Three Fingers Pointing #lookwithinfirst #nohypocricy

 

The other day, I was on Facebook...the start of a sentence that no good could come from...hang on, let me start again.

A friend in recovery and I always quip, after long discussions on the current political climate, "Ah, the world needs recovery, everyone just needs recovery."

So, with that in mind, I was on Facebook and I found this video of a woman critizing, even taunting, Christians for their hypocrisy in claiming to be followers of Jesus while seemingly not staying true to the teachings of Jesus.  Sharing it around, I included two of my current "Fundie-Christian friends".*

Watch here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQb8u74kSww/?igsh=eWsxMjdxOW1qM21p

As I shared with them, I realized instantly their possible reaction, whether they voiced it towards me or not, something that I have had said to me for years since I left Christianity and openly deconstructing over ten years ago.  That rhetoric, "Don't be mad at God, it's the people that caused the pain, people aren't perfect, God is."

Now, early on in my deconstruction, I would react with sarcastic anger, seeming to prove to them their valid point and the open channel of communication destroyed.  Thus, the divide rift widened.  

I don't often share these videos directly with my former, current 'fundie' friends because I know that this will be the reaction.  This maddens me at the inability to admit the truthfulness in such post, to view the reality of their beliefs causing harm, to play victim while they victimize....

When one finger points, three are pointing back. 

Ah, therein lies the rub.  This isn't now an attack on the 'fundie' exclusively, but an attempt to awaken us all to the flaws in our own psyches, bridging the divide with the realization of our own shared humanity.

We all have the propensity to point out when pressed with the flaws in our behavior, beliefs, thoughts rather than admit our faults.  

In the current horror of darkness my country is spiraling, I will continue to post real life monstrosities.  Yet, before I do such, I will do my utmost best to look first at the fingers pointing back, trying to reflect upon my reason for doing, remembering the areas where I have wronged and caused harm.  The desire to help others coming forth from my own healing such that that will be a beacon to attract others out of their own tumult.  

Yes, the world needs recovery, everyone needs recovery and it starts by following the three fingers pointing back.  Recovery is a coupling of inner, active critical thinking with love.

*I use "Fundie" hear as a slang for mainstream Christianity, not meant to be derisive or insulting.  I understand that my Christian friends, whose viewpoints no longer align with mine, still do not see themselves as such. 

No, The Rest Of The World Isn't Laughing At US #wearetheworld

 

This is not my perception. 

A friend in England writes to me on Whatsapp: "Just heard Trump saying an enormous amount of BS at the UN summit.  Basically said climate change doesn't exist, it's a scam, block borders, he brought peace in the world (fake), and America is doing better than ever.  The problem is that he is going to influence those that think the same. "

Then later, he continues: "Is anyone going to stop Trump? People used to get worried about for Obama wearing a tan suit, not this government just went back 100 years and is influencing Europe too. They restricted travel to European Commissioners for something about digital protection, since Trump wants to know whoever said anything bad about his government.  I don't know how he was voted."

Then, a Swiss friend sends a whatsapp message with a video: "Donald Trump just flew over my head." (throw up emoji).  On his way to World Economic Forum in Davos, she explains.  I do a google search and locate a YouTube video of Trump at the forum, blabbing on with his usual drivel about how great he is for the US and his country, a jumble of absurd lies. 

Lastly, a friend from Scotland sends a funny voice text via Facebook Messenger:  "I thought Trump just liked orange but turns out he also likes green."

 No, the rest of the world isn't laughing at us.  Instead, I perceive compassion, as much bewilderment and fear as we in the USA are feeling, and the need to laugh at such absurdity.  For too long now, the general sense in the states has been this mentality of US versus THEM coupled with the wild notion that America is the best country in the entirety of the world.  Then, there are some US citizens who see the atrocities of our government both within and without our borders and believe the laughter and derision from the rest of the world to be an accepted response.  However true that is, it is still a belief in our separation from the THEM.  

Yet, those on the outside looking in, residing in countries both allied and enemy, recognize the global significance of the United States as well the reality that the political strivings and machination of all governments is not the fault of the citizen.  

Perhaps this is our time in the Grand Ol' USA to experience the repercussion for harm done, yet again to be shaken awake from our numb slumber, to the real power of assiduousness that has always been present.  Yet in our suffering and striving to overcome the darkness, know that we are not alone, not a byline by others outward, but compassion is held, empathy and hope given, striving together with us for a better future, not for individual countries, not for the governing powers, but for We The People, citizens of the world, for that is truly what we are.

We are the world

We are the children

We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving

There's a choice we're making

We're saving our own lives

It's true we'll make a better day, just you and me

Michael Jackson: We Are the World

#Recovery, My Own, For Me

 

Recovery, the very word itself, is as a foreign language to those not participating in their own journeys.  An individual not ready to admit how the choices of their lives are negatively impacting them will find themselves at odds with the one seeking guidance out of their craziness.  Added to that,  seeing one break free from destruction may cause a conviction upon the other not in recovery, who therein reacts with anger and tactics to undermine the healer in attempt to get them to re-join the toxic pathway.

I have been on a journey of recovery since 2006 when I was first diagnosed with Bipolar 1.  In those early days, I found myself fearful of the label yet clung to it for some hope of answer.  I felt isolated from others due to my own doing as well as being surrounded by those not suffering from the throes of mental illness.  The term "mental illness" or any of its various diagnoses felt foreign and a death sentence.  In 2008, I found NAMI and other forms of support groups, low income therapy, and throughout left the feeling of isolation and began the recovery journey.

However, being part of a fundamentalist "evangelical" worldview plus not yet working on my codependent rescuing, left me with the inability to not make recovery about myself, leaving the others journeys their own.  I attempted multiple times, throughout all of my life but especially in the early days of recovery, to TELL people their issues, what was wrong, with the hopes of assisting only to be met with resistance, anger, loss of friendship.  

As time wore on further, I used this 'rescuing' and the knowledge earned from my insatiable desire to learn all things, that being psychology in recovery, as a means to set boundaries.  Labeling another to their face with a diagnosis was not acceptable according to my position.  Setting boundaries is not about fixing or changing the other, even punishing the other, it's caring for oneself in affirming how one's desire for respect.

Furthermore, setting boundaries is an act of love for oneself and others.  Recovery, in itself, is not about the other but the self healing.  In my journey at present, I seek to maintain the focus on myself, how others affect me, not to punish or change them, but how I may care for myself and assist in my soul's evolution.  Not to say that I am completely perfect in this self-work, that would defect the point of recovery (See Step One), rather I daily choose to come back to myself.  In the world of recovery, we say "progress not perfection".  For I cannot know truly what is in the mind of another, nor can they know mine, I can only choose to act in integrity of self love, doing my best to not react to toxicity, but also learning to stand for myself with an unshakable voice and inner stability. 

Never do I seek to close myself in the impacting of boundaries to the opportunity of healthy, honest conversations with those still in the throes of their own pain, but I do not pressure them in word or deed, force them into healing, rather as I focus on self, I put my assurance that truly others journey towards discovery of self is found in 'attraction, not evangelism".

In my recovery 

I’m a soldier at war 

I have broken down walls

 I defined 

I designed 

My recovery

Keep soaring 

Keep song-writing

 Keep soaring 

Keep song-writing

 My recovery

James Arthur - Recovery (Lyrics)

Finding Gratitude In The Nostalgia #thanksgiving #gratitude #alltoowell

 

As I sit here on the other side of my Thanksgiving feast, thankful for the meal my partner so lovingly toiled over while himself feeling under the weather, I find myself in the repose of nostalgia.  Yesterday, as I busied myself with the doings of work and errands, my eyes fell on my other city dwellers as they made the same movements.  All the while, my mind was swirling with the memories flooding of Thanksgiving past, all of my life rushing upwards upon me in a wonder of brilliant clarity.  

Most notably, I am recalling how as a high schooler, the day following the turkey feast, I'd board a YMCA bus and head forth to the Pacific Regional Conference, a teen camp held over the Thanksgiving holiday during the nineties(my youth).  Excited I was for the experience and more importantly for the reuniting with my summer camp friends who I had not seen for three whole months...(laughable now when I count the decades of our absence from each other, if only we had a PRC now).  My mind flutters forward like the flickering of a slide show and I'm a college student finding my way home for the Thanksgiving feast, the airplane and bus ride back to my childhood bedroom, seeing the high school friends as we converse over beers milling where we are now, feeling somehow old in our early twenties, the warm feast around the dining room table, my mother's home cooked meal so vivid to me in the wake of losing her...

It all leads me to fall into the myriad maze of the "whatifs" of past misgivings.  The moments that were almost but then were not.  As I rode the bus to the YMCA camp, I tried whatever I could to seem aloof from the boy I maintained an active crush throughout our summer camp years only to have him return in our twenties to drunkenly profess his infatuation, then a moment at a cafe one cold December in 2004 that was an "almost but was not".  What if it had not been an almost but an actuality, I ask myself nearly to the brink of despair.

Then again, with the passing of my mother, I find myself nostalgic for the moments of my college angst-filled self making her way home for the Thanksgiving meal and weekend, all that transpired during those times.  The moments before the feast, during, after, bringing the new romantic partner home for the first time to meet the family and the nervousness behind such doing, the catching up with siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, the warm heart gathering from sleeping in late in your childhood bedroom, the reconnection with high school classmates...

As I walked through the grocery stores, I saw others busy with their preparing and felt a connection, seeing in them the nostalgic memory of past thanksgivings similar to mine.  In the darkness of the times we find ourselves, where division seems the given, finding the moment to delve into nostalgia recognizing our similarities within.  That is my gratitude.  

Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place 

And I can picture it after all these days 

And I know it’s long gone and that magic’s not here no more 

And I might be ok but I’m not fine at all… 

Cause there we are again on that Little town street 

You almost ran the red 

Cause you were looking over at me 

Wind in my hair, 

I was there 

I remember it all too well

Taylor Swift - All Too Well (Sad Girl Autumn Version) - Recorded at Long Pond Studios

How We Thrive: Author Ruth Wire "Never Give Up" #thrivingartists

Ruth Wire Playwright, Author Ruth Wire is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and poet. She also is a published short story writer and has written a radio play. Most of her stage plays have had productions and she has one script writing credit. With a composer, she has written over one-hundred song lyrics and produced a musical. She has published four novels and is working on her fifth, available for purchase on Amazon. She is a retired RN. She is divorced, widowed, has three children, and one grandchild. For more about Ruth, visit www.ruthwire.com

#Poet Asela Lee Kemper: Coffee Chat & Book Review, Ep. 9 #authortube #po...

Deconstructing #Calvary Chapel, The Love Story of #KaySmith #ChuckSmith

Today, we are taking a deeper look at the relationship between Chuck and Kay Smith, Kay's personal life before she met Chuck, how they met, their early years in marriage and ministry, and all that came forth through the years.

https://www.phoenixpreacher.com/the-calvary-chapel-chronicles-4/

https://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Sep/09/il/FP609100308.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D9Y-cQmGsE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB6X8ntuq70&t=69s