Rant of the Exiles

Step off the cliff and fall into slumber Or step to the edge and look down There is darkness and the past below On the precipice of now and eternity Sit on the fence dividing Consciousness and nothingness This desert of liminal space Place of wanderings uncharted  To walk off the edge is to surrender One's thoughts to the whim of the wind Swirling and lost in the oblivion  A blissful trance of suspension drift To balk at the edge is to fight the fall Monkey mind screams against the plunge The body longs for the drop But thoughts panic from the heights Wicked dreams wait at bottom Lurid fantasies beckon Nightmares lurk on ledges unseen You don’t find out until you fall Some escape in the descent Some avoid it like the plague Fatigue chases the restless Until they’re caught and thrown down Long is the trusting fall of childhood Oft interrupted is the curse of age Apnea and anxiety make shallow depths While innocence

This article was originally published at SOLA Network on June 4th, 2019. In a previous post , I took issue with Brene Brown’s definition of shame and examined how we often overlook how shame occurs in the context of relationship and is the pain of disconnection. I defined shame as the exposure of a relational rift caused by one’s party misalignment with another party’s stated values. It can (and often does) result in thoughts of being worthless. And yet the act of incurring shame can also be a redemptive gift because of what Jesus has done. The shame of Jesus has two purposes: First, the misalignment of values rebukes the injustice embedded in the religious system at the time. The Messiah’s disgrace exposes the self-seeking nature of the Jewish ruling authority. Second, the shame of Jesus is evangelistic. It indicates to the world there is no person who falls so far in disgrace that Jesus is unwilling to fall deeper to catch. In other words, Jesus suffered shame to heal the rif

In a post that I have now removed, I made an analogy between therapy and prostitution. I  apologize for the hurt it caused. The analogy was intentionally absurd and offensive. A friend asked me what lessons I learned from the response to the post. Here are several notable ones plus an explanation of what I was trying to do: First, I believe therapy is extremely helpful. My life has been changed for the better through interactions with my therapist. My marriage is stronger and my relationship with my kids healthier because of work I did in therapy. Over the past fifteen years, I’ve recommended and seen dozens of people benefit from therapy. As I’ve noted elsewhere, I had no intention of disparaging therapy though I recognize that contradicts the repugnancy of the comparison. Second, it hurts to be misunderstood. I could sense the outrage behind some of the responses because commenters perceived I misunderstood therapy and in doing so, misunderstood their experience and misunders