Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
I am an artist and poet at heart. I’m not referring to my abilities, but to my perspective and energy. I have powerful visceral responses to all things creative, whether by God or fellow humans, and my mind bursts into a flurry of thought shooting out in all directions like a fireworks display. Within minutes, each separate thought has branches and sub-branches like a cauliflower head bursting into bloom in my mind. It is exciting, invigorating, delicious.
But when my spirit is tamped down by depression, I stumble along with just enough energy to lift one foot at a time between long halts to rest. Everything around me is dusted with dullness like the shoulders of a dirt road. I can see and appreciate beauty, but it does not sink into my heart to awaken life. As a young man I was so full of energy and purpose and hope, but I spent it all on “virtuous” sacrifices that broke down my spirit rather than building it up. I did not live out of the spontaneous delight of who I was but out of the driven obligation of who I should be. I did not live from the joy of God’s love, but from the fear of his frown. I lived out of the law and not out of the gospel.
Emotional energy is much like a sponge–once dried out, it loses its powers of absorption. Without some emotional reserve to start, I cannot soak up the encouragements around me. I see them, but cannot feel them at any deep level. They do not renew me. Because it takes time for the good to soften my soul, I need an oasis in which to rest, an environment rich with living waters, but in my experience those spots are rare and brief, and so the desert winds parch away the rain that falls. I catch and hoard my little cupful, but it does not last long. Had I lived from the start out of my true self and in the riches of God’s grace, the energy I used for good would have been a renewable resource. But I feel as though my forest is chopped down, and I must start over, scratching out life from the dust. I see hopeful saplings of emotional growth, but the full rewards seem still a long way off.
Kimberly and I had a tiff yesterday on our way home from the screening of a documentary at Lynchburg College. In the middle of the film I had left to use the bathroom, and when I returned they were concluding a segment on Ruth Gruber’s role in bringing WWII refugees to America. So in the car afterwards I said, “Tell me about the refugees.” Kimberly responded, “Well, Ruth was in Alaska–” I interrupted, “I was there for the part about Alaska, what happened in Europe?” She started over, “I was telling you that. Ruth was in Alaska working with soldiers. She was sent there under the auspices of the U. S. Government–” I broke in again, showing irritation, “I was there for the segment on Alaska. Tell me about the refugees.” She told me and then grew quiet, upset by my sharpness.
I was raised on impatience. I’m not sure why my family was so anxious to get to the point. We were in a hurry about everything, and when someone seemed to be dragging their feet, we poked them to pick up the pace. None of us took this personally since efficiency was a shared family value–if I were going too slowly, I expected a shove. Whether getting dressed, sweeping the kitchen, learning to bike, or figuring out the road map, we allowed no one to dally. Efficiency and patience are not bosom buddies. Kimberly, however, was raised to value being considerate of others– if you feel frustrated, keep it to yourself and let the other person take the time they need.
In other words, to keep the group together, I want the plodders to speed up and Kimberly wants the brisk to slow down. Conversely, I feel it is rude when others hold back my progress, and Kimberly feels it is rude when others push her to go quicker. On the highway, I react to dawdlers in the fast lane and Kimberly reacts to tailgaters in the slow lane… okay, I admit it, I react to everyone. I say we “feel” it is rude because I’m talking about our emotional reaction to someone else. I may feel disrespect even when the other person intends none, and my feelings are affected far more by early family values than by present-day interactions.
Just now I have laid it all out even-handedly, but I don’t find Scripture so balanced. Patience is a huge emphasis in the Bible, and efficiency is… well… um… there must be a verse here somewhere. I know my father, a preacher, would categorize it under “stewardship,” but examples of wise use of resources in Scripture are focused almost exclusively on money and possessions. I am hard put to find time-efficiency as a biblical recommendation. God’s scales of morality seem to be stacked heavily on the side of waiting. I don’t mean to suggest that slowness or inefficiency is a virtue–it can certainly create real problems–but I think our emphasis on it comes less from our faith and more from our culture’s priorities. So I’m learning the value of patience. Of course, 50 years of my ingrained habit is not going to change overnight, so Kimberly will have to learn patience as well.
PATIENCE IS SELF-REWARDING
Most evenings before supper Kimberly and I light some candles, listen to a word of grace, and invite God into conversation with us. Tonight I told him frankly I don’t know how to include him in the quagmire of my life. All through the day I talk to him and wait on him, but hear no answers for my doubts, feel no healing for my pain, see no clarity for my path, find no energy for my tasks. When I bring God my suffering and weakness and lostness, why do I find no comfort or strength or direction? Why does he leave me sunken in misery? Faith grows haggard without tokens of hope.
I wrote that paragraph last night and sat thinking for a long time. If God is not in my life to fix me, then why is he here? Somehow, all my theology seems to circle back to relationship… where it should start in the first place. It took me years to learn this with Kimberly–what we both need from the other in our brokenness is compassionate presence, not problem-solving. But God is different from Kimberly–she can’t fix me but he can. He knows exactly what I need and how to provide it. So why doesn’t he?! oh… maybe he does… maybe what I truly need is his compassionate presence.
This is so counter-intuitive for me. If he loves me, doesn’t he want to remove my pain? If he can heal me and doesn’t, is he not callous and unloving? Imagine a doctor with wonderful bedside manners who refuses to cure his suffering patient. And perhaps here is the answer to my riddle. When I treat God as my doctor, I forget he is my friend, my dearest friend who holds my broken heart in his tender hands. My focus locks on my disease instead of our friendship.
I woke up this morning with a nameless dread which slowly distilled into a sense of the pointlessness of my life, and a fear that nothing will change. What did I do this week? I stained the wooden borders around our yard, but in a couple of years I will have to do it again… and to what end? I exercise, clean, shop, cook… a meaningless round of repetition. I enjoy my job in the library, but what difference does it make in the world? Well, it provides me a salary so that I can repair appliances, buy groceries, pay bills… and then do it all over again. When will I find real purpose and direction for my life, something meaningful? As I lay in bed, the thoughts of last night drifted into my mind. So instead of asking God for a fix, I simply shared with him my anxiety. In the end, what if the great purpose of my life is not something, but Someone?
Kimberly woke me at 2 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning. She felt uneasy, restless, and her heart was racing. I couldn’t find the pulse at her wrist, so I tried her neck–boomboomboomboom–the staccato thumping of a quarter-mile sprinter, probably 200 beats a minute. That scared me. We were at her aunt’s home and I had no idea where the hospital was… I didn’t even know our address. “Should we go to the ER?” I asked. She said, “We can’t afford it, we don’t have insurance.” I quickly answered, “That doesn’t matter.” She responded, “I don’t want to sit there for hours in the waiting room. By the time we see a doctor, I will have no symptoms to check. Let’s look it up on the internet.”
WebMD called it “Supraventricular Tachycardia”– her heart’s electrical system was misfiring–and we should go to the emergency room if it “persisted”–how long is that?! Her veins had been drumming for 10 minutes, but she had none of the listed signs of heart failure, so we kept reading. It offered some home fixes–cough, gag, or shove her face in ice water to shock her pump steady. She tried some dainty coughs, afraid of waking up others. I told her to cough hard as I kept my finger on her jugular. Within minutes the beating slowed.
So, tell me… what are you grateful for this Thanksgiving?
Matthew 1:3 Perez fathered Hezron and Hezron fathered Ram.
Hezron and Ram have no stories, no histories, no parts to play. They are nobodies, appearing in the Old Testament simply as names in lists of genealogies. The vast majority of Israelites who lived then are not mentioned at all. They plowed and played; they held one another as their crops failed and laughed with delight at their grandchild’s first words; many worshipped God faithfully and walked with him daily but are completely unknown to us, very much like Hezron and Ram.
Since the Jewish Bible is primarily about the nation of Israel, the leaders of the nation and events that directed its course are inevitably featured. Still, it seems that God considers the “movers and shakers” as the important ones, the ones to write home about, the role-models to recommend. Compare how much we know of David in contrast to his brother Eliab, the firstborn. If you want to be on God’s A-list, you have to make a big impact in the world, make a name for yourself in his kingdom. And to do that, all you need is faith.
This view of the Bible seems oddly familiar to me. When I was growing up, the heroes were folks like Lincoln, rising from an obscure log cabin to the White House, or like Einstein, stepping out from behind a clerk’s desk to become the foremost scientist of his time. I grew up believing that I could be anything I wanted if I had enough self-confidence and commitment to the vision. This is the American dream, and ours is the land of opportunity where the only limitations are our faith and determination. This take on life provides a value system, a goal, and a means to that end, and without realizing it, I bring all of this to my reading of Scripture.
I measure the strength of my faith by the greatness of my deeds—am I like David? The completeness of my commitment will make me a Daniel. The weight of my godliness will get my name written down next to Job’s. I can be one of God’s role-models for my generation. If I simply make myself wholly available to God, he will make something great of me. But what if I give it everything I’ve got and never make it out of the log cabin or clerk’s office? Do I lack faith, is my commitment faulty, am I unusable? Does God find me of little value?
Perhaps something is wrong with my perspective of what God wants, what is important, and what I should value and aim for in life. I don’t think God was less pleased with the unnamed in Israel who sincerely followed him. But this culture runs in my blood—I invariably measure the value of my contribution, for instance, by how many folks read and find benefit from my blog. The engine is not more valuable than the engine mount bolt… without the bolt, the engine will fall off and the airplane crash. Every role in God’s kingdom is vital, irreplaceable. If that’s my theology, why do I so often feel like a loser?
It seems a still deeper issue clouds my view of what really matters to God. Does he care more about what I do or who I am? Why do I find myself so obsessed with doing rather than becoming or relating? Why does accomplishment determine my value–“I may be only a bolt, but I’ll be the best bolt ever made”? How drastically would my outlook and life change if my focus were rather on who I am and how I relate to others? How would it impact my understanding and application of Scripture? If it is David’s faith rather than his triumphs, skills, and leadership that is to inspire us, what would that faith look like in the life of a farmer, a seamstress, or a store clerk, in Hezron and Ram and me? Rabbi Zusya said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me, ‘Why were you not more like Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” Considering how God filled the earth with “nobodies” instead of “somebodies,” he must value us a lot! Or to put it differently, everyone is a very big “somebody” to someone else, even if that someone else is only God. Did I say, “only God”?!
WHAT LANE?!
Kimberly has a conjunctive view of life and I a disjunctive, she responds to input by assimilation and I by differentiation, she creates a unified mosaic and I a careful pattern. We are very different and we are blessed, enlightened, and expanded by that difference, but it often shapes up into an emotional disagreement where we both feel the other is rejecting our viewpoint. This happened again on Monday when we were reading about Sabbath rest on the seventh day of creation, and I was inspired by the thought that we were called to imitate not only God’s rest, but God’s creativity, to express our true selves to the world as our gift and offering during the first 6 days of the week. I was excited about that image and wanted to explore its potential.
I heard Kimberly respond that many jobs (such as an assembly line) had no room for creativity. I sensed she was objecting to my idea and countered with illustrations of how creativity is possible even in dull jobs. She heard my resistance to her input and needed to defend her own view. This is a very common conflict between us. Thankfully, this time I was not too emotionally invested in the topic and we were able to explore the conversational dynamic itself dispassionately.
Berly receives new ideas with openness, assuming they fit into her worldview. She is inviting, embracing, inclusive. This not only goes against my personality, but my brain. I simply cannot understand an idea unless I can differentiate it from other ideas. As I am faced with new ideas, I evaluate them so that I can determine how they fit into my worldview. If I cannot fit them in, I reject them. Kimberly understands her world relationally and I understand mine logically… this does not mean that she is illogical and I am antisocial, but that she is intuitive and I am analytical. (In fact, I just had to edit that sentence, because I originally wrote “Kimberly organizes her world relationally” which is biased towards my view… you can see our problem!) I grow constantly by listening to her perspective.
In the case of my creative approach to occupation, Kimberly was feeling the need to support those who had no space for fresh ideas. Because of a harsh boss, family crisis, emotional distress and the like, many people at work just hang on to their jobs, barely fulfill their duties, and my pushing for creativity would be oppressive, something for which they had no emotional energy. She suggested that there might be many other ways of improving one’s work situation which would trump creativity as the next important step. In other words, creativity is always a possible play, but it is only one card in the hand. I agreed with her.
Kimberly was not challenging my view as wrong. She was not disagreeing, but supplementing, trying to include those whom my view seemed to ignore. She works under the assumption that when she proposes a different point from mine, there is room for both views; whereas I am inclined to see incompatibility and competition in something that is different. Over the last couple days reflecting on this dynamic of ours, I realized how often I create conflict in discussions where there need be none. Inclusive thinking does not come naturally to me… I lack imagination and motivation for that exercise. Kimberly’s idea did not restrict mine, but added to mine. I can still fully explore the possibilities of bringing creativity to my occupation while also exploring other facets of growth and engagement at work. I realize now how often I fail to learn from those with whom I seemingly disagree and build a block for them against my own view by assuming incompatibility. Interaction is about understanding one another, not simply understanding ideas.
Berly was having a black day this morning, remembering some very painful experiences in her last work place. I sat and listened and asked questions. Her sharing gave me a new perspective of my own struggles over the years because of my time in India. I had no solutions, but just listening and accepting her thoughts and feelings picked up her spirits and enabled her to deal with some of the detritus from that time. Some time later I was feeling emotionally fatigued, it seemed that life had no purpose and that nothing could change it. I shared my sense of hopelessness, and simply interacting about it with Kimberly lifted the heaviest part of that weight. We are continually amazed at how just sharing our feelings with an accepting person, who shares empathy rather than advice, does a work of healing in our souls. Since nothing is actually ‘fixed’ and often no new insight is shed, it always suprises us to feel the relief, like little miracles that have no rational explanation. Real Grace.
I have been fighting with fear for a month now, and a sense of being overwhelmed. It partly comes from my anxiety of having to survive this summer on my lawn-mowing income (along with my inability to pick up sufficient regular clients) and partly from forgetting (as a result) my 2012 commitment to rest. It has made me think afresh of the Biblical command, not to keep the Sabbath, but to remember to keep the Sabbath. Apparently I’m not alone in having fear and busyness crowd out the vital place of rest for my soul. I notice that, remarkably, I accomplish less, not more, when I neglect the rest my soul needs… the fear and drivenness drain away my energy. This has not always been the case.
Most of my life I lived by overriding my own needs. I thought I was meeting my soul’s needs by spending hours in prayer, meditation and Bible study, going to church, self-examination and the like. But in fact these were just more activities to which I drove myself. They were not “means of grace,” but means of accomplishment, of spiritual advancement. In those days I measured success by how much I changed the world for the better, not realizing that I was denying with my life the very gospel I preached. It is hard for the fruits of grace to spring from the drivenness of legalism. I was getting more tasks done (being successful) because of my unceasing labor, but grace would have had so much more space to work had I learned to do much less while acting from a spirit of unconditional love (in both receiving it and sharing it).
My conception of success has changed so drastically since those days. The ghost of ‘failures past’ still haunts me at times. I have not been able to fully shake off those old definitions (mostly because the whole world seems to speak that language), but I realize now that my soul’s health and thereby the health of the hearts around me is my new measure of success. It has little to do with numbers of tasks completed or people fixed. I would rather accomplish one thing a day graciously than a dozen without grace, and because of my unhealthy proclivities, the more I try to fit into the day, the more likely I will shortchange grace. As I grow in grace, I believe I will be able to do more good, but for now I must live within my limits and refuse the shame that shouts at me for doing too little, learning to trust more in God’s grace.
To celebrate our fifth year anniversary (May 10), Kimberly and I took advantage of her sister Kristen’s gift to eat at Peaks of Otter restaurant overlooking the lovely lake and we hiked up Flat Top Mountain with Mazie. The weather was perfect and everything was dressed in fresh green. Though the rhododendron had not started to bloom on the mountains, down at the lodge they were bursting out with abandon… more like a tree than a shrub!
The Peaks of Otter is “Our Place,” where I asked Kimberly to marry me February 14, 2007 on Sharp Top Mountain. As many times as we have been there, we have never hiked up Flat Top until last Thursday. Our creaky joints and straining muscles reminded us of our age as we climbed the fairly steep 2 mile trail up, but we finally made it. You will notice the blue plastic retractable leash in most pictures as the one holding the camera could not hold the dog.
The view was spectacular, even better than Sharp Top in my opinion, though the wind was brisk and a little too chilly for my short sleeves.
As I say, the view was spectacular 😉
Kimberly sang me the song from our wedding.
Standing on this hill, I can see for miles
Creation moves my soul with childlike wonder
All the shades of earth
The greys, greens and browns
The blue and white maned sky
And the only words that come
I say like a prayer
I love the view from here
Lying in your arms, like a little child
Your eyes speak the words
Of kindness and courage
I see in your face
Wisdom, grace and warmth
The smile that lights my world
And the only words that come
I say like a prayer
I love the view from here
And Mazie completes our Grace family:
Usually when I am absent from this blog for a while it indicates that I’m fighting to keep my head above the water. For the last several weeks, melancholy has been dragging down my spirit. I think I am beginning to understand the cycle. Many folks suppose that depression comes from current external circumstances. Certainly there are trigger situations that fire up an emotion, but if the emotion is more than brief and reactive, if it hangs on for some time, then something else is at work. The feelings were awakened by the situation, but they are being powered by old, deep wounds of the heart. A pinprick will make little effect on a flat balloon; it is the balloon packed with the tension of air pressure which the needle will explode. The power is from the balloon, not from the needle. My melancholy comes from within, not from without. It is my soul purging the muck from within.
The balloon analogy would suggest that all melancholy is from a single source, a single wound, but I have discovered countless wounds in my own soul, a multilayered mosaic of pain. It is a web of entanglements, and I can only work on a bit of it at a time. Thankfully, life seems to bring these to my attention consecutively, activating the same emotional struggle repeatedly and so giving me plenty of opportunity to work through the issue involved before moving on to the next concern. I say “life” because it is the stimulating events that activate the feelings, but I am realizing now it is my own soul that directs the progress. I cannot reach the feelings below and behind until I have unpacked the ones above and in front of them. My issues seem to come in layers, and a fear cannot be identified (for instance) until the anger or defensiveness covering it has been understood and worked through.
Unfortunately, I can’t figure out the basis of my current melancholy. It has been very disheartening. But even as I write, I am realizing a pattern. When a new emotionally charged issue crops up, I cannot sort it out easily. It has been silenced for so long that it takes time for it to develop a clear voice… or I could say that because the sound is new, my soul does not recognize the language yet. The melancholy feels so repetitive, the same old misery cropping up again, stuck in an endless repeat cycle.
But the truth is quite different–as I work through each issue, it really does slowly heal and the next wave of depression arises from a different wound that also needs the healing touch of grace. Perhaps I will never reach the end of this progressive redemption, in which case my depression will be life-long, but it is a great encouragement to know that I am on a path of hope and healing and not trapped in an inescapable morass.
That thought gives me the patience and hope to deal with my present depression. It is not my failure or stupidity that blocks me from quickly identifying the source of my depression, and it is not a meaningless melancholy, suffering without purpose or benefit. My soul is doing its vital work, and it will just take time to come to more clarity and resolution. I have hope again. Thanks for being there to listen!
Janathan Grace Reflections 