An Outer Perspective Brings Inner Seeing.

Ya know how you see yourself differently then others see you?

  Well, I have recently taken a bit of a look at myself from a perspective outside myself.  I think it's a healthy thing to do, noticing how people see you. Not your inner intentions but your outward actions and reactions.

  Cuz let's face it, we look great to ourselves when we judge our motives and dismiss our actions, the inflection in our voices, our body language, facial expression and other outward expressions others see.

  Of course, even this statement is biased. Everyone is self-centred to some degree or other. Most of our truest motives are for our own benefit and not someone else's. Part of that is just self preservation. Instinctual. But a large part of it, if we are truly honest with ourselves, is just pleasure based. Even helping others can be self motived. How does it make YOU feel, or how does it make YOU look to others? Will helping others EARN you brownie points with God…etc. 

K, established…..So my perspective is what I'm really wanting to flesh out here. 

  I'm not sure I set out to look at myself from someone else's perspective on purpose. It was a series of little things that brought it to my attention and has it rolling around in my head now and then.

  The first I think, has taken a while to filter in. At my mothers Celebration of Life three years ago. For the first time in my life, I was given a glimpse at how others saw my Mom. I was usually frustrated with her growing up, and after I moved out and married. But Mom, it turned out was a very fun loving, well loved and generous person! She volunteered over 30 years to Girl Guides, worked in nursing probably as long. Changed careers when I was in my teens and worked with kids in the public school district and later volunteered for the Daffodil campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society. She had good friends for many years who played cards every month for over 20 years. Her friends thought the world of her. I had a completely different perspective growing up. Which is too bad really. I missed out on a wonderful person apparently! 

So that experience has been rolling around in my head and heart for three years now.

  A nudge towards this idea has been building because of work. As an employee at a coffee shop where I get to don a brown uniform day in and day out, who I am is toned way down in order to represent the coffee chain. I am a coffee automaton. Most days I hate it. But it has given me food for thought too. Since I can not express myself in outward appearence my fellow workers and regular customers get to see me in my actions, attitude, and facial expressions. At work I'm pleasant. I could count on one hand the number of times I have been very upset, angry or frustrated in the year I've worked there. From what I can tell, most of the employees actually like me, but few if any have pursued any kind of deeper friendship with me, and my attempts to do so with some of them are weak I must admit. 

  My second big push to look at myself from the outside came at a coffee date with a friend.

She was describing a long time friend of hers to me this last time. I can't even remember the exact term she used, but I do remember one was "she is a bit like a sailor on shore leave", meaning she is full of life and goes after living life to its fullest. I laughed at such a funny and unusual description. Then I realized what a compliment it was. What a great compliment! If only I was that kind of person! If only I could be described that way! But I know I'm not.

So how would someone describe me?! Not like that! I can not kid myself about that. 

  There are definitely different layers of me that could be described. Some know me causally, some think they know me, only a few know me well at all. Then there are the different areas of me that don't get brought out often, but a few only see that part of me. This is the part of me I'm most worried about right now.

Am I an angry Christian, an angry person?

  If you bring up issues of health care I can get rather upset. I have strong feelings about doctors, their god-like status in our culture, their lack of compassion, and specifically some of the doctors I have dealt with regarding my kids or husbands  health. The thought of them just makes me angry. The idea that Canadian health care seems stuck and incapable of evolving or improving due to lack of funds angers me like nothing else. Unfortunately I'm also in no position to do anything about it. I'm not even educated enough to know who to talk too, or how my experience could be a benefit. I also don't think so highly of myself that I assume what I have to say is even important enough to tell someone who could do something.

  Then if you bring up anything about church, or even God it doesn't give me good feelings any more. Instead I feel angry. I know I'm ruined for attending any kind of box church again. I don't think I'd be able to sit in a pew and listen to someone else's idea of what we should think about God, or how we should walk out, or work out our faith walk. Do this, don't do that….God helps those who help themselves yadda, yadda, yadda! If you bring up issues about Gods goodness, or prayer working, or anything at all, I've got an negative response now. I didn't use to! But then again I use to sit and hang on every word some pastor would say in his/her sermon. 

  I'm now thinking this issue of being an angry christian is way too deeply rooted in some wrong belief for me to delve into it here. I could be feeling this way because I really feel betrayed somehow. Maybe it's because I have stopped attending any kind of "service" where there is teaching, now that I have been working every weekend for the last year. Maybe I feel this way because I'm still depressed. I did stop taking anti-depressants back a year ago. Maybe I shouldn't have! 

Ha! But I don't have a doctor to talk to about this issue cuz I fired her ass back three years ago because she was almost worse then having none! 

  And the cycle continues. I mostly avoid these topics unless it gets brought up by others. If I dwelled on them all the time I really would be an angry person all the time. Thankfully I can turn those parts off during most of my dealings in a common week and live fairly happily. 

  Small mercies, very few people actually have access to even attempt to dive that deep with me. So it's easy to ignore these issues. Unfortunately, that also means when I need to do some digging to clear out the clumps they aren't around to help.

Maybe there is a deeper reason to why I hate gardening! But that is a different blog topic.

By Request

For every action there is a reaction. For every cause, an effect. For every thing there is also a counter, or an opposite. 

This is taught on Sesame Street as well as in Public schools from Daycare right through to High School. We learn the opposite of up is down and in is out. We learn that Math has opposites, Science has opposites, even politics have opposites, and counters to the opposition. Music and art have primary and secondary and opposites to the primary’s and secondaries! There is no shortage of opposites for as the saying goes, “Opposites attract”! 

If you have ever read of heard anything about the Bible than you would have probably heard that there is also a Christ and an opposite to Christ, the Anti-christ. Christ’s exact opposite. Both are mentioned often in the books of Daniel and Isaiah, but mostly Revelation. Where Christ leads by example, truth, love, kindness, gentleness, grace and mercy the Anti-christ will dominate by fear, heavy handedness, lies and deceit. He will promise one thing but give you another. This is as simplistic an explanation as this non-theologian can come up with now. If it behooves you, please study these books. They are rather interesting, intense and as it is with Revelation, the only book of the Bible that comes with a promise of blessing for those who just read it. Not understanding it, just reading it brings blessing. I digress...

I am by no means a student of phycology, a theologian, or anything else that matters to people of status in society. I am on the other hand a person who watches, listens and deeply cares for and about others. Some people, for some reason, God allows me the privilege of getting to know. Sometimes it is to learn and grow from them. Other times it is to be a blessing to them in some way. This is why this topic I am attempting to broach is before me now. 

So, with my little explanation of opposites in the back of your mind I’m going to just jump right in because I don’t know how else to start this topic. I’ve danced around it now far too long and attempted to write several times all with the result of deleting anything typed.

As every “Christian” knows there are sins in life to be avoided. Promiscuous behavior, alcohol, smoking, cursing, gambling, drugs of any kind and gluttony. When all is said and done, it is anything that takes the place of God in your life that is really the sin. Anything that would consume your resources of time, thoughts, money, respect, and reverence. A lot of things can and do fit in that category, for christians and non-christians alike. I have recently begun to question some of the “do nots” I learned as a new believer over 20 years ago. Like “do not drink” and the more subtle secondary rules that I somehow learned by fear, “do not associate with drinkers, or those who do drugs”.

I’m not sure what was more scary. The idea that they might harm me due to their addictions, or somehow trick me into also becoming addicted! It’s all very silly now when I think about it because Jesus regularly hung out with “sinners”. It was for them He came for to release from their addictions, their sufferings, their heart aches, and their sicknesses. It is very sad that now a large portion of christians cut themselves off from those who need the truth the most...another bunny trail for another blog.

My new found freedom in questioning what I once learned has lead me to someone who smokes weed (See blog “A God Set Up”). I ask a lot of questions he found out. Not because I am enticed by the effects of it, but because I am interested in just learning another point of view. If I learned one thing well in the last few years, it is that there is some truth in everything. I like to seek it out and point it out to others. To bring perspective and clarity.

My seeking and asking has just lead me to more seeking and reading and watching. I have now been introduced to The Joe Rogan Experience and his two hour interview with Graham Hancock who talked about many interesting topics but also DMT, weed and Ayahuasca. I have now searched out and read about Ayahuasca on the internet. I have even watched the movie Growing Op. No, I have not tried weed, nor do I ever plan on it but I have come to an understanding of it. And that is what all this is about. 

The thing that struck me the most was Graham Hancock's explanation of the hallucinogenic drink Ayahuasca used in the Amazon. He continued to refer to it as if it had a personality. He said it is possible to ‘ask her for something’. He described that partaking of Ayahuasca should be done as a spiritual experience and “it is nearly always said that people experience profound positive changes in their life subsequent to consuming ayahuasca”. “People who have consumed ayahuasca report having deep insight as how to be the best person they possibly can. This is viewed by many as a spiritual awakening and what's often described as a rebirth.” - Wikipedia 

I had been wondering about all this for days. I knew I would never consume it but there was nothing in its description that sent up red flags as to why I shouldn’t either. Then suddenly it hit me. The way it was describe by Mr. Hancock as a person I realized that it was a counter to Holy Spirit! If there is something that can take the place of God in our lives, and there will be an Anti-christ in the end days then of course there has to also be a counter for Holy Spirit. I actually did discuss this revelation with a local phycologist and he agreed that I was right on with my deduction. It is not so much an escape to partake in these kinds of things, all though it can be. It is rather a desire for more. A desire to find and touch something bigger than ourselves. A desire to overcome the parts of us we hate and become a better person.

Holy Spirit is described as the third person in the trinity of the Godhead. An entity with his own personality and function. “He” is the one who shows us the wrongs in our lives and directs us to be better people. It is in the accepting of Jesus as the Son of God and the subsequent indwelling of Holy Spirit in us when we do believe that is called being “born again”. It is this experience that brings meaning to many peoples lives. An inner joy, peace and contentment, even the feeling of being loved are all ways people have described the rebirth experience. This experience is life time lasting. Even in all that I have been through and described in this blog, or even complained about and questioned, underlying it all is still a hope that keeps me from complete desperation and hopelessness. 

Of course as I understand more I desire more. When I was a new christian the newness in itself was enough. 20+ years later and I desire deeper relationship with God and His people and world. I do desire the overwhelming experience of His joy and love for me. It’s possible for Him to give us those experiences.  There are a few I have experienced I have not yet shared in this forum. Perhaps I will. There is tell of amazing displays of Gods goodness and love in the lives of Mystics. One book to read about that topic would be John Crowders book, The New Mystics. http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Workers-Reformers-New-Mystics/dp/0768423503

What have you experienced of God? Weather it be upon your first accepting Him as your God or since then? Do not think any experience is small or insignificant! God is a good God and will show up and most likely has shown up in your life and made Himself known to you. Share with the rest of us to encourage us and to encourage yourself.

I would love to hear about what you have experienced of God.

A God Set Up

Yerba Mate

I saw weed for the first time yesterday. It looks like Yerba Mate, or alfalfa powder. I was taken aback by the freedom at which it was pulled out and shown to me. More so because I didn't want anyone else to see. It is after all an illegal substance in Canada still. How did I, a 40-something "Christian" Mom come to a place in her life where I would be shown weed? That's a very good question. One that I would have very judgementally assumed an answer to back ten years ago. Instead the answer is so simple it may be shocking to the legalistic mindset, which I used to have.

It's called love and grace. Mountains and oceans of it; and ten years ago I would never have been able to give that answer. Mostly because I had never really understood what those were by experience until only a few years ago.   

I lived a life of faith, fuelled more by fear than by love. I was the one who believed with everything in me that God was good, so long as I did all the right things. If it was preached from the front of a church with passion and conviction then I would attempt to live it. I sang loud and danced in the aisles. I managed my money with the hopes that if I was a good steward of what we had than more would come our way. I was more interested in what God would do for me or give me for my obedience or passion then I was interested in who He was, or what He had already done for me. I thought that if I prayed consistently for my family then they would be protected. This was reinforced when I forgot to pray for five days in a row and one of our children broke a leg. I was devastated. I ended up feeling more ignored or forgotten by God than loved and blessed because my limited understanding of love was wrong. But at the time I didn't know that. Living this legalistic way brought more pain and hurt than joy and blessing. I see now that the blessings did come, in spite of myself. 

I am a different person now then I was back then. Since that time I have been loved. Truly loved by people who have an amazing understanding of how good God's love is and how encompassing His grace is to those who dare to accept it. I was loved in spite of my crazy, my obsessions, my depression, my fears, my hurts, my lashing out in hurt, my anger, and my stubbornness. I was horrible at relationship because I didn't feel loved or worthy of love. My problems were too big for others to handle and I had nothing of value to offer anyone.  

For a while I lived in the shadows of the former me. My emotional walls, not as high and thick as they once were, still up. I felt like everything was too good to be true. I had stopped reading the Bible. I no longer prayed as often. I didn't write out my prayers like I had once done and I couldn't even sing some of the worship songs with feeling or conviction. I felt like I was in a no mans land waiting for the bottom to drop out. I didn't know how else to live out the middle ground of what I once was and what i now was experiencing. Instead I just shut down.

Now I am so thankful that those walls were loved into pieces! The more freedom I live in the more freedom I learn is available to me. I have found out that I am a treasure hunter. I have the privilege of hunting for and digging out the truth in others. I have the freedom to walk without fear of judgment from others. Conversing with the Poem Guy downtown at the market, finding out what makes him tick. Asking him his name. I head straight for him now when I see him instead of avoiding him like I used to do. He is loved and has value. Just like all of us. Just like the guy who showed me his peanut butter jar half full of weed. He is worthy of being loved. He is worth getting to know. He has gifts and abilities that are essential to others around him. He has value and purpose that goes beyond what he does for a living. I'm hoping that I can pass on a little of that revelation to him just like it was passed on to me. The feeling of freedom that comes with it is so wonderful! 

An Unexpected Night

Tonight started out as any other. At home watching a t.v. show on the internet. A friend came home with the promise that I would drive her home later. She had mentioned a dream she had and I wanted to hear it. It had rattled her.

Too many people in the house and no where to go in it to talk alone so we left to “take her home”. I was itching for an excuse to get out of the house and just away. She wanted an Ice Cap, and I wanted to drive so I headed to the next city. She turned on the tunes as we drove without words, listening to the worship songs she picked. I found it very hard not to sing.

We stopped and had our treat and I listened to the God dream she had last night. We both had the same interpretation. That was confirmation to me that I am still discerning correctly. Haven’t had very many opportunities to exercise that part of me in a long while. 

I was still restless. I wanted back in the van and to just listen to worship songs. With every turn I went the opposite way from home. I just had no desire to go home. At least not yet. My friend sat quietly, DJ’ing our drive and unknowingly my heart, while I piloted the van a very long way home. Away from town at first, then back towards it the long way. Or so I thought....

As the tunes kept coming they continually softened my heart. I was content to enjoy the drive the long way home until it felt too long. My heart was turning to jelly and my passenger was noticing we should have hit the city by now. We were in the middle of nowhere. A new experience for me. I’m never lost, I have a very good sense of direction. But the fog, dark shiny roads, and the ‘too bright’ headlights must have caused me to miss a sign to turn somewhere. We realized we were nearly an hours drive south of town. Definitely the looong way home!

I got gas and we responsibly turned around and headed back to the City on an actual highway, giggling about our silly adventure. All the while more songs pouring out of the speakers flooding my dry spirit and heart with words and songs I have not heard in a long time, or had the chance to actually soak in. Little did I know at this point how unexpected the rest of my night would turn out! 

I remember saying out loud that I didn’t want to go back home. I seriously contemplated turning down the cut off towards a completely different city while my friend was looking down at the iPod for the next song. I thought she might get upset if I did so I kept heading home. 

At some point I noticed I was mush internally. I seriously needed to lay on the floor and just let these songs keep doing their work. But I was driving! We were both singing the songs we knew and listening to the ones we didn’t. I don’t know if my passenger was feeling the same softening of her heart as I was feeling. I was really liking her song choice and did not desire to stop that. I decided to push through and just get her home.

After a song that had a lot of Hallelujah's in it I could hear her still quietly singing and praying while I was quietly praying in tongues. It’s been too long since I did that too! I took the cut off to the bridge way too fast. I was less in my mind and more in the spirit then I have been in far too long. That turn was scary. I was sincerely worried my friend would not trust my driving again. I apologized several times. 

Now the unexpected happened. Still driving. Still heading for the bridge I was having to purposely breathe calmly. I opened my window fully. My spirit was now at the boiling point. I really really needed to lay down, and said so. I was getting more and more overwhelmed in the spirit than I have ever been. I was trying not to hyperventilate and I was releasing some of that boil-over by making the odd noise here and there. My friend thought this was hilarious. 

Trying to find one last song to tip me over the edge seemed to take her forever. I was anticipating more but was not expecting its force. Especially while driving down a full circle turn off! The first note of the song and I was as doubled over as I could be while still attempting to drive. I felt like I had just been punched in the spiritual gut. I was losing it fast! My passenger was both concerned about my needing to pull over and laughing hysterically at me, saying, “More Lord”. 

We were so close to her house I couldn’t see pulling over. I just wanted to lay down and let happen what needed to happen. I had been SO spiritually thirsty that I was soaking it all in! It was all I could do to stay focused on the road and drive. I pep talked myself there in between groans and spiritual gut punches. By the time I reached her driveway I had pretty much lost the ability to hold on. I was so relieved to park and turn off the van. Still laughing, my friend said she was just feeling Joy. I was shaking. I didn’t yet know what I was feeling except beat up and so full of His spirit that I couldn’t stay still. She had the nerve to keep saying, “More Lord, give her move....” I didn’t hear all of what she said. 

She did say that God was asking me ‘was I ready yet’. My first response was, ‘ready for what? No! I’m not ready, I’m tired of crap’. That response really shows my lack of trust for God I think.

I just wanted to lay down. My giggling passenger got out of the van and headed to the door, asking if I was coming. My legs were shaking so much I didn’t know if I could walk. She refused to help me but went to opened the back door. I stepped out of the van with too many things in my hands, couldn’t seem to lock the van with the FOB and doubled over. Now the full on laughing began. It was giggles at first, then full blown, but muffled laughter. I was only half way to the stairs! About three steps from the van. The second I saw the steps the laughter got harder. There was NO way I was going to make it up those three stairs without a handrail to hold myself up and I knew it. There is no handrail so I crawled up, dragging my purse along with me and laughing harder with each move towards the door. I couldn’t help it. I was loud and was being shushing. She was telling me to get in the house before I wake the neighbours! There is a first for everything : )

I was now laying on the back porch laughing hysterically and unable to move. My friend was sounding rather concerned about something and all I could do was laugh. I really didn’t want to remain in the cold and the dirt of the porch so i somehow managed to get to my knees and crawl into the house. I don’t know if I got part way up, all the way up or not up at all. Maybe I was picked up. I don’t remember but I eventually did end up in the laundry room, safely within the locked doors of the place. As she stepped over me she said I was definitely drunk. I guess I was. This would be a first for that too. I was never this drunk on alcohol before so I have nothing to compare it to but I was dizzy, loud, couldn’t see straight, and couldn’t even sit upright. Next thing I knew I was sliding sideways to the floor again, unable to stop laughing. It has to be the most fun I have ever had, hands, and me, down.

Still being coaxed into the living room I managed to move into the kitchen and sat in front of the oven, trying to catch my breath from all the laughing. Now my body was responding. I was coughing hard enough that I thought I was going to throw up. Not being able to breathe fully does cause me to cough during laughing, but this was a bit more intense. I was vaguely aware that there was praying going on for me. Asked if there was anything I wanted to get off my chest, I instinctually said no. She repeated the question, with an, “are you sure you don’t want to get something off your chest”? Here things changed completely.

I blurted out a statement to which her response was an automatic “no you don’t”, but I said it again and started to bawl. It’s not something I would ever want to repeat again. It was shocking to me too that it came out of my heart in the first place. But it was just where I was at the time. She quietly prayed. When I stopped internally complaining to God about the issue immediately I was being encouraged that He wants me to keep talking to Him about it. She was on the spiritual ball right then. Her spider senses were working and accurate! 

It got quiet for a bit and my friend asked if I had ever lived in the country, or what I thought of the country. I’m a city girl at heart for sure, but something in me would also love to live off the grid and more naturally and sustainably. But all that is a lot of work, work that I’m not really willing or able to do. She described a picture she saw of me, older but not old. Sitting on a veranda in the country. I was at peace. I had more grey hair than I have now, but I was not wrinkled to show actual age. Not much older than I am now in other words. There was stuff like mountains in the distance and I could see much further than most could. I had eyes like eagles eyes. (this vision is deep and intense!) 

STILL wanting me out of the kitchen, and having calmed down I obliged and got off the floor with the help of a kitchen chair. I was still dizzy and stumbled into her living room. Once I plunked down on a couch something seemed to change. I still didn’t want to go home, but within minutes she wanted me to leave. She checked often if I was ok. Maybe she was checking to see if I was falling asleep. Then statements like, ‘I have to get up early for an appointment’ started coming out. As true as I knew that to be she had missed so many before. Simple things have stopped her from going before. It seemed so sudden a change in her attitude. I knew that she must have felt uncomfortable about something, and it was most likely what I had blurted out in the kitchen. If I had been one of her younger girlfriends would she have been so quick to kick them out? Or would she have let them stay the night and see them through to the end of whatever was going on inside? 

It was obvious the night was over weather I wanted it to be or not so I forced myself off the couch and out the door. Yes, I was still a bit stumblie. But I was having to shake it off and sober up so I could go home now. Everything in me was crying to not go home, but now I had no where else to go but home. That feeling of being trapped clamped down on me rather harshly as I drove over that bridge toward home.

I recalled that there had been a change in her tune again once I was in the kitchen. Asking if I was ok, she was now wondering if I should stay. Was that just out of guilt perhaps? Unless there is a spiritual difference in each room of her house. That’s possible too. But it was too late by then. I was not going to stay somewhere I felt I wasn’t wanted. Had I just unintentionally crossed a line of exposing myself too much?

Perhaps that was the reason for the unsettled feeling that had suddenly appeared. Maybe I was being rejected again because too much got exposed and it was felt that I am too much to handle. This whole experience kind of did blindside both of us. Maybe my friend was just not prepared to handle the clean up of the train wreck that had just happened in her kitchen. When God moves, you gotta be prepared to see His work through. If He started something He will help you see it through if you let Him.

It should be interesting to see what the relationship feels like over the next few days. I really hope it’s not damaged. Only time will tell. So far my friend has not checked in with me to see if I even got home safe. Maybe I should be the one to contact her and find out  what she has going through her head and heart about tonight. It would be the mature thing to do. I feel that shrinking back feeling of shame and embarrassment too though. I’ll have to fight it if I want to show her I want to keep our friendship. It is really important to me. She is really important to me.

A side note: As I think about the vision she had of me earlier, it strikes me first that I was alone. Second the grey hair without the age to match speaks of wisdom beyond my years. Thirdly, the eagles eyes speak of the prophets ability to see what is coming in the future. 

Peace is one of those things I have learned by experience to stop hoping to enjoy. Maybe peace really will one day come. I can’t make myself feel it. It will have to be a gift that I don’t work for. I’m willing to let it come and until it does I will wait.

Let it be Lord.

12-09-02