Cell Phone Substitute

As my family sat around the living room today talking about cell phones a comment was made by one of my daughter's that caught my attention in the light of my last post. She said that cell phones are very useful when you are separated from someone in the mall and you can talk with them on the phone to find each other.

As I visualized the two people finding each other after dialogging back and forth and navigating until they could see each other, I thought how silly it would seem for them to stand there in front of each other but continue to talk into their phones to each other instead of putting their phones away and talking directly face to face. Then it hit me – the phone is something like a crutch for us until we can communicate face to face.

As I thought about this more throughout the day I also decided that maybe the phone analogy is a step beyond the crutches. Crutches are generally dispensed with and not used anymore after the healing has sufficiently taken effect. But phones are not tossed into the basement just because we have met the person we were talking to. We continue to use them appropriately as needed to stay in touch with the important people in our lives and others. However, phones are still not nearly as effective in conveying what we want to communicate with others as personal presence.

This takes the last post about crutches and writing a step up. In this current analogy, phones could be equated with writing in that writing is not dispensed with just because we have met the person we were writing to. It is not as good as face to face sharing, but we cannot always live face to face with everyone we need to communicate with. So we leave notes, emails and some even still write old-fashioned letters and put those funny little sticky's on them and entrust them to the postal service.

In my case where I am at right now in my experience, I find that if I want to more effectively express to someone what I want to say in a way that will more likely avoid misunderstandings, if I write it down thoughtfully ahead of time and use that while I am talking to them it makes me feel much safer. Of course it has all the draw-backs that I noted previously, but it has it's advantages as well.

The exercise of honest writing has been helping the other areas of expression in my life become a little bit more real and open. I have been noticing that I feel a little bit more capable during a conversation to remember who I am, dialog in real time about the conversation with God and try to listen openly and actively to the other person with a view of trying to see past the words into what their heart is trying to say. Even though I am still very much a novice at this it has been more and more rewarding as I feel I am making progress in connection more to people's hearts a bit. I believe this is the direction that I must continue to move if I am to experience and participate in the family that God is gluing together with the bonds of love.

My Crutch

I always harbored a little bit of judgment, to be honest, against Moses for not trusting God to use him alone when God sent him back to Egypt at the burning bush. Moses had become so humble in the wilderness that he seemed to have crossed over to doubt in God as well to be able to use him. Moses was so insistent on coming up with more excuses to resist what God was asking him to do that finally God accommodated him by giving him a crutch in the form of his brother Aaron. Many people claim that because of this “mistake” on the part of Moses that he should share the blame for the problems that showed up later during the exodus when weak-willed Aaron assisted the people into open sin and rebellion.

In my mind I often wondered what might have been different if Moses had been willing to trust in God's power completely instead of making excuses to the point where God had to go to plan B. This secret “accusation”, you might call it, probably arises out of the subtle pride of my own unregenerate heart smugly believing that I would not be so simpering and empty of faith. I know that sounds very arrogant when actually exposed in words, but when it is just a quiet opinion hiding in a dark corner of your mind it can lurk there for years without exposure or challenge. I suppose I am not the only person who might share this secret feeling.

Anyway, that is all just background for what came to my mind this morning. As I was listening to what God was sharing with me interactively, and it was unusually very active this morning, maybe I suppose because my own heart is so much more open than “normal” because of yesterday's happenings, my mind as usual was antsy to begin organizing what was happening in my heart into another writing session. That penchant sometimes is annoying as it gets in the way of my heart being able to dialog without interference as my left brain keeps interrogating it like a pesky, obnoxious paparazzi reporter. Sometimes I have to nearly threaten it with ban on writing if it refuses to leave me alone to interact with God without all the clamor and note-taking.

Then it was like God mentioned to me that this “reporter” interfering in our quiet interaction was actually my “crutch” just like Aaron was to Moses. How embarrassing! Now I'm exposed and my little secret accusation of Moses gets turned back on me. But its true, I have to admit. I have been very vocal about my crutch, insisting that I have a very hard time expressing myself verbally but find it much easier to be honest and open about what is going on inside when I write it instead (like I am doing right now).

Of course, immediately I began justifying my crutch by reminding the Lord that crutches are a good thing while one is in the healing process, even necessary things to prevent worse injury from occurring until enough healing has taken place for us to walk and run without their use. God agreed with me on that point, but reminded me that if one clings to their crutches for too long they can become addicted to them like pain-killer drugs that have outlasted their proper use. In this case, as with any crutch, there needs to come a transition time when one has to start facing and pushing into the pain of walking without the aid of the crutch occasionally if they are ever to complete the healing process. For me that might mean the frightening prospect of learning to express myself, my true self from deep inside of me, and in real time through the more active and vulnerable channels of body functions like speaking, smiling, crying, gestures etc. that are trained to both be honest, accurate and yet held under control from extremes or unduly influenced by outside intimidation.

That is a terribly frightening proposition for my mind to even imagine that I should be asked to go there. I guess I now have a great deal more sympathy for how Moses must have felt when God suddenly insisted he leave his comfort zone with sheep that he had finally learned to handle and confront the most arrogant, powerful and threatening nation on the earth with just his connection to God and no flashy props. I don't think I can harbor my secret criticism of Moses anymore – I have my own fears to face.

So do I think it is time for me to drop my “crutch” and start running marathons? Hardly! I am still a very long way from being able to move efficiently (read, express my heart) without my crutches. Up to this point I have pretty much only been able to express myself relatively openly through the means of writing. Whenever it is required of me to present myself verbally, whenever possible I always take the time to write out my thoughts and feelings carefully and then am forced to read them.

While this has been very helpful in the accuracy of what I say, it creates some very big problems and limitations of expression. As most people know, it is very difficult to read in a way that sounds the same or is as convincing as live, spontaneous expression. It also prevents, or at least interferes with continuous eye contact which is crucial to communication of deep feelings. In addition it is very clumsy to hold a paper in one hand to read or be restricted to staring at a podium or one's lap to constantly refer to the paper or computer to see what you are supposed to be saying when your heart wants to employ all of your body, mind, heart and soul in conveying accurately and expressively and fully what you want to share with another person's heart. This became painfully clear to me yesterday during the Bat Barakah for two of my daughters. My heart was feeling very open and intensely desirous of communicating my emotions and thoughts to them even in spite of my fear of being in front of quite a number of "spectators". But the required papers to communicate what I had to say were a nuisance and greatly restricted my expressions in all the ways described above.

Unlike walking crutches, however, I suppose the crutch of writing has a very useful place even after its use as a crutch is outgrown. It does provide an entering wedge to awaken interest and establish initial connections between people as had happened even through the use of this and other people's blogs. The Bible is also in writing and is a point of contact in the use of communication between God and humanity. But if we end up getting stuck by putting more importance on the message and the tool instead of using it as a springboard to launch us into a much deeper level of communication using much more efficient means of sharing, we end up becoming stunted and crippled in our maturity, our healing, and we settle for far less intimacy than what our hearts are designed for.

I felt that yesterday was a point of exposure for my crutch and it began to create in me a deeper desire to move beyond it soon; a reminder that I should be dissatisfied and even impatient with the limitations imposed by crutches in my heart's passion for something much better and more fulfilling. People are generally drawn to those who at least appear to communicate freely without limiting themselves to just one or two channels of expression. But it takes time and readiness for people like me to grow into “skills” that were were underdeveloped earlier in life. And it also helps to have the safety and encouragement of friends who can protect and mentor such skills.

God is really the one in charge of that process so I won't attempt to figure out what that will look like for me – it never happens the way I imagine anyway. Yesterday was a step in that direction, and though there were a number of disappointments in the externals I believe that a number of us experienced more heart communication than some of us have had for many years, if ever. I know for myself that spending the past week and more attempting to listen to my heart and the voice of God more intensely, and then spending the last day in very intensive writing and heart-searching for nearly ten hours straight had a noticeable effect on my disposition and spirit following this event. I am almost afraid to talk about it for fear that it may evaporate too quickly in the cacophony of talk and analysis.