The Gift of Fight or Flight?

My brain is an interesting place for sure. I've been considering what it is to either react or respond and what within my brain chooses one or the other of those two choices. 

It was very enlightening when I first read somewhere that if I speak to another person such that I illicit a response the conversation will be different than if I speak in such a way that I illicit a reaction.

That knowledge right there gave me wonderful freedom in knowing how to effectively promote a useful conversation.

For example, someone could say to me; "Why did you plant that bizarre, twisty shaped

shrub in your garden?" Or they could say; "Hmm, that is certainly an interesting choice of bush to put in front of your house."

In my brain the first comment heads me right to a reaction. "What do you mean "bizarre?" Why are you picking on me? You obviously have bad taste if you don't see this choice of shrub as being a good choice." And on and on it would go. My ego is activated and I defend and react and attack in return.

With the second comment I am invited into a conversation. I don't have to tamp down and restrain my injured ego, I can just explain what and how I was thinking when I choose that shrub and that spot.

This has a lot to do with the human brain's gift of fight or flight. How do you think that is so? And why?

Those Annoying Transitions of Life.

Fall is one of my favorite times of year.  It's so full of action both seen and unseen, and is the place holder of a new beginnings as well as a fading of what was and will never be again. 

Plants in my garden have been frosted and some will die and the seeds are being spread around.  Other plants are only losing their blossoms, stems and leaves but when I pull those up I see nice fat tubers that I am storing away in the cellar for that new beginning I spoke of.

Change and progression are one of the basics of living life but as humans we tend to fear the changes of life.

Not only does our conscious fear the changes often but according to what I learned in a seminar on the dynamics of the brain, our brain fears change!

If I am about to change myself there are ways that support change and ways of encountering that that sets up a reaction in the brain.

The brain can experience a direct attempt at changing it as a threat.  As such, the fight/flight reaction is triggered and chemicals are released that among other reactions tend to shut down the prefrontal lobe to focus on the "battle" at hand.

So thus the way to encounter my brain with a new habit or new way of being is to simply in peace, and with love for myself, start to learn a new way of living life or being and ignore the other unwanted habit or habits and thus not activate the reactive responses of the brain. 

So, living in peace become not just a way of being with others but a way of "living" with ourselves.

Gently and in fact lovingly noticing those habits or way of living that may have supported us in the past but are not working well now.

Often we need others around us to be with us in this process.  A friend or a community can support us in the upset and confusion that may result from suspending certain ways of thinking or acting and integrating new ways of thinking and acting.

Those friends can love us through those wintery seasons of change and casting off until there is the new birth of something else fresh and new on the other side.

He had all the gravitas of a 40 year old doctor (as his father is or was) as he considered my replies with a very direct gaze, and thought about what I had said. He never once smiled as we talked. I actually found myself a little intimidated by him at the same time I was enjoying observing his demeanor. 

This conversation went on as I was leaving a house where I was repairing blinds and needing more tools from outside, and one of the 3 1/2 year old twins queried me about what I was doing and which vehicle outside was mine.  

When I saw his twin brother I noticed he was more of a little irish redhead with a quick smile and more spontaneous way of being. 

Later I found out that his dad had had a stroke within the year and is no longer employed as a doctor and may never be again. So very sad. 


There are both pluses and minuses to working on 

being aware and involved with people. The beauty and charm of glimpses of maturity in a child and the painful and premature ending of an adult's life as they knew it.

As I have thought about this experience of mine, another conversation made me think of what we know of God.  I think what we know of God is what Jesus did with others.  He empathized.  He listened.  He was intuitive.  He used annoyingly unclear and open ended parables about how people relate to each other and God.

I have to think that when he was with someone he was searching deep within.  What is the joy in there?  What is the pain in there?  What made this person the person they are today?

Why do I think about this?  Well, because I feel like a large part of my life was lived somewhat in a narcissistic fog of internal pain.  That got old and I deconstructed my life and fortunately got to put it back together in a much better way.  For me what I really have wanted in this reconstruction is to in a sense come up to speed in terms of my ability to be empathetic and intuitive about others and to do so within the ever pervasive presence of God.  

I believe the deepest and richest way to live life is in connection with others in that context of God's presence.

They gain and I gain.  A relational win/win.  

"My concern for clergy is that they’re caught in a trap like the Emperor’s new clothes. Behind closed doors, clergy doubt much of what they believe. Is God there? Is the Bible accurate? We all have doubts. But, when most clergy step up into the pulpit, none of that is expressed.
The truth is that most people who come to church have lots of doubts themselves, but they cannot express their doubts, either, because the church has become this place where everyone is expected to be a stalwart of Christianity.
The congregation finds itself caught in this game in which everyone is trying to hide from each other. The church can become like this crack house, where everyone wanders in to escape their suffering for an hour with their weekly hit from the church."
Peter Rollins

Sadly there is very little acknowledgement in church that doubt is the very lifeblood of relationship with a mysterious and inexplicable God.  Taming him into belief systems that *I* hold onto, diminishes him into some kind of behind the curtain Wizard of Oz that I bring out on demand.  

Faith inherently requires an uncertainty.  and God knows with God there is enough of that to go around if we're not playing pretend.

 "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver [...] "Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  

It's beyond a crying shame that elaborate houses of cards have been constructed and held onto like the very breath of life thus teaching everyone to live in inauthenticity where maintenance of the facade becomes the "lifeblood" rather than the messy and satisfying work of relationship.  

I often think about what sacrifice is and what it means to me.  Or how do all things work together for good.  And how pain and disappointment and hurt and injustice become part of anything meaningful.

For me this consideration is built into and around "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."  A cosmic undergirding of all that is.  A tapestry interwoven and inseparable from love.

Linked with this fundamental is the obvious corollary of the redemption and transformation of what was, into something completely different,  much akin to the fable of the spinning of straw into gold.

 Perhaps a mythic thread that penetrated into children's stories as the best ideas so often do.

But those beautiful and rewarding considerations don't necessarily always redeem the painful coming to terms with having been abused and then recovering from that pain.   To start the process of accepting and confronting the damage done to the soul and spirit is often daunting and a weary process.

Many roadblocks seem to occur both from within and from without.  To even begin to look at what happened so often involves sorting out the true assignment of fault.  This is often discouraging because self blaming and shame and self-loathing is so often an integral part of that process and seem such an integral part of who we are until we gain the ability to see clearly.  .

The defining moment of recovery I believe is when the anger and confusion and trauma starts to disappear into a realization that whatever happened, it sucked, it was wrong, it may have zapped out our chance of any thing like a normal childhood,  but now we can gain from the experience and let the whole process be submerged in that amazing cosmic force of turning straw into gold.

What was intended for evil gets used to bring glory to God somehow in ways that actually we may never see or even understand.

I think that is the final part of a recovery.  That gift of understanding that it wasn't all  just a nightmare but something is being redeemed and transformed into some good, and  often in someone else's life.

Since I have transitioned out of the norm of church attendance, and also been considering some different ways of considering my relationship with God, I have encountered many people with far different beliefs than mine.  Some consider themselves atheists, some consider themselves agnostic and others hold some variation of Christian belief. 

In that process many of them are talking about the process they are in,  and the questions they have and also how realizing what they used to believe so dogmatically they are now not so certain about.

This can create quite a stir among others both for them selves and for the "weak" ones out there.  (Whoever they are.)  

In considering the reaction to this processing of beliefs, it seems to me that much of the reaction on the part of non-questioning people is some sort of fear or something that is tapped into within them when a friend goes through a passage of questioning.  Sometimes there is such an energy to the reaction I end up thinking there must be something being "hooked" inside the person with the concern.  It's perhaps stirring up their own latent questions or concerns.  
And then from that unstable base of action they take the iron sharpening iron concept and slice away doing the damage that abstract concept often does because it is out of the context of an authentic, loving, and trust based knowledgeable relationship.

People at peace seldom get all worked up over other people's processes.

 
I don't think God gets all that hyper about it. He is not limited and in a hurry. My belief is that he just keeps loving. Inexorable. Tenderly.  He is very secure I believe about his ability to care well for his child.  

I felt some sense of panic when my kids and then many of my friends questioned all sorts of things. I actually had to entrust them to who I really believed God to be and be with them in the process.  Prior to that I was praying frantically for them and felt guilt about perhaps not praying enough for them to in effect I guess "cause" God to take notice and deal with what I wanted done.  
Oh yeah, and hopefully deal with whatever insecurities their process brought up in me.


Regarding how to effectively love and affirm someone going through that process, it's remarkable how much openness and resulting possible transformation can occur with a little bit of investment in relationship. It really is simple. For some strange reason perhaps those inner insecurities and fears,  often people want to ignore or bypass relationship and try to make a change in the transitioning person right away.

 I will say that to converse with someone with different or perhaps even stronger held views than mine is intimidating or can be, so I can understand the drop in, drop the bomb, get out of town mentality rather than to build a relationship where intimacy and trust would be born. 
I am noticing that in my own life nowadays so I'm understanding of that point of view.

As I did with my kids, I am learning to lovingly and trustingly be with the person as they and God deal with whatever is going on, being sensitive to some part of that process I may be invited into.

 Trust me, people going through that process do value and appreciate someone with them in the journey.  

‎"Once you label me you negate me."
Søren Kierkegaard

Exactly. I just become a semiotic device in your thinking. All that I am becomes merely a sign within your thinking. In your interaction with me actually you will not be interacting with me, you will be interacting not with the full me but the symbol that I now am for you. 

This is exactly why Peter Rollins, the author of How (Not) to Speak of God,  talks about adopting atheism for lent. To allow for the sign that God may have become in my mind to be replaced by the living and active presence of God. 

Signs certainly have many purposes but you can never have a dynamic relationship with a sign. It merely points to something.

Anytime a human or a being becomes a sign for me, at that point the life is drained out of them and they have become a marker for what they represent in my mind. 

Which needless to say minimizes or shuts down any the beauty of the interaction with a human being because the interaction is with a semiotic device in my brain. 

What signs might you become in my mind? Old human, young human, smart human, crazy human, black human, white human, male human, female, intellectual, uneducated, pretty, engineer, day laborer,... you get the point. 

Love means I care enough to notice when I am assigning (good word here ;~) a place holder or sign in place of the living and dynamic reality that is you. 

We all do it, it's the way the brain functions. Our brains always seem to want to assign meaning to what we see and conceptualize "what it is." 

Signs and labels kills the person and closes the latches on a small box with a rounded top and gilded hinges. 

Love creates an opening of an unknown size where the other person can become fully alive in the relationship and actually according to Carl Rodgers the aliveness enabled can show up in every part of the person's life.

"The mark of Christianity is the paradox, the absolute paradox. As soon as a so called speculative cancels the paradox and makes this qualification into an element, all the spheres are confused."
~Søren Kierkegaard

Personally have come from a background of dependence on knowing and being secure in that knowledge, I now much more appreciate not knowing.

And truly when exploring what it is to be in relationship with the creator of the Cosmos would mystery and a freedom to explore that mystery be the best and more rich place to find even more of an expression of who God is?

And if God's primary purpose is to be relational what is more mysterious than a relationship?  I could try to be funny and talk about understanding the mind of a woman but truly we each are mysterious within us and thus we are mysterious in how we show up in life.  

That is why NOTHING is gained by holding a person in a box, thus much less holding God in a box.

Love is not love unless it is an openness within the mind for the other; God or my wife, or my friend or the Democrat or the Republican or whomever.

Fear creates fences, love sees no fences.  

"For the first few centuries after Christ the church tended towards believing everyone would be united with God in the end. Then the doctrine of Hell gained prominence.

So, let's see if I read this correctly - closer to Jesus we were more loving and inclusive, once man had time to make his own influence felt things started going to Hell."
David Mclaughlan

I wonder if this switch David is speaking of, had anything to do with the church becoming a political/cultural institution under Constantinople. Certainly force and power and control entered the picture then.
It seems obvious that to force someone to become a Christian completely and effectively bypasses the inner spirituality of a relationship with God.
Hell replacing God's love is pure and simple what happened. Makes you want to cozy right up!!

I am so bold as to think that the fox took over the henhouse a few hundred years ago and corrupted what a relationship with God was meant to be. The same human propensity still affects the church today, using force, control and manipulation through proper thinking and proper action to not enjoy a deep seated inner peace with God but to avoid punishment.

No wonder the church has not affected and deeply transformed the culture. It's not just a perversion to lead people to God through fear and intimidation, it doesn't work well!!

Abstract Vs. Relational

"It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I'm afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can."

~Robert Farrar Capon

Source: The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair With Theology : Three Books : An Offering of Uncles/the Third Peacock/Hunting the Divine Fox, Pages: 176


"Abstract principles and philosophies are much cleaner and more sterile and manageable than a personal God with personality, will and relational being. When we can reduce our theology to these abstract principles we can create a nice tidy little theology that leaves us feeling safe and in control of things. 

God becomes the giant vending machine in the sky into which we input the right currency, (our prayers, our efforts and our tithes for example) and then we can predictably wait on God to give us what we've paid for according to the divine system and transactional rules we've established.

Living in relationship with a Trinitarian God who embodies love and relationship and moving beyond the systems of what seems to me to be essentially just a form of Christianized Deism, is a very messy thing as opposed to the "safety" and "security" that we would rather find in an impersonal system that leaves us with predictable outcomes and overall control of everything in our lives."

Bart Breen https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinitarianism/274624109277834?fref=ts

Some of us go through a very severe shift in who we are in life. Usually that shift has to do with all areas of life but sometimes it starts in a particular area, such as relationships not working at all, or breakdowns in the relationship repeating, and sometimes this shift has to do with our spirituality. 

Regarding how our friends can be with us in this often very painful and deep shift;

~ some people don't get it and they resist it for whatever reason.
~Some people don't get it but they stick with you and are with you in it even in their not understanding.
~And then there are people who understand it because they are there or have been through it.

It's interesting that all of life really is and has to be a certain fluidity to it to live it well.

That fluidity is what some people fear. Ironically especially if they are Christians and believe in the powerful goodness of God. They don't seem to trust the human spirit to take care of its self, and they don't seen to trust the hand of God in their life.

That may not be too surprising because many times people's personal dysfunction has become intermingled with the dysfunctions of religious systems and beliefs. So when they start the healing process of the spirit that process may understandable shift how they relate to religion.

What often happens is that the person shifts to a deeper and more intimate relationship with God thus emphasizing spirituality. 

The beauty and mystery of gardens.  

 I believe this photo was taken by a friend who is an amazing gardener and photographer, Kent Burgess.

 The Beauty Bush and some of the wonderful Iris I have in my garden.

What is this thing called "death?"

Tony used to work on my cars for me and apologize for what he had to charge me.  He was full of helpful advice regarding taking care of my automobiles.   He had clear and uninhibited opinions about many things including my son's cars and how he took care of them and drove them.   

 He was ribald and loved to laugh at his own jokes.  He was constantly aware of who was driving by and would know who they were and if they had been good to him or not.  And if they were out to get him.

He recently told me that when he was a young teenager because his step-dad and mother were disabled he would often be kept home from school to drive them to medical appointments or whatever.  And that his step-dad was abusive and he would take measures to avoid being hit even while he was driving.

Anyway, whatever, now he is no more.  At least here.  He was working on clearing land near his house and his backhoe wouldn't start and then I suppose unexpectedly it did and ran over him.   At something like 36 years of age his life here is done.  Complete.   Over.

Now his wife is without a husband and his son and daughter have no dad.  Now for them I imagine there will struggle and memories and faded pictures.

And I am in this surreal world where I drive by his house or drop off some flowers for his wife and I avoid the torn up patch of ground where I suppose the accident happened.  The backhoe thankfully is gone.

Something has ruptured.  The world feels different.  I look out my window towards the direction of his house and tears well up.  I'm not entirely sure why but I think it has to do with unfinished business and what seems like the futility of life.   One cantankerous backhoe and death shows up eager and vengeful.

Anyway,  there will be a memorial service and a burial and life will go on.

For some reason I don't even consider "where" Tony is now.  I choose to have a certain belief regarding God and so I don't worry about Tony.  His life with in some ways was always a struggle is over and he is in love.  I don't know where, I don't know how, well actually I do have a clue, but I'm sure he is well taken care of.

So here I sit with no answers really.  The sun is shining, the rest of the household will get up and life on the surface will go on.  But I tell you something was ruptured and will never be the same.  For me at least there is a golden remedy that fills the cracks but the cracks of life are always there even though the event of the breaking may fade.

Rest in peace, Anthony Clark.

Heart Happens

I've been thinking about how we get (or don't) get each other's heart. I realized this is a metaphor for something. So it's not going to be described precisely but perhaps the conversation around something indescribable is the beauty of it.

I am fortunate to have a lot of friends that "get" my heart and I get theirs. We relate at what I would call a heart level. It's interesting that I'm quite sure we have dramatically different political perspectives, we are all over the place in how we understand (or misunderstand God) but that is immaterial to the enjoyment of our friendship.

I love something one of those friends posted this morning;

"I still crave the extravagant gesture, the woman spilling a year’s wages on the feet of Jesus, the rarest perfume, washing his feet and drying them with her hair, a gesture so sensual it left the other men in the room paralyzed with criticism, analysis, theoretical moral concern - for what - the poor?

Or was it just misdirected outrage in light of the glaring poverty of their own imaginations?" Linford Detweiler

Jesus' interest in people must have so strongly connected with their heart. And it seems like often the people he connected with so strongly and beautifully were people with wounded hearts.

So I think there is something about the wounding and breaking processes, the processes that were so wrong or so painful and feels unredeemable, of life that open us up to heart connection. It's so often true that those events that have been painful make us respond by hiding our hearts away but also I think they create a yearning to have our hearts opened up and connected with others.

At least with people that we think value our heart. Not our wisdom, our beauty, but our heart.

The mystery of that heart. Just as I believe God finds endless enjoyment watching us grow and act and be, we find people who connect with that open-ended invitation to be who we were created to be.

When we are in conversation with those people it feels open and inviting. We don't have to measure our words. We get to experiment in ways that perhaps have been shut down for years.

Silliness becomes possible. Wisdom unexpectedly shows up. Tears happen. Empathy connects us. We walk away invigorated and refreshed.

Rob Bell and my family, a parable

My kids don't have to struggle to be my kids that I love so much. They don't have to do anything. If they want to participate in that relationship all they have to do is rest in being my kids. I don't require that they love me, though I like that, they don't have to do special practices altho hey, if they give me a little red two-seater as I have requested, I'd love it.

I haven't given them a booklet on how to maintain that family relationship because thankfully at some point we developed a healthy "spirit" of the family that they can either grow in or grow away from. I'm not even requiring that Scott love me the same way Tim does, and I certainly don't need Jenny to keep track of Jesse's way of being with me.

As we love each other, our being with each other will grow and develop and change if it needs to, to allow us to continue to love each other in ways that work.

Are there specific ways of being and doing that will enhance the relationship? Yup! Could we develop and use a booklet to enhance the growth of love in the family? Sure enough.

But without referencing the "spirit" of the family, even following the instructions in that booklet won't produce more closeness in fact it could lead to disjointedness.

I have to wonder if part of the enjoyment of my family is that I just plain and simply think my kids are the best. Thinking of them, and the fact that they are where they are, just gives me pleasure.

Guess you ran afoul of this, Rob Bell

"lacking god's power to create tangible things, the false self creates by use of ideologies, definitions, social myths and words. The false self give it's own name to life and then like a self-proclaimed demiurge, demands that all of life conform to it's wishes.

What is enacted here is the tragic error of naming the elephant and then trying to ride home on the name given, instead of on the elephant itself.

This whole process frequently occurs in religion as well. We give God a name. We than equate God with the name we have given him, and in doing so we make ourselves, in effect God's God. Instead of acknowledging God as the source of our identity and existence, we make ourselves the self-proclaimed source of God's identity. God then becomes the one made in our image and likeness.

Those engaged in the undertaking of naming god see themselves to be participating in a holy work. They are the God-definer, the definition makers. They give shape to the ultimate perimeters of life.

Of course, one of the procedural principles is that God is everything and we are nothing. But they define what this means. They mark off those who properly grasp it from those who do not. Thus, while maintaining that they are nothing, they turn their nothing into a nothing that defines itself and thereby make that nothingness into a kind of everything to which all who which to know the truth must listen. This is a far cry from the true theological inquiry but it is not a far cry from the stance of the Pharisee who is always with us in the form of a deep-seated universal tendency within ourselves, It is the false self expressing it's futile, odious outcry against the Creative sovereignty of the divine freedom.

Once the false self gives birth to it's own dark gossamer existence as cut off from God, it begins to function as it's own God by passing final decision and judgements upon everything under the sun. A whole system of formulas, laws and ideologies is created to form not only one's relationship to others but to God as well. Both self and God become equated with the definitions given to them. Both God and self become cogs in a smoothly running system of self-creation."

From Merton's Palace of Nowhere, James Finley.

Feelings, nothing more than feelings?

A friend and I had another installment of a long running conversation regarding theology and it's application to humans. This seems important to us because a theology that doesn't somehow reference humans is sterile. It may be true, it may be useful, it may give glory to the divine but if somehow it doesn't touch the human condition it's merely an esoteric discussion without any chance of transformation of people's lives.

I would submit that the subject of my theology, God, is about having relationship with humans.

When I said this in one online forum, I got a terse reply; "state Scripture, chapter and verse."

I choose to ignore him and he still wants an answer. It seemed so obvious that it would be insulting to him and me to respond.

One reason the discussion with my friend is interesting is that we by our personalities and life histories are interested in different aspects of truth. He seems to want to get as clear as possible regarding rational, conceptual, dialectic truth.

I on the other hand want to know "truth" in the sense of how does it express God's personal love for humans. I want to understand the implications of rational, conceptual truth as it would be "felt" by humans.

This will come as no surprise to friends of mine that are clear that "feelings" are a focus of mine. (all together now; Whoooo, feelings, nothing more than... )

Certainly guilty as charged. But for me the connection between "truth" and feelings is compelling because for some reason I didn't have much connection with my feelings for much of my life. And I was strongly taught in "truth." This state of mind became painful and I deconstructed and started to rebuild my life. Recovering the ability to "feel" was an important part of this.

This conversation with this friend is important to me because as much as I value feelings because God said he "so loved the world" and I think he expects that love to be felt, ultimately there is truth that undergirds that love.

Love and truth support each other.

If there is anything to the quote; "The glory of God is man fully alive," than thinking and feeling are partners in that delicate dance.

Boston harmonies

I love cities. I suppose growing up in a practically virginal valley in the western edges of the Catskills shouldn't set me up for this but it did. But even now I live on the main street of a small NH town and I can walk out my door across a couple of yards and I'm back in the woods from where the deer sometimes glide out and eat the yews around the houses.

I love the hustle and bustle, I love the traffic confusion, I love looking at huge buildings and looking in the window trying to see past the drapes and wondering who lives their life up there?

Recently I've been in Boston more than usual as I am having dental work done at Tufts Dental School to save money and also to support students who need practice.

As I stand waiting near the windows of the 12th floor I look out over Chinatown and can see lots of roof tops. This reminds me of one drapery job I did in Cambridge just over the river from Boston was installing a 30' wide motorized drape (into the concrete ceiling!) into a penthouse the building owner had built on top of his apartment building so that his daughter could live there while she went to Havard or something. Just threw a penthouse up on top of his apartment building! For his daughter to live in while she goes to college! Hey, presto; empty rooftop now penthouse.

This is what I'm talking about. Another world, another way of living.

So I had been to the dentist and was driving away when I looked out at the scene ahead of me; Chinatown stores, tall residential buildings, people scurrying around, construction going on and suddenly I was elevated by having this urban scene overlaid in my head with this section from The Message;

"From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. 
So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross." 
 Colossians 1

It was a surreal moment. I felt a kinship, a joy in this huge, gritty, intimidating world. A vibrant harmony.

In Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen, Nouwen describes the ability to engage in solitude anywhere you are, people or no people, quiet or no quiet. It's an inner attitude that I can choose. And in so doing be where I am for others.

This is in contrast to the emotion of loneliness I'm sure I would have felt in a big city a few years ago. Sad, anxious, and always living in the future of getting back to where my partner in co-dependency, my wife, was. Taken up with the impossible assuaging of my own feelings of loneliness that I was choosing.

Now in this celebration of vibrancy in the midst of the ebb and flow of traffic and bustling people I was able to engage a God's eye view. What could be seen as "broken and dislocated pieces" fitting together in smooth harmony. All the diversity and activity flowed as a beautiful river through the canyon walls of brick and mortar and glass.

And I was part of a larger whole. 

40 year time warp

Yesterday I attended my 40th High School reunion out in the beautiful hills of New York. I had connected recently with a few of my classmates on Face Book and had enjoyed the connection so I wanted to follow up on that.

High School was miserable for me. ADD and belonging to an obscure religious group and living out in the country in what could be considered a commune of sorts set me up for all sorts of weirdness.

I always felt that I was a geek or outside bouncing around everyone else's world. I had for religious reasons very little social interactions with classmates so I seemed to have very little in common with them.

One thing I was very clear about. I didn't want anyone to notice my ears (which are not all that pronounced) but I noticed how someone else received the name "Ears (Last name) and I was petrified that that would happen to me.

So with all of this trying to be invisible I'm sure that I created some of the awkward relationship dynamics that existed. Classmate now tell me that they just thought I was shy. I was certain that they would have used the word "weird". I haven't checked with Gordy Temple about that. He I'm sure, would honor my request for honesty! He and Bill Briggs were just a much fun to be around as they were in HS.

So, the reunion was fun because I had fun meeting everyone and hanging out. I actually miss being closer to them. And now it's interesting to me that I so could wait to get out of High School and move on.

What I didn't expect was driving by some depressing place along the road on the way and having a groundswell of emotion from the past. Self-loathing, disgust, embarrassment, shame, you name it it because fully present to me. All the mistakes I made, jobs that I didn't finish, High School projects I barely finished or got a zero on all the negative came up and smacked me like a dead fish.

I was able to notice it and move on by it but wow, was it not fun to be reminded of what I lived in emotionally for so many years.

No wonder at some point when my wife started to recover from her emotional issues and she wanted me to be "present and available" I was confused and scared"

I was used to hiding out and had no idea what the heck she meant when she said "present and available." I'm sure I must have looked blankly at her and said that I'm right here!

So here I am 58 years old, feeling ageless really and enjoying the process of living life in the moment, present and available for myself and others.

Emerging Church conference quotes

Phyllis Tickle:* The central question that arises each time the church goes through one of these 500 year rummage sales is “Where now is our authority?” * Another important question: What does it mean to be a human being? Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” no longer cuts it * Sola Scriptura: Luther took a flesh & blood Pope and replaced it with a paper one. Protestantism’s great gift to the world was universal literacy. It’s other gift was divisiveness * Jerusalem is good, but the energy is in Antioch. We are here to serve the Kingdom of God, not the old or the new.

Brian McLaren:* What you focus on determines what you miss * Our traditional understanding of Jesus may not have been wrong, but partial * We must learn to see Jesus through the sight lines of his ancestors rather than his descendants only * Jesus went to Galilee. It meant something. If he came today would he go to Wall Street, Hollywood, the Ninth Ward… where?

Richard Rohr:* With dualistic thinking, someone always has to be blamed. The system caves in on itself * The sun rises on the just and unjust. You can’t form a system of exclusion on that! * Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about humanity. He came to change humanity’s mind about God * We have fly-paper minds… everything that gets close sticks. Don’t call that ‘thinking’. It is narcissistic, egocentric, needy, and fragile * “I have no doubt that the Spirit was in the works of the Reformation.” But you can’t have the need to prove the other wrong (adversarial thinking) and be the contemplative mind * We don’t want to be contemplative because we have to give up control * Belonging/belief systems have come to replace transformation. We must turn from a belief system to an inner experience. Know them, don’t believe them * Recognize that I am living inside a mind bigger than my own. Someone is loving through me, and all I am is the conduit. * Francis didn’t run off and join the Franciscans – He just did it.

Alexi Torres-Fleming:* God doesn’t call the qualified but surely qualifies the called. * Am I a fan or a follower of Jesus? * When we pray for God to ‘fix’ a problem, maybe Jesus kneels and prays for us to go out and be the solution * Maybe we’re given a little piece of God’s heart. We couldn’t deal with the entirety of God’s sadness for His children. (Note: Maybe this is what it means to be “made in the image of God”) * If we are free, and God’s poor are not free, then we are not free. * We cannot talk about church and theology without talking about justice. * We like our poor to look a certain way. The poor come to us in many different packages, and some may not be palatable. Some are angry. We must learn to see them as Christ sees them. (Note: Otherwise it’s just about us) * We must model incarnation: You cannot redeem what you will not assume.

Shane Claiborne:* Stop explaining/complaining about the church we have experienced and work at becoming the church we dream of. * We need to be relevant to the big questions of the day while retaining our cultural peculiarity * Fascinate the world with grace! * The church needs discontent. Don’t leave the church but submit to the authority of the larger Body of Christ * You can have all the right answers and still be mean. And if you’re mean, no one will listen to you.