Inspirations.

In this blog post on the Resurgence site, Matt Chandler discusses what stirs and robs him of affection for Christ.

I started asking what stirs my affections for Christ. What, when I’m doing it, when I’m around it or dwelling on it creates in me a greater hunger for, passion for and worship of Christ and His mission? [He lists eight for this one.]

I don't really feel like posting a neat, brief list. I'm not a brief kind of girl. But I'll put numbers just to satisfy my need to adhere to rules. :D

1. Prayer - the importance of prayer becomes apparent for a lot of people when they've suddenly lost control of something or feel helpless. For me, it's the other way around. Prayer forces me to admit I am helpless on any regular Thursday. Or in the car on the way to get groceries. Or in the shower. Or lying in bed at night. The only time I don't really pray is in the morning. Somehow, because I am already not a morning person, praying in the morning makes me irritable.

When I was in therapy for anorexia and panic attacks for a few years a few years ago, my shrink eventually discovered that if she booked me early enough in the morning, she could get at my core reactions a lot quicker than she would later on in the day. I'm vulnerable in the mornings. My guards are down and my only way of protecting myself is through anger and irritability. I am just not in a loving place in the morning, rather it becomes the time when all my wrongs, fears and traumas bubble up to the surface. I guess maybe that's why depressed people don't get out of bed in the morning.

The bottom line is, I don't pray in the morning because I'd rather not start my day as a puddle of goo on the floor. I need to build up a certain measure of strength before I can become powerless and vulnerable, as ludicrous as that sounds.

Either way, praying throughout my day maintains my affection for God and for Jesus, and I'll be honest, it helps that my prayers are answered so awesomely so often. But at the same time, God and I know that the day He doesn't seem to answer one of them, I'll still be ok and I'll still love Him because the only reason He is answering them is because they were the right things to pray for, they were things that glorified Him through my prayers and their fulfillment.

2. I'll steal one of Matt Chandler's- Walking through cemeteries - This one is new and it might not be the #2 of importance or anything, but it's fresh on my mind after two trips to the cemetery in under a week. My reasons are different than Matt Chandler's though.

First, I've always been an animist. I believe that everything has a soul, or at the very least, shared energy. I believe that we have the capacity to transmit strong energy to things outside of us. I believe the power of the mind and spirit is a lot stronger than we realize. We just don't take the time to understand it (or at least try to). Being in a cemetery affects my soul that way. There's something about it that stirs me in a particular way nothing else does. It's like there's a collective energy in there that our soul connects with deeply.

Second, it makes very evident the separation between living souls whose body has died and living souls whose body hasn't. It feels like a divide rather than an absence. And if our souls do separate and we end up with God alone, rather than together among other souls then it would only be natural to feel that divide until we are fully reconciled with God. It would be natural to us to feel as though our soul is apart from something it used to be in togetherness with. Cemeteries ignite affection for Christ in me because they stir up a desire for a bridge.

3. No escapism - I'm already the most sober person I know. I have been sober since 1996, after sitting on my front porch with my brother on a hot summer day and drinking my ceremonial last beer ever. I'm also the kind of person who tries to confront everything as it comes rather than giving it up to the usual defense mechanisms and coping strategies. I face my demons. But another thing I learned in therapy is that you can only get to the deeper issues after you've dealt with the explosive and vivid current issues. By watching movies, tv shows, fidgeting on the internet too long or even playing with my dogs, I sort of deprive myself of a much-needed quiet time and reflection time. When I'm overly busy, overly worried, or overly numbed, my mind can't sit still long enough to stay focused on what I'm reading, writing or praying. I need that time of just being that allows me to pursue soul matters more actively simply because I'm better prepared to venture into them.

4. Blogging - I do love to blog. I tend to clash with a lot of people in "real" life, and blogging is my outlet for just being me. It's like prayer in a way- it's just honest. I don't cater to an audience. I just hash out my thoughts in the most explicit way I can communicate them, which I've found to be through text on a screen. I type as I think and I generally don't plan out posts and the ones I do plan out always end up in my drafts, never getting published because I just don't have the passion for them as I do when I'm typing as though I am talking. But when I blog about God things, I am forced to research (which I'll admit, I haven't done much of lately) and I'm forced to really try to think things through, and when I'm done, all of my thoughts are laid out in front of me to reread and understand better. It also captures a moment in my head, which is kind of what some of the Psalms David wrote are like. He'll switch back and forth from doubt to certainty, just like any normal human would, just like I do. These posts, all busted up and cynical, are my psalms. They might not be all cheesy about trumpets and singing praise and all that... They might have more of a "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying," kind of message. And I am. I'm trying to work through all this and I'm doing it out in the open because that's who I am. Basically, it's a way of sorting out the scary parts of God in a realm of my life that I'm very comfortable in, and that encourages me.

5. Traffic - It's true. Sitting in traffic all those hours when I was working gave me time to think, to pray and to listen to endless sermons. Without that commute, I'm not sure I'd have a foundation laid down as strongly as the one I have (or that I believe I have). I love me some traffic. Flowing rivers of brake lights that suspend time, obligation and control.

6. Migraine-free days - I had a migraine for two years straight until very recently and I am so grateful for these days when I wake up and don't feel like I've been punched in the face repeatedly while I was sleeping. It's a distraction that creates crazy amounts of self-pity, self-loathing and pain and without my migraine, I've got a lot more free time and energy. And truth be told, it stirs up affection and gratitude because I prayed for it.

7. Reading blogs, books and even tweets by pastors and listening to sermons - not the dry writings though, but the ones where their heart is exposed. I think the best pastors are the ones who humanize the Bible by making it relatable, by allowing us to watch it in action through them and by hearing it passionately from their mouths. It's like listening to somebody read poetry to somebody they adore. Their genuine love and adoration for God stirs up my love for God and inspires me. I think I'm a fairly empathetic person and by feeling that affection through somebody who is passionate, I can be opened to new avenues of affection within myself.

Man, I could go on and on- folk music, my beautiful doggies (past and present) and their unconditional love, Christmas... I'll just skip to the next question before it's suddenly 4AM. :D

I also wrestled with and paid attention to what robbed me of affection for Christ. What, when I was doing it or spending time around it created in me an unhealthy love for this world? [He listed six for this one.]

1. I want to start with church. While it doesn't create an unhealthy love for this world, it does rob me of affection for Christ. Religion, obligation, serving in a capacity outside of that which I am comfortable, feeling the constant pull between legalism and not obeying- a lot of the time, after going to church, I'll go for waffles with my brother and sister-in-law and the first thing out of my mouth will be, "Man, I suck at church." I end up feeling so discouraged and out of place that if that is what it takes to be a "real" Christian, then I just am not a "real" Christian. I get into this cycle of negotiation, teetering towards giving up. Pastors I listen to online are all, "Just Jesus," but in reality, it's never "just Jesus." It's always, "If you have an affection for Jesus, you need to show it by serving in and being a member of a church." And if you put up a fight, tell people a bit of your past so that they might understand why this is such an issue, they always reply, "Jesus can redeem all that, but you have to be a member of a church." I'm not sure of what God wants for me in particular, maybe He wants my body to be my temple? But either way, your bullying me isn't helping. I was agnostic for 28ish years, and if but by the grace of God am I saved, then thank God, but if God chose me and then will create for me an eternity without Him because I suck at church, so be it. I'm doing the best I can, and that's not good enough, whether I somehow serve or I never find the way to be able to. But by the grace of God am I saved, not by submitting to peer pressure and bullying...

Anyhooooo.

2. Les Boys - I can't do both. I can't actively pursue relationships and be close to God. The way I've been trained by the society around me to pursue relationships is so not godly and the men I attract generally aren't either. And the end result is that I am distracted in a bad way towards bad things and God ends up sort of shut off. I assume that eventually, I'll find a balance that is healthier, but for now, there is nothing healthy or godly about my pursuit.

3. The opposite of #3 above about escapism.

4. Excessive sleep - Again, it doesn't create an unhealthy love for this world, but it does make me crabby and intolerable. I'm ok with sleeping in. If I wake up at noon, that's ok with me. I don't feel as though my day is wasted because the best part of my day is now (i.e. when the world sleeps). But what I can't stand is when I wake up at noon after going to bed early. That's annoying and does waste my day, which is one of the reasons I end up staying up late also. If I stay up late, I don't need as much sleep. If I go to sleep early, I wake up at the same time but have wasted the better part of my night asleep. In the end, this robs me of affection for God because not only am I all irritable and hating everything, but I tend to get it in my head that I have to cram an entire day's worth of stuff in a really short amount of time. The being busy part causes me to lack focus and distances me from anything that draws me closer to God. I am not a busy person. I am quite lazy actually, so when I say I'm being busy, it's not that I'm actually accomplishing things so much as panicking about accomplishing things. It's a circular path to nowhere.

5. My laziness - I don't know how to fix that or even if it's a bad thing, but the societal pressure to constantly produce gets to me often. I'm a ponderer rather than a doer. In my head, the way I am draws me closer to God in being, but not in doing, and it's the doing part that I think I need more of, maybe. I don't know. That's the thing- I never know if I'm supposed to be doing what I'm actually fond of and good at or if I'm supposed to break myself apart to try to fit into the roles I'm not good at. I'm good at explaining and understanding things (or vice versa I guess would make more sense) and I'm good at living it in my own life but I am not a hard worker in the conventional sense. I'm not ambitious and driven. I'm not all, "Oh, there are poor people in the world, I need to help now!" and hop in my car and slave away somewhere. Is that a bad thing? It feels like a terrible thing, but even if I was to hop into my car and go slave away, I know I'd suck at it simply because my heart is not into it. If my heart is into something, I'll put in the time and effort needed and then some. But should I wait for my heart to be into it? Do I let myself get too comfortable in this world full of worldly comforts? I don't know. But that feeling of sort of self-loathing because I believe I'm lazy is not a motivator and does not stir up affection and drive to build God's kingdom.

6. Aimlessness - to be honest, in Matt Chandler's question, he points to an affection for this world over God and Jesus, but aside from my #2 in this section, I don't really have all that much that I would not give up in a heartbeat. I grew up undeserving and unentitled and unloved, really. Even if you took away my dogs, my babies whom I adore and whose love and friendship helps get me through the worst times, I'll be sad, I'll be broken, but all I have is me. I've felt for the longest time like a nomad, without a home, without attachments, without normal drives towards the pleasures of this world. I do like some things, but if you take them away from me, I won't die. Everything I have and/or have access to is a privilege. It's all a gift. My dogs are a gift. We aren't entitled to gifts. They are gifts. But like the laziness above, what this does is create an aimlessness and lostness that leaves me sort of stranded without direction. I don't know if I glorify God better when I'm aimless and have nothing to move toward but better understanding. I don't know if I glorify God more when I am forced to work out a plan based on my smaller passions because the doors to my bigger passions have slammed shut. I just don't know. It affects my affection for God because if God is really in control and this aimlessness is what He wants, then these doors will just keep slamming and after a while, it becomes harder to stay passionate. Constant rejection wears a girl thin after a while, and so I ask for guidance and more doors get slammed shut, but none open in consequence. Do you really want me to be this aimless, God? Or is there no God at all, rather a string of mediocre luck mixed with self-fulfilling prophesy? Aimlessness does take a toll.

But hey, among all this aimlessness, laziness, lustiness and church rejection, God still is providing for me. I am so grateful for everything I have been given, including faith and a passion for learning, for prayer and for God.

p.s. I'll post this now and edit it tomorrow when I have eyes again. :D