Name The Voices in Your Head

Just when I started making decisions rationally... then there was the Adjustment Bureau.

Movies mess with our heads, because it appears that real life would be just like them. They give us the power to see inside every character's mind, but also the pleasure of sympathizing with their inability to do the same. We know Matt never called Emily because he lost her number. We know Emily really loves Matt even though she got engaged to someone else.

In real life, we can't have that power. We are, like Matt and Emily, confused, hurt, lacking closure, needing affirmation when something doesn't work out. We don't have the privilege of seeing all sides of the story unfold as we're living it.

Sometimes you follow your gut and sometimes you don't, but when should you?

I've made a paradigm that helped me - and might help you.

With any decision, there are multiple voices chiming in their advice: our fears, our desires, our memory, our parents, our stomach aches, our blood rushes to the head, the voice of God himself maybe.

Step 1 is to give those voices a name. I've named mine:

Emotion
Logic
Intuition
Divine Revelation

Before you name them, spend some time and consideration listening to the tone and color of each voice. Take emotion, for instance. As C.S. Lewis said, "Emotions are wonderful servants, but terrible masters." They have a place, but for some of us, they are sitting on a throne. You can't dethrone them without know what they sound like, especially if you're calling them "God" or just ignoring them.

Step 2: take a situation (relationship, work problem, etc.) that has been bothering you, and write it out from the perspective of each voice.

If you only listened to emotion, what would it be saying? If you only listened to the logical procession of events, would the story sound different? If you let your intuition be the only deciding factor, rationality and feelings aside, how would the story go then? What was God whispering to you during the whole process? Was there a scripture, or a verse that kept coming back to you?

Step 3: Read back each story out loud, and see which one sounds like truth.

Step 4: Over time, analyze the results. Which voice seems to be helping you the most? Tune out the others, and start listening to that one.

There Are No Mortals

"Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)

Imagine that the narrative of Genesis were true, and that the people we see around us everyday were really intended to be like God -- brilliant, different, intelligent, and beautiful -- not the stressed out, crude, ordinary beings we think we're surrounded by. 

I'm looking at this woman across from me at Burlap and Bean. Short dark hair, black workout jacket, seems to be typing something important into her computer. Is she really a fallen goddess? I wonder if she knows? I've been raised to think that she's just an animal, an intelligent animal at best.

Are we animals or are we little gods? If she was in line to get coffee in front of me, would I play survival of the fittest to get what I want (at the moment being coffee), or would I smile widely and honor her the way I would royalty, the way I would immortality. 

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations."

We may not realize it, but every day we carry the weight of our neighbor's glory.

Have you ever had someone carry yours for you? My sister recently gave me a present she had gotten while she was visiting Oxford. It's a short story by modern artist Yoko Ono titled "The Invisible Flower." I opened to the first page and started reading about a young girl who sees a rose in a field where the conditions are too cold for them to grow. She runs to get a closer look, but when she finally gets there, she can't find it. She looks everywhere, wondering if what she saw was real. When I finished reading, eyes watering, my sister looked deeply into them and said, "Yes. You did see it. The dreams that you once saw haven't stopped existing just because you've forgotten them. Keep going." 

That day, my sister saw me in my current state, with all my half written endeavors, scatterbrained forgetfulness, and invisible flowers, and she brought me closer to glory. I would be lost without the people in my life who see with eyes like this, and who treat others with the dignity they were created for, not necessarily the dignity they deserve.

On this point, I couldn't agree with C.S. Lewis more. "Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

Lincoln

"No one's ever been so loved by the people. Don't waste that power."

Am I Crazy?

Tonight I'm up at 3:57 a.m. editing a video. About potatoes.

After two hours of listening to focus groups discuss au gratin vs. cheesy I kind of wanted to die. So I got in the shower and almost actually died when my sister walked in unannounced (because of course I had been imagining people behind the shower curtain. And for a split second I thought she might be one of those people).

So for the rest of my shower I wondered, is everyone else as crazy as I am?

Maybe creative people are all hanging by a thread. Like we're pretending to be normal, but at any minute we could snap and the world would see us for who we really are - not borderline insane, but actually insane.

Is it normal to always hear the sound of your own thoughts louder than any noise around you? I think my fear of being alone at night has nothing to do with a fear of darkness...but the silence and emptiness that comes with darkness. The crack of a door, the brush of a shower curtain are enough to send violent shock waves through me. When my head is on my pillow I can hear full symphonies. I can wake up from a dream and feel the presence of nothingness so strong that it strikes me with panic. In the dark, material things stop speaking and invisible things take their turn - and the presence of them is so horrifying and delightful I'll never understand it.

It's this combination of sensuality and imagination that makes artists so stir crazy. We feel things and imagine things until eventually we're just imagining we're feeling things. After one of my faux break ups with someone I never dated, I remember grabbing a cab with my friends, sitting between them and having a near mental breakdown. Between sobs I kept saying, "I'm normal, I'm normal." To which my friend responded, "No you're not." Smiling. (because he's not normal either).

There are negative side effects to creativity, but every truly creative person will admit they kind of enjoy the torment. If someone told me they would flatten me out by taking away all of the fear, nausea, and jumping a foot in the air from the brush of a shower curtain (not to mention seeing people behind the shower curtain) I would be tempted to trade those things, but I could never follow through with it. Every time I've tried to take an easier road, the beauty always went with it.

It's a package deal. The heightened sensuality that makes you panic at night helps you write music. The thoughts that flood your head with nonsense sometimes manage to write themselves into beautiful stories that make people cry. And the ability to make people cry is not crazy. It's beautiful.

The blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.

-Sylvia Plath

Why Women Like Jerks

Jean Valjean.

All throughout Les Miserables I was completely captivated by him. His character, his strength, his anger, his gentleness, and his firm resolve to bring mercy and justice into the world are just...stunning. 

I forgot men could be like that, watching them run around in skinny jeans trying to muster up the courage to hit on girls at bars. Even still, I know that whenever I fall for a guy, regardless of who he really is, I always think the world of him. Sometimes it's blind, sometimes it's crazy, but it's what girls do.

We catch a glimpse of greatness in a man, fall for the potential, and then want to play a small part in bringing it out. Why did Belle fall for a beast? Why did Mr. Darcy drive Lizzie so crazy, when she was spirited, fierce and beautiful and he was a dour, tortured soul?

It's like in Anne of Green Gables when Marilla asks Anne, "Would you want to marry a wicked man?" to which Anne replies, "I wouldn't want to marry anyone who was truly wicked, but I'd like it if he could be wicked--but wouldn't."

It's strange - why women are drawn to jerks and blindly worship them even if they are being treated like garbage. Tonight I was watching episode 12 in Once Upon a Time, where Belle becomes a hero for her family by choosing to live forever with Rumplestiltskin, a man who's darkness has power over the entire kingdom. One day, out of his growing love for her, he releases her from the castle. She goes scot free, only to come running right back with that hopeful gleam in her eyes - the look that says, I want my love to change you, to make you good. Her kiss almost turned him from a monster into a man.

Imagine if it had worked? The tragic undoing of every single person destroyed by the beast's wickedness could have been prevented by the sweet, unassuming way of a woman. It's the story of Esther, approaching the king with gentle boldness and saving her people. It's the story of Jesus overcoming the power of Rome not by a sword, but with love. 

There is a tenacity of will and a passion inside every woman to see only what her man can be, not what he is, and I wonder if that blindness isn't always a bad thing. 

Love Anyway - Once Upon a Time

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. 
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. 
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.” 

-Mother Teresa

Not gonna lie, I'm a little obsessed with Once Upon a Time.  

Tonight's episode showed a glimpse into how Rumplestiltskin became so evil. My stomach turned as I watched the king demand that he kiss his boot, and then kick him hard in the jaw right in front of his only son. 

Cruelty like this crawls under my skin. I resolved that, in my own life, I will do whatever it takes to make sure no one will ever feel that way on my account. 

Then I thought of at least one person, who, at that moment, was probably feeling pain on some level because of me. It felt like justice to treat them poorly because of the way they treated me. 

But that's not God's definition of justice. He says, "Love them anyway." We think it's OK to wish people harm who have harmed us, but those are moments where it's the most critical to love anyway. That is how we reverse the cycle of pain and suffering in this world. 

The antagonist is rarely one-dimensional. They antagonize because something, or someone is antagonizing them. By hurting the people who hurt us, we participate in continuing the cycle of pain. Why not be the person who puts their foot down and says, "enough," to our  pride, ego, and conceptions of what's fair, because ultimately, it's not about us.

Every day our actions are paying something forward, whether it's bringing hope and life into a situation or death and more pain. When people hurt us, we can be bitter or be gracious. We can pay the pain forward, or put an end to it by choosing to love - even when it "feels" wrong.