Getting To Know You

   

 I love to teach.    I love the energy of a good discussion.    I love watching   a group of strangers begin to connect.

     I tend to think in terms of “raw ideas”.  I’m going to run one by you right now.  Here is a list of people  who have stopped by  this site from time to time.   (There are also several of you that have never left a comment that this also applies to).  If you’re open to this idea,  (those whose name I mention, as well as anyone who reads this).  I’ll  send you a list of  3 to 5 questions- answer as many of them as you want and have time for.  Then send them back to me (If you have a website, you can post the questions and your answers on your site and I will also post them here as well.  This will give all of us a chance to get to know each other just a little better. (Just like going around the room introducing yourself and telling a little bit more about yourself).  I will custom tailor the questions for each person.  If there is a specific question(s) you’d rather pass on, that’s fine…..here’s my list.  (If I’ve missed you, PLEASE drop me a note..the more the merrier

Annie

Hope

Kristina

Lawyerchik

Anne

Hermi

Shalene

Lorraine

Andrea

Eclexia

Emily

Melisia

Eva

Meadow

Tara

Shel

And You

My Approach To Blogging

  Photo of two of my mentors:

         C.S. Lewis

         Corrie Ten Boom (having a cup of coffee)

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      I got a note from my friend Hope yesterday after  I’d written this.

   

    She asked:

“What’s going on with you? I just read your blog. You sound so hugely hurt and majorly ticked. I don’t think I’ve ever “heard” you so ticked off before…I think another good question is, what are your motives behind blogging?”

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Here is a portion of my reply to her:

      I am fine now.  Why do I blog?…it’s not to have other people put me on their blog roll…honestly,  I’ve only been tempted once or twice to even ask someone to consider adding me..it was someone with whom I had been doing a lot of interaction with.  I write for a couple of reasons…the biggest reason is  for it to be a vehicle of encouragement ……that’s my primary reason.  On of my instructors at CCEF  once said that if we start looking at our motives for doing things, it’s like peeling an onion…there are layers of reasons we do things, both selfish and others centered.  I’m not surprised when I see a little “self” in my  motives, doesn’t stop me from doing something, because the biggest motive is others centered.  I figure the older I get in the Lord, the less there will be of me…meanwhile, I keep pecking away…

     So, my motive is to be an encourager…now how does posting something that def. sounds like a vent become an encouragement?   I purposed several months ago after I started writing, while I was still trying to “find my voice”   (my style if you will)  , that one of the principles I would use was to be authentic… post the real stuff/ not just a  ”sanitized”/ edited version , so when I woke up the other morning still feeling those emotions of rejection, I thought…I need to write while I’m still at that place….I want people to know I’m a whole person, I still have my moments where I smoke and sputter too..even though I’ve been a Christian actively pursuing my relationship with Him since 1980…When I’ve read  these type of things from people (like CS Lewis, or Corrie Ten Boom) for example, it did encourage me, in fact it made the other things they shared even more creditable..they weren’t some super saint so far removed from where I live that I  didn’t feel I could relate to them…rather, those dear people also wrestled with confusion, doubt, anger, etc.  and they had such relationships with God that blew my mind…and to think they still had moments when they sputtered…I soaked it in….so that’s why I posted it. ….\

as always, thanks for keeping in touch and making me think.  DM

 

     I didn’t include this in my reply to Hope but  should have.   The second reason I write is because it helps me to process life.  It does two things.  First,  just getting the hard  stuff “out” often times helps me diffuse it.  Secondly,  Because I’m doing this in such a public setting,  it allows other people to speak into my life.   There is a risk of being misunderstood   to be sure, but the benefits outweigh the  risk and   so far I’m  willing to take my lumps.       Any thoughts?

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 1/29/08  I got a note via e-mail this morning pertaining to this issue:

     “thank you for having a blog that is candid.   So many out there are so rose-colored I can’t imagine they are actually written by real human beings.”

What Do You Do When You Feel Rejected?

I went from hurt to pissed in just a few seconds.

(see photo above…what is the monkey with the peanut sized brain doing?)

I’m sitting here, still feeling waves of untempered emotion rumble back and forth in my heart. I had a restless night. Came across another blogger** who had deleted me from their recommended reading list- last night- right before I went to bed. (that makes two this week), then had one of those conversations with my dear wife, so I sucked it in, tried to remember all of the good things I have to be thankful for.

The title of my blog is heart to heart, that means my intention is to write the raw-uncut version of what goes on in my heart. I’m secure enough to know, most of us battle with the same stuff. You may not be letting anyone close enough to your life to see the struggles when they happen- but we all smoke and sputter at times because we’re human.

C.S. Lewis wrote a book called A Grief Observed It was his personal journal after the death of his wife Joy Grisham from cancer. It is powerful stuff. What made it powerful, was the fact that you can read his inner most thoughts in the midst of his grief.

Now I’m not C S Lewis, and I’m not dealing with the loss of my wife, but most of us get rejected from time to time, and I’m not the only one whose had a restless nights sleep because of it.

I’m not sure where to go with this post. Just writing it out has helped defuse a lot of my anger. Hurt (for me) doesn’t stay hurt for very long. It quickly ferments into a low grade anger. I’m temped to delete several names off my recommended reading list….people whose blogs I read but never hear back from. The only problem with that is, most of them are really good blogs, and I do think you’ll enjoy most of them or I wouldn’t have them listed.

Most of us leave a trail of burnt bridges . Some of them needed to be burnt…abusive toxic relationships….

Others, we burn because we’re hurt and it feels good to strike back. The only problem with that is, sooner or later, in virtually every close relationship, there are going to be misunderstandings. The closer you get to another person, the more likely it is, one of you is going to say or do something to hurt the other person- and there’s a good chance they won’t even know it. Do I want to get to the end of my life-pretty much alone, due to my habit of torching relationships the first or third time the other person did something to upset me? I have that option, and I’ve done it….I’ve also forgiven my friends when maybe someone else would have walked away, and those relationships feel that much richer and deeper because of it. Thanks for listening to an old fool vent.

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PS. these thoughts are being added several hours after my initial post. I think the reason I decided to post my thoughts today were not so much these were life and death issues as much as I think all of us experience moments where we feel rejected by people close to us….and for me this is what it feels like.

** There is more going on with this that I’m letting you in on.

*** I got this comment via e-mail this morning:

> ” We as humans are wired to connect, and when
> we are abandoned everything inside of us rises up
> screaming. I continue to read your blog and enjoy it
> immensely.”

Growing Up With Big Ears

Did you know you can get an “ear job” for  $3000?   Take a good look at the  little boy in the picture.   He’s wishing his ears didn’t stick out so far from the side of his head.  To make matters worse,  his mom likes to cut his hair short, so they stick out even more.   He came by them honestly- big ears run in the family.   It will be another 30 years before  he feels good about them.  Hope told me the other day she heard that our ears and noses  never stop growing.        At this point, I love my ears.  They are part of who I am.  There is part of me that would like to start a support group for kids  with big ears-  you’d have to have big ears in order to join.   If you know of any kids or  adults  with big ears that  don’t feel good about themselves, have them get a hold  of me would you?   I would like to  be their friend.

Here is a picture of another guy with big ears :

Do you know who he is?  Will Smith.   He’s funny, secure and has big ears.

Then there’s this lady:

Uma  Thurman -  she thinks she’s got big ears too.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking….maybe if enough people with big ears speak up and say “Hey”….there is nothing wrong with my  big ears….some of the coolest people in the world have big ears, maybe we can make a difference.     If you’re starting to bum right now because you don’t have big ears,  I have an idea.   For $3000 you can have them “tweeked.”  Is there some part of you, you don’t like?      Care to share it?

A Time To Laugh…

      There is a mischievous bent  just under the surface of my life.   If you’re interested, you can read more about it here ,  here  and here.

       Mildred is 88.  Her son Dave called, said mom needed  shelves built in her little closet.      The day I was  working there,  the  phone rang- it was  Leonard, (my relative).     Seems Leonard  calls Mildred  5 or 6 times a day -to gossip. 

      When Mildred  got off the phone , I  suggested,  next time Leonard calls to tell him  DM and his wife  are   expecting    ( We  weren’t) , but I thought, that old busy body Leonard….is he that bored, all he can do is gossip?    I wanted to start a rumor, just to see  how long it took before it gets back to me.   We were in our late 40′s youngest child was in high school, so our expecting @ this late our of parenting would qualify as “news.”

    Mildred said, “DM, if I do that all of the county will hear about it!!!  You don’t want to do that.” 

     But I did.

          When I got together the last time with  Tyrone  my  jaws hurt from laughing so much.  We had taken a trip into Manhattan, Tyrone said he knew his way around, took a map just in case.  We walked and walked trying to find F.A. O Swartz, looking for a certain Lego set.

      Finally I said to Tyrone, “Let me look at that map!”  turned out, he had been looking at it up side down!!!! 

      We laughed about that  the rest of the day.

       MM (my beloved) told me when she was young, she had made a list of qualities she wanted in her future husband.   in addition to  hard working,  she wanted someone who was an encourager,   loved God, and had a sense of humor.     Now you might be tempted to think  a sense of humor doesn’t sound  significant in  terms of character qualities, if that’s the case, you’re probably an engineer

   Here’s a book you might want to pick up:

  You can get a copy here.

       At one point in our family, I sat in a Dr’s office with my wife and child.  Of the 6 of us in the family, 4 of us were on Zoloft  for  anxiety or some type of “issue”.    When the Dr suggested we might want to temporarily put this  child on  it as well, I started laughing.   Could we get a volume discount?   Was I starting to crack up?  The whole thing struck me funny.  You either laugh at a time like that or fall in a heap.  Here we were,  this “Christian” family with 4 kids in tow, and  everyone but me was on medicine for coping….If that doesn’t strike you as a little funny, I don’t know what will.  

       What role does humor play in your life?  In your relationships?  Do you have any funny stories you can share?  Thanks in advance.

Doormat Parenting

      We were sitting on the tarmac of the Des Moine airport, on the way to a wedding.   “F**K  YOU!” screamed  my 8 year old nephew  to his mom.     I (DM) felt  a wave of anger, pity, and embarrassment  as I watched his mom  attempt to keep her son in check.   I still remember the incident 15 years later.   We are on the home stretch of raising our children.  The oldest is 27- the youngest  19.  I’m just now connecting the dots on basic parenting skills,  to be honest, raising kids is not an exact science.  You can do everything “right” and still have prodigals, and you can be the most delinquent parents in your state and by some miracle, you wind up with  a model citizen.  

     If you’re kids do turn out great, don’t be too quick to take all the credit, and if they don’t,  don’t be too quick to take all of the blame.  Having said that, there are some basic parenting skills you need to keep in the back of your mind.  Today’s post is from an article in Focus On The Family  monthly magazine. 

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      “An Arizona high-school student flunks her senior English class after plagiarizing a term paper, receiving an F on her final exam and failing to show up for a make-up session for a botched assignment.  Told that their daughter will not be allowed to graduate with her friends, her parents threaten to sue the teacher and school district.

     The American Medical Association releases a starting report on underage drinking, indicating that a large percentage of kids who drink get the booze from their own parents.  The AMA study found that one in four U.S. teens reported attending a party where alcohol was served with parents present.

     In case you hadn’t noticed, America has a parenting problem.  The evidence of this parenting deficit can be found at your local supermarket, fast-food restaurant or high-school parking lot- spoiled, selfish, out-of-control kids with no concept of right or wrong.

     While many aspects of our culture are harmful to children, I’m particularly alarmed by the risk of what I call “pushover parents.”  These parents are either unable or unwilling to place limits on their children’s behavior- even behavior that is unhealthy, dangerous or destructive.  They are so concerned with being liked by their kids that they give in to their children’s every whim.

     This neglect has a ripple effect.  Even if YOU are doing a great job of raising responsible kids, your children’s lives are still influenced by this unfortunate trend.  Their world is inhabited by kids raised by pushover parents- think bully, dishonest classmate, abusive boyfriend or girlfriend.

      The root of the problem

     What turns parents into pushovers?  The root causes include:

      1.Wrong Thinking.  Many parents today believe they have no right to impose their beliefs on their children.  They heed the advised of secular parenting gurus who preach that children are brimming with innate goodness and should be allowed to create their own values.  Such humanistic advice denies the fact that all of us are inclined toward selfishness and self-deception.

      2.Guilt  When Mom and Dad are both professional working 50 to 60 hours per week, their children may spend the majority of their early years in day care.   Because these parents are physically and emotionally unavailable to their kids, parents may feel tremendous guilt.  To assuage this guilt, they often find it impossible to say no.

     3.Copycat or Reactive parenting.  Many adults today were raised by parents influenced by the permissive “reject all authority” mantra of the 1960′s.  As a result, they never learn the importance of setting appropriate limits.  Conversely, individuals who grew up with harsh, authoritarian parents may reject any form of child discipline.  They vow, “I’m never going to treat my kids the way I was treated.”

      4.Divorce and single parenting.  Contentious divorces and child-custody disputes can turn parents into pushovers.  In order to be seen as he “favorite parent,” mom or dad may spoil the kids.  Single parents can fall into the trap of looking to their children to meet  their own emotional needs.  As a result, they may fail to enforce limits for fear that their kids won’t like them.

     Don’t be a doormat

     How can we avoid becoming pushover parents?  We can begin by recognizing that our children are a blessing from God, and with that blessing comes an awesome responsibility.  Children who fail to experience consequences for misbehavior typically grow up to become selfish, narcissistic adults who leave a trail of broken relationships in their wake.

     If you believe you might be a pushover parent, ask your spouse and friends to give you feedback0 and give them permission to be honest.  If you’re a single parent, ask yourself if you look to your kids for comfort and fear their disapproval.  If so, ask God to help you develop close, nurturing friendships with adults- friends who will support you in your role as a single mom or dad.

     By balancing love and limits, you can help your kids grow into healthy, godly adults who- as they become moms and dads- will break the destructive cycle of pushover parenting.” 

                                        This article was written by Dr Bill Maier

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      Here’s Focus on the Family’s resource link http://resources.family.org/

    What are your parenting questions  comments or struggles?

Coming Out Of The Ice / Emotional Numbness part 2

      A new friend Shelly had a comment/question  on  my post Emotional Numbness .    I asked her if she would be willing to write a follow-up letter.   Here it is:

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Coming Out of the Ice

Back in 2001 the Lord said to me, “I want to capture
your heart.”  My mind was a blank. What was God
telling me? A counselor said to me a few years ago,
“You remind me of a Hollywood set. Everything looks
fine on the outside, but you go behind it and there is
nothing there.” I had a gut sense that he was right,
but I had no idea what he meant.  Other remarks
through the years have elicited the same internal
“Huh?” from me.

In God’s grace and infinite mercy He has connected the
dots, and I now understand fully.  Words are symbols
for the meaning behind them, and the words had no
meaning for me. I had no life experiences to draw on
to show me what those words meant. There are many
things that unless we experience them we won’t know
what they are.  I can explain to you in precise detail
what it is like to peel and eat an orange, but until
you actually peel and eat one you are not going to
know what that experience is like.

I grew up in a home where the verbal abuse was
constant, vicious, and broke my spirit, my identity,
my hope, my joy, anything beautifully human about me.
Threats to throw me out of the house were constant.
They did ultimately disown me as a young adult.  My
parents wanted control at all costs and would stop at
nothing to make sure that they got it. I became numb
to survive.  If I had fully felt and been aware of all
of the arrows, knives, and atom bombs being thrown at
me I’m sure that I would have become catatonic, run
away, turned to drugs, or committed suicide. Being
numb saved me. Being numb kept the true me “on ice” as
well.

225 books, 9 years of counseling, and most importantly
redeeming experiences from kind, caring people are
finally calling those sleeping emotions back to life.
However it has been a long, slow, painful journey to
“wake up.”  Imagine how painful a tingling hand feels
when the circulation is coming back from being almost
totally frozen. (OW-OW-OW!)

There is a part of the Christian recovery movement
that say, “You think what you feel. Change what you
think and your feelings will follow.”  I don’t
disagree with the position.  However it doesn’t take
into account those people who have virtually no
internalization of feelings like hope, trust, faith,
belonging, being loved, etc. You don’t learn those
things growing up in an unsafe hell hole (also known
as a war zone).or later if no one shows you anything
different in adulthood.  There is nothing inside to
draw on to change your thinking.  I have also found
that most Christians (as most Americans) live time
starved lives and can’t/won’t dedicate the time and
energy it takes to be kind, caring, and loving at a
deep level so that you can begin to have those
feelings awaken. If you have been broken relationally,
you heal relationally. Getting together with a
“caring” Christian at Starbuck’s once every 6 months
won’t fix this; but that’s as much time as they can
give you.  I recently had a pastor tell me, “The
American church is not relational.” It’s truly
pathetic.  How are the emotional orphans supposed to
heal if Christians find it too time consuming to step
up to the plate and show loving relationships to those
who have never seen them?  For us poor, broken
creatures a kind, safe relationship is like talking
about life on Mars.  I have been a Christian for 34
years.  It is only in the last 3 years that I have
finally found relationships that heal.  I certainly
wish those folks had “come ’round” sooner.

       Is there
anyone who would like to comment?

God Told You “What???????”

      “God told me I was to teach you how to drive my Volkswagen”    The words jumped off the pages of God’s Smuggler .

       I’m thinking to myself, how does that work?    It’s one thing to believe the Bible has divine fingerprints on it, but you’re on a whole new level when you start thinking you’ve heard God   talking  about giving driving lessons.   I was talking to a woman at a book signing.    Didn’t know her.  She looked normal, then she opened her mouth.  She told me (and I quote) “God told me to write down these things. “  (She proceeded to tell me she had 7 different book manuscripts at home, waiting to be published.)   My friend “Piglet”   later in the car, rolled his eyes and said, “I couldn’t take it any more”  (meaning the way this woman  kept saying, “Then God told me this, and God told me that….”)

      Here’s the deal,  no matter what I say,  some of you are  going   to disagree with me.    So what should I  do?  I’m not interested in  a debate. If  you’re an atheist,  you are a thinker.  We’re at different places in our thinking process,  but as long as you and I can  have a respectful conversation, I love it.  If you are a devout person of another world religion,  I’m probably not going to change your mind via this blog.  God could, but there is no way I can honestly touch you in a significant way via the Internet w/ my puny little blog site.

      If you are an agnostic, that says to me,  you’ve given your life some serious thought, and there is just too much conflicting information for you to make up your mind one way or another.  (drop me a note  I would enjoy bantering w/ you a little more outside this blog setting), which brings me to my Christian brothers and sisters.   I can just see you sitting there smirking at me thinking to yourself, now where is he going to go with this? 

      I am going to put a stake in the ground and  tell you, I believe God does still  speak to us today.     Not nearly as often as I would like, not nearly as clear as I would like, and  ( just between me and you, the lady at the book signing made me nervous.)   

      Christians   say things like…”God put it on my heart”,  “I felt led”,  “God’s telling me”, “God opened this door..” ”This passage jumped off the page at me.” 

     I’ve had several times when I thought  God may have been nudging me.  

   Once I was  in town,  saw four of Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on doors.  I had this thought.  “Why don’t you invite them out to your place so you can talk”   

       I did a double take in my mind,   was that “God” prompting me or my overactive imagination?

      I circled the block a couple of times before I decided, what the heck, I’m not sure, but just in case, I was up for a little adventure.  I pulled up along side of one guy, said I’d like to invite them out to talk if they were interested.    You can read about what happens next here.

      I’m at a point where I take anything anyone says is from God (myself included)  cautiously.   Hearing the voice of God is not an exact science.  Anyone  who is dogmatic about hearing the voice of God in a specific situation will automatically throws up a red flag in my mind.   I read the story of Brother Andrew 25 years ago.   Since then, our family has had encounters with the Divine just as up close and personal as what I read about with Brother Andrew.  There are two extremes as far as I’m concerned.    You don’t believe God does this sort of thing, or you buy into every thought/prompting/imagination that goes through your mind.  

How do you discern the voice of God?

    

Looking Beyond tragedy

      From a collection of essays by Andree Seu titled In Due Time

    Andree Seu is one of  my favorite authors.  I’m guessing she is in her early 50′s.    Her husband of 20 some years died suddenly a few years ago, leaving her a widow with several young children.   She is a regular contributor to World Magazine. 

       The Chapter “In Due Time” starts out with a conversation between her and her 7 yr old daughter….

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     “WE HAVEN’T SEEN ALL the fallout of this yet.  After a stretch of smooth sailing that I mistook for wellness, the child has taken to bedtime queries about orphans- with more than a theoretical interest.  This isn’t out of the blue, it is on schedule, I suppose; the next phase, a time-released installment of mourning, side effect number 57 of having your daddy ripped from you.

     I know what you’re wondering, little one: Where are the promises?  You cry in the night but….silence.  We have to talk about “time,” you and I.  My years are more than yours, you know.  Not to pull rank, but at 7, patterns hardly being to emerge.  Still, you may have noticed in our Bible stories, the way it feels long between promise made and promise kept.  Abraham.  Noah.  Old man Simeon.

     People fall into that time trap, Aimee.  They think God forgets, or God is distracted doing something-else- and they do anything they please….

     Someday your big brother will teach you chess, and that will help.  Till, then, remember Joseph of he psychedelic coat?  How sometimes things that start out bad turn good, and things that start out good turn bad?  You and I read about that little Jewish boy’s peaks and valleys in a single sitting, from our catbird seat in history.  But what about him,Aimee  (I know you’re good at imagining.)  What did he feel like in that caravan of Ishmaelites?

      Let’s play this out; how are you at seeing around corners:  hated by your brothers, sold like an old Beanie-baby, orphaned like a kitten, a teenage slave, Isn’t that bad, darling?

     No, it’s good!  He ends up the household manager of Pharaoh’s captain of the guard!

    Isn’t that good, Aimee?  No, it’s bad:  Potiphar’s wife frames Joseph and he lands up back in jail.

      Isn’t that bad,Aimee?  No, it’s good!  In jail, he hears important dreams that land him as Pharoah’s vizier.  Strands of history and geography woven together by a skillful hand, and Joseph saves his dad and brothers, and counts his former troubles but a pittance on the scales.

     “Better is the end of a thing than it’s beginning.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8)  The last chapter is what counts, isn’t it?  Between the covers of the book, knights will fall, pawns will be sacrificed, bishops will topple and be toppled, rooks will come and go-  all those great upheavals and reversals Mary saw in the Spirit, singing her Magnificat.

    The faithfulness of God is why the perseverance of man (and little girls) is so important.  What you’re seeing now is middles, freeze frames, the crest of the curve and not its falling arc, the ball as it looks snapped in mid-air by your Polaroid.  But “you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purposes of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.” James 5:11

     There will be magic, daughter mine (I know you are a big girl and you understand).  Remember Sleeping Beauty, how the fairies ‘ wands turned arrows of the witch’s archers to daisies in mid-flight?  Think of it like that.  God will turn your hope to joy, and the Valley of Achor to a door of hope.

      Too early to call this tragedy, my girl.  Not a forever after one, at least……

     We haven’t seen all the fallout of this yet, the gentle misting rain of grace…..”

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Several of my blog readers have a full plate of suffering in their lives…..I read this  tonight and thought of you.

I Don’t Cry

      I don’t subscribe to the notion that “real men don’t cry”.   In my case,  it would be more accurate to say I “can’t cry.”  Now that is not a completely accurate statement because about 3 years ago,  I did  have a good sob that resonated from the bottom of my soul…but it was the first good cry  in 30 years. 

     I still remember when the tears stopped.  I was 16, my brother was 15.  We were having a good natured fight….nothing serious, more of an intense wrestling match, then things turned ugly.  It degenerated into an all out brawl, I got my butt whooped and wailed like a little girl.  To make matters worse, my mom and dad, happened to be sitting on our front porch and  saw me.  I remember vowing to myself, I will never allow myself to look that pathetic again….. a 16 yr old guy crying like a girl…it was a sickening sight. (at least to me)…Jump ahead to the present. …I “know” that it is OK to cry as a man.  That crap about men not crying is just that…”Crap”…I apologize if my choice of word offends you…I don’t mean to offend.  The other phrase  I had in mind starts with a “BS”.  Now don’t write me and  critique my choice of words because I’ll just delete your comment w/o a second thought..but I digress..

       Tears are part of being human.   I know that.  There is no urgency to “fix” this issue.  This seems to be the only emotion I have that has a lid on it.  I’m interested in  any insights, comments, or suggestions  you might have.   I’m a little squeamish even laying this “issue” on the table for discussion.  I’m sure I’m not the only person who suppresses their crying mechanism.  It is not a conscious choice by the way…the “crying switch”  that I intentionally shut off 33 years ago isn’t something I have access to…To use a word picture, It’s  like I shut the “crying” breaker off on the electrical panel of my soul… and I don’t know what to do to turn it back on.