If My Earlier Blog Touched You

A couple of days ago, I came online to shut down my blogs.

Lo and behold, I came across an email from someone who was reading my earlier blog, and wanted to connect with me. Apparently, the blog had really touched him.

I think I will keep both blogs open. I am not sure if I will write more in this "Next Chapter" blog, but I'll keep it open as an option.

If you're here because my earlier blog has touched you and you would like to connect with me, feel free to go to my profile and send me an email.

You can call me TCM.

Along This Road

Once in a long while, something really significant steps onto our paths.

We can give it a cursory acknowledgement or a passing respectful nod. Why, we can even shed a tear to commemorate its presence.

But rarely do we let it soak in deeply enough to disentangle the fabric and tapestry of who we have come to be. Rarely do we allow ourselves to be so affected that the very essence of who we are evaporates, never to return.

Something really significant has stepped onto my path.

If I were truly genuine, if I held to my highest standard of integrity, I would allow it to embrace me.

But I fear.

I fear for the destruction of what I have begun to build for myself: a small castle of respectability.

I fear that if I allowed it to embrace me, I would be subsumed. I would become a tiny little particle of something so much greater than I could ever fathom.

I would cease to be.

Dare I let it embrace me?

Dare I not?

Feel The Shame, It's Good For You

He told me some really awesome things today. Awesome may not be the right word. Deeply-poignant. Breath-arresting.

It was about shame.

Shame is an inhibitory response. It slows you down, takes you away from the negative stimulation. It's like death.

We don't like this. We fight it with defenses. We withdraw, avoid, attack other, or attack self.

Nicolosi talked about the Gray Zone: "It is a defense mechanism from feeling the pain of the shame that preceded it, which if fully felt will lead back to grief... the vitality affect of true grief."

1. We sense shame about ourselves

2. We employ a defense mechanism against the shame, e.g. the gray zone

3. Finally, we move out of the gray zone by going into homosexual enactment

Shame. It is prevalent. We should not defend ourselves from feeling it. We should allow ourselves to feel it fully so that we can experience the "vitality affect of true grief."

He never connected what he talked about--shame, that is--to true grief. But I think the Holy Spirit did.

When we can finally connect with our shame, our BROKENNESS, therein lies our healing. Because He loved us so much, He bore our shame on the cross and nullified it.