Integrity and My Thought Life

I wish my thoughts worked like sentences. I wish they were linear and complete with subjects and verbs. I wish they organized themselves with three points and an introduction and conclusion. They do not.

Books process in sequence. You read one thought and the next thought. If it is not well written, the next thought may not connect well, but it is always one thought after the other. One at a time. This is peaceful and comforting and usually boring.

I process in parallel, and I hate it. I am always thinking about multiple things at the same time. Not that I jump back and forth from one to another, but actually occurring at the same. Maybe this is how most people think, and you are thinking that this comment is obvious and stupid. Maybe you think this is really weird, and you're thinking I should get some professional help.

For me, trying to understand what I am thinking is like sitting on the edge of a highway. My thoughts move so fast they are blurry and I have hardly understood what I am thinking before it is gone, out of sight and a dozen other thoughts whizzing past. I try to focus on one and understand it but while I do several others move fly by unscrutinized. I try to zoom out and understand the who and I come up with a blurry picture of myself with all these different ideas and thoughts melted together, indistinct and unhelpful like trying to figure out which flavors were in melted rainbow sherbet.

There is always a part of me that is planning the next five minutes a part of me that is thinking about the next year and a part of me that is examining memories of the past and a part of me that analyzing my surroundings. A part of me is wondering how that dent got in the wall while another part of me is thinking about something I read this morning and another part of me is thinking about constructing this sentence correctly.

Another part of me is analyzing it to see if it actually expresses what I wanted and another part of me is wondering is I finished cleaning up in the kitchen. Another part of me is often replaying a song or a movie in the back of my head and sometimes pauses to analyze some lyrics or a scene. Another part of me is talking to myself and explaining to myself whatever I am focused on, while another part is thinking of a metaphor to understand what I am focused on, which, by the way, changes every 2-3 seconds.

I am always trying to bring one strand of thought to the forefront of my mind so I can focus on it and do something meaningful, but it is a constant struggle because lyrics from the song or an imagined video (yes, I see video in my head) from the extended metaphor I am creating pops into my head. This triggers more links and tangents and very quickly I have completely lost my train of thought, although is is really more like an 8 lane superhighway than a train. Trains have one care after the other, highways move in parallel.

I like writing because it forces me to be sane. It forces me to take things one step, one sentence at a time, and put my thoughts in a sequence. Then, I can read over it and understand in a more ordered way what the whole of me is thinking or feeling. Most of the things I write are not written in the order you read them in. I select and drag sentences to make paragraphs of sentences that work together.

It annoys me that I lack the discipline to isolate a train of thought and focus on it very well. It annoys me that I constantly have to refocus and bring myself back to what I was trying to do or just think about. This is, I think, a part of the way God made me. And as frustrating as it is and as much as I hate feeling weird, I think it is okay.

However, it seriously bother me that I often process different things from different parts of my character, with different viewpoints, different values, and different beliefs. For example, until last year, I believed that I was saved by grace through faith, and that salvation was not from myself, that is was the free gift of God, that was given to me because God is loving and kind and gracious, but I also believed that having been saved by faith I was supposed to become more like God by working hard at it myself out of duty because God more or less left it all up to me to sink or swim as I would. (I mostly sunk.) My perspective on personal holiness was compartmentalized from my perspective on God, which left me with more or less two completely different gods, and I ascribed to one in certain areas and another in other areas.

Originally, integrity meant "the quality or state of being complete or undivided." The idea of moral uprightness is a relatively recent understanding of the term. It comes from the Latin word 'integer,' which means 'whole.' This is something I have been struggling with a lot.

I have been doing much better at seeing the world with an integrated worldview, that is, having a consistent view of God and His world and he creatures and sons and daughters. I don't think that I presently have two gods in any areas, with one ruling one area and one ruling another. I think the God is God over my whole life, and this is an important part of integrity. I do this when I don't bring all of reality to myself. I would handle the religious part of reality when I felt pious and the harsh parts of reality when I felt like problem solving and the warm and fuzzy parts of reality when I felt sad, instead of engaging the comprehensive picture of reality at all times. I would pick and choose what pieces of reality I wanted to deal with.

Recently, I've been doing better about dealing with all of reality at a time, with not compartmentalizing my worldview. However, I'm starting to realize that I don't bring all of me to reality. I play to my strengths too much. There are parts of my character that are (relatively) highly developed and there are parts that are underdeveloped.

It may be that I am always stronger in some areas that in others, but that shouldn't be an excuse to abandon the other parts of me. I try to develop that parts of me that I am already strong in and I ignore the other parts almost entirely. It's like only lifting weights with your right arm just because you're right handed.

Recently, I've been reading Integrity by Henry Cloud. He says that most people only use parts of their character to interact with reality, and if we would develop and use all of character, that we would be much more effective in whatever it is we have chosen to do. I think this may be what I need. I am really curious about how Dr. Cloud advises we do this, because he's been pretty vague so far. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Awhile ago, I prayed about all this. The prayer was, like most of my thoughts, very nonlinear and nonverbal, but that I was okay with, because I knew God understood me better than I did. Later I tried to express to other people what had happened that night when I prayed, what I had said and what I felt God had said and done. It was very difficult for me to articulate, so I wrote it into a dialogue and something like a poem. I will leave you with this.

Me: God, the God of the whole universe, the biggest God there could be, where are you, and how should I address you?

God: I'm here.

Me: To the God in the seat in front of me...

Me: Hmm, perhaps that's not good. It makes the seat something like a Jesus Christ, or an idol don't you think? Why don't we try again?

Me: You're right. Okay. To the God who is somewhere between the lenses of my glasses and the seat in front of me And also lives in me: There is a problem.

God: Yes?

Me: See, I don't know really how to fix the problem or what it is at all and I would like to fix it but I don't think I could. Even supposing I knew what it was, and how it could be fixed.

God: Where is the problem?

Me: Well, I suppose the problem is in the way I interact with everyone I know, and I could be wrong, but, I think it's in how they interact with each other to. And I'm really not sure, but the problem might be
with almost everyone. And I don't know if it's only interaction with people. Maybe it's how I interact with almost everything.

Me: Everything? Really? What about the Bible? What about God?

Me: Okay, God, we don't think it's strictly everything. We think it's most things, but not the way I pray, and not really how we study the Bible.

God: Okay.

Me: So, I want you to fix it. I mean, I can't hardly fix it I don't even know what's wrong. But if you could just fix it in me, it would be really great. Could you show me how to pray?

God: Okay.

---------------------------------------------------

The following prayer was mostly so nonlinear and wordless that I have not tried to put it to words. Rather I have picked out phrases I remember from that prayer and structured a poem around them and attempted, in the poem, to express the same main idea as in my prayer.

To the God of the whole universe,
God over every moment,
God here in front of me,
God here inside me:

I want to worship you,
in spirit and in truth,
but how is that done?

I want to be thankful,
always and in everything,
but something is missing.

I want to pray at all times,
but I'm not sure that would help
with this issue.

I want all of life
to be a devotional.

I want to worship you
through everything I do.

Not in spite of it.

I want you to be God, and my God:

God of video games.
God of friendships.
God of lunch and dinner.
God of showers.
God of homework.
God of playing sports.
God of reading books.
God of making jokes.
God of laughing.
God of waking up in the morning.
God of working out.
God of sleeping.
God of dreaming.
God of cleaning my room.
God of walking to class.
God of wondering at nature.
God of wondering at people.
God of being angry.
God of being lonely.
God of being hurt and sad.
God of being happy.
God of being bored.
God of being numb.
God of laundry.
God of taking notes.
God of taking tests.
God of acing tests.
God of failing tests.
God of awkward thirty-second conversations.
God of waking up in the middle of the night.
God of all-nighters.

God, I want you to be big enough to me to dominate and cover every aspect of my life.

God, I want to think about you always.
Or perhaps, I want to think about everything through you.

God, I want to worship you always.
Not in spite of what else I'm doing.
But through it.

God, I want my friendships
to be spiritual disciplines.
I want to know you more,
and glorify you through them.

I want to date,
as an act of worship.
I want to feel you,
if I hug a girlfriend.

I want to write term papers,
like lovesongs to you.
I want to read books,
and take in your Spirit.

I want to eat,
and chew with you.
I want to feel you
moving my jaw.

I want to drink,
to taste your bubbles on my tongue.
I want to experience you,
in everything.

I want to exercise
and build your muscles.
I want to love to
build your temple.

I want to write,
words from you and words for you,
In a text message
and on facebook.

I want to dream
to fulfill your passions.
I want to plan,
to charge towards your calling.

When I talk to someone,
I want to be praying.
I'm tired of talking,
Like you're not in the room.

I want to rest,
within your softness.
I want to feel you
coming on with sleep.

I want to live this moment,
with this heart beat,
and this half breath,
worshiping you.

Over and over again,
worshiping you,
through the living
of every moment.

One moment, maybe this one,
I want to die, to and for
and toward you,
worshiping.

Captivating: The Search for the Heart of Femininity

Okay, so I've been reading Captivating, because someone gave it to me awhile ago and it's pretty popular, so what the heck, right? These are mainly just my thoughts so far. As a quick summary: I like where she is going, but not how she gets there. Let me let explain:

While I agree with a lot of Stasi is saying (so far, I'm only like 30 pages in) I don't really like the way she proves her points. It seems that her basic premise is that there are these inherent desires in young girls that are the essence of femininity, and that society teaches girls to ignore or repress these desires, and if grown-up girls could get back to their childhood and understand, accept, and fulfill these desires in a healthy way, they would have become true women. In order to support most of this, she uses a lot of 'remember back to when you were an innocent girl, unspoiled by the influence of society...' arguments.

I think that's an overly idealistic argument. There is a lot of purity of thought in youth that is later corrupted by society. On the other hand, I have worked with kids all my life, and children are not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. We may not be born evil, but working with kids has convinced me that everyone is born inherently selfish. Just because young girls share similar desires of their hearts doesn't mean that fulfilling those desires will lead to happiness or Godliness. There are a lot of desires kids have that are really bad ideas, and we train them out of them for a reason.

Secondly, Stasi criticizes Proverbs 31, (actually, she criticizes an interpretation of Proverbs 31, but she says it as though she is criticizing the Bible itself.) Basically, Stasi paints a picture of Proverbs 31 imposing a tyranny on women to work hard to support their husband and family that is unhealthy and impractical. She comes to the conclusion that it is bad because it is impossible to fulfill. She offers no alternative interpretation or explanation of how divinely inspired Scripture is causing damage. She does not even suggest that it has been misinterpreted.

Now, possible Stasi will come back to this point later and explain how God's Scripture is always edifying when correctly interpreted, but I feel like she should have done this in the same section as she wrote about the harm of Proverbs 31. She should have at least emphasized (or even mentioned) that she has a problem with an interpretive theory, not Scripture itself. I think the way she has it written now erodes people's respect for Scripture.


Despite the fact that I don't appreciate her means, I think her main points may have some validity. In essence, Stasi argues that women have three basic longings, and that most destructive behavior and attitudes stems from repressing these longings. She says that if females can recognize these longing and learn to pursue their fulfillment in a healthy way, they will have discovered "what it means to be a woman," or "the heart of femininity."

Stasi says that every girl/woman wants "to be romanced," "an irreplaceable role in a great adventure," and "to unveil beauty." I think this might be true of every person, but I won't go into that here. In explanation of her first longing, Stasi explains that women want someone to pursue them, someone to work for their love. She uses the example of her boyfriend (now husband) leaving poetry on the windshield of her car and craving her a wooden heart.

While I think it's really important to do things like that in a relationship, I also think that different people express love in different ways, and for a lot of people being romance looks nothing like poems and carvings. For some people, being romanced is a lot more low-key. I do believe in Love Languages, and I think there is an over idealization of one or two of them that has made courtly love all flowers and poetry, whereas in reality there is a much greater spectrum to the expression of love.

However, I agree that the desire to be pursued/romanced is a legitimate, healthy desire and it's great if women want to pursue that. As a guy, I would generally try to make my girlfriend/wife feel 'romanced' although I think I would try to make it a little more down-to-earth because a lot of girls I know would feel pretty uncomfortable with some of the ideas Stasi suggests (such as leaving notes on windshields.)

By "an irreplaceable role in a great adventure," Stasi seems to mean an important and integral, yet ultimately supportive role in the quest of a man. She compares this to being the heroine in a war movie or action-drama. She uses such examples as Cora from The Last of the Mohicans or Arwen and Eowyn in The Lord of The Rings.

I am a man on a mission. I want to spend my life helping youth become more like Jesus Christ. That is what I have decided to commit my life to, and I will pour most of my talents, abilities and resources unto that altar unless I get a clear message from God instructing me otherwise. I see myself as a soldier in the Lord's army, and I have standing orders to advance the Kingdom, particularly in the youth world. As such, the idea of a woman who is committed to the same or similar mission is extremely attractive to me. Yet more attractive is the idea of a woman who is committed to such a ministry and wants to partner with me in this mission (and others, for example, raising children.)

I think woman like that are great, but I'm not sure that every woman has that desire or need. Firstly, I think some women are drawn to missions that do not have a significant male figure, because I know that, biblically speaking, some women (and men) are called to celibacy. Perhaps Stasi meant for the masculine figures in her examples to represent God, rather than a husband, but she didn't say that. If she meant God and not a husband, then it seems to me like the exact same thing could be said of men.

I didn't mean for this to be this long, because the main point I wanted to address was her third, on unveiling beauty. However, I think I will do this in a separate post, because I am kinda tired. The topic of feminine beauty is a whole other discussion, and I would like to be able to devote an entire post to it.

I know I seem pretty critical of Captivating, but I really don't dislike it. I know it has done a lot of god for a lot of people, and I respect that. I more dislike the method of it, but I think the message and points are very good. Also, I admit that I have only read a small part of it so far, and my opinion could change a lot. I am going to read the whole thing and reserve judgement until the end. These are only my thoughts so far.




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If you are a girl, I would LOVE to hear your opinions on this, especially on Stasi three desires of the feminine heart. You know I always love any kind of comment, but I especially would like to hear what you ladies think on this one, because I acknowledge that I am in no way qualified or informed on this subject. If you (guys and girls) have read Captivating, I would also love to hear your comments on the book.