"Bad news sells".
"You need an arc, with a rising tension.."
"The hero must meet a challenge so great, he must risk death..."
It turns out, these are true, in news reporting, in movie-making, in our experiences.
Still, we dream, yearn and often naively imagine life can be smooth-sailing. Which explains why prosperity gospel succeeds, why disciples hike off, why so much continues to break around us - from friendships to partnerships, marriage to parenting. We refuse to be heroic. We reject our villainy.
Yes - we are both heroes and villains. Light and Dark. Life and Death.
And the typical advice given is to grow the light, starve the dark (yes that tale about the old man with two dogs, one good, the other bad)... focus on the good, do more good....
Jesus tells us plainly:
You know, Jesus gets pretty absolute about things. We, prefer to hedge and fuzz.
Goodness is a God quality. We aspire, pretend, and at times achieve some good. Sometimes, even astounding good. But, our good acts aren't the same as us being good in essence. Because, honestly, our motives are rarely a hundred percent without self-interest.
God, on the other hand, is Goodness - because he really, does not need us or anything from us - but he considers our needs and cares for us.
So I am going to suggest Another Way Altogether that will take the strife, comparison and hard edge off doing good. A way that enables us to honestly acknowledge our villainy and at the same time, arouse our heroism.
It is called Blessedness.
Blessedness is not an intrinsic or earned quality. It is bestowed, given, offered - and there is great power when we realise our blessedness.
Blessedness is not about avoiding pain, skirting hardship, being protected from loss, confusion, regrets or even recurring struggles.
It has very little in fact, to with the externals of your life: from relationships to possessions, realities to potentialities. Rather, is is a depth-experience of being wanted, being a great idea, fearfully and wonderfully crafted. It's the truth of your life as being valid, precious, unique...of you being sensed, felt, loved...
Instead, you are led to such a place, with royalty, with God, because you dared to follow...and you find yourself coming...Home. The one Home you have been searching for all you life!
In this Home-space, feel safe, it's bounteous, and full of Life -- even though not a bit of your circumstances may have changed... yet.. --
From here, you regard everything with a strange sense...like invincibility: 'how can anything ever really hurt you, again?'. At the same time, you have a ready vulnerability, where you are no longer afraid and feel the need to hide your darker shades of your story.
Both the Light and the Dark become stark and real, and you know a Greater Truth embraces and encompasses both.
Your power of choice is pressed upon your soul and you find yourself choosing again, and again, for the Light.
At Home, in God's courts, which are held by the pillars of righteousness and faithfulness, there's no falsification, pretense or role-play. Rather, there's an inverted sense of abandonment. Whereas life in general reinforces our loneliness and weaknesses, often causing us feelings of rejection and abandonment, here, we can release our efforts and masks and rest in a security and safety that makes -no - demands of us, yet gently compels us to be the best versions of ourselves.
Home is where we belong, where we are beloved and come to see our Blessedness. Home is being with God in complete honesty and surrender.
And so, we can do the most good because we have come Home to Goodness.
The way home is a mixture of large, determined, upward strides, as well as small, consistent steps. These involve three trails.
(1) Detachment - to free us
This is not to become some unfeeling glob please! Rather, it's about refusing to be fooled into thinking that our identity and worth depend on people, possessions and pains. We can define ourselves in so many ways. Some choose family, others choose achievements, yet other still, frame themselves in their pains.
Things that are a part of our lives shape us, and may even confine us. But they don't have to define us.
Yes, every day, something, someone, your past or your future can threaten to cloud over the truth of your Blessed Belovedness.
But, if you step away from it all for a bit, and sit with the deeper truth that you are Blessed and Beloved, that in the midst of the hard and nasty, God is with you and offers you Life and Light.... in time, the veil is torn and you find that you are Home.
Try it and see.
Cry when you need.
Rant when you need.
Then, silence your rancour and let Scripture's cleansing and renewing power do its work.
(2) Contentment- to anchor us
Life cannot be savored in retirement. It has to savored now. (In fact, if you cannot taste life's goodness now, you may not later, and..what about.. heaven!).
Money loses its charm after a time, and can turn around to be a mean and demanding master.
Jesus used very graphic language:
When do you stop running? When you wisely consider and realise that there isn't even a race. Or when you are finally exhausted? Which state would you rather be in?
The practical way to develop contentment is of course, to practise gratitude*, which is well supported by health and brain science to have enormous benefits to our overall well-being.
When we are not busy asking -
"where is the good deal?"
"how come he has more?"
"when can I have ...?"
We can slow our pace to anchor.
A ship cannot anchor while sailing at twenty-give knots. It has to slow. Modern consumerism's evil is that we are being 'eaten' alive while we think we are 'happily consuming'. We have eschew the insatiable needs consumerism generates in us, slow down, and anchor.
We have to face the dark of our fears that we won't be noticed, known or celebrated. We need to soak up the Light that we are noticed, known and celebrated -- and by One who doesn't change His view of us because He is in a funk!
It is only when we anchor that we can be ready to be an answer to the many cries and questions that are churning all around us.
- Stock-take your consumer habits (turn off notifications perhaps)
- Design and live within a budget (it's a thing that works and is great for training kids)
- Make giving a regular habit (for eg. if you plan that each time you buy an item, you will buy a second to give away)
(3) Attentiveness - to liven us
Most of us live in the past (stewing over what went wrong or what could be better) or in the future (imagining what could be). Often, in the present, we are fretting about our responses and how others view us.
Where are we actually? Rather absent.
Attentiveness opens our eyes to notice and marvel at Life and Light. It makes complaining harder. Striving feels like such a waste of the moment. The wonder and giftedness of so much begins to dawn on us. Details present themselves to us and creates bold relief for us to recognise that we are hidden glory.
We take ourselves both lightly and seriously at the same time, knowing when to do which.
So friends,
Continue to bend towards the Light
Do all the good you can
But - follow the Spirit's call to walk into your Belovedness, where you touch the shimmering Goodness of God, and let it find its expression in and through you.
We can change the world we are a part of - through this deep, total revolution with us.
Every heart
Every mind
Every life
that begins to sense, believe and live in the Truth of being Beloved and Blessed -- also connects and embeds and can be magnified, to the praise of His Glory.
So, our world needs -
How To Press Past Setbacks
[I chose animal photography for this post, because animals are impacted by whether we are good or selfish... And birds of course, were used by Jesus to remind us to trust in our Belovedness and Blessedness].
"You need an arc, with a rising tension.."
"The hero must meet a challenge so great, he must risk death..."
It turns out, these are true, in news reporting, in movie-making, in our experiences.
 |
| homeless Koala |
Still, we dream, yearn and often naively imagine life can be smooth-sailing. Which explains why prosperity gospel succeeds, why disciples hike off, why so much continues to break around us - from friendships to partnerships, marriage to parenting. We refuse to be heroic. We reject our villainy.
Yes - we are both heroes and villains. Light and Dark. Life and Death.
 |
And the typical advice given is to grow the light, starve the dark (yes that tale about the old man with two dogs, one good, the other bad)... focus on the good, do more good....
Jesus tells us plainly:
No one is good—except God alone. {Mark 10v18}
You know, Jesus gets pretty absolute about things. We, prefer to hedge and fuzz.
Goodness is a God quality. We aspire, pretend, and at times achieve some good. Sometimes, even astounding good. But, our good acts aren't the same as us being good in essence. Because, honestly, our motives are rarely a hundred percent without self-interest.
God, on the other hand, is Goodness - because he really, does not need us or anything from us - but he considers our needs and cares for us.
 |
| PhyoMoe Agora Images |
So I am going to suggest Another Way Altogether that will take the strife, comparison and hard edge off doing good. A way that enables us to honestly acknowledge our villainy and at the same time, arouse our heroism.
It is called Blessedness.
Blessedness is not an intrinsic or earned quality. It is bestowed, given, offered - and there is great power when we realise our blessedness.
Blessedness is not about avoiding pain, skirting hardship, being protected from loss, confusion, regrets or even recurring struggles.
It has very little in fact, to with the externals of your life: from relationships to possessions, realities to potentialities. Rather, is is a depth-experience of being wanted, being a great idea, fearfully and wonderfully crafted. It's the truth of your life as being valid, precious, unique...of you being sensed, felt, loved...
It is a truth that gets infused into the sinews and molecules of your being when ordinary life is touched by the Transcendent, when the temporal shimmers with the eternal, when the wind from angelic wings whiff close..., what Paul described as "being seated in the heavenly realms {Ephesians 1v3} --- a Position, a Posture, and a Potential that you cannot bargain for, access by force or sneak by scheming.
Instead, you are led to such a place, with royalty, with God, because you dared to follow...and you find yourself coming...Home. The one Home you have been searching for all you life!
In this Home-space, feel safe, it's bounteous, and full of Life -- even though not a bit of your circumstances may have changed... yet.. --
From here, you regard everything with a strange sense...like invincibility: 'how can anything ever really hurt you, again?'. At the same time, you have a ready vulnerability, where you are no longer afraid and feel the need to hide your darker shades of your story.
Both the Light and the Dark become stark and real, and you know a Greater Truth embraces and encompasses both.
Your power of choice is pressed upon your soul and you find yourself choosing again, and again, for the Light.
At Home, in God's courts, which are held by the pillars of righteousness and faithfulness, there's no falsification, pretense or role-play. Rather, there's an inverted sense of abandonment. Whereas life in general reinforces our loneliness and weaknesses, often causing us feelings of rejection and abandonment, here, we can release our efforts and masks and rest in a security and safety that makes -no - demands of us, yet gently compels us to be the best versions of ourselves.
Home is where we belong, where we are beloved and come to see our Blessedness. Home is being with God in complete honesty and surrender.
And so, we can do the most good because we have come Home to Goodness.
The way home is a mixture of large, determined, upward strides, as well as small, consistent steps. These involve three trails.
(1) Detachment - to free us
This is not to become some unfeeling glob please! Rather, it's about refusing to be fooled into thinking that our identity and worth depend on people, possessions and pains. We can define ourselves in so many ways. Some choose family, others choose achievements, yet other still, frame themselves in their pains.
Things that are a part of our lives shape us, and may even confine us. But they don't have to define us.
Yes, every day, something, someone, your past or your future can threaten to cloud over the truth of your Blessed Belovedness.
But, if you step away from it all for a bit, and sit with the deeper truth that you are Blessed and Beloved, that in the midst of the hard and nasty, God is with you and offers you Life and Light.... in time, the veil is torn and you find that you are Home.
Try it and see.
Cry when you need.
Rant when you need.
Then, silence your rancour and let Scripture's cleansing and renewing power do its work.
(2) Contentment- to anchor us
Life cannot be savored in retirement. It has to savored now. (In fact, if you cannot taste life's goodness now, you may not later, and..what about.. heaven!).
Money loses its charm after a time, and can turn around to be a mean and demanding master.
Jesus used very graphic language:
the pagans run after these things... {Matt 6v33}Running is a strenuous activity. It demands a lot, engages a lot, and leaves us winded. Running can also be rather addictive and during a second wind, you can feel rather powerful. But you cannot run forever.
When do you stop running? When you wisely consider and realise that there isn't even a race. Or when you are finally exhausted? Which state would you rather be in?
The practical way to develop contentment is of course, to practise gratitude*, which is well supported by health and brain science to have enormous benefits to our overall well-being.
When we are not busy asking -
"where is the good deal?"
"how come he has more?"
"when can I have ...?"
We can slow our pace to anchor.
A ship cannot anchor while sailing at twenty-give knots. It has to slow. Modern consumerism's evil is that we are being 'eaten' alive while we think we are 'happily consuming'. We have eschew the insatiable needs consumerism generates in us, slow down, and anchor.
We have to face the dark of our fears that we won't be noticed, known or celebrated. We need to soak up the Light that we are noticed, known and celebrated -- and by One who doesn't change His view of us because He is in a funk!
It is only when we anchor that we can be ready to be an answer to the many cries and questions that are churning all around us.
- Stock-take your consumer habits (turn off notifications perhaps)
- Design and live within a budget (it's a thing that works and is great for training kids)
- Make giving a regular habit (for eg. if you plan that each time you buy an item, you will buy a second to give away)
(3) Attentiveness - to liven us
Most of us live in the past (stewing over what went wrong or what could be better) or in the future (imagining what could be). Often, in the present, we are fretting about our responses and how others view us.
Where are we actually? Rather absent.
Attentiveness opens our eyes to notice and marvel at Life and Light. It makes complaining harder. Striving feels like such a waste of the moment. The wonder and giftedness of so much begins to dawn on us. Details present themselves to us and creates bold relief for us to recognise that we are hidden glory.
We take ourselves both lightly and seriously at the same time, knowing when to do which.
So friends,
Continue to bend towards the Light
Do all the good you can
But - follow the Spirit's call to walk into your Belovedness, where you touch the shimmering Goodness of God, and let it find its expression in and through you.
We can change the world we are a part of - through this deep, total revolution with us.
When we are attentive, we may be better listeners (and that will heal so many broken hearts and even help in the restoration of those who are suffering mentally)
When we are anchored, we may be better givers (and how much inequality and injustice needs addressing)
When we are freed, we may be better lovers (and how that will save so many relationships)
The Dark is real. It lodges in hearts. It connects on and off-line. It embeds in systems. The news, movies and our experiences magnify it. It can intimidate us. It can overwhelm us. It can unsettle us. But you know, systems are after all, practical frameworks and protocols established according to values we uphold.
Every heart
Every mind
Every life
that begins to sense, believe and live in the Truth of being Beloved and Blessed -- also connects and embeds and can be magnified, to the praise of His Glory.
So, our world needs -
goodness
serious answers
you.
*How To Be GratefulHow To Grow Up Spiritually
How To Press Past Setbacks
[I chose animal photography for this post, because animals are impacted by whether we are good or selfish... And birds of course, were used by Jesus to remind us to trust in our Belovedness and Blessedness].
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