is required.  And yes, we may put that baggage back on if we wish.  He'll help us unload it for good when we're ready, piece by piece, once we've learned that we can trust Him with our stuff the way we trusted Him to get in.

He gives us a new burden to carry after a while of learning to walk with Him ... a light one.  One that allows us to come alongside other people who bear heavy burdens just like the ones we once carried - baggage like guilt, shame, fear, hatred, resentment, rage. Because we used to wear these things, and we know the feeling of powerlessness and confusion they bring, we can be compassionate instead of judgmental.

We don't carry someone else's baggage. We just enjoy the journey - and show someone else our pack.  We can tell another traveler about the King as we listen to their heart's cry.  We show him or her the way to the gate.  We might even show what to do to get in. We can walk with that person as he or she learns to build relationship with Him, and learn to exchange the old baggage for His pack, designed and tailor-made by Him for the journey.  


And then THAT one can go looking for another heavily laden traveler.  
That's how it works.

Sick, sicker, better

As 2011 dawned I awoke with a scratchy throat, which I thought was nothing... until it got worse. I traced it back to talking to a person on New Year's Eve day who had been sick with this cold that's been going around.  Oh great.  Don't tell me.  Oh well, maybe a good night's sleep will .... uh, no it didn't.

So, knowing that I was at that point at my most contagious (and more vulnerable to further attack by viruses and other assorted air-borne nasties including petrochemicals), I stayed home yesterday from church.  I managed to catch some of the service online - but couldn't concentrate long enough to get what the speaker was saying, except that it was (as usually happens in church) about something we "should" be doing (see my series on Shoulds and Oughtas back last summer).  I got to thinking that the world would be a better place if people just got to be friends with Jesus without having to deal with those who call themselves His people.  Myself included, I'm afraid.  I do my share of screwing up, judging, and offending.

Matter of fact, I guess my opinion of church services would shock a lot of church-goers. 

I happen to think that they're pretty useless.  

In many cases they're like the photo to the left - this is a Lego model of a congregation sitting in church.  Impressive to look at - but nothing ever really changes there.  

I am also one of those folks who believes that everything happens for a reason.  Even sickness.  So I was kind of curious as to what God's purpose was in allowing me to catch this &*^$#*!@ cold.  He didn't take long to show me.  I was in the middle of trying to watch this sermon when my Skype icon started going nuts, and I heard my voice notifier say that a friend of mine was online.  Then I got a Skype chat message.  

Over the next hour or more, we talked about stuff.  Important stuff. We shared our stuff with each other, the things happening in our lives, the lessons we were learning. Like I said, important stuff: the purpose of suffering, the importance of being honest, how God uses the wounds in our lives to help heal others.  Near the end of our conversation, my friend said that she felt that the time we spent together was better than most church services she'd been to.  To be honest, I felt the exact same way.

I believe that church can be useful and productive like that too.  

It's just that usually ... it isn't.  

Usually ... it's about someone trying to tell someone else what to do and then judging that person when he or she doesn't succeed in doing it, or doesn't succeed in doing it the way the person telling them would have done it.  

I also think that maybe we need to rethink the way we "do church."  One writer I read a few years back talked about the "industrial model" for church - the idea that churches are factories where Christians are mass-produced from raw material that comes in off the street (i.e., the un-redeemed) and then they pile forth out into the world to bring in more raw materials to be "refined."  But church ISN'T that.  The church is a living organism.  Try to organize an organism and guess what: you kill it .... by a process known by biologists as vivisection.  

I believe that my friend and I were having church yesterday morning.  Each of us knew the other loved her, each not only gave but gained experience, strength, and hope, and each left that conversation feeling refreshed and empowered to face another encounter with the forces of evil, homogeneity, and mediocrity around us.  AND within us.

Food for thought.

This is ... new

It feels like I've been in this prison forever.
I know I made it myself.... 
I was compelled to cloister myself.  
I needed to be here.
Now, hard as I try, I can't get out.
My whole world is changing. 
Everything is topsy-turvy.
I don't know what end is up, what end is down.

All I know is that I'm not what I was.
I'm changing somehow - into what, I don't know
nor do I know whether I'll even like what I will be.
I'm scared. I can't breathe! did I EVER breathe?
I can't even see out of this place...  
Faded memories of what I was, the feel of my feet on the earth, the taste of the life I once knew - these both attract and repulse me.


One word defines me now: becoming.
Another dark night passes. A new day dawns.
I've only been vaguely aware of the passage of time - 
it seems to have either stopped ... or is passing me by.
I am the one who has stopped.  Or have I?
Changing by millimeters - or is it molecules?


Am I only dreaming?  can I actually distinguish 
light from dark now?
Before, it was only a dark blur, cool at night, 
warm in the day - 
now
it is a dark blur at night and a lighter blur in the day.
Yes, there is light... but what does that mean?
Am I to go back to the way it was?  God, no - 
I couldn't handle that. That wasn't living; it was
existing.
Yet - it's all I know of "out there."
If only I could see what I'm becoming - 
I feel all turned inside out.  I can't ... move.

Yes, there's definitely light out there...
it's brighter by the hour!
But I can't touch it! Why can't I touch it? 

Hold on ... is that a stick in here? it looks sharp!
Hey!  it moved when I tried to get away -
it CAN'T be a leg - legs don't look like that!
... at least, mine don't.
Am I still me?

This is all so confusing -  I need to sleep.

Morning once again.  
I see creatures ... 
they appear to float in mid-air. 
How are they doing that?
I wish I could do that.

Oh great.  An itch.  How can I scratch it in here?
Whoa!  something gave way... what was that?

My world - my bubble - my safe place - 
is broken! 
Grab onto it - hold on!  I'm afraid - so afraid !

There - wow, that was close.  I almost fell.
Whew!
Wait - is that air?   It's cold - gasp!
I can ... breathe!
I feel so weak -  so different - 
so strange. 
I'm wet.  
I never even knew I was wet inside there.
I filled my world, my bubble....
this place feels so big ... 
I so tiny.
Part of me wants to go back but - 
I don't think I would fit somehow. 
I think the bubble shrunk.  Or I grew.
My legs - if those are legs - 
are wobbly, unwieldy.  But - the air smells sweet. 
It never smelled sweet ... ever.


What  ... ARE these things on my back!?  
I can move them
back and forth - they feel so heavy.
I feel heavy.
Keep hanging on...
Back and forth, breathe in, breathe out...
These things are getting easier to move.
They feel less floppy, lighter, stiffer.

All I was doing was 
moving them.
Oo-hoo! 
That last gust of wind almost
lifted me up off this ... this place.

There it goes again!  
the wind, and the things,
the wind-things.
Wings.  I like the sound of that.

I wonder what would happen if I just
keep them out like this and ...
Let Go...

But I can't.   I might fall... 


Move them  ... back and forth, they can go faster -
this time they pulled me up - but there was
no wind.
Okay - deep breath... spread these wing-things out and ...

Let GO!

Being precedes doing

I need to talk to my brothers and sisters in the Western church.

Much of what we are taught from the time we are very young has to do with actions.  We learn that if we do certain things, we will be rewarded or punished.  By the time we hit school age, this belief is entrenched, and the school system cements it with marks based on performance.

While there is much to be said for excellence, the danger is that we can often miss the deeper things.  Love.  Compassion.  Forgiveness.  Mercy.  Goodness.  Not "acting in a loving way" and so forth but actually receiving love, having love inside of us, and expressing that love in tangible ways.  The impetus of all action is the heart. The same goes with the other expressions of love I just mentioned.


Actions are deceptive.  Often they can appear good, but the heart within is filled with selfishness and self-promotion.  Consider the Pharisee, or the person who does good deeds only for the accolades of the crowd, or even just to feel good about him/herself.  

More often in this world, the action is destructive, but the motivation for the action is one of wanting to do what is right. Hitler believed that he was acting for the greater good.  In fact, he was considered by many to be "the defender of the faith."  

When the heart is right - and submitted to the Maker - the actions will flow from it as naturally as a person's body casts a shadow in the light.  The message we receive, unfortunately, is somehow the opposite.  The cart, as it were, has been placed before the horse.  

We hear misleading messages with the ring of truth, and we accept them as truth.  "Fake it til you make it."   "God helps those who help themselves."  The fallacy in this kind of thinking is that there is absolutely nothing that we can do in ourselves to effect any kind of change where it counts - on the inside.  And if there is nothing at all on the inside, and our motivation is external - in obligation, duty, rules - the works we do manage to do will mean nothing in Eternity.  The apostle Paul said we could even be burned at the stake for our faith, and it would not mean a thing ... if we don't have God's love as our motivation. 

It could indeed be argued that we are the result of our choices.  While our choices may have consequences that affect our inner life, the choices themselves must come from somewhere: a code, a belief system, an emotion.  The heart.  Any external motivation - any kind of "should" - will fail in the final analysis, when we stand before the Great One. This is why the wisest man ever to live advised, "Above all, guard your heart, for it is the well-spring of life." 

I believe that we in the church have given the heart a bad rep and have done ourselves a disservice as a result.  We're told not to trust the heart, from the time we are very small ... by the very people who have learned to deny their own.  Is that not akin to laying heavy burdens (such as a certain standard of behavior) on people's backs and not lifting one finger to help them (like tell them how to achieve that by depending on God instead of judging them for not being able to do it on their own)? 

One of my favorite Christian authors is John Eldredge.  In his book, "Waking the Dead - the glory of a heart fully alive" he talks about the role of the heart and the misinterpretation of the Old Testament scripture, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can [fully] know it?"  He postulates that it is the unregenerate heart - the heart without God - which meets that criterion.  Once we have asked God to take care of us and our will, His spirit comes into us and remakes us on the inside.  We enter a process where - in gratitude to Him - we learn to recognize His voice inside of us.  And when we do, we can learn to trust our "regenerated" heart because it will tell us what we need to know from Him.

I pray that we in this generation can reverse the wrong we have done to ourselves and to our children, that we can again learn to listen to the Spirit that He has placed within us, in order to act from the inside out, to DO from our BEING.  

Dear God, teach us how to really listen to You ... and truly live.