In October 2024 I moved my writing over to Substack where I now write regularly for my newsletter called The Inside Story.
If you were already a subscriber, you should be receiving new posts in your inbox. If you are new, follow the link below to read more. In my therapy office, I walk alongside people in a variety of life situations toward emotional and spiritual health. At The Inside Story, I hope to do the same with words and stories.
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“It is she that has got all Narnia under her thumb. It’s she that makes it always winter,” Mr. Tumnus tells Lucy. “Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!”
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Is your life green and blossoming?
I came across John the Baptist’s question as I disciplined myself to read the Bible one morning. Really I wanted to lay my head back and take a nap. But I kept my eyes open enough to read, and this simple question woke me up.
Two thousand years later, the question is just as relevant: What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? (Luke 3, MSG)
Yes. And no.
If I am honest, I have to look at my life in parts to consider an answer. How is my soul? My marriage? My relationships with my kids? Family life? Friendships? Work? Home? Service? Health? Prayer life? And so on. In some areas I see the green of spring; in others, the gray of winter reigns. Is it even possible for growth and life in all part at all times?
I am reminded of the constant struggle between life and death. In all places and areas, I want life, and in all places and areas, death threatens in the forms of deterioration, disconnection, and decay.
As I write, summer gives way to fall. After several weeks in the high 90s and low 100s, I look forward to fire pits, cool breezes, and orange, red, and yellow Tennessee hillsides. But fall’s beauty also tells the story of summer’s death. Trees will soon bare only branches. Days grow shorter and darker. Afternoons driving with the windows down will give way to heated seats and never seeing the neighbors because we will pull into the garage and shut it behind us before the cold, wind, and rain hit us. Sure, there will be distractions: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s parties. Basketball season. Football playoffs. Vacations. Snow days. Mostly, though, winter means darkness. Cold darkness. Even in warm places like Florida, darkness still crowds the light. The sun rises late and sets early. Although it is fall now, our collective longing for spring is not far off.
Life, death, and the hope for life again.
My grandmother died a few weeks ago. She was my last remaining grandparent. For years I was the middle aged man with four grandparents, alive and well. Even a year ago both grandmothers lived. Now they are all gone. As I consider my grandmother’s death, I also consider the domino effect of death. A physical death tips others toward soul death. Loved ones say goodbye and then must fight through grieving hearts for life again.
So long as we live in this world, we face the battle for life amidst the threat of death. We must fight for life, life in all parts of our lives. In our bodies. In our souls. In our spirits. In our relationships. In our communities. To be human is to be faced with the challenge to find life and the fight to keep it. A daunting task, to say the least. All of which brings to mind John’s question: Is your life green and blossoming?
I imagine the people who first heard it faced spiritual life and death battles just like you and me. Then a crazy man makes a scene traveling throughout the region talking about a special baptism. Come to the river, he tells them.
When we are bored we will line up to see people who will entertain us. John’s audience gathered along the water’s edge because of curiosity. Some came to judge or be entertained. But when they showed up, John invited them to be participants: The life you want begins with internal work. You cannot wash or rearrange or mask or manipulate your external world enough to find the life you want.
Now he had their attention.
A few questions later, the text says the interest of the people began to build. Keep in mind they were initially there because it was popular. In other words, they already had interest. But after John confronts their need for life change, a new interest peaks. Hope springs to life. They are no longer there to buy a t-shirt or souvenir keychain. Instead the encounter sparks hope that something deeper is available to them. Could this be the one who has been promised, the one who will finally make the world right?
John senses their anticipation and their attachment to him, and he redirects their hope to Jesus. Even as he does, he casts vision for their expectations. Jesus will change their lives, starting with the heart of things. It will be an inside-out kind of change. Things, internal things, need to be put back into place. Jesus would make the world right, starting with the worlds inside of each of them.
Today the offer and process is the same. Those who want a life green and vibrant must start with God and their own heart. It is in the heart where God must prune, heal, and restore.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23
With all the places in our lives where disconnection, deterioration, and decay threaten, you might think divine wisdom would tell us to focus on survival. Plug all the holes, even as new ones burst open and we run out of fingers and energy. But always God brings us back to one place: our heart.
What happens in your heart ripples its way into the rest of your life.
We can find strength in this: God never blames or shames anyone for wanting more life. He champions our desire for life. It is our desire for life which puts his name in our mind and on our tongue. Our desire for life leads us to seek help. God does not want us to seek him because it is popular. He does not want us hiding behind the reputations we can clothe ourselves in. He wants us to come for life. Life is his business. Jesus came to offer it. Without God, death. With God, life. Where God is not, death. Where God is, life.
If your life is not green and blossoming, come as you are. Start with your heart. When and where your life wilts, it is your heart which needs water and care. It is the heart which needs attention and healing before it can again produce a life worth living. Regardless of what season it is inside of you, when God puts things in the heart back into place, spring is not far off.
Should. Want.
Toxic-shame. God-given passion.
A small creek runs behind my house. On most days, I can jump over the stream of water without any problem. In one moment I am on one side and the next I am on the other.
Should. Want. It seems like there’s hardly a difference, right? I should play with the kids. I want to play with the kids. I should take my wife on a date. I want to take my wife on a date. It’s almost like me jumping over the creek. Very little distance between should and want.
The difference, though, lies beneath the words. Toxic-shame almost always motivates our shoulds. God-given passion fuels our wants.
Toxic-shame and God-given passion could not live further from one another. Instead of a short hop across a creek, they are oceans apart.
Think about it: If I asked my wife on a date because I should or if I invited my kids out to play because I should, what life would I offer? What would the power of my presence offer?
The truth is the toxic-shame which motivated my “should” would leave them feeling like a burden. That’s what we do with poorly processed toxic-shame: we transfer it.
The good news, though, is we do the same thing with life and passion: We may not transfer it, but we do share it.
Want changes the whole story. Want, living from God-given desire, spills the passionate life within us out for others to receive.
A life of want motivated by passion: If you knew this life existed, you’d probably swim across the ocean to find it.
It does.
Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory
You have no control – Washington in Hamilton
How will you spend your July 4th? My family hopes to shoot fireworks six feet apart. Yes, six feet from each other and at least six feet from firework to firework. Hopefully.
While we eat hot dogs and watch fireworks boom, I wonder how many of us will actually remember our country’s independence. I’ve never heard a friend mention the Boston Tea Party or the shots fired at Lexington and Concord amidst sparklers and beers (not a recommended combination). Independence Day gatherings give us an excuse to invite people over, douse ourselves in bug spray, and drive just outside the city limits to a firework tent where we burn money faster than a fuse stays lit.
Tomorrow is for fresh cut watermelon and seed-spitting contests. It’s also about celebrating our country and remembering the stories that got us here. On July 4th, 1776 the Continental Congress chose to enact the Declaration of Independence. Paul Revere rode through town. The French secretly jumped in to help. Saratoga changed the momentum of the war. Washington’s leadership kept his soldiers’ hopes warm through the winter at Valley Forge. 1776 gets all the attention, but it was not until 1783 that our adversary across the pond finally recognized our independence with the Treaty of Paris.
Don’t I sound intelligent?! I watched Hamilton (which opens today in movie form today with the original cast). I also spent two months in quarantine with elementary kids watching “school” on a screen. These about sum up my dip into the American Revolution.
If you love the USA, it is a good story. Our story of independence started like most good stories begin:
Something is not right. We want more.
While I am not an expert in my country’s origin story, I do love to help people live great stories. Most personal stories worth living (and re-telling) start this way, too:
Something is not right. I want more.
Take a look at your life now. What is not right with you?
Going deeper, what do you feel when you assess your life? As Larry Crabb puts it, “What lingers?
If you are human, you will feel a sense of angst (at the minimum) when you take an honest look at your life. Things have not turned out as scripted, to say the least.
Then another voice surfaces, “Is it okay to want more?”
I spend a good bit of time encouraging people not only to recognize this question within but also encouraging them: Yes. Want more. Please want more. Your life, hopes, and dreams depend on wanting more and knowing what you want. It’s okay if you do not know how to get it. Start with want. Start with desire.
Desire and hope bring up other important questions and doubt. It’s okay. It’s all part of the beginnings of a great story. It was true in the colonies, and it is true in your own heart.
What do I want?
Do I have what it takes?
Am I enough?
Where in your life have these questions been knocking?
As long as what you want is a worthy pursuit, you have the beginnings of a good story.
If you have the courage to start this story of yours, fear and toxic-shame will show up quickly. They may fly in like pesky mosquitos in the backyard. Or they will surface like the boom of the grand finale at the firework show. However they show themselves, and they will, don’t be surprised by their intrusion. Expect them. The danger lies not in their presence but in how you respond to your fear and toxic-shame. Herein lies the problem: These three ingredients to the beginning of a good story can also be the exposition to a tragic story.
What do I want?
Do I have what it takes?
Am I enough?
I don’t know what I want. Or, I won’t let myself be worthy of dreaming.
I don’t have what it takes and never will.
I am not enough nor do I even know who I am.
Forget it. I give up.
I bet you know that storyline. I do.
But.
“Fortune favors the brave,” the old proverb assures us. Can you envision what bravery and courage would do for the story you want to live?
George Washington knew a thing or two about courage. In the days leading up to our Independence Day, he spoke these words upon entering leadership: “I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.”
Assuming he said this in humility…Our first President did not know he had what it took to lead us. Today we still tell his story because he impacted our own.
It’s time to take command of your own life, the one you have dreamed about launching. If you (1) know you want a worthy desire and (2) don’t know if you have the ability or (3) feel you are worth it, then you are officially qualified and ready to start. Stated desire, questioned ability, and doubted worth are all prerequisites.
You will need a plan. Following the plan will take crazy effort because you will live out the plan and repeat it over and over again until you make progress. I wish there were another way. Unfortunately the only way forward is through the fear, toxic-shame, and whatever other obstacles come your way. Stick to this plan and you will live a new story:
1. Accept who and where you are
2. Tell the truth about what you want
3. Identify old ways which no longer move you forward
4. Surrender gracefully to a new good and healthy way
5. Trust God and the process
What would your first brave step be? Are you ready to live and write the first line in the story?
No doubt the haunting whispers of fear and toxic-shame make it difficult to take the first step. They burn us and our plans. In the movie The Patriot, a British general on the hunt for rebels traps a group of innocent Americans. His troops force them into a town church. Holding them hostage, he promises freedom if they will reveal the whereabouts of the men he seeks. But once he attains this information, he locks the doors and burns the church to the ground. It is a picture of how your toxic-shame and anxiety set fire to your dignity and dreams. The only difference is your ugly feelings burn from the inside-out.
What dreams have allured you but also eluded you?
Stop reading if you have not taken time to honor this question. Please. For the sake of the image of God in you that has big dreams and hopes to love this world well. Know what you want.
What story awaits you now? If you do not know, ask yourself these questions:
What do I want? Where do I have desire (even if you do not know how to act on it)?
Where am I not sure I have what it takes?
Where does toxic-shame whisper: You are not enough?
The world needs you to pursue a story worth living. You won’t find your story on social media, in the news headlines, or solely in the approval of others. You will find it when your heart beats faster and the ache of desire whispers a hope for which you believe yourself incapable and unworthy. This is the call of your good story.
What do you want?
Do you have what it takes?
Are you enough?
If you need any more guidance, take President Washington’s words:
“Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions.”
Go live your story.
This week the sun is rising over many previously shut down communities. The hope of “life back to normal” awakens us from the quarantine slumber. Optimism can be contagious. How is it with you?
Even as hope dawns, I am reminded of what is supposed to be happening right now: Baseball games. Graduations. Summer break plans. Grocery store trips without masks and tape on the floor telling us which direction to go. While we may long for the world to return to normal, it is not normal to which we return this week. We reenter life under the cornovirus regime who still sits partially in power.
There has been loss. Too much. Proms. Jobs. Normalcy. Body counts on the news. And worst of all, friends and family. What do we do with all of this loss, big and small?
We do not want to do pain. Deep down in the hearts God gave us we know: Pain should not be part of life. So why let it?
Here is why: The heart that lives well, grieves well, and the heart that grieves well, lives well.
To live and breathe with our heart engaged, we must face one of our biggest villains: the part of us which refuses to engage our emotional and spiritual pain. The hurts we encounter throughout our life are bad enough, but our internal demand to ignore them exacerbates our problems and further impairs our ability to experience the life and relationships we desire. In other words, if you do not learn to grieve well, you cannot live well.
Do you make it a habit of honoring your pain? If you do not, would you do it before reestablishing your life in the post Covid-19 world?
I’ve made a list of losses over the last two months. Among the toughest to grieve: Daddy-Daughter Dance (I only get so many as a father). Spring sports seasons. And Pete. The first person in my state to die from coronavirus was often the first person to say hello when I walked into the gym. The world lost a kind heart the moment Pete died. I know I did.
During his breaks at work, Pete would walk the track overlooking the gym. He looked down to watch the pick-up basketball games I played in.
“Luke, the way you shoot that three pointer…did you play basketball in college?”
Pete gave the gift of kindness and warmth with his questions and presence. The next time I walk through the gym door he will not greet me, and it will again be time to grieve.
Live well, grieve well.
Grieve well, live well.
Grief is the invitation to honor life by honoring your losses. The heart uses sadness as an invitation to honor what is sacred, good, and of value.
But so many people have much more to grieve than me. I hear this in some form almost every week in my counseling office. Yes, pain is relative, but pain is still pain. Your pain does not matter less because someone else experiences more pain. We harm ourselves when we minimize our emotional reality due to comparison. We do not love others better by dismissing ourselves. Rather we learn to love others as we love ourselves. Honor your pain, and then get busy loving others the same way.
If you learn to grieve well, you can live well.
Sadly this is not a one-time skill to master. For as long as you breathe, you will be tempted to disengage from facing your pain. Like a house divided against itself, parts of you literally sabotage your best attempts to live fully. Doesn’t the villain in a story tempt the hero to avoid what is true? In this case, the villain lives inside you. I tell people all the time: Emotional and spiritual health require we face reality. While reality feels vulnerable and can hurt, engaging it wisely leads to living present and living well.
The heart who refuses to grieve is like the sailor who abandons ship only to be tossed by the waves and possibly drowned.
We’ve all done it. But we do not have to do it now. Will you choose to honor your sadness? Will you sit and be present with your losses before returning to “normal life”?
Of course I am mindful some of us have more to grieve than others. This is not about comparison. Be faithful to grieve the loss that is yours to grieve. Do not put a timeline on your process. Like the rainfall which fills a dry creek in a storm, tears must run their course before they are gone. Let them come and guide them well.
As a promise to you, I will take a moment to grieve the next time I walk into the gym. I’ll sit on the cold metal bench, and before I lace up my shoes and pull out the basketball, I will look up to the track and hope to see Pete walking. I’ll look for his wave. I will pass by the table where he used to eat his banana and read the newspaper.
John 16:20 gives us the model:
…your grief will be turned into joy.
Grief is not the end of the story, but it is a unwanted chapter. So is this season now. To live well in your chapter and before turning the page: name your losses and honor them. This is about much more than the end of cabin fever and contagious optimism. Rather you are training your heart and watering its roots in the practice of wise living.
Live well, grieve well.
Grieve well, live well.
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Previous Posts in Quarantine with Heart:
Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”
A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land; and as he listened the thought came to Sam that he had not heard laughter, the pure sound of merriment, for days upon days without count.” -The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
This quarantine thing is hard, and I barely feel qualified to make such a statement.
My family is healthy. There is food in the refrigerator. I do not work at a hospital.
Others have suffered much more.
Yet it is still hard.
The quarantine began with more enthusiasm. All of the sudden there was time to rest AND get things done. There were jokes about toilet paper. Life was supposed to be on hold for two weeks while brave doctors and nurses fought on the front lines. Then life would return to normal. We can do this!
But two weeks stretched into…into…into? I’ve lost count.
Today is Blursday, a friend shared. I hadn’t checked.
I not only lose orientation to the day and month, but also to the larger story in which we live.
The story is still the same as six weeks ago and six years ago. But my heart needs reminders because smaller stories compete for its attention.
We have plenty to choose from. There’s Netflix, politics, and social media. Then there is the nightly news declaring one story in a myriad of different ways. Covid-19 at the hospitals. Covid-19 in New York City. Covid-19 at the White House. Whether I watch for five minutes or forty-five, I leave with the belief life will not return to normal. We will be quarantined for the rest of our lives. Food will only become more scarce. Death will have the final word.
Sam Jolman writes,
“There is one story on the news, in our world. It’s gripping us all. It’s still not the deepest story of life.”
One story threatens to steal our life, both physically and emotionally. If we are not careful, the monotony of the days and the sadness on the news will convince our heart to agree this is the only story.
Remember the Larger Story
Don’t let Covid-19 become the only or biggest story. To live well, we must find ways to remind our minds and hearts of the Larger Story. Easter arrived last week as a reminder. The holiday burst through Blursday to recenter our perspective.
But then the week started, and even with more time than usual to pray, read Scripture, and connect with friends, it’s difficult.
Our hearts go looking for stories to live in whether we know it or not. One way to feed our heart and remind ourselves of truth is to invest in rich, smaller stories which reflect the themes of the Larger Story.
Good wins.
The evil spell will be broken.
The kingdom will be restored.
In the end, characters recover their true identities, the very ones they have sought.
The old has gone. The new has come.
Relationships will be reconnected and healed, better and deeper than ever before.
Beauty rises from ashes.
Rich, Smaller Stories Can Help
Find other stories to remind your heart of what is deeply true. My daughters helped me with this in two ways over the quarantine.
A few nights ago, I was supposed to be on a family Zoom call. I left the iPad to check on the girls, and I stumbled into a story. They sat in the living watching the end of Beauty and the Beast. I tried to leave, but I was glued to the couch. With Gaston fallen to his doom, Belle professed her love to the dying Beast and broke the old spell. Not only did the Beast transform into his real self, but the entire castle returned to its truest state. The talking clock and candle stick changed back into men. Chip the cup turned back into a person along with the rest of the house staff. The green of spring replaced frozen winter, and relationships, too, began to thaw. Life returned to its glorious, intended state.
I knew the tale. I had seen it before. But what a different experience from the current nightly news. No wonder I stayed to watch. My heart needed to remember how the Larger Story ends.
When we immerse ourselves in rich, smaller yet reflecting stories, it is not an escape from reality but rather an invitation into deeper reality.
We need a story big enough to absorb our anxiety, fear, and stress and feed our faith, sustain our hope, and propel us to love. We need to remember who God is, what story He writes, and the story He invites us to.
A good story will invite you to better engage and wrestle with worthy questions: Who am I? What is life about? Why all the suffering? Where is this story going?
It’s also okay to ask: What is God up to?
Earlier in the quarantine, one of my daughters searched the house for a book to read. She found the Chronicles of Narnia and decided to reread them. In the seven books, the Pevensie kids live through multiple adventures filled with turmoil and loss. They often find themselves seemingly alone against their adversaries and tragedies. They struggle to live with faith, hope, and love. Their smaller story gets more of their attention than the larger one told over several books. They wonder where the great lion Aslan is when they need him most. No doubt he has the power to change their circumstances. He appears absent and thus uncaring.
All of this feels familiar.
In this time of confusion and incomprehensible suffering, it is a hard to know precisely what God is up to.
The answer may not be simple, easy to believe, or make sense to us at this time. But like the great lion Aslan, His heart is good, and we live in His story (not the other way around). Thankfully, last time I checked, the themes of His narrative remain: redemption and restoration end this story as we know it and begin a brand new and better one.
Keep Heart with Stories
The stories you take in will inform the story you live. Choose wisely. It will take effort and intention. Left unattended our attention drifts to what is cheap and artificial.
During the darker moments of these days, I have to remind myself: Keep heart. Remember the Story. Stay attentive to it through smaller stories.
May rich stories open the eyes of your heart to remind you of deeper reality.
While we as a community of humans fight another infection and (many of us) stay home with good intentions, what will it take for us to live well, personally and with each other? If we neglect the needs of the heart now, we and our relationships will erode. We must find a way to keep heart.
Here are more thoughts on the serious business of living with heart amidst the challenges of a quarantine.
Find, Explore, and Renew Your Purpose
Too often we gain our sense of purpose from external circumstances. Or should we say: Our schedule owns us. Work, commitments, the needs of others, and activities all pose as both opportunities and pitfalls in the search for purpose.
For many, the quarantine erased built-in accountability.
Hey, I don’t have to shower before work! Or brush my hair! Or wear deodorant?
The kids don’t really have to wake up before 7 or 8 or 11:59 am, do they?
I will just quietly slip out of this video conference call.
The lack of structured, in-person accountability might have been fun at first: First time ever we are encouraged to sit on our couch all day, right?
But a few weeks in, apathy threatens, and some have subscribed to it.
When your routine changed due to the quarantine, did you lose your sense of identity?
A friend told me he stumbled around in a fog for those first few days. Yesterday I awoke and stepped into the day with the thought: Haven’t I lived this day before? Will anything be different today than yesterday?
In the movie Groundhog Day, Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a hilarious TV weatherman forced to live and relive the same day over and over again. He wakes up every 24 hours trapped in the same day. “I Got You Babe” and a good morning from the radio DJ repeat themselves. He sees the same people saying and doing the exact same things. And then again. And again. And again.
Once he learns he is caught in a time loop, he abandons his morals, respect for others, and eventually his desire to live. In short, he loses his purpose. His days becomes meaningless. His relationships become a game. At his darkest moments, death becomes his best attempt to escape.
When we lose our purpose, we run the risk of losing our heart.
If your old routine is gone, it’s time to find, explore, or renew your purpose.
We do not need our old routine to have purpose. The redemption in Groundhog Day comes when Phil decides to find meaning in a story larger than himself in spite of a repetitive day which seemingly revolves around him.
He becomes more of the man he is made to be. He reinvents himself as a creator and a relator. He studies a new language and learns to ice sculpt and play the piano. He develops empathy. He explores his own gifts, passions, and talents and then selflessly gives them away. He finds a new depth of connection and relationship.
To his surprise, his new purpose leads to a joy which makes life worth living.
True purpose starts from the inside and works its way out. This is hard to remember when our lives are so busy. Perhaps it takes a quarantine to remind us we need not depend on external circumstances to define us.
As you are no longer able to attend to your regular routine, consider: have I lost the ease of circumstances which determined my purpose? Did I let the demands of my old routine dictate who I am?
If so, you have a great opportunity: you get to reassess why you do what you do. For (hopefully) a short amount of time, you have built-in permission to:
1) Live at a slower pace.
2) Consider the reason you exist.
3) Decide what you want to do about it.
Previous Posts in Quarantine with Heart:
Someone asked me recently: How do I deal with my toxic-shame when it surfaces?
This is a great and necessary question, yet sadly it lacks an easy answer.
I wish a simple formula existed to compute and transform toxic-shame into healthy shame. But because our shame is deeper and darker than the world’s largest cavern, the healing process and our participation in it takes more than a few tips or tricks.
Step one, though, is always to develop shame awareness.
Anyone who has practiced shame awareness will recognize a reactive and well-practiced relationship with toxic-shame: Relational survival instincts have taught us to play hot potato with toxic-shame.
I grew up in the age of Nintendo, so my friends and I never actually played hot potato. According to Wikipedia, the real game does not even involve a heated vegetable. Regardless, let’s go with the idea of taking a burning hot potato out of the oven with bare hands. Ouch! Any sane human would throw it onto the counter as fast as possible, right?
We do the same thing with toxic-shame, but it has nothing to do with our sanity. Rather it has more to do with years of practice and a mixture of wise and selfish motives. For most of our life we have played hot potato with toxic-shame. We feel it, and then we create as much distance with the unwanted emotion as possible.
Here’s the problem: As the saying goes, if you can feel, you can heal it. Inversely, so long as we rid ourselves of the feeling of toxic-shame, it cannot be healed.
What has become second nature to us as a way of surviving harmful relationship now also becomes an obstacle to creating and maintaining healthy connections with ourselves, others, and God.
First toxic-shame must be held. Felt. Burning. Stinging. Painful. This is step one. Shame practice starts with paying attention and then staying present with intention and hope.
The pain is the hard part, but develop vision for the why.
Keep a hot potato in the kitchen long enough and you might have the chance to make a twice baked potato. Now you have my attention. Hold your toxic-shame long enough, and you give your glorious heart the chance to surrender self-protective instincts and instead heal and mature into love. As we are made new, love becomes our instinctive first response to shame. That’s a vision worth some pain.
While we as a community of humans fight another infection and (many of us) stay home with good intentions, what will it take for us to live well, personally and with each other? If we neglect the needs of the heart now, we and our relationships will erode. We must find a way to keep heart.
Over the coming days, I plan to post on ten ideas on the serious business of living with heart amidst the challenges of a quarantine.
Boundaries
Two weeks ago, I put my man bag and lunch in the car and drove to work. When I stepped into my office, I knew it was time to work.
Nine hours later and job done, I walked back into my home. The moment I set my bag down, it was time to be a husband and father.
Two weeks ago.
Now I wake up in a home office which doubles as a home school and cruise ship. My wife jokes that she becomes a cruise director over the summers, entrusted to entertain the children all day everyday. Her job started early this year. In a moment of humor and empathy, she showed me a meme from another mother attempting to educate her children: Homeschool Day 1: How do I transfer a student out of my class?
Routines and responsibilities and roles have changed, haven’t they? Anytime this is true, we must talk about boundaries. Our mental (and possibly physical) health is at stake.
This is not just for the folks with kids stuck at home bouncing off the walls. It’s also for out-of-the-normal routine adults who seek to find a way to live with each other 24/7.
My appreciation for the significance of boundaries has only increased over years as a counselor. When I heard we may be a quarantined, “BOUNDARIES!” flashed like a billboard to the forefront of my mind. Boundaries are always an issue, but isolated in a house for a couple weeks or more? We had better establish physical, structural, and emotional boundaries. What’s your space? What is mine? Who is in charge now? To where do you need to retreat? Do we need to talk about roles?
Roles get especially confusing when a parent is also a partner and is also a professional working from home. Just yesterday I announced I was going to work on my computer in the makeshift office. I closed the door, but before I could sit down my daughter knocked. “Daddy, can you help me find the art supplies?”
In this moment…
Am I a father?
Am I a husband?
Am I a counselor and writer?
Am I human tornado ready to tear through the house?
Am I am utterly incapable of accomplishing everything (or anything)?
If you want to enjoy the people around you during a quarantine, befriend boundaries.
Physical Boundaries (space, rooms, food, computers and tablets, etc.)
Structural Boundaries (When to eat, exercise, work, play, and engage)
Emotional and Relational Boundaries (What am I feeling? What needs do I have? With whom do I need to connect? When do I need alone time?)
Talk with the people living with you ahead of time about needs, hopes, and expectations. Communicate: First within yourself and then aloud with others. Clarify, if needed and as many times as needed. Ask for help when you cannot handle your own responsibilities. Be ready to communicate and clarify again.
Healthy, clearly communicated boundaries set us up for healthy, respectful relationship and productive roles. If boundaries are not defined, emotions will turn reactive and harmful. Become aware of physical, structural, and emotional boundaries to set you and those with you up for a connecting and memorable quarantine.
Once boundaries are established, it might be kind of you toward yourself to have a conversation about expectations and grace. If you’re like me, you put high and heavy expectations on your own shoulders. In these days of new and fluid boundaries, efficiency will take a hit. Good news: Grace is far more available than hand sanitizer and meat at the grocery store. Be ready to offer it to yourself and others.
Previous Posts in Quarantine with Heart:
My father-in-law has talked about The Sound of Music for years. But it took an ugly virus and a quarantine for me to watch it with him. Forever he has sung “the hills are alive…”, and I cringed. As a boy with two sisters, I used to endure the singing and dancing until (finally!) the Nazi chase scene (a mere two and half hours in).
But as an adult, I paid attention from the start. You know why? Maria lives with heart. She does not fit in at the convent, but she knows how to let the song inside of her pour into the children to whom she becomes governess.
After a day with Maria, the kids stop playing pranks on her and instead beg their father to keep her around. Her joy infects them in the best way.
While we as a community of humans fight another infection and (many of us) stay home with good intentions, what would it look like for us to live with heart like Maria? If we neglect the needs of the heart now, we and our relationships will erode. We must find a way to keep heart.
Over the coming days, I plan to post ideas on the serious business of living with heart amidst the challenges of a quarantine. First, let’s start with the hardest one of all: love.
Love
I knew this would be the challenge during a quarantine: to love well. Loving well (or at all) is always a challenge. But during an indefinite quarantine? Talk about a tall task. Ten days in, there have been tough moments. When the kids start fighting and my wife needs me to take over, I contemplate touring the city in search of toilet paper, just for fun.
We are hard-wired to love. When we act out our deepest design, we love. During a short family devotion yesterday, my wife and I read 1 John 4:7-8 to our kids: God is love. We are made in his image. That we even need reminding speaks to how difficult it is to know our identity in this fallen world. Stuck in a home indefinitely, the call to love stands as one of our greatest challenges. How can we love others from where we are? And do we have the strength to love each other as boundaries get crossed and monotony threatens tyranny?
I need personal space. I need my routine back. I need anxiety-free trips to the grocery store again. And without a doubt I need NCAA March Madness! Maybe.
But mostly, I need to love. This will be our greatest and most worthy endeavor.