Ever since I was a kid, I’ve tried to like the game “Monopoly.”  There are vague memories playing this with my brother and sister.  Glimpses of the past, when I would inevitably and quite quickly run out of money and property, and end up bankrupt.  Every single time.

As a teen and adult, I would cheat, stealing properties or money.  Even then, I would lose.  Badly.  Not that I cared all that much.  Playing Monopoly was fairly boring, the games lasting too long and not having enough action, even with the cheating.  Plus, the whole idea of accumulating wealth for its own sake, and at the expense of the other players, was pretty revolting to me.  (If you’re interested in the real history of Monopoly, and how it got bastardized, look it up.  Pretty interesting)

However, I’ll admit that passing Go and getting that two hundred dollars was somewhat satisfying.  I liked how that one space represented a starting point, a stopping point, and a through point.  I liked getting rewarded just for having shaken some dice and moving a token around a board.

How are we doing at with our Go spaces?  How are we doing in our starting and our continuing? This past Sunday, our pastor preached on this.  One of the things that has stuck out for me is that we can’t finish something unless we start it.  Several years ago I heard a similar admonition from Seth Godin:  Ship it.

We get to go, if we really want to do so.  Obviously the comparison with Monopoly isn’t entirely clean-fitting with our starting something and continuing on with it.  But it has relevance.  We start, evaluate, make adjustments, and continue on.  We look back to the origin of the idea or project, to see if we are still holding true to what we started.

But we have to start.  Nobody else is going to do so for you.

I wish I had more wisdom in this, but I don’t think we need much more than this.  All of the advice in the world isn’t going to matter if we choose to remain in the same place today as we were yesterday.

So, Go…

So, I’ve been listening to the book “Barking at the Choir” by Father Greg Boyle.  If you don’t know much about him yet, look him up.

One of his homies relates the story of how he was abused and tortured as a kid.  From the age of 9, he wore three T-shirts to school.  The first two weren’t enough to cover up the blood soaking through, so he put on a third.  He did this up through much of his adult years, because even after the active abuse stopped, he was ashamed about his scars.

However, this gentleman says, “Now I welcome my wounds.  I run my fingers over my scars.  My wounds are my friends.  After all, how can I help others to heal if I don’t welcome my own wounds?”

I think that’s pretty interesting, and potentially spot-on.  To be honest, I am going to sit with this idea for a while, mull it over, and try not to interfere too much in the process of letting God speak to me about it.  Because it feels like there is something profound there, something simple as well, if I can just see around that corner.

I get that we have will more empathy the closer our experiences are to the experiences of others.  I get that sometimes we need to be in the same sacred spaces as others who have walked similar roads that we have.  I get it.

I also know that in order to love and serve others, I don’t have to have the exact, or sometimes even similar, experience that they do.  My scars don’t have to look like yours do in order for us to embrace one another and to share life together.

I’m just not sure about making friends with the wounds.  About rubbing them with–what?  Affection?  With love?  I’m not sure I am there yet.

But, I want to be.

So, I’m going to sit on this and in this for some time.  Not so much so that it stops me from living my life, or from being healthy.  I’m just going to give this idea room to grow, see where it takes me, if anywhere.

Sometimes, I will catch myself rubbing an old scar, or scratching a new one, without fully realizing that I am doing so.  My understanding is that rubbing a wound serves to soothe and protect the wounded area from further damage.  When we get hurt, our hands instinctively go to the injured area, again to protect and soothe.

There are times when we will rub or scratch a scar that has faded as well.  We are just so used to rubbing that wound, we keep going to it from time to time.  Our brains haven’t quite let go of this habit we acquired as the wound healed.

I think our psychological wounds can be a bit like this.  When we get hurt, we turn our attention to the affected area, assessing the damage, protecting it from further damage, and then spending time with it as it heals.  This is natural and healthy.

We rub and scratch at these wounds as they heal.  Most of time, these scars fade as well.  If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to function.  I don’t know about you, but there are times when I will find myself picking at an old wound, one that I had perhaps thought was gone for good.

Something can trigger a memory or a feeling that was associated with the hurt.  Rub, scratch.  Sometimes I sit with the memory for a bit, turn it over in my head, and then dismiss it.  Sometimes I just have a thought like, “That’s weird.  Haven’t thought about that in a while.  Huh.” and then it’s done and gone.

Then there are occasions when an old wound will stick around for a while.  It’ll just pop up, presenting itself like it’s brand-new again.  Sights, sounds, smells, noise, even taste can come back and haunt me for a time.  So, there I’ll sit, rubbing away at something that doesn’t exist, or at least isn’t “supposed” to exist anymore.

Thankfully, these are rare for me.  And my circle of tight friends is small and healthy.  My wife is my number-one go to, and she is full of grace and patience.  I have two other tight friends to confide in, and a wonderful mother.  I have a healthy relationship with the Creator.  And, honestly, that’s enough for me.  More than enough.

Once again, this post didn’t end up like I imagined it would.  That’s fine.  Many of you can relate to this, and I hope and pray you have surrounded yourself only with people who have your best interests and your health in mind.

Thanks.

So, sometimes, I miss “the good ol’ days.” Or at least, I think I do.

The way I grew up in martial arts is a bit different than how it is presented today.  My first training hall had three adornments: The South Korean Flag, The US Flag, and a giant sign that said, “House of Discipline.”  My instructor spoke better Korean than he did English, and he used to carry around a pail with gravel.  Master Park would punch and spear the gravel to toughen up his hands.  He could also do a lot of push ups on his index fingers (no joke).

We trained on a cement floor that was covered with pretty disgusting, thin carpet.  The only pads we used were on our hands and feet, and we were encouraged to wear a cup.  We didn’t ask questions of our Master, and we didn’t laugh in class or we got smacked or kicked out.  It was great.

My best friend at the time was a bit of a trouble maker, except during those classes.  Well, sometimes he tried to get me to laugh so he could see me get punished, but he only succeeded once.  It was amazing how he could turn on and off his behaviors before, during and after class.

At tournaments, we got trophies or medals for First, Second or Third.  Everyone else got the experience of losing.  Our tests for our next belt levels were two or three hours of non-stop work.  Everyone tested in front of our Grandmaster.  If you messed up during the test, you went home.

There are times when my nostalgia affects what I do.  Humans have pretty bad memories, even though we think otherwise.  While we usually get the general idea of past events fairly accurately, we forget much of the nuance.  If I think my students are not listening to me as I would like them to, I tell myself that if I could pound on them a little, or smack them with a broom handle in the shins (yay! good ol’ days!), they would come around.

Which they would, for a short while.  Probably right before their parents took them out of my school and sued me.

Things have changed in the last several decades.  We found out how dangerous smoking is.  We realized wearing seat belts is a good idea.  We reaffirmed that Rock ‘N’ Roll never dies!

We are discovering how our brains respond to pain, fear, and threats.  The thing is, our brains tend to learn better, and retain and use information more readily  when we are calm and in a good state of mind.   When our neural pathways are free and clear of the clutter of fear, anger, hunger, regret, we tend to learn more quickly and retain it.  (We also tend to store abuse and neglect, but that is a different posting)

It feels “good” to say to others that I trained on a cement floor, that we didn’t wear pads, and that our Masters took it to us.  However, I am certain that it was not as harsh as I remember, or I wouldn’t have stayed.  Except for the floor–that carpet-covered cement was nasty.

I am having a bit of difficulty finding a clean ending to this post.  I get that this is one thin  slice of one issue, and there is a lot more to it.  Maybe I will write more about it.

Or not.

Lately I have been thinking about a piece by Marianne Williamson.  I encountered this some twenty years ago, when I was still working in the public schools.  Most of you have read this, from “A Return to Love,” which says:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

We encounter people who seem intent on being thorns in our sides.  The closer we get to breakthrough, the more they seem to come against us.  One of the reasons they do this, I am convinced, is because the dark just cannot stand the light.  It rebels against it, because it hates it.

The dark within ourselves and within others tries to extinguish light.  Success, joy, peace, love–all of these are much harder to come to and sustain than is failure, anger, fear, discord, and hate.  These latter things are deeply rooted in the part of our brain that is the most primitive, and the easiest to access.  My faith speaks to a constant struggle between agents of darkness and light as well.

People who are in a place where they are deeply sad, abused, or are suffering in some other very real and very present way often want to bring others to the place where they currently reside.  Misery loves company in part because misery simply cannot understand a better way.  There are neurological, bio-chemical, and spiritual reasons for this.

And while we are still in the dark, we are being constantly invited to make the choice to move towards the light.

We get to make the choice to understand and use the gifts God has given us for a greater good.  We get to begin to step up.  Our “playing small does not serve the world.”  We get to let our light shine, so others may see it and be affected by it.

I don’t know if our presence “atomically liberates” others.  It’s much harder than that, especially for those who have been living with darkness for an extended period of time.  Often, the first reaction people have to us is to mistrust and show derision.  The dark hates the light.

And, we still have tremendous influence over others around us.  Our presence does affect others.  The way we think about ourselves provides a lens through which we see the world.

There are times when we do need to sit with in what appears to be darkness.  For example, we need to mourn, be sad, experience anger.  We will be frustrated, have set backs, and trip over obstacles and our own feet.  How we exist in those situations and how we come out on the other side of them is determined in large part on how we entered them in the first place.

This post turned out different than I originally had intended.  In some future posts, I will look more in depth about how our light frightens others, and what to do about it.  I think.  For now, I would challenge you to re-read the selection from Williamson, and see how it speaks to you.  I would love to know your thoughts.