“I’ve thought about every word you said,” Dan told me on Friday….and the shame is gone…completely gone. I haven’t felt this light and free in years.“
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End of November I (Douglas) spent an extended weekend high in the mountains of Colorado at a men’s retreat working through some issues. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect as I got there, I told someone later, I felt like I was going to have a “spiritual colonoscopy”
Colon cancer runs in our family, so I’ve had the “opportunity” to be scoped on more than one occasion. Once you hit 50, it’s recommended everyone get’s one of these, but if you’re like most chickens (I mean people) we put it off and put it off…the thing is, if you catch the polyps early it is a very treatable cancer..the problem comes when you wait….
So too, in life, personal issues that are ignored usually don’t just magically go away…they tend to grow and fester…so early on in our marriage, when I found myself completely stuck and confused, at a point of desperation, I reached out for help. It taught me a valuable lesson. Why should I spend months (or years) struggling with the same old crap when an answer may be forthcoming in a 60 minute conversation if I have the gut’s and I’m humble enough to say “I’m stuck, I have a problem…can you help?”
This stuff was never modeled for me growing up. I’ve had to learn it the hard way.
So, over the years in our marriage, and through the turbulent teenage years, we’ve proactively sought out help, whenever it became obvious, we were over my heads…after the 2nd or 3rd issue, it isn’t really that much different from making an appointment to see the dentist if you have a toothache….
I am not at liberty at the present to talk about specifics..there may come a day in the not too distant future where I will write about it but not yet… Some long standing, buried, pain has been coming to light this Summer and Fall, and I decided to step up to the plate and deal with it head on…hence my trip to Colorado.
Most of us have painful “stuff” in our lives no one else knows about…I don’t have to list it here…if you have it, then you know what I’m talking about. Well, stop for just a second and try to imagine the sting of that pain being gone…not just suppressed but gone…..
After my trip to Colorado, I happened to tell Dan about some of the radical emotional freedom I was experiencing…I wasn’t even aware of the hurts in his life…he trusted me enough to tell me his story He told me he had been having flash backs and night mares…dark shameful memories had dogged him for years…. I listened, and encouraged him…and hadn’t thought any more about our conversation..then he told me on Friday, “I’ve thought about every word you said,”….and the shame is gone…completely gone. I haven’t felt this light and free in years.“
I have no idea who may stumble across this particular blog post at some point. God has an amazing way of allowing people’s paths to cross in the most serendipitous fashions….anyway, if you’re reading this and are at a broken stuck place in your life and need someone to talk to…(or are not there currently but have something to add to this conversation, let me know)
As I was helping my wife clean this morning I had negative emotions dogging my every step.
When I stopped long enough to understand what and why I was feeling this way, I couldn’t do it.
All the dark thoughts popped back in their holes like moles in a mole game.
It took me ten minutes to put a label on what I was feeling.
“Disapproval”
I was feeling the emotions of disapproval
Disapproval: criticize. to think (something) wrong censure or condemn in opinion.
(the opposite of feeling like someone was giving me their blessing)
My wife had been asked to tidy up a senior housing apartment for a friend who was moving her mom to Seattle this week.
I offered to help out because my morning had suddenly freed up.
That sounds simple enough don’t you think?
Help wife with cleaning = showing her love.
For the first 30 minutes I battled these dark negative feelings…
“What am I doing taking time off cleaning out a frig????
” I should be on the job working!!!!”
On and on like a broken record….
I am self employed…which means I can call my own hours.
I am between projects this morning/ the job I had hoped to do today was not ready so if I wasn’t helping my wife out, I would be home puttering in the shop/ picking apples/ etc. no big deal breakers there
So where do these negative feelings come from?
They rob me of joy and energy like a short on a battery.
Instead of feeling like I am doing something good to encourage my wife, I am feeling like “someone” would disprove of what I am doing with my time.
Who in the heck is this “someone ” anyway???
I’d like to tell them to zip it, because I didn’t ask for their opinion
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These are not life and death issues
I hesitate to even write about them, but these low-grade negative feelings rob me of my peace of mind just as effectively as the bigger stuff.
Do I battle this stuff all the time? nada
I can take a nap with the best of them pretty much anytime the opportunity presents itself.
It wasn’t always that way.
For the first several years after I got married and moved away from the farm, I battled the negative feelings….
even after I was a 1000 miles from home , I could feel that pressure to be productive.
Not any more.
So it kind of takes me by surprise to discover there are still a few old moles tunneling around the recesses of my mind.
I’m kind of optimistic at this moment.
Whenever I can catch this sort of thing and drag it into the open, into the light, it has a way of breaking the power of it.
Negative thoughts thrive in darkness.
They thrive in secrecy.
If you’re batting some deep dark thing right now,
find someone safe,
someone you trust and share it with them.
If you don’t know anyone, feel free to tell me.
Leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you one on one.
I am pretty much unflappable.
I don’t have to know who you are. In fact, I don’t want to know.
That isn’t the point.
Nobody should have to carry dark things by themselves.
We are not designed to.
You’ll have to excuse me now while I take a nap. DM
Seeing most of these people only every 2 or 3 years gives me the a sense I’m watching time-lapsed photography…
I used to internally cringe at these get togethers.
I would compare our families life choices with the other young families in the mix.
5 of the cousins are either Dr’s or have married Doctors. I suspect several of the Aunts and Uncles are millionaires…
And then there was our family
My wife chose to stay at home as our kids came along…
which meant shopping @ Goodwill and garage sales for the kid’s clothes
Renting instead of owning
Driving an older car
bread from the day old store….
you get the picture.
There are lots of people in the world who have it a 100 times tougher..that I know..
but still, it’s so easy to fall into the comparison trap.
Now, 30 years later, our kids are grown,
wife and I are still in love
I’m still working at a job that energizes and stimulates me most days.
money is still tight, but for the most part we are out of debt….
And those earlier choices don’t seem so stupid any more…
I came across the following description in a book a few weeks ago, that described our life to a T:
“My grandparents lived a simple country life. They were totally self-sufficient, tilling a small piece of land and raising their own food….there was a sense of unhurriedness and simple pleasures. All the money in the world couldn’t buy such luxury in today’s world. It is not for sale. You have to create it….
It is unlikely you can ever totally escape from this high-stress world. We are all on the same train….but to preserve your sanity and achieve a healthy life, you have to make some choices and resolve to live a balanced life. By a “balanced” life, I mean, that like a marathon runner, you must learn how to pace yourself. You give it all you’ve got going uphill and rest as much as you can going downhill. You try to balance the drain on your energy so you can “go the distance”
As I listened to some of the stories this past weekend, I couldn’t help but think about an article I recently read about rats, overcrowding and stress.
Because some (not all) of my successful relatives are living under a lot of self-imposed stress, .and I thought to myself but are they happy?
They may be making big bucks, but at what cost?
Here’s a link to that article if you’d like to read it. Rat Study
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If you hear a still small voice calling you to get out of the rat race don’t just ignore it.
It may be the voice of God.
And He can make a way.
I know what you’re thinking…
There is nobody in your life who would understand…
But here’s the deal…30 years from now, you will notregret it….
“If you make it to the top of the company ladder, but loose your family in the process, you are a fool.”
__________________________–
Sorry if this comes across as a little intense. I don’t mean to be. DM
“
That was then and this is now. Things are different today.”
I didn’t buy his answer.
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I was in my early 20′s , experiencing a spiritual hunger and restlessness I hadn’t gone looking for it…
it had popped out of the ground of my life like a mushroom.
One minute I was minding my own business, doing my own thing, the next thing I knew, there was a hungry for something spiritual that was real.
It started when I read the following account:
“All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another. They would sell their property and possessions and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed. Every day they continued to meet as a group in the temple, and they had their meals together in their homes, eating the food with glad and humble hearts, praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people. and every day the Lord added to their group…”
Just for a second, try not to get hung up in the “churchy” words and just try to imagine what it would be like to be involved with people on that level of relationship…
Certainly not like any church experience I’d ever had.
I tend to chew on stuff like this, So there I was at work one morning, setting up scaffolding with Lester. He was in his 60′s, an old retired farmer. minding his own business, and there I was, wound tight, asking him about deep spiritual things on a construction site.
You got to love him ….we’d worked together for a few years so he didn’t just write me off as some nut job.
His answer didn’t satisfy me but I let it go…..
There was a major disconnect when I would read about the 1st century Christians and what passes for “Christianity” today.
A major disconnect
I have a hair trigger when it comes to hypocrisy and phoniness.
I have been known to get agitated and leave the room.
What happened was, my hunger for deeper, genuine relationships actually increased.
We’re all at different places in our lives. As I’m writing this, I’m talking to someone who is spiritually hungry, but put off by organized religion.
Ever wonder how you can sort out all of the conflicting voices out there telling you this is truth…no, this is truth…no, there is no such thing as absolute truth, all paths will eventually lead you to the truth…bla bla bla.
Here’s a tip- look @ the person or the source of who’s talking to you and look at their life...If they’re married do they seem to have a healthy marriage or does it feel phony. If they have children…do they look like they’re nurtured, or is something not quite right? Does this person for some weird reason give you the creeps? (don’t discount that sort of thing/ I think it’s discernment)
We moved to the East Coast so I could pursue some schooling. A local faith community took us under their wing, full of imperfect but genuine people who had also decided they wanted nothing to do with the phony crap that passes for “church” today. It was there I had my thirst for deep significant relationships slaked. We were there 5 years. When we did eventually return to the Midwest, I brought back with me the know-how , the first hand experience on how to cultivate those same type of relationships….genuine, loving, trusting, practical and real.
Reminds me of doing an internship at an organic farm for 5 years.
After 5 years you would hopefully come away with the ability to grow fresh vegetables.
So here I sit this morning thanking God for the spiritual hunger and restlessness he puts into my heart so many years ago now and for the ways he regularly satisfies it. DM
In 1987 I penned a list of long-term personal goals.
It wasn’t as easy as you think.
I never know who is reading my stuff so if you’re a regular, bear with me 30 seconds while I give the context
I was 29 years old. Married to a very supportive wife, 3 young children, working full-time as a carpenter, pursuing schooling on the side to potentially be a marriage and family counselor. VERY involved @ our local church in youth work and Saturday work days. Things were very tight financially but overall, I felt things were going pretty well. My wife felt otherwise. Plus we were living 1000 miles from home. Things came to a head. She was angry because she saw me reaching out to other people’s kids while ours were being neglected, doing work on other people’s homes while stuff @ our home went untouched. I’m embarrassed now to even think I was so dense
There’s a song by Sanctus Real on Christian radio right now that captures that time in my life perfectly
I look around and see my wonderful life Almost perfect from the outside In picture frames, I see my beautiful wife Always smiling, but on the inside
Oh, I can hear her saying
Lead me with strong hands Stand up when I can’t Don’t leave me hungry for love Chasing dreams, but what about us?
Show me you’re willing to fight That I’m still the love of your life I know we call this our home But I still feel alone
I see their faces, look in their innocent eyes They’re just children from the outside I’m working hard, I tell myself they’ll be fine They’re independent, but on the inside
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I dropped out of everything. Focused my energies where they belonged…first and foremost a husband and father.
Made a list of long-term goals (back to where I started this post)
I set some long-term goals. A 5 year goal, a 10 year goal, a 20 year goal , a 30 year goal and lend of life goals.
Here’s a portion of my end of life goal:
#1 I would have loved my wife, children, brothers and sisters with no regrets.
#2 I would have a home in the countryside with animals and growing things.
#3 That I would have been faithful to God to the end...that I ran the race well.
(Life is a marathon/ not a 50 yard dash) If I’m going to make the long haul, then by golly, I need to know how to set a long-term pace/ and that includes knowing how to live a balanced life)
We live in such a materialistically saturated culture.
I know financial pressures first hand. I know what it’s like to not have enough money to take the kids to the dentist. Clothes shop @ the Salvation Army. Grocery shopping @ Aldi’s. Not have enough $ for postage stamps. Drive old cars donated to help out families like ours.
I also know that in some mysterious way, I have been led. We just celebrated 33 years of marriage this past weekend and our relationship is still smoke’n!
We survived the teen years and I have great lines of communication with all 4 of our children.
My relationship with my parents and siblings has never been better.
In it, she lists the top five regrets of those lying on their death beds.
I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I had not worked so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had kept in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier
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I read that list and can honestly say @ this point. I have no regrets. None, Nada. Period.
I am so thankful things came to a head back in 1987. If you’re reading this post and are wondering about your life purposes…your goals, if you feel trapped…you know what I’m talking about. This is not a bad place to be.
It may mean in the deep recesses of your sub-conscience the real you, is crying out for you to stop long enough to set some goals.
I (DM) want to introduce you to one of my mentors.. Morrie Swartz.
What follows is an excerpt from a book of Morrie’s distilled wisdom.
“the first time I saw Morrie on Nightline, I wondered what regrets he had once he knew his death was imminent. Did he lament lost friends? Would have have done much differently? Selfishly, I wondered if I were in his shoes, would I be consumed with sad thoughts of all that I had missed? Would I regret the secrets I had kept hidden?
When I mentioned this to Morrie, he nodded, “It’s what everyone worries about isn’t it? What if today were my last day, on earth?” He studied my face, and perhaps he saw an ambivalence about my own choices, I had this vision of me keeling over at my desk one day, halfway through a story, my editors snatching the copy even as the medics carried my body away.
“Mitch?” Morrie said.
I shook my head and said nothing. But Morrie picked up on my hesitation.
“Mitch.” he said, “the culture doesn’t encourage you to think about such things until you’re about to die. We’re so wrapped up with egotistical things, career, family, having enough money , meeting the mortgage, getting a new car, fixing the radiator when it breaks- we’re involved in trillions of little acts just to keep going. So we don’t get into the habit of standing back and looking at our lives and saying, “Is this all? Is this all I want? Is something missing?”
He paused.
“You need someone to probe you in that direction. It won’t just happen automatically.”
I knew what he was saying. We all need teachers in our lives.
And mine was sitting in front of me.
Fine, I figured. If I was to be the student, then I would be as good a student as I could be.
On the plane ride home that day, I made a small list on a yellow legal pad, issues and questions that we all grapple with, from happiness to agin to having children to death. Of course, there were a million self-help books on these subjects, and plenty of cable TV shows, and $90 operhour consultation sessions. America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help.
But there still seemed to be no clear answers. Do you take care of others or take care of your “inner child”? Return to traditional values or reject tradition as useless? Seek success or seek simplicity? Just Say No or Just Do It?
All I knew was this: Morrie, my old professor, wasn’t in the self-help business. He was standing on the tracks, listening to death’s locomotive whistle, and he was very clear about the important things in life.
I wanted that clarity. Every confused and tortured soul I knew wanted that clarity.
“Ask me anything,” Morrie always said.
So I wrote this list:
Death
Fear
Aging
Greed
Marriage
Family
Society
Forgiveness
A meaningful life
This list was in my bag when I returned to West Newton for the fourth time, a Tuesday in late August when the air-conditioning at the Logan Airport terminal was not working, and people fanning themselves and wiped sweat angrily from their foreheads, and every face I saw looked ready to kill someone.”
I (DM) love love love this book. I remember as my grandma was getting older, she refused to have her will made out because somehow in her mind it might hasten her death or bring her bad luck. My wife and I on the other hand love strolling through a local cemetery, looking at the old tombstones and learning the stories of people buried there . It comes down to perspective.
I think that’s one of the reasons I have enjoyed this book so much. It gives me added perspective on life.
I told someone yesterday I love being the age I am now….. 53 .
Inside I still feel like a 23 year old, just now I have 30 years life experience under my belt…
what
a
rush!
Rereading this post I realized this is just a teaser to the subject at hand (the meaning of life). Since I am not one to jam my “stuff” down anyone’s throat, I will stop here. If this is a topic you’re really hankering to find answers to, I’ll make two suggestions.
First, get a copy of the book. It will slake your thirst like nothing else.
Secondly, if you’d like my thoughts on a specific issue, ask your question and I will do my best to reply in the comment threads.
“There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware there is in there ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.
I trust I speak in charity, but the lack in our pulpits is real. Milton’s terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his: “the hungry sheep look up and are not fed.” It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the Kingdom, to see God’s children starving while actually seated at the Father’s table….”
It all started in 1998 my wife asked me a few harmless questions (or so I thought)…
“Where have you felt the most refreshed spiritually?
”Think of the times when you were most encouraged spiritually? “
I remember saying things like…
“At that lay ministry weekend retreat back in 1981.”
”Not always but on occasion in a small group get together.”
“That “body life service “we used to attend in New Jersey @ Gilgal.”
“Sometimes AFTER church when we are hanging around catching up with Leslie, or Lance, or Thomas…..”
Then we tried to identify what was it about those times that made them stand out?
Having a genuine sense of connectedness both to people and to God.
Masks were down.
people really listening to where each other was at.
God’s word was talked about as it practically applied in our current situation.
Then she asked: “How can we get more of that in our lives?”
and the rest is history
At this point, we are part of a small house church.
As much as I miss those people we used to attend church (small c) with, I would never go back.
I have no idea who might @ some point read this…but just so you know….
I’ve spent years…literally years in three different local churches thinking we could/ should ”reform” them from the inside out.
Finally came to the realization that the pastor and leadership in a local church casts a long, long shadow spiritually.
I only have one life to live… Do I spend it settling for second best just so I have lots of friends or is there a point whereI ”take the road less traveled”?
I (DM) came across this cool looking spider a couple of weeks ago @ work. We were reroofing an older home and when I peeled off the ridge vent, he came crawling out. I did two things when I saw him..first I ran back down to my truck and grabbed the camera..It was so unusual I wanted to take a picture. Second thing, which kind of left me mystified…I didn’t want to kill it. Now, normally I would have squashed it without a second thought, but there was something in me that didn’t want to. Not sure why I reacted that way…although if you take the time to read the Fulghum story at the end of this post, you’ll see I”m not the only one who has hesitated to kill a bug…
A marbled orb weaver
I (DM) need your help again
Anyone care to translate a poem by Walt Whitman for me? I know you probably think I’m kidding. I have a hunch he’s buried a pearl of wisdom in it , I’m just not what it is.
I remember in 7th grade , Miss Burns had us read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. For the life of me, I did not know what to do with that story.
Here’s that poem:
By Walt Whitman
1819-1892
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
I’ll close with this short meditation by Robert Fulghum .
“Meditation on the Death of a Fly”
The first warm day of onrushing spring rallied the dormant bug population of my house. As school locker rooms spill teams of amateur athletes onto practice fields at this season, the egg sacs in the darkest corners of my study burst forth legions of tiny spiders onto the floor and launch waves of minute flying midges onto the wall. No cause for exterminating action for me. Experience has taught me patience. Within hours the baby bugs will be lunch for a small team of freshman lizards.
On a slightly larger scale, the Dispersal Committee of the Housefly Commune has already assigned one juvenile fly to each room of my house. These newly licensed pilots move with maniacal speed, zooming erratically here and there, practicing upside-down landings on the ceilings, crashing into the clear window glass, and corkscrewing through the air in acrobatic shows of skill- but seldom landing long enough for me to get a shot at them with my Great Yellow Swatter of Death.
There are also a few tenacious survivors left over from the end of winter. For two days now a fat, elderly fly has lived out his last hours on top of my desk. His airborne adventures seem to have ended. Slowly he walks from one end of the desk to another, pausing at the edge, and walking back again to the other end and another edge. He does not bother me. I do not bother him. It is in his favor that he has lost the urge , the will, or the ability to launch himself into the air. As long as he does not enter my No Fly Zone, I am content.
Once he even heaved himself up onto the Great Yellow Swatter of Death, walked its length, tumbled off the end and walked on. Fearless. Dignified. Senile.
This morning he is still present, though moving ever so slowly, a centimeter or two at a time. At this moment he rests between me and the computer screen, scratching and patting his head with his two front feet. Perhaps he is reflecting on the distance to the far away edge of the table. He sighs and plods on.
I worry about him.
What is there for an old fly to eat or drink on the hard brown desert of my desk? Will he fall off the edge the next time he gets there and break his neck? Or try his wings one last desperate time before he nose-dived into the tile floor? Do his children know where he is, or care? Can he see me, the possible agent of his fate, and is he afraid? Does he anticipate the coming of the Great Lizard, or is he comforted by knowing that, like mutton, he is too tough and stringy to be eaten now?
I can’t ignore him- there he is, creeping back and forth.
I can’t push him off the table- too cruel.
And I can’t quite bring myself to smash him dead too easy.
So I put a jar over him and peered at him through a magnifying glass. Unlike other insects I’ve investigated, he did not panic- no mad rushing about or trying to escape. He looks tired and gray. Slowly he wrings his hands. When I removed the jar, he resumed walking toward the edge again with great dignity and purpose. Just before I turned off the light to go to bed, he was walking in circles, slowly, slowly, slowly….
This morning I found him lying on his back. Dead.
With respect for his dignity and mine, I took him outside for burial. With a teaspoon I dug a small grave for him beneath a weed that is just coming into bright red bloom.
A unique event, however trivial. This first fly funeral I had attended. I pondered the sense of mercy that stayed my hand from the Great Yellow Swatter of Death. What kept me from automatically smashing the life out of the vulnerable senior fly? Soft-hearted folly or seasoned wisdom?
Being culturally wired to detest flies and kill them at any opportunity, what got into me? Briefly we were the only two living things in the room. Struggling on as long as possible. The spark of life in him and the spark of life in me was the same. We were connected. Live and let live.
Now I understand what it means when people say: “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
”There is a difference between superficial beauty and the inner beauty we all possess as unique human beings. One is the product of the object culture, which reduces us to the things we own and the milestones we accomplish. The other is the result of a life well lived, where our struggles and challenges make us more loveable and truly ourselves. Inner beauty the kind you can feel and others can see, is what happens when you stop chasing false ideals and become the Real person you are meant to be.”
I (DM) was dumbfounded after watching that clip. Sometimes I feel as if the whole world is chasing after a mirage. And then I read the following and realize, I’m not alone….
“I began to formulate the Velveteen Principles in a most unlikely place. I was at my doctor’s office for a routine checkup. I looked up from a glossy, waiting-room magazine, which was full of images of smiling, perfect-looking people, and noticed that it was hard to tell that any of the patients around me were sick, worried or defective in any way. well-dressed and smiling, we were all trying to look good, just like the people in my magazine.
Then the outside door swung open and a wheelchair-bound woman in her mid-seventies entered, pushed by a man of the same age who was obviously her husband. After stopping at the receptionist’s station, they came into the waiting area.
She was bright-eyed but obviously quite ill. Her hands shook, and she breathed with the help of an oxygen tank. She wore no makeup. Red splotches and blue veins were visible through her pale, wrinkled skin. And her clothes were not the least bit feminine or fashionable. She was everything I had been taught to avoid becoming- weak, unhealthy, dependent and unconcerned about the impression she made on others.
Her husband, a white-haired man was dressed in khaki pants and a flannel shirt, was small, alert and quite fig. He had pushed her wheelchair with relative ease and then knelt next to her. He pushed back the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a very old tattoo of a buxom young woman maybe it was Betty Grable- and stroked his wife’s hair. As he adjusted the plastic tubing for her oxygen supply, he spoke softly in his wife’s ear. Whatever he said made her smile.
As I peeked over my magazine I became strangely jealous. Here she was, at the end of her life, physically debilitated and struggling. But she was not shy or embarrassed. Instead, she exuded a peaceful sense of certainty about who she was and her inherent value. It was clear that her husband adored her and cherished every moment they spent together. I considered his tattoo and thought of a time when he was young and probably quite obsessed with pretty women. And who knows, maybe his wife was once the girl who had fulfilled his fantasy. But in the moment I witnessed, what he loved was the true and essential person inside the body, the invisible beauty he may not have seen in younger years.
In the weeks after seeing that couple in the doctor’s office I struggled to understand why I had been so envious.. I had a husband who loved me. I felt good about my work and about my two children, Amy and Elizabeth. But I felt, deep in my heart, there was something that older woman possessed that I wanted. It was there in her face, and in the way she interacted with her husband, but I just couldn’t name it.
The answers we need often come at unpredictable moments and from surprising sources. This happened to me on a summer evening as I prepared dinner. I was in the kitchen, taking vegetables out of the refrigerator and grabbing pots and pans from the cupboard while my daughters sat together reading on the sofa in the next room. Elizabeth, age six, was reading to two-year-old Amy. Amy had her favorite blanket in her hand, her best bear, Lauren, in her lap and her thumb in her mouth. Elizabeth’s stuffed bear, Ted, was propped next to her They had reached page sixteen of The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams’s story, which was one of their favorites.
“What is REAL asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time not just to play with but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are REAL, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
In the kitchen, I was suddenly flooded with emotion and understanding. The Rabbit and the Skin Horse, I realized were talking about the difference between superficial beauty and the kind of Real, inner beauty that we all possess as unique human beings. They were saying that in a life well-lived, where we are true to ourselves, all the struggles and challenges only make us more Real and more loveable. Others can see this quality in us, and make us even more Real with their love and nurturing.
At last I understood my reaction to the older woman at my doctor’s office. She was loose in the joints. Her hair was thinning, and her clothes were shabby. But she showed no anxiety, no shame, no worry. She accepted herself fully. She knew she was precious and irreplaceable. She was Real. She loved and accepted herself as a Real and therefore imperfect person.
The scene at the doctor’s office was made all the more poignant by the fact that the woman’s Real value was clear to her husband as well. To him she could never be ugly, because she was simply herself. At a moment when anyone else might have been supremely self-conscious, he was so Real that he was almost carefree…..
As the pages of The Velveteen Rabbit turn, the main characters teach us how to find peace that comes when we focus on what matters most in life: love, relationships, and empathy for ourselves and others. The Skin Horse is a wise and experienced elder who is generous with what he has learned. The Rabbit is, like all of us, insecure and searching for his place in the world, a place he eventually finds in a rather unexpected new life…. (that was from the Introduction to The Velveteen Principles )
I got a call last week from a friend- her son had taken a World Religion class last year and no longer believes in God. Our conversation took me back to a time when something similiar happened to me- for a spell.
I grew up Protestant, fell in love with a pretty young Catholic, decided I’d convert which ment I had to attend a series of classes- which stirred up a bee’s nest of questions. For the first time in my life I found myself genuinely wrestling with questions of faith, religion, spirituality, absolute truth.
Who is right? Who can I go to with my questions? The Catholic priest thinks he is right, my former Protestant minister thinks he is right…everyone’s biased. Then try to make any sense out of all the denominations just within the Christian faith. - there are over 400 different Baptist denominations alone-not to mention, Pentecostals, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Fundamentalists, Nazarenes, and non-denominational, plus all of the world religions that claim to have a corner on the truth….then you have your sincere atheists, Agnostics, and New Agers…have I missed anyone ?
yep, what an emotional roller coaster ride that was.
I went through a time of intense questioning- It felt like I was in the midst of a spiritual earthquake- the very foundations of my life were shaken – hard.
I told my friend to get herself a copy of Lee Strobel’s book-
As a former atheist, Strobel understands the rational resistance to faith. He even names the eight most convincing arguments against Christian faith. Here is a partial list of issues he tackles:
1) If there’s a loving God, why does this pain-wracked world groan under so much suffering and evil?
2) If the miracles of God contradict science, then how can any rational person believe that they’re true?
3) If God is morally pure, how can he sanction the slaughter of innocent children as the Old Testament says he did?
4) If God cares about the people he created, how could he consign so many of them to an eternity of torture in hell just because they didn’t believe the right things about him?
5) If Jesus is the only way to heaven, then what about the millions of people who have never heard of him?
6) If God really created the universe, why does the evidence of science compel so many to conclude that the unguided process of evolution accounts for life?
7) If God is the ultimate overseer of the church, why has it been rife with hypocrisy and brutality throughout the ages?
8) If I’m still plagued by doubts, then is it still possible to be a Christian?
My conversation with my friend didn’t get this far but the second thing I would suggest is look at the personal life of any person telling others how to live and think- They are a walking billboard for what they really believe.
This is me today.
Couple of things right up front if this is your first time here. I grew up on a farm. I'm a general contractor. Someone told me recently, "Do what you love and you'll never have to work a day in your whole life." That's my story.
We live in the Midwest...people still do things around here on a handshake. I married my high school sweetheart (Think Princess Bride...farm boy marries Princess Buttercup). I'm a dad and now a grandpa two times over....do I look old enough to be a grandpa????- I don't think so.
I have a Biblical World View. I'm an optimist 90% of the time, but will freely admit when I'm struggling that 10%. You can read about some of the struggles: here, here or here .
This is not a religious blog, although I am definitely a spiritual person. I hate it when people try to jam their "stuff" down my throat and I work real hard not to do that to you.
If you decide to leave a comment...please work real hard at communicating respectfully and graciously- especially with the other people whose thoughts you may not agree with. (no sarcasm). If you don't I will either delete or edit what you say.
I'm honored that you would take the time to read something I've written.
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DM
