I'm a Butterfly

I need conviction.  I have conviction.  I hear more words from my own head than I do from outsiders.  I live on an island though I'm surrounding by Living Water.  That's right.  I'm surrounded by Living Water on all sides and instead of soaking it in I tend to feel more like I'm drowning.  I look around at my life and think, "It could be better."  I look around at the archipelago of isles around me and think, "Why not me?"

I sometimes wonder what I'm here for.  Is it to paint poetry like Paul Simon?  Is it to love the "unlovable"?  Is it for just one small act that I've already screwed up?  Or perhaps it's a small step that I've yet to make.  I look outside of me for hope beyond hope.  Somewhere buried deep I have hope eternal, as I said, I'm living among the the Living Water.  Somewhere below my surface is an eternal flame.  It's a magma building inside me and making room for new life.  The igneous is bubbling inside me though the sedimentary is not ready to depart.

Metamorphosis.  Do butterflies remember what it was like to be a caterpillar?  Do they think, "Wow!  What joy it is to finally have my wings!"?  I can remember being a caterpillar.  Sometimes I feel like I still am one.  Some nights I stay up late and whilst my wings are fast asleep I wonder, "Why have I been placed here?  My wings might as well be clipped for I do not use them as they were designed."

But I'm a butterfly.  It is for freedom that I have been set free.  I have not been given wings for others to admire, though their colors shine majestically in the Spring sun.  I have not been given wings of fragile silk so that I can covetously look upon the feathers of an eagle, longing for something greater or stronger.

I'm a butterfly.  I am made to fly.  I am made to shine brightly.  I have been changed, metamorphosed as it were.  I am new every day.  I am gentle when it is necessary, though I have been freely given the power and strength to lift what is necessary.  My gifts and my strengths are not for me to hold onto tightly.  I cannot hoard my free gifts: my mercy, my grace, my fantasy.  It is for freedom, not for me and my kingdom!  I can leave my chrysalis behind and begin to feel the air between my wings.

I'm a butterfly.  I must give from what I've been given or I'll lose the very wings that let me fly.

Wandering in the Wilderness

When one lives in the wilderness, it's hard to just get lost.  One does not intentionally lose himself.  He cannot make a plan and set a road map for the trail, for if he does he will already know to where he has set out before his journey has begun.  That's like hoping, planning, and wishing to be spontaneous.  It cannot be so.  One only gets lost so easy in the wilderness because he was lost there to start with.

Show me a trail and I'll analyze it until my days are shortened.  Teach me a chosen path and I'll worry, though subconsciously so as to hide the sin from my soul.  Then, when I realize that I've worried needlessly I become anxious regarding my anxiety.  How did it get here?  Who let it enter?  I'll put labels on my skin, like tattoos that penetrate deep into my tissues.

I'll seek an answer, all the while distracting myself from the truth, or sometimes the Truth.  I fall victim to the carnal, the secular, the pretty distracting roses.  I disregard the sneezing, saying, "It must be something else."  I worry I'm becoming less of myself and by that time I can't find who I used to be.  I look down at my feet and notice my shoes are missing.  "Perhaps they've fallen off," I tell myself, knowing full well it was I who gave them up.  I donated my opinions, my perspectives, and my glasses to get to know another.  I desired so deeply to fall in love, to be in relationship, to show them that I care that I was content to strip to nothing of my own.

"I am you," I tried to tell them.  "I can be you," I would say, but that wasn't the same.  Our experiences are different even if the emotions held hands.  I'll share my broken heart with your sadness but only until you're whole again.  When you can fend for yourself I'll need you more than you may have needed me.  Who can teach me to be whole again?  Who thought they could teach me to be whole to start with?  Why is it simpler to point to my cracks and shift the pieces, however slightly?  Why can I not be content with my being?  Why don't I like me when I am myself?  Who has taught me to despise my desires, to resent my rejoicing?

Yes, perhaps I'm not myself today, but if that's true then who am I?  I can be no one but who I am.  I AM says (S)He made me to be just what I am and more.  How can I be ever be content if comfort is the enemy?  How can I be me?

My Own Pair of Shoes

I can gaze at pictures.  We have the benefit of photos.  We have the advantage of almost feeling former faces.

But that's not always a positive.  Gee, if it's not the anxiety of the future or discontentment with the present, it's regrets about the past.  Why so much lately?  Why do I see faces in my mind's window?  Why do I long for days gone by?  Why can I only live in the present for brief moments before the past picks me out of a joyous moment?  The claws of the past get a grip on me and I can't let go; it's as if I'm not the one in control.  I'm not though, am I?

I wonder if I could call you.  If I could text you.  If I were in town, if I could remind myself to forget you.  Or if things had been different.  If scenarios traded, or just a few more months I had waited.

Could I have put my tongue in my mouth a little longer?  Could I have spoken up when I felt torn or elated?

Why must I almost always be the one who's not assertive?  Will this timidity destroy me?  I let others walk on me because I don't want to trip on their fragile bones.  I don't like to be courageous, not all the time.  But it's often much worse to be the one without his own identity because he's stuck sticking up for others.

Lately I've forgotten where my shoes are or who I've lent them to, perhaps because I've spent so much of my life trying on others'.

Compassion Fatigue (Are we there yet?)

I'm lost in the most obscure part of confusion.  I'm at the place where I'm beyond being found and yet I've fallen in what feels like a hole in the ground.  I'm wearing thin most days, though some days it feels like I'm out of it.  I sometimes feel out of options and just want to crawl into the warmth of the darkness but I know it's false.  The dark is just so cold and I don't feel like I can make it myself.  I don't want to be alone.

I'm sick but it feels like too much pressure to ask you to cradle me.  I'm stuck in a tunnel and fly like a moth to any hope of light.  I'm a parasite and hate it when others come sucking my own blood.  I find outlets and try to plug in my own surge protectors, hoping that I'll be able to plug in at any moment.  I'm so caught up in my own life that the people around me seem to just float and orbit around me.  Still, I'm not a ball of light and the planets don't revolve around me but I just want to feel cared for.  And most times people try and show me such care and appreciation it feels so forced and inauthentic.

Help me see the Truth.  I'm falling asleep here and there's no one beside me.  And I don't need anyone beside me.  And I do need someone beside me.  I'm not codependent.  I'm not independent.  I'm a rag doll; you can move my arms and legs and it'll appear as though I'm living but my insides feel empty.  Some days tears say more.  Some days tears won't come.  Some days I want to say more than tears but they just tear across my face, ridding me of any words.

I can't be just a sponge.  There has to be more to this life.  There has to be more to who I am.  I have to dispense as well as absorb, but sometimes I feel like all I ever do is expend myself until I'm dry.  Someone throw a life vest to me.  Someone teach me to swim.  Someone hold my hand.  I'm a child drowning in water just above my head.  I can't make it alone.  I'm not alone.  I'm just lonely.  Shut me up.  Hold me.  Hear me out.  And listen to me.

Step in and Step Back

"If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we cannot merely take but we must give as well..." ~Franklin Delano Roosevelt (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933)

If you've been around me at all over the last month or so, you've probably heard me go off on a somewhat of a tangent about how I believe that the ideal of independence that we have in the West, particularly in the United States, is an unrealistic goal.  If everyone in the world intends to live as independent people, unions, corporations, or any other entity, we will leave a vast number of needs, interests, and dreams of others behind.

At this point in my life, I believe that the more productive theory would be one of interdependence.  This theory of interdependence aims at working with our own strengths and passions in an effort to aid others in doing the same.  It involves knowing one's limits, yet still having the courage and humility to continue to be an academic of life.

I saw a quote a while back, though I can't remember who said it or exactly how it went but it was something like this: "Leaders are like cream foam in coffee, there comes a time when we have to sweep them off the top and start afresh."  Though the quote wasn't exactly like that, it had a similar idea.  I think it was a George Orwell quote, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, this is the type of interdependent leadership that I believe in.  I am convinced that it is a part of human nature that if any one person, party, corporation, government, idea, etc. is in power for too long, the person or people involved will have so convinced themselves that they will not be willing to relinquish the power that was trustingly given to them.

Here, I would like to employ a ground rule that was employed in a class on multicultural practice in social work that I took this past spring.  The rule simply stated, Step in and step back.  It is quite fascinating how four small words can make such a huge difference.  During the class we were often engaged in very meaningful conversation surround identity and culture and the ways those two concepts (and the myriad domains within them) intersect like a spiderweb tracing constellations on a clear night.  Such conversations required each person in the class (the professor included) have an equal opportunity at participating.  Therefore, the rule encouraged those (like myself) who may really like to talk sometimes to step in and step back, keeping in mind that I was not the only person with an idea or opinion on the subject being discussed.

I believe that this step in and step back idea is something that could really make for gains in politics, nonprofit work, all the way down to individual therapy sessions, and beyond.  If we can go into any scenario remembering that we are not the only ones with interests, hopes, dreams, and even needs.  There is a whole world out there.  If we are not cognizant of others, we will wind up stepping on them or shutting them in a windowless closet perhaps unintentionally or maybe we were completely aware.

As I'm writing this I found another quote, this time by Mark Twain, that alludes to my point, "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."

The world that we are living in is in many ways, much like the world in which FDR delivered his first inaugural address.  As in 1933, the world has been recovering from numerous economic crises.  True, the stock market hasn't crashed like it did on Black Friday in 1929, but many world economies are still recovering from a global market that is beginning to find a way to the surface water.  That being said, in many ways the world is also much different than it was back in the early 1930s.  The recession we experienced over the last decade is nothing when compared with the depression of the 1930s.  However, a global economy that is increasingly becoming more interconnected between countries, continents, and corporations can often mean that when one economy falls, it will not be a lonely tree in the forest.

Despite what may appear to be a negative consequence of interdependence, the interconnectedness and interdependence of all people can actually be very advantageous.  True interdependence implies that sometimes we must serve, lift up, sacrifice, and give others.  It also means that at other times we will be on the receiving end of all of that.  However, it should be noted that the motives of our service and sacrifice should not be a desire to be served and pampered ourselves because that will only bring us back to the flawed ideas of selfish independence.

With interdependence we welcome sacrifice because we desire to see each other succeed.  We give out of what we have because we recognize that when others are able to move passed just surviving, we all get closer to truly thriving.  Interdependent leaders recognize that compromise is not a bad word.  Instead, it is dangerous selfish ambition that is truly toxic for the sustainable development of this world.

I'm not an economist and I don't claim to be.  I'm just a writer with thoughts that are sometimes just aching to spill somewhere other than my journal.  If I ever get to a point where instead of stepping in and stepping back, I step up and push back, please reprimand me, but please do so in love.  For if you just tell me I'm wrong or that I have failed, I may believe you.  However, I too am a stubborn human who answers positively to the right approach.

(Discipline + Edification + Admonishment) - Love = Rebellion and Defiance?

You say, "It sure isn't nature or nurture, though it sure seems to be pretty close to nature alone."  Then you turn around and say the opposite.  And I'm the same.  Sure, I value our conversation, but I want to be able to leave without the guilt.  You twist knives in my chest where I can't speak.  So I try to speak for the absent and have also been shamed into knowing I can't.  When is a house a home?  What is the difference between surrounding yourselves with those who support you and closing yourself off to criticism?

I had been having a mostly good day.  I can't blame you but will you let me speak please?  Please don't throw your morals at me.  Don't tell me you're white and everyone else is black.  I'm just learning to love.  When you tell me you've chosen to just forgive I am trying to figure it all out.  I respect your decision but that forgiveness looks less like action and more like resolution.  It looks like the words, "I can't change him so I might as well forgive him."

Why?  Why must you change him?  It's not our job to change others!  Can't we just love those around us where they are?  Sure, the judge cannot say to the criminal, "I forgive you.  I will show you mercy."  However, we're not called to be the judge.  We're called to live life alongside others.  I feel called to be the advocate of the broken.  The lover of the lost.  Not the lover of the "chosen."  I must remember my stain so that I am not too eager to jump on a man-made pedestal.

Yes, I do get a lot out of such heated debate and dialogue with those around me, but I also want a place where I can just be.  I want people who will challenge me in love, not shame disguised as love. I know that discipline hurts when it's happening, but it's not the end goal.  I know that edification and admonishment are invaluable, but lately it just seems that they are taking the place of love.  I believe that discipline, edification, and admonishment of others must stem from a root of love for them to be the most effective.  If they are implemented as a defensive stance or as a means to end an argument, they will not be sustainably effective.  Not now at least.

Teach me in love.
Correct me in gentleness.
Forgive me in mercy.
Love me in grace.

I don't know everything nor do I claim as much.  However, when all you do is correct me and challenge my views almost all I want to do is turn the other way, even if your views are valid and reasonable.

Lord, teach me to love through it all.  Teach me to love Your children as You do.  Give me the perseverance to be merciful as You are daily merciful to me.  Teach me to love without conditions though I am only human and I will never truly achieve such a lofty goal.  Teach me love and be gentle on me that I may carry that gentleness to those around me.  Love me that I might love You through as limitless a love of Your world as is Kirbyly possible.  May whatever I do be to point to who You are and what You've done, are doing, and will continue to do.  In Jesus' powerful Name, amen.

A Continual Evolution of Success in Life

Some people write dictionaries.  Some determine doctrine.  Some are label makers.  What do I get to do?  What can I define?  My own success?  My own happiness?  What brings me joy?  What causes me shame?  Do I have a say in my life besides always following?  Is it enough to have an impact on someone else's life even if I was just pursuing another's goal's or ambitions?

When will I know I have arrived?  How will I know that I have succeeded?  I don't want to plateau at the top.  I want to always keep climbing.  Success, I would say now is learning and teaching.  I've said before that its key is knowing how to say what to whom, but the more I think about that the more I'm conflicted.  You see, I've thought fairly often about that definition recently and it sounds more like manipulation.  If my key to success results in manipulation, then can that really be success?  Perhaps, I've thought, that still is the key, it's just that it can be warped in the wrong hands.  Like a key to a door that someone is trying to use on their front door, it just won't fit.  Still, this thought warrants additional thought, something I know a lot about: thinking.

So, as those thoughts tumble around in my mind, sometimes ending up in the frontal cortex and other times bouncing between nerve endings, I analyze other outcomes.  I think other thoughts.  Maybe success can't always be measured.  Maybe success is sometimes abstract.  Maybe there are markers that can tell us we're on the right track, but those markers can look drastically different from one person to the next.  So rather than putting forth tireless effort in coming up with uniform mile markers I choose to ask others about themselves.

Tell me about you.  What is your life?  What are your hopes?  What are your dreams?  What terrifies you?  If you could do or be anything, what would you be?  How did you get to where you are today?

I don't always ask these questions outright, but I think that something inside me looks for them constantly.  I wonder about others.  Perhaps it's because I'm seeking those same answers in my own life.  Maybe my hope is that by hearing of the hopes, dreams, and fears of others I can find something shared.  Could it be that my hope in asking others how they define themselves is tied to my desire to find my own identity?

I don't need others to tell me who I am.  In fact, that is one of the easiest ways to shut me down: Tell me who I am.  Tell me you know me.  Tell me how to live my life.  These monologues from those around me are like master artists painting me with shame.  I know you have much wisdom to share and I truly value it.  Your amount of lived experience is not lost on me.  You've without a doubt earned your position in whatever domain you may be in.  However, to tell me that I must now follow all that you've done in order to get to the place where you are rather shortsighted of you.

I'll take your wisdom and even your sharp critique with me, but you must recognize that I am not you.  When I look at you eye-to-eye, I know I may look like a mirror to you, but that's not all that's there.  I appreciate your input.  I really do!  There are just some things that I have to find out for myself.  Like a prodigal son, sometimes I have to squander my life to find it.  Like a loving father, sometimes you have to let me go to love me.  Is all of this just delayed teenage angst?  Is it just my opposition to authority?  Perhaps it is, only time will tell.  However, in this moment I need to be allowed to be myself.

And please don't think that your input and insight is not appreciated.  That is far from the truth and I hope that I can make that clear.  I hope you can understand that success (and life really) just look different for me.  I like to think that much of this is universal and people reading it could relate to it on a deep level.  However, then I catch myself.  Then I remember that those are the thoughts I'm fleeing.  The thoughts that say, "I know your life.  I've lived it before.  Let me teach you how to make your better life best."

So rather than preaching to you about who you are and what you should and should not do, I'll leave that up to you.  I'll say, "live and let live and laissez-faire."  I'll do my best to be teachable and find a way to be teaching.  I won't assert myself without cause.  I will not tell you how to live my life.  Rather, I will seek out my biases and blind spots because awareness is pivotal to growth.  I will be open to what you have to say and seek greater understanding in the solid ground that I am standing on.  That way, I can begin to comprehend when it's becoming more about me and less about you or us.  Then, when it becomes about capacity building at the expense of another I can pull out the roots and throw those thoughts in the compost where they can have new life.

At the same time, I hope I will have people in my life who will have the courage to point that out for me.  The line is thin, but I'm willing to hear you out if you speak to me where I am.  Yes, we all know that fear, anger, and shame work when getting someone to hear us out or obey what we say.  However, just because something is effective doesn't mean it should be replicated.  Let's love those around us as they come to us, not as we desire for them to be.