Fasting and Dog Treats

October 5, 2008 at 4:12 pm (Christianity, Discipline, Failure, God, Humility, Jesus, Religion)
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As a Christian, I’ve kind of gone back and forth on the “fasting” issue.  It’s not that I thought it was bad; just that with my particular upbringing, it was not highlighted or explained or really even discussed at all.  When I was in my early 20’s, I had a friend (not a Christian) ask me what the point of it was.  She had a co-worker who was fasting during their lunch hour.  She said that he explained it as a time you were supposed to be more focused on God.  She stated that she could understand this if he had used the time to go away and pray or something, but he still hung out with everyone else during lunch; he just didn’t eat, so she didn’t see the point.

 

I found myself at a loss for explaining anything to her.  I was only moderately distressed by this as I didn’t see it as a big point of contention with the Gospel and had never really entertained fasting as a regular thing to do in life.  In short, I considered it an elective; “Hey, if it helps you with your walk with God, go ahead.”  That was my attitude.

 

As I’ve gotten older and (hopefully) learned a little bit more, I’ve come to see it as something more than an elective – not in a legalistic sense, but as a true method of allowing God more space in our lives to communicate with us and as a means to display our devotion to Him.  I’m not talking about asceticism to the point of bodily harm.  I mean fasting according to what the Holy Spirit calls.  And I also do not mean fasting only in the sense of food.  I think fasting has much more far-reaching implications than simply not eating.  During Lent people may say they are fasting from television or shopping or caffeine or whatever the Lord shows them is impeding their walk with Him or becoming something they depend on.  As I’ve come to see it as something that is an integral part of my walk with God and my spiritual growth, I’ve gone through several stages. 

 

The first stage was what I will call “deliberate fasting.”  (And here I am talking about food.)  I decided, at one point, that food fasting was good for you, soul and body (incidentally, I still believe it is), so I made it part of what I did.  I would fast one day a week, but my attitude about it was wrong.  I was doing it as a rote practice; just making it part of my religious regimen.  And not only that, I was doing it for selfish reasons as well – because I wanted to reap the rewards; not so much because I was hungry for God and what He was offering me.  Needless to say, like all things done simply because you feel you “ought” to do them, like diets, my “deliberate fasting” did not last for very long.  It did not mean anything, and my spirit felt that.

 

The second stage was “desperate fasting”.  This was done when I was so at a loss for what to do in my life that I felt like I had to do something in order to beg God for some direction.  Since I didn’t have any other methods of control to exert in my physical life, fasting became my means to reach God.  “If I only fast enough, He’ll see how serious I am about wanting His guidance.”  Though I do believe fasting in desperate times is called for and exhibited in the Bible, mine was never out of a sense of repentance or, again, out of a desperate hunger for God; it was out of a desperation for God to help me out with my life.  This only serves as an attempt to manipulate God, which is ridiculous for two reasons.  First, the idea that we can manipulate an omnipotent, omniscient God is just silly.  Second, the idea that we need to manipulate God in order to reap the best rewards indicates a complete lack of understanding about how much He loves us.  At least I knew God was the source and I employed prayer as well (which is never bad), but I was not seeking Him.  I was seeking what He could do.

 

And now we come to the third stage, which I think I am sort of in the midst of learning and I will call “deepening fasting.”  This is where the dog treats come in.  If you’ve followed my blog at all, you’ll sort of know that my life has sort of been turned upside down this year – at least in any practical sense.  A lot of it was through personal choice, so I am not going to pretend that external things just “happened” to me, but at the same time, it’s kind of to a level that I hadn’t expected or planned for.  Most of what makes a person feel secure is up in the air or has been rattled this year.  For example: housing, finances, jobs, relationships, health, church, pets (I know, I’m not sure pets count, but in my situation, my pet dying was yet another thing lost).  I don’t want to go into each story, though some you could trace bits of through past posts.  Let’s just say all of this has left me feeling pretty detached from anything except family, friends and God.  Don’t get me wrong – I am very grateful that I still have family, friends and God, as I would have always deemed those the most important, though not in that order.  Still, the others play key roles in most of our lives and whether we like it or not, they serve to provide some measure of security and validation.

 

I was talking to a friend of mine last night and she asked me what my life was like right now.  (Great question, by the way – much better than “How are you?”)  I told her that I felt like I was standing in the middle of an empty room, and though there was nothing really holding me there, I didn’t really feel any great motivation to walk outside of it either.  My answer kind of startled me, even though that seems silly since it came out my mouth.  However, it struck me as unnervingly profound, and I found myself analyzing it after my conversation with her ended and on into this morning.

 

At points in this period of detachment from the world that I’ve been going through, I’ve been completely at peace with it – accepting that it is only temporal and the eternal is what counts.  However, at other points, I’ve found myself grasping at the same worldly things I’ve been stripped of because I caught a glimpse of what looks like a good option.  This seems to recur – a regular pattern in my existence.  I don’t mean for it to, but my fleshly nature just keeps rising from the grave every time I think I’ve buried it.  (That’s probably part of my problem – taking my eyes off of God and trying to take care of it myself.)

 

I think God emptied my life of the peripheral things in it – the things that were not contributing to what He had for me.  And now He is asking me to stay there until He says otherwise.  Not because He necessarily expects me to remain in all of my present circumstances – but because He needs me to realign my motivation.  And so, I am in this empty room that I feel He has purposely emptied.  God wants to fill my life up with things that He has for me in order to live the abundant life He offered me and so that He can use me in the manner He has planned, which, for the record is the same thing (abundant life=allowing God to do with your life as He will).  So, at points in this journey, He has re-introduced things back into that room, bits of things that He may have for me or have for me to do at some point – good things.  But so far, I feel that I am failing when I am shown those glimpses of good things – that I am content to sit in the room and rely on Him whenever I see no way to exert my own effort and no way to pursue anything.  But that when He brings the glimpse of what He wants me to have or to do into my vision, I immediately stop relying on Him and say, in essence, “Oh!  That’s what you have for me, God?  Cool.  I’ll take it from here.  You’ve been a big help.”  And then I make the pursuit of the “thing” my focus instead of the pursuit of God who wants to give me the thing.  And so God empties the room again and says, “No.  You haven’t got it yet.”

 

OK, OK, I know you’re wondering where the dog treats are coming in.  Here goes: I was dog-sitting a couple of months ago, and the dog was a bit unruly.  I won’t name names.  In my frustration, for a few days, I tried to teach the dog to “stay.”  I gave up, although my efforts were working; the rewards of training someone else’s dog didn’t seem quite worth it.  Anyway, I don’t think this dog had been taught much of anything, and it definitely had not been taught, “Stay.”  So, I would take a treat and make the dog sit (it did seem to know that one).  Then I would say, “Stay,” and back up a step.  If the dog moved, I would make it go back to where it was sitting, and we would start the process all over again.  At first, I would just back up with the treat a short distance.  As the dog did better, I would walk further.  I actually got across the room a couple of times.  Whether the dog got the treat or not had to do with its priorities.  If obedience was its first priority and it was looking to me as its “master” for direction, it would get the treat, but if the treat was its first priority, it got nothing.  Granted, a clever dog could probably figure out where the treats are and break the container or tear open the bag or whatnot and get his own.  But a good dog really wants to please its master and knows this is not the way to do it.  Now, this dog, being in the initial training stages, did poorly if I held the treat up tantalizingly before him throughout the process.  If I didn’t show him the treat, he did somewhat better.

 

And this is where I’ve been, if we can pretend that I am a dog and God is my master.  God’s been trying to teach me to “stay.”  I do all right at it if I can’t see the “treat.”  There’s not much for me to run after.  I’m content to listen to Him telling me to stay.  But when He brings it out and shows me, my instinctual reaction is to run towards it immediately.  However, all that does is make God put me back in my initial place and say, “No, let’s try that again.  Wait until I call you.”

 

I don’t know how many false starts I will have to make before I learn the lesson.  I know I’ve made several already, and God keeps putting me back in that empty room.  It’s a peaceful empty room, not a scary one.  I know He wants to fill it up with His provisions.  I just need to stop looking at the provisions and start looking at HIM.

 

All right, so now you are wondering, what does that have to do with fasting???  Waiting on God to tell me I can come have the treat is like a period of fasting, in whatever area that waiting manifests.  What I realized today is that fasting is a way of life – fasting from all that God does not have for me; fasting from the world.  Usually when I think of a fast, I think of putting a time limit on how long I will abstain from something.  I am starting to look at fasting as simply not partaking of things until God gives me the go ahead – committing to not chase after the things of this world in order to satisfy my own needs and desires, but in all things seeking to please the Master first, trusting that He will provide for my needs.

 

I know that there are seasons of fasting as well, and God blesses it any time it is done out of a sense of hunger for HIM – times when the hunger we feel from a food fast is a welcome feeling because it is indicative of the desire we have for God.  I am definitely not trying to undermine fasting in that sense.  Just noting that a life following God will be constantly seeking Him and will never seek to satisfy the flesh without first looking to the Master’s wishes, like the dog that learns to look at its master before going for the treat.  And hopefully, the priorities begin to outline the motivation and we begin to obey not in order to receive the treat, but in order to please the Master.  Maybe this doesn’t even qualify as fasting; maybe that’s just living a Spirit-led life…but that’s how it struck me today.

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Disturbed

December 19, 2007 at 11:33 am (Christianity, Discipline, Expectations, Failure, God, Humility, Individuality, Jesus, Pride, Relationships, Religion, Responsibility, Sleepless Ramblings)
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That’s the word I used to describe my spirit the other day in talking to my boyfriend.  Not like mentally disturbed.  Disturbed like if I was a lake, there would be lots of ripples.  There has been a lot inside me that has just been sort of heavy for a couple of months now.  Somewhat to the point that I chose escapism by keeping busy with mostly mindless things and not trying to work on it.  Just letting it gurgle and churn and fall in whatever pattern it chose without taking a good hard look at it.  So that’s where I have been, as evidenced by shallow (but hopefully amusing) posts as of late.

For a while, I was not even sure what was working on me.  Probably because I chose not to, but when asked, all I could say was what I told you above:  my soul was disturbed, my spirit heavy.  If you could get a spiritual/emotional illness, that’s how I would have described it.  The Flu of the Soul.  Tired, aching.  You might think I’m saying I was depressed, but it was different than that.  It was, I now know, God urging me to change.  And although I am not yet sure what or how exactly He wants me to change, I am more ready and more prepared to change when faced with whatever He has in store because of finally paying attention to the stirring.  Tension, my pastor would call it.  A call that makes me uncomfortable.

If you’ve not read my post on Ambition, you probably should before you continue or you’ll be starting this journey at its apex.  Despite the fact that the apex of a journey is usually its most interesting, and the only thing our fast-food culture has the patience to hear, the meat of a journey cannot be grasped without the whole struggle from start to finish.  It means nothing when watching the Lord of the Rings to see Frodo fighting with Gollum and watch Lord Sauron’s ring fall into the fire if you have not seen the treacherous journey before.  I guess that this may not actually be the apex.  I thought I was finished with this revelation before, but this could very appropriately be called “Ambition II” if I chose.

My mind is still pretty jumbled about how all of the various things I want to share are connected.  I’m actually hoping that in writing it down, it will become more clear, even to me.  This is usually what happens, to be honest.

I guess I should start with the fact that there were various moments during this disturbed phase when I was acutely aware of my shortcomings.  There are plenty of them to choose from, but the one that kept coming up was my individualistic nature.  I have always flown the flag of my individualism with much pride, heralding it as a virtue which the masses did not possess.  This might be true, but in doing so, I allowed its virtues as well as its vices to take hold in me.  Unfortunately, this is possible with any quality.  Though good, I placed it on a level higher than it deserved, giving it the chance to root too deeply in my soul.  Individualism came to mean alone.  Not in the lonely sense.  I have not been lonely.  But in the sense that very little I did was done with any intent for it to affect another person’s life.  I was quite responsible and quite creative and quite busy with various and sundry daily things.  But none of these things meant a darn thing in anyone else’s life.  I’m sure I will have some say it was not so bad as that.  I have friends that tell me they were inspired to do something outside of their comfort zones because they watched me do something similar.  The problem is that those things that I did were not outside of my comfort zone.  I was doing things that I knew others would think daring and brave, but that to me were not by any means scary.  Normally, I would just rush madly into the next thing so as not to have a moment where I had a need to trust God or wait for His guidance on where He wanted me to be and what He wanted me to do.  That might be a bit of an exaggeration as well.  There was some trust in God required, but not nearly what might be perceived from the outside.  The decisions I was making (often regarding careers and jobs or lack thereof) did not require the same kind of stretching of my faith for me as for others.  I’m not sure why. 

OK, I kind of glazed over a couple of important points in that paragraph.  One is that people would look at my life and say that I have done many brave things (not in the sense of soldier brave, but in the sense of life direction brave); things that those people say they would not have had the courage or fortitude to try; new jobs, new cities, etc.  I already explained above how to me, that is not necessarily brave.  The actions those people would point to were, for me, mostly an attempt to create a little excitement because I was bored.  Or an attempt to get out of something I knew I didn’t like into something different.  Or, here’s the embarrassing one, an attempt to cause those same people to look at me in awe and say, “Ooooh, look how brave and daring she is.”  I like it when people do that, because I can shrug casually and say, “Yeah, it’s no big deal,” and those people just think I am more brave. 

Newsflash: I am not brave.  Is it bravery to do the things that create no fear in you?  It is simply because I do not value career for its own sake or money for its own sake, that I am willing to toss them both away with no hesitation.  There is no bravery in that.  See my Thirty? Really? post to see thoughts on different kinds of courage.

Do you want to know what I fear?  People.  I am terrible with people.  I am scared that I will not know enough to help people or to show people the true God.  I am scared that people will not like me.  I am scared that people will let me down and not live up to my expectations.  Mostly I am afraid that I will look like a fool.  Or that I will make God look like a fool by proxy if I try to be His servant.  In this fear, I have no stories of bravery to share with you.  I have only ever been a success with people when those people pursued me as a friend or confidant or advisor.  What I am after is making an impact for Christ, which you cannot do when you live life as a hermit(ess?).  In this, I am terrified.  And to hide my fear, I substituted flashy things, i.e. my semi-dramatic life choices, that made me look fearless.  I faced another man’s fear to hide the fact that I could not face my own.

All of the perceived risks I have taken were never once done for the purpose of, or with any ideas of impacting another person’s life.  It was always about me.  And this is what I have been looking at, since I did finally gather up the courage to look the tiger in the eyes.  I am all wrapped up in selfishness and fear, and until I get over it, I am hindering God’s ability to work through me.  I say hindering because I know that He can use even the lowliest vessel, and that no matter what, all of my “righteousness will be as filthy rags.” (Isaiah 64:6)  However, even the lowliest vessel is more effective if it wants to be used and tries to make sure it is prepared. 

I guess I’ll tell you more about the process of this, which consisted of my being constantly inundated with messages and situations that made me feel this sense of inappropriate individuality more greatly.  At one point, I was sitting at dinner with three friends, one of whom was saying that she has been influenced by watching me.  I don’t remember the context prior to this, but in stating that, I think she thought about it conversely and said out loud, “I don’t think that I have influenced you very much, though.”  This is a person who is worthy of influencing me.  She has been through some tough things and come through them with a big heart for God.  When she said that, it was one of those moments of “tension” inside of me.  I knew that her inability to see any way she had influenced me was because of my determination NOT to be influenced by anybody.  Apparently, I had taken this to both extremes, meaning that I would not let anyone (or at least very many people) influence me for bad OR for good.  I can give you further evidence for this attitude from my “My Space” profile page.  The profile asks you to list your heroes.  My statement ends with this: “I’ve kind of always been anti-hero. I want to be myself.”  What do you read here?  No one else has anything to offer me that is worth emulating.  This is a wrong and arrogant attitude when exaggerated to this point.

Another situation was that which I wrote about in a recent post, My Journey to Vegetables.  In itself, it would not mean very much, but as a symbol it is very indicative of the way I operate.  If you don’t want to read the whole thing, basically, in lieu of asking a friend for a favor, I spent 4 hours of my day off to do something it would have taken someone else 30 minutes to do on its proper day, rendering me quite unproductive.  Such is my life.  I have mentioned this desire for self-sufficiency more than once.  In my desire to grow my own food (Letting the Cabin Out of the Bag) and in my desire to know the “basics” of many different facets life (Gettin’ Down to the Roots), there is this underlying message that says to everyone, “I don’t need you.  And I don’t want to need you.” 

So, now we have, “I am completely self-sufficient” and “You cannot influence me” coupled together in a neat little package.  Inviting, isn’t it?  I really did not realize how deep this problem ran until I saw that it really goes through EVERY aspect of my life.  I have had friends and relationships in the past where people complained that they wanted me to “need them,” because they felt disposable.  I knew that I did not exude an air of even comfortable reliance on people.  I just did not realize that it was so strongly to the opposite extreme: rather, I exude an air of defiant self-sufficiency that runs so deep I don’t even want to “need” a grocery store.

I am sure that you could call me enterprising or handy or something because I try to do everything myself.  And I’m not saying it cannot be an asset in my life to have this quality, as well as the part of me that does not like to be notably influenced by others (which renders peer pressure virtually impotent).  Let me just state again that I have taken it to a ridiculous extreme, causing others to be excluded from my daily walk…keeping them at arm’s length so that they can neither help me grow nor harm me.  I am so encased in this mindset, that even as I write about it here, I have to keep reminding myself that I am trying to tell you it is negative.  I am teetering, virtually by the minute, on the fence of falling back into being proud of this quality.

Follow my relevant journal entries to see how long I have been mulling this:

November 19, 2006:  “Ineffectively busy?  I do things, but not with people.”

February 18, 2007: “Do I have love?  Where are the people who feel my love?”

September 2, 2007: “Stop being individualistic – trying to be innately self-sufficient.”

October 21st, 2007: “Fought fear by being self-sufficient and not needing anything or, rather, anyone.”

I’m not sure how long this has been going on.  I have a poignant memory of a conversation I had when I was away at college for a couple of years, and came back home to visit.  I ran into my uncle at the mall.  He asked me if I missed my family.  I remember shrugging, nonchalantly, and saying, “I don’t know.  Not really.”  He asked me if I missed my friends.  I gave him basically the same reaction.  I remember saying something like, “I mean, I love them, but I don’t really miss anybody.”  I remember him looking at me quizzically and saying, “You’ve changed.”  Even then, I knew there was something wrong with how I was interacting with others.  I went away from that conversation feeling the same “tension” I mentioned above.  There was something wrong with how I was interacting. 

That was over 10 years ago, and I haven’t fixed it yet.  I didn’t even acknowledge that there was a problem.  I even embraced it as a protection…a shield.

My pastor’s message on December 2 brought it all home.  It was the first time I have ever seen him broken up through the whole service.  I’ve seen him get choked up before, but this was continually throughout his sermon.  It was obvious God had really made this apparent and important in his life.  I’m not a sports fan, but he was basically telling us to get off the bench of Christianity.  I’ve heard that before, and it means something…but what he said that really got me was something like this: “Christians are mostly life-long students, never engaging in the real world applications of what we learn.”  Analogies about sports are one thing.  Analogies about knowledge and learning are another.  I shouldn’t have to hear an analogy pertinent to myself in order to enact it in my life.  But, I guess it never hurts.  I like to learn more about God, about His word, about spiritual growth.  But it is pointless if I never use it.  My pastor actually said another thing a while back that is applicable here.  He said, “If you never learned another thing about Christianity, you would know enough.”  I am inundated with knowledge.  There are people in countries where Bibles are not available who build monstrous ministries and only know one verse.  I know enough.  I SIT on what I know…letting it work in me, trying to become a better person…that’s all well and good, but it is not the goal.  It is the means to the goal, and it doesn’t mean that you get to pretend the goal does not exist along the road.  Just because you’re not the best player on the soccer team, doesn’t mean you run around practicing during the game and not trying to make goals because you are scared you won’t make it…if it is during the game, you try to make goals, i.e. effect people’s lives for Christ.  I’m not talking about chalking up souls so you can get a gold star.  I’m talking about showing people the love of Christ.  And to do this, I have to get over my fear of being affected by people.  Because if I am interacting appropriately with people, I will be affected.  I will care, and it will hurt. 

I think I have had this revelation before.  I remember about 7 years ago, realizing how open Christ made Himself to being hurt.  He loved freely and was rejected over and over and over.  That rejection will be a natural part of following in His footsteps.  Loving someone is giving them the opportunity to reject you.  Saying, “I will love you, but I do not need your love in return,” is not valid.  I don’t mean that the love is conditional based on the response…I just mean that a response is called for.  He wants our love in return.  He is asking for it.  He does not hang it out there, and then walk away from it for us take it or leave it, no worries for Him.  He embodies it, so when we accept or reject it, we are accepting or rejecting Him.  In other words, it is not love if it means nothing to me.  If I say I love you, but am not affected in any way by your actions, it simply is not love.  It is some mind-manufactured system that I somehow feel can fulfill the manuscript written out for me – some rote method I have concocted so I can feel OK when I read, “though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:2 – NKJV) 

I am sorry for trying not to love, and for trying instead only not to get hurt.  If that is my goal, then Christianity is not my game.  (I Peter 4:12-13)  If Christ suffered it, it is not a thing that I should avoid, for “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.” (Matthew 10:24 – NKJV)

Now that I have worn you out explaining my desire for self-sufficiency, I have another issue to discuss before I get to the answers God has been giving me.  This one is back to that whole “Ambition” thing.  It’s all related in my mind.  I know that at this point, if you went and read my initial Ambition post as I requested earlier in this one, you are now thinking, “Why did I have to read that?  Exactly how is it related?”  Well, it is.  The problem is that my two major issues seem different, but they have one answer that is all jumbled up together.  So, I have to go through both things in order for the answer to make any sense.  Here goes.

I have also been feeling the same desperation that I used to feel regarding my music, and how, then, I felt that I was lacking something if I did not succeed in it.  Only this time, it was much more generic.  I was back to feeling overwhelmed with the mundane, and how it seems to take over your life…back to feeling that my existence was uselessly consumed by every day circumstance and necessities.  In other words, back to that fear that I would never do anything “important,” and somewhat consumed with this ambition.  

If you did, indeed, go back and read my “Ambition” post, you will know that I went through years of desperation, and even depression because of this fear, only then it was specifically attached to the success or failure of my musical endeavors.  It was a fear largely based on the need to satisfy my own ego, and put in front of my love for God.  It consumed me.  It has been a little over two years, probably, since I wrapped that package up and threw it up into God’s arms.  It has been the most free-ing two years I have had in my entire adulthood, because I was just trying to become a person and not a persona.  But somehow, I let that fear creep back in.  It was wearing a new cape this time, though, and I did not recognize it.  It was not clothed in my desire for musical acclaim, but only in a general desire to be someone or do something important, and stop the mundane cycle of work/sleep/cook/clean/errands/laundry, etc. which I, obviously, think I am above. 

The thing is, I thought I was done with ambition.  Like I said, I got rid of that burden a couple of years back.  I thought.  Now, I can recognize that I only got rid of it in one form.  My ambition was a cancer, and I only cut out part of it.  I still, in the back of my mind, had this vague notion that if I gave up that ambition, that God would grant me some bigger, better thing to do so that I could feel good about myself.  I really just told Him that it was OK if He did not use me in that way.  So, now, over two years later, the problem is that I am still here.  Still doing unimportant things.  No big break-throughs or obvious paths He wants me to take.  I was getting antsy…thinking He didn’t come through on His promise that if I would lose my life for His sake, I would find it.  (Matthew 16:25)  I didn’t figure that out, though, until I was talking to my boyfriend one day.  I was telling him that I was feeling frustrated with feeling like I was stuck doing unimportant things all of the time (in many more words than that).  He said something to the effect of, “You just need to give that up and trust God with it.”  And I said, “The thing is, I thought I did that two years ago.”  That was when it hit me that I didn’t really do it.  I only kind of did.  That fear was still fully alive and well in me, just focused in a new vein.  The fear of being nameless.  I want to be recognized.  I thought I only wanted to be recognized musically.  Turns out, I didn’t really care how as long as I was.  And THAT is what I need to give up.  The need for others to look at me and say, “Look how cool that girl is, and look at all the cool stuff she’s done.” 

Here is where the two meet…my two biggest fears. 

1) Being rejected, hurt, disappointed by others

2) Being a non-entity, ineffective, unimportant

When I look at it this way, I kind of think they are all mixed up together.  To get beyond one, I have to get beyond the other.  I have a feeling that until I learn how to interact with people in a Christ-like manner, i.e. opening myself up to hurt, rejection, disappointment, I will remain ineffective, a non-entity and unimportant to the Kingdom of God.  If there is such a thing.  I realize that God loves me just as much regardless.  I don’t mean that He will love me more.  I mean that He will be able to use me more effectively.

The answers started coming in, oh wonder of wonders, when I started studying my Bible diligently.  God has this way of putting in my mind exactly what I need to read before I even open the Bible.  It just pops in my head, “I’m supposed to start reading Jeremiah.”  And this is what I read. 

“Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.’  Then said I: ‘Ah, Lord God!  Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.’  But the Lord said to me: ‘Do not say, ”I am a youth,” for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.  Do not be afraid of their faces, for I am with you to deliver you,’ says the Lord.  Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the Lord said to me, ‘Behold, I have put my words in your mouth….’”

My first fear of people was immediately addressed when I opened the Word of God.  God has called me, because He has called all of us who follow Him, to share Him with others…to BE Him to others.  I cannot do this until I let my fear go.  God basically tells Jeremiah (and me) not to give Him any excuses.  But, He then tells him (and me!) that there is nothing to fear because God would give him the words.  If God is giving me the words when I am faithful to speak them, then I truly have nothing to fear.  All I can do is speak, and the rest is up to Him.  Sort of takes the pressure off, doesn’t it? 

Immediately after this, I resumed reading a work by G.K. Chesterton on St. Francis of Assisi.  He first discusses how Francis’ emerged at the end of the Dark Ages, and was part of the beginning of the reintroduction of poetry and nature love (not nature worship).  In this section, Chesterton contends that the Dark Ages were, at least possibly, necessarily employed by God.  The Dark Ages are known for their lack of any great literature, art or really anything of any beauty.  Chesterton theorizes that the culture prior to the Dark Ages was so inundated with paganism in any of its artwork, literature and in its nature worship, that God was forced to remove those things from an entire age of people in order to “purge the system,” as it were.  That, at that stage, humanity was so conditioned that it could ONLY view beauty in conjunction with its paganistic connotations, and had no capacity to enjoy it purely as God created it to be, as a reflection of Him and His goodness and power. 

Whether it would be necessary for God to plunge whole civilisations into such a void for hundreds of years in order to cure a spiritual sickness or not, I do not know.  I DO know that the concept is applicable and validated in my own life.  I have even imposed this type of treatment on myself at times, although I did not connect it quite so largely as a broad method at the time.

One example of this was when I ceased praying and reading my Bible for a time, because I realized that the only reason I was doing it was because I knew I was supposed to.  Based on II Corinthians 9:7, which states, “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver,” I recognized that I was only “giving” grudgingly or of necessity.  I made the conscious decision that if there was no love or true desire for Him in my actions, that there was nothing really to give.  I needed to “un-learn” the religiosity I had associated with those actions so that I could regain the purity of them and enact them with their real purposes as my motivation.  My friend at Zephaniah 3:17 discusses this same topic in his “Ought” post.

Another, less spiritual application of this concept has to do with black coffee.  I am a coffee-drinker, to say the least.  There was a time, in the past, where I put an inhuman amount of sugar in my coffee.  I made a decision that I needed to significantly reduce the amount of sugar I put in my coffee if I was going to continue to drink it at the desired quantity.  However, of course, I didn’t like it with less sugar.  So, in order to train my senses, I made myself drink only black coffee for two weeks.  Amazingly, when I began putting sugar in it again, I required less than half of the amount I had before in order to enjoy my coffee.  I’m sure you have seen this employed in some way in your own life.  You want to regain a sense of the meaning of Christmas, so you do not give gifts one year.  I’m sure there are other common examples, but I have not thought of them yet.

The point is that censorship of some good is sometimes necessary if it has become associated with only perversion and/or done with wrong motivations.  When the good is all mixed up with the negatives, maybe the good needs to cease for a season in order to regain its innocence.  I could not regain my love for reading God’s Word and spending time in prayer or understand the value and meaning of those things until I lost the idea that I had to do them in order to earn His love.  I could not learn to enjoy sugar in its appropriate quantities until I ceased using it altogether for a time. 

The point is that I believe whether THE Dark Ages was a mechanism for this or not, I believe we must all go through our own personal “Dark Ages” if God is to use us.  I have mentioned this somewhere else in some post, but you can also see this in artists of all kinds, who often report a desertion of their creativity after they come to believe in Christ.  If your gifts or your dreams have an inappropriate place of importance, or if they have some perverted motivation, or if they are strongly associated with some sin in your life, God must remove them if you are to put Him in that place of importance, or re-evaluate your motivations or cut out the associated sin.  How fast you get them back, or if you get them back at all, is, at least according to my theory, dependent on how readily you allow God to fill the void they have left.  Unless we are super-smart and wise, and then God doesn’t have to do that, because we give up all of our dreams and attachments willingly to Him.  ”Giving up” sounds so negative to us in this world of “take charge.”  I don’t mean it in the sense of quitting, and I think most who have gotten this far in this insanely long post will understand that.  But on the chance that someone else made it this far, what I mean is that we let God be in control of our lives in their entirety, which means that we are all right with whatever decision He comes to.  If we truly believe that He is good, knowing, loving and all-powerful, then that is the best decision we can possibly make.  And we claim to believe that.  Or, at least, I claim to believe that, and I think most other Christians would as well.  Our human natures are hesitant, though, because we are trained to want to be in control of our own destinies.  The fact is, we are not in control of them anyway, so we are better off letting Him worry about it, since we don’t know what in the world will hit us next.  It is quite free-ing when you actually manage to apply it, which is what Christianity is supposed to be about.  Unfortunately, some never manage to apply it at all, and some, like me, only manage to apply it in fits and spurts.

In other words, I believe the “dark ages” end when you let go of trying to control the things you fear, but then will start up again if you start trying to control it (or another fear) again.  Jim Palmer who wrote Divine Nobodies (which I have not read, but seems like it would be great), spoke at my church a couple of months ago.  He stated, “What you fear is where you have put your misplaced dependency.”  So true.  I fear being unimportant, because I have placed my dependency and identity on hoping I become important.  I know people who fear never marrying because they have a misplaced dependency on the institute of marriage and family.  Again, I hope you can see that I am not saying these things are bad.  Marriage and family are great.  It is when the desire for them (or anything else) becomes a desperation because you do not trust God with whatever outcome He has planned that there is a problem.  Along this theory, possibly God withholds those things until people are capable of putting them in their proper level of importance, which is always, necessarily below Him.  This, by the way, does not diminish their importance in any way.  On the contrary, it increases it, because I guarantee that God’s rules and recommendations for marriage and family (or, again, anything else) will bring about a better situation than any personal or earthly precepts will, however good the intent.

Let’s go back to G.K. Chesterton, and his discussion of St. Francis.  He tells another story about St. Francis that magnificently illustrates the whole process I have just been discussing.  St. Francis is sometimes viewed as a gloomy character because of his known penchant for asceticism.  The stories about his life do not represent a gloomy man of some sort of sad discipline.  They represent a man of passion and action.  He was just passionately ascetic.  This story actually begins before his true “spiritual awakening” if you can call it that.  I do not call it his salvation, because he was possibly a Christian before that, I am not sure.  It is said that his initial goal in life was to be a war hero.  He had a certain thirst for glory which caused him to boast, upon leaving for war, “I shall come back a great prince.”  Francis had apparently even had some dreams which made him believe he was to be some sort of lauded warrior.  This dream came crashing down around him before he even made it to the battlefield.  On the way to the front, he had his second bout with an illness which made him unfit for a soldier.  Apparently, he was very much rattled by this, and had no idea what he was to do at this point.  It was the only plan he had.  And now I shall quote the story from Chesterton, as I do not think I could illustrate it better.

“It was his first descent into a dark ravine that is called the valley of humiliation, which seemed to him very rocky and desolate, but in which he was afterwards to find many flowers.  But he was not only disappointed and humiliated; he was also very much puzzled and bewildered.  He still firmly believed that his two dreams must have meant something; and he could not imagine what they could possibly mean.  It was while he was drifting, one may even say mooning, about the streets of Assisi and the fields outside the city wall, that an incident occurred to him which has not always been connected with the business of the dreams, but which seems to me the obvious culmination of them.  He was riding listlessly in some wayside place, apparently in the open country, when he saw a figure coming along the road towards him and halted; for he saw it was a leper.  And he knew instantly that his courage was challenged, not as the world challenges, but as one would challenge who knew the secrets of the heart of a man.  What he saw advancing was not the banner and spears of Perugia, from which it never occurred to him to shrink; not the armies that fought for the crown of Sicily, of which he had always thought as a courageous man thinks of mere vulgar danger.  Francis Bernardorne saw within and not without; though it stood white and horrible in the sunlight.  For once in the long rush of his life his soul must have stood still.  Then he sprang from his horse, knowing nothing between stillness and swiftness, and rushed on the leper and threw his arms round him.  It was the beginning of a long vocation of ministry among many lepers, for whom he did many services; to this man he gave what money he could and mounted and rode on.  We do not know how far he rode, or with what sense of the things around him; but it is said that when he looked back, he could see no figure on the road.”

This is so parallel to what I feel is going on in my own life, that I almost do not feel the need to explain the parallel.  Almost, but not quite.  :-)   Just pretend I am talking about myself when I expound on this section and use the name “Francis.”  (Not that I am pretending I am half as far in my commitment as Francis was, but for illustrative purposes and brevity.)  Francis had this grand life dream of being a noted public figure, praised for his important deeds.  This dream was destroyed, plunging Francis into “these dark and aimless days of transition that followed the tragical collapse of all his military ambitions, probably made bitter by some loss of social prestige terrible to his sensitive spirit”.  I can relate to “dark and aimless days of transition….”  This initial dream that was wrecked did not cause Francis the same fear that it caused others.  Apparently, he was full of bravado at the thought of fighting in mortal combat, as I am full of bravado at things that other men fear (mostly financial security and career stability).  But that was not what God called him to.  He did not call Francis to do the things he did not fear.  God made him face his REAL fear, the leper (for me, taking risks in forming real relationships with people).  His secondary fear (not doing anything important) turned out to be ludicrous.  Can you imagine us knowing more about St. Francis if he had been some war hero in the 12th century?  Whether the leper did disappear when Francis looked back or not, the allegory is superb.  The fear was a sham fear.  It was not even real.  He just had to face it full-on before he could move forward in God’s plan.  And he did.

I guess that is where I must break off from Francis.  I have not yet embraced my leper.  I feel that God has been preparing me to know what I must do in order to move ahead and grow.  He didn’t give Francis as much of a warning.  I feel that I know I must be open and vigilant in watching for the moment God tells me, “Here is your fear.  Embrace it.”  I do not know exactly what that means, but I am strongly compelled to believe that it will mean I will have to be face-to-face with a human in a very uncomfortable situation saying things that my human self probably does not want to say or at the very least, feels foolish saying.  I must take an interactive risk with all the possibilities of failure and rejection that I have been avoiding.

God has not left me hanging in the meantime, though.  A couple of days after I read this story and acknowledged all of its portent, I was studying the Bible again.  I was looking for something completely unrelated to this, and ran across Luke 21:14-15, which says, “Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate before hand on what you will answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.”  I’m being told, straight out, not to worry or stress about the coming trial.  Again, that God will give me the words.  And the wisdom.

God is amazing when I am not running from Him.

3 Comments

My Mistake(s)

October 27, 2007 at 10:57 am (Expectations, Failure, Humility)
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If you know me, you know that I am a perfectionist, at least in the realm of doing the things I am supposed to do on time and without prompting.  I consider myself to be ultra-responsible.  I expect to remember correctly the things I am required to do, and then to do them.   Well, I think it must be the stress, but this month has been my month of mess-ups.  They’re not drastic mess-ups, but for me, it’s a lot, and the list keeps growing.

The first was this: Sometimes my catering boss has me stop at a quantity food/restaurant supply store closer to where I live on the way in to work, because her house is completely out of the way from it.  It’s a time-saver for me to just stop on my way in.  Last Monday was one of those days…she e-mailed me the shopping list as usual.  So, Monday morning, I happily show up at her house at 9AM on the dot as usual with absolutely NO cargo, because I completely forgot I was supposed to go.  Strike 1.

The second:  I had been scheduled to work a catering event this past Thursday night for at least two weeks.  Well, Wednesday I get a phone call from a lady I babysit for frequently, and she says, “I was just letting you know that we won’t need you to come tomorrow night because my grandmother passed away, and we will be going out of town.”  Ummm, OK.  I did not comment on the fact that I had absolutely no record or memory of the fact I was supposed to babysit for her on Thursday night, or on the fact that I most definitely would have left her in the lurch because I was scheduled to cater!  So, I’m thinking, “I’m sorry about your grandmother, but how convenient for me.”  (That’s a joke, OK?  I really am sad for her.)  I would say that God was covering for me since it all ended up being fine, but then that would be like saying that God killed her grandmother so that I wouldn’t have a schedule complication.  :-)   Anyway, I have never once double-booked myself with jobs before.  Strike 2.

Then today, I am balancing my checkbook with my online banking.  I go through everything and see that the payment I wrote down in my checkbook for my cell phone bill has not gone through, and I paid it on the 5th…at least, according to my checkbook.  So, I go log on to my online cell phone account, and sure enough, “Past Due” is stamped all over everything in red once I log in.  Oops.  So, I pretended to pay it, I guess?  Just wrote it down in my checkbook, and thought the money would magically float to the proper place.  I have also never once thought I paid a bill that I did not.  Strike 3. 

And then yesterday, I went to pick up the key to my new place.  My landlord has a mailbox at a privately owned mail center here in Nashville.  He had arranged it that I was supposed to go there and give them my rent check, and they would give me the key whenever I was ready to get it, so that we would not have to coordinate our schedules.  So, I went after working at the farm.  First of all, I have been there before, and thought I would be able to find it no problem.  This turned out NOT to be the case, and I drove around in circles for like 20 minutes, of course, getting more and more frustrated as I go.  I was in a time crunch, also, because, having just worked at the farm, I was quite dirty, and had just about enough time to go take a shower before I had to babysit.  Need I mention that the mail center is closed on the weekends, so this is my only opportunity to pick up the key before I am supposed to move on Sunday, with scheduled help and all.  Not getting the key is not an option.  Well, about the time I was getting REALLY frustrated, I vocalized out-loud, “OK, God, where is this place?”  I turned down a turn-around street I had not “turned around” on yet, and there was a massive sign with the address spelled out.  Yes, I knew the address and still could not find it.  It’s this little place down an alley (not on the main street of the address!).  But there it was, staring me down, seconds after I asked God for help.  Thanks, God!!  I go in, give the lady my check, she brings the key out, and I leave, at which point, I realize that I also MUST get gas before going to babysit or I will not get there.  I go get gas, and am almost to my house when I think, “Where did I put that key?”  Let me say that at this point, I was getting to my house at what I considered the last possible moment for showering and making it to babysit on time.  I’m still in my car now, but I check my pockets, check my purse, check my key-ring.  Guess what?  No key.  I totally gave the people my check and left the key laying on the counter.  Brilliant me!  Strike 4?!  As stated before, not getting the key is not an option, so I must turn around and go back to the mail center.  At least, now I knew where it was.  I miraculously made it to get the key and still got to my babysitting gig on time, with a big sigh of relief once I arrived at my destination. 

Clearly, I need to relax.  Breathe, Connie, breathe!  I think the problem is that I have already moved and done everything I need to do in my head, but my body has not yet completed the tasks.  I think my brain has stopped sending the messages!  I am actually really excited about my move, and once I get out of my old place, I think I will calm down, because all of the things I need to do there are enjoyable to me…setting stuff up and arranging it, getting everything just how I like it. 

It’s my month for mistakes, but I think that’s good for me, because it curbs my intolerance for other people’s.  And I have an abundance of that.  I am ever derisive to those who make continued oversights.  A little dose of humility is just what I need!

3 Comments

Recipro City – I live there

July 18, 2007 at 10:42 am (Christianity, Confession, Expectations, Failure, Forgiveness, Giving, God, Humility, Individuality, Jesus, Jobs, Pride, Relationships, Religion, Responsibility, Self-Esteem, Society)

Get it?  Recipro City = Reciprocity.  Weak, I know, but it’s how I was thinking about it, and it’s true, I do live there.  I wish I could say that I didn’t, and I try to improve, but for the moment, more often than not, I feel like I am quite firmly rooted in that settlement.  This municipality is based on the economy of merit=favor.  And the amount of merit necessary to gain favor is completely subjective and left up to me in my not-so-fair city.  There is very little grace, and very high, though also very selective, measurements for the standard. 

I realized how entrenched I was in this mindset a few weeks ago.  I find that I am very derisive and patronizing to those whom I believe are not living up to the standards.  The standards, again, that I have set for them…how hard they should work, how much time, effort and thought they should put into things, even the things they should say or not say.  I find that the more someone does not meet my standards, the worse I treat them…the more condescending and unbearably arrogant I become.  One of the ridiculous things about this is that I seem to be the standard.  If someone is not working as hard as I (think I) am, or demonstrating as much common sense as I (think I) do, or putting as much effort into something as I deem necessary, they become the target of my merciless superiority.  I seem to take it as my right to treat them in a manner openly derogatory and demeaning.  I assume an attitude purposely (although not exactly consciously) designed to make them feel stupid.  At least it wasn’t conscious until recently…I don’t think I knew I did this.  I have several people in my life at this moment whom extract all of the feelings of disdain I am speaking of here.  For months, I have been slowly more and more convicted about my behavior in response to my frustration with them.  I seriously turn into a pompous you-know-what when dealing with what I have decided is unworthy behavior. 

And the unworthy behaviors I have picked are not even particularly “evil,” they’re just annoying…things like carelessness and lack of forethought and disorganization.  If I was going to get so miffed over any types of conduct, I would like to think it would be injustice or cruelty or something like that.  But, no, it seems that I am just as society trained me up to be, egocentric to the point that my blood only seriously begins to boil at things that specifically inconvenience ME.  I am rarely at the other end of serious injustice or cruelty, and so I can dislike those things from afar.  But catch me after I’ve had to work harder to correct someone else’s mistakes or pick up someone else’s slack at work or answer someone’s stupid question, and you’ll get an earful. 

So, not only am I the standard, but the standard is based on how helpful your existence is to me.  The less helpful your existence, the less worthy of respectful behavior you are.  I think this attitude is not only linked to human nature, but to the consumerism of our society.  Not to blame society.  I like to think I have “beat the system” as far as falling into societal traps, but clearly this is not completely true, and sometimes the societal traps I find so repulsive are just behaviors that cater to our human nature, so whether it’s society or not, it’s still me allowing my own selfishness dominion or some part of my life.  And I mean to talk about consumerism, so here we go.  Consumerism generally teaches us that we should more highly regard and respect those who have something more important to offer us.  You go to the doctor and show him deference.  You check out with the convenience store clerk and show him superiority.  I do the same thing.  I wish I could say I didn’t.  After all, I have most often been in positions in which I was the one looked down on…waitressing, fast food (even the title of manager doesn’t get you much respect), catering server, nanny.  These are jobs where the whole point of your being there is to “serve.”  And that’s how people treat you.  Like a servant.  Mostly.  I mean, obviously, there are exceptions.  But, honestly, even the exceptions are often very patronizingly trying to make themselves feel better by being nice to “the help,” and it is very painfully obvious.  My point is that you would think I would be above this kind of what-you-have-to-offer equals how-well-you’re-treated-by-me mentality.  But I’m not.  As soon as what I have to offer begins to exceed what I think you’re offering me, I begin to treat you in a degrading fashion. 

I know it seems like I got off-point with that consumerism thing, but can you see how it’s connected?  The point of this whole thing is that I am not valuing people.  In my economy, people who do what I expect of them deserve my acceptance.  I am valuing what they have to offer me instead of valuing them, seeing people as only a means to a good for myself.  Even in the first instances I was discussing, because in those, it’s when I begin to believe that my employer is gaining more benefits from having me as an employee than I am gaining by being employed, when a friend is gaining more benefits from having me as a friend as I am gaining in return.  When I start to think the balance is off in someone else’s favor in any relationship (by relationship I mean any interaction with people), I become dissatisfied, judgmental and, often, just plain mean.  However, when I think the balance is off in my favor, I smugly embrace it as just repayment for all of those times it was NOT in my favor.  Since, you know, I am wise enough to recognize all of these situations in their true light. 

My economy is not the same as God’s economy.  Thank God.  Literally.  If He rolled His eyes at me every time I did something He knew to be stupid, ignored me when I stopped being useful or thought me unworthy of consideration because I could not offer anything as important as what He could, I would be completely and totally in despair, because this is my inherent condition.  God, through Jesus Christ, offered everything to people completely unable to repay Him, unable to deserve Him, unworthy to look at Him.  And, yet, I choose to see myself as important enough to dismiss people right and left simply for annoying me.  I have really been trying to control my condescending impulses and be nice even when I find people’s behavior to be incompetent.  Controlling the outward impulses of open disdain is nothing, however, to controlling the attitude causing them.  When I can look at a person and see value regardless of what they have to offer, it will be cured.  There is a statement that I’m sure you’ve heard: “Use things; love people.”  This is in contrast to the bulk of my existence, which tells me, “Love things; use people.”  I consider myself to be fairly non-materialistic.  I am coming to realize that I am just materialistic in a different way than materialistic is usually meant.  It is not necessarily rampant in the area of wanting lots of things, but it is monstrous in the area of wanting everything I offer to be equaled in return.  C.S. Lewis says in The Weight of Glory, “There are no ordinary people.  You have never talked to a mere mortal.  Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.  But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit….”  If I could wake up every day and see this in people…in every person…their intrinsic worth and significance as a being loved and sought by the One True and Perfect God, how different would my responses be? 

I would like the rule of my life not to be reciprocity, but grace, mercy, love, respect.  I don’t want people to feel like they have to earn this from me, and constantly fear losing it, and, yet, there are people in my life whom I know do fear this.  People I have made to feel ignorant and unworthy because their performance was not up to my standard.  People who feel intimidated by my scathing condescension.  I have seen it in their faces, heard it in their tentative replies, felt it in their attempts at reparation.  I don’t want to be that person.  I apologize for being that person.  Whoever you are, I want to love you unreservedly and unconditionally.  I have a ways to go, and I can only get there by allowing God to work in me, but acknowledgement is the first step, right?  Everything is baby steps from here on out.

2 Comments

What If They’re Right?

June 22, 2007 at 7:15 am (Christianity, Expectations, Failure, God, Humility, Hypocrisy, Jesus, Pride, Relationships, Religion, Responsibility, Society)

The day before yesterday, I was sitting talking to my neighbor.  I loaned her a book by one of my favorite authors a while back, and she told me that she had finally started reading it.  She had first loaned it to her granddaughter to read.  The book was Patrick by Stephen R. Lawhead, and it is about the famous St. Patrick whom we all celebrate, depending on our lifestyle and culture, with wearing green and leprechauns and four leaf clovers or excessive amounts of beer or some varied combination of those things.  I’ll be honest – I don’t know much about the real St. Patrick.  I’ve never looked into how much Lawhead may have embellished in his novel, but I know he does not claim it to be anything other than historical fiction.  Either way, what Lawhead wrote is all I know about our beloved Patrick, and that is scant as it has been some time since I read the book.  So, as my neighbor began discussing it, I have to admit that my recollections, for the most part, failed me.  I cannot confirm nor deny her allegations against Patrick until she completes (if she completes) and returns my book.  However, this is what she thought of him.  She said that she got to about page 235 or so, and had grown increasingly more angry with Patrick, culminating, at this point, in her throwing down the book and refusing to read any more.  She said she was thinking something like, “If what he’s got is Christianity, I don’t want any part of it.”  Now, my neighbor is a Christian, so she was just upset with Patrick’s version of it, I guess.  She went on to tell me that she was frustrated by Patrick’s ingratitude, arrogance, selfishness and lack of personal growth in the face of undeniable truths.  She asked me if he redeemed himself, and although I feel like I remember that he did, I cannot remember the story well enough to be certain.  To be honest, I don’t remember being angry with Patrick once while reading this book.  In fact, I remember identifying with him greatly.  I almost told my neighbor this, but then I was afraid she wouldn’t like me anymore.  Sorry, guys, I’m getting to a point here, really I am.   

My point is about my knee-jerk reaction to people saying anything like what she thought about not wanting Patrick’s kind of Christianity.  This reaction is composed of myself saying something to the effect of, “You can’t blame God for how stupid Christians act,” or “That’s why we need Jesus, because we’re not perfect” or “Of course Christians make mistakes, too.  If they didn’t struggle with things, no one would listen to them because they would not be able to relate to the masses.”  Or it may contain a reference to what Ghandi said when asked what the biggest obstacle to Christianity coming to India was: “Christians,” he stated.  Now, I didn’t say anything of this sort when talking to my neighbor yesterday for a couple of reasons.  One being, as I stated, this lady is actually a Christian, so Patrick was not really a stumbling block for her; she just disapproved of his kind of Christianity, and by this I mean the way he lived (or didn’t live) it out.  Another reason I did not give any of my usual retorts is that my neighbor is nearly seventy, and, well, I am not quite thirty, and somehow my trying to impart my version of “wisdom” to her seems a little silly if not presumptuous.   

But there is another reason – just this: of all the arguments against Christianity, which is heard the most?  Christians are hypocrites.  What if they’re right?  I’m starting to believe maybe I should pay more attention to it than giving it the canned answers I usually do…that maybe my responses carry within them a lack of accountability that is part of the reason Christians are such hypocrites.  The Bible does say that we will be known by our fruits.  I am sitting here trying to imagine if I could see my life as a tree; branches extending out to everyone I’ve come into contact with and the people they’ve come in contact with and so on.  I wonder what my fruits would look like.  I think I’m kind of glad I don’t know, because I can recall far to many times when I’m sure the fruit is not pretty.  Now, here’s the deal: I’m not advocating a kind of legalistic Christianity that crushes you and throws you out when you mess up.  Grace is the most beautiful part of Christianity…the fact that it is unconditional is astounding.  However, I’m afraid the problem is that there is not enough grace.  I, as a Christian, am not very grace-ful to others in return.  And I’m not talking about balancing books on my head.  I’m talking about extending that unconditional love to everyone I come into contact with.   

I realize that I also said something about accountability above, and somehow that may seem counter to unconditional love.  However, accountability should be a reaction to wanting to help others become their best, do their best, be what God created them to be.  I don’t mean a schoolmaster running around cracking a whip and threatening you with beatings, just itching for you to do something wrong.  We’re so screwed up in America that we can hardly even understand the concept of loving correction.  I try to talk about it here, but feel like I have to explain its validity to do so.  Accountability between Christians is encompassed in this unconditional love that I was speaking of, not opposite to it.  And by the way, God never tells us to call un-believers out on their sins.  He just tells us to take them the Gospel.  Why should we expect them to live by a morality they do not believe in?  This is why I consider all the boycotts in the world to be hopeless failures.  (It wouldn’t take me a far stretch to say that I think they are completely contradictory to Christianity, but I’d have to study and ponder a bit more to go that far.)  All of the Christians pointing fingers simply make everyone else want to point fingers back, and I would wager that it brings no one to Christ.   

You could all be reading this post and thinking I am being very condemning and making you feel like a useless dirt bag as a Christian.  That’s not my point.  I’m not saying that we have to be perfect.  I am saying that for all of the people out there saying, “Christians are hypocrites,” I wish I could find a few who said, “Well, I don’t know…I know this one guy….” I am conceding to non-Christians that they are valid in their mistrust of us.  And I’m not claiming to be included in the precious few good examples.  I don’t think I’m very good at showing people the love of Christ.  So, even though all of my customary answers to this accusation are still valid – God should not be blamed for our stupidity, etc., etc., there is a better answer to this.  Let’s change.  When people look around and find no positive Christian examples in their lives, no one who breaks the mold, no one who lives differently, makes them feel differently or treats everyone differently, then there is something wrong.  Where are we? 

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Women and the Bible – Genesis 3:16

June 15, 2007 at 10:45 pm (Christianity, Failure, God, Humility, Jesus, Jobs, Pride, Religion, Responsibility, Society, feminism)
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This is my first installment of response to the article written by Annie Laurie Gaylor found in my Feminism and the Bible blog. (The second installment can be found .)I have found that I am not good at writing anything short. So, as it pertains to Gaylor’s very first issue, I have written a very succinct nine page response. There will be more installments to follow in time. I also can’t claim exclusive rights to the ideas in this blog; many of the best points were unearthed in discussion and debate with others whom I respect.

Other related posts:

Women and the Bible – Church Roles

Women and the Bible – Heroines?

I know I don’t have all of this together. I feel like I have barely even scratched the surface on researching this, but I have solidified some mindsets that I was not certain of before. I will warn readers that I am going to be treating the validity of Christianity as a fact because I believe it to be one. Besides this, because the accusations made were directed at the Bible and Christianity, I must, logically, use the Bible and the tenets of Christianity to refute them. I cannot use a different philosophy to refute this philosophy. If the refutation of it cannot be found within itself, then there is no refutation. Therefore, I will probably make some points that people who are not believers will think inadequate because they depend on the character of God, the truth of the Bible and the action of Jesus’ death and resurrection as it pertains to redemptive power. The proofs of these issues would be entirely different subjects. If their validity is in question, then there is no reason to even be interested in this discussion. Who would care what the Bible has to do with women if the whole Bible is invalid to begin with? The point then would be simply to invalidate the Bible itself, and all doctrines that you believe to be false within it would follow. My point is that this argument is simply a response to Annie Laurie Gaylor’s accusation that the Bible and organized religion have almost solely propagated women’s oppression. Her references to organized religion seem almost exclusively focused on the Christian faith, so that is where the focus will lie.

First, I would like to point out that in the opening statements of her article: “Why Women Need Freedom from Religion,” Gaylor gives us two verses. She believes that these verses sum up the Bible’s position on women. There are literally hundreds of verses that mention women and groups of women generically and even more if you take into consideration events and happenings recorded about specific women. The Bible is a large, complex work, and there are many more verses that would have to be taken into consideration before you would be able to “sum up” its position on women. In addition to this, she states that there are over 200 verses in the Bible that belittle and demean women. She does not cite these references in the article. Perhaps she does in her book. I would like to know which verses she is referring to and see them in their context. I can’t respond to the “200 verses” if I don’t have the list. However, when I get down to this section of her article, I do plan on looking at each and every verse that I can find referencing women, and doing a comparative study of these verses. Based on the rate of study I am following now, this will come at a much later date, but it will come, nonetheless. In any case, I am responding here only to the first specific charge she made in her article.

Now, I’m not a Hebrew scholar. I’ve tried to research the words in these verses in my handy Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, which lists every time every word is used in the Bible, shows the actual original word used, whether in Hebrew or Greek and all of the interpretations for this specific word. I have also tried to research interpretations by those who ARE Hebrew and Greek scholars and have looked at various commentaries. I pray that nothing I state is false. I ask that you will also pray over all of the information I disseminate here in a spirit of discernment, and hope that you would take the time to do your own study for any verification or rebuttal. II Timothy 2:15 (WEB) says, “Study to show thyself approved to God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Please do this, because God is the final authority.

We’re dealing with Gaylor’s first point of contention in this segment – Genesis 3:16: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (KJV) Gaylor’s take on this is that it is a curse, and that by the third chapter of the first book of the Bible, it has taken away a woman’s rights, standing and identity, and that motherhood was given as a part of this curse. Now, the truth is, I partially agree with her in the aspect that women lost much of their true standing and identity. However, I believe the same is true for the men. Sin, by nature, does this automatically…not because of any “curse,” but because it is propagated by Satan, the Father of Lies, whom the Bible says comes to “steal, and to kill and to destroy.” (John 10:10, WEB)

Let me point out that in the actual text of Genesis, the word “curse” is only used when referring to the serpent and the ground. God does not use this word when, after cursing the serpent, He then turns to Adam and Eve. All of His animosity was directed at the deceiver, and then He turns his attention to the plight of the victims of this deceit. This is not to minimize their guilt, but it is more like God is stating the consequences for their behavior. We have to understand that Adam and Eve had been forewarned that disobeying God’s one rule would have some negative results. They did not heed the warning, thereby “activating” their own punishment. You could argue that eating the fruit off of a certain tree does not seem like ample cause for these consequences, but if you study the text, you come to understand that the sin was a combination of things, including, namely, pride – a pride that made them believe God was withholding knowledge from them for the purpose of limiting their potential. They wanted to elevate their status in relation to Him.

I want to talk just for a moment about the concept of pride I am discussing, because it comes up again later, and I don’t want my intent misconstrued because of any lack of clarification. This concept encompasses the entire human race, and I am in no way saying that it is specific to women. When I say that pride is negative, I do not mean that women (or the entire population) should go around groveling in self-effacement. I also do not mean that measures should not be taken to return our society to the system of equality God designed it for. The real oppression of any people group should be combated with perseverance. What I am speaking of is that particular pride that seeks our own good at the expense of someone else’s. It is not wrong to want good for ourselves, but it is wrong when the want for the good is simply based on comparison and the desire to be ranked higher than someone else. It is not wrong to want to win, but it is wrong to extend beyond that to hoping that someone else loses. The Bible says to “love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:39 and others, NIV) This is what we have lost, and anything opposite to this concept gives the negative context of pride that I am trying to get across. There are all sorts of ways pride is misused in our society, but here I just wanted to touch on what I mean when I speak of it.

Back to the point, I do not think that God suddenly turned on Adam and Eve because of their disobedience, and pronounced this evil curse in response. I believe that there are natural consequences designed for all evils so that there will be boundaries we can recognize. These are not boundaries for controlling or containing us, but boundaries designed for our own safety and happiness – like a fence around your yard so that your children do not run out into the street. You put it there on purpose, because you love them; you want them to be able to see the fence and know that within the fence they are safe, but that outside the fence there are dangers such as busy streets and strange dogs, etc. You would never will that your child walk outside the fence and get hurt. You would also hope that no evil stranger comes along and convinces them that you are limiting them and trying to keep them down by telling them to stay within this fence. You would be devastated if your child believed a stranger telling them these lies, exited the confines of this fence and was hurt in the process. And in the case of the evil stranger, you would undoubtedly be aware that he wanted to lure your children out of their safety so that he could harm them. This was Satan’s plan; the fence God set up was impenetrable to him, but once God’s children willingly stepped outside of it, we put ourselves in direct danger as it relates to all evil. Just as God warned of the negative consequences that would result from Adam and Eve’s disobedience, you would have warned your child of the dangers outside of the fence. God gave us the fence in order to safeguard us against these dangers. This verse is just God’s explanation of the jeopardy in the street – the street that His children had knowingly walked out into the middle of. I believe that He was greatly saddened by Adam and Eve’s actions, as any parent would be.

Now, there are times in the Bible where it seems that God adds His own extra punishments to evil, such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the plagues on the Egyptians for not releasing the Israelites from captivity, etc. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen; just saying that it is the exception and not the rule of the natural laws of action and reaction that God set up as it correlates to sin and its consequences.

Continuing with this concept, I definitely believe that sin produces its own consequences. There will be some who believe that this is not true. To put my explanation as succinctly as possible, I believe that God put all of our physical laws into effect with these natural fences set up, as I said, to guide us by showing us that when we go outside of them, things don’t go so well. When you overeat, you get fat or you get heart disease or diabetes. When you do drugs, your health and your mind begin to deteriorate. When you are selfish, you have trouble in your relationships. These things are not cruel punishments from God. They are the obvious, natural consequences of misbehavior, and my belief system is formed on the foundation that almost all consequences fall into this same category. This is not to say that all consequences are repercussions of our own misdeeds. Unfortunately, as John Donne stated in his famous quote, “No man is an island.” I’m afraid that you can suffer for my misdeeds and vice versa.

OK, let’s get back to what Eve’s consequences actually are. (We will briefly cover Adam’s further on, but since this is a rebuttal to an accusation relating to women, we will obviously concentrate on Eve’s portion.) I’ll begin with the bit about children: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…” (KJV) Now, the original Hebrew words used for sorrow here (two different words are used in the one verse) can both be interpreted pain. I see no contradiction in God’s character simply because pain (in whatever capacity) is a consequence of sin. I happen to believe that all pain (and death: Romans 6:23) is a direct result of sin. Pain or discomfort in the process and condition of pregnancy or in the act of childbirth is just a segment of this – a segment that happens to be exclusive to the woman.

To begin discussing this, I think I need to first go back to the curse given to the serpent. It states that “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” (NKJV) This “Seed of Woman” mentioned is not only speaking of her offspring generically; it is also the first prophecy of Jesus coming in the form of the virgin birth (also prophesied in Isaiah 7:14). It says, “HE shall bruise your [the serpent’s] head.” (NKJV) So, although, the woman was deceived and she sinned, in the curse on the serpent, God immediately states that the He will ultimately defeat Satan and the repercussions of Satan’s deceit and this victory will come through the woman. She has a share in her own redemption, in a sense. Note that the man is not given any part in this share. Motherhood is not given as a curse, but becomes the path to redemption for all mankind.

In her article, Gaylor states, “Contempt for women’s bodies and reproductive capacity is a bedrock of the bible.” (I will touch on this more later, but I just have to breeze over it now because it is such a key element in this prophecy and the fulfillment of this prophecy.) If the reproductive capacity was so contemptuous to God, I doubt He would have sent His Son, Jesus down through ONLY a woman, using her reproductive system. After all, He could, seemingly, have sent Jesus down here as a grown man or used any other method He so desired; any method you can imagine. But, He didn’t. He sent Him down singly using the role of motherhood. Pain in pregnancy or in childbirth, although I have never experienced it, cannot be compared to the value of being the tool through which God would send the Savior of the World (I John 4:14). Even if this pain is a direct result of God’s anger, I still maintain that it is a pain given for our ultimate redemption. As a parent sometimes must make decisions that seem cruel to a wayward child, knowing that in the end it is the only way the child will learn, God allows us the difficulties our decisions have afforded us as a tool in order to bring us back to the relationship with Him that He designed us for. We may not be able to comprehend how this particular pain will ensure our eventual good, but there are not many children who can understand every punishment he or she is given. As it states in Psalm 30:5, “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” (ESV) This verse is also very parallel to the act of childbirth. I have heard, more times than I can recall, that the joy you feel at the first glimpse of your child makes all of the pain of labor worth suffering, and the Bible even spells out this exact scenario out in John 16:21: “A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come, but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” (NKJV) There is another verse that is a picture of this prophetic concept as it relates to Jesus. Psalm 126:6 says, “He that goes forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.” (RSV) I am aware that the verse says “He,” but believe this is not exclusive of women, and simply the literary style. The woman is given the bearing of this seed in sorrow, but in the end the result of it is salvation and the foundation for survival and redemption. Christ is called the “Bread of Life.” (John 6:35, John 6:48 and John 6:51) The seed, sown in labor, is harvested and turned into the bread that sustains us eternally.

Beyond the physical pain discussed in this verse, I believe that Adam and Eve’s consequences encompass another type of sorrow. Before they sinned, everything was in harmony; every relationship was in harmony. Afterwards, everything had (and still has, because we have all continued to follow in their footsteps) the capacity for evil, which is naturally divisive. Any good mother will tell you that watching your children make poor decisions, even just knowing that they could possibly make a poor decision, is one of the hardest things for a mother to bear. There is a constant, nagging fear and worry over how your children will live their lives. And if (when) they do make bad choices, it rips a mother’s heart out to have to watch. This is definite sorrow, but it is also a natural consequence of introducing the capacity for sin into the world.

On to the next phrase of Genesis 3:16, which is definitely a sore subject: “…and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (KJV) Yikes. Again, I’d like to point out that before Adam and Eve sinned, their relationship was in harmony. The main issue in this verse is that this will no longer be true, which, as I also said before, is the natural result of allowing evil into your life; nothing works quite like it was intended to. First, I would like to say that Eve (and Adam as well) deliberately took her desire away from its proper place. We were created for God to be the fulfillment of our desire, and everything else to be a sort of bonus, but when Eve was deceived, she turned her desire from God and to her own desire for personal elevation (think back to the concept of pride I discussed earlier). The desire spoken of in this verse is simply God stating that this desire for personal elevation was now something that she would have to war with, and specifically in relation to her husband. She had embraced it, and it would now be her constant companion and a source of contention in her relationships. The Hebrew word for “desire” here, in its literal translation, means a sort of “stretching out after.” The exact word is only used in two other places in the Bible. The first of these is discussing sin’s “desire” for us in Genesis 4:7. The type of desire that sin has for you is not an uplifting, wholesome type of desire. It is the desire that seeks to control. This verse is stating that now, woman will desire to control her husband and his response (as an also fallen man) will be to “rule” over her in a way that God never intended. God’s design was for the husband to be a guide with the woman’s best interests always in mind in such a way that conflict would never even arise because of his sacrificial love. (Ephesians 5:15) Now between her desire to put herself over him (and others as well), and his sinful nature (also wanting to be elevated over others) responding to that, both of their roles are subverted and distorted. The system set up to preserve order is now a broken system prone to chaos, primarily because of the egocentric natures they allowed into their lives through the first sin.

The second and last other use of this same word for “desire” is in Song of Solomon 7:10, where it is used in a sexual manner. It is an entirely different context, but I would feel remiss if I did not mention that there is a different type of usage here. I do not know what the popular scholarly thoughts on connecting this to the Genesis uses would be, but I can give you a personal idea. Perhaps since it is used sexually here, it means a literal, physical “stretching out after,” thereby implying none of the negative grasping/controlling that is connotatively seen when used in its more abstract form. This is just an idea to consider, as I was not able to find any commentaries specifically comparing and contrasting the use of this word in these two very different situations. Perhaps it is a word that can be used both positively and negatively.

There is another valuable excursion we need to take, and this is to remind the world that Eve was not the only one who faced consequences. Adam’s consequences are delineated in Genesis 3: 17-19: “…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground…” (KJV) Now, I am not going to expound on this because our study is focused on women. However, I did need to bring the specifics of it to light for a couple of reasons: 1) so that we can see that woman was not alone in her plight of sorrow and 2) so that we can hit on how the consequences play out in society. Man’s sorrow as indicated here seems to be predominantly found in his work…the duties of provision are suddenly much more arduous than God seemingly intended.

The thing I want to point out may ruffle a few feathers, but be that as it may, these are thoughts I’ve had and, if nothing else, I would like opinions on them. There is something that I recognized several years ago that immediately made these “curses” seem more real to me. Now, these ARE generalizations, which I try to steer clear of, but they are so widespread, it would just be silly to pretend they don’t exist. I am not claiming they are across the board irrefutably true, but here goes: one day I suddenly came to the (very obvious) realization that when I conversed with my female friends about their biggest struggles, those struggles were nearly always relational. “I want a man; I’m having trouble with my man; I wish I had children, but I can’t get a man, or can’t conceive, etc.” When I conversed with my male friends about their biggest struggles, it was almost always about their career. “I can’t get ahead; I can’t get a break; I can’t pursue what I love and make enough money; I don’t want to be a failure, etc.” In our fallen world, a large majority of women seek to solidify their identity through a relationship and a large majority of men seek to solidify their identity in a career. Neither of these methods of fulfillment will work. It is a direct result, as I said before, of turning our desire away from God, and fixing it on something else: in these cases, a part of our person-hood that was meant to be a crucial, but non-defining aspect of our roles in this world. Our society has convinced us that work and career is what makes you worthwhile and what makes you who you are. It has convinced men AND women of this, but it is true for neither. Everyone is searching for something to validate his or her existence, and until you find it in the person of Christ, you will constantly be seeking it in some other venture.

I do believe that God created us with very definite roles, which I realize will not be popular, but here is my reasoning. Adam was created for maintaining the order of all of the things God created; speaking of the garden, “to tend and keep it.” (Genesis 2:15, NKJV) In other words, he was created for work. Eve was created as Adam’s companion… because “it is not good that man should be alone.” (Genesis 2:18, NKJV) In other words, she was created for relationship. These assertions are not meant to be taken to the extreme. I do not mean that women cannot work or that men cannot have relationships. (Although people have and still do take it to mean things such as this.) I simply mean that God created us with a natural inclination towards these functions. A partial, and very observable defense of that is what I was saying above about noticing the primary struggles in a person’s life and how they seem largely defined by gender. Neither role is more or less important than the other. Without either, society, as a whole, cannot function.

The consequence of sin is that these roles got harder. We are unwilling or unable to see the beauty in these roles because our models were broken. The only place we can see it perfectly is in the person of Christ, who calls the church His bride (Isaiah 61:10, Isaiah 62:5, Jeremiah 2:2 and many others), and does love her with a pure love, which caused Him to sacrifice Himself (Hebrews 10:12) for her good. God tells us all through His Word that He is our lover, pursuing us as He has Hosea pursue and love Gomer in the book of Hosea. (Check that book of the Bible out if you do not know the story.) In the same way that Adam was created for work, this is also God’s role; He wanted us for a relationship, as His bride. I realize this is a very church-y concept. I hope it doesn’t put anyone off, but it is a very prominent theme in the Scriptures and one I believe to be relevant here. I am saying it to state that although the roles I mentioned above, of “work” and “relationship,” are valid, I do not want anyone to be confused and think I mean that is where we gain our identity. I mentioned it above, but I want to reiterate after this paragraph that our identity and fulfillment is found only in a relationship with Jesus Christ. (John 15:15-19, Romans 5:11, Romans 5:17, Romans 8:37, Colossians 3:3 and many others)

I do still have a few questions relating to this subject, and am open to dissenting opinions on anything I have stated. One thing I definitely would like input on is the consideration that according to the consequences for the woman in Genesis 3:16, a single, childless woman has no specific consequences. However, it seems that the consequence given to the man also encompasses the women in the sense of causing work to be more laborious. Thoughts?

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Lesson 2 from “Captivating”

May 23, 2007 at 9:55 pm (Christianity, Confession, Dating, Discipline, Expectations, Failure, God, Individuality, Pride, Relationships, Religion, Self-Esteem, Women, eldredge, john and stasi eldredge)

I told you I would dedicate other blogs to more lessons I learned from the book I didn’t want to read to begin with, “Captivating,” by John & Stasi Eldredge.    So, this blog is actually about the first lesson I learned.  (My “Literary Arrogance” having been second, thereby allowing me to recognize the first as it is associated with this book.) This lesson has to do with my relationship with my boyfriend. 

The first thing that I want to say is that I have the most amazing boyfriend in the world.  He does not ever belittle me or criticize petty things or ask me to do things his way instead of my way.  He often encourages me, compliments me, and just, in general, loves me.  Actively.  Not as in the state of love, but as in the action.  Any criticism I ever receive from him is for the purpose of instruction, growth or perspective.  He likes to get me to see things in a different way than I have been seeing it, to look at the other person’s side of a story and stretches me when I am being rigid.  I honestly cannot remember a time he has ever told me a negative thing over something petty.  My point here is that the emotional place I had come to was not his doing.  But you don’t know what that emotional place is yet, so I’ll tell you now, and then wrap it all up in a neat little package. 

Somehow, I had come to a point in our relationship where I was constantly despairing over the fact that I believed I was not good enough for him.  Let me state that this was not always the case in our relationship.  I have been, in this same relationship, one of the most secure girlfriends I’ve ever known, completely relaxed in his love.  I didn’t stress out about losing him; I didn’t worry that I wasn’t doing enough to keep him.  You get the picture.  This despair did not come about because of any change in his behavior…unless it was a change in his behavior for the better.  See, when we started dating, my boyfriend was an alcoholic.  I knew it, and we talked about the fact that he knew I wouldn’t be OK with it long term on our first date.  We can get into the wisdom or foolishness of this from my side on another day perhaps, but I will just state that I prayed much over it, and never felt God saying that I should not date him.  Quite the opposite in fact.  But, moving on….  Let me state that he was also a Christian, and ten months into our relationship (we’re at 2 1/2 years now), he quit drinking.  Since that point, I have seen him grow and mature more than I can possibly explain to you.  He’s become a passionate spiritual leader.  And it’s not that he was immature before.  It was just the fact that he had this barrier of alcohol blocking him from being in constant communication with God, as well as keeping him from spending his time learning or studying.  I guess I thought that since I was confident in our relationship, I would always be confident in our relationship.  I now realize that when circumstances change, emotions are quite ready to follow.  Looking back now, I can see that my insecurities probably began to surface when I saw how well he was doing, how mature he was becoming and how meaningfully he was spending his time and pouring out his energy.  My heart thought it meant that he would not need me anymore.  He had sort of eclipsed me spiritually, so what use was I?  The main problem here was that I did not even realize my thought process had changed.  However long it had been since the insecurity crept in there, by the time I recognized it through the grace of God and the reading of this book, it was bad.  To the point that my heart would twist everything he said.  If he said, “You did well on that,” it meant to me, “You must continue doing that well or he will not love you anymore.”  I didn’t consciously have these thoughts, or I would’ve known I was being stupid.  It was more the attitude I took things in.  I was always scrambling to feel like I had something to offer that he would value.  If I was drained emotionally, I tried really hard to look pretty.  I would go through my day in my mind before I called him, hoping I could think of stories to tell him in which I did something worthwhile, learned something meaningful, improved myself in some way so he wouldn’t think I was a loser.  And if he said something negative in the way of instruction, well, it did its own work.  That meant he knew there was something wrong with me; I was selfish or lazy or not smart enough.  I was not perfect, therefore he would stop loving me. 

I know, you’re thinking, how could I do all of this and not recognize it?  I’m wondering myself, but I have a feeling it was something Satan knew I cared pretty deeply about, and stuck his big toe into the crevice of my fear…got a good foothold and just kept digging it in.  Keep her scared and ignorant of the fact that she’s even scared.  She won’t know what’s wrong with her.  Good strategy.  Thank God (literally) for showing me this.  It was taking its toll.  I was tired.  And I really didn’t know why. 

The great thing about this is that it really is something that I can turn off, like a switch.  My awareness of it was all I needed.  I know it is a silly attitude, and a pointless one.  First of all, attempting to be what you think someone else wants you to be will almost inevitably make you exactly what they wish you were not; insecure and wishy-washy because you’re constantly second guessing what your idea of what they might want is along with a host of other really annoying qualities.  I know that my boyfriend, most of all, wants me to be who God wants me to be and to do what God wants me to do.  So, it’s a re-focus.  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all of these things will be added unto you.”  God is what I need in order for everything else in my life to be what He’s designed it to be.  And I had taken my eyes off of that truth. 

So, as to me thinking I was so great at not being a “silly girl,” as I mentioned in my Literary Arrogance blog, I think I had definitely adopted what I would coin a very common, prominent and detrimental ”silly girl” attitude.  I recommend this book if you find yourself trying to be the woman you think someone else wants you to be.

Lesson 3 from “Captivating” coming soon. 

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Giving and Un-Giving – Confessions of an Indian-Giver

April 19, 2007 at 8:27 pm (Christianity, Confession, Failure, Forgiveness, Gifts, Giving, God, Humility, Jesus, Pride, Religion)

I am writing this story down, but it is a story I have never spoken out loud…not to my best friend, not to my boyfriend of two and a half years…literally, to no one.  I don’t have a lot of those.  I’m a fairly open person.  I am ashamed of this story, and that is why I do not share it.  It also involves another person…a person that I care about, and would not want to offend.   If this person reads this, they will know who they are.  However, no one else need know who this person is, so therefore the details may remain a bit sketchy for the sake of a little tact.  The telling of this event could possibly offend them, as it involves me taking offense at their actions.  If you are reading this, and you are this person, please know that I am sincerely aware that what offended me was not you, but my pride, which is why I need to confess it – because I am horrified at my pride, and at the things it revealed to me about my character. This friend of mine recently had a milestone, you know one of those great things such as having a baby or getting married or graduating.  I was therefore required by social compunction to provide a gift.  And, indeed, I wanted to provide a gift.  I did produce quite an ordinary gift, but this did not seem enough to me, and so I gave the person, in addition to this gift, a gift that I had made.  I can see you already, rolling your eyes and thinking you know where this story is going, but before you go there, let me assure you that this gift was not shabby.  There were other people who I knew would’ve been thrilled had I given them this gift, and I was rather fond of it myself.  I did make it, but if I do say so myself, it was quite worthy of being given.  (Can you hear the pride even now?  I cannot even turn it off when I am preaching against it.)  Well, I did give it.  And the response was less than thrilling.  I was able to swallow that, but knew immediately that the gift was not as appreciated as I would have hoped and anticipated, nor was it esteemed in any way.  This realization was solidified minutes later, when upon being asked what they had, my friend pushed it under the table and said “Oh, nothing.”  I should insert here, that it was a decorative gift.  I should also insert that my friend is usually quite picky about décor.  In other words, I should have known that any unsolicited decorative items would be unwelcome.  So, in a sense, I was asking for it.  But, let’s continue.   As time went on, the hubbub of the event ensued, many things were brought out, gifts and pretty things shuffled around.  Here is where I begin to be ashamed.  I saw my precious gift, the one I had labored over and was proud of…it was crammed (literally crammed) into a paper bag, with things being set on it and crushing it and bending it.  I should also state that it was NOT a gift that crushing and bending would benefit, and would’ve shortly become something only worth throwing in the trash had this treatment continued.  I watched it being battered as if it meant nothing even as a gift because I had given it, if not for its worth, and (forgive me, friend!), I took it back.  Everyone was doing other things; no one was looking.  I took it back – brought it back to my house, and in time, gave it to another friend whom I believed to have a better estimation of its value.  What on EARTH was I thinking?  I don’t say this because I think my friend ever missed it.  Based on the reaction, they were more likely relieved at not having to pretend to like it by displaying it.   The thing I am ashamed of is my pride.  What did I think gift-giving was about?  Pleasing myself?  Apparently, I did.  When giving the gift did not give me sufficient satisfaction, I just took it back.  Even this did not hit me too terribly hard until a couple of days later.  I heartily justified my actions in my discomfort until I thought about Jesus – Jesus’ gift – and I knew there was no justification.  It stops me in my emotional tracks even now as I think of it.  What He gave up for me, for us…I can’t even fathom it.  How He left heaven and came to live like a simple tradesman; how He willingly suffered abuse, mockery and cruel torture; but even this only scratches the surface.  He suffers my ingratitude on days when I am too obtuse to recognize the worth of having Him as my companion.  He watches me disfigure His gift in front of others to the point it is almost unrecognizable.  He feels the hurt of my unwillingness to assign value to His gift simply because it is His at times when I cannot understand the gift itself and bears, with patience, my inability to understand what He put into it.  He watches me shy away from it, hide it, ignore it and awkwardly try to figure out how I am supposed to display it.  In short, I do to His gift what was done to mine – my little insignificant gift that was nothing more than something pretty.  And I do this more times than I am able to keep track of in a day.  How small I feel when I realize that if I were Christ, I would have taken it back.  I would’ve watched it being battered and hidden, and I would’ve taken it back, thinking that the recipient was not worthy.  God, how merciful He is!  I remember how I felt about my gift, and wonder how He can stand it.  How can He stand it without screaming at us or throwing down fire-bolts, let alone taking it back.  If I could feel as small as I do right now in finally confessing this and spelling it out in words, I think I could actually learn humility. 

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Ambition

April 14, 2007 at 9:27 pm (Christianity, Expectations, Failure, God, Humility, Individuality, Jesus, Jobs, Pride, Religion, Self-Esteem, Society)

I was having a conversation the other day in which I was commiserating with my friend Eleanor over the moral state of our society.  We were mourning over our children’s corrupted childhoods, their inevitable materialism, and their lack of moral heroes and heroines, albeit prematurely, as neither of us have children.  Eleanor mentioned, with certain qualifiers given to reassure me that she meant this in the least cult-like way possible, that she would almost like to live in a community environment.  She went on to elaborate on this thought, and described something very akin to the Quaker lifestyle.  She continued in saying, “You know, where someone is the teacher, and I could be the cook (Eleanor is a great cook), and you could be the…(insert awkward pause)…well, you could be the…(insert second awkward pause).”  At this point, I interrupted laughing, and said, “I couldn’t be anything.  I couldn’t live there because I couldn’t be anything.”  She attested that I could live there, and that I would be “the catch-all,” whatever that might be.  I haven’t told Eleanor this, but as I looked back on our conversation later, I actually considered this a great compliment.  I believe (and based on Jesus actions, God also believes) that our society is faulty in assigning varying degrees of importance to people based on what they do.  It is flawed in that it promotes defining who a person is by their resume’.  I have never liked this, although I am guilty of it just the same.  When Eleanor could find no profession with which to define me, I felt that I had crossed some barrier in our world.  It meant, to me, that Eleanor saw me as me—that when she looked at me, she did not see a job, but a person.  If she does not see me as a job, she also does not rate me as a job, and that made me feel like a success.   I want to share an excerpt from the science fiction book, Empyrion by Stephen R. Lawhead.  In this book, four people from earth find themselves on another planet, populated by humans who have lived there for thousands of years.  They are learning the dynamics of what seems to be the Eden of all cultures, the Fieri.  This is the observation of the Fieri work habits from the perspective of the narrator in the book, “No one, apparently, held down a single career.  Each of those tasks necessary to the maintenance and functioning of society was divided among any number of people.  And since there was no such thing as wages—they simply had no concept of money—it didn’t really matter who did what.  People tended to do what they liked to do, receiving training in several different occupations and then pursuing them most casually.  This had the effect of removing such societal ills as avarice, ambition, and stress from the work environment.  The Fieri ascribed no status to what a person did; they were more concerned with the quality of the life being led.”  This being a fictional book, I am fairly certain that it would never be possible to institute these precepts.  But wouldn’t it be fascinating if everyone really liked what they did, and did it solely for the good of humanity with absolutely no thought of getting ahead or worrying about accomplishing their career goals or getting a raise?  Perhaps I am idealistic or delusional for even thinking that people would consider this something to be desired, but for me, this place would be very close to heaven. You see, when I allowed ambition to be a determining factor in my life, it materialized as a form of desperation.  For years, I believed that this desperation was fueled not by selfishness, but by a desire to do what God wanted me to do.  This was only superficially true.  I did want to do what God wanted me to, but I was filled with despair over it, not for God’s sake, but because I wanted other people to see me doing what God wanted me to do.  What disapproval I received from those for not attaining worldly success, I wanted to make up for by gaining the approval and recognition of the Christian community.  I was simply substituting one group of human commendation for another.  I honestly believe that I did not know I was suffering for my selfishness.  I think I believed I was floundering because God would not guide me.  I now understand that He would not guide me because I was not seeking only HIS approval.  If I had been, I would have been content to sail through the seemingly monotonous days, learning how to be like Him, to love like Him, completely invisible and unlauded by others.  This turns the seemingly monotonous routine of waking up, showering, eating, working and doing laundry into the extraordinary.   It sounds like a cliché, but it truly does transform every day life.  The few people who did not make me feel like more of a failure than I already did because of my apparent lack of goals and direction, told me not to worry about things, just live day to day, trusting and seeking what God wanted me to do each individual moment.  That is a simple sentence, and I know it sounds trite, but there is so much wisdom, knowledge and experience embedded in it.  Unfortunately, wisdom, knowledge and experience rarely get handed to you in a fun package.  Or, rather, when they do, you dismiss them as insignificant.  And, so I went on trudging through the sloughs of hard learning. Eventually, my desire for success became less about the approval and recognition of other people as much as it was about my own personal self-worth through the validation of others.  I focused this need for self-approval into a very neat bundle that held the one thing I thought I wanted to do with my life: write and perform music.  It was the passion that I wanted to pursue, and where I believed God wanted me.  I somehow wrapped up the actualization of this dream with any kind of happiness at all and God’s will.  It was the source of as much pain as joy, and I treated it like a curse rather than a gift.  I used to say that I wished God had given me the desire to be an accountant or some other such ordinary job, because that, I knew, could be realized under the power of my own strength.  How to attain anything akin to success in the music business was a foreign concept to me, and so seemingly impossible.  I have talent, and that is about it.  There is much politicking required, by all accounts, for progression in that world, and I am in no way a politician.  I admittedly lack the ability to small talk, to brown nose, and to network, which, anyone will tell you, is the key.  This is all too very like the corporate world that I generally denounce.  Success among the arts is so often determined by who you know and how well you play the game.  This was where my frustration primarily manifested itself.  I am not opposed to placing myself in situations that cause me discomfort.  I know that life requires this, and I am capable of “sucking it up” and just doing what is necessary.  I would do this in spurts for years; try to push into that world, to play the part, do what everyone I asked for advice told me I should do.  Every time I even began the attempt, it was like what I had perceived as a screen, passable with determination, became a brick wall, impenetrable to all human effort.  All of my zeal simply accomplished an increase in my discouragement, and the validation that I was a failure at doing what God wanted me to do.  If God wanted me to be a musician outside of my home, surely He wanted me to pursue it, right?  But, even in that respect, I felt like God’s presence with me decreased as my pushing increased, like an inversely proportionate equation.  So, each time I began plowing ahead in pursuit of what I thought was God’s will, I stopped shortly thereafter.  The more years I did this, the faster I would recognize that I felt outside of God’s plan and go back, until my steps towards completing this quest became more and more imperceptible to those around me.  Before I had the epiphany I am about to divulge, I was becoming aware of red flags in my spiritual walk before I even took action, when I was just in a state of mind considering another push to achieve something musically.  I had so many people listing all of the things I needed to do if musical success was what I wanted, but every time I attempted them, I only became more and more lost from myself, lost from the love I had for music in the first place, and, worst of all, lost from the presence of God.  As my apparent efforts to accomplish anything musically lessened, the pressure from outside sources to “stop being lazy” and “step outside of my comfort zone” grew steadily greater.  I even had someone tell me that I was using God as an excuse for my laziness when I said that I did not feel He wanted me to actively pursue a musical career.   It was actually this conversation that brought me to the consummation of my emotional journey with ambition.  Mulling that accusation over and over in my mind, it occurred to me that what I had said was true.  All of the times I was pressing for some sort of success were the times I felt the farthest away from God.  Those were the times I began to feel like an insignificant failure.  I had been susceptible to frequent bouts of depression for years.  When I tried to look back at those periods of depression, using hindsight beneath the microscope of what I had just realized, I could pinpoint the same root…desire to achieve this musical goal and feeling like a failure because of it.  Supposedly, the goal was for God, but when I tried to attain it, it became all about me.  In pursuit, I stopped considering where I felt God’s hand leading me, and let my lack of advancement be a source of self-doubt as opposed to a sign that perhaps I was moving away from God instead of towards Him.  The root of this state of mind and of my blindness to the true problem was the pressure I put on myself to be something, which I equated with being somebody.  I’ve heard people say, “God doesn’t care what you are.  He just cares who you are.”  This is true in the sense that what you are for God grows solely out of who you allow Him to make you.  I would say it is more true that He cares who you are before He cares what you are.  What you are makes very little difference, if you are not who He wants you to be to begin with.  Since I have stopped trying to prove to the world and myself that I am something, I have become a lot more comfortable just being a person, and that is where I believe God wants me.  After all, humanity itself is the one level on which I can relate to every other person.   Something of my journey can be compared to Martin Luther’s, although I do not presume to place myself on an equal plane of spiritual maturity or intelligence with him.  If you do not know, Martin Luther entered the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt, Germany, wanting to renounce himself for God.  He soon recognized that this separating of himself from the rest of the world as some sort of Christian elite was simply another form of arrogance.  Perhaps this is not true for all, but it was for Luther.  The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks of this journey, and does so much better than I could.  Bonhoeffer states, “The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life.  But God shattered all his hopes.  He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction.  Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the ‘religious.’  The world had crept into the very heart of the monastic life, and was once more making havoc.”  The devil takes the search for humility, and turns it into something that offers worldly pride.  (In this sense, “worldly” is meant to include anything other than Christ Himself, because even the approval of the church, comprised of other Christians, can be substituted in place of doing God’s will, especially when you consider the state of the church as a whole in most historic times.  The church as an entity is not greatly known for how well it sought to achieve God’s true work.)  This is basically where I ended up, although it took me some time to get there.  My music was intended by me to be an offering to God, but I also wanted it to grant me some sort of special status.  I wanted to be a Christian, noted because of my talent, esteemed because of my faithfulness and wisdom.  I am afraid I still have some of that, or a lot of it, if I am honest.  Even in writing all of these thoughts, I have great trepidation about becoming so pleased with how wise I think I am, that it stops being about God, and starts being about how humble I have become and how proud I am of it.   Back to the topic at hand, I have some trouble maintaining the strength of my conviction that I am to wait, interminably, until I feel direct guidance from God.  I still have people who express their contempt for my lack of goal-oriented activity.  At these times, the story that has established itself as my vindication is that of Abraham.  I do not generally use this in defense to others, but it serves as a calming, steadying force within my own mind.  Abraham had this desire—a good desire, even—natural and somewhat noble, to have a son.  God even promised him that he would have a son.  Years and years, Abraham waited…past the point it was even physically possible for his wife to bear children.  Finally, he took matters into his own hands.  He decided that maybe he should accomplish God’s will for himself.  This decision, culminating in the birth of Ishmael, has literally caused a world of endless problems.  The thing is, Abraham was successful in achieving his goal.  He did have a son when he decided to do it himself.  But, this was definitely not what God purposed for him.  For Abraham, fathering a child with someone other than his wife was the only conceivable way he was going to attain his goal, since Sarah was past the childbearing age.  He took the action that anyone would have told him was physically necessary to fulfill the promise, but had he waited for God’s completion of the promise, much pain would have been avoided.   By all accounts, doing the things I do not feel led to do is the only way to accomplish musical success, just as Abraham’s way was the only way he could fathom having a son.  But the “only” way conceivable to us is not necessarily the way that God has planned.  He sees beyond what is “possible,” because with Him, all things are possible.  The problem with the “conceivable” way is that it is just that.  When things happen in ways that seem feasible to us, it allows room to deny God’s power.  One of my favorite Jars of Clay songs states it like this, “Rescue me from hanging on this line.  I won’t give up on giving You the chance to blow my mind.  Let the eleventh hour quickly pass me by.  I’ll find You when I think I’m out of time.”  In Abraham’s case, God did not come through in the eleventh hour, but the twelfth or maybe the thirteenth, far beyond the latest possible moment.  God waits for us to give up, so that we will be able to recognize His handiwork.  He wants us to give up willingly and freely, before our only reason is because it has become completely insurmountable.  Plodding through years of desperation until you reach hopelessness is far more difficult than freely handing it to God to begin with, but it requires trust—real trust, not just words.   There are statements that I heard more than once growing up in the Christian subculture.  They are as follows:  a) God only helps those who help themselves, and b) God can’t guide you if you don’t start walking.  These statements always seemed somewhat duplicitous to me.  Am I supposed to follow God, or expect Him to follow me?  Somehow, it still took me a while to clarify what I really believed in the matter.  I now believe they are both bunk, and only stated by those who do not yet know what it means to wait for and follow God.  For me, Abraham’s life validates this belief.  When I apply the truths of his story to myself, it frees me from the worldly pressure I feel to make something happen.  I could probably achieve at least a moderate level of success by doing all of the things I believe should be done and all of the things I have been told I have to do, just as Abraham achieved his desired goal.  However, I know that this would be selling myself and the world and God far short, and would mean never realizing the amazing potential God has planned for my life.  The success that I could contrive would never be as powerful, as fulfilling or as meaningful as whatever God has in store.   To include yet another C.S Lewis work, a quote from The Great Divorce states this precept succinctly.  Lewis says, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”  In this case, Lewis is speaking of the ultimate fate of either heaven or hell, but I think it can apply to independent cases of disobedience as well.  In other words, push hard enough for something, and you just might get it, whether it is good for you or not.   If we could only truly believe the words Jesus speaks in Matthew, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”  He is not speaking of death here, but of turning over the control of your life—acquiescing to what God’s plan is for you.  I have a feeling that we would find in the end, that all things of consequence are gained by “giving up” to God, and very little is lost.  I am thinking of this along the lines of giving up our ambition and dreams to God.  I realize that there are situations in which these statements would sound harsh by worldly standards.  However, when someone has been martyred or shunned by their family or the like, I still think it applies, in that what those Christians gain will be infinitely greater than what they have lost.  In other words, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:10)  I actually have an idea that if we could look back from eternity once we get there, any sacrifice we could possibly make on this earth will seem paltry compared to His, and all sacrifice will seem right and necessary for following His call.  Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.”  There is no beyond the call of duty when it comes to God.   I would also like to clarify that when I say “give up” in terms of the ambitions and dreams I speak of, I do not mean that you must deny yourself everything that brings you joy, everything that makes you who you are as an individual.  This would simply be self-denial akin to what Martin Luther found revolting about the monastic life.  It can be a form of attempting to attain salvation or to gain God’s approval by works.  God may ask you to abstain from involving yourself in the things that you love, but that is a personal conviction, and not the action I am trying to advocate here.  In my walk at this point, “give up” means to stop attempting to transform my aspirations into a career, to stop letting them control my emotions and to release the need for them.  I do not believe that God asked me to stop singing or to stop writing songs.  However, if I could not let go of my desperate aspirations unless I did so, then I believe that is what He would ask next.  I have known of prolific writers of books who upon attempting to follow Christ, lost the ability to produce anything at all for a time – until they learned to put their passion for God ahead of their passion for writing. I quoted from the C.S. Lewis book, The Great Divorce, earlier, but for my purposes now, let me outline its premise for you.  It is a story about a journey to heaven told from the perspective of one man.  It includes his story as well as those of some of the people he has traveled to heaven with.  He is dreaming, but you don’t find this out until the end.  There are numerous “ghosts” (a group comprised of himself and all of the individuals arriving with him), and they are met by the “solid spirits” of people who have already been in heaven for a time.  The solid spirits are trying to tell them why they should come further in to heaven instead of returning to the “grey town” (symbolizing hell) from whence they came.  One of the conversations he witnesses is between the ghost of a fairly well known artist, and the solid spirit of another renowned artist who has come to meet him.  The ghost goes on and on about wanting to paint the beauty of the landscape.  This is the solid spirit’s answer: “Don’t you see?  You’ll never paint at all if that’s what you’re thinking about…if you’re interested in the country only for painting it, you’ll never learn to see the country….  Every poet and musician and artist, but for grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells to love of the telling, till down in deep hell, they cannot be interested in God at all, but in only what they say about Him, for it doesn’t stop at being interested in paint, you know.  They sink lower, become interested in their own personalities, and then in nothing but their own reputations.”  I believe, had God allowed me any measure of success, this is the road I would have been traveling.  “But for grace…” said the solid spirit.  But for grace, indeed, I say.  My failure was the “curse” I needed in order to take my eyes off of myself, and learn to love my gifts as gifts for no other reason than that I have them.  Maybe one day God will lead me to use them publicly for His glorification.  I definitely believe that for that to even be possible, He had to first teach me to use them privately as such, instead of treating them like they were useless without a human audience or human recognition. Actually, quite the opposite is true.  A human audience may as well not view your art or read your writings or hear your songs if privately you do not love the work for its own sake and for God’s.  To best illustrate my thoughts on this matter, I’d like to return to the book I referenced earlier, Empyrion by Stephen R. Lawhead.  It is a conversation between one of the travelers from earth, Yarden, and the woman who has been her guide in the world of the Fieri, Ianni.  They have just watched a troupe of Fieri dancers perform the most exquisite and emotive dance that Yarden has ever experienced.  After the performance, the audience simply gets up, and silently trickles away.  I think it will be best communicated if I do not try to condense it, but share the entirety of the conversation.   “Why did no one acknowledge the dancers?” asked Yarden as they walked back across the meadow toward the Arts Center, a palatial edifice made of rust-colored sunstone, with numerous wings and pavilions radiating from a common hub.  “Or praise them for their artistry?”   “Praise belongs only to the Infinite,” Ianni explained gently, as she had explained so often to Yarden since becoming her mentor.  “Would you have us praise the vessel for its contents?” “I don’t know.  It just seems that one ought to show some appreciation for the dancers, for their art, for the joy they bring in the dance.” “The joy of the dance was theirs.” “They shared it with us, then.” “And we paid them the highest tribute—we honored the beauty of the moment, and respected the serenity of the performance.” Yarden thought about this.  “By leaving like that?  Without a word, without a sound—just leaving?  That was your tribute?” Ianni, a tall, dark-haired woman, slender with long graceful limbs, folded her hands in front of her and stopped walking, turned to Yarden, and said, “We shared the moment together, and we took it to ourselves.  We have hidden it in our hearts to treasure it always. What more can one do who has not created?  It was not our place to judge, only to accept.” They walked again, feeling the warmth of the day and the pure rays of the sun on their faces.  After a time Yarden nodded, saying, “I think I understand what you are saying: the artist practices her art for herself alone, but she performs as an expression of praise to the Infinite Father for the gift of her art—a gift she shares with her audience.” “Or with no audience at all.” “Yes, I see.  The audience does not matter.” “Not to the performance, no.  But if the audience is moved to praise the Infinite too, so much the better.  Let praise increase!  Of course, an artist is pleased when the audience is pleased.  That is only natural.  But, since she performs her art for herself and for the pleasure of the Infinite, the audience’s response or lack of it is of no concern.” “The only concern is how well she has performed.” “Yes, whether she has used her gift to her best abilities.  If she has, what does it matter whether she had an audience or not, or what the audience thought about the performance?” When we stop doing whatever it is that we may do in order to impress others or in order to gauge our happiness by their response or in order to attain some level of status, that is when we are free to enjoy the thing that we do for itself, with no strings attached.  Anything else only muddies our motives and detracts from the joy of the doing of it, because we can never expect to only receive praise from those around us.  I long to detach myself from needing the approval of others, and from using that as a meter for how I feel about myself.  The love of my song was what ambition took from me.  God has given it back.

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