From the Inside Looking Out

(A piece of writing which attempts to convey to others what the phenomenon of trauma, PTSD, and brain injury feels like from the victim's perspective.)


Soul Crashes and Dark Nights of the Car

I’m an injured person. We are all injured people, however it manifests itself in different ways in each life. I’d like you to know that I too am an injured person and even perhaps a bit more injured than you. A few years ago I could have been just another dead twenty-something year old Catholic saint; without the saint part. I have a brain injury. Things just don’t connect quite right upstairs. However, despite this I have a Mensa level IQ. It is hard feeling dumb when you are not. It wasn’t my fault. The accident. It is not like I was drunk or high or even being stupid. I’m twenty-something, not stupid. I’m not stupid. I was rear ended. Terror. Noise. Blackness. Hypergosia. Things haven’t been the same. It’s hard feeling dumb when you are not. It’s worse feeling crazy when you are not. I knew I wasn’t dumb. I wasn’t so sure I wasn’t crazy.

When you are young you trust doctors. Doctors know what they are doing. Doctors have your best interest at heart. Trust doctors. Doctors are adults. Adults know what they are doing. But why do some of these doctors look the same age as me? Doctors are supposed to be adults. I don’t feel like an adult. Why don’t I feel like an adult? The doctors said there was nothing wrong with me. That is wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I feel wrong. They make me feel crazy. Am I crazy? I am not crazy, though I felt crazy for a while. For a while the doctors all told me I was fine. I am not fine. I’m anything BUT fine. I’ll never, never, never be fine again. I’m NOT FINE! No one listens. The doctors say I am fine. It’s hard feeling dumb when you are not. I felt dumb. I felt crazy. Alone. Dumb and crazy…and all alone. Alone, so very alone. And crazy. Crazy alone. Alone, alone, alone. Lonely. Crazy. Confused. So confused. I don’t understand. Maybe I am dumb. Crazy. Crazy, crazy. Crazycrazycrazycrazycrazycrazy. It hurts.

Confession is like a giant Band-Aid. The priest says it sounds like trauma, not crazy. He knew I wasn’t crazy. I’m glad somebody knew. I sure didn’t. A new doctor discovered the brain injury. Perhaps crazy is off the table now.

Damage to the brain is permanent. That is what I have learned. That’s a pretty bum deal since it wasn’t my fault. They say the key is therapy. Therapy to work around it. To learn to do old things in new ways. It still sucks. I also realize that I am BORED out of my mind. NOT crazy. Lonely. Bored and lonely. So very alone. I know what Chesterton said about being crazy. Thinking that I am crazy proves that I am not. I may be a little crazy, like everybody, but not in THAT way. I’ve done Gilbert proud. My head in the clouds but not clouds in my head. Unless you count the brain injury. There things feel a bit cloudy. But THAT is okay now too. A holy Polish priest prayed over me one day and the fog in my head stays mostly dissipated now. Then suddenly I remember how lonely I feel. I sometimes want the fog back. No one understands. People get angry and frustrated with me when they don’t understand. That isn’t fair. It’s not my fault. Why don’t they remember it is not my fault.

I’m trying to be normal. I’m pretty good at acting. This may be the biggest role of my life… playing “normal”. I don’t think it’s working very well. They still look at me… like THAT. I wish they wouldn’t look at me like that. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I’m trying to be normal. It’s NOT my fault! I wish they wouldn’t look at me. Not if they are going to look at me like that. If I avoid them, then I won’t have to see them looking at me. Looking at me with their pity written all over their face. Looking at me…like an object…like something…something broken. Something less. Less than themselves. I’d like to shove their pity up their nose! But their expressions, they brand me. It hurts and all I want to do is cry. People should not be allowed to wear expressions that make people cry. So I don’t look. I don’t talk. I just follow with my head down and my hair falling out.

There is another sort of look. One I dread more. I shudder. I don’t like thinking of it. It’s worse than pity. Pity, at least, is a twisted sort of love. Maybe. I don’t know. I can pretend. But that annoyance… that frustration, it inevitably spews anger all over. I hate that the most. I hate it. I am not trying to be annoying. It is not fair to be annoyed at me. I’m trying not to be in the way. I’m trying not to be a pain. I’m trying not to be so broken. I’m trying very hard to be normal and to speak straight and to not burst into tears and not jump at sudden noises or flinch when people touch me or zone out when I’m overwhelmed! I try to stifle my panic when you all drive too fast or brake too fast or turn too fast. I know the passenger side brake pedal is broken. I know, but I can’t help using it. I can’t help it. It is not fair to be annoyed. It is not fair to be angry at me. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. I’m not crazy. It’s not my fault. Don’t be angry. Don’t make me feel like a burden. Forgive me for throwing paint brushes at you. You frightened me. I can’t handle your anger. It is not fair to be angry. It makes me frightened and ashamed. It makes it hard to remember that “ashamed” is wrong. Because it is not my fault. And I am NOT crazy. I’m just broken.

Unfortunately, I have learned that being broken is the worst thing to be if you are American. Broken is the ultimate evil. Broken gets in the way of efficiency. It gets in the way of fun. It gets in the way of fun fuzzy feel good fictions. Brokenness destroys fictions. People don’t like their fictions destroyed. They would rather destroy the broken. Or make them go hide themselves away. But I know a secret. You are all broken too. Hypocrites. You are all broken too, yet you shove each other out of the way to be able to throw the first stone at me. Just because I can’t hide my “broken”. Just because my “broken” shows. I have another secret though. I am probably smarter than most of you fiction addicts. I am not stupid. I am VERY much not stupid. Go flush your stupid annoyed angry faces down a toilet. You make me sick.

I am lonely. I miss my best friend. I can’t even remember when we stopped talking. She doesn’t know about how I almost died. She doesn’t know about the brain injury. She just stopped calling. Then stopped visiting. Then I gave up on trying to reconnect. Perhaps I am glad she isn’t around to see the difference having a cracked brain makes. I’m not who I would have said myself was. And when I say that I miss my best friend, I am not entirely sure if I mean her or the One I used to go visit in the chapel. He is another victim of the accident. I can’t bring myself to go there anymore. I don’t know why. Maybe I don’t want to know why. But I do miss Him. Sunday’s are just so formal. What is wrong with me? Please don’t answer that.

My friend walked away! I can’t DO this alone! Was there something wrong with me? The cracked brain came AFTER. If I wasn’t worth knowing anymore, then I’m really screwed now. I don’t smile anymore. I noticed that. I never smile. There is no levity. I never even feel the urge to laugh. Nothing is funny. My brain is cracked and I’m terribly lonely. I am not crazy, but tell that to my parents. I hate my life. My best friend ran away and I can no longer face the man in the chapel. Why didn’t he save me? I can’t DO this alone!

I seem to have traded all my smiles for tears. And my hair is falling out. Two things can be counted on; my hair falling out all over everywhere, and my tendency to burst into tears. It wasn’t my fault, but I’m stuck with this forever. The friends that are left won’t say it to my face, but I have changed… and it is awkward. Scars in my soul. Scars in my head. Scars on my arm. When did this happen? This cannot be me! This cannot be real! I don’t know who I am anymore! Will I wake up at any moment? It’s hard feeling dumb when you’re not. And the pain… it is just too much. Silence echoes from the heavens. And my hair is falling out!

And I’m bleeding. It frightens me. The doctor, the head injury guy, I told him. He said “hemorrhoids” and dismissed it. He was wrong. He was very wrong and it almost killed me. That came later. Later I found I was much more broken that I knew. More pain. So much more pain. I didn’t really know what broken meant until later. One’s body isn’t supposed to betray you. I don’t want to think about it. No. NO! Nonononononononono!

I’m avoided. I can’t do this alone. I am so tired of needing to be strong. So very tired of needing to be strong for myself. There is no one to be strong for me. I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. If I stop being strong… I’m afraid. I’m afraid to stop being strong. I have no choice. They all leave me alone, broken brain and all. I’m not crazy, but I’ve changed. I don’t recognize myself. No one notices, but there is a stranger in my head and it is me. There are cuts that no one notices. The presence in the silence is gone. It is hard to pray to an empty silence. Where did the living silence flee too? Did He flee from me? I’m sorry. Please come back. Don’t leave me too. Has He gone, or was He ever there? I no longer go to the chapel. I don’t know why. Or maybe I’m afraid that the silence there is empty also. I don’t want to have been mistaken. I can’t do this alone. He’s the only one I ever truly had. Oh God! Please be real!

There’s no one to talk to. It is too hard for some to face. The difference. The difference is too much for them and I often can’t figure out the words. The thoughts are still there, but the words come out funny, if at all. I’m an inmate in my own skull. If eyes are windows does ANYONE see the prisoner staring out? There is no way to escape it. I’m lonely and scared. More scared than ever before. Mothers know. Mom says I’m not used to being the broken one, the small one. My prolific pen was quit speaking. My journal lays empty. Perhaps she is right.

Why don’t I draw anymore? Why is the silence so empty? Why does the world punish the innocent? Why does our spirit remind us that we are not so innocent? And the silence, THE WRETCHED SILENCE IS SOO EMPTY! I cannot take anymore emptiness. I am filled up to the top with it. The silence has never been empty before. Does God take vacations? If angels were allowed to plug my ears and screen my eyes, is THIS how the world would seem? So, so very empty?

I’m stuck in the stream of time and the world swirls in eddies around me. Past me. I am stuck. There is a broken clock in my head. I feel no older than the day the car struck. Years trickle down the drain and if I blink I might miss it all.

I can’t sleep.

Be Satisfied With Me

Everyone longs to give themselves completely to someone,

to have a deep soul relationship with another,

to be loved thoroughly and exclusively.

But to a Christian, God says "No, not until you are satisfied,

fulfilled, and content with being loved by Me alone,

with giving yourself totally and unreservedly to Me,

with having an intensely personal and unique relationship with Me alone.

Discovering that only in ME is your satisfaction to be found

will you be capable of the perfect human relationship that I have planned for you.

You will never be united to another

until you are united with Me,

exclusive of anyone or anything else,

exclusive of any other desires or longings.

I want you to stop planning, stop wishing, and allow ME to give you

the most thrilling plan existing... one that you cannot imagine.

I want you to have the best!

Please allow Me to bring it to you.

You keep watching Me, expecting the greatest thing.

Keep experiencing the satisfaction that I am.

Keep listening and learning the things that I tell you.

Just wait, that's all.

Don't be anxious. Don't worry.

Don't look around at things the others have gotten

or that I have given to them.

Don't look around at the things you think you want.

Just keep looking off and away up to ME

or you'll miss what I want to show you.

And then, when you are ready, I will surprise you with a love

far more wonderful than you would ever dream.

You see, until you are ready and until the one I have for you is ready,

I am working even at this moment to have both of you ready at the same time,

until you are both satisfied exclusively with Me and the life I have prepared for you,

you wont be able to experience the love that exemplifies your relationship with Me.

And this is perfect love.

And, dear one, I want you to have this most wonderful love.

I want you to see in the flesh a picture of your relationship with Me,

and to enjoy materially and concretely the everlasting union of beauty, perfection,

and love that I offer you with Myself.

Know that I love you utterly.

For I am God. Believe it, and be satisfied.

~Author Unknown

The Cathedral: Metaphor and Film

I could have sworn that I have written about this brilliant short film before, but since I can't find my post, I am posting it again just-in-case.

Please watch this breathtaking film. You may not see what I saw, but the metaphor about the interior life seemed plain to me.





The Cathedral (2002) -by Tomek Baginski based on a short story by Jacek Dukaj.

There is an English translation of part of the original Polish story available to read online HERE.

Be Still

Behold.
I have come.
I delight in you.
If I would have had to suffer more
to bring you to Myself,
I would have done so.
-Jesus





via: Walter de la Mare, Joe Elwart, Julian of Norwich
Photo by Robert Hupka

Reflections on the Recent Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Have you ever taken a phrase that has become so familiar and/or cliche' and broken it down word for word, definition by definition, just to get a new look at it?

Yes, well, let me tell you, yesterday's feast is often seen as insignificant by even many faithful; however, the principals of the Theology of the Body permeate the title of the feast ALONE!

Lets look closer. The Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Often paraphrased as the celebration of the fact that Mary was born without the residue of original sin. This wording is a little deceiving. To be delicate, we often say "born", but the feast is celebrating THE CONCEPTION! Repeat this to yourself until you become a little uncomfortable. We celebrate Mary, yes, but look at the wording. We are celebrating the act of procreation between St. Anne and St. Joachim. We celebrate their loving "yes" to each other as well as Mary's "yes" to God in her very being. We celebrate an un-celibate feast. We celebrate the sex act in it's true and good context. We celebrate the good fruits of that act. We celebrate the movement of God in our world.

Try telling a friend that the Catholic Church has a feast that celebrates sex! Well, it would be more charitable to say we celebrate the perfection and fruits of the marital act (with an emphasis on marital).

Anyway, those are my observations for now.
:)

Mary's Life: God's Mercy is More Powerful than Evil

Vatican City, Dec 8, 2010 / 12:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News)Pope Benedict said on today's Feast of the Immaculate Conception that the day honoring Mary should give Christians “comfort” and remind them that God's mercy “is more powerful than evil.”

On a cloudy morning in St. Peter's Square, pilgrims came to pray the Angelus with the Pope and to hear his remarks on the significance of the Marian feast day.

Pope Benedict briefly spoke from his study window overlooking the square and recalled that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception – Mary being born without original sin – was proclaimed by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The teaching, he said, is “a source of inner light, of hope and comfort,” in the midst of life's difficulties.

The reality of sin in the world, he explained, can be traced to disobedience to God's will, adding that now evil has its root in the human heart, which is “sick and wounded,” and “unable to heal itself."

But the life of Mary, Mother of Christ, shows us that tells us that God's mercy is more powerful than evil and that grace is greater than sin, the Pope taught.

He added that God has prepared a new and everlasting covenant, sealed by the blood of Jesus Christ who was “born of a woman.” Pope Benedict then explained the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, saying that the Virgin Mary experienced in advance the redeeming death of her Son, since she was conceived without sin.

After his remarks in St. Peter's Square, Pope Benedict greeted pilgrims in several different languages. Speaking in English, he said that Church “joyfully” celebrates the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.

“By her prayers, may our hearts and minds be kept free from sin, so that like Mary we may be spiritually prepared to welcome Christ,” he said.

“Let us turn to her, the Immaculate, who brought Christ to us, and ask her now to bring us to Him. Upon each of you and your loved ones at home, I invoke God’s abundant blessings!”

Later in the afternoon, Pope Benedict also led a traditional procession to crown a statue of Mary at the Piazza di Spagna – one of Rome's most prestigious shopping districts. Leading the way in his popemobile, the pontiff and procession solicited curious stares from busy onlookers doing their holiday shopping.

He emphasized to the crowds gathered in the piazza that the message of the Virgin Mary is for everyone, even those not aware of the feast day, and especially for those who may feel alone or abandoned.
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I thought this article had some great nuggets of insight and was worth reposting here.

Let us be Armor Bearers

Consider 1 Samuel 14:6-7

Johnathan said to his armor bearer: "Come let us go over to that outpost of the enemy. Perhaps the Lord will help us, because it is no more difficult for the Lord to grant victory through a few than through many."
The armor bearer replied, "Do whatever you are inclined to do; I will match your resolve."

Can we say as much? Do we, as disciples of our Lord, strive to match the resolve to trust and serve with the faith and obedience of Jonathan's armor bearer? We are the children of the New Covenant. We wield the Spiritual Armor of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think we all need to reflect on the humble response of the nameless armor bearer.

Today, let you and I try to say to our Lord, "Do whatever you are inclined to do; I will match your resolve."

Jesus, I trust in you.

Guest Post: Abandoned

I needed to hear the words Steve spoke here. He discusses the topic with beauty. -Anna

"Abandoned"

by Steve the Builder

I’m going to talk about something I rarely talk about because when I do sometimes it means something to a few people, not everyone, and frankly, hardly anyone at least in the Orthodox convert internet realm seems to talk about it, maybe partly because they’re all so happy to be here.

I suppose I could talk about this from an academic perspective and quote books to you and talk about other people’s experiences and stand with the listeners as outsiders looking in on other people’s lives, but I’ve decided to avoid the omniscient professorial point of view and just be personal. So, I guess I’ll just have to jump right in…

You probably wouldn’t have guessed it listening to my podcasts, but I have wrestled with an ever present emptiness and lack of a sense of the presence of God throughout my Christian life. Dealing with this was particularly difficult in certain churches when personal heartfelt spiritual experiences and overt happiness was deemed to be the mark of the “true” believer. In that environment, Christians were supposed to be chipper as a sign of the “joy joy joy joy down in your heart”, and if you weren’t happy welll, I got this feeling people were looking at me and thinking….(Darth Vader). So, I tried to conjure up spiritual feelings and do things to bring about a spiritual experiences. There was the pressure to fake tongues in the Jesus Movement to fit in, and in other churches, to talk certain ways and use certain phrases and language to express that I was “glad in the Lord”. But, I have to confess, to this day I have never had a spiritual experience, and I just found it impossible to make myself fake being anointed by the Holy Spirit to fit in.

But, I will say I’ve enjoyed spiritual activities, fellowship and worship at times. Over the years, I’ve participated in spiritual disciplines and have read and heard things that have brought me closer to what I understand God wishes me to be, but I’ve never had a clear spiritual experience or feeling that I can look back on and say, “That was clearly God speaking to my heart, or that was a transformative spiritual moment in my life.” As an Orthodox Christian I accept the dogma of a sacramental world view and, intellectually, I can account the sacraments as grace filled events, but in terms of having an emotional or heart felt spiritual event connected to them, it hasn’t happened yet. And I admit, sometimes I still feel like a defective Christian when I see other people who seem to enjoy emotional responses to prayer, the sacraments and the presence of God in their life. But, as dry as my spiritual existence has been for nearly 50 years of living consciously for God, I look back on it and count it a blessing, not a defect.

But before I go on, I need to define some terms. When I talk about this dryness or emptiness, I’m not talking about situational sadness in reaction to the problem of evil and pain. In my 56 years I’ve seen my share of extraordinary evil that made me doubt God’s love and power. I’ve lived in existential crisis, I’ve been clinically depressed, and I’ve experienced desperation sometimes as a consequence of my sins and sometimes from other people’s sins, and sometimes either from the hand of God or perhaps from Satan. Sometimes I don’t think it’s important to know which it is because it all hurts and basically either way I have to overcome myself to get over it no matter where it came from.

So the spiritual shadowland I’m talking about is not clinical or situational depression as a reaction to extraordinary events or even piled up ordinary life. Nor is it what the spiritual Fathers call despondency, the absolute rejection of hope due to unrepentance that leads to spiritual or sometimes physical suicide. It is not a heretical or philosophical rejection of the beauty of creation, the blessings of life and human or divine love. On the other hand, it is not psychological anger and narcissistic depression at the world’s incapacity to fill the void in one’s soul with happy and passionate experiences. And these are two important ones: It is not a “spiritual” excuse to avoid life and normal relationships and responsibility. Nor is it a sad face on the street corner badge of super-spirituality. These are extremely important distinctions because these symptoms are all rooted in either the biological consequences of the fall as in the case of clinical depression, or in the other cases, the psychological and emotional consequences of evil or sins done to us, and sometimes its just overt sin, pride, delusions and lies. As a caution, I’ll have to say here that the discernment of which it is is the job of a competent spiritual director or in some cases a good therapist, not this podcast…though I may unpack some of these issues in future episodes. Suffice to say for now, the true experience of the spiritual desert is rooted in a clear understanding that God is love, that all creation is good, and we are created to be united to Him.

At the beginning of Matins we hear what the Psalmist says, “My soul thirsts for Thee in a waterless land”. There is a state of spirituality that is life in a spiritual desert and there is a thirst for God that is never quenched in this life, or perhaps even in the next because as created beings we can never fully apprehend all that God is. The spiritual desert is a life characterized as the Beatitudes say, by a kind of spiritual poverty and an undercurrent of perpetual mourning even during the best of times. But it isn’t a sad face while everyone else is enjoying a good meal together, it isn’t a doom and gloom cloud over a birthday party or life’s normal joys. It is life in which there is an underlying melancholy, in a sense, a homesickness, that brings one back to the truth about the reality of what the fall has done to all things, that we are missing something, and perhaps it is ourselves that are missing. Ultimately it is about longing to return to our true home where our Beloved awaits to see our true face. It is life where the experience of spiritual joy and contentment is an occasional respite but is, for the most part, elusive.

Unfortunately, no one likes to talk much about this kind of thing. “Victory, Joy, Light, and being Spirit filled,” are the measures of the modern Christian’s depth of faith. I know most people know what I mean when I say they put on the “Church face” on Sunday morning because there is a cultural expectation within the walls of the sanctuary, but it’s a different story in the parking lot. When I was part of that culture, I sometimes wrestled with a kind of twisted guilt for faking the happy Christian life in public while having a hollow place within that no sermon, no prayer, no Scripture, and no spiritual exercise, and no fellowship has ever filled, not even in Orthodoxy. But that empty place has not and does not keep me from serving God, giving alms, or praying, or listening to sermons or reading books or fasting, because all these things are a light to my soul, even if my soul is incapable of perceiving it fully. Amid all my spiritual activity done out of a sincere love for God for all these years, there is still a constant and dull aching sorrow that I know only death will end, not so much as an escape from life but an apprehension of my true life. Imprinted on my heart are St. Pauls words: To live is Christ, but to die is gain.

Lest you get the wrong idea, I don’t sit around and pathologically ruminate about this 24-7. I’ve lived with it for decades and frankly, I consciously thought about it a lot more 25 years ago when I began to understand that perhaps it was not I that was defective, but perhaps it was my understanding of what the spiritual life is “supposed to look like” that was lacking something. One of the books that introduced me to what is called in the popular spiritual literature, the “dark night of the soul” was Martin Marty’s “The Cry of Absence, Reflections for the Winter of the Heart” in 1983. It was the first time I encountered the idea that God sometimes withdraws spiritual warmth from us and that, like in nature, the cold and dark winter is part of the natural cycle of spiritual growth.
Grasping that concept intellectually and working through it spiritually was a long, hard and dark time for sure, but now on the other side of that time, it’s seldom in the forefront of my thoughts. It is kind of like living with the dull aches and pains of doing construction for 26 years, its just part of the fabric of my existence now.

Looking back, I think it is ironic that even though I could quote scripture backward and forward at that time, I never grasped that this is a state of being others have experienced as lovers of God. Now, every Sunday morning I’m reminded of it in the Psalms of matins when I chant, “I have cried out to Thee O Lord, in the morning my prayer comes before Thee…, O Lord why doest Thou cast off my soul why doest Thou hide Thy face from me, I am afflicted and ready to die from from my youth up, I suffer thy terrors and I am overcome.” St. Paul says to the evildoers in Hebrews it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God but the Psalm reminds us of what God told Jeremiah: it is equally terrifying for the one who loves God to fall into the Potter’s hands. It is truly a terrifying thing to be skillfully broken and shaped by God’s omnipotent hands, to be left in the dark by the light, and to be abandoned by the omnipresent one. In all my Bible study, I always assumed I knew what the Potter would do to the clay and what shape He intended for my life, and even in all my fantasies about submitting to the wheel, I never imagined God would do that. The reality is, none of us can imagine what God is really doing, and I think, until someone personally goes through a spiritual winter, it isn’t something that makes any sense. Some of the Roman Catholic faithful were scandalized to find out that Mother Theresa confessed to have lived in spiritual darkness and the sense of being abandoned by God for most of her ministry even though many of the Catholic saints have written eloquently about this spiritual state. When I became Orthodox I found that this is not just a “western spirituality” thing as some believe. St. Silouan the Athonite and many other saints of the Church describe the state of godforsakenness, the sense of abandonment by God that they experienced. I believe it was St. Gregory of Nyssa summed up what all the saints who speak about this tell us: There comes a time when God removes the breast, we are weaned from spiritual experiences, and we must learn to love God Himself from a pure heart, not the experience of God from a darkened heart.

So, it is truth that there is a joy that can only be had from believing in God, but it’s also truth that there is a holy sorrow that comes only from believing in Him.

In the end all TRUE spiritual experience is about loving God and being loved by Him. The saints unanimously tell us that our experience of godforsakenness is ultimately an act of the love of God. But the problem is we often define for ourselves what we want love to look like and what it should feel like and it is more about feeling good than about true love. The Song of Solomon speaks of the bright hope and the dark despair of loving God. In chapters 3 and 5 The Song says

On my bed night after night I sought him whom my soul loves, I sought him but did not find him. I must arise now and go and search the city, in the streets and in the squares I must seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him but did not find him. I opened to my beloved but my beloved had turned away and gone. My heart went out to him as he spoke. I search for him but did not find him, I called to him but he did not answer me.

The Song about the experiences of the passion of human love is universally understood by Jewish and Christian saints to be a metaphor of our relationship to God, it is the story of the Divine Romance, about love that is stronger than death. It tells us that just as in human love, there is a dark side to divine love. But it tells us that the darkness is not an evil thing that is the end of love, but it is a true witness to the very presence of love. We all understand that there is a certain joy we have in the arms of our beloved, and this affirms within us the strength of our love. But we also know that there are times that the pit of desperation deep in the night at the absence of our beloved bears greater witness to the depths of the love we share than the joy we feel in one another’s presence. Whose heart has not gone out into the darkness, night after night, blessing the closeness and cursing the distance between us? If love were not present, absence would be painless. If the light of love were not shining in our heart, the empty marriage bed would not be a darkness too great to bear.

This is true of human love and it is true of divine love. Who is a lover of God who has not desperately longed for his presence? Who has a heart for God that has not gone out into the black night seeking his face, longing for his voice and hoping to find him also seeking us. Who has not at some time, night after night, curled up in bed, face buried in the pillows and sought Him out in sighs and curses and tears. Who has not opened to God and found that He was not there, that He had mysteriously turned away. Who has not called out to him and his silence was as deep as the stars. Who has not wondered when God will return, or if He hears or perhaps if He even cares that we are calling.

It is not enough to just know intellectually that we are loved by him. “God loves you” and Bible verses and promises of future joy ring hollow to the heart that is ravaged by despair at the absence of God. Have faith we are told…But faith is not enough. Faith may be the assurance of things hoped for and it may give us boldness and confidence before the throne of God, but it is love that is the holy joy in His presence, and it is love that is the all-consuming darkness we experience when He is not there. Faith may be the assurance and knowledge that He is still out there somewhere, but love is the pit in our stomach as we stare into the void where we once saw Him standing.

Only those who love God desperately can know the forsakenness of missing Him. To love God passionately is to suffer a holy longing for Him. When you face the nights with dread and seek His face through eyes clouded with tears you are not far from Him. He has not forsaken you, He has not abandoned you. And though your heart breaks with doubts and fears that you cannot name because of His absence, it is ultimately because of love that your heart is aflame with pain. The Song of Solomon and all the saints tell us this is the truest witness to love and the hardest to bear, but to have a great love is to suffer greatly for it. Even if it means going to a cross in hopes the beloved will some day return and see your face and weep for joy.

Visit his site here.

Thank you Steve.

God bless.

Straight Edge Grudge

The Straight Edge movement has been making a revival recently among teenagers. Popular in the 1980's a new generation of youth seems to have picked up on it. For those uninitiated to the term, to be "straight edge" means to live a clean lifestyle (no drugs, etc). It is basiclly a hip way of saying that you are straight laced. I had a respect for this for a long time. I mean, hey, it is pretty darn cool to see highschoolers declair that they will stand up, without shame, against certain behaviors. It's refreshing to see teenagers willing to take the moral high ground. So what if it gets tiresome seeing xXx or sXe (shorthand for straight edge) scribbled all over the place. The sentiment is admirable.

I, however, don't think it is so cute anymore. These same teenagers are slowly undermining the power of the statement. What used to be a declaration of purity is now no more powerful than those tiresome D.A.R.E. (Drug Awareness and Resistence Education) t-shirts we used to wear in elementary school. I think my personal respect for the phrase was severed when a girl who's promiscuity is a known fact among her friends (though she thinks she has hidden it from her family) still declaires that she is dedicated to the Straight Edge lifestyle. This same girl goes on to brag about her occasional bouts of underage alcohol consumption. It would be more precise to say that she doesn't do drugs. However saying she is Straight Edge, I'm sure, makes her feel more virtuous.

To those of you saying "Teenagers are teenagers. What do you expect?" I say, if we never expect anything more than promiscuity and debauchery, then they don't really have a reason to strive for it do they? Let's raise our expectations first and maybe someone will rise to meet them. I for one think it is more offensive to brand teenagers as incapable of virtue. They are capable of it, someone just has to give a damn first.

Hell: Endothermic or Exothermic?

“Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?”

I saw an article debating this question recently. Apparently it was an extra credit question on a science exam. You can see the original article Here. The student goes on to make his arguments from a scientific point of view. However the flaw of the article is that the question is in itself invalid since Hell is a spiritual phenomenon not a place which can be (even in jest) scientifically studied.

I, for my own insignificant sake, would like to put my brief 2 cents out there. Not that anyone really cares what I think.

Hell is neither exothermic or endothermic. Hell is a spiritual state one chooses as a result of their moral decisions and actions here on earth and into which the soul enters after death. The fires of Hell are symbolic or even metaphorical. The spiritual torment (hell) is derived by the soul's encounter with the being we refer to as God. Self deception is stripped away, the eyelids of the soul are removed. One can no longer turn away from Truth. The extent to which the Truth is intolerable to the individual soul dertermines how much "discomfort" the individual soul feels.

This certainly is a very simplified explanation of the issue and does not discuss the role the Christ plays in this dynamic. That is for another post. What I wanted to say for now, however, has been said.

WARNING!

Click on the image to read it without the fuzziness.
It is worth it.

The New Name

(An adaptation of a work by George MacDonald)

To he that overcomes, I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knows except he who receives it. Revelation 2:17

In the giving of the white stone with the new name in it, God communicates to the recipient His intimate thought about him. It is a Divine judgment, a solemn “holy doom” of a righteous man. It is God’s call of “Come, blessed one” spoken to the individual.

In order to understand this, we must first understand the idea of a name, that is, what is the perfect notion of a name. Since the mystical energy of a saintly mind is telling the story of God giving the gift of a name, we must understand that the essence of the thing is intended, not a sub definition or imitation.

In this world a name of the ordinary kind describes nothing of the true essence of the person to whom it is attached. It is only a label by which one person and a scrap of their history may be differentiated from another person and their life history. The true name is one that expresses the character, the nature, the being, and the meaning of the person who bears it. It is each person’s own symbol, his soul’s picture. In a word, the true name is the sign which belongs to each individual and to no one else.

Who can give a man this, his own true name? It can be none other than God alone. No one but God fully sees what each man is. No one but God could fully express in a “name-word” the sum and harmony of what He sees. To whom is this name given? To “he that overcomes”. When is it given? When he has overcome. Does God not know what a man is going to become? Yes, He knows as surely as he sees the oak that he put in the heart of the acorn. Why then does He wait until the man has become his true self by overcoming before he settles on what the man’s name shall be? He does not wait; He knows the name from the start. However, just as repentance comes to a man through God’s pardon, - yet the man becomes aware of the pardon only after he repents. So it is only when a man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it. It is only then that he can understand what the name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, and the completion of the man that determines the name; and God foresees that from the start, because He made it so. However, the tree of the soul, before it blossoms, cannot understand what type of blossom it will bear, just as the man, if shown his true name too soon, could not know what the word meant because the word represents an unarrived at completeness of self. The True Name cannot be given until the man is the name.

God’s name for a man must then be the expression in a mystical word of his own idea of the man. It is the very idea God had in his thoughts when he began to make the child, and that He kept in His thoughts through the long process of creation that went into the realization of the idea. To tell the man his name is to seal the success- to say, “In thee also, I am well pleased.”

We must however look deeper still for the fullness of the meaning of all this. We shall not look long before we find that the True Name is a mystic symbol which has for it’s central significance the reality of the personal and individual relationship of every man with his God. To him who offers to the God of the living, his own self as a sacrifice, to him that overcomes, to him who brought his life back to it’s source, to him who knows that he is one of God’s children, to him that is a person of the Father’s making, to him the Lord gives the white stone. To him who climbs on the stair of all his God-born efforts and God-given victories, up to the height of his being- which is to look face to face upon the image of his ideal self held in the heart of the Father, realized in him through the Father’s love – to him God gives the New Name (written on the white stone).

We leave this line of thought for now, because the following section embraces and intensifies the idea of the individuality of our relationship with God in a fuller development of truth. The name is one “which no man knows except he who receives it.” Not only does each man have an individual relationship with God, but also each man has a very particular relationship to God. He is to God a particular being, made after his own fashion and that of no one else; for when he is perfected he shall receive the new name which no one else can understand. Therefore, he can worship God as no other person can worship Him, can understand God as no other man can understand Him. This or that person may understand God more, may understand God better, but no other person can understand God as he understands Him.

I pray, God give me the grace to be humble before you, my brother and sister, that I not drag a false image of you before the judgment seat of an unjust judge, but look up to you for what revelation of God you and no one else can give.

As the fir tree lifts itself up with a far different need than the palm tree, so each person stands before God and lifts up a different humanity to the common Father. For each person God has a different response. With every man He has a secret- the secret of the new name. In every person there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of particular life into which only God can enter. It is not the innermost chamber, but a chamber into which no brother or sister can come.

From this it follows that there is a chamber in God Himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the particular person- out of which chamber that person is able to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is the purpose for which he was made – to reveal the secret things of the Father. By his creation then, each man is isolated with God. Each person, in respect of his particular identity, can say “my God” and can come to Him alone and speak with Him face to face, just like a man speaks with his friend. God does not lump men together. When He speaks of gathered men, it is as a spiritual body. For in a body every smallest portion is individual and therefore capable of forming a part of the body.

Each of us is a distinct flower or tree in the spiritual garden of God… precious, each for his own sake, in the eyes of He who is even now making us. Each of us is watered and shone upon and filled with life for the sake of his flower, His completed creation, which will blossom out of him at last, to the glory and pleasure of the great gardener. For each has within him a secret of the divinity; each is growing toward the revelation of that secret and so to the full reception, according to his measure, of the divine. Every moment that a person is dedicated to their true self, some new ray of light reflects off of the white stone and illuminates their (inward eye) mind, conscience and soul, some fresh channel is opened and made ready for the flowering of a soul, which is the conscious offering of the whole self, in all beauty, to the maker. In God’s sight each man has great worth. Human life and action, thought and intent are sacred. What a glorious end awaits us! To have an awareness of our True-self being flashed into us from the thought of God! Surely, to know what He thinks about us will dissolve any of our own opinions about ourselves. Thus, we should start holding our opinions loosely now, and be ready to let them go.

Some might say, “But is there not the worst of all dangers involved in such teaching – the danger of spiritual pride?” Are we to refuse the Holy Spirit for the fear of pride? Pride springs from supposed success when one has aimed high: with attainment itself comes humility. However, here there is no room for ambition. Ambition in the desire to be above ones neighbor: and here there is no possibility of compassion with one’s neighbor: no one knows what the white stone contains except the one who receives it. There is room for endless aspiration towards an unseen ideal: none for ambition. Ambition wants to be higher than others; aspiration just wants to be high. Relative worth is not only unknown, but to the children of the kingdom it is unknowable. Each mistakes others as being better than themselves. How can a summer rose compare itself to the snowdrop, who rises with hanging head from the snow? Both are God’s thoughts; both are dear to Him; both are needful to the completeness of His earth and his revelation of Himself. “God has cared to make me for himself” says the victor with the white stone, “And has called me. What does it matter whether I am called to be like the grass of the field, or an eagle of the air? A stone to build into His temple, or a great cloud to wield His thunder? I am His. His idea, His making; perfect in my kind, perfect in His sight; full of Him, revealing Him, alone with Him. Let Him call me what He will. The name shall be as precious as my life. I seek no more.”

All anxiety about what others think of us will be gone. It is enough that God thinks about us. To be something to God – is that not praise enough? To be a thing that God cares for and would like to have totally to himself because it is worth caring for – is that life not enough?

However, man will not be isolated from his fellow either. Each will feel the sacredness and awe of his neighbor’s dark and silent speech with his God. Each will regard the other as a prophet, and look to him for what the Lord has spoken. Each, as a high priest returning from his Holy of Holies, will bring from his communion some glad tidings, some gospel of truth, which, when spoken his neighbors shall receive and understand. Each will behold in the other a marvel of revelation, a present son or daughter of the most high, who has come forth to reveal him afresh. In God we each will come closer to each other.

* Lord help us. Make our being grow into your likeness. Despite times of strife and times of growth, let us at last see your face and receive the white stone from your hand. So we may grow, give us each day our daily bread. Fill us with the words that proceed out of your mouth. Help us to lay up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust shall corrupt. Amen

12 Ways to Know God

by Peter Kreeft

"There is the music of Bach, therefore there must be a God."Jesus defines eternal life as knowing God (Jn 17:3). What are the ways? In how many different ways can we know God, and thus know eternal life? When I take an inventory, I find twelve.

1. The final, complete, definitive way, of course, is Christ, God himself in human flesh.

2. His church is his body, so we know God also through the church.

3. The Scriptures are the church's book. This book, like Christ himself, is called "The Word of God."

4. Scripture also says we can know God in nature see Romans 1. This is an innate, spontaneous, natural knowledge. I think no one who lives by the sea, or by a little river, can be an atheist.

5. Art also reveals God. I know three ex-atheists who say, "There is the music of Bach, therefore there must be a God." This too is immediate.

6. Conscience is the voice of God. It speaks absolutely, with no ifs, ands, or buts. This too is immediate. [The last three ways of knowing God (4-6) are natural, while the first three are supernatural. The last three reveal three attributes of God, the three things the human spirit wants most: truth, beauty, and goodness. God has filled his creation with these three things. Here are six more ways in which we can and do know God.]

7. Reason, reflecting on nature, art, or conscience, can know God by good philosophical arguments.

8. Experience, life, your story, can also reveal God. You can see the hand of Providence there.

9. The collective experience of the race, embodied in history and tradition, expressed in literature, also reveals God.You can know God through others' stories, through great literature.

10. The saints reveal God. They are advertisements, mirrors, little Christs. They are perhaps the most effective of all means of convincing and converting people.

11. Our ordinary daily experience of doing God's will will reveal God. God becomes clearer to see when the eye of the heart is purified: "Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."

12. Prayer meets God—ordinary prayer. You learn more of God from a few minutes of prayerful repentance than through a lifetime in a library.

Unfortunately, Christians sometimes have family fights about these ways, and treat them as either/or instead of both/and. They all support each other, and nothing could be more foolish than treating them as rivals—for example, finding God in the church versus finding God in nature, or reason versus experience, or Christ versus art.

If you have neglected any of these ways, it would be an excellent idea to explore them. For instance, pray using great music. Or take an hour to review your life some time to see God's role in your past. Read a great book to better meet and know and glorify God. Pray about it first.

Add to this list, if you can. There are more ways of finding and knowing God than any one essay can contain. Or any one world.

The Beauty of the Mass

I have decided that if I were able (by the grace of God) to hold in the forefront of my mind the realities that I know to be true and active during a single mass, I would have no choice but to weep for the entire duration, from opening to closing hymn.

Interior Kingdom

Lord,
you created me for a purpose. I’m a customized piece made to fit in a special gap in the construction of Your Divine Castle. Your Kingdom is being built up and Your Castle stands on the mountaintop broadcasting its radiance to all of time and creation. Those able to see and willing to cast aside their blindfolds are drawn into the center of Your Kingdom to Your Castle. They abandon themselves to Your love and wish to end the estrangement by throwing themselves into the arms of the Creator. The Divine Artist has created me, but out of love set me free to choose my own way by my own will. He let me go and called out loving suggestions as I stumbled about. Love for He who formed me drew me back. Out of love I have come back to Him. I present myself to Him so that He may set me to the purpose for which He so lovingly hand crafted me. With all my heart I embrace my God and weep in His arms.

My Lord God, take me and set me upon the path that You intended, from the beginning of the world, for me to travel. I feel You calling me to devote my entire life and being to You. I hand myself fully into Your beautiful hands. As your Mother as my sponsor and director, lead me in the ways that You desire. I am Your creature. Instruct me. Lead me. Guide me. Teach me. Let me do only what You instruct. There are no words to express my desire for You to direct me in everything.
My Lord, my Love, I am Yours.
Amen

The Eucharistic Jesus, Time and the Communion of Saints

Sometimes I wonder at the uniqueness of the Last Supper and it's affect on human history.
That first mass, cleaving time to make Jesus doubly or rather fully, and transcendentally present. I imagine Jesus both present and timeless in the bread and wine.
Time creates the illusion of a fragmented soul, the past self, the present self and the future self. However the soul is a single entity. Christ became present fully; his whole self.
His future crucified and resurrected self, his past infant and child self, this whole divine man was there in that first Eucharist. But as a soul cannot be divided by the progression of time, perhaps time itself must part for the God-man. I think about how for 2000 years we have been taught that the Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.
He has been present at every mass in every corner of the globe since the Last Supper.
The miracle, the wonder of the undivided Christ is staggering. Perhaps there is only ONE Mass perpetually ringing out through time. Perhaps when the words of consecration are spoken, we welcome heaven, timeless as it is, to flood our sanctuaries. We enter a mystical cathedral in which the church militant from all of time pray as one. The power of every mass ever offered throughout the whole of time becomes manifest and unified with the presence of Jesus on our altars. If we listen closely can our hearts hear the murmured prayers of multitudes of souls at mass? Is that Peter I hear? Is that Michelangelo, Tolkien, or Mother Teresa praying there beside me in that eternal moment? Is that Joan of Arc's battle standard we hear snapping in the wind? Are we attuned enough to hear the dripping of blood off of Love's cross on the hillside at the center of time?
-Anna

Stranger

"You who have become a stranger to the world ought to possess a faith, an outlook, and a manner of life which has about it something unusual, something different from that of all worldly people. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. "

- Macarius of Egypt (attributed),

The Beauty of the Shy

There is something beautiful about shyness, even though in our culture shyness is not considered a virtue. On the contrary, we are encouraged to be direct, look people straight in the eyes, tell them what is on our minds, and share our stories without a blush.

But this unflinching soul-baring, confessional attitude quickly becomes boring. It is like trees without shadows. Shy people have long shadows, where they keep much of their beauty hidden from intruder's’ eyes. Shy people remind us of the mystery of life that cannot be simply explained or expressed. They invite us to reverent and respectful friendships and to a wordless being together in love.

by Henri Nouwen

Let ME walk you home.

(There was a poem I wrote a few years ago and recently I heard a song that eerily seemed to reply to that poem. I put the specific phrase that stood out in both poems in red. It is precious. Thank You Lord.)

Dear God,
Nothing is what it used to be.
Now nothing seems to mean anything.
When did all my dreams fly away?
Why does peace never stay?

As I stand here again all alone,
I pray for the strength to walk myself home.
Lives scatter, only dim mem’ries remain.
I go on, tears washed away by the rain.

These scars on my heart
Mark time gone by
And emptiness fills me
As I slowly die.

Lord,
Please take me away to a land on a star
Where a Hero can save me from my empty heart.
I’ll build a white castle where I’ll keep my soul,
In attempt to protect it from earthly control.

But I wake in the morning
To the light of new day
And I find that my troubles
Have not gone away.
So I pick myself up
And start out again
On this path of my life,
Until I reach the end

Until that day comes
I know pain won’t be odd
So I’ll keep in my heart
A white castle for God

[Dear Daughter,]
know that I am always with you never too far away
When you don’t know who you are anymore,
That’s when you’ll hear Me say…

Let Me walk you home
I will pick your favorite flower
Let Me walk you home
I will show you that you’re beautiful
Let Me walk you home
I will hold you close to Me
So you can hear my heart beat
Let Me walk you home

I’m on the road you walk on
Understanding all your pain
Let Me be the light that guides you
along every step of the way
I’m there when you stumble
Always reaching out, calling your name
If you would listen to the calm of your heart
That’s when you’ll hear me say…
“Let me walk you home”.

Let me caress you with the warmth of the sun
And the cool of the breeze.
I smile at you through the flowers and the faces you see.
I’ll sing through fountains and stream,
And know that all of this means,
I love you.

[Jesus]

Confessions of a Shy Girl

I was thinking today, if I could acquire one personality trait that I do not already have, what would I want? I would most whole heartedly want the ability to talk to people. I am no good at chatting or just casual conversation. It sort of goes along with being shy, but it also comes from just not knowing what to say to people. Some people attribute awkward conversation skills as a sign of stupidity. They assume “Well, that person just doesn’t have the brains to make good conversation.” That is not true. I do not say that out of pride because I happen to know my IQ score and it’s nowhere near the “stupid” range. I’ve always wondered about the nature of my lack of a gift for gab. Am I too shy? Am I simply afraid of what people will think of me? Sometimes I just cannot think of anything I want to say. If there is nothing worth saying, why talk? Then again I wonder if I have a hard time talking to people because they tend to be extremely shallow. I don’t care about what reality TV show someone watched last night. I don’t care about which celebrity is doing what. I don’t care about your new designer shirt or the cute shoes you bought. I don’t care about which superstar’s CD you just got. I don’t care. Should I? Boring shallow people drive me up the wall. Maybe that’s part of it. I don’t like talking to people because I’m tired of all the same old shallow, pointless small talk. I crave conversation with depth. I’m tired of meaninglessness. Perhaps I am too serious. I am loath to endure the light conversation necessary to find out if a person has any depth underneath. How I wish I just had the gift of engaging people in easy conversation. UG!