“You’ve worked so hard”

“you deserve it, God will bless you ”

“do your best and God will do the rest”

So, where have I been?

I  have been here, untangling the knots. Untangling the idea that God’s love means He will carry you to every success. Shaking off  every ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me’.

My disease;  these spiritual half truths that reeked of the prosperity gospel, that left me in need of the true physician.

I heard them all so often. Perhaps my failure meant the opposite; that this was my fire and brimstone.

I write to you today, seventh year, not as Dr. Boughdady, but in the knowledge that God loved me so much that He let me fail.

The struggle from bitter to better, from self depreciation to self compassion, that is leading me through a journey of acceptance, so that the image, or who I ought to be, can greet who I really am.

“by the grace of God I am what I am” 1 Corinthians 15:10

“One of the greatest dangers in the spiritual life is self-rejection” – Henri Nouwen

To acquire the mind of Christ means to learn to see myself as He sees me. Sometimes, we think that if we beat our chests hard enough, if we beat ourselves up hard enough, it will make us humble. But, the truth is the opposite. The truth is, real humility is actually recognising who we really are. It is the courage to hear a greater Voice call us His beloved, His successful sons and daughters.

Above all else, failure has been a gift; a very revealing gift. Acquiring the mind of Christ means recognising in the mirror the woman who met her suffering with bitterness and despair. I had read many spiritual books about suffering that I expected to wake up joyful the next morning. But this is no synaxarium story. I found that I was not all who I thought I was; “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind” Ephesians 41:4, and that I was literally tossed by this wind.

So failure has been a door, a door of repentance, so that He can recreate me from the ashes of this fire.

“we must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us” – C.S Lewis

Failure helps us shake off the veil of perfection, that we may stand honestly before Him. Failure allows us to grow in compassion for ourselves and for others who are struggling, because we remember how hard things have been for us.

“Joseph was with God and He was successful” has never rang so true, because often we focus on the gift and not the gift-Giver. In the story of the wedding of Canaan we rejoice at the new wine, but we completely miss that in providing the wine Christ was declaring Himself to be the Bridegroom, full-filling the messianic prophesies in Hosea, Songs of Solomon and Isaiah.

If I have the courage to see myself, I will learn to recognise Him in me.

If I have the courage to relentlessly stay with Him, to not run from Him, that makes me successful.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantine and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”― Sylvia Plath

Last September I had a pretty big decision to make about where I was going to accept a job. I called up the people who knew me best to get their insight, asked my father of confession for his wisdom and spoke to people working in the same field for their perspective.

Whether it’s deciding over relationships, colleges, schools or jobs, sometimes we might find ourselves with two seemingly great choices, and so we find ourselves in a dilemma. Each choice will come at a cost; each choice will have positives and negatives, and ultimately no choice will be perfect.

I’ve never been a fan of pros and cons lists – I find that life can’t be categorised that easily. However, a friend gave me advice that helped. I was told to assign a value to each point under my two options. When I started writing the values I held, I started to see that while both choices were in line with the vision I had for my life, there were some values that were more significant than others. And while one option had way more values than the other, the other which only had a couple were much more fundamental to me.

A few of the things I’ve learned this season…

“We don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you” (2 Chronicles 20:12). In the midst of his crisis, King Jehoshaphat acted by praising God. We also in the midst of our confusion and turmoil over decisions, need to learn the art laying our anxieties and restless thoughts down, being still and opening our heart in worship. The voice of the Holy Spirit can be so gentle that it’s only when we spend time in his presence that we can discern His Voice from all the noise.

Pray and learn from whatever happens on the other side. No matter what you choose, there will be struggle, and there will be trials for we know “through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Sometimes those are a result of our choices, but in the end, they will be used by God to sanctify us and purify us. Living with our eyes on eternity is important in those seasons to understand that nothing is outside of His never-ending and unfailing love and mercy. There is no such thing as Plan B or Z with Christ. He will use all for our deification; it might take us longer on certain paths but even then, all we need to do is repent, and we are restored.

There’s a principle in radiology that says even if you find the fracture on an x-ray you should keep looking for other signs because you don’t want to be blindsided. Bring your decision before the Lord in prayer and meditation but challenge yourself to be curious and look deeper into your intentions, motivations and reasons for each choice. Give yourself time, patience and space and trust that the Holy Spirit will examine you, try you and reveal what is in depths of your heart.

Sometimes God’s will is clear and other times, most times, God allows us the freedom to choose and become whoever we want, though He may certainly have a direction for you. Submission is hard as we deny our self that we may be dedicated to Another. The hardest part in all of this is asking God “Who do you want me to be?” I think of Mary, called to be Mother of God; Abraham called to be Father of Nations and the disciples called to be Fishers of Men. God revealed to them who they were in His eyes and with that promise He gave them the strength and grace to become. Sometimes we don’t know how to choose because we don’t know who God is asking us to be. That may not be a question that gets answered overnight, it needs silence and self-awareness and time alone with Him. Sometimes it’s a process – it takes making one choice faithfully, and waiting faithfully and then making another and waiting to see what is revealed. But it’s a question we all desperately need the answer to – more than what we do God wants us to know who we are. It is only in knowing that, can we then make the decisions about what we do, how we spend our time, money and emotions. Because where we invest our heart, there we invest our life.

What if there is no such thing as the perfect choice? Because choosing means we can’t have everything. Because we don’t know how things will change and how those things that change will change us. Because we don’t know who we will be or what we will need in the future? Because we can sit here and play “what if the the grass is greener over there?” all day and it won’t bring us any closer to an answer – only further from being satisfied. And what if none of that matters because the point is to grow and seek His kingdom regardless of our choices?

So trust yourself. Most of our choices are not made in isolation. Where we are now and the choices we are making today is a culmination of all the choices and experiences in the past that have led up to this point. Trust that the God who has knit you from birth, has been guiding you and shaping you like clay can lead you today in this choice. Sometimes it’s fear of not having the perfect picture of our future figured out that holds us back.

A year later I’m fighting to find peace in the unknown road I’m on, but I want to continue to fight and continue to hope in Him because when I put the pieces in front of me, they don’t fit. Before me lays the back of a colourful tapestry and I have little idea what the canvas is going to look like. There are some dark threads from the past and some strange shapes from the present. But if I let Him just take all the colours, threads and pieces, I don’t have to sit and stare at them. The root of every untrusting feeling is the fear that He is not in fact good and that His love will end, especially when I feel I have no clue or answers about what to do. But if I forfeit my desire to know every outcome, if I forfeit the need to have physical evidence or feeling as evidence, then I will trust in His Word that He is with me, and that He is weaving stars and gold from what looks like odd patterns to me. And doesn’t that make all the difference?

C.S. Lewis — ‘I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?’

One choice we can always make, even in the midst of painful uncertainty, the simplest place to start is with this: “Love the Lord your God … and love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater…”  You will always be where you need to be as long as Love is your aim.

Exodus 16:3

The Greek word ‘peirasmos’ means both a trial and a tempation. The fathers of the church used them interchangeably and I am beginning to understand why.

When everything turns out to be nothing like you expected, its is much easier to despair, to fall into self pity, and to ignore God, in favour of getting lost in a never ending introspection.

When it feels like I’m stumbling around in the dark wilderness and the thistles are scratching at my feet, when even walking becomes difficult and the narrow road just seems too hard. Like Gomer, who cried out for the old oil and drink she once had, and the Israelites who cried out for the meat of Egypt.

I was tempted to take a sip of the soothing ointment of the world, that I know to be poison.

‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

Hosea 2:5

Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

Exodus 14:12

For the first time, I am realising why in the midst of Job and his friends talking about suffering and God Job stands and promises to make a covenant with his eyes not to look upon a woman. For as many times I had read Job, I had never noticed how misplaced that seemed… until it was too familiar to ignore.

Maybe I was never listening when they said in times of tribulation, you must be even more vigilant for temptation.

Distracted by the walls of my city crumbling, my own house has been left unguarded.

‘Your own vineyard you have not kept’.

Songs of Solomon 1:6

Oh heart you have forgotten that the only real danger in this world is sin.

“For I have not stopped saying and I will not stop saying that there is only one thing truly distressing, and that is sin. Everything else is dust and smoke.”

St John Chrysostom

Maybe it’s one of the devils favourite games to keep us wrapped up in our own problems that we forget to ask… When I am squeezed, what is coming out? When I am squeezed… I am no longer deceived. Sweet lemonade or bitter lemon?

I am realising that for years I was saying words, words that were so easy to say. But now I am being called to live. To put into practice the endless preaching. In time, perhaps I will learn to say with Moses that these words are ‘not just idle for you, they are life’ (Deuteronomy 32:47) and by them I will cross over into the Jordan. I will cross over to new heights I know He wants to take me.

In the mean time, I am struggling through the labour pains, I am so anxious to give birth to something beautiful, but I must learn to wait patiently and know that in an INSTANT, God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than I could pray and ask for.

“stop beseeching this or that person for help, and running after shadows – for this is what human assistance amounts to – instead ceaselessly beseech God whom you serve simply to give a nod and in a moment of time everything is brought into proper order” St John Chrysostom

Now if, while a man is walking in the path of righteousness, and is making his way toward God… he encounters in this path some afflictions of this sort, he must not turn aside from his way. Rather, he should accept whatever it is joyously, without scrutiny, and give thanks to God, because God has sent him this gift. That is to say, because he has been deemed worthy to fall into temptation for His sake, and to become a partaker of the sufferings of the prophets and the apostles, and of the rest of the saints who endured tribulations for the sake of God’s path, whether from men, from demons, or from the body. For without the bidding of God it is impossible that tribulations should be permitted to arise; but they occur so as to be for a man the cause of righteousness -St Isaac the Syrian

for it is not God’s good pleasures that those whom He loves should live in ease while they are in the flesh -St Isaac the Syrian

I retell the story once written of a woman caught in her weakness. A tale of piercing words and stones clenched in fists. Yet, there is a Man who bends low, speaks:

“He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” John 8:7

Stones fall like rain to the ground, every voice is silenced. My sweet sister falls too to the ground, and Mama says, “the Word has pierced her, she is humbling herself.”

“Neither do I accuse you, go and sin no more.” John 8:11

Sister wipes her tears in her shirt, cries,

“But I can’t change. I sleep with so many men. I’m 30 and I can’t have one man. My Father and mother don’t believe I can change, they call me a drunkard. So I just drink.”

We hold her close, speak softly: “we are your family, and we believe in you.”

“Really?” She stares at us, wide-eyed, in disbelief. “But how can I change, I drink. I don’t know how.”

“His power is your strength.

You are worthy.

You are loved.”

Wise Mama speaks to her of Paul on the road to Damascus, tells her the truth that no one is ever too far from grace, that there is no such thing as a lost cause.

“Nifuna, Nifuna, Nifuna” (I want, I want, I want), she pleads.

We hold hands in prayer, pleading for every chain and stronghold to break.

I marvel at the God who does not count our sin, only the number of hairs on our head. I marvel at the abundance of that love.

Sometimes those who are serving God become the hopeless, wishing that those whom they serve could change, but lacking the belief that they can actually change. Perhaps most people, if not all, have a list of “lost causes.” But maybe there is power in the faith of friends who believe in His power. Maybe hope for the hopeless starts right here, with us, when we pursue the wholeness of others by believing in the wholeness of others. Maybe our belief is everything; maybe our faith is more potent than we ever imagined. Like the paralytic man who’s healing came when his friends insisted to lay him before Christ.

When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” Luke 5:20

Because a roof was no hindrance when the “power of the Lord was present to heal them.” (Luke 5:17) Maybe breaking rooftops is our call, and maybe the hardest rooftop to break through is our own disbelief. What if hope for the hopeless looks like a man weeping and praying in faith before a holy God on behalf of an unfaithful nation (Ezra 9), until the power of God is displayed through their repentance (Ezra 10)?

What if those around us, who are in need of change, never changed because we never faithfully believed and prayed that they could?

What if we prayed for others, genuinely believing in Gods power?

Sweet sister comes the next evening for prayers, runs up to the altar weeping on her knees. Maybe our faith in Him on behalf of others is the most we really have to offer, maybe He is more powerful than we have ever known…

Let me tell you a simple tale of a man who endured unparalleled pain, and prevailed. Listen, as I share with you the story of he who lost it all, to gain everything.

I recently met up with an old friend and we reminisced over painful events in the past, sharing the ways in which God had helped us to cope with them. As he vulnerably opened up to me, I couldn’t help but notice the intricate works of the Lord throughout his life that had led him to the solid ground he stood on today.

This friend of mine had lost his mother at a very young age and was brought up in a broken home; with very dysfunctional relationships with his siblings. As he shared with me his hopes and dreams as a child, I could see the pain those memories held in his eyes. I sat in the corner of Starbucks repeatedly listening to stories of parental favouritism, negligence from his siblings and emotional abuse, and though my heart ached, I ate up every word he said, eagerly awaiting the revelation of a key to life that I was certain he must have discovered to have become the mighty man he is today.
As he reached the climax of every story he shared with me, a smirk would appear on his face, and after five or six times, I knew exactly what that smirk meant. A big plot twist would ravage the story, and the season of joy or success he would be experiencing, somehow – almost frustratingly – would spiral downwards in an uncontrollably fast way. I’m not going to lie, being the impulsive person I am, his calm demeanor as he spoke began to stress me out, even though none of his past struggles had anything to do with me! I guess I wanted to see the anger and bitterness that had been brewing within him, but to my utter surprise none of that was to be revealed – not because of any wall he may have been putting up, but because there was none.

Friends, believe me when I tell you that evening I heard stories of child abuse, wrongful accusations and consequently wrongful punishments. Stories of deception that would send chills down the coldest spines. Yet this man, with the darkest past, exuded nothing but peace. With the warmest smile, he looked at me in the eyes and said “whatever bad things have happened to me in the past, God has used for good in my life today¹”. Just like that. No complaining, no anger, no self-pity… just the deep revelation that God had used his past seasons of pain for his present joy.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
Isaiah 43:18-19

As he spoke these simple of words of truth, He who dwells within me began to whisper the words He had inspired St. Paul to write to the Philippians; “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:12-13. My friend had truly known what it meant to be in need – in need of money, respect, justice, and love, and he breathed this revelation; that true contentment in every situation can only be achieved through Him who gives you strength. Strength to endure the unendurable. He recognised that apart from His Saviour he could accomplish nothing², “and that, Michael, is why I feel free” he told me simply, with a joyful smile, as if the Holy Spirit had bathed him in peace and liberty.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5

This wise man that sat before me at our small two-seater table in Starbucks in Westfield Shopping Centre had figured it out. He’d given me the key to life that I desperately wanted to learn from him. He had come to the revelation that seasons change but the Lord God Almighty forever remains the same³. A revelation that gifted him with tremendous confidence in His Maker, confidence during painful seasons that though he stood helpless before great mountains, His Saviour is and will forever be able to turn them into level ground⁴ for him to walk through to greener pastures.
As our conversation came to an end, my friend looked at me one more time, and humbly said “…and you know the best part about all this? It’s blessed my present and made me forget all about my past.^5″.

Those were the simple words spoken by a simple man who lived a great life, and his words rung ever so loudly in my ears. A man who had tasted what it meant to be in need and to have plenty. A man who recognised that apart from His Creator he could do nothing, but through Him could do all things. A man who, with ease, embraced seasons past, recognising that they led him to where he stood today.

If you want to meet my friend, find him in Genesis 37-50.
His name, is Joseph.

And the cutting winds that blew violently, hushed. The roaring waves that crashed ferociously, silenced. The devastated earth that was shaken, became still. A New Season had begun…

[1] Genesis 50:20
[2] Genesis 41:16
[3] Malachi 3:6
[4] Zechariah 4:6-7
[5] Genesis 41:51-52

a) the fear of knowing yourself

b) the power that it gives the person we are being vulnerable with

Being vulnerable, whether that’s apologising or confessing a fear, mistake or insecurity requires a level of self-reflection and it is terrifying to go into your own darkness.  By sharing that with another person we’re taking a huge emotional risk by placing this sacred piece of our soul in their hand. A piece that they may not know how to handle with care. A piece they can either be compassionate and gentle with or that they can totally break into fragments if they react in disgust or rejection to our vulnerability. So vulnerability is hard because knowing my own darkness is agonising and also because taking someone deep into that darkness means they can confirm our worst fear – that we’re too dark to be loved or worthy of love. And that is a kind of pain that can leave the most damaging of scars.

But I think there is also another part that we miss which makes vulnerability seem so dangerous and uncertain.

When I take someone into that darkness and I reveal a part of me that is wounded or hurting,  an unspoken level of accountability is forged. Especially if I deeply love the person with whom I’m being vulnerable with, which is normally the case, because love requires that I do whatever it takes to be the best for them. So it follows that if I am ready to share a shortcoming, I am ready to try to move away from it.

Most of the time, vulnerability in any relationship will happen when we’re apologising, trying to explain our actions to someone or trying to help them understand why we reacted in a certain way. It usually means that the very thing we’re being vulnerable about probably affects the person that we are being vulnerable to.

By sharing this with them and releasing it into the open and into the light, I can no longer say I didn’t know about my own inadequacies. I can no longer turn a blind eye or ignore it. More importantly, I can no longer hide from it because now another soul can see. I am faced with one choice – confront it, fight it and grow.

I think that’s an incredibly scary thing about vulnerability – more than the emotional exposure, it’s the place that the emotional exposure thrusts us. And where is that? A place that means we must choose to be different and change.

Vulnerability is hard because “despair is more comforting than hope.” In the pit of my own darkness I am free to languish in hopelessness and sorrow, but once I am vulnerable, whether I’m received with compassion or not, I have no excuse to remain in my tattered fig leaves rather than animal skin. The fear is that: ‘What if it takes me too long to change? What if they give up on me?’ This is when the shame creeps in and like our forefather, Adam, we want to run.

Vulnerability creates accountability and that’s a huge responsibility to shoulder.

Perhaps that’s why vulnerability can be much easier in retrospect, sharing wounds that have been and gone. Being vulnerable in the moment, being vulnerable about the very brokenness that still breaks you so well, really is the biggest risk. And here is the kicker: ‘What if, by revealing my shame or weakness, so that I may be known,  I’m actually giving them the reason to walk away from me?’

Maybe this is why vulnerability feels like weakness; not just because of the exposure but because of the position of responsibility it puts us in where there is no more space for blaming others and pointing fingers. I must own the story of my weakness.

Vulnerability doesn’t guarantee anything. It isn’t a miracle in a bottle. Yes, it is ultimately a risk that can leave us naked and alone, but without it we have no connection.

So there will come a time, when we think of the past; every single time trust was offered to someone in vulnerability and was irretrievably broken, when we think of the present, the people in our life we are called to love as our own soul and when we think of the future, the kind of love we want our life to profess and we are compelled to ask: “is vulnerability worth it?”

What if staying and being vulnerable with those trusted souls in our lives breaks our plan? Everything comes at a cost, and though waters may rise and vulnerability may fail us along with those we trust, if love is the fulfillment of the law, then there is no cost that is wasted. Nothing is wasted for love – may our souls never forget to wear this God-breathed truth like second skin.

Click here to read part 1 of our vulnerability series!

Photo courtesy of  Zachary Snellenberger

This is a guest post by a dear BFA friend and past contributor Sara Malak.

One of the things the world ingrains in us as we grow up is that we must be afraid -mostly of the future and everything in it. We hear “strive to be the best! Be as successful as you possibly can be under any circumstances!” That way we don’t have to worry about failure (the fear of all fears!) So we grow up with a million and one shields protecting us from anything and everything. We knock down those who are not as armed as we are and trample on those who are silly enough to walk unshielded. Instead of living as creatures created for the kingdom of heaven, we live by the rules of the animal kingdom.

But maybe this is why our communities, friendships, churches, and families are hurting.

As persons made in the image of the triune God, we long for intimacy and connection. But these walls we build for ourselves harm us by distorting our true identity. We have become so accustomed to striving to be the best that we refuse and deny ourselves to be anything less than that. We build walls so high as if our brothers and sisters are Greek enemies threatening to invade our glorious city, Troy. But sometimes these walls go so high that we can barely see what lies beneath them. Whether that’s on purpose or not, we end up hiding a bruised, swollen, and inflamed wound that continues to bleed.

Christ calls, “Adam where are you?” We may be hiding in shame and fear but Christ has not left us; He left His throne and became human so He could sit with us in our pain and tell us “be of good cheer I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). By taking part in His death we receive His victory. There is nothing to fear, not even death. The Church awaits the coming of the Lord earnestly and peacefully, we are taught to die to the old man that we may live forever. As we pray in Vespers in the litany of the departed, “there is no death to your servants but rather a departure.”

To take a step and “dare greatly” as Dr Brene Brown puts it, I would like to invite you to take the first brick down of your walls of protection, while I do the same. Let us take a step in crucifying our ego to become who we are created to be. Opening ourselves to Christ in humility, vulnerability, and love. Placing our heavy burdens at His feet when it is easier numb the pain.

C.S. Lewis writes:

When we assent with all our will to be so known, then we treat ourselves, in relation to God, not as things but as persons. We have unveiled. Not that any veil could have baffled His sight. The change is in us. Instead of merely being known, we show, we tell, we offer ourselves to view… By unveiling, by confessing our sins and “making known” our requests, we assume the high rank of persons before Him. And He descending becomes a Person to us.

Let us come and sit with our precious Christ. Allow yourself to unveil, to be the Samaritan woman sitting with the Man who met her where she went to quench her thirst for connection and intimacy. She sat with the all knowing, all powerful, all loving God, but His authority does not intimidate, it invites, and His words don’t condemn or belittle, they call upward.

Ask the Samaritan woman, she’ll tell you about a Man who told her all things she’s ever done yet didn’t define her accordingly. She’ll tell you about a Man who praised her honesty when she was trying to hide her shame in a few words. She’ll tell you how gentle He was when she desired to open up to Him. She’ll tell you about a Man who looked her in the eyes and loved her while everyone else looked down at her. She’ll tell you how all her life she’d been shielding and arming herself yet in a few moments stripped herself naked to be clothed in Truth. She’ll tell you how liberated she felt the moment Someone finally knew the shame, darkness and sins she carried yet loved her more than she’s ever been loved before.

No wonder she ran telling people to “come and see a man who told her all things she’d ever done” it’s not like they didn’t know, but now she was willing to reveal herself to her community knowing her worthiness and true identity.

Self revelation or self-awareness alone is not sufficient, I may not trust my distorted view of things but in the light of Christ, I am able to separate the truth of who I am from the lies I have been told about myself. Only in the face of Truth can we claim our true identity. It is this assurance and full faith that granted the Samaritan woman courage to see her darkness and still be able to claim her worthiness, acceptance and belonging in communal intimacy with Christ and then her community. In the light of Christ, our struggles, weaknesses and sins do not shame us or define who who we are but prove how lovable we are.

Hiding oneself from God creates an invisible disease that not only divides our communities, churches and families but also leaves us emptier than ever. Christ prayed “that they may be one as We are one,” while He embraced and exposed His humanity in tears and blood. If oneness comes by self-revelation that requires a great deal of honesty and authenticity, so let us start by being honest with ourselves and with our God until we are courageous enough to be so within our communities.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:19-21).

Noise shadows our thoughts, suffocates our senses and shuts up our hearts.

I am no longer able to live in the present moment. I am no longer able to know reality, to live my reality.

Noise imprisons us in a cave where we are left alone, with nothing and no one to accompany us.

People pay thousands of dollars for an ideal ‘getaway’ from the noise and busyness of everyday life.

What if I told you, you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to get away from it all? What if I told you, that silence is within you…

The most central part of us isn’t our brain but our heart: the part that tells us who we really are, who we ought to become, what we long for, our hurts, our fears.

When I choose noise, when I choose to be constantly surrounded by the noise of the television, music, people… but worst of all, when I choose to be surrounded by the noise of my mobile phone.

Yes we can turn our phones to silent, where we can’t ‘hear’ it but there’s a deafening noise our phones make that we aren’t aware of.

I recently discovered this when I made the decision to switch my phone off for a whole entire week in order to practice silence.

Wow.

What a difference.

I realized the constant checking of my phone, that constant ‘go to’ when I have some down time was causing such a disturbance even into the depth of my soul. We have created an entire world through these small devices. We’ve been fooled into the notion that being connected to everyone I know and connected to the rest of the world means I am not living in isolation. We think if we didn’t have our phones we would be completely lost, not knowing what’s going on with our dear ones or what the news is telling us to ‘pray’ for.

I recognized my phone made some sort of internal noise; a screeching noise that deafened my internal ears and my inner heart. I was tricked into thinking that I was living in the present moment, as I would browse through the ‘current’ events. In reality I was living in a trapped world, where there was no past, present or future. The present moment, the now was slipping away from me, blinding me from who I am and suffocating my ability to interact with my environment and grow.

I was no longer aware of what was before me; the present moment that testifies to my being was gone.

I was disabled.

I was unable to love who was with me in that present moment. I was unable to engage in the nature around me. I was unable to grow to a fountain of life.

This deep piercing noise caused a division between my mind and my heart. It muted the ache in my heart and I became numb to what was truly hurting and tormenting me. I did not know what my heart was yelling out to me. I knew my heart was sick, but how sick? What was causing my heart to ache?

What is the remedy for this?

Silence.

Silence is the absence of noise that surrounds us along with an interior state, which takes us to the presence of God.

Silence leads us towards the center, the human heart; the throne of God.

Silence liberates us from the enslavement of the past and the future.

Even when I am not occupied with something physical in my hand, half of the time I am either thinking of the past and the other half I am thinking about the future.

Silence cannot merely be read or talked about, but it is to be experienced.

It is lived.

It is a way of life.

When words are forsaken, a new awareness is welcomed.

It is not just simply an ending to words but it makes sense to all that is both spoken and unspoken.

Silence is fullness, not emptiness.

It is not absence, but the awareness of a Presence.

Silence is a way of watching and listening intently to what is happening within us and around us.

It is stopping interiorly and digging into the cellars of the heart.

Silence is a challenge and when we refuse to take up this challenge, we deny ourselves of what we ought to know about ourselves. As a result we live a life less than we are truly called to be. The ultimate sin is not pride; it is the forgetfulness of who we are. This is a great catastrophe.

Do not miss the opportunities of silence that are given to us each new day; a silent moment alone, a walk alone, when we are stuck in traffic, waiting for the bus, a silent moment in the presence of a dear friend. We should be so willing to enter in those times of silence and fathom them.

We are what we do with the silence that is given to us.

At the same time, silence needs to be cultivated.

Silence needs to be given it’s proper time and place in our day. It needs to be practiced.

Silence is almost a paradox in our time as it is perceived as something negative: that quiet person in the corner who doesn’t want to socialize, an ‘awkward’ silence with someone we don’t know very well, or the absence of God’s voice.

But it is in silence where God created.

It is the ambiance and the environment.

The sacred space into which God speaks His Divine Words, both to create the world and to save it from death and corruption.

God spoke life in silence.

God wants to speak in silence today, now, in my very own silence.

I challenge you this week, the holiest week of the year, to put away that which steals your inner silence. Be silent before the Holy One that you may receive His Life, His Power, His Glory, His Blessings and His Majesty.

He has become our Salvation.

(Photo courtesy of Mahmoud Marei)

Beyond race, culture and religion, we are all made in the image and likeness of God. We all possess frail hearts, we all desire to love and be loved. We all long to find safety and belonging in the world. We all hurt and we fear, we stumble into awkward moments, into our own chaos and anger. We are the same beneath these beautiful layers of skin and confusion. We are all the same kind of broken. And in our broken, common humanity, redemption desires to tell the tale of us all, because there is no one beyond grace.

Yet how many people have we deemed unworthy of grace? How many souls have we too easily condemned?

“Enemy” is a strong word. Strong enough to make us distance ourselves from it and deny that it plays a part in our lives. But when Christ spoke of enemies, he spoke simply; an enemy is someone who stands in the way of our freedom, dignity, our capacity to grow and love, someone who attacks us or our country. An enemy most commonly exists within the person whom we are avoiding.

When the lawyer spoke to Jesus asking how he was to enter the kingdom of heaven, He answered him simply; “love your neighbour as yourself.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29). Though the words of the Bible are clear and simple, just like the lawyer, we seek justification. Love my enemy? Who is my enemy? Surely Jesus didn’t mean ISIS, surely He didn’t mean the human responsible for my deepest hurts?

But what if the ones we name offenders can be freed to love?

‘They are people who, if loved, helped, and trusted, can in some small way recognize their faults and their brokenness and can grow in humanity and in inner freedom.” -Jean Vanier

What if humanity rose up to forgive? Like the sacred hearts of Katja Rosenberg, Antoine Leiris and Arturo Martinez. What if we extended forgiveness regardless of our hurts and our rights, and followed the sacred Word that brings all healing. For us to forgive, we must yearn for unity and peace, yearn for the oneness to be united in mind, in heart and in spirit. If we love and desire for all to be free to bear fruit, we will be a people heavy for forgiveness. We will live full and whole that we are no longer driven by our desire to be filled and prove ourselves worthy but we will yearn for the growth of all people in peace and in unity. To be a peacemaker, we must make peace with ourselves and we must make peace with those around us. We must believe that we are all a part of the suffering. We have all hurt and been hurt. When we point out darkness, we must remember to point back at our own souls. It is not easy to see beyond our own suffering, sometimes it is blinding. It is not easy to accept forgiveness or to forgive; it is a struggle.

‘ When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed too.’ -Henri Nouwen

The truth is our enemies can often tell us a lot more about us than our friends can. The way we respond to our enemies will tell us the true state of our hearts; if we are hearts walking in forgiveness or if we walk in resentment.

Prayer for my Enemies

“Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless and do not curse them.

They, rather than I, have confessed my sins before the world. They have punished me, whenever I have hesitated to punish myself. They have tormented me, whenever I have tried to flee torments. They have scolded me, whenever I have flattered myself. They have spat upon me, whenever I have filled myself with arrogance. Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Whenever I have made myself wise, they have called me foolish.

Whenever I have made myself mighty, they have mocked me as though I were a fly.

Whenever I have wanted to lead people, they have shoved me into the background.

Whenever I have rushed to enrich myself, they have prevented me with an iron hand.

Whenever I thought that I would sleep peacefully, they have wakened me from sleep.

Whenever I have tried to build a home for a long and tranquil life, they have demolished it and driven me out.

Truly, enemies have cut me loose from the world and have stretched out my hands to the hem of your garment.

Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.

Bless them and multiply them; multiply them and make them even more bitterly against me:

So that my fleeing will have no return; So that all my hope in men may be scattered like cobwebs;

So that absolute serenity may begin to reign in my soul; So that my heart may become the grave of my two evil twins: arrogance and anger;

So that I might amass all my treasure in heaven; Ah, so that I may for once be freed from self-deception, which has entangled me in the dreadful web of illusory life.

Enemies have taught me to know what hardly anyone knows, that a person has no enemies in the world except himself. One hates his enemies only when he fails to realize that they are not enemies, but cruel friends.

It is truly difficult for me to say who has done me more good and who has done me more evil in the world: friends or enemies. Therefore bless, O Lord, both my friends and my enemies. A slave curses enemies, for he does not understand. But a son blesses them, for he understands.

For a son knows that his enemies cannot touch his life. Therefore he freely steps among them and prays to God for them. Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.”

–Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic

“Every Christian must be part artist. We craft lives of meaning through faith. And this means reaching out to engage those who differ while never losing appreciation for what sets us apart.”
-Father Andrew of Athos

I grew up thinking, you were either creative or you weren’t. I categorized myself as the latter since I couldn’t draw, write or produce drama. I spent most of my life detaching myself from anything that required creativity or imagination because to me that part of my brain just didn’t work.

We are the result of creation, and that means that He who fashioned us gave us the ability and the capacity to also create. We are all artists and poets, and I’ve come to learn that creativity is so much more than painting a portrait, writing a profoundly deep story or producing a moving film.

So what is creativity exactly?

Simply put, you.

It’s you.

It’s you in your daily interactions, in the way you interact with the stranger you meet, in the way you plan a trip to a new destination, the way you take on disappointments in life, the way you come up with an idea to improve your business’ efficiency or sales. It’s you in the way you carefully think out a recipe to make that perfect meal for the ones you love.

Beauty is in creativity.

Our sensitivity to beauty is but a glimpse of how man saw the world before corruption seeped into our very nature.

Understanding beauty is an important aspect when we create. Beauty is not static; it is not confined to any one person’s perception, but it is dynamic in the sense that it continues to develop. And when true beauty is fully cultivated it has the space to flourish in whatever direction it pleases.

Beauty is in the touch of love, in the healing words we can whisper to our neighbor and in how we have the ability to be woven into each other’s lives.

However, the most beautiful work of art is in the work of being made by Grace. It is in becoming the final tapestry of work yourself. In writing songs, you become the song itself, in painting a canvas you become a painting, all for the glory of the One who made you.

Creativity is our vocation.

“Being fashioned in His image means that we are also artists and poets, regardless of our vocation in life. We are artists in the way we love. We are poets in the way we pray. Everyone is an artist.”
-Jonathan Jackson

Creativity encompasses all that we as humans are able to achieve, craft and produce.

Every time we engage in anything then we are engaging in art. We are participating with the Creator Himself and we become fellow co-workers. Our responsibility as artists then is to lead others into a more profound meaning of their existence and ultimately to our collective purpose in life.

But what stops us from creating?

A threat to our creativity is our brokenness. We cannot be creative when we are wounded because we behave, act, think and feel based out of our own hurt. However, when we are in the process of healing, creativity flows freely.

Healing needs to be our companion and teacher, otherwise we roam the earth allowing our wounds to have the driver’s seat, blinding us from seeing our potential to create.

In denying that we are wounded, we deny ourselves of being human. Rather than believing that we have the capacity to become great we spend the rest of our lives thinking so low of ourselves, capping our growth.

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
-Edward de Bono

Creativity can also be threatened by cultural norms. We become entangled with cultural chains that do us harm. They tell us that we have to think in a certain way, follow certain career paths, have the same life goals, act in a certain way, and sadly enough, feel a certain way. We have becomes slaves to society.

It was people like Martin Luther King, J.R.R Tolkien, Steve Jobs who broke through cultural norms. In doing so they created beauty: they created a society welcoming all walks of life, a new world of fantasy that spoke so deeply to the human soul, and technology that echoes throughout the generations.

Friendships inspire creativity.

Friendships are a main ingredient to our creativeness. They allow us to bounce ideas off another and together produce wonder, beauty and awe. We shouldn’t live in isolation from those who encourage our creativity and imagination.

If we do, we end up living in our own cave, having no one to enrich our lives, we suffocate ourselves in our own unspoken words. We are paralyzed in our growth as we become ‘okay’ with the mundane life, with no new sense of adventure, no new flavors to taste in our mouths. We, therefore, cease to live, and in doing so we cease to create. We merely exist but are not alive.

Tolkien could not have completed his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, if it weren’t for the great encouragement he received from C. S. Lewis, and visa versa.

Like Tolkien needed Lewis, I am in need of you.

Freedom is the essence of creativity.

When we are perplexed by hints of splendor, we enter into a union with the ultimate Creator. This breaks our soul’s chains and awakens us to the immortal longing that resides in our heart and the soft whisper that cries out ‘be free and create’.

Be free my friend.

Be free and create.

Others around you are in need of your beauty and creativity.

“Whoever wants to become a Christian, must first become a poet.”
-Elder Porphyrios

(Photo by Manish Ray)