Introspection: Changing the Tapes

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Changing the Tapes

We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NRSV)

You tear me down
And then you pick me up
You take it all
And still it's not enough
You try to tell me
You can heal me
But I'm still bleeding
And you'll be the death of me

From "Death of Me" by RED

As I've written previously, my goal for the year is to cultivate a sense of self-worth and to hopefully gain some self-confidence in the process.  One of the steps I'm taking to achieve my goal is to complete a course on dignity developed by pastor turned life coach Steve Austin.  This course offers ten steps and techniques one can use to build up one's sense of self worth.  Many involve growing in self-awareness and changing one's mindset.¹

One step is to change one's inner dialogue.

A lot of people, myself included, compare recurring negative self-talk to tapes that play in our heads.  I'm actually old enough to have listened to audio cassettes when I was a child.  One helpful feature on a cassette player is the eject button.  One does not have to listen to the same cassette tape over and over again for the rest of one's life.  One can simply press the eject button to pop out one cassette and then insert another one.

Perhaps it's also possible to change the proverbial tapes that play in our heads.

Steve Austin prescribes a three-step process for dealing with our negative inner dialogue.  The first step is to take notice of the negative messages going through our heads.  The second step is to challenge these messages, demanding evidence to determine whether or not they are really true.  The third step is to replace the negative message with a positive message.²

I've applied this process a number of times, and I think it's starting to sink in.

One Saturday last month, I took a walk around my Alma Mater.  As I eyed the school's famous bell tower, I felt the ache I started feeling while walking around the campus after I graduated.  I wondered if I simply miss my days as a student or if maybe I'm feeling drawn toward the world of academia.  I then thought to myself that I could never be a professor.  I could never make it through four more years of college courses, write and defend a dissertation, and then effectively teach college students.

I took notice of what I was saying to myself and then reminded myself that I've already done things I once considered beyond my ability.  Furthermore, I already know that I can teach, since I've been a Sunday school teacher for a number of years.  I have even taught a short course on my denomination's history twice, and I was told by a number of people that I did a good job.  I began to think that maybe I can become a professor if I decide that is the path I want to take and then fully apply myself to it.  I also began to consider that maybe I should seek other opportunities to teach.

As I've noted numerous times in the past, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops.  Sometimes, when I sit down, someone who was already seated nearby leaves.  In such cases, I typically think that she must have left because of me.  Recently, I started reminding myself that, because I don't know everything that is going on in everyone else's life, I cannot assume that someone left just because of me.  It has been said that "every mind is a world."  I also started reminding myself that there have been instances when someone sat down near me at the same time I either needed to start heading somewhere else or just happened to finish my coffee.

When I think that I'm just spinning my wheels in life, I remind myself that what I do matters more than I think it does.  When I think that my best days are behind me, I remind myself that I do not know what lies ahead of me.  When I think that I am a loser, I remind myself that I have more going for me than I think I have.  Ultimately, I hope to replace all thoughts that I am not enough with thoughts that I am enough.

St. Paul once wrote about "tak[ing] every thought captive to obey Christ."  Maybe this includes dealing with the negative thoughts that would prevent us from being who we're meant to be and doing what we're meant to do.³

The great Catholic thinker Henri Nouwen wrote in an era before the word blessed was spelled with a hash mark.  Nowadays people associate blessings with luck, wealth, or privilege, but, in the book Life of the Beloved, Nouwen defines a blessing as a benediction, a good word spoken over a person, an affirmation of the truth that the person is a beloved child of God.  One's toxic inner dialogue, on the other hand, is a curse, the opposite of a blessing.  Nouwen suggests that we can leave the "land of the cursed" and claim our blessedness by listening to God's blessing upon us through prayer and by being present to receive other people's blessings upon us.⁴

I think the practice of changing the proverbial tapes in my head might actually be taking root, because I actually found myself correcting some of my own inner dialogue a few days ago.  If you, dear reader, struggle with toxic inner dialogue, as I do, may you start using the eject button and replace the tapes with something better.  May you always heed the words of blessing being spoken over you, that you are a beloved child of God.


Notes:

1. You can find this course on dignity at Steve Austin's website.  You will have to subscribe to Steve's email newsletter to gain access to the course.
2. Steve Austin.  "DIGNITY: How to Change Your Self-Talk."
3. Rob Bell.  "Salt in the Water."  Mars Hill Bible Church, 05/02/2010.
4. Henri J.M. Nouwen.  Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World (Tenth Anniversary Edition).  1992, Crossroad Publishing Company.  pp. 67-83

The photograph of the audio cassette player has been released to the public domain.

Easter Perspective: The Last Laugh

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

The Last Laugh

The light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness doesn't extinguish the light.

John 1:5 (CEB)

Christ is risen from the dead

Trampling over death by death

Come awake! Come awake!

Come and rise up from the grave

From "Christ Is Risen" by Matt Maher

Near the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, we read that, before Jesus began His public ministry, He spent forty days in the wilderness, fasting and battling the devil.  Three times, the devil tried to tempt Jesus, and, three times, Jesus resisted the devil's attempts to sway Him from the path He knew He needed to follow.  We read that the devil decided to leave Jesus alone "until an opportune time."¹

Toward the end of the same Gospel, we read that, after Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and started shaking things up, Satan entered Judas Iscariot, one of the Disciples.  Judas made a deal with some of the people who wanted Jesus out of the way and "began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them."²

On a Friday, five days after Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, He was executed by crucifixion like a violent criminal.  The cosmic battle between the divine and the demonic was over, and apparently Satan had won.

Two days later, on Sunday morning, Satan received a rude wake-up call when Jesus' tomb was found empty.  Jesus had the last laugh.

That day, two of Jesus' followers, having heard that the tomb was empty, left Jerusalem and headed toward the nearby village of Emmaus.  As they traveled together, they tried to sort through everything that had happened over the past week.  Along the way, they were joined by a stranger who apparently was not aware of recent events.  The travelers told him all about Jesus, His ministry of teaching and healing, their hopes that He would be the long awaited Messiah who would save their people from oppression, His wrongful execution, and the news that His tomb was found empty.³

The stranger, who was actually a resurrected Jesus, asked the two travelers, "Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?"⁴

It's obvious that the answer to Jesus' rhetorical question is meant to be "yes."  On Friday, it seemed that evil triumphed over goodness, but, on Sunday, goodness was revealed to be the true victor.  So why did Jesus have to achieve victory in the battle by first suffering defeat?

One early Christian theologian argued that the Son of God took on flesh and entered into the human experience, including suffering and death, "so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death."⁵  Jesus defeated Satan by dying and then rising from the dead.  In doing so, He saved us from evil's ultimate weapon, the threat of death.  If we're no longer afraid of death, then what can evil do to us?

In The Final Beast, a novel by Frederick Buechner, a pastor mulls over an upcoming sermon, and the following words come to mind: "Beloved, don't believe I preach the best without knowing the worst...  But the worst isn't the last thing about the world.  It's the next to the last thing.  The last thing is the best."⁶  To answer Jesus' question to the two travelers, our Savior did indeed have to suffer before entering into glory.  He won the victory for us by enduring defeat.  He had to endure the worst in order to prove to us that the worst isn't the last.

On this Easter Sunday, may you remember that, no matter how horrible things might seem at the moment, the outcome has already been determined.  Goodness has triumphed over evil.

Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated!

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

From an Easter sermon by St. John Chrysostom⁷

Notes:

1. Luke 4:1-13 (NRSV)
2. Luke 22:3-6 (NRSV)
3. Luke 24:13-24
4. Luke 24:26 (NRSV)
5. Hebrews 2:14-15 (NRSV)
6. Frederick Buechner.  The Final Beast.  1965, Harper and Row.  pp. 174-5
7. http://anglicansonline.org/special/Easter/chrysostom_easter.html

The Pilgrims of Emmaus on the Road was painted by James Tissot in the late 1800s.

Lenten Perspective: No Double Agents

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

No Double Agents

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness -

on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2 (NRSV)

I want to be in the Light

As You are in the Light

I want to shine like the stars in the heavens

Oh, Lord be my Light and be my salvation

'Cause all I want is to be in the Light

From "In the Light" by DC Talk

Looking back on my previous two Lenten perspectives, I noticed a recurring theme, specifically the age-old battle between light and darkness.

In my first Lenten perspective, I pointed out that, before Jesus forayed into the wilderness, He spent some time at the river.  In the wilderness, He faced temptation, but, at the river, He was empowered by the Spirit and reminded of who He was by the Father.  I suspect that maybe the light Jesus received at the river is what helped Him to withstand the darkness He faced in the wilderness.  Like Jesus, we too would do well to spend some time basking in the light of God's love before we confront the darkness.

In my previous perspective, I noted that the coming of one kingdom means the downfall of another.  The coming of the Kingdom of God, which Jesus proclaimed, means the downfall of the demonic kingdoms of oppression.  As we read the Gospels, we watch these kingdoms clash when Jesus and his followers heal the sick and drive out demons.  Like Jesus' first disciples, we too are called to shine the light we have been given in order to fight back against the darkness, as we confront demons of oppression like greed and bigotry.

As followers of Jesus, we too are drawn into the battle between light and darkness.  I cannot emphasize enough that we are not in a battle against other people.  In the words of St. Paul, "Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."¹  Other people are not our enemies.  We are all brothers and sisters, since we are all children of one God, and we are all created in the image of God.  Our battle is against the darkness, and we fight for the sake of people trapped in darkness.

One day, some of Jesus' detractors called into question Jesus' side in the battle.  Jesus had just exorcised a demon that rendered a person unable to speak.  In a deliberate attempt to smear Him, His critics started claiming that He was using demonic power to drive demons out of people.²  They were claiming, in other words, that Jesus was acting as a double agent of sorts.

The battle between light and darkness does not lend itself to double agents.  Light and darkness cannot coexist, because darkness is, by definition, the absence of light.  As soon as light is introduced into an environment, darkness has no choice but to flee.  Forces of darkness create dark places by blocking out light.  Forces of light fight back against the darkness by bringing light into dark places and by tearing down the things that block out light.  To borrow a phrase from Robert Louis Stevenson, they "knock holes in the darkness."

Jesus began picking apart His critics' accusation, suggesting that "every kingdom involved in civil war becomes a wasteland" and that "a house torn apart by divisions will collapse."³  Jesus had just driven a demon out of a person, thereby bringing light into a life taken captive by darkness.  It would be counterproductive for someone on the side of darkness to spread light, because the darkness would lose ground.

Jesus said to His critics, "Whoever isn't with me is against me, and whoever doesn't gather with me, scatters."⁴  In the battle between light and darkness, there are no double agents.  Either we either bring light into dark places, or we block out light.  It is not possible to do both.  During this season of introspection and repentance called Lent, perhaps we should question our own side in the battle and examine our actions.  Are we to "knocking holes in the darkness" by shining the light we have been given, or are we blocking out the light?


Notes:

1. Ephesians 6:12 (NRSV)
2. Luke 11:14-15
3. Luke 11:17 (CEB)
4. Luke 11:23 (CEB)

Christ Exorcising a Mute is an illustration by Gustave Doré originally published in 1865.