seethrough

after a period of relative inactivity, i’m writing again.

i have managed to eek out a meagre post (at least once every month) over the past few months, but i’m motivated again to be writing and engaging issues.  my goal is to be writing at least once a week.

some questions i would like to ask you…

• if you have been a regular visitor to seethroughb, what have you found most helpful here?  what would keep you interested and engaged?
• what will make you inclined to comment?  i so enjoy people who comment when they visit - but maybe you don’t want to do that, maybe you just want to read and refelct.  what would make it more likely for you to comment?
• how is the layout of my blog?  I know how it looks on my pc, but have no idea how it comes up when you visit.  how is the colour, the layout, the text size, readablity etc. etc.  (i’m asking for your subjective and honest feed-back here)

of course, this is my blog and if you don’t like it…

just joking

isn’t it fascinating how afraid we are of being known. we carry secret regrets and shame. some stories will never be told.

one of the scary things I was taught at Sunday school was that on the Last Day everything would be revealed - that God is going to put my whole (miserable) life up on a big screen for everyone to see. (probably like a drive-in screen. Data projectors weren’t invented back then…)

this terrified me.

at first.

slowly it’s dawned on me how liberating it will be to be known. sure, there will be embarrasment and shame. but then relief will quickly take it’s plac. no more hiding. no more secrets.

and honest relationships. if there are still people who will talk to me after the screening of Barry Goes Bananas, well then, they are truly gracious people!

ok, so move the idea of transparency into daily life. you get drunk on saturday night. you embarrass yourself. monday morning you tell your colleagues at work - that you a) got drunk and b) aren’t totally proud of your behaviour… maybe some shame, a little bit of embarrassment…

next thing someone who was at the party sms’s your colleague to say “you’ll never guess who totally embarrassed themselves at the party on sat night…”

your colleagues response is: ja, heard about it, he told us, and yip he’s pretty regretful…

gossip kind of loses it’s edge.

it’s dangerous and scary to value transparency (like i felt here) but maybe it’s more dangerous and threatening in the long run to NOT …

so there’s this hectic story in the Hebrew scriptures about the monster and the little boy - the underdog. And everyone’s screeming from the cheap seats…

“Come on David!!!” (even though they’re convinced he’s gonna get crunched by the muscular villian)

Ok, so most people know the outcome - a giant with one smooth stone right between the eyes.

It’s the archetype story of spiritual growth - the moment of realisation, when the truth hits you and all your “strength” and assumptions and the confidence that has propped you up is gone and you find yourself flat on your back…

It was like that the other day for me. I was in a workshop on the Enneagram (see my previous post below) and the group was being introduced to the “1″ type. Their big thing is being right. I commented that I am frustrated with 1’s in my church who are always taking a fundamentalist “right-is-right” stance. The leader of the workshop defended the 1’s a little, but as we progressed it began to dawn on me that all the 1’s in the room didn’t resemble the fundamentalists I have an issue with at all! They were all quiet, nice, cautious and respectful woman…

i went home and continued reading about the “6″ type - hoping to understand myself better - and stumbled across a statement that was my smooth stone: 6’s are the most likely to associate with fundamentalist causes.

In addition to that, the book suggested that the most common defense mechanism of the 6 type is projection. Blow me down… Here I was blaming 1’s - and their need to be “right” - of being at the root of fundamentalist conflicts in the church… and all the time I’m the fundamentalist. I think i have to own that there is a certain fundamentalist flavour to my rejection of fundamentalism…

It’s not pretty. (another reason I connect with Goliath in the story…) but at least it’s a bit more honest…

[by the way - while 1’s are deeply committed to being right - they usually internalise that need to be right, becoming very critical and harsh task-masters of themselves. They are not likely to force their standards on others. Understanding the 1 better helps me to understand the deeply difficult relationship some people have with perfection.]

every now and then someone asks a REALLY GOOD QUESTION… the question may not seem significant if it doesn’t search within you… but if it hits the spot, if it turns you inside our and won’t leave you alone, then it’s a really good one!

a few days ago i came across one of those questions:

Who am I when no one knows what I do, what my name, or nationality are? Who am I when I am just a face in the crowd? Who am I then?

When I am not… Who am I?

This question hasn’t left me alone the past few days. When one surrenders the things you do as a basis for determining and defining one’s identity, what’s left? Is my identity primarily and finally determined by the roles I assume and the functions that I take on? And is there a person under the pile of roles and robes, that’s actually quite… quiet? gentle? patient?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one…

having faith seems to be a little bit like having Soul. what it Soul? it’s hard to define - but cool people who have Soul will quickly tell you if someone has it, or not.

having faith seems to be similar for many people I talk to. they aren’t able to easily define what Faith is, but they want to have it, and it’s assumed having more of it is always a good thing. so i’m wondering what is the substance of faith?

recently i did some reflections on the Fruit of the Spirit (the bible: letter to the galatians 5:22) - the author (paul?) uses the analogy of fruit to describe the qualities or values of the good life. faithfulness is on the list, and as I reflected on that i began to wonder about the relationship between having faith and being faithful. at first (mostly because of how I have been trained to think about faith) i assumed they were different things. but I am beginning to think that they are precisely the same. having faith will be quickly seen in a person that is faithful. a faithful person expresses faith in Ways or Values that they are faithful to - even when the results don’t seem to be going the way they would prefer…

Last week news broke about Mother Teresa. A book is being published - a collection of correspondence spanning her whole life which reflects that she “felt abandoned by God“. TIME’s article describes the contrast between the cheery face she portrayed to the world and the personal anguish she experienced in her own spirit. She is quoted in a letter as saying “Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me–The silence and the emptiness is so great–that I look and do not see,–Listen and do not hear.”(1979)

this raises some very interesting questions for the church about the nature of spiritual experience, whether we can expect joy in the journey, etc. Also it raises questions about sainthood and what it means to be a saint. Did Teresa lack integrity by hiding her anguish and presenting a mask of happiness and contentment? Or does this revelation about her personal experience of God further emphasise her piety?

I have never been offended by the discovery that a saintly person has darkness in their life.  In fact, i appreciate the discovery for the way in which is confirms that there is no easy way to God.  All of us who are human are going to have to walk through the mist, and sometimes through the mud.  But more than that, this new insight into Teresa’s life sheds light on my earlier questions about Faith and faithfulness. I was brought up to believe that having faith involved believing certain things - heaven knows what you were (or are) supposed to do if you honestly and truthfully DON’T believe those certain things… The most common problem with this understanding though is that Faith becomes like having Soul - we believe it exists, but how to nail it down? how to get some of this stuff?

Teresa offers us a simpler and more accessible understanding of Faith - having faith is expressed in being faithful.  “Do I have faith?” can be rephrased with “Have I been faithful?”  What this means - for me - is that believing (mental agreement) is of lesser importance.  I’m convinced about some things… some things I just can’t bring myself to believe… but Keeping the Faith is - more and more for me - not so much about trying to convince my head to believe things I don’t believe, but rather about being faithful to Values - a Way - that I trust (no matter how I feel) is the way I want to go…

you could summarise it this way: whether God exists or not - i want to be faithful to the ways of gentleness and peace and compassion…  and faithfulness to these ways will not be determined by how close i feel to God, but rather by the conviction that these are the Values I want to define my life.

transparency can be scary!

(this “venture in honesty” could really be used to hurt me!!!)

my hope refers to whether i’m “narrow” or not… regarding “straight”, i’m pretty sure!

My car was stolen recently. When I emailed my insurance company to have my replacement car insured I was advised that my premium would be higher than before, even though the value of my “new” car was lower than than the car that was stolen! I asked for an explanation and this is what I got:

The cancelled vehicle was insured for R71 200 and the premium was R438.12
The replacing vehicle will be insured for R66 700 and the premium will be R468.33
The increased premium is due to the loss ratio in view of the claims history in the account.

…is due to the loss ratio in view of the claims history in the account…

meaning??? I get to pay because my car was stolen!

And they call it “insurance”!!!

Last week I preached from Revelation 21:10-14. This vision of Jerusalem coming out of heaven from God – heaven crashing into earth – is certainly challenging me to realise that the Kin’dom of Heaven is “now or never”! I have given too much energy to trying to squeeze people into heaven when they die. Far too little consideration has been given to living in the Kin’dom right now…

For instance, if all my secrets are going to be known in heaven (when I die) surely it’s Kin’dom living to begin to de-secret my life right now… in preparation for the grand unveiling. If there are people I really can’t stand – but God is going to welcome them to his Table – surely it’s Kin’dom living to start making peace and treating them with respect today.

I can’t be sure what life is going to be like after I die, but there are a few things that I am sure about… Life with God means:

• Worshipping like there’s no tomorrow
  (with passion and without fear or inhibition)
• Sharing with others like your life depends on it
  (because we begin to realise that our life does in fact depend on others)
• Living like there’s nothing to hide
  (no more blame and no more shame means no need for secrets!)

These statements describe how I imagine “eternity with God” to be like. But they are just as relevant (if not more important) to my life right now. It’s now or never.

As Richard Rohr always reminds me, “It’s heaven all the way to heaven… and it’s hell all the way to hell”!