Archive for the ‘grace’ Tag
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!
This is not a thought topmost on my mind these days… I wrote it some time back. But I thought it was worth sharing.
Many conservative Christians direct their lives by a long list of expectations handed down to them from various sources (family, church, tradition, culture, etc.), many of which purport to be fundamentally grounded in Scripture. I know this is how I spent most of my life, but for me it was the letter that killed the spirit.
I was raised to believe and obey the Bible. At a foundational level were direct and clear commands that seemed to make a lot of practical sense, saving myself and my relationships much grief: don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t gossip (or in positive terms, be honest, be fair, be kind in what you say about others). It doesn’t take much wisdom to understand the importance and relevance of these commands.
But along with these direct commands, I was taught to identify and live by biblical principles. Here the footing got very unsteady, for who was to say what principles should be applied in this way by this person at this time to this situation? Let me give one general principle, stewardship, focusing on one of its corollaries, efficiency, limited to one resource at my disposal, money. The principle is: spend as little money as possible for the greatest good. The Bible does not say this directly, but we all know this is what it means when it warns us against greed, tells us to be generous instead of self-serving and to be “rich towards God,” etc. I said “we all know,” but some of us struggle with such a simple reduction of many passages to one principle. Even if we agree that a given principle is worth following, we still find the devil in the details–a given application of that principle. Let me list a few quandries:
1) How do the hundreds of other principles laid out by levels of priority interact with this principle, limiting it, redirecting it, even overriding it? What kind of good should be done (for instance, is it more important to give Bibles or give bread); who will receive this good (for whom am I most responsible); what other resources will be used in the accomplishing of this good (will it be cheap but take “inordinate” time); may I consider my own interests, talents, vision; what positive or negative side effects may come from this expenditure; am I permitted to solicit money or borrow money for this goal; and I could go on for many pages.
Quantity or Quality? Brand or Generic? Organic or Inorganic?
2) How does this principle apply to purchases for myself? What must I buy cheaply, and what may I take into account in deciding (the more expensive laundry soap that smells better, the fine quality suit, attending an ivy league school over a local state college?); what percentage must I give away (based on income, cost of living, family concerns, etc.); who decides and how does one decide what is lavish, normal, or frugal living; how much latitude (freedom) do I have; do my feelings matter in any way in making a decision.
3) What role do love and grace play? Using this principle of financial efficiency, the disciples criticized the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume instead of giving to the poor, and they were rebuked. It would seem the heart of the matter is the heart matters most, more than the behavioral choices we make, and that we need a level of freedom and faith to live out of grace rather than law. (I packed way too much into that sentence.) As Augustine said, “Love God, and do what you want,” or as Paul said, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Perhaps those who are concerned about my emphasis on grace are worried that I may encourage irresponsibility. Some folks seem inclined to let things slide, choose the easy way, care too little for the concerns of others. We think they need a “kick in the pants.” I use “seem” to describe them because we really don’t know the issues they are struggling with, the energy, insight, support they do or do not have and so forth. The closer I am to them, and the more perceptive I am at understanding others deeply, the more clearly I may be able to see what is at work inside them, but if they are clueless about themselves, I can easily be misled. It is common to confuse fear, shame, depression, fatigue and the like with laziness, and the last thing such folks need is a kick.
As I see it, those who are truly irresponsible create two problems, and these can be profound depending on the level of their negligence. The first is what it does to them, and the second is what it does to others (and their relationships). When 
we say that these folks “take advantage of grace,” I think we mean that grace allows them to be irresponsible (does not force them to be responsible). But when they choose this course, they are retreating from grace rather than embracing it, and the result, far from being to their happiness, is to their unhappiness. They do not “get away” with it because sin always has its natural consequences–sin is always a harmful choice, to the ones acting as well as to everyone whom they touch (that’s why God warns us against it). Grace can only bring redemption to such a situation if it is embraced, and this can only be done by faith, which is to say the slackers now see things God’s way. Given this vantage point, I think we would pity the irresponsible, and if we have some role to play in their lives and are motivated by love, we may wish to warn them from this folly and invite them back to grace.
The second problem with the neglectful is their impact on others and their relationships, and this is where many feel grace is inadequate and the law must be applied. What do we mean by “law” and “grace” in this context. Is there something one does that the other does not? If law is about restriction and grace is about freedom, then our call to apply law is to bring force to bear, either the force of a guilty conscience (say, by rebuking him) or the force of retribution or punishment (say, by taking his keys). But why do we think these actions are connected to law and disconnected from grace? Is it not possible for grace to stir the conscience or give a wake-up call of negative consequences? To my mind, the whole distinction lies in what motivation prompts the act.
It seems to me that I turn to the obligation and punishment of law not from concern for the slouch, but from concern for the law (that the law is respected, obeyed) or concern for the “victim” (who may be me). It often seems to us that in order to side with the victim, we must side against the negligent. Thankfully, the grace of God does not need to love one less in order to love the other fully. He wants the best for all concerned, and he will do what is best for all concerned. If grace sends negative consequences on the irresponsible, it is not because God takes umbrage and is punishing them, but because he knows this is the best he has to give, the choice of extravagent love, not love withheld. It is his invitation to redemption. The exile of Israelis from their land is a prime example of this “tough love.” Far from this being an act of God’s impatience and abandonment, it was the richness of his love at work to restore them to their true selves and reawaken their immensely fulfilling love relationship with him.
Mike Yaconelli in Messy Spirituality:
It was time for the Scripture reading and a girl shuffled toward the front of the church. What a moment for Connie. She had finally mustered enough courage to ask the pastor if she could read the Scripture. Without hesitation, he said yes. For years Connie had stifled her desire to serve in the church because of her “incompetencies.” Reading was extremely difficult for her, and Connie had a terrible time enunciating clearly. But she had been in this church many years, and she was beginning to understand the grace of God. Jesus didn’t die just for our sins; he died so people who couldn’t read or speak could read and speak. Now she could serve the Jesus she loved so much. Now she could express her desire for God in a tangible way.
Connie’s steps were labored as she made her way to the front; one leg was shorter than the other, causing her body to teeter from side to side. Finally, she was standing up front, looking at the congregation with pride and joy. The congregation was silent. Too silent.
The screaming silence was covering up the congregation’s discomfort. Clearly, most of them were trying to understand what Connie was doing, and they were trying not to notice her many incompetencies. Her eyes were too close together, and her head twisted back and forth at odd angles while her face wrenched from one grimace to another. Connie began to read, and stammering, stuttering, she stumbled proudly through the passage in a long sequence of untranslatable sounds, garbled sentences, long tortuous pauses, and jumbled phrases. Finally, the reading was over, and the congregation was exhausted.
Connie didn’t notice the exhaustion. She was ecstatic. Her face seemed no longer distorted, only full of joy. Her cheeks were flush with pride; her eyes were sparkling with the joy of accomplishment; her heart was warm with knowing she had served the congregation, participated in her faith. Yes, she would remember this day for a long time. How wonderful it was, she thought, to no longer be a spectator in church; she was the church this morning!
Thank God her mental capacities were limited. Thank God she was not able to discern the faces of the congregation or she would have crumbled in despair. Thank God she wasn’t able to sense what people were really thinking. Almost everyone in the congregation was thinking, This is an outrage! I know this is what they were thinking, because the senior pastor, my father, was ordered to attend an emergency board meeting after the service.
Stain Glass Masquerade
by Casting Crowns
(click image to hear)
“How did this happen?” they demanded to know. “What were you thinking?”
“Connie wanted to read the Scripture,” he replied softly.
“Well, let her stand at the door and pass out bulletins, or help in the mailroom, but don’t have her read! The girl can’t read or speak. Her reading took ten minutes! The church,” they said, “is not a place for incompetence.”
My father believes, as I do, that the church is the place where the incompetent, the unfinished, and even the unhealthy are welcome. I believe Jesus agrees.
Matthew 1:2 “And Isaac the father of Jacob”
No, that was not Isaac’s choice. He wanted to be known as “Isaac the father of Esau.” Esau was the first born, a macho man, and his favorite son. For those familiar with the Bible stories, “Jacob and Esau” rolls easily off the tongue, but for Isaac it was “Esau and Jacob.” Everyone knew Esau was heir apparent, standing in the wings for his call onto the stage as head of the family and forefather of the covenant people. And I expect most folks approved. Esau was clearly the one who commanded respect, the one with courage and boldness, the natural born leader. Jacob was a mama’s boy, always running away, always cowering behind some trickery. In the hard-scrabble land of the Middle East, Jacob was a Loser.
When Isaac was old and blind and felt death approaching, he prepared for Esau’s coronation, only to have Jacob filch the throne by deceit. Oddly enough, Jacob was God’s pick from the beginning. What did God see in him that made him the obvious choice? Even children know who to pick for their team—the one with the most abilities—and through that lens we read Scripture. We suppose that God chose Mary to be the mother of his Son because she was pure and good and obedient, so good as to be sinless according to some theologians. But the angel of God in Luke clearly tells us why she was chosen—it was based on God’s grace he says twice over, not on Mary’s virtue. The Greek word for grace, Charis (in KJV “highly favored”), is not a reference to how deserving Mary was. She was picked by grace, not merit. “How Lucky!” would be a closer rendering than “How worthy!”
All through history God chooses those who don’t deserve him, who know they don’t deserve him, who are convinced they will never deserve him, and have at last opened to his welcoming embrace. It is the strong, talented, and self-sufficent who find grace, full grace, undeserved grace, hard to swallow. I am so grateful that our God is “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” yes, even Jacob… especially Jacob. God loves me with all the strength and intensity of his great heart. How lucky am I?!
I can’t do another thing!
The Lenten season is past, but not my Lenten blessing. I committed to fasting from haste and hurry, and this became a remarkable source of peace for me, as I eased back on my sense of should. I started this process over the last decade as I gradually realized that most of the duties to which I felt driven were not from God, and that I could choose grace over obligation. As I ignored these duties, I felt the sting of shame and clung to grace rather than works as a remedy.
But my Lenten exercise did something very unexpected for me. Since I committed to the spiritual exercise of slowing down (and therefore accomplishing less), I was struck by the conclusion that God wanted me to rest. It was not only that I could choose to ignore the pressure of obligation, that God would be patient with me in doing less, but that God wanted me to do less, he willed for me to offload these unnecessary burdens. Grace demanded that I stop forcing my soul and start listening to it and choosing for its needs. God was not impatiently waiting for me to “hurry up and get with it,” but he was calling me to be as patient with myself as he was with me. For some time my mind has been convinced theologically that God is more patient with my rate of growth than I am, but after focusing 40 days on rest as a direction from God rather than a concession to my weakness, my emotions were also convinced. God has designed growth as a life principle to go at a slow pace, and if I try to push harder and faster, I will make things worse instead of better, like too much water and fertilizer on my squash. I have always been an overzealous fellow.
No doubt many folks go too easy, and would help themselves by picking up the pace, not on the trail of duty, but of grace, stirred by the anticipation and joy and wonder of being transformed, of discovering how rich and full life can be. Grace removes the drive of obligation not to make us spiritually comotose, but to set us free to find and embrace the richness of grace, its inspiration and glory and power and freedom and joy. I still have a long way to go, but I am laying one more foundation stone of grace in making this my Year of Rest.
Given a couple of negative responses to my recent posts, I apparently need to explain what I mean by grace. I think there are some common interpretations of grace that can really take us down the wrong path. One of the most common misunderstandings of grace is to equate it with freedom of action while equating law with restriction of action. freedom and restriction of action are about method and context, while grace and law are about motivation and direction. Grace does not play the high notes or the low notes on this freedom/restriction continuum, but plays the whole keyboard. That is to say, it confines or releases as directed by love.
EVERY NOTE IS A GRACE NOTE
Law motivates by fear, shame, and guilt. These are very legitimate motivations, because they point out how screwed up we really are, but if we try to remedy our fear and guilt by making better choices, we are doomed by our imperfections. The fear and shame are not intended to drive us to work harder at being good, but to awaken us to our need of the grace of God (forgiveness, love, acceptance, strength, hope, blessing, in short, the gospel).
THE FACE OF THE LAW
Here is where confusion and misgivings easily catch us. We know that fear and shame are powerful motivators, they have profoundly molded our behavior and the behavior of others towards us. If you remove law, what will keep me in check? We think fear and guilt make us good, when they really only change our actions, not our hearts. Still, if this motivation is removed, what will inspire us to go in the right direction. If there is therefore now no condemnation, won’t I just act like a spoiled brat, won’t others “take advantage” of grace? No. It is impossible to “take advantage” of grace. If you try, if you decide to fulfill every “forbidden pleasure,” it will leave you more empty, lost, broken, and even farther from the blessings of grace–not because grace resists you, for it always has open arms, but because you resist grace, which is the way of true peace, fulfillment, joy, love. The only way to take advantage, full advantage, of God’s grace is to throw yourself whole-heartedly into his embrace.
Let me quote a reply I gave a questioning friend: In my mind “doing as I please” is a serious misunderstanding of grace, and is profoundly different from doing what my soul needs. The differentiation in my mind is not that the first matches my desires and feelings and the second matches my duty, but that the first matches superficial desires and feelings often at odds with my deeper feelings (e.g. choosing sex as a replacement for love), while the second is discovering my true feelings and true needs and seeking to meet those. At this point in my understanding of God’s grace, I believe that my soul’s truest needs are never in conflict with God’s will, and if they appear to be, I misunderstand one or the other.
SAFE HANDS
I did not mean to suggest in my last post that our long, long lists of good behaviors are not in fact good. I simply want to point out that they are not paramount. Brushing our teeth, paying our bills on time, making soup for our sick neighbor are all good things, but the phrase, “the good is (sometimes) the enemy of the best,” comes to mind. This aphorism is usually used to promote even higher, more taxing behavioral standards for ourselves, but I would use it to change the value scale altogether, to set a higher value on heart issues than behavior.
When I stop to compare how I treat friends with how I treat myself, I am often dumfounded at how disrespectful, rough, and unsympathetic I am to myself. I would never tell a friend what I tell myself. If a friend called me and said, “I’m really hurting right now, do you have time to talk?” I can’t imagine responding, “I’m not free right now, I have to cut the grass,” or “Really the only time I have to talk is Thursday 6-7.” But that is exactly what I used to tell my own soul many times every day. By the way I treated it, I was basically saying, “Shut up! I don’t have time for you! The dishes are more important.”
Over the last several years, I have worked hard at sloughing off responsibilities that made my soul feel it was of less value than some task. Of course, this list is unique to each person. For instance, skipping a meal in order to finish a project was never a sacrifice for me–but I did often suffer by driving myself to grind through a project when my soul was weary of it. To each his own.
Many of you would be surprised at the things that distress me, and perhaps shocked at some of the things I have chosen to offload from my list of duties for the sake of my spirit. Filing my annual taxes is always troublesome, and while I was still single, sometimes distressing. As April 15 drew closer, my distress increased, but I had no emotional energy to force myself to complete them. So in an effort to give my soul breathing room, I chose several times to file my taxes late and pay the resulting penalty. Poor stewardship? Of my money, yes, but not of my soul, and my soul is more important than money. In fact, what more valuable investment than supporting my soul…so I guess it was financially good stewardship as well. Thankfully, that spring dyspepsia is now eased with the presence of a life partner.
God gives us the strength to fulfill his call, but does he give us the strength to fulfill the calls of social norms or family expectations or friends’ needs? I have too often assumed that my soul’s cries for help were the voice of temptation rather than the voice of truth, the voice of God calling me to rest. Pain is the body’s signal that we should stop. If we listen to it as a practice, then sometimes choosing wisely to override it can actually benefit the body, but if we typically ignore the pain signal, we will tear down our bodies. I believe the same for our souls. It knows better than our brain when something is amiss and needs addressing, and if our inclination is to ignore it, we tear it down.
BE AS GENTLE TO YOUR SOUL AS YOU ARE TO YOUR FRIEND'S
Continued from “Addicted to Effort”
As a boy I believed my worth depended on being good, on meeting expectations, especially God’s expectations. So when my worth seems challenged, I try to rescue it with redoubled effort driven by a sense of should. As long as I keep feeling this weight of duty, I know that below the level of conscious thought, my heart is entangled in fear, and by acting from fear, I strengthen its power over me. It is no use to tell myself, “Okay, regardless of how I feel, I am now going to act out of a security in God’s grace instead of from obligation.” Motivations are deeper and more complex than that, often tied to subconscious beliefs, and so they can’t be controlled directly by an act of the will.
Every time I “do right” from obligation, I feel better about myself and more secure in God’s love, but it is a false security based on my good behavior. Each “good” choice then strengthens my belief that God’s love depends on what I do. As long as law and grace agree on what is best to do, and I conform (successfully meet the expectations), I assume my trust in God’s grace. Just as a rich man can trust God’s provision easily, so I can trust God’s love when my cache of good behavior is full. But an empty account reveals the source of my trust, and failure forces me to face my fears. If failing is my door into self-knowledge and grace, should I aim for it, shirk my duties in order to grow in grace?
Too Much of a Good Thing Is a Bad Thing
That sounded wrong. So I kept meeting all the demands of duty while constantly identifying and challenging my underlying legalism. It was a long, slow process in which my choices to satisfy the should seemed to continually pull me back from grace. Then I started realizing that my perceptions of responsibility were largely shaped by my insecurities and the expectations of others, present or absent. Those who promoted these duties tried to anchor them in Scripture as divine law, but the great majority came rather from culture, family, tradition, personality, and the like—a prescription of what good people do.
Good people get up early, make their beds, take a shower, eat a healthy breakfast. They mow their lawns, wash the dishes, exercise, change the oil in their car every 3,000 miles. They limit their TV viewing, work hard at school and office, live within their means, answer emails and phone calls in good time. They don’t cut folks off in traffic or spend too much on luxury items or make others wait for them. I could go on for 1,000 pages. If I don’t conform, my sense of worth languishes. I spot it in my tendency to deny my own needs in order to meet these obligations, in my embarrassment (i.e. shame) if others find out what I have or have not done, or in my need to find an excuse for my behavior—I didn’t have the time, money, strength, opportunity, support. I could never appeal to my own needs, desires, or feelings as a legitimate reason to ignore these expectations, for that was simply selfishness. Perhaps no confusion has done more damage to us all than equating self-care with selfishness.
Since my (faulty) conscience cried out against me if I chose my needs and desires over these duties, I found a huge opportunity to face my own shame. I really could “shirk my duties” as a means of spiritual growth! I could choose for myself against these demands, feel the sting of shame, and then apply grace to this fear. The question stopped being “What would people think?” or “What should I do?” and became “What does my soul need.” Unfortunately my soul was so long ignored, that it had no voice. I often did not know what it needed. But I knew one thing for sure–it needed fewer demands placed on it.
The strange path to freedom.
I have many coping mechanisms to protect me from the prickly world, a combination of defenses unique to myself. I was a compliant child, a trait sometimes mistakenly referred to as “good” or “obedient,” so I responded to my insecurites by trying to make the grade (measured by my approval ratings). This was my basis for self-worth: scoring a 10 on my performance. When I was judged as inadequate, my deeply ingrained, almost instinctive reaction was to rachet up the effort. I proved my value as a person by doing more, better, faster, by never repeating failures or mistakes, by meeting or exceeding every expectation that appeared worthy.
CHASING SUCCESS
Perhaps the hardest coping mechanisms to overcome are those which are inescapably tied to the necessities of living. Every addiction has its unique power of control. Bulimics, unlike alcoholics, literally cannot live without the substance to which they are addicted, and that significantly complicates their deliverance. In the same way, I cannot live without doing. I cannot abandon all tasks in order to break free from my addiction to effort–I am forced to keep succeeding at a job, at finances, at relationships, and all the other tasks essential to life. They say success breeds success, but in my case, success breeds bondage (and unfortunately so does failure).
For me, at a subconscious level, every task accomplished inevitably feeds my sense of worth and every task unfinished feeds my shame. I don’t knowingly tell myself, “See what I have done. I am a good person after all.” The telltale sign of this malady may only be a sense of satisfaction, which is natural enough, but the reason for my satisfaction is largely a sense of worth based on my work.
In short: I have an addiction to effort as a means to gain worth, I cannot live without doing, but each time I do something and feel better as a person, I subconsciously strengthen my addiction.
Let me give an example. I have said something that has hurt my colleague Mike. I am afraid of what he now thinks of me, especially because his evaluation of me feeds my doubts of my own worth. Since love is the best motivation, I tell myself to reach out to him in love and concern for his well-being. These are my conscious thoughts, but underneath, my very value as a person depends on his renewed approval of me. My fear escalates as I ask for a minute of his time. Why fear? Because my worth is at stake. If he is reconciled by my apology, my fear turns to pleasure. “See,” I tell myself, “love works!” when in fact I have just succeeded in strengthening a false basis for my worth as a person–I am worthy because of what I do, in this case reconciliation.
The motivation for what I do is the key. I can act out of a place of grace or a place of should and shame, though that makes it sound dichotomous when really my motives are always mixed to some degree. If I complete a chore more out of fear than of grace, I strengthen my doubt in God’s love. If I act more from grace, I strengthen my faith in God’s love. But if I am pressured by ‘should,’ how can I respond out of grace? For me at least, operating out of a sense of should is really responding from a doubt of God’s acceptance, from a sense that his love depends on my behavior, from a fear of being unworthy. I find that if I do not first challenge the should, face it down, call out its lies of conditional love, then I feed my doubt and insecurity with each task I complete. I feel better, but am worse for it.
Back to Mike. If he is unwelcoming, I become defensive–I try to “explain” more clearly, I express my hurt at his response, I point out his matching faults. Unlike my successful attempt, my failure to win him over suddenly reveals my real motivation. It was not love, but insecurity. Insecurity will always be present, but if it predominates as my motivation, it will harm me and my relationships. It may feel better to both of us if it “works,” but it is a sugar high that eventually leads to diabetes. I am most aware of my insecurities when my coping mechanism fails, when my “right” actions for self-redemption flounder. If at first I don’t go to Mike, but sit with my insecurity long enough to find saving grace, to believe my worth has no basis in what I do, then I can go to Mike in a way that leads to wholeness for us both.
In certain situations, this time of processing is effective, but often, the longer I delay acting, the more anxious I become. I am constantly being pressured by a “should,” and this crowds out the emotional space I need to find grace. In the past I often had to go ahead and complete the task (and so remove the pressure), and then try to deal with the shame-based motivation. My grasp of grace was not firm enough to escape self-condemnation if I failed to act, but at least being aware of my true motivations was a fundamental step to addressing them.
To be continued…
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.
Janathan Grace Reflections 