toward becoming whole

     For a long time, I couldn’t see a lot of my frailties and failures. I wasn’t hiding them. I just couldn’t see them. I couldn’t afford to.

     Lately they’ve been coming out of hiding. Little by little, things that have crouched and shivered inside me for a long time are coming out into the light.

     I can bear them now. I can welcome them gently because my friends see them, too, and they welcome them gently.

     I laugh a lot more now. I can afford to.

“Expose my shame where it shivers, / crouched behind the curtain of propriety, / until I can laugh at last / through my common frailties and failures, / laugh my way toward becoming whole.” Ted Loder

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.” John 16:12 

treasuring

     I have a friend who practices treasuring other people. It isn’t just some vague notion that he should treasure other people; it’s a solid, rubber-meets-the-road practice of treasuring them.

     He practices it every day with every person he meets. He looks for what is good and whole and unique and beautiful (which doesn’t give him much time for other things, like envy and indifference). He stores up all the treasuring, and then at night (or the next morning) he visits each person again – enjoying her and saying thank-you for her and asking God to bless her.

     I have a hunch that this practice of treasuring who other people are frees him, little by little, to treasure who he is -- and that in itself is treasure untold.

“Humility is the willingness to be who I am.” Steve Macchia

“[I]n humility, value others. . . .” Philippians 2:3

one very important thing

     When I see myself through my own eyes, I see a lot of not-enough. I compare myself to other people, and I see all the ways I don’t measure up. Then (depending on my energy level) either I get discouraged or I roll up my sleeves and try harder. That’s the best I can do on my own.

     But I’m learning one very important thing: I’m not on my own. There are people who love me, and because they love me they see in me what I can’t see in myself.

     Sometimes they tell me what they see. I have a hard time believing them (because I’m so used to not-enough), but lately I’ve been wondering – what if they’re right?

     When I wonder that, it’s hard not to dance.

“She sees [in him] what we cannot see, because she loves him.” Elizabeth von Arnim, Enchanted April

“And the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone.’” Genesis 2:18

percentages

      If somebody asked you whether you believe that God is good and that He is in control, you’d probably say an easy yes. The harder part is living today as if that were true – without scrambling to keep yourself safe and secure and in control. You can’t drop all the scrambling at once. You have to let it go little by little, choice by risky choice. So today might be 5% trusting God to manage things and 95% pinch hitting -- filling in for Him, especially at critical points. That’s okay, as long as your percentages are slowly going in the right direction. You have to act yourself into new ways of thinking and that takes a long time.

Pinch hitting: batting in place of another player, especially at a critical point in the game

“Trust (be bold and confident and safe and secure and without care) in the Lord with your whole inner being -- your whole mind and imagination and will and heart and soul.” Proverbs 3:5

the opposite of doing nothing

     From the outside, fly fishing looks like doing nothing. You’re just standing there waiting for a fish to bite, and, even if he does bite, you’re going to throw him back anyway. But it’s different when you’re the one standing there.

     When you’re the one standing there, you find out that fly fishing is the opposite of doing nothing. It’s doing something that lets you be where your feet are for a change. You’re not preoccupied, and you’re not in a hurry. You’re not hounded by busyness, and your mind isn’t jumping from one thing to another. You’re just there.

     So you relax. You watch the sun dancing on the under-brim of your hat. You feel the cool of the stream pressing in on your waders. You stay quiet because the fish are cagey and you have to be careful not to spook them. You pay close attention because you may only get one quick nibble before the fish realizes that it isn’t a real fly. Every once in a while, you get impatient because catching a fish takes so long, but soon you relax again because you remember that catching a fish doesn’t really matter. The goodness of being there is good enough.

     Relaxing makes your cast better and that makes it more likely that you’ll catch a fish. When you do, you get to hold his slippery self and enjoy his rainbow beauty up close. When he swims away you’re glad because you can see that you haven’t ruined him. You’ve just borrowed him for a few minutes. Then you smile to yourself and start all over again.

     Fly fishing let’s you remember what being content feels like, and being content in all that beauty makes you wonder what heaven feels like.

“[P]eace like a river. . . .” Isaiah 66:12

“[A]s we enjoyed peace of mind, . . . as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear. . . .” Alcoholics Anonymous

your helping hand

      It’s easy to see what’s wrong with somebody else and how he needs to change for his own good. That’s why you have to be so careful (for both your sakes) not to make him the victim of your helping hand.  

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” C. S. Lewis

"Be kind to one another. . . ." Ephesians 4:32