Tag Archives: Sin

Early 2006

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More hand-written scraps from late Winter / Early Spring 2006

God – I’m going to have to be changed at a very deep level (big surprise) regarding motivation. I realized that I was thrilled when an item got checked off my prayer list, not because you did something cool – but because I got something “off” my prayer list!

I confess: I am still deeply motivated by the idea that there is a destination; a completeness on this side of Heaven, that frankly doesn’t “require” you.

It would seem that I am more concerned with achieving than with being with you.

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Man, was that last entry the truth or what?!

God, I am angered and frustrated at the depth to which my selfishness runs…more than selfishness: Megalomania!

It seems that my ‘self” will seize upon anything to feed. It feasts on the corpses of innocent victims swept away by a wave. It salivates at the failure of a colleague because it can stand upon their failure and in doing so, claim higher ground.

It is more important to me to be right than to live in the truth. I want personal success more than I want the Kingdom of God to advance.

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Napolean Dynamite: GAMBLING FOR ACCEPTANCE

He is always shooting for the big pay-off, the big win. I have stopped looking for the BIG pay-off, but I’m still gambling with the same goal in mind: approval, attention, affection; I’m just more conservative about my bets. I’ve learned to play the odds.

Pretending to have all the answers (which is what I used to do, and Napolean so aptly demonstrates with his “Wolverine hunting” story) is a BIG risk. If just ONE person were to actually buy into his story telling, they would be a nearly un-limited source of approval for him. Jackpot!

Back to me: Just because I can now acknowledge that I do not have all the answers (I’ve stopped telling my own versions of the Wolverine hunting story) does not automatically mean I’m not looking for a pay-off; that I’ve given up on gambling for approval. It might mean I’m just more conservative. I’ve left the high-stakes poker game and I’m just playing the penny-slots now.

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How can we be authentic if we don’t know who we are?

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I am content with human approval, food, sleep admiration, quantity, activity, being fat, being tired, a reputation, noise, weeping and  slavery when I COULD have perfect love, fullness rest, adoration, quality, adventure, strength, power, play, music, dancing and freedom.

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Repentance vs. Penance. There’s not much said in the Bible about penance.

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Longing/Desire 1Peter 2:2,

Holy Dis-satisfaction. Pslam 63 Luke 22:14 The Last Supper

Romans 8:2-25 Creation groans with anticipation

Philippians 3:12-21 Press on eagerly await.

“Cloud of Un-knowing” pp 12-13 “Look ahead now and never mind what is behind; see what you still need, and not what you have, for this is how meekness is most quickly won and defended. Now you have to stand in desire all your life long if you are to make progress in the way of perfection. This desire must always be at work in your will by the power of almighty God and by your own consent.”

Pslam 18 – I’m constantly inserting some kind of insulation between me and god. While contemplating the March services I think about the experience people will have, the feelings, significance, transformation, word upon word, upon word…not until God’s Spirit spoke did I consciencely consider introducing people directly to God.

I keep putting a washer, a condom, a lubricant, a bearing between me and the person of God.

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Simple Living: We are beginning to purposely impoverish ourselves as the promised fullness of a busy life turns out to be hollow. The “better life” that previous generations worked so hard to give us was void of Christ, and therefore was void.

December 13th – December 27th, 2005

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This from the book The Wisdom of the Enneagram (a book about personality types. I am a type 2 with a 3 wing for those of you keeping score): “journal about your people-pleasing.”

O.K. I’ve done some of this already…”mining” people for their approval etc.

But the questions in the book were pretty specific and centered on HOW I people please.

It’s the “Special-Friend-Thing” I guess. I try very hard to reach as deep into someone’s “self” as I can. I use my intuition and mostly, I guess, my own experience…or more accurately my own willingness to speak something out loud that I KNOW is a universal experience. This has the effect of making me look wise, or insightful (which is good) but the jack-pot is: the other thinks I know THEM….when in reality I simply know human-nature pretty well. By virtue of my understanding of them – I am now not just valuable, but “special”.

I don’t always have to SPEAK something to a person to let them know that I “know” them. A well placed touch – even a moment of silence can have an effect over time. The book talks about flattery. Most people are hip to flattery, so I look for the things that would not appear to be flattery. Things that are in short supply in our culture. Examples would be: Manners. Chivalry. Listening.

Sometimes I feel like I could be a TV psychic. I did a couple of cold readings at a church service once to demonstrate how it’s done. I’ll bet with some practice, I could make money at it.

It’s just a two step process and the rest un-folds on it’s own:

1)      Identify people’s pain.

2)       and then just touch it.

Don’t poke it. Touch it. Speak it out when no one else will. Then they will surrender their affection. You don’t have to take it, and you don’t have to work really hard at it.

Shit. I’m Ted Bundy.

I’m serious. I can see how this kind of thing when pushed, or allowed to slide farther down the road could easily play itself out in profoundly evil behavior.

The other word that comes to mind is dis-arming. I feel like I can walk up to very tense people, touch them very gently but intentionally and get them to relax their grip on their weapons.

But it’s only because I live in a culture full of very tense, defensive and needy people that any of this “works”. I’ll bet it wouldn’t work if I lived in Tibet J

I’m a ringer. King Shit of Turd Hill.

UN-tangling all of this from the GOOD that is contained it…the part that can actually serve others is going to be tricky….HAS been tricky.

I’m thinking that silence and solitude are the key. If I limit my capacity to “touch” others…I can’t use them.

A sin of COMMSION requires OMMISION…maybe I need to omit contact with others in some measured and reasonable, but effective way.

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I have left these thoughts almost entirely over the Christmas holiday. I must not let them fade.

Silence is somehow the answer.

To speak only when told to speak by the Holy Spirit.

To be still as a default posture.

“I am still, until told to be otherwise. I am an object at rest. Un-animated through self, but only by the unction of the creator. The battles that I fight, are not fought BY me, but THROUGH me. I am a tool. A talking horse.  A Narnian horse.”