Turning the Page

It’s an isolated world, well, sort of, but it’s one that needs courage and compassion if we are going to create connection.

Today as I write this, is it our first day of mandatory nationwide lockdown in New Zealand due to the spread of the Corona Virus. People have been told to stay at home. There is an eerie quietness to where we live. The motorway a few kilometers provides no hum.

Two words keep coming to my thinking: courage and compassion.

I think of all those who hold positions of authority in our world. The courageous decisions they have had to take. Closing borders, shutting down economies, enforcing lockdowns. Some of the leadership decisions were not made in time; some decisions were made well.

There is also the courage required in you and me in our everyday lives. We face the issue, and we do the right thing. We do the best we can.

The word courage has its roots in the Latin word cor, which literally means “heart.”

People all over the world may well be losing heart at the moment, losing their sense of courage. Seeing the overwhelming horror of this pandemic can cause a degradation of the soul—a whittling away of our life.

Courage is needed by all to reach out to our neighbor and say you’re not alone.

We’re not going to get everything right. Somethings we do in this world war will be successful others will fail. Will we be compassionate towards the leaders who will get it wrong?

Will you be compassionate towards yourself in this time of crisis.

Self-compassion absorbs the failures and forgives the self. It says you’re doing ok and that you’re loved.

Compassion is the venue where we can sit with each other and say you’re not alone.

About eight years ago, I used to do door-to-surveying for a research company. I was given a specific neighborhood and told to survey every third house.

There were also many other rules to my surveying to make sure I got a very accurate representation of the people living in the neighborhood. The one thing that surprised me the most was the number of people living by themselves.

In the latest census, New Zealand has  405,000 people living by themselves.

Now add in the fact that due to the pandemic, you can’t have your regular social activities where you can mix and mingle, and you’re heading towards more anxiety and depression.

We need each other for good mental health. We were never meant to be alone. We may get through this through physical isolation, but we will be poorer and sicker if we don’t have a social connection.

In my gardening business, I work for many people who live by themselves. Age, illness, disability all in some way contribute to their need for someone to come and prune, weed, and tidy.

So I am going to keep in connection with them. I have compassion for their potential social isolation and the courage they will need to face into this. I’m going to ring them and have a chat.

Who in your social network needs you to connect with them?

It could be a phone call, an email, a meeting over the internet. I recently sent out an offer (totally free) to all my email subscribers to have a chat or video call with me on the internet. If you want to chat, email me. [email protected]

It’s been so good to meet many of them for the first time. For me to get to know them and their situation. They learn a bit more about me too!

Who, in your life, needs your connection? It might be the stranger, the neighbor, the friend, and even the enemy.

Remember, you’re not there to necessarily solve their problems. What most people want is to know someone is there for them.

• Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging. Mary Daly

1. What can we do in this time of social isolation to enable a safe social connection?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Toa Heftiba

Some people can be difficult to live at peace with. To live peaceably and in harmony requires each person to do the work on themselves.

Some people are like bottomless holes. You give and give, and they take and take.  They raise a storm, and you’re expected to bring peace.

Instead of taking self-responsibility, they blame and shame. They make others a scapegoat for their failings.

I know of someone who would do everything they could to try and please their angry husband, but nothing seemed to satisfy. It was an endless giving out. 

Eventually, she realized that nothing she did would bring perfect peace and harmony. That he was responsible for his own life and the war raging within himself. 

So often we think we need to serve others to the point of sacrifice. That it’s our job to fix other’s problems. That we are to ‘turn the other cheek,’ ‘go the extra mile,’ and give them the shirt of our back. 

Living at peace with some people is near impossible because some people are difficult and they are not at peace within themselves.

Whatever you do, it won’t be enough.

For harmony to exist, all parties need to be in tune. 

Once I was playing my guitar with a group of others, and someone said to me, ‘I think you’re out of tune.’

I played a chord, and sure enough, one of my strings was not in perfect pitch. It was out of tune. That single string was destroying the beauty of the music.

I quickly tuned the string and got back to the music.

If you’re an experienced musician, you can quickly tell if someone is out of tune.

All the other strings may be at the right pitch, but if one string is not at the correct tension, at the perfect pitch, then it will ruin the music. There will be no beautiful music. No harmony.

If guitar strings were people, they might well say to that out of tune string ‘You’re out of tune, and you need to do something about it.’

You cant tune yourself, but in submission, to God, the strings can be tightened or loosened. Once it is in perfect pitch, then beautiful harmonious music can be played and enjoyed by all.

Paul, in Romans 12, writes these words.

If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Romans 12:18

You can only do so much to live peaceably with others. They need to do their bit too. They need to be willing to be tuned by God.

You may love them deeply and want to make their life better, but their life is their responsibility.

You can only do so much. You can’t meet their every need.

It may not even be possible to live peaceably with some. Paul points to this when he says, ‘If it is possible.’ Some people are going to remain ‘out of tune.’

1. Keep in-tune yourself

We all have difficult people in our lives, but with prayer, patience, and staying in the zone of what we can do, we can find a way through.

Mental Health is ... learning what is your control and what is notCLICK TO TWEET

• Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart. St. Francis of Assisi

1. Who are you trying to live at peace with?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Roberta Sorge    Uriel Soberanes

What your neighbor needs now is love but they often encounter indifference. We need to find a way to listen to them and tell them they are loved.

I wonder at times that under depression and anxiety, there is a deep unmet need for love. That many are love-starved and are unaware of it.

There are a lot of lonely people; maybe you’re one of them. I want to tell you that you are loved, but ‘Love’, I believe, is the most dangerous word in the world.

When heard, it can be twisted into all sorts of meanings and intentions that were never meant. Romanticized, sexualized, it can take on a life of its own.

I love my wife, my family, and my friends. Sounds right and proper, but what about saying ‘You are loved’ to someone who is struggling with depression or anxiety. Someone is psychotic?

Would they hear it within the intention that you are seeking to speak from?

Everyone needs to know they are loved.

Why are you loved?

That’s quite a profound question, and for many people, they may dispute that they are loved at all.

They have tied love into being the result of a performance.

When they do these certain activities or behaviors, then they will be loved. If they look a certain way, say the right words, cook the perfect meal, earn a certain amount of money, then they will be loved. If they follow the rules then they will experience love.

They put the power of hoped-for love into other’s hands. Always risky and fraught with potential manipulation and servitude.

You are loved because you are you.

Today you are You, that is truer than true.

What would be the perfect behavior of love? How would you know 100% that you are loved?

I think it would be that you feel that you have been genuinely listened to. That you are acknowledged and known.  That the lover, the one who is listening, has not been indifferent in any way to your heart.

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. Elie Wiesel

Indifference kills relationship.

It’s those words of ‘whatever’, ‘I don’t care’, ‘tell that to someone who cares’, ‘can’t be bothered’ that will shoot the already wounded.

The greatest lover of all time, Jesus, was never indifferent to the needs of those whom others were indifferent to.

He stepped into the world of shame and failure and had love feasts with the outcasts. Those on the sideline and not in the game. Those discarded and invalidated by others.

As I write this, I keep thinking of a picture by David Hayward and the story it comes from.

It comes from the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. John 8:1-11  She was about to be stoned for supposed crimes. Can you imagine the terror and anxiety flooding her?

Love reached out and saturated her life.

For every broken hurting person, I would like them to hear and know that they are loved.

I wonder what would happen if when we exchanged words of farewell such as ‘Bye,’ we instead said the words ‘You are loved’.

Perhaps it would cause people to think about the vast reservoir of love that is contained around them at all times.

This week as I write, it has been one year since the tragic killings in Christchurch. A man stormed into two Christchurch mosques and with a semi automatic rifle slaughtered men, women, and children.

Were we indifferent to the pain?

No, love flooded and burst out all around this broken community. Love conquered hate. Indifference never got a look in.

Around every one of us, and especially around you, is a vast untameable lake of love, and it needs to be taped into.

As a child, I learned that I was loved by Jesus because ‘The Bible tells me so’.

That’s a left-brained, logic-based, cold fish approach to knowing something.

I want to know that love with the depth of experiential awareness.

Full emotional awareness like being held and embraced in the depth of a storm. Having a waterfall of powerful flowing love washing and pounding against me.

I can’t experience that love without you, and you can’t experience it without me.

There has to be a crossing over the divide of rugged independence and self-reliance to the truth of interdependence.

Why does it have to take a funeral before people come and express their gratitude and love for someone?

Does it have to be mass murder before the community says we love?

I want to know I am loved and have worth beyond my role, my functionality, and strength or beauty. Can you tell me I am loved?

Someone you are going to meet today needs to hear that they are loved. Don’t be indifferent to Spirit (Holy) when the prompt comes.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. C.S. Lewis

I’m bankrupt without love.

• The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.

• There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ. Pascal

1. What do you think would happen if we regularly told others ‘You are loved’?

Your Failures in Life Need Love

God’s Love can Heal a Heart Full of Anxiety

To the Power of Being Known

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Gage Walker

We need to share the pain of life with someone, but what happens when the confessor, the one we are exposing our heart to, goes rogue. We need to be careful with who we share our heart with.

What they thought was being said in private was now being passed around like appetizers at a dinner party. Everyone had a munch and nibble, then passed the plate on for another’s perusal.

They were locked down now. Having exposed their heart, they had got hurt and had made a vow never to be open again.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

But something had died within them. It was a willingness to trust and, therefore, to know love and give love. They allowed others to come only as close as they felt safe. Functionality, not intimacy.

All because the person they confided with couldn’t hold their pain,  confusion, and mystery. The confessor may have had the occupation where confidentiality was paramount, but they weren’t the person to hold or contain others.

Some observations from a hurt healer.

We want everyone to be safe containers, ones that don’t leak, but in reality, not everyone is equipped to cope. I think it’s a calling, a specialty known to only a few.

Some aspects of being safe for others can be learned, but for the most, I believe its a gift, even a spiritual gift given by God and enabled and sustained by Spirit (Holy).

I think I have it because it seems that people seem to open up to me. They download, and it doesn’t seem to stick emotionally to me. The things I have heard would possibly scar and traumatize others.

I am always amazed and grateful for counselors, therapists, pastors, and others who have been equipped to know how to contain others’ pain. To let others vomit out their heart and know what to do with it themselves.

If you’re in a role, such as a pastor, and you can’t cope with the vomit, then please find someone who can. It’s not everyone’s calling to hear the deep pain. Learn how to politely and gently support to the degree that you can,

When the pain gets locked up in the soul, it doesn’t make good wine. It makes vinegar. Acid and acrid, the pain eats away at life. Love is lost, and in that ‘airless coffin,’ the soul will suffocate itself.

There are pains we need to ‘get off our chest.’ Interesting little saying, isn’t it. To ‘get something off your chest.’ The chest holds the heart and the lungs. The organs that feed and sustain the flow of life in the body. When we have unshared pain, it can feel like a weight pressing down and constricting our ability to breathe and beat.

I am not sure who said it. It may have been Martin Luther, but I once heard that he said that the greatest loss from the reformation was the loss of the confessional box.

I’m not saying that having a confessional box in the way Roman Catholicism does is ideal, but to have normality to the act of safe confession may allow many of us to breathe easier and live lighter.

I’ve shared with people some of my hurt and then felt betrayed by them. What was shared in private was told to others.

Then there are those that when we share something deep, it’s treated with disdain and mocking. They may minimize it and scoff.

Problem-solving is another tactic people use. ‘Let me tell you what to do’ when all you want is to be known.

Its foolishness and requires forgiveness. They don’t know what they are doing, and if they do know what they are doing and there is a sense of malicious intent to their actions, then double foolishness is going on.

I am continually brought back to what a wise old confessor told me to do. ‘Lay it at the foot of the cross’.

On the cross, Jesus doesn’t ask for vengeance. He asks for them to be forgiven in their foolishness. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

It seems like I have a well-worn path to that place. Whenever I feel the bile of hurt rise up, I ask for help to find my way there.

It’s foolish to keep exposing your heart to unsafe people with the hope of getting a different response.

Yes, I know, in an ideal world others would be able to hear our heart and not go rogue with it, but it’s been a long time since we’ve left the garden (Garden of Eden). That place where nakedness was the norm and love flowed with unconstrained abandonment.

So we are careful with who we share both our darkness and our light with. Not everyone is safe, and not everyone is good. Everyone has an element of foolishness in them.

We test the waters. We watch and observe. There is a prayer for direction to the safe burden bearers. Negotiations take place, and we ask questions.

Trust is built up over time and through shaky experiences, and maybe, just maybe we find a safe confessor.

Mental Health is ... finding a safe person to be vulnerable to, and being that safe person to someone else.CLICK TO TWEET

• Just because you forgive someone does not mean you must trust them – that has to be earned back again. David Riddell

1. What would be the top qualities of a safe confessor?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Clem Onojeghuo

Our brains can be so busy that it can feel like a concussion, but we can help the brain recover by finding some still waters to rest next by.

When I wrote the first draft of this post, I was sitting next to a small stream. There wasn’t much water flowing through it because it is summer and we haven’t had a good rainfall for over 60 days.

But still, the trickle provided life to many. There were some Kokopu (a native New Zealand fish), some birds that would refresh and wash, insects sipping, and tree roots merging with the waters. The water was also being pumped out to beautiful gardens and orchards. Water troughs were being kept full for thirsty horses.

Now I was being replenished. I invited my self to be still and listen for the stillness of the flowing waters. Something outside of my control.

However, just 20 meters away from this little stream was a busy road. There were moments that all I could hear were cars and trucks carrying people to their day’s work, school, and busyness. Then quiet would return, and the sound of still waters would flow to my ears.

Do you have a place where you can listen to water?

Perhaps its a stream, or the lapping of waves on a beach. It could be a water fountain in a garden. I have seen a small water fountain in a waiting room and thought how relaxing it was to watch the movement and listen to the flow.

In Psalm 23 David the shepherd writes

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

David didn’t write ‘still water.’ ‘Still water’ can be dangerous water. A place where weed, algae, and all sorts of nasties can grow. A good shepherd would not allow his flock to drink from stagnant water.

David uses the word ‘waters’ implying a movement of molecules of water. There is a flow, even if it is unseen. Under the surface, there is a current. When it comes to an obstacle, it moves around and over.

The water flows over little rocks and pebbles and creates sound waves that reach out for ears to hear. There is a rhythm, a wave vibration, an unpredictability to the music.

Our brain is both strong and fragile. In sports such as Soccer/ Football, Grid Iron, Rugby, even my beloved Cricket, blows to the head can cause long term damage to the brain.

Then some suffer concussion through knocks and bumps. A fall, a car crash, a walking into a piece of timber on the back of a truck, which is what I did yesterday. Ouch and bruise and pain.

What about the concussion injuries on your soul and heart that you have experienced throughout your life?

I was reading an article the other day about concussion recovery. It gave five pieces of advice on how to rest your brain

1. Take time off work and/or school.

They were encouraging the reader to avoid activities that required demanding mental processes, such as reaction time, memory, or multitasking. It was an invitation to sit by still waters.

I want to have more refreshing moments in my life where I can recover from the concussing effects of cell phone notifications, political debates, and being on the road above the stream.

I want to sit with the water of life.

Anyone who is thirsty may come to me!

Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst—not ever.

To get to that stream, I had to climb a fence, push through some trees, and find a patch in time to sit. There was intentionality in seeking the water.

What can you do?

I don’t know where you live. You might live in a place where accessing free-flowing water is quite easily achievable.

Perhaps you live in a place where it is dry and arid and flowing water is challenging to find. You might like to listen to stream from an App on your phone or get a small water fountain for your home.

I would encourage you to pursue listening to the still waters and allow them to flow around the circuity of your brain. You won’t be short-circuited.

Mental health is ... finding time to sit and rest by the still watersCLICK TO TWEET

• Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee. Confessions by Augustine of Hippo

1. Where are some ‘still waters’ nearby that you could go and be still?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Oscar Nilsson

Being a caregiver over a long period of time can be tough going, but there are some things that those on the long haul do well. We need to applaud the long haul caregiver.

There are some people that I want to stand and applaud.

I love the game of cricket and when a player has done exceptionally well the crowd will rise one by one and cheer their performance.

The player may raise his bat in acknowledgment, but there is no theatrics of tearing off his shirt, doing cartwheels or any other self-aggrandizement.

After the applause, he takes his bat and faces the next ball.

Some of the people who read this blog are those that need a slow and deliberate clap of applause.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

They are the ones who have been on the long haul mission of caring for someone. It could be a spouse, parent, child, family member, a friend.

There may be a disability, an addiction, an illness. But over a long period of time have stuck close and carried at times a load that nobody ever sees.

It can be tough, unthankful work—a place of giving up sacrificially some of their dreams and desires for the sake of another.

Perhaps you know someone like this. It may even be you. What observations have you made? Email me with your comments.

1. They have relationships with a few supportive others

God sets the lonely in families. Psalm 68:6

This is a place where you learn about yourself.

Much like how a pearl is grown within an oyster.

‘An irritating substance (like a piece of grit) enters the oyster, prompting the animal to start protecting itself. It does so by secreting a lustrous organic material known as nacre to encapsulate the irritant. Once the irritant has been covered with enough layers of nacre, it’s like the irritant never existed. In that nuisance’s place, a precious organic gem forms’.Source

Going the distance is a ministry of grit and grace, and I stand and applaud you. 

If you know someone who is a long haul caregiver, buy them a coffee, send them a card. In someway acknowledge them and what they are doing. 

• Be there for others but never leave yourself behind Dodinsky

1. What observations have you made about those caring for others over a long period?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Paz Arando

Plans and blueprints give us a sense of certainty, but it’s in the fog of relationships we need something more. Signposts offer us a direction, a relationship of trust, an ancient path.

I wanted him to tell me what to do. Give me advice, a plan, a blueprint, a map back to where I once was. I needed help, and I felt utterly lost.

‘I can’t give you a map, but I can give you some foggy signposts’

We all want maps, and plans don’t we. Codes and blueprints that if we follow, we will succeed. For most of life, this is how it works.

Yesterday I had a drive belt on a machine break. I pulled out the belt, went and got a replacement then put the new belt on. The machine is back working, and it felt good. I moved into the chaos and solved the problem.

I will have other problems of chaos again today. I will dig into my brains toolbox, reach for a plan, and solve the problem.

But there are areas of my life, and yours, where there are no clear plans or blueprints. We search for a map and a code but come up short.

The relationships we have with others are probably the most significant area of stress we have. How many times do a few words spoken sink us into depression, push our anxiety buttons, or fire up the coals of our anger?

So we write internal policy manuals. ‘If they do this, then I’ll do that.’ Rule books, manuals, maps, and plans all constrain the traveling relationship to mere functionality.

A few years ago, my wife and I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. This pilgrimage journey is one that millions of people have taken, but there is no map. Well, there is actually, or there could be if you wanted to find one, but instead, there are road markers with arrows.

As you walk along the well-worn path, you will come across small stone markers with an arrow and the information of how far it is to go.

If you look at the top of the signpost, you will see a blue panel with yellow lines, all pointing to one spot. The Camino has a scallop shell as a symbol of direction. All the radial points line up to one endpoint: many paths, one destination.

You will find ancient signposts on the Camino being nothing but a scallop shell chiseled into stone.

Mental Health is knowing when the map needs to be put down, and a wholehearted seeking of ancient foggy signposts needs to be embraced.CLICK TO TWEET

The Camino de Santiago is an ancient path, but there are even more ancient paths that people like you and I have walked.

Whatever you are going through in your relationships, thousands of others have been through it before.

Jeremiah, born 650 years before Christ, knew of the ancient paths. They were old even then.

Stand at the crossroads, and look,

Have you ever wept? Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. No superhero status here, but he was one that sought out the foggy signposts on the ancient paths.

It was when they said, ‘I believe in you’ and ‘I’m going to walk with you through this’ that I knew that I had found someone under a foggy signpost.

They had been there done that. They had the scars to prove they had been through the battle I was going through, and so they could be trusted.

No trite answers were given, no formulas or maps laid out. It was a sense of presence that invited me to know that I was safe and welcomed. It was intimacy – in-to-me-see.

When we grow in relationship with others who have found and want to share their foggy signposts, we form a community of fellow pilgrims. Honest and ‘dirt between the toes’ wanderers.

A trust grows not in a plan but a presence that it’s going to be ok. You’re not alone. You have fellow travelers who have found the signpost you are looking for.

You begin to drop the plans, blueprints, codes, and loyalty programs. Confidence fills your heart, and you take that one more step into the fog.

The well of Jeremiah’s tears is known to you, and you’re able to provide a sense of presence to fellow Jeremiahs.

• Genuine presence involves being genuinely myself. I can be present for another person only when I dare to be present to myself. Dr. David Benner

1. What foggy signposts have helped you?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Dipan Kumar Rout

A thought can become a belief that keeps us captive. But we can have an idea that captures us and inspires growth. We need to nurture the good and true.

‘It’s a weasel.’ The trap had caught and killed a weasel. We had noticed that some animal was eating some of the eggs in the chicken coop, so we had set out a trap. Now the culprit was caught and dead.

Weasels and other animals like possums, rats, ferrets, and stoats cause a great deal of damage to our natural wildlife here in New Zealand. Before man coming to our Islands, there were only birds. It was just one happy, chirping bird-filled land.

But with the introduction of animals such as possums, weasels, and alike it has been a war against the wild. We love our native birds and forests, and so we work hard at protecting them.

In my thought life, I have some thoughts that are like weasels. They are repetitive, destructive, and so familiar that I don’t even realize that I’m thinking them.

I can guarantee you have them or ones similar.

• ‘Nothing ever changes.’

Their weasels and they’re eating away the real beauty and power of your life. A little thought here and there, keeping you in the familiar territory where you have always thought that thought.

That thought repeated over time, mixed with emotion, becomes your truth. Its the way you see the world. Some people believe the world is flat. They feed the notion. It dominates their thinking.

It has captured them, and it has become their truth.

I want to get a trap that can catch weasel thoughts. You have it connected into the garden of your brain, and every rodent thought that passes through the neuron network are trapped.

Snared before it continues to do damage.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10:5  that we are to ‘take every thought captive to obey Christ.’

We are to grasp every thought.

Imagine yourself grasping a wriggling thought in your hand. You have it in your grip. You have caught it, and you examine it. Is this critter helpful or harmful?

It needs to be obedient, to be under submission, and not allowed to roam free and wild in your life, destroying your beauty and purpose.

Let’s flip this around. How about a thought that has captured you? Being captive to an idea.

I’ve had an idea recently that has captured my thinking. It started as an idea, just a little inkling. Then I kept feeding it and coming back to get to it. Holding it in my hands and pondering over it.

It’s about this blog, and the people it reaches, how it’s a precious thing. It’s a community, and I so enjoy how it helps so many people.

It’s an idea I want to foster, nourish, and see where it leads.

Back to our illustration about the problem we have here in New Zealand about weasels, rats, and possums.

Someone at some stage had an idea about creating pest-free zones. Small offshore Islands were made predator-free. Rare and endangered species of birds were given a home to flourish in.

Then that thought of predator-free areas gained momentum, and more people caught the dream. They were captured by the idea of things being different. Thousands of people are now involved in making New Zealand predator-free. We have a goal of New Zealand being predator-free by 2050. 

I don’t know whether we will ever become predator-free, but every step towards it is a good one.

For many struggling with a Mental Illness, there is an element of being captured by a thought of despair. That tomorrow will be the same as yesterday. That there is no hope.

Repeated time and time again through the neural networks, it can become so hardwired that it becomes like a flat earth belief system. It is your truth and all you know. It is how you see the world.

A new thought needs to take capture of you.

What anyone of us can do is to invite a good, holy thought of divine inspiration to trickle into our subconscious. We can then nourish and feed that thought. Dwell in it and let it capture us much like a beautiful sunrise or the early morning song of a bird.

God, trickle into my thinking a thought of divine beauty

For the next few moments, we invite that thought to be our calling. It grows and displaces those varmints out of the way.

What we focus on grows.

What I focus on gets me. Focus on the negatives/ challenges will always take me down. Focus on the positives/ good things will always give me hope. – From my thinking compass

Were not going to make New Zealand predator-free in the next few moments, but in the moment of today, we can do what we can do. I could order a trap for my backyard.

Let a thought captivate you and pull you towards beauty and purpose.

• Behind every despairing and fearful moment, there’s a wrong belief. Trace the lie, face the lie, and replace the lie with a new insight. D. Riddell

1. What keeps you captive?

Smelling the Roses Grows a Healthy Brain

Barry Pearman

Image Credit: Eric Ward

Many women don’t think they are beautiful.  A tarnish is over their soul. But underneath, there is a beauty that can change a world, a delight that needs to be listened for and affirmed.

There was a beauty there, and I wanted to affirm it. I could see it in the way she moved, the energy and thoughtfulness she placed into her intent. It was beautiful but tarnished.

When I said she was beautiful, it was dismissed immediately. Her tarnished thoughts had crowded in and screamed comparisonitis memes. Comparisons to Instagram models and airbrushed movie stars. The women in the clothes catalogs alway with the beautiful skin.

Fat

Have you ever noticed that on metal objects, a thin film or layer builds up on the outside. It’s a tarnish, which is a thin layer of corrosion that forms over the surface. The outermost layer is undergoing a chemical reaction.

Given enough time and the layers build up. The brightness and the ability of the metal to reflect is lost under layers of oxidation.

Did you notice the word ‘corrosion’? It eats away at the internal, creates a crust, hides the glory of what’s underneath.

To reveal the true and deep beauty of a tarnished object, those layers need to removed. Out comes some polish, something slightly abrasive and liquid.

Then with gentle but firm pressure, a rhythm is formed of working the polish over the tarnish and wiping the accumulated corrosion away.

Underneath the beauty is there. Shinning and a delight to the eyes. Alluring and dragging you in to know it more.

There is nothing more beautiful than a woman fully alive. Living without the tarnish of others oxidizing corrosive norms.

Was Mother Teresa beautiful?

We don’t have an exact number of how many women were amongst Jesus followers, but we do know that there were quite a few.

The Twelve were with him. There were also some women in their company who had been healed of various evil afflictions and illnesses: Mary, the one called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s manager; and Susanna—along with many others who used their considerable means to provide for the company. Luke 8:1-3

In such a patriarchal male-dominated society, why were so many women magnetized by Jesus?

Jesus was a safe man, and women are drawn to safe men.

True men know real beauty is something more mysterious and alluring than anything of what a movie star can cosmetically enhance.

Beauty is a movement of the soul, and we notice it when we observe well.

That sunrise was beautiful, but you have to get up early in the morning to see it.

The bird song was beautiful, but you have to still yourself long enough to hear it.

The smell of a beautiful rose is divine, but you have to stop and stoop to catch the scent.

True beauty isn’t hand-delivered to you on a plate; it must be sought out to be experienced.

Physical beauty, the tarnished perceptions, is fleeting, according to Proverbs 31:30. But there seems to be a beauty that sparkles brighter than a bunch of diamonds.

The writer of Proverbs 31, possibly a woman (King Lemuel’s Mother),  describes a beautiful woman in the categories of how she cares for her family, her creativity, industriousness, business wisdom, and generosity. She has an inner strength and dignity and gives respect to her husband and the way he moves into his world. 

I know many women like this wonder women. I don’t think they would consider themselves beautiful, because of the tarnish, but they are truly beautiful.

I want to tell more women that they are beautiful, but I fear it will be misconstrued. People might well jump to conclusions that aren’t true. The words get filtered through the tarnish.

I tell my wife, daughter, and granddaughter that they are beautiful, but even then, the tarnish might dull the impact of the words.

I see beauty, it warms my heart, and I want to move towards and affirm it, so I might well say ‘that is a beautiful thing you do.’

It doesn’t speak to the wholeness of the beauty of who they are, but it might just cut through some of the tarnish.

Affirming the sunrise, the bird-song, and the waft of beauty is a gift we can give to others. It takes intention, courage, wisdom, and observation.

It’s a practice we need to become skilled at intuitively.

• Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so too is experience in the soul of the individual. David G. Benner

1. What is beauty?

Barry Pearman

Image:David Pisnoy

Few of us know how to fully and deeply relax. The noisy neighbors can keep us from the rest we need, but when we feel safe and known, we can restore.

He almost went to sleep. That was the first observation he shared with me after a short spiritual meditation exercise we went through — silence, peacefulness, quiet focus, and a ‘stepping away’ from the noise.

He stepped away from needing to be someone and to do something into a pose of quiet acceptance.

Breathing in, breathing out. Centering the thoughts and feelings away from the past and the future to being present in the now. Right here, right now.

It’s a serious question.

For many of us, the word relax might be connected with having a day off work, kicking back, sleep in, reading a book, watching a movie. But then you’re greeted by noisy neighbors. They come knocking at your door, speaking to your mind.

• You’re not doing enough

To quell those noisy neighbors, I believe we need to feel both safe and known.

The first struggle I have observed in those that find deep relaxation difficult is one of safety.

Will I be ok if I relax? When will someone pounce? Who is going to tell me off? Maybe even the thought of ‘Will I get beaten?’ shouts fear into the awareness.

It could be the reality of their current lives. Living in a circle of abuse. But often it is the still reverberating echoes of another time.

Perhaps in those early formative years, there was a need for hypervigilance. To be always on alert for some threat.

A supposed safe place for most, the family, was a place of trauma, unpredictability.  So a pattern was formed of always being on guard.

It could be from a recent time, an abusive relationship and the cortisol trigger is finely tuned for release.

I remember when I was a pastor, people feeling so safe in my office that they went to sleep.

One of the little mottos we often adopt is ‘If it’s going to be, then it’s up to me.’

On the healthy side, its a call to self-responsibility, but the unhealthy flip side is a rugged, self-reliant independence.  Relaxing, letting go of the need to do or to be, can feel like an abandonment of responsibility.

‘If I relax, then who is going to …’

We push back at the thought of quietness because we want to be in control.

But when that fear of ‘what will  happen’ is known, understood, and embraced by someone greater than ourselves, it always includes an invitation to relax.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

In that brief moment of invited relaxation, there is an assurance that it’s going to be ok.

You can pick up the responsibilities later after being restored and rejuvenated, but for that moment of relaxation, it’s time for you.

The word ‘retreat’ is an interesting one. I remember watching old movies as a kid and hearing the cry go up ‘Retreat!’ and the cowboys or the soldiers would run away from the battle.

‘Retreat’ seems to be a failure, a giving up, a defeat.

Jesus was and is the man who knows how to relax. He also has an invitational stance where relaxation is offered in bodily form to us.

With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night. Matthew 14:23

Jesus said, “Come off by yourselves; let’s take a break and get a little rest.” For there was constant coming and going. They didn’t even have time to eat. So they got in the boat and went off to a remote place by themselves. Mark 6:31

A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it. And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! Mark 4:38-40

One of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly, was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder. John 13:23

Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. Luke 10:39-40

Jesus knew full well about the noisy neighbors. He also knew about the need to feel safe and known.

His invite is for you to retreat to a place where you feel safe. It could be a beach, a forest, a river, a special chair you have, a pillow to rest your head on. There is also an invite to rest your head on his chest and sit at his feet.

He wants you to know that he knows. He knows about the demands of your life. He knows the noisy neighbors, and he offers refreshment for the journey, that it’s going to be ok. That in this moment of relaxation, he can provide wisdom.

You might like to read more about this. There are some links at the bottom of this post.

I give you permission to relax.

Few of us know how to fully and deeply relax. The noisy neighbors can keep us from the rest we need, but when we feel safe and known, we can restore.

• We go to sleep, and God begins his work. As we sleep he develops his covenant. We wake and are called out to participate in God’s creative action. Eugene Peterson

1. What stops you from fully relaxing?

Barry Pearman

Image cc: Craig Philbrick