Siren Song

This is something I wrote yesterday for a Human Development class assignment on transitional objects. Don’t worry, if you don’t know what that is, my first sentence describes it. Please feel free to comment or question. As always.

- - - - - -
A transitional object is something that “holds the place of” something or someone an individual holds dear, and while that person is gone the transitional object provides the comfort of the missing thing/person for the individual possessing the object.

I think there is a continuum when we are looking at these three things: idols of the heart, transitional objects, and Jesus. Idols of the heart will always harm, Jesus will always heal, and transitional objects will precariously vacillate in between the two extremes. Both Jesus and idols are calling out to our hearts with varying levels of attraction and magnetism at different times. The difference is that idols of the heart sing a Siren song, like from the story Ulysses. This song, which often sounds more beautiful than any others to me, will lure me only to dash me on the rocks.

I think there is a fine line between idols of the heart and transitional objects, and whenever there is a fine line present in our lives PLUS a desire for obedience to God, it requires diligence and watchfulness. Similar to my Siren song reference, Lou Going says in his JBC article, “Our idols will seek or worship again and again. So we must flee to Jesus again and again” (52). I use this Ulysses reference because it is one of my favorite stories due to its strong analogous relationship to every person’s journey toward God. One of my favorite musicians, Josh Garrels, has a spectacular song about this story (aptly called “Ulysses”). One of the final lines draws on Ulysses’s visceral fight between two loves, two desires; it says, “So tie me to the mast of this old ship and point me home / before I lose the one I love, before my chance is gone.”

I know that only some of you know my story, but my transitional objects did become idols of my heart. They won by default because I chose not to battle them. But as of three years ago when I began doing war with them, and for the last year Jesus has won. On the harder days, I know that tying myself to mast of the ship is my only hope. Internalizing the safety of Jesus (via the Holy Spirit) as we should is our only hope. We talked about John 14:16 in class on Monday and how Jesus is potentially describing the Spirit as a transitional object. John 14:20 is what I often turn to, which says, “You will know [because of the Spirit] that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.”

The Spirit is an amazing, often grossly under-appreciated gift. At our disposal is this internal Counselor and Advocate that, even when the “attachment object” (Jesus) is gone, offers us the comfort and security of Jesus’s fleshly presence. If we can believe this and tie ourselves to the mast of this ship, we can have a confidence in Him even though we have never seen Him.

“Teach me to believe that all degrees of mercy arise from several degrees of prayer, that when faith is begun it is imperfect and must grow, as chapped ground opens wider and wider until rain comes. So shall I wait thy will, pray for it to be done, and by thy grace become fully obedient.”
— The Valley of Vision

Heat on the Brake Pedal

One of the things I always forget then remember when the cold weather hits is that, in my car, when the heat is on “feet,” the blower only does its job in one spot: right over the break pedal. I find myself driving much slower when it is cold not because I am afraid of ice or because I am jittery with chill (though both of those are usually also true), but because when I use the break pedal, I get what I want…heat!

Isn’t this such a perfect lesson for life.

Recently I had to do an assignment for the foundational counseling class I am taking in grad school. The assignment is called a “Personal Growth Plan” (PGP); three must be completed before the semester is over. The PGP is there to get you to think about what you are gifted in, and what you are bad at…sorry, I mean what your “areas of growth” are. (That’s a joke for Jenn Zuck.) It explores different areas of life and skill, but mostly it forces you to take a long, careful look at your deepest self. One of the things that keep coming up is how much growing I have to do in the area of pausing.



I am not 100% sure what is behind this deficiency inside me (maybe it’s at least partially due to the recent abusive levels of caffeine I have been taking in…), I just know I often want to fix things, I usually get (incredibly) frustrated in traffic, I have a hard time choosing to let my kids climb in their carseats on their own even though it is good for their human development, and when I am counseling someone, I sometimes think, I know what’s going on here…

Admitting I have a problem is the first step, right?
(And yes, I’ve admitted this regarding the coffee, too.)

Learning to counsel well and help people — truly help them — takes a lot of time and practice. In so many ways it is like learning how to drive. In fact, recently in an online forum for my class I compared it to learning to drive in a car that is stick shift, which is extra complicated. There are a lot of factors to remember, there are a lot of things to tweak as you go, and sometimes the thing you least expect to throw you ends up doing exactly that.

So maybe just like the heat blower in my car only gives me what I want when I choose to slow down, perhaps the only way I can ever actually help someone is when I decide to pause, waiting to see what surprising joys I find in doing so.

The Universal Human Rights Logo

Found this great post by beingblog. This is timely and very thought-provoking. The concept of human right has been on my mind a lot lately, and I wrote about some of my conflicting thoughts in my previous posting “When Man Is King.” Lately I have been pondering the complexities of the death of violent tyrants such as Osama Bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi. Some people think I am totally crazy for having any mixed feelings about the killings of such relentless horror-invokers. But my question remains: What makes one person more worthy of life than another? And who gets to choose?

by Susan Leem, associate producer

Symbol for human rightsThe Human Rights Logo Initiative chose Serbian artist Predrag Stakić’s entry as the winner of its competition to design the Universal Human Rights Logo.

“Free as a Man” evokes the peace dove and the five fingers of a hand reaching up to be counted and acknowledged. Have a look at the other finalists’ entries for more great concepts around this project.

I’m wondering how having a logo to represent universal human rights changes the way we think about that complex issue? What gets lost in translation when reducing an international struggle to one logo? Is this image able to function, as Utne Reader suggests, as “a new peace symbol?”

You Sexy Cheeseburger

Yesterday we went apple picking as a family. It really could not have been a more perfect Autumn day. It was 60 degrees and partly cloudy, the clouds being those huge billowy types. When we got to the orchard the woman who worked there told us there were only three kinds of apples we could pick and that we would see the rows down the walkway. As we walked toward the picking trees our four-and-a-half-year-old daughter said, “Wow! There are so many apple trees! (pause) Mommy, why can’t we pick from all the trees?” Being the Bible animal that I now am, my uncalculated response was, “Those other trees aren’t ready yet. But look at all the apples on these trees. There are SO many for us to pick!”

In the counseling class that I just finished on Monday, we spent a lot of time studying the Bible (rightfully so since the class was called “Counseling and the Biblical Text”…). This class blew my mind on so many levels, but most of all it was the study of this amazing Book that changed me. David Lamb, my professor, has a love for the Bible that is (sadly) rare and invigorating. We deeply studied small sections of the Bible using a particular method. We were encouraged to print out each 5-to-15-verse passage on a plain sheet of paper, bring markers or colored pencils, and then we examined each passage in amazing depth, asking questions of the text, making observations, and looking for what the passage could teach us about God. (This is a study technique created and used by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. You can read about it and instructions on how to do it here. Give it a try some time.)

One week we studied Genesis 3:1-13, the story of the serpent tempting the first woman in the garden, which Christians generally view as the story of when people and the earth “fell” into a perpetually broken state. I noticed so many new things, but most importantly I noticed that the serpent could not force her to think a certain way, he could only ask questions that led her elsewhere in her thinking. She had a choice to make, and she listened to the wrong voice. She doubted the breath-taking abundance of God.

The text lays out the process this way:

  1. The serpent asks a tricky question.
  2. The woman misremembers & misstates God’s original message (kind of like a game of whisper down the lane).
  3. The serpent says, “That can’t be right…God just doesn’t want you to be like Him…” (even though Genesis 1:27 says that is precisely what God wanted, which is why He created man and woman in His own image).
  4. Then something big happens: she “sees” with different eyes (3:6), then “the eyes of both were opened” (3:7) in a new way.

Most people think the first command in the Bible is God saying, “Don’t eat from that one tree, ok?” But actually, that’s the third command in the Bible. The first two are (1) have a LOT of sex (Genesis 1:28), and (2) eat a LOT of fruit (Genesis 2:16). So the first two things God commands humans to do is what they do best: have sex and eat! And I see this as a really important insight into God’s abundance. Poignantly enough, the human ”fall” into brokenness came through a woman who was tempted by what she saw and ate. Which brings me back to the title of my post…

Back in the 1990’s there was a Burger King commercial that I always found so incredibly odd: the camera was zoomed in on the details of a juicy Big Mac, and in the background played the 1975 hit “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate. Whenever my mom and I saw the commercial we would walk around for days singing, “I believe in miracles. Where you from, you sexy cheeseburger…”

This commercial was pure genius. It appealed to the two things that God first commanded humans to do: have sex & eat. But just like the serpent, this commercial (among so many others) twisted the gift. God’s reason for making those the two primary commands was so that He could (1) multiply His image on earth (because it is so good), and (2) give evidence of this goodness with a sign of immeasurable abundance! (As shown with my multiple exclamation points, I get excited about this.)

Effective product-selling commercials are exactly the same as the serpent. They use a tarnished version of God’s good ideas and make us say, “Oooooo. That’s good. I need that.” The sad part is that there is not even a pause anymore because we are so good at falling for it.

What messages are we letting pervade our minds? What should we be thinking about instead? How should we be responding to these messages? Would we even be asking these questions had the first woman decided to ask them?

When Man Is King

I woke up at my normal 4:35 this morning and came to one of my study spots. Instead of going right to what I’m supposed to be doing (writing a paper), I decided to catch up on the blogs I follow, which have been one of the many casualties of grad school. Cheryl Hyde, my neighbor & friend, writes a blog called Cracked Water of which I am a loyal follower. Cheryl is a social work professor that doesn’t cut corners, which is something you have to love about her. She wrestles with things honestly, which takes into account the nuances and complicated emotions that are involved with topics such as the death penalty.

With her most recent post called “Execution Day,”she further stirs my usually-adamently-opposed opinions on the death penalty. I rarely waver…until things like Lawrence Brewercome up. And, like Cheryl, I’m not 100% okay with my wavering. It frustrates me how human I am sometimes.

After I finished reading Cheryl’s post, I noticed one of the comments on it was from her good friend Sue Swartz. Sue is a Jewish poet who is very passionate about social activism and equality, which automatically made me love her the first time we met. Her blog,Awkward Offerings is another engaging respite for me. I noticed that she had written two back-to-back entries on the Troy Davis story, a stark picture of injustice by way of denied clemency (in my humble opinion). Sue linked an article called “Explaining the Death Penalty to My Children" from the Atlantic, which made me feel an entire spectrum of emotion including both passionate agreement and a heaping handful of self-loathing. I highly recommend this article.

Then, last but not least, I accidentally came across an LA Times article that talks about the divided reactions to the two executions that happened on the same exact day.



And this was my morning reading. And now I’m posting instead of paper-writing.

Between this and the various other events of the world that only seem disconnected (like oh, say, the war, Lybia, the death of Osama Bin Ladin, the emaciated economy, the environment … and don’t even get me started on the Casey Anthony verdict), a girl really starts to think deeply about her views on mercy - or lack thereof.

My life seems to ALWAYS operate in and around sets of themes, which means I have very related things swirling around in my mind all at once all the time. I used to think this is what made me “tortured” (the curse of an overactive mind), but as I grow up I think this is actually exactly how minds are supposed to work. I think if we aren’t at least a little tortured by these things, then we are not thinking about them properly.

Ever since I started “speed reading” the Bible from cover to cover for one of my grad school classes, I can’t help but note the Hebrew Bible’s take on justice & mercy. Speed reading these books is the way to go because when you read it quickly, it all connects. You see a consistency that you never saw before, both in humans and in God. And I hate to be so harsh on my own kind, but I have to be honest that my conclusion about humans is kind of grim lately. Seeing these consistencies changes my perspective, the lens through which I observe the world. (I know all the humanists out there are going to close their browsers now…please don’t!)

I think our culture spends a lot of our time thinking about justice and very little time thinking about mercy. What do we think mercy is? What are our views on mercy vs justice? Where do the two meet? Where do they not meet? … Why don’t we (eh-hem, Heather) ask ourselves these kinds of questions instead of just bitching or feeling afraid of the current climate?

Again, it frustrates me how human I am sometimes.

A goal I have for this new season of my life — particularly as I become a therapist — is to think more broadly & humbly (though just as adamantly) about justice. I have the advantage of having a personality that errs on the side of “let’s look at all sides of this story,” but I still have a long way to go. Allen’s sermon yesterday (humorously entitled “Game of Thrones” because he knew that would make me laugh) talked about how & why mankind being “on the throne” doesn’t work out so well. Also, on Friday I was emailing back and forth with my professor, Dave Lamb, about my “trouble” with the book of Judges, and he said this:

One of the main points in that section is that people were doing what was “right in their own eyes” and this is often connected to the idea that there is no king. This is in contrast to people doing good or evil in the eyes of YHWH which we see a lot of later in Kings, for example. Versions of this phrase are repeated (Judg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). Some scholars think that the horrible behavior of the Israelites here combined with this phrase suggests that Israel needs a king to rule them. I could agree depending upon what kind of king. Human kings didn’t really work out well for Israel either. Only when God is king will things be good.

I know a lot of my “readers” (I say this as if I have a fan base - ha! I wish) don’t agree with the notion that God being “in charge” is the most comforting thought. And that’s one of the reasons I created this blog: to share thoughts and listen to each other. This is why we have the internet, a place that can actually operate as a world-wide classroom. I would love to hear why people feel this way about God. And I want to throw out 2 final questions (they are actually from Allen’s sermon, so I can’t take any credit or flack that will result), which I have been asking myself a lot lately:

1) Is humankind operating as “king” really working for us? (Keep in mind this assumes that American liberty/democracy gives us the chance to all be individualized “kings” in a way, for better or worse.)

2) Is one of the reasons we are scared of God being “in charge”/King because we don’t know him that well? 

Life goes on. And on and on.

The last 24 hours of my life have been some of the most weighty I’ve ever experienced. And the next 24 will doubtfully be any less so. Yesterday my mom got married for the second time in her life. I sometimes run creative versions of what I imagine her wedding to my dad was like. She was 19, there was so much complexity in her life, and she was only a small fraction of what she has become the last few years, with God’s help.

And today is September 11th. The 10 year anniversary, of course. For some reason I’ve been thinking today that celebrating more on the 10th anniversary (rather than the 7th or 21st anniversary, or what have you) somewhat cheapens the whole thing. What do you all think? I think it’s important to remember every year with equal recollection and sobriety. At least if we can help it.

Now, to bookend my weekend, tomorrow is my first day of school. The season of life I’ve been waiting for with such adamant eagerness is here! My MA in Professional Counseling begins. I’ve never been more excited for the first day of school. This is not just a graduate program for me, which is why it’s so massive. This program is a gift, a symbol of strength, confirmation, abundance, restoration, and establishment. I’ve said this before as I absorb the last 7 months of my life: I feel like this year, my life is just beginning.

So life goes on. It always goes on. We don’t stay the same, and the best we can hope for is that we become who we were born to become.

I’m including two pictures and for both of them, the only caption could be the title of this posting: “Life goes on. And on and on.”

 

5 AM

Every day I wake up a little bit earlier. My alarm goes off (Brittany Spears’s “Toxic” as performed by Yael Naim is my wake-up song on my iPhone alarm — a solid choice, if you’re looking for a good alarm sound), Allen hits HIS snooze button in his unconscious stupor then rolls over, I slowly sit up and try to muster the power to stand.

Waking up early to do some work-ahead school reading (only 24 days left!!! Eeeeee!) is kind of changing my life. For my one class, I need to read the Bible from start to finish by late October. Reading it at this fast pace is a truly different experience than taking it one bit at a time - which is, by definition, done out of context anyway. It’s vivid and alive when you read it fast. I remember when I had to read “Ulysses” in college. At the beginning I felt really overwhelmed, but then as I took the “like-a-bandaid” approach and tried a little speed reading, the story was so rich. And now I get to do this with a book that has so much value to me. It’s pretty life-giving.

I do all my reading on my front porch. It’s actually chilly (yes, chilly) in the morning which is brilliant! Makes the whole experience more special for me. It’s this special quiet (I had almost forgotten what that was), dark, chilly time I have with just my books, my favorite sweatshirt, my front porch, and the coming morning. It’s like another world.

So yes, maybe I am kind of becoming a morning person. (Tectonic plates just shifted.) But when you have a purpose, some quiet, no other people, and a subject to study that you LIVE for, it’s surprisingly easy.

“

I’m holding on to the hope that one day this could be made right. I’ve been shipwrecked, and left for dead, and I have seen the darkest sights. Everyone I’ve loved seems like a stranger in the night, but Oh my hope still burns, tells me to return and search the fading light.



I’m sailing home to you, I won’t be long. By the light of the moon I will press on - until I find my love.



Trouble has beset my ways, and wicked winds have blown. Sirens call my name, they say they’ll ease my pain, then break me on the stones. But true love is the burden that will carry me back home, carry me with the memories of the beauty I have known.



I’m sailing home to you, I won’t be long. By the light of the moon I will press on.



So tie me to the mast of this old ship and point me home before I lose the one I love, before my chance is gone. I want to hold her in my arms.

”
— "Ulysses" by Josh Garrels (Love & War & the Sea In Between) 

On August 3rd I went to the Bon Iver concert with my friend Amy V. The concert was shorter than I had hoped (anything less than 3 hours of music would have been “shorter than I had hoped”…everything is relative), but it was so rich. One of my favorite concerts. I (among millions of other people on the planet) admire, am amazed by, & cherish Justin Vernon’s exceptional songwriting. “For Emma, Forever Ago” has gotten me through some really hard times this year. Whenever an album is kind of the soundtrack of your life for an important time, it becomes so dear. Bon Iver holds a special place inside me. And here’s a highlight from the concert: Justin performing one of my favorites, “Re: Stacks” solo. I was sitting behind the person who took these videos of the concert. I’m so glad I found them on YouTube.

Here I Am.

I started this tumblr blog in the Wilmington, NC airport at 7am on a Saturday at the end of our big family reunion beach vacation. I always hate (reading and writing) what I call “blog premiers” because people (I) feel more pressure when writing them, like they’re supposed to be these monumental beginnings. I’d love to hook some readers with this post, but most likely I won’t until I’m a few posts in.

The purpose of this blog in my mind is threefold. I hope to:

  • artistically process the whirlwind around me — the great & the horrible — when I feel it would benefit the community of people reading this
  • artistically process change, which is better than doing it alone oftentimes
  • tell readers & friends about what I’m thinking / reading / learning / processing as I embark on my new adventure, my MA program in counseling…gasp! How exciting. There will be so much running through my over-active brain. I will seriously need an official processing area.


The thing I love about tumblr is that it really feels like a network and it’s incredibly interactive if you want it to be. For example: when I type a question mark at the end of a sentence, it asks me, Do you want people to answer this question? How fun is that?

So please interact. Leave comments. Repost. Leave pictures as comments. This is an artistic space. That’s what I want it to be.

In a year, I hope this blog looks like a digital version of an artist’s loft, full of photos, clippings, paintings, poems, thoughts, drawings, song lyrics, flowers, food…


Thanks for sharing it with me.