12.3.2012 ALLENDER - TO BE TOLD III

...READING, WRITING AND ARITHMETIC-OR MORE ACCURATELY, MULTIPLICATION (matthew 28.18-20)-SUMMARIZE OUR HIGHEST CALLING.

CHAPTER 4 - LISTENING TO WHAT MOVES YOU

we read and write our stories for the sake of others and for God's glory.
our stories are not our own.
our stories are not to be read and written merely for our own benefit.
my story is your story and all our stories are for God.
therefore, i am to read, write, edit, tell and celebrate your story as much as my own.
that is the multiplication of story...

61.1 a yes or a no reflects what we value most and determines the end toward which we will move.
all decisions are guided by our projection of ourselves into the future, called our IDEAL SELF.
we each see ourselves as being a certain kind of person with a specific set of values, beliefs and dreams.
in practice, however, we often are not what we want to be but instead end up choosing what others expect us to be.
this is called our OUGHT SELF.
avoid it.
none of us will ever reach the ideal, but we can escape the ought in order to become what's called the
REAL SELF.
the real self is the one that lives honestly and ably in the middle between the ideal and the ought....

passion is what makes us feel most alive. for one person it is reading flannery o'connor, and for another it is watching one's stock portfolio grow. it is not wrong to love literature or to want to make money on investments or to have a passion for both. our ideal image of ourself is inextricably tied to our deepest passion. we will not know our true self unless we can name the passions that are tied to our ideal self...
-what we do is what we really value.
-what we value enough to do tells others what we really believe.
-what we really believe shapes what we will become...

..we always choose what we value most, even when our choice does us harm.
we won't change our behavior until we first recognize what we value most deeply
and then honestly face how our passions reinforce what we really believe.
we can change our beliefs,
but doing so won't alter our behavior until our beliefs transform our values.
we can change what we do, but the changes won't last if our values and convictions are not transformed.

each of us can begin the process of transformation by wrestling with there questions:
-what moves me most deeply?
-what do i most enjoy doing?
-where do i find the greatest pleasure and joy?
what is it about this activity, idea, or person that brings me such a sense of life?..

our ideals often get suffocated by the expectations of others...

the word character originally referred to a stylus or a tool that makes a groove in a piece of wood.
a character came to mean whatever is marked or cut by a stylus,
the pattern that an artist has carved into the raw material.
likewise, initially we are marked by the most dominant and influential people in our life.
however, their marking can't fully form us without our participation.
in fact, we adopt others' expectations of us by making them our own.

ultimately, though, our role is cut by God.
our parents may have a huge hand in shaping our character as we either conform to or defy their desire.
however, God orchestrates all of the influences in our life to blend a symphony of themes that
reflects His purposes...

so we live out a role, or we live according to a set of expectations of who we are and how we will engage with others. the role we play is both given and found. i had the role of being the translator or the messenger between my mother and father. my father was a profoundly uncommunicative man. he would often say to me.
'go calm your mom down. she's upset with something i've done and she needs to talk.
it was my job to provide her with 'perspective' after she described the quarrel they'd just had.
here was the problem:
the perspective i offered might get dad off the hook, but it would make my mom feel guilty and unloved.
on the other hand, if i chose to side with my mom, then i had to convince my dad of the legitimacy of her hurt

it was a no win world , so i found solace in books and, even more, in the staggering power and glory of words. i words i found a yes. in fact it was a divine yes that brought comfort and offered the hope of transformation. in the midst of words, i found my deepest sense of pleasure and passion. where we find our passion-and the things that stoke that passion-will eventually become part of our character...

our role in our family of origin was given to us more than it was chosen by us. but we honed and perfected it as a means to save our families and in turn preserve ourselves. the role we are given is often predictable and well defined, but we seldom act it out in a mechanical fashion. instead we customize the role to our way of being.

so which is it that really moves us-the ideal self or the ought self? the answer is..we live in a state of constant compromise between the two. we sacrifice what is ideal for what is required and vice versa. most of the time it is nearly impossible to discern which self most deeply moves us...

..regarding the real self...
if you want to find wisdom about life, it's often best to read some of the great writing found in children's stories. exactly what does it mean to be real?
margery williams tells us in the velveteen rabbit;

'what is REAL? asked the rabbit one day.
'does it mean having that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?
real isn't how you are made, said the skin horse.
it's a thing that happens to you. when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.
does it hurt?
sometimes. for he was always truthful.
when you are Real, you don't mind being hurt.
does it happen all at once, like being wound up or bit by bit?
it doesn't happen all at once.
YOU BECOME. (my caps)
it takes a long time.
that's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily,
or who have sharp edges,
or who have to be carefully dept.
generally,
by the time you are Real,
most of your hair has been loved off
and your eyes drop out,
and you get loose in the joints
and very shabby.
but those things don't matter at all,
because once you are Real you can't be ugly,
except to people who don't understand.

so what really moves us?
in light of that passage, it's whatever we love.
if i love the feeling of being full, satisfied and content,
i will love the ease that any false god like food can provide.
why am i more motivated by the soothing satisfaction of a doughnut
than i am by the thrill of working out at the gym? the answer, in part, is because doughnuts require less
risk
suffering and
loss
than a thirty minute workout.
and i love what takes away pain and suffering more than i love what is
true
good
or lovely.

i 'm called to be real.
i am real if i have been loved
and if i know love to be
better than sorrow,
stronger than death,
truer than any spin.
real is not an ideal because i'm real only after all my parts have been worn off.
real is not an ought because the role i am to play is not expected.
instead it is a gift given by me Maker even if it was at first the markings of my parents, family and culture.

therefore, it is my responsibility to first own what most deeply moves me
and then to live it out for the sake of others...

key to making such decisions is identifying our greatest pleasure...

i worked with a woman in her sixties who grew up in a back hills area of the deep south. she was born into an illiterate pentecostal pastor's family. this family suffered sexual abuse, alcoholism and violence for more than one generation. this woman's abuse was so deep she seemed destined to be swallowed in the mayhem. her story involved so much loss and shame that it brought deep pain just to hear her tell it, let alone imagine what it must have been like for her to live it...
i don't recall ever asking god for the privilege of working with traumatically abused men and women, yet that is what i do. i don't believe God hands out our callings like an army quartermaster dispenses a uniform, rations and a gun to a soldier. God invites us to follow our passions even when we are unaware that they exist.

my character was formed in the midst of family violence, tension and heartache. i came early to the calling of translation and intervention. God called me unto a family and a story of heartache, violence, and oddity. i am called to care for the angry, abused, broken people. and i know joy, the divine yes of God, in the rise of redemption from the hidden, dark shame filled waters of abuse.

what would i rather do:
amble about life with little purpose other than seeking comfort
or engage in my divine yes and no, even if doing so brings heartache?
it's a choice, just as in the matrix, between the red pill and the blue pill.
one will quiet you and let you sleep through the terror of this world,
while the other will awaken you to be a warrior fueled by the passions of redemption.
you and i are meant to know the rush and the arousal of redemption.

it matters little what problem population or place you tackle.
it only matters that something in your soul pulses with eternity
to join the cast of characters that ventures to create glory and beauty out of the ashes of the fall.
it is redemption that lures you to say yes...
redemption-freeing of the soul and the body from death to life,
loosening of injustice,
assaulting disease,
growing of crops for the hungry, (note: i think he meant teaching the hungry to grow their own food..and more.)
comforting the dying,
teaching a child to read,
delivering a warm greeting to a neighbor,
helping  child tie her shoe-
is all about saying a divine yes to glory.
and for each of us there is a script written that is contoured to our deepest passions, that reflects our core character and our truest calling.
we are written to be REAL,
and there is something in every heart that knows
when we are
and when we are not.

if we are willing to study our life,
God will give us signs and clues as to our calling.
if we will read
(note: tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about)
our story,
especially our tragedies,
then we will better understand what forms our passion.
and we'll be better prepared to be real
as we say yes and no.

what is your passion?

CHAPTER 5 - FACING THE TRAGEDY THAT SHAPES YOU (the illuminating plot twist of shame and betrayal)

'why must holy places be dark places? c.s. lewis

heartache awakens us to the whisper of a rumor,
to a hint of the truth that
we're not home.
we spend most of our life pursuing both necessity and luxury,
guided by the presumption that life can be orderly and predictable
if we just try hard enough.
and then tragedy in some form breaks through
and awakens us.

tragedy awakens passion in a way that times of calm and blessing, pleasure and joy, cannot.
the word passion comes from a latin root that means 'suffering'.
it implies intense emotion that energizes a person to move.
we are moved to act when we are in pain.
when we know joy, we may dance and sing,
but over time joy brings the heart to rest.
tragedy, on the other hand, moves the heart to act.
all passion is
founded on pain,
grown through risk,
and marked by the decisions we make in the face of tragedy.

tragedy introduces us to ourselves,
to our deepest passions,
to what it is that receives either our yes or our no.
we move on an invisible track that is grooved more by passion and desire than by any other source of motivation.
we do what we want even when we don't know what we want.
when we opt not to do the thing we think we want,
it's because a greater desire or want is at play.
when we fail to act, we of course act.
and the same is true of choice.
our failure to intentionally choose a course of action is no less a decision.
and everything that we do is fueled by passion and moved forward by an inescapable and pulsing desire that can't be satisfied on this earth..

if i study your patterns of saying yes to this and no to the other thing,
i will see the contours of your deepest passions.
and if i follow the passions of your life,
i will not only gain a greater sense of your past and your future,
but i might hear the name that God will one day call you.

our lives are filled with tragedy.
but far more amazing, we live out our stories surrounded by an angelic host and a multitude of stories that serve to put our lives in context and give meaning to our heartaches.
we must learn to read our passions in order to know the heart of God.
and it is in the midst of our tragedies, both past and present,
that we will see how the waters of suffering have cut our terrain and formed the contours of our character.
more than anything else,
tragedies shape our identity and our character.

we begin reading the tragedy of our story when we recognize it as the rule rather than the exception.
there is not a person on earth who has escaped life's pivotal, inciting incidents-
incidents that are full of sadness, injustice, failure and cruelty;
incidents that require action to change or redeem them.
if we are listening to another person's story,
we must presume that
shalom has been shattered and
that s/he is on a journey to restore balance.
but most of the time as we look at other lives or even our own,
we fail to see the pivotal tragedies that have set into motion the plot of a person's life.

there are two primary reasons for this absence of perspective.
on the one hand some people have so many shattering moments that hearing their story is like walking through a military cemetery with tens of thousands of white crosses and stars of david...
on the other hand, some people have coasted through life with very little hardship.
where are the inciting incidents that define their lives?
most people have some sad and difficult moments, but often those moments occurred long ago and don't seem connected to the life the person is living today. and when we look back, many of those moments don't seem that dramatic or pivotal, so they are easily cast aside.

a woman told me with embarrassment about her longstanding discomfort with her teeth. she seldom smiled, but she was kind and i had not noticed the absence of a side mouthed simile. her elementary school years were full of teasing and cruel remarks about her buckteeth. she is now in her sixties, sill single, and she has lived a good life. but she had not taken stock of the harm done or of what she really wanted to become in the face of such long ago hurt.

she began to take stock of her life when a friend asked her,
'why did you make every man who pursued you pay?
it was the firs question about her singleness that ever pierced this woman's heart.
she was kind to everyone-except a man who wanted to date her.
then she would become critical and distant, withdrawing any affection she might have shown to that point.

not only are we apt to deny the tragedies of our past, but we also are willing to make others pay because of past hurt.
we are combative toward the tragedies that shattered our shalom, or else we're blind to them or merely dismissive of them.
in order to understand our passion, though,
we must have access to the moment of shattering that set into motion
both our core paradigm for how we see life
and our core determination of how we will live it.
 
tragedy shapes our deepest passions
and our passions shape who we are and what we sill become.
each person living in a fallen world will encounter abandonment, betrayal and shame.
you can't avoid it and neither can i.
it's the necessary context in which we come to grips with how we will live.
it is in the midst of affliction that we become our truest or most false self.

as we do battle against the tragedy of our story,
we determine whom we will fight for and how we will wage the war of life.
it is when we are unnamed through tragedy that we are given the ground to search and dig
until we find the jewel of our identity.
betrayal can name you Worthless rather than Trusting.
it can brand you Friendless when your true name is much closer to faithful.

we lose ourselves and our identity in moments of unnaming,
but we must return to those places to find ourselves and
even more so, to find God.
this concept is hard to grasp because it's the opposite of what we assume to be true.
we think we'll be happy if we can escape the past,
but it is truer that without our past we are vacant beings with bland names and cookie cutter stories.
as we enter the places where we lost our name,
we are most likely to hear the whisper of our new name-
the name God will give us.

each human story involves moments of being unnamed through abandonment, betrayal and shame.
the bible talks about those experiences as
being an orphan (abandoned)
a stranger (betrayed) and
a widow (shamed).
and God reveals Himself to be the person who perfectly meets the needs of each one.

our heavenly
Father is the only one who can rightly name us.
interestingly, in the ancient near east, a father gave his sons and daughters their names.
he created meaning in his children by the name he gave each one.
the mother nurtured and grew the fruit of that meaning.

this custom did not give the father inordinate power;
neither did it diminish the role to the mother.
however, a father stood first in the circle of meaning.
he might not complete the process,
because it required the fecundity of his wife to bring a child to maturity.
but the father began the process.
and when he was absent,
the momentum of meaning in the child's life was
at best slowed  or at worst accelerated off course at tragic speeds.
in fact, in the ancient near east, if a boy's father died,
he lost his place, his name, and his inheritance.
he became an orphan-
a boy without protection, without provision and without an identity.

an orphan in the time of the old and new testaments lived a dangerous and lonely existence.
in a culture based on patrimony,
to no longer have a name was tantamount to being a foreigner who had no rights or privileges.
orphans had to scratch out a living in a hard, unsympathetic world.

it is not that different today.
a child who has lost his or her father due to death or divorce,
lives in the tension, if not the torture, between being named and being unnamed.
where was once a father, and he loved me.
he tossed me in the air.
i could feel the stubble on his chin
and smell the old spice as i sat on his lap.
i could feel the beat of his heart as i leaned against his chest.
i once felt safe.
but now i don't

a father can be lost through means other than divorce or death.
some fathers fall into their comfortable chairs
and their flickering televisions blind them to life and to their children.
others are snatched away by the allure of the road
and the effort to pad their wallets.
others never speak-or never listen.
others have shamed us through neglect or abuse.

...granted, few people have glorious fathers. but even a child raise by a good father will likely be harmed by someones else-
a pastor, a teacher, a coach, a mentor.
those 'authority figures' are to mold their proteges' hearts and bodies for glory.
but instead they often orphan us by their abuse, arrogance or dismissal.
it only takes one moment of abandonment to stain the cloth of glory.
and we all know some form of abandonment.

there are many ways of becoming an orphan,
but they all lead to the same end;
a swirl of desire to touch our absent father's face and hear him speak our name.
the desire is more than most of us can bear,
and we turn against that ache by killing all our desire to feel safe in our father's presence.

....God wants us to start asking important questions,
and He uses our fleeting and unquenchable desire to connect with our father
to raise the questions we all need to face.
God wants us to ask the questions of meaning;
'who am i?
what am i made to be and to do?
what is worth dying for?
as we ask, we begin a new journey,
because we give up the superficial answers that seemed to have worked for decades.

asking about meaning shakes the false foundation of how we get by from one day to the next.
the culture that surrounds us offers answers that are meant to satisfy;
you are a consumer who desperately needs a new PDA.
you are a christian father who needs to have a date night with your daughter once a week.
you are a conservative or liberal who votes certain platform issues no matter who the candidate might be.
you faithfully attend church and work in committees and give your time and money to good causes.

those answers move you from today to tomorrow.
but how to they accomplish that?
and why do you accept the answers?
who knows?
you do so because you do so..

we flinch at the idea of asking those tough questions
because we know that if we ask, the answers will change us.
we will be exposed as orphans.
we will be set adrift from the authoritarian culture that serves as a surrogate father.
we will never again be able to rest in the culture's arms,
satisfied that it can serve as the father we never had but always desired.
and being adrift, we are unnamed.
i thought i knew who i was, but now i have no idea.
like abraham, we leave our comfortable ur-
but only if we are willing to follow  the madness of faith.
(note: oh Lord help me to cut every other string...totally and hang from Your word alone!)
as we are unnamed by the absence of our father,
we find faith demanding us to begin our journey to touch the face of God.

and it is on that journey that we begin to see
that we have turned to others for self definition, safety and companionship in order
to banish the loneliness of life.

many of our wounds have to do with our friends and our siblings.
friendships bring a harvest of conviviality and joy;
they also can send us into exile.
the psalmist laments the agony of a lost friendship.

'it is not an enemy who taunts me-
i could bear that.
it is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me-
i could have hidden form them.
instead, is is you-my equal,
my companion and close friend.
what good fellowship we enjoyed
as we walked together to the house of God  psalm 55.12-4

friendships that go bad sicken the heart.
the psalmist can't walk to the temple without being reminded of the conversations and joy he once knew with his friend.
worship will never be the same again.
the path they shared is now stained with the blood of betrayal.
his friend now wants him destroyed, if not dead.
his heart feels the tremors of terror
and he wants to fly away with the wings of a dove.

the loss of a friendship sends the heart into exile.
it makes us aliens and strangers, wandering in a foreign land.
the restaurants where we used to meet for coffee,
the books we used to read and discuss,
are now part of a country that will never be home again.
the history of associations and connections is severed,
and the stories we shared will now be told to no one...

..betrayal opens our eyes to our core loneliness.
we are alone and no matter how well we may be known by others,
there is no certainty that those we sacrifice for today will love us tomorrow.
friendships are fraught with pain and the potential for betrayal.

when we feel alone, we begin to ask if there is any relationship that can survive sin.
-am i a true friend?
-do i know what it is to care and abide?...

our story is a face to face encounter with all of life's betrayals....
such losses set us on a journey, and
we awaken to being unnamed most profoundly when we suffer the loss of our lover.

the drama of our life begins with our father and mother:
they give us our name and set the parameters of our life's meaning.
the drama is furthered through relationships with friends:
they bring us care, conviviality and protection.
but the most intimate and powerful drama has to do with our lover. our spouse.
(and if we have never been married,
a great portion of our drama relates to the issues of why we have not been pursued and chosen.
we struggle with the heartache and desire related to being a man with a woman or a woman with a man.

one can be widowed in two different ways: death or distance.
death takes our lover to a separate realm and leaves us bereft.
we cannot follow, contact, or enjoy even a moment of pleasure again
with the person we love most.
we are trapped in our memories of joy and our dreams of return...

another form of widowhood is being married to a distant, untrustworthy spouse.
there are many who sleep each night with a living corpse
who will rise the next morning,
brush his or her teeth,
expect breakfast,
and complain about the day ahead.
it is onerous to imagine waking up next to a person whom you don't love
and whom you know doesn't love you.
this is living-death widowhood.
sadly, many marriages die while both spouses are still breathing.
in most cases, in order to survive such emptiness,
many give up their own drama, 
turn themselves over to watching other people's lives
(television, sports, church, romance novels)...
(note: exactly what i did...)
and slip away into a vicarious fantasy life.

also, there are single men and women who exist in perpetual widowhood.
they grieve what has never been
and often surrender their present to dread of the future.

the (erratically or serially) promiscuous single
gives his or her body to temporary partners
who are committed only to their own pleasure.
the result is that the most intimate gift one can offer
is given to someone who is guaranteed to rip off the paper and plunder the gift
with no commitment to the present or future.
sex without the prior expression of loyalty and commitment
loses all meaning because it lacks memory of the past or promise of a future.
it is nothing more than a random, chaotic act.
in that sense, all promiscuity is a form of violence.
it may well be mutually agreed upon and highly pleasurable for both participants,
but it lacks trust.
therefore it is torn from commitment and promise.

and there are many singles who live with not only the loss or absence of a partner
but also the memory of past violence
and the anticipation of once again being misused.
it is widowhood,
but without the benefit of a shared past or the anticipated reunion following death.

even the nonpromiscuous single experiences widowhood.
she is single to some degree because she has not been chosen.
in our couple based world, it is agonizing to attend parties, sit at church, or go shopping...
you realize as you climb the stairs to your apartment that no one will turn the light on for you or make sure the house is clear of intruders. ...

all widowhood steals the pleasure of intimacy in the present.
it robs us of the connectedness to another soul
whose naming of us gives us the most intimate sense of being we can find on earth.
there are names my wife calls me in the course of a day that no one else on earth calls me.
and there is a name..that my wife uses and that no one else will ever hear...
when she sings those syllables, i know to listen more deeply and intently
because what follows will be a word from the one who has most called me to my name
and who has the sweetest hints as to what my name will one day be....

in the presence of love, we are rightly named...
when we are named orphan, stranger or widow,
we begin the journey of finding our true name.
will we defy the tragedy of becoming and orphan, a stranger, and a widow
by saying yes to the passions that God has put in us?
to turn away from , rather than embrace and learn from, tragedy is a double loss.
we lose not only in the original harm,
but we add to that harm by closing our heart.


whatever has broken our heart is meant to arouse our anger.
it is from anger that we gain the ability to shout, No!
we are to say no to the harm that befell us
so that it does not add to the cycle of violence that harms others.
if we face our tragedies with an open heart,
we will become more tender toward ourselves and others.
tenderness give us the freedom to speak yes to those who ache and who need the kind touch
of our care.
tragedy prepares us to become who we are meant to be.

I FIND MY NAME AND STORY WHEN I STRUGGLE WITH TRAGEDY.
I WAS UNNAMED BY TRAGEDY,
AND EITHER I WILL LOSE MY NAME COMPLETELY BECAUSE OF IT
OR I WILL FIND MY TRUEST NAME AS I MEET IT FACE TO FACE...

tragedy asks:
'are you willing to do battle with what has broken your heart?
and it calls out:
'will you let God transform you in the midst of your struggle?
both questions set the course for the kind of character and calling
God has written for our life.