The heir becomes thin at higher altitudes. The higher we're lifted, the more that must roll off the back.
Viewing entries in
Thoughts
When my ass gets handed to me it's oftentimes because my ass is scared. A wagging tail is not always a "happy ending".
A lot of work can be done while listening, though it's often misinterpreted early in the process. Proverbs 20:5
Ever feel when that you are speaking it’s not from the heart? We often speak as if we are in a movie that is dubbed with someone else’s language or we are our own body double. The language used is someone else’s opinion or something we believe we are expected to say. In the presence of someone that is truly listening, words tend to begin to flow from a place that often brings tears, a feeling of shame, vulnerability, as well as feeling slightly dumb. This is because we often take a drubbing when dubbing is stopped. Speaking from the heart appears threatening to others and even to ourselves.
Please don’t confuse this with being honest because honesty is not always accuracy. Pouring one’s heart out begins with the removal of stammering when asked deep questions from someone who not only cares, but knows how to care for you.
Making sense becomes less important by taking the focus off what others think of you as you speak. The growing confidence replaces the need to be understood by revealing how much you know and understand your own life, passion, as purpose.
As others begin to speak this way with me, the common and oft repeated question is “Am I crazy?” When you know yourself well enough to “speak for yourself” not only does it feel as crazy as a roller coaster ride, but also feels like a kid or silly.
Celebrate and share what you truly know. Discover more about yourself even when you reach a point where things seem to make less and less sense. That point is the pitchfork in the road, so feared that if I had only been dumb(crazy) enough to continue, I would have found the fountain of my youth i.e my heart in the matter.
Don’t dumb yourself down by dubbing any more than is necessary, but stammer your way into the intimacy of fluent self-awareness that speaks “I am dark, yet lovely.’
A hand under a wing.
Connecting the backbone to the wishbone
Prayer in dependence and confidence while having our timetables overturned. John 2:14-16
The unconscious embrace of shame.
Leads to misunderstandings, reinforces prejudice to produce reactions. Sees life as a game instead of story. It lives to make points to score points. It will confirm negative impressions by judging to keep a distance while appearing as involved. Blames and blames.
Ego is easily threatened thereby justifying in its often brutish and or violent reactions. Leads to counter-reactions that turn into a vicious circle. Takes positions without considering common interests for the good. Constantly sets people straight while crooked within its self. Sees people as problems to remove or solve as a computer would. Limits decisions by others by narrowing others' vision.
Listens with half a mind for what it agrees with to defend positions already taken and then rejects the rest. Thinks seriously but not in order to know, but to prove. Kills the use of language that keep emotions alive by saying things like you are too emotional.
By defending its position it deceives others to their true desires by obscuring what they really want. Punishes more than rewards. Tries to gratify by symbols of wealth, power, prestige, or position because symbols can be manipulated. Plans rather than trusts. Works from a calculating without contemplative(relational movement) mind set. Tries to be strong whether sound or not.
Speaks offensively from being defensive. So rigid in belief that it distrusts any spontaneous feelings of anger, grief, or dissent. Pays attention without giving its attention. Deceitful and competitive by choosing blindness. Incessant talking that loses awareness of persons as it works for ideals, goals, or programs.
Gets even instead of sad. Demands that others give until it hurts rather than hurting when ceases to give. Cannot love without arrogance by always thinking it knows what is best for someone else. Has a god complex by confusing dignity with deity. Forces others to court suffering and guilt while refusing the two in its own life.
Thinks the ache in a soul is neurosis rather than awakened maturity. Thinks itself an expert because it has suffered. Speaks to perform, not necessarily communicate. Brings truth through cool self-righteousness that renders it useless. Content with fruit it once bore. Will study to interpret rather than observe. Uses human reasoning rather than practical wisdom in spiritual matters.
Thinks domination is spiritual or spirit led. Locked into legalistic religious debates. Boasts of its love rather than the One who loves it. Ignores deep feelings of others by manipulating their intellectual beliefs. Brutally honest when criticizing others rather than brutally honest to uncover their own pain. Debates when mediation is better.
Saves face at all costs when loss is near or realized. Refuses failure therefore kills inspiration by replacing it with dominance through coercion or manipulation.
Compassion leads to the growing realization of how deep the pain really is. It allows one to move towards and stand still beside the one who is hurting in order to be a vessel for the power needed for healing through connecting.
Maturity is not something that comes by time and experience, but by reflecting on our experiences and learning from them. Time does not guarantee maturity, but only experiences. Earning our right to be seen as mature comes not from time but from responsability given that is taken seriously. As this responsability is demonstrated, the air of superiority in ourselves is removed and our serious side celebrates our learning, no longer celebrating our or others' previous folly or foolish ways.
There is no middle ground in holiness. But there are gray areas that we often cover over with black light logic from the 60's and new age thinking instead of white light insight of the Spirit.
Keeping ahead of the sharp perceptions of the focused.
Wisdom is the yielding of the puzzle to the puzzled. The piece sought after in the puzzle is the peace found in the search. The piece found is the wisdom given in the step of the continued search and so on. Don't give up. Take in.
Understanding the relationships between relationships.
Busting my asphalt. Hosea 10:11-12
When someone is hurting, often many respond in some form to see what’s wrong in order to help. The wrong is usually the first thing to be assessed as would a doctor with his diagnosis. When we respond to someone, we often appear as the doctor in our own mind ready to diagnose because we are highly emotionally charged when we recognize the call. While this is good in the beginning, this thinking blinds us often to the coming inconvenience that may overwhelm or overtake us even more than the emotions generated in our response and desire to help someone. This inconvenience is a delayed response or no response to the diagnosis or assessment by the one who needs the help. This can be no big deal in the beginning because in the short time that has elapsed as in a car wreck, the one who is hurt will soon be well because we now probably know what is wrong. We probably even know the common sense simple answer to the problem.
Yet often the number one thing necessary that is missed through the “doctors" thinking is to comfort. Understanding comes through comfort and not the diagnosis. Comforting just makes the diagnosis receivable. The inconvenience that can overwhelm us is that the event often not only reveals the problem causing the event but reveals a deeper wound of past experiences that may have never been healed because of the busy doctors around us. We as helpers have been so accustomed to receiving value in growing numbers of people, money, or opportunities to act that when someone needs help, we easily get frustrated when time is required to walk or sit alongside someone longer than we expected. We just don’t have time.
We can become a danger to them in becoming more aggressive and direct in our demands to respond to the problem as we know it. The problem is we don’t have a doctor shortage but what we really have is a shortage of comforting nurses. Much of our discernment needed to help someone is given us through our willingness to comfort no matter how long it might take.
As Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:7,8:
“But we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.”
As this reveals it may not be just an issue of doctors and nurses but mothers and fathers needed in the church. However the more we care for others the more relief we need from our cares. Cast them no matter how big or little on the Father because it matters to Him. 1 Peter 5:7.
Gentleness can break a bone so that it can heal. Proverbs 25:15
Music for Cross training. Hebrews 5:7-14
From habit or coping into true desire where the fear of bad news transforms into self acceptance. My eyes turn inward with grace rather than on me with with brutal honesty where the Smile is met, not anger. A soft answer is heard unattached to my wrong questions. I bow in a moment of genuine humiliy long enough where the authentique me is tasted. Not as poison, but as genuine desire still frought with the lingering residue Brennon Manning speaks of as an imposter.
The spread of coloring-beautifying-wisdom enables good conduct with an acute sense of crucial timing in building a future even after failure. This truth frees to discover unlocked joy, power to share, and peaceful life in the fast lane. Hope allows one to be rationally successful with failure as well as renews a gentle but firm understanding-conscious repentence-of the reasons and tendencies underlying those failures. Hope doesn’t come from a disciplined life, but a covenental one with a Father who inspires with courage. Disciplines of hope are spiritually discerned in failure more often than success.
Hope then, is inferred and imparted, not deferred. Proverbs 13:12
There is no curtain on the cave in the light of hope meaning that with hope there is always a next step. That first step is more often simply allowing someone in.
We tend to raise our own standard in isolation that we can't meet as we would in a gym by raising the bar with more weight that strengthens us physically. Yet lowering the bar onto another’s shoulders strengthens spiritually and emotionally from which hope emerges.
Companionship awareness, then hope assured.