Tag Archives: honest

A Mixed Bag

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P1330497 compressedEvery once in awhile my body doesn’t feel so good. This has been one of those weeks.

Over the years, I have my fair share of health concerns, although I rarely mention them.

All of this to say, my brain is not working so well this week. And so my writing feels flat and blah and I hardly know what to say.

Can you tell I am rambling…

It’s been a week of mixed emotions.

Sneaking over me in grand waves of giggles has been the sense that there is something exquisite about being human. That there is an opportunity, while we are on this earth and in these bodies, to delight, to relish and to make the most of something that is in limited supply.

I can’t explain it anymore than that. It’s just a growing and definitive awe of life that is threatening to overwhelm me in fits of joy.

On top of this, has been another giggly realization that this is one amazing time in history to be alive! This too is sweeping me away in grand expectation.

The emotion of these feel to me a gurgling spring of joy and delight, (I really don’t have words for them).

At the same time I’ve been feeling sick. Tired and with a foggy brain, my ‘normal’ productive self has been less so, and it’s been a bit discouraging.

Then: Thursday was my birthday. And oh my the wishes poured out and upon me! And I’ve nothing other than profound humility and gratitude for so much love poured my way.

I spent the day just as I wanted. Had no plans beforehand (other than an empty day), and made it up as I went. A supremely perfect kind of day for me.

And in my gallivanting birthday day, I wore myself out. And as I write this, am a bit lonely, (ill health always leaves me feeling lonely).

All this to say. Being human is in fact a grand mix of highs and lows. How there can be such great expectations, such amazing and profound delights and gurgling joys, alongside bodies and minds that don’t work as well as we like, and in the midst of tired and weary souls, I don’t know.

But it is how it works. For all of us. This I know.

All in all, (and this is what makes it all okay), is that God is deeply in the mix of all these concurrent and seemingly contradictory realities.

In fact, it is because of God that these realities exist. Mixed emotions are in fact, what God is all about.

God is the original passion, the original sorrow, the original energy, the original weariness.

God is the author of emotions and in order to know God, we must know emotion.

The older I get, the younger I feel. And it is primarily because of emotions, (I am more emotionally intelligent now, than I was at 12 or 20 or 30 years old). Once familiar with emotions, we are able to connect with anyone.

For beyond all of our stories, are emotions. Our stories will not be the same, but our emotions, they are the same.

And in the war over words, if we can read between the lines, and see to the heart of the matter, read the emotions, we are well ahead of the game. The world will be ours.

Without emotion, one of our primary knowing systems is cut off, and we are impotent.

Comfortable in emotions, we find intimacy with ourselves, intimacy with God, and intimacy with others.

Thanksgiving

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thanksgivingIt is Thanksgiving Sunday here in Canada. And in the Vancouver area particularly, it is beautiful and heading upwards of a 70 degree day.

As I write this, I’m sitting on my (as yet unmade) bed. In my housecoat. Tea at my side. Computer on my lap.

I had planned to go to church today per usual on Sundays. But the quiet of the day, the sense of gratitude and serenity about life that envelopes thanksgiving, has me still on my bed, in my housecoat, sunshine slanting over me, and in a haze of peace and ‘I won’t be going anywhere’ heart-set.

I’m staying home this morning.

It feels just right.

The problem with Sunday’s is that there can be a busy, busy, busy kind of energy to such church days.

Years back, I recognized within myself and the subculture I’d grown up to know, a certain and explicit driven-ness about Sundays. They are not often actually days of rest.

With the ‘oughts’ and the ‘shoulds’ piling high on Sundays, they wear a certain heaviness that I am quite sure the Lord never ever intended.

And so I’ve learned, to delight in church, to find peace and pouring into there, to be refreshed and encouraged by song and message and people… when I am there.

And when I am not there, there are other blessings that a Sunday holds, and other bounty of the Spirit that is mine (but only as I leave the ‘oughts’ and the ‘shoulds’ behind).

Today is one of those days. Sunshine. Quiet. Solitude.

Later today, will be ample fellowship with some 30 people for thanksgiving dinner.

So right now: Sunshine, Quiet, Solitude, Housecoat, Tea, and The Spirit.

Utter contentment.

The Last Say

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new perspectiveTrue living requires heart, will, and risk.

Yet looking closely reveals this is not as easy as it looks, and that we do not have heart, will, or risk for a great many things.

And this is exactly the point.

It would mean nothing if we had heart, will, and risk, for everything.

Passion would spread too thin, and there would simply be nothing special in the ‘everything’ we would be about.

But take down the options, restrict the expressions, put forth some limitations and constraints, require a few hoops, and all of a sudden the ones who make it through stand out and catch our attention.

Nothing comes easy. For easy makes everything commonplace. Easy diminishes our passion, and counteracts our heart.

Heart is proven through the fire, through the difficulties and through much pain; we do not yet know the depth of heart when all is easy.

It is the same with will and with risk.

Both need some tension. Both require push-back.

Without tension or push-back our internal muscles are weak and under-developed.

And we never mature. Our resilience is stunted, our stamina is crippled, and what heart we did have is swallowed up in disillusionment.

The recipe, therefore, for success:

May you have one part heart and five parts difficulty. For your heart will grow larger in the face of trouble. And a heart multiplied results in much.

May you have one part will and ten parts tension. For as your will is challenged, it find its strength, and once having faced the scariest of things, it fears no more.

May you have one part risk and twenty parts push-back. For risk is proven in the fire, purified in the fire, and honed in the fire.

For, without the fire, the sword is dull.

Without challenge, strength atrophies.

Without tension, the heart grows dim.

Therefore, look closely at the difficulty, examine the fire, detail the push-back, and you will begin to see your purpose.

For with your strengths shining larger than the difficulties, your heart speaking clearer than the conflicts, and with your will putting forth action regardless of push-back…

Don’t let the hard stuff have the last say.

To Hell or Not

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Jesus Christ SavesThere is a veil over this life we live at present. Colors are dimmed, understanding is narrowed, and our experiences carry a certain numbness.

When we die, we leave this world. No longer is anything dimmed, narrowed, or numb.

Rather, we are fully alive like never before.

And into that fully-alive place we experience the fullness of all we invested in during this life.

All that we have envisioned, acted on and participated, we receive back unto ourselves in full measure pressed-down running-over.

And not just about what we have done, but even more so who we have been.

That inner reality that we all carry deep within us.

The afterlife is a land where our hearts exaggerated come to full effect.

And we enter this after-life (which is more alive than anything we have ever known), either with the covering of God or not.

The land where sowing and reaping has its full impact without any covering of God in any measure whatsoever, is called…

…Hell

Imagine, for instance, the words of our mouths – the damning lashes of words that cut like knives, the ones you have thrown over the years – imagine those very same words coming back at you in thousand-fold for all eternity.

Imagine, for instance, the lusts of our minds – the desire for sexual perversions, the imagination of such, the investment into such, the experiences of them – imagine those very same things coming back at you in thousand-fold for all eternity.

Imagine, for instance, the fear we’ve put into others – the manipulative bullying, the condemnations and judgments of worthlessness, the crushing expectations that diminish and keep low – imagine these very same emotional and psychological attacks coming back at you in thousand-fold for all eternity.

Imagine, for instance, the fears we live our lives by – the sorrows and griefs we’ve never fully processed and the resulting control measured out as a response – imagine these very same sorrows and grief and control coming back at you in thousand-fold for all eternity.

Hell – the place where the evil of this life has full permission (invitation even), to give back to us all we have either given out or imagined giving out – for all eternity in thousand-fold.

Where weeping and gnashing of teeth never ends.

Where our hearts are exaggerated and come back at us, and where more alive than ever before we are fully alive to the horrors like never before.

Where that slap we receive back a thousand fold. Where that hatred we receive back a thousand fold. The sexual abuse we meted out, the lust we participated in, where the imagined or real rape is now done to us, again and again and again. Where the murder we committed is played out back at us again and again. The licentiousness given over that won’t ever go away. With no reprieve…

No reprieve…

The only way: to accept the covering of God.

For the way of God has covered over these things. Jesus Christ is the way,

“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” John 6:53

Because of the great love of God, Jesus Christ took the full responsibility for everything, “You didn’t do those things, I did” and he paid the price for them, bearing in himself the full consequence of all the horrors we can and have meted out.

We can be covered, we can be exempt from the eternal consequences, if only we will accept this covering and this work done by Jesus Christ.

“I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.” John 5:24

The law of sowing and reaping is an inviolable law. Therefore because of the great love of God, and because there was only one way around the law, Jesus stood in the gap and declared, “I did these things, I’m taking 100% responsibility.”

And everyone, anyone, who welcomes Christ’s offering is exempt and is covered.

Simple and beautiful as that.

“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NLT

“Jesus Christ I welcome the exemption you offer me today,

Thank-you.”

Forever more, alongside God, alongside Jesus Christ,

Living unto life and no more death.

Amen and amen,

Thanks Jesus

Be Sad

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balance and perspectiveLast week I was freaking out. This week, I am pretty relaxed and expectant.

The difference? Well let me tell you.

First off, NOTHING has changed about anything and yet everything has changed.

It’s been a few things that have created the shift:

  • First – I cried myself to sleep the other night. I was so incredibly discouraged about one part of my life that sobbing was the only decent course of action.
  • Secondly – I expressed in one of my relationships, “I am so angry and I still haven’t forgiven you for that!”
  • Third – I called on friends to pray for me. ‘Please Pray for me!’
  • Fourth – I gathered with others to just sit before the Lord, allowing the decompression of tears and strain to drain away into sweet peace.
  • Fifth – I told God off. “I’m not okay with this particular dynamic anymore!”
  • Sixth – I gave thanks. “Thank-you God for… ” a long list of thanks.

And come to think of it, these are my normal repertoire of action when I am overwhelmed and coming under great amounts of stress.

It all comes down to brutal honesty. Honesty that must start in our own hearts and minds, honesty that has nothing to hide and everything to gain (or not).

Honesty that simply lays it all out there, the good the bad and the ugly.

We have to be able to see the ugly if we are to move forward in life.

Not focus on it per se, but simply yet truly see the ugly and name it for what it is.

“That is not okay”

“This should have never happened”

“What a boatload of $%&#@ and I am so very sorry that happened to you.”

In this we are kept real. Passion is kept alive. Sorrows are washed away in healthy grieving. And fresh winds blow through our hearts and minds.

Unless we allow the full range of emotions we become critical and narrow minded, pinched and caustic.

Been there, done that; have you?

Grief unexpressed causes all sorts of damage to ourselves and to others.

We simply must allow ourselves to be sad.

We must speak our truth, frankly and honestly.

What part of your life deserves an, “ITS NOT OKAY!”

When we’ve gone to the core of our beings and declared all this (a most precious gift to ourselves), we will find that the stuff around us, our circumstance and present realities step back from the limelight; they just don’t matter so much anymore.

Most of all, we find God in the mix of everything. Our eyes are blessed to see glory and honor and goodness and light and life. Even in the midst of the yuck.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” Luke 6:21b

Strength is not about always being happy. And its not about sugar-coating anything, pretending this and that is okay when it is not. Strength comes when we’ve faced ‘the stuff’ head on within our own emotions.

Strength is about honesty.

Where might you express the truth a little more honestly today?

Out of my Heart

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True HeartsI’m working out of my head lately. If you frequent my blog posts you have most likely noticed. And while our heads are important, they are not very moving.

Words without heart, without emotion, fall pretty flat. Even I am not satisfied with some of my posts these last weeks.

The best posts rather are those full of heart and soul. Brimming with raw authenticity these are the ones most loved and commented on; they are the ones that move us.

And I’ve a little secret to share. The only way for me to write from that place is to be in touch with sorrow and sadness.

When I am upbeat and in task mode, there is nothing inspiring to write.

The best writing comes out of my personal depths of difficulty and pain. Not that everything has to be going bad in order to get a good post, but I must be in touch with all that is not right and good.

‘In touch’ being the operative word.

To feel the depths of sadness sets the stage to feel the depths of delight and joy.

Without the stretch the one way, we cannot stretch the other way.

And safety in the middle, that controlled space where nothing is too bad or (god-forbid) too good, results in nothing. We simply are not moved.

We are working out of our heads.

Creativity rather, that place of an artist, comes from that core depth deep inside us. From the guts of our existence and experiences, here is where we find gold.

It is interesting that creativity is what saves us. Studies have shown that when we engage our creativity, regardless of what that might be, we no longer have need for addictions or false happiness of any sort.

Creativity draws from us something by which we are saved.

Its that depth of knowing, of raw reflection and naked frankness by which we come to enjoy life.

For art requires vulnerability and risk and that place where we put ourselves out there.

So in this head space, I’m working to connect with my heart. To feel the vulnerabilities, to name the dichotomies, to honestly see the difficulties, to cry aloud all of which terrifies me…

To enter into grace.

It is the very thing we shrink from the most,

Becoming the very thing which saves us.

Prejudice Against the Wealthy

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P1310658 compressedPrejudice against the wealthy is a very real disease, and it traps people in poverty.

We easily know a prejudice and discrimination against the poor, but how often do we speak of discrimination against the rich.

It is there and well and alive on planet earth.

The thing with prejudice is it stems from a heart of judgment. And no good thing comes from judgment.

And there are PLENTY of judgments against the wealthy.

I’ve had some myself over the years, but have been doggedly working to rid them from my psyche, for a judgment given is a judgment that comes back. And judgment against the very things I’d like results in nothing whatsoever.

In the Bible (James 1:6-8) we are told to believe without doubting for the double-minded person will receive nothing.

Nothing comes of double-mindedness.

In regards to wealth it shows up this way:

“I need more money to live, I don’t have enough, all the wealthy people have it, tsk, tsk, tsk.”

Fact is, no one keeps wealth from us except us. And when we judge the wealthy we are declaring that to have money is bad and wrong.

Sooo… why would money want to come hang out with you?

It is a divided heart and mind. The mouth is asking for the very thing that the heart is cursing.

The mouth says, “Please God may I…” while the heart is condemning, “look at that person that has… tsk-tsk-tsk”

Logically speaking, how does that work?

It doesn’t.

All judgments work in this way, they set us up for despairing over the very things we want but do not have but hate about everyone else having.

And nothing will change, till we let go the judgments, change our minds about the way the world works, let the bitterness that always underlies judgments go.

Without this change, judgments against the wealthy secures our poverty.

Plain and simple,

And as horrifying as that.

It is easy when we have been hurt and wounded and the victims of injustice to carry those things close to us as a badge of sorts, an honor of poverty of sorts.

The Israelites when they were taken to the Promised Land, blew it. They had no faith, took no courage and ended up wandering the desert for forty years until that generation had died.

In the book of Psalms 106:24 we find this sentence, “They despised the pleasant land.”

And this led to their death. Literally.

It is the same with us. When we despise the wealthy or the powerful or the bosses, the government…. whatever the sneer that comes from our spirits, it will not go well with us.

A few years ago I personified money to see what I believed of it more clearly. This is some of what I found:

“Money is dirty”

“Money is too heavy for me”

“Money doesn’t like me”

I found that I was the cause of my money difficulties. I was driving money away with my attitude about it, my belief systems and paradigms.

They had to change. I had to change.

If this was a friend or a relative that I was thinking and believing and speaking these things of, would that friend want to come near me. Intrinsically speaking the emotional messages I’d be giving would be off-setting and that friend would not feel comfortable in my presence, and would stay farther and farther away.

Judgments that secure our poverty.

Prejudice against the wealthy condemns us to less and less and less.

And we respond with more hate, more prejudice, more judgment, and we get less and less, and we add on more judgment and prejudice, and we get less and less…

Despairing over what is wrong while drowning in our own vomit.

To set this right:

Confess that you have held onto poverty like a badge of honor,

Confess that you have despised those with money,

Confess that you have rejected the pleasant land,

And finally, begin to celebrate.

Celebrate that raise your friend received.

Celebrate the new care someone was able to buy.

Celebrate the promotion that so-and-so got.

And lastly, honor.

Honor is about looking every individual in the eye and declaring them worthy of a smile and a moment or more of your attention just because they are human just like you, simply because they have been created by God just like you.

Honor must go to everyone: the woman on the street, the peasant in the village, the children at the gathering, the elderly on their mats and in their homes, the men and women in their positions of influence, the politicians and the clergy.

Honor, and you will receive honor. Refuse to honor, and we will get that also, no honor.

Honor the poor and the wealthy, the sick and the healthy, the lame and the strong…

Honor everyone, and then, and only then, will it go well with you

You Inspire Me

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P1140166 compressedEvery big thing we might be involved with means that we will feel small.

Trust me: In contrast to the grand we feel very inadequate.

It is the nature of extremes and of contrast.

This is why when we must set ourselves aside when we enter into influence.

It is also why we must know ourselves in the first place.

Knowing ourselves is a must; a requisite of life.

What do you love to do?

What fires up your passion and vision?

What brings you to despair?

What dismays you?

Why do you do what you do?

We must know who we are in the world, we must know what we want and what we don’t want, what is important to us and what are our non-negotiables.

If we don’t know our non-negotiables, we won’t know our passions.

If you don’t know what will drive you apart from others, you won’t recognize what will bring you together.

Passion is the name of the game.

Without it, we are androids… hoping and feeling and expecting other’s hopes and feelings and expectations.

Robots, mimicking and parroting what we are taught…

Little room for influence, certainly not a space for lasting relationships.

And before any of us can enter into the big and the grand

That place where we will most certainly feel very small

We must first know who we are and what we are about

Do you know yourself, your needs, your passions, your sorrows?

Do you know what you want and how you want to be in this world?

What do you want?

What do you want?

What do you want?

What do you want?

Answer those with honesty and frankness and tears

And things will begin to shift in your world

It won’t be nice, and it may not be pretty

But it will be meaningful and it will be honest

And others will sit up and take notice

“You inspire me”

… You’re on your way to making this world a better place