Archive for paradigms
June 1, 2008 at 3:57 pm · Filed under Jesus, freedom, growing in God, paradigms, struggling with sin
My father was really big on appearance, especially women’s appearance. I find it difficult to even go to these places in my memory because of the very deep pain. How he looked at women. How he behaved toward certain women. How he berated my mother and me and my sister. The unattainable standard he lifted up and worshiped. When I was young, I picked up on a message: your outer beauty defines you. It is what makes you valuable (or not). This message seems indelibly marked on my soul and I cannot escape it sometimes.
I cannot escape it and I can never measure up to the standard that has been etched in my consciousness. This is the source of almost all of my struggle and sorrow.
My father liked to look at Playboy and Penthouse magazines. He collected them. Stacks of them. When I was eleven or so and my parents were gone, I used to go into his room and get some of those magazines down. I looked at the pictures. I read and learned about sex. My entire perception of beauty and sexuality was formed from pornography. My parents never explained sex and sexuality to me. How could they? Their understanding of it was completely broken. So their avoided that topic. My education came from airbrushed lies.
I knew this was what my father valued, so I unconsciously adopted it as my ideal: to be sexually attractive, to capture the eyes of men, to be outwardly beautiful. If I could capture their attention, I could have the love and acceptance and security that I had craved from my father. And because I could never, ever, actually be one of those women in those magazines, I realize now that way back then, I created an imaginary life where I was just as beautiful as they were, just as captivating. I built this imaginary existence in which every eye turned toward me. I was one of the women in those magazines, perfectly beautiful, perfectly posed. The only thing that would break this reverie was seeing myself in a picture. I hate pictures of myself. Seeing one picture of myself snapped in a candid moment can throw me into a pit of despair for weeks. For my entire life, I have imagined that I was something I was not. Do you realize how utterly insane this is? How sadly delusional? I didn’t realize it. I do now and I am afraid for myself.
I cannot adequately express the damage this has done to me that is still being discovered and undone. I am sure that this madness I created for myself has broken me in unspeakable ways that will just continue to come to the surface as I grow older.
I’m sure that the written word is hollow and wholly inadequate to describe the pain of this thing that I carry around. I have not known who I really am and now I have the doubly hard task of coming to terms with who I am by stripping away vain imaginations and seeing myself as I am, AND learning to re-orient my idea of what makes me valuable. Trust me, this is much, much more difficult than it seems. Someone who doesn’t struggle with such a deep-seated brokenness would probably say, ok, you’ve realized it, now just don’t do it anymore.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Memento, let me share with you that, in a sense, I am Leonard. Leonard has a memory disorder in which the last thing he can remember is seeing his wife attacked and killed. After that, he has been unable to make new memories. In other words, he forgets everything he experiences, each day, within moments. In order to compensate, he tattoos himself with important information. To him, important information means anything that will lead him closer to the person who killed his wife.
I am like Leonard. My memory is frozen at the traumatic realization that I can never be the things that my father gave me as ideals. Even though I am “re-programming” myself with the Truth of who I am and what my true ideals are, it seems to slip away over and over again and my original programming: you’re a sham, you’re disgusting, did you see that picture of yourself, look at that roll of fat, look at how small your breasts are, look how big your ass has gotten. If you think this is easy for me to express, let me assure you, this is shaping up to be a very difficult post for me to write.
What I was, and what I am, is a person who is beautiful from the inside out, with some nice qualities on the outside too. An amazing person on the inside, a fairly average person from outer appearances. What I have to constantly tell myself is that is a really cool thing. Sometimes I feel like I start to believe it, too. But underneath the “good” voice that I seem to control, is the “bad” voice that I can’t make shut up, that sometimes I can’t hear, but that is always there like the sound of the highway that drifts over the neighborhoods below. What the bad voice keeps telling me, maddeningly, over and over again, is that being average, middle-aged, and yes, overweight, is not cool at all and makes me a complete and utter failure and it makes me want to hide and sometimes even makes me want to die. I’m sure this sounds completely odd to some people. For others, it may just make sense. And I guess that is why I am willing to share this with basically everyone on the planet. It might help someone to show them what I live with, what no one else, except maybe Darin, sees.
If you’re someone who collects pornography or looks at it online, I don’t condemn you. We are free agents and I am all about liberty. What I would ask you to do is to consider the effects you may have on those around you. I’m quite sure my father, who is dead now for over 12 years, did not realize what he did to me. Or to my mother. Or, I am sure, to my sisters. Or to himself. And it doesn’t end there. The effects continue on in my children, to my husband, to my grandchildren. We are all experiencing the healing that comes from knowing Truth and being set free, but the consequences of seemingly small actions are great and long-lasting.
I am going to be OK. God has given me a great treasure in my husband, who has shown me the love of Jesus in countless ways and has been a friend, a lover, and a father to me. Jesus shines through Darin to me and I have healed so much in so many ways. If you don’t know who Jesus is, please ask him to introduce himself to you. Just talk to him. He won’t be pushy or religious. If something is pushy or religious or condemning in your life, it isn’t Jesus, and you can discard it.
May 25, 2008 at 6:41 pm · Filed under Jesus, bible, faith, freedom, growing in God, ideals, paradigms, spirit, struggling with sin
Jesus tells us over and over not to be afraid.
Fear of the unknown can drive us to do many things to feel safe, not the least of which is to surround ourselves with unnecessary structure and rules and people to tell us the right things to do so that we never need make a mistake. Or if we do err, it is someone else’s fault because we have transferred personal responsibility. And once we have surrounded ourselves with this high towering structure that we can see and touch, we no longer need have faith. Because, as scripture tells us, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of which is not seen. We have an example of what can happen when we desire a king that we can touch - this is what happened to Israel. God wanted to be their king but the people wanted a king like all the other nations. Someone to go to battle for them. Someone to protect them. This grieved God’s heart. But he gave it to them. He didn’t come up with the idea, but he went along with it. That’s not the ideal.
Inserting ourselves into structures led by kings that we have asked for, which God has given us, is not his ideal for us. But this is what we choose because we are afraid of being unsafe. We choose the good instead of the best, in the name of safety, when all along we have been safe because we are in the hand of God. We choose to put mediators and messengers and vessels between us and God. We choose Moses instead of Jesus. We choose the law instead of the Law Fulfiller. We choose a veil, a curtain, to shield us from God’s glory, when God himself has torn that curtain so we might go directly by way of Jesus to him.
We expect God to be safe, when in fact he is not safe at all. God is good, but he is not safe. If he were safe, we would not need faith. Yet our spirits are safe in his presence, because of Jesus. Not because of a man or a church. But because of our faith in Jesus.
Worshiping God is not a matter of going to a certain place or doing a certain thing. That is how God operated before Jesus was sent. Jesus fulfilled all of the going and doing. It is left to us to believe and follow and worship in spirit. It is not our job to follow rules, but to follow Jesus.
Exodus 20:
18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.”
Jeremiah 31:
31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to [d] them, [e] ”
declares the LORD.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”
35 This is what the LORD says,
he who appoints the sun
to shine by day,
who decrees the moon and stars
to shine by night,
who stirs up the sea
so that its waves roar—
the LORD Almighty is his name:
John 4
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
John 6
63The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit[e] and they are life. 64Yet there are some of you who do not believe.”
May 21, 2008 at 9:13 pm · Filed under family, little "c" church, paradigms
I make it my business to avoid the systems of this culture and this world as much as I am able to see those systems and recognize them for what they are. If you’ve never seen The Matrix, then maybe you’ve never thought about the systems of this world and how they conceal true freedom and spirituality with a deceptive sheen of “the good life,” or “social norms,” or “what is best for us.”
Think about all the routines and activities we are expected to participate in. Dress, political systems, homes, educational and medical systems, transportation, medical care, religious structures, careers, what we eat, what we feed our animals, what we allow others to shoot into our veins.
If you’ve never thought about these things before you may wonder what in the hell I am talking about.
Let’s choose just one item from the above list: our educational system. Did you know that human children learn and grow without much interference from us? If we love them, feed them, and give them shelter, their minds naturally grab hold of the information in their environments and they process it and learn. This is how God made them. They learn how to talk and walk and control their bladder. If exposed to reading material and people reading, they learn how to read. These things happen on individual timetables, depending on the individual. Did you know that the schedules for learning these things that we impose on our children are artificial?
Many people will tell you it is crazy and unnatural to simply let children learn as they will, on their own timetable. But have you ever thought about how crazy and unnatural it is to put 30 children all the same age into a room together and expect them all to process information the same way, at the same time?
Many people will tell you that children must “be educated properly” in order to have the best opportunities in life. Do you know how many people get college degrees in all sorts of carefully calculated arenas and never do anything with them? Perhaps even more important, do you know how many people never even graduated from high school and are highly “successful” (according to the systems of this world) in fields that many people think you could never get a job in without a college degree?
Many people will tell you that parents are not qualified to educate their children properly. Properly, meaning according to the artificially created standards of the systems of this world. Do you know how many children in public schools cannot read? Perhaps even more important, do you know how many children are “unschooled” who can read circles around their public-school educated peers?
All of these “rules” about educating our children exist simply to disguise the fact that we are wonderfully fashioned by our loving God, who created us as learning machines. Our humanistic society tells us instead that children must be subjected to the system, whether that system is public school or its imitators, private school and school at home, in order to learn properly. A God-denying culture says that unless we “play the game” we cannot function in society and we will never succeed at anything “important.”
The truth is that people who have not been submerged in societal norms for education can still participate in traditional career paths. For example, someone in my immediate family who was “unschooled” at home through high school and does not have a college degree, was just promoted to Assistant Vice President of a local bank. Not only that, but I myself dropped out of high school and never went to a day of journalism school, yet I manage to make a good living reporting and writing.
Even so, who says that being an officer of a bank or a journalist is a measure of success? These too are artificially created standards of success. If you’re raising your children with the idea that you must provide them with just the right education and pay their way through college, you’re missing it. If you think that making enough money to have a good mortgage, nice car, and plenty of insurance is success, you’re totally bought into the matrix.
There is so much more to this idea of systems. It truly is a case of the emperor’s new clothes. The more one delves into this and spends time thinking about it, the more disturbing it becomes. If you read this blog, you’ve already read some of my thoughts about the religious systems and you know that my family has stepped out of those systems with great joy and growth in our spiritual life and, yes, even in our fellowship with other believers, despite those who claim we are “lone rangers.”
If you spend some quality time thinking about what the world expects from us, and how much we automatically participate in those things without even realizing that there is another way, you might start asking why. And if you start asking why, your world will never be the same. Or you could just take the blue pill and keep right on with your nice little existence.
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes…. Remember, all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more….
May 21, 2008 at 1:39 pm · Filed under freedom, ideals, paradigms
From Sterling Hayden, a passage that has given me pause this morning:
To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea… cruising, it is called. Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about. I’ve always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can’t afford it.” What these men can’t afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That’s all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?
May 3, 2008 at 3:08 pm · Filed under Jesus, dying to self, faith, family, growing in God, paradigms, struggling with sin
This morning I was thinking (ok I was obsessing) about the importance of being right and doing right and making sure our loved ones can see what is right and do what is right. Then Jesus said, “But Tina, this is how the world will know that you are my disciple: that you love one another.” And I thought that was just so off topic. How off topic of you, Jesus. And he just looked at me and loved me.
So maybe it’s not about getting everyone on track, after all.
April 6, 2008 at 8:06 pm · Filed under Church, Jesus, fellowship, freedom, paradigms, spirit
We had a great time this morning. We spent almost three hours at Starbucks chatting with a couple that we met online. They’re on a similar journey to ours, and it’s so nourishing to sit with people who are on the same wavelength and talk about Jesus, Church, work, fishing, alligators, Jesus, legalism, Jesus, kids, crazy “praise “songs you can’t believe you used to sing with such gusto (don’t be stingy, don’t be tight???**), having babies, being pastors in our environment, giving money to homeless people you know are lying to you, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And we learned from each other. We don’t have another meeting time scheduled but we’ll get together again soon. Our time together might be only for a while because our friends are thinking about moving out West soon to be near family. That would be sad, but it would be OK because we trust Father. It’s not up to us. That almost three hour time period went by so quickly, and we could have sat there for a few more hours. It was great. Thanks, Papa, for putting people on our path for a time to share this life in you.
**from the Ron Kenoly song “Give to the Lord.”
April 4, 2008 at 1:35 pm · Filed under bible, paradigms
Welcome to a peek inside the mind of Tina.
I was thinking about God-breathed last night and I realized that while Scripture is God-breathed, so is man. Totally cool. Here’s a Scripture reference for you: Genesis 2:7. God breathed into Adam’s nostrils. Adam is God-breathed. Scripture is God-breathed. Many questions born of this:
What is Scripture? ……………………………………….
What was scripture when Paul said all scripture is God-breathed? …………………………………………….
Did Paul say that scripture is God-breathed and infallible?……………………………………………….
Did Paul say that scripture is God-breathed and divine?……………………………………
Does Scripture call itself infallible and divine?……………………………………….
Is it interesting that Paul didn’t say the “Word of God” but “Scripture” here?……………………….
Is Adam God-breathed? ……………………………………………………….
Was Adam infallible? …………………………………………………….
Because something is God-breathed does that make it divine and infallible by default?………………………………….
April 3, 2008 at 8:43 pm · Filed under Church, Jesus, bible, dying to self, faith, family, freedom, ideals, little "c" church, paradigms, struggling with sin, systems
My good friend submitted a comment on my post entitled “God.” I thought he raised some good questions, so I decided to make my reply a post where everyone could see it — perhaps there are others with similar thoughts and questions about my post and my intentions.
Tina, are you trying to engage conversation or controversy?
I see your over all concept idea of idolatry, but prejuduces, woundings, and crusades can be idols as well.
If the Bible is not divine or our final athority (or God-breathed) do we go to YOU for your emotional empressions of what God is saying at the moment. Or are we left with the maddness of the people in the time of the Book of Judges where people did “that which was right in their own eyes?”
How do we even understand what a relationship with Jesus is like if you have denied me the divinity and authority of the Bible? That is the only source I have which tells me what he was like and what he said. “If you want to know what my father is like, look at me.”
True….we do not worship translations…but His Word is truth and is a light unto my path and living water to my soul.
True….communinion is not divine…but is a wonderful gift of grace, a remainder how much he loves me, that he was willing to accept my rebellion, pride, hurts, fear, and pride to save the person I would become.
True….the church is not final authority…but hidden within the organization it has become is the Bride of Christ he is purifying and preparing to present to his Father. I REFUSE to forsake even ONE member of her just because she seems surrounded by inempt and frustrating rules and regulations. If she needs encouragement, that is why Christ has not taken me home; not to rail but to restore.
As a member of the clergy, if my fellow ministers have wounded you or you family, I want to to be the one to assume the responsiblity of asking your forgiveness. Too long we have wounded with our demandes and regations.
Hey Dave,
First of all, I love you a lot, bro.
I see I have struck a somewhat dissonant note here for you. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to explain, clarify, etc.
I guess I tend to engender controversy. It’s not intentional. But it does happen. I don’t shy away from it most of the time, but neither do I intentionally court it because honestly, my life would be a LOT easier if this controversy didn’t happen.
You seem to be saying (and correct me if I am wrong) that I have prejudices, woundings, and at least one crusade, and my interpretation of your statement is that these are the motivation for the things I have written in this post. Am I correct? For the purposes of this reply I will assume for now that I am correct.
So, if I am honest, yes, I do have prejudices - I think we all do. Prejudices are kind of nebulous usually and hard to nail down so I’m really not sure what prejudices I may be motivated by on a daily basis. I think prejudices are based in fear of the unknown, though, and don’t think I have many unknowns when it comes to the institution.
I have been wounded by many many things in my life, not the least of which is the institution. I think it is fair enough to say that all of us either have been or will be. But this was long ago in my past - probably about 10 years ago now, and while I was very, very angry at the time and allowed my anger and bitterness to put a wedge between me and Papa, this is no longer the case. I made my peace with the institution and even embraced it, for years. Some of my best friends are clergy. I am not angry or wounded any longer by anything the institution does - if I am angry it is only for the big picture injustice of the entire system and how it feeds on people, including clergy, to sustain itself.
Dave, I guess I’d take your comments about the Bible and turn them around: How in God’s name can we say that the Bible is the final authority and not Jesus himself? We have replaced Jesus with the Bible. Is Scripture inspired? Of course it is! Is it the most inspired piece of Christian literature that exists? I would probably have to say yes to that! Is it the fourth person of the Godhead? NO! Is it even the Word that is mentioned in Scripture? No, I don’t believe so! I believe that Jesus is the Word of God. If we believe that the Word of God is actually Scripture, then when John wrote that the Word was God … well nevermind because I think we have actually adopted that belief and mindset in evangelical circles that the Bible is God. That’s a problem if you ask me. But don’t ask me, ask Jesus! I’m definitely not the person where the buck stops. Don’t look at me, look at Jesus.
And yes, His Word is truth and a light unto my path: his Word is JESUS, not a book. Even the book points us to Jesus and not to itself. But we only go to the book and then stop there, thinking that’s enough and it’s not.
Communion is a great reminder of God’s grace, I don’t think we disagree there. My beef is more with the Catholic idea that communion is the actual body and blood of Jesus, which renders it God.
In protestant churches, the Word of God must be cloistered and guarded by professional clergy, just as in the Catholic church, the Eucharist must be cloistered and guarded by professional clergy, because we have given these inanimate objects a divinity that they should not have.
And regarding the Church, which is the actual bride, she is not hidden inside the institution, David, but throughout the entire world. The institution does not envelop the bride because she must and shall go free. Are there some members of the bride who move inside those institutions? Yes. Does walking free of the institution mean one is forsaking anyone? No, it does not. If I am a part of the true Body, I cannot forsake it because I AM a member of it. If you, as a member of the Body, choose to move within the system but remain separate from it because that is what Papa has told you to do, then do it with all your might. If I, as a member of the Body, choose to go out to the wilderness with Jesus on my arm because I heard him calling me out to it, then I will do it and proclaim it with all my might.
I think there are good-hearted people who believe, mistakenly, that being “of” the system is the best way to follow God. Do I condemn those people? Of course not! The couple who runs the last institutional church we were a part of are still our friends, we just saw them the other day and had a blast hanging out. The wife is asking us to come back to the small group we were part of where we had such great friendships and dug into Truth. We kind of chuckled because if we went back to that group that met in a friend’s home, there’s no way we could keep quiet about our views on the institution. Butwe are all on a journey and none of us has the ultimate and final solution except to the extent that we have Jesus. Isn’t it interesting that when we boil away everything that truly isn’t necessary, we are left with Jesus. That’s all I was saying in the post. That was my heart that I was sharing. Thanks for giving me the opportunity once again to share it more fully.
With much sisterly affection,
Tina
April 3, 2008 at 1:22 pm · Filed under Church, Jesus, bible, dying to self, faith, freedom, paradigms, spirit, struggling with sin, systems
I shouldn’t be writing on my blog today, I have a lot to do. But I just wanted to share about simple living and how counter-cultural that is. Jesus just wanted us to live this day and not worry about tomorrow. A book I recently read, the one with the provocative title that you would love anyway, (warning: PDF file) talks about trusting Jesus: don’t you have what you need to make it through today? Why worry about the future?
Trusting God means not needing a person or thing in my life in order to make God more real to me. That’s not to say that Father doesn’t sometimes give us people or things when it seems good to him. I need to realize however, that if he hasn’t given me something then I don’t need it. That’s a faith journey.
I don’t need fellowship or money or retirement funds or insurance or a job or religious icons or “spiritual covering” (what the heck is that) or meetings or preaching of God’s word, or somewhere to lay my head even. All I need is him. Simple and free. Daily bread.
My friend Jim read the book whose title shall not be mentioned (warning: PDF file) and it really had an impact on him. Isn’t that cool? Maybe you want to read it too.
April 2, 2008 at 4:03 pm · Filed under Jesus, bible, little "c" church, paradigms
The Bible isn’t God. Communion isn’t God. Church isn’t God. I am not God.
The Bible is not divine. Communion is not divine. Church is not divine. I am not divine.
The Bible is not the final authority. Communion is not the final authority. Church is not the final authority. I am not the final authority.
God is God. He is divine. He is the final authority. He lives in me and I in him.
Anything other arrangement is idolatry.
Next entries »
