Resources

No doubt that the presence of hope leads to the feeling of peace.

And, a sense of peace is good, as fleeting as it can be at times.

Hope can be lost when there is a perception of a lack of resources to get to a resolution.

Resources are manifest in support from friends and family, a place to live, food to eat, reliable transportation, money...anything, really.

When these resources are insufficient, or unavailabe, where do you turn?

First, pray. For what you think you need. For a clearer picture of what God has planned for you. What you think you need is not necessarily what you REALLY need to get you to where He wants you to go. For guidance. For resolve.

Second, be patient. Patience is key. The resources are there, somewhere. You just haven't identified or found them...yet.

Third, be positive. Negative thought is an endless spiral into an abyss that can be more difficult to escape from than the problem itself.

Fourth, broaden your scope of perception. The resources to get you through whatever you are struggling against now could be right around the corner, or veiled behind something. Open up your mind to new possibilities.

Fifth, listen to advice, both solicited and unsolicited. One of the most beautiful ways that God has in place to help us through life is via the people HE places in our lives. Many times, even the situations we find ourselves in. This is one of the many ways in which He communicates with us. Respect that fact by at least listening, considering.

View of your problem through a telescope
 

Think of it as changing your scope from the view you see through your own eyes while looking ahead of you through a telescope....

View of your problem when the telescope is stowed

...to the view all around you when you stow that telescope, turn your head from side to side, maybe even turn your body in another direction. A panoramic view of life that encompasses all the possibilities.

Sixth, breathe. Another skill God endowed all of  us with. No one ever survived by holding his breath. Oxygen is critical; a life-giving element. Deprive the body and brain of oxygen, and the entire organism dies very quickly.

Resources are always available. But, like many things in life for most of us, they are not easily accessible. Not within our immediate reach.

The difficult part is that in a society that has been slowly conditioned towards immediate gratification, the concept of patience, of searching for a resource to satisfy our needs, is becoming an ability lost. When you cease to practice something, you eventually lose the ability to do it.

This works fine when you have at your fingertips every resource you need, especially those involved with simple day-to-day survival. The trick is how will you cope when even the basic needs (remember Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs?) are difficult to attain?

Good question...

Friend?

How do you define friendship? How do you decide when a particular person is a friend? Qualities that come to mind, both from my experience and confirmed by Wikipedia, are:

• mutual understanding and compassion
• the ability to be and express oneself without fear of judgement
• enjoyment of each other's company
• honesty, even in situations where honesty is difficult
• sympathy and empathy
• trust
• the desire for what is best for the other person
• positive reciprocity
• a feeling of comfort and security

Every person will rearrange this list to suit her own desires and needs, even add to it or remove items that are personally irrelevant. Items could possibly even shift as the friendship grows.

What happens then...when the two lists are too different or they become divergent over time?

The obvious, obviously...misunderstandings, discourse, miscommunication.

It is relatively easy to manage the situation when the lists are different from the beginning. There is less emotional relationship and therefore less tugging and pulling as the "friendship" is dissolved.

Where the real pain comes in is when the friendship has already been established based on supposed mutual expectations, and then things change.

Promises made in another light of a past day become harder to keep.

The friendship erodes, or maybe even implodes, but deep concepts like trust and emotional security have to be questioned and re-evaluated.

I wrote a post a few years back called When Friends Turn Away. I continue to strongly believe and maintain faith in God's greater plan for us and who He puts into our lives and why.

It doesn't mean that it all doesn't hurt...sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

My concept of friendship has been challenged this past week. More than challenged. I think the better term is "rocked my world", and not in a good way. Questions of where I went wrong swirl in my head. As the storm settles, the questions are answered, kind of...and then give way to more questions.

While the tears have come and gone, the wall has gone up. A wall that I thought I had torn down.

I believe that this time, that wall will be up for awhile. It now hurts too much to risk letting it down for anyone else.

With God's help, maybe I can force some peepholes into...at some point. Until then, I pray at the foot of it.

Experience

When I was a young adult, a long time ago, my father told me at some point that in order to truly understand something, anything, one must create a framework in which to view it and, hence, to gain some perspective.

The image I created in my head based on that conversation, a conversation that occurred decades ago, was of an actual frame around a piece of art. I imagined in my head what a piece of art looks like unframed. How it reacts to touch and pressure. A canvas will roll; a litho will roll or bend. If a piece of art is old enough, it may crease or crack. Furthermore, without a frame, it is easier to simply roll that piece of art up and stow it for the future. Slip it under the bed or in some other way discard it. Forget about it. Out of sight, out of mind.

All of these happen when that piece of art is unframed.

But put that piece of art in a frame, any frame...give it structure, purpose, direction. It can then be displayed and actively used. Appreciated and admired. Augmented, even. It could be the piece that starts a collection. A true piece of art.

And so it is with experience. Experience in life is crucial in putting structure to life and the issues that pervade daily life. Experience forms the framework on which one can hang relativity and association.

It doesn't matter the circumstances. Whether it is related to issues of work, or personal strife, or faith...every bit of time and energy that can be spent on gleaning experience is worth the effort.

But, the experience is no good unless it is assembled into some type of frame. Just as four pieces of wood, a bunch of nails, and maybe glue and picture frame wire don't make anything just sitting in a bag fresh from Hobby Lobby. Assemble the frame, attach the wire, insert the art, and hang.

That is the impact of experience. Taking the pieces and putting them together to create something worthwhile and admirable.

Not to mention that every level of experience enables us to look back, nod our heads approvingly, and comment with a smile, "Yep, I made it through that. I can make it through this too."

I have never forgotten the imagery instilled in me that day so long ago. My father was wiser that I ever gave him credit for when he was alive.

In my job as a technical analyst and writer, I see even more how important the experience tidbits are, no matter how small. Because each piece of experience is a stepping stone to the next level of understanding. Another nail in the framework of experience, and hence understanding.

And so I believe it is in life....and in faith. Each bit of success, of "light bulb" moments, properly analyzed and assembled, are the stepping stones, the experience, needed to channel us to successful resolution of our issues and solidarity of our faith.

Perspective

What do you do when you get lost?

Not lost in a good book or lost in his eyes.

But truly lost...confused, turned around, misplaced, misdirected.

Have you ever been lost? Have you ever allowed yourself to lose your way, move out of your element, be the tossed ship at sea in the middle of a storm. Put yourself in a place where you don't see any landmarks you recognize. A place where the GPS is clueless and the neighborhood is changing from posh to poverty. Where you are in unstable and/or unsafe surroundings.

That's the type of lost I am talking about. You can get there by accident, by mistake...or you can choose to go there. Doesn't matter.

A complete loss of perspective. Nothing familiar to grab onto. No breadcrumbs to follow.

What do you do? What have you done in the past? What would you do now?

I guess there are some who choose to wait it out, stay close to what they know. Maybe instead of foraging forward into a scenario they are unsure of, they hang back...afraid, tentative. Do they have perspective? Maybe...but only in terms of the perspective a fish may have of its fishtank. Confined, constrained. No way out. Possibly distorted and myopic. Can't make out much of anything past the boundaries of the glass container. No lush details to expand perspective and outlook on life. (not to mention that a fish can't breathe out of water ~ a topic for another post).

Not really lost...only afraid. Fear holding perspective hostage.

There are expanding variations of this 'cage' metaphor, of course. The barred cage where one can see the outside and the detail but still can't get there. This connotes a certain longing to be free but an inability to break the chains.

If the fish breaks the boundaries of the bowl, like Nemo, or the lion escapes the pride and can roam freely, like Simba, what next?

First, an immediate change of perspective from the comfortable to the distressing. The lines that were drawn within the previous boundaries are broken and ineffective. They either must be re-drawn or extended and tweaked to fit the new environment.


Panic may ensue; questioning of self and purpose. Flight or fight.


Flight will feed the fear and thus strengthen the captor. Fight will break the captor and free the hostage, and hence allow new lines to be drawn.

Drawing these new lines leads to the discovery of new touchpoints, new bread crumbs, new landmarks.

Shortcuts, scenic routes, fresh concepts....

New lines....fresh perspective.

Purging the fear and releasing the hostage.

Baz Luhrmann said it in Everybody's Free: "Do one thing every day that scares you."

What scares you? What makes you feel lost and confused? What makes you uncomfortable?

Do it and free your mind, your soul, to experience a brand new perspective. After all, if you don't do the things that scare you, and you don't open up your perspective, how can you ever hope to find the beauty and perfection, the pure freedom, that God has planned for you?