i've been listening to lots of honest music this morning. brit beat boy spilling his heart about dying dads, lost loves, and drug trips gone bad, lonely americans afraid they aren't losing touch but that they have lost it already, their frostbitten fingers only a symptom of a much colder heart - that sort of stuff. i think the music is getting the better of me too. it makes me, woos me with this false sense of salvation that only if i get it out on paper i will make it into glory. my head tells me no, no, no but my heart says you must. like virgins making much of time, i have heard candy is dandy but liquor is quicker and the quick road to feeling more like myself today is a relatively light confession and an appointment in four and a half hours to get my face pumped full of pain killers.
i am a problem gambler. my friend G and i have discussed many times, that this and even just my particular attitude, will lead me to either the top of ceaser's or bleeding in the alley behind it. i am trying to learn how to harness that sort of particular power but like other forces of nature it hunkers down and only becomes more fierce when handcuffed. i don't believe i need to be ordered about, i need to be unleashed. i think i will make it to the top, it is imparative i believe this, without this well conditioned hubris i fade into medicority. i believe hope is the evidence of things unseen, my hope links me to the unsearchable depths of the One and it is there, it is that deep dark well, where i gather myself and my power.
i dodge bill collectors. i am fast, i am vicious and i am hard to track - maybe harder to handle when found. the story goes that when i got to the age the lending instituions deemed appropriate i signed up for credit. like almost all other traps set by those who wish us ill, and if not ill at least the chance to empty our pockets for years to come, credit didn't kill me quickly. i did allright for a little while. eventually though i succombed to the plan of those snke conspirators the banks. you see that's what they do; they give you a little hoping to trick you into being good little angels, paying everything on time that way in a few years the bank can give you money for a house and then collect interest from you for the next 25 years. it is all a scheme, all their kindness is a trap to lure you into a lifetime of debt. well once i realized i was trapped by their little plastic demons i knew for sure i would never be owned by them again. furthermore, i resolved to make my attackers regret ever trying to subdue me. in just a little bit of time i think my debt will become, once and for all, uncollectable. me 1 - the banks 1, can't wait until the tiebreaker.
i am a little loose in the screws. i have visions, like waking dreams where bad things happen to good people; bad things at my hands, crazy things. then there is the real where i don't do these things - at least not now. i tell them i don't want them but they scoff at me. right now there seems to be a strange coexistance, being they are comfortable to just be visions. i will start the worrying if i meet a new friend that works as a projectionist or a catering waiter. maybe i should start worrying earlier, do i own any ikea?
so that's the quick of it, i mean i could tell you i am lustful, and judgemental, and seem to deal constantly with religious thoughts, but those things aren't that interesting this morning. today it is about me being an unrelenting do or die, bill skating, nut case who is one of the people who should probably own many more weapons and arms but will get it done with out them. fires in the desert and fast driving.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Pain and Hope
The Title of this post is a take on a post that my pastor, Alan, did called Forgiveness and Pain, check it out here: http://alankraft.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/forgiveness-and-pain/ .
In his blog he tells the story of a man wounded by those who had positions of trust in the missionary community. Abused and on the verge of slipping into the cycle of revenge and retaliation this man took a stand and forgave those who had hurt him and in doing so removed them from his heart. This removal process took away their power over him to cause future damage. The forgiveness process was the process by which he solidified his healing from the events and was, and is, what i consider one of the first and last steps of recovery.
The idea of forgiveness and pain is a very unique idea for me. If you follow my blog at all you know i have a condition that to this point has been diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia. This nerve disorder causes me to have violent pain on the right side of me face. To understand the depth of the pain it is similar to getting tattooed. The pain is almost electric, it is cutting, it is hammering all at the same time. I have spoken to women who have the condition and they liken it to birthing pains happening on the face.
When i had seen Alan had written about pain and forgiveness i knew it was my place to talk about another type of pain and hope. In the case of Alan's acquaintence who was abused there was a direct assailant who had caused the harm. There was someone to forgive. With a nerve disorder there really isn't anyone to assign blame to. i don't feel particularly comfortable just calling it a spiritual attack, although it may be, and i don't really like judging myself and assuming that my condition is related to something i have done or not done. In the end, when i am not in the throws of wild eyed pain, i know that my condition probably doesn't have someone to blame. The ironic thing is that i have had people suggest that God is causign my condition, that they somehow link the disease to some sort of Job (fellow from the Bible) type affliction. Once again, i don't know if that is the case but it may be, really in the end no one will know what is causing my disorder, least of all me.
So what do we do when there isn't an entity to forgive? i now i am in pain, i know i am hurt and hurting. i know that right now looking forward there isn't a current plan of care to treat what i have. So what do i do? There is a lot of frustration in this place. A lot of struggle, a lot of nights where sleep escapes me mostly due to pain, sometimes due to worry. A lot of the times i find myself in tears begging the One just to know what happens next.
Then it hits me, what happens next is what is happening right now. The One, God, is near me. My family is near me, my friends are near me. But if only God were near me that would still be cause for something, not necessarily peace, not necessarily rest, but hope. i know our lives are supposed to be filled with peace and rest and the whole Psalm 23 thing but a lot of times that is just not the way it works. what we have then is hope, if God is near me i am where i am supposed to be. That in the moments of my most intense pain the One God is by my side. Never leaving, never failing. Do i always feel the One's presence? No. Often times all i feel is pain. Like today, pain has been my constant companion but the One has never left me.
In my heart there are times i want someone to blame. i want to be able to say "You did this to me! You have harmed me!" We always want a reason for the bad things in our lives but, as i intimately know, the reasons often alude us. We are often left wondering why. Why did so and so die? Why does such person have this disease or that? Why is this happening to us? All of these questions come from a place of intense suffering, pain, and loss. But when there is no one to blame we must hang our emotions and questions on hope. If not we will become, i will become, bitter, cold and brittle.
Most people associate Hope with desire, "Oh boy i hope i get that raise." or "i hope i get a high enough score on the test". While this may be a modified interpretation of hope these things are more like desires and wants. You can work hard and get a raise, you can study hard and get good grades. Hope is something different. Hope is what we need to have when nothing we can do has anything to do with what outcome happens. Hope keeps us from giving up or giving in even in the face of assured pain.
i know that right now, as it stands, i am going to experience violent pain in my face for the rest of my life. Would i like to be cured, to be healed? Yes, without question but it is not in mine to give. So does God fail me if i am not healed? Certainly not. You see, pain, while horrible, is not evil. The man who was harmed in the earlier story was caused damage through the sins of another and his hurts his wounds had to undergo a spiritual healing for him to be whole. i, on the other hand, have been given the path to walk that involves maintaining hope and faithfulness in spite of pain.
I have a tattoo on my wrists that is a capsule of the message the Apostle Paul gave to the Corinthians in his first letter to them. Of all the wonders of the spirit, all the grand things in the kingdom of God only three things will remain, Faith, Hope, and Love.
i am and have been at the breaking point for more than a year now. when it gets really bad, like it was today i am considering the worst of all solutions. then i remember that even though i hurt i am with God, and if my soul is eternally with God then there is somewhere right now where i am with God in eternity and not in pain. Hope is the evidence of things unseen.
In his blog he tells the story of a man wounded by those who had positions of trust in the missionary community. Abused and on the verge of slipping into the cycle of revenge and retaliation this man took a stand and forgave those who had hurt him and in doing so removed them from his heart. This removal process took away their power over him to cause future damage. The forgiveness process was the process by which he solidified his healing from the events and was, and is, what i consider one of the first and last steps of recovery.
The idea of forgiveness and pain is a very unique idea for me. If you follow my blog at all you know i have a condition that to this point has been diagnosed as trigeminal neuralgia. This nerve disorder causes me to have violent pain on the right side of me face. To understand the depth of the pain it is similar to getting tattooed. The pain is almost electric, it is cutting, it is hammering all at the same time. I have spoken to women who have the condition and they liken it to birthing pains happening on the face.
When i had seen Alan had written about pain and forgiveness i knew it was my place to talk about another type of pain and hope. In the case of Alan's acquaintence who was abused there was a direct assailant who had caused the harm. There was someone to forgive. With a nerve disorder there really isn't anyone to assign blame to. i don't feel particularly comfortable just calling it a spiritual attack, although it may be, and i don't really like judging myself and assuming that my condition is related to something i have done or not done. In the end, when i am not in the throws of wild eyed pain, i know that my condition probably doesn't have someone to blame. The ironic thing is that i have had people suggest that God is causign my condition, that they somehow link the disease to some sort of Job (fellow from the Bible) type affliction. Once again, i don't know if that is the case but it may be, really in the end no one will know what is causing my disorder, least of all me.
So what do we do when there isn't an entity to forgive? i now i am in pain, i know i am hurt and hurting. i know that right now looking forward there isn't a current plan of care to treat what i have. So what do i do? There is a lot of frustration in this place. A lot of struggle, a lot of nights where sleep escapes me mostly due to pain, sometimes due to worry. A lot of the times i find myself in tears begging the One just to know what happens next.
Then it hits me, what happens next is what is happening right now. The One, God, is near me. My family is near me, my friends are near me. But if only God were near me that would still be cause for something, not necessarily peace, not necessarily rest, but hope. i know our lives are supposed to be filled with peace and rest and the whole Psalm 23 thing but a lot of times that is just not the way it works. what we have then is hope, if God is near me i am where i am supposed to be. That in the moments of my most intense pain the One God is by my side. Never leaving, never failing. Do i always feel the One's presence? No. Often times all i feel is pain. Like today, pain has been my constant companion but the One has never left me.
In my heart there are times i want someone to blame. i want to be able to say "You did this to me! You have harmed me!" We always want a reason for the bad things in our lives but, as i intimately know, the reasons often alude us. We are often left wondering why. Why did so and so die? Why does such person have this disease or that? Why is this happening to us? All of these questions come from a place of intense suffering, pain, and loss. But when there is no one to blame we must hang our emotions and questions on hope. If not we will become, i will become, bitter, cold and brittle.
Most people associate Hope with desire, "Oh boy i hope i get that raise." or "i hope i get a high enough score on the test". While this may be a modified interpretation of hope these things are more like desires and wants. You can work hard and get a raise, you can study hard and get good grades. Hope is something different. Hope is what we need to have when nothing we can do has anything to do with what outcome happens. Hope keeps us from giving up or giving in even in the face of assured pain.
i know that right now, as it stands, i am going to experience violent pain in my face for the rest of my life. Would i like to be cured, to be healed? Yes, without question but it is not in mine to give. So does God fail me if i am not healed? Certainly not. You see, pain, while horrible, is not evil. The man who was harmed in the earlier story was caused damage through the sins of another and his hurts his wounds had to undergo a spiritual healing for him to be whole. i, on the other hand, have been given the path to walk that involves maintaining hope and faithfulness in spite of pain.
I have a tattoo on my wrists that is a capsule of the message the Apostle Paul gave to the Corinthians in his first letter to them. Of all the wonders of the spirit, all the grand things in the kingdom of God only three things will remain, Faith, Hope, and Love.
i am and have been at the breaking point for more than a year now. when it gets really bad, like it was today i am considering the worst of all solutions. then i remember that even though i hurt i am with God, and if my soul is eternally with God then there is somewhere right now where i am with God in eternity and not in pain. Hope is the evidence of things unseen.
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