Reflections

.... Will my life, O tyrant master, be the miserable victim of these wretched chains that clasp me; Since in them, I vow to God, I will tear myself to fragments with my hands and with my teeth ....   Pedro Calderone de la Barca   The origin of the word chastity is the same  as the word caste:  to cut off.  It shares the same meaning as the Hebrew word for holy (kadosh):  to set apart.  By s eparating oneself in order to be better aligned with a higher power,  spiritual consecration involves setting oneself apart from the secular.  Unfortunately, this  kind of holy often also implies judgement and/or condemnation of the profane, precursor  to the holier-than-thou attitude we despise in martyrs who do violence both to their own disavowed parts and to their narcissistic extensions which unfortunately almost always include other human beings. It is noble to aspire to holiness but this can turn rapidly into spiritual bypassing when...

  Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. ~Romans 7:9 I am often asked by addicts "why" they struggle with addiction. (A better question might be "how did I get here?" which helps point to the solution: "how can I get out?") This is an attempt to answer that question. Addiction is the insidious pattern of seeking to infuse ourselves with our drug of choice (sex, substance, gambling, food, etc.). At the root of this pattern is not attachment to the drug per se, powerful though it may be, rather it is the unbearable feelings of want driving the search for their obliteration. Current research indicates that dopamine release actually begins prior to administration of the "fix", in anticipation, reaching its peak in the moments just prior to satisfaction of the want.  An addict does not suffer from weakness of will or unbridled lust (a belief often held by addicts themselves). An addictive per...

  ~ forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it (Mark Twain) When it comes to loss or terminal illness, we say that acceptance happens gradually, in  stages  known as "grief". The stages we go through, however, are not just steps we simply go down. They are an uphill battle to let go of something cherished, a process far more arduous than what is implied in the somewhat placid emotion "grief" which, true to its etymologcal orgin ( gravitas ), is thick with a sorrow evoking images of weeping and wailing clothed in the heavy black garments of wet renunciation. Loss, on the other hand, triggers anything but a passive response from the loser. It sparks an agitated wrestling against reality, a complex process that is totally counter-intuitive to human agency culminating in the bittersweet acquiescence to an undesired fate. That is letting go. The first stage is  denial : No. This is not happening and I will have nothing of it! The s...

But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness;  and all these things shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33) Lately I've had a few hopelesss conversations with frustrated friends who are struggling to find their way out of addiction. One of them recently threw his hands up to the heavens and begged for mercy over his alcoholism, shrugging with tears in his eyes, "I am waiting on Him." While it looked like an act of surrender, and I felt sorry for him, I recognized this kind of waiting as too passive to be called seeking. I have seen him walking to the corner store for beer with more enthusiasm. I know how he feels. When I quit smoking 15 years ago, I had no idea I was quitting an addiction. I thought I loved cigarettes; and that made it very hard not to pick one up. The first days were almost impossible and, if it weren't for my 6 year-old daughter urging me to soldier on, I might have thrown in the towel on day 2. I kept going for her sake, not wanting to...

And I will restore to them the years that the locust has eaten  (Joel 2:25)  I write this as a Christian disappointed that the scriptures supporting my faith do not explicitly encourage the most important act of restoration I can think of. And that is saying sorry. Many of my brothers and sisters, when asked about scriptural support for apologizing, will cite passages about forgiveness, restitution, redempton or atonement but none of these mention saying sorry to the people we have harmed. The scriptures (both old and new) invite humility, contrition and repentance in various gestures of sacrifice and reconciliation. But these are   directed toward God rather than toward human beings. Perhaps that is why religious people will bypass an apology and go straight to requesting forgiveness. They seek absolution for themselves but not necessarily the restoration of those against whom they've sinned. Jesus was clear about placing the love for another right up there with the firs...

~ Wherefore all these things are but the names which mortals have given, believing them, to be true (Parmenides; On Nature) As a psychotherapist, I regret that my profession has drifted from its original vocation as a study of the soul/mind ( psyche ) to become an "evidence-based" discipline founded on scientific knowledge ( episteme ) of the mind/brain.  We cannot gain insight into the mind using science. Though we may be able to see or measure behavioural or cognitive phenomena and infer correlations with the brain, we cannot present these as "evidence" of what goes on inside the mind. The mind remains invisible to itself, its inner workings elusive. The mind is real in a way that is very different from the empirical data we may collect trying to understand it. It has a metaphysical reality that cannot be grasped by verifiable facts, a reality that is unfortunately dismissed by contemporary psychology for lack of evidence. That is what I regret. When science is th...