Introspection: Unfinished Business

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Unfinished Business

I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9 (NRSV)

The ever present unexpected life is
All that we wanted
And all that we choose to lead
We will rise and fall
And all the chances in between

From "In Between" by The Gathering

If you've been following this blog for the last few years, then you might have noticed that I've been doing some work on myself over the last few years.  This is work I did not think I could continue amid the circumstances of the past year.  Now that life has started to return to normal, I think that maybe it is time for me to return to it.  Recently I took some time to look back over my introspective writing and journal entries to see what brought to where I was before the pandemic and where I was headed at that time.

At the end of 2017, as I was looking back over the past year, I realized that I had been allowing the things in my life that were less than ideal to cloud my eyes to the good things in my life.  I was so focused on the pain, frustration, and disappointment in my life that I failed to appreciate my personal growth and the progress I was making.  I realized that I needed to do something to change my outlook, so I decided that, in the new year, I needed to focus on cultivating gratitude.

The first and only step I took to cultivate gratitude in 2018 was to regularly record in my journal the things in my life for which I was grateful.  My hope was that, by intentionally practicing gratitude, I would become more grateful by default.  As one of my pastors likes to say, "Practice makes practice."  I learned a number of things during my year of gratitude.  I learned that gratitude will not change the things in my life that are less than ideal, but it will keep me mindful of the reality that my life is more than such things.  I also learned that if I really want to appreciate the good things in my life, then I need to make it a point to enjoy them.

I have continued my daily practice of gratitude to this day.  I suspect that, if I had not been practicing gratitude, I might have fared much worse during the pandemic.

During my year of gratitude, certain things started to bubble up to the surface.  Early in the year, I noticed that too many times I noted that I was grateful for reasons to not feel bad about myself.  I was also haunted by feelings of not being "enough."  I noted that my self-esteem had taken a hit after I gave up my people-pleasing ways, because I felt that I wasn't doing enough to help people.  I confessed that, though I knew I was a beloved child of God, I struggled to believe that God could be "well pleased" with me.  I remembered that I had given up on going into the ministry because I didn't think that I loved people enough to be a minister.

At the end of 2018, I realized that I needed to work on my sense of self-worth, so I decided to focus on that during 2019.  I had hoped that, by the end of the year, I could say, with conviction, "I am enough."  In my quest for self worth, I learned a number of things.  I learned about changing the proverbial "tapes" that play in my head, by which I mean my toxic inner dialogue.  I realized that I needed to stop telling myself a story of loss about my life, to put the pain of the past behind me, and to live in the present.  On one Sunday, forgetting to prepare something for a church potluck and then choosing to attend anyway helped me to see that I am worth more than what I can do for people.

Early in 2019, I admitted that I felt stuck because I did not think I had what it takes to get what I want in life.  I decided to focus on cultivating self-worth, because I was hoping that, in the process, I might also cultivate the self-confidence I needed to get myself unstuck.  Later in the year, after I downloaded a dating app only to delete it soon afterward, I realized that the things I supposedly want most in life are the things that scare me the most.  I also realized that by making my life as predictable, comfortable, and easy as possible, I had also made it lonely and pointless.

I think I might have chosen to work on my sense of self-worth because it seemed like a safe alternative to what I really need to get myself unstuck in life, namely courage.  Cultivating courage is scary because courage is something that must be practiced, and one cannot be courageous unless one is first afraid.  I decided to make courage my focus for 2020.

My first step in my quest for courage was to take The Authenticity Challenge.  Written by Sarah Heath, The Authenticity Challenge is a book that contains a three-week series of daily challenges meant to help people to become more authentic and content.¹  The challenge seemed like a good first step, because I thought that subjecting myself to daily challenges I had not previewed ahead of time would require some courage.  I found that it didn't really require too much courage on my part, but it did give me a bit of an identity crisis - or, rather, it showed me that I was already going through one.  I started to wonder if, over the years, I had been doing things in order to be more than just an introverted computer nerd.  If anything, the challenge helped me to see that I had not been doing a good job of accepting myself.

My second step in my quest for courage was to do some homework.  To learn more about the courage I sought, I read the book Daring Greatly by Brené Brown.  I learned about the connections between courage, vulnerability, and self-worth.  I learned that the people who get what they want in life are the people who believe they are worthy of it.²  I also learned that courage requires self-worth.  Without a stable sense of self-worth, I will tie my self-worth to my success in whatever I set out to do, so I will be much less likely to take risks.³

By the end of February, I was considering some potential next steps.  They all involved doing things I had been hesitant to do previously.  I decided to finally write a series of blog posts about the Letters to the Seven Churches in Revelation.  I had wanted to write a series about these letters for a number of years, but I had found them intimidating.  Sadly, I didn't have the opportunity to lead Sunday school lessons on each of them, as I had hoped.  I also considered teaching a new class for Lay Servant Ministries.  I had started contra dancing again during the previous year, so I considered asking someone to dance whom I had been previously hesitant to ask.  If she accepted, I might have become more confident.  If she refused, I would have had the opportunity to not take rejection personally.

In mid March, life ground to a halt because of the pandemic.  I didn't really know how to practice courage when I couldn't go out and do anything.  Furthermore, courage didn't really seem like the best virtue to practice at a time that called for caution.  Overall, I felt that 2020 left me a bit worse for wear.

I didn't get the opportunity to cultivate courage in 2020 as I had hoped, and, to be honest, I wasn't really confident that I was "enough" at the end of 2019.  It would seem that I have some unfinished business when it comes to courage and self-worth, and maybe it is time for me to attend to it.  I am still considering my next steps.  Whatever they happen to be, I hope to continue sharing this journey with you in the coming months.

Notes:

1. Sarah Heath.  The Authenticity Challenge: 21 Days to a More Content Life.  2019, Abingdon Press.
2. Brené Brown.  Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.  2012, Gotham.  p. 11
3. Brown, pp. 63-64

The photograph featured in this introspection has been released to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Introspection: The Playground

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 Playground

God is love.  When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us.  This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day - our standing in the world is identical with Christ's.  There is no room in love for fear.  Well-formed love banishes fear.  Since fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed in love.

1 John 4:17-18 (The Message)

This is my Father's world
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas
His hand the wonders wrought

From "This Is My Father's World" by Maltbie Babcock

On a typical workday, I take my lunch to the office and eat at my desk, but, on Fridays, when I only work until one o'clock in the afternoon, I eat lunch after I leave the office.  Because I was feeling rather tired this past Friday, my plan was to go home after work, to eat some instant noodles, and to take a nap, before going with my mother to our scheduled visit with my grandmother at the nursing home later in the afternoon.

I had been feeling rather depressed over the last few days, so I decided to change my plans and do something that might lift my spirit.  I placed an order at a nearby restaurant before I left the office, picked up my order after work, and then drove to the park downtown to eat my lunch at a picnic shelter.  It is only recently that I started eating lunch at the park.  In years past, I would have just eaten at the restaurant.  I suppose the pandemic forced me to exercise the part of my brain responsible for thinking outside the proverbial box.

From where I was sitting at the picnic shelter, I had a view of a playground, so, while I ate my lunch, I had the opportunity to watch people watching their children and grandchildren playing.  This is a sight that has taken on a new meaning for me in the last few months.

Every two months, I attend a half-day retreat with The Anchorage, a contemplative prayer ministry in my area.¹  These short retreats are known as Desert Days, because participants leave behind the noise and busyness of their everyday lives for a few hours to meet with God in the desert, so to speak.  These Desert Days consist of teaching, group discussion, and time alone with God.  Normally we would meet at the director's house, but for the last year, we have met online, over video chat.  For me, Desert Days have been an opportunity to reflect on the last two months, to quiet myself, and to listen for what God might be saying to me.  I usually walk away with some new insight.

During the Desert Day two months ago, one of the people present mentioned that she had recently become more familiar with one of the three persons of the Trinity.  She recommended that, if we find ourselves unfamiliar with a person of the Trinity, we pray that the person may become more known to us.

I suspect that of the three persons of the Trinity - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - most Christians would say that they are the least familiar with the Holy Spirit, since the Father and the Son seem to be featured more prominently in the Bible.  Though I would agree with people that the work of the Spirit in our lives is mysterious, I would not say that the Spirit is unfamiliar to me.  The fact that one is mysterious does not necessarily make one unfamiliar.  I believe in spiritual gifts, meaning that I believe that the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the work we are called to do.  I believe that it is through gifts of the Spirit that I do the things I do in the church.

I would also say that the Son is familiar to me.  The four Gospels are probably my favorite parts of the Bible, and stories about Jesus have a way of capturing my imagination.  I believe that Jesus provides all of us the definitive example of what it means to be truly human.

The person of the Trinity that is least familiar to me is the Father.  Because of a combination of my strained relationship with my earthly father and the kind things I heard about God at the fundamentalist school I attended, my image of God the Father had become that of an angry, harsh, critical disciplinarian.  I haven't really wanted to spend much time dwelling on such an image, so I have kept the Father at a distance, emotionally speaking.

A drawback of thinking of God as a father is that one's personal "father wounds" or "daddy issues" tend to become bad theology.  Thinking of God as a mother instead could present similar challenges.  When we think of the divine in human terms, our image of God tends to become distorted, as we project human faults and failings onto God.

Of course, being exposed to rhetoric like the following wouldn't help one's image of God either:
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.²

During the Desert Day two months ago, I went outside for my time alone with God.  There is a church across the street from my home, and, at the church, there is a playground.  From the front porch, I could hear that, at the playground, a father was playing with his child.  That afternoon, my image of God the Father started to change.

What if the world is merely a playground a Father built for His children?

What if life is simply the Father's taking the children to the playground and watching them play?

During Desert Days with The Anchorage, participants are told, "Behold God beholding you in love."  For years, I have wrestled with how to imagine the God who is beholding me in love.  Now I imagine that God is watching me live my life as loving parent would watch a child play.  If God is indeed like a parent who is watching his children play at a playground, then I suspect that watching us play makes God the happiest when we are are enjoying our time at the playground and when we, God's children, are playing well together.  I also suspect that God is grieved when we are not playing well together.

My image of God the Father is no longer that of a giant seated on a throne, ready do dispense judgment on humanity or that of a hand dangling a helpless spider over a fire.  My image is that of a smiling Father sitting on a bench and lovingly watching His children play.  May we all enjoy our time at this playground; may we all play well with our brothers and sisters; and may we know that God is watching over us with love.


Notes:

1. https://www.theanchorage.org
2. from the sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards

The photograph of the playground has been released to the public domain and is used courtesy of Good Free Photos.