Skip to main content

Two Strikes and You're out?

‘Thinkers often find (public) worship a very real problem as, inevitably, they are questioning all the prayers and hymns and checking out their words to see if they are logical, consistent, or true.” [Malcolm Goldsmith ‘Knowing Me, Knowing God’ c.1997]



“ I’m boring!” Those words echoed through the almost empty office as I was asked about myself by my new ‘boss’. Even as the words came out of my mouth, inside my head I could hear the words “I’m not REALLY boring, but nobody else sees it …“




From a very early age I knew as a ‘left-hander’ [10% of the population] I was different. I struggled first to learn to cut with right-handed scissors, and later on to knit, crochet [This never happened until I was in my 30’s!], and thread a sewing machine needle. The smears of ink on the pages of my schoolwork and on my hand were inevitable. Blotters [remember those?] were my best friends.

I was a bookworm who had read every book in our village library by the time I finished High School.  I had a a few close friends, most of whom I still have today. I knew I was not the ‘norm’ and certainly couldn’t use just my left handedness to explain why.

When I was introduced to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, my personality type came out as INTJ [only .8% of the female population according to some charts and 2% of the general population]. Being classed as both intuitive  [N] and a thinker [T] means that my thinking process is based on intuition or ideas and not on facts as ascertained by the five senses. 

It has taken years to integrate this information into understanding just why I made that initial statement. Years passed of not being understood for who I am, of having my thoughts dismissed as ‘wrong’, of being seen as stand-offish, and unfriendly. It became easier to just be quiet, to not engage with new people right away. If you find that your thoughts or comments during a discussion are always wrong, you learn not to give them. It was, and is, learned behaviour.

Duncan says of Thinking spirituality: ‘(It) gazes on the truth . . . it is a rational relationship with God that loves to be stretched to the limits of argument and logic, to follow thoughts to the place where thoughts run out. It is opening your mind to the mind of the infinite. It searches for truth and is always asking “Why?” . . . (it) celebrates the gift of knowledge and the ability to meet God with the mind through Scripture and the study of theology.’ [B. Duncan, Pray Your Way c.1993] Until I read this quote recently, I had never before encountered the phrase ‘…to follow thoughts to the place where thoughts run out…’ except in my own head! Somebody else actually understands my spirituality, my way of understanding the Infinite. This does not happen normally with the confines of the mainstream churches where if one is allowed to question, that allowance goes only so far . . and never to that place where thoughts run out!

So being left handed [10%] AND having a personality type only shared by .8% of the population, I am finally coming to terms with who I am and why I react the way I do in all areas of my life. Instead of hiding who I am, I am coming to see why others have perceived me as being ‘different’, and gaining confidence in my own unique worth.

Two strikes and you’re out? Not me!!!!!

(I could have added a third strike . . .that I'm a female, which would have made for the more 'normal' quote of "Three strikes and you're out". But would you believe it ever entered my mind until just now!)

Comments

  1. Thought provoking! We''ll have to discuss it today! Can't wait!
    Shirley (another one outside the norm)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Greatest Gift

“What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.” ~from ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ by Christina Rossetti Many of us will be singing, or have sung, these words at some time over this Christmas season. The first verse of the carol, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ begins with words that echo many Christmases here in Canada: ‘In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,’ and so we usually find it included in at least one of the services held at this time of year.  For me it has always fit in with the sentimentality of a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service. Yes, we can all give our heart to this young babe - after all who doesn’t find babies hard to resist~ The songs of angels singing in the heavens, a bright star in the dark winter sky, potentates arriving from a...

The Candle is Peace....

“ A candle is burning, a candle of PEACE,   A candle to signal that conflict must cease   For Jesus is coming to show us the way   A message of peace humbly laid in the hay” ~words by Sandra Dean What conflict does our society see as needing to cease? Many see a conflict within their family, where peace can be brought about by expelling/silencing someone who is the cause of the conflict, who is unwilling to go along with the family’s expectations or who is unable to abide by them through mental illness or addiction. Peace to them means quiet because no one dares to challenge the status quo. “All I want under my tree Peace and love and harmony Wrap it with a ribbon please I'll share it with my family." ~Chorus from ‘With my Family’ by Rita MacNeil, 1993 Peace for the country happens when the powers that be are in charge, making decisions that are followed unquestioningly by the proletariat   - no riots, no strikes, no protests there. ...

"On Giving Thanks"

Thanksgiving Is usually one of those ‘easy’ times for me.   It is easy to be thankful living with abundance, in safety, with family and friends – so many things to give thanks for, so many blessings undeserved. Some years and for some people, it is not so. What would Thanksgiving mean to me then? How would I deal with it? I came across this prayer not long ago ~           For that which was           For that which is           For that which will be          Thanks be to God And I began to wonder ~ Is the real meaning behind Thanksgiving not so much the ability to be thankful for those things we have in abundance? After all, that is easy.  But rather to be thankful for everything we have been given or experienced in life, or are now experiencing: the highs and the lows, the mountain-top experiences and the valleys of death, the deserts and the abundant har...

"Nudgement"

As we progress through the season of Lent, we are urged by the lectionary aa well as by the words spoken from the front of the churches to consider how we live and what we do with our lives. Many of us take up a new spiritual practise perhaps denying ourselves something we enjoy or adding something to our daily routine that we think will benefit our spiritual growth in the long run.  What we can seen to be doing is in fact judging our lives and then trying to make them  better by doing ‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’. Quite a while ago I received a note from one of the readers of this blog and it has stayed with me over the time since it landed in my inbox. ‘I just coined the term "nudgement" for myself this morning.  I was thinking of how EFM interprets "judgement" as something that surprises you or that you weren't expecting, which is a gentler notion of "judgement" than some of us grew up with, something that is enough out of the ordinary to urge us ou...

The Reason for This Season?

Each year I have had a theme in mind for my blogs during Advent season, sometimes even having them written in advance.. This year however the well seems to have run dry. Advent is that season of the church calendar when we are called upon to prepare ourselves for the Christmas celebration that speaks of the entry of Jesus into history, and into our lives. As I sit here at the computer I find myself thinking of what I am doing this year, this week in particular, that will prepare me this participate fully in the Christmas event.  How can I become more cognizant, more immersed, in what is called commercially, ‘the reason for the season’ ? This is what I hope to explore over the next few weeks and I would invite you to join me in that exploration. As the Advent begins I find myself getting out the Christmas decorations, thinking about writing the annual family Christmas letter, setting up playlists of Christmas music on my phone, filling Christmas festivities on my cale...

The Theology of Food

Theology is defined as ‘the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially:  the study of God and of God's relation to the world’ [Mirriam-Webster online dictionary] A preacher began his sermon with the statement ‘There is no theology of food.’ which alone of all he had to say made me sit up and take notice.  Not only take notice, but to begin to consider just why it sounded wrong to me and what exactly was my understanding of the connection between food and theology… because I felt very strongly that there was one! For the better part of two years I was part of a Meditation group that followed their weekly time of meditation by sharing a light meal provided by the various members of the group. Over that food, experiences were shared from our everyday life, ideas were voiced, and connections were made, all of which echoed our various understandings of just what it meant to try and live as a Christian in today’s world. This was theology, t...

"The Usual Suspects" - The Shepherds

Just who were these shepherds that Luke has in his version of the Christmas Story? Why pick them? What was their role to be? ‘ In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,  ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,  and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’  When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has ta...

Sameness

“What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities. And in order to do this, we must allow each other our differences at the same time as we recognize our sameness.” ~ Audre Lorde It was the last sentence of this quote by Audre Lorde, an American writer and civil rights activist, that caught my attention. I knew what our differences were! But I started thinking and wondering about just what our sameness might be…. As members of the human family we all have the same need for food, for water, for shelter from the elements. But the food, the water, the shelter can vary depending on where we are and the conditions there.  Here in Canada we need shelter from both the winter’s cold and the summer’s heat. In the tropics, the winter’s cold isn’t so much of a problem. So our housing needs are very different.  The diets of people differ depending on what is ...

The Passage of Time

This year has taken forever and at the same time has gone in the blink of an eye. I wonder if you feel the same way...   Last March the prospect of a month’s lockdown seemed to be forever. Had we realized then that 10 months later we would be looking forward to another 10-12 months of COVID before the vaccines have reached everyone and we can begin to relax our precautions just a little, it would have felt like forever! Time, however like religion , is a human construct, at least according to Christopher Hitchens. I remember seeing a television show where Hitchens explained how time doesn’t really exist. It is something that humans used to explain the disconnect between for example sunrise and sunset, or when you start on a walk and when you got to your destination. We have quantified that disconnect and used clocks and calendars to keep track of it. His point was that there is really only this moment right now, and what we are doing during it is really all that is. Sounds sort of ...

Hung on a Nail

While it wasn’t my first inclination on reading this sign, I feel a need to unpack what it is saying to me. Too often I am apt to pooh-pooh an idea or a metaphor without looking more closely into the meaning within. It is a saying first of all that relates to a first world problem. We are part of the minority in this world who actually have keys to worry about…who have houses [yes, more than one often] who have cars, who have valuables that we feel the need to protect.  So the person doing the hanging is prosperous with the goods of the world, if not by their own standards, by the standards of the majority of people living today. So what else do we hang on nails?  Car keys! I’m sure we have all heard at some time in our life, the story told of someone going to the nail where they always hang the car keys, only to find that they aren’t there, follow by frantic searching which fails to unearth the keys. Sometimes this story ends with the person saying a prayer askin...