Crucified Hearts

I write my daily journal in Obsidian. Here is the beginning of today’s entry. (I highly recommend Obsidian as a second brain.)

12:10 Thinking about sermon and children’s story for tomorrow. Thinking means I am working through what I might say.

The pastor sent me a text aasking for a title for a children story, after asking if I was going to do one. I thought for a few minutes and didn’t really have a story. Rummaging through my childhood rather than thinking of Bible stories. I began to think of fears and that led me to the places we hide, of needing a hiding place. So I gave him my title, “A Hiding Place” without having any “story” to tell. [Note to reader: It’s all a story, a narrative of life, isn’t it?] Brain cells still firing, I Googled a search on children’s fears. Starting around two years old, children may be afraid of a variety of things. A web site, The London Economic, gave a researched list of [[TOP 40 FEARS AMONG CHILDREN]] Beards are one of the things that frighten some children, which reminds me of what I told Cecil Perry, the BUC president when I said he noticed I wear a beard (in my job interview as a Senior Newbold student). I replied, “I try not to scare the children.” Cheeky answer that got a laugh, though not from Perry. But I never took the thought seriously. Who knew? Apparently the children and those adults who think about such things.

Maybe something I can begin with for my children’s story or sermon.

The sermon title is “Just for today”. Nicely enough, I came across another good thought that relates, something on the same site that listed the top 40 fears of children, [The London Economic](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/lifestyle/40-common-childhood-fears-revealed-39714/). I’ll quote it:

“The research of 1,582 parents with children age 16 and under was commissioned to celebrate the DVD release of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, which is released on Monday 6 February.

Michael Rosen, author of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ and former British Children’s Laureate said: “When children join in the Bear Hunt, they discover that the thing about today and tomorrow is that you can’t go over it, you can’t go under it, you do have to go through it!”

That last bit, that “you can’t go over it, you can’t go under it, you do have to go through it!” relates to my sermon, “Just For Today.” Sometimes we escape the day’s reality by retreating, in thought and feeling, to the past. Other times, perhaps in moments from each other, we project into the future, again, trying to escape the present thoughts and feelings. The reality is that no matter where we find ourselves in time and space, we have to “go through it” if we are going to live a life of reality in the present. Being “present” in ourselves to the world around us means being alive and conscious to all that we are thinking and feeling in the moments, that is, alive and present to who we are in the moment, but also present to those people in our presence. Part of being present to our inner world is also an awareness of the people we are talking to in our mind’s eye. Our relationships continue in our thoughts and feelings as well as when people are physically present with us. Some times it can all be a little confusing.

To the degree that we are present or absent from ourselves, others, and the wider world, to that degree we are or are not connecting in meaningful ways to the reality of our present existence. Strange stuff, I know. It can evoke many feelings, not the least of which is fear, even abject fear, or perhaps the duller but persistent sense of that thing we call anxiety. Other feelings, strong or mild, pop in and out too. Joy and relief, or something less wanted like bitterness. Or the big scary one, SHAME. Depending on the winds of change, their direction and strength, we can be gently nudged or violent hurled through feelings and thoughts. And it often happens without any conscious control, as if we are the objects of our acting self, a part of us too powerful for our conscious self to control. We so often live as the slaves or our own passions and desires. Wasn’t this something Laing thought of when saying we have a “divided Self” A fragment, maybe. I know God has revealed such a dual self in Scripture (see Romans 7.14-21).

I need to reread this now and starting connecting some more dots on the graph of today’s consciousness. Work, work, work. Think, think, think. But how do I feel? I’ll keep that question for a moment.

UPDATE: More from the journal today

13:25 Hiding Places. If we can’t hide from the scary thing we can put on a mask to hide our identity. We do that all the time…don’t we? I am a different me with strangers than with friends or family, a different me in different times and different places with different people, in the world where nouns, pronouns, and verbs take on the bodily form that are the real objects of our semantics.
[Note to blog readers: Reading a good book lately on IDENTITY. Seven factors that shape our identity over time in relation to God and others. I hope you consider it. Who God Says You Are: A Christian Understanding of Identity

Maybe the scary thing (person, people) will either not see us, as we are, for who we are, for who we imagine we are, but will talk or confront one of our other selves, one of those selves that is more confident, has more control, is brave and strong and swift in battle. At least it feels like interrogation…it really is…(perception = reality) when it feels like a demanding question, more demanding or ‘read’ as demanding even if an innocent inquiry. (How are you feeling? What are you thinking?) How can I tell you what I don’t know? Or how can I express what is so powerful, so beyond words?

Masking…see autism, how masking (camouflage) helps the autistic soul to “fit in”, to relieve the pressure of being “normal” in the company of others. Those with [ASD](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/8855-autism) are often interrogated by NT’s. **NOTE**: Neuro Typical’s, those classed as “normal”, which in the ASD world means those who struggle far less to communicate their feelings / thoughts and are more accurate in the way they recognize and respond to the feelings of others. Normal, at best, is a very relative category of behavior, am average of what society or a select social group finds most acceptable, less threatening, less confrontive, less confusing behavior. Thinking of normal reminds to read a book a bought on Kindle, but haven’t read yet…The Myth of Normal, by Gabor Mate. He is evolutionary in his assumptions, not Christian, a Zen guy I think, but has some light to consider on trauma, addiction, childhood development, etc.

[Note to Reader: If I have ASD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, it is probably borderline, or so my internet self-assessment testing said. I have friends with ASD. I spent days in the past two weeks with one who was having meltdowns after going off his medicine, Invega, a common antipsychotic given to those with ASD to help modulate (sooth?) their moods, to stabilize the swing between the poles.]