jeremiah 17:5

About a year ago, a friend of mine told me that if Jesus Christ himself came down and spoke to me, I would be offended by his words to me. This was in reference to a conversation we were having about how easily offended I am. This particular friend has offended me deeply a number of times . . . but to say that, and only that, is misleading. He isn't doing it by being rude or crass or anything like that. He offends me occasionally because he often tells me "hard truths" and I often am not ready to hear them. I think we can all agree that this is quite possibly the best kind of friend. It's probably like having a sponsor in AA: this person will listen to you yammer, and they'll sometimes say, "Wow, that must be really hard for you," but ultimately, they are going to tell it to you straight.

I was recently offended by this particular friend. In usual manner, he hit me with a bunch of difficult-to-swallow information, some of it certainly in the "hard truths" category. His timing was not great. It was really not great. It was awful. (If you can think of a realistic setting that would be the worst possible place and moment to have a difficult conversation, this was probably pretty close to what you've imagined.) But that is easily forgiven when someone is just trying to help you through a difficult time. The problem I had with it this time was that some of the information was true, but deep down, I strongly felt that some of it was not. And beside that, there was ultimately this quiet nagging in the back of my brain that said, "This conversation isn't actually about you. He's meddling in your life so that he can feel wise, and he's letting his own insecurities about being right and being taken seriously dictate the words and the harshness thereof. If he was actually being empathetic, you wouldn't even be having this conversation right now." The result was that now I simply don't think I can trust him.

Truth be told, maybe we really shouldn't trust anyone. Jeremiah 17:5 reads:
"Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from theLord."

A few nights ago, my boyfriend (of 4 years) and I split up. I was heartbroken by the loss, and since that time, I've thought a lot about the 5 stages of grief. I've been watching my inner self to see when each one pops up at random and then slowly ebbs, only to be replaced by one of the others. What I think I'm coming to realize is that I am not really that sorrowful about the demise of this particular phase of both the friendship or the relationship. New phases will come soon enough, bringing excitement and growth and new opportunities. What I'm *really* grieving here and what I've *really* lost is the naive security that comes from thinking I can safely trust someone else implicitly.

This particular loss marks a change in status and an initiation of sorts. I believe that we, as humans, want desperately to be able to trust someone. I think the most reassuring thing people can be told is, "Everything is going to be ok." Conversely, the scariest thing people can be told is, "No one is coming to save you." One brings hope and reassurance, the other renders despair and futility. Thus, by taking away my ability to trust my fellow man, this loss represents an opportunity for me to grow up and enter the wide world of true adults who are courageous and stand up confidently and fight their own battles whenever possible. Life's meaning can now come from a different kind of trust that rises - trite as it may sound - like a phoenix from the ashes: trust in God. This trust tells us that on an existential level, it's possible that someone IS coming to save us. However, on a day to day level, as a stronger, more confident person who does not naively trust in others, it now becomes acceptable for me to think, "No one is coming to save you, but everything is going to be ok."

I've thought a lot about whether or not I would be offended by Jesus. He certainly offended many people in his time, and he continues to do so, or so it would seem. It is true that I would likely have a very difficult time accepting a lot of the things that Our Lord might say to me. However, if I can actually develop the trust in Him that I would like to have, and if He can prove that He will come through for me, I don't believe I'll run into the problem I ultimately had with my other friend. And that gives me hope.

subconscious thoughts

Here's why I don't like them:

I don't like the idea that there is some deep, core part of me that is the *real* or *true* me and it is secretly in control of at least some aspect of everything I do, say, or think.

Maybe this is because I am fundamentally averse to the idea that I have a "fate" of some kind. The correlation here is that I also don't like being told that I "should" do something. And I definitely don't want to hear that I "have to" do this or that.

Ironically, it seems it is only by embracing our subconscious desires - accepting them and listening to our innermost selves tell us what it is that we really are - that we can have any hope of actually changing them and thus, in effect, changing our own essential natures. Until we do that, the subconscious is like a closet full of dynamite in a mansion we have spent our whole lives meticulously constructing.

Still, for some reason it is terrifying to find out what "really, truly" is. I find myself telling my subconscious, "If that is what I really want, I don't want to know." "If that is who I truly am, please don't tell me." "If that is what I think, that's fine. But I'm not actually ready to think it consciously." I hope I can acquire the strength to face the truth soon. It seems like these messages from ourselves never really go away, but only just lie in wait to resurface stronger and in ways which can reveal our deepest, darkest secrets to others, some of whom may not be worthy.

dreams

It doesn't matter what time I go to sleep; somehow I have turned into a person who always wakes up at 7:47 am.

Recent events and a massive shift in worldview have forced me to look at sleep in a new way. It is work. In fact, there is really no such thing as "play" in the traditional sense. Even play is work.

In physics, a force is said to do work when it acts on a body, and there is a displacement of the point of application in the direction of the force. Wikipedia

Based on this definition, sleepy-times are a good opportunity for certain forces to displace/apply/point-in-a-new-direction our consciousnesses as well as our bodies. Those forces may come from within ourselves (and I think they sometimes come from without), but they certainly come. Sleep is not a vacation. At least, not for me anymore.

Because sleep is work, the question becomes, "What kind of work is being done?" Well, of course, there's the work of rebuilding your body and recharging your brain. But there's something else happening on a more "spiritual/consciousness" level. Dreams. Lately, I am terrified of the work on this dream level. Sometimes it is just your brain making sense of the day you just had, but often it is the work of your subconscious in revealing to you what you truly think, what you truly want, and where you're actually headed in life.

The fact that your subconscious hands you this information dressed up in pretty packages with so many bells and whistles is both delightful and pathetic. If you had enough courage and self-awareness about your life, you wouldn't necessarily need these dreams. You wouldn't need a coded, symbolic message to tell you - ever so gently, when you finally "have eyes to see" - that, for example, you secretly feel trapped by your job, or that deep down you know you love someone who doesn't love you back, or that if you stay on your present course, you're going to end up with a ton of accolades from your peers, but in an empty, decaying house.

I enjoy many of my dreams, certainly, but what does it say about me that I sometimes can't bear to look at scary realities in my conscious life? I wish I was more courageous, but until then I guess I'm just going to have to keep dreaming.