The Third Prayer

The First Prayer for the Third Chapter

Great Spirit and guide, I need you to teach me the language of journeying. Please break my gaze on the horizon and open my eyes to what is happening around us all. I am like almost all human beings in my desire to see outcomes. Day after day, I have searched for the procedure that would guarantee these goals. My goals were honorable, even altruistic, and came from a heart that wanted to do right and build strong relationships but my love for procedure has brought me again and again to desperation and hopelessness because I become lost in occurrences and managing every effect. I have lost sight of my practices by trying to turn them into strict disciplines and struggled with the emergent because it appears to me as a calamity! Make or Restore Faith in processes for me, Holy One. I know that I should close gaps in my life but my timelines are always too short because I crave resolution. Take me away from this anxious life of expectancy and into a life of discovery. Teach me to be attached to you and to love you above all things and people so that you can bless my ways of being rather than the products of my work.

For so long, these thoughts have been contradictory and counter-intuitive to my mind. I have prayed for consistency and seen myself failing repeatedly to bring about outcomes. Even as I study this chapter on being mindful, the changes in my mind expose more changes needed. Help me to embrace this and to let go of resolution. Help me to see how my strong desire to do things rightly and completely takes me away from mindfulness, of course, but also your ideas of what is right and complete, most of which are beyond my comprehension. Teach me to be completely engaged in practice even though I have spent a lifetime striving for results. Teach me a way so new and I pray with all my heart, asking in your many names, that you would indeed bless the results in spite of me. Nevertheless, teach me not to become desperate and discouraged when terrible outcomes come my way. Instead, help me to look back coolly and reflectively on both the happenings and my actions so I can improve my practice.

Help me to catch the slide into darkness, as this book suggests, but also note my new thoughts: I have feared the darkness so much that I became a darkness hunter. Instead, teach me to be a light-pursuer. Meet me in process and hold me in Your arms, my one-and-only Creator.

Amen

The Fifth Lie

I am not a musician. What I do is just a hobby, something done for recreation. I can hardly even justify the time I use; it would be better if I could play an instrument that didn't require so much physical skill so I did not have to waste time on it every day...
LIE

Throughout December, I stayed away from the trumpet. I was actually doing okay. I thought I would just pick-it-up again later, when I really deserved to spare the time. It was the first of three months on this visa and I could not have anticipated the place I would find myself by month three. I have resumed playing and brought myself close to the levels I maintained before I left for my mission, give or take a little.

When I left for college, I dropped my practice habits. Music was not central to my career path anymore, even though I wanted it to be. I was not good enough; I could not be the superlative trumpet player when I could not even make the school of music so I did not want to be a trumpet player anymore at all. I almost chuckle to know how I started playing again: an alcove under a bridge beckoned me! It should come as no surprise that I play in a limestone cave these days-- and love it.

...though I miss those Michigan rivers, both the Red Cedar and the Grand. I wish that the neighbor had not complained about me. Part of me wants the roof-top, again...

The judge says I missed my chance. Does that not just figure? The judge in me says I missed my chance to be relevant as a musician and so I should go be relevant at something else--and I inevitably fail at the other thing because my soul is too drained.

The victim says I suck. The victim in me knows all the ways I suck at any particular moment. I think I mostly shed the victim right after some girl from Muskegon stomped on my heart. "I don't give a ____ what I sound like. I FEEL like ____ and this is all that seems to work..."

Truth: First of all, I don't suck. Let's just get that out of the way. Give me long enough, I will play by ear. Hand me piano music, I can transpose it on sight. When no one is looking, I improvise a little. My tone and expression improve with age, even if my tongue is slower. I never was one of those machine-gun tongued, high-screeching players. I used to want to be one. I can play "The Nearness of You" soft and a little fuzzy~ that suits my purposes much better.

But all of that is beside the point because music is a part of my total being. I was given this gift to help me process emotions. I do not need to justify taking time to play any more than I would to write or exercise.

Not much more needs to be said: I AM a musician. Even the other musicians in the Zoughbi compound say so. ...we jam, baby...

The Second Prayer

The First Prayer for the Second Chapter:

Oh my Nurturer, I am crying out to you without reservation. I am not a super-hero and never have been. Even Jesus retreated to draw strength from you but I have dwelt close to the fire for too long. I am parched and there are so many miles and checkpoints between Bethlehem and the well in Nablus, where He offered your living water to the Samaritan woman. I miss the waters of my homeland, the contemplation of the Grand River and the comfort of Thumb Lake—even the cold invigoration of Lake Michigan.

I know that I have so many lessons to learn but I pray that you would give me the wisdom to submit and let go, even though I have forgotten the meaning of submission. I have grown as hard as the plains of اريحا [Jericho] because I live an existence of only resistance. At any moment, I will read about how your loved-ones are abused, disenfranchised, and defamed abroad. Whenever I move from one place to another, I am reminded that my relationship with Palestine can come to an end. Every time a jet flies over-head, I remember that I could be obliterated by Israel or its enemies.

Send a final wave of شباط rain, and teach me to appreciate my softening. Send شباط one time more and this time I will not blame you or the blessed month of شباط again since your waters have come to the land. Like the sting of disinfectant, you sent these times to prepare me for the healing to come. Bring the sweet scent back to اريحا . Give me الاريه الصيف to sustain me (I’m praying from my heart and that’s what came out) through this stormy weather that must occur to bring the harvest this Autumn.

But I confess that I do not know how; I am trying too hard under my own power. I need your gifts. I need time to recover. I need your very presence. I need to find a devotion that comes from affection, not piousness. I need to find a way to remember you in true worship, not with an end in mind. Draw my attention away from even the imperfections of my prayer. Bring me out of my over-thinking and help me to accept that I am beautiful even when I am imperfect and that I am responsible for my part, not for the outcomes. Most of all, comfort me during those count-intuitive moments where I feel like I have no reason to feel tired because I have not done enough.

I am so foolish Lord: I am tired from watching this conflict and NOT having something to do. I have the tiredness not of someone running but of someone on crutches, wondering when he will be able to do enough again. Please, take me away... please call me to the Sea. If there is any power in homelands, help me to find it this March in Ireland – and fill my heart with even more energy for this mission.

The Fourth Lie

I don't deserve this -- any of this; I can't be burned-out, I must be lazy. LIE

"If you're happy and you know it clap your hands" *clap clap*
[unison] "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" *clap clap*
"How does that one go?" Zoughbi asked me.
"If you're happy and you know then your face will surely show it. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands!" We did clap our hands. The chickens laid to eggs.
"Did you finally sing to them, like I told you to?"
"Look how much they love my singing! إثنين بيض"

I was not lying. Just an hour ago, I had quietly flipped the lid off of the lie above. The tricky part about this lie is that I think about it all the time. It's like the vegetable peelings waiting to be buried: "there aren't enough yet." Not enough worries and cares to justify treating myself or even giving myself a break.

Israel says they will release Khader Adnan from administrative detention in April. He broke his 60+ day hunger strike, hopefully not to be betrayed. He said his dignity was worth more than his life.

I typically wash over how the occupation makes me feel, on a personal level. I focus on collective responsibility because I feel like I have not right to be as upset as, say, Khader Adnan's family or fellow prisoners. At the same time, I get comments like "for someone with a passing knowledge of the conflict, this is overwhelming" and "I just wanted resources, you didn't need to go into such detailed analysis." I have elaborate fantasies where I am yelling at people and slamming my fists on table-tops...

I tend to forget that, even if I am not in close proximity to these crimes, I read and reflect on them constantly...

I am lying to myself. The ambient stress is getting to me and it's not because I am weak. Alex Awad, a general support missionary, took one look at me before we spoke to a group together at the Bible College. "Are you alright?"
"I'm tired, lately..."
"Maybe you should go to the Galilee for a few days."
"They cleared me to go to Ireland for ten. Visa renewal. Then I dance my way in again, God-willing."
"Enjoy it. Really, do enjoy it," said Alex with some concern.
How do I not feel spoiled, going to Ireland, when Khader Adnan is in administrative detention without a trial and voluntarily not eating? And what about Mustafa Tamimi who died at Nebi Saleh (bled-out while his ambulance was delayed at a check-point) -- that was the time I almost cried on the bus. I shoved it all inside, again, and after that day the winter got colder and colder. At the missionary meeting yesterday, Janet brought-up the ambient stress levels again. There is never any one thing that we can point to but all of us feel it. Today, I came to believe that it really is a spiritual drain -- as if frustration has reached critical mass in the community as a whole and it passes like a radiation cloud from Jenin to Hebron... ...what if we lived in Gaza?!

I took it easy at work. When I came home, I played for a while and had dinner. After dinner, though, my mind drifted back to one of my over-the-top e-mails. I argued with ghosts until I sat down to pray. My meditation was filled with static.

"What did I do wrong?"
"I took it easy today, why do I feel like this?"
"...I miss sharing my everyday things..."
"If I could just jump in Lake Michigan once."
"But my life is so good! Life is really good, in spite of..."
"...or jump into Fiona [05 Sunfire] and roll down the windows"

My evening reading session was barely tolerable -- "The Prophetic Imagination" is normally just what the doctor ordered but I struggled to stay awake. My six-hour nights of sleep leave me sorely missing the weekend. I reminded myself, however, that I had some self-care time coming: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

...half-way through chapter one, I was done. I didn't want a Swedish novel -- I wanted to buy something from iTunes. I had "Whisper & a Clamor" stuck in my head, though I hadn't heard it in over six-months. Why?

So, I treated myself:

"A Whisper And A Clamor" (By Anberlin)

Growing tired of bedside resolve
Public display of depression
Something's got to give now
Something's going to break down
I grow tired of writing songs
While people listen but never hear what's really going on now
Tell me what's so wrong now

Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering
Clap your hands tonight
Hear what the silence screams
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight

For most who live and breathe
Hell is never knowing who they are now
Tell me who you are now
Finally safe from the outside trapped in what you know
Are you safe from yourself? Can you escape all by yourself?

Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering
Clap your hands tonight
Hear what the silence screams
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight

It's not the lies that you sing
But what the silence will scream
It's not the lies that you sing
But what the silence will scream
It's not the lies that you sing
But what the silence will scream

Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering
Clap your hands tonight
Hear what the silence screams
Clap your hands
Clap your hands now all ye children
Clap your hands all ye children
There's a clamor in your whispering tonight

The judge says my stress levels are not high enough and I have not produced enough. I can suck it up and be even tougher.
The victim says I am a burnout by nature and not by circumstances. I don't deserve to be galvanized -- or given $2 grand by churches in West Michigan.

Truth: I am Mega-Man -- and I am tired of taking all this ticky-tack damage. I demand energy capsules.

...so, I downloaded a couple more songs. Rock-on.
.

The Third Lie

To be excellent is definitive evidence that I am of worth, whether my achievement is superlative in degree or precision. I must be remarkable at all times. LIE

When I attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, a unit director (head-counselor) once told me that "we always remember the good ones -- and *sigh* the bad ones." I replied, "Wow, it sucks to be mediocre!" He chuckled but I wish he had not. That was typical of my attitude from third-grade upward.

I have given this lie the classification of "Root/ Time & Achievement" in my mini taxonomy of lies. In the first two days of Lent, God revealed that my compulsion to play catch-up and be product oriented were stumbling blocks. That still left the question of why I was so motivated to do those things in the first place. Excellence, of course. The feeling of excellence was ubiquitous to me in my school days and fleeting ever since. It is, indeed, a long story and an old old lie in my life...

The judge-form of this demon is at work all the time, either directly or by delegation. The judge says there is something wrong if I lack aptitude, especially at anything central to my identity. The inherent worth of my every component is measured by its excellence for being noteworthy, preferably superlative. To make a long story short, my activities of late should have quenched the judge. My boss is a great man and, though he doesn't praise me daily, he has said nice things. BISHOPS love me. My family is unbelievably proud. Old friends send me encouragement. It appears that I crawled out of the hole I was in during my AmeriCorps service.

None of that had any effect because the VICTIM form of the demon had a gangster-style grip on my situation. It's pretty twisted. I am not superlative enough in my OWN MIND and I am just begging for the world to see my shame. I've failed and I'm looking for the causes. In fact, as long as I am failing at being excellent I might as well be VILE, says the victim. If I am going to constantly berate myself I might as well berate myself for something truly dark. Above all, the victim embraces the ubiquitous sense of SUCKING. This smoothes the cognitive dissonance between the compliments and my actual sense of deficit.

If all this sounds crazy that would be because *checks his notes* it is INSANE. I became a maelstrom -- I could not close my eyes without the room spinning around me. My drive to be supreme fed into all the other lies, too -- and more of them promise to surface. Yet, this is the big one: fresh-squeezed fruit-juice from Eden, ladies and gentlemen. Supremacy or bust. Recipe for the Fall.

How perfect is the rise of Christ? How appropriate is it that I ran into this lie on Ash Wednesday? From ashes I came and to ashes I will go. That does not mean I am worthless. Ashes are made of Carbon. Think of all the things God can do with something as simple as a carbon molecule. Yet, I was really brought full-circle when I stumbled across Luke Chapter 4. The temptation on the mountain has always been a favorite of mine but it took on a new lustre in light of this morning's revelation.

Jesus is tempted with three things. None of them are decadent or blood-thirsty sins. Those sins of action are derivative from the sins that hold us prisoner in our hearts. Christ is tempted first to gratify himself, last to become invincible, but in the middle to become supreme. Everyone with a high-chrisology, say it together "Jesus IS supreme".

...now He is but he did not do it with empire, as his tempter suggested. After his time on the mountain, he goes into the process of ministry -- which is not always gratifying, is a serious threat to his mortal life, and is a far-cry from the royal-line from which everyone expected their Messiah to emerge.

To bring a long-thought to a short conclusion, I believe that Jesus comes from the prophetic-line. When he was transfigured, David and Solomon were noticeably absent: it was Moses and Elijah who appeared to him.

Again, to bring long thoughts to short conclusions, I made a confession to my colleague today:
"I believe that I am for my mission and my mission is for me." I am not the 'best' missionary. It is not the 'best' mission. It is the right mission for the right missionary. As I am healed, I offer more. Symbiosis.

...and my thoughts go on and on... which is another topic. I seem to be gaining Wisdom!

The First Prayer

My former spiritual director, Gerry, recommended a book called "Riding the Dragon". It was obviously clairvoyant of him because the book is designed to help those who help others in difficult situations. Of course, I forgot I had it. I was ready for a re-read ...

I decided to read each chapter three times on three consecutive mornings. The first morning, I prayed. The second morning, I wrote a hand-written journal entry about what caught my attention. On the third morning, I wrote a prayer to share:

Prayers for ‘Riding the Dragon’

The First Prayer for the First Chapter:

Our dearest and only Creator, we want to sense the marvels of your presence in our world. Yet, as your Son Jesus told us in the parable of the sower, worries and cares come-up like weeds to choke the fruit of believers. When our gardens are crowded, every plant becomes a weed to its neighbor. Our peace is disturbed by these many campaigns: for excellence, against injustice, and in the name of cordial relations. Kitchi Manitou, help us to exhale and draw a new breath from your essence. Through your Kairos Spirit –the sense of right-timing—teach us to locate the peace that is indigenous to our unique hearts and help it to flourish and proliferate. Lend us the patience needed to cultivate each gift.

In your many names, we ask you to hold tight to us when the emotions of our growth process become overwhelming – teach us not to hold that poison inside. Still, hold us equally close when we have gone to our hiding places in an attempt to normalize our struggle and, thus, shy from the fears and doubts that accompany our evolving Calls in life. Give us the grace to, lovingly, question ourselves when others doubt our endeavors and the freedom to take or leave their comments in a spirit of discernment. We acknowledge that we need divine perseverance not just from determination but through patience and centering. We acknowledge you as a God in-process with us, or else our imperfections would be too disgusting. Prune our unrealistic and misguided expectations, first for ourselves and then for others. Help us to be moved more by compassion than conviction, more by the Almighty than by achievement, and more by the beautiful than the brutal. Take what we thought was only dirt and raise bushel after bushel of flowers from this darkness.

I love you,

In all Your Holy names I pray,

AMEN.

The Second Lie

The overall vision for Lent will have to come-together in pieces, for you as well as for me. I know that I exchange equally with my Mission in Palestine, which is to say that I exist in symbiosis with the Call I was given. It is for me and I am for it. As I learn and become stronger I, likewise, return the investment that has been made in me...

...but it is a process. I paid lip-service to the concept of being process oriented long-ago as a writing consultant. Yet the core of the second-lie remained intact:

The second lie: the process exists for its outcomes; to be process-oriented is ultimately to see the returns of focusing on that process.

It was no wonder that I continued to struggle with being process-oriented when, as a matter of fact, I was not process-oriented. My outcome-oriented basic assumptions had actually co-opted the idea of process-orientedness, domesticated it, and ultimately rendered it a peek-a-boo version of the same lie. Instead of being overtly focused on outcomes, I would focus on the process for a while and take an occasional peak at the outcomes.

This demon seems to appear equally in judge and victim form. In the former case, I keep intermittently doing mental checks of my work, even while I nurture the faux process-orientation. Conversely, I became dismissive of achievements that did not seem to correlate with my chosen process or came without enough suffering. In effect, this fake process-oriented attitude is worse than being strictly product-oriented ~ and I am not the least bit surprised. When you kick a demon out, it comes back with friends.

In victim-form, I located disruptions to peg my perceived under-achievement. These external factors explained and rationalized the missing achievements but, additionally, the damage done to relationships. I sustained the belief that if only the RIGHT process or circumstances were present, the desired outcomes would surface. Again, this was worse than what I began with because I too frequently attacked processes that might be natural for me and spoiled them.

While indicators are helpful, they exist for the sustainability of the process. The process exists because of natural expressions interacting – to be fully engaged in the process is to be free from the need for enduring evidence. It is not healthy to check the process against what occurs because there are too many factors at work; outcomes are for God to manage. The trick with this antidote is that I have applied process oriented methods with product oriented wishes at heart. When the desired outcomes fail, the process dies too. To celebrate life in Wi’am will be the only way to be at peace and that peace will be a greater gift than my achievement. This is another huge revelation that will take time to cement. I wondered for a moment why it had taken me this long to get here but I reminded myself of the first lie and let the matter drop. Now that I know, I have all lent and beyond to recalibrate with God's help.

We need to take a moment and connect this to a twin lie, which is that there is a need for completion in every endeavor. That subject will deserve its own treatment, eventually, but I need to strike at something while the iron is hot:

I thought about staring-down a bulldozer recently. There are some selfish reasons I didn't feel like being alive that day but the end itself was not selfish: it would have consummated the purpose that called me to Palestine. House demolitions. Perhaps I save someone's home for one more day. Perhaps I am crushed beneath the tread of a Caterpillar and become bad-press for Israel. Done. Complete. Perfect. Halas. ...but superior to my imperfect but continuing ministry of anti-normalization? I talked to four Methodist groups over the past two weeks ~ some people promised to put pressure on their tour company to visit MORE LOCAL PROJECTS*. My sloppy, continuing work is so much better for God's purposes than the perfect martyr's ending.

I am blessed to have shared my death-wish with my boss. He gave a knowing nod and, far from scolding or even lamenting my feelings, offered this:

"We love to celebrate life here..." <--sounds like some real process-oriented thinking. Don't just not-die... keep LIVING. ing ing ing

*as opposed to the "Stones and Bones!" tours that give plenty of chances to stick our heads in the sand...