Author: Joel

Growth and Death

August 4, 2016

It seems like life is equal parts death and growth. You cannot have one without the other – unbounded growth not pruned back by a little death will become unruly and unmanageable. At the same time, you will not always be moving backwards (experiencing death and loss). There will be a time to burst forth in growth. Don’t be afraid of either. You should learn to make friends with your loss and pain because they have so much to teach ...  Keep reading

Searching Out Truth

June 5, 2016
  I think the truth is something that is more uncovered than “known,” and something that morphs and is constructed, rather than being a static thing.  When I talk to people, I am always looking to discern and express what will meet and resonate with their experience the most. What they and I collaborate to articulate comes from how our experiences intersect and blend together. What is constructed with one person is different than what is constructed with the next. The truth is what feels most true to us at that particular time. It could be abandoned for another superseding truth at a later date, but for that moment, we feel like we have really discovered something! Sometimes, it is like pushing out another corner of the universe to include what we have created together. If I say the same things to everyone in the same way without crafting a new dialogue to fit our experiences, it will not resonate in the same way. The truth must be expressed in different ways to different people. I and they will be in different places on different days depending on our life experiences. Something that “felt true” on one day may not resonate or even seem true on a different day. It is not that the truth is based on how we feel, but we have noses and minds for searching out the real reality and it is being created all the time. We are made to be discerners and discoverers of truth.

Shame Revisited

June 4, 2016

In all the talk about the dangers of shame, we can start to think it is something that can and should be eradicated altogether. If that were the goal, we might be tempted to think everything we do and are is okay and even great. We all know that is not true. You do some terrible, selfish, unloving things sometimes, and so do I. You are full of imperfections and contradictions. So am I. It would be a positive step to no longer prop up our egos and reach a higher degree of honesty with ourselves. If we are to find true love, it will be through reaching and knowing the depths of our self-hatred, so we can know we are yet still lovable. If you do not know the vastness of your imperfections, how will you know the depth of grace that swallows them all up?

Middling

April 25, 2016

Our desire for perfection can be damning. It leads us to constant unhappiness, feeling as if something is not quite right. We always expect to have life the way we want it and when life does not cooperate, we enter depression. The reality of our lives is that we are basically always in this middling position – always working toward our ideals and seldom attaining them. When we do attain them, the satisfaction is fleeting. We rest on the top of the mountain for a moment and then set off toward another higher mountaintop.

My father told me when I was young and starting to play sports, “There will always be someone better than you.” I have found that to be true. Does that mean you should not try? No. It is okay to do something and not be the best. At the same time, it is good to have an ideal toward which you are working. If we did not have our ideals, we would have no drive. We must just get comfortable with the fact that we are always traveling toward our ideals and never actually arriving (or arriving only for a short time).

If your ideal is to have good relationships, you will probably have a hard time when one of your relationships goes sour. This can be problematic because our relationships are always in flux. You might experience a similar thing when working. You expect to get the job “done,” but there is always more work to do – sometimes the same thing you did last week! Life is about repeatedly coming back to the canvas to work the paint, rather than sitting down and completing a finished, presentable painting. Even if you finish a work, you still have room to improve. It never stops, but your work will be more satisfying if you get comfortable with being in the middle somewhere.

 

 

 

Connections

January 31, 2016

Our connections with one another are all that matter. When everything is stripped away, what will be left is your essence and my essence (who we are) and the connection our essences can have – on the soul level. There are so many things in this life which present barriers to our souls connecting: our defenses that keep us from having intimacy, our covetousness, our hatred, our possessions, even the physical barriers of skin and geographical location. And yet, there are moments in this life when we connect with each other on this deep level. It is very satisfying and can even give us the feeling of ecstasy on a momentary basis. Those are the moments I (and likely you) cherish. They are windows into the next life.

We get glimpses into that type of connection now. Some day we will see fully and our connections with each other will be more robust and fulfilling. I have no idea what that looks like, but I have an inkling of it because it was planted deep in my soul. I am an eternal being. I am interested in how our connections with each other and God will some day be realized. For now, we live in this incomplete dispensation. When everything is stripped away, it will all be revealed. Let us live into that and learn about what that next new thing will be like. It is that for which we live.

Grief Support

January 28, 2016

Supporting someone in grief is probably more about what you don’t say than what you do say. This can be a little off-putting and frustrating because we always want to be so helpful. We ask what we can do because there is usually not much we can do and we know that. We also ask what we can do because one of our greatest impulses when someone is in pain is to comfort them. Comforting someone when they are grieving, though, is often preventing them from going through a natural process through which they need to go. That is why they naturally resist you when you try to comfort them. They need to go through their process. It is counterintuitive not to comfort someone when they are in grief, but that is the very thing they need and may want you to do. They do need you to be there alongside them, but don’t try to do the work for them or interrupt them as they do it. That is the hardest thing – to just be with someone when they are in such pain, but if you can force yourself to do it, you will help.