Category: Head and Heart

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Pain and Suffering

The following post is disjointed and semi incoherent. I have left it as such on purpose. Incoherence and abrupt changes in the narrative when retelling a personal story is a sign of trauma. I have recently had multiple friends go through severely traumatic events. I have left my musings in a format that is I intend as an embrace to their stories.

What do you do when faced with evil and suffering?

I typically remind myself that when Christ returns judgement day will come and the wicked will be punished and the righteous will be rewarded.

But this answer begins to waver as I am faced with greater evil and suffering. The last year I have met those whose spouse cheated and left them, watched young people avoid the feelings after being abused and five women who had been raped. One of them was raped while I was in the act of praying for her.

The light of future justice becomes a dimmer and dimmer light in the face of growing darkness.

How do I continue to believe that God is good in light of allowing such evil? Evil that could have been avoided by a text and one other person joining an event. Such a simple solution.

I want to alleviate suffering. Because of this I have a habit of looking for people who are suffering to help them. I developed a habit of seeing more evil and bad than good in the world. I fail to see the blessings and good that God provides.

              These things I hold to be true.

              God allows people to choose for themselves.

              When people sin it is because they are carried away by their own lusts.

              God prevents us from sinning in many ways that we do not see.

              We never know the whole picture of how God is working in our lives.

              Pain and suffering is sometimes the only thing that turn us to Christ, and that will always be worth it.

              But I wonder, how do I know that turning to Christ is worth it? What do I see now?

David laments the success of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous in the Psalms. He cries out to God in honesty as he looks at the suffering of the world. Why? Where are you?

              But he declares, “I am confident of this, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

              If I believe this I must look for it. I must be thankful for the good that the Lord does provide. The sun, the rain, health, friends, embraces, prayer, and recall to mind all the past times he has come through.

              I want to ‘do justice, seek mercy, and walk humbly before the Lord my God’

              In response to seeing pain and suffering I want to do good. Treat others well.

              I must praise God that I have been counted worthy to suffer for the sake of showing others goodness.

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Loneliness 1

Loneliness. You are not alone in your loneliness. And yet you are alone. So very very alone.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, Discord and other social media platforms allow us share and speak with friends and strangers. Cell phones, Facetime, Skype, Zoom, Hangouts, and Facebook video calls allow us to see and talk to loved ones with the push of a button. Personal vehicles allow us to see friends in person at distances that would have previously prevented friendships.

Lonely. I am still lonely. I went rock climbing with a friend. We got dinner afterwards. As soon as she left a massive wave of loneliness swept over me. I live with family. I have a great relationship with my family. Yet I am still lonely.

Loneliness is a negative emotion that tells us connection is missing or broken. A good connection requires presence (the act of being fully engaged with the other person), and common experience (doing something, understanding the other).

For six years I relied on texting and phone calls. My close friends were hours away and my work routinely prevented me from seeing them. But it left me wanting. I wanted to be with them and not where I was. Now, even when with my friends I imagine and hope to be somewhere else.

I got used to my phone as a placeholder for human connection. Checking my phone gave a tiny relief to my loneliness. My phone was a very bad coping mechanism. I found out later that checking our phones impulsively is due to the brain being trained to release dopamine by checking our phones.

              Even though I have consistent time with the my closest friends who are wonderful people I still have my bad habits. Silence in conversation? Pick up the phone. Think of something to say to someone else? Pick up the phone and text them. Can’t be funny myself? Grab my phone and find a TikTok.

              We can change our emotions by changing small actions. Find the one small action. The easiest one you know you can change. It doesn’t have to be a magic bullet, but one that is part of the change.

              Below is my train of thought that got me from loneliness to stop checking my phone.

              I am lonely because I am not fully connected. I am not fully connected because I am not fully attentive and engaged with my friends. I am not fully engaged and connected because I have the emotional desire to be or do something else. I want to be elsewhere and do other things because the cell phone gives the false impression that it will heal my loneliness by connecting me to someone else (the dopamine burst).

              When I go to my friends house I tell them, “I am struggling to focus on being here and not check my phone. I am going to put it on ‘do not disturb’ It will only ring if one of my favorite contacts calls. Other than that I am not going to check it. Please call me out if I do.”

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Processing vs Choosing

              I enjoy figuring out the internal world of emotions, feelings, and how the past affects what we choose today. It is like a giant puzzle. I love reading books on how our brain is developed and how counseling brings coherence to our stories and changes how our brain functions. I am just about always observing my own thought and emotional process.

              I lived with a gentleman that did none of this. It was rare that he would say something like, “you think I do this because of this?” Maybe three times in the entire two years I lived and worked with him. He just saw a behavior and changed it. If something made him mad he was mad. If he should not have been mad he realizes it and then doesn’t get mad again.

              No analyses. No working through emotions to find out reasons causes etc. No mulling over why there is angst, pain, or hurt. He just accepts, “yup. That sucks” and then in a few hours he will be over it. He is perfectly successful and takes care of his fiancé and his friends well.

              Typically this makes me uncomfortable. Most people I know that just decide to ‘change’ are really just ignoring issues. They don’t work through past pain and trauma and then their expectations and coping mechanisms affect me. I prefer my way. Or I did.

              I mull over the same experience for weeks. I try and find the root of the roots, root cause. If I just find the past experience and base motivation then, maybe, I can change my feelings. This is a good skill in that I can usually communicate how and why I feel what I feel. But it is not good when the same issue keeps coming up over and over again.

              Brain scans show that bringing coherence to past experiences changes how our brain functions. But if constant mulling over the past causes other bad behaviors, or delays change in behavior it can be bad.

              God does command constant self evaluation. We are commanded to do good. God tells us that, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

              Sometimes does obedience take internal processing? Absolutely. Sometimes just choosing never seems to work. But other times we need to just let our feelings go, get over ourselves, and choose a different path. Choosing in this manner, like anything else, is a skill that must be practiced. But it is a good skill to have in the endeavor to live well and love well.

Thankfulness

In my last post, I talked about my lack of faith, and calling upon God to help me, not in some transcendental psychic communication sort of way, but by whatever means he chooses.

Long ago I shared a post with the video that is at the bottom of this one. The basic summary of the video is that we can choose our attitude. If we write down at the end of each day three things we are thankful for and describe two positive experiences we had that day, we can change the way we see the world.

I tried this for a little while. But then gave up. I wanted so badly for so long to get back to the person that I used to be. I used to be so happy all of the time. Thankful to just be alive. Constantly asking myself how I can love the next person. Then life happened, I didn’t respond well, and a few sad events later and my internal monologue now has a really bad attitude.

Furthermore is the issue of who to be thankful to. As a Christian, I should be thankful to God. But what if I can’t see God’s hand in what I am thankful for? Yes, everything that exists is because of God, but does that mean we should ascribe thanks for the fact that the toaster didn’t catch on fire this morning? Is that an act of God? It seems trite to thank him for things that he may really not have that much care in (in future posts I will talk about the little things and God’s hand).

But, as I mentioned in my last post. If God is communicating with us in any way he chooses, then should we not be thankful for each good event that happens to us? In some way shape or form, Gods hand was in that. If someone smiled, I believe that the other person is in the image of God and I can be to God for their image. Give him worship. At the very least, I can be thankful that God is helping me to be thankful for things! Or allowing me to notice.

In short, I don’t have a complicated treaties of how I know that God is in everything, and I still don’t believe he is involved in everything. But as a child can be thankful to a parent for creating the environment that he can play in, even if he bought the toys with his own money, so I can thank God for my life that I am living. Especially when that life includes answers to my prayers.

Doubt, and Faith

I doubt God. I have difficulty, very often, believing in his goodness. Although I know all of the theological answers, the sin in the world around me forces me to ask, why? What purpose? The sin that affects my heart causes me to ask, why? Where are you?
I don’t see him in events surrounding sin, and the ripple affect that it has on my life. MY LIFE. I have a hole in my heart from hurt and pain. I want it filled. I want it answered. Rather than see answers, I see more pain. I am too focused on that current pain to look forward to what God has. I want my answer now, I say as a true instant gratification American. Justice, now.
I want to see God. I want to see him act and change the world around me. Not just tell me in a book it will happen some day.
So I turn to people. They are here, they are present. But then, the hurt in my heart doesn’t just ask for a shoulder to lean on, or someone to walk with. It demands to be filled, and to have an answer. So rather than relate with another I find myself taking from them. Their energy, their emotional stability, just to satisfy my need. This obviously causes problems.
I blame myself for these problems. But I am God’s creation, and he has supposedly guided my life? So I ask why, and I do, as I have always done, the same thing to him as I do to everyone else. I demand an answer and I demand a healing to my soul. I don’t relate, I don’t listen. I don’t just tell him and watch.
Watching. Listening. Waiting. I do not do that very well. So I doubt. I don’t see God as present. He must be aloof. Watching from above. Waiting to see if I ask enough. Then, then he will come to me in a voice. Then I read a book, have a realization that I am not being grateful, so I begin thanking God for what I have. Of course, it wasn’t God who taught me that, I read it in a book. So I keep waiting for him to speak.
Of course, he doesn’t.
I get hurt.
I want healing.
The cycle continues.
My arguments get more and more idiotic. I remember telling a friend once, “The worst part about my argument with God, is that right now, I think I am winning”. Never a good place to be.
I even admit and often joke that it is hard to tell whether what I am feeling is something I ate, or the voice of God. I recently was at a bible study, left early because I get up for work early, but then went back for the prayer portion. When asked why I was back I said, “Well, I think that God told me to come back. That or I just wanted more attention. I really can’t tell which”
I don’t know what did it. What changed my thought. But I suddenly caught myself in this bitter trap of disrespect and ungratefulness. So I finally began to thank God for things. Then I had an emotionally devastating event occur. I called out to God. But for some unexplainable reason, it was different this time. It finally clicked, the connection between God and my world. I asked God, “Please refine me and purify me, guide me in your paths by any means necessary, people, nature, dogs” I was running, and passed a peacock. It was beautiful.
In asking this way, I am living in faith that God will answer. And I am removing from myself the excuse of, “that was just a coincidence” God can work through anything. I must be thankful to him for all good things, for his hand is in all things we do that are good, for that is part of his image.
In reality, I do know where this clarity came from. It was a gift, from God. And that is something that I do not doubt.

Brokeness from Lost Relationship

Though I have not written on this in depth, mostly because I am still figuring it out, one of the ways in which I cope with a belief that nothing is worth it, is relationships. My relationships with people make life worth it. They fill me with joy and love. (Though I have my own set of struggles when it comes to valuing people).
However, the more relationships I have, the more I see brokenness. As I watched The Croods tonight with my family, I was struck by one of the scenes. As the father was about to throw his daughter across a ravine to be safe, which would leave him behind unable to cross, the daughter resisted shouting about things left unsaid and a broken father daughter relationship she doesn’t have time to fix.
Time to fix. Words to say. I went to school in another state. Every single time I left from school, or left home I always had a deep feeling of having not said enough. I wanted to tell my friends how much I cared about them and how much they meant to me. But never could find the words. Eventually I came to not worry as much. After enough trips back and forward I realized that those relationships I really cared about were always there for me to pick up. Goodbye became, “see you later”
But this doesn’t apply when a relationship comes to an end or is broken. Even if you see some friends again, you may never be in a position to say what you wished you could have said. I can think of several friendships, where I will never be able to tell them how much they mean to me. I will never be able to apologize enough, or fix what I had left broken. I will never be able to share the dreams I had with them.
And this bothers me. It is a brokenness. And I want to fix it. I want to leave everything at peace and in good order. But I find, that at times I can’t. I know that I am trying to earn love. To earn their memory of me being one of a good friend and not one that ran out. But I cannot.
There is a way to respond to the darkness and brokenness in life, which I will write about next, but there are so many things that the solution moves outside of our grasp.

“The Innovation of Loneliness” A Commentary

I digress today from the question of, “Are People Worth It” A friend of mine shared a very interesting video on Facebook today which is worth going over.

The Innovation of Loneliness from Shimi Cohen on Vimeo.

In the video Shimi talks about the effect social media has on loneliness, or better yet how social media can increase our loneliness. He provides some very interesting points, and I would like to take some of them just a little further.
Shimi mentions that social media is used to choose how we are perceived. Since everything is not done in real time but can be edited and changed, it can create a gap between who we really are and how we are trying to be perceived. This has some merit. Those who do try and change how they are perceived are not living honestly and even if they feel connected are alone because they are not known. (I find the notion of living honestly as a requirement for friendship and intimacy as to basic to argue here). But I find that most people on social media are pretty good at typing stuff off the cuff without editing it and letting their true selves out.
The issue of social media communication lacking the real time constraint I believe is only part of the issue. Carefully to editing material can be the real us we are trying to be and thus a real aspect of who we are. If we take time to edit grammar and what we say carefully, that is part of our personality if done right. The bigger issue is relationship communication in time and space.
Real interactions happen in space. Conversations through social media do not. I am all for conversations. I love a good conversation and that is my primary way of relating with and loving others. However, social media conversations lack the physical side of relationships. We are physical beings and our bodies carry a great deal of the relational burden. Our bodies are supposed to respond alongside our minds. Text carries mostly a mental response.
When I say something to you I am intended to illicit a response from you and I have a goal in mind for communication. I want you to laugh, empathize, share the feelings of my experience etc. I expect to see you smile, laugh, squirm or cry. I can see, hear, and sometimes touch your response. If I type something, I can’t. I am solely reliant upon my imagination to imagine your physical response. Which history tells me most humans imaginations and understanding is often flawed.
When we simply type something, we get less experience with others humanness. Our physical bodies and reactions are very important, and not having that causes a gap in our relationality. So I end with a challenge. Next time you want to like something, call a friend and tell them what you think or why you like something. Next time you want to leave a quick comment, go hang out instead. Let me know what happens.

Evolution of the Swimsuit and Man’s Responsible Mind

                Jessica Rey’s fairly recent video on the evolution of the swimsuit has been creating a small stir on the internet. She argues in her video that contrary to the position that bikinis empower women, they actually give them power to shut down a man’s ability to conceptually relate. The answer to this negative power is showing off ones dignity through modesty.

                I find her argumentation lacking. Although it may have only been because of time constraint, her arguments lack the depth needed for the topic. First, read this post by Rachel Held Evanst. In it she does help to broaden the discussion beyond just men’s brains and a cursory reference to modesty.          

Rachel points out that the article done by Dr. Fiske of Princeton University has several issues. She includes that the there was only a small sample pool, only headless pictures of women, and that the subjects used already had a sexist view. I would also like to add the critique of a control group. According to the book Wired for Intimacy by William Struthers, there is problem with studying the affects of porn and objectification because it is difficult to find a control group that has not had a great exposure to pornography. I would like to know the porn addiction history of the men in the study by Dr. Fiske.

I would surmise that individuals who have not been exposed to pornography, or any form of advertisement, would be less likely to objectify women. Almost all advertisements and pop culture objectifies women’s bodies and trains men to do the same. This is a culturally trained pattern that men must actively fight against in order to responsible for their own thoughts.

                                Men are responsible to keep their thoughts captive, but we cannot expect them to do this on their own. Should women cover everything up? That would depend upon your culture and I will leave that discussion for someone else. What is necessary is that we equip men to be able to deal with culture and its training to sexualize woman’s bodies.

                From car commercials, to advertisements for watches to television series, women’s bodies are portrayed as sexual, completely clothed or not. In most advertisements it goes beyond how much skin is showing and into the body language of the female. She is postured so as to accentuate curves and present herself as a target.

                Are female bodies innately sexual? I don’t think so. But our society is making it that way. As is evidence by some cultures that find the ankle to be the most sexual part of the female body, what is sexual and what is not is simply what we are trained to think. Currently we are training men to think of every part of a female as sexual.

                As we seek to train men to control their thoughts, we also must train them to think counter culturally. They must learn to think of the female body as a person, not an object of value that helps to sell cars, watches, boats and deodorant. The battle of men and women to control their minds is constant. Understanding what culture is teaching us, and then learning what Scripture teaches us is another very useful skill for the battle.