Kirkepiscatoid

Today’s reading and discussion center around contemplation. Joan's introduction defines contemplation as “the consciousness of living steeped in God, of being surrounded by God, of being directed by God, of being in the presence of God, of learning to see life through the eyes of God, of being aware of God’s love, action, or challenge.”

Reflection Questions:

1. Do you allow money, career, or achievement to become the greatest values in your life? If so, how might you overcome these attractions?

I’ve never allowed them to dominate me much on the positive side of me, but I am prone to letting my FEARS about money, career, or achievement take control of the negative side of me. For me, the way these things have control over me is the fear and shame and humiliation of the fear of losing them and being ridiculed by others because of my stupidity. I think this is a by-product of having grandparents who lived through the depression; that yes, you can work hard and try to do right and the world can still kick you in the ass and take it all away from you, and people being people, and petty ones at that, love to tear down someone who “had something” and lost it. Also, one of the hard parts of medicine is “knowing you sit in God’s chair when you know damn good and well you are not God.” I dispense diagnoses every day...it’s almost like the judgment of God. But I am human, I can be wrong. I always fear “that case out there that could bite me in the ass,” and realize every day I go back into the crucible to make some more of those judgments anyway.

There are times the pressure of being the “generator of income” in my practice unnerves me. Eight people would not get a paycheck if not for me and my colleague, and my colleague has health problems which necessitate his working less, so I get the bigger share of it. So I get upset when people treat me like a “cash cow”. I am not sure how to be at peace with these fears of mine yet. I am still not very good at handling them. I can get in a real snit with myself that I am less qualified, less competent, etc. because I chose to work in a small town, deliberately chose far less income for some kind of a life, and even then, that life gets pressed upon simply because “that’s the price of admission when you work in health care—that you will always sacrifice a certain part of yourself for others.”

2. Write about some situation or relationship that reminds you of God’s presence at the center of your life.

I feel it best when I am either sitting alone inside the walls of Trinity (my usual way of doing this in the winter) or out in my yard, in my reclining lawn chair, under the stars at night (it has become my “sacred spot” in the summer.) In both situations, I like to just sit quietly and see if I can feel God laying his hand on me. It is incredibly connecting and comforting for the most part. Sometimes it is a little intense and hard to handle, when I am in one of my moods and am feeling like I don’t deserve to be loved. It makes me uncomfortable to be “touched” and I shrink from it. That might seem a little paradoxical because I would say most of my friends would say I have a tendency to explore things by “grabbing them and taking them apart and see how they work.” You would think at those times I would welcome “grabbing onto God.” Well, sometimes I do, but not always. Maybe in the “not” times it is because I feel so unworthy to the presence of such goodness. But that is totally me, not God, ya know?

But mostly I am learning to enjoy that sense of being “held on to” by God. It’s just some days are tougher than others with that.


3. Meditate on your awareness of “God’s love, action, and challenge” in the world around you.

I don’t think I have a very clear awareness of this yet. I still feel like I am stumbling through this to some degree. I have moments when I feel God’s love and presence; I have occasional flashes of “direction” for what he wants me to address in a more immediate sense (but not much in a “long term” sense at all) and the “challenge” for me is to just LET GO. Being a hands on, take it apart, analyze it, give it a name and put it in a box kind of person, the whole idea of boxing my personal fears up and leaving them on the altar is really, really, HARD. The “fixit” part of me says I should be “doing something”, and if I am not “doing something”, I am not “doing my part.” It is hard for me to give up control. It is hard for me to admit my powerlessness in some things. It is incredibly hard for me to accept that “leaving my shit on the altar” is not just simply ok, it’s what God WANTS me to do. I have a lot of work to do here!