Deep Calls to Deep

I prefer to write about innocuous truth. You know, then I don’t have to get naked.

But perhaps the truest thing about us is the most personal, the most vulnerable—our desire to connect and be known. I tend to be pretty ambivalent about it, really. But then at times, I am ambushed by that desire so powerfully that I have to confront it. Last night was such a time.

Often for me, like last night, it comes after spending time in community when no true knowing has taken place. Conversations about food, the economy, and the weather are paramount. And we all remain unknown. And safe. And then boom. Suddenly I want to do something self-destructive and reckless, like an angsty teenager. I feel unsatisfied and restless.

I wonder, if we could all just learn to recognize and name that longing, a longing for intimacy, how much senseless tragedy would be reduced. Would there be less drunk driving, less affairs, less eating-disorders, less suicide? Probably not. Because awareness doesn’t fix the problem. We’d still be unsatisfied—we’d just know why—we’re not getting our deepest need met. So, what do we do with the problem of deep desire?

There’s the obvious choice: repression. Don’t feel, don’t desire. Keep busy. Self-preservation. Seems to be the thing in our culture. I even feel weird writing this because I’d rather play it cool or make a joke—that’s how my family has dealt with it. Laugh it off. But then, the truest thing about you dies.

Then there’s the option of trying to get that need met in counterfeit and harmful ways, or trying to force others to meet that need for you. Addiction. Manipulation. Come to think of it, that’s my family too. And this is what I have seen most often in the therapy office. The aftermath of it, that is.

To be honest, I don’t even think most of us know how to connect or be known. It’s freaking scary—to be known. Most of us opt out. We push people away or hold them off in so many ways, but mostly we just don’t know how. What if we all confessed that we have this deep desire that’s not being met? Would it be okay to talk about? Because if we start talking about our deepest desire, there’s a chance we might begin to feel known.

But it seems to me that this desire can be so deep that I could eat and eat and drink and drink and never get enough. I think we have to learn to live with this desire—to let it be the symptom that tells us we are alive and part of the struggling human race, and let it lead us to the recognition that we are far from home. It is a homesickness that touches us when things are not as they should be, or when it feels like home here. In pains and pleasures, the deep calls, reminding us of the truest thing about us. And really, the call is to risk being known now, as we are, naked.

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." from Psalm 42

My Ego Wants to Fix You

Someone shared this passage from a book with me today, and I caught a glimmer of a truth I used to know, and I longed for it again.

It spoke to me because I’ve been thinking about how often I prefer to provide answers rather than to listen. I have the same tendency whether in friendship, counseling, discipleship or evangelism. And I started to wonder if maybe many of us do this as a way of coping with feelings of inadequacy—our way to prove our worth, to feel strong and to distance ourselves from others’ struggles. But as long as we’re focused on being enough we can’t enter the holy place of struggle with others. It leads me back to the need for surrender and rest. Only in the place of rest I can truly enter into life with another. It’s a lesson I’m learning and relearning.

Here’s the passage:

In the Service of Life
Recently, the question, how can I help, has become meaningful to many people.
But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not, how can I help, but is, how can I serve.
Serving is different from helping.
Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals.
When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength.
People feel this inequality.
When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness.
When I help I am very aware of my own strength.
But we don’t serve with our strength.
We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve.
Service is a relationship between equals.
When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction.
When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude.
Service is also different from fixing.
When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of life in them.
When I serve I see and trust that wholeness.
There is a distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing.
Fixing is a form of judgment.
All judgment creates distance, a disconnection, an experience of difference.
In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance.
We cannot serve at a distance.
We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch.
This is Mother Theresa’s basic message.
We serve life not because it is broken, but because it is holy.
If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise.
Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender, and awe.
We are servers of the wholeness and mystery of life.
Fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul.
They may look similar if you’re watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different.
The outcome is different too.
Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting.
Over time we burn out.
Service is renewing.
Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose.
When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose.
Lastly, fixing and helping are the basis of curing, but not of healing.
Only service heals.
-Edited and abridged from original written by Rachel Naomi Remen

Becoming Human

Before I joined the human race,
before pain and failure were embraced,
with a heart too flimsy to feel for you
and an image too pure to let you pollute,
as the riddled chaos of this life arrived,
I swept it under rugs of pride—
under doors and in your eyes—
wherever I could find disguise,
just to subsist in blameless bliss,
outside this story’s erratic twists.

Please don’t bleed on my white dress.
Don’t ask me to carry all your mess.
You can take my neat phrases
and try to cover your broken places.
But I can’t afford to suffer with you,
unless you pay me what is due,
because my heart is full of me
wanting you to meet my need.

But as I begin to participate,
I face my pain to taste His Grace,
giving freedom for the task
of holding your hurt and loving your mess
without fear of running dry,
even if our plans should run awry.
Because there’s enough to give away,
in grief or joy or come what may,
since Love came to dwell in this tainted place—
here, among the human race.

Self-Hatred and Sameness

Most of us wouldn’t say we hate ourselves. But, if we’re being honest, we might agree that there are things about ourselves that we hate. There are things about me that I hate. Not just frizzy hair kinds-of-things, but character defects that are deep-seated. But I haven’t really seen my self-hatred as a problem. I figured, there are a lot of things about me that are worthy of hatred—I don’t really hate me, I hate those things about me. But it’s ok because everyone else hates them too—even God. So I can keep on hating them.

But today, as I was reading Brennan Manning’s book Abba’s Child, the thought occurred to me that if I hate something in me, I will hate it in you. And if I truly want to be a person of grace and mercy and hospitality, there is no room for self-hatred. If I hate me, I hate you. If I judge myself, I judge you. If I condemn myself, I condemn you. If I expect perfection in me, I expect it in you. We are the same.

It made me think about how I have always been uncomfortable when people judge and condemn my ex-husband for his affair. Get angry at the tragedy of it, the injury, the injustice – yes – but condemn him, and I’m not with you. An old friend of ours recently messaged me on facebook about it, perhaps trying to commiserate, but it came across more as accusing and censuring my ex. His attitude bothered me. I didn’t know why at first, but now I realize it is because I know we are the same. My ex-husband was the scapegoat, his fault more visible, but we are the same. I am no better. There is something wrong with all of us deep down. We’re the same. When they condemn him, they condemn me. I am a liar. I am a cheater. I am passive. I am weak-willed. I am an idolater. I am unfaithful. Like him. Like you.

When we don’t accept these things in ourselves, we deny them, enabling us to see ourselves as different, as better—allowing us to judge and condemn others and claim superiority. And it all comes back to self-hatred. If we can accept ourselves fully as God in fact does, our whole self including all the things that are unlovely and worthy of hate, then we can accept others because we see that they are like us. If we can extend ourselves grace and mercy, then we can extend it to others.

So really, my show of condemnation toward others is a show of self-hatred. And all my self-hatred is a condemnation of others. It is the same because we are the same. Henri Nouwen says, “It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.” Until we recognize our sameness, we will not be people of grace. And ultimately, grace is what transforms us.

True Hospitality

I started today knowing I would have to battle perfectionism.

See, I had a dinner party for 15 neighbors and friends at my apartment tonight—to be in community and connect. Perfectionism tells me that hospitality means making everything Martha-Stewart-perfect. But when I go that route I get all psycho and bitchy about everything being just right—to the point where I forget to love people. I make it more about stuff than people. But lately, I’ve got this new idea about hospitality. And it has nothing to do with place-settings or cakes or centerpieces.

The hospitality industry is marketed on perfectionism. Perfectionism really is just a cover up, a sham. But true hospitality is openness. Hospitality is a way of living where I share openly my true self, my mistakes, my joys, my sorrows—not in a needy way, but in a way that invites people into who I am really, that invites people to share who they are. Hospitality is a show of grace not perfection. I show grace to myself (especially if things don’t go according to plan) and thus I show that grace is available from me to others.

This morning I decided I want to be a person of grace not perfection. I want to be a person of invitation not expectation. So, I started with me—I decided to show myself grace and lower my expectations, to invite myself to enjoy and love others and not worry so much about everything coming together just right. And I did. I loved, I laughed, I ate, I drank. And someone had to sit on a laundry basket because I didn’t have enough chairs. And the cake stuck to the pan. And the food wasn’t ready when everyone arrived. And all the plates didn't match. And I ran out of salad dressing. And it was all perfect.

Who We Are For Now

In our overlapping lives
We loved each other badly
As our fears fed on fears
And yet we healed
And understood
As best we could
Broken and wounded
As we are

Each one we’ve met
As we breathe we affect
We love and bless
And hurt and mess
And break
And disappoint
Broken and wounded
As we are

You’re invited to this place
To join the human race
To suffer and fail
And come off the hill
Where you’re looking down blindly
At us loving badly
Broken and wounded
As you are

Forgive me
I have loved you badly
Forgive me
I will love you badly
Not an excuse
Just the truth
Broken and wounded
As I am

Grace and Cigarettes

I’m thinking of taking up smoking as a spiritual discipline. Maybe I’ll sit with God and have a cigarette. I’ve just been very struck this week with my need to embrace my humanity, my limits, my imperfection. It’s so easy for me to get into a brand of Christianity that is all about image, saying and doing the right thing, having it all together. I think of the saying, “don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t go with girls that do,” and I want to radically break out of a Christian culture that would whittle the Christian life down to that.

Most Christians I know don’t think that way, but I just don’t get enough reminders sometimes of my need for Jesus, my humanity, and my brokenness in the Christian culture. Sometimes it seems more like it’s not okay to be a sinner …or a smoker. Often I experience an expectation of perfection—maybe it’s just my own expectation of myself. I wonder if a cigarette with God now and then could be the reminder I need not to bow to those impossible expectations, but to breathe in grace (and tobacco ...and toxic chemicals).

I think my problem comes when I regard holiness over grace. Only through grace can we ever be holy, so a pursuit of holiness must never come first. (And I’m not convinced that holiness has anything to do with not smoking, not swearing, not drinking, etc.) I wonder what it would be like if churches looked more like AA meetings sometimes—no pretense, everyone aware of their own failure, confessing openly, admitting our need, holding each other up, but full of grace and understanding for everyone’s broken condition.

I want to love and accept others as Christ did, but a preoccupation with personal holiness prevents that. I have such a hard time loving people when I’m perfect. My desire for perfection makes it impossible to love because love is messy. Perfection is my point of need. And it is the very thing that keeps me from admitting my need. I am resistant to receiving grace because I don’t want to need it—to be limited and imperfect. So, I don’t want to be human. I want to be God. How like Eve. How human.

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:12-13

John MacArthur on smoking, drinking, etc.

Ally

Come fall with me
Into the messiness
Into the human disease

Pry my hands when I can’t let go
Hold my hands when the going is slow
Remind me when I don’t believe
Listen when I’m full of discrepancy
Push me when I’m paralyzed
Celebrate when dreams are realized
Intercede when I’m in captivity
Receive me when I’m in my poverty
Forgive me when I disappoint
Chastise when I think you’re my source

And let me pry and speak and hold and keep for you
in the messiness
where we become

It's Not About Me: Spiritual Eating Disorders

Most of my life I’ve had spiritual anorexia. Recently I started to swing toward obesity. Both are killers. My friend Hannah spoke at church a couple of weeks ago on consumerism. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. She was talking about it in the context of Christian consumerism, and she gave this metaphor: if all we’re doing is taking in, feeding on God, receiving from the Lord, we will become spiritually obese. But if all we’re doing is giving, constantly active, doing things for the Lord and others but never feeding, we will become spiritually anorexic. We must be receiving and giving to be healthy spiritually.

She made me think about what I have received from God—faith, hope, love, acceptance, freedom, forgiveness—and think about how I am giving it away. By giving it away we are proclaiming Christ, bringing the Kingdom to our families, our jobs, our neighborhoods and all of our interactions. I just read the same concept in a book that deals with forgiveness, The Peacemaker. He compared it to breathing—we breathe in God’s forgiveness and then breathe it out to others. It reminded me of the necessity of abiding in the Vine, feeding on Christ—daily—in order to be able to give, to proclaim Christ in all of life. And it reminded me to give intentionally instead of just receiving from God.

It also reminded me of something David Benner wrote in his book Surrender to Love. He says that our focus should not be so much on obedience as on knowing God’s love because once we get that, obedience begins to take care of itself. Obedience is our response to God’s love. If it is not, it is anorexia. They must go together. Receiving and giving.

Again, the idea that “it’s not about me” surfaces here. God doesn’t give me love, faith, joy, and all his blessings just so I can get fat. He wants to make me his instrument of righteousness, a display of his splendor and beauty so I can give it away—so others can be healthy.

On the other hand, if I’m just giving, but not receiving from God, what store am I really giving from? It must be from the store of people-pleasing or image-bolstering because that’s what’s in me. But spiritually, I’m starving.

John 6:56-57
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.