FlowerDust.net | Anne Jackson

Guest Blog: From an Addict

Pete Wilson is the pastor at Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tennessee. If you think this post rocks, you should read the rest of his blog!

Pete writes:

Let me tell you a little about myself. I’m a pastor. A husband. A father to three little boys. A friend. A Christ follower.

And I’m an addict.

I’m addicted to noise and chaos. I’m addicted to it in the kind of way that makes my life feel totally out of control and overwhelming at times.

And the worst part of my addiction is that I have recently realized that I don’t really “know” Scripture. Oh make no mistake about it. I can quote it, preach it, and debate it, but I’m not sure that I really “know it.”

And I bet I’m not alone. It seems as if we have been conditioned in our culture towards this addiction. We live in a day of unprecedented opportunities to stimulate our minds.

We have blogs, television, text-messaging and 24-hour news. We have iPods, satellite radio, and who could forget? Twitter. Everywhere we go there is some kind of message that is trying to attach itself to our minds.

We pretend as if the problem to knowing Scripture is a lack of access.

So, we have made the Bible more accessible than ever. We have dozens of translations. We have the Men’s, Women’s, and teens’ study Bibles. We have the camo Bible for the hunter. We have a Bible designed just for your purse. We have the digital Bible for your handheld or the audio Bible for your iPod. My favorite is the “waterproof” Bible that one publisher recently sent me.

Never has it been easier to access the Scriptures, but never has it been harder to absorb them.

Even if you’re taking time to read the scriptures, when do you have time to absorb them? When are you escaping the noise and chaos of your life?

And the problem is not what you think it is. You have time. You can make time. But you don’t. Why?

Because you’re addicted to the noise and probably even a little scared of what life would be without it.

Henri Nouwen wrote in “The Way of the Heart”…

“In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephones calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me - naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken-nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me want to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something.”

I want to encourage you to take some time to drop your scaffolding and get naked. Run from the chaos and dial down the noise. I want to encourage you to quiet your life. Simply, simplify. Put yourself in a place where you can absorb God’s grace and love and message for your life.

What do you think?

we’ve taken…medication

(bonus points for whoever can tell me who sings the song with the title of this post as one of the lyrics - no googling!)

a couple of months ago, i wrote about my gradual weaning off my sleep/anxiety medication (it’s one pill - a really strong sedative). i was a little nervous. one, i didn’t know what kind of withdrawal symptoms i’d have and two, i didn’t know who the person on the other side of this journey would be.

i’m still not completely finished with the withdrawal, but by this time next week i will be. i am so very happy to report i’ve only had some minor symptoms (mainly headaches).

i think that probably the biggest surprise is the fact the non-medicated version of me is SO MUCH DORKIER than the medicated version. i say that with as much emphasis as possible.

even though i had only been on the meds for almost a year, they were very emotionally numbing, and i didn’t even realize it. frequently over the last seven weeks, i kept getting these weird looks from my husband, like, “who is this woman?!” in a good way though (i hope)…at least he was laughing. hmmmm….

anyway, just wanted to update you all. if you want to read a little bit more of the journey over the last year, you can here.

thanks for your prayers & support!!

if you are on medication for anything, don’t make up your own plan for getting off of them. talk to your doctor. work out a plan. don’t just stop. my doctor has been great at helping me through this, as well as talking to friends and a counselor. disclaimer over.

confessional: fear (part 2)

ok…the comments have slowed down (wow - thank you!) on me asking you what your greatest fear is. your honesty and transparency in sharing such powerful things with the public has just blown me away. now that it’s time for me to reveal mine, i can feel the hesitation many of you probably felt before pressing that “submit comment” button.

mine is death - more specifically, someone i love or myself dying tragically and unexpectedly. out of all the people i have ever known and loved who have passed, all but two have been unexpected. my close friend matt dying on his 31st birthday, my aunt who had ruptured a blood vessel in her head…or dying young…we had two funerals this week for a 20 year old and a 23 year old. a year and a half ago, my friend’s husband brandon passed away with NHL (read about it here and here). he was only 26.

so, all this fear…how can we combat it? fight it? how can we not let it rob us?

faith.

before writing this, i was reading a story on cnn about how a church collapsed in peru during a funeral. over 60 people are buried under the rubble.

the reporter notes the calm and peace shown by the nuns and the priest. he writes:

I couldn’t understand how this man and these women of the cloth could remain so calm, their faith so apparently unshaken while they contemplated the ruins of the church and the loss of people so dear to them. I asked them about that faith.

the priest replies:

“It’s difficult times like this that it [faith] exists,” the priest said.

wow. how frickin profound is that? without fear, doubt, question, turmoil…there would be no need for faith.

reflect on that a while…

“It’s difficult times like this that it [faith] exists,” the priest said.

have a good weekend…

confessional: fear

what is your greatest fear? really. that secret one you never talk about. you’re almost embarrassed to say it. it seems so…petty.

i know i have one. i’ll share mine at the end.

your greatest fear is…..

and this is why i ask…

the reason i asked about the “30 days to live” is because my friends over at lifechurch.tv are starting a very compelling and original series this coming weekend with that title. i love lifechurch, and since chris works saturday nights (when i’m usually home writing or cleaning or something) recently i’ve been watching their service at 7 pm via the internet campus.

anyway, what makes this series so compelling? every week, they sit down with people who have very limited time left on earth…people who actually know that they may just have 30 days to live. wow. wow.

you can check out the website for the series here. i know i’ll be tuning in at 7 pm on saturday (and i’m usually in the channel 1 “guest lobby” for a few minutes beforehand.) i’d love it if you’d join me!

thank you all for your very thought-provoking responses. and man, are they all over the place. if you haven’t had a chance to read through them, check them out.

as someone who regularly struggles with fear and “what ifs,” just the concept behind this series has caused me to really think through why i worry so much….and wonder where my boldness has gone. it doesn’t cause me to live in regret, but i guess tune in a little more to what is going on around me now, in the day-to-day…and how the day-to-day is part of a really long time we’ll just call eternity.

dead bodies

from reuters.com

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A woman in Mexico City kept the body of her dead husband by her bedside for a year until neighbors, disturbed by the smell, called the police.

Police broke down Mercedes Velarde’s door on Tuesday and found the putrefied body of her husband Edmundo on the floor of her bedroom.

Authorities said on Wednesday they were investigating Velarde’s claim her husband died of natural causes. They believe the man, in his early 60s, had mental problems that may have been linked to his death.

Local media reported that Velarde’s son regularly helped remove worms infesting his father’s body.

Police could not confirm the reports but said her two adult children knew their mother was keeping the body.

The family is being examined by a psychiatrist. After an autopsy, the family could face criminal charges or be sent to a psychiatric hospital.

Authorities said hiding a dead person, even a family member, is a crime.

“Yes, these people have psychological problems, (but) they hid a corpse. Even if it is a family member, they committed a crime,” Veronica Sanchez at the Mexico City attorney general’s office told Reuters.

how many things do we hang on to instead of properly burying them? i know for me, past relationships and mistakes easily haunt me. living and replaying moments i regret over and over again in my head do nothing but bring me down and take my eyes of the present.

this is a really gross story, but so applicable to almost every area of our lives…don’t you think?

envelopeaphobia

today, as i do around the first part of every month, i send out invoices to my freelance clients. licking envelopes is not part of my daily routine. and every time i do lick one, i think of the seinfeld episode, “the invitations,” where susan dies from licking all those cheap envelopes.

Doctor: Excuse me , Are you the husband?

George: Well , not yet.. Fiancé.

Doctor: Well , I’m sorry…..She’s gone.

George: ………What’s that?…

Doctor: She expired.

George: …Are you sure?

Doctor: Yes , of course.

George: So…..She’s dead?

Doctor: Yes

George: …Huh!

Doctor: Let me ask you ; Had she been exposed to any kind of inexpensive glue?

George: …Why?

Doctor: We found traces of a certain toxic adhesive commonly found in very low priced envelopes.

George: Well she was sending out our wedding invitations.

Doctor: That’s probably what did it.

George: We were expecting about two hundred people…Well…Thank you , thank you.

every time…