Well, it's 3:44 AM. If I had a 9-5 job, it would feel like about 6:30 PM.
I'm kinda tired. I have to preview a movie in about 6 hours. It's a three hour film made in India, starring Indian actors I've never heard of. Supposedly, it's a comedy, but I am skeptical of its ability to make me laugh. I volunteered to watch it because I thought it was going to be a zany slapstick Mexican film. I was off by a long shot, amigos.
Lately I've been experiencing kind of a malaise of memories, where I remember stuff that used to be painful, but now it's like they've lost their color; their flavor. It's like they're only ghosts of the memories they used to be - at least the bad stuff is. I'm not really sure of what the source is or what's been setting it off as of late. In a way, it's like listening to an old cassette tape you've played so much the sound has lost a lot of it's original clarity, or watching and old VHS tape that's been viewed so many times the picture has lost some of it's definition, it's sharpness, it's vividness. You know what it used to sound like, to look like, but now it's lost a lot of it's original quality, and it's begin to fade. I don't know if some part of my mind or my heart is trying to replay or recapture some of that emotional content, but it's as though what was has been so thoroughly played and re-played it's lost its impact, its substance. I don't know what to make of that, or where to go with it, or how to feel, but there it is.
Toni and I are thinking of moving, odds are to someplace south of Fort Worth. We'll see where it goes, I guess. It's a lot cheaper to live out that way, ya know?
Toni and I did some work on the Bronco today. It's wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Toni is a better mechanic than I am, I think.
It's funny how I try so hard to maintain that anonymity and sense of vagueness and respect for others privacy and to keep my word about keeping mum on certain subjects, topics, experiences and aspects. I'm not really mystifying anybody when I make vague references and try to cloak it all in ambiguity and unspecified, nameless vernacular in some kind of attempt to make it what I write here an utterly incomprehensible mystery. Now I feel guilty for writing that. I feel like I let a cat out of the bag somehow, but everybody already knew about the cat anyway. On a more personal note, I'd kind of like to know why the cat ever gets mentioned in the first place anymore, as nobody wants to read about the cat, and I don't want to write about the cat, as I've said everything I could possibly say about the cat numerous times, in every conceivable way, exploring every nuance, subtlety, and subtext possible. Maybe I've just written about the cat so much it's become a habit, or maybe that's been my default topic for so long that's where my brain naturally goes when I feel like I ought to write something, even though the cat's been gone for a really, really long time, and there's hasn't been anything to say for years. Maybe that'd be something worth unpacking some day, but not tonight. And hell - it might be nothing at all, either. Maybe I'm just tired.
I'm wrapping it up, man. If I get any deeper it's gonna take me hours to figure all of this nonsense out, and I just don''t have the kind of time necessary to fully unpack that degree of introspection tonight. I have to watch an Indian movie. It's three hours.
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I come to your blog from your brothers site, and there is another blog posting from there "Musings of a mutating missionary". Her musing today hits at the heart of what you often are dancing with. Here it is.
How long has it been since you've come to the water's edge?
She sat across from me, her piercing blue eyes thrusting me back to years of memories of a friendship that has always been one of iron sharpening iron.
She asked, "Do we have the right to hold on to our shame and guilt?"
We had attended a mentoring class earlier that morning and had been challenged to look at our purposes for mentoring. It was a great class. The brainstorming of 'Who I Am' and 'Who I Am Not" as a mentor, was fun to watch. I sat in an American Church, a group of believers I knew not, and a wonderful warmth of honey oozed over me. The questions of each of the leaders were provoking and they prodded us to think beyond the 'standard verbage' and force the attendants to dig deeper. I soaked it in.
Later that evening we sat in my friend's living room. She was sharing what had been the topic the last time this group gathered. And this provoking question, "Do we have the right to hold on to our shame and guilt?" she pitched out to me.
Hummmm....Do we have the right to hold on to our shame and guilt? How have we stopped short of the full Gospel with those we mentor? Those that come to the cross and accept Him in their hearts with us as their guide? Have we brought them to what I call 'the water's edge' and walked them through accepting Christ's forgiveness for their sin but stopped short in explaining that in His sacrifice and atonement the sins are no more. If the sins are no more than there is no need to hold on to the shame and guilt they have produced - in essence didn't Christ's death put an end to our shame and guilt as well? Why do we insist on holding on to it? What are we gaining from holding on to it? What does holding on to it create within us? Are we walking in Christ if we choose to hold on to it?
Am I walking IN Christ if I choose to hold on to it?
I didn't really like this question. It jarred me. My first response: "Hey now! Don't mess with my shame and guilt. I got a lot and I ponder over it often." I mean I know that I'm saved by Grace and should be walking in freedom, but come on now... I wallow often! And I wallow in those waters long and hard with my Sweet Jesus.
And here it was. A proposition of water's opening and walking across on dry land. For the first time I pondered the possibility that by not entering into the fullness and letting go completely could I be hurting my Lord's heart. I don't know why I haven't thought about that before. Yes, I have thought about and owned how He died from my sins, that I am IN HIM, that He has washed me clean... but clean from my sins. I think I have held on to some shame in the process... some guilt in the process... WHY? Not to say I haven't intellectually thought of all of this - but it so often takes a new perspective to see a depth and force us to walk to the water's edge. Am I willing to stick my toe in and believe that His blood sacrifice in washing away my sin dissolved my shame and guilt?
I come to the water's edge.
This is from a hand out called Understanding Anger from The Village Church Recovery Program.
"Ways We Deal with Our Unrighteous Anger
There are generally two ways we tend to deal with our anger in our flesh. The first is to conceal it by
sweeping it under the rug and pretending it is not there. That is called denial or what the Bible calls
“suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.” Rather than going to God, we attempt to deal with it
independently... We think “time will heal all wounds” and certainly that sounds good, but unless dealt with at the cross, our wounds will go underground, and have a tendency to fester and grow; often leading to bitterness or depression.
The second way we deal with our anger in our pride is to unleash it on an intended target. Rather than
understanding that anger is a state of being, we falsely think that it is something in us that we need to get out. The result of this catharsis or emotional upheaval is a high we often mistake for healing.
Psychologists in the past have suggested getting a punching bag or a pillow and just letting the anger out on that object. Practice this and you will get really good at expressing your anger. We see this played out in Genesis 4...
Hebrews 12:15
Biblically we are called to come before God, confess our anger, evaluate its source and get our hearts
right with Him...
Getting to the Root of Unrighteous Anger
Unless we determine the root causes of our anger and turn from our sin, we will continue to struggle to make progress in this area. Scripture clearly defines our problem and outlines God’s solution in
James 4:1-10
... We find that the problem is not with the other party, but within us. God immediately turns the focus back toward us internally. He says the source is our thwarted desires and when they go unmet, we murder. This references Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:21...
As we look further, we begin to realize that our quarrels and conflicts in our horizontal relationships are rooted in our vertical relationship with God...Spiritual adultery is when I, in my pride, go to the world, the creation (including people), for what only God can give...
Philippians 4:19
The insanity of it is, as God’s children, He will never allow us to be satisfied by the world. God will not
allow us to be satisfied in anything but him...The way out seems to be to get our hearts right with Him and return to the covering of his grace. We must humble ourselves, acknowledge our sin and return to Him!
2 Corinthians 7:10
When we humble ourselves before the Lord, we let him be our strength. We submit to Him and allow him to rule in our hearts and lives. We trust Him that He is in control and that He will judge as He sees fit and that He will lift us up and provide for our needs in His timing and according to His riches."
These verses helped me understand how God can be our Strength.
Eph 3: 14-21
....from a hand out called Understanding Anger....
So am I angry?
probably.
Well...that's dissapointing to hear. I thought I had worked most of that out. Am I mad at all new stuff, then?
Man.....was this one of those things that everybody else can see but me?
There are many feeling that can be under the emotion of Anger. Frustration is one and is what I was getting from your past few posts, and why I posted. Thought maybe it would help. You may have worked some or most of it out but now God knows you are ready to deal with some or the rest of it. I have heard it is like an onion, you just keep pulling layers off and growing. (hopefully that made sense)
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