Turn your Isolation into a Gift: Quiet Morning

Isolation is hard.

While some joke about how this time of distancing and staying home suits Introverts, the truth is we all need meaningful connection.

And possibly the most meaningful connection to have is with oneself and with God.

Too many people are strangers to themselves - what makes them tick, why some things perturb them so much, what can help them move forward, how to stop the endless loops...

Too many who claim faith struggle to trust God - the Unseen One.

This is why (and thanks to friends who egged me on) I am making

Quiet Morning 

more widely available.

I realise that the simple decision to set aside time, to lean towards Being rather than Doing, to slow down and open our entire selves before God and to relish a morsel of truth is so transformative.

I hope many will join this and experience something we do desperately need in this world: peace within ourselves, peace with God... which enables us to become peacemakers - and this Pandemic has shown us how far from peace: creation damage, discrimination, weak healthcare systems, mangled political realities that hurt the poor and weak...

In God's mercy, He has sent Light so we also do see good being done by many during this Pandemic. But overall and understandably, this has also aroused a sense of PAN(dem)IC.

I would admit that it has not been easy. Different ones of us find different parts of it hard. From work to family life, to developing fastidious hygiene habits and ensuring that there are groceries... it is easy to go overboard with the news, go under the sense of helplessness, go round and round with all that needs to be done! Even as one who has worked from home for so long, I find this prolonged season of unfolding bad news wearisome.

This made me believe that all the more, we have to seek out space to calm our fears, understand what is going on and sow into a way of life that can bear much fruit both now and in the future.

I believe in a Life-giving God, who painfully allows this to awaken us to what Life is truly about, and is drawing us towards a way of life that will be more peaceful, truthful and bountiful.



As I started this post, I saw a picture of a seed.

Photo by Artur Łuczka on Unsplash

Unless we stop to think of it, it's easy to forget that a seed is so full of promise and potential. In each seed is the possibility of an Orchard!

But the seed must endure isolation, loneliness, and apparent death, to all it has known. It needs to be broken open, risk, to allow it's generative ability to play out as it lets go, endures a change and stretches towards the sun.

Yes, this feels like a season of great loss, and I do not diminish the real loss of jobs and security  that many do face. But it can be a good and necessary loss, one that if we are willing to endure may lead us to a way to both empathise and act on behalf of those who are at the brink of losing everything.



It is also a season of wilderness. All our highways are empty and streets and squares are quiet*...and we feel collectively sent out into the wilderness where things are stripped down to a sense of survival.

But again, this imagery and experience holds another dimension. The wilderness in Scripture is a very special, appointed place for divine exchange. It is where Abraham encounters God the Promise Maker,  Moses gets his commission and experiences God as the Deliverer, where countless battles are fought and won... and where Jesus drew the line of his ultimate loyalty to God his Father.

Down through the ages, the wilderness is sought by those who are spiritually serious. We have to learn to welcome it as God brings it. For He is there waiting, for us to show up,

If you dare get up and go forth to meet God, you will find that His Word is true, powerful and even accurate, and you will also meet and know yourself much better.

And my dear friend, we need you in our world.


I have much more to share, but for now, this should suffice.

Here, would you take a look at this:

Facebook Video

Then, I hope you will hop over to this page to get started: Quiet Morning Details



*Empty now: a 5 min video of major cities today

Toilet Paper Run: is there more than fear at work?

It began in Hong Kong. Then it happened in Singapore. The story then darkened when armed gangs resorted to thievery, no doubt believing that the once humble toilet paper will soon fetch a handsome sum.

Most recently, as the incidence of the Coronavirus infection begin to spot more places in the world, we see the same behaviour. Apocalyptic purchasing has existed for a while in the once CHristian United States, where the Christian narrative of the End Time is woven into the cultural narrative in thick and thin strands.

But Japan surprised us. Orderly, organised, lawful Japan.

Kentaro Takahashi, Bloomberg

Not only did their shelves empty, measures such as this had to be taken even:

https://soranews24.com/2020/03/02/people-in-japan-are-now-stealing-toilet-paper-in-midst-of-coronavirus-crisis/

Everyone wants to know: WHY‌ toilet paper?

The virus’ effects do not include diarrhoea. This prompted Youtuber NileRed to release this
'scientific video', funnily suggesting that it was for moonshine!


What's your theory?

My puzzlement led me back to a theory I read a few years back: Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory. It isn’t too huge a stretch to say that it is the theory that explains everything – psycho-social. Girard's astounding observation is that human behaviour is mostly us copying each other.

Here is a brief video that explains it: The Mimetic Theory in brief

The question is why? At the heart of it ---


We are beings of Desire. But we inevitably get our cues for what is desirable by watching and aping us. Remember the Joneses and the commandment given by smoke and thunder to ‘not covet’? Both the idiom and the command cuts right at the heart of how we desire and what it can drive us to do.

Why toilet paper? Because if someone else is doing it with zeal, we are safer off doing it too, just in case. Yes, herd mentality. But more than herd mentality, it is our desire, to be safe, to be right. So, just -in-case.

For all our loud prognostications about progress and enlightenment, access to information and advancements in technological abilities, we are still basically lost little creatures hoping to get something right.

That’s our pulse. The fear of losing, losing out, and being lost.

Girard is right. I see it in my own life and countless others I observe. We have a deep inward drive to reach for something to slake the thirst of Desire, but we don’t really know how to, because the Desire is lost under layers of parental training, folk wisdom, modern science, personality preferences, and favourable as well as unfavourable life experiences. Our feelings, brains, and circumstances conspire to point us in certain directions. Our agency is severely compromised.

So yes, there is a virus of fear, but its host is our restless, aimless hearts.


The profundity in this little phrase is often missed:

Perfect love casts out all fear*

Fear is resident, it dwells, stalks, lingers… and has to be cast out. The only force strong enough isn’t information - “we assure you there is enough". To cure this primordial, existential fear requires something far stronger. It takes Love.

But O how our views and experiences of Love are so broken, inadequate and tainted.

Who really loves me, we ask in quiet desperation when we are stark honest. Is there a way to be loved without the burden of guilt - that sense that we aren't really measuring up, or worth it?

Is it possible to know such a Love that we can rest and believe that we will make it through another day, even sans toilet paper?

Such a Love cannot be rooted in emotion. It cannot rise from the soil of accomplishments. It certainly isn't found in our wanting it, no matter how mighty we fantasize.

We get glimpses of it in kindness, faithfulness, affirmation, support, and understanding. These are important signposts that such a Love exists, but in the long road of life, we long to walk towards what these signposts point towards: a Being of Love.

So really, the fear is a symptom, of our Desire.

We desire to find out and be found by this Being of Love. 

But who has time to seek, search and scour? So despite the needle of our heart's compass pointing true north, it flings wildly as we throw ourselves into work, relationships, causes and a thousand lesser lodes of magnetism.

What if this Being of Love not only waits for us at journey's end, but is present and involved in our lives now?

Yes, right now, in the middle of it all, of the mess, of the mistakes, of the morose reality of our times.

We need to encounter this Being of Love, and we need an experience that creates a way for us as mimetic beings to fashion our lives after a worthy model.

We need a Whole Love and a Wholesome model.

Perhaps this is why God had to send his son Jesus to live as a fully human being, to suffer hunger, deprivation, disappointment, loneliness, opposition and even betrayal. Even a cursory look at what he lived through leads to an inescapable conclusion: this guy is relatable (even as a woman, I can say that).

More than that, we find Jesus desirable. He is the One we want to be like.

The way he stands his ground, speaks with authority, and act with compassion. The way he can relate to children, authority figures, the old and marginalised. His confidence, composure and convictions. His sense of purpose and passion. The light in his eyes as he tells another parable laced with humour. His gentleness.

The perfect human.


So the great Christian truths that God has made a way to set us free, to restore our agency, to start us on a homeward journey towards Desire is the answer to the toilet paper run, or rather to stop running after metaphorical toilet paper.

And if you are willing, Jesus has made it all possible.



*1 John 4v18

This phrase is found in a larger text:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

In the contemporary Message version :

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.

And this powerful song, which I learnt when I lost my beloved brother, reminds me that my worst fears are swallowed up in Love:

Blessings


Note:
Mimetic Theory has another important dimension: the Scapegoat theory. Again, we find this happening - the blame game. The Chinese, the government, the neighbour - are all convenient scapegoats for us because agency is painful and hard for us who are wandering and wondering. A good summary article: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/11/16/evolution-rene-girard

There's a Question knocking on your door. Mine today: what to do about kids and phones?

Questions

I live with questions all the time. I suspect you do too. The kind we know cannot really be answered by Google.

These sorts of questions come knocking, and we have to decide if we will open the door and let them in. It’s a real risk because they may look shabby and smell worse. It’s a real hassle because sometimes they come with minors in tow - questions that beget questions.

But until we open the door, pull out a chair, offer a cup, take a seat, and listen, really listen, they never go away.

And by going away, it does not mean new ones won’t arrive. It means that our homestead, our soul has grown larger to accommodate and even enjoy their presence. For in time, we realise that these questions originated from us, and the need to come back home to us, where they are welcomed and integrated into our lives.

***

I woke early today while it was dark. It’s a practice I like to began a little more than a year ago but have had trouble keeping this year. This morning I was very surprised to find how fresh and even happy I felt to be sitting, waiting for the day to arrive.

As we know, each day is packaged by us in time slots and events and do-items. But this scaffold is hardly what the day is really about. It’s the messages, impressions, interactions and questions they pose that really make our day, because these are the things that actually shape us.

Annie Dillard famously said they how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

She is of course referring to what we fill our days with. What goes into the blocks of moments and hours. What preoccupies us and more.

But what is this life we have that we are able to spend? Or expend? What do we lose as we spend it, what do we gain as we expend it?

Julian Alden Neer

I stood by the window, focusing on the bird calls to block out all the ubiquitous construction noises (welcome to Singapore - the island that every builds).

***

Like many parents, I struggle with how children adore their devices and spend inordinate amounts of time on it. We have done all the talking, structuring, threatening, rewarding and more… mine are not addicted by any stretch, but there is a pain in my heart to see that it’s such a default mode for them.

I admit that not being a fan of tech (and having severe worries about its effects, having being a student of philosophical positions of Ellul and Muggeridge) did propel towards a offensive-defensive game about it, with me mostly being sent to the bleaches in time out. Yes, it’s hard to win. You end up being the loser parent, who’s stuck in ‘her time’, unreal about things as they presently are… especially when your kids are plugged into a system that forms them for most of their waking hours, which uses tech with little careful thought.

Children bored after exams? Show them a movie or funny videos.

Hard to explain that concept? The entertaining explanatory Youtube vid to the rescue.

Too much to juggle? Update them via whatsapp.

Keep up with the times! Let every kid use a laptop (necessitating an entire IT‌ dept to police their use)

I tried to understand that these are ‘digital natives’. Machine learning is fine. At one time, it’s as if all kinds of craft and trade were enhanced - when the hairdresser or the architect can simulate, calculate, postulate.

But so much is plain mindlessness now.

So this morning, a question bubbled to my consciousness: are we losing entire generations to a soul numbing, mind dulling, relationship-starving way of life?

I realise this is what bothers me about it all.

Life is such a precious gift and we squander it, spend it, expend it so foolishly.

I ask my son, “don’t you want to explore anything? how about build something” go someplace?“

The answer is invariably no.

This is a kid I took to museums, maker faires, baked with, had long conversations, read poetry and made videos with. Where did he go?

Then something else hit me.

The phone and all it promises is way too easy, and our kids are way too tired.

So there is something corroborating here: adults, who build systems.

Parents who build systems in the home usually described in two words: busy and functional.

Educators who build systems our kids embed in: competitive and crowded.

The larger societal systems our kids whiff: dangerous and difficult.

Don’t you want to hide too?


My son will say I over-psychologise. I can and do. But almost always, I am also on to something. My questions are trying to serve me.

At this point, I wonder then if my children are really media literate? What am I modeling with my use of tech? How else can I build a family culture that really serves the generation entrusted to me? Is there a rallying call here for parents to arise to intercede and take back lost ground? Should we push back and get schools to really examine their methodologies?

It’s a big question. I just made a cup of coffee.



What question is knocking on your door?



notes:

Annie Dillard - American author, famous for her powerful nature prose. Quotable: "A schedule defends from chaos and whim."

Jacques Ellul - French philosopher and aly theologian, Quotable: "The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."

Malcolm Muggeridge - British journalist and social critic. Quotable: "Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message."