(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.

421 Lines and Still Deception

Dear Social Me-
dia,

I'm sick
of you.  You're
not quite my news
source.  You're more
often my blues
force.

You're where
I go to send
my thoughts at night.
You're where
I read people
pushing sisters
and brothers
off their soapboxes.

"My turn," they say.
"and
don't worry,
I've brought enough
shame for everyone."

I don't like
the pointing fingers,
the climbing pedestals,
"this is just
my view [but
you better
agree with me, or else]."


Social Media,
can I tell you
something?
I think
you're like a magazine
article or a pict-
ure in time:
You tell
a beautiful
lie.

Here lies
John Smith,
pictured here
with his
three smiling children.
Seconds
after the camera
flashed, his son
was murdered,
his
younger daughter stripped
from his arms,
and his
life forever altered.
Weeks
later he ended
his own life
when
the
pain wouldn't subside.

"But look
how happy
he is in this photo!
What happened?"

"I can draw
my conclusions."
"I can paint
a picture with
421 lines.
It will look just
like him,"
but the picture
will lie.

We take
pictures to
remind us of
life lived,
but they hide
our true selves
until others
think they understand.

"Let me paint
a picture for you."

"The likeness
is uncanny!"

"He was never like
this."

"Did I ever even k-
now him?"

But, Social Me-
dia, I must tell you
this

final
thing:
I could
never tell you
this because
the plank
in my right eye
is too grand
for me to
reach
the splinter
in your left.

Living Inside Memory Making

Who doesn't want a soundtrack for their life?

I've somehow found that in a way my life does have a soundtrack.  I can listen to a song and be transported back to a particular moment, or multiple moments in some cases, in time.  I'll hear a song and the movie in my mind plays back to where I was, who I was, what life was like.  Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that I feel those moments being made in my life lately.  This is particularly interesting because I usually find that the memories that make up my past aren't really ones that I get to choose.  Why does my mind remember some specific details about things that seem to amount to nothing and forget the name of a person I just met?

My mind appears to currently be making memories around Mumford and Sons' latest release (Wilder Mind), which came out a week ago today.  What a time to get to remember (if my mind does in fact let me do so)!  From a week of uncertainty and neck pain-inducing stress to sudden smiles and a near "high" of walking at graduation.  From tears on the phone and just wanting to be home to smiling as the rain falls and I play Solitaire alone in my room in the afternoon.  From resentment and frustration at not getting my first choice of internship to being showing gratification to the field office for working with me in the process and having the opportunity to finish graduation requirements before I would have even started.  From immobile to involuntary smiling.  Dragging my feet and scared of an impending depressive episode to finding life in some of the simplest conversations and interactions.

I'm living again..though I always was.  Now it feels worth it.  I can see through the windows on the doors and the sunlight is a little clearer.

Safe Ships

I'm a ship
      safe
      in harbor, but
I'm meant to
set sail.

I straightened
my mast and
  await the high winds.

            No one will push me off
the dock.
I'm stuck in the seaweed,
                    the marsh all around.
Alone
          it does nothing,
but jumbled together
I'm tied down.

I don't want to be
safe.

Let it rain.
Flood the shores again.
Untangle me from
this mess so that
I might sail again.

I might
rough the waters and
embrace the high
winds.
I might
look beyond the bow,
past the horizon,
to a sea of milk
and honey.

Equality and Learning Metanarrative

Throughout my life, there have been many instances when people assume that I have it all together or that I have things sorted, so to speak.  "You've already figured it out."  "You know what I'm talking about, right?"  "You already know the story/rules/expectations, so I don't need to worry about you."

In a strange sort of irony it is sometimes because of others' assumed understandings of who I am that I sometimes have to work twice as hard just to gain a real sense of understanding.  Sure, I may have an idea about what a relationship with Jesus can look like/how to keep professional boundaries/what the rules of the game are, but it doesn't mean that I deserve any less attention than anyone else.  Others may need more explaining to even begin to get to a point of understanding on a particular matter, however just leaving me to fend for myself and assuming that I'll be fine isn't a great feeling either.

I know we can't be everything to everyone, but if you're trying to work with people on a level of equality, make an effort to do so.  Working equally doesn't mean getting everyone to a certain point and then letting them fend for themselves.  That is just about indoctrinating people until they arrive at your presupposed level of accepted understanding, knowledge, spirituality, professionalism, etc.  That's not equality.  True equality is working with people with different levels of experience, knowledge, spiritual maturity, professionalism, etc. on their terms and where they are.  Working with those people to achieve mutual goals.  There are certainly sacrifices, but these sacrifices cannot come from just one side.

Mutual sacrifice promotes growth all around.  When one side is giving up something valuable and the other is not willing to do the same, the result is a clear unbalance of power.  Those yielding power, strength, wisdom, experience, or any act of will to another become submissive to the other.  If the other party is not willing to do the same, the yielding party becomes extremely vulnerable to exploitation.

Some may say that it is the weak who submit to authority, however I disagree with this sentiment.  Those who submit to authority do so out of a profound trust in said authority.  They are willing to submit to an institution, whether it's a religious institution, a community organization, a high education institute, or any other political (or otherwise) group, because they (for better or worse) have placed their trust in that group.  The truly weak person, group, or party is the one that is so convinced that its entity is true, in the right, or flawless that it cannot be challenged.  To be convinced beyond all traces of a doubt that one's position on a particular issue is right is to not be willing to accept criticism.  An unwillingness to accept criticism is a recipe for hidden bias and "island living."

No (wo)man, group, or party is an island.  We are all affected by each other.  There are truths or ideas that I believe to be absolute, however my belief in these truths does not make them true.  Truth cannot be relative.  Truth is truth is truth.  Opinions are relative.

I may believe that Jesus lived, died, and lives again so that I might have life but that doesn't make it true.  If it is true I am grateful, but there are not enough words to prove to anyone what I may have convinced myself to be true.  Likewise, another person may believe that homosexual relationships are wrong.  They may point to things such as nature for their argument: "Homosexuals cannot procreate and therefore it is unnatural."  Perhaps they'll point to tradition: "Sex is reserved for two married people and marriage is defined as the union between a man and a woman."

When we make an argument for (or against) anything, it is helpful to understand the assumptions behind our understanding.  By beginning to understand the assumed absolute truths, we may start to understand that we do not understand things that we may claim to understand.  To put it paradoxically simply complex: when we know what we don't know, we begin to understand why we think we know what we may not know.

The point of homosexual relations being unnatural because a homosexual act does not allow a couple to procreate acts under the assumption that a sexual act is intended for procreation alone.  My understanding of sex is that it is not just an act made for procreation.  To be clear however, it is also not just an act for pure ecstasy or carnal enjoyment.  I believe that sex is something that is to be embraced on many different levels between people who are so deeply in love with each other that they wish to be intimate with each other physically, spiritually, biologically, emotionally, and the list goes on.  To proclaim that sex is only to be reserved for a man and woman in a committed heterosexual relationship is to paint broadly something that has many different levels.  Similarly, to say that sex is just a physical act and nothing more is to remove much of the intimacy of such a vastly underestimated act.

I believe that the argument of pointing to tradition is also flawed.  To say the common belief of sex throughout recorded history is a unilateral one of heterosexual relations between a married man and a married woman exclusively with each other may sound pleasant at first.  However, I can think of another common belief that sounded nice to everyone, and society as a whole took it for truth without wondering about the alternatives: the earth is the center of the universe.  Can you imagine the bold narcissism associated with such a belief?  "Yeah, us human beings are exceptional.  The whole universe literally revolves around us and all of our great achievements."  Hearing something like this is quite absurd today because people like Nicolaus Copernicus had the audacity to ask questions rather than just accept repeated tradition as absolute truth.

I want to make one final point before those reading this assume that I am making the argument that accepting absolute truths is foolish; it is not.  What I am arguing is that we seek to understand the reasoning behind our understanding.  Notice that I did not say that we seek to ensure that others understand the reason behind our understanding.  At the end of the day, we all arrive at our own beliefs, opinions, and ideas through our own life experiences.  To accept some absolute truths requires faith (certainty in and through uncertainty), while accepting others absolute may require sensory observation or the scientific method.

It all comes down to knowing what you don't know so that 1) others can't place the wool over your eyes without your permission; and 2) your biases and/or assumptions don't influence you without your knowledge.

Less than embers

Though not everything is falling apart it sure feels like the world is crumbling.  Why does one of my only modes of social contact have to be full of such frustration and disgust?  Can I not watch the news?  Can I not have a friend who doesn't passive aggressively try to assert his opinion into my soul?

Help.

I'm up.
I'm down.
Down. Down. Down.
Then up. However brief.

Something tries to convince me to embrace the up more than the down, but it's okay to be down sometimes.  Really.

I think the world is falling apart.  Some days I have hope and some days I'm gasping for air.  How are we going to make it here?

Sorry for the overshadowing clouds.
And sorry for apologizing.
I can't seem to get anything right, can I?