Turning the Page

Are you tired of being the Scapegoat but don’t know how to stop it? Six key steps to stop being the dumping ground of other people’s rubbish. 

She felt like they were making her a scapegoat.

They were saying she was responsible for all the terrible things that had happened. It was her fault. Everything bad that happened was her responsibility.

This was a pattern of abuse she had experienced for a very long time. Jenny remembered as a child that once her mother had broken a cup, but somehow it was her fault. Then, the vicious words rained down.

Now it felt like she was a human receptor for other people’s stuff.

She was wired for it. Anything that went wrong, she took the blame.

Even when they didn’t blame her or say it was her fault, she still, for some strange reason, felt she was to blame.

She reasoned that it must be something to do with her. She was a failure, and so she caused all these bad things to happen.

Jenny had a big ugly, smelly goat bleating in her brain.

This belief entered early into her brain when she started to receive the abuse of others. Then she took it on as part of her identity.

The scapegoat was as much of her identity as goat’s cheese is made of goat’s milk.

Her depression was worsening as the guilt and shame piled up. Her anxiety was building as she waited for the next guilt-filled message to be handed out and for her to take in.

She was tired. Really tired. The goat, and its bleating, was keeping her up at night and alert all day.

But now, she was beginning to wake up to the bleating, blahhing, and destructiveness of its voice.

Read more here.

They kept feeling a sense of guilt and blame for something they didn’t do, but then they discovered a Scapegoat living in the backyard of their brain.

It wasn’t nasty, or maybe in a subtle kind of a way it was, but they felt like they were receiving all the blame for things that happened, and because of that, they were being excluded from the relationship.

Why would anyone want to have a relationship with someone like them?

Someone so terrible as they were.

And it was so subtle, so sly, that over time this inner negative critic wove its words into their deepest beliefs about themselves.

It was a goat. A scapegoat, and they had one bleating in their brain.

It’s all your fault

You’re the one to blame

You never get anything right

They did this because of you

You don’t deserve any relationship

Then with these inner voices bleating in their brain, they began to believe that they didn’t have any value or worth.

Nothing beautiful or meaningful about this smelly old goat.

They withdrew, hid, and definitely didn’t put themselves out there because they knew that there would be just more criticism, blaming, and shaming.

They had a goat, a scapegoat, grazing in their brain.

 

Read more at Do You Have a Scapegoat in the Backyard of Your Brain?

Some people seem to like to rain on your parade, but we can learn how to hoist an umbrella and continue on.

They couldn’t help themselves.

Anything my friend did was negated. Any attempt at doing something special, creative, or different was criticized and smashed with harsh words. Sometimes an indifference, a bored ‘Whatever.’

It wasn’t that they wanted approval, but more so, they wanted to share the joy they found in their creativity.

They had the breath of a creative God within them, and they wanted to share their own creative expression with those dearest to them, but it was routinely dismissed as nothing. So there was ambivalence to their deepest gift.

Something began to die and shrivel up within them. The spark of expression was growing low.

Nothing they did was good enough. Depression, a poverty of spirit, and despair slowly began to suffocate the God breath out of them.

 

Read more here

So why did the Samaritan cross the road? Perhaps he wasn’t afraid of the sky falling in. Let’s not be chicken with people like us.

I happened to call an acquaintance of mine a few days ago. He does some jobs for me every now and then.

As we talked, he said that he had a kind of personal crisis in his life. So I gently pressed a bit further and found out what had happened.

The same thing had happened to me many years ago. In my gut, I felt a deep connection. We chatted for a bit longer, and then we finished the call.

Later that day, I realized that I could have offered a bit more. I thought that I could have invited him for a chat and a coffee.

I thought of all the excuses not to cross the road as such and invite him in.

I’m too busy

He’s too busy

He might think I’m overly intrusive, nosey.

I might not know what to say

Then I remembered this post you’re about to read.

Read more here

Many of us carry secret questions, and we are hungry for answers, but we need someone safe. Someone secure in themselves yet vulnerable to listen well.

 

When the pastor sermonized my personal story, I felt exposed.

I was once in a small group in a church, where our Pastor taught us how to be leaders in the church.

Once a fortnight, we would meet, talk about what was happening in our lives, then he would give some teaching, perhaps a visiting speaker would chat with us. Overall it was a good thing.

I felt safe. That was until the Pastor used something that I shared in total privacy as an illustration in his sermon.

Now, most of the people in the church service would not have associated the story with me. He didn’t say my name, but there were enough people there to know that this illustration was about me.

I felt exposed, angry, and violated. I had given him my trust, and he used my struggle for his gain.

I never trusted him again.

Another story of exposure. I shared something deep with a pastor, and they, too, decided to share it with others. Then the story gained momentum and a life of its own.

Some people shouldn’t be in positions where they are to hold another’s heart. They are not secure within themselves to keep a fragile gift.

I’ve heard people’s stories, still do, but I don’t share them. I will go to the grave with them. Fortunately, as one person said, I have a very good ‘Forgetter Computer.’

When you’re living in fear of exposure

For many of us, we have questions and struggles rolling around in our heads, but we don’t want anyone to know.

All the internal struggles. If we disclose them, then we’re sure to be rejected, dismissed, abandoned.

So we create an alternative life that is very secret. We don’t feel safe with the ones whom we’re meant to feel safe with.

We think we are the only ones with these struggles.

And if you’re that person reading this, then I want to assure you that you’re not the only one living a secret life.

I think we all do.

We present to the world one face, while all along, we have another world in which we have unmentionable questions, crazy thoughts, and wild passions.

But we have no one safe to express the internal drama, and so we are stuck.

We type our questions into Google, scour the screen for answers, and sicken ourselves with comparisonitis.

We might even send a postcard to at least tell the universe.

He came in the night.

There is a wonderful story of a man who was in this dilemma.

He didn’t want the exposure, but he still had questions. Every kid in Sunday School memorizes the answers he got.

His name was Nicodemus, and he was someone who was supposed to have all the answers, the religious answers.

His role in society in Jesus’ day was that of a Pharisee. He was a keeper of the religion.

But then Jesus came and threw the rule book up in the air and talked about relationships.

We find the story of Nicodemus in three places.

The first is when he came by night to Jesus.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” John 3:1,2

It’s interesting to see that Nicodemus ‘came to Jesus at night.’ He didn’t want to be seen connecting with the Christ, but he was hungry with questions.

So many of us are like Nicodemus. We are hungry with questions, but if they were to be told, we could lose our social ranking, status, safety, and even our family and friends. We risk exposure if we show ourselves.

The next time we meet Nicodemus is when he is defending Jesus’ right to free speech.

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?” John 7:50, 51

The final time is when he cares for the crucified body of Jesus.

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pila

Life has many struggles, but with a champion, someone who will walk and talk, we have someone who reminds us of our progress and gives us hope.

I was recently talking with someone about the struggles in their life. We had walked many a mile together over the years.

As we talked, I asked if they remembered how they were five years ago. We actually rated some of their feelings. Five years ago, it was a 9 out of 10 struggle, but now it was 2 out of 10.

They looked up with a sense of realization. Things had actually changed. Some of the issues they faced back then hadn’t changed that much, but many of them had.

From this, they took a great deal of encouragement, and I did too.

For them, the deepest parts of their journey had not been seen by many. They didn’t want others to know. But there were a few special people, such as myself, that they had let into their private dark hole.

In my eyes, they were a superhero. Very few went where they went. Now they were strong in ways unimaginable a few years ago.

Noticing the progress

Have you ever been to a forest, and all you see are the trees, the obstacles, and maybe a faint path to follow?

Your attention gets consumed by what is all around you.

You forget about how far you’ve come. Sure, you might feel it in your body. Aches and pains, but all you know is the depth and darkness of the forest.

That is until you climb a hill, or there is a break in the trees, and you can look back and see how far you’ve come. You’re amazed at the progress from placing one foot in front of another—one millimeter at a time.

There is a saying, ‘You can’t see the forest for the trees. ‘

I would also say you can’t see the progress for the trees.

The depth of the present struggle is so all-consuming that there is no pause to take in the wonder of where you’ve come from.

A champion walking alongside us invites us to take a break, have a sip of water and celebrate the progress.

I think it’s so important to have people in our lives that in various ways, can lift us out of the daily battle with the trees, the brush, and the weeds.

They point out how far we have come and offer us a perspective about where we are going.

Then it’s back to the millimeter by millimeter bush-bashing through the shrubbery of weeds and wilderness.

There can be loneliness to this journey.

One of the features of many people’s journey is loneliness. You feel that no one is there with you.

Possibly you might have friends and family, but there you are with your happy mask because you don’t want anyone else to know the deep struggle you’re going through.

So you’re alone.

You may have reached out, been dismissed, felt overlooked, and disregarded. No one gets you.

You wonder why you’re so self-focused. Isnt that selfishness?

Surely others have it worse off than you.  Maybe they do, but actually, you don’t know. Your journey is your journey.

You trudge on seeing the trees, the weeds, the struggle.

The champion in your family

There is an interesting little verse in the Psalms.

God places the lonely in families Psalm 68:6

This is not so much a family of mum, dad, and the kids. More so, it is a nest of relationships where we can call home.

I have a champion in my family nest. Actually, I might have more than one.

This is not someone who has a big shiny winners cup but more so someone who desires to champion me.

A champion is someone who supportsor defends a person or cause.

Think of these champions

Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement

Nelson Mandela and the Anti-apartheid movement

Kate Shepherd and the women’s suffrage movement

Bill Sinclair and his support of John Bishop

Mary Smith and her commitment to her friend Jenny Bertland

You probably don’t know the last two champion names on the list. I don’t know them either. They are fictitious. I made them up.

But you probably do know people like them.

People who walk alongside someone and encourage them when they can’t see the forest for the trees. They can’t see the progress fo

‘I’m not religious’ is something many say, but religion is a place of reconnection and realignment. Good mental health grows in a healthy religious experience.

Say the word ‘Religion,’ and you’ll get lots of reactions.

The word ‘Religion’ can a springboard to thoughts of rules, regulations, rituals, commitments, vows, attendance at meetings, obedience, hierarchy, and people often wearing funny-looking clothes.

Religion is often seen as a straightjacket to freedom. You must do certain things to get right with God and be part of the group.

But I think we are all prone to want to find a religion of our own, even making a religion we can call home.

Let’s look into the word religion a bit deeper.

The reconnect of Religion.

If we look into the history of the word, we find that it comes from two words  re-ligare, i.e., re- (again) + ligare or “to reconnect.”

Re-ligio is to re-ligament or reconnect.

I see a surgeon reconnecting ligaments and bones back into the sockets where they have been pulled out.

There is a reconnection to something bigger than oneself.

We’ve drifted, detached, disconnected, and want to come home to the unity of something bigger than ourselves.

There is also the thought of realignment. That religion offers a realignment to a drifting soul. Here is the path. Walk this way—a compass to follow.

We all have a religion.

Using these definitions, I think we all have a religion.

A method by which we reconnect with something bigger than ourselves. Something that realigns us.

We may not be conscious of it, but it will be there calling us back to a conformity.

It might be that sport you love. It could be a personal philosophy or a political party.

The religion of communism or capitalism.

We all have a religion, but it may not meet in a building on Sunday.

So what can a religion offer you?

Playgrounds and fences

It was a busy neighborhood, and cars, buses, and trucks drove many of the streets. But there was no place for the children to play, to have fun, explore, climb, fall and kick a ball.

Nowhere for lovers to walk and children to make friends.

So the parents got together and found an empty area in the middle of their neighborhood and petitioned the town council to create a park full of swings, jumps, and climbing frames.

It was agreed, and the building began.

Trees were planted, a water fountain installed, flower gardens, picnic tables, park benches, climbing walls, poles to swing off.

This was a place where all could come and reconnect to the joy of play and fun.

First kisses would be experienced. Lifelong friendships would form. People could stretch out on the grass and enjoy the summer sun.

But nearby was that busy, dangerous road. It was a huge risk for any child chasing a ball.

So the council built a fence.  It was strong and sturdy and stopped any errant ball or flying frisbee.

Everyone was safe while they stayed within the park’s boundaries, within the fenceline, inside the lines of love and respect.

Religion, in many ways, offers the nuts, bolts, and mesh of the fenceline. We know the rules, the norms, and social conventions.

For newcomers, it has to be taught.

‘In this park, we don’t have wild drunken parties; it’s not safe for the children. And we don’t do drugs.Go to some other park if you want to do that.’

Sadly though, there are many people more interested in focusing on the fenceline and rule board at the entry gate than enjoying the relational benefits of the park.

They may even form committees to ensure everyone knows the rules and that the fenceline is strong and robust.

I once had someone come to me wanting to point out the fenceline, the rules, the regulations. When I suggested we talk about a Jesus story about the fence line, he wasn’t interested. ‘I don’t want to talk about Jesus’ was his response. BIG RED FLAG!

I was inviting him to play on the Jesus climbing frame, and all he wanted to do was inspect the tightness of the mesh fence.

His religious playground was small, black and white

There was a single tear, and I knew we were on sacred ground, but there was a decision to be made. I chose to linger and listen.

I was talking with a man in his eighties the other day when I noticed a tear forming in his eye. I knew that this was one of those moments.

One of those times where you mustn’t rush past. There was an invitation to a stop and be quiet.

It was a tender moment. A time of standing on what I call ‘sacred ground’ where the other drifts, ponders and reflects on the storied waves of life.

I dare not interrupt where Spirit was dancing him into.

It was only for about 10 seconds, maybe not even that, but then he spoke about loss—the loss of deep friendships and relationships. Opportunity lost to connect with at least one other man. To have a friend.

He talked about his observation that women seem to have more friends and deeper relationships. There was grief and that he had not had this.

And then we moved on. Perhaps we will come back to it one day.

The sacred ground of us

I have been to many places that might have the term ‘Sacred Ground’ attached to them.

It might be a place where some act of religious significance occurred. It could be a place of pilgrimage. Maybe even be a sports arena or stadium where someone achieved some great sporting feat.

We connect ‘Sacred ground’ with the words  of ‘This is where … happened.’

But I also believe that there can be ‘sacred ground’ moments within our conversations. A moment in a conversation where we could say ‘This is where … happened.’

Moments where a space opens up for silence and listening. An invite to intimacy (In-to-me-see) is quietly given.

Have you noticed these?

People are scared of sacred ground.

But people often are scared when they touch the outskirts of a sacred space. ‘Shields up’ and alarm sirens wail.

They back off, divert to other topics.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

The brain, in all its hardwired self-protective goodness, shouts ‘This sacred ground feels like quicksand that could swallow me up.’

But sacred places are the places where the pivot of change happens.

The warmth of a burning bush

There is a story in the bible about a sacred space conversation.

It happened around a fire.

A desert bush was ablaze, but the strangest thing was that the bush wasn’t turning to ash.

It was fully alive with fire, and this drew some attention from a wandering shepherd called Moses.

Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away, but it didn’t burn up.

Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” 

He said, “Yes? I’m right here!” 

God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.” Exodus 3:1-6

I think of my conversation, and the desire in me to come closer, dig deeper, ask questions and push the story on. Yet the best choice was not to come closer but actually to remove my sandals and be silent.

You need to take your sandals off.

Many people have conjectured as to why Moses had to remove his sandals. Sure he was instructed to because this was ‘Holy Ground,’ but why?

I want to offer a suggestion.

I wear footwear all the time in the garden. Boots, shoes, sandals are all worn to protect my feet from connection to the earth. Without that layer of material my feet would get dirty, and possibly harmed by thorns and stones.

I wear shoes to protect myself, to keep something between myself and potential harm.

I wonder if God was saying …

I don’t want anything to come between yourself and the dirt and dustiness of this place. I want you to connect fully with the earth of this experience. Have no crafted, man-made structure that ac

Grief and loss are always on the horizon, but we can prepare to grieve well. This can help with the grief we are carrying now.

I am pruning roses at the moment.

It’s winter here in New Zealand as I write this post, and one of my tasks every winter for the last seven years has been to prune around 120 roses in a beautiful country garden.

The property is being sold, so this will most likely be the last time I prune, cut, and snip away at these old beauties.

I probably won’t see the blooms next summer.

There is a small heaviness in my heart.

I have enjoyed tending and caring for not just the roses but the fruit trees, the large magnolia trees, the camellias, and much much more.

The garden, when I took over, was in a state of disrepair. But with love and care over many seasons, it has developed a new life.

I fear that new owners may not care for both the soil and soul of the garden. But I am a steward of this season in its life.

It’s a relationship I have with wood, wind, and water—Sun, compost, and worms.

I am grieving, and I am preparing for grief.

I have grief in me. We all do.

Do you sit well with loss?

There is a time to grieve.

What if we were to say that there is a time for you to grieve. To say, ‘this is the moment for you to feel the loss.’

That sounds a bit mechanical and logical and engineered.

It also sounds quite defined. Like you can only grieve between these times, and after that, then you should be over it.

Grief doesn’t work like that, though. It can sweep up on you and catch you unawares. It can’t and won’t be controlled. Try and control it, and it will pop up somewhere else.

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us. Richard Rohr

We all, I believe, need a place, a time, and a person that says, ‘It’s ok to grieve.’

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes speaks to the naturalness of weeping and mourning.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;a time to mourn, and a time to dance Ecclesiastes 3:4

Weeping is as natural to life as laughter. Mourning is as natural as dancing.

It’s normal, natural, to be expected. It’s not to be avoided or diminished.

There is a time to feel the loss, and that is ok.

We needn’t fear negative emotions.

The feminine noun

Digging a little deeper into the passage from Ecclesiastes, we see that the Hebrew word used for time is ‘eth,’ and it is a feminine noun.

There is a softness to this expression of time. There is a proper, suitable time for everything.

It’s the welcoming embrace for when the moment is right to be in that place.

It’s not on a schedule or a timetable.  The grief moment is not organized to arrive at this train scheduled time. But more so, it’s a knowing that this season will come and go.

There is an official day when winter begins, but we all know that winter starts when it starts, and spring comes when it comes.

So we don’t rush this process. ‘Eth’ has a time of its own accord.

The pendulum swings

As I write this, I have a grandfather clock ticking away in my background.

It has a large pendulum swinging away inside of it. Back and forth, back and forth, the arc of the ball swings.

It keeps the clock ticking.

Swinging in and out.

I have noticed this about my grief load too, I swing in and out.

I have lost people to me and felt the pendulum’s swing seemingly sit in the dark zone, and then it swings away. A memory swings me back but maybe not so far. Not so deep. Over time the swings don’t go so far in and not so severe.

There is no perpetual motion machine of grief.

But I wonder what keeps some people’s grief pendulum swinging so deep for so long? Perhaps the answer is to be found in our understanding of forgiveness – ourselves and others.

Prepare for grief

How does one prepare for grief?

That’s a strange question because I think we all, to some degree, carry a load of grief with us at all times.

Those little losses, the hurts, the job redundancies, the deaths, the missed opportunities, the f

Life can wear us down, and we question if we are worthy of love. But we need to look to a deeper story going on than feelings of the present.

It was gone. Something had gone from them. And they felt it.

No longer caring about their appearance, their diet, their health. Something deep in their existence had whispered away, or at least that’s how it felt to them.

‘Did they have worth?’ they wondered. And especially were they worthy of love and self-care?

They couldn’t see anything of love or worth in themselves. Others seemed to show scant regard for them too.

They wondered if they died today would anyone come to the funeral. Would anyone say anything?

What worth would be attributed to them?

Worth is 

Worth is such a value-based measurement. So how can you measure one’s worth?

Some measure it by dollars, some by fame. Then there are the medals of achievement, contribution to society, raising a family.

Do younger people have more worth than older people?

Do certain lives #matter or have more worth than others?

How do you measure worth? How do you measure your own worth?

And what about God? How does God measure one’s worth?

But there is Amando

I remember a story from Larry Crabb in his book Becoming a True Spiritual Community.

There once was a small eight-year-old boy called Amando. Small because he had been abandoned by his mother and was dying from the lack of food. Amando wasn’t able to walk, talk or eat by himself. In addition, he had a severe mental disability.

In an orphanage, he found people who loved him and held him, and as they did, he gradually began to eat again and develop.

But when carers picked him up, his whole body would ‘quiver with joy and excitement and say, “I love you.”

Amando was a lover. 

What was his worth?

In our worldy measurement of success, fame, and value, perhaps he had no value.

But to those that held him and knew him, there was a worth that kind of celebrated true love. It was like the Christ shining through his eyes.

Amando’s shake the familiar world of worth that is based on human-based values.

Worthy of love

If I was to ask you and many others if you are worthy of love, then I am sure that I would get many well thought out logic-based answers.

Many of my Christian friends would cite scriptures and give theological answers. Books would be given to read.

Yet, good as all this is, it can leave me cold.

No one has gone to the heart, which can be like a dry, empty well.

The heart can only be entered through deep listening, not logic and law.

Perhaps you’ve been cast out of the group because of a spot on the skin – leper.

Maybe stones are being picked up to throw at you until you die.

And you pick times to come out into town so that you can avoid meeting those nasty tongued neighbors. You go to draw water when no one else is around, but you meet a man.

Now he [Jesus] had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) John 4:6-9

Jesus cut through the conventions of worthiness. Instead, Jesus would associate, connect with, pour out love to anyone thirsty.

He himself was thirsty.

It’s a pretty simple thing to give someone a drink of water isn’t it. To lower a jug into a well and draw some droplets.

I’m not sure she ever got to do this because, well, a conversation began. Perhaps the words exchanged swept them both into a moment of refreshing delight that expressed the worthiness of love.

She saw in Jesus an ‘Amando’ delight flowing towards her.

Your worth

How do you measure your worth, your worthiness to receive?