Part 0512/21/2008 10:31:13 AM Journal Entry Having God’s passion for his people, or for his creation, does increase the pain. You can’t love creation without also mourning it. You can’t love God people without also wanting them to live in greater freedom. But exasperation when teaching others will not work. Pure, passionate love will. Even if people are angry at me, really angry—if I continue to respond with the solidness of God’s passionate love, it’ll be the love that stands, that endures. I can’t force people to grow—not with anger or anything else. If I’m at all exasperated, the message will be that I think they’re stupid or lacking, etc. But it won’t be an invitation to grow in an environment grounded in and surrounded by God’s passionate love. I know this from my own journey. People need safe places to grow; they need to be held in love and acceptance before they can see the unloveliness within. Only the depth of God’s love and mercy is deeper than our sin. To teach with compassion is the greatest gift we can give. To teach with compassion and passion. Interesting. To be a passionate, non-anxious presence. Journal Entry I was thinking that I couldn’t live without God’s call upon my life. Not a call to a specific thing—it’s not the thing to which I’m called that brings me life and joy and hope. It’s the call itself. The fact that I’m name and claimed by Jesus. This call is something every child of God has. It’s the purpose of life; it’s love. I will never (I hope) ceased to be amazed by God’s grace and absolutely fathomless love. Over and over again, when I least deserve it, God shows me mercy in order that I might become more merciful. Re-reading the above paragraph: I think it takes an ability to separate the self from the system to see this. If the system into which I’m called is part of me, then my happiness is tied to it, and my well being and identity. But if I’m not the system, I can separate my sense of call (basic to child of God) from that object to which I’m called. Journal Entry I was just thinking of food, dieting, weight—again! It seems we start a diet and then begin to look to it to save us. That doesn’t work. Is food a system in which I’m immersed? Is it something that brings me to completion, with which I identify, rather than something I have? Interesting thought. I do know I give it tremendous power over me. We only do that with things we feel we need for completion, in order to come into being. Now, that’s a thought. Journal Entry To say I’ve so much to do (in life) implies a certain time constraint, and that there’s a point that’s reached where I can say ‘okay, I’ve gotten it done.’ Life—all I do—is outside of time. There’s never an arrival. There’s always more growing, learning, re-thinking. I wonder how much of this continues after death. It’s such an interesting thing, this journey of discovery. Yet, it’s also true it requires loss and the pain loss entails. Journal Entry Thinking of that dream where Mickey returned with a puppy, and how the loss of her threatened to overwhelm that good. I guess she represented loss to me—all of those things in life I and others have had to mourn. For so long I focused on the losses—guess it was part of the transition. Yet, the good—the joys—are as plentiful, and in their way, more enduring. Journal Entry For devotions—Psalm 32, God’s promise: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you. I believe that promise with my whole being. God’s steadfast love and faithfulness are always there. For the first time I can think of Mickey’s loss with pain, and know that God’s own merciful hand was at work in that to bring me to a place of richness. The dream with the hallway (hallways symbolize transition), the keeper of the hallway—is my time about up in this place of transition, in this place that itself is filled with richness, soundly and beautifully constructed, but with such promise lying beyond? I think of the many times I’ve yearned for the counsel of another, and always, it was God who showed me the ‘answer’—which really isn’t an answer but a continuance of the journey. When I didn’t even think of talking to someone, God guided me several times unexpectedly, mostly to ----. But on those times I wanted someone to talk to, it never worked out. Perhaps my longing was to know before it was time, to shorten the agony, the process of becoming—and that we can never do. It is true, God has been my counsel and teacher. That doesn’t mean I don’t need others or haven’t learned from them. Not by any means. But God directs even that, and I am humbly and profoundly grateful. Journal Entry I realized the other day that I’m finally to that place where I can think of the dream of Mickey and the puppy, and rejoice—accept and feel the good God has brought out of loss. Wow! It’s been a long time coming. Two and a half years since we lost Mickey, and how long since the dream? Truly a time of transition. God is amazing. Truly amazing. My heart is filled with the mystery and wonder of him, and yet aware of the intimacy of his loving presence. I’m so glad we’ve been created to be in a relationship with this God. Anything less seems like death. Journal Entry Tomorrow is my defense of my project. Certainly not an ultimate ending, but an ending of sorts. I’ve been struggling with anxiety, and I’m not sure why. In a certain sense, I haven’t wanted it to end, being in the D.Min (Doctor of Ministry) program. It’s been a goal, or a certain structure in my life. Now, I wonder, what comes next? How empty it would be if it all stopped here. Journal Entry Reading Psalm 103: ‘He satisfies my desires with good things’—if only I’d allow God to give me those good things, how different life would be. ‘…so that my youth is renewed like the eagle’s.’ Exactly. Do not allow your desires to be fulfilled with anything less than God, or they degenerate into lusts. Lusts are desires that don’t have God as the goal/end/aim. And how much we diminish ourselves in the process. Lusts are a distortion of our longing for God. I must learn to receive the gift the moment God gives it and then let it go; stop over-focusing on it. It will probably not be given again in exactly the same way, and for me to try to capture it and contain it is to destroy the gift. I suspect there’s a lot more joy in store for us in life if only we’d stop trying to contain God’s gifts, but willingly let go and allow God to give at his choosing. Journal Entry What a dilemma we humans face! If I don’t discipline myself and eat badly, I feel ashamed, and I wonder why God even puts up with me. After so many patient teachings and warnings and false starts, why does God stay with me? Yet—were I to discipline myself and lose weight, etc., would I then believe I deserved God’s company? That I was less offensive in his sight? How darkly we see. The glass is so clouded we can only guess at times what’s real, and that by the unexpected gift and power of the Holy Spirit. How much of what I see is construct, and how much is God’s truth, and is it possible for me to know the difference? Journal Entry Reading again for devotions: ‘my honor depends on God.’ Whether or not I do well at something, learning from it is one thing; feeling I have failed or feeling I’ve been dishonored, etc., are measuring what happened against some standard. Honor, the definition of it, is a construct too. So no one can harm my honor; it depends on how I process it.
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