Listening is how, not what

Do you ever get that unutterable sense of "knowing" in your belly? The one that convinces you of a thing, even if everyone says your wrong.

I think of it like intuition--resting under layer after layer after layer of consciousness. It sits quiet at the bottom of a dark ocean; cushioned by miles of undisturbed waters. When you're not listening, it still speaks, it's just you can't hear it. But it never shouts. It waits to be heard.

I'm usually struck dumb thinking, what's it saying? How should I respond?, I'm always reading hieroglyphics, always after long sprints, never reaching a finish line, and always barely finding what I'm looking for.

There's a good chance I'm sprinting in the opposite direction. Or in circles. Or the destination is right under my feet but my expectations don't recognize it.

And the funny thing is, I could beat myself into the ground running, but the little voice at the bottom of the ocean would never care. It goes on with or without me and all my attempts to dissect it's meaning. Down there, it's a different world entirely. I'm starting to think the message itself is less concerned with hearing and more with my way of hearing.

CS Lewis says you can never have something you want too desperately, because you aren't able to possess it. Is our desire to hear from God like that sometimes? What if we chase answers, because, in our hearts, efficiency sits like a fat king on his throne while the good prince wanders aimless in rags. We are prometheus stealing fire from Zeus--except Yahweh.

Maybe it is when we stop wanting God's advice so badly, and begin to want His presence more, that we hear his voice more clearly. It's like when you're in a relationship and then suddenly everyone wants you, or how everyone compliments your hair the day you don't style it, or when you searching for something you lost, and you don't find it until minutes after you've thrown your hands up in the air in desperation.

There are two ways to listen. One person listens, but you can see it in their eyes they are trying to use your words to form their next thoughts. Another person listens and comes inside your words. They move with the rhythm of what you're saying. They have a posture of listening. They delight in you.

Maybe, (just maybe), the last thing God wants to do is give us advice when we're so bent on stealing it for our own good. Maybe he wishes we would just sit and listen for listening's sake--the way we would listen to a friend or a lover. Because we delight in Him.

Love in Song of Solomon

Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. -6:4

A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. -4:12

I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. -5:2

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. -8:5-6

So intense.

On Submission

Submit to God--resist the devil and he will flee from you.

From a relevant magazine writer, "Submission to a right authority always means a corresponding refusal to submit to a false authority. Eve’s submission to the Serpent’s word meant she refused to submit to God’s. On the other hand, Mary’s submission to God’s word about the child within her meant she refused to submit to Herod’s. God repeatedly charges His Bride, the people of Israel, with a refusal to submit to Him because they have submitted to the advances of other lovers. The freedom of the Gospel means, the apostle tells us, that we “do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1)."

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/27577-women-stop-submitting-to-men

True Self False Self

Last night I picked up a newspaper article titled: The True Self vs. the False Self, and was mildly surprised by how insightful it was. So I read it again today.

The argument is as follows: your essential nature is your true self--like God's handmade blueprint of your unique design, with preferences, longings, quirks, and behaviors. External forces from society either enhance or suppress your true self. When they do, you start to live out of your false self, a product of the you that people expect you to be.

We do this because our human desire for positive attention and affection is so strong. "In the course of life, the true self is sacrificed in favor of the false self in order to win approval, acceptance, and love."

So much of who we are is a product of what others have decided about us. However, the way we act might not be who we really are. This dichotomy creates conflict. "When we speak and behave in ways that are different from who we really are there is an internal fragmentation, or split, between the true and false selves."

Ask yourself these questions: Do you have difficulty making decisions? Do you easily fall into peer pressure? Do you feel a nagging sense of emptiness? Do you worry excessively about how others are thinking of you? If you answered yes to all of them, you're probably living out of your false self.

The true self, in contrast, comes with a sense of substance and fulfillment. Some of the people we respect the most are guided by it. They don't need to have a sexy job title to feel important. They don't need to wear designer clothes to feel beautiful. These people walk to the beat of their own drum and if you're not beating along, then, oh well.

Don't you want to be like that?

Brokenness and Hope in Hugo

Robert Mckee says, "Every effective story sends a charged idea out to us, in effect compelling the idea into us, so that we must believe."

Hugo does this and more! I never see a movie twice, but this was worth it both times around.

The obvious theme of the movie is brokenness. Little orphan Hugo, who lives in a clock, desperately tries to repair his mechanical automaton against all odds... as a means of fixing himself (his loneliness, the pain of his father's death and his lack of purpose).

Then there's the blue jacketed train station inspector who finds sick pleasure in locking little orphan boys up in the orphanage. And finally, there's George: by appearances a toy shop owner, but really a famous film director in cognito who hides his identity because memories of the past hurt too deeply.

These 3 characters reveal 3 main ways people deal with their brokenness.

1) Accept and inflict: The inspector was orphaned himself as a child. His life of hardship led him to believe that the world is a cruel, cold place where you don't need family to survive. His world is reduced to functionality. "We're here to get on trains or off them. That's it," he says. With no hope for healing, he accepts life as it is and inflicts the same calamity he endured on others.

2) Ignore and keep moving: George lives in quiet resignation. Life dealt him a bad card, and so he resents anyone who reminds him of it. With no hope for healing, he bitterly shuts out the world and manages his toy shop.

3) Confront and hope for healing: All three characters acknowledge their broken condition, but Hugo is the only one who believes he can be fixed. In tearful desperation, he finally admits that if he fixes his automaton, maybe it will write for him a message from his father and "he won't feel so alone anymore." This hope makes him risk his reputation, his life, his health, everything. And it changes him. Halfway through the story, Hugo finds his purpose in fixing George, not just himself.

The beautiful felt idea of this movie is that healing only comes through hope. To me, the most moving part of the story was when Hugo was having awful night terrors, but every time he woke, he'd look at the automaton sitting there next to his bed: motionless, silent, "waiting." Earlier in the movie, Hugo's friend says, "Why does he look so sad?"

Hugo replies, "I think he's just waiting."

And I thought, wow, that's exactly what hope is like. While our fears (anchored in irrationality) are warring and tearing at our hopes, our hopes (anchored in reality) are unwavering, unchanging, and waiting to bring us healing. Not only for us, but for the other broken people in the world we're meant to encourage through the process. And this is life: one person's brokenness lends to another person's healing. When you admit that you are broken, you become more sensitive to the brokenness in others, and when they've lost all hope, the hope that carries you on carries them on.

Hugo was the reason why George came alive again, and if it wasn't for his brokenness--or his hope--George would have went on living a life of quiet resignation. At the opening of George's magic show, he thanks Hugo with the words:

"I am standing before you today because of one brave boy, who saw a broken machine, and against all odds, he fixed it. It was the kindest magic trick that ever I've seen."

Lets be that for each other.

Blanket

Today, truth feels like a blanket. I want to just wrap myself up in it, sit on the living room couch and gaze out the window for an hour without being interrupted.

December Truth

When they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.