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.

The Difficulty of Intimacy

December 31, 2015

To truly be in relationship is a difficult thing. Our greatest desire is to be connected and intimate with someone and so, consequently, our greatest fear is that will not happen. This fear plays out in the many ways we throw up defenses that prevent intimacy from occurring. Why do we do that? Because we are afraid of rejection, abandonment, not getting the relationship we desire. Even when we have what seems like opportunity for intimacy, we protect ourselves from it to avoid risk. The risk is requisite to trust. Even in what we would call close relationships with trusted people, we activate defenses which prevent us from connecting.

How does this look in our lives? Those of us who are avoidant (introverts?) look for any reason to steer clear of relationship and then blame others for not offering us intimacy just the way we want it. Others do not respond quickly enough or the exact way we demand. Others of us constantly seek out connection, but never really wait and trust, needing to constantly check in or determine others’ responses for them, rather than letting them respond in their own way. We move toward others for relationship, but never really open up and trust. These orientations, whether moving away or toward others, are two sides of the same coin. Neither are necessarily trusting.

What happens in a genuine give-and-take relationship is that there is the transmission of something between the two – love, concern, or even just instrumental care. What is needed for this transmission to take place is actually quite simple. The receiver must be open and seek (which requires vulnerability), and he or she must stop and wait for the other person to respond. We do not often do this. We either close ourselves off from connection, or we are constantly seeking and never stepping back and waiting for others to care for us. We never get what we want because we don’t open ourselves, and then wait and trust.

You may believe you are a trusting person, but you have ways you are protecting yourself and preventing connection. This happens in our relationships with each other and with God. The work is to practice letting down these defenses in some of the opportunities before us. Our defenses play out subtly in even our closest relationships. Trust requires risk. It requires gaining insight into how you are self-protecting and for you to let down these defenses on a regular basis.