In depth

Don’t be too nice

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I titled this in a very unusual way; but I think you can all guess where I’m going with it.

I just read Martin Luther’s “Before the Diet of Worms” speech. Worms (also spelt Wyrms) is a place in Germany, the Diet is apparently the Emperor and his cabinet,( the paper doesn’t say, but I gathered that from what I read.) I was struck by the points he made about in our effort to not allow fighting and arguments, we might fight against the Word of God itself.

As John Eldredge has pointed out in his book Wild at Heart; there is such a thing as being too nice. You know those people in movies who drive the audience (and often the other characters) nuts because they won’t stand up for someone else or even themselves? Or the type of person who Philippa Gordon, in Anne of the Island, calls uninteresting because “She never says but good of anybody.”

We all know there’s wickedness in the world, and while dwelling on it is gloomy and unhealthy, a person who will never speak of it at all seems hardly wise, smart, or realistic. And they also seem weak.

I have actually been lectured on how I need to know what’s going on in the world, which always means the bad stuff I notice, but I do dislike to think of the unpleasant things. I am not at all saying we should go looking for the wrong stuff in this world. It will find you. And when it does, as it did Martin Luther, we need to be willing to take a stand.

That’s a common phrase to hear nowadays, but taking a stand is a serious thing. It always has risks; it always could turn out badly, from our perspective anyway. We could be mocked, or ostracized, or we could simply fail to change anything.

And what’s more, we need to realize that not everything is worth standing for. For me the test is always in if it is biblical, if it is affecting an important thing, and if the potential benefits out weigh the potential damage. But I’ve taken very few stands in my life. If that seems surprising given the nature of this blog, then let me just say that it is much simpler to address the questions I have myself, via the internet, then to know when it’s a good idea in real life to make an issue of something. I have less to lose, and I am not fighting with my audience. That is not to say honesty on social media is not scary no matter who you are or how many followers you have, but real life is always more daunting.

When we take a stand we must care more about the truth then about what we want. But we also need to be loving and kind to the people we are standing against, remembering that they are human being just like us. Kindness does not equal niceness, it is unkind to be nice to someone who really need a good shaking up. It is also unkind to shake someone who really needs a hug. It about what is needed, not what either party wants.

A stand can be quiet, or it can be loud. It can be silence, or it can be yells and shouts. Both are right in their own time and place. But yelling doesn’t make something a stand. And quiet doesn’t mean kindness. It’s all in the reason.

But never taking a stand is worse then not making it perfectly. We are so anxious not to offend people. We are so concerned with who likes us. (Even now I can’t help wondering if I’ll get any likes or comments on this post.) I have seen a problem either ignored, or handled in the nicest possible way, so many times, and very few times have I seen anyone really take the harder route.

You know, we’ll never be complete human beings until we will fight for something with all our might and main. Sometimes it will even be with ourselves. But we can’t sugarcoat everything. We can’t keep turning a blind eye, unless we want to turn blind next.

This has been a little less encouraging than usual, but I hope you’ll take it not as criticism, but as a challenge to look around and face things with courage. I know the Martin Luther inspired that feeling in me. I just want o pass it on. With that–until next time.

Natasha.

In faith

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Here’s a thought that struck me today, what does the phrase “In faith” really mean?

I have read Shakespeare, weird as that may sound, (I couldn’t care less if it does,) and that phrase is about as common as us using the words “Seriously” “Totally” “For real” “Legit” and our other ways of saying we “really mean it.”

You may wonder why I’d bother to post about a phrase, but bear with me. The last verse of 1 Corinthians 13 says “And now abide faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.”

I don’t know if any of my followers noticed this, but my blog is called drybonestruth, my tagline contains the word truth, and several of (if not all of) my posts are centered around what’s true and what to do about it. But on my homepage I talk about hope. And a lot of my posts, the recent ones included, are about love. I didn’t do this to incorporate the above verse into my blog, I just did it because those were the things on my mind. So, love, hope, and truth, but what about faith?

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I am cautious about mentioning my beliefs overmuch, since I don’t want just other Christians to read this blog and get something out of it, but I certainly don’t want anyone to think I’m ashamed to talk about it. Christian or not, I’m sure you can understand that, no one wants others to think they are weak in their convictions.

With this in mind, I began asking myself what the phrase “in faith” really means anyway. “In faith” is interchangeable with “in truth” or “in earnest.” It could also be interpreted as “I swear.” Simply put, it means “I believe what I am telling you.” Apparently in Shakespeare’s day it was normal for people to go around talking to each other and declaring what they believed to be true about life, and about other people, and about themselves. (If I can go by his plays anyway.)

So, my faith would mean what I believe is the truth.

That sounds obvious, but hold on, let’s really think about that statement. I’ve discussed what is truth in other posts, so for my thoughts on that you can search my blog, if you’re interested. Let’s just assume we all have a criteria for what truth is already. Now let me ask, do you trust that?

Do you believe that what you believe is really real?

I heard that in a sermon once, but it could be asked to anybody who even knows what they believe. If you had to look someone in the eye, and tell them what you, at core, believe is the truth about life, what would you say? Would you be able to say it? Would you say it like a parrot, or with passion?

What feelings does thinking about your worldview excite in you? Enthusiasm? Energy? Does it move you at all? Or is your worldview just something you accept, but don’t think about?

If my faith is my truth, that is, my faith is my trust in what I know is true; then I should be passionate about it.

I am, I get excited about what I believe. And that may offend some people. Who am I to get excited? What makes what I believe better than anyone else’s belief. Maybe they might even think I am an example of what’s wrong with religious people. We think we know what’s best for everyone.

Or, maybe someone might pause and consider that I’m not faking it. If I am nothing else, I am at least sincere.

I don’t need everyone to agree with me. I don’t even want everyone to agree with me about everything. Anyone who wants that, doesn’t have faith, they have preference. I can cover that more in a different post (it’s worth thinking about, believe me.) But suffice it to say I’m not talking about getting everyone on my side.

I’m talking about what I would stake my all on. My faith. The same thing thousands of people die because of in other countries, and even in this one.

Who among us in our western countries takes what we believe that seriously? Shocking to think about isn’t it?

Until you are willing to die for it can you really say your beliefs are “legit”? I mean, if other people are willing to pay the ultimate price,  doesn’t that give them some merit?

I am not endorsing every religion that people die for, I am only saying that they were nothing if not serious about their faith.

Maybe we should all think about that phrase “in faith” more often when we’re speaking about things. Well, in faith, that’s all for today–Natasha

The starfish principle

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Hello everyone,

You know blog success comes in rhythm. You’ll have a couple good posts and then no one reads the next few. Here’s hoping I’m still in time for another good post.

I seem to strike a nerve when I talk about relational issues, or connecting with people. I wonder why that is. Maybe because I’ve had a lot of trouble there, so what I’ve learned along the way rings true. That’s one paradox of life that gets over-looked in most self-help resources. And I’ve read and watched quite a few things about self-helping. I’ve come to believe it only works to a certain extent.

I love doing things on my own, I need privacy, I need solitude, I am an introvert. And there is no shame in that. Even as a seemingly self-reliant individual, I often feel I need a helping hand from other people. I’m the type of person who likes to choose their own path, but prefers it if someone else had left mile markers and warning signs along the way, I’d rather not make a blunder unless I have to in order to learn. A good name for it might be being like a Sherpa. I like to teach others, I like to help others, and in the words of Evan from Girl Meets World “I want to help people get to places they never thought they could go.” But I’m not a huge trailblazer.

That being said, I’d like to say more about helping people. In the course of my almost 18 years of life, I’ve run into a surprising amount of obstacles that much older people still have to grapple with. Here’s a little personal back story: When I was born I contracted a kind of pneumonia, I spent a week in an incubator, and it was a scary time for a lot of people. But I survived, with a lot of prayer I’m sure. From the beginning, I’ve been a tough little girl, as my mom put it. And at the age of 3 or 4, I accepted Christ. And my first remembered witnessing experience (That means telling other people about Jesus, in case anyone is unfamiliar with the term,) was at about the same age, to a few extended family members. That was the first time I encountered resistance to my faith. It has surprised my siblings when I later admitted to always feeling that my beliefs were not safe ones to have in the world. I don’t say this because I view it as a bad thing, on the contrary, I’m glad I never had any illusions that what I believe is popular or welcomed in our world. It makes for less of a shock nowadays. But repeatedly I’ve found myself dissuaded, or even put down, for having stronger principles, stronger opinions, and more dissatisfaction with the culture than most kids my age. ( And I bet some of my readers have heard similar stuff, people who blog or read blogs probably have a lot of opinions.) I have never liked mediocrity, and my dislike of it only gets stronger with time. And I get cautioned for this, honestly, it’s like people don’t know what to do with teens who have ideals that differ from the average.

But here’s the thing, when you accept being average, you accept being unimportant.

When you measure people by the average, you limit how important they are, and you limit your own capacity to feel compassion for them. You limit your ability to feel passionate about changing lives. in fact, you may even adopt the cynical attitude of “No one really changes.” (An attitude the hero Kim Possible expresses in one episode of the show. I’ve heard it before, but not usually from the hero.)

In “Girl meets Communism,” Cory Matthews addresses the problem with average success, pointing out that being average makes you common, and then there’s no incentive to be excellent. This applies to helping people too, when problems are average, so is our motivation. When we see people as just a group with identical troubles, we create stereotypes. The thing about  stereotypes, is that stereo means it’s all around you, and type means it has the same characteristics, and when you put them together, you’ll start seeing them everywhere. Entertainment often counts on you having preconceived notions of things or people for you to find it funny, or emotionally stimulating.

I could be just another voice on an internet that has billions of voices already on it, you could be just another browser, when there are millions of us just in this country, and I get a handful of them, what does that change?

I may have shared this story before, but it’s worth repeating:

Once there was a little boy on a beach, and he noticed that the tide was bringing in starfish, many of them.  When starfish are out of the water too long, they dry out and die. The little boy started picking up the starfish and throwing them out into the sea. A man walked by and noticed what he was doing, and he commented “You’ll never save all of those, son. It won’t make a real difference.” The little boy considers for a moment, then picks up another starfish and throws it into the water. “I’ll make a difference to that one.” He says.

I’ve heard this told a few different ways, so I’m paraphrasing as closely as I can to the main point. Not everyone can speak to a large amount of people. But anyone can speak a large amount of something to one other person. I think we tend to see our circle of influence as someting that reflects on us, and our worth, not as something God has given us so we can do just what He wants us to do and do it well, instead of trying to do someone else’s job, or perhaps a job we aren’t ready for yet. It’s a rule of theatre that there are no small roles, just small actors. Small actors may get cast in small roles rather then let them spoil the whole play, or a good actor may give a small role it’s full meaning. It’s really up to you.

I do the best I can on this blog, because I hope to make a difference for even the one person who might read a post. Here’s a closing thought, if you have a big heart, and a small circle of influence, what’s inside you will force what’s outside to expand, or else it will pour into what vessels are available far more than if your attention was divided between a large group of people.

Here’s some closing lines, from  a song called “Give a little love.”

“Well I know my death will not come, till I breathe all the air from my lungs. Till my final tune is sung, for all is fleeting, oh but all is good. And my love is my whole being, and I shared what I could.”

I hope this helped someone. Until next post–Natasha

Everybody’s talking about…Love?

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Hello readers,

S0, here’s my question for today: What is Love?

Love is a thing everyone hears about on a regular basis. But not everyone feels it, and a lot of us are confused about what we’re feeling and what part of it is love.

I remember as a kid I wondered why I didn’t feel the kind of love I saw in movies or read about in books, why I didn’t feel like they felt. I wondered if I loved my family at all, and what was wrong with me, how could I not know the answer to that?

My love tended to express itself through fear, I would only feel it when I thought about how horrible it would be to lose a member of my family, but that didn’t make me feel any more kind or sensitive to them. It just made me worry more.

Now when I say movies and books, I don’t just mean romantic love, people like to illustrate the ideal family, the ideal siblings, the ideal parent-child relationship. And they usually make it seem like every problem can be solved if people just listen to each other, and compromise a little. But that is easier said than done, as I’ve discovered. These sources don’t tell you  about how people can listen to you and not hear a word you’re saying, in their hearts. Or how you compromise and still feel unhappy and unsatisfied. What about when someone just doesn’t want to talk to you period? Or when they have so many issues of their own, they can’t really sympathize with yours. What about when they make excuses to avoid resolving the problem?

Who really has the ideal family? I’m sure my family might look like it on the outside, but we’ve had some bumpy areas over the past few years, I’ve been scared that we wouldn’t make it. And who has the ideal marriage? Or friendship? Or whatever it is we wish we had, but it seems unattainable.

So what is love? And why is it either absent? Or it’s not working like we thought.

Well, I’m nowhere near wise enough to really answer those questions. All I have is the few things I’ve learned. Or perhaps I should say I’m learning them.

That’s the first thing we need to know about our earthly relationships. They are a growing process. Mine have not stayed the same. They didn’t stay the same before I was a Christian, but after I became one, they changed drastically. But the change really was just the growing of the good things and the disappearance of the bad ones (almost, we’re never going to be perfect.) If you have a clue about love now, then you can grow that into something real, and very rare. I’ve been fortunate to live in a circle of  people that all know something about love, but I know that is not most people’s situation.

Another thing about love, is that it is hard. Loving people is about treating them the right way, and then doing a little more. And doing what’s right all the time is something none of us can maintain. We’d be lucky to even start out well.

Is love a feeling? Or is it an action?

I think picking just one of those choices is a mistake. Love is both. But at its purest, love is acting upon what you know you feel, even when you don’t feel it. That is, feelings tell us what’s in our heart, sometimes. Some feelings are deeper than others, and when we feel them it does more than make us cry, it creates a resolve in our heart to do, be, or see things differently than before. your feelings (they used to be called passions) may tell you at one time that you deeply love someone, or that they deeply love you. But it will take actions to prove either is correct. You’ll find out how loving you are when you find out how much you are willing to do, sacrifice, and go through, for someone else; and how little of it you did without feeling like doing it. And what someone else is willing to do for you will speak volumes about how genuine their affection is.

Love is not attraction, attraction is simply one of the things that may make love fun, or may snare people into thinking it is love.

Love is not selfish. Love is not greedy. Love is not too proud to admit a wrong doing, or to be the first to make peace. Love is not insecure and needy.

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not stuck up. It does not anger easily. It is not rude. It does not look to benefit only itself. It doesn’t think evil of the beloved.

Love believes the best, hopes for the best, endures till the end, and bears the cost.

Love is not broken or fractured. It is not disengaged. It listens to us closely, holding every word as important. Love keeps its word. It honors what deserves honor. Love is not passive. Love isn’t anxious about things. Love  is not restless. Love is pure.

Love is not God, but God is love.

I just paraphrased 1 Corinthians 13, and a song called “Pieces.” (Amanda Cook, Stephany Gretzinger.) None of us can live up to this standard.

And the wonderful thing is, we don’t have to. Love covers us.

That’s all for this post–Natasha.

On the shoulders of Giants: Part 1

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So, let’s talk about greatness.

I read about greatness frequently in my nonfiction books.

However, what concerns me is the lack of a concept of greatness in the fiction and media world.

As an experienced reader, I think that fiction shapes the culture more then nonfiction. I prefer the term “fantasy”, actually.

Somehow when I read or write fantasy my imagination races, and I feel like life means something.

I think the truth of the matter is that we all want more in life than we see, and fantasy represents those dreams, putting them in a tangible movie, show, or book; that’s why we come back to those things. Even video games might count for that.

When it comes to greatness, the funny thing is that the real world stories can inspire us just as much as the fantasy ones. But I find the more story-like the telling, the better I connect.

Per example, I just finished a book called The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (which I enjoyed a lot), and the story surprised me and challenged some of  my preconceptions going into it. It’s about a family surviving war and poverty under the Taliban’s control.

What makes the people in these stories great? What is Greatness?

Greatness is not glory. It is not wealth. It is not popularity.

When you hear someone described as great, my guess is your mind goes to nice, fun, cool, talented and other words like that. The fact is, only the last one even touches Greatness. But talent is just material Greatness works with.

The words we use, and how we use them, reflects on our cultural perception. Take the word awesome. It means to inspire awe, and we use it typically to mean something we enjoyed a lot and was really good, but rarely are we actually full of awe about it. We might use awesome and great together and not really know what either means.

You are probably wondering why I am making such a point of this. The fact is I recently took part in a Shakespeare intensive, and we talked a lot about the importance of wording. Turns out word patterns can tell you a lot about the tone of a scene, the nature of the person speaking, and what kind of role they fulfill in the story.

Our words don’t necessarily limit us in real life. But in “The Student Whisperer” Tiffany Earl notes that the more words she knows, the better she understands things.

The word greatness should get our attention. It should be closely related to heroism, impact, change, goodness, character, and a host of other such ideals.

Have you ever known the disappointment of finding out someone who you thought was a good guy, a hero, was actually not up to your standards of what makes someone truly heroic? Then you found out they did not achieve greatness in your mind. Or what about vice versa? Have you ever been blown away by someone’s amount of sacrifice, forgiveness, persistence, or love? Whatever virtue most impresses you, if they surpassed all you expected, then they impressed you with greatness.

When I was in Junior High, we were asked who our heroes were. I didn’t have too many. Later on in my life when I was reading a book by Elisabeth Elliot, I found her commenting on how few heroes teens have now and how little they want to be better than they are. It seems they don’t want to aspire to be like anyone they think of as better than themselves. At the time I didn’t get why she was down on this; shouldn’t we like who we are? But now I understand what she meant. It’s fine to like your personality, but when it comes to excellence, we always need to remember there are people ahead of us. It may simply be because they are older and have been pursuing their goal longer. Or maybe they possess character we have not developed yet. Recognizing that is important. Greatness cannot be achieved without humility.

As I’ve learned to appreciate high ideals, I’ve found personal heroes. Both real and fictional. And I think of them when I face tough situations. I’ve written about some of them on this blog. Isaac Newton said:

“If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

C. S. Lewis said the next best thing to being wise one’s self is to be surrounded by people who are.

So, to understand greatness, look to the Great. In my next post I’ll dive in more into what Greatness consists of, but I hope I’ve provided some interesting ideas here. Until next time–Natasha.

Experiences.

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I am updating this post because it’s been several months.

I want to get more into why we have experiences in this reboot.

Brushing your teeth is an experience, but it is not really memorable; versus going to another country, which you will probably remember as long as you have a sharp mind.

Though experiences themselves are easily defined by the facts, what they do to us inside, that is not so easy.

It’s funny how a seemingly terrible experience can later in life prove to be a good thing. one you are even grateful for. Like having a bad tooth pulled. Or getting disciplined by your parents. Or it can be a far worse experience, traumatic even, yet later, it makes you stronger.

I want to share with you guys something I got into this week, it’s an old comic book story, by Jack Kirby, about Scott Free and Big Barda.

AS yo may know, I don’t read a lot of comic books, but here and there I have one I like. This actually was all a tory I read online and saw pieces of on Justice League Unlimited, I only rada little of it in an actual comic book. I am not endorsing the show, but id o recommend reading the comic book saga if you get the chance, it’s an amazing story.

Not just because it may be the most romantic one in the DC universe, and it has a functioning couple to boot, but because even individually the stories of these two characters are poignant and surprisingly real.

Raised on the hellish planted of Apocalips, Scott and Barda are very different. Scott is the adopted son of the ruler of the planet, Darkseid, while Barda is a selected child who is being groomed to be the head of the furies, horrible female warriors who have no mercy, no pity, no remorse. It’s not really their fault, they are all brainwashed, hypnotized, and severely punished for doing anything remotely good or beautiful that Darkseid doesn’t like.

To make a longs tory short, Scott and Barda both witness one injustice too many, and Scott decides to flee to Earth, Barda, for reasons she does not fully understand, decides to help him, but does not follow till later. When she does they are happily reunited, and after a lot of adventures together come to realize they have fallen in love, they get married, and continue to have adventures. Though the most memorable may be the one where they go back to their “home” and face their nightmares (almost literally.)

Now I bring this up because the amount of experiences both these characters have is huge, and most of the experiences, at least early on, were bad.

So, it’s just a comic book, right?

Never!

Something about this story rung true with me. I have not had such a horrible life thank goodness, but I recognized something about it.

see, though we don’t live on a world that has no hope, many of us live in a kind of personal misery where we feel no hope. And we are brainwashed by many sources, hypnotized by entertainment, and severely punished by circumstances or possibly other people if we dare go against the norm.

I’ll bet most of us would look at Scott and Barda and say “that would never happen in real life, two people raised like they were would never be able to live a healthy lifestyle.”

Come on, is our modern phycology so very different from the kind of messages I’m sure Scott and Barda both heard? “You are meant for this, you can never be anything else, hope is pointless.” And I do not mean the lack of self esteem, but the lack of awareness just of what life is really about.

You might say, and honestly I would have agreed with you, that Scott and Barda would both be really messed up. Haunted by their past. and for awhile, they were. It literally cam after them. But they protected each other.

Until the fateful moment when Scott decided he was through running. He would go back and face it. And Barda, though she believed they would die, went with him. And they didn’t die, though they came close.

And this is how I feel like I relate to this story. Facing your past, and the fears that go with it, can be terrifying. You can feel like you’re going to die. Pain hurts. That’s what pain does.

But here’s why I don’t find their story unbelievable and I do find it real: I have been on the same journey. I continue on it. I do not feel as fearless as Barda, or as clever and optimistic as Scott; but I have had to learn to be brave, wise, and hopeful. I love Barda because she tells Scott right before they go into a dangerous situation, which she compares to a shark. “We’re jumping down that shark’s mouth together–and then I’ll beat it to death from the inside.” Who doesn’t want to marry someone with that kind of devotion?

Having a rough life may suck while it is rough, but one thing is certain, you cannot become so tenacious as to beat a shark to death, unless you’ve had a rough time of it.

And it takes tenacity to love, take it from someone who once had the backbone of a jellyfish, at least when it came to facing my own demons.

Scott understands, as he tells Barda, that they are proof Apokalips can fall. Not because they have defeated Darkseid himself, but because they defeated the darkness that he tried to instill in them. They overcame it with love and justice.

Usually we think of love, but you need justice too. Justice is what tells you when it is time to face your fears, justice tell s you when it is not fair to other people to act the way you do. Justice tells you that you should have a better fate than what you’ve been assigned by your enemies. (Whatever form they take.)

I think we are apt to get tired of hearing about the inner battle, but it is the one we have the most active part in, and it affects more than you know. More than I know.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to fight, ladies and gentlemen, and if you find a person who will jump down that shark with you, keep them around.

Note to self: Marry somebody who has no problem beating a shark to death if  it should ever be necessary.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this unabridged post from DryBonesTruth. Until next time

–Natasha