BobHunt
4th December 2005, 04:47 PM (16:47)
I have read a few of his books, "Abba's Child" and "The Ragamuffin Gospel" and "Ruthless Trust."
In "Abba's Child" he says that many Christians have bought into the lie that we are worthy of God's love only when our lives are going well. If our families are happy or our jobs are meaningful, life is a success. He says, when things are not going so well, we scramble to present and kep up a good front to the world. We cover and hide until we can rearrange the mask of perfection and look good again. Sadly, it is then that we wonder why we lack intimate relationships and passionate faith.
He says right in the middle of this, God wants us to take the mask off and come openly to Him. God longs for us to know in the depth of our being that he loves us and accepts us as we are.
He says that there may be an imposter in our life that is robbing us of God's love. He quotes Henri Nouwen:
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking: Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody. (My dark side says) I am no good.....I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voic that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Manning writes:
In the summer of 1992 I took a significant step on my inward journey. For twenty days I lived in a remote cabin in the Colorado Rockies and made a retreat, combining therapy, silence, and solitude. Early each morning, I met with a psychologist who guided me in awakening repressed memories and feelings from childhood. The remainder of each day I spent alone in the cabin without television, radio, or reading material of any kind.
As the days passed, I realized that I had not been able to feel anything since I was eight years old. A traumatic experience at that time shut down my memory for the next nine years and my feelings for the next five decades.
When I was eight, the imposter, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The imposter within whispered, "Brennan, dont ever be your real self anymore, because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know." So I became a good boy---polite, well mannered, unobtrusive, and diferential. I studied hard, scored excellent grades, won a scholarship in high school, and was stalked every waking moment by the teror of abandonment and the sense that nobody was there for me.
I learned that perfect performance brought the recognition and approval I desperately sought. I orbited into an unfeeling zone to keep fear and shame at a safe distance. As my therapist remarked, "All these years there has been a steel trapdoor coveing your emotions and denying you access to them." Meanwhile, the imposter I presented for public inspection was nonchalant and carefree.
The great divorce betweenmy head and my heart endured throughout my ministry. For eighteen years I proclaimed the good news of God's passionate, unconditional love--utterly convicted in my head but not feeling it in my heart. I never felt loved. A scene in the movie "Postcards from the Edge" says it all. A Hollywood film star (Meryl Streep) is told by her director (Gene Hackman) what a wonderful life she has had and how any woman would envy what she has accomplished. Streep answers. "Yes, I know. But you know what? I can't feel any of my life. I've never been able to feel my life and all those good things."
On the tenth day of my mountain retreat my tears erupted into sobbing. As Michael O Shaughnessy likes to say, "Often breakdowns lead to breakthroughs." (Much of my callousness and invulnerability has come through my refusal to mourn the loss of a soft word and a tender embrace.) Blessed are those who weep and mourn.
As I drained the cup of grief, a remarkable thing happened: In the distance I heard music and dancing. I was the prodigal son limping home, not a spectator, but a participant. The imposter faded, and I was in touch with my true self as the returned child of God. My yearning for praise and affirmation receded.
It used to be that I never felt safe with myself unless I was performing flawlessly. My desire to be perfect had transcended my desire for God. Tyrannized by an all-or-nothing mentality, I interpreted weakness as mediocrity and inconsistency as a loss of nerve. I dismissed compassion and self-acceptance as inappropriate responses. My jaded perception of personal failure and inadequacy led to a loss of self-esteeem, triggering episodes of mild depression and heavy anxiety.
But on that radiant morning in a cabin hidden deep in the Colorado Rockies, I came out of hiding. Jesus removed the shroud of perfectionist performance and now, forgiven and free, I ran home. For I knew that I knew Someone was there for me. Gripped in the depth of my soul, tears streaming down my cheeks, I internalized and finally felt all the words I have written and spoken about stubborn, unrelenting Love. That morning I understood that the words are but straw compared to the Reality. I leaped from simply being the teacher of God's love to becoming Abba's delight. I said goodbye to feeling frightened and said shalom to seeling safe.
That afternoon, Brennan made a very important entry into his journal.........................and you will have to read it, in his book!
This book came out of those days that changed Brennan's life. He wants all of us to come out of hiding and realize that Jesus accepts us for who we are.
He also quotes E E Cummings: "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
In "Abba's Child" he says that many Christians have bought into the lie that we are worthy of God's love only when our lives are going well. If our families are happy or our jobs are meaningful, life is a success. He says, when things are not going so well, we scramble to present and kep up a good front to the world. We cover and hide until we can rearrange the mask of perfection and look good again. Sadly, it is then that we wonder why we lack intimate relationships and passionate faith.
He says right in the middle of this, God wants us to take the mask off and come openly to Him. God longs for us to know in the depth of our being that he loves us and accepts us as we are.
He says that there may be an imposter in our life that is robbing us of God's love. He quotes Henri Nouwen:
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking: Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody. (My dark side says) I am no good.....I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voic that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Manning writes:
In the summer of 1992 I took a significant step on my inward journey. For twenty days I lived in a remote cabin in the Colorado Rockies and made a retreat, combining therapy, silence, and solitude. Early each morning, I met with a psychologist who guided me in awakening repressed memories and feelings from childhood. The remainder of each day I spent alone in the cabin without television, radio, or reading material of any kind.
As the days passed, I realized that I had not been able to feel anything since I was eight years old. A traumatic experience at that time shut down my memory for the next nine years and my feelings for the next five decades.
When I was eight, the imposter, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The imposter within whispered, "Brennan, dont ever be your real self anymore, because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know." So I became a good boy---polite, well mannered, unobtrusive, and diferential. I studied hard, scored excellent grades, won a scholarship in high school, and was stalked every waking moment by the teror of abandonment and the sense that nobody was there for me.
I learned that perfect performance brought the recognition and approval I desperately sought. I orbited into an unfeeling zone to keep fear and shame at a safe distance. As my therapist remarked, "All these years there has been a steel trapdoor coveing your emotions and denying you access to them." Meanwhile, the imposter I presented for public inspection was nonchalant and carefree.
The great divorce betweenmy head and my heart endured throughout my ministry. For eighteen years I proclaimed the good news of God's passionate, unconditional love--utterly convicted in my head but not feeling it in my heart. I never felt loved. A scene in the movie "Postcards from the Edge" says it all. A Hollywood film star (Meryl Streep) is told by her director (Gene Hackman) what a wonderful life she has had and how any woman would envy what she has accomplished. Streep answers. "Yes, I know. But you know what? I can't feel any of my life. I've never been able to feel my life and all those good things."
On the tenth day of my mountain retreat my tears erupted into sobbing. As Michael O Shaughnessy likes to say, "Often breakdowns lead to breakthroughs." (Much of my callousness and invulnerability has come through my refusal to mourn the loss of a soft word and a tender embrace.) Blessed are those who weep and mourn.
As I drained the cup of grief, a remarkable thing happened: In the distance I heard music and dancing. I was the prodigal son limping home, not a spectator, but a participant. The imposter faded, and I was in touch with my true self as the returned child of God. My yearning for praise and affirmation receded.
It used to be that I never felt safe with myself unless I was performing flawlessly. My desire to be perfect had transcended my desire for God. Tyrannized by an all-or-nothing mentality, I interpreted weakness as mediocrity and inconsistency as a loss of nerve. I dismissed compassion and self-acceptance as inappropriate responses. My jaded perception of personal failure and inadequacy led to a loss of self-esteeem, triggering episodes of mild depression and heavy anxiety.
But on that radiant morning in a cabin hidden deep in the Colorado Rockies, I came out of hiding. Jesus removed the shroud of perfectionist performance and now, forgiven and free, I ran home. For I knew that I knew Someone was there for me. Gripped in the depth of my soul, tears streaming down my cheeks, I internalized and finally felt all the words I have written and spoken about stubborn, unrelenting Love. That morning I understood that the words are but straw compared to the Reality. I leaped from simply being the teacher of God's love to becoming Abba's delight. I said goodbye to feeling frightened and said shalom to seeling safe.
That afternoon, Brennan made a very important entry into his journal.........................and you will have to read it, in his book!
This book came out of those days that changed Brennan's life. He wants all of us to come out of hiding and realize that Jesus accepts us for who we are.
He also quotes E E Cummings: "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."