3. Get what is missing*

‘Wow, wasn’t that worship just so awesome, the teaching wasn’t that great, but oh the worship band did so well this morning, I just felt so great!’ Next Sunday ‘Worship was a bit flat this morning, and did you see what the worship leader was wearing, looks like it was from an op shop, and the band was out of tune, I just didn’t feel that I connected with God this morning’.

John was a spiritual gypsy, wandering from Church to Church looking for the next spiritual buzz, the next charismatic preacher spilling out platitudes that endorsed his millimetre thick, yet mile wide theology. John loved to feel good, he lived for it. Hedonism was his middle name. The surname was Narcissism.

John also loved knowledge. He read the latest popular Christian books and did all the courses. His pastor was a ‘push play’ button pastor. John knew so much, he was a knowledge junkie.

‘More knowledge please, and a double helping of rich worship to go’. Like a bloated glutton John was hungry to get what was missing. Meanwhile the poor sat next door, hungry, naked and alone. Christ sat amongst them waiting for John to just be there.

John sat in front of me. The front stage of his life was a sham of activity. The backstage was an anxious fragile empty place. It kept the front stage performance in a delusion that was disconnected from the real world. This was ok because John had built a world of his own. A group think of others who thought just like him.

I have met many Christians who believe that Spiritual Transformation takes place by getting more. They seek out more worship, more knowledge, and more feelings based experiences.

Hey, I love to hear great teaching, I love to sing with others, but I wonder if the feeling generated is the same as if I was sitting in grandstand watching my favourite sports team win, or rock band perform and everyone singing along to the chorus that no one really understands. Is my faith experience similar to any endorphin charged teenage groupie! Oh yeah, God loves Justin Bieber too.

It’s interesting to note the Bible paints a different and probably rather unpopular style of Spiritual Transformation as being the most commonplace. Suffering, desert experiences, loneliness, incredible risky challenges, going against the majority, and persecution. Put those as ‘Key Performance Indicators’ and see how few would measure up!

Next we find out about ‘Releasing what is good’.

Barry Pearman

*In this 4 part series I will be looking at Four approaches to Spiritual Transformation from Connecting by Dr. Larry Crabb and Revolution Within by Dwight Edwards.

Image: David Hayward Naked Pastor

In - Valid Me

As a person who has experienced mental illness and as someone who is seen by many as unable to provide any kind of valuable input to society, as somebody who is generally seen as more of a burden than a contributor I have often felt like a burden to others,

Ever since the age of about seven I was seen by child psychologists. When the other kids found out, I was teased about it. I had my first seizures at roughly seventeen and was introduced to psychiatric hospitals at twenty one. Since then I’ve only ever had part-time work, this is a result of being treated with medications which sometimes exhaust me. I realize I may never fully recover, and to the world I may always resemble a person with no validity – guess that’s it – INVALID ME! Many of you probably know exactly what I mean about invalid status. Wouldn’t it be nice to feel more valued, rather than punching in out like a parking ticket? There are elements of grieving within mental health.

I am consoled by Jesus who says ‘Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted’ Matthew 5:4.

Do you realize we’re actually not alone when we grieve as Jesus promised us he would send his Spirit to comfort us and be with us as our ‘present help’?

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever John 14:26. (KJV)

When I grieve what I essentially need is someone who understands me. This is how I believe we help each other, this is how you can reach out to someone who is grieving as I reach out to you. We have all travelled on a similar road, all of us are unique stories to tell, but all of us have a personal need to be valued. Christ said whenever two or three of us gather in His name He is there with us (Matthew 18:20). He shows that when others mourn it is important for us to weep with those who weep as well as to feel joy with those who are joyful (Romans 12:15). We help each other when as a community we comfort those who mourn appropriately.

There will be a time when we will no longer grieve, no longer ever be slurred with the thought of being invalid. Even now Jesus does not look at us as being invalid. He looks at us with eyes of love, compassion and hope. As one who joins us on the journey. He gives me my validty.

Is it ok to grieve? Yes.

Is it ok to mourn? Yes.

Is it ok to grieve and mourn alone? No.

People like me need people like you, and people like you need people like me.

Mark Wilde

Image: David Hayward Naked Pastor

2. Fix what is wrong.*

There will always be more dirt. Have you ever tried to clean something, say a house, a car, your room, even your teeth to perfection? Those who have this obsessive perfectionist attitude never find peace. Anxiety keeps taping them on the shoulder whispering ‘there’s always more dirt’.

Susan had been a Christian for a few years now. She had walked the talk, kept the rules, painted the smile on the face for everyone to see. There was a storm inside though. Life wasn’t going as well as she portrayed. The backstage of her life was a mess. People just saw Susan as a bundle of problems and tried to avoid her, lest they become contaminated.

As she confessed her struggles to Pastor Bob he felt completely overwhelmed. He had already told her to pray harder, memorise these verses, forgive etc but nothing seemed to work. It was time to call in professional help! 'You need to go a counsellor’. Susan agreed and so off she went for some help.

It went well, Susan got in touch with what was really driving her behaviours. She was becoming more self aware. She was gaining new insights, applying them, learning new skills. The back stage was starting to get some order. The problem had been diagnosed, categorised and treatment commenced.

There was always new dirt though. Always more dirt to be uncovered, talked through and cleaned up. There was change and it was good, but not perfect.

Susan now had an insatiable desire to personally self fix what was wrong in her life. Did she need Christ to be the perfect one for her imperfections? Not really, truth be told, as she now had all the truth insights to self manage life quite well.

A couple of quotes have come into my thought blender recently.

There is a crack in everything God has made. Ralph Waldo Emerson

The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence. Brennan Manning

Ralph and Brennan have it right. God created everything perfect, now everything is cracked and imperfect. We are all cracked! To the deepest point of our lives we are all flawed with sin.

Paul puts it this way.

Everyone has sinned. No one measures up to God's glory. 24 The free gift of God's grace makes all of us right with him. Christ Jesus paid the price to set us free. God gave him as a sacrifice to pay for sins. Romans 3:23 -25.

Therapy is good, it truly can help, but it’s not perfect unless the perfect one comes from within and shines out through the cracks of our flawed existence. Jesus, Daddy and Spirit still stand at the door of our lives and wait for us to dance with them.

Fix what is wrong. Good, but not great.

Next week ‘Get what is missing’.

Image: Creative Commons

*In this 4 part series I will be looking at Four approaches to Spiritual Transformation from Connecting by Dr. Larry Crabb and Revolution Within by Dwight Edwards.

1. Do What’s Right*

Mike is a good man, that’s what people say. Does all the right things, says all the right things, Christianise is his favourite language. He can quote all the verse’s, he’s learnt them by rote. He carries a secret though that would destroy his credibility. Guilt, fear and shame haunt his every thought.

Mike does what is right. Goes to all the courses, reads all the books, memorises the verses, and follows the rules, but still his problem holds him tight. He is in accountability groups, others look up to him, and follow his exhortations to try harder.

What a fake, counterfeit, hypocrite.

He is the moral policeman on the stage of life. His front stage performances enjoy the encores, all the boxes being ticked for an excellent performance, meanwhile backstage it is a complete shambles.

For Mike Spiritual Transformation is an act of doing what is right. He believes his stubborn will needs to change through instruction, exhortation, and accountability. It is law without grace in a community of pressure.

For Mike faith was a religion of rules rather than a relationship of grace. It was a sham that was carefully manicured for those observing.

What Mike most needed was not a rule book or an exhortation to try harder but a person who would welcome him in, sin and all.

Why do we treat each other like this? Why do we lay heavy burdens on others?

It’s painful to see the terrible burdens people carry - alone. Surely we are to be a people of grace, mercy, forgiveness, transparency and vulnerability. Yes, it’s important to make an effort, but I have seen huge burdens of moral performance laid on weak fragile shoulders, faking it till they supposedly make it. A mask is formed, a performance is practiced, and a lie is told to the self and the world.

Surely there must be a better way?

Barry Pearman

Image: David Hayward - Naked Pastor

*In this 4 part series I will be looking at four approaches to Spiritual Transformation from Connecting by Dr. Larry Crabb and Revolution Within by Dwight Edwards

Guest Blog: Dancing with You!

When I was 16 I lived in Japan. Japan is about the same size as New Zealand, as in landmass, but the population of Japan is about 30x the amount of New Zealand. 127mil compared with 4mil. So let’s imagine Tokyo for a moment, Japan’s capital city. At an intersection at Shinjuku, the pedestrian lights go green and a wave of humanity floods the road. On the underground railway, trains are packed full of sardine humans and there are station staff employed to push more people on the train. Surrounded by hundreds and thousands of people, I’ve never been so lonely.

Have you ever felt like that? Sitting with a group of people, even friends, feeling invisible. It’s not a nice feeling.

Our God is a personal God; He loves to have a relationship with us. Not only that, He wants to have an individual relationship, one on one, God and I, God and YOU. He knows each of us personally, check out Zephaniah 3:17 NIV,

‘The Lord your God is with you,

He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.’

God does not want us to feel lonely; He does not want us to feel invisible. He wants us to feel loved and cherished because that is what He feels for us. ‘God chose you as though there were nobody else, and as St Augustine put it a long time ago, ‘He loves every person as if there were no one else to love.’ It pleases him so much when we accept ourselves like this. That is what he wants for you.’ R.T Kendall. Totally Forgiving Ourselves, Accepting Ourselves. Unfortunately the spirit of doubt likes to creep in, especially when we’re feeling lonely and invisible. That little spirit likes to make us think we are unloved, but God does love us. Read Zephaniah 3:17 again

‘The Lord your God is with you,

He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.’

Look how many times it says ‘you’! When you are feeling disheartened, lonely and unloved read Zephaniah 3:17 count how many times it says ‘you’ and know that you are loved. God loves us all but He also loves you!

Ange Boyson

News

Just a little blog to let you know of changes that will be happening to the Blog. First of all thanks for everyone clicking and reading. I am getting now around 300 hits per month on the blog from all parts of the world. I am going to developing this blog a little bit further.

Ok, each Wednesday I will be publishing a guest blogger. They will be people that have some connection with Mental Health and Christian Spirituality. I will have guest blogs from a diverse and wonderful range of people. People struggling in their recovery, family members, those in the helping professions etc. A real liquorice all sorts of people who I know that are involved in Turning their own and others Page’s. This I hope will bring diversity and colour to the conversation. Perhaps you might like to contribute. Email me and let’s connect.
The second item of news is that starting this Sunday I will begin a series.

I am looking at the 4 different ways people are transformed spiritually. 3 styles +1 where 1 is worth way more than the previous 3. The first 3 I have seen over many many years and they have their good qualities but only go part of the way to real transformation. The fourth way is truly transformational and I have seen it deeply change lives, permanently, no Band Aid spiritual quick fix, try harder messages or super spiritual hype here.

So I am looking forward to the changes.

Thanks for Turning the Page.

Barry

Big Ears

Stop, right now. Yeah, I’m talking to you the listener! Just stop! For a few seconds, just take a breather in your busyness, and listen. Hear the world around you, the noise, the clock ticking, creating pressure.

Listen to the silence that must be filled with something, I suppose? The sound of silence feels like the abuse of time wasted. What a royal waste of time to just listen. To stop and just be calm and embrace what you are hearing.

What is it like to be deeply listened too? For someone to stop in their lives and to sit with your conversation, and just be there. Not to problem solve, not to offer advice, not to add more should on the shoulders. To deeply listen to the soul. To actually be there for the other without any thought of what will be recieved. Unconditional acceptance and positive regard.

Perhaps it’s a spiritual discipline/ habit/ exercise that we can all try this day. To listen with big ears (don’t you just love the picture).

I like to collect quotes on various topics. Listen to these ones.

By listening with calm and understanding, we can ease the suffering of another person. Thich Nhat Hanh

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. Doug Larson

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it. Sam Levenson

Listen to the whispers and you won’t have to hear the screams. Cherokee proverb

The first duty of love is to listen. Paul Tillich

Listening creates a holy silence. When you listen generously to people, they can hear truth in themselves, often for the first time. Rachel Naomi Remen

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Unknown

What have you heard in these little quotes?

What will be required for you to be a good listener?

Here are few ideas.

1. Shut up, yourself. Put a zip on the lip and open the door of the heart.

2. Put your opinions, ideas, wisdom, knowledge etc up on the shelf, at least for a while.

3. Ask questions, lots of them, encouraging the other to explore what is happening.

4. Realise you don’t have to provide the answer to every problem. Mystery and unanswered questions invite both parties to listen to Daddy, Jesus and Spirit.

5. Silence is ok, don’t hurry to fill it. Remember God spoke into the silence and created all things. Do we invite God to speak into our silences, or do we rush to fill them with our own creativity?

6. Good listening takes time, don’t rush the experience. Schedule it, if need be, its valuable.

7. Allow yourself to be vulnerable to what the other is saying. They are being vulnerable and giving you a gift of themselves. What is this gift generating inside of you? Are there pressures building inside you to problem solve, to advise, to correct etc. Why are these pressures there? Can we listen to ourselves and just be at peace with the moment and hold the pressures lightly?

Allow the one who listens to you 24/7 to slow you down, and give you big ears for the whispers of others.

Image: Creative Commons

To Love a Pro-stitute

Dear Page Turner, I love a prostitute and she doesn’t love me. She is really quite beautiful. She has something of your creative qualities about her. She laughs loud, then cries hard, inside.

She ‘flip flop’s’ her attention to me. One minute she wants to be with me, tasting of my love, and then she is off to lie naked on a bed of her own making, to be enjoyed by lovers that offer trinkets in payment. I love her, but it is hard to stay liking her. Pain in my heart reaches a crescendo when she walks away. What shall I do?

Page Turner: Prostitution eh? It’s the oldest profession in the world they say, ever since Adam and Eve sold their souls to a cheap liar. Man that was painful! But love is often painful, I know this to be true. I love all of those I have created beyond their understanding. Yet they still keep on trying to find their needs met in other ways. They try and make their world ‘safe’ by controlling others through manipulations and threats. They run to quick fix lovers of various substances only to be left with a hangover. They make religious knowledge a crutch to limp around on, while I offer a relational shoulder to rest on.

Am I angry, yup, sometimes I just have pull away and rant and rave with myself. But my consistent love, darn it, allures me back. Disappointed, oh yes very much, but I remind myself of what one of my followers said. "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." - Martin Luther King Jr.

Consistent love is the answer I offer to you. Your prostitute may well still keep running to other loves, she has choices, and I created her in this way. For you though keep coming to me for your needs or you may well become one of the masses of prostitutes that I weep over. XXX 000 (one from each of us. LOL)

Barry Pearman

*I changed the title to pro-stitute as some web filters blocked my page when I had the correct spelling.

Image: Free digital images