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Mindfulness and Discernment: Make the Connection
Hannah Whitall Smith, a Quaker from the mid nineteenth century, once said, “Mind the checks.” I respect this advice deeply, mainly as a result of not minding the checks. I once took a personality test that was supposed to determine who in the Bible my personality was most like. Unlike the phony Facebook tests that determine which Disney princess you should have as your maid of honor, this test based itself on the Meyers Briggs personality test. How exactly its authors determined the results for the men and women in the Bible, I do not know. However, my test resulted in a certain similarity to Joshua, who was brave and somewhat…
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How To Get Out Of Your Own Way
Years ago, the Lord gave me a vision of a woman. Inside of her was a barren world with dead trees and storm clouds in a desert landscape. Outside of her was a mirror image of the same landscape with the same clouds, dusty terrain, and blackened trees. I struggled with the metaphor for a bit and then the words of Ed Smith, the founder of Theophostic prayer ministry came to me. The basic principle is this: What you feel is what you believe, and what you believe might as well be true, because the results will be the same. For me, after enduring years of narcissistic abuse, the vision…
- confession, freedom, Imaginative Prayer, mindfulness, prayer, relationship, Self Awareness, Shame & Guilt
Mindfulness and Confession: Reflections in the Mirror
Mindfulness, in the early stages of my Christianity, did not exist, though I sure knew about confession. I believed the truest thing about me was a list of all my sins. And as a person for whom shame was a way of being, the idea of confessing my sins to someone else besides God seemed impossible. To begin with, I couldn’t even share my feelings with others, much less those faults and weaknesses I perceived in myself. I could barely admit my feelings to myself, much less others. I remember at one point listing out all of my transgressions on a sheet of paper and presenting them to God. I…
Healing Through Art & Words
