“Our limited perspective, our hopes and fears become our measure of life, and when circumstances don’t fit our ideas they become our difficulties.” Ben Franklin from Jill at Conversations.
Prayer for the Week from Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight
“O God, you declare your almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: Grant us the fullness of your grace, that we, running to obtain your promises, may become partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Choosing The Kingdom
Reflect on whether your choosing of God is bringing you genuine life. If your God-choosing is not making you fundamentally more alive and vital, you may be choosing the external trappings of the Christian religion rather than the life-giving inner essence of Christian spirituality. You may be choosing a spiritual self-improvement program of the kingdom of self, but you are not choosing the genuinely life-giving program of the kingdom of God. Hear God’s call to surrender to God’s will as an invitation to a fullness of life that exceeds your wildest expectations and imaginings. The source of this call is the Source of everything that is truly alive. Settle for nothing less than this truly abundant and vital life in Christ. David Benner
When In Doubt Sometimes the circumstances of life come flooding in around you and you have to take a pause. I have plenty to say but for now – I’m recording the days and nights, the flood of thoughts for calmer seas. So when in doubt, turn to the trusted and true .. here’s the the collection of thoughts, prayers, quotes and hope from dear friends.. including this walk on the lighter side.
Liam’s 4th Birthday Party Liam was born on the 26th September 2004, while I was in the US at my first Youth Specialties NYWC convention. His birthday is always a time for remembering a ‘birth’ of my own. Meanwhile.. pirate parties are awesome. Check out the amazing pirate ship the Captain built!
What a week so far. There is plenty of fur flying in lots of directions.
Postive Intent These are words that I’ve been using regularly but Marko gave me the phrase – in regards to working through conflict and resolution, postive intention. You have to assume positive intent. My positive intent is never to use this blog as a passive-aggressive method of communication.. but nor do I want to feel bullied about it’s content either. My daily observations of life and all things inclusive are the fodder for this blog – not necessarily earthshattering ideas nor are they always right. But, they deserve a forum surely – because where else should they go or be?
So what are the rules of common decency? Even now, I’m talking about something that has happened but in the context of the broader idea – therefore does that make it safe fodder? Other, far more political situations of my daily life I have left well alone… so what is my positive intent?
To Learn and grow from a situation I cannot change.
Adj. 1. humiliated – subdued or brought low in condition or status; Adj. 2. humiliated – made to feel uncomfortable because of shame or wounded pride;
When I was about 14, I was part of an inter-school competition for smart kids and problem solvers. My team from the girls school was fun, but also pretty quiet, kinda mellow. I was all about expressing my extroverted self. We were staying at a campsite out in West Auckland, in bunkrooms that had connecting doors.
Imagine my delight when the door to our bunkroom opened and on the other side – was a group of smart, funny and entertaining boys from Kristin School on the North Shore. This central city Epsom Girls Grammar girl was delighted with the opportunity to converse and laugh and spark with like-minded but very different teenage males.
One of the group ringleaders went by the name of Adam, a dark-haired rascally type who was clever and witty and political aware (as you are at 15). I found him somewhat enchanting and interesting. And I thought he did me too. We spent long dinners and afterhours programmes laughing and joking.
The other members of the group were full of fun too, except one kid, who even know, I can’t even remember. He was the geek, with body odour, glasses. He was pretty quiet and definitely not highly regarded by the rest of the team.
After the heated final competition, Adam and I traded numbers and promised to ‘stay in touch’. Already my delicate teenage self-esteem had bloomed a little in the short few days of attention. But I wasn’t foolish enough to assume that I would hear from him.
It genuinely took me by surprise when he rang within the week, to invite me to a BBQ his parents were having the next Sunday.
Sundays were always difficult days in my house. They were Dad Days, usually begun with some measure of tension and stress from the maternal end, endless waiting and hoping for Dad to arrive (invariably always late) and then spent in the nervous tension that the eldest sibling lives in .. wanting to make sure that everything’s ok for everybody. So I nervously asked Dad if he would drop me out to the address in Greenhithe, which in those days was simply forever away.. over the bridge. For my often-unemployed and very often broke Dad, I felt the burden of the gas, the journey, the time. It was a really big call.
So the morning came, and I had invited my friend Tere to come with me. We picked her up and Dad dropped us off. Me, being foolish and shy, asked him to drop us off at the top of the driveway. And down we walked.
Adam had given a precise description of the house and the surrounding garden, which featured a large flagpole. I’m not sure why that sticks in my mind but it does. We got to the door, knocked on it, and who should answer.. but geeky, smelly kid.
And when we explained what we were there for – assuming that Adam must have invited his friends from school as well, he looked more and more confused. He blushed redder and redder and went inside. It seemed like an age of confusion before his mother came to the door.
She brought us inside and explained that there was no BBQ, that this wasn’t Adam’s house. She looked at me first with incredulity, disbelief and anger until she finally came to see that I really had no idea what Adam had been playing at. Then the pity in her eyes took over.
Soon, it became obvious what was going on. Not only was the geeky, smelly kid the victim of Adam’s bullying, but I was too. I wasn’t meeting with a like-minded friendly funny guy, but actually had been the butt of a well-played joke. Adam had revealed to his cabin mates late at night during the competition week, a plan to ‘trick’ the girl from next door into really liking him, then playing a prank.
Geeky, smelly boy revealed all under the prodding of his mother. Poor kid hadn’t realised that he too, was going to be the butt of this practical joke. he had thought it the perfect scam.. win over the ‘ugly fat-face stupid slut’ as he had called me to the others, then really make her feel a fool by sending her to Geeky’s house under false pretenses, thus humiliating both myself and his schoolyard prey.
Finally, a phone call to Adam’s house revealed nothing but a laughing teenage boy on the other end. While Geeky’s mother promised to ring Adam’s parents and get an apology, I never heard another word.
Worse still, was the inability of contacting my Dad. His cellphone (at that time a brick) simply rang and rang and rang. I rang my mother but she didn’t answer the phone. In the end, in utter humiliation, having already suffered this crisis in front of my best friend who had heard me excited and full of enthusiasm for this teenage crush, we then had to call her mother to come and retrieve us then wait the 45minutes it took her to get there.
How I wanted my dad to come and rescue me from that moment. By the time I got back to school on the monday – the story had travelled plenty far. I so needed someone to crackdown on the arrogance, impudent boy. I needed someone to be furious at the injustice of a young boy’s prank. I needed someone to act quickly enough to restore the crushing blow to my self-worth and refute the words “ugly fat-face stupid slut”.
The Power Of My Helplessness The feeling of public exposure, the feeling of my foolishness at being duped into the fraud, of somehow not perceiving the lie, the rathood of the cad, the visiblity of my shame.. being exposed in front of those that knew me.. those whose opinion mattered most. The shame of the rejection, the cruelty of the names and the lack of their refuting… that is the power of my helplessness. I end up crushed into humiliation and remember that girl, so frail, so tenderly holding onto the ledge of value and reputation. I remember the trust that was broken and rebuke my own stupidity. I remember the loneliness that stuck in my heart in that moment… the sorrow of unworthiness that crept into me.
There Are Moments Of Memory For so many reasons the past few days have been full of insecurity, and it’s at these times this memory creeps up on me again and I remember Adam and what he did to my Eve. In her blossoming hope, how he devastated her.
I sometimes wonder if I have spent the last fifteen years waiting for Adam to strike again, wrestling me into public shame again. I know that this is my moment with Christ in front of the Pharisees, where I am the woman of shame brought before their judgement. It doesn’t matter whether I’m a criminal or not, just that the humiliation and fear of public rejection is equally strong. The ‘not being loved’ lie that crept in so young… renders me sometimes undone, and I have to restitch myself with words of truth.
Who is the Christ? Where is the defender, truth-teller, lover?
I don’t shy away from the utter revelation of self.. public humiliation I wear and have worn in the public eye before… but don’t leave me standing alone. All revelation is secure in the eyes of the one who stands despite the Truth.. whether it be my lack of beauty, my overpowering strength, my weakness, my sin, my sorrow… know all of me, every breath and beat and embarrassing truth.. and stay.
Stay and your love conceals me, covers over my sin and heals me. Stay and your love reveals me, all that is beauty and truth and goodness.
Song Of The Moment : My Lover by Melissa Etheridge
No one conceals me like No one reveals me like My lover No one can disconnect No one can resurrect Like my lover
My lover makes me weak Gives me breath to speak My lover takes me home Cools the rolling stone My lover’s thorny kiss The reason to exist I wonder
No one can saturate No one manipulates Like my lover The sensuality It’s immort
ality My lover
My lover needs to seize Bring me to my knees Reads me like a prayer Calls the spirit there Secretly inspires Strips me to desire I wonder
No one can visualize No one can make me rise Like my lover They dream of paradise They’ll never ever pay the price My lover
“And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.”
My accountant calls me benevolent. I’m too generous with my time, my grace, my patience. Sometimes I believe him, when my heart is breaking with the weight of all that I give away.
Sometimes I’m glad that I’m stubborn enough to hold to the fervent belief in my heart : I have been given one true gift, the ability to love someone well. Call that benevolent, call it foolish, but one who is worthy of love, has always been my sweetest downfall.
So down, down, down I go.. down to the spaces again where I am needed with my healing words and peace. Places that feel like a privilege, moments that ache like a wound but are full of warmth and life.
Of course, something happened. Something that involved a re-wrapping of truth, for the sake of dignity, privacy, fear.. probably many things. That’s not mine to understand or outlay. And when the truth comes out, as truth so often does… I am left now responding to truth, finding love-words to bring things back together…
My only regret is that I was present enough or strong enough or good enough to stay the deed that caused the pain. I would have taken all of my strength and heart to the cause.
I am found again, ready to love with all that I have and to be Incarnate, where I am presently allowed. And I love again and again.
I’ve had a front row seat to the strange ties that bind recently, watching and doing my best to speak truth into awkward situations between boys and girls. Loves and attractions that began so innocently and eventually became frail imitations of life-giving love.
How do you tell someone that their friendship is based on a web of lies, deceit, ill mental health and ugliness beneath a smile, turn of head and vivaciousness that catches their attention more than once?
How do you play the pessimist, the realist, the truthteller to the memory’s optimism as heartbreak plays out it’s long slow game? A sure sign of two hearts not in time, when they break at such a different pace, where one is left again breaking in the wake of truth.
What is it that draws one person to another? Curious attractions are these, beyond my understanding and knowledge…
How do you do these things and maintain an awkward intimacy and strange distance? My heart cannot feel or understand the heart of another nearly enough to share or embrace the pain in such a way as to have enough grace or mercy. I simply have to love my friend from the depths of my own self, speak truth from what I know and hope, that I am not breaking, hardening, losing something precious to us in the space and time of it.
Maybe there are some spaces that it’s better not be in the middle of? Maybe in the midst of these curious attractions.. it’s better not to be coloured by my presence here… I would rather be seen with clean eyes, unfiltered with bad taste.
I feel the edge of my tongue is too sharp, the weight of my words too much. I’ve waded into the midst of a pool, too deep, too dark, too murky for me to be here. There’s too much subtext and pain that causes me shivers.
The murkiness of the human character is often still too much for me. The heaviness too much to carry, to hold, to know.
I shouldn’t have been here, in this place for my heart feels too uncomfortable here.
Song Of The Moment : What If I by Joshua Radin
What if you Could wish me away What if you Spoke those words today I wonder if you’d miss me When I’m gone It’s come to this, release me I’ll leave before the dawn But for tonight I’ll stay here with you Yes, for tonight I’ll lay here with you But when the sun hits your eyes Through your window There’ll be nothing you can do What if you Could hear this song What if I Felt like I belong I might not be leaving so soon Began the night believing I loved you in the moonlight So, for tonight I’ll stay here with you Yes, for tonight I’ll lay here with you But when the sun hits your eyes Through your window There’ll be nothing you can do I could’ve treated you better Better than this Well, I’m gone, this song’s your letter Can’t stay in one place So, for tonight I’ll stay here with you Yes, for tonight I’ll lay here with you But when the sun hits your eyes Through your window There’ll be nothing you can do
Tash McGill is a broadcaster, writer and strategist who works with people and organisations to solve problems and create transformation. She believes people are the most important thing and that stories are powerful ways of changing the world. You can find out more at tashmcgill.com or by visiting her LinkedIn profile.
