Questioning Faith

He was saying how uncertain he becomes when thinking what he really believes.  He was reciting the creed, as he had done each Sunday for hundreds of Sundays, but for whatever reason he noticed today how the words emerged and with them a sense that maybe this was not his belief.  Maybe only parts of it were, or maybe there were more aspects fitting less well than they should have, and so he stopped -- allowing the congregation to carry on the faith for at least one day.

Seeking Security

The more they spend on guns, the less secure they feel.  Perhaps they might want to try it the other way -- buying less to feel better.

Obliged To Be Anxious

We can think anxiety an obligation and say, "You ought to be worried.  You must be anxious.  You have felt this badly before, so what are you waiting for now."

Away With Evil

It is our belief that evil should not exist that makes something like psychotherapy a possibility.  In other cultures, evil -- or anxiety -- are not questioned.  People feel sad.  They are in pain.  Life is less happy than they might sometimes wish.  But it is not a crisis.  It is simply how life is.  For us, that acceptance is less available, and so we resist how life is, saying it should instead be different.  No pain, no sadness.  Away with the evil.  Make it better.  Make it happy, or failing that make it not hurt.  It is self-confident and maybe even hopeful to think that we can, by wanting it so, make life change.  Or maybe instead of hopeful, it is foolish that we are.

A Therapist's Motive

I think I got into this business so I could be the one asking, and so I would never have to tell.

It Just Happens

Mike was saying family transitions do not occur as planned.  There is no "going to happen."  It just occurs, and often with sadness.

Only Facts

Thoughts, ideas, beliefs of all sort as well as what happens in random fashion or what others have chosen to do:  they are all only so many facts.  They are what they are, and they will have for each of us only the value we give them.  We are no obliged to react in any prescribed manner or according to any formula, no matter how time honored (or time worn) they may be.

The Irony of Looking

The closer we look, the less we are liable to see.

Do Not Discount The Distractions

Those were not distractions; rather they were the essence of the whole thing.  Notice, don't exclude.

A Dream Instead

Had Martin Luther King said, "I have a thought," would people have been so moved?

Vulnerability

Without vulnerability, there would be no need to trust.

Seeing Our Essence

Most aspects of definition are less significant day-to-day than they seem when standing alone in the abstract, and so how we define ourselves is more of an evolving awareness to which we periodically refer and over time it becomes more complete, though not more complex.  In this sense the progress is less in adding on than it is in taking away -- deleting aspects that are seen to be less essential than they might have.  More is involved in our noticing than in our finding.  It is coming to what we had not set out to find.

Time for Change

The time came for her to change, but then it passed and so it cannot come again.  She settled instead and wished she might call it success.

Choosing Forgiveness

We do not have to forgive, but holding onto anger makes no one better.  Forgiveness is how we control the event.  We own it by dismissing it.

Reduced to Giving and Receiving

Were we to live in terms of someone else's need, or what we thought his need might be, we would be doing no service to that person nor to ourselves.  It would be making giving the essential aspect of our being, and receiving the essence of him.  It is intruding into the person's life, obliging him to receive -- and there is as well an expectation that he be grateful for the gift he may not have wanted.  If he is not grateful we might even blame him, accusing him of being unappreciative.  We might respond by giving even more if he does not respond, but we might also resent event more -- as might he as well.

The Cost of Reverence

It seemed after visiting the First Parish Church that what our own had gained in reverence may have been bought at the expense of community.

After the Spectacle

They had gone there to pray.  That in the process Jesus was transfigured is secondary.  Like much that is spectacular it drew their attention, but in the end it was perhaps less substantive than it seemed.

The Intimacy of Silliness

It seems there is greater intimacy in the capacity to be silly together than there is in the sharing of passion.

Any Answer Will Do

I heard two kids talking.  One said, "Are you still doing that?"  The sense was that any answer would be fine.  If his friend was it was because he was supposed to, and if he wasn't he was still on schedule.

Awareness Instead

We are pursuing knowledge when we should instead be open to awareness.  Knowing infers a struggle, the breaking of the code and forcing facts to yield their hidden meanings.  It is too intense and all one sided.  Awareness is instead a coming to understanding, the watching of what had always been.  In knowledge there is a sense that something must be done with it, that it has to be applied.  Awareness is just had.  It has no application and needs none.

Trying to Explain Church

James wants to know why Church has to be so elaborate, why religious belief cannot be at least as vital with less ceremony.  It is a reasonable question and I was left having to rely on tradition as an explanation and community worship as our reason for being there.  I was satisfied with neither aspect of my explanation, and I was wondering later why I was there.  I think it is like so much of what I do.  It is looking for a link to a different time and hopefully a bridge that will link it to now.  It is hoping for the vitality I thought was there.  It is that tradition or continuity that brings me, sometimes reluctantly, to Church, though I wonder was it there even when I had thought it was, or wished it might be.  It is not yet just a habit.  Hopefully it will not become just that since that would not be reason enough to stay.

Receiving What Is Offered

Part of the gift we give is taking what someone offers.

Being Stoic

I am not effusive and never was, but it does not bother me.  I do not hug clients or people I have only just met.  I do not gush, but then I never knew anyone who did, or who did so with any kind of grace.  I don't mind if conversations lag, and am grateful that some of them do.

Settling for Appearances

People are paying a high price for the appearance of intimacy and they will pretend that what is available is what they had needed.

Your Spiritual Self

Recognizing a spiritual dimension to self is the precursor to belief in anything beyond self.

The Big Disappointment

They do not exactly say so but there is always the suggestion that if people would just have enough faith they would live forever, if they would only mobilize the resources within themselves no disease would have a chance.  I heard -- or thought I heard -- an ad in which Bernie Siegel seemed to be saying it again.  It must be one hell of a surprise when they get sick and if sick can slip past that mobilized faith dying must surely be a let down.

Better Just To Listen

About the time he seems ready to hope, there is no reason to.  He tells me this a lot and I used to tell him he was wrong.  I would say life was the gift and just by living he was ahead.  He did not argue.  I don't tell him that anymore, or anything else.  Instead I listen, and sometimes I nod.  He told me it would be all right if life ended.  He would not give back the gift, but it would be O.K. not to have it.

Opposites

Only in physics (or is it chemistry) do opposites attract.  In other instances they have to look for each other, then justify having found one another if their opposition will not be reconciled.

What They Choose Not To See

They have their secret sins and private weaknesses, as do we all; but they have chosen not to see that they are not just what is sad or weak and so no matter how capable they are in the company of others they find their heart most at home in the dark.  They have not understood who others know they are.

Suspicious Behavior

I am always suspicious of therapists using confrontation.

Surprised By Integrity

Why is the emergence of integrity such a surprise.