I wish that being a doctor was more like being a pilot. A pilot is "good" as long as the plane doesn't go down. As a physician, I am held to a higher standard-- kind of like the 6 Million dollar man-- stronger, faster, smarter. I must be the best I can be at what I do. "Meeting expectations" at my job is simply not good enough. I must exceed expectations. Regularly.
I do hold different entities to different standards. I expect my Christian friends to behave better than my unsaved relatives. I hold mainstream music artists to a higher moral standard than pagan metal bands. I just assume that profanity, drug references, and sexual immorality come standard when I turn the XM on 'Octane,' but somehow, I am offended when I hear it from 'The Pulse'.
Perhaps this is some worldly judgmental attitude that has crept into my life. Shouldn't stardards be just that? Standard? Equal? Maybe there shouldn't be standards at all. Or expectations.
I wonder what God's expectations are of me. Does He expect me to live up to the model of perfection that His Son lived? Or at least expect me to strive to live up to that? Or does he expect me to fall far short of the glory of God, over and over? Maybe His expectations meet me right where I am now. Maybe he has no expectations. I mean, why would one have expectations when One is omniscient? I don't think Jesus had expectations of others. He knew exactly what others were up to, and what their motives were. "Go and stop sinning." "I tell you the truth: this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." "Friend, do what you came for." There were no divine expectations being conveyed. Jesus confronts people at face value. Mankind certainly has expectations of Jesus, however. "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor." "Who do you say I am?" Ultimately, Jesus fell short (in the worldly sense) of the Jews' expectation of a Messiah. Ultimately, he was crucified for it. What expectations do we have of Jesus and his workings in our lives today? Does He "fall short"? Perhaps we crucify Him all over again when we hold Him up to our sick, sad, little worldly standards.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Voices
My head is often a flurry of voices and thoughts. 'Quiet reverence' is not an attitude that my spirit stumbles upon very often. I find myself thinking on many different topics simultaneously, often solving many problems on different levels of my psyche. This does create some difficulty with attention to the world around me. I often drift off mid-conversation, since there is a whole other mental discourse in my head. For those who know me, I frequently am thinking or speaking along some tangent, which admittedly can become rather annoying when one has someplace to be (other than talking with me).
Having been immersed in my own thoughts for the last 35 years, I am fairly sure I recognize the timbre of my mental voice. I know the content of my thoughts, and my thought patterns. I am familiar with my methods for reasoning, and also recognize when my emotions may divert from that logic.
In recent years, however, I have sensed other thoughts in this head of mine. I can't say I've heard 'voices', but I have thoughts and ideas that I don't necessarily think are my own. I can recall now two distinct moments in this life when I've sensed what I describe as the Voice of God.
One such occasion was the morning in June 2005, just before Jon and I found that we'd lost Camille. I was headed in for a routine OB appointment at 40 weeks, anxious about the impending delivery. I prayed a quick prayer in the car on the way to work that morning, and I distinctly remember 'hearing' the phrase, "Everything is going according to plan." I felt at peace, figuring God was sending me reassurance and endurance for those final days of pregnancy. Little did I know, His plan was to bring Camille home before we ever had the chance to say hello.
The other possible occasion was just this last week. Jon had undergone his reconstructive maxillary/mandibular osteotomy and was in the first few days of recovery. Jon's family was here, and although I had the week off, I stayed even busier than usual, with preparations around the house, caring for Jon, for the kids, and trying to be a decent host to Jon's grandmother and mother. Fourteen inches of snow drew me to the driveway, shoveling several days in a row to keep up. (I'd had an unfortunately encounter with our snowblower and finally just decided upon shoveling our steep driveway and walk.) Feeling a little underappreciated, I arose that morning at 5:30 am and hit the pavement. Literally.
After about an hour of arduous but satisfying shoveling, I reluctantly headed to the steepest part of our driveway, and sure enough, I stepped on a slick icy patch and down I went. My feet seemed to go over my head (at least that's how I remember it), and the pavement broke my fall, and possibly my tailbone. I let out a grunt that could've woken the neighbors, but thankfully none of them were up yet. The pain in my sacrum was brutal, and I laid on the driveway and writhed for a minute or two before trying to get up. There was much driveway yet to clear, so I got back to work once I could steady myself. That was when it hit. The full weight of burden came upon me, and this one seemed to be the straw that broke the Chele's back. I had to shovel snow through the tears that I could no longer hold back. In the dark, cold morning, I begged for God to ease this burden. "Well done, good and faithful servant" is what entered my head. This time, I'm not sure that God actually spoke those words to me, or whether I was so desperate to hear them that I meditated them into my own brain.
These two instances were during times of significant duress, distress, and stress. I'm sure they could be explained away by some stress-induced psychosis, or dissociative identity disorder. In my case, however, these thoughts do not cause any functional disability. Rather, they ground me.
Interestingly, both of these instances occurred when I was alone. In the case in 2005, I had the radio on (it was playing U2's Beautiful Day). In the case last week, I was in the dark, quiet of the morning, in a way, practicing the presence of God.
There have also been other brighter moments when I've certainly felt the presence of God. I describe them as "resonance," since it seems that time slows, and it is as if my frequencies/wavelengths align with God and nature, in a kind of divine moment. These occur more often, but strangely enough, they also typically occur when I am alone, surrounded by the creation itself, which seems to speak to me in ways that I cannot describe, but not with 'words' per se.
Nonetheless, I treasure the dark moments I mention above, as I feel they are among the closest I have ever been to my Creator.
Why is it that resonance is sweeter when juxtaposed with dissonance?
Having been immersed in my own thoughts for the last 35 years, I am fairly sure I recognize the timbre of my mental voice. I know the content of my thoughts, and my thought patterns. I am familiar with my methods for reasoning, and also recognize when my emotions may divert from that logic.
In recent years, however, I have sensed other thoughts in this head of mine. I can't say I've heard 'voices', but I have thoughts and ideas that I don't necessarily think are my own. I can recall now two distinct moments in this life when I've sensed what I describe as the Voice of God.
One such occasion was the morning in June 2005, just before Jon and I found that we'd lost Camille. I was headed in for a routine OB appointment at 40 weeks, anxious about the impending delivery. I prayed a quick prayer in the car on the way to work that morning, and I distinctly remember 'hearing' the phrase, "Everything is going according to plan." I felt at peace, figuring God was sending me reassurance and endurance for those final days of pregnancy. Little did I know, His plan was to bring Camille home before we ever had the chance to say hello.
The other possible occasion was just this last week. Jon had undergone his reconstructive maxillary/mandibular osteotomy and was in the first few days of recovery. Jon's family was here, and although I had the week off, I stayed even busier than usual, with preparations around the house, caring for Jon, for the kids, and trying to be a decent host to Jon's grandmother and mother. Fourteen inches of snow drew me to the driveway, shoveling several days in a row to keep up. (I'd had an unfortunately encounter with our snowblower and finally just decided upon shoveling our steep driveway and walk.) Feeling a little underappreciated, I arose that morning at 5:30 am and hit the pavement. Literally.
After about an hour of arduous but satisfying shoveling, I reluctantly headed to the steepest part of our driveway, and sure enough, I stepped on a slick icy patch and down I went. My feet seemed to go over my head (at least that's how I remember it), and the pavement broke my fall, and possibly my tailbone. I let out a grunt that could've woken the neighbors, but thankfully none of them were up yet. The pain in my sacrum was brutal, and I laid on the driveway and writhed for a minute or two before trying to get up. There was much driveway yet to clear, so I got back to work once I could steady myself. That was when it hit. The full weight of burden came upon me, and this one seemed to be the straw that broke the Chele's back. I had to shovel snow through the tears that I could no longer hold back. In the dark, cold morning, I begged for God to ease this burden. "Well done, good and faithful servant" is what entered my head. This time, I'm not sure that God actually spoke those words to me, or whether I was so desperate to hear them that I meditated them into my own brain.
These two instances were during times of significant duress, distress, and stress. I'm sure they could be explained away by some stress-induced psychosis, or dissociative identity disorder. In my case, however, these thoughts do not cause any functional disability. Rather, they ground me.
Interestingly, both of these instances occurred when I was alone. In the case in 2005, I had the radio on (it was playing U2's Beautiful Day). In the case last week, I was in the dark, quiet of the morning, in a way, practicing the presence of God.
There have also been other brighter moments when I've certainly felt the presence of God. I describe them as "resonance," since it seems that time slows, and it is as if my frequencies/wavelengths align with God and nature, in a kind of divine moment. These occur more often, but strangely enough, they also typically occur when I am alone, surrounded by the creation itself, which seems to speak to me in ways that I cannot describe, but not with 'words' per se.
Nonetheless, I treasure the dark moments I mention above, as I feel they are among the closest I have ever been to my Creator.
Why is it that resonance is sweeter when juxtaposed with dissonance?
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