The Impostor

Each of has has a false self or an impostor that we use to make ourselves into someone we are not. Brennan Manning wrote the following thoughts in Chapter 2, The Impostor, in his book, Abba's Child:

• The impostor prompts us to attach importance to what has no importance...
• The impostor is a liar.
• Our false self stubbornly blinds each of us to the light and the truth of our own emptiness and hollowness. We cannot acknowledge the darkness within.
• The impostor bears a distinct resemblance to alcohol for the alcoholic. He is cunning, baffling, and powerful. He is insidious. 
• ...God does not know anything about him (Thomas Merton)
• It is the nature of the false self to save us from knowing the truth about our real selves, from penetrating the deeper causes of our unhappiness, from seeing ourselves as we really are--vulnerable, afraid, terrified, and unable to let our real selves emerge. (James Masterson) 
• ...a life devoted to the shadow is a life of sin. I have sinned in my cowardly refusal--out of fear of rejection--to think, feel, act, respond, and live from my authentic self. (Thomas Merton)
• The impostor must be called out of hiding, accepted and embraced. He is an integral part of my total self. Whatever is denied cannot be healed.
• Peace lies in acceptance of truth. Any facet of the shadow self that we refuse to embrace becomes the enemy and forces us into defensive postures.
• Hatred of the impostor is actually self-hatred... self[hatred always results in some form of self-destructive behavior.
• [Must be taken], where unknowingly [the impostor] has longed to be--into the presence of Jesus. 

This leaves much to consider. We were made to live fully as a child of God, but we cannot escape the emergence of a false self. I wonder if we can't really see ourselves clearly until we are willing or able to see the impostor for who he really is, a liar. 

Trust

...when we wallow in shame, remorse, self-hatred,

and guilt over real or imagined failings in the past,

we  are betraying  our distrust in  the love  of God,

that we have not accepted the acceptance of Jesus

Christ, the total sufficiency of his redeeming work.

Preoccupation  with  our  past sins,  our  present

weaknesses,  our  character  defects,  gets  our

emotions churning in self-destructive ways, closes 

us  in  the mighty  citadel itself,  and  completely

preempts the presence of the compassionate God.

                                                     - Brennan Manning 

Old Ache

…There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: “I never knew you. Depart from Me.” In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities. Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.   

                                                                                        C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The Weight of Glory

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

 …Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such philosophies of Progress or Creative Evolution themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that earth can be made into heaven…

 Do what they will, then, we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy...  

                                                                                                                    [C.S. Lewis]

You deserve to be happy?

I saw this Facebook ad earlier today as I was scrolling down my wall. A couple of things about this particular ad struck me. Initially I was quite taken back by the idea of internet counseling. Emotions and intent are so hard when you can't see a face. But then I thought that there is a whole group of hurting isolated people out there that are solely on the internet. So if this is a stepping stone toward someone getting help then I think it could be a good thing. But only if the person is encouraged to build face-to-face relationships.

The other thing that struck me was the catch phrase, "you deserve to be happy." I don't know if it is the word deserve or the word happy, or perhaps the two put together. Do I feel like I deserve to be happy? or maybe a better way to say it is, Where do I feel like I deserve to be happy? What do I think being happy should look like? 

It seems like it demands some of life's circumstances to change. What if they don't change? What if life keeps throwing lemons at you? If life doesn't change, then where does true happiness come from? 

Doesn't it come from knowing that there is something bigger going on than my pain, and in the middle of it all there is a God who loves me unconditionally. I think I would like this add better if it said, "You can find the true source of your happiness." 

Kelsey Grammer's on Forgiveness & God

I found this video while looking for something else. It is worth watching.

The Importance of Lineage

Recently I have been watching quite a few episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? on YouTube. Last night I watched the UK episode for Patsy Kensit. She has a most interesting story.

Patsy’s parents are now both deceased and she knew very little of her family’s history. Her father James was associated with organized crime. They were two main organized crime families in the UK at the time and her father did business with both families. While her father did time in prison, her mother was left to take care of her and her brother James on her own.

Patsy was curious about her father’s parents and found that her grandfather James Sr., was also in and out of prison for theft & robbery while her father was a child. Finding this out was very discouraging for Patsy, leaving her to wonder if criminal activity was going to be a normal pattern in her family’s history.

Her grandfather James Sr., was the son of Thomas James Kensit. He was found to be the illegitimate son of James Dennis and Sarah Ann Kensit, who never married. Sarah Ann’s father was Thomas Kensit, who was a walking stick maker. Thomas helped raise his grandson and taught him the trade of being a walking stick maker too. This was a respectable trade to have, but when machines started to do this type of work faster and cheaper, it pushed the whole family into desperate poverty.

It was found that Thomas James Kensit’s biological father was James Dennis. James Dennis’ father James Dennis Sr. was a well-known and well-loved Sexton of Beckenham church.

The Beckenham church historian let Patsy read his obituary. She was so moved by the fact that a man related to her was so well respected in the church. Her emotional was so overwhelming that she could barely put a sentence together amidst the tears.

It made me wonder how a man’s choices several generations back could still affect the generations ahead of him. Do my choices today matter to people living 150 or 200 years from now?  My view is so narrow and small.

We know that Thomas James Kensit’s father was James Dennis and that his mother was Sarah Anne Kensit, the daughter of Thomas Kensit and Melissa Mayne. Melissa Mayne, was the daughter of the Rev. James Mayne. The Rev. James Mayne was the Curate of the St. Matthews Bethnal Green church. The parish had 62,000 parishioners, most of which were destitute.

While serving at St. Matthews, he baptized, married and buried people in large numbers. He set up a school and also started a relief fund for the destitute and poor. He even went to the royal family and requested money to help the large number of poor in Bethnal Green. He was quite a remarkable man who crusaded for his parishioners.

James Mayne was given an honorary Master of Arts Lambeth Degree in Divinity from the Arch Bishops of Canterbury. He went on to become a Vicar in a country church, dying while still serving. 

What a wonderful legacy.

I can’t help but wonder if having a wider picture of our historical heritage does something for us. Does it offer a better foundation? Does it give us better perspective? A bigger picture?

Sometimes it feels hard to get past our more current histories, or past one or two generations. These are most likely the relatives we have actually met. We know or have heard about their good and bad choices and often about their parents good and bad choices. But it is a very small part of larger story, maybe even the story of all human beings.

I do wonder how much this genealogical journey changed Patsy. How did she see herself when she was growing up? How did her father being in prison affect her relationally? How does her being married 4 times fit into the whole thing?

Her Wikipedia bio says that she started going to the Catholic Church after her mother died of breast cancer in 1993. Has she struggled with feeling like she belongs there? Does her knowledge that there are at least two very strong God-believing patriarchs in her lineage change anything for her?

I know that I have Quakers in my lineage. And I know that a few were imprisoned for their beliefs. It is why they came to America, for religious freedom. Does that change how I view my life? In a way it does. Their faith was strong and they moved despite the hardships that came along with it. That same strength is deep within me too. Is that DNA or the story of all humans?

Isn’t that why the Israelites were taught to remember? To look back at their lineage and see the choices their ancestors made. Not just the good choices either, because the bad choices can show us just as much as the good ones.