Aching for Redemption
How here, in the deep emerald work of his hand,
eternally dreamed and eternally planned,
a sometime paradise fashioned for man
and woman to bear the first image and spark
in a world born from chaos, formless and dark?
The Other 167 Hours
life outside the session
Archive for the tag “Christianity”
Want to feel loved?
In a previous post The Tragic Tale of Christmas and Summer, the resolution involved finding a way to feel the love that was known to be there. So, how important is the feeling part of being loved? Is it OK to want that feeling?
Of course we can’t even ask this question unless we admit something:
Humans are capable of being deeply loved and, all the while, not feel it or even believe it.
I have not doubt that that statement is true and yet I have never put it in words and looked at in on a page until a few years ago. But, it’s so important to know because it makes us aware of one of the most tragic mistakes that humans can make – walking around, going through life as if they are not loved when in reality they are, and deeply so, by their creator, and often in addition, one or two people on the planet. How sad a story that makes. It’s like the old story of the woman who dies destitute, penniless, cold, and alone, not knowing that she is an heiress to a million-dollar pile of cash in the bank a few blocks from the alley where she dies.
I’m aware that some reading this are starting to bristle because they do not value very highly the seeking after certain feelings. You are not sure we should try to feel a certain emotion. You may even think of it as somehow not compatible with spiritual maturity. Certain Eastern Mystical traditions also tell us not to seek certain feelings. The next section is for you, though I doubt it is enough to persuade the strongly entrenched. But here goes…
My Brief Argument for Seeking to Feel Something
Top 10 Regrets #6 I sang along in church.
Top 10 Regrets
- I believed the sun would rise tomorrow.
- I tried to control my tongue.
- I hugged my wife when I came home from work.
- I tried to love God.
- I cared about other people’s problems.
- I sang along in church.
- I closed my eyes in prayer.
- I held it together.
- I kept going.
- I spent time with my kids.
Regret #6: I sang along in church.
This may be a very simple observation that you all have made before so forgive me if I have been slow to catch on.
I was a voice major in college and have always enjoyed singing in church, choirs, etc.. So, I always sang along in church. I liked to do it. And also felt like it would be rude or give the wrong impression to not sing along. I’ve been up on stage before leading singing and know that seeing people just standing there (or sitting) and not singing did not do anything good for the overall level of energy in the room.
But then there came a time in my life, a few years ago, after a significant loss when I was grieving and didn’t feel like I could sing. It just didn’t feel right and I don’t know if I was physically able to sing along – there was something that drained the energy out of me at just the thought of it. There was no song in me.
Top 10 Regrets #4 I tried to love God.
Top 10 Regrets
- I believed the sun would rise tomorrow.
- I tried to control my tongue.
- I hugged my wife when I came home from work.
- I tried to love God.
- I cared about other people’s problems.
- I sang along in church.
- I closed my eyes in prayer.
- I held it together.
- I kept going.
- I spent time with my kids.
Number four is… I regret I tried to love God.
What ever could be wrong with that?
Someone to speak our words
We all have some days that are longer than others. And not in a good way! Thoughts of giving up, giving in, backing down, come at us again and again… even into the night hours. In days (or months) like those, we need to speak words of commitment to our God and to what He is trying to build in us and in the world.
Sometimes these words of commitment to keep going… we can’t even get ourselves to say. They die on our lips. They won’t come out even though in our heart we want to be able to say them. We believe them. But maybe speaking them seems to strain that belief too much.
We need someone else to say them for us. We may even need someone else to believe them for us.
I love the ocean
An article from a guest writer:
Sometimes it’s a gentle pull, other times the force is enough to lay you flat on your face. The undertow. The pull of the ocean. Ever since I can remember the ocean has been as much of my summer as popsicles, watermelon, and long drives. I have run down the same path to the Atlantic Ocean from our family’s house in South Carolina for years.
I grin as my feet remember the ocean floor, much like a reunion of best friends. The hard sand grows a little softer, the wetness and unknown creatures greet my feet like a handshake. One that lasts only as long as needed. It serves as a mere formality; a simple avenue to the real embrace: catching a wave. It’s simple: give in to the pull, enjoy the first wave, taste the salt, feel the sticky, cool ocean, and repeat. A relationship that never gets old.
Should we still be reading James?
I’ve liked the book of James since college. For some reason it has been a section of scripture that I return to again and again. I even remember trying to memorize the whole book once. (It’s one of the shortest books and I’m not sure I ever finished the goal of memorizing the whole thing. Don’t be too impressed.)
So, I was in chapter 2 today and decided I want to ask something of my readers.
Should we still be reading James?
Read more…
S.A.D. Seasonal Agnostic Disorder
- Image via Wikipedia
The agnostic believes that the existence of God cannot be known for sure. It’s unknowable. Of course, that position is incompatible with Christian faith. We believe God is knowable because he has made himself known. He lets us know him and reveals himself to us.
But, still there are seasons…
Psalm 13
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
Have you ever been there?
Motivation: If I don’t yell, how will anything get done?
- Image by Clover_1 via Flickr
Yes, we can motivate people by yelling at them. (How else would we explain the existence of Little League?) It does motivate people to do something, but it may not be their best. It may motivate them to hide. It may motivate them to do what it takes to get us to stop yelling. If our goal is to help cultivate a lasting and positive change in someone, we don’t want to start with showing them that we are out of control ourselves. Remember that no matter what the words are that come out, the message of yelling is, “Please, someone calm me down because I can’t calm myself down.”
It’s not like I need it.
How’s that get-o-meter working? You know, that thing that measures how much you are getting from your spouse, church, job, friends, children, relatives, the “Relationship”… You know that thing you check every now and then just to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of? …just before you say,”All I do is give, give, give and never get anything back!”
Yeah, that thing. You better make sure it’s handy because Christmas is just a few days away and you would hate to be caught without it! Things might not be fair. You might be asked to do something for someone who hasn’t really carried their fair share. I mean, fair is fair! Right? Come to think of it, Christmas seems to be the time when many of us got our first get-o-meter as a child. (Ooh, that means mine is getting pretty old.) Yours is still working fine, just like when you where a child? Isn’t it? Exactly like when you were a child? Read more…
A Glance at Faith as Creativity
In the 1950’s psychologists began to study creativity in earnest and today there are thousands of research projects to draw from if one is interested in the topic. I check in on the topic now and then out of curiosity but also for professional reasons because I always have a number of artists of one sort or another in my case load. Just as great wealth takes more time to manage, so also a person with exceptional creativity needs to see managing the creativity as a responsibility they dare not neglect.
I came across an article in Review of General Psychology* that presented a model of 4 types of creativity, called the four-c model. As I read the examples and definitions of each type it occurred to me that a developing faith and a growing relationship with Christ may have a meaningful overlap with these types of creativity. So, I’ve set out to briefly discuss here, the four-c model and what, at first glance, seems a useful way to think about faith development, especially as it relates to seeing Christian meaning in the world.
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David Hamilton
