Emotional truth

February 11, 2011 under personalinthepubliceye, thehumancondition, wholenessinreallife

Emotions are like a leaky roof.

A leaky roof is always leaky; its real state (the truth of it) never changes. But the experience changes on a daily basis and is entirely dependent on the weather.

God’s purpose for us is that we be made whole. Unfortunately I often have that leaky roof relationship with God – when I feel fine I don’t have a problem, do I? The difficulty with running on feeling is that it flops up and down. It suffers delays; often it takes a long pattern of behaviour before the full force of feeling follows. Often it takes a long pattern of behaviour reversal before feelings are finally reversed.

One of the things that confounds me and trips me up on a daily basis is that it’s easy to know how I feel in a given moment (it’s a simple gut check :- ) but truth is not necessarily so apparent. One of the daily struggles of the Christian faith for me is to constantly remind myself that I have to seek the truth.

Of course, this is in no way an exclusively Christian dilemma – how many parents have told their children,

“You don’t feel like it? Do it anyway.”

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Why does this work?

June 2, 2010 under wholenessinreallife

The downfall story goes like this:

A Russian politician is beguiled into indiscretion by a pretty girl who ultimately proves to have:

  • A video camera
  • An ulterior motive

Says Mr. Yashin (from the linked BBC story),

“She was pretty and I fell for her and behaved like any single young person would.”

“I didn’t suspect anything until drugs and sex toys were brought out. Instinctively I felt something was wrong and left.”

But it was already too late. Enough embarrassing footage had already been filmed.

I think we’re all familar with the story. This story is incredibly old. This story is incredibly proven. This story was working long before there were ever Russians or politicians.

If you need leverage over a man… you need a pretty girl.

But why does this story of entrapment work? How come it continually plays out like this? I can think of a thousand postmodern, enlightened reasons why this absolutely, positively shouldn’t work. But it absolutely, positively does. And, in my heart of hearts, I believe it will never stop working.

Not on everyone, not in every instance… but it will always work in scale.

There are a few key elements needed for this story to work.

  • The man has to chase the pretty girl
  • The man has to do something shameful
  • The general public has to condemn the man

If the man stayed home that night – no story.
If the man and the girl feed cookies to the park ducks – no story.
If the public said, “Whatever” – no story.

But the evidence here says that there is a story, and the question is, “Why?”

Why are we willing to chase the girl (or the money, or the status)?
Why are we willing to do something indiscreet and shameful?
Why do we, as a public, condemn something in a leader that is so incredibly common?

Note – there’s at least one question that Mr. Yashin would disagree with here. He doesn’t see anything shameful in what he did. Interesting.

In any case, there is a mystery here to ponder.
It’s truly bizarre – if it’s wrong why did he do it, and if it’s not wrong, why is able to cause his downfall?

At the very least, we should be getting smarter about these things… and we’re not.

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Perspective

November 11, 2009 under wholenessinreallife

Perspective is a funny thing.

I’m sure there are thousands of little German boys who would have given anything to be in Robert Enke’s place – the first-choice goaltender for the German national football team.

But on Tuesday, he threw it all away when he walked in front of a train.

Thousands of people are willing to point at something  like that: “There is the most valuable thing.” but to him it didn’t mean that much. To him there was something more important… but tragically, it was missing.

What he saw must have been vastly different from what everyone else saw. More likely is that things were crowded out of his vision – that he couldn’t see what everyone else did, because he was preoccupied with something else.

Have a prayer for his widow and for his daughter.

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What are you proud of?

September 4, 2009 under personalinthepubliceye, wholenessinreallife

Our confidence is only as strong as the stuff it’s built on.

I’m immensely proud of being the #1 site for the search terms, “anglican funk” on Google. (It used to work without quotes, but now it only works with quotes.) It’s me, babe.

But when my confidence is based almost exclusively on funk, its not hard to… ah… break it down.

I used to be the only hit for the quoted version. Now a plethora of spam blogs have the term.

I used to be the #1 hit for the non-quoted. Now I’m not even in the top ten hits. I’m not even in the top ten pages of hits.

It was nice while it lasted, but ever since the post left the first page of the blog the rankings went south. I could give it a page with a permanent URL and then I think it would stick around for a while.

It’s a reasonably simple question to ask, “What am I proud of?”

But the question “What would it take for that to come crashing down?”

… that’s disquieting.

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People Problems III

April 10, 2009 under wholenessinreallife

I know someone who has difficulty seeing faces. She doesn’t reliably recognize people by their face, so she uses other cues like body language and voice.

This has a nifty side-effect… She’s always friendly when greeting and talking, because until she draws someone into conversation, she’s not quite sure who they are. They could be anyone, and wouldn’t it be terrible if she offended them ;-)

I don’t know what this is like, because I see faces perfectly. But I have a different problem.

I have difficulty seeing people.

Oh, I see roles just fine. Boss. Store clerk. Friend.
I’ve got no problems with personalities. Shy. Choleric. Outgoing. Reflective.
Interests and hobbies are a snap. Musician. Soccer nut. Book worm.

All too often, when it comes to the person behind these things, my vision goes blurry.

I don’t mean to pick on Adriano. I’ve pointed to him before. But I guess I point to him because he’s a person that I see. At least, I know there’s a person there. It sounds terrible to say it, but often this isn’t the case. I interact with roles, personalities and hobbyists and never even acknowledge the person behind them.

In the general hierarchy of people who are difficult to see, Adriano occupies a spot in the upper echelon. He’s a towering pedestal away. An icon, a figure, a larger-than-life painting whose words I never hear directly, but which only come through the the envoy of the press.

But somehow, he’s broken through to me.

It’s Good Friday today.

I think Jesus was only ever able to die for people because he was able to see people.

If he could see people… maybe I should give them a second look.

Peace be with you.

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Despairing young man

March 12, 2009 under thehumancondition, wholenessinreallife

Told people how he felt before he performed a desperate act…

…the message read: “I’ve had enough. I’m fed up with this horrid life… Always the same. People are laughing at me… No-one sees my potential… I am scared, I have weapons here, and I will go to my former school tomorrow and then I will really do a grilling.” 

Why report anything else on the story? Everything you need to know is right here, in the boy’s own words.

If you live in a world where life is horrid, frightening and hopeless,  what are you going to do? We can only react to the world we believe in. 

If you’re a subject of mockery and ridicule you’re nothing. If you stare down the world with a gun in your hand, you’re a man.

Did anyone ever show him something different?

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People problems II

March 9, 2009 under wholenessinreallife

From Tim Vickery @ the BBC, on the pressures of modern football,

“Losing his father, as Adriano told me last year in an interview for Sports Illustrated, had a delayed but devastating effect on his career. Pleasing his father had always been one of his driving forces to succeed in football.

“Now he even considered the idea of giving up the game. With little motivation and lots of temptations, he was filling the void with alcohol.

“For a while his career was in the balance. There may be the odd slip along the way, but he says now that he can accept that his father is no longer around, that he has learnt from his excesses, and that happiness lies in simple pleasures – like kicking a football.” [Emphasis mine]

We are only ever as strong (and sustainable) as our reasons for doing stuff. This is why egotistical aid is a bad idea.

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Bored young men pop up everywhere

March 7, 2009 under thehumancondition, wholenessinreallife

The article is about Pakistan’s passion for cricket and the shockwaves resulting from the terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team. But this quote is all about bored young men.

“But I wonder how many kids watching these attackers in action might think that playing Rambo in front of a world audience is more fun than a game of street cricket.”

It’s all about choices, and about which choices we perceive are available to us. While I’m not crying, “Victim! Victim!” (a free-will choice remains a free-will choice, after all) it’s a simple fact that if someone has an obvious choice in front of them, you can’t be overly surprised (or judgemental) when they take it.

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Avoidance

February 26, 2009 under wholenessinreallife

One of the things that I am learning in prayer ministry is that, for everything that we do,  there is a reason. Often it’s not, objectively speaking, a very good reason. From a practical point of view, however, the only thing that matters is that it makes sense to us when we make our decision about how to act. When faced with unknown, unexpected, overwhelming or terrifying things, we cope the best we can, doing the thing that seems best in the moment.

Often this reason is centred around avoiding things we don’t like. However, it’s rare that we’re ever aware enough to be honest about this, and it’s somewhat shocking when you run across it in clear text.

From Dave Winer ,

“I’ve learned if I say nothing that gets me the least angst. So that’s what I usually do, say nothing. And every time I do it, my blood pressure goes up a teeny bit, and another hair either falls out or goes gray. Or maybe it goes gray and then falls out.”

Dave probably wouldn’t tie this to issues of personal brokenness, but it’s a remarkably clear example of how we struggle with things in unspectacular fashion, on a depressingly ongoing basis.

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People problems

November 13, 2008 under personalinthepubliceye, wholenessinreallife

Happen in football as well as computer software.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, what he’s got in terms of his ability he should be playing in the Premier League.

“But obviously there’s something within him, the person, that stops him from doing it.”

This story bothers me in a way that is difficult to describe. I feel a powerful feeling of “not-rightness” when I read it. There is a disconnect between the way things are and the way things should be.

Sometimes I find people (and mostly myself) frustrating and inexplicable. When I measure what should happen, what should be, what I should do, what I should feel, what the right result is… there is a disconnect, a shortcoming. A sense of not-rightness.

There’s something within me, the person, that keeps me from doing it.

I think most people would label the sense of rightness, “peace”.

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