the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Life has felt like a lot lately and I have not been giving myself enough time to slow things down and reflect, which I can tell has been influencing my energy. In any case, I am doing my best to share some reflections as best as I can now:

Things I have been learning about Yahweh:

• I’m curious about the history of ‘salvation’ = ‘ticket to Heaven’ in many Christian circles. I’ve learnt that the Orthodox Christians (who were some of the earliest Christians) never viewed the concept of salvation in this way. It also seems like scriptures is not exactly alluding to the concept of salvation in this manner, too. Take, for example, Proverbs 11:12 from the Orthodox Study Bible (OSB): “Those for whom there is no leadership fall like leaves. But there is salvation in much counsel”. Looking deeper into this definition of salvation, it goes more along the lines of ‘victory’ – which is what some more modern English translations of the Bible translate this verse as (e.g., in the NIV it says in Proverbs 11:14 : “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers”).
• In Proverbs 11:28 of the OSB it says “He who does not deal graciously with his own house will inherit the wind”. The temptation here is to point fingers or to self-shame, but also I know this also has to do with dealing graciously with myself, too.
• Continuing on the topic of grace, Proverbs 12:2 says “He who finds grace from the Lord becomes better”. What a beautifully simple concept that is – that grace makes us better.
• Proverbs 12:10 in the OSB says “A righteous man has compassion on the lives of his cattle, but the affections of the ungodly are without mercy”. I appreciate the OSB’s commentary on this – that compassion is a fruit of righteousness. It’s disappointing that many Christian circles do not view compassion in this way, nor do they believe that it is God’s lovingkindness that draw people to repentance. May I also aim to be a person formed in compassion and mercy.

Things I have been learning about people:

• I think this is something I still need to explore with my therapist about: I really don’t know what else to do with adults who have difficulties with perspective taking except in placing boundaries with them to protect myself from further frustration. I can only do so much in sharing where I’m coming from to people who really do not want to take the effort to understand me.

Things I have been learning about myself:

• Bouldering has been having me learn a lot about my own body – how to move, how to pay attention to every part of my body while climbing, how to stretch, what parts of my body even exist due to the injuries I’ve been getting, etc…
• I have found out that reading poetry is a good way to slow my mind down before I go to sleep. It’s not something I do often,
• Perhaps this is something I should have linked earlier in my life, but I’ve been noticing that the all the things that make a diet anti-inflammatory, the Mediterranean diet already has !
• I’ve occasionally started following some Qigong videos (I would like to more though), and it’s been making me think about stress responses in animals. After some animals encounter a stressful situation, in their own unique way, they will shake their bodies all over over – in a sense, literally shaking off the stress. For people who don’t move around a lot, this stress gets trapped and stored in our bodies. I know any kind of movement can help with releasing stress, but there are certain moves in Qigong where you are literally just shaking your body.
• I can’t exactly pinpoint why, but I feel very inspired being around my university president. She is a confident woman of color with strong leadership and speaking skills, and so it has sort of reignited in me once again to seek out leadership wisdom in the ways I can for now.