Lift

I've been thinking a lot recently about how to sustain an upward trajectory in my life.  I find my own moods, emotions, energy, and focus are just too variable.  Instead of a smooth upward path, I'm kind of all over the map from day to day.

I think the concept of Lift might help me with this.  In heavier-than-air flight, lift is generated by the right shaped wing and the air that flows over it.  I have to wonder if my life can be lifted by shaping it right and then going fast enough.  Yeah, I know it's not a great analogy, but this is a rough-formed thought.  I'll have to see if I can polish it in the coming days.

p.s.  I am going to start putting together the skeleton of my book this weekend, so be on the lookout for some sample chapters and whatnot.

The Power of No

We live in a permissive culture.  We're surrounded by messages that we must say yes or we're some how less than our neighbors.  It's the spirit behind keeping up with the Joneses.  We fill our lives with "To Do" lists and work like crazy to cross them off one at a time.  Because we've given ourselves to so many different things, our efforts diffuse and our progress is slowed.  If we could narrow the things we say yes to, we will be better at doing those things we do accept.

Have you ever written a "To Don't" list?  Have you ever put in the conscious effort to exclude certain activities, thoughts, behaviors, poisonous relationships, etc?  It's an exercise in setting boundaries, and it can breathe life into a tired soul.  Try it some time, and tell me what you think.

Why We Fight

I have recently become a father.  This duty is the greatest blessing I have ever received.  In the last few weeks, it has called me to re-evaluate what I do with my life and why I do it.  It has also shown me that there is a magic and miracle to new human life that is beyond my understanding.  My wife's nature as she nurtures our son, shows me that God has entrusted her with powerful and unique gifts.  And that is something Satan wants to destroy.

I thought I understood my role as protector when I got married.  I thought I saw why I was asked to intercede between my wife and the world.  I didn't.  Now that I see my wife raising my son, I understand the importance of protecting this tiny home from the storms outside.  I see now that my primary purpose in this home is to stand between my loved ones and the world's desolation; to create a bubble where my wife and son can be at peace and the lessons of the gospel can be imparted.  In time, it will be my duty to call my son out of the bubble and ask him to take his place on the line, defending his home and his children.

We fight because the devil will destroy our children if he can.  We fight because it is the only language that he will listen to.  We fight because God entrusted our wives with the power of creation, and He needs us to  make sure that power is protected.

As a man, if you allow pornography to enter into your heart, you take yourself out of the fight.  If you have children, you have left them vulnerable to the power of Satan.  If you partake in pornography, you are party to the abuse of someone else's son, someone else's daughter.  I say this not as condemnation, but as a call to stand up and be counted as one of God's sons, a protector of life and creation.

I Choose Daily

I was on my mission when I discovered the concept behind this quote: "Motivation is like bathing, it needs to be renewed daily".

I've been a hard sleeper most of my life, and so it often takes me a little while to get going in the morning.  When serving on my mission, I struggled to rev up my internal engines each morning.  As I would study and proselyte, my spirits would rise and my motivation would increase.  By the time the day's work was done, I would return to my apartment riding a wave of hope and optimism; but regardless of how I ended the day, I would start the next one at a stone cold stop.

This really frustrated me.  Several times I tried to rebel against this enemy called sleep.  I would stay up late and try to maintain that high that I cherished.  But fatigue would inevitably claim me, and I would pay for the lack of sleep the next day.

As I have faced different challenges in the days since, I have often hit the same wall.  Each time I would just grin and bear it, making the best of a limitation that I had decided was hard-wired into me.  I think I might have come to a new understanding just today.  It follows:

The great power that causes excellence in innovation, leadership, worship, and work is choice.  Our free agency is not only the freedom to choose, but the power to choose.  God granted us our agency, as well as space and time to exercise it in.  What we do with this gift is important, perhaps the most important element of our lives.  What I failed to understand all these past years is that it is a great blessing to start from a stone cold stop each morning.  That stop allows us to choose to pour concentrated effort into sending that particular day a particular direction.  Just like peddling a bike, each individual downstroke stands as an independent action with a beginning and an end, but if you string enough downstrokes together, and point the bike in the right direction, the vistas available to you are unlimited.

Each of us chooses daily what to make of that day.  As we exercise that choice muscle, we grow it, making that downstroke and all that follow stronger, quicker, more efficient, and more enjoyable.  This choosing is what we were born to do.

In Knots...

In order to enjoy sin in any degree, we have to tie ourselves into knots.  In order to "indulge", we have to turn ourselves into someone who is a taker.  When we do this, it hurts our ability to love God, ourselves, and our fellow men.

Just this week, I decided that I would lay my life out in straight lines, and avoid anything that required knotting up to pursue.  I wonder where that decision will take me...

The Wound

Vulnerability has a deceptive power to it.  I choose to share what I share because I trust in the Lord to shape my relationships.  To put it another way, I trust that God will find a way for my efforts to help my brothers and sisters.

In a book I read recently, the author discussed how men often are hampered in their development when their male role model wounds their hearts.  Whether or not the wound is intentional, the boy's development is necessarily formed around the wound until he is brave enough to expose and heal it.

This afternoon, at work, I found one of my wounds.  I am a quiet, introverted soul.  I grew up in a rambunctious home where the kids outnumbered the parents 3:1.  I couldn't find a place where my quiet soul fit, and so I felt alone in a sea of noise and love and emotions.  Satan latched onto that aloneness and lied to me.  He convinced me that I was supposed to be alone, that I wasn't worth keeping company with.  In the years that followed, I latched onto books as relationships that would never abandon me, computer games as adventures without risk, and put on a face of cheerful competence to my friends, employers, and families.  As I have been trying to grow into a man, the devil has lied to me again, saying that I would have to figure out how to be a man all by myself.

Masculinity is imparted, not grown in a vacuum.  Male role models wound a boy, but healing from that wound is part of what makes him the man.  And that healing comes only from the Savior, the ultimate male role model.  To put it another way, the father's role is to wound his son, so the son will seek out the Savior in order to become who the Lord wants him to be.

At the same time that God showed me my wound, he reaffirmed to me that He would never leave me alone.  I am grateful for His spirit.

See The Future, See The Now

Yesterday I talked a little about seeing with your heart.  Its a phrase I like to use to denote looking beneath the surface of things in order to see their true nature.  This skill can be learned, although it is essential to have the Spirit of the Lord to aid you.

I also spoke about seeing into the future, seeing the potential of all the different pieces of our lives.  I sincerely believe that God will show us our futures as we are able to listen to His voice, which often speaks directly to our hearts.  One thing I've found is that the timing of blessings can make or break me.  After all, if I'm disabled tomorrow, my baby needs to eat tomorrow.  Our needs coincide with divine providence.

As we explore this heart sight, keep in mind that God can show your heart things about today as easily as tomorrow or the end of the world.  For me, it has been easier to practice seeing today clearly...I'll let him teach me how to see through time later.

Practice accepting the validity of your emotions.  If a co-worker makes you angry, accept to yourself that you are angry.  Don't lose your temper, don't hurt someone else or yourself; that fixes nothing.  But it blinds your heart sight to deny that you are actually angry.  God has the power to heal your anger, but He can only heal what you can/will see.

See With Your Heart

Why are we blind-sided by the biggest events in our life?  When I met my wife, I had no bolt of lightning that this was the person that would have the largest share in my life and fortune.  When I look at my son, I have great hope for him, but I can't see what is in store for him.  I started to fill out the paperwork for long-term disability insurance today.  That insurance is really scary, it says that I might be crippled tomorrow, and if I am, who feeds this tiny baby?  I buy it because of the simple fact that I cannot see what is in store for me tomorrow.

God asks us to look to eternity in our decision making.  He asks us to follow Him, trusting to a crown of glory in heaven, and hatred from the world right now.  To avoid the strive/indulge cycle, we must put our hearts in heaven now, looking at eternity for our reward.  If we expect our reward sooner, Satan can trap us in disappointment because the Lord didn't bend His timeframe to ours.  How do I look at eternity if I can't even see tomorrow?

Look with your heart.  When I look at my son objectively, I see a tiny human being that makes a lot of noise and is pretty stinking cute.  When I look at him with my heart, I feel hope for my future, bright anticipation for his adventures, and companionship forever.  I see his eternal nature with my heart.  When is the last time you looked at your spouse, your job, your children, your home, your yard, your calling, your health, with your heart?  When was the best moment when you felt that eternal nature the clearest?  Are you letting that quiet voice guide your actions today?

Father's Day

Babies are funny things.  Every time we get them to the point where they are cute and manageable, they change.  I guess it's possible that the purpose of babies isn't to be cute and manageable.  That's too bad, because my son is really adorable and I'll hate to see that end.  But I trust in God that His end is right and just.

Walls

Tidbit I learned today: In landscaping, you never remove a wall until you know why its there.

When you are first assessing your personal funnels, be aware that you have built walls around this subject your entire life, and your discovery of all the walls will be a process over time.  When you find a new wall, be patient with yourself.  Honestly assess each wall, do your best to determine what the wall is supporting and what progress it is stopping.  Begin to cast your mind into the future to see what a new wall would need to do instead.  Re-landscaping your mind to heal the funnels is dirty, hands-on work.  Dig into it.

Music

We are created in the image of God.  He is our Father.  A corollary to these truths is that we are relational beings.  God seeks to bring our our immortality and eternal life.  He counseled us to love God, and love our brothers and sisters as we love ourselves.  God's commandments are all relational commandments, i.e. how should we treat our parents, our neighbors, Him, etc.

Satan seeks to cut those ties.  He is fundamentally alone, and so he seeks to make us so as well.  If we are divided, we fall.  Satan uses addictions to cut us off from the rest of creation.  If we let him, he will use our addictions to isolate us and frustrate God's plans for us.

One of the blessings God granted to us to help in the struggle against isolation is music.  Music is, at its heart, relational.  It draws its power from the ability to speak, heart to heart, across the distances of time and space that would otherwise be impenetrable.  Does the music you choose draw you closer to others, or pull you into your own emotions?

I'd love to hear any other things that you find useful to keep yourself connected to God and your fellow man.

Strive/Indulge

Living the gospel is hard. The scope and importance of the work that is available to do is immense. After all "the field is white already to harvest." Us laborers can get overwhelmed pretty easily. For myself, as a child i quickly accepted that it was right and important for me to serve my fellow men. I would strive with all the diligence I could muster to follow God's commandments.


Then I would get tired. And when I was tired, a little voice would whisper in my head: "you've done so much today, you've been a fruitful servant, why don't you indulge just a little. Turn on the t.v., turn off your brain, play a computer game, eat a little extra dessert, etc.

The funnel here is that the devil tries to teach your brain that striving should be "rewarded" by indulging. If you buy that lie, then you strive in the gospel, even in the highest and holiest of activities, with a growing portion of your brain looking forward to your own personal indulgence. Eventually, your focus on indulging locks the Spirit out of your heart, and your striving becomes empty and draining.

Indulging has cut you off from the Spirit.

I'd love to hear your alternatives to the Strive/Indulgence cycle.

What Everyone Is Thinking...

How often do we look at a situation and quickly perceive some key element?  Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called "Blink", where he discusses the idea that we all have a portion of our brains that grabs a thin slice of a situation and makes a snap judgement.  Since this ability is common to human nature, perhaps those of us who are inordinately successful have taken the time to hone this ability.

A silly example:

I am not a clothes snob.  When I was a kid, I wore what my mom bought me.  When I was a bachelor, I wore whatever didn't stink too badly. Now I'm married, so I wear what my wife hands me.  It's a little embarrassing how little thought I put into my wardrobe, but it's just not that important to me.

And yet...

I still have favorite shirts.  I still have certain dress slacks or ties that I really enjoy wearing.  When I find the right pair of boots, I wear them into oblivion.  But I stink at choosing them, since about 85% of my wardrobe doesn't fall into those categories.  I wonder if I didn't correctly thin-slice during the minute and a half that took me to decide to buy the shirt/slacks/boots?

Back to the title.  Having a baby has reminded me just how many elements of the human existence aren't unique.  They're significant, but not unique.  The choicest experience of my life was being there for my son's birth.  But there's 6 billion people on the planet right now...birth is not unique.  Sometimes we step into a situation with co-workers, squabbling children, feuding aunts/uncles, where we quickly know what the right thing to do is.  The trick is this: everyone else sees it too.  They may not be willing to say it, they may actively speak or act against it, but right is still right.

What does it take to have the courage to say what everyone sees?

Perspective

My wife and I had the great blessing to welcome a new life into this world.  God has put this tiny soul into our care, and it is already changing us.  I was walking through Smith's and I saw a 35 year old man with about 15 tattoos, leather jacket with a motorcycle gang insignia, ripped jeans and a scowl; but I saw a tiny baby, parents filled with hope and fear, and the power that baby's choices held.  I'll admit, it kind of freaked me out.

I've pondered this verse quite a lot in the past year or so: "A godly man leaves an inheritance to his children's children".  Now that I have a son, not an abstract concept, it deepens that meaning for me...makes it real.

I feel like I'm done watching at the window, and my life has started.  What dreams will fill my heart tomorrow?

Growing Your Way Out

There's a lot of discussion today about the American economic and political turmoil going on.  To briefly touch on this subject, I'd like to discuss the idea of growth as a key to freedom.

One of the potential solutions to the fiscal difficulties that our country faces is to adopt pro-growth policies and turn the market free to work its "creative destruction" and increase the available pool of wealth to help meet the needs we are presented with.

Leaving aside the ramifications of such a macro-economic concept, I'd like to apply it on a personal level.  If you find yourself challenged by an addiction, grow your way out of it.  Look to expand your horizons, your giving, your service, your dedication to work and family.  You did this already as a child.  Many things are tremendously difficult as a child, but you grow up and they become small things.

Ask God to help you outgrow your addiction, so that it becomes a small thing, easily healed.

A Pain Free Life

I was reviewing some of my recent posts, and I noticed a tone to my writing that I didn't like.  A tone of superiority that I think I used to keep the world at arm's length.  I can look into my heart and see where we need to go, but its a place we can't get to from here, if I continue to need that distance.

A good friend reminded me tonight that effective writing requires vulnerability.  That's a tough one for me. It's far easier to hide behind my intelligence and five dollar words and throw out a flurry of words that deflects most people's interest.  But that's not what I'm writing for, so here goes...

A vulnerability: for as long as I can remember, I have sought the pain-free life.  I developed a pathological avoidance of risk, and I was stubborn enough to actually engineer a life that was largely devoid of risk.  I take the "safe/good enough" route most of the time.  The nice thing about the girl I married is that she doesn't buy that...it's not what she married me for, and she's not one to settle.  I still don't know how I managed to win her heart, after all I always felt safest when I was alone.

A pain-free life is a fallacy, and its not why God put us on this earth.  Some of the things I write might hurt your feelings or mine.  Some of the boxes I'm opening scare me on a terrible level.  But I have a new dream now, and it requires open boxes...After all, I have to put something new in these boxes, this old stuff simply won't do.

The Next Dream

Watched Tangled last night.  I really liked the idea that we should celebrate achieving our dreams with new dreams.  As I sit here and ponder, I realize that I am not as happy as I could be.  I hold old dreams in my heart, and don't appreciate the new ones that God has given me.

May your new dreams bring you happiness and peace.

Self Government

Self government begins as we accept that our desires, appetites, and passions must be kept within boundaries.  This is actually self evident, everyone places boundaries on their desires.  The only question is where you set the walls.  Even an addict places boundaries on their behavior.  Even a crack addict won't often take a hit in front of their infant, their spouse, in church, etc... instead they create habitual patterns that both reinforce and privatize their behavior.

Don't curse the habits that reinforce your addiction.  These habits are actually GREAT news for someone seeking to genuinely become free of addiction.  It is my experience that since our brains learned the new behaviors that pull us into the funnel, we can replace those habits and learn new behaviors that keep us free.

Successfully changing those boundaries is built on the premise that you will accept the walls that you put up.  In order to be governed by walls, you must consent to be governed.  For someone who refuses to accept their own walls, family and society must work to contain them...hence the phrase "under arrest", literally that their movement without walls has been arrested.

Some people refuse to accept the adult responsibility of maintaining their own walls.  When this happens, sometimes a spouse or a family member steps in to act as an external wall.  When a person has abdicated their own walls and a loved one attempts to be those walls, it poisons the relationship and causes grief to all parties.  Loving support from family and loved ones is an entirely separate thing.

Summary: all desires have walls.  We choose to set those walls, or else others set them for us.  By accepting that walls are both real and that we can choose new ones, we begin to set the path to freedom.

Government

All government arises from the consent of the governed.  Even tyranny only functions after sufficient fear has been created to "force" compliance.  But tyranny never actually forces behavior; it only sets the price of non-compliance so high that nearly no one chooses to fight.  But human history teaches us that someone always fights.  Tyranny is a non-stable form of government.

I bring government into the discussion because a subset of governing applies in our fight against addiction.  There are two main sections of government, group government and self government.  Government over groups of people is a topic outside the scope of this blog, but self government is a key element.

For our purposes, we can define government as the power to set certain boundaries that establish particular behaviors as "out of bounds".  Government is not very good at incentivizing positive behaviors, but it is excellent at banning negative behaviors.  These boundaries function as wall that prevent us from harming ourselves and others by acting inappropriately.

Speaking of tyranny, addiction is the internal representation of a tyrant.  Addiction can not be bargained with or bought.  Addiction is a tyrant that accepts no limitations, reasonable or otherwise that we seek to place on it.  By definition, addiction tramples our boundaries, regardless of the cost.  As with human history, the human spirit is supremely resilient.  A portion of your spirit will always fight the tyranny.  That a point for our side, because no matter how long you've lived as an addict, you have a built in resistance, ready to fight for your freedom.  We just have to learn how to utilize it.

Foundations of Creation Part V

"You go where you look."  What you build as you go to work depends on where you are looking.  Think about the funnel, if you put your face in the hole, your vision is constricted.  Even if you are sitting in the hole, and you're looking up, you can see where you need to go.

Keep your chin up, forward motion is always possible.

My apologies for the brevity, it's kind of late.

Foundations of Creation Part IV

Creation is God-driven.  Creation is the power of God on this earth.  Whether it be a garden, a book, a child, or a nation, the fundamental nature of Creation is the same.  Because of this, it means that we must ask God to aid in any of our creative efforts, because without Him, we fail.

I read a book recently on the military and political maneuvering in America during the year 1776.  It was the first time I undertook a specific study of this time period in American history.  As I listened, I marveled.  I know the fruits of that time, I am blessed to live free today because of their sacrifices.  I marveled at how insurmountable the obstacles were.  My heart hurt as I read about defeat after defeat.  I kept waiting for the tide to turn, for God to show His hand.  And then I realized, God's hand was in it from the beginning.  He first had to form and shape the character of the American people and their leaders; then He had to harden that character in the furnace of affliction.  When He was finished, He held a tool that He could use to cast the light of liberty across the world and generations.  He Created man's freedom, and He is not finished with it today.

Pick an element of your life.  Be brave enough to look at your life and spot your largest funnel.  Face that void, and "with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence" get on your knees and pray for God's hand to fill in the void, and lay a foundation for a life of godliness.

Then get to work.

Foundations of Creation Part III

We are on this earth to be enticed by two opposing forces: God and Satan.  It stands to reason that if God has a vision for us, then Satan does to.  A way that I like to think about Satan's plan for us is as the Funnel.  Satan tries to take us down a path where our options get narrower and narrower, our vision gets clouded and blind, and we end up in the perpetual crisis of Me and Now.

God's plan for us is exactly the opposite.  He invites us to focus our lives on His service, and by doing so we build on a broad foundation of good works until we end up creating a Spire.  To stand on the Spire, we must school our actions and desires to be perfectly in line with His will, but from the top of the Spire we can see and feel Creation and Eternity.

I would contend that every single action you take today will either drop you further into the Funnel or lay a piece of the Spire.  Our lives are full of Spires and Funnels.  Our kids, or finances, our religion, our friends, our health, etc.  Every Spire and Funnel are paired.  You cannot build a true Spire unless you have laid a foundation underneath it, and you cannot lay a foundation over a Funnel.  Pay attention to your life tomorrow and think about whether or not a relationship, a habit, a pattern of thinking, or even a food is shrinking your perspective or expanding it; inviting God's love or chasing pleasure.

The DSM-IV is the disagnostic manual that psychiatrists use to analyze disorders in their patients to determine if they have a recognized clinical issue.  One of the key criteria used across almost every disorder is the idea that "the disorder causes significant detrimental impact on the person's life".  If we borrow this concept, we can understand that an addiction is any Funnel that has gotten big enough that we can't control it any more, can't hide it, and can't run from it because it's running our lives.  All we do when we admit we have an addiction is point at the Funnel and say: "This is real and I'm finally going to do something about it."