At Peace With The Past

Trips down memory lane hold special significance. They encapsulate a richness of experience in the identity of who we once were; part of who we’ve now become. As we journey there, to a geographical place, or to a place in our minds—a thought; an emotion—instant is the transport into something both real and surreal.

We are situated there, in the present, yet our hearts reside on salubrious vacation—completely free of charge. The sort of gift therefore enjoyed is one requisite in accepting, even glorying in, the past.

Do this—accept our formation—and a blessed access gate into our souls is opened. We can freely explore.

The Road to Acceptance

Sense is made in accepting our pasts in the cognition that bliss-upon-retrospection is disallowed, and permanently out of grasp, until we take that past and understand its role in the forming of the person we are, today.

Some roads, however, need to be shut down, or we, for the time being, don’t go there—where ‘there’ is bristling with untold pain.

These dangerous roads are the exception; there is a road to acceptance in these situations, but only by the power and grace of God, with expert, trusted counsel to guide us, and with the will charged to tackle a nemesis.

It’s about here we acknowledge that, when we’ve surrendered our pasts, God is abundantly able to empower and equip us with the grace to forgive. Such power can only be described as miraculous, for there is nothing we can do, alone, to affect it.

Still, for our problems of the past, we are the only ones who can decide our treatment of them.

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Otherwise, the road to acceptance is paved by a simple courage to take, in faith, the past as the past; always understanding, in the case of painful memories, the actors in our lives back then had their own issues.

Lovely Is The Vista At The Cherished Destination

If the past holds no fears for us, there’s no barrier to accessing the limitless network of destinations that inhabit our minds, as memories; from the vast bank of common, everyday experiences.

Each of those everyday experiences, snapshots of wonder, whilst not perfectly redeemable, proves how rich our lives have been. And it’s not as if video footage can even come close to the images the mind can paint.

Being at peace with our pasts is access to joyous moments in the present as we allow the pioneering mind the space to relive the autobiographical movies of our lives. Here we recall something never more personal or meaningful. There is God’s blessing.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

When People Refuse To Change Their Minds

People are commonly resistant to change, yet they will change willingly and enthusiastically if they hold that change, personally, as a truth. Motives for change need to be inclusive.

Life is frustrating when people won’t change in presentation of the truth. Yet, what’s most frustrating, something we cannot yet see in our frustration, is God’s the one defrauded; least of all is he getting through to us. Ignorance is blinding; worse still, proud ignorance.

No one likes being forced into changing their views. Almost universally, people rally against change that is foisted over them.

Our Truths Are Different – Doesn’t Mean Either Is Wrong

Our logic—that which we ‘know’ we got from the goodness of truth—makes sense to us. If it didn’t, we would not espouse it.

There’s no guarantee, though, that same logic—that’s so obvious to us—makes sense to the next person—or, can be communicated to make sense to them.

Whether the heart is hard or not, or a mind is closed or not, is irrelevant. Or, what is perhaps relevant is perhaps our minds and hearts are closed if we insist on propagating our version of the truth to the detriment of others.

We will not make it through to change the mindset of this person until they, convinced themselves via God, appeal to their own sense of truth by the new perspective.

Respecting Another’s Truth Is Respecting God and Loving Them

When we have come to the end of ourselves, and our need to be right—even when veiled in ‘defending God’s glory’—we approach right relationship, finally.

We’ve also come to the point of accepting God’s ways—as they are manifest in different human beings, with disparate views to us—are higher, eternally, than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). This is an important viewpoint to reach.

Despite the non-truths we might hear, we have no real credibility to change those views unless we’re invited; only the trusted are granted access to the inner sanctum of someone else’s thoughts for change. And only those considered credible will have any impact.

So, why would we try to change another person’s unique perspective? We, instead, let them be, loving them all the same, within the commonalities we share. Hence, we respect God.

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Jesus never spent much time exhorting the Pharisees. We should determine why. He spent time with those who were ready for the truth. He let those unwilling to listen go their way.

Our call is the same as Jesus’. Beyond differences we are to love. We are to reach out and speak gospel truth into the lives of those who will listen. Above all, we accept a thing we cannot change: one person’s view of the truth can only be changed in them by God.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Grace in Accepting Best Efforts

Co-dependent coupledom is enormously common; indeed, it’s a universal temptation. Where one has trouble, perhaps depression, the other is compelled to ease their pain, to make-up for the deficiency, to make life normal again.

Such is the life for the emotionally entwined; spiritually engaged at the level of mind, heart, and soul. And where deficiencies ravage one, the other must compensate.

There is a driver behind it all: guilt.

Anxieties of Guilt

Guilt is a bully working in silence, within our minds, estranging our hearts, paralysing our best efforts with thought for the inept past—theirs or ours (or both!).

If such a horrible influence is given much latitude, it will, moving like malignant cancer, destroy us from within. It will use any available problem as an opportunity to present grief and to render our response ineffectual. It will cloud our judgment. It will swamp our thoughts, dissuading our focus. It will colour our perception in murkiness. Perspective will be hardened and we may never know why. Things will appear wrong without the wherewithal to put them right. This may only further frustrate us; a sinkhole syndrome of visceral anger ensues. And that is dangerous; such hidden anger threatens to spew over containment lines at the least predicted moment.

If anxieties of guilt are not addressed there is a set of secondary emotions deployed: resentment for one; illogical anger for another; just a more complex web of anxiety, however it is manifested.

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As our guilt convinces us to compensate we don’t see the better option. The superior, and only correct, compensation is the reconciliatory response of grace.

Such an apportionment of God’s justice is redoubled by grace, two distinct and powerful ways, blessing both people party to the relationship—mutuality is necessary.

A Better Compensation: Grace

Life goes both ways. If grace is to be afforded to people, and that is God’s will, then grace should abound to us as we help and to others as we are helped. How great the blessing—to accept, with grace, our best efforts and others’, too.

‘Best of efforts’ are not to be judged, just accepted. This way, any effort is the best of effort.

Doing this is grace.

Instead of vacillating between the harsh extremes of over-sympathising and angry resentment, we can practice empathy toward others and experience peace within ourselves.

Grace between partners is accepting each other’s best, and our own, despite the problems, insecurities, and the anxieties of guilt that ever bind themselves within us. Grace is the beauty of love expunging the fear in guilt spoiling life.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Long Roads, Sweet Destinations

Faith, through the commitment of hard work, is the factor carrying improbable relationships through the years, not without the occasional bumble, to the durability of marital legend.

It’s a legacy for the entire family.

It is struggle that often typifies such relationships, early on. The deeper and harder the struggle—provided partners are resiliently committed, and forgiveness is made live and real along the way—the more the blessings of endurance can be tethered and appreciated between the two.

The Blessedness of Mutual Work

There is no better affirmation of the commitment between a married couple than the preparedness to work; most poignantly when there is much work to be done.

Their approach is realistically buoyant, noting the darkness that attains the moment and, equally, not being pinned down by it. There’s a lot of maturity in that.

Work is a paradoxical thing. It’s difficult in the act, but the easiest thing from the aspect of hindsight. Work, hence, involves faith. We work for reasons that are not always clear in our view. We work for a hope we need to believe in. And we believe in our partners; that’s what marriage is all about.

Better, infinitely, than work, however, is the mutuality of two people entwined in purpose of oneness.

That’s where the blessedness of mutual work resides; the faith of two blended into the commitment of one. Such marital single-mindedness will not be broken.

Enjoying the Destined Celebration Together

It’s always such a great pity when significantly long-term marriages—in the form of 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 years—end before due celebration. Whether it is death or some other form of heartbreak matters little; partners party to those marriages both miss out. There is the legacy of memory and that alone can be celebrated. But the sense of real celebration is tragically cut short.

Married couples who reach milestones of celebration should spare a thought for those not so fortunate; it is further testament to the glowing miracle of faithfulness.

Celebrating significant milestones, particularly in the context of the chiding tumults that have forged forgiving marital characters along the way, seems perfectly inevitable; reminiscent of sweet victories taken from the jaws of many near defeats.

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God is faithful in this: when couples battle through, with vision of the cherished destination ever ahead and in view, defiantly together in constancy, they will reach their goal and the work will be worth it. Heavenly sweet is that destination.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Remembering to Say, “I Love You”

The commonest phrase and gesture the victims of 9/11 heard, felt or expressed in their final hour would have been, without much doubt, “I love you.” It is a revered and solemn gift. Yet, many never think to say it or avoid saying it.

Perhaps we mean to say it more, but don’t; for a variety of reasons. Sometimes we don’t say it because we lack courage or we don’t know how to say it in ways we mean it.

It takes a great deal of vulnerability for some to say, “I love you.” For others, it’s just a matter of making the time and effort. For others, again, it’s simply remembering to do it.

Converting Words to Meaning

Many people struggle to say the words because of the meaning attached, or to say the words with meaning. They struggle for intimacy, because there are trust issues between the two or they don’t have the self-esteem of courage to look someone in the eye and honestly give of themselves that way. But boldness and vulnerability are to be their allies.

Converting words to meaning, or finding different words or ways to say the same thing, requires imagination motivated by love.

Somehow, it must be remembered, words can cheapen meaning. We can flippantly say, “I love you,” and it becomes habitual and meaning is stripped away. Such a powerful phrase folds in importance. But that can only occur if we say it mindlessly.

It can, therefore, be seen as a form of blasphemy—to say, “I love you,” not meaning it. Still, we might have all made this mistake if we’ve ever committed to regularly saying it in the first place.

The meaning of the phrase is where its power resides.

And words are not the only way to say, “I love you.”

Saying It As If Today Were the Last

As I reflected recently on the motion picture, Ghost (1990), I was compelled, afresh, to reconcile the frailty of life—that loved ones die always too early.

Sam Wheat, played by Patrick Swayze (himself now gone), is admirably and fatuously in love with Molly Jensen, played by Demi Moore. He famously responds, “Ditto!” to her vocal affirmations of love toward him, much to her annoyance. The “I love you/ditto” issue becomes central to the film.

We have to do better than “ditto,” although, again, we need to be free to express love beyond words. Some people’s dittos will really communicate a richness of love.

Saying “I love you” with utter sincerity is foremost acknowledging that any of our precious relationships could end at any time. That puts life into proper perspective. Remembering to say “I love you” is making the most of the given moment, before they stop being given.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Graphic Credit: Herzen.

Who Knows Me Like You Do?

One of our biggest problems is a lack of understanding. In conflict our purpose is confused for something heinous in low trust situations—they don’t understand us, and we not, them.

Then there’s a broader scope of misunderstanding breeding loneliness, isolation, and fatigue from a lack of love. We are fortunate there is one who knows and understands us back to front and inside out.

Being Near God

“... for me it is good to be near God.”

~Psalm 73:28a (NRSV).

Intimacy with God helps us when there is precious little intimacy coming our way from our other relationships. The paradox is, as we feel less intimacy coming to us we, too, are transmitting a less-than-intimate persona to others, also.

A lack of felt intimacy breeds self-consciousness.

Being near God helps us reacquaint with intimacy. There is an opulence of freshness in the lashings of love bestowed on us by the Lord. Such an inexplicable thing, due just our willingness to step into the fold of God’s Presence, is confidence and joy; a lightness of spirit and a skip in the gait overcomes our desolation.

Something To Look Forward To

If nobody but God can know us, truly, intimately, we have much to look forward to at the end of our worldly lives. As our physical bodies fester and decay we’re reminded of not just the ageing process, but that the temporary is making quick way for the eternal; real, everlasting blessing.

Having eternity to look forward to isn’t something that brightens most people from within; even many Christians, if truth were to be told, would rather not leave here.

We have a Lord who knows us better than we even know ourselves. Others—even close others in our immediate families—come a distant third to understanding us in a way we need to be known.

Returning home after a long trip overseas is long yearned for, and the gratification is unspeakable when it takes place. We are here in a strange and foreign place, far from the intimacy God would like for us. Going home is something to look forward to. Soon it will occur!

In the meantime...

Reciprocating the Love

As we are reminded of the goodness in love, and the implicit intimacy of God, we have the opportunity to return to the Lord our own pleasant sacrifices of willed affection.

The key issue in returning to God such intimate blessings of thankfulness and praise is what God does for us in restoring our abilities around intimacy. Reciprocating in love is doing ourselves a huge service.

No one knows me or you better than God. And the Lord throws down the gauntlet of blessing: “Will you come, now, and know me?” says the Lord.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Whose Problem Am I?

A play on The Motels’ song, Whose Problem (1980), we have the opportunity to ask ourselves a most important question: Whose problem (presently) am I? Am I the cause of any unnecessary burden? Does anything remain unresolved because of, or despite, me?

One way we practically love people is by relieving any sense of difficulty, that we can, which might affect the rapport we would otherwise mutually enjoy.

The Motels’ Song Original Intent

“Whose problem am I, if I’m not yours?”

That was the original crux of the song, and it utters a certain truth. We all want to be called someone’s son or daughter, wife or husband, partner etc. We all, of the sense, want to be ‘owned’ by somebody—in the way of their care. We want to be cared for by other, or another, human being(s).

In a weirdly ironic way we want people to check up on us; to prove that they care about us, what we do, what we are about. There is a need in many of us to be ‘a problem’ (in this way) for someone or some people. We want to be their concern.

Take Into Account the Problematic Nature of Close Relationships

Of course, many close relationships will be intentionally, and permissively, problematic. It’s the nature of love; when we are fully vested and sown into relationship we assume a certain level of care will produce a certain quantity or quality of problem.

We go into these relationships with our eyes open. We know the price of love is a modicum of suffering, grief, risk of betrayal, disappointment etc.

There will be conflict; nothing surer.

The mere fact of intimacy suggests we must risk something, via the glittering facets of trust, to establish love. Love is a messy thing; essentially it’s problematic. We don’t have a choice, many of us, because we are wired to love and be loved.

Some Burdens Need to Be Tackled

There is still the opportunity, however, to reflect: Am I being especially burdensome?

Only we, by our observations and perceptions, can make that call. Only we have the capacity to right any of these wrongs that occur in our lives because of us, personally.

We can all be overly burdensome from time to time, and though our loved ones know us and love us dearly, in spite of our quirks, it’s our responsibility to amend problematic behaviour.

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Whose problem am I? It’s a decent enough question. Knowing the answers to such questions is our social responsibility.

A significant part of loving one another is not just acting in love, but it’s also about not acting in abusing and neglectful ways. Relationships blossom when problematic issues are tackled head-on.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Adjusting to Everyday Grief

HOW LONG does the average, everyday grief process last, do you think? By “everyday grief” I mean, significant life change, but not as harrowing as recovering from the tragic loss of a loved one. Everyday grief amounts to changes in the workplace, in the make-up of the family dynamic, and in feeling at home after shifting to a foreign place, for instance.

Everyday grief, as a manifestation of adjustment, may take as little as a few months to two years. That’s my personal experience.

Separating it from major grief (e.g. loss of loved ones) there is real hope for full acceptance, without ongoing mourning.

Everyday grief is far more common than the life-dividing variety that obliterates our reality. We might expect at least one of these periods every five years; maybe more regularly.

Adjusting to everyday grief is about making the transition as smoothly and quickly as possible, without skimping any of the real work in actually adjusting.

Because this is a common experience it bodes us well to develop the skill of recovery. This might otherwise be termed, resilience.

The same stage-model of adjustment in grief applies:

1. Denial – change rarely comes in the form we embrace. There is usually some resistance. Pride is part of the problem, but also disbelief; both by the fact that this change has been mooted, and is now coming into effect, and by our lack of support for the change. We just don’t believe it is right. There’s no better corrective to denial than observation of truth. This will likely cause us anger.

2. Anger – denial and anger vacillate. The disbelief in denial together with the evidence of change that we can see with our own eyes creates an enormous dissonance within us. Whatever we cannot reconcile augments anger. We best find appropriate means of expressing our anger. Discussion, physical exercise, an outlet for the emotions, and other means, may help.

3. Bargaining – it’s normal to see our changing circumstances through the lens of the old way. We want the old way confirmed; the new way, relegated. In this fashion, bargaining becomes a willed sense of denial for what is now taking place. During this phase we look for evidence where the change isn’t working. There is an ‘I told you so!’ attitude nurtured within our hearts. This is clearly unhealthy. Depression, ironically, is a sign of a healthy passing-through of this stage.

4. Depression – the reality hits for the first time at a deeper level. Depressed feelings are natural when we understand there is no choice but to do this thing; to abide by the change we don’t want to be part of. But depressive feelings, in time, make way for acceptance—stoically to begin with, followed by more enthusiastic varieties. Best we are gentle with ourselves when feeling depressed.

5. Acceptance – as alluded to above, there are varying levels of acceptance. We may arrive at this phase iteratively, over and again, for longer and better periods, for months before a final acceptance arrives. We can only tell from hindsight when we’ve ultimately reached this outcome.

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Adjusting to significant change is both a major challenge and a key opportunity. Ensuring we pass through the stages and don’t get stuck is vital. With hope, we believe life will settle down; that fresh meaning will arrive, and a new purpose, born.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Remodelling Your Spirituality

“For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” ~Mark 4:22-23 (NRSV).

Jesus was in the business of opening things up: the minds of the disciples and others by his parables, and the eyes of the blind and ears of the deaf through his miracles. He opens hearts to the truth, today and eternally!

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Opening Up Our Spirituality

Jamie Durie, the celebrity gardener, has a beautifully basic philosophy that brings the garden alive in our minds to punctuate our lives with flourishing, teeming growth. He extends the living room and lounge room into the garden; curtains are a thing more fitting, he says, to the boundary fence than as awnings to windows. Such extensions expand our thinking of liveable home beyond brick walls to the boundary of our properties.

Such a process of opening things up brings a rejuvenating out-of-doors freedom into the typically closeted home experience.

If we cannot feel at home—physically and spiritually—where can we feel at home?

Opening up our homes by extending the walls into the garden also has a spiritual analogy. Poignantly in this day, when technology and the rapidity of change swamps our minds, cluttering our spirituality, heading out into the garden of our hearts reveals a vital expansion possible to our perspective; and this, against the flow.

Why settle for a constricted, safe, blinkered spirituality?

The Ever Present Spiritual Landscape Is Open

Jesus ever seeks to open us up.

We are recreated, reborn, redesigned, and repurposed to exemplify a multiplicity of blessing—the thriving, plentiful, ever-blooming life.

What has happened is our minds have been transformed, opened up, and made capable of discerning the truth in God’s redeeming universe; an ever-expanding reality normally invisible, but made open to those alive in Jesus’ name.

Notice that it’s never Jesus that blinds us with technology, encroaching change, politics, opinions, conjecture, envy, boasting, pride, social affairs, competing interests etc. The things that confuse and overwhelm us are wrought by Satan. The will of the evil one is to close our minds.

In our busy lives we might have the loveliest of lounge rooms; our houses, perhaps, are decorated in splendour. Yet, we hardly enjoy them.

In a similar way, Jesus has opened up all spiritual possibilities, delimiting us. Life has a beauty hard to reconcile. Yet, we must decide to live it; the simpler the better.

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Throw open the curtains. Better still, take them down. Make curtains, instead, at the extent of your outer boundaries. Learn to live an expansive life. Jesus died for it. We do not hide a shimmering lantern; we place it on the lampstand for all to see.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.

Honouring the Memorial of Silence

LEST WE FORGET. That phrase means a lot in our present vocabulary, particularly on the Day of Remembrance. May it never be that we forget the uncommon sacrifice of those gone, lost in conflict.

But we too easily forget, also, the uncommon sacrifice of those that returned:

“Perhaps the only memorial that fully touches the enormity of war is silence. It was in silence that so many of our veterans wrapped themselves when they came back.” ~The Hon Julia Gillard MP, Prime Minister of Australia.

Don’t Mention The War!

So many of us are, or have been, related to these; veterans from periods of dastardly significance; harassed in spirit and dogged by an unrelenting and faithless scourge, even as they landed back on peaceful shores.

If we didn’t lose them on the battlefield, we lost a sizeable chunk of them upon their return; living out their lives captive to what they saw, heard, touched, and experienced.

War made some of them better. Hard as that is to say. Still, it matured many a young man and young woman prematurely. Indeed, great has been, and perhaps is, the social cost. So, war made many of them bitter. And that’s not the half of it, for post-traumatic stress has become an all too common legacy that lingers; the effects echo through ensuing generations.

Learning to Live in the Light of Such Sacrifice

Do we owe our veterans any enduring recompense?

If we do, it’s about learning to live, solemnly, in the light of their sacrifice, to remember, honouring them by never forgetting, and championing the vision for social justice and peace, always.

But there is a more familiar practice for living than doing all things in response to such a legacy.

Such sacrifice bequeaths an urgency within each of our spirits. As our veterans returned never, perhaps, to speak of the horrors of war, so ought we honour such silence by returning regularly to thoughts of simple, unspoken thankfulness.

Only God knows what they went through. Only God knows why they were the ones selected for such a perilous ignominy. And though we honour them we cannot truly know the personal cost. Only the Lord could know or appreciate.

Instead, we enjoy life—and we should—because of their uncommon sacrifice; a sacrifice more common in their day, but still uncommon by the mode of today.

What is left to say?

Very little can be said to redeem what was lost, but we should not shrink from calling ahead in praise and thankfulness for these whom sacrificed so uncommonly.

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For veterans old and young alike,

Whether dead or returned alive,

Thankful bonds we’re to strike,

For the hope we now derive.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.