Are you ever surprised by your anger or anxiety?

Are you ever surpsied by yourself?  As in: not in a good way.

Does anger flare up at things that other people don't necessarily get angry about?

Does anxiety incapacitate you over things that others are able to handle normally?

Recently I listened to a psychologist, Dr. Steven Marmer, who had some interesting insights about these.  Here's what he suggested.

Nearly everyone of us has been hurt, betrayed, or slighted in life.  It's just the way life is.  Whether you've had terrible parents, wonderful parents, or no parents, they probably have hurt you.  Friends hurt us, relatives hurt us, strangers hurt us, and the list could go on.

We're able to move past most of these issues, but some hurts run deep and affect us repeatedly throughout life whether we realize it or not.  

Dr. Marmer says that many of us do what is called "transferrence."  This means that when someone does something to us that is even remotely like what a painful experience was like, we tend to transfer the same feelings there.  For example, if you had a critical dad, you may find yourself receiving any criticism, no matter how well-intended, the same way you received your dad's criticism.  In essence, you transfer those past feelings to the present situation even when it's not warranted.  

Marmer goes on to say that, unconsciously, we exert a "force multiplier."  Continuing the example above, let's say a coach corrects your form when shooting lay-ups.  The coach was just being helpful and wants to see you succeed, but without realizing it, your brain multiplies the force and interprets it as something you got from your critical dad.  So, correction about your lay-up form now has turned into you feeling worthless and like a failure.  

 So, what do you do?  Go back to your past.  

Spend time with God, yourself, or someone you trust and try to figure out if there is something in the past that is causing your strong reactions in the present.  Then begin to work through it.  Talk it out, face the anger, hurt, fear, disappointment, or pain surrounding that past situation.  Ask God, in time, to help you forgive those who wronged you.  And ask Him to help you see how your life now is being affected by what happened then.  Then ask Him to help you find a new way to live and react in new, healthy ways.  

You'll need to learn to see those transferrence situations and work to stop multiplying the force.  Also, don't avoid getting counseling.  It's not just for "screw ups."  It's for normal people who want to see change and admit that they need help to do it.  

Finally, remember that the Lord is the Lord of the future, the present, AND the past.  Go with him back into those painful memories and let Him begin the healing process for you.

Feeling Hurt and finding Home Base

I'm sitting here listening to an album from 1990.  Yep, old stuff.

It's funny.  We all branch out, but when times get hard we go back to home base, where we started.

For me, my human life began in 1976, but my true life began in November of 1990 when I asked Jesus to work in my life.

I've done lots of thinking and exploring over the decades since.  I love thinking and wrestling about the deep stuff of life.  All of that has been a part of my journey with Jesus and has deepened and enriched the way I see life, see my Father, and love.

But, today, as my wife and I feel some hurts my heart went looking for something to hold onto.  So many things that I have learned are helpful, but they just didn't give me a place to rest.  But then I went back to home base.  Home base for me is: the sense of peace and exhilaration I feel about following Jesus wherever He leads in this life.  Everything else comes around that.

I think about a song called "Keep Me Running" by Randy Stonehill (a different one from the one I sing in chapel).  I love the image of running through life, wind whipping my face, following Jesus, but in reality, being propelled by His ubiquitous presence as well.


It's where it all started for me: an aimless teen with lots of passion, but nowhere to go.  Suddenly at age 14, thanks to a friend, I heard that Jesus wanted me, yes me, to live my life for him.

And all of this came back to me at age 39 when I'm feeling hurt.  Home base just gave me the perspective and the impetus to keep running, keep running, keep running...after Him.  What a dangerous, but "worth-it" adventure.

If there's some take-away here, I'd say it's to ask yourself: do you have a home base?  And if so, what is it?  Where will your mind and heart go when hurt and despair tries to wrestle your soul to the ground?  Find that home base and cling to it.

David, an evil man after God's own heart? 2

To conclude my part 1 reflections on David's crimes, I wanted to come to terms with why he still seems to be seen as unique.  This is my attempt:

So, what is left to love about David?  How in the world is a he a man after God's own heart?  Is God's heart this black? 

The first, most obvious assumption is that he indeed was a man after God’s heart, but didn’t remain so.  The famous phrase that labels David is given as a predictor of David’s character before he is chosen as a leader.  It was meant to distinguish him from Saul.  One could argue that, as David’s career continued, he didn’t continue to act as a man in tune with the heart of God.

Another answer is that Israel saw him as a man after God's heart because he was so successful in advancing and protecting their land.  This seems like a base compliment for military savvy, but one cannot underestimate the gift this was when you are trying to raise a family in a dangerous culture. 

Still, the statement that he is "after God's heart" is more affective.  It implies an internal state that David possessed that was of inestimable worth.  And I wonder if it is simply that he has an open heart.  This, despite his crimes, makes him different from so many other leader-kings of history.

The first sign of this open heart is that he turned the full torrent of his feelings toward his God.  The many Psalms he wrote attest that David was a man of honesty, not in the sense that he necessarily told others the truth, but that he approached God with his heart on his sleeve.  In this realm, he seemed to throw off propriety and ceremony, and basically, “lets God have it.”  From remorse to joy, from depression to ecstasy, and even onto anger, self-loathing, and hatred, David appears to hide nothing before the Lord.
 

This, to me, reveals something of the heart of God that not even the New Testament does quite as much justice to.  From David we are enjoined to “pour out your hearts before him, for he is our refuge.”  The greatest teaching of the Psalms has nothing to do with doctrine or even praise, in my opinion, but a loud call from the heart of God to us saying, “Come to me, wrestle with me, trust me with your full self!”  This is something that no other writer in the scriptures gives us in such fullness.

The second sign of David’s open heart is his willingness to change course.  Leaders must, by nature, make tough calls, but David, on numerous occasions, shows he is willing to reverse his decision when his heart is touched.

On his way, along with his fighting men, to kill Nabal who, by Scripture’s own admission was a fool, Nabal’s wife pleads a logical and heartfelt case to spare him.  David turns around.  Later, in a similar case, he banishes his rebellious son Absalom from his presence for years, but a common woman appeals to his heart as a parent and David permits Absalom’s return.

The most famous turn around of his life, of course, is seen when Nathan the prophet calls out David’s sin with Bathsheba and Uriah.  It would be par for the course for a King to slaughter a prophet who criticized him, but instead David mourns his own wickedness.

Finally, David, as unimportant as it sounds, has something immeasurably great: affection for God.  This is seen in his desire to build a house for the Lord.  While it might be as misguided a notion as Peter’s desire to build tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration, it does show David’s desire to bless his God.  He appeals to his own feelings, by saying in essence, “How can I live in this great palace when God lives in a tent?  Something’s not right here!”  The fact that he tries to relate to the Lord’s feelings reflects again the depth of David’s affection for God.  This is not a man who just wants to follow religious propriety or shamanism.  He truly loves God.

It is certainly easy to stand over David from such a distance and criticize him.  I live in a much different time, a more stable and safe era, when I can trust the might of my country’s military to protect my suburban home from harm.  I cannot possibly grasp what it was like to live in a largely tribal and uncertain world as existed in the time of King David.

Still, to label someone as a “man after God’s own heart,” one thinks there is something special there, and to find such a man involved in so many horrors, it makes one curious.  My conclusion is not that we absolve him of his crimes, but to look for what about the heart of God was revealed in the narrative and writings of his life.  To me this is the eager desire of God’s heart to welcome our full, unvarnished selves to him, and to interact with him with a humble, open heart.

I hope I, too, can be such a man.

Darkness is my closest friend

Check this out.  This is a Psalm in the Bible.  Psalm are songs to God.  This is Psalm 88 (I cut out parts to shorten it).  Be prepared for some surprising lyrics:

Lord, you are the God who saves me;
    day and night I cry out to you.
² May my prayer come before you;
    turn your ear to my cry.

³ I am overwhelmed with troubles    and my life draws near to death.
⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit;
    I am like one without strength.
⁹     my eyes are dim with grief.

I call to you, Lord, every day;
    I spread out my hands to you.

¹³ But I cry to you for help, Lord;
    in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴ Why, Lord, do you reject me
    and hide your face from me?

¹⁵ From my youth I have suffered and been close to death;
    I have borne your terrors and am in despair.
¹⁶ Your wrath has swept over me;
    your terrors have destroyed me.
¹⁷ All day long they surround me like a flood;
    they have completely engulfed me.
¹⁸ You have taken from me friend and neighbor—
    darkness is my closest friend.

I love this because this shows again that the Bible is not a book about a fantasy life.  It's not a book about perfection.  It's a book about reality, real life, with real people who have doubts and pain. 

I need my God to know real life.  I need to know that He gets it, that He isn't surprised by my sometimes raging emotions.  The fact that this Psalm is in His book proves to me that He does.

I don't think we have to believe that the writer of this Psalm is right either.  There are numerous things in here that are wrong (I don't believe God terrorizes us, for example).  This isn't intended as a teaching.  It's intended to be art, and art expresses our interior world.  Sometimes that world is scary and irrational. 

Regardless, we have a God, who says, don't run from me when you are scared, angry, or sad.  Run TO me.  Give me your true self.  That's a God worthy of love.

 

 

 

 

What to do with guilt

Morning after morning in my teen years I would wake up with the same feeling.  It was as if someone had wrapped a belt around my gut and was tightening it.  Nervousness like an electrical charge set to 'constant on' mode permeated my system.  This was a punishment, I was sure, because all together my bodily sensations told me I was feeling guilty.

Guilty for what?  I wasn't sure, but I sure knew it must be something.  Why else would I feel this way?  I worked to find things that I must have done wrong and asked God to forgive me.  The slightest wrong feeling or thought could have been the culprit.  Yet, surely there were things I couldn't remember that may have been the cause.  I begged forgiveness for those too.

When there is sin, it has to be paid for, so to make up for them I tried to prove my desire for forgiveness by denying some happiness.  Maybe it was not allowing myself to enjoy something or, at other times, just being 'down' to prove to my Judge that I was serious.

Have you fought this battle with guilt?  Maybe it was for actual wrong doing or maybe it was, like me, a general feeling of unworthiness.  Father knows about this and is a much better God than the sacrifice-demanding one I thought He was.

The letter in the New Testament written to the Hebrews speaks directly to this.  When I heard a series of talks about this in college it changed everything for me.

Let me simply summarize chapters 9 and 10.  The old covenant God made with people (as explained in the Old Testament) sets up a system whereby people can deal with their sense of guilt by making blood sacrifices of animals at a temple to God who focuses his presence in a quarantined room, sealed with a heavy curtain, called the Holy of Holies.  Within this system, "people under the law offer the same sacrifices every year."

In a way, that's what I was doing with my guilt: offering sacrifices of happiness, groveling, and self-hatred.  Over and over again, I would make my payment.  But, the letter to the Hebrews continues like this:

"but these sacrifices can never make perfect those who come near to worship God.  If the law could make them perfect, the sacrifices would have stopped.  The worshippers would have been made clean, and they would no longer have a sense of sin."

In other words, that old system didn't ultimately work, and nor will ours.  Instead, God sends his Son to deal with our sense of unworthiness, our sense of needing to pay for things over and over again.  Instead, "we are made holy through the sacrifice Christ made in his body, once and for all time." 

What does this all mean?  I'll let the text speak for itself:

"So, brothers and sisters, we are completely free to enter the Most Holy Place without fear because of

the blood of Jesus' death.  We can enter through a new and living way that Jesus opened for us.  It leads through the curtain--Christ's body.  And since we have a great priest over God's house let us come near to God with a sincere heart and sure faith, because we have been made free from a guilty conscience, and our bodies have been washed with pure water" (10:19-23).

Live in confidence with your God, like I have learned to do.  Trust that He has fought and beat your guilt.  You may need to continually remind your guilt that it already lost the fight. 

As I have learned to live in this reality, I've discovered that people who live freely in Father's love, will freely love others.  That, indeed, is a very new, new convenant.

Don't Hug Me; I'm Grey

Grey.

My previous post explored its strange role in our view of life.

It's the color that most comes to mind when I imagine the world's that are created in dystopian books

like The Hunger Games or Divergent.

They are worlds without vibrance.  The characters seem to dress in dull hues and their buildings are drab, sharp, and utilitarian.

When a world is left with nothing but physical survival, as the ones in these books appear to be, there is no beauty, no heart, no art.

Is that the world you live in?  Does this feel like the world of your soul?

Have you seen the series of popular Youtube videos named "Don't Hug Me; I'm Scared"?  They are meant to be humorously disturbing as what appears to be a children's puppet show turns into a lesson in fear and the grotesque.  The second of the two videos, however, is particularly interesting.  In it, a puppet sings a song and teaches the others about time.  As expected, it turns slowly macabre.  Characters imagine their own decay as they, their friends, and in one case, their parents fall into states of senility and eventual death.  One particular lyric refers to time teaching us about the "future".  That word is sung over top of a picture frame showing the word, "nothing."

That video, while certainly intended merely for humor, is a perfect illustration of a world without beauty, without hope, and really, without God.

God, to me, is the game-changer, the infusion of white.  White, as the last post pointed out, is "the color with all the colors in existence combined."

"You see, grey is almost a bright color."  Almost.  When your life is grey it easy to ignore what is missing.  When your life is black it may be easier to see that you are missing brightness.  But grey dulls your senses, and helps you get used to missing out and makes you think this is all there is.

But, if there is a God, there is meaning, purpose.  Love's magic returns.  Friendship again has lasting value.  Suffering has a context that allows it not to be meaningless.  Someone cares how I react to it.  How I live my life and how I treat others matters.

I share this with you because I too sometimes get beaten down by life.  Times like these make me wonder what it's all about.  Does anything matter?  And so I fight for my soul and preach to it: "Father loves you.  He will give you grace for each thing that comes along.  He cares.  You, and your life matter to Him."  And with repeated exposure to reality, divine reality, I can, sometimes slowly, find colors once again.

What color is your life?

If you could pick a color to describe your life, what would it be?

Recently, one of my students wrote something that I thought was profound as it explored the color of a life.  Here it is:

When something is taken away, something valuable, you want it back. Now, when I say valuable, I

don't mean money and material things. My most valuable possession...was my emotion. It was taken from me and was replaced by something dreadful. Surely, you can guess what it was. A certain darkness that no one wants.When I was in the jaws of this darkness, pain hit every inch of my heart, mind, and soul. It masked all emotion and I become blank, as blank as a clean paper plate. Dull.

When this darkness came like a blanket, black and white suddenly turned into grey. Nothing influenced or inspired at all. I sat often wondering what the world is doing without me. The news often spoke of this darkness and much tragedy happened because of its grip on people. But, since I'm on the listening end, these things are just... nothing. The world is nothing. Life is nothing.

The physical touches of others was almost like touching a ghost. Their touch went right through me. Invisibility became a necessity. A heaviness tugged at my heart and your heart became a 1000 lb. burden carrier. Life got harder to live, harder see. It got harder to breathe. People often asked me if I was alright, and the trademark answer was, "I'm fine."

The reading of a good story no longer gave me the urge to go out on an adventure. The face of my lover never truly gave me that fluttery feeling in my stomach anymore, nor do his kisses send shivers down my back andgoosebumps across my skin.

There was a sense of recovery one day but, that grey still lurked. I added a tint of yellow, like a smile, and the grey absorbed it and became... brighter. I threw in some red, like love, and the grey became darker. The color grey never truly disappears. Ask any painter or artist. Grey is a color that will only become ugly when you add other colors to it.

Yet, there were two colors that could change it completely.Black and white. Once I chose black and it made the grey even darker, making me sing even deeper. But, when I added white, that was a different story. You see, grey is almost a bright color. It's easy on the eyes. Once you add white, it brightens. Now white can be a multiple amount of things. God, love, peace, hope, family, friends; white is scientifically proven to be a color with all the colors in existence combined. Black is the absence of color.

After adding small colors here and there, such as orange for my hunger and blue for my lovers eyes, my gray started to turn into white.

Top Teen Topics 2: Bullying

 

Another topic that came up several times from my informal survey of what is on the minds of 14-15 year olds was bullying.  Some people called it being judged.  I stumbled upon this video and thought it was powerful.  I don't know much about this guy named Principal Kafele, but he speaks some great truth here. 
He frames the issue of bullying as a struggle for power and who has it.  "Don't give them power that they don't deserve."  Insightful.

Feeling OK about me - Part 3

A couple posts ago I talked about your life as a cup.  We don't want to feel empty, so we tend to fill it

with people, places, and things.  Yet, all of those are shaky.  Instead, filling our cup with God is more reliable and then allows people, places, and things to be overflow.  How does that work?

As a teen, there were so many pressures.  I felt I needed to please so many people from my parents to my teachers to my friends.  For me, when someone was proud of me I felt at peace, but when someone was mad at me or disappointed, I quickly felt unworthy.

Then, I began to fill my cup with my Father.  The simple fact that He cared about me, helped me.

When I was worried that my parents would be upset with me, I was able to hang onto that fact the God was with me and I would be okay.

When a girlfriend dumped me (and they all did.  I seemed to never be able to be the one to call it quits even when I should have), it hurt badly, but I knew there was still me and God.

When I was worried about the future whether because of some dating relationship, or college decision, I knew the truth that I could, "cast [my] cares upon Him, for He cares for you" 1 Peter 5:7

I wrote that verse all over my notebooks throughout high school.  It was a perspective-altering truth.  My life was very important...to Him.  He cared for it, for me.  It doesn't promise things to work the way I want all the time.  But it promises Father's commitment to care for me.

Making Father my cup-filler didn't mean I didn't get a lot of crap.  I still cried when I got dumped, got

hurt by family and friends, felt nervous before tests, and all the other things that happen to real-life people.  But I had a rock to build my life upon, not sinking sand.

In an upcoming post I'll comment on how this perspective also helps bring freedom and meaningful happiness to your human relationships too.

Feeling OK about me - part 2

Imagine that you are a cup.  As a cup, you want to be filled.  It doesn’t feel good when you’re empty. 

But when you’re filled up, you feel good, you feel okay, you feel strong, you feel…at peace.

Most of us fill our cups with three things:

People

Places

Things

This seems to make sense, right?  But all these things do the same: disappoint. 

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t have these as an integral part of our lives, but we can’t use them to fill our cups. 

So, what do we do?  David wrote, “My soul finds rest in God alone.  He is my rock and my salvation.” 

John wrote, “This is love: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us first.”

Solomon wrote, “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.”

David also wrote that with God his “soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods.”

Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength”

Once I began filling my cup with God something wonderful happened.  When I added sweet friends (people), and good times (places), and a new guitar (things), that made my “cup overflow.” 

What do I mean?  To fill my cup with God means that when I wonder, “Am I okay?” I let God remind me: I am loved, forgiven, enjoyed, and belong.  I have a purpose in life, a meaning, and I will not be forsaken or dumped by Him.  There are many ways to help with this from just being quiet and listening, to speaking to yourself (like the psalms say, “Why so downcast O my soul? Put your hope in God.), to listening to music that reminds you of this, to reading or reciting Bible verses that remind you of your Father’s love for you, etc. 

Let yourself feel, feel, feel God's delight in you, yes you.  Fight the voices that tell you otherwise. 

In the next post, I’ll show how that helped me weather through all the disappointments that people, places, and things send our way.

I want to feel OK about me

Do you ever feel just not good?

Do you ever feel like something’s not right, but you just don’t know what?

Do you ever just wish you felt okay? 

…about your life?

…about you?

Do you ever feel like you are on a roller coaster, sometimes up, and sometimes down?

I did too.  I remember it very distinctly, because it was during my high school years that I first noticed this.  I found that hanging out with friends made me feel good about me.  But, if a weekend went by without hanging out, I felt sort of empty.

Dating had helped too in the past, but getting dumped certainly didn’t help. 

Going on vacation felt good.  I liked to ski, so when I was rockin’ it down a black diamond run, I felt on top of the world.  But, of course, vacations end.

Getting a new AC/DC album was pretty sweet.  Or even a new locomotive for my model train set (I know.  I’m a nerd).  But those got old or broke.

Then I saw this book at a store called Joy That Lasts by a guy named Gary Smalley.  What I read in that book changed my sense of “feeling okay” forever. 

I’ll write in an upcoming post about what I found.

Suffering through Christmas

It's nice when someone asks how you're really doing.

It's nice when someone says they'll pray for you.
It's nice when someone thinks you're amazing because of all you've gone through.

But it puts divine medicine on a chapped soul when someone shares your suffering with you.  They enter into it as much as they can with listening, empathizing, asking, helping, comforting, even sometimes feeling the same things.

That's Christmas.

God doesn't just say, "Wow.  Life is hard for you guys."
or
"I'll send some angels to help sometimes."
or
"Good job facing the trials of life!"

No, He comes INTO it, WITH US.  Emmanuel, is this name that the ancient Jews were told the Messiah would be called.  It means "God with us."

That baby in Bethlehem becomes a man and showed us another time that He would be with us.  Here's a quote from Nadia Bolz-Weber's book Pastrix that captures it:

Every time I go looking for God amidst sorrow, I always find Jesus at the cross.  In death and resurrection.

This is our God.  Not a distant judge nor a sadist, but a God who weeps.  A God who suffers, not only for us, but with us.  Nowhere is the presence of God amidst suffering more salient than on the cross.  Therefore what can I do but confess that this is not a God who causes suffering.  This is a God who bears suffering.  I need to believe that God does not initiate suffering.  God transforms it.

Standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, "Woman, here is your son."  Then he said to the disciple, "Here is your mother."  After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, "I am thirsty."

"I am thirsty," he says.  "I am not watching this from a distant heaven.  I too am thirsty."

Heaven is fairy tale?

Hazel Grace, the sweet, terminally ill girl that has found love from The Fault in Our Stars. I want so much to like her. I want so much to find her inspiring. But she angers me. I should feel bad about that. I mean she's dying. But she claims she doesn't want pity. Here is just one example of many that frustrate me: Hazel loves this one book. Her dad read it and says, "It was a bit hopeless," he said. "A bit defeatist." "If by defeatist you mean honest, then I agree." "I don't think defeatism is honest," Dad answered. "I refuse to accept that." "So everything happens for a reason and we'll all go live in the clouds and play harps and live in mansions?"   I come across this thinking so frequently: if you really want something to be true, it must not be. Because you really wish there was a God, because you really long for there to be an afterlife, it must not be. Some atheists pride themselves on being so honest, so in touch with the facts and reality. Theirs is just another wishful-thinking mode too, though they don't admit it.   Some very much hope there is no God or no afterlife. Alas, that may require them to recognize some responsibility towards that God or that how they live their life now may have some effect on the next life. The "honesty" argument falls in so many places. I love my wife. But one could say, "Hey let's be honest. We are all competing organisms. My survival is my main goal. I am an evolutionary product with no inherent meaning. I am a blob of stellar material that has come to life and all I can do is maintain my miserable existence. So, I will choose to protect myself and serve myself at whatever cost it takes." And I can say, "I'm just being honest." But, here's my problem: I believe in love. Yes, I really, really want there to be a thing called love. I want it to be true that giving of myself not only blesses my wife, but also blesses my God. I want it to be true that all the love and relationships that I have built with her and my four little girls will have meaning both in this life and the next. Yes, I believe in love. Call me dishonest, if you must. I give Hazel's dad credit that he tries to hold onto some semblance of belief, though the best he can come up with is, "I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed." He seems to be trying so hard to avoid saying there is a Being who actually cares. Maybe he's afraid of being 'honest.' God (truly), I hope Hazel gets honest by the end of this book. But maybe because I really want that to happen, because I actually care enough about this fictional character to hope she finds real meaning, that must mean I believe that everything happens for a reason and we'll all go live in the clouds and play harps and live in mansions*" Honestly, I suppose I do...minus the harps, of course. *To be exact, no I don't believe everything happens for a reason, though I do believe that God can bring meaning and life out of even the greatest tragedies.  The clouds, harps, and mansions are simply a cartoon cutout of a real belief in a life that will happen after this one that will certainly be much more meaningful than comic strip versions of heaven.

 

Do I mean anything?

I'm reading two different books right now.  One is called The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, a fiction story about two teens with cancer who fall in love.  The other is Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber, a former addict turned tattooed, f-bomb dropping Lutheran pastor. The differences between these two books is like oil and water.  In Fault, the main character Hazel has to carry around an oxygen tank because her lungs won't work otherwise.  She has terminal cancer.  A young cancer survivor named Gus comes to a support group meeting.  When asked his biggest fear, he responds, "Oblivion," meaning to cease to exist after death. 


Hazel tells him the following:
"There will come a time...when all of us are dead.  All of us.  There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything....Everything we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught....if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it."

Wow.  Makes you feel small and insignificant, doesn't it.  But then...I read a chapter in Pastrix called "Beer and Hymns."  Nadia tells the story of how her church meets in a bar to sing hymns to God each week.  However, one particular week stood out because a few days before that one guy shot and killed some 12 people in a movie theater during a midnight showing of Batman. 

Nadia considered cancelling the meeting, but instead, they did it anyway.  Here are some of her remembrances of that night.

"It took a few minutes for me to pinpoint the uniqueness of how these hymns were being sung [that night].  But then I knew.  It was defiance.

"Mary Magdalene was the very first to proclaim, in the midst of loss and sorrow, that death had been defeated.

"Of course, Mary Magdalene would have very little tolerance for the Christian platitudes and vapid optimism that seem to swirl around these kinds of tragic events.  Those platitudes are tempting, but they're nothing but luxuries for people who've never had demons (or at least have never admitted to them).  But equally, she would reject nihilism, or the idea that there is no real meaning in life or death--ideas present in so much of postmodernity.  Those ideas, too, are luxuries, but they are for those who have never been freed from demons.

"When we sang hymns to God at the bar, it sounded like a people who simply would not believe that violence wins, a people who know that the sound of the risen Christ speaking our names drowns out all other voices.  It drowns out the sound of the political posturing, the sound of cries for vengeance, the sound of our own fears and anxieties, and the deafening uncertainty--because all of it is no match for the shimmering sound of the resurrected Christ calling our name.

"This is the resurrected God to whom we sing.  A God who didn't say we would never be afraid but that we would never be alone.

"Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples.  Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we can stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary, are bearers of resurrection, we are made new.  On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid.  To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim, like Mary Magdalene did to the apostles...that death is not the final word.  To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it.  And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, still we make our song alleluia.  Alleluia.  Alleluia."

I'm not done with The Fault in Our Stars yet, but I'm hoping Hazel finds more hope than that sad "reality" that she gave to Gus.

I hate myself

I don't really hate myself, but there have been times when I have.  It still sometimes hits me, but I've learned how to fight that impulse.  I think we all can get pretty good at hating on ourselves.  In fact, in some Christian circles, hating on yourself is seen as a sign of spiritual maturity or something. 

So, I'm reading this book called Pastrix by an ELCA Lutheran pastor who also happens to drop f-bombs and has tons of tattoos named Nadia Bolz-Weber; oh, and she's a woman.  That alone would throw many for a loop.  There are a lot of things in the book that many would be uncomfortable with.  In fact, there are things I'm uncomfortable with in it too.  Still, I love this woman's heart for Jesus and people.  As I read I'm going to post some parts of the book that jump out at me.  Here's one where she talks about identity.

(BTW, she's going to be the speaker at an upcoming Ohio ELCA youth conference)


And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased."  Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."

And the Word that had most recently came from the mouth of God was, "This is my beloved in whom I am well pleased."  Identity.  It's always God's first move.  Before we do anything wrong and before we do anything right, God has named and claimed us as God's own.  But almost immediately, other things try to tell us who we are and to whom we belong; capitalism, the weight-loss industrial complex, our parents, kids at school-they all have a go at telling us who we are.  But only God can do that.  Everything else is temptation.  Maybe demons are defined as anything other than God that tries to tell us who we are.  And maybe, just moments after Jesus' baptism, when the devil says to him, "If you are the Son of God..." he does so because he knows that Jesus is vulnerable to temptation precisely to the degree that he is insecure about his identity and mistrusts his relationship with God.

So if God's first move is to give us our identity, then the devil's first move is to throw that identity into question.  Identity is like the tip of a spool of thread, which when pulled, can unwind the whole thing...Our identity has nothing to do with how we are perceived by others.  But it's still tempting to believe.  I mean, if Jesus was vulnerable to temptation, the rest of us certainly are, whether it be temptation to self-loathing or self-aggrandizement, depression or pride, self-destruction or self-indulgence.  We are tempted to doubt our innate value precisely to the degree that we are insecure about our identity from, and our relationship to God.

"Girl in the Dark" Reflections

From an artistic level I was really impressed with this poem.  The use of the repeated phrase has a lot of power.  It feels like the repetition of a lullaby, but with an eerie twist.  My favorite part, though, is the consistent color scheme of black.  There is, of course the “girl in the dark,” but also the “dark hole,” “darkness” in the soul, and the “heart black as coal.” 

One thing that this poem shares with the previous poem “My Life is a Joke” is the power of being “alone.”  Both poems, indeed, express this feeling with imagery borrowed from the imagery of Hell.  It is a terrible place to be.  I have had times of depression in my life and it feels like a pit that you cannot climb out of, even if you try.  Sometimes, even looking in at yourself in these moments, it can be disturbing just how “bitter and cold” you are.  You feel like you’ve become a different person.

Admittedly, I have had many more struggles with anxiety in my life, but in reading about it in many books and going to counseling, I also learned a bit about depression. 

Depression is actually a tool of our bodies.  It is a chemical “crash” that often follows some circumstance in life where you have been in high gear.  For example, my wife and I led a marriage conference on Saturday.  We have been working on it for months, and had a lot of adrenalin and nerves going in.  The conference went really well, but on Sunday, the day after, I’m depressed.  I’ve learned that this happens the day after every time I speak in chapel as well. 

What is my body doing?  It is a big stoplight that says, “Rest!”  I don’t feel like doing anything today.  I just want to chill.  I took a nap.  I’m not motivated to accomplish much.  And, admittedly, I’m not in a great mood.  You may have noticed that you get this way when you’re sick too.  Again, your body wants you to rest so it can work on things.

Do you have some major stresses going on right now?  You may be getting that depressed signal from your body telling you that it’s time to recover.  Some of us live in stressful situations all the time.  If your family life, for example is consistently tense, depression may be a frequent struggle for you. 

Why is it worth knowing this?  It helps you know that something is happening TO you by your body’s design.  If you’re mind starts going down the track to “I hate myself,” you need to remind your heart that your “crash” is normal and won’t stay this way forever.  You have to work with who you are.  If you don’t, you may be depressed longer.  For example, I needed more recovery time yesterday (it's Monday now) than I got.  The depression has lingered more. 

How do you know when you have a ‘disorder’, though?  That is when depression (or anxiety in my

case) goes no longer than the situation warrants.  It can go so long that you may even get to a suicidal point.  This is when you need to have the courage to ask for help.  There is a reason there are doctors, counselors, and medication.  Also, if you’re depressed for a long time and don’t really have a reason, that may also be a sign that your body is not reacting correctly.  I knew I had an anxiety disorder when I felt nervous and had panic attacks frequently and they were not because I was facing situations that would make most people nervous.

Psalm 40

I waited patiently for the Lord; 
he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
 out of the mud and mire;
 he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.