Tag: kindness

My Heroes

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography4 Comments

The list of people I admire has changed. There are some names on that list you might be familiar with, but there are an increasing number who have escaped the hindrances of fame. Look-at-me people with great causes but shrill voices, are not making it onto the updated page. Obsequious, but prickly doormats remain where they dropped, still promoting and protesting victimhood in creative, but wearing passive/aggressive fashion. My current list is different than the list of approved heroes of my youth.

I admire strong but humble people, those who can both give and accept help, praise, and honour. I admire those who, enabled by God’s grace, can face their own weaknesses squarely, recognizing that the choice to act without grace is always there. Experience has taught them this. They have scars.

I appreciate those who can walk open-eyed into a mess with the vision of shalom peace, nothing missing, nothing out of place, and do it with cheerfulness. They smile before their tears have dried. Hope makes them fearless.

I am learning to listen to those who through consistent practice of the kind of risk-taking that faith requires, have gained an understanding of who to seek as their source of wisdom. They have a friendship with God that astounds me. They carry the scent of someone who has been in his presence.

I am amazed by people who are still stinging from a tongue-lashing yet respond with kindness on their own tongues. It’s not that they can’t come up with a witty but cruel response. Defensive words are probably still the first weapons to appear, but they know how to lay down Saul’s armour and go into the cache of weapons God designed for just such moments. Their weapons bear the characteristics of the Holy Spirit. They know how to wield patience and goodness. Power wrapped in soft gentleness makes it easier to hear their words of wisdom.

When I was young, I wanted to be like the famous people who had gifts and charms they had never earned, like beauty, and intelligence, status, and talent. I admired those who led their followers on to greater exploits. Now, when I grow up, I want to be like those heroes who lead from behind, who say with kindness, “I can see who you are becoming. Your own methods have given you some problems. Get back up. Keep your eyes on Jesus. You can do it. He’s calling to walk with him. He absolutely adores you, you know.”

Do You Love Me?

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Uncategorized3 Comments

It’s been about thirty years since I gave up. I gave up trying to please God, or perhaps more accurately, to please God according to the job list people who put themselves in charge of the Pleasing God Committee gave me.

I quit trying, but I quit with a question: So, God, if I don’t do any of this stuff, if I walk away from trying so hard, will you still love me, or is your love conditional?

I’m a slow and stubborn learner and I had erected a lot of self-protective barriers. Wounded people do that. But God has grace and patience beyond — way beyond — anything I could imagine based on what I could drum up myself.

Since that time, his kindness and faithfulness have won my heart. He met me in the desert. He wooed me, or as Hosea wrote about God’s actions toward the unfaithful wife symbolizing a nation that went after every pleasure but God, he “allured” me. Like the woman in the desert, I eventually responded with my own song of love.

Now, all these years later, I hear him asking me the question. “If I don’t give you what you want when you want it, will you still love me, or is your love conditional?”

There are a lot of things I want, and as the beloved of the King of Kings am entitled to. I want good health. I want financial security. I want my children and grandchildren to have easy lives and a great relationship with God. I want my city and my country to prosper. Most of all, I want to be understood.

As I ponder, I remember this is the question posed to many people in the Bible from Abraham with his precious promised son, to Job with his wealth and healthy family, to Solomon with his fine mind and reputation, to Jesus himself who laid down the right to the recognition and worship owed him.

Like Peter, I remember the night of denial. “Jesus is ok,” I said, “But I don’t trust God the Father not to use me, then throw me away.”

Like Peter on the beach with Jesus, with the scent of a charcoal fire in the air to remind him of the night of denial, I hear the question. “Do you love me for who I am and not just for what I give you?”

I know my weaknesses. I know how easily the rug is still pulled out from under me when I feel harshly criticized or misunderstood. I know that in my own strength I can’t say yes.

I also know that his strength is made perfect in weakness. I also know that he gives me his love so I have something to give back to him. Everything comes from him, and in him and through him I live and move and have my being.

Yesterday the words from a song sung by Celine Dion played in my dreams:

You were my strength when I was weak.
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak.
You were my eyes when I couldn’t see.
You saw the best there was in me.
Lifted me up when I couldn’t reach.
You gave me faith ’cause you believed.
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me

This morning I was singing a song in my spirit. The words come from Psalm 73 which, in the New Living Testament, reads:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
    I desire you more than anything on earth.
My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak,
    but God remains the strength of my heart;
    he is mine forever.

Truth

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Just folksLeave a comment

Truth, real truth, total truth is like a burning laser light. Most of us can’t handle the truth.

When the prophet Isaiah encountered God in a vision, he encountered Truth. He cried out, “Woe is me for I am a man with unclean lips.” The blindingly holy light of truth revealed that he (like most of us) had spoken things that were untrue. I wonder what would have happened if God had not ministered mercy by sending an angel to purify his lips with a hot coal. I’ve also noticed that sometimes truth leaves scars.

Here’s the thing. Truth without love is harsh. Very harsh.

Have you ever watched two people fall in love? When most couples go on a first date, both put great effort into creating a good impression. The truth is, they don’t always look this good, smell this good, or act so thoughtfully. They keep some important information to themselves and may add a sheen to unavoidable details if they want a second date. As time goes on, they begin to test the interest level by gradually revealing minor unappealing aspects about themselves to see if the other will stick around. Love grows in an atmosphere of safety and acceptance. More truth can be told. Sadly, some people keep up a false image until the effort half kills them and everything falls apart. The truth will eventually come out.

Many of us are still vainly attempting to impress God while concealing aspects of ourselves that trigger shame. Hiding stuff doesn’t work. He knows. That fact alone sends millions into metaphorical sewing of fig-leaf wear whilst hiding in the shrubbery like Adam and Eve.

For those who don’t read social cues well and are whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth tellers, this whole dating thing is a mine field.

“You told her she needed a better deodorant?” I exclaimed with shock when my neuro-divergent friend told me about meeting a girl he liked. “I was only telling her the truth. I care about her. She should know.”

My explanation to him involved caring truth-telling about the way neuro-typicals perceive information. (At least I hope he perceived it as caring.) He was telling her the truth, but how was she to know he cared? How did he demonstrate that? Telling her she needed better deodorant could have felt a bit hurtful even if it was true. Most people can’t handle the truth, especially truth about themselves. Truth must be wrapped in communicated love, or it feels like a frying pan to the face and that’s the end of that.

Before Jesus was taken away to be killed, he told his friends, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.”  (John 16: 12,13)

The disciples were not ready to bear all the truth Jesus wanted to tell them. Jesus is The Truth, but he is also Love. Love doesn’t lie, and Godly truth gives us only as much truth as we can handle. He understands out frailty, but he also wants us to grow. Without a solid understanding of who God is, and that his lovingkindness and mercy endure forever, all of us, including the extremely narcissistic, tend to mix our truth medicine with a spoonful of denial, if not a cup of outright fantasy. Maturity is being able to appreciate the whole truth without being blown away by it. We need help getting to that point, but God provided for that too.

J.B. Phillips phrased it this way in his paraphrase of Ephesians 4:11-16

His “gifts to men” were varied. Some he made his messengers, some prophets, some preachers of the Gospel; to some he gave the power to guide and teach his people. His gifts were made that Christians might be properly equipped for their service, that the whole body might be built up until the time comes when, in the unity of the common faith and common knowledge of the Son of God, we arrive at real maturity—that measure of development which is meant by the “fullness of Christ”.

We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching and the jockeying of men who are expert in the craft presentation of lies. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head. For it is from the head that the whole body, as a harmonious structure knit together by the joints with which it is provided, grows by the proper functioning of individual parts to its full maturity in love.

The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, but patiently, not by dumping it all on our heads all at once. He is kind. Sometimes it’s a wonderful warm experience and sometimes it feels like receiving a father’s concerned discipline, but it always carries the scent of merciful lovingkindness.

Like many aspects of spiritual maturity, the ability to comprehend truth and see the way God sees is a process. I am learning that being Christ-centered and acknowledging Jesus in everything means becoming as intentional about a deepening relationship as he is.

It’s all about getting to know him.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word Prompt: Truth

Wide

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, WaterLeave a comment

A bench down by the water is a good place to contemplate. Today’s prompt word reminded me of an old hymn by Frederick W. Faber. Here are some stanzas:

There’s a wideness in God’s mercy,
Like the wideness of the sea;
There’s a kindness in God’s justice,
Which is more than liberty.

There is welcome for the sinner,
And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Savior,
There is healing in His blood.

For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of the mind,
And the heart of the Eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.

Part of the Apostle’s Paul prayer for us in the letter to the Ephesians was this: And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. (Eph. 3:18 NLT)

Creative Meditations for Lent, Prompt word: Wide

Overflowing With Kindness

On By Charis PsalloIn Mountains, nature, Sky, Trees and forests, Uncategorized, Water2 Comments

You’re kind and tenderhearted to those who don’t deserve it

    and very patient with people who fail you.

    Your love is like a flooding river overflowing its banks with kindness.

 God, everyone sees your goodness,

    for your tender love is blended into everything you do.

(Psalm 145:8,9 TPT)

When Martha complained to Jesus that her sister was not helping with the serving and doing what women were expected to do, he confronted her with this: “Martha! Your anxieties are distracting you from what is really important!”

Sometimes we are so anxious about what might happen we forget that when we invite him in, the Saviour is right here in our hearts. Even though we are anxious about tomorrow his goodness surrounds us today. When we set down our worries we can see beauty again.

Into the Hidden Places

On By Charis PsalloIn Art6 Comments

painting appointment 4 ch rs DSC_0608

I watched two people play statistics wars. Both debaters adamantly claimed ownership of diagrams and charts that backed their positions. Now I’m not a scientist, but I live with one. I’ve been around academics long enough to recognize poor research protocols and an apples and oranges argument. I’ve also learned it’s pointless to say anything to people who have their minds made up, academics included.

I walked away to make coffee when a line from Simon and Garfunkle’s song, The Boxer, began to play in my head.

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

When my coffee was ready, before I even started my Bible reading for today, I remembered this verse from my childhood:

You desire truth in the inward parts.

The Passion translation phrases it this way:

I know that you delight to set your truth deep in my spirit.
So come into the hidden places of my heart
and teach me wisdom. (Psalm 51:6)

Deceit is deceiving. No one believes a lie or jest intentionally, but very few ask to have falsehoods they believe publicly exposed. Gullibility feels like a character flaw, like a failure to fact check with the right fact checkers backed by the right authorities. With playground taunts still ringing in their ears many people will double down before admitting error.

Sometimes we absorb untruths because we need them to fit into a construct that allows us to feel less insecure. Sometimes we believe lies simply because we trusted the wrong people. Is that not the theme of millions of stories since the Garden of Eden?

Still thinking about the song (and about them and the lies they believed) and how that fit in with the verse about truth, the Lord arrested me with, “Let’s talk about some truths I’d like to set in your heart. There are some things that need displacing.”

He’s kind like that. He doesn’t talk about my stupidity for believing a falsehood, he talks about a truth that is lacking, a gap in my understanding temporarily filled in by something else. Cooperating with the process is called transformation.

Earlier this week, while I listened to some uplifting worship and encouraging speakers, I tried to paint my feelings about this time of isolation I find myself in.  It feels like the Lover of my soul is asking me to come away with him and simply sit quietly in this prepared time and appointed place. I do believe we are stepping into a new era and this long pause is a gift to reflect on embarrassingly wonky values and  ideas I’ve accepted that need to be replaced with truths before we journey on.

A little defensively I ask, “Who can I trust anyway? What is the truth?”

“Me,” he says. “In answer to both questions. Let’s start with how much I love you — and how much I love them — because you don’t really believe me yet.”

 

 

 

 

I Long to Drink of You

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, Photography, Uncategorized, WaterLeave a comment

st marys falls leaves on rock

I long to drink of you, O God,
drinking deeply from the streams of pleasure
flowing from your presence.
My longings overwhelm me for more of you!

St Marys Falls Oct ch IMG_6889

My deep need calls out to the deep kindness of your love.
Your waterfall of weeping sent waves of sorrow
over my soul, carrying me away,
cascading over me like a thundering cataract.

St Marys Falls vertical ch IMG_6883
Yet all day long God’s promises of love pour over me.
Through the night I sing his songs,
for my prayer to God has become my life.

(Psalm 42:1, 7, 8 The Passion Translation)

Your Justice is Like Majestic Mountains

On By Charis PsalloIn autumn, PhotographyLeave a comment

bootleg gap ch rs oct DSC_0767

One evening, as a group of us sat around talking about films we enjoyed, films we hated, and films that influenced us (categories which are not mutually exclusive), we noticed the theme of revenge kept popping up. Of course, somebody did an internet search.

The results shocked us.

We didn’t find 72 films with revenge themes. We found a 72 page-long list of movies based on revenge.

We looked up films with forgiveness themes. We found far fewer. Far, far fewer. A handful of pages. Maybe.

I admit to finding vicarious satisfaction in seeing a well-developed antagonist shot down in flames, hoisted on his own petard, humiliated in front of her ladies’ club, or hung on gallows built for the protagonist. Payback is sweet. I read calls for it every day on social media.

But God’s justice is not satisfied with unhappy endings like that. God takes a thief like Zacchaeus and transforms him into a benefactor. He turns a murderer like Moses into a deliverer, a world dominator like Nebuchadnezzar into a humble worshipper, and a persecutor like Saul into an apostle.

Perhaps that’s why he told us not to take vengeance into our own hands. Our self-righteous, untransformed concept of revenge-based justice would influence us to end the story too soon. We would spoil his fun.

And part of that fun is transforming me. And you.

Your justice is like the majestic mountains. Your judgments are as deep as the oceans, and yet in Your greatness, You, O Eternal, offer life for every person and animal.
(Psalm 36:6 The Voice)

 

Words That Both Pierce and Heal

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography4 Comments

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No one speaks words so anointed as this one—
words that both pierce and heal,
words like lilies dripping with myrrh.

(Song of Songs 5:13 TPT)

A woman told me how excited a doctor was when he diagnosed her mother with an extremely rare disease. He was quite proud of himself.

“The problem,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes, “was that he could offer no cure. She died soon after.”

Living under religious laws is like that. Performance-based religious systems are quite good at telling you what you are doing wrong and why, but without empowering grace to change the heart, well, nothing changes. The law is like a doctor who can tell you what you’re dying of, but can’t fix it.

I have learned that truth hurts, especially when I’ve been avoiding it for too long. But I’ve also learned that unlike people who have knowledge without power, the Lover of my soul never puts his finger on a pain in my heart that he doesn’t intend to heal. Like a surgical laser, His words both pierce and heal and the result is always greater freedom.

For if you embrace the truth, it will release more freedom into your lives. – Jesus