Turning the Page

People can let us down. We let others down. But there is one that we can entrust our ‘self’ to that is solid and true. Deep knowing grows that makes us strong.

I’ve been dwelling on a word lately. Entrust.

Words carry power. They connect thoughts, memories, ideas, and wisdom to produce further connections. I love words, especially ones we seldom use.

Entrust means to put something into someone’s care or protection.

A parent with a sick child that needs surgery entrusts the welfare of their child into the hands of a skilled surgeon.

You entrust your money into the care of a bank.

In romance, you entrust your heart into the hands of someone you love.

It’s a choice, a decision. You act out of the best knowledge you have at the time.

We entrust ourselves, and for the most part, we get it right. Banks are generally more secure than us hiding money under the mattress.

But who do you entrust your very heart to?

People can let us down badly. They can use our vulnerability for selfish reasons and even take pleasure in our demise.

Something deep within every human is a longing for connection. To be loved, held, and known. But the other side of this shiny coin is tarnished black memories of rejection. I want connection – soul to soul-but to get that I risk rejection.

I need someone who knows where I live. The streets of my mind where I wander every day. Someone who knows the dark corners I hide in. The escape alleyways I run down when I am under threat—those walls I have built to self-protect.

I need someone to keep vigil beside me as I sleep at night. Someone to make sure the monsters of my dreams don’t become real.

I am alone but want to be known, loved, and held. Who can I entrust myself for that?

I was reading the story of someone who entrusted himself entirely to others as an act of love. He was vulnerable to others. People could do whatever they liked with him, and they did.

Then he felt the full human expression of being used, abused, traumatized, and ultimately murdered.

One of those that abused his trust was his best friend, Peter.

Peter went on to write about Jesus in this way.

‘He committed no sin,

When he was abused, he did not return abuse;

Put yourself in the dusty sandals that Jesus walked in. He entrusted himself to us as humans.

He was like a river of love flowing out towards us. Overflowing acceptance and love even to those who hated him.

But he was abused. Don’t think just crucifixion. No, it was every little slight and rejection of his perfect love. It was a suffering that took him to places of weeping and pain for the rejection he experienced.

He entrusted his openness to us, and we spat on his vulnerability.

I’ve been accused of things I have never done. I have been labeled, boxed, and parcelled up.

How about you? 

Have you received the rejection letter? What about the cold shoulder of others?

Times when some stones of shame have been picked up to throw at you.

Jesus is in solidarity with you. He knows the loneliness of it all.

It’s empowering to see how Jesus handled all the abuse.

He entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. 

Human judges have a difficult task. They weigh all the evidence presented to them and make a judgment.

We do the same. We are presented with a particular set of facts and draw conclusions.

Jesus entrusts himself to the one who sees all and knows all. Therefore, he is secure in God’s judgment of him.

Can I trust God, who has known me before my birth, to judge fairly?

The God I know sits with boundless amounts of mercy and grace. God knows all our failings yet still calls us to the softest place of the heart.

This word ‘entrust’ in the original language of Greek was ‘paradidómi,’ meaning to hand over, to give, or deliver over.

Think of loving parents watching their small child being wheeled away to surgery. They hand what’s most precious to themselves over to someone to do something beyond their capability.

I am entrusting my ‘self,’ handing over all I am to God.

I am nurtured, held, loved, and known in that profoundly secure place.

It’s a daily handing over and entrustment of my life.

Mental health becomes secure and solid.

• Any approach to life that doesn’t center in trust eventually produces misery. Larry Crabb

1. What does the word ‘entrust’ mean to you?

Barry Pearman

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The tears start to form and flow, but who will wipe my tears? A soft and gentle hand comes with tenderness to the pain.

I could feel them start to congregate right in the corners of my eyes. They were coming together, and I had no control over them. Soon they would tip over the edge and be seen.

Grab the tissues. Dab them away. Silence the flow.

Don’t want them to be seen by anyone and have attention drawn to me. That inner world must remain unknown, unrevealed, and untouched. Tears show vulnerability.

Then I felt a hand gently under my chin. It lifted my head, and with the gentleness of soft knowing, they dabbed and touched the corners of my eyes. Every tear that was formed was absorbed seemingly into themselves.

They took them in like long-lost strangers. I heard a whisper – ‘Your tears are safe with me.’

I was known

Sometimes as I talk with people online, I wish I could reach through the screen and sacrificially wipe and dap at their tears. Simply as a gift of connection from one teary-eyed pilgrim to another.

We all have, I believe, seemingly a vast reservoir of tears unshed.

Grief, loss, hurt, and pain all contribute rivers that flow into the reservoir. But, then, a moment happens that turns the tap ever so slightly, and the pressure of holding it all in breaks through.

Our emotions become a tangible, tactile reality in the corners of our eyes.

I keep thinking of those who cannot wipe their tears away.

Perhaps they have no limbs to do so with.? Maybe they have lost the neurological capacity to move their limbs. They require someone else to do much of what we take for granted.

Then a tear begins to form and needs the most gentle and compassionate touch. Perhaps there is no one there to notice and attend.

I am reassured that the God of the vast, vast universe is also intimate with every tear. Those that have been shed, those stored up, and those about to tip over the edge.

The songwriter of Psalm 56 describes this intimacy

You keep track of all my sorrows.

Imagine someone wiping the tears from your eyes.

A follower of Jesus, John, writing to some persecuted early believers, sheds these beautiful words of hope.

[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes.

In the first place, God is not taking away the pain, instead, God is coming with connection to the pain. Gentleness and compassion reach out to the sensitive corners of our lives and pulls the vulnerable release away. ‘I am with you’ becomes ‘Your pain is known.’

When your tears become a flow, when whimpers become deep moans, when you’ve truly lost any sense of self-composure, you want silence from others, a warm hand, and a presence that accepts the tiredness of holding it all in.

Life is hard.

People can be harsh.

Broken world, broken people, broken decisions and broken choices.

We bare the pain of choices we have made and the choices others have made.

It can be a mess.

I want something new to come together out of all this brokenness, rubble, and mess.

I wonder if all the tears that we have shed are to be used as a kind of water source for some new gardening project God has in store. What are they there for if they are stored up in some metaphorical leather wineskin as the Psalmist sings?

John, the prophetic pastor, continues to show what God is up to.

And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Revelation 21:5

Out of brokenness comes the germination of something new.

Out of death comes resurrection.

I hold on to my box of tissues and dab away at my tears and the tears of others.

I often wait, with some impatience, for something new to be made out of all this overflow. It will come, I get glimmers of it every day, and so I wait and participate in God’s ‘making all things new.’

It takes some courage and vulnerability to dab at the tears of others. The intimate closeness that says, ‘Here, let me. You don’t have to go it alone.’

It’s always uncomfortable when your learning to walk on water.

• Most of us are spared life-wrenching tragedy, but none of us escapes the heartache of living in a fallen world. Dan Allender

1. What emotions and thoughts swirled within you when I wrote about those with a physical inability to wipe their own tears away?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Vicky Hladynets on Unsplash

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Thoughts can come and go, like a pendulum they reach a point and then swing to another point. We can slow the pendulum down and bring it to a place of stillness.

The pendulum on the old clock swung back and forth, left to right and then right to left.

Tick tock, and the sound of seconds passed out.

That pendulum helped to keep the clock on time.

Smooth and rhythmical. Things were functioning as they should, and as I watched the old clock, I realized that my thoughts also had a similar pattern.

Extremes of arc began to fill my awareness.

My thoughts seem to swing to places of depression and then to places of anxiety.

Sometimes the arc is wide, and they travel to extremes of despair and then to fear.

Sometimes the pendulum seems to stick at one point for more than a brief moment. It feels like it wants to live there, that a magnet has my thoughts in a grip, but then off to the other extreme.

Then other times, the arc is small, even tiny, and imperceptible. It’s like the pendulum is hardly moving at all, but it is. In the background, an energy still wants to keep the pendulum clock ticking.

It takes attention to notice the pole that my thoughts are swinging into.

• Are they in the depression zone or the anxiety zone?

It begins with noticing and a kind of self-acceptance that this is happening.

I’m not talking about mood swings. No, this is more about your thoughts and discerning whether these are scripts of despair or fear.

I love to listen to the Psalms. These are the songs of people like ourselves who also had a pendulum of life.

Hope, joy, anger, despair, and every other mood and thought explosion are contained within the pendulum poems.

This morning I was listening to Psalm 116:1-9 being read in the Daily Lectio Divina.

There was a verse that grabbed my attention.

Return, O my soul, to your rest Psalm 116:7

That’s what I want my pendulum to do. To come to rest.

I know for this brief moment of my existence, it won’t stay still for very long and will continue to swing, but it doesn’t have to go to such extremes and seemingly take up residence in places it was never meant to live in.

I want to find for my soul places of rest and stillness.

I think of Jesus and his followers in those days after he was crucified.

Imagine the pendulum of their thoughts.

Despair, loss, grief, puzzlement, fear, anxiety, worry, mystery unsolved and unresolved.

He steps into the pendulum swing and speaks words.

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 

After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. John 20:19,20

The pendulum comes to rest. The attention of the soul rests itself on the awareness of the Christ.

Jesus speaks the word ‘eirḗnē’ (Phonetic Spelling: (i-ray’-nay) to his children.

eirḗnē –  (from eirō, “to join, tie together into a whole“) – properly, wholeness, i.e., when all essential parts are joined together; peace (God’s gift of wholeness). Strongs

I long for my thoughts to come to a place of wholeness – peace. No more pendulum swings into depression – a focus on the past or worry – a focus on the future.

It takes practice and discipline. It trains your brain to know that this is the new way we do things.

Here is what has helped me.

1. Regular daily quiet times
   

As I speak these, the pendulum slows and comes to a sense of stillness.

You could also add journalling, centering prayer, and mindfulness.

Paying attention to the pendulum can help you slow down and bring a new sense of quiet to the busy places of your life.  Remember that where you focus is where you will go.

• Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. We have to try to cure our faults by attention and not by will. Simone Weil

1. What swings of the pendulum have you noticed?

Barry Pearman

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Life can bring times when we feel completely abandoned, but we have a place of feathers that can hold us secure, so we enter that place of being loved, held, and known.

I’m not sure why, but for many years the final words of my day as my head rests on my pillow are these. ‘Spirit Come.’

My mind often pendulum swings between places of depression and its twin sister anxiety. Entering the new day by going to sleep, I think the little child within me wants to be held warmly and affectionately by love.

So I murmur the words ‘Spirit come.’

I pray for Spirit (Holy) to float and feather around my small human self. It’s a gentleness and peacefulness that I need to rest in and find security.

It’s a place of feathers. Downy feathers, all soft, warm, and fluffy. Pinion feathers, the ones used for flight, strong and enfolding.

I sleep within those feathers. Then I peek out from under those feathers as I face the day and all it brings.

Do you live in a place of feathers?

How do we describe God?

The Bible describes God as being like a place of feathers.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

Matthew and Luke record Jesus expressing his protecting and nurturing love to us like a mother hen and his frustration at the independent streak we all have to try and go it alone.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets

Then there is a love-filled Boaz expressing his heart welcome to Ruth, a Moabite, and her desire to live under the shadow of Yahweh’s wings.

The Lord repay you for what you have done,

There are three things I believe our soul needs to hear.

I am held

Three messages for our soul to secure itself in.

Looking at the feathers of a bird, we see beauty and strength. The pinions are strong but light, enabling the bird to fly, but they can also be tucked in to surround the body.

Then there are those fluffy inner feathers that provide warmth and insulation to the bird’s body. Downy and fluffy, soft compared to the strong flying and protecting wings.

I am invited to snuggle in between the two. Held, loved, known.

• Held
  

Can you provide a place of feathers for someone else?

There is a time and place for being the one who can demonstrate these God qualities of being Held, Known, and Loved to someone else.

I have been reading Soul Therapy by Thomas Moore, and I read these words last night before going to sleep in a feathery place.

My main rule is to love my client’s soul.

That’s the place I want to know myself and offer to others.

Email me 

• Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences; all events are blessings given to us to learn from. There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

1. What would happen in you if you were to know the fulness of being held, known and loved?

Barry Pearman

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Safe places and safe people ask good questions that may not feel safe at all, but they have goodness flowing through them.

I need a place where I can go and feel safe.

So many people have opinions and are quick to share them. Lightning fast to draw a conclusion and speed of light to share it.

I’ve seen people shrivel up and wither under the bombardment of others’ opinions. Something dies within them. They become like Hydrophobic soil. That’s a type of soil that actively repels water. Add a drop of water to the surface, and it runs away and isn’t taken in.

You get to the point that you don’t share anything because you know what you get back will feel like an attack. I stress the word ‘feel’ because it may not be an attack, but you have been abused so often that everything now feels like a threat.

Is it a fortress where you can hide away and no one comes near?

Perhaps the place behind a mask of ‘everything s fine.’ Got to keep up appearances.

Could it be a physical place where you know you won’t be interrupted? You can hide away and ‘be yourself’ whatever that might mean.

Is a safe place somewhere where you won’t be asked questions?

Maybe it’s a kind of soul place where you know others will welcome you with open, nonjudgmental arms and with a sort of gentle curiosity.

How would you define a safe place?

When I hear the word ‘safe,’ my mind often goes to the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

In the story, some children are on an adventure and are exploring a cursed and frozen land called Narnia. They are welcomed into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and learn about the great king Aslan and that he is a lion.

One of the children asks a very fearful question about this lion.

“Is he—quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”

“That you will, dearie, and no mistake,” said Mrs. Beaver. “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or else just silly.”

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’

Do you want ‘safe’ or do you want ‘good.’?

We want safe first but in the context of goodness going forward.

Is God safe?

Is God good, and if so, then what is God good for?

James, a early church pastor, wrote these words to the little home groups of Christians meeting together in what we would now call church.

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. James 1:19-20

Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

Here are some definitions

• Quick –taxýs (Greek) – swift, speedy, without unnecessary delay.

Does your church have good acoustics?  Is it a place where there is a quickened delight in listening?

It’s a discipline, a training ground, a practice to work at. It’s the humility of listening well.

I fail at it constantly because my brain wants to F.A.S.S. – fix, advise, save, or set straight. Using a taxi (taxýs – Greek) I quickly resolve the problem and then move on to F.A.S.S. someone else.

James wants us to go slow and be unhurried in our conversation.

Can I ask more questions? Gentle open-ended questions? Curious to know the acoustics of the heart of the other.

To be a safe person and to offer a safe place is to slow down. Be deliberate and unhurried in your conversation.

Anything outside of this may come from and generate a place of anger. Frustrations leak out into the space and stifle love.

Have I listened well?

Often, I will ask these questions at the end of a church conversation.

• What are you going to take away from our time together?

Safe places and safe people ask good questions that may not feel safe at all  , but they have goodness flowing through them.

• It’s time we paid whatever price must be paid to become part of a spiritual community rather than an ecclesiastical organization. It’s time to build the church, a community of people who take refuge in God and encourage each other to never flee to another source of help, a community of folks who know the only way to live in this world is to focus on the spiritual life – our life with God and others.  It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.  Our impact on the world is at stake. Larry Crabb The Safest Place on Earth

1. What would it be like to be listened into wellness?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

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There’s work, home, and loneliness, but maybe a third place can be the place of hope. Let’s make one together.

I’m looking for a third place, and I think you might be too. It’s a place where I feel that I belong and there is no pressure to perform, to do, or to be someone for someone else. Where I can come and go, people know me, respect and love me, and I can do the same for them.

Would you like a place like that?

So what’s a ‘Third place.’

To define a ‘third place,’ perhaps we need to know what a ‘first’ and ‘second’ place is.

Ray Oldenburg was an American urban sociologist who wrote about spaces where people would gather.

The First place was the home. This is where you live and the people you live with – spouse, children, in-laws.

It’s where you rest your head at night. Your place of residence and the relationships – good or bad- that exist there. For the most part, you can’t get away from these relationships. You will probably be with them for a long time. They know you and you know them.

The second place is your place of work.

The relationships you have are because you go there for a common purpose – to work. Outside of this place, you might not normally have a relationship with these people. You probably spend most of your awake time in this place.

A Third place is where you relax in public and where you see familiar faces and make new acquaintances.

Typically Third places have these qualities.

1. Neutral ground
   

If you have a place that you go to that offers all of those nine qualities then you are truly blessed.

Every sitcom typically has a third place. It’s where everybody knows your name as the T.V. show Cheers sings out.

Sometimes you wanna go

Place is important because it can be a container for the types of relationships it offers.

I don’t see third places mentioned specifically in the Bible.

Perhaps it might have been well from which people drew their water. A common meeting place. Certainly, Jesus had a good conversation with a woman there.

Maybe it was the gateway to the city or village. That was a place where you went to discuss and talk with others about the topics of the day. Prov 1:21; 31:23; cf. Ruth 4:11; Job 29:7

Possibly the early Christian church was a kind of third place. People meet in small groups, share a meal, talk about faith, and hold hope. Good conversations flowed. No hierarchy, and no demands to perform. Taking a walk and discovering Jesus walking alongside.

I long for that kind of place.

But I’m finding it hard to find a place where all of the nine requirements of a third place can be found.

I had dinner with some neighbors a few weeks ago that came close. Much banter, openness, and laughter were had. Would I go deep with them? Maybe if I got to know them more and felt safe with them.

I was recently asked why men don’t go to counseling. I wrote a post giving 10 reasons why, but maybe under all of those reasons is a feeling that it just feels like work and yet another place to potentially fail.

I believe that both men and women want a place where they are welcomed, warts and all, and know they are being listened to.

A place where maybe a few others who have ‘been there, done that’ can come alongside and walk with us through the tough times. A place where they are known, held, and loved.

I recently shared with a couple of friends that I would like to start a group called Stray Dogs.

It would be a kind of place, where stray dogs like myself who need a place to connect would meet and wag our tails at each other in delight. No sniffing of butts though 😉.

I’ve seen third places develop around a craft or hobby. It could be meeting somewhere to make cards,  brew beer, tell stories, write stories, build a canoe, grow vegetables, etc.

The outcome is not the finished product, it’s more the intangible quality of the relationships grown in this place. A place where everybody knows your name and possibly the story within the limp you have.

And please don’t call it ‘church’ because that loaded term may just destroy the qualities of the early church – love, friendship, generosity, and hope.

• To say “I am going to church” both reveals and promotes bad theology.  Marva J. Dawn

1. Where do ‘Third places’ exist in your community?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

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Four types of power play a part in our lives, but the power that will transform you enters your ditch and is with you. 

I’ve seen it all.

Through the eyes of my half-dead body, I watch them come, look, and then go.

Will no one stop to do what I cannot do for myself? I am alone, and no one wants to engage, connect, look upon my swollen face, and pierce my life with hope.

It’s a gift of power I need.

I need someone to cross the line and do what I cannot do for myself.

Abuse, in whatever form it comes, has a nasty way of taking the life out of you.

You are left feeling less than others. You’re small, weak, and insignificant. You get stripped of something of the gloriousness that you once were.

Abuse that harms doesn’t have to fit into the major categories of sexual abuse or violence. It could be a little well-aimed slight by a child in the schoolyard. A put down by a bully. A lack of basic essentials such as affirming touch and encouragement.

No one escapes the blows and cuts from living in a broken world. Unfortunately, many of our wounds can remain untreated or undertreated for our lifetime.

Many people come to this website because they pray into an internet search engine the words ‘God, I want to die.’. But I wonder what it would be like to pray, ‘God, I want to live fully.’

I don’t want to live a half-dead life. I want a life where I am fully alive, where wounds have been changed into scars. Abuse cuts and traumas have become beauty marks and toned muscle.

The harm now brings something of God’s life to others, and as we connect, we ‘mouth to mouth’ resuscitate those who robbers and thieves have violated.

What would it be like to be fully alive?

Jesus tells a story about power.

“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his clothing and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead.

By chance a priest came down that way. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 

So likewise a Levite, when he came to that place, looked at him and passed by on the other side. 

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine. Then he set him on his own donkey and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 

The next day when he departed, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said to him, ‘Take care of him. I will repay you whatever else you spend when I return.’ Luke 10:30-35

(denarius, a coin worth about a day’s wage.)

In Jesus’ story, we find a man experiencing the effect of Power over. He had been assaulted, robbed, and left half dead. Thieves, robbers, bullies, and tyrants had stolen something of his glorious humanity. Perhaps a fellow human was the only way to restore something of power within.

If you were to look through the eyes of the dying man, what would you see?

What expressions of power would your heart engage with?

Perhaps it comes down to three questions.

1. Are you with me in my need?

Power with, power against, power withheld. 

What does this dying man see?

1. Power withheld
   

Something happens in this man. The power within him begins to grow. Strength returns to his body and also to his soul.

Perhaps because he has experienced both the worst of power and the best, he now has a deeper awareness of humanity.

It is lovely to see someone grow in their internal power. They begin to see the lines of their unique shape.  They see those who have used ‘power over’ badly. They see those who have ‘withheld power’ and leave them alone.

But then they begin to see those with them and want to continue to be with them. As a result, inner beauty and strength grow.

Something both glorious and good begins to grow within the soul. Its beauty and strength begins to transform the dangerous roads we travel on. Its love is unstoppable and dangerous, and it must have release.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud

These four types of power play a part in all our lives. The power that will transform you, will enter your ditch and be with you.

It’s your eyes I want to see

• Therapists accomplish good results because they are lovers, in the personal sense of that word, and not experts. Only genuine, unpurchaseable love does what needs to be done in the human soul. Larry Crabb. The Safest Place on Earth.

1. Which of the four types of power grabbed your attention?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Derick Daily on Unsplash

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When we’re half dead and want to be fully alive, we need a love that crosses a line. 

He was half dead. She had been stripped naked.

They had worked him over, taking enjoyment from the assault.

I leaned down over her nakedness and heard a whisper, ‘Help me.’

I saw beauty under her bruises. I saw his potential slipping away. I saw it all, felt it all.

I had crossed a line. I was in their world now.

Others walked up, noticed, and avoided. I held her close, hoping something of my life would breathe into her. He draped his arms over me, fingers clasping for connection.

I didn’t have much to offer, but all that I had, I gave.

‘Stop walking by,’ I screamed at all the self-righteous with their self-protective rules. They would look with millisecond attention, focus elsewhere, then quicken their pace.

The thugs who had assaulted this naked soul were probably still around. Perhaps I would be next.

Love crosses a line.

The relationship between the first woman and the first man must have been incredible. Sure, there was a line around the unique identity that was a man, and that was a woman. They were different but also complementary.

There was a deep desire to outdo the other in the expression of love. So it flowed. It overflowed. One into the other and back again.

No hint of selfishness or holding back. No walls or hiddenness.

The line was there, they knew they were different from each other, but there was such an openness to both give and receive.

Love crossed a line where they didn’t even know a line existed.

We now have walls built on top of our lines: fences, barricades, and even razor wire in some cases.

A little hurt here and there, and we build a wall. The wall becomes thicker and higher with repeated experiences.

The ‘I will never let my heart be hurt like that again’ sentence becomes a mantra most likely learned as a little child. Repeated over and over again, it becomes an anthem.

Repeated experiences of abuse, both small and large, help validate our wall-building program.

We are secure inside our walled city. Isolated but safe. Alone but in control. Strong, but actually fragile.

But we need community. Someone to leave their travel plans and venture into the ditch where we are half-dead. Someone who wants to see us become fully alive.

Can we be vulnerable to some line crossing?

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Jesus tells a parable of what vulnerable love looks like.

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’

He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

This agape love leaps across mountains and bounds over hills (Song of Solomon 2:8). It runs through bands of robbers and thieves and jumps over walls built high. (Psalm 18:29)

It’s absurd to the rationalist and rule-bound.

It’s real, costly, and puts the lover at risk. It kisses the leper and breathes life into corpses.

The legalists, the accountants, the Pharisees, and the scribes will definitely look down upon it. They will critique the gifts poured out as much as they did the woman who kissed and poured perfume over the feet of Jesus. (Luke 7:36-39)

To show us love, God crossed a line. God came to us in the form of someone like ourselves – Jesus. We killed God on a cross. Christianity is the only religion in the world where God dies.

Love died and rose again.

Now we are called to take a risk and cross a line.

It doesn’t have to be large. It could be giving someone a glass of water or some clothes. On the other hand, it might be visiting someone imprisoned by illness, poverty, or crime (Matthew 25:31-46). Crossing a line, moving beyond self to enter another self, always carries an element of risk.

Would you do it for me?

Do for one, what you wish you could do for everyone.

• Our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feelings for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses … for in him also Christ ‘vere latitat’ – the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. Henri J.M. Nouwen

1. What do you think of the sentance ‘Christianity is the only religion in the world where God dies.’ ?

Barry Pearman

Photo by Will on Unsplash

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There is a kind of loneliness that feels like a huge void has been opened up, and you’re broken on the other side. But there is one that crosses the void to bring connection. 

I’m still trying to understand why they avoided me.

They knew I was in a mess,  and I thought they were my friend, but they never contacted me.

They a-voided me. Break that word ‘avoid’ down.

The word void, in this sense, means an empty space, and that is what it felt like. It was like there was an empty space between them and me.

Loneliness and abandonment can kill. We were always meant for intimate community, but instead, we so often find empty voids in our relationships. No one is willing to cross a line to touch and engage the soul of a neighbor.

Have you ever felt that someone is a-voiding you? You don’t know why there is a void between you and them? Or perhaps you do know why, and it’s because of something that you have done or has been done to you.

You’re on the outside, and no one comes near.

Perhaps you’re doing the avoiding. Making sure there is a distance between yourself and them—sometimes, you need to do this to feel safe.

So who is my neighbor?

That was the question posed to Jesus.

Jesus tells a story and invites us to look through the eyes of the first person mentioned in this story—the half-dead victim of abuse.

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

Imagine yourself as that man.

You’re half dead, eyes barely open, naked, and you’re slipping in and out of consciousness.

You see someone come, and a glimmer of hope springs up, but when they see you, they create a void. Then, a second person comes, and they do the same.

What goes on in your mind? ‘Will no one help’

It’s abuse to neglect the other that is in obvious need.

We say to ourselves in our defense that there are so many that cry out for our help. The victims of earthquakes, natural disasters, crime, and poverty, and we can’t help everyone. But perhaps that is not the point.

Perhaps we are called to do for one what we wish we could do for everyone. To cross the line and fill the void with one other soul.

There is a question or a series of questions that I get continually asked. They are based around a central heart struggle – Does God love me?

I’ve been abused and hurt, and surely if God loved me, God would not have allowed this to happen. Surely God can fix this situation?

If God is good, then what is God good for?

Dan Allender states

‘Abuse provides the raw data that seems to prove that God is not good,’ the ‘devilishness of abuse is that it does Satan’s work of deceiving children about God’s true nature and encouraging them to mistrust Him. Dan Allender The Wounded Heart.

God steps into this broken world with all of us making broken world choices. God comes in the form of Jesus. Fully divine and yet fully human.

Jesus experiences the fullness of abuse – intentional and unintentional.

He experiences the darkness of the void. He knows the void you experience.

I’m unsure if this neglect of giving love and creating a void isn’t more abusive than a full-on physical attack. It’s more subtle and hidden.

This a-voiding by others can reinforce and strengthen a belief that you genuinely are nothing. Everyone else has their life together, but you don’t. As a result, you are further dehumanized through loss of connection.

I will wait for someone to come and fill the void. Someone who will step across the line and move into my world with grace and kindness. Someone to welcome me into their embrace and banish the darkness of the void.

‘On the cross, the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy; in the agony of the passion, the movement stops for a brief moment, and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in.

I am welcomed with their embrace.

The word ‘vicarious’ is one of my favorite words. It  simply means to serve instead of someone or something else

When someone steps across the line and enters my ditch with grace and love, I sense something of the nature of Christ filling the void and giving me hope.

I wait for someone like me who has dirt in their toenails to wander down, cross the line, and fill the void made by others.

• No victim is responsible for having been abused. But abuse does provide strong reasons, potent stories, to ask, “Where was God? Does  He love me? Can I trust Him? If   can, what am I to trust Him for?” The devilishness of abuse is that it does Satan’s work of deceiving children about God’s nature and encouraging them to mistrust Him. Fearing to trust God, the abuse victim will naturally choose other gods to provide her [or him] with life, whether alcohol, promiscuity, or approval-seeking. Dan Allender The Wounded Heart

1. Where have you experienced the a-void?

Further Reading

Barry Pearman

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It’s a human experience to know the trauma of falling into the hands of robbers and thieves, but there is one who joins us in our ditch.

I was robbed a few years ago. I had parked my truck in a parking lot and had gone into a shop to purchase a few things.

When I walked out, I saw someone looking into the back of my truck. I thought that was strange, so I began walking briskly toward them.

When they saw me coming, they rushed to their vehicle, climbed in, and took off. Two adults were in the car, a male and a female, and two children were in car seats in the back.

When I got to my car, I saw some gardening tools were missing.

I jumped in the truck and took off after them. This is where you hear upbeat Hollywood music!

But they had gone, couldn’t see them anywhere, so I returned to the parking area and went into the shop to see if they had security video footage of the event.

They did, but these thieves were cunning. They didn’t drive close enough to the cameras to get good images. The security guard said that this is what robbers do. They cruise around the carparks looking for opportunities. They are fully aware of where the cameras are and the quick exit routes.

I watched as a van cruised around the parking lot, found a spot next to my truck, and went back in next to it for a potential quick getaway. Then the male and female rummage through the gear on the back. They tried to open the doors but found they were locked. They then started to take equipment from my truck and put it in their car.

I called the police and filed a report, but nothing was returned. Fortunately, insurance covered the loss, enabling me to buy better-quality tools.

But ever since then, I have been more careful with where I park my truck and what I leave on the back. I will soon buy a van where everything will be fully enclosed and secure.

Wild thoughts and feelings raged through my mind about what I would do if I caught them. I did still have my pitchfork!

I had been violated; someone had crossed a line and stolen what I had worked hard to earn and purchase.

What a fool I was to leave my tools exposed like that. I was naive.

Then more self-accusing thoughts pounded through my brain—stupid, idiot, dummy.

Past shaming events triggered memories. I was a little boy again, being bullied.

Everyone will think even less of me than what they think of me now.

It is a downward, deepening spiral into despair.

Then there were those children in the back seat. They were being formed in their thinking that is what you do, this is normal. They would grow to think it’s perfectly normal to cross other people’s lines to get what they want. They were being robbed of truth every time this scenario played out before them.

Jesus once told a parable about us and how we have been robbed.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 

He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’

 He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ 

And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Luke 10:25-30

In the original greek, the word Jesus used to describe the robbers was léstés

lēstḗs – a thief (“robber”) stealing out in the open (typically with violence). lēstḗs (“a bandit, briard”) is a thief who also plunders and pillages – an unscrupulous marauder (malefactor), exploiting the vulnerable without hesitating to use violence.

There was more than one robber, and they only saw this man as someone they could take from. He was stripped naked, used for violence, and abandoned.

Mark Laaser, in Healing the wounds of Sexual Addiction, describes two kinds of abuse: invasion and abandonment.

He places the types of abuse, invasion, and abandonment, into the four areas of human experience.

• Yelling

• Hitting

• Touching or penetrating the genital area

• Punitive or angry messages about God

As you look over the list, you will probably see items you will connect with as either a receiver of this abuse or a giver. There is grace and forgiveness for us all, whether we are the victim or the violator.

Abandonment abuse we will look at in the next post.

For this parable to have the most significant effect, one must see themselves as that man.

Someone going about their daily business only to be attacked and left half dead. Naked, stripped of anything of value, and left to die.

Robbers and thieves. The obvious invaders and marauders across the line of our humanity. Everyone I have met can relate to some experience of abuse where someone has crossed an obvious line.

But we are not alone in our half-dead state. Jesus knows the invasiveness of what man can do.

He knows the invaders, thieves, robbers, and marauders. Jesus experienced the dehumanizing effects of living in a broken world.

He, too, was stripped naked and left to die. Christianity is the only religion where God dies.

When we fully face our wounds and how we have wounded others, we need someone to cross our lines with a message of self-sacrificial love and hope. That’s the message of the purest form of love. It’s where someone leaves the road, crosses the line, and enters our ditch with an invasiveness of resurrection hope.

• Any spirituality that does not lead from a self- centered existence to an other-centred mode of existence is bankrupt. Brennan Manning. The Signature of Jesus

1. What happened to you as you read this post?

Barry Pearman

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