Having a Good or Bad Day is Almost Always Entirely Your Choice

I am a HUGE Dave Matthews Band fan.  I’ve been to like 13 or 14 concerts.  So, I was delighted when a dear friend wanted to go to one of their shows with me over Labor Day weekend.  The venue was a beautiful, outdoor amphitheater in Eastern Washington named the Gorge, which is a 3’ish our drive from where I live.  We planned to make a day of it by visiting some friends for lunch and wine tasting on our way to the concert.  Excitement was high and we were stoked to have an amazing day …

We told our friends we’d leave at like 800-30’ish and meet them for lunch at 1130 or so.  BUT, we got a late start and needed to get some coffee on the way, which put us behind.  Halfway there and with a “good” ETA in mind, I updated our friends and said we’d be 15-30 minutes late.  WHICH turned out to be a significant underestimate as traffic got worse and speeds slower.  THEN, I realized I’d forgotten our tickets at home!  DOH!!  We debated going back for them and skipping the afternoon fun, but after searching on my phone and calling Live Nation, we got them to print tickets for us at will call.

Glad that was over, but STRESSED out that we were running increasingly late for our lunch date, I glanced to the right as we were talking.  “Oh my gosh!  They’re going to hit us!” I barked and pointed as a car proceeded to change lanes directly into US.  The other driver seemed completely oblivious and I thought there was NO WAY we weren’t going to wreck as my adrenaline shot through the roof. Thankfully, my friend expertly hit the brakes and veered as far to the left as she could (there was a median).

Crisis averted, we made our way into town and met up with our gracious friends.  More on that later, but first a bit more on how this day and trip COULD be named TERRIBLE.  I’ve been wanting to get a Dave Matthew’s Fire Dancer t-shirt for years.  So, as soon as we got in I found a merchandise table and got in line for a shirt (which was proudly displayed with the other gear).  30’ish minutes later I got to the front of the line … only to be told they didn’t have anything that would fit me!  GRRR.

Finally (there’s more, but I’ll stop here), I’ve been to the Gorge several times, and “thought” I had a good understanding of the layout of restrooms and such.  At a short break I went to “quickly” hit a bathroom and grab some fries.  I walked almost literally around the WHOLE compound to find a set of toilets, as they weren’t where I remembered.  Mission partially accomplished, I got in a short line to get fries … only to be told it was cash only, which I didn’t have.  DOH!  And by the time I got back to the area I thought our seats were at (we were on the lawn), it was dark and I couldn’t tell for sure where my friend was (my vision isn’t great).  So stood there awkwardly looking and looking, until I texted her and then had to awkwardly wait for her to come find me.

Hopefully, as you can tell there was ample evidence for me to name this the WORST TRIP EVER and a TERRIBLE DAY.  YET, I’d actually call it one of the BEST TRIPS EVER and one of my FAVORITE DAYS.  As it applies to you and I on a daily basis, I say this because there’s pretty much ALWAYS both lots of things to be upset/irritated about in our days, AND tons of things to be grateful for and rejoice over.  The CHOICE of which to name most true and real is yours.  Nearly always you get to literally choose if today will be great or terrible.

With that in mind, now consider some of the positives of our Dave Matthews Band trip.  My dear friend and I had an incredible conversation about life, love, family, God, wine, yoga, and more during our car rides.  There was SO MUCH connection it was ridiculous!  Words can’t even describe, but I’m guessing you know what I’m talking about.  It was one of those effortless conversations where you easily flow back and forth, laugh, cry, get deep, get silly, sing loudly with the radio, and more.

Further, our friends were INCREDIBLY gracious and understanding of our tardiness.  THEN, we had a fantastic time catching up with them at a yummy sandwich place.  After that, they took us to a few local wine tasting rooms, where we had more great conversation and some really amazing wines.  I umm really like wine and the wine was SO GOOD … and that said the PEOPLE were even BETTER!

Then came the Dave concert, which can be summarized by WOW!  They have like 350+ songs in their repertoire (or so google tells me :), YET that night they played like 7 of my top 10 favorite songs!  AND they had a few new and sweet jams they mixed into other songs!  AND my friend and I had a BLAST dancing and singing our hearts out!

So, just like you and I get to do on a daily basis, I got to make a choice.  Was I going to name it a great day or a terrible one?  I choose great.  BUT, here’s the thing.  It’s work to name, enjoy, and savor goodness.  A neuroscientist told Father Richard Rohr (and showed him the proof) that negative thoughts and experiences are like sticky glue, as soon as we have them they latch into our minds and quickly/easily become the defining characteristic of that experience.  Conversely, positive thoughts and experiences slide off of us like teflon.  They slide out of our brains unless we literally ponder and savor them for 15’ish seconds or more.

With that in mind, it is my hope that each of us choose to make and name today great.  I pray we savor the goodness, kindness, and love that is ALWAYS there when we have eyes to see and experience it.

 

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

 

Grace and peace,
Lang

How “Should” is More of a Curse Word Than @&*!

I’ve had several amazing and related conversations with friends recently, all of which revolved around the tyranny of the word “should.”  With sighs, sorrow, weight, and despair we say things like: I should go to church, or I should do yoga, or I should read the Bible, or I should pray more, or _____.  While rules and healthy (or unhealthy) practices we “should” or “ought not” do definitely have their time and place, I think we give them too much power.  We MISTAKE them for the GOAL, when they were always never more than the MEANS TO THE ENDS.  The things we say we “should” and “shouldn’t” do are the container from which we build a healthy life … when we’re young.  It seems to me, though, that all too often as adults these definitely good ideas become burdens that do little but weigh us down.

One friend related to me how for a time in church she had an amazing experience of God … YET then the gatherings devolved into little more than relaying lists of shoulds and should nots, which did NOTHING but separate her more and more from the Source she’d just been in communion with.  With sadness, another friend talked about how he’s sure God is “upset” with him for not reading the Bible as much as he “should.”  My point is this, and I’m as guilty as the next person: Us silly humans often confuse the MEANS for the END.  Yoga, prayer, meditation, church, reading the Bible, and other spiritual practices are all good, YET NONE of them are required and all are SIMPLY MEANS to the SAME ENDS: Connection, unity, and communion with each other and the Divine.

This is why at a certain real level, I think it’s pure, unhelpful silliness that we so often say and think we “should” do x, y, and z, and feel terrible about ourselves when we don’t.  The goal, the REAL AND TRUE “SHOULD” for ALL of us has been, is, and always will be loving and intimate connection with one another and our Source.  Everything else (i.e. the means) is optional and chaff by comparison.

Take reading the Bible for instance.  I grew up (and remain) in the Protestant church.  In many ways, the message from the church has been: To be in relationship with God is to read the Bible … Period.  While I really like the Bible, I LOVE our Creator.  And to say the best, or only, or a “required” way to meet the all-present and all-knowing Divine is by reading your Bible, is basically like saying a husband MUST get his wife flowers on Valentine’s day, even if she hates and is allergic to flowers.  Like other spiritual practices, reading the Bible is A means to God (the end), but it’s not the “best” means for everyone.  Some of us connect via reading, some via moving, some via singing, some via meditating, some via chanting, some via yoga, some via art, some via hiking and camping in nature, some via ________.  We each relate, learn, grow, and transform in DIFFERENT ways, and that’s great!  My point is, let’s do LESS thinking/saying we “should” do x, y, or z because those are what others do, and MORE practicing what resonates within each of our own unique person.

“Interestingly”, while I was digesting and meditating on all of the above today, I read the story about the Woman at the Well in John 4.1-42.  In the story, and MANY other ones, Jesus breaks all sorts of religious rules (i.e. means) in order to LOVE people and God (the ends).  In the tale, Jesus speaks in public and alone to a woman (both BIG no-nos in their culture) and communes with a Samaritan (also NOT to be done).  In many ways, the story encapsulates what I’m trying to say here: The “rules”/means are nothing compared to the ends, and actually can be broken to get there.  It seems to me, the Christ is pretty explicitly saying the goal is loving connection and the form, location, etc. don’t matter so much.  Check it out:

^4-6 To get [to Galilee], he had to pass through Samaria. He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.

^7-8 A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

⁹ The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, “How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” (Jews in those days wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.”

^11-12 The woman said, “Sir, you don’t even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this ‘living water’? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?”

^13-14 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.”

¹⁵ The woman said, “Sir, give me this water so I won’t ever get thirsty, won’t ever have to come back to this well again!”

¹⁶ He said, “Go call your husband and then come back.”

^17-18 “I have no husband,” she said.

“That’s nicely put: ‘I have no husband.’ You’ve had five husbands, and the man you’re living with now isn’t even your husband. You spoke the truth there, sure enough.”

^19-20 “Oh, so you’re a prophet! Well, tell me this: Our ancestors worshiped God at this mountain, but you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place for worship, right?”

^21-23 “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you Samaritans will worship the Father neither here at this mountain nor there in Jerusalem. You worship guessing in the dark; we Jews worship in the clear light of day. God’s way of salvation is made available through the Jews. But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

^23-24 “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

What practices connect you to the Divine?  I totally dig yoga, singing, reading, church, groups discussions (over drinks), and nature for instance.  How have has what you “should” and “shouldn’t” do been more of a curse than a blessing in your life?  My hope and prayer is you’ll be free from the tyranny of confusing means for ends, and able to joyfully and lovingly connect with each other and the Divine.

 

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

 

Grace and peace,
Lang

 

Learning Life Lessons From My “Broken” Knee: OWN Your Stuff/Life and Hold Things Loosely

Last week, my friend asked me how my knee was doing (it’s all but certain I have a torn meniscus in my right knee).  “Pretty good,” I said as I bent and flexed it.  “I’m back to running full speed and taking light hops with no discomfort …” at which point my knee LOCKED and became REALLY sore as I re-extended it.  As I sat there in pain, isn’t it HIGHLY IRONIC that the first thought in my mind was to blame my friend for my re-injury?

Along those lines.  My daughter asked me a month or so ago if I wanted to go to Camp Coleman (a three day 5th grade field trip camp deal) with her, later telling me she’d REALLY like me to go.  I hemmed and hawed, before finally deciding to go.  BUT, by the time I got my work ducks in a row and the paperwork filled out, I was 6th on a list of 5 dads who could go.  AGAIN, my initial impulse was to rail against how dumb the “system” was for not letting me go to camp with my daughter.

Likewise, while I don’t “point” my proverbial finger elsewhere when I get praised by others, I do sometimes deflect their encouragements by looking away and passing through the moment as quickly as possible.  My point is this: Isn’t it SUPER interesting how my initial impulse is to blame others for my “failures” and not fully take credit for my “successes”?

 

With that in mind, my “broken” knee is (re)teaching me some valuable life lessons.  It’s helping me both more fully own my life AND hold it all more loosely.  My re-injury was in no way, shape or form my friend’s fault.  It was my “fault”, but not really.  It’s my knee and I was the one doing the bending, so I did it.  YET, I also didn’t do anything strenuous or bend it more than it’d bent hundreds of times already in its injured state.  All that to say is sometimes stuff just happens.  I played a part in the re-injury and I own that, AND it also just happened for no good reason, and that’s the way life goes sometimes.

I for sure played more of a role in not getting to go to my daughter’s camp (I’m the alternate, so may still get to go).  I got everything in on a Monday, while the 5th dad did the Friday before.  So, I could easily be going if I’d gotten things rolling sooner (which I easily could have).  All that to say I totally own that I dropped the ball on going to Camp Coleman with Lara … and it’s NOT the end of the world.  As long as I learn and grow from this mistake, it’s best to hold it loosely and let it go, as opposed to dwelling on it and beating myself for being a bit selfish and slow to act.

I don’t say “selfish” in a humble way either.  I say it because I was a bit selfish, looking at my calendar, I have a really busy stretch before the camp, so didn’t really want to go.  All that to say, I own that I was a bit selfish, AND I’m choosing to grow from and move beyond that.  I realized the camp in particular (and much in general) isn’t about me.  When it comes to loving Lara, it’s more about her than it is about me.  That said, I do (correctly I think) remind her it’s not all about her when she’s being a bit selfish. 🙂 (ironic isn’t it?)  A further irony, is that when I was being a bit too self-centered, it caused nothing but anxiety and worry.  Yet, once I moved beyond that I experienced freedom and lightness.  In effect, by owning my selfishness and getting over myself, I’m holding myself more loosely and lovingly.

 

Pretty much every Friday morning I go to a yoga class after the class I teach.  And every time she closes the class by having us bring our hands in prayer to our foreheads “to honor the light in all people and all experiences.”  It occurs to me that’s exactly what I’m describing here about my “broken” knee.  It’s light is to help me own my life/stuff more AND to hold it all more loosely.  What do you think?

 

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

 

Grace and peace,
Lang

Hope, a Life Lesson from the Seahawks: The Power of Believing the Best

The Seahawks won a pretty crazy game over the weekend.  While one could say they “only” won because the Vikings missed a field goal near the end or because of Wilson’s heroics or Baldwin’s incredible catch or our defense’s stellar play, I’d argue the #1 reason they won was hope.  They believed they were going to win, they believed the best, even when the Vikings were about to attempt a chip shot field goal with twenty something seconds left to go ahead.  Check out what the players had to say about the moments leading up to the field goal attempt (from the Seattle Times):

“As Minnesota kicker Blair Walsh lined up for a 27-yard field-goal attempt with 26 seconds left, Seahawks up and down the sideline told each other all was not lost.Jermaine Kearse informed fellow receiver Doug Baldwin a miss was coming.

Right tackle Garry Gilliam leaned over to guard J.R. Sweezy and said the same.

So did defensive-line coach Travis Jones, telling Michael Bennett, “I think he is going to miss it.”

“I said, ‘I think he’s going to miss it, too,’ ’’ Bennett said later. “I don’t know why. We played too great a football to lose like this.’’

Along these lines, for the first three quarters of the game the Seahawks didn’t look all that great.  They were losing 9-0, on the road, against a good defense, and in historically frigid temperatures.  STILL, the attitude on the team was one of: “We’ve got this!”  “We’re a great team and we’re going to pull this out.”  For example, here’s what Bruce Irvin had to say:

“Any other team would have wavered or started to get down on each other, but we never did. … We kept believing.”

Despite the circumstances, the Seahawks held onto hope.  They believed the best of themselves and the circumstances.  In my mind, that’s the biggest reason they won.  Essentially the same thing, in arguably a more dire situation, happened last year when they were getting killed by the Packers in the NFC Championship game, but they kept telling each other they would do better and they would win.

I think we’d do well to take a page from the Seahawks and incorporate more hope into our lives.  I’m convinced when we choose to believe the best for the future, as well as about ourselves and others, great things happen.  We create the positive atmosphere where goodness and love can thrive and flourish.  That said, hope isn’t some kind of magical formula.  It doesn’t ensure you’re hope for some particular outcome will come to pass.  While hope can and, at some point in your life, will be disappointed, I think hope is absolutely necessary for realizing the full goodness and love that’s available to us all.

I think here again the Seahawks provide a good example.  They ALSO hoped well and believed the best in last year’s Super Bowl.  They were convinced they were going to win, but we all know they famously didn’t.  Further, while hope was essential in fueling their win over the Vikings, the game could easily have gone the other way.  The key here is mindfully choosing to continue to hope and/or believe the best again after hope has been disappointed.  As I think about it, I think this was perhaps the biggest reason why the Hawks struggled to finish off and win games at the beginning of this season.  They hadn’t recovered their hope yet after the Super Bowl loss.

With all of this in mind, here’s my questions for you and myself: Do we hope life, relationships, and the world are going somewhere loving and good?  Do we believe the best in ourselves?  Do we believe the best from others?  Do/will we choose to hope again even though it’s been disappointed?  My hope and prayer is we do, because from the fertile ground of hope love, goodness, and beauty cannot help but rise.

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

 

Grace and peace,
Lang

How Competition Kills Us: Facing My Shadow Self

“Wisdom seeing has always sought to change the seer first, and then knows that what is seen will largely take care of itself. It is almost that simple, and it is always that hard.”
– Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

In the last year or so I’ve become a huge fan of Richard Rohr.  His daily meditations have helped me make more sense of life, the world, and God, and has been a vital part of my spiritual growth.  Last week I read the bulk of one of his books, Falling Upward and that combined with life and my own reflection to result in a pretty big step forward in my journey toward health, wholeness, and love.  Specifically, in the long process of making peace with my recent’ish divorce and developing forgiveness, perhaps the biggest step toward these came last week when I faced my shadow self and confronted my own inner demons.  I don’t claim this process is over, but I did feel a profound shift within my heart and I think some of my journey is applicable to us all.

A root issue is I did NOT want NOR think the divorce was necessary.  That statement “may” seem innocent and truthful enough, yet by it’s very nature it mentally puts me in a position of moral superiority over my ex.  To take this further, I am convinced God is absolutely coo-coo crazy in love with every person ever, BUT at some very real level (to me) when I asserted that I knew our marriage could work while my ex felt it couldn’t, I set myself up as loved more by God because I did “better” than she did.   What I see at play here is my shadow self, the dark side of my personality that wants to win, be right, and be the best.  My shadow self is unsure of its/my worth, so judges me as better than others so as to make me feel valuable and worthy.  Last week I realized how this has been playing itself out in my thoughts regarding my ex and in blocking me from realizing further healing and wholeness.

By my competitive mental measuring system I judged myself as doing things a bit better than my ex by wanting to stay in the marriage … YET, since it still didn’t work out, my own competitive system of judgement actually named me a failure in the end.  After all, how could I have actually done things “right” and been “better” when the marriage ended?  I was basically caught in a Catch 22.  By competing against and judging my ex as “wrong” I elevated myself above her, AND simultaneously named myself as worse than her and an utter failure because the marriage ended.  Talk about cognitive dissonance!

As I was naming and facing this shadow side of myself, I was also grappling with Richard Rohr’s concept of nondualistic thinking.  He says that in the first half of our spiritual journey/development we view others, ourselves, and the world in a dualistic manner.  We think of things in an either/or fashion.  She is either right or wrong.  He is either handsome or ugly.  My ex and I either should have stayed married or shouldn’t have.  However, as we move into the second half of our spiritual development/life we begin to see things in a both/and fashion.  She is both right and wrong.  He is both handsome and ugly.  And my ex and I both should have stayed married and shouldn’t have.  In other words, I wasn’t right and she wrong in regard to our marriage.  We were both wrong … and both right.  In this more mature way of thinking and viewing the world and others, competition has no place.  I/we don’t have to be right or wrong, we can just BE.  Rohr says people who reach this level of consciousness (who can be any/all of us!) “do not need to be perfectly right, and they know they cannot be anyway; so they just try to be in right relationship. In other words, they try above all else to be loving. Love holds you tightly and safely and always.”

As I read Falling Upward it dawned on me that my competitive manner of thinking naturally and effortlessly leads to judgmental thoughts.  What is more, this judgmental way of viewing and naming myself and others actually ends up naming me a failure because even though I’ve succeeded at quite a bit in life, I’ve also failed in big ways (two divorces for instance).  Then I read this powerful statement: “Love OR Judgment – You Can’t Have Both” and the truth of it settled deep into my soul.  My competitive and judgmental shadow side blocks me from loving not only others, but also myself!  Love is a free and unconditional gift we give and receive JUST BECAUSE!  It’s all grace.  In the words of Richard Rohr:

“Like any true mirror, the gaze of God receives us exactly as we are, without judgment or distortion, subtraction or addition. Such perfect receiving is what transforms us. Being totally received as we truly are is what we wait and long for all our lives. All we can do is receive and return the loving gaze of God every day, and afterwards we will be internally free and deeply happy at the same time. The One who knows all has no trouble including, accepting, and forgiving all. Soon we who are gazed upon so perfectly can pass on the same accepting gaze to all others who need it. There is no longer any question “Does he or she deserve it?” What we received was totally undeserved itself.”

It totally clicked for me that by ceasing my mental competition with my ex, by declaring us (in my head) equally loved, accepted, and beautiful children of God I could accept and love us both.  When we don’t forgive someone, we are viewing ourselves as better than and superior to them, we exclude them rather than include them.  So, when I began letting go of seeing my ex and myself in a competitive manner, I was freed to forgive both myself and her.

As cheesy as it may sound, in a very real sense last week was a Grinch moment for me.  Realizing, processing, working through, and growing from what I’ve described helped my heart grow three sizes.  In other words, my present experience of heaven increased; Rohr describes it this way: “Everyone is in heaven when he or she has plenty of room for communion and no need for exclusion. The more room you have to include, the bigger your heaven will be.”

Facing our shadow selves is hard work, but it is incredibly rewarding, life-giving, and healing.  What do you think?  What have you faced?  What do you have to face?

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

Grace and peace,
Lang

The Power of Telling/Writing Ourselves a New Story: Re-Writing Our Negative Narratives

New Years Eve and Day make a great marker in our lives.  It’s a time for celebration, reflection, goals, and change.  I think, talk, and write a fair bit about stories; your story, my story, our story, and Jesus’ story.  And along those lines, in recent weeks I’ve been reflecting on the power of changing or re-writing our narratives in two specific ways.  First, re-writing our inner monologues/stories that are negative, self-defeating, and/or don’t work for us.  Second, the truth that while there’s much in life we can’t/don’t control, we do have power over how we respond to it.

Pretty much since I can remember, I have not been very good at remembering people’s names.  I generally remember I met them, but not their name.  With that in mind, when I couldn’t recall someone’s name I would just tell myself: “Well, you’re just not very good at remembering people’s names.”  And I would often echo the same thing out loud to the “nameless” person by way of apology.  I was writing/telling a story, one in which I struggled to remember the names of acquaintances.  Further, for whatever reason I had a habit of not calling people by name.  I’d just say: “What’s up man?” or “Hey, bro.” or “How’s it going my friend.” or “Hey, dudette.” and such. Then, I learned a good way to remember people’s names is to use them.  So, in the last couple years I’ve endeavored to write a new narrative for myself.  Now my inner-monologue is something like: “You’re becoming good at remembering people’s names … and don’t forget to use their name a couple of times in conversation.”  And you know what? After keeping a journal tally of how many people’s names I’ve remembered versus forgotten the last two years, I can proudly say I’ve increased from 12.12% to 74% … Nah, that’s totally made up. 🙂 But, I have noticed a significant increase in the number of names I’m able to recall.

Likewise, since my accident 6 years ago (see here for details: https://ifgraceisanoceanwerealldrowning.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/reflecting-on-nearly-dying-and-the-beauty-thats-resulted/) I’ve struggled with balance.  Particularly anything that requires balancing on one leg, which as a yogi and yoga teacher is a frequent occurrence in my life.  For instance, one of the simplest poses in yoga is Tree Pose (depicted below), yet a couple of years ago I could rarely and only briefly get into this pose.  I literally repeatedly told myself: “I suck at balancing.”  And with this as my story, not so oddly enough I continued to suck at it and didn’t get any better!  So, I decided to change that story.  I’ve begun telling myself: “You can do this and you’re getting good at balancing.” And just recently, the main instructor at the studio I’ve been going to for a little over a year remarked that my balance has improved significantly in the time she’s known me.

My stories make me wonder about your stories … What negative self-talk do we have?  Is it a self-fulfilling prophecy?  Are the negative stories we tell ourselves actually helping make them true or more true for us?  With that in mind, what inner-monologue would you like to change about yourself?  Not smart enough for X? Or not coordinated enough for Y? Or not the sensitive type, so don’t feel many emotions? Or not the “best” or a “good” parent/friend/daughter/son/lover/employee/public speaker/writer/etc.?  What parts of our lives would we like to transform in order to become more successful, productive, and loving, and how are the stories we tell ourselves hindering that transformation?  Please note, this isn’t a magical cure and isn’t instantaneous, our stories are long in forming and their impacts are long-lasting.  That said, I am convinced that re-writing our negative stories and making them positive will help, especially when we consciously include the Divine Author in our writing.  Which makes me wonder, how can we harmonize what we write in our stories with the grand story of love Jesus is writing for and in each and every one of us, and all of creation?

Along these lines, I recently read a reflection from Nadia Bolz-Weber on Mary, Jesus’ mom.  Mary was a poor, probably uneducated, peasant woman, which basically meant she had three strikes against her as far as society was concerned. No money, no status, and being a woman meant she had no voice, say, or power in her culture.  The story Mary told herself could very easily have been: “I am nobody. God doesn’t care about me, God doesn’t care about Israel, and that sucks. I will live, die, and no one will notice.”  Yet, then an angel came and told her that she was going to give birth to God in the flesh.  In response, she totally goes “Annie” and breaks out into a wonderful and beautiful song, the Magnificat:

“I’m bursting with God-news;
    I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
    I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
    the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
    beginning with Abraham and right up to now.” (Luke 1:46b-55, The Message)

Mary joins God in a beautiful new story, re-writing the old narratives of poverty, neglect, and sorrow.  Nadia Bolz-Weber writes: “The prophet Mary sings in the new inverted reality of God’s kingdom on earth and this is it’s fight song. It’s your song, people of God, all of you. And also a song for all the other women whose children die at the hands of others. A song for the mother of Tamir Rice, and the 141 mothers of those kids killed in Pakistan, the mothers of the 2 cops just killed in New York. Mary sings of God’s dream for us…she sings the song of this God who entered so fully into the muck of human existence and upturned our expectations and religiosity enough to usher in a new reality. And this reality is that God became one of us so that we might become children of God. Gregory of Nyssa writes, “What was achieved in the body of Mary will happen in the soul of everyone who receives the Word.” You, all of you, are also blessed and full of grace. So, may the God through whom nothing is impossible help you to be Marys … carrying the gospel into this hurt and broken and beautiful world. May it be with you all according to God’s Word.” (Read more: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2014/12/some-questions-for-mary-an-advent-sermon/#ixzz3Mw8TuWxJ)

Now just because we write better stories in our minds and with our mouths, doesn’t mean that everything is going to be rainbows and unicorns.  We may still get fired or sick or divorced or abused or not get the job we need or _______.  We don’t get to pick everything that happens to us in life.  Bad things are going to happen to all of us.  However, each of us does get to write the story of how we respond to negative turns in life.  Are we going to proclaim “Woe is me!” or are we going to do our best to make lemonade out of lemons?  When bad things happen, will we respond with anger and bitterness or will we respond with joy and love?  Each of us are authors of our lives, and when tragedy, trauma, or misfortune that are outside our control occur, we have the power to choose a positive attitude and/or spin.  We can decide to view negative turns as life lessons that can make us more loving and beautiful people.  For instance, I love to preach.  And for a variety of reasons, since becoming a pastor it hasn’t worked out for me to get to preach very often.  Not 100% of the time, but pretty often I’ve tried view this as a good life-lesson.  A great opportunity for me to find my value and worth NOT in what I do, but in who I am and in Christ, the one who created me.

What do you think?  Does this apply to you?  What stories in your life would you like to re-write?

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

Grace and peace,
Lang

“Our job is to remind people of their inherent goodness.” – Richard Rohr

One of my spiritual practices is to read the daily meditations from Richard Rohr. Rohr is a Franciscan monk who takes a mystic’s approach to life, love, and God.  The other day I came across this powerful line from him: “Our job is to remind people of their inherent goodness.”  As a Christ follower, this begs the question. Are we inherently good or are we inherently bad? Are we sinners or are we saints? Yes … But.

Key here, IMHO, is where does our story start? What’s the essence, core, and foundational nature of our selves? Is it good or is it bad? We’re both sinner and saint, but are we first sinner or first saint? The Bible is a story about God and humanity, a story we’re meant to live into. Its story begins with God declaring us “very good” in Gen. 1:31, just after saying we are made in the image of the Divine in verse 26. It’s later in the story, not much but still later, that we mess things up by grasping for the forbidden fruit, striving for power over others, trying to make ourselves gods, and end up cursed like Adam and Eve in the Gen. 3 story of the Fall. My point is, our story starts with God making us in Jesus’ image and naming us “very good,” so while we also all mess things up on a regular basis since Adam and Eve (see the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, wars, slavery, racism, oppression of women, the many personal hurts we’ve all experienced and perpetuated, etc.) I think the “foundations”/essence/core of people are constructed by God and cannot help but be good/love, while the “walls”/”floors”/”rooms”/etc. we build are what can end up being bad/harmful/sinful.  In other words, we are simultaneously saint and sinner, both beautiful and broken … yet the saint and beautiful come first, because those are how God made us.

The story about us and God, aka the Bible, does contain bits that indicate we start bad/sinful or have an inherent crookedness or evil, but I think (while freely admitting I could be wrong) that the overall narrative and arc of the Text, especially as seen in the Jesus stories, shows the preeminence of goodness/love in us. As I already mentioned, it makes logical sense to start the story, our story in chapter 1 as opposed to chapter 3. Further, near the beginning of Colossians, Paul gives a good summary of the Gospel or Good News by writing:

^“15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

^18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

^21-23 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.” (Colossians 1:15-23, The Message)

As Paul writes, Jesus is at both the start and the end of creation. Christ, who is Love incarnate, is the author of all our stories and holds everything together. And would an Author/Creator who is Love write us as inherently anything other than good? That said, Paul does include the sinful and non-good parts of humanity and creation.  They are neither his starting, nor his ending point, but they are true.  Jesus’/God’s good creation has indeed become fragmented and broken, just watch the nightly news for proof.  And only the Creator is able to put us and it back together.  We definitively need Christ to rescue us from this mess. In fact, our rescue is just one small part of what Jesus’ saving work does.  The Christ puts ALL of creation back together, because the death, sin, darkness, the powers, and the principalities have messed up God’s good creation, of which we are but a part. Along those lines, Paul actually introduces the above passage by writing: “¹³ He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13-14, NRSV) When Jesus puts us and creation back together, as Paul writes, we are back in relationship and harmony with God … and who would walk away from a gift like that?! My point is that the goodness of Jesus is both in our essence and in our restoration. We are all “very good” because Christ is both the Creator of everything in the beginning and the Savior of everything subsequently broken, via His life, death, and resurrection. In many ways the world and humanity is a mess (hurricanes, earthquakes, cancer, Ebola, wars, murders, prejudice, abuse, etc.) but that came both after Jesus made everything good and before Christ finishes healing, rescuing, and putting us and creation back together (a process our Messiah has already decisively begun). Thus, in my mind, it makes perfect sense to agree with Richard Rohr and say that a primary job of Christ followers is to “remind people of their inherent goodness.” We were made good, and while we got broken, we’re already in the process of being made good again. The love and goodness of Christ is at the essence of all creation, which makes them inherent to us all.

Which makes me ask (and perhaps you too), so what? Why does this matter? Because I think, what we see is what we get, or more precisely, what we see is what we do.  When we start by seeing ourselves and others as broken sinners, than we will treat ourselves and others as broken sinners. i.e. not well. While if we start by seeing ourselves and others as “very good” bearers of the Divine image, then we will usually treat ourselves and others as “very good” people made in the image of Jesus, i.e. we will treat ourselves and others well/with love. To put it differently, time and time again Christ tells us not to judge.  More specifically, to “judge” ourselves and others is to place a value on her, him, you, or I. Which means we declare a person to either be “good” or “bad,” to either be valuable or not valuable. Jesus tells us NOT to do this.  In fact, God has already named a value for each and every one of us.  We are each infinitely valuable, because Jesus (aka God) died for each and every one of us alone (2 Cor. 5:14 for instance). Thus, the only judgment we’re qualified to make about ourselves and others is that we are “very good,” people made in the image of God, and of unsurpassable worth. I find this an extremely helpful way of viewing others because it naturally leads to greater acts of love toward them. To put it one last way, and perhaps overstate the extremes for effect, which mentality is going to result in us showing more love and others responding with more love? If we decide “our job is to remind people of their inherent goodness?” Or if we think “our job is to remind people of their inherent sinfulness?”

There’s much more than can be said, like how the world and us are very much in need of the rescue operation God has launched via Jesus because we’re made good but all mess things up, or that Jesus’ rescue operation is so much bigger than just being about saving us from our sins, it’s about putting all creation back together, bringing heaven to earth, and making all things new … but I think this is long enough for now. I think Richard Rohr is right on in saying the job of Christ followers “is to remind people of their inherent goodness.”  What do you think?

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

Grace and peace,
Lang

Why “Both”/”And” are Incredibly Powerful Words: A Holistic Way to Make Sense of the World

Hi Everyone!  I hope you’re having a beautiful day.

One of the biggest influences on my “spiritual” life (aka my life) in recent memories has been Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who writes and speaks about spirituality from a mystic’s perspective (a mysticism that anyone can embrace, though, not just saints, Bible heroes, or whatever).  A point that he emphasizes time and again, which I think is especially relevant for us all, is that we seem naturally predisposed or conditioned to think of and view the world in terms of “either”/”or,” yet this is generally unhelpful and life, the universe, and everything usually makes more sense when we think of and view the world in terms of “both”/”and.”  We try and fit people, events, philosophies, countries, products, etc. into neat little boxes.  We designate them as either “this” or “that.”  For instance: Terrorists are bad and Americans are good, the other political party is wrong and ours is right, communism is terrible and capitalism is great, Andriods suck and iPhones rule, etc.  These distinctions have their utility, sexual abuse is never, ever good for instance, but they fail to take into account that the abuser is a beautiful human being with an important story too.  Both/and thinking, however, is often able to embrace the whole of reality and our world, recognizing that the sexual abuser both acted in an evil manner and is a beautiful child made in God’s image.

To put it differently, and more succinctly, seeing ourselves, others, and the world with an “either”/”or” lens leads to exclusion and harm, while seeing them with a “both”/”and” lens leads to greater love.

Let me use some more examples to illustrate this.  Last year my ex-wife and I got divorced.  We loved each other, but we still got divorced.  Either/or thinking would say that either we loved each other and would have stayed together, or we didn’t love each other and that’s why we got divorced.  Yet, I know I loved her.  With that in mind life did not make sense.  Time and again I asked myself: “How did we not work out when we loved each other?  How?  Love is the greatest force in the world, so how did we fall apart?”  Either/or thinking couldn’t make sense of life.  However, looking at the same picture through a different lens yields a more sensible result: My ex and I both loved each other and didn’t work.

In going through the divorce I was a “bit” emotional, to say the least.  One day I found myself sitting at my desk thinking: “I’m really happy right now … and I’m also gut-wrenchingly sad too.”  Again, either/or thinking wouldn’t allow this.  In that frame of mind our feelings must be either positive or negative, happiness and sadness can’t exist simultaneously in us.  Yet, this is a really limiting way of thinking, which couldn’t describe how I was feeling.  The both/and lens shows us emotions can include both happiness and sadness simultaneously.

A significant place we see this dynamic play out in society is in the science vs. the Bible debates.  The Bible’s description of creation, for instance, doesn’t literally match what science indicates is true, so of course one or the other must be right, while the other is wrong … right?  Of course the world was either made in seven days several thousand years ago or billions of years ago, but that is to miss the point.  The Bible isn’t a scientific document whose purpose is to list literal truths/facts (although it does contain some small-T truths/facts), it’s a story whose narrative points to bigger Truths about God, the world, and humanity in a variety of manners (poetry, ancient history, prophecy, visions, etc.).  Science and the Bible/spirituality/religion both speak truths about life and the world.  Truth is in both science and religion/spirituality.  In fact, the more we learn in science the more “spiritual” reality seems to get.  For instance (as I understand it), in subatomic physics there’s a concept known as entanglement, where two particles become entangled and no matter how far apart they are, what is done to one is done to the other.  This is science … and it also seems quite spiritual.  (For some different, but related thoughts you can check out this blog: http://daviddflowers.com/2014/09/29/dark-matter-vs-dark-energy-war-in-the-heavens/)

Another place where both/and thinking becomes helpful is in regard to the presence of God.  Generally speaking we can’t/don’t see, hear, feel, or smell God.  However, the Bible tells us that God is always present with us, that the Divine is everywhere.  We can’t see or hear God, so “obviously” the Creator isn’t here right?  Yet we also experience God in a baby’s smile or a deep breath that calms us down or a feeling of peace that mysteriously descends on us or …  In other words, God is both hidden from us and present with us.

Related to this is the whole Christian concept of God as the Trinity.  We believe there is one God.  And we believe God is three Persons.  God is one and three?  How is that possible?  Something must either be one OR three … right?  However, both/and thinking helps us see God is both singularity and multiplicity.

Of course, that’s easier said than done.  Some days it’s hard to believe in God, it’s hard to trust God, it’s hard to have faith.  When we lose our job, our kid, our marriage, our parent, our grandparent, our sibling, our house, and go through other traumas it’s hard to believe that there’s a “good” God who is the Creator and Ruler of everything.  Yet, either/or thinking argues that we must either have believe in God and have faith … or we don’t.  There’s no room for doubt in either/or thought.  Conversely, a both/and mentality allows faith to hold and include both belief and disbelief in God.  (You can read some related thoughts here: http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2014/10/faith-as-quantum-superposition.html)

When we view the world in terms of either/or, we naturally divide the world into two categories: 1) Good guys (i.e. “our” team) or 2) Bad guys (i.e. anyone not “our” team).  Consider college football for example.  Most every big university has an arch-rival (UCLA vs. USC, Standford vs. Cal-Berkley, Washington State University vs. University of Washington, Auburn vs. University of Alabama, Texas A&M vs. University of Texas, etc.).  And when we’re a fan of one of those schools, we are basically required to dislike the other school.  It’s either UW or WSU … period.  No exceptions.  Now broaden this.  U.S. political lines are quite divided between Republicans and Democrats, Republicans think Democrats are dummies and vice-versa.  Or think about wars.  We generally only go to war with people who’ve we defined as in the category of “bad” guys.  Psychologically speaking, to stay sane we pretty much always have to define a person/people group as “other” and “bad” in order to kill them.  They were either good or bad, and we defined them as bad.  However, Jesus blows either/or thinking apart when it comes to our “enemies.”  The Christ invites us to love everyone in the world, which requires we stop dividing/defining people as good guys or bad guys.  Jesus invites us to view others with a both/and mentality: Love encompasses both our friends/family and our enemies.

Perhaps the most profound and beautiful aspect of both/and thinking comes in regard to God, salvation, faith, and following Christ.  God loves us all … period.  God could never love any of us more or less.  NOTHING is required of us to be accepted, loved, and saved by God.  HOWEVER, the unconditional love and embrace of God will NOT leave us the same.  Being unconditionally loved and accepted by God lifts the pressure to perform and achieve from us … which frees us to progressively transform into the best versions of ourselves.  In following Christ both nothing is required of us, AND we will give our whole lives and be transformed.

I’ve found that “both”/”and” are powerful words that help make sense of the world.  What do you think?

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

Grace and peace,
Lang

Let’s Be Real: Robin Williams, Naming and Facing Our Darkness, and How Bringing Things Into the Light Heals

Hi Everyone!  I hope/pray today finds you well, blessed, and full of life.

 

In the Facebook flood following Robin Williams’ death something a cousin of mine posted really struck me.  She wrote something to the effect of: Any of you who are struggling with depression, addiction, and the like, you are NOT alone.  And you DON’T have to struggle through it alone, please call and/or ask for help.  I think this is true, tragic, beautiful, and important all at once, so it got me thinking and I’d like to share some of those thoughts with you.

 

Robin Williams’ death (like pretty much all deaths) just plain sucks … AND we have the ability to bring something good from it.  As has come to light since the tragedy, he struggled with depression.  While I don’t know if it was THE reason for his suicide, I imagine it was almost certainly A reason.  Further, obviously some people knew about it, but it doesn’t seem to have been a widely known issue for Robin.  This makes me wonder: Would Robin Williams have died if it had been acceptable and permitted for him to freely talk about his depression with others?  Would bringing it into the light more fully (I don’t pretend to know how much he did) have helped bring it him a significant measure of healing?

 

I’m convinced that bringing our struggles into the light by sharing them with others WILL bring healing.  That’s not to say our addictions, depressions, anger, judgment, fears, etc. will magically disappear or go away, but that over time, sharing them with safe people will let us know we are NOT ALONE in our struggle(s) AND it will help us work THROUGH the struggle(s) AND it will give us a measure of peace IN the struggle(s).  Let me put it this way, when the problem of me (one) is spoken and shared it becomes our (two) problem.  It’s easier for two, or more, to carry a weight than it is for one.  AND, because I’m a “bit” of a Jesus dork :), I can’t help but add if/when we bring God/Jesus into the mix, the weight of our struggle(s) becomes less and the healing deeper because me + you + Jesus = life-giving.  Again, this is not to say the deal will magically go away, more to say we will be able to find life amidst it, as we work through it.

 

A fundamental reason for this healing process (because it IS a process, often a very long one) is what I’ll dub the “Me too” principle.  A huge lie I’ve believed is I’m the ONLY one who struggles with my issue(s).  YET, time and time and time again, when I share them with others, I find out I’m NOT.  They say “me too” and/or they know someone who says “me too.”  What is more, I think the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, i.e. God coming to us as a human to share our sorrows, joys, struggles, triumphs, pains, etc., is the Divine and Universal “Me too!”  In Jesus, God tells each and every one of us in our struggles, “me too,” because God has also experienced all the frailties of our humanness.  In other words, this, my friends, is a God who can relate to us!

 

Speaking of God and relationship, as i understand it, a very important (and repetitive) step/part of each of our development into whole and healthy individuals is to name and face our darkness.  While this is specifically a part of our spiritual development and progression, spirituality (IMHO) is part and parcel to our whole selves, so I see naming and facing our darkness as a key aspect of what it means for each of us to mature and grow as humans.  This likely begs the question: What is our darkness?  I think our darkness is the places, chosen or not, that hold us back from loving ourselves, others, and God.  With that in mind there are a whole host of possibilities.  It can be a condition we DON’T choose, like depression, anxiety, neuroses, and the like.  And/or it can be ways we lead our selves away from love, like addiction, judgment, anger, bitterness, mistrust, violence, and a host of other issues.  A key, as I understand it, for us to be whole and healthy people is to search for, name (to ourselves, others, and God), and face the darkness that lies in each and every one of us.

 

To put some flesh on this I’d like to name an ongoing darkness in myself I’ve been working through … well, actually I really DON’T want to name it because I want you to think I’m a great person … but I will for the sake of healing and illustration.  My current darkness is I’ve recently found myself super judgmental of people who have hurt me, knowingly or unknowingly.  I theoretically wish good things for them and success and the like, but if/when I see or hear about success (which can be as simple as friends loving and hanging out with them) it bums me out.  Why?  Because some dark part of me wants “them” to “suffer” for the “wrong(s)” they did to me.  I HATE THAT I THINK THIS!  Yet, ignoring it won’t heal it.  So, I’m choosing to bring it into the light, because experience and believes have shown me naming issues to others and bringing them into the light is healing.

 

To wrap up here’s my hope.  Can we all start to, bit by bit, be more real with each other?  Can we name our darkness to others and God?  Can we be a safe and nonjudgmental person/place for others to name their darkness?  Can we work through our ugly bits instead of ignoring them?  If we do, I think we will honor Robin Williams and bring something good from this tragedy.  What do you think?

 

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write, or check out the most recent blogs here.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

 

Grace and peace,
Lang

Why Do We Naturally Connect With Some People? Because Our Stories are Like Music, in Harmony They are Beautiful

Hi Lovely People!

 

I hope you and those near and dear to you are doing well.  One of my cousins got to walk in the ceremony for her Masters today, which is pretty wonderful.

 

My cousin and I don’t live terribly far from each other (within an hour-and-a-half’ish), but it’s far enough that we only see each other a couple/few times a year.  For most of the last fifteen years I lived elsewhere, so as is the nature of life, we went several years with barely seeing each other at all.  Then, a few years ago we had a chance to talk a fair bit at a family gathering and something interesting happened.  We made connection, after connection, after connection.  We’d been reading and loving some of the same people in our faith/spiritual journeys, we’d both had similar losses and gains in our lives, and we’d both walked through tragedies/traumas.  Since that day of sharing stories I’ve felt a kinship and closeness with her that I never had before.  We still only see each other occasionally, and don’t get to talk all that much, but the harmony the music of our stories created that one day still resonates between us, connecting us in a powerful way.

 

Now, the converse can also be true I think.  We can share parts of our stories with each other, and/or share them in such manners that they create dissonance and discord as opposed harmony.  For instance, I’m a HUGE Seahawks and Mariners fan.  So, when I go on and on and on about my love for the best teams EVER, the teams everyone should root for (just kidding … kind of 🙂 to someone who has different favorite teams or doesn’t care one iota for sports, while he/she talks about how the 49ers rule or at length about creating pottery, then our stories conflict, they come together in a way that doesn’t, in fact, come together.  In short, I think that our stories are like music.  When we share stories that are in harmony, it creates something beautiful, a natural connection.  And when they are dissonant, when the notes don’t match, then the combination doesn’t sound all that nice.

 

Now I don’t think this just applies to the bare facts and details of our stories, I think it also applies to how we tell our stories.  Our tone and emotions matter too.  Take for instance Person A who is overly peaceful and meek and Person B who is overly aggressive and quite assertive.  They can both be passionate about fighting human trafficking, yet it’s quite possible that when they talk about the same thing the opposite manners in which they speak will create discord and dissonance.

 

I was reflecting on this recently when I met/(re)met someone who I’ve connected with in a number of really cool ways, so wanted to share … and I find myself wondering so what?  Unto what end am I writing about this and hoping you’ll read it?  Two points stand out to me.

 

First, I think comparing our stories to musical notes is a very relevant metaphor for why we sometimes quickly hit if off with one person and completely the opposite with another.  When the stories we share with each other are in harmony, then they come together to create lovely music.  In fact, the greater the harmony, the greater the results.  When two or more like-minded, passionate people come together, share their stories, and then live into them, great things often happen.  I think this is where we get a wide spectrum of transformative relationships/partnerships that span from inspiring romances to organizations and movements that change the world.

 

Secondly, as I mentioned above, sometimes our stories collide, our notes are at odds, and non-beautiful things happen.  I don’t know about you, but my natural impulse is to think: Well, sometimes our stories match and sometimes they don’t, so those I match with must be those I hang onto, whereas those I don’t are those I should let go.  That is naturally the easiest route, and sometimes (like instances of abuse) the healthiest/safest route.  That said, I think recognizing that all humanity is one, that we are all sisters and brothers who are the same, invites us to a different response.  I think we may not be able to change the notes of our stories, but we can change the octaves (it’s possible I’m messing up the metaphor, but bear with me please :).  What I’m saying is that when we recognize that our story doesn’t match well with Person X’s story, we can adjust our story in a manner that both remains true to who we are and actually is able to create at least pleasant sounding music together.  For instance, I firmly believe that every person in the world fundamentally wants the same thing: to love and be loved.  So, when we are talking to the fan of our team’s arch-rival and/or a person who doesn’t like sports at all, instead of dwelling in this area of discord, we can focus on our shared interest of loving and being loved.   Because, I think, we are all one and all made to make beautiful music together.

 

 

Why do we quickly fall head-over-heels in love with a person?  Why do we instantly hit it off with a close friend/like-minded soul?  I think it’s because sometimes the connection and intersection of our stories brings harmony, as, like notes adding together to form a chord, they create something more beautiful than the a single note alone can.  Recognizing this and that we are all one, I think invites us to try and create evermore beautiful music with each other.  What do you think?

 

If you enjoyed the blog you can sign up on the right for email notifications for future blogs I write.  Also, I have a Facebook site named “Beautiful and Broken Becoming Beautiful” where I post encouraging words on living love that I’d love for you to “like.”

 

Grace and peace,
Lang