My annual rededication to writing

Life Style, Social Media, Thoughts, WritingWrite a comment

“If you desire to think, to write, and to speak like the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Saints, you must give yourself up, as they did, to the inspirations of God.”

-Jean Pierre de Caussade

It’s not my desire to be like an apostle, but I do desire to write so much that I make myself miserable when I see that I rarely do.

I logged off Facebook because of the thought consuming mind suck it had become and because I read another quote…

“The artist may well receive the first taste of infused prayer . . . and often quite soon in their spiritual life, especially when the conditions are favorable: but, because of this tragic Promethean tendency to exploit every experience as material for ‘creation,’ the artist may remain there all his life on the threshold, never entering into the banquet, but always running back into the street to tell the passers-by of the wonderful music he has heard coming from inside the palace of the King!”

-Thomas Merton

I was looking at life as a source for clever little things to post which was satisfying my need to write while “never entering the banquet”.

I dumped all social media about six months ago except for TikTok(I post nothing. It’s like watching tv). However, I still catch myself thinking in terms of framing a thought or experience for a snappy little Facebook post. Not as often as before but it reveals to me how I’d slipped into a dangerous post centered life.

It’s not really life is it?

The Sin of Noiseyness

Day to Day, Life Style, prayerWrite a comment

“The inward heart and mind of a man are deep.”

I like noise. I used to study in the cafeteria at Memphis State instead of the library. I still have to make a conscious effort to shut out noise. Not just the noise from my immediate surroundings, but that stupid inner voice I allow to get away with murder all day long.

I don’t pay it much attention during the day blended in with all the outside noise. I assure you if there’s any opportunity for silence, I will crush it by checking emails, cruising around social media, or reading something “good”. A discipline of silence is the only way to deal with the stuff that gets squeezed out of the deep recesses of my heart and mind. When I’m quiet, I have to deal with it. I need to deal with it.

I’m not alone. A major problem in our society is we are becoming more and more uncomfortable with sitting alone with ourselves. We have some good stuff down in the deep but there’s some scary stuff down there too. I know because I see a lot of it down there in all the comment sections.

This isn’t strictly a spiritual post either. But, the prophet Elijah had great successes. His inner voice kicked in which resulted in a little private pity party. Known as a PPP in some circles(I just made that up). God sent him up on the mountain. There were furious winds, an earthquake and fire but God only spoke to him in a still, small voice. When Elijah heard the voice he covered his face and listened. God asked him “what are you doing here?” And began a little counseling session that put him back on solid ground. He remembered his God given purpose.

Weird Prayer Thingy

prayerWrite a comment

Over the last couple of years I’ve really been focusing on my prayer life. I kind of got on this kick after a discussion about prayer in our old life group. Everyone in that group had been a believer for 20+ years at least. During the discussion that night 3-4 people said in some form that they felt sometimes like they were praying to a distant God. Everyone there believed in the power of prayer. Everyone there believed in God and that he was indeed not distant. So why?

I proposed that maybe it’s possible that we focus so much on Jesus in the South that we just don’t see God and the Holy Spirit as close. I didn’t grow up in the church and made sure that everyone understood I was not throwing Jesus out. Just a thought.

Totally unplanned, my reading lead me to contemplative prayer. I don’t remember how I first became acquainted with the practice, but I’ve really enjoyed it and it makes sense in so many ways. I’ve been reading mostly Thomas Merton but others as well.

I still “vocalize” my prayers as I’ve always done but with a different perspective. I’m trying not to ramble but pray from my heart. But in addition to that, I’ve added contemplative prayer. I’m learning to sit still and quiet and listen for God. Like a child sitting quietly in his Father’s lap.

I won’t get into the details of contemplative prayer other than the main thing is to not allow your thoughts to go anywhere…just be quiet. When you realize you’ve ventured away, you use a centering word or phrase to return from your thoughts. There’s no particular words required. I just use what comes to mind that morning: Jesus, grace, love, peace, repeating the Jesus prayer. Something very simple. It’s also strongly suggested that you don’t stop for any new seemingly important thoughts. If God has brought something to mind he won’t let it slip away, right?

I’ve noticed that over time God has brought some really powerful thoughts, memories, sin, and tasks to mind regularly during these times. They seem to come out of nowhere. The weird thing is that when it happens, it is so shocking that I literally open my eyes wide, and immediately start worrying or processing the thought in my own power. I’ve just been going with it pretty much as if it must be something God wants me to deal. I recently decided to focus on not doing that and staying quiet as intended during that prayer time. Like I said, God called it to my mind so it won’t easily be forgotten.

Overall, I believe that’s a sign that I’m progressing in prayer and just have a new hurdle. I’m growing. I hate to even call it progressing or growing because I honestly feel that God honors our time devoted to him whether we feel like it or not.

I highly recommend looking into and practicing contemplative prayer. Not necessarily as a replacement of anything else. As a believer, Christ is in you. You have been anointed with the Holy Spirit. It shouldn’t be scary to attempt to let Christ in you speak! Also, in these days of fast paced life with social media and the barrage of information, it’s just good to learn to sit quietly.

anxiety over nothing to be anxious about

Anxiety, Day to DayWrite a comment

I’m an anxious person. I will be 60 years old this year and have always dealt with anxiety. I’m not always anxious but I have the potential at any time. Sometimes I can readily recognize what is making me anxious. Other times I have to do some deep diving to get to the bottom of it. Being on medication for a couple of years helped me be able to do that.

For example, something can come up at work or my personal life that causes me to be anxious. I’ve learned that I just need to process what is making me anxious and work through it rationally instead of just ignoring and plowing through the first warning flag. Sometimes it’s not so obvious. For instance, one time something came up with work that bothered me and made me anxious. I was quickly distracted by something else that I spent some time resolving. Once that was done, I was still had that feeling of anxiety but I couldn’t figure out why. I had completely forgot about the first work issue and never properly processed it. I’m not saying any of this process makes me anxiety free but it gives me a sense of peace.

It helps for me to remember the verse that says we should “take every thought captive”. The verse to “not be anxious”, is not helpful in itself but tell someone you’re anxious and you’ll get it square between the eyes. Truth or not.

Several times in the last week I’ve woke up during the night and haven’t been able to go back to sleep because of what feels like severe anxiety attacks. They’ve been so intense that I feel like I need to get up and run around the block to work it out of my system. The weird thing is I have no idea where they are coming from or what they’re related to.

A small disclaimer: I have prostate cancer. BUT, it was caught very early. I KNOW when my anxiety is related to that I believe. But other than that, my life is pretty solid. I’ll be 60 years old this year and have had time to resolve stuff in life. So I feel like I’m anxious over not having anything to be anxious about now. Maybe it’s comes with turning 60. Is my body so used to being anxious that it just goes into anxiousness-mode for no reason now? I don’t really even won’t to Google it to find out.

I’ll just sit on it for a while and continue to work through it.

Professional Work from Home Guy

Day to Day, WorkWrite a comment

I’ve been working from home almost 20 years. I used to be in an office of sorts but my company closed it down and told us to work from home. At that time, I just had an internet connection and our company software. I wasn’t completely connected to the corporation. Nowadays, I’m on VPN and have a phone system connected through our main office. Things have changed a lot in 20 years with technology.

I’ve been reading all these stories about how to handle the work-from-home environment and have no sympathy at all. We’ve got doctors and counselors trying to prepare and help all these poor workers. Bunch of rookies. The analogy I use to make my point is that if you were a ditch digger and had to work from home, you would still dig a ditch in your backyard the same way you would anywhere else. You have tasks and responsibilities, you just learn to make them happen from a different location with different obstacles.

I’m trying to sympathize with these rookies, so I took a few minutes to recall some of my struggles from when I initially started working from home. These are the things that would have been helpful to be prepared for beforehand.

*My little kids didn’t understand why they couldn’t go in the playroom to see dad when he was working. They’re all  grown now and I’m happy to report they weren’t severely damaged by that experience.

*My wife never knew when I was working or just playing on the computer. I had to declare “I’m off work” sort of.

*As my kids got older, I became the person that just handled stuff during the day because of my flexibility with work. However, it slowly became that they just acted like I didn’t do any work(wife included) and was at their beckoning call. “Dad, I forgot my lunch. Can you bring it?” again. And who wants their kid to starve to death at school?

*I had to remember to shave/shower/brush teeth/put big boy clothes on.
*Don’t sit down all day.
*Don’t stand up all day.
*Take breaks and lunch or you’ll just work all day if you’re that kind of person.

I can’t name anything that really stumped me on day one. I just did it and over time all the little nuances began to pop up.

The only real sympathy I have is for people who look and sound very different at home and at work. They live two(or more) different lives. When they were told to work from home, they freaked out like George Castanza’s world theory. “IT BLOWS UP!”

Castanza’s Two Worlds colliding

Now quit reading blogs and get back to work.