Resurrection is tough work

 I just had an interesting piece of mail arrive and needed someplace to vent, but then could barely get this blog to jump thru its hoops again - verifications, email access, codes - I don't know why some engineer has to reinvent the wheel every five years.

If I still had my old blog I'd call this one

"You know the relationship has matured when you lose your name"

Somewhere in last two or three years of Dad's life I lost his name for me, because he gave it to his wife. I think up until that time she had never heard him call me that, but it was the nick name I came home from the hospital with when I was born. When she heard him using it with me, I think she began gunning for it, and he gave in to her. As always. 

Hearing him address her that way (and never again me) was yet another of those knives thru the heart.
"How could he??? That was ALWAYS my special name!!!" Another slice thru my vitals, another thing that could never be discussed, another thing I couldn't do anything about by the time it was done. 

Anyway, today I got a missionary newsletter from a group I had pioneered a project with, given thousands of dollars to, and been utterly shunned by when gossiping women had lied about me and taken the upper hand. The other people local to me are even very careful to never tell me anything about it, I'm a non-person, yet no one has ever come to me to say a word to me about it. 

Today, I got the larger organisation news/support letter... and my name has been changed to my initials. I think it was pulled from a larger electronic list where I made my last donation. I'm a possible source of cash, but I'm officially a non-person in every other way.

Just a little reminder of the old puncture wounds in my back, but no trips to the 7-11 for ciggs, so I'm pretty pleased with myself. A little dizzy, my face has gone numb with a bit of buzzing sensation, an outburst or two, but I'm alright. Mostly I'm ashamed of believing in those people and trusting them as friends. How could I be such an idiot? How could I not see accept what was going on right in front of my face For Years? I always brushed it off, they were Christians, right? 

meh

It's almost midnight now, too late to do much else than finish this. I've been hoping that I will have turned up all the surprises that need turning up by Easter Sunday. I've always been a Princess and the Pea kind of gal, I can't rest as long as I can feel there's this thing hiding under there. I have to know, and, boy howdy, I've turned up some stuff, but I can't feel anything much left now. That's a good thing. There's no reason to keep carrying around someone else's ghosts, sunrise is coming.

What if we stayed. And worked.

 For a thousand years.

A possibility occurred to me amongst all the rehashing of Jesus' return and what thens, what if when Jesus returns, the resurrection trumpet doesn't blow just yet, but instead those of us who believe and are still alive are changed to be like him, then we are tasked to work thru the 1000 year reign alongside and on behalf of Him. How would we feel with that prospect?

I've spent a lifetime believing and looking forward to not being troubled with the mess and heartache of this fallen world at Christ's return. In short, getting out of here and being reunited in an eternal fellowship with other believers in peace. But, what if we had to stay and do the work alongside Him in a still messy, subject to sin, still full of scoundrels and all their mess world? That's a serious question, how do I feel about it?

The world is blowing up into a mess no previous civilisation has ever known. There's no where to run, no new territory left to hide and rebuild, and so every horrific sin there ever was is festering and intensifying in a world wide petrie dish no laboratory has ever seen. This is the world Jesus is coming to judge and rule over, but it's not going to be via magic wand, it's going to be thru His own people finally renewed in His own likeness.

 We'd like to think that'll make it all easy-peasy, but I'm not convinced at all that's the issue. 

I came to realise some years back that I'm glad that angels are Jesus' army of vengeance because I don't want to ride along slaughtering evil people like a scythe thru a field. It may be necessary and just, but it's still horrific and I don't want to experience that. Let the angelic host have that one, no dispute from me there.

But what if the resurrection of the dead and no more sin is another 1000 years off and we have another 1000 years of careful work ahead of us? I'm retired now, I'm not all too cheerful about taking up a thousand year commission of work and waiting again. I'd do it if asked, I'm sure it's totally doable with the Lord's personal presence and no obstruction of the Spirit's guidance of our flesh anymore, but it's still a tough calling. Real tough.

Perhaps it's the appropriate apprenticeship for an eternity of God's rule in the universes and ages to come, though. A mere summer of diligent labor to prepare for what is coming later.

I dunno. We'll see.

I like this fellow

 A lot.

HOW TO PRAY WHEN YOU FEEL DEAD INSIDE
Mull Monestery

Resource list

I need a place to park these things, but why not share? To be updated as I find things.

Interactive Timeline of the Kings and Prophets - I swann, keeping the Old Testament in order is like juggling ferrets, especially if you're only reading a chapter or two a day. This should help.

Dr. Carmen Joy Imes youtube channel - she has a terrific weekly video called Torah Tuesday with her new finds as she goes thru the Old Testament again as she writes another book. It's also available with Spanish or Hindi subtitles! I love her, she gets excited and wants to find the cool new thing she found right away.

Sentinel Apologetics - this guy has jumped the shark when it comes to long form studies of a topic, but he's never failed to find something I didn't know I needed to know until I heard him say it. People like that are worth the time every time.

Edit: I haven't been around here for several years, obviously, but some things have changed in a large way. I intend to cluster up some bits and post those, for the record basically, because there is no readership. But, I think I must be alright with that, it's just posting things entirely outside myself that is satisfying. Someone AI crawler bot might stumble it one day and .....

If he wasn't there

What if I had got this Christianity thing wrong and when we died, we all went to some beautiful land where everyone was their best self and no one did anything hurtful and everything was happy ever after - but Jesus wasn't there? Perhaps there was even a God there, but He was a Force or even a Super-Being, but he wasn't the Jesus of the Bible - not that whole Saviour on a cross Son of God thing.

What would I do? How would I feel about that? After all, I'd be in the most beautiful place ever,
and I'd know that everything had come out alright,
and all the people I loved would be there.
And there would only be good things happening.
And there would be endless interesting things to know and do.
And happiness ever after.

But no Jesus.


Just think about it.

Eternal peace.

Endless opportunities.

Lots of things to do.


But no Jesus, Lord of Glory.


I've thought about it. If He isn't there, it would be an emptiness that ten thousand million billion people couldn't fill. If I can't be with Him, all the lovely in the universe could never substitute. If the imagination of such an afterlife crushes your soul to tears, then you know where your love is. If it doesn't sound too bad, then maybe being a Christian isn't really where you're at right now.

Identity forclosure

From this blog post here.

"Identity foreclosure is a psychological term for the phenomenon in which a person makes premature conclusions about his or her personal identity without a time of exploration and discovery. Identity foreclosure happens when a person adopts the identity of others around them or is forced to accept the identity expectations assumed or given to them."

and

"I began getting to know myself—like one might get to know a new friend. I started asking myself questions. What do you like to do? What are you good at? What are your dreams? What makes you tick? What are some things you have always secretly wanted to try? If there was nothing holding you back, who would you choose to be?"

That post is also about a doctrine circulating in Christian circles that posits that women have a dependent position to men within the church called Complimentarianism - women "complement" the primary role men have as ministers within the church. No matter what view you have about religion or the role of women within Christianity, if God exists and has revealed Himself to humanity, then it is very important to know Him and His view about who we are as clearly as we can.  If you are a Christian, understanding Him is your daily meat and potatoes (metaphorically speaking) because the whole of your spiritual strength comes from standing under Him, and Him alone - not your own reasoning or anyone else's.

Don't ever be afraid of learning more about His way of identifying you for He made you from the very beginning. It isn't as if He is some outsider trying to barge in and change the good thing you have going on. Whether you are a man or a woman, rich or poor, modern or traditional, young or graying middle age, none of these things matter in Christ. His call is not to your gender, sexuality, age, influence, or fame. Jesus' call is to the person you are inside of that frail human frame, and He wants to light you up inside brighter and livelier and more creative and joyful than anything you've ever seen anywhere.

Are you sure you're sure?

Someone somewhere else asked if a true narcissist (her mother) could be a Christian, after all, the narc is all about himself and Very cruel. This is the encouragement I gave her in response. It applies to NPDs and all those with mental disorders and mental illnesses.

Narcissism, even within the parameters of the personality disorder, exists on a continuum. Some people are more, some are less. But really, it isn't a straight line scale, it's a landscape of selfishness. Some people cross the border regularly for visits, some people hoist the flag and buy penthouse apartments in the capital city.

By the time I learned about NPD, my mother was very much on the decline physically, so I had to get help from friends who also knew my opinion about her being NPD. My friends are still astonished that I am confident she was genuinely a Christian, they just couldn't find any evidence other than the religious forms she had always used as a cover.

The key thing to remember about Christianity is that the root of it is not in the mind, it is in the person's spirit, and we neither save ourselves nor keep ourselves in a state of righteousness with God by our prayers or good works. Being made right with God is something we give ourselves in trust to Jesus to do FOR us. That is our faith - we are trusting Jesus to reconcile us to God AND keep us from being such stupid jackasses as to walk away from that reconciliation.

Lots of people stop right there. They recognize the truth of the gospel that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, they sincerely believe it and acknowledge Jesus as their savior, they never stop believing that is true - and then they carry on the rest of their lives trying to live out of their reasoning faculties. Believing happens in the heart, reasoning comes out of your head.

NPD is an entrenched mental disorder. It begins as a form of self defense and grows over time to become an aggressive, pernicious, hideous thing. I heard someone call mental illness "cancer of the mind" once, and it might be a fair analogy. It makes the personality deformed and ugly, but it's key to remember that "personality" is just the part of a person that we see acting outwardly. The innermost part of a person we never see, only that person and God knows what goes on in there.

It only takes faith the size of a mustard seed for God to change someone completely from the inside out. How many have waited until the last moment to throw down the rebel flag and surrender, yet we have no problem believing they are saved? How many sit in church because it's full of "nice" people, yet never do believe that whole "blood shed at Calvary" rigmarole?

If your Mom says she saved, go with that in your prayers. Hold her words up to God with your whole heart and entrust Him to make her words true and sure. It's His problem and He can bloody well come up with the solution. If He is God, then He can live up to it for your mother. (I'll tell you a big secret about that kind of prayer - He ain't scared of it and He likes to save people right where they are.)

You will have to keep your own head outside of the neat little boxes psychology and religion want to stuff people in. Categories of mental illness and most sermons are ratiocinations of the mind, and faith in God always comes from your spirit. I recommend C.S. Lewis as a trusted ally - The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, The Great Divorce, and the whole of the Narnia books.

Lewis had an understanding of people in the grip of addiction and mental illness, and hard won experience in being a faithful friend to both. I think both of those things light up his writing. "...it is not easy to throw off in half an hour an enchantment which has made one a slave for ten years."

Private conversations

Looks dry and dusty and ever so technical, doesn't it? I think it probably doesn't look much different to most people than my bookcases full of topical studies and Bible reference books.

I was listening to an old teaching on praying in the spirit a few minutes ago and the thought occurred to me that, although I'm hearing some really great and useful things that I hadn't heard before, it's someone teaching from the inside of their experience with God. Trying to explain it or share it with most people would be really useless, because most people either have little or no experience with Him. He's an Idea, or afar off, or a particle physics discovery yet to be made.

I think it's just human nature to try to study all about God before we actually commit ourselves to Him, and we Fur Shure [!] try to read all the commentaries on speaking in other tongues before we do that whole baptism in the Holy Ghost thing. I have some good news for you, though - all that in depth study is completely useless without God Himself teaching you. You'll never know a thing about God unless He shows it to you.

I realized not long ago that the reason my relationship with my mother did not ruin my relationship with God was that she was not in the relationship. I "got saved" as a little girl of about six or seven. We kids sat on the back row in church while Mother sang in the choir. We were disciplined enough to hold ourselves together back there, and what fidgeting we did couldn't distract too many people, but she could still keep an eye on us.

Since the sermons were a bit dull to my ears, I used to go looking thru the pew Bible for the words in red, because I knew that was Jesus talking. Generally, you can find some good action stories that way, quite a few miracles, and a bit of talking about things that had plain words but just didn't seem to fit as a story. I lucked up [Ha!] on the gospel of John, and he just quotes Jesus talking for the longest time, pages and pages, especially in the time right before his death.

I really didn't understand all the things Jesus was talking about, but I knew I could trust him, so I just kept reading. Finally I came up on John, Chapter 17, and for the first time I could read an entire conversation Jesus had with the Father! I mean all of it, not some little synopsis, but him going on and on - it was just like being there! Oh, I wanted to listen to every little scrap of it, I wanted to really know what those two talked about in private.

And it's in there. It was like sitting at the table in their house while they talked about the most important things in Jesus' mission here on Earth. Jesus is giving a status report, going over how things have gone and what he has left to do, almost like a top secret intelligence briefing or something. I'm still amazed God had John remember and put it in his gospel, I mean, who lets that kind of stuff get printed up and put out for even little kids to see???

Anyway, I got down to verses 20 thru 23:
 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word;  that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me."


I had found my way in. Jesus himself was asking the Father to bring  me to the table, it wasn't just for The Twelve, "but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they all may be one."  The official plan wasn't that I could be just one of the disciples, but "be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us."

I was completely entranced with Jesus' repeated insistence on "I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one."

I wanted that. I wanted up close, side by side, free, unhindered access to God that no one could interfere with or obstruct. Somehow I knew I was being offered that deal and I needed to accept the deal or not, no guarantees that I would ever be offered the deal again. So, one day soon after, outside playing around by myself, I agreed to it, crossed the line never to go back, all in and no getting out for life.

If you aren't sure you like God, or definitely don't like Him at all, don't sweat it, you've probably been reading technical manuals and listening to 57th hand stories about Him.  You'll never like Him much that way. Jesus came as the Passover lamb, he walked around letting himself be seen and examined for who and what he was before he was accepted as a sacrifice. Look Jesus over for yourself, see if what he said and what he did was beautiful and worthy and if he is the kind of man who you can trust with your life.

You'll never figure God out for yourself, let Jesus show you. There's a place at the table set for you.

Like Dolly

Something I wrote somewhere on a post about Dolly Parton. I think there was an interview with her on a video clip, I can't quite remember where. I don't remember what was said that this was in response to, either, possibly something about expecting Christians not to sin - which is thoroughly ridiculous!


All people are sinners, Christians and everyone else alike.
(Remember John's rebuke, "If we (Christians) say that we aren't sinners, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us." I John 1:8)

God loves us all, Christians and everyone else alike.
(For God so loved the world..." John 3:16)

Pronouncing judgement (declaring an order of condemnation on someone's soul) is reserved to God alone, because we never know what's going on inside of a person, and only God knows what is right and true and possible for them, and only God knows which step is the one each person needs next to walk towards life and what steps each person is taking towards death.

God has made it very plain that He wants people to Live, really be fully alive and experiencing every beautiful and wondrous thing He has created. Jesus came to make things simple enough for us to understand. If you like who Jesus was and what he did while he was walking around in the gospels, then you see exactly who God is - Jesus is God written in human form.

Dolly is right on target. She isn't worried about fixing everyone else, she is sharing the love and forgiveness and patience she has received from God with everyone else. She isn't Talking it, she is Doing it - like she sees Jesus doing it in the Bible. Dolly is a Christian, she is following Jesus, she has let Jesus have the God seat in her life and she is free to be her honest self.

The only thing Christians have that the rest of the world doesn't is Jesus. He's risky, he won't ride around in your pocket, he doesn't do your bidding like a genie, he has his own way of doing things and he expects his people to believe what he says, but he knows how to change people into people who look like him.

Like Dolly.

From a conversation with a friend about gays, marriage, and the image of God

The image of God is not in our physical bodies, God is outside of creation. When the Word of God became flesh, he had to get it the same way you and I did, thru our mothers. God is Spirit (John 4:24), all the attributes we know of Him describe His wisdom, power, grace, justice, etc., and none of them speak of his sexuality, genome, IQ, health or height, for He has none of those attributes, they are all physical. (Funny to think of Him as not having an IQ, but that speaks to the content and quickness of the mind, and His thoughts are nothing like ours - He knows everything, always has.)

Secondarily, we were created in His image at the beginning, but we have continued to reproduce thru the ages with that image marred. The power to create a child today comes from the original commandment to "be fruitful and multiply," and that commandment has not been withdrawn. We bring forth the next generation based not on an echo or memory of His command, but on the continuing power of that Word still working to effect new life out of us. Nevertheless, what or whom we produce is defaced, marred, wounded from their beginning because we carry Adam's sin nature. Sin doesn't always mean a conscious moral failing, it means something isn't the way God planned for it to be and we pass on every sort of damage there is to our children - physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual, DNA, whatever.

Speaking to the irreplaceable and incomprehensible value of your gay friends in yours and God's sight, you are correct. There is no human being on this planet that He does not value and care for in a manner and depth that our current grasp of the word "love" can barely hint at, added to which He also passionately desires to make Himself known to and thru you and your friends, even to the point of death. His own, that is.

This is the place where we have become so familiar with His grace that we can become forgetful of its tremendous power. We know the story, yadda yadda, yet we fail to remember that His purpose is to make people in His image, that His own glory would fill the whole earth - not ours. He wants His wisdom, justice, grace, and purpose working thru us, not our reasoning and desires. He made a new and living way to Himself, and we don't come. We really don't. It's too hard, it's tedious, we don't like changing into His image, and we're afraid of what He will ask of us next. It can suck Really bad. For a Long Time.

Marriage is about being in the image of God, two working as one to create new life and make this earth flourish like a garden. However, civil government can do what it pleases. I've thought for a long time that the government should offer no more than a civil legal union to everyone. Pack whatever or whoever the body politic want in the thing, God is not subject to civil law, but He is King and Master over all creation. What's that saying, you're free to make your own choices, but you aren't free to choose the results? Forget about what you see in the movies and what is being sold on every street corner, judgement and revelation are in the truth about every alternative to God being uncovered and made plain so there is no confusion about the choices being made.

Love your friends, look like Jesus. Some of them are going to want out of the horror this world is becoming and they need you to know the Way in the dark.

Song of the afternoon

I've got the Dixie Hummingbirds playing this afternoon, the version from the Mama album being a little bit more upbeat than this one, but the truth is the same.

I grew up in the South when gospel song shows were the only other thing you could hear on the radio, other than preaching, before noon on Sunday. The earliest programs were the best because that's when the black gospel and the pentecostals had their singing, airtime was cheaper at 6 AM, y'know. About 8 was when the Methodists and Presbyterians took over with choirs and last week's sermon.  I guess I don't really know what came on after 10, because we were for sure headed to church ourselves, neither my mother nor my grandmother ever let us miss and where else would you be other than with one of them?

It's a good way to be raised, I learned some measure of self control keeping my mouth shut and my backside in the pew for the length of a church service. We were Independent Congregational Methodist Cumberland Presbyterian Southern Baptists when I lived at home, then I went off to college and belonged to nothing. Of course, that means when I finally started looking for a church home of my own, I became Church of God. I'd like to go to the Episcopal Church downtown because I really like the liturgy, but I'm not sure too many of them would understand how none of the above is in any way chaotic.

Church is about the fellowship of believers, not choosing a social club that thinks like you. You go to learn to think like Christ.

I bring up the Dixie Hummingbirds because thru them I really first heard songs that talked about friends and family failing you, even betraying you, but keeping on with the Lord who remains ever faithful.  I don't know why white gospel doesn't have very much of that, it still happens in white churches, we just are trained to never talk about it. King David talked about it, out loud, in church, and had the choir sing about it in the service. But we don't.

In any case, I recommend to you old gospel music and old hymns, you'll have something substantial to use when you need to lament. Lament? Now that's a very, very old tradition that completely confounds the moderns. We'll talk about it later.

I'll see if I can't do a couple of playlists on iTunes or amazon. Perhaps you'll find some really good new old stuff in there. Some old song to find something new in you.

Because I'm a little long winded

I've created this blog as a companion to Sweetbriar's because I tend to be a little long winded when it comes to the things of God, and I enjoy it. There is no end to His beauty and wisdom, and I could go on forever about everything I find in Him - but I have no outlet for that. I don't have the teaching gift, so looking for a Sunday school class to teach would be useless. Like evangelists burn to tell everyone the good news about Jesus, and pastors ache to protect and nurture and grow up the sheep of His pasture, and prophets must declare the message they've been given lest it become a fire shut up in their own bones, teachers must get what they have learned into their students.

If I give a beautiful exposition of what I've found in God, either in scripture or what He's taught me step by step, and someone still doesn't get it, well, that's alright, bless their hearts. I hope God takes them on into good things and His wisdom in His own perfect way. It doesn't have to be through me and they don't have to see things my way - which is a long winded way of saying I don't care, God bless you, and I'm moving on to the next thing.

However, the wretched thing about the internet (and getting used to using it) is that you just want to put your thoughts out there. I've kept journals for years, not religiously or daily, but I've got some entries set back that I still find fresh and revelatory, and it just seems a waste of God's grace to me to keep it hidden, only to be thrown into the dumpster when I die.* I've also entered a year of change wherein that change seems to be churning and working continually, not having yet faded with the usual washout of a New Year's resolution.

So, in celebration of the inner wheels turning and the fresh wind of hope that comes with it, I'm going to let this blog go into territory that is not so "recovery" driven, but is much more personal in some ways. This is the blog of an introvert who believes, so my way of sharing is to bring out all the treasures I find. To me, it will look like an old bookstore full of volumes that never made the best seller list and yet the proprietor swears each and every one is a little gem to be treasured if only you knew what was in it.

I'll be the crazy old lady in the stacks. If you come near enough, I'll start telling you all sorts of things as if you really wanted to know and as if you could understand everything I was saying. If you're not sure, ask. It's just a blog.

Leakey's Bookshop in Inverness, Scotland

Looks marvelous, doesn't it!

*Note: I've learned the hard way with my mother's death that 95% of all the stuff you collected and found valuable has fallen apart with use or been mouse pissed into garbage by the time you go. If you have something to pass on, give it while the giving is still good.

How can He wait?

How can He wait? How can the Lord delay coming to be with us, how can He stand to put off cleansing this earth of cruelty and murder and every evil thing and come and dance with us? 

If He had done it from the very beginning, we wouldn't be the multitude of multiverses we are now, but if the Father hadn't specified the day and the hour, and if the Son hadn't fully committed Himself to obedience, I don't know how He could hold Himself back. It is His very nature, love, and He wants to be found and seen and rejoiced and danced and loved with us. How can we hardly wait?

Time out of Mind

I found this article absolutely Fascinating, for two reasons. One, the 80 millisecond lag interested me because it seems that lights always take much longer to go off than that for me. That is to say, when I flip the switch that turns off the light, it looks like it takes almost a full second for the light to "run out." I couldn't imagine what the electrical excuse could possibly be for it, but it's probably just my brain. There are all sorts of implications in this article for people whose brains have a lag between one part and another, and for people (like me) who have especially high thresholds for attention spans and focus.

The second aspect, yet the trigger that brought me into the article, was the idea that things happen, but our brains lag until they've Formed the perception of it. As a Christian, I've always looked for some kind of analogy to explain to people how one "hears" God, because the word "hear" is so very audible, but the experience is pretty much guaranteed not to be. That is, God doesn't talk in your ear, he talks to your spirit, but the experience is not subjective - he is not you, he has his own words to say and, for the most part, they are not what you expected or particularly wanted to hear.

The analogy I've come up with is that when you "hear" him, it's the immediacy and the echo of someone who's just spoken. You know, like when someone at the next desk tells another friend, "Our English test has been moved up to this afternoon." Wait! What??? You were doing your own thing but the echo of those words are stamped very clearly in your mind. Or perhaps an announcement comes over the loudspeaker at Walmart, "Will the party meeting Darcy Milbanks please come to the Service Counter to pick up Mr. Milbanks." You may not be meeting anyone as you browse the cereal aisle, but the words catch your imagination a moment later as you recall, "Darcy Milbanks. That's a bit unusual for around here. I wonder what that's all about."

The voice of God is something like that. I'm not hearing it audibly, but I'm perceiving it as if the words still hung in the air between us. 

There's a second aspect to the voice of God that is ALWAYS true: He never disagrees with Himself. He will never say anything or ask you to do anything that doesn't line up with scripture. Count on it.

Now that you know that He always agrees with the Bible, you want to know where the best place is to hear Him? The scriptures. Just go read them. Read them so you are familiar with all of them. Don't worry about understanding them all, just read them all until you know all the stories really well, can recognise when someone is quoting the New Testament or the Old Testament straight away and (this is when you know you are starting to know the sound of his voice) you know when someone is misquoting the Bible. When you know someone has inserted words that aren't there, or has left out the the big context of a scripture so they can bend the truth and whine about their pet peeve instead, then you know you are beginning to recognise God's voice.

I heard someone make a great analogy once about knowing the scriptures and hearing the voice of God out of them, and it really is true. Imagine you had a little wireless teletype machine, one that you could use to send messages back and forth by radio, but the only messages you could receive would be the ones you had letters for. So if you only had five letters of the alphabet on your machine, you could make out short little words and do some little abbreviations of some others, and you could get some kind of information going back and forth.

Well, imagine if you got five more letters of the alphabet on your teletype message machine, what an explosion of information you'd have in your ability to send and receive message traffic! It's the same way with the voice of God, He is going to talk to you first out of the Word. The message of salvation is the same as it's been since that first day Jesus came out of the grave, and that's the first thing God is trying to get over to you. After that, He's trying to talk to you thru all the other things He put in those scriptures - and if you will go add those to your receiver, He can talk to you out of them, just like adding alphabet keys to your typewriter.

The Holy Spirit is your teacher and He is present with you always, and will never leave you. You don't have to go to every church in town or graduate seminary or hire a tutor to teach you about God. Read the scriptures, talk about what you are reading with your Father God, and let the Holy Spirit instruct you from the inside out.  If you are listening to Him, don't be rehearsing all the time what you used to think, just observe what's going on in the Bible and follow along with what He is saying in there. You'll learn if you LISTEN.

 (Don't worry, worryworts, the Holy Spirit always leads us to be in the company of fellow believers. Remember that in the scriptures?)

The glory of freedom

Christ of Maryknoll

"The icon does not make clear which side of the fence Christ is on. 

Is he imprisoned or are we?"

Sometimes we carry our prisons around with us. The barbed wire in that icon always reminded me of the barbed words and the ripping pain of trying to live free while still bound to being responsible in a very painful situation. Not free to leave, but free to know that if I did not stay, who would bring help? And who would I be if I left to comfort myself?

I'm still watching therapy videos online, last weekend was intense and cathartic. It is very rough, almost like some sort of deep tissue massage, to listen to a stranger speak of phenomena that always disturbed me, but I could not place. Why would she say that? How is it that these things happened, yet we were supposed to be a very average family? Why did this one respond this way, but he went that way?

No one therapist has my family framed, no pat answers are forthcoming, but the festering wounds are being relieved of their mystery as the patterns of abuse are uncovered and filth of deception is washed away. I was always, Always asking myself why did things have to be this way, how did they get this way, and why can't it just get better? No matter what anyone did, nothing ever got better. Well, the spring of bitterness has to stop contaminating everyone else - either by becoming sweet or drying up.

I'm discovering things like "no contact," which is a technique all of us tried in our own way, and "observe, don't absorb," which was my primary technique for the last 30 years. The basic NPD character and motivation of things like objectification, complete lack of compassion, and the NPD thinking of him/herself in the third person like watching a movie - all these things I knew, but I had no framework in which to place them. It takes time and review to pull this stuff up and work it out - going over the memories and making personal history rational instead of chaotic.

There's a response video to one SpartanLifeCoach put out, the response video being in favor of more therapy being required even after a root cause of trauma is discovered, that knowing why isn't enough. For someone dealing with Complex PTSD, (resulting from a lifetime of abuse at the hands of someone with a personality disorder versus short term or single event PTSD,) long term recovery, compassion, and deliberately cultivating new growth in your soul in all those areas that were stunted by the abuse is really the only way. Long term abuse takes up the years of your life, the world you could have had in the short term is gone, never to be seen again. It isn't enough to know what happened, you have to find new ways of living. 

I was talking to my Dad on the phone about my brother, who is Very Much like my mother, and is trying his bullying, accusatory best to cause legal trouble in regards to the Estate. The thing I found myself saying, in trying to reassure Dad that this would all turn out alright eventually and please don't worry, is that in having to go thru all the difficulties with Mother and then again having delays and unpleasantness in closing that portion of my life, I've become a different person. I would not be learning who I really am and what I can do and what kind of relationships I deserve if I did not go thru the terrific workout that is closing these relationships with kindness, forbearance, and with respect to the kind of effort God requires of His own.

If I had run off to Florida, I would still be the woman I was when I ran away.  If I shot my mouth off and responded in kind to my brother, I would take a step towards becoming like him. If I stay and persist, then I am still in the fire and can be changed into someone I've never been before...and perhaps have been seeking to be for a very long time.

Years ago, I received a prophetic word from a prayer ministry about God restoring the joy that was taken away from me. It spoke about a little girl in red shoes that was just happy and joyful, without burdens. Of course we all are that way to some extent as children, but the only place I could think of with red shoes was here.

 

A few months after this picture was taken, things happened. Offenses, pride, confusion, stupidity, separation, grudges, a whole host of bad decisions - all things precipitated out of a narcissistic wound - and really, our family never recovered. I became a parentified child immediately, charged with taking care of my mother. 

Now that's over and I'm free to be again. Just free. To be. To trust my own heart again, openly this time. To follow my own heart, without the endless second guessing that NPDs and their codependents layer on top to maintain control and satisfy their own interests.  Free to be happy, which is an extremely weird feeling after all this time! I mean, I question myself every time I feel "happy" lest I've forgotten something important I'm supposed to be doing instead. It's just ...odd. But I really like it!

The best bit is trusting my own heart, not just about life decisions or such, but trusting that the things I hear in my heart and the desires that flow out of my heart are true and trustworthy. I still have to consciously turn to listen and accept as is what is going on in there, and NOT layer it over with second guessing in my brain. That isn't to say my brain or my flesh aren't always chiming in with their own opinions on HOW I should follow my heart! They are still quite perky, thank you very much, and I rather expect them to stay that way, but I'm relaxing into letting my heart go first, feeding it more, and letting it set the agenda for where I'm going altogether.

That brings us back around full circle to being set free - thru the image of Christ. Second Corinthians 3:17-18 puts it this way: 

"Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom). And all of us as with unveiled face, because we continued to behold in the Word of God as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another: for this comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit." 

[Edit 02/16/19 - I look at that verse now and wonder if we aren't looking in a mirror at something that is behind us or around us. We can't see it face to face or with our natural eyes, but the mirror shows the image true. Just a thought to consider, but I can't find "mirror" in any scripture related to Moses. Did Moses see a reflection in the pool of water resulting from striking the rock to provide water for the people? I don't know, but I'll be looking for any obscure translation or tradition related to that. :-) ]

I was lead back yesterday directly from the secular therapists' discussion on long term recovery to a teaching tape by Lynne Hammond that I've listened to over and over again for probably 20 years now. It's the first in the series called the Mirror of the Word. If you are secular, that's alright, there's quite a bit of very good observation in it about how our thoughts multiply like mice and get out of control, and then we don't want to be honest with ourselves and even look at what we've been thinking - we just close the door and pretend that stuff isn't in there. But we have to come back to the Truth and take every thought captive, exposing it in the full light of day, and then do something about every lie that wants to hang around by demolishing it with the Truth and our own words - spoken out loud.

You'll never win a battle with a thought by trying to think about something else, you have to talk back to it. 

If you are a Christian, as I am, then you might have caught on to the linkage in my being free to trust my heart without interference and the joy of a rediscovering fresh again a teaching series on prayer. If you are born again, the Holy Spirit and your spirit are joined, He has come to make His home in you, never to depart. If your mind can be corralled to let your heart have His way in you, then you are free to ask for whatsoever you want, and be confident that He is moving on that request. For you, for your friends and loved ones, for the nations, for the world, for anyone anywhere anytime. 

It's wonderful. 

The door may have always been open, but the crappy bit is that we don't always know that in our heads. Living this life here is messy, but freedom in Christ Jesus is glorious!

Living people

I am the youngest in that photo, my great-grandmother is the oldest. Her grandfather was living with her when he died in 1922, but had been in Pickett's charge on Round Top at Gettysburg, where he was wounded. He had become a pastor after the war, but had enlisted from Stokes county, N.C. under Stonewall Jackson. My mother became a Methodist minister and pastor herself after her divorce, and always spoke very highly of the godly example her grandmother had lived in front of her.

I also knew my maternal great-grandmother on my father's side, and it is my great-grandfather who bought the farm that we still own and love. My father's paternal grandmother is the one who supplied our (my father's and my) sense of humor and and ability to find the funny in just about anything, a trait often mentioned with fondness and relief by my great-aunts, and it is to her family's reunion that I go in two weeks. My ADD comes from my mother's father, and it is his creativity and talent for drawing that got passed to my nephew, who now works as a computer graphics illustrator.

If you are a geneticist or some sort of materialist, you might find all that information is some sort of confirmation that genes will out or we are all acting out of some sort of determined path carved out for us by Nature's influence on our physical composition. If you are the member of a family, you will recognise the cascade of taps on the shoulder, words spoken in season and out, and family legends passed on not in story or myth, but in lingering examples that shaped one person and then the next.

As I woke up this morning, I was thinking about the image of a gloved hand reaching thru time and the generations. If you were a scientist, you might think of that hand as ideas carried in people, and how powerful an idea can be as it stirs up change and influences every generation that finds it and acts on it. If you wanted to clothe that same idea in religious garb, you might think about how powerful habits, weaknesses and proclivities get passed from one generation to the next and how spiritual forces shape and move human beings. 

If you grew up in a family, then you'll know that hand as Una Mae patting you on the shoulder and pointing out how ridiculous Portly was in all his affectations and seriousness. You will watch Hallie sketch in the evening to relieve his stress and draw dry cleaner advertisements in the day to earn a living. If you are descended from a family, then you will pull out a doily and wonder how "Mom" made fabric out of thread and still cooked and cleaned and kept the grandchildren long past "retirement age." In every case, you will see that it is not ideas that are being passed thru time, but people who are giving of their lives to those that follow, and I am not a copy of their DNA, but I've been touched, tangibly altered, by the works of their hands imprinted onto living people.

The god conundrum works the same way. Some people think of god as an elemental force, the set of existence whereby things, including people, came into being and we describe his nature in physics and biology and sociology as great waves of events as effects ebb and flow. The more philosophical or religious elevate god to a plane where he has made laws and principles or declarations of intent and we all are measured against his standards and plans, creating our successes or failures along the way as we work with those concepts and ideas. Then there is the third way, where God is a person who is creating a family.

The way I met him was to watch him in red letters while he lived in front of his family. He loved little kids, like me, and he seemed to be always looking for the next guy to feed. I always liked how he could talk to the wind or the sea, and how the fishes would do what he asked, and how at the end of a big city disaster that got averted, he said how glad he was the animals wouldn't have to suffer any more, too. When I got older I really appreciated how he didn't talk down to women, and he would never embarrass someone if he didn't have to, even if they got themselves into a bind. I liked how he loved being with people so much that it didn't matter who was having the party, he was going to be there - so much so he got a rep as a drunk! (Man, talk about not worrying about what folks think about you!)

My favorite story of all time is when he was coming into town and and everyone came out to see him, but there was a blind beggar sitting in the dirt asking him for help, too. My God? He stopped, he turned around, and he saw blind Bartimus on the ground, and he touched his eyes with the palm of his hands. Blind Bartimus saw like a natural man. That I can type out a lyric that says God stopped, turned, saw and touched just blows my mind and is completely out of line with nature, but a living person can see and move and touch with love and kindness. To be family with him is incomprehensible, but true.