Here at the Abbey Church in Azle, Texas, we just finished four days of meetings with our new (but quickly gone deep) friend, Dr. Lynn Hiles. Dr. Hiles preaches grace--and by “grace”, he means the finished work of Christ, not a sweet but weak sentimental acceptance—in a way I have never experienced. My long held dream of erasing the Western demarcation between the “word” and the Spirit” comes true when I listen to Dr. Hiles preach—and by “preach”, I mean dispense a lifetime’s study of blazing truth from an inner spiritual assembly mechanism that seems to function somewhat like a catapult hurling blazing missiles at a fortress!
The universality of the Gospel—the sheer enormity of what Jesus did for us—was splashed across the canvas of my inner world while I listened to such a degree that I wanted to lay flat on the floor in complete surrender to the panorama of truth. I felt like the Queen of Sheba as she was described in the Bible when she saw the wealth and excellence of Solomon’s empire: it took her breath away. Simultaneously, however, I wanted to rise up stronger than ever in hot pursuit of my own particular flavor of Ephesians 2:10 “good works”—you know the kind, not the dreams of our own born out of our need to bolster insecurities, but the big dreams of God birthed in us—the ones that are finished in Him before they are even begun on earth!
So, I’m just saying….it was a great few days and my inner world is still reverberating. Sometimes we know the blazing truth, but have allowed it to be dosed with a fair measure of “reasonableness” and we don’t even realize that we are being lulled into less real living than is our portion! It sounds like this, “Well, of course, Jesus is everything, but, let’s be real…” In our hearts, we don’t reassess the absolute nature of salvation, but our experiences tend to sink down into the level of a distant hope of that salvation showing up, rather than a real-time reality!
I know that there are a thousand expressions of “church” showing up all over the planet and I fully believe in a God who is just as real and ready to speak and demonstrate at a Starbucks as He is from a pulpit, BUT, I have just been refreshed in the amazing effect of what the Bible calls “the foolishness of preaching”. Church is relational and it is NOT (never has been and never will be) just about sitting behinds on chairs while they listen to one man, BUT, GOD DOES USE THAT FORMAT TOO! When the man is actually emblazoned with revelation that he has interacted with for years such that even his communication of it has become pregnant with all the creativity that is God, then we’ve got something! Preaching is about washing the psyche with the truth so much so that our consciousness can’t for a little while come up for air and we are swimming in heaven—experientially reminded of the amazing potential for Kingdom that we carry every minute of every day!
There is a particular variety of “settling” I have discovered, however, that seems to require large doses of heaven to drown! It hides in the crevices of our ideas about church and is aided by the church’s tendency to forget that it is only a subset, a manifestation, an outcropping of the broader picture of reality: the Kingdom. (As Dr. Hiles points out the relationship, the rainbow around the throne declares for all to remember that the New Covenant is the constitution of the Kingdom of God.) The particular compromise I here seek to expose hides under the banner of words like “leadership” and “responsibility” and it looks like this: Church leaders who well know that all function in the Christian life must flow from a place of REST, end up creating for themselves only a parallel universe where striving is allowed! When it comes to salvation, they preach and believe that Jesus did it all and that the life he gives he maintains, but when it comes to building a church or leading a ministry or “getting results” in the corporate sense—beyond individual growth—they somehow subtly permission a reversion to the energies of the flesh. Christ plus nothing for righteousness, but Christ plus…..John Maxwell, marketing strategies, political promotion, hype, or the latest fad…when it comes to being a leader. Please understand me, I am NOT against all of these things (some of them I am against—I’ll let you guess which). What I am against is the dual system that implies that Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection on our behalf is big enough to reverse the entire polarity of our existence, extending to every area of life we encounter EXCEPT the areas that deal with leading people.
When we replace the rainbow around the throne with a list of considerations that don’t flow from rest and create for ourselves a modern-day litany of leadership requirements, our journey is headed toward resentment. We begin to feel the least able to access the grace that we preach. We are unable to offer to ourselves fully the freedom that we proclaim (or hopefully continue to proclaim) so freely! We are, to put it biblically, double-minded. And we ultimately go about like nervous little scavengers, vulnerably feeling that we must find the “key” or the “door” that will unlock our ministry, rather than trusting the One who holds the keys and said most plainly, “I am the door”. If He could unlock our eternal mess, certainly, he can unlock doors of opportunity—it’s that simple. There is only one operating system in the Kingdom—the finished work of Christ. Out of that place, not only our own personal and ever-emergent salvation appears, but also our CORPORATE EXPERIENCE OF MINISTRY OR CHURCH!
It is Western dualism once again seizing the opportunity presented by our “unrenewed” mind. But, I now have a new definition of the unrenewed mind. I have decided that an unrenewed mind is not so much a mind that thinks bad thoughts or doesn’t have Scripture at the ready, but rather the unrenewed mind is one that draws boundaries on the finished work of Christ, declaring that perhaps there are just places it might not extend and inspiring the creation of several “plan B’s” in people who would never offer any other plan for their eternal salvation! Am I making sense to you? If I am…..you might be a church leader! Appealing to our common sense, traces of law-based fear seduce us into creating systems of flesh, even while we are fully aware that the product we want to dispense is spirit, and the grandest of all ironies swirls within us!
Obviously, I could go on and on about this—it is a big topic, maybe even a best-selling book (smile)! But, the purpose of a blog is to get personal, and so now I will share with you what you may have already surmised. How am I able to describe this particular affliction common to church leaders with such passion? Is this the culmination of years of research, note-taking, interviews and case studies? Yes and no. Though I have seen it everywhere in the church, my deep understanding of the dysfunction was as close as my mirror and the case study was me! Years ago, the passage in I Samuel 13 where Saul “forced himself” to offer the sacrifice, rather than waiting on Samuel (a type of the Holy Spirit) to do the job on his behalf, was carved deep into my constitution. And one of my “life Scriptures” was, “And HE will make your righteousness be seen like the light AND….YOUR CAUSE like the shining of the sun!” (Psalm 37:6, combined translations, Emphasis on: YOU don’t have to produce it.)
The most difficult journey of my “hot responder” personality has been the journey of TRUST related to my own destiny. I have never breathed a moment without the biggest of dreams: I want to be the Christian answer to both Oprah and Chopra. I want to shout from the housetops to the chart-topping musicians all over the world as well as the wannabes alone in apartments, “I know what you’re singing about—I hear your cry!” I want to stand up in the middle of an Eat, Pray, Love generation and declare a God who could blow every Eastern mind in a second with spiritual reality so blinding it would make every knee bow to the One who both fulfills and transcends both East and West! I see all this potential but I don’t know how to produce it myself and I have heard the wise man say that the richest place on the planet is the graveyard, due of course to all that buried potential! That just can’t be me, so I must act! Right? Only partly….I must ACT from that place of REST, realizing that I am not posturing myself, but being positioned by Him. I do not have to be a slave of destiny at the expense of Kingdom provision! Destiny is simply my little corner of the Kingdom, and the Kingdom is HIM! How could I take my dreams to my grave if my life is enveloped in Him?
Recently, my friend April had a prophetic vision about my “ministry”. She said she saw me lying flat on the floor and people were digging around inside of me and taking what they needed—like an autopsy, she even said. What followed was a long, tearful, God-visited discussion with April and her husband, Jason, about my disappointment over being compared to a corpse and the reasons behind it. (The vision had aroused my greatest fear: that I would be “used” by others to build their “ministries” and left for dead in terms of my course to run! Don’t judge me: it was deeper than a conscious drive. ) Now, after a week of intense focus on the finished work of Christ, I see it differently. What people were taking from me was not my vitality, but my produce! I am a garden (as we all are) and the amazing economy of God is designed such that the things that grow in me to actually provide nutrients that other people need!
And that growth is not a strain, but rather a natural process of relationship that I share with all sojourners. Lying there flat need not be interpreted as corpse-like, but maybe instead as just RESTING. As I rest in the fact that He has a plan, not just for my spiritual growth but even for my MINISTRY, then the garden blooms and is ripe for picking. If the soil is rich, the produce might be varied—books, preaches, sure, but also conversation over dinner or coffee, Facebook status updates, or….blogs—but it is all just the fruit of the fact that I am connected to heaven. If my strong desire turned to straining can’t add a millimeter of stature to my natural height, it certainly can’t stretch the bounds of my reach, either, no matter how many leadership books I read or clever strategies I adopt. But conversely, if I just consider the lilies, how they grow and continue to do the same, then I believe by the working of the Holy Spirit, my energies will be funneled into creative channels that will feed a landscape the size of my Kingdom dreams!
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Monday, March 07, 2011
What's Really in a Name?
Unless they are given a traditional family name, every child wonders about their parents’ choice for the word that will seem synonymous with all that they are. With the name, “Perrianne,” I was certainly no exception, especially given my extremely “identity-driven” personality. Because my dad’s middle name was “Perry,” I initially surmised that I was named for him--a happy thought to me. When I presented the findings of my research to him (at age 5, I believe), I was immediately told that this was not the case. It even seemed as if the connection had never occurred to him! Instead, he told me that I was named after a contestant on a game show that he and my mother watched while they were expecting me. This woman signed in on What’s My Line,”, the classic show where celebrities guess the profession of uniquely employed contestants. The woman who was the source of my name was, my dad said, a sports reporter. And that was that: I grew up with that minimally resourced consciousness regarding what seemed to me to be a very impersonal heritage connected to my name.
Having a unique name has drawbacks. I could never get a personalized keychain or bicycle license plate like the other kids—they just don’t make them with “Perrianne”. And, later, when Western pop culture discovered the joy of name-meaning plaques, “Perrianne” was a sure one to stump the band! I remember years ago in the local Walmart, a kiosk was set up to print and sell plaques with name meanings, and when we typed in Perrianne, I noticed that the description it spit out for me was vaguely similar to an example that was hanging there for display—an example which sounded nothing like “Perrianne”! I strained through the adolescent desire for conformity to develop an appreciation for being unique (because believe me, I am), but still there were times, I must admit, I wished for a different name. (At around 14, I must have thrilled my parents when I embarked upon a short-lived campaign to legally change my name to “Donna”—I now am not sure why I picked that one—perhaps because there were plenty of key chains and bike tags pre-printed with that moniker.)
Then came my college days, during which I felt like an unlikely invader into the world of scientific research….I had the skills to thrive academically (having been “diagnosed” with a 170 IQ early on), but I was so different from the typical chemistry major and there was also still a noticeable edge of stigma about being a woman, even in those “liberated” days of the late 70’s and early 80’s. When a new semester would begin, any professor whom I hadn’t had before would call the roll on the first day of class, reading off names and looking up after each one to see which face corresponded. Every time he stopped his rhythm and stared at the page, I knew he had arrived at my name and what would follow would be a halting attempt at pronunciation (really? how hard is it?) or the words, “how do you pronounce this?” at which time I would supply him with the correct pronunciation, still with a tinge of doubted identity in my hesitant voice.
So, being named Perrianne came to symbolize several things for me: First of all, my ambivalent relationship with attention. When I have a speaking gig or when I am just telling a story, I access a part of me that has NO problem being the center of attention—believe me! However, I am convinced that every extrovert has a large corresponding introvert somewhere inside and I have definitely navigated that mysterious artistic balance all my life. I did, in fact, as I matured, realize that this woman for whom I was named must have been a real trail-blazer. Now we see females reporting fairly frequently on sports—and not just women’s! But in the late 50’s and early 60’s, it must have been the case that this woman was a true pioneer! Though the main cause of my life is not gender-related, I do believe with all my heart that barriers made by human ideas with little or no grounding in truth are ALL meant to be broken! However, this only built my curiosity about the original Perrianne.
Then, at age 50, everything about my naming would change. Having written two books, I decided, at the urgings of media-savvy friends, to create an “author page” for myself on Facebook. A dear friend in England who had showered me with encouragement after reading both my books in one weekend had called his little session, “Perrianne-stock” and I loved the comparison it evoked to a “festival” (without all the trash and irresponsible behavior, of course). So at the beginning of this year, Perrianne-stock was launched and I am proud to report that it has rocketed to—wait for it—100 Facebook “likes”! Because the number is so low, I still notice every new addition and two weeks ago, someone named Perrianne “liked” my page to my amazement—spelled just like me and living in New York. Interested, I “friended” her and then fired off a quick message explaining briefly the random origin of my name and asking her the origin of hers. And then I went to the gym—no big deal.
An hour later, workout done, I clicked on my profile and discovered probably the most amazing FB reply in history! Perrianne in New York told me, “I was named after the same person as you were. Her name is Perian Conerly and she was married to Charlie Conerly, the most famous pro quarterback of his day, and…” (and here’s the real mind-blower) “…here is the video of the TV show your parents watched to name you…” In one click of a link to youtube, I saw for the first time ever this woman who was the source of my parents’ choice! I wept as I realized that I had probably—due to the low self-esteem from which we humans so often suffer—misjudged the whole situation. I had made negative judgments about my parents’ choice of a name, assuming that this 1959 TV show just tossed a novel idea into their empty well, rather than realizing this was an amazing woman who probably actually INSPIRED them about what their daughter could be! I am pleased to announce that for about 50 years, I got it a little wrong!
I am a passionate Christian and a truly spiritual one and my afore-mentioned identity-driven personality has found ample fulfillment in the legacy and destiny that I believe was intended in the divine plan. BUT, somehow through this experience, God had managed to fill a big gap in my inner world by restoring to me a missing sense of legacy and destiny that extended even to the farthest circumstances of my life! I already believed that there was purpose for me—and for every human being—but this experience drove it home so uniquely. There is so much purpose that NOTHING is accidental, marginal or useless. I believe more than ever in the orchestration of God.
Perrianne in NY also sent me a biographical article on Perian Conerly (and we found it ironic that both of our dads changed the spelling to the same one we share) and the hope I found only grew. I may share more in the future, especially after I read Perian Conerly’s book, which I have now ordered on Amazon, about exactly what she is coming to represent to me (especially as a writer), but that is not what I am aiming for right now. Right now, I want to shout from the housetops how good it feels to have been wrong! I owe my parents an apology for my judgment of them as uncreative! I owe myself an apology for failing to believe that my uniqueness was anything less than a gift! I experienced a true spiritual “retro-fit” at age 50. It happened to be related to my name, but it set me off wondering how many other subtle little judgments that limited my thinking might be lurking in the shadows…..?
I wish my daddy had sat me on his lap and explained to me, “Honey, we saw a wonderful woman on What’s My Line who captured our imaginations and we felt that you would be a trail-blazer and history-maker like her. Even more than that, we felt that you would be the kind of person who held her head high with dignity and brightened the world of everyone you came in contact with. And, we do even feel that there is some voice for you to have to your generation and we want to launch you on that journey with a name that will remind you of that every moment.” I wish he had said all those things, rather than leaving me to my own darker interpretation, but men of the great generation didn’t effuse emotion, nor did they require it. At the end of the day, maybe I didn’t need him to say it: I’m saying it for myself now quite well! I now feel, through “meeting” Perian Conerly via youtube, this is what my daddy meant to say to me and I am strengthened. He has said it to me now through a thousand Facebook “coincidences” and I am “gobsmacked” as the Brits say—overwhelmed with amazement at the divine orchestration.
Seekers of mere self-esteem cannot begin to understand the exceeding worth one feels when he finds his place in the Plan! What is most amazing is that I have lived so much of the legacy that my mom and dad reached out to, even without knowing it. I have now met a little army of Perrianne’s all over Facebook, some of whom knew of their legacy, some of whom did not and I am beginning to suspect that many of them will say the same! But, whether you are named Perrianne or Donna or Mary Jane, I guarantee you that there is more buzz surrounding your existence than you ever dreamed. And no matter your age, there is something wonderful to discover about who you really are. There are whole new worlds of perception that will completely erase dark clouds that you didn’t even know where there. There are a thousand horizons of meaning and purpose and all of them have your NAME on them.
Having a unique name has drawbacks. I could never get a personalized keychain or bicycle license plate like the other kids—they just don’t make them with “Perrianne”. And, later, when Western pop culture discovered the joy of name-meaning plaques, “Perrianne” was a sure one to stump the band! I remember years ago in the local Walmart, a kiosk was set up to print and sell plaques with name meanings, and when we typed in Perrianne, I noticed that the description it spit out for me was vaguely similar to an example that was hanging there for display—an example which sounded nothing like “Perrianne”! I strained through the adolescent desire for conformity to develop an appreciation for being unique (because believe me, I am), but still there were times, I must admit, I wished for a different name. (At around 14, I must have thrilled my parents when I embarked upon a short-lived campaign to legally change my name to “Donna”—I now am not sure why I picked that one—perhaps because there were plenty of key chains and bike tags pre-printed with that moniker.)
Then came my college days, during which I felt like an unlikely invader into the world of scientific research….I had the skills to thrive academically (having been “diagnosed” with a 170 IQ early on), but I was so different from the typical chemistry major and there was also still a noticeable edge of stigma about being a woman, even in those “liberated” days of the late 70’s and early 80’s. When a new semester would begin, any professor whom I hadn’t had before would call the roll on the first day of class, reading off names and looking up after each one to see which face corresponded. Every time he stopped his rhythm and stared at the page, I knew he had arrived at my name and what would follow would be a halting attempt at pronunciation (really? how hard is it?) or the words, “how do you pronounce this?” at which time I would supply him with the correct pronunciation, still with a tinge of doubted identity in my hesitant voice.
So, being named Perrianne came to symbolize several things for me: First of all, my ambivalent relationship with attention. When I have a speaking gig or when I am just telling a story, I access a part of me that has NO problem being the center of attention—believe me! However, I am convinced that every extrovert has a large corresponding introvert somewhere inside and I have definitely navigated that mysterious artistic balance all my life. I did, in fact, as I matured, realize that this woman for whom I was named must have been a real trail-blazer. Now we see females reporting fairly frequently on sports—and not just women’s! But in the late 50’s and early 60’s, it must have been the case that this woman was a true pioneer! Though the main cause of my life is not gender-related, I do believe with all my heart that barriers made by human ideas with little or no grounding in truth are ALL meant to be broken! However, this only built my curiosity about the original Perrianne.
Then, at age 50, everything about my naming would change. Having written two books, I decided, at the urgings of media-savvy friends, to create an “author page” for myself on Facebook. A dear friend in England who had showered me with encouragement after reading both my books in one weekend had called his little session, “Perrianne-stock” and I loved the comparison it evoked to a “festival” (without all the trash and irresponsible behavior, of course). So at the beginning of this year, Perrianne-stock was launched and I am proud to report that it has rocketed to—wait for it—100 Facebook “likes”! Because the number is so low, I still notice every new addition and two weeks ago, someone named Perrianne “liked” my page to my amazement—spelled just like me and living in New York. Interested, I “friended” her and then fired off a quick message explaining briefly the random origin of my name and asking her the origin of hers. And then I went to the gym—no big deal.
An hour later, workout done, I clicked on my profile and discovered probably the most amazing FB reply in history! Perrianne in New York told me, “I was named after the same person as you were. Her name is Perian Conerly and she was married to Charlie Conerly, the most famous pro quarterback of his day, and…” (and here’s the real mind-blower) “…here is the video of the TV show your parents watched to name you…” In one click of a link to youtube, I saw for the first time ever this woman who was the source of my parents’ choice! I wept as I realized that I had probably—due to the low self-esteem from which we humans so often suffer—misjudged the whole situation. I had made negative judgments about my parents’ choice of a name, assuming that this 1959 TV show just tossed a novel idea into their empty well, rather than realizing this was an amazing woman who probably actually INSPIRED them about what their daughter could be! I am pleased to announce that for about 50 years, I got it a little wrong!
I am a passionate Christian and a truly spiritual one and my afore-mentioned identity-driven personality has found ample fulfillment in the legacy and destiny that I believe was intended in the divine plan. BUT, somehow through this experience, God had managed to fill a big gap in my inner world by restoring to me a missing sense of legacy and destiny that extended even to the farthest circumstances of my life! I already believed that there was purpose for me—and for every human being—but this experience drove it home so uniquely. There is so much purpose that NOTHING is accidental, marginal or useless. I believe more than ever in the orchestration of God.
Perrianne in NY also sent me a biographical article on Perian Conerly (and we found it ironic that both of our dads changed the spelling to the same one we share) and the hope I found only grew. I may share more in the future, especially after I read Perian Conerly’s book, which I have now ordered on Amazon, about exactly what she is coming to represent to me (especially as a writer), but that is not what I am aiming for right now. Right now, I want to shout from the housetops how good it feels to have been wrong! I owe my parents an apology for my judgment of them as uncreative! I owe myself an apology for failing to believe that my uniqueness was anything less than a gift! I experienced a true spiritual “retro-fit” at age 50. It happened to be related to my name, but it set me off wondering how many other subtle little judgments that limited my thinking might be lurking in the shadows…..?
I wish my daddy had sat me on his lap and explained to me, “Honey, we saw a wonderful woman on What’s My Line who captured our imaginations and we felt that you would be a trail-blazer and history-maker like her. Even more than that, we felt that you would be the kind of person who held her head high with dignity and brightened the world of everyone you came in contact with. And, we do even feel that there is some voice for you to have to your generation and we want to launch you on that journey with a name that will remind you of that every moment.” I wish he had said all those things, rather than leaving me to my own darker interpretation, but men of the great generation didn’t effuse emotion, nor did they require it. At the end of the day, maybe I didn’t need him to say it: I’m saying it for myself now quite well! I now feel, through “meeting” Perian Conerly via youtube, this is what my daddy meant to say to me and I am strengthened. He has said it to me now through a thousand Facebook “coincidences” and I am “gobsmacked” as the Brits say—overwhelmed with amazement at the divine orchestration.
Seekers of mere self-esteem cannot begin to understand the exceeding worth one feels when he finds his place in the Plan! What is most amazing is that I have lived so much of the legacy that my mom and dad reached out to, even without knowing it. I have now met a little army of Perrianne’s all over Facebook, some of whom knew of their legacy, some of whom did not and I am beginning to suspect that many of them will say the same! But, whether you are named Perrianne or Donna or Mary Jane, I guarantee you that there is more buzz surrounding your existence than you ever dreamed. And no matter your age, there is something wonderful to discover about who you really are. There are whole new worlds of perception that will completely erase dark clouds that you didn’t even know where there. There are a thousand horizons of meaning and purpose and all of them have your NAME on them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)