It is Christian heroism – a rarity, to be sure – to venture wholly to become oneself, an individual human being, this specific individual human being, alone before God, alone in this prodigious strenuousness and this prodigious responsibility; but it is not Christian heroism to be taken in by the idea of man in the abstract or to play the wonder game with world history.
Sickness unto Death, Hong 5
Asides
“I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11-18)
I am back to teaching online this week. I really enjoy the interaction with people. And I love seeing the change in people. But most of all I know that the process of reflecting on the gospels has changed me. I teach not from an academic point of view but from my journey with Jesus.
So here is this week’s text:
[Jesus said]
John 10:11-18
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Just one point on the text: the good shepherd’s relationship with his flock is intimate and sacrificial. Jesus reveals His very nature and in the process reveals the very nature of God. I-am’s relationship with me is intimate and sacrificial. Jesus knows me and freely lays down His life for me. And my job is simply to listen – to hear with my heart.
Anyway …
I know but I do not feel it yet
I have been listening to the previous song. So I thought I would share the lyrics:
You’ve owned your fear and all your self-loathing
Belovedness by Sarah Kroger
You’ve owned the voices inside of your head
You’ve owned the shame and reproach of your failure
It’s time to own your belovedness
You’ve owned your past and how it’s defined you
You’ve owned everything everybody else says
It’s time to hear what your father has spoken
It’s time to own your belovedness
He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you
I find you beautiful in every way
My love for you is fierce and unending
I’ll come to find you, whatever it takes
My beloved”
You’ve owned the mess you see in the mirror
You’ve owned the lies that you’re just not enough
You’ve been so blinded by all you’re comparing
It’s time to own your belovedness
He says, “You’re mine, I smiled when I made you
I find you…
This song does sum up my life. I like how it goes from past tense (owned) to the present (He says). That is life in Jesus – always now. But leaving the past behind is very hard. I struggle everyday with the guilt and shame of my past – “You’ve been so blinded by all you’re comparing”. And I want to take responsibility for everything even those parts which are not me.
Part of my life is owning the voices in my head – the negative self-talk that is my constant companion. And ignoring the negative voices that have tried to define me for a long time – the voices that are saying that I am simply “not enough”. I want to “own the mess”.
I know that only time will heal and in the right time God will give me some clarity. And I know that I am loved right now in Jesus. But the constant struggle between my head and my heart is the very root of my depression. Owning it and writing about it is part of the healing process for me.
I know all of that but I do not feel it yet.
not yet fully alive
Someone send me the above song.
I was thinking this afternoon that I am in the middle of things – between the old which is dead and the new which is not yet fully alive. There is a restlessness about it all: an old I cannot return to but a new which is not yet fully visible. I am settling into this new version and seeing the outline. Yet it all feels a little like a half baked cake!
off to the hermitage
I am helping again at church today. It feels really good to be useful and to be able to help. I like that I can do it without too much fuss – I just do my job. I am also glad that the online study returns this week – another way that I can serve the community.
During the night I was thinking about my desire to return to the painful past. I think there is a certainty there that I feel I lack now. But in reality there is none. The past, even the painful past, is no longer a reality – people have changed and I have changed. In the past I have surrendered this certainty for being “me” – wearing a mask that suits what I believe I should “be”, allowing other people to define me and to dictate what I do.
The point of conclusion I reached in the night is that I have no real desire to return to that past. The past is no longer a reality and people have moved on. There is always escapism in me. But I am very happy with my present. I am happy with the person I am becoming through these painful months. I like the freedom to be “me” – whatever that may look like. Maybe I can even learn how to really connect with people?!
So Morning Prayer and then off to the hermitage I go!
Life moves like a snail sometimes
Maybe I am just very impatient?! Maybe it is just me?! But I feel like life has slowed down to a snail’s pace. I would like to get better, and I am, but it is too slow for me. To be honest I have no idea what “better” looks like or what the future holds. And to be religious I should say that it is in Jesus’ hands but at the moment I do not see it.
Next week I am back to a more natural routine – I have the online study and have a few other things to get done. I do not feel lonely or alone but I just feel lost at the moment. No clear direction. No KPIs to meet or work towards.
Maybe I should see all of this as a positive? I am finally alone before God. And not getting things done is not a bad thing in itself – as long as I let no one down. I hid for so long behind a mask and there is always a temptation to simply return to wearing a mask and hiding myself. But that is not going forwards but backwards.
Anyway, thank you to everyone who has “liked” a post. I finally made it to 200.
so what?
I wanted to follow up on this morning’s post. I wonder if some of “darkness” today is actually a reflection of the weather which has been dark and cold. So today has been more a marathon than a spirit in that I have simply struggled to do anything.
I did record a podcast on my walk. So there is two things I did get done. “Know it, name it, and move on” – a little cliche but it is where I am “at”. Being open has helped. But a little balance and certainty would be nice. Life is not much fun when surviving is all you are doing. I would simply like to go to sleep but it is a little early and I do not want to be awake in the middle of the night. So bad 80s music and some reading.
I have a counselling session tomorrow via Zoom. As always I am looking forward to having another person’s input – to talk and listening. I hope you have had a pleasant day and have a very Jesus filled day tomorrow.
From The Moment
It is a tradesman. His principle is: Everyone is a thief in his trade. “It is impossible,” he says, “to be able to get through this world if one is not just like the other tradesmen, all of whom hold to the principle: Everyone is a thief in his trade.”
The Moment No 7, Hong 231
As far as religion is concerned-well, his religion is actually this: Everyone is a thief in his trade. He also has a religion in other respects, and in his opinion every tradesman ought to have one. “A tradesman,” says he, “should, even if he has no religion, never allow it to be noticed, because this can easily become harmful by possibly throwing suspicion on his honesty; and a tradesman should preferably have the prevailing religion in the land.” As for the latter, he accounts for that by the fact that the Jews always have a reputation for cheating more than the Christians, which he claims is by no means the case. He claims that the Christians cheat just as much as the Jews, but what harms the Jews is that they do not have the religion that prevails in the land. As for the former, the advantage that having a religion provides with regard to favoring one in cheating, he refers to what one learns from the clergy. He claims that what helps the clergy to be able to cheat more than any other social class is simply that they are so close to religion; if such a thing could be done, he would gladly pay a handsome sum to obtain ordination, because it would pay for itself splendidly.
Two or four times a year this man dresses up in his best clothes and goes to Communion. There a pastor makes his appearance, a pastor who (like those figures that jump out of a snuflbox when the spring is touched) jumps as soon as he sees “a blue banknote.” And then the holy ceremony is celebrated, from which the tradesman, or rather both of the tradesmen (both the pastor and the citizen) return home to their ordinary way of life, except that one of them (the pastor) cannot be said to return home to his ordinary way of life – after all, he had not left it, has been much more engaged as a tradesman!
And one dares to offer this to God in the name of the Sacrament of the Altar, the Communion of Christ’s body and blood! The Sacrament of the Altar! It was at the Communion table that Christ, himself consecrated from eternity to be the sacrifice, for the last time before his death was together with his disciples and consecrated them also to death, or to the possibility of death if they truly followed him. Therefore, in all its solemnity, what is said about his body and blood is so dreadfully true, this blood-covenant that has united the sacrifice with his few faithful blood- witnesses, which they surely would become.
And now the solemnity is this: to live before and after in a completely worldly way – and then a ceremony. Yet to instruct people about what the New Testament understands by the Lord’s Supper and its commitment – for good reasons the pastors guard against that. That others have been sacrificed, to live on this is the basis of their whole livelihood; their Christianity is to receive the sacrifice. To suggest to them that they themselves be sacrificed would be regarded by them as eine sonderbare und hochst unchristliche Zumuthung [a strange and highly unchristian presumption], totally in conflict with the New Testament’s sound doctrine, which they presumably would demonstrate with such colossal learning that no individual’s lifetime would suffice to study this thoroughly.
So …
My day started okay. But now I have become anxious. I feel restless and more than a little useless. I am not sure if I should take some medication, go for a walk (it is very cold outside), or just try to work through it all. So, I am writing about it.
The cycle of ups and downs makes me anxious, which, in turn, makes the ups and downs more pronounced. The cycle has extended and is not as long as it once was. The thoughts that used to dominate are not there anymore replaced by other concerns that I should be thinking about but just cannot find the energy. I constantly feel on the margin of life – ready to fall off the edge at any point. I am often (read: always) embarrassed by the way I feel so for years I have hidden behind a mask until the emotions finally exploded. Awareness of how I feel has increased with time and now I am able to name it before it gets on top of me. But sometimes I would just like some balance and some certainty.
I have listened to my favourite music (classic 80s), I have watched a little TV (The Big Bang Theory), and read a little (Kierkegaard), but the feeling is still there. I have prayed and, while I know God is present in the midst of the darkness, the darkness remains. Writing this has helped and I feel a little better – naming it for what it is. I will try to post again this afternoon to update the world.
The authentic “I”
The first thing that you have to do, before you even start thinking about such a thing as contemplation, is to try to recover your basic natural unity, to reintegrate your compartmentalized being into a coordinated and simple whole and learn to live as a unified human person. This means that you have to bring back together the fragments of your distracted existence so that when you say “I,” there is really someone present to support the pronoun you have uttered.
Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience
I think it has become a cliche among some Christians to critic individualism as the primary evil of our modern world. I personally think that often this is nothing more than the “levelling” about which Kierkegaard speaks. If individualism is the evil, what is the good against which it stands? Conformity? Blind obedience? And who sets the limit of this conformity and obedience? I think often the people who war against individualism are more into creating a cult than Jesus.
Merton makes the point that before I start my journey of faith – or maybe as part of my journey of faith – there must be an “I”, a unified whole that stands alone, as an “I”, before God. Kierkegaard speaks about inwardness being the phrase “for me”. There is a major difference between “Jesus died for sinners” and “Jesus died for me, a sinner”. This inward movement, this unifying of all the parts to bring meaning to the “I”, is the fundamental movement from being a human being to being a person – a person created in the image of God.
It has taken me a very long time to get to this point. I have tried hiding in roles and in groups. Surrendering my thinking and believing to others. But in the end I stand alone before God. For faith to have real meaning in my life I need to be honest and open about the “I” that stands before God. To be an authentic “I” means ownership and responsibility.
this solitary life 