Retracing My Steps

I have been looking back where I have been to where I am today and in doing so, I have felt that I needed to contact some of those who have been a part of the journey.

(What I appreciate about Facebook is that it has allowed me to be in touch with so many people that I would otherwise not have any way of contacting)

This is one such moment:

Connie is a former classmate. She was always a very sweet and kind person. We were friends in school but have not really kept in touch since graduation. I remember a project she did that really touched me. And I wanted to let her know.


Hello Connie,

I hope you and your family are doing well. A memory of you came to my mind and I wanted to share it with you.

When we were in high school we had a class assignment to write about something we wanted to see invented and make a drawing of it. Being secretarial minded and I suppose a little lazy, I wanted a machine that my boss could speak into and it would type his words out so that I would not have to take dictation anymore.

But then I saw your invention.

I was so ashamed of mine because it was from selfish ambition but yours was to better mankind. I don't know if you even remember, but you invented a machine that on one side you fed the symptoms of someone who was sick and on the other side the cure came out. I can still remember the drawing. I thought that was such an awesome thing that you would care about others so much. It made me think I should be less selfish in the future and think more of how I could help others.

Connie, I know you lost a child and you wish there could have been a machine with the cure on the other side and I am very sorry if I have stirred up any sad emotions. I just feel that sometimes we fail to tell others even how the smallest things they have done has impacted someone else's life. And we wish we could have when it is too late.
I just wanted you to know that I am one of many that your life has touched... For the better.

Love, Paula

I was not sure when or if she would reply. I could tell by her Facebook page that she was not on Facebook very often. But later that same day, I received this:

Dear Paula,

I was so happy to receive your message. I do not remember that class assignment but am so glad you did. You have no idea what your message means to me. I am beyond grateful you shared that story with me. Little did I know at the time, that would be my lifelong dream and for reasons I could have never known back then. And for some reason, I really needed your message today. Yes, I cried but they were happy tears. Obviously, I still wish I could invent such a machine. I have been so blessed in spite of many hardships and I took this year off from 3 years of nonstop charity work raising money for children's cancer research. I have devoted so much time to help others in hopes that just one parent never know the pain that Bob and I both know as parents. You may recall that Bob too lost his eldest child to Cystic Fibrosis and I lost my daughter to a very rare illness that most will never even hear of. Our experiences changed our lives forever. I guess what matters is what you decide to do with it. Always know you did not stir up any sad emotions but rather just the opposite. It always makes my heart glad to know that someone is thinking of others and especially my daughter...one of God's special angels. Thank you, Paula, I will remember this forever!

Love, Connie

I am sharing this because this is what I would have missed had I not let her know about something that she did that touched me so many years ago. I have learned that the things that we think are shameful and embarrassing to us at the moment are also stepping stones on our pathway to making us who we are, and other lives that we touch.

Lord, thank you for friends, old and new. Thank you for all the times in my life that you used someone to influence my life. Thank you especially for allowing me the opportunity to thank them so that they will know all the good they do really matters, whether or not they see it at the moment.

The Broken Saw

I have devoted this year to trying to change some things in my life that have held me back by reacting the same way over and over.

I was in New York with my daughter recently. We were on our first trip to ever see New York and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

I received a phone call from Noble. He had loaned his chain saw, the one that makes our living, to a neighbor who had a friend that had a tree leaning over their house. He said he almost did not do it, and would have just cut the tree for them, but our granddaughter was with him, so he allowed them to take his saw. They called an hour later and told him that a tree fell on the saw and crushed it into pieces. We had just bought the saw a few months ago for $1,000.00.

I am sure Noble dreaded telling me because my normal reaction would have been to gripe at him for loaning it in the first place and ranting about it even though there was nothing he could do about it now. I was good at that.

But this time, I said, "well, you were just trying to help someone in need. A lesson learned.". He agreed and vowed he would never loan equipment that makes his living out again.

When we hung up the phone, I prayed for him:

God I thank you that you have given Noble a heart that is willing to help others. We are told in your word when a friend is in need to loan above and beyond that need. Now Lord, Noble needs a saw to be able to provide for his family and so I thank you for this debris cleaning job you have provided so that we will be able to buy a new saw and he can continue to work this week. I ask you to give us peace in this situation. Lord, I especially want to thank you for teaching me how to trust you in every situation. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

I started thinking that it could have been worse. What if he did go and cut the tree himself and the tree fell on him instead? God has his hand upon us in ways we do not even know.

I felt a little growth spurt in me that day. It was a good feeling because I knew it was not me but God working in me, and that meant if He is still working on me, He still loves me.

Noble did buy a new Stihl chainsaw, and the neighbor brought him $300 at the end of the week to help pay for it.

Now I am not saying I will for sure pass the next test, but I am hoping some fruit is starting to grow.

Shame v Guilt

I put so much importance on my actions, that I often allow each one to define me. Unfortunately, when my actions are bad, I feel that must be the true me.

I uncovered the reason for this while reading a book by Dr. Kenneth C. Newberry, Hope in the Face of Conflict. I thought this book would be helpful in resolving conflict in my mediations. I did not realize it would also be very helpful to me.

Dr. Newberry stated that the human inclination to avoid being identified as a wrongdoer is incredibly strong. We deny and lie about what we have done. We blame others. We make excuses. We minimize the injury. Why? Fear and Shame.

I understood the fear part, but what I wanted to share was the part I have the greatest trouble with: Shame.

The difference between guilt and shame is that in guilt, we say, “I did a terrible thing.” Whereas, shame says, “I am a terrible person”.

Guilt, the focus in on the transgression. Look how I "messed up”. Guilt focuses on my behavior.

Shame, the focus is on the transgressor. Look, how "I" messed up. Shame focuses on my self-identity.

In shame there is little separation between the person and the act. Not only is a bad deed uncovered, but a bad person is exposes as well.

Individuals who experience guilt are better able to separate what they have done from who they are. The discomfort of their guilt motivates them to accept responsibility and confess that they were in the wrong. Empathy for those they have hurt motivates them to resolve the breach in relationship and seek the other’s healing. Moreover, to sincerely admit wrongdoing suggests that they want to move toward a future that is more consistent with who they perceive themselves to be. The very act of confession only serves to separate their past action from their identity.

Those who experience shame are very concerned about what others think about them. They don’t have the inner strength to withstand negative evaluations and condemnation without breaking down. Such people go to extreme lengths to avoid feeling shamed. Responses to being called into account range from becoming defensive, making excuses, finding another person or source to blame (e.g. the circumstances), becoming physically withdrawn or angry, making cutting comments and spreading lies about the other party, and otherwise becoming verbally or physically aggressive. The thought of being unmasked and being and object of scorn, contempt, or ridicule is unbearable.

Persons experiencing shame focus their energy and attention on themselves instead of the person they have hurt.

Guilt seeks forgiveness, healing and freedom based on acknowledgment of the sin. Whereas, shame, the person is not able to separate himself from his behavior.

Jealous and Insecure

Overcoming jealousy must be like overcoming alcoholism. First step, admit I have a problem with it, then stay as far away from it as possible.

In trying to overcome my jealousy, I have researched what it is, what triggers it, and how to avoid it.

First I had to understand what causes jealousy. I found that Jealousy is the fear of losing something that you believe to already be yours.

So jealousy comes from fear. Fear brings insecurity. I am well acquainted with that too. Ask me to speak publicly and because of lack of experience I will instantly be insecure and fearful. People are insecure because of lack of self confidence.

In order to overcome jealousy, I have to deal with my insecurities first.

Some of us have so much love inside, but our insecurities make us fearful. When we are fearful we become unkind, competitive, controlling and mean-spirited. Instead of baring our insecurities, we cover them up with pretense. We could say, "I'm insecure", "I'm scared", but instead we bluff to cover up our own insecurity and then the meanness happens.

If you want the jealousy to go away, so too does the insecurities.

Pettiness

When I was going through a time when I was working really hard trying to grow up and quit acting so immature, I asked God to show me what causes me to react to things and behave the way I do sometimes. The word pettiness came to my mind. I looked it up and began reading about the cause and effect of being petty. It became one of the key moments when I really began to mature. 

In her autobiography, Therese of Lisieux describes what she considers as one of the key moments of conversion in her life:

She was the youngest in her family and her father's favorite. He doted on her and every year when the family came home from church on Christmas Eve, he had a little ritual he played out as he gave a gift to her, his youngest and favorite daughter.
One Christmas Eve when Therese was nine years old and still tender and sad from her mother's death, as the family returned home from church, she overheard her father tell one of her older sisters that he hoped that, this year, he would no longer had to play that little, childish charade with Therese.

Overhearing this, Therese, a deeply sensitive child, was stung to the core, felt betrayed, and fell into a long period of silence and depression. Eventually she emerged from it and regained her resiliency and joy. Looking back on it years later, she saw her giving up of that particular hurt, and the hypersensitivity that provoked it, as one of the key moments of conversion in her whole life.

We usually wouldn't define overcoming sensitivity as a religious conversion, but it is precisely that, a conversion with immense religious and emotional repercussions. Our happiness depends upon having the resiliency to accept the many hurts, disappointments, and injustices of life so as to live in the give- and-take that is required for family and community living. And we learn that lesson slowly.

The older I get, the more I am coming to know how sensitive people are and how easily they get hurt. It doesn't take much for someone to ruin your day. We don't just get hurt when we meet open hostility, insults, unfairness, or hatred. We can get deeply hurt just by overhearing a casual remark or simply by not being noticed, appreciated, or invited. The human heart is easily bruised, too easily.

And then, like Therese, the impulse is to withdraw, withhold, grow silent, nurse the wound, become depressed, grow cold. That is why we are often so cautious and paranoid inside of our families and communities. We don't want to be cold, but we're hurt.

Moreover that doesn't bring out the best in us. Pettiness too often spawns pettiness. Thomas Aquinas once suggested that we have two souls inside us: an anima magna (a grand soul) and an anima pusilla (a petty soul). When we act out of our grand soul, we are generous, hospitable, big-hearted, and warm. Conversely, when we act out of our petty soul, we are paranoid, bitter, over-protective, cautious, and small-hearted. When we feel hurt it is all too easy to act out of the petty half of our souls.

We know the truth of that from everyday experience: One minute we can be feeling generous, hospitable, and big-hearted, and then an insult or a simple slight can trigger feelings of disappointment, bitterness, and pettiness. Which is really us? They both are! Everything depends, day to day, minute to minute, upon which soul we are drawing our vision and energy from at a given moment.

Of course we can always rationalize our bitterness, coldness, and pettiness by appealing to our sensitivity. We feel slights and insults deeply precisely because we are deep. There's truth in that. The more sensitive we are, the more deeply we will feel both love and its betrayal. But, and this is the point, we need, like Therese, to see our hypersensitivity as something to be converted from so that we can be resilient enough to absorb the bumps and bruises of everyday living. Nobody can live for any length of time within a family or a community without hurting others and without getting hurt. The challenge is to have the resiliency to live with that.

Daniel Berrigan once commented that if Jesus came back today he would go into every counseling office in the world and drive out both the doctors and their clients with the words: "Take up your couch and walk! You don't have to be this sensitive!"
Perhaps that's strong, but it contains an important challenge to conversion. Henri Nouwen used to say that one of the key elements in spiritual conversion is to move from hostility to hospitality. All major spiritualities tell us the same thing.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the bowl is the image for resentment. In it is contained all our bitterness, disappointment, and disillusionment. We sit holding that bowl in our hands. We can either pour it forwards, so that the resentment flows away from us, or we can tip it onto ourselves, allowing all that poison to infect us. Our happiness depends upon which way we tip that bowl.

How can we let go of our hypersensitivity? A priest that I know once gave me this advice: Whenever you feel stung and hurt, pull away, sit in prayer, and stay there until the pain softens enough so that you can face others with warmth again.
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The Purse - How to Stop Spreading Gossip

This is a very good object lesson about how to handle gossip.

A fellow by the name of J. C. Bays told this story: “One day when I was about eight years old, I was playing by an open window and I heard Mrs. Brown confide in my mother a serious problem concerning her son. When Mrs. Brown was gone, my mother, realizing I had heard everything, said to me, ‘If Mrs. Brown had left her purse here today, would we give it to someone else?’ ‘Of course not,’ I replied. Then she continued: ‘Mrs. Brown left something far more precious to her than her purse today. That story is not ours to give to anyone else. It’s still hers, even though she left it. So we should not give it to anyone else. Do you understand?’ I did. And I still understand that when someone leaves a bit of confidence or careless gossip with me, it is his—not mine to give to anyone else.

Offense Will Come

I heard about a couple who had stopped attending church because they were offended by someone.


I think when we get to heaven the number one question will be "How did you handle offense?" Proverbs 19:11 says: “It is to the glory of a man to overlook an offense.”

The Word of God admonishes us to "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together". (Hebrews 10:25) God knows we are not perfect, yet he still wants us to assemble together for support of one another. He also knows if we are around people long enough, sooner or later we will be offended. But if we continue to assemble together even though we have been offended, God can design a service where he can move and make a way for the offended and the offender's hearts to be touched and amends made.

Jesus said that it was “impossible that no offenses should come (Luke 17;1).” If you become a part the Body of Christ like you should, I guarantee you that your will get offended.

We should have it on our church bulletin: Our mission is to offend you! Because it is going to happen. Being a part of the Body of Christ is not for the faint of heart. If you want to grow up in the Lord, you will have to learn how to get hurt and healed; forgive and be forgiven. It’s part of the growth process.

Jesus said, Offense will come, but woe to those by whom the offense comes. (Matthew 18:7) We need to be very careful not to offend. But it is Satan's best trap and he does his job well.


Being in church for over 30 years, I have been on both sides of offense - the one who was offended and sad to say, the one doing the offending. I am thankful for those who can forgive offenses, for they are the true church body.

Come let us reason together ....and overcome offense.