Anyway these are some of the last messages we had between each other...
I miss him...
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Thursday, June 23, 2011
Messages Before the grave
These are sms from my brother to me and back...I'm the ones in green, he's the ones in grey...it was close to this time last year...he started getting worse, and worse...I had no idea how bad he really was...
Anyway these are some of the last messages we had between each other...
I miss him...
Anyway these are some of the last messages we had between each other...
I miss him...
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Vintage Wild
Well I’ve never been afraid to take things apart
And that mess there on the table used to be my heart
I took out all the painful stuff and memories of you
And where it once was one well it looks like two
There’s the last time I saw you and how it made me feel
There’s a time or two of sunshine that I think are real
There’s a memory of tobacco and you know I don’t smoke
And I think I was the punch-line in some of your jokes
There’s a place between the pages where my dreams got lost
And there’s a lot of deep religion and an old wooden cross
So I’ve let out lots of feelings and a few diamond rings
And I’ve called in an expert who can find anything
So God you can have it and all these extra parts
And maybe You can fix it like it was at the start.
It was the the idea behind this poem that became "Only in Your Presence" which is truly one of my more popular worship songs...
I was trying to write less "christianese" and more like people really talk, so the poem inspired the line "If You don't mind broken things You can have my heart"...
Truly don't feel the way the poem suggest anymore...
But I am still really bad about taking things apart and making a mess of it...
I suppose its the drive to live on the edges of discovery...
...unrelenting inside me...
Like a wind that picks up my sails and sends me across unfamiliar waters to lost islands and unexplored territory...
I am constantly writing, composing, exploring new and old technologies...Leonardo Da Vinci was one of my big influences as a child...Renaissance man was my goal...
I am constantly writing, composing, exploring new and old technologies...Leonardo Da Vinci was one of my big influences as a child...Renaissance man was my goal...
I'm not really restless...just to much of a wild branch to be completely comfortable in a domestic vineyard...
Don't get me wrong, I love the thought of a vintage and long tradition...as long as something wild is allowed to bring a bit of flavor to the barrel...
Vintage wild...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Intensely looking for Fun...
My closest friends, my Pastors, my covenant relationships have all told me in the last year a continuous theme:
"You need to have fun"...
I suppose its due to my nature which is a combination of a highly strategic prophetic persona mixed with a heavy dose of "High D" or dominant behavior tendency...my natural and adaptive scores on the DISC test are 99 and 100% Dominant respectively...so I'm a driven individual with a strong desire to create strategies and solutions and apparently I have no idea how to have fun...
So I want to explore that a little...
Knowing my drive as a "D" means I score really high in competition I think I need to approach this by removing competitive elements out of the equation...I know myself well enough to realize that if I go try to do something recreational that involves "points, score, or ranking"...I will soon turn it into a breakneck race to the top and will avoid the fun part of it while trampling on others in my pursuit...which is obviously "no fun" when I finish...
So eliminating that aspect of it kinda removes most of the sports activities I would generally get involved in...and unfortunately my history proves this to be true, anyone who has played me in table tennis (or "ping pong" as its is referred to by people who have fun playing it) can attest, my competitive nature has a tendency to over-ride the simple pleasure of getting the ball over the net and I can't seem to do it without burning a hole in the other persons paddle...
This is the first road-sign for my journey to successful fun: obviously it needs to be fun for other people as well...which means I need to stay out of the competitive arena...this eliminates a whole lotta of stuff that most men my age are doing...but I do want to learn so I'm willing to handicap myself in the process.
The other side of this "no war" approach to fun is the balance that comes from my friends in the audio industry...one of the engineers I know has a saying..."If everything's BIG, then nothing is BIG"...the idea being that value and significance come from uniqueness, in other words "Hey lets do the dishes, that would be fun!"...is not really fun because we do the dishes all the time, they are always big, so today they are not anymore fun than yesterday...because...well they always are...
There is a part of me that can enjoy the mundane, the boring, (I'll demonstrate that in a bit) but honestly as a single male coming home to a quiet house every night stops being fun...because ...well its every night...I know there is a certain pleasure in routine, and some of it even qualifies as fun...but we have to define what can make the mundane "big" or other ordinary, rather than always ordinary...not sure I get that one yet...it could be the "alone" factor at play here...but without a lab partner the hypothesis cannot be verified.
So here are the area's I currently look at to discover fun:
Science and technology: Nope, I compete to stay ahead of the curve on this stuff and usually am
Music: My own is a product of intensity, it is usually born out worship/prayer and what isn't, is a product of driving to excellence, I do play for pleasure and most of that happens naturally...late at night on my own...so its sorta fun...but it doesn't seem to translate into the world of my relationships outside of a worship environment...so I gotta place a "no" here as well.
This kinda drags me into a discussion I wasn't ready for...how much fun can you have by yourself before its no fun, and why doesn't that make you a "fun" person to be around...?
See the issue I am being told about is I need to have fun because I am to intense around other people...so its not that I don't have fun alone, its that I am not fun because I don't let others relax or something bizarre in that range of understanding that I haven't gotten a clue about yet...
And this confuses me a little...do I need to "have " fun, or do I need to "be" fun...
I suppose I am a bit intense, but I do try to keep things light, I guess it comes down to learning to shut off the side of me that wants to strategize, conquer, overcome, and generally drive people to the next level at a really fast pace...
So back to my list:
The list is pointless now because its not about me its about how I engage others...
And I think the best way for me to approach this is to change my environment variable a little to help me reset how I engage...most people want me in relationship for a certain level of the intensity I bring, so dinner, or lunch almost always involves a process of encouragement and me pushing people to believe beyond the current mindset...its what I do, I always bring a different perspective and unfortunately my viewpoint is almost always rather intense...(if not downright extreme to the average mind)...
Which means going to lunch and or dinner is only fun with me if we avoid intense topics which means shallow conversation about the weather...yep I can see loads of fun in my future...after awhile everything gets big again and nothing is big...but at least everyone else is having fun...
I do realize I need to turn off the "Goes to Eleven" setting on my intensity amp and allow people to engage with me at their own pace, I am not faulting anyone for not enjoying the breakneck intensity that comes with a relationship with me, but I also get to be me at some part of the equation and a certain level of this seems like the drive for fun is a one sided deal that I don't get to have, what if strategy is how I get my fun?
Just a question...no need to answer it ....
So back to my strategy of becoming fun...
I think the best way to do this for my personality is change the environment where I engage...create a "fun zone" where I am not competing, am not strategical, don't need to adjust perspective, really don't need to be much more than a compadre spectator letting others enjoy my lack of intensity...
So here's a new list:
Shopping (as an observer)....absolutely impossible for me to analyze, make strategy, or actually engage beyond "Yes I like that one"...
I know this because I did it for four girls and prom dresses and homecoming outfits and many other times...my opinion was only a window dressing to the experience, and I have to say I did rather enjoy the journey of discovery, its a bit like watching a lioness in her natural environment hunting for the prey, stalking each and every rack and row for the perfect item that only she and she alone understood the true nature of the chase...I can do this but not alone...
Ballroom Dancing (as a student)...I have no skill in this arena, and there is no drive in me to become a champion ballroom dancer, it just seems like it would be fun because I would probably be terrible at it and would enjoy laughing at myself in the futility of it all,and it would be a great opportunity for others to see that I don't take myself nearly as seriously as they do...again no fun for me if I'm the only one laughing at me...
Motorcycle Picnics (as a driver) because it would be virtually impossible for anyone to take you seriously when you have bugs stuck all over your face...and the open air and road seems fun and the idea of driving a motorcycle again has enough intensity in it to drain away any other need to be intense...just saying...and who doesn't like a picnic?
Symphony/Arts/Concerts (as a listener/observer)...
hmmmm....seems like I've tried this but didn't get the vote here...apparently I either analyze or push to much...so I need to try this with different subjects before I decide that I am a failure at this kind of fun...I know I enjoy it, and it relaxes me, but not by myself...
Of course all of these things now sound like "dates" which isn't really an issue to me, a date actually sounds like a great place to have fun, but I'm not sure that this is what the target is, actually in some cases I know this is not the target, but I'm not sure how to be less intense without becoming some sort of total bore...which seems counter-productive to being "fun"...unless as I have suggested I change the environment for me to be myself in...
So I think it comes down to either changing my environment or changing me...(something I'm not sure I'm capable of without being rather intense about it)...
I think what makes this difficult for me is that others don't really get to see the less than intense side of me that happens away from where we normally engage...
One of the reasons I like coffee is everyday, I stop and enjoy one cup...I drink lots, but there's always one cup that I pause to simply enjoy, I drink it slower and I smile because I know God made it for me and me for it...(no one ever see's this) that seems a little fun for me even if no one knows...
I have a song or two that I sing to God and God alone, and then there's this crazy dance I dance when no one is watching, its totally uncoordinated and more like skipping than anything else and I've nearly broken three guitars doing it...(and I always lock the doors and check the windows before I cut loose)...that seems fun to me...but somehow that person never gets to engage with others and he's frankly a bit of a nut...
I sometimes talk to my food when I'm alone "Thank you Mister fish for giving your life to make me feel yummy, and Mr. Croissant, I ate your mom you know, come and join her..." of course this behavior would get me in trouble if others saw it, but it seems rather fun to me...
For some reason little kids think I'm fun...apparently I know how to turn off the intense setting for them...sigh...
I sometimes go outside in my pajamas and stretch out on the hood and look at the stars...nothing intense there, just gazing absent-mindedly for an hour then back into the warm bed...
I watch a lot of cartoons...really I do...just because they make me laugh...but see that's not something we do as adults...because well for others it apparently is no fun...(why is that?)...
If you've ever heard me on the phone with tech help you'd know I'm really fun...the last time I actually got the girl to admit she was in the Philippines and she said "God Bless You Sir" at the end of the 3 hour call and the entire time I was teasing her about her job and how wonderful she was at it...that seems like a lot of fun to me...I mean whats more intense than a three hour phone call to "tech" as you're trying to get the computers to connect...and I had fun, and I think she did too...
But I guess I have no idea how to be or have fun...sheesh I must have missed school that day because I just don't seem to get it...
I guess in my quest to discover fun I have to discover this about myself...I might not be as "intense" as I am maybe "extreme"...
...maybe I was born to live on the edges and everyone else lives in the middle...I like the edge...God lives near here...not many people come around these parts...so the air is cleaner...
But ultimately I guess I need to learn to live a little nearer the "middle"....
And be a bit less "intense" or as we now know "extreme"...
And make it fun for others...
I'm going to try...
Really hard...
And am also taking applications for anyone interested in my list...
But it's not a date...
That's no fun...
"You need to have fun"...
I suppose its due to my nature which is a combination of a highly strategic prophetic persona mixed with a heavy dose of "High D" or dominant behavior tendency...my natural and adaptive scores on the DISC test are 99 and 100% Dominant respectively...so I'm a driven individual with a strong desire to create strategies and solutions and apparently I have no idea how to have fun...
So I want to explore that a little...
Knowing my drive as a "D" means I score really high in competition I think I need to approach this by removing competitive elements out of the equation...I know myself well enough to realize that if I go try to do something recreational that involves "points, score, or ranking"...I will soon turn it into a breakneck race to the top and will avoid the fun part of it while trampling on others in my pursuit...which is obviously "no fun" when I finish...
So eliminating that aspect of it kinda removes most of the sports activities I would generally get involved in...and unfortunately my history proves this to be true, anyone who has played me in table tennis (or "ping pong" as its is referred to by people who have fun playing it) can attest, my competitive nature has a tendency to over-ride the simple pleasure of getting the ball over the net and I can't seem to do it without burning a hole in the other persons paddle...
This is the first road-sign for my journey to successful fun: obviously it needs to be fun for other people as well...which means I need to stay out of the competitive arena...this eliminates a whole lotta of stuff that most men my age are doing...but I do want to learn so I'm willing to handicap myself in the process.
The other side of this "no war" approach to fun is the balance that comes from my friends in the audio industry...one of the engineers I know has a saying..."If everything's BIG, then nothing is BIG"...the idea being that value and significance come from uniqueness, in other words "Hey lets do the dishes, that would be fun!"...is not really fun because we do the dishes all the time, they are always big, so today they are not anymore fun than yesterday...because...well they always are...
There is a part of me that can enjoy the mundane, the boring, (I'll demonstrate that in a bit) but honestly as a single male coming home to a quiet house every night stops being fun...because ...well its every night...I know there is a certain pleasure in routine, and some of it even qualifies as fun...but we have to define what can make the mundane "big" or other ordinary, rather than always ordinary...not sure I get that one yet...it could be the "alone" factor at play here...but without a lab partner the hypothesis cannot be verified.
So here are the area's I currently look at to discover fun:
Science and technology: Nope, I compete to stay ahead of the curve on this stuff and usually am
Music: My own is a product of intensity, it is usually born out worship/prayer and what isn't, is a product of driving to excellence, I do play for pleasure and most of that happens naturally...late at night on my own...so its sorta fun...but it doesn't seem to translate into the world of my relationships outside of a worship environment...so I gotta place a "no" here as well.
This kinda drags me into a discussion I wasn't ready for...how much fun can you have by yourself before its no fun, and why doesn't that make you a "fun" person to be around...?
See the issue I am being told about is I need to have fun because I am to intense around other people...so its not that I don't have fun alone, its that I am not fun because I don't let others relax or something bizarre in that range of understanding that I haven't gotten a clue about yet...
And this confuses me a little...do I need to "have " fun, or do I need to "be" fun...
I suppose I am a bit intense, but I do try to keep things light, I guess it comes down to learning to shut off the side of me that wants to strategize, conquer, overcome, and generally drive people to the next level at a really fast pace...
So back to my list:
The list is pointless now because its not about me its about how I engage others...
And I think the best way for me to approach this is to change my environment variable a little to help me reset how I engage...most people want me in relationship for a certain level of the intensity I bring, so dinner, or lunch almost always involves a process of encouragement and me pushing people to believe beyond the current mindset...its what I do, I always bring a different perspective and unfortunately my viewpoint is almost always rather intense...(if not downright extreme to the average mind)...
Which means going to lunch and or dinner is only fun with me if we avoid intense topics which means shallow conversation about the weather...yep I can see loads of fun in my future...after awhile everything gets big again and nothing is big...but at least everyone else is having fun...
I do realize I need to turn off the "Goes to Eleven" setting on my intensity amp and allow people to engage with me at their own pace, I am not faulting anyone for not enjoying the breakneck intensity that comes with a relationship with me, but I also get to be me at some part of the equation and a certain level of this seems like the drive for fun is a one sided deal that I don't get to have, what if strategy is how I get my fun?
Just a question...no need to answer it ....
So back to my strategy
I think the best way to do this for my personality is change the environment where I engage...create a "fun zone" where I am not competing, am not strategical, don't need to adjust perspective, really don't need to be much more than a compadre spectator letting others enjoy my lack of intensity...
So here's a new list:
Shopping (as an observer)....absolutely impossible for me to analyze, make strategy, or actually engage beyond "Yes I like that one"...
I know this because I did it for four girls and prom dresses and homecoming outfits and many other times...my opinion was only a window dressing to the experience, and I have to say I did rather enjoy the journey of discovery, its a bit like watching a lioness in her natural environment hunting for the prey, stalking each and every rack and row for the perfect item that only she and she alone understood the true nature of the chase...I can do this but not alone...
Ballroom Dancing (as a student)...I have no skill in this arena, and there is no drive in me to become a champion ballroom dancer, it just seems like it would be fun because I would probably be terrible at it and would enjoy laughing at myself in the futility of it all,and it would be a great opportunity for others to see that I don't take myself nearly as seriously as they do...again no fun for me if I'm the only one laughing at me...
Motorcycle Picnics (as a driver) because it would be virtually impossible for anyone to take you seriously when you have bugs stuck all over your face...and the open air and road seems fun and the idea of driving a motorcycle again has enough intensity in it to drain away any other need to be intense...just saying...and who doesn't like a picnic?
Symphony/Arts/Concerts (as a listener/observer)...
hmmmm....seems like I've tried this but didn't get the vote here...apparently I either analyze or push to much...so I need to try this with different subjects before I decide that I am a failure at this kind of fun...I know I enjoy it, and it relaxes me, but not by myself...
Of course all of these things now sound like "dates" which isn't really an issue to me, a date actually sounds like a great place to have fun, but I'm not sure that this is what the target is, actually in some cases I know this is not the target, but I'm not sure how to be less intense without becoming some sort of total bore...which seems counter-productive to being "fun"...unless as I have suggested I change the environment for me to be myself in...
So I think it comes down to either changing my environment or changing me...(something I'm not sure I'm capable of without being rather intense about it)...
I think what makes this difficult for me is that others don't really get to see the less than intense side of me that happens away from where we normally engage...
One of the reasons I like coffee is everyday, I stop and enjoy one cup...I drink lots, but there's always one cup that I pause to simply enjoy, I drink it slower and I smile because I know God made it for me and me for it...(no one ever see's this) that seems a little fun for me even if no one knows...
I have a song or two that I sing to God and God alone, and then there's this crazy dance I dance when no one is watching, its totally uncoordinated and more like skipping than anything else and I've nearly broken three guitars doing it...(and I always lock the doors and check the windows before I cut loose)...that seems fun to me...but somehow that person never gets to engage with others and he's frankly a bit of a nut...
I sometimes talk to my food when I'm alone "Thank you Mister fish for giving your life to make me feel yummy, and Mr. Croissant, I ate your mom you know, come and join her..." of course this behavior would get me in trouble if others saw it, but it seems rather fun to me...
For some reason little kids think I'm fun...apparently I know how to turn off the intense setting for them...sigh...
I sometimes go outside in my pajamas and stretch out on the hood and look at the stars...nothing intense there, just gazing absent-mindedly for an hour then back into the warm bed...
I watch a lot of cartoons...really I do...just because they make me laugh...but see that's not something we do as adults...because well for others it apparently is no fun...(why is that?)...
If you've ever heard me on the phone with tech help you'd know I'm really fun...the last time I actually got the girl to admit she was in the Philippines and she said "God Bless You Sir" at the end of the 3 hour call and the entire time I was teasing her about her job and how wonderful she was at it...that seems like a lot of fun to me...I mean whats more intense than a three hour phone call to "tech" as you're trying to get the computers to connect...and I had fun, and I think she did too...
But I guess I have no idea how to be or have fun...sheesh I must have missed school that day because I just don't seem to get it...
I guess in my quest to discover fun I have to discover this about myself...I might not be as "intense" as I am maybe "extreme"...
...maybe I was born to live on the edges and everyone else lives in the middle...I like the edge...God lives near here...not many people come around these parts...so the air is cleaner...
But ultimately I guess I need to learn to live a little nearer the "middle"....
And be a bit less "intense" or as we now know "extreme"...
And make it fun for others...
I'm going to try...
Really hard...
And am also taking applications for anyone interested in my list...
But it's not a date...
That's no fun...
Friday, April 15, 2011
Can single men and women be friends?
I have four very powerful daughters, they are women in their own right and I have watched as each one has developed her own style, persona, and identity while navigating adulthood.
As each daughter evolved, her friendships evolved as well, from the cradle to the covenant I have watched, warned and welcomed three of my daughters friends and as the girls grew from friends to partners in life with their husbands I have seen a change in the dynamic that started as buddies hanging out transform into something deep and connected (but the buddy part still remains and is beautiful now).
With each one of my girls I have had to sit down and do the "guys and girls can't be friends" talk...each one of my girls protested and denied it only to come to the same conclusion eventually. The three who are married will reaffirm the basic mantra that friendship between the sexes is a limited endeavor because of the primary differences in our identities as male and female, but this is not a conclusion they came to without understanding it from a male perspective, I had to tell them repeatedly that the guys whom they assumed were just their friends were actually not wired to remain that way...and each time they protested, but eventually my perspective became the obvious truth of the situation regardless of how hard they tried to avoid it.
I cannot speak for the women, because I am not female, but I can testify of the male side of the equation, and I think this is the side where the primary problem lies.
In Genesis when God created man, he created them originally as "mankind", (to help with semantics), the original vignette has them being created together and the dominion mandate to be fruitful and multiply was handed to "mankind"...
But then we have the story where God interrupts the creation and says "It is not good for the man to be alone"...and then there's the whole naming of the animals event, and in that process it says " a help meet suitable was not found for him..."
This is an interesting play of events because one of the issues at stake here that always comes up in the dialogue is loneliness...
When God said it was not good for the man to be alone, He did not say "Its not good for him to be lonely", there's a big difference between the biblical alone, and loneliness...and this is at the core of the friendship problem.
My girls all assumed that if a guy was lonely he just needed a friend, and that's why friendship could work out, because from a female perspective if you are lonely, hey just go get a friend, problem solved...
But the issue is not about companionship which would be easy to assume if he were "lonely"no instead the issue goes to the core of who a man is and his assignment, he is "alone" and its not good...if he were lonely a dog would do the trick, but if he had an assignment, say build a road from A to B and he is "alone" then the dynamic changes...
There is a core difference in how the sexes approach relationships that never really gets noticed but when I say it you might agree (this is just my own personal observation)...
Women create relationships for environment, men create them for identity...thats why candles, lights and pillows are important to women they are always creating environment to help facilitate a sense of well being and steadfastness...you want to mess with a womans world mess up her stability, and if you really want to tick her off use the guest towels to clean up your greasy hands...you've destroyed environment for her its not about towels, they can be replaced, its about something deeper than decorations...(if you want to see a disaster let me be the one setting the environment, I know what I don't like and that is the sum total of my skill set in that arena).
Men are connecting for a different reason, and that is to identify, its more about territory and boundaries, and environment really doesn't matter so much that's why men gravitate around teams and events, they don't really need stability, they need to identify and become part of something, they can do this on a tailgate waiting for the game to start, they really don't look for environment they look for sameness...(but not exact sameness, not uniformity, they are searching for something that is the same as a rib gone missing on the inside of them...its a bit hard to explain)...
These two approaches are actually perfect together...but are different in value to the other sex...
Friendship for a man is not as much about relationship as it is about identity...the old saying you can tell a man by the company he keeps is primarily about how men approach relationships and at the core it is about identity and not about emotional connection...
And most of the time my girls just wanted the social connection that could meet some of the emotional need that they had, so a no strings attached relationship was ideal and expected, why not, because women in general are wired for emotional connection and you can do a lot of that by just hanging out together...so for my girls, it was a major hurdle to understand that men are not simply "lonely"...they are created "alone" and in need of something more than a friend.
Frankly I never really expected my girls to understand this anymore than I could understand what the emotional feeling of going through a period was like, its not something that you can understand with simple information, unless you are male, you just won't get it because language is inadequate to describe what the "alone" part is all about.
When you make a friendship only about the emotional connection for a man, you have stripped away some of his identity in the process...
So this is about the place I expect a religious response like "Well the bible says I am complete in Christ", or "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"...good verses...lets talk context...
If you are complete in Christ, then you don't need Apostles, Prophets, teachers, etc...if this verse can be lifted out of context to mean whatever we want then it can be used to say I don't need anyone since I am complete in Him, which means I don't need the church or relationships, or...you get the drift.
And to say "I can do all things through Christ", well can I as a man carry a baby for nine months and give birth? IF I can do all things then yes, but the context is what makes the verse powerful, God is not granting a free pass from reality with this verse and we shouldn't either.
The reason I address this is because many times the standard answer to the "alone" issue is "You are complete in Christ" implying that I am whole and don't need anything...which is simply not true...if God makes a man to be alone until he finds his Eve, then until he finds her he is incomplete...period.
So the standard next response is 'Well God will fill your need until its time"...again...NOT TRUE...if God makes a vacancy inside you that was meant to be connected to another person, and then fills it up with Himself, He has violated what He was doing in the first place...God will not fill a spot designed for another person just so the man can feel better...sorry it won't happen and anyone who says it does is lying.
So what does all of this "alone-ness" have to do with friendship between the sexes?
I have firm conviction that every relationship needs a vision, a purpose and ultimate goal, and men in general are driven to conquer, to accomplish they are task driven by nature, but they also need stability, consistency, a sense of comfort and the familiar.
This might seem at odds with the very nature of relationships, but it is actually a very essential element in any healthy friendship, a good relationship needs to grow and evolve and develop new depth and deeper connections, because anything alive must grow, the minute you stop growth atrophy and worse sets in.
This is where the male element is so powerful, a healthy man will want to take a relationship deeper, stronger and he will be willing to conquer anything to get it there, he is motivated in his core to accomplish something even in his relationships.
(And more times than not an unfortunate side effect of marriage is that the male stops pursuing depth, value and improvement, he actually "shuts down" who he is because in his mind he won the girl, task accomplished... but the goal was never supposed to be win the girl, the goal is to win the girl then connect, win the girl connect, win the girl connect...etc...only same girl every time...how many marriages do we see where environment and identity have slipped into some comatose state because our culture has framed the conversation rather than our Heavenly Father?)
Women on the other hand are wired for consistency, stability, dependability, steadfastness, these are the descriptors that help us see the differences in the sexes, even our muscles reflect this basic design, mens muscles are designed for powerful force events, while womens are designed for longevity, endurance, stability...and we need both.
Just as it would be unfair and unreasonable to expect a woman to be in a relationship that was volatile, unstable, inconsistent and unpredictable, it is unfair to expect a man to be in a relationship that has no potential for growth, no hope for change, nothing to accomplish but just hanging out...
Its wrong to expect a woman to be in a relationship without the female side, and it is equally wrong to expect a man to be in a relationship without the male side.
And this is where the rubber meets the road in the friendship debate, if a guy is truly wired as a male then he is "alone" and will be continuously searching for that part that can connect to his vacancy, even if he does not do it consciously, he will be doing it subconsciously, and many times my girls would say "Oh he says we're just friends", but if he's wired the way God made him then ultimately he will seek to take the relationship into new territory, he will seek to conquer, and fill a vacant spot created by God...and this is what he is designed to do, there is nothing wrong, perverted or shallow about it.
Our current culture tells us a different story though, we assume that women and men need the same things in a friendship, and hanging out will solve the issue, lets just get along and be friends and you won't be lonely, but lonely is not the problem if it were the animals would have been enough, its a vacancy created by God meant to be filled by something very much like God, (but not quite God)...see the word "help + meet" actually means "deliverer/savior/helper/+ in my face" ... (this is closer to the actual definition of help-meet than the way we use the word)
This is a lot more than a friend and any man in touch with who he is knows this, because this speaks to the identity issue in him, this helps him connect to his assignment in ways that being best buddies can never do, its about finding that connection to help him build that road from A to B...there is a sameness in another he is looking for that he might have to draw out but he's aware of it because it resonates with something in him that no one else can see...
Well what about Jesus, he had friends that were women...really? I see him empowering women, I see him honoring women like no one had ever done, it would be the equivalent of going into Afghanistan and changing the entire culture to make women powerful, but I do not find one verse where it says he was friends with women...there were women who ministered to him, I believe he lifted women up to the stature that was in original design, but frankly even the culture of his day prevented the kind of freedom for women that the Kingdom is bringing...
So what am I saying, am I suggesting that single men and women cannot be friends...?
That depends on the definition...
What is it that men expect?
What is it that women expect?
One of these things is not like the other...
So who is responsible to adapt?
Is it fair to only expect one side to change expectation?
Good questions...you decide...
I think they can be acquaintances, I think they can hang out and do things together, perhaps work on a projects, but at some point any real man is going to need two things, he is going to want to take the relationship into new territory and he is going to need to fill the vacancy that God created inside him, and when he reaches an impasse in those arenas he will lose interest and motivation for the relationship, he cannot help it, it is the way he is designed...at best he will accommodate a social construct so as not to appear shallow, but he will be discouraged and ultimately it will damage his capacity to trust and hope for something more...
The difficult part is that most women don't really see this, our culture does not allow for men to have needs, but if you go back to the garden, it was the man who had the first need of all creation...it was the very first "not good" God ever said...but we aren't allowed to talk about it...
If you want proof just look at a married man...how many single women are his close friends? How driven is he to connect and engage with single women, how many times do you see a married man hanging out being buddies with single women?
Never.
If you do there's trouble brewing, and you know it.
So if a married man cannot do this, because its not natural, then why do we assume a single man can?
Think about it, you'll get it...and if you know of single men who seem to be able to do it, there is either a huge amount of discipline combined with internal conflict, or there is something unnatural happening...because they were not designed to ignore the "alone" and not good part...
Gods the one who said its not good for man to be alone (not lonely), why do we think we can change it by substituting a no strings attached relationship?
So is it impossible for there to be single male/female relationships?
No I don't believe that, but it is very important that we learn to honor our distinctive differences, most men and women actually are in search of something deeper, its important to recognize that this is a very fragile dynamic, and while it is possible, it also has potential for lots of misunderstanding and we need extra grace to navigate here.
The last thing you should do is devalue women, and the next to the last thing you should do is destroy a mans hope...
She was meant to be adored, and he was meant to conquer something...mess with that and you've damaged Gods kids...
After re-reading this today (I actually wrote this quite late) I realize that I might be communicating that men and women cannot have connection and friendship except on a deep level with a heightened sense of purpose, and that all relationships either crash and fade or end up in some kind of covenant defined no-mans land...this is obviously, frankly and irrevocably not true.
I have several women (who are married to my best friends) who are my best friends, the outlier obviously being the boundaries of covenant creates a sphere of safety that allow me the freedom to grow and experience depth in an emotional and healthy connection.
There are a few women that I have friendships with where there is a fairly defined safety zone based on age difference or perhaps "missing mutual chemistry" where we feel safe enough to connect intellectually and occasionally emotionally...
And then there are a few relationships where the respect of our faith and the honor due a fellow traveler allow a restrained connection based on ministry/assignment/or covenant family.
Within all of these relationships I am seeking to edify, build, empower and connect as fully human and and fully male as decorum, dignity, and design allow...so I am not saying that emotional connection is impossible, because it happens frequently and I am always the richer person for making that connection as valid and mutually beneficial as is possible...
...but in my core...
...I am always looking for an echo....
...like a dolphin sending out sonar...
...there is an unscripted and unspoken message waiting for a response...
Something has gone missing inside me and whether I choose it or not part of me is looking for a sameness and the only place to search is in the arena of friends I have (or don't have yet)...and when I don't hear the echo a part of me is driven to move on into deeper waters, to conquer the unknown and the unfamiliar...I have an assignment and I need someone in my face that reminds me of God...my identity needs the reminder...more than anyone knows...
So I love the fact that women and men are different, are motivated differently, move at different emotional paces, think from different approaches and have diverse ways of expressing many of the same experiences...and I would not know this if connection were not possible outside of some marriage box...
I am assuming that when I talk about friendship it is understood that every relationship must start first as friends and ultimately stay there albeit much richer, there is nothing wrong with being friends, it is the canvas upon which we paint our deeper connections...
And when I truly think about it...the person you pursue for the deeper connections in life should ultimately be your very best friend or it would be weird....
Hope that "splains" it more better...
As each daughter evolved, her friendships evolved as well, from the cradle to the covenant I have watched, warned and welcomed three of my daughters friends and as the girls grew from friends to partners in life with their husbands I have seen a change in the dynamic that started as buddies hanging out transform into something deep and connected (but the buddy part still remains and is beautiful now).
With each one of my girls I have had to sit down and do the "guys and girls can't be friends" talk...each one of my girls protested and denied it only to come to the same conclusion eventually. The three who are married will reaffirm the basic mantra that friendship between the sexes is a limited endeavor because of the primary differences in our identities as male and female, but this is not a conclusion they came to without understanding it from a male perspective, I had to tell them repeatedly that the guys whom they assumed were just their friends were actually not wired to remain that way...and each time they protested, but eventually my perspective became the obvious truth of the situation regardless of how hard they tried to avoid it.
I cannot speak for the women, because I am not female, but I can testify of the male side of the equation, and I think this is the side where the primary problem lies.
In Genesis when God created man, he created them originally as "mankind", (to help with semantics), the original vignette has them being created together and the dominion mandate to be fruitful and multiply was handed to "mankind"...
But then we have the story where God interrupts the creation and says "It is not good for the man to be alone"...and then there's the whole naming of the animals event, and in that process it says " a help meet suitable was not found for him..."
This is an interesting play of events because one of the issues at stake here that always comes up in the dialogue is loneliness...
When God said it was not good for the man to be alone, He did not say "Its not good for him to be lonely", there's a big difference between the biblical alone, and loneliness...and this is at the core of the friendship problem.
My girls all assumed that if a guy was lonely he just needed a friend, and that's why friendship could work out, because from a female perspective if you are lonely, hey just go get a friend, problem solved...
But the issue is not about companionship which would be easy to assume if he were "lonely"no instead the issue goes to the core of who a man is and his assignment, he is "alone" and its not good...if he were lonely a dog would do the trick, but if he had an assignment, say build a road from A to B and he is "alone" then the dynamic changes...
There is a core difference in how the sexes approach relationships that never really gets noticed but when I say it you might agree (this is just my own personal observation)...
Women create relationships for environment, men create them for identity...thats why candles, lights and pillows are important to women they are always creating environment to help facilitate a sense of well being and steadfastness...you want to mess with a womans world mess up her stability, and if you really want to tick her off use the guest towels to clean up your greasy hands...you've destroyed environment for her its not about towels, they can be replaced, its about something deeper than decorations...(if you want to see a disaster let me be the one setting the environment, I know what I don't like and that is the sum total of my skill set in that arena).
Men are connecting for a different reason, and that is to identify, its more about territory and boundaries, and environment really doesn't matter so much that's why men gravitate around teams and events, they don't really need stability, they need to identify and become part of something, they can do this on a tailgate waiting for the game to start, they really don't look for environment they look for sameness...(but not exact sameness, not uniformity, they are searching for something that is the same as a rib gone missing on the inside of them...its a bit hard to explain)...
These two approaches are actually perfect together...but are different in value to the other sex...
Friendship for a man is not as much about relationship as it is about identity...the old saying you can tell a man by the company he keeps is primarily about how men approach relationships and at the core it is about identity and not about emotional connection...
And most of the time my girls just wanted the social connection that could meet some of the emotional need that they had, so a no strings attached relationship was ideal and expected, why not, because women in general are wired for emotional connection and you can do a lot of that by just hanging out together...so for my girls, it was a major hurdle to understand that men are not simply "lonely"...they are created "alone" and in need of something more than a friend.
Frankly I never really expected my girls to understand this anymore than I could understand what the emotional feeling of going through a period was like, its not something that you can understand with simple information, unless you are male, you just won't get it because language is inadequate to describe what the "alone" part is all about.
When you make a friendship only about the emotional connection for a man, you have stripped away some of his identity in the process...
So this is about the place I expect a religious response like "Well the bible says I am complete in Christ", or "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"...good verses...lets talk context...
If you are complete in Christ, then you don't need Apostles, Prophets, teachers, etc...if this verse can be lifted out of context to mean whatever we want then it can be used to say I don't need anyone since I am complete in Him, which means I don't need the church or relationships, or...you get the drift.
And to say "I can do all things through Christ", well can I as a man carry a baby for nine months and give birth? IF I can do all things then yes, but the context is what makes the verse powerful, God is not granting a free pass from reality with this verse and we shouldn't either.
The reason I address this is because many times the standard answer to the "alone" issue is "You are complete in Christ" implying that I am whole and don't need anything...which is simply not true...if God makes a man to be alone until he finds his Eve, then until he finds her he is incomplete...period.
So the standard next response is 'Well God will fill your need until its time"...again...NOT TRUE...if God makes a vacancy inside you that was meant to be connected to another person, and then fills it up with Himself, He has violated what He was doing in the first place...God will not fill a spot designed for another person just so the man can feel better...sorry it won't happen and anyone who says it does is lying.
So what does all of this "alone-ness" have to do with friendship between the sexes?
I have firm conviction that every relationship needs a vision, a purpose and ultimate goal, and men in general are driven to conquer, to accomplish they are task driven by nature, but they also need stability, consistency, a sense of comfort and the familiar.
This might seem at odds with the very nature of relationships, but it is actually a very essential element in any healthy friendship, a good relationship needs to grow and evolve and develop new depth and deeper connections, because anything alive must grow, the minute you stop growth atrophy and worse sets in.
This is where the male element is so powerful, a healthy man will want to take a relationship deeper, stronger and he will be willing to conquer anything to get it there, he is motivated in his core to accomplish something even in his relationships.
(And more times than not an unfortunate side effect of marriage is that the male stops pursuing depth, value and improvement, he actually "shuts down" who he is because in his mind he won the girl, task accomplished... but the goal was never supposed to be win the girl, the goal is to win the girl then connect, win the girl connect, win the girl connect...etc...only same girl every time...how many marriages do we see where environment and identity have slipped into some comatose state because our culture has framed the conversation rather than our Heavenly Father?)
Women on the other hand are wired for consistency, stability, dependability, steadfastness, these are the descriptors that help us see the differences in the sexes, even our muscles reflect this basic design, mens muscles are designed for powerful force events, while womens are designed for longevity, endurance, stability...and we need both.
Just as it would be unfair and unreasonable to expect a woman to be in a relationship that was volatile, unstable, inconsistent and unpredictable, it is unfair to expect a man to be in a relationship that has no potential for growth, no hope for change, nothing to accomplish but just hanging out...
Its wrong to expect a woman to be in a relationship without the female side, and it is equally wrong to expect a man to be in a relationship without the male side.
And this is where the rubber meets the road in the friendship debate, if a guy is truly wired as a male then he is "alone" and will be continuously searching for that part that can connect to his vacancy, even if he does not do it consciously, he will be doing it subconsciously, and many times my girls would say "Oh he says we're just friends", but if he's wired the way God made him then ultimately he will seek to take the relationship into new territory, he will seek to conquer, and fill a vacant spot created by God...and this is what he is designed to do, there is nothing wrong, perverted or shallow about it.
Our current culture tells us a different story though, we assume that women and men need the same things in a friendship, and hanging out will solve the issue, lets just get along and be friends and you won't be lonely, but lonely is not the problem if it were the animals would have been enough, its a vacancy created by God meant to be filled by something very much like God, (but not quite God)...see the word "help + meet" actually means "deliverer/savior/helper/+ in my face" ... (this is closer to the actual definition of help-meet than the way we use the word)
This is a lot more than a friend and any man in touch with who he is knows this, because this speaks to the identity issue in him, this helps him connect to his assignment in ways that being best buddies can never do, its about finding that connection to help him build that road from A to B...there is a sameness in another he is looking for that he might have to draw out but he's aware of it because it resonates with something in him that no one else can see...
Well what about Jesus, he had friends that were women...really? I see him empowering women, I see him honoring women like no one had ever done, it would be the equivalent of going into Afghanistan and changing the entire culture to make women powerful, but I do not find one verse where it says he was friends with women...there were women who ministered to him, I believe he lifted women up to the stature that was in original design, but frankly even the culture of his day prevented the kind of freedom for women that the Kingdom is bringing...
So what am I saying, am I suggesting that single men and women cannot be friends...?
That depends on the definition...
What is it that men expect?
What is it that women expect?
One of these things is not like the other...
So who is responsible to adapt?
Is it fair to only expect one side to change expectation?
Good questions...you decide...
I think they can be acquaintances, I think they can hang out and do things together, perhaps work on a projects, but at some point any real man is going to need two things, he is going to want to take the relationship into new territory and he is going to need to fill the vacancy that God created inside him, and when he reaches an impasse in those arenas he will lose interest and motivation for the relationship, he cannot help it, it is the way he is designed...at best he will accommodate a social construct so as not to appear shallow, but he will be discouraged and ultimately it will damage his capacity to trust and hope for something more...
The difficult part is that most women don't really see this, our culture does not allow for men to have needs, but if you go back to the garden, it was the man who had the first need of all creation...it was the very first "not good" God ever said...but we aren't allowed to talk about it...
If you want proof just look at a married man...how many single women are his close friends? How driven is he to connect and engage with single women, how many times do you see a married man hanging out being buddies with single women?
Never.
If you do there's trouble brewing, and you know it.
So if a married man cannot do this, because its not natural, then why do we assume a single man can?
Think about it, you'll get it...and if you know of single men who seem to be able to do it, there is either a huge amount of discipline combined with internal conflict, or there is something unnatural happening...because they were not designed to ignore the "alone" and not good part...
Gods the one who said its not good for man to be alone (not lonely), why do we think we can change it by substituting a no strings attached relationship?
So is it impossible for there to be single male/female relationships?
No I don't believe that, but it is very important that we learn to honor our distinctive differences, most men and women actually are in search of something deeper, its important to recognize that this is a very fragile dynamic, and while it is possible, it also has potential for lots of misunderstanding and we need extra grace to navigate here.
The last thing you should do is devalue women, and the next to the last thing you should do is destroy a mans hope...
She was meant to be adored, and he was meant to conquer something...mess with that and you've damaged Gods kids...
*Addendum POST SCRIPT Etc...et al...(or what I'm NOT saying)
After re-reading this today (I actually wrote this quite late) I realize that I might be communicating that men and women cannot have connection and friendship except on a deep level with a heightened sense of purpose, and that all relationships either crash and fade or end up in some kind of covenant defined no-mans land...this is obviously, frankly and irrevocably not true.
I have several women (who are married to my best friends) who are my best friends, the outlier obviously being the boundaries of covenant creates a sphere of safety that allow me the freedom to grow and experience depth in an emotional and healthy connection.
There are a few women that I have friendships with where there is a fairly defined safety zone based on age difference or perhaps "missing mutual chemistry" where we feel safe enough to connect intellectually and occasionally emotionally...
And then there are a few relationships where the respect of our faith and the honor due a fellow traveler allow a restrained connection based on ministry/assignment/or covenant family.
Within all of these relationships I am seeking to edify, build, empower and connect as fully human and and fully male as decorum, dignity, and design allow...so I am not saying that emotional connection is impossible, because it happens frequently and I am always the richer person for making that connection as valid and mutually beneficial as is possible...
...but in my core...
...I am always looking for an echo....
...like a dolphin sending out sonar...
...there is an unscripted and unspoken message waiting for a response...
Something has gone missing inside me and whether I choose it or not part of me is looking for a sameness and the only place to search is in the arena of friends I have (or don't have yet)...and when I don't hear the echo a part of me is driven to move on into deeper waters, to conquer the unknown and the unfamiliar...I have an assignment and I need someone in my face that reminds me of God...my identity needs the reminder...more than anyone knows...
So I love the fact that women and men are different, are motivated differently, move at different emotional paces, think from different approaches and have diverse ways of expressing many of the same experiences...and I would not know this if connection were not possible outside of some marriage box...
I am assuming that when I talk about friendship it is understood that every relationship must start first as friends and ultimately stay there albeit much richer, there is nothing wrong with being friends, it is the canvas upon which we paint our deeper connections...
And when I truly think about it...the person you pursue for the deeper connections in life should ultimately be your very best friend or it would be weird....
Hope that "splains" it more better...
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Just one moment
One of the things mentioned in the "old covenant" that finds challenge in translation to the "new better covenant" is something God specifically calls an "abomination", it is something He has strong feelings about and is displeased by, it was having differing weights and measures.
God was not suggesting people were not allowed to have "various sizes, hence different" measures, what created the abomination was having one set of weights for one particular customer and a totally different set of weights for another...the abomination was in having a varied baseline that valued customers differently.
In an agrarian/nomadic culture whenever you went to conduct business, say you wanted to purchase a pound of wheat, you would barter with the vendor and banter over the price until both parties were satisfied on the terms, then the vendor would take out a set of weights and place them on one side of the scale and commence to measure out the purchased product on the other side until the two sides were equal...the customer was always at the mercy of the merchant, because he provided the standard for measurement.
God felt so strongly about sustaining a consistent baseline, and not exploiting the process of social interaction, that He refers to the act of tricking the system as an "abomination". It would not have been to difficult to drill out a lead or metal weight and then fill in the hole with a lighter substance and resealing it to give the impression of a solid weight...the customer would never know and you would make a progressive extra profit through deceit rather than honestly bartering for your intended value.
As a believer I have experienced situations where other believers took advantage of me either intentionally or through a process of deceit where the value system was shifted after the bargain was struck...and there have been times where people close to me managed to "trick the system" or get away with...well...all sorts of things.
I've had believers take thousands from me in business partnerships knowing that I would never consider any legal action...and I have had people deliver way less than the agreed value of a covenant without any remorse or care of my cost.
And I am convinced that I have also failed to deliver the appropriate value in many of my relationships, be it the honor of Gods gift in another, or just the simple kindness they deserved as fellow travelers, I know I have defrauded others of the value that our relationship required...when they needed a fair share of wheat, I have substituted a hollow measure and walked away with an illegal profit whether I planned on it or not.
I've had believers take thousands from me in business partnerships knowing that I would never consider any legal action...and I have had people deliver way less than the agreed value of a covenant without any remorse or care of my cost.
And I am convinced that I have also failed to deliver the appropriate value in many of my relationships, be it the honor of Gods gift in another, or just the simple kindness they deserved as fellow travelers, I know I have defrauded others of the value that our relationship required...when they needed a fair share of wheat, I have substituted a hollow measure and walked away with an illegal profit whether I planned on it or not.
This change in measure, this hollow replaced weight is actually the core experience of a divorce, where you finally realize that the vows mean something different between the affected parties, be it the phrase "until death we do part" or "taking no other" or perhaps "I pledge thee my love" ...at some unexpected turn in the road you might find that the value placed upon the vows you took are not equal, the standard has changed and you experience the reality that a foundational unit of measure has changed.
It happens between business partners, it happens in churches, it happens in social settings, just about anywhere people have the capacity to adjust the standard, there have been differing weights and measures...and frankly God hates it.
Sometimes the values are shifted instantly when one person decides or enters an emotional judgment against another, sometimes it a slow gradual eroding of value until the original standard is forgotten, sometimes it premeditated and intentional, and sometimes its just negligence and dullness of life...sometimes its just human dumbness that doesn't even notice that one person is getting the defrauded version of the deal.
But it happens. All the time. To most all of us.
And the fact that it happens creates an opportunity for bitterness, resentment, anger, payback and a whole lot of other negative possibilities to exist inside our interpersonal world.
Jesus told us there would be stumbling blocks, he knew that given the power of freedom, there would be people who would take advantage of the opportunity and exploit others...He says "woe to them"...and man I don't want to be "them" when Jesus says "woe"...
So how do you avoid using a different set of standards, and better yet how do you not become angry and bent because you were rejected and ripped off in the first place?
Well its really quite simple for me...I remember "just one moment"...
See one of the unavoidable facts of life for everyone who believes in God, and everyone who eventually will (there are no atheist in heaven or hell) is that one day every person ever born will stand before the Creator and give an account of his or her life.
This is Bible 101, basic stuff, Romans 14:10 "So then every one of us must give an account of himself to God"..
...and 2Cor.5:10 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."
There is just one moment that all of my life points to, there will be no "do over" no "second chance" no excuses and no hiding, I will have to stand before God and account for everything I have done while I lived in this skin covered earth suit, whether it was good or bad, there will be no grading on the curve and everything I have done will be open to the eyes of the One who made me.
That one moment can be glorious or...not so much, and the only person who determines that is me...no one else will be standing there with me, and no one else will come up in the conversation that launches me into eternities unrelenting grasp, just me and Jesus...
Now knowing that God is a rewarder (Hebrews 11:6), and knowing that He is eternally good, I have a suspicion that His plan for that moment is to reward me beyond my wildest dreams, His design in every moment I am on this planet is to get me into bigger and better rewards and move me as far away from disappointment as possible, but that require two things from me, a focus on eternity, and a willingness to see the biggest rip-off as well as the smallest infraction against me as an opportunity to get rewarded.
If I truly live for that one moment, and you have changed the weights on me so that a vow is no longer worth the paper in the memory book it was recorded on, then even the deepest rejection of me by another can find value in a much larger economy, Heaven is not simply an escape from hell, it is also a system of honor that God intends I invest in long before I get there.
If I set my weights and measures to His honor, to His pleasure, to seeing Him smile and accept me, then the temporary rejection, and momentary rip-off here, by someone who was probably ripped off themselves and bankrupt already, seems insignificant to say the least.
Paul called it a "light and momentary affliction" and he was referring to getting beaten, stoned, plotted against, lied about, ripped off and defrauded by his own people...those were "light" things...
"Just one moment"...everything in your life will culminate in that one moment, everything you do, every word you say, or do not say, every act of faith, every act of unbelief, every fear of man, and every lazy and dull attempt to live will find its place in the spotlight of His eyes...there is one phrase I am living for...
..."Well done Mark, you were faithful, you were a good servant, come and enter into the Fathers Joy for you"...
Saturday, February 19, 2011
There are no elephants in the bridal chamber
Got up this morning and in my quiet time with the Lord He told me the phrase that I have used as a title..."There are no elephants in the Bridal Chamber..." my first response was "Like Duh"...of course there are not...and so I began to think about what He was trying to tell me...and as I listened He told me about love...
Love...you remember love don't you? Its why we were created.
Just passed Valentines day again, its the "Love" holiday when we think about romance and love and of course remember and talk about Saint Valentine who was martyred on this day...OK...actually we never remember the martyr thing, but we probably should its a really cool story about Gods love, which I suggest you google since I'm not going to talk about it right now.
So what do elephants and bridal chambers have to do with love?
Well its obvious if you think about it...no one to my knowledge has ever house trained an elephant...
Did you ever wonder why? Its because you can't...oh I suppose there might be a way to do it, we are so clever as the rulers at the top of the food chain, we've trained the animal kingdom to do just about anything we want, recently I heard of dogs that had been trained to smell cancer cells, and they were 100% successful in sniffing out specific kinds on cancer on human subjects, but unfortunately we have not been able to house train elephants.
Whats the point?
Well its really kind of simple, the reason we do not house train elephants is because they have no real choice over when and where they do the dirty side of digestion, elephant business just happens and an elephant never thinks about it, never chooses, or withholds choice because they are not given that ability.
Elephants are not house trained because they do not have the same capacity for choice that other domesticated animals have...(or if they do the process of training them would be to inconvenient for the average home owner).
An elephants lack of power to choose where it does its business determines the level of intimate luxury it experiences.
The Bridal Chamber is a polite way to describe a portion of a dwelling that is reserved for the most intimate of relationships, and normally it is valued and adorned with luxury because of the value we place on its purpose and design.
That is why elephants (and other undomesticated animals) are not allowed into the Bridal Chamber, the value we place on intimacy mandates that only those creatures who have the capacity and history of appropriate choice are allowed in there.
And just to ratify that this is normal human behavior, when two people have developed an intimate relationship based on some context of covenant (covenant guards intimacy), if one of the people in the relationship begins to exhibit behavior that proves that have somehow lost the capacity for responsible choice...well they get locked out of the Bridal Chamber...maybe not physically, or architecturally, but certainly emotionally, and almost always practically.
Your right to be in the luxurious and valuable relationship is always determined by the level of your responsible choices, where you refuse to control your choices, you forfeit the right to intimacy.
Of course there are other factors that determine your privilege and permission to be in a Bridal Chamber...but these other factors will not count at all where you have not made the appropriate choices to show your value for the luxury.
So yeah, pretty basic, but as I think about it, something profound begins to surface in my understanding...
We are created with an incredible capacity for choice...from the time we are toddlers until we shuffle off this mortal coil we always have some capacity to choose, and frankly the rest of creation is kind of locked into an automatic response with very limited capacity to choose anything higher than survival or moderate behavior modification...
But mankind always has some capacity to choose, Victor Frankl in his famous work "Mans search for meaning" demonstrates that freedom is possible even in the death camps of Auschwitz because no one can take away your ability to decide how you will respond, he calls it "the ultimate freedom", so even if all of your behavior is coerced and all other freedoms are stripped away, you will still have the ability to decide how you will respond to what is happening to you...you can give up, you can fight back, you can withdraw, you can do a number of things but the profound truth remains that your ability to choose can never ever be fully taken away from you...
Elephants don't have that level of freedom, and frankly neither does anything else in creation except another human being.
Which brings me to my final point...
The level of freedom a creature has, determines the level of intimacy it is truly capable of experiencing... an elephant is not allowed into places that require the capacity to choose how it will behave, however we as truly free creatures have the capacity to experience the deepest luxury and the greatest intimacy because we have a God designed hard-wired gift to choose, even in the worst possible environments.
Love is only truly possible where choice is exercised...so ultimate love is based upon the simple value of :
"I choose you..."
(Not I need you)
The Bible is full of these expression of Gods love toward us...He loves us not out of anything other than His choice, and He chooses us because He chooses us.
So we might want to begin trying understand the incredible power He has given us in our own freedom to choose, He has basically pre-approved our right to enter into His Bridal Chambers and experience the luxury of His intimate love for us.
One final thought about love and choice...we often talk about (especially around Valentines Day) people "falling" in love...but God has never ever, and will, never ever, "fall" in love...falling implies you did not plan to do it, and it is so true of two lovers who by accident or by evolutionary design (if you believe in fairy tales) find themselves the victim of affections and emotions that really are most poetically described as "falling in love".
Falling is a description of something you did not plan on doing, if you plan on going off a ledge, you say you "jumped", if it happens TO you, you say you "fell", and love sometimes happens "to" us in the sense that we were not planning to have the emotions and affections that we get consumed by.
But God has never had anything happen "to" Him, everything in His world has happened because He chose it before to "happen", and then released the power to make it happen, but God has never fallen off or into anything, because He is not a victim he is God, that's why God is the "happiest" person in the universe because He has chosen all the best things to happen for Him all the time...
And one of the things He has chosen to make Himself happy is loving you...not because you deserved it, or earned it, no He loves you because it makes Him happy to love you...and the cool side of that is because He did not "fall in love" with you, He will never "fall out of love" with you...He loves you because it makes Him happy and its His choice and frankly there's nothing you will ever be able to do about it.
Seleh.
Love...you remember love don't you? Its why we were created.
Just passed Valentines day again, its the "Love" holiday when we think about romance and love and of course remember and talk about Saint Valentine who was martyred on this day...OK...actually we never remember the martyr thing, but we probably should its a really cool story about Gods love, which I suggest you google since I'm not going to talk about it right now.
So what do elephants and bridal chambers have to do with love?
Well its obvious if you think about it...no one to my knowledge has ever house trained an elephant...
Did you ever wonder why? Its because you can't...oh I suppose there might be a way to do it, we are so clever as the rulers at the top of the food chain, we've trained the animal kingdom to do just about anything we want, recently I heard of dogs that had been trained to smell cancer cells, and they were 100% successful in sniffing out specific kinds on cancer on human subjects, but unfortunately we have not been able to house train elephants.
Whats the point?
Well its really kind of simple, the reason we do not house train elephants is because they have no real choice over when and where they do the dirty side of digestion, elephant business just happens and an elephant never thinks about it, never chooses, or withholds choice because they are not given that ability.
Elephants are not house trained because they do not have the same capacity for choice that other domesticated animals have...(or if they do the process of training them would be to inconvenient for the average home owner).
An elephants lack of power to choose where it does its business determines the level of intimate luxury it experiences.
The Bridal Chamber is a polite way to describe a portion of a dwelling that is reserved for the most intimate of relationships, and normally it is valued and adorned with luxury because of the value we place on its purpose and design.
That is why elephants (and other undomesticated animals) are not allowed into the Bridal Chamber, the value we place on intimacy mandates that only those creatures who have the capacity and history of appropriate choice are allowed in there.
And just to ratify that this is normal human behavior, when two people have developed an intimate relationship based on some context of covenant (covenant guards intimacy), if one of the people in the relationship begins to exhibit behavior that proves that have somehow lost the capacity for responsible choice...well they get locked out of the Bridal Chamber...maybe not physically, or architecturally, but certainly emotionally, and almost always practically.
Your right to be in the luxurious and valuable relationship is always determined by the level of your responsible choices, where you refuse to control your choices, you forfeit the right to intimacy.
Of course there are other factors that determine your privilege and permission to be in a Bridal Chamber...but these other factors will not count at all where you have not made the appropriate choices to show your value for the luxury.
So yeah, pretty basic, but as I think about it, something profound begins to surface in my understanding...
We are created with an incredible capacity for choice...from the time we are toddlers until we shuffle off this mortal coil we always have some capacity to choose, and frankly the rest of creation is kind of locked into an automatic response with very limited capacity to choose anything higher than survival or moderate behavior modification...
But mankind always has some capacity to choose, Victor Frankl in his famous work "Mans search for meaning" demonstrates that freedom is possible even in the death camps of Auschwitz because no one can take away your ability to decide how you will respond, he calls it "the ultimate freedom", so even if all of your behavior is coerced and all other freedoms are stripped away, you will still have the ability to decide how you will respond to what is happening to you...you can give up, you can fight back, you can withdraw, you can do a number of things but the profound truth remains that your ability to choose can never ever be fully taken away from you...
Elephants don't have that level of freedom, and frankly neither does anything else in creation except another human being.
Which brings me to my final point...
The level of freedom a creature has, determines the level of intimacy it is truly capable of experiencing... an elephant is not allowed into places that require the capacity to choose how it will behave, however we as truly free creatures have the capacity to experience the deepest luxury and the greatest intimacy because we have a God designed hard-wired gift to choose, even in the worst possible environments.
Love is only truly possible where choice is exercised...so ultimate love is based upon the simple value of :
"I choose you..."
(Not I need you)
The Bible is full of these expression of Gods love toward us...He loves us not out of anything other than His choice, and He chooses us because He chooses us.
So we might want to begin trying understand the incredible power He has given us in our own freedom to choose, He has basically pre-approved our right to enter into His Bridal Chambers and experience the luxury of His intimate love for us.
One final thought about love and choice...we often talk about (especially around Valentines Day) people "falling" in love...but God has never ever, and will, never ever, "fall" in love...falling implies you did not plan to do it, and it is so true of two lovers who by accident or by evolutionary design (if you believe in fairy tales) find themselves the victim of affections and emotions that really are most poetically described as "falling in love".
Falling is a description of something you did not plan on doing, if you plan on going off a ledge, you say you "jumped", if it happens TO you, you say you "fell", and love sometimes happens "to" us in the sense that we were not planning to have the emotions and affections that we get consumed by.
But God has never had anything happen "to" Him, everything in His world has happened because He chose it before to "happen", and then released the power to make it happen, but God has never fallen off or into anything, because He is not a victim he is God, that's why God is the "happiest" person in the universe because He has chosen all the best things to happen for Him all the time...
And one of the things He has chosen to make Himself happy is loving you...not because you deserved it, or earned it, no He loves you because it makes Him happy to love you...and the cool side of that is because He did not "fall in love" with you, He will never "fall out of love" with you...He loves you because it makes Him happy and its His choice and frankly there's nothing you will ever be able to do about it.
Seleh.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Prince of Peace
One of the names given to the Messiah is "Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6), and as you stroll through the New Testament it becomes apparent that peace is a hallmark of Gods government provided to us through a covenant in Jesus.
So what is peace, what does it look like, how does it show up?
Many of us (including me) have a default definition that makes peace simply the absence of turmoil, or perhaps the quiet that follows a relational battle, but the word as used from heaven means much more than this, peace is much more than the absence of conflict, Biblical peace is NOT defined by a negative, it is intentional and active.
As I am exploring the concepts of honor and covenant, a culture of royalty and treating people in new and powerful ways I am struck by the fact that many believers have a concept of peace that is really just a passive response that is not anger or retaliation, this is not what heaven means when it talks about peace, peace when it shows up is more powerful than war...think about that for a minute, Gods peace is greater than a storm or a war, or a conflict...it must be more powerful than those things in order to displace them.
To often I have heard (and said) "I have a peace about it" or "I HAD a peace about it" referring to decisions and actions that many times as I evaluate the long term significance of those events the result was anything BUT peace...this is typically what modern believers mean when we say "I have peace".
More often than not as believers who have been trained in a culture of non-confrontation we substitute the absence of conflict, (connected to a posture of passivity), with "peace"...but that is like defining light as the absence of dark, which it is not, light (and peace) are stronger than their opposites and there is never an argument between light and dark when light shows up...darkness simply leaves.
The Hebrew concept of peace is much bigger than even that, the word used is "Shalom" and it means "well being", "health", "prosperity", "security"...so when I look at the times I've said "I had a peace about it..." I must be honest and say that the Hebrew definition was NOT what I felt, what I actually meant was "I do not feel conflicted or in turmoil about this decision"...
But here's where it gets difficult...the current popular model of peace is that we don't make waves, we don't stand up for ourselves because that creates conflict for others and mature people don't ever cause conflict or controversy...hmmm....the problem is EVERY mature person in the New Testament was controversial in some aspect and created conflict, sometimes just by showing up.
When Jesus cleared the Temple with a home-made whip, or called the religious elites a bunch of fancy looking zombie houses, he was walking in perfect Shalom, He was in fact expressing what Shalom is meant to bring,... "well-being, prosperity, and security:...
Gotta say I am not a fan of confrontation...don't like it, can't see how it could be fun, or how it is possible to make others powerful through it, but this is probably because I don't fully grasp that well-being starts with honesty and ends with hope, if you cannot be honest and must mask your true feelings, true hope, or become a different person than you are in your core, then it is almost impossible for the best version of you to show up.
Peace, at its core, must allow you to show up in the best version of yourself that is available, how can you be at peace when you are not allowed to be you?
As I look at my life I realize I have had a tendency to allow dominate voices to determine how I respond and which version gets to show up, primarily in the name of "peace", because we all know that telling the truth means only one side gets to talk, only one of us gets to be hurt/right/powerful/truthful...the other person must be "mature", "selfless", "grown-up" etc...
But that's not "Shalom" kind of peace, that's "end conflict" peace which is something altogether different than the Peace that Jesus brings.
The peace that Jesus offers us starts with allowing us to be ourselves, and to be powerful in His presence, that's why worship is so exciting, its not that God needs the attention, it's the joy He gives us by allowing us to touch His heart, to move Him to tears, to excite Him to passion and respond to our singing and affection towards Him...worship is an act of a powerful person being themselves in voluntary adoration to the object of their affection...someone so worthy and loving you cannot help yourself.
When the Bible says "And the increase of His government of peace there shall be no end...(Isa. 9:7)" it is telling us something about the way the Holy Spirit wants to do church and life and kingdom...God wants peace to increase, His very government is based upon peace, so lets substitute the bigger meaning here, God wants an increase of prosperity, well being, health, soundness, abundance, fruitfulness, wholeness...and the best version of YOU that is possible...THAT is the definition of Gods agenda, His plan and what peace looks like.
Lets take it a step further, Gods government as expressed through the laughing Holy Spirit, for you...is you get to be the person you are in your core, you get to live a powerful life of freedom, to always be yourself, you get to be whole and dream and follow after your dreams with complete support at all times from Heaven and you get to do it with the people you love...that's what Shalom means for you...
That is quite a bit different from "I have a peace about it"...
So this makes me ask the question: "If the definition of peace is so extravagant, then how come when I have made decisions in the past based on my old "peace" model, God didn't intervene, or at minimum show up and warn me that I was simply being passive and not actually walking in the intentional peace from heaven?"
Good question, it's the kind of question I asked God myself and here's the limited answer I think I heard:
I felt the Lord tell me "I can only give you, what you are willing to receive"...
We know that God is not willing that any should perish, yet every day people perish without choosing to know Him, or choosing something altogether different than the salvation He has provided, so God is all powerful and has an obvious will to do good for all men, yet He has limited Himself to our decisions and our freedom to choose, He will not violate what our wills engage in...
Think about that, God who is all powerful, all wise, all good, has limited His power, His goodness, His gifts and wisdom, and subjugated that aspect of who He is to our willingness to receive it.
And if we are unwilling to accept a peace that is bigger than simply a lack of conflict, He will not impose it upon us, He will not violate our decisions or even our desires...
And since He is always good, always seeking our best, then He chooses to use the limited definition of peace to the very best that He can, at least until we are willing to embrace a higher definition and really...the heart of it all...a deeper relationship with Him so that we can enjoy a greater more abundant kind of peace...
See the Shalom kind of peace that makes me powerful, only comes out of a relationship with the "Prince" of peace, and as I choose to trust Him, to explore the potential He has for me by becoming vulnerable to Him and others, I become a candidate for the bigger kind of peace that excels just passivity...as I trust Him, I can approach others based out my identity in Him rather than how they perceive or project on me, I can become honest and transparent and at the same time can hopefully expect that others will share in the best version of themselves as we explore our potential together.
Peace is not the absence of conflict it is the solution to it, that is why Jesus did not hesitate to drive out and confront illegal passions and detrimental behavior, He knows that the peace he brings replaces the mask and fake identity that dominating persona's imposes on those who simply want wholeness but have not a clue how to get it.
So Kingdom peace offers us wholeness, hope, and a restful repose in our truest identity, unfortunately it will require a willingness to be honest, and stepping out into a more powerful version of ourselves than we are used to experiencing...this sounds like the opposite of peace...but its not, its simply the opposite of passivity, it is becoming powerful and free to be ourselves with each other...
This is Kingdom Peace, this is what a government of Peace looks like, this is my newest "current" definition of peace:
Powerful people engaging with each other, even through conflict, always free to be themselves, always hopefully pursuing wholeness, soundness, prosperity and well-being, always growing in relationship with each other through a Royal Prince of Peace who leads us to be the best version of ourselves that heaven dreaming with us allows...
It is quite a bit different than my old model of "I have a peace about it..."
So...
Where do I sign up?
So what is peace, what does it look like, how does it show up?
Many of us (including me) have a default definition that makes peace simply the absence of turmoil, or perhaps the quiet that follows a relational battle, but the word as used from heaven means much more than this, peace is much more than the absence of conflict, Biblical peace is NOT defined by a negative, it is intentional and active.
As I am exploring the concepts of honor and covenant, a culture of royalty and treating people in new and powerful ways I am struck by the fact that many believers have a concept of peace that is really just a passive response that is not anger or retaliation, this is not what heaven means when it talks about peace, peace when it shows up is more powerful than war...think about that for a minute, Gods peace is greater than a storm or a war, or a conflict...it must be more powerful than those things in order to displace them.
To often I have heard (and said) "I have a peace about it" or "I HAD a peace about it" referring to decisions and actions that many times as I evaluate the long term significance of those events the result was anything BUT peace...this is typically what modern believers mean when we say "I have peace".
More often than not as believers who have been trained in a culture of non-confrontation we substitute the absence of conflict, (connected to a posture of passivity), with "peace"...but that is like defining light as the absence of dark, which it is not, light (and peace) are stronger than their opposites and there is never an argument between light and dark when light shows up...darkness simply leaves.
The Hebrew concept of peace is much bigger than even that, the word used is "Shalom" and it means "well being", "health", "prosperity", "security"...so when I look at the times I've said "I had a peace about it..." I must be honest and say that the Hebrew definition was NOT what I felt, what I actually meant was "I do not feel conflicted or in turmoil about this decision"...
But here's where it gets difficult...the current popular model of peace is that we don't make waves, we don't stand up for ourselves because that creates conflict for others and mature people don't ever cause conflict or controversy...hmmm....the problem is EVERY mature person in the New Testament was controversial in some aspect and created conflict, sometimes just by showing up.
When Jesus cleared the Temple with a home-made whip, or called the religious elites a bunch of fancy looking zombie houses, he was walking in perfect Shalom, He was in fact expressing what Shalom is meant to bring,... "well-being, prosperity, and security:...
Gotta say I am not a fan of confrontation...don't like it, can't see how it could be fun, or how it is possible to make others powerful through it, but this is probably because I don't fully grasp that well-being starts with honesty and ends with hope, if you cannot be honest and must mask your true feelings, true hope, or become a different person than you are in your core, then it is almost impossible for the best version of you to show up.
Peace, at its core, must allow you to show up in the best version of yourself that is available, how can you be at peace when you are not allowed to be you?
As I look at my life I realize I have had a tendency to allow dominate voices to determine how I respond and which version gets to show up, primarily in the name of "peace", because we all know that telling the truth means only one side gets to talk, only one of us gets to be hurt/right/powerful/truthful...the other person must be "mature", "selfless", "grown-up" etc...
But that's not "Shalom" kind of peace, that's "end conflict" peace which is something altogether different than the Peace that Jesus brings.
The peace that Jesus offers us starts with allowing us to be ourselves, and to be powerful in His presence, that's why worship is so exciting, its not that God needs the attention, it's the joy He gives us by allowing us to touch His heart, to move Him to tears, to excite Him to passion and respond to our singing and affection towards Him...worship is an act of a powerful person being themselves in voluntary adoration to the object of their affection...someone so worthy and loving you cannot help yourself.
When the Bible says "And the increase of His government of peace there shall be no end...(Isa. 9:7)" it is telling us something about the way the Holy Spirit wants to do church and life and kingdom...God wants peace to increase, His very government is based upon peace, so lets substitute the bigger meaning here, God wants an increase of prosperity, well being, health, soundness, abundance, fruitfulness, wholeness...and the best version of YOU that is possible...THAT is the definition of Gods agenda, His plan and what peace looks like.
Lets take it a step further, Gods government as expressed through the laughing Holy Spirit, for you...is you get to be the person you are in your core, you get to live a powerful life of freedom, to always be yourself, you get to be whole and dream and follow after your dreams with complete support at all times from Heaven and you get to do it with the people you love...that's what Shalom means for you...
That is quite a bit different from "I have a peace about it"...
So this makes me ask the question: "If the definition of peace is so extravagant, then how come when I have made decisions in the past based on my old "peace" model, God didn't intervene, or at minimum show up and warn me that I was simply being passive and not actually walking in the intentional peace from heaven?"
Good question, it's the kind of question I asked God myself and here's the limited answer I think I heard:
I felt the Lord tell me "I can only give you, what you are willing to receive"...
We know that God is not willing that any should perish, yet every day people perish without choosing to know Him, or choosing something altogether different than the salvation He has provided, so God is all powerful and has an obvious will to do good for all men, yet He has limited Himself to our decisions and our freedom to choose, He will not violate what our wills engage in...
Think about that, God who is all powerful, all wise, all good, has limited His power, His goodness, His gifts and wisdom, and subjugated that aspect of who He is to our willingness to receive it.
And if we are unwilling to accept a peace that is bigger than simply a lack of conflict, He will not impose it upon us, He will not violate our decisions or even our desires...
And since He is always good, always seeking our best, then He chooses to use the limited definition of peace to the very best that He can, at least until we are willing to embrace a higher definition and really...the heart of it all...a deeper relationship with Him so that we can enjoy a greater more abundant kind of peace...
See the Shalom kind of peace that makes me powerful, only comes out of a relationship with the "Prince" of peace, and as I choose to trust Him, to explore the potential He has for me by becoming vulnerable to Him and others, I become a candidate for the bigger kind of peace that excels just passivity...as I trust Him, I can approach others based out my identity in Him rather than how they perceive or project on me, I can become honest and transparent and at the same time can hopefully expect that others will share in the best version of themselves as we explore our potential together.
Peace is not the absence of conflict it is the solution to it, that is why Jesus did not hesitate to drive out and confront illegal passions and detrimental behavior, He knows that the peace he brings replaces the mask and fake identity that dominating persona's imposes on those who simply want wholeness but have not a clue how to get it.
So Kingdom peace offers us wholeness, hope, and a restful repose in our truest identity, unfortunately it will require a willingness to be honest, and stepping out into a more powerful version of ourselves than we are used to experiencing...this sounds like the opposite of peace...but its not, its simply the opposite of passivity, it is becoming powerful and free to be ourselves with each other...
This is Kingdom Peace, this is what a government of Peace looks like, this is my newest "current" definition of peace:
Powerful people engaging with each other, even through conflict, always free to be themselves, always hopefully pursuing wholeness, soundness, prosperity and well-being, always growing in relationship with each other through a Royal Prince of Peace who leads us to be the best version of ourselves that heaven dreaming with us allows...
It is quite a bit different than my old model of "I have a peace about it..."
So...
Where do I sign up?
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