Monthly Archives: October 2008

contemplative mothering thoughts of others

Chuck Smith, Jr.’s Reflexions

October 23, 2008 – 9:46 am

Here is one of my dad’s weekly Reflexions.  My spirit is greatly ministered to each week as I make the time to sit and breathe and read them, actually not only that.  I have received all types of “spiritual treasures” after following a “map” found in a Reflexion.  Simply and mainly, I have been led to and by and through more love.   If you would like to have a much prettier PDF version of these delivered to your e-mail inbox every Monday (sometimes Tuesday, almost never later than that ; ) ), then simply send a blank e-mail to express-image@cox.net.  Enjoy!

 

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chuck smith, jr.’s

reflexions

Number 93 October 14, 2008

The Better to See You With

Give people an opportunity and they will surprise you. Sometimes you have to probe their thoughts or

prod them to open up. They need to know it is safe to share and no matter what they say, they will be loved

and accepted. If you succeed in getting beneath the surface, you’ll find a treasure worth uncovering.

A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water,

But a man of understanding draws it out.

(Proverbs 20:5)

“Plan” (Hebrew, etsah) is advice or counsel, but when it is “in the heart” the meaning shifts slightly. For

example, the same word in Psalm 13:2 means something like introspection or self-examination:

How long shall I take counsel in my soul,

Having sorrow in my heart all the day?

The poet’s unhappiness drove him inward, to wrestle with his thoughts and emotions, trying to figure things

out, perhaps trying to understand himself. The proverb above suggests that a wise and caring person can help.

The Beauty of Others

A Christian leader asked me to speak to a group of his friends. “We aren’t interested in having you teach

us anything profound,” he explained, “We want you to tell us about the hard times and your struggles.” Well,

that seemed easy enough. I’ve hardly ever lived two steps away from my struggles.

I stood before sixty strangers and told them how I had suffered with depression through more than thirty

years of ministry. I tried to give them an idea of what that had done to me. I suggested the possibility that

God’s intent was not to beat my heart to a pulp, but to tenderize it for the sake of others.

Afterwards, a woman stood back and off to one side while others spoke with me. When there was no one

else waiting, she stood in front of me, slightly trembling. The tears rolled over the edge of her lower eyelids

and when her lips moved, her voice was a whisper, “Thank you.” She paused, looked down, took a couple of

deep breaths and said, “I have always thought that I wasn’t a very good Christian. I could not do what other

believers told me I should be doing. They told me that no matter my circumstances, I should rejoice in the

Lord. They told me to trust God and be more hopeful. They told me Christians aren’t supposed to be down.”

The story she told me was a familiar one. Then she said, “But tonight I realized I’m okay. I am not a bad

person. God loves me, he is near me. There is nothing wrong with my faith in God, I’m just broken.”

That is what I mean by being surprised by people. Who would have thought that a revelation of God’s

love would lead to an admission of sadness and brokenness, fear and rejection that yielded a moment of such

beauty? Her wet cheeks drew up into a hopeful smile as she thanked me again and then turned and walked

away.

Through His Eyes

During a conversation two weeks ago, I realized that some believers don’t understand what it meant for

Jesus to enter our world and become one of us. The person I spoke with assumed that since Jesus was “God in

the flesh,” he knew everything that was going to happen in his life before it happened. But if that were true,

then Jesus wasn’t really one of us, because part of being human is not knowing what lies ahead.

First century Christians sang a hymn about Jesus’ descent into human likeness that Paul quoted in

Philippians chapter 2. They sang of Jesus existing “in the form of God,” but instead of clinging to equality with

God, he “emptied himself.” Jesus laid aside his divine prerogatives. That is why he got hungry, sleepy, worn

out, and frustrated with the slowness of his disciples and the opposition of his critics. That is also why the

Romans were able to crucify him.

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Although Jesus was the Word that became flesh and lived among us—he always carried within himself

both God’s nature and human nature—, he limited himself in order to fully embrace human experience.

“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same . . . . He

had to be made like His brethren in all things . . . For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has

suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted” (He. 2:14-18).

Jesus Christ, flesh of our flesh. His brain and Central Nervous System was identical to ours. Like us, Jesus

“learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (He. 5:8). He became a human to see the world

through our eyes. That is “part one” of a two-part equation. He also came to give us the gift of seeing

through his eyes.

If you find yourself in a heated argument, a frustrating conversation, or a boring encounter with another

person, something phenomenal will happen if you allow God to let you see that person through his eyes. You

do not see an annoying, opinionated, simple-minded bore. Rather, you find before you a child trying to find

justice on a playground stalked by a relentless bully. You see a lost son who has ventured into the far country,

but has not yet turned toward home because he still has a few coins in his pocket. You see a frightened young

woman who worries that her life will be over before she experiences that one true romance. You will also

find a rock of stability, a son of thunder, an exquisite diamond, a poem or song, all built around God’s image.

I am sure that you can easily imagine looking at other people through the eyes of Jesus, and seeing them in

a new way—a work of art, beautiful in their imperfection. But I’ll bet that you find it much more difficult to

see yourself through the eyes of Jesus. Can you look in the mirror and through his eyes see the majesty of the

image of God inside yourself? Can you see a person who is only “a little lower than God,” beautiful, wise,

and glorious? (Ps. 8:5). Can you see the child that suffers, but is afraid to ask for healing? Can you see the saint

devoted to God’s truth? Can you see the object of God’s love and desire?

Outsiders

One of the curiosities of Jesus’ ministry occurs when strangers instantly get what he is about, while

religious scholars are in the dark and his own disciples miss the point. Go through Matthew’s gospel sometime

and notice how often Jesus described his disciples as men “of little faith.” You may be surprised. But then a

Gentile woman comes to him for help. At first, he doesn’t even want to bother with her—at least that’s how

he acts. But finally she gets to him and he says, “O woman, your faith is great” (Mt. 15:28). But in the next

chapter, the disciples are once again “men of little faith” (Mt. 16:8). They scratch their heads, not getting Jesus

while the foreigner goes home with her prayer answered.

Another example: A Roman officer whose slave was dying. Jesus agreed to come to the officer’s home and

heal the slave. But the officer declined Jesus’ offer, saying that he wasn’t worthy to have Jesus enter his house.

Instead, he informed Jesus that he understood authority and the chain of command. All he had to do was

bark an order and immediately his word would be obeyed. So if Jesus would “just say the word,” his servant

would be healed (Mt. 8:5-9).

Matthew says that “when Jesus heard this, He marveled . . .” How did Matthew know Jesus’ interior

reaction? Wouldn’t the Lord’s admiration for the officer be personal and private? I think that the people

standing nearby must have read Jesus’ response in his facial expression and body language.

Jesus told those following him, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in

Israel.” Were the disciples wounded by this remark? Or did they see it as a challenge? Regardless, within just a

few verses, the disciples have reverted to their “little faith” (Mt. 8: 10 & 26).

Jesus and You

Can you relax your body for a moment, take a deep breath, and allow your spirit to become sensitive to

the nearness of Jesus? Inhale: “Here.” Exhale: “Now.”

He looks at you, peering deep inside, searching, observing, caring. He finds your spirit, perhaps coming

forth to greet him or maybe crouched in a corner hiding. He breathes his own Spirit into your spirit and tells

you to receive him (Jn. 20:22).

What is the expression on his face? What is his body language? What do they tell you?

That you are loved, you are safe, you are the image of his Father in heaven, and he finds you beautiful.

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mothering my thoughts

Brain-Mansion: a journal entry from 5/18/08

October 18, 2008 – 1:28 pm

In the mansion of my brain (not to be confused with my Interior Castle), there is a special room.  I go there to visit the things, thoughts, memories, people, stories and ideas that have shown me love and thus ignited my passion.  I wish I could live in that room!  But I live my thought-life elsewhere within my brain mansion so that I can effectively meet the demands of my outer life.  If I spent all of my thought-time in that special room . . . I suppose it’s the library, yes my brain-library, because THERE is my poetry, my reference collection, my Bibles, my stories, my illustrations.  Yes, if I spent all of my time in there, surely the rest of the mansion would be neglected and I might live in a constant state of mania, never being able to “come down” for the tasks of diapering, tidying, educating my children (or at the very least, introducing them to ideas and events and doing my best to answer their tough questions, after all can anyone truly educate another?), feeding myself and my children, etc.  So, I take tea in my brain-library, so to speak.  I do believe that when my children are grown, I will be able to spend hours upon hours in that library, and then, all of these fascinating and beautiful things I’ve conceived will finally be full-term, ready to be birthed, I can’t wait!  Oh but yes, I can, these children and the accompanying dutiful, outer life, have expanded my capacity for passion and love to a mass of space I never dreamed exists within us all!   

 

Anyway, in a beautiful chest of drawers on one of the walls in my brain-library, the design of the chest I must research before deciding on (I’ll let you know) there is a drawer.  The contents of that drawer, when first introduced to me, added a quality and sparkle to the rest of the mansion that cannot be adequately described.  And I can never imagine the limit and intricacy of the contents’ impact on the nearby (through the glass conservatory and out its Eastern doors) Garden of my Soul.  In that drawer, I keep you, nicely folded.  I must keep that drawer locked because periodically you have mischievously un-folded yourself, escaped from the drawer and had your way about the Mansion of my Brain, leaving it excessively untidy, to say the least.  I do believe that I am still working daily to clean up the remnants of your most recent havoc.  Perhaps a little starch and a hot iron would keep you folded, in your place, only now I am too afraid to open that drawer at all for the pleasure I feel in abandoning all other responsibilities of the Mansion in order to obsessively, delightedly clean up after you.

 

So yes, in view of the drawer’s contents’ significance to me, every aspect of the immaterial me, I most definitely will research the style of the chest of drawers as its function, era and design must be just right.  Though I’m beginning to think a trunk, or better yet an entire wing of my Mansion’s library might be more suited for the job of containing you, glorious, wonderful, frighteningly beautiful, you. 

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art my thoughts

Perhaps Scraping the Surface, or So Interesting! Part Deux

October 3, 2008 – 10:13 pm

 

Yes, I have begun to rethink my previous analysis of the unusual plants.  It was a very human-centered analysis, homocentric?  No . . .  Anthropocentric!  Man, I LOVE, love, love! when I find a word, completely new to me, that means exactly what I want a word to mean for the point I’m trying to make!!!  I thought I was making up the word homocentric, but there it was in my dictionary program on my computer, and then came anthropocentric.  Such a good word!  The ”mot juste!”

 

So yeah, my previous analysis of the unusual plants was 100% anthropocentric.  I was only imagining how the plants affect humans, or how they represent a facet of God to humans.  But is it possible that the planet isn’t just for us?  Just cause we’re the conscious ones doesn’t mean the planet revolves around our consciousness of it, it revolves around the sun, haha!.  I do think our consciousness is for our enjoyment of the planet (the outer world), and our enjoyment of God (the inner world) and is a gift from God.

 

Wait, back to “is it possible that the planet isn’t just for us?”  After all it can be quite a dangerous place in certain locales.  Maybe Southern California was orchestrated, during creation, anthropocentrically, but what about the jungles where there are large bugs that embed themselves into human skin and lay their eggs there in order to hatch them and have them escape only by causing large lesion-type holes in the skin? Hostile.  And then the places that aren’t quite hostile, but just downright uncomfortable, where life as a human is nearly constantly a struggle to stay warm or find food or avoid destructive storms?

 

I don’t know, I just have a sense that bugs, as in the carrion beetles that are attracted to and pollinate the the rotted flesh-scented flora, are very important to God.  What about fleas?  Are they important to God? As much as I dislike the itch-induced night waking spells, I have to admit they are interesting little suckers. So then, my interest or disinterest in them is the criteria by which creatures are or are not important to God?  Good-ness!  Jen-ni-fer!  Is there any end to your anthropocentrism???

 

I rest in the mystery of the 8 unusual plants.  I fall in love with God all over again in the blissful wonder of the mystery of His creation.  I love this place with Him, joyful, wonderful, sparkling mystery . . .   There’s such great freedom in the mystery, the realization that we live on a planet so beyond our understanding, if only it was so beyond our destruction of it, as well.

 

Now check this out! 

 

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art my thoughts

So Interesting!

October 3, 2008 – 8:49 pm

I found this so interesting:

 

8 of the World’s Most Unusual Plants

 

I’m a fan of botany, though I enjoy it from afar (especially here).  I have almost zero experience/talent for growing things, but I have a strong desire to do so.

 

I just think that these plants tell us something about God that we’ve maybe never thought of.  What do they tell us about Him?  Different things, don’t you think?  A HUMONGOUS bloom, that it so captivating to behold, yet it smells like rotting flesh.  I’d love to see one, but I really wouldn’t care to smell one!  Bizarre!  Does God then have a weird side?  It makes me realize that even those strange people, who you always have to wonder about, that do weird things and look and smell weird and dirty, and they create sometimes grotesque things, they were created in God’s image just the same as the most “Godly” people we’ve met and perhaps they would be so stoked to know of this crazy Rafflesia arnoldii.  Does not the Dracunculus vulgaris look 100% goth?

 

I think I’m not even scraping the surface, maybe just gliding on an oily layer above the surface, of trying to figure out what we can learn about God through these strange creations of His.  But that’s where I’m at right now!!  So if I think of anything deeper, especially during my inevitable, flea-bite itch induced night waking spell tonight, then I will be sure to post it tomorrow, or if I’m really having trouble with the itching, a fresh analysis will be here for you when you wake up, hee hee!

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