The God I’ve Come to Know (to this point)

I look to Heaven, I utter my prayers, I speak to a God I cannot see with my eyes and I ask Him what He wants from me. I expect an answer. I expect to be told. My willingness to be told what to do seems humble enough. And yet the silence is difficult to handle. It is not vacant silence, like speaking into nothingness. It is patient silence. In time I come to understand that God will not be contained in my assumptions.

I assume God wants to tell me what to do. I assume this because I have read about Moses and the burning bush. I assume this because I have read about Abraham. I assume this because I have read about Noah. I have documented proof that God tells people what to do and then they do it, perhaps with some resistance at times. So, I follow the pattern with a promise of compliance. And yet every bush I see is a normal bush. There is no sense of impending flood. I do not get a word from God about what I should do.

I look to God and ask Him what He wants and all I can figure is that He is looking back at me and asking me the same question. It is a most unsettling question. Really? Is this a test? Is there such a freedom in living with God? And if so, what is the responsibility that is joined with it? No. NO! Tell me what to do. Then I can know what to do. I can be certain I am doing the right thing.

And then I am confronted with the reality that God wants to relieve me of my lust for certainty. If God were to tell me exactly what to do, then He would be feeding my lust for certainty, He would feed my idolatry. For God to obey my command for exact commands would be for Him to accept my request for Him to no longer be my God.

Yes, I know to love people and to love God is the general command. It is a command because it is how this world best operates. Genuinely loving God and people is to make this world a better place than it is. But everyone gets that command. I want a Moses type of command. One with clear instructions. And still I get nothing. The more I want it the more silence I get. My soul rages with lust for certainty and God will never give it to me because He loves me too much to quit being my God, which is what He would have to do in order to answer my prayer how I want Him to.

It is a complicated prayer that I pray, ironic and self-defeating. The pray looks honest enough, God, what do you want? but it is selfish in its core. At its core it denies the freedom, creativity, and abilities that have already been placed within me. It denies my sense of agency, initiative, and courage that cannot be expressed in robotic compliance. In short, my prayer is for God to help me deny being made in His image. My prayer is really, God, help me be less like you.

The God I have come to know loves me too much to put forth efforts to help me self-destruct in this way. He answers my prayers by refusing to answer my prayers.

Technorati Tags: God,prayer

If There Were No Hell…

Would Heaven be any less Heaven?

Would you change your moral character?

Would God be any less just? Any more just?

Would you lose your faith in God? Consider having faith in God?

Would you be disappointed in God if someone got Heaven that you believed deserved Hell?

Would you lose your desire to make the world a better place?

Would you increase your desire to make this world a better place?

Would you lose your evangelistic leverage?

Would you be motivated differently to do good things?

Would it be a relief? A threat?

Would you have different conversations about God, spirituality, Christianity, and faith?

Would you have to answer to someone who believed there was a Hell?

Would it confuse you?

Would it clear some things up?

Would it take away your point?

Would it give you a point?

Would you find friends where you once found enemies?

Would you find enemies where you once found friends?

Would you have to hide it from your grandparents?

Would you have to change churches?

Would you be any less saved?

Would you be any more saved?

Would there be a down side?

Technorati Tags: Hell,theology

Storying Toward Discovery

I am writing some stories of my life and learning a whole lot by writing them rather than telling them. I’ve told many of these stories to many people and often at family gatherings. Some of them have never been told. None of them have ever been told in the ways I am writing

them.

Originally I wanted to write these stories as a way to self-disclose to my therapy students about my own course toward becoming a therapist.  I wanted to demonstrate my own self of the therapist work I was doing. It is possible these stories could still work that way, but they have evolved quite a bit from the original intent. They’re turning into a love story, but not a romantic love story. They’re turning into a love story between me and my father.

One thing I am realizing in writing these stories with the trajectory of redemption is that I don’t really know these stories that well. It is not until I reflect on them and work hard to select the right language that I begin tom know these stories. I am also learning how connected these seemingly unconnected stories can be.

Another thing I am learning is that these stories change as I recall them. They change on their own, but I can change them as I write them. My memory is suspect and that is certainly permission for interpretation. How cold, how hot, how much rain fell, how much it hurt, what I knew, what I didn’t. It is all important to tell it right, not factually.

Finally, there is a lot of meaning to these stories that I could not possibly have been aware of when I was living the stories. Only in recalling the stories is it possible to even begin to unpack the meaning. This has been the most amazing and rewarding part of this. When I sit at the keyboard and think, what did that mean, I find “that” could mean lots of things. I have context to view myself.

Writing is perhaps the most healing thing a person can do.

Technorati Tags: memoir,story,family

Reflections on my 41st Birthday

Today I turn 41 years old and I sit quietly on my couch in my new house in Nolensville, Tennessee. It is still hard to believe I live here and have not found a way to call it home. It’s not that there is so much that is wrong here, but rather so much that remains unfamiliar. Home is where the heart is, they say. I wonder though, how one decides where to locate a heart. I find my heart scattered in pieces or perhaps stretched across a nation of places I’ve lived. My heart is also located in the memories I have and sprinkled into the people I love. Those memories evolve over time as some are highlighted and some obscured. Those people move around and thus take a little piece of my heart to the mountains, to Europe, to Africa, and all over. I do not feel home here. I must make routine this geography. I must create and deepen relationships. I must create memories. Home, if this place will ever get a piece of my heart, must emerge in these ways.
For my whole life there has been this desire to arrive. I never do. I want to arrive at being grown up and mature, I want to arrive at happiness and satisfaction, I want to arrive at being smart, I want to arrive at a place of no loss, pain, fear, anxiety, I want to arrive at a place of certainty – I want to arrive at a life where no more effort and striving are required. And yet, four decades and a year of disappointment of one kind has provided other sorts of blessings I would not trade for anything. Everything good that has ever happened, happened on the way.
One thing I have learned is that my great desire to arrive is the desire of a fool. Life is not about one great arrival. Perhaps Heaven is some sort of great arrival, but even my hopes for Heaven being a place of arrival are now tarnished. I cannot believe that Heaven could be so great a place if it is the permanent end to things and a static eternity. Arriving means the end of something and the beginning of no change. Arriving means whatever is at this moment freezes and nothing else ever emerges. Change evaporates. In short, there is no other way to describe arrival than in death. I am not prepared to die. Although I have come to learn that the line between this life and the next may be thinner than previously believed, it still feels impenetrable. I cannot cross it for a few minutes to be with my father and the return.
Thus, I have intellectually come to the understanding that I will not arrive and that this lust for arrival is a foolish desire. However, I still feel this yearning inside for it. Perhaps someday I will come to learn a way to more fully embrace this journey I am on and not long so deeply for its end. Perhaps I can make an effort to imagine how desperately I would miss this journey were it to be over right now. Perhaps the journey would miss me, who knows?

I watch Sierra, now 12 and Canaan, now 10 growing and moving at rapid speed toward adulthood and try hard to keep up. If my life is moving fast, theirs is moving faster. I see them growing and changing in so many ways that it would be hard to record them. I have found that they each have a unique sense of humor that is growing more sophisticated and intellectual. I am pleased with this. Some people may see sense of humor as a secondary or peripheral attribute that may accent or augment something else in their life – a bonus. I see it differently. A sense of humor is about survival. How do humorless people make it through the hardest parts of life? To laugh by seeing the humor in life is one of the great expressions of humility. The ability to see oneself in context or to see the world as it is and then tell the truth of that reality is often hilarious and provokes laughter. Humor has a way of unraveling the lies we find ways to cuddle up in and get comfortable. I love that my children have a sense of humor. I hope they hone this skill the rest of their lives.

I am more in love with Gail than ever. It is a seasoning love that would have been impossible 14 years ago. This is a good trajectory to be on.

There is so much more to say, but I will end with this: I am so grateful for the life I am living. I know that so little of its goodness, if any, can be traced back to me efforts or how I in any way deserve it. I was situated well in life before being born and have had so much privilege training into my life since that these good things cannot be accredited to me. I do not deserve a life so good. I am grateful to have it. I give thanks to God. May I become better at giving this life away while I still have the choice to do so.

Minnesota in December Memory

The smell of recently bundled newspapers filled the entryway of our split-level house as my older brother and I spent another late Saturday night stuffing the comic and classified sections together. Four hundred Sunday newspapers had to be stuffed in preparation for dad’s journey out to deliver them early the next morning. We always put it off as long as we could, mortgaging sleep as we had to be up in time for church the next morning. The smell of one newspaper brings a familiar and nostalgic comfort; the smell of four hundred newspapers is nauseating. The slick and sore feel of ink-stained, dried, and cracked hands that no amount of hand washing could resolve was the way I went to bed every Saturday night.

We usually stuffed papers in the garage – even in the cold Minnesota winter. It is a difficult thing for a Minnesotan to admit to being cold. However, when the temperature hits 28 below zero, most of us relent and say something like, “It’s getting a little nippy out there,” which in general can be translated, “My bone marrow is frozen solid.” In mid December, the night comes early, intruding on the afternoon like an invading army. The cold barges in and owns the air, turning it crisp and mean. With no clouds to hold in the hapless and so-called heat, the cold sank in under the bright starry sky and had its eye on 30 degrees below zero. Ice was already forming on the inside of the windows and a clever frigid draft found it way into the house and onto my bare skin.

The 18th Haiku (Happy 14th Anniversary)

The 18th Haiku

Lone
Last star fades. Dawnshine.
Night gave way. Illuminate.
Lone shadow stretching.

One
Arms open wide. Hope.
Call of desperation. Pause.
Lone call; no echo.

Burnt.
Jump into flame. Fool!
Balm of Gilead. Soothe. Heal.
Why did I do that?

Bye.
Empty midnight grief;
Cry every last tear away;
Wander like Alice.

Love.
Heart throbbing thunder,
Flung to arms of Heart-Catcher;
Co-creating love.

Run
Horizon view. Sprint!
Light speed dash. Exhilerate!
Some things cannot wait.

For
Lovestruck. Meant to be.
Arriving at each other.
Puzzle piece embrace.

The
Distinct perfection;
One fixed point well defined;
Skeptics refuted.

Hills!
Up, down, journeywise;
Adventures are successful;
In good company

Wait!
Learn how to be here;
Snail and sloth educate. Slow.
Rose smelling lessons.

Look!
Fixed gaze. Full view.
Invisible to the world;
Transparent to you.

Smile.
Irrepressible;
Irresistible glow - Burst!
Faceshine scatters dusk.

Chris
Man of many words;
Indescribable woman;
Harmonic union.

Fell
Gravity lurks. Pounce!
Plummet into feathersoft.
I don’t want to move.

Hard
Truthtelling – eyes wide;
Perched ears hear everything –
Unignorable.

For
Empty space given;
The purpose of these passions –
Mutual fulfill.

Gail.
Gift! Always In Love.
Go After Intimate Life.
Great Allies In Love.

Joy Lessons: Guilt, Shame, and Trajectories of Joy

How does joy relate to guilt and shame? On the surface, it may seem like there is no relationship between joy and guilt or shame, or perhaps an inverse relationship betwen them. And hey, aren't guilt and shame basically the same thing anyway? This post will first deal with the difference between guilt and shame and then will deal with the relationship between joy and guilt and joy and shame.

Guilt and shame may feel similar in the emotional moment. Neither feels all that pleasant. Each indicates the perception of something being wrong. Both may feel like there is no space for joy with them. However, guilt and shame are very different.

Physical pain is unpleasant, but is necessary in that it helps to indicate that there is physical damage or threat. Guilt is emotional pain that serves the same purpose. It is an indicator that something is wrong. Guilt tells a person that a moral or relational violation has occurred. It points to an event or even a series of events that ar by some measure, wrong. Guilt is the beginning of change because whatever the event, there is hope for change. Guilt is the feeling that helps to initiate repair or redemption. Although unpleasant, guilt is the precursor to hope and reconciliation. The trajectory of guilt is hopeful in that something can be done about it.

Shame is different. Shame does not point to an event that was wrong, but is personal. Shame points to the person and says, "wrong." Where guilt says, "that was a mistake," shame says, "you are a mistake." Where guilt says, "there was a failure," shame says, "you are a failure." Guilt points to an event that can be dealt with while shame points to the quality of the person and declares it inadequate. Guilt is the feeling flowing from the belief that something went wrong. Shame is the feeling flowing from the belief that the person is defective. Shame points to the person and says, "You are inadequate, unworthy, incapable, and deficient."

The trajectory of shame is simply more shame. Shame points to the static and unfixable quaity of the person. Shame does not label an event,but labels a person. In short, shame results in hopelessness.

Thus, even though neither guilt nor shame feels good, guilt is the dawn of joy while shame is eternal night. Something good can occur in the context of guilt, but nothing good can happen in the context of shame. As guilt can be instructive to seek redemption or reconciliation, that process builds toward joy. Shame offers no such promise.

Joy Lessons: Where is joy?

Where is joy? Where does one look for it? Is it easy to find or is it an elusive critter? Is it in one place? Is it created and destroyed? Does it wax and wane? Can it be preserved, saved, held for later use? Is it something to be had and possessed? Consumed? Multiplied? Is it contagious?

I want to find joy. I will seek it and search for it in the following places:

• The Bible
• My own heart
• Nature
• Children
• Elderly people
• Art
• Friendships
• Families
• Successes
• Failures
• Redemption
• Forgiveness
• Music
• Discovery
• Creativity
• Service
• Humor

Where else would you look?

Joy Lessons

Joy has been on my heart lately. I've even had a dream about it. There are some questions about joy that I think are worth pursuing. I have the sense that there is something weighty and substantial about joy, despite the somewhat lightweight stereotype it has.

• What is joy?
• From where does it come?
• How is it created? Sustained?
• How is it different from happiness? Euphoria? Humor? Optimism?
• How can joy be subversive?
• Is joy inherently a spiritual thing?
• Who are some people who might serve as legitimate models of joy?
• What is the oppopsite of joy?
• Are there different kinds of joy? Different occasions for joy?
• Is joy a discipline, practice, orf result of effort?
• Can joy be taught? Learned? Increased? Decreased?
• Can joy be stolen? Released? Resisted? Imposed?
• What is the psychology of joy?
• Are the social systems of joy? That are more likely to produce joy? Withhold joy?
• Do males and females experience joy differently?
• Do people from different cultures, ethnicities, races, social classes, religions experience joy differently?

There must be more questions than these, but these are a good start. I would love to hear comments on these questions, additions to the questions, efforts to answer these questions. What do you know about joy?

The Rules Before Me: The Rules Behind Me

• The rules by which I would live were formed prior to my existence.
• When I was born, they were all invisible to me.
• I obeyed all invisible rules because I had a category for them: normal.
• When the rules became visible to me, I had choice.
• Rules do not become visible without resistence.
• The choice I had was not a fair choice.
• Social systems correct rule breakers.
• I am passing along invisible rules to my children.
• They believe these are normal.
• Sometimes, they name a rule as something other than normal.
• It feels like an accusation.
• It breaks a rule.
• I must be willing to rerule.