Category: Personal

I have some real balance at the moment. I still feel “down” at times but I have learned to live with it and not let it stop me. I am still anxious but have some a “bigger view” that allows me to put it in a greater context. Most of that is thanks to a magnificent counsellor who has spent lots of time on me and has encouraged me. And a counsellor who has pointed me beyond myself to Jesus!!!

So what does balance look like for me?

I am by nature quiet. I am not a great talker and like to observe. In fact, I like to sit and read in silence! In the past, with anxiety and depression, I tried to act like I was the “life of the party”. And often looked like an idiot, which, of course, made me more anxious and then more depressed. I have accepted (and that is the real insight) who I am and that sometimes I like to sit and not talk. I like silence and alone time. I try not to be rude – I say “try” as I think I am often very rude. I need other people. But I would rather an intense conversation for a few minutes than a long conversation about nothing much.

I am weird and intense. I think the two go together. My interests are outside the norm. In the past I have tried to come back to the mainline. But, to be honest, the things that interest “normal people” simply do not get me excited. I can keep a conversation going about a particular sport or politics but that is not the conversation I seek. I like ideas, strange people, and intense conversations about Jesus and theology. I like talking about books on philosophy or theology. I will quote with a reference in a general conversation and I know that is really weird.

I have changed a lot over the last three months. And I am not sure where the next three will bring me! But the insights I have gained are a gift from God. And my personality is a gift from God. I might be quiet, weird, and intense but that also brings gifts that I can use for other people. God will reveal where things are going in His time. At the moment I am called to be open to Him and to live now for Jesus.

I have been thinking about this after reading an article on apophatic theology. Now stick with me because this will get weird!

Negative theology sees God in negative terms – what God is not. Of course, by implication it establishes God’s nature but only by exclusion. So it moves towards nothingness – that is, God is a no-thing.

So I was thinking that the above is not a bad place to start any discussion on spirituality. I need to become a no-thing, that is, a person. In the modern context that is the most counter-cultural thing we can do. Any discussion on theology should begin with what it means to be a person. And any spiritual discipline should aim at becoming fully a no-thing, a person before God.

Sorry if that is really weird and out-there. Maybe I have been watching too much X-Files?

One last post before bed.

I have fallen in love with this picture. I love everything about it. Her face is perfect!

I have been thinking a lot about episode 1 of season 1 of The Chosen, “I Have Called You By Name”. I was struck by Mary Magdalene – abandoned by her religion and given up on herself. I really like the scene where she stands at the cliff and looks over the edge. I can really identify with her struggle.

Sometimes, for me, living with depression is like standing on the edge. Not that I want to jump but there is a feeling of being “unloveable”. I have very much felt like I am beyond being loved. I am so broken, so beyond redemption, that no person can ever really love me. They may say that they do but really they are just pretending. And when you have been abandoned by people it is very hard to trust people again.

I remember so many sermons about “anxiety” and “Give it to the Lord” that were really unhelpful. I have been told by a person, in a church, that all anxiety and depression is demon possession. I have often wondered if the person thought I should not attend. Religious people, with the best of intensions, give advice that is often very unhelpful. There are exceptions – and thank God for those – but there are also many who simply do not understand and do not identify with the struggle and the pain.

I have learned that depression is part of me. There is no “fix”. I have to live with it.

The part of The Chosen that really got to me this time was Jesus. At the end He embraces Mary – the person on whom everyone had given up and who had given up on herself. He calls her by name – an intimate act of love. No one – including me – is ever beyond God’s love. No person is unworthy of Jesus’ love – no person is unworthy of hope.

I am extremely thankful for the hope that so many people of faith have given me. Yet it is not them who give me hope. It is Jesus – His living presence with me now and always. His presence in the darkness – on the edge of the cliff. And it is the intimacy of the relationship that brings that hope. He has called me by name and I can call His name.

I know what is coming in The Chosen, that great line by Mary. But this week I am thinking about how a person who was a nobody is a somebody in Jesus. How I am loved!!!

Last night’s Bible Study went really well – I felt in the groove and it all worked pretty well for once. It came together very last minute. But, as if to punish me for enjoying myself, my brain turned on me. I dreamt of my past life – my favourite nightmare – and I woke really sad. It was an extremely emotional dream that was very vivid and intensely personal.

When I woke from the nightmare, I prayed. I find the silent moments of the night or early morning great times to pray. And praying with tears has become somewhat of a pattern for me. I know I need to stop telling God what to do. I need to simply be open to Him and let Him do all the controlling. I am very much at a cross-roads and not sure what to do with life.

I have survived two weeks that have been very stressful and emotional. I admit that I am surprised at myself for facing these challenges without going to pieces and without descending into darkness. I am think of rewarding myself for surviving but that, too, is causing me some anxiety. (I have lived so many years with a negative image of myself that I do not think I deserve any reward and I should be happy with what I have.)

So … I am not sure what I will do today. I think I will have a “desert day” – a “somewhat” silent retreat at home. Drink mint tea and read a book. It looks like there might be some sun out today so I could sit outside. I think I need a day of “no-thing” – a personal day with the Person.

I pray you have a Jesus filled day!

I think that would make a great mission statement for any form of Christian evangelism!

I love The Sopranos. It is just written really well and is just real. So I wanted to share this clip from season 2, D-Girl. Be warned: it includes explicit content!

This video always makes me laugh. The episode also mentions Kierkegaard.

I do not have much of a sense of humour. I am not a particularly funny – laughing funny – person. But this meme from Facebook made me laugh:

“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

John has been the gospel for this Easter season. And it is the gospel reading for the Day of Pentecost, Whitsunday, the Solemnity of Pentecost. Traditionally it is the day when the church remembers the descend of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. It is a day to think, meditate, reflect on the work of the Holy Spirit.

I think the Holy Spirit is a very difficult topic. Our experience of the Holy Spirit is always so much more than any text could describe. And our experience is always very personal, very intimate.

So just one point from the above: “when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin … about sin, because they do not believe in me”. Sin is much more than an action – it is “not believing in Jesus”. Sin is a broken relationship. The actions follow the broken relationship. But stopping the actions does not fix the relationship. Only faith in Jesus will restore me to a living relationship with the Father. And the point is that the Holy Spirit grants us the gift of faith and there is nothing more needed.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even come to it, but nobody goes further.

Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), 108.

Yesterday, at church, our vicar asked a number of questions during the sermon. And, unlike more traditional one-way sermons, we got to answer. One of the questions was, “why are you here?”.

I have been thinking about that question. And the answers that people gave. Sometimes, I think, we confuse the “sign” with the “object that it is pointing to”. Or, in Thomas Merton’s language, “we look at the finger and miss the moon”. We argue about liturgy and hymns, about buildings. Yet in the end these are not what Christianity is about. Christianity is not a moral code that I must follow to be accepted by God. Experience shows me that there is an unbridgeable gap between God and me. Only in God’s action of love can that gap be bridged. So only in God’s action towards me can I have a relationship with Him.

So, why am I here (at church)? Because of Jesus. And only Jesus. I like the more traditional signs – liturgy, vestments, buildings – but only Jesus saves. Only in Jesus is life. Only in Jesus is hope. All the others have just signs to the reality that God has reached out to me in the man Jesus. I meet and experience Jesus in a particular way in the community that is gather in His name. He speaks to me and meets me personally. But in the end it is all about Him and Him alone.

Anyway …