I guess throughout my life I have been plagued with a deficiency in the “self-esteem” department.  I really don’t think self-esteem and vanity are positively connected, but instead inversely related.  Because the most vain among us are generally the ones with the lowest self-esteem….or, at least I would hallucinate it so. Self-consciousness, vanity and low self-esteem tend to go hand in hand.  I would appear, then, that the more I am concerned about me and how the world sees me, the more I tend to not like me that much.  And that is even, especially, true of the most beautiful among us.  For instance, why do Hollywood starlets routinely fall from the pedestal upon which we loft them to the depths of despair, drug addiction and self-inflicted death?  The psychologist tells me that I have low self-esteem.  That I need to love me more.  That I need to be in love with that person I see in the mirror each morning.  But that is kind of hard when I don’t really even know who that person is.  Who am I, seriously?  A body? A product of my past?  A job that I do?  A father?  A husband?  A failure?  Truth is, I am not any, nor all, of those things. Who, or what, I am is a fulfillment of the purpose of my Creator, here for a specific reason, and that reason has nothing to do with my, or the world’s, narrow conception of me.  Unless we can get off the dead-end track of thinking about ourselves in such restricted and limited ways, I believe we will never truly live the life we were meant to live.  So, self-esteem doesn’t come from gazing in the mirror each morning and liking what you see.  It comes when we realize that there is a purpose to be served that cannot possibly be contained in that limited reflection.  In that sense, “self” esteem becomes entirely “selfless.”

I believe many non-Christians are put off by the constant “haranguing” over moral issues, even to the point of politicization.  As if God’s goodness consisted wholly in His behaviour.  Of course, God doesn’t (or, better to say, Jesus didn’t) smoke, drink, dance, play cards, or chase women.  He is moral goodness, but I believe the true goodness of God is found in something else.  Something I might call “spiritual goodness.”  Spiritual goodness to me has more to do with the condition of the spirit, or the soul of a man (or woman).  I like to think of it in terms of the “fruits” of the spirit, such as love, joy, peace, etc.  In many places the bible tells us that God is love.  So, maybe, the highest form of “spiritual goodness” is love.  If you think about it all those moral admonitions are really warnings not to do things that will detract from a spiritual condition of goodness, of love.  Moral sins are the antithesis of that, aren’t they?  Well, one might say they are, or sometimes are, a form of self-love.  But that is really not true.  Take any one of them to the extreme and you will find anything but self-love.  And the motive is usually exactly the opposite.  One does not undertake self-destructive action out of a feeling of self-love.  That makes no sense.  So what am I saying? That the spiritual condition of goodness is about connecting with God and experiencing, as well as emanating, the love that is God.  It is not “about” morality any more than the need to fill an empty stomach is “about” how the food gets in there.  Morality is the means to the end….not the end itself, get it?  God, who is spirit, created man in His image, which means that we, like Him, have an eternal spiritual existence.  That makes its condition kind of important, wouldn’t you agree?  So, it is “spiritual goodness” that is the end of God’s purpose for us.  Sure He has given us some guidelines on how to get there, but those aren’t (and shoudn’t be) the ultimate focal point.  Trying to make them as such is, I believe, to miss the bigger picture.

Sometimes things just work out.  When I was contemplating the decision to move to Perez Zeledon in the midst of my great, or imagined, personal crisis, I made several investigatory trips.  I had known the place in the past, but in no great detail.  I would always rent a room in a little hotel in town.  After a days worth of probing the pueblo to undercover what might lie beneath the surface, I could be found relaxing alone in the pool, considering my discoveries and enjoying a nice cool beverage of choice.  One day as I was so engaged, I noticed a sign hanging along the street that I could see just above the hedgerow.  I can’t remember what it read exactly, but it was an advertisement for therapy.  I thought to myself, you might need a bit of that if you actually are so bold as to make this move.  Sure enough, once I took the plunge and settled in I decided to give that number a call.  The lady who answered was Gabriela.  She has hence become an angel I believe sent by God to minister to me.  She is, to put it mildly, a “godsend.”  I haven’t missed a week yet of having an hour (which often extends into two) with this special person and it has helped me beyond description.  Just this week she said something to me that was simple, yet profound.  You see when “the crisis” hits, especially when it involves relational loss, the mind tends to focus repetitively and monotonously on the annoying and unanswerable question of why, why, why?  It even gets a bit worse when it becomes why me, why me, why me?  As in, why do these awful things only happen to poor pitiful little me (thereby elevating egoism to a despotic level)?  That is called self-pity, or autocompasión, as Gabriela would say.  It is the worst possible means of achieving resolution.  What Gabriela told me was rather than to probe the porques (the whys), ponder the para ques (the for whats).  The underlying idea is that everything happens for a reason and the best route to resolution is to focus your mind on finding that reason.  Not on the reason this person did this awful thing (that needs to be part of their own expedition in self-discovery).  But on the reason God brought about this particular circumstance in your life at this particular time and for your particular good.  God doesn’t make mistakes, we do.  Don’t compound them by focusing on the wrong question.  In my case, the answer has become as clear as the nose on my face.  Many times God will shake up our lives a bit to remind us that we need to get to know Him a little better.

I will readily agree that my last post leaves open a lot of thorny questions.  What about natural disasters, some might ask?  Are they “good?”  No, of course not.  Well then, how can you say that God is good, since man doesn’t create earthquakes, for instance.  Well, the short (and I am sure unacceptable to those who pose such questions) answer is associated with the fact that we live in a “fallen” world. The chief point I was trying to drive home in that less than “good” post is that good and God are intertwined concepts….no, not concepts, truths.  You don’t even have to accept the bible word for word and still receive as truth that central message.   I believe it is silly when christians try to stand on every word of the bible as historical fact.  I don’t really believe those arguments are necessary, they provide Bill Maher with comic ammunition and often detract from the truth conveyed.  It may be, it may not be.  Maybe there was a “Noah’s ark.”  Who knows.  Some parts certainly do stand as historical facts, while others may be that, or may be allegory.  But the central message is this….that God is good and good is God.  So, why didn’t he just create us with only the capacity for good, you ask?  Well, if we were nothing more than programmed robots with no capacity of free will, would our goodness really be good?  In the silly film, Bruce Almighty, the character played by Jim Carey is constantly and unsuccessfully trying to get god to make the woman he loves to love him back.  But would that really be love?  Get the point.  God gave us free will so that our good choices really would be good.  However, within that capacity for good also resides the capacity for its opposite.  And unfortunately that’s where the storm clouds began to gather in the perfect world God had created.  Many argue against Christianity based on this and that story appearing in the Old Testament.  But the Old Testament is not about presenting a scientific viewpoint of creation, but to show us two things, no three.  First, that God is good and good is God. Second, that our choices brought badness into the picture and thus separation from God.  And lastly, that the solution to this problem points directly and unequivocally to that historical figure that shows up a bit later on (even though he was “there” all along)….Jesus.

In the first chapter of Genesis the word good is used repeatedly, six times if my powers of observation adequately serve me (often they don’t).  The Hebrew word is “tobh” and the concept of good conveyed by this word encompasses goodness in terms of both physical quality, aesthetics and morality.  Often we say “god is good.”  I would even go a step further and say “good is god.”  Reading some of my past posts shows that at least in that respect, I was usually on to something, albeit seeing as through a glass darkly.  Again, the point I am driving at here is that all goodness (all of it) originates with God.  Before there was anything else, there was God and hence, there was good.  In Genesis, He declares his creation good….what else could it have been?  Badness no where entered into the picture, yet. In fact, according to C.S. Lewis, “badness” has as its principal aim, goodness.  It is only the way that bad goes about achieving the aim of good that makes it “bad.”  Here is where I had previously  drifted “off the ranch” in my ramblings.  There was a sense in them of moral relativism.  That what is bad for one is good for another and vice versa.  That all opinions about such issues ought to be accepted.  But the truth is that there is a clear distinction….good is good and we all know what it looks like.  The knowledge of it is embedded in our DNA.  Badness only enters the realm of reality by virtue of choices that “we” make.  So you cannot associate anything bad with God, he didn’t create bad….we did.  There is no other explanation for it.  Good did not come from any religious code or from the mind of any great ancient philosopher…it existed long before all that.  In fact, it was not created at all.  It is God and God is it.  That is what the Christian Bible teaches and that makes absolute perfect sense.  That it is our badness that separates us from that goodness that is and always has been, God.  Christianity alone provides an answer to this dilemma.

Post from the past that I seemed led to revisit this morning….down by the river…..don’t exactly know “where” I am going with this, but it’s somewhere….

My last post addressed, or attempted to address, my personal definition of what it means to act sustainable.  However, what is the goal, or the ultimate aim of sustainability?  I believe only in knowing that can one truly bend the bow, release that arrow of ardent action and hit the true target.  This post will therefore focus on the overriding question of “what is the goal of sustainability?”  One thing is for sure, sustainability is not maintenance.  It seems we are much more focused on “sustaining” inanimate objects that we are on living things.  I would rather call actions geared towards sustaining the inanimate (the “Stuff” that was referred to in my “backpack” post) maintenance.  Being a sustainability guy is not the same thing as being a “maintenance man.”  If you are a spiritual person with a belief in a higher power who is the author of all things living, you probably also hold a belief that things were created to be beautiful…to be healthy.  Often human interaction and impact tends to diminish the healthy state that the creator had in mind.  Why doesn’t he (or she or it) just intervene?  Let’s leave that for a different post. Sustainability then becomes an attempt at managing our interactions and impacts in a way that promotes the health of living things…a healthy environment, a healthy body, healthy relationships…get the picture?  Of course, if you are not at all spiritual and would rather hold fast to a “survival of the fittest” kind of philosophy of life, then you probably don’t feel much of a need to act sustainable.  Because sustainability recognizes that the created world is connected and every part must play a role in sustaining it.  You cannot just sit back and expect that living things will sustain themselves and if they fall short, well it was just meant to be. That all that really matters is my own personal level of comfort and the fact that people are starving, animals are becoming extinct, rain forests are disappearing, and the planet is overheating (yes, even despite the current cold snap in the Northeast) just doesn’t enter into my personal picture.  But the hard fact to realize is that oh yes it will, eventually!  If that’s the way you see things, then fine…I am not here to judge, but just to make a point.  And the point is that sustainability is about being concerned that our interactions and impacts promote the health of living things.  And in so doing our spiritual health is also dramatically improved.

Fresh new air to breathe.  One of the many benefits of living in my new home, Perez Zeledon.  To be more specific, La Palma, about five minutes outside of town in the mountains between San Isidro General and Playa Dominical.  But lately there is something new in the air.  Something transforming. I know what it is.  I have breathed this air before, so it must not be unique to this place.  My life has taken many turns, some for the better, others for the worse.  Has there been someone guiding me along this mysterious path?  At times it certainly seems not.  It would appear at first blush that I have been completely misguided.  But all those twists and turns of “fate” have brought me here and it has now become obvious (to me) that I am where I am supposed to be, where I need to be.  Much of what I have written lately probably makes those words a bit of a surprise.  I agree that recently I have experienced an emotional bottom, ha tocado fondo, as my tico friends might tell me.  But from that deep dark emotional valley, I found this new air to breathe.  And it is imparting new life, a new desire to live.  Only this time the motive is different.  This time I have a new reason to live and live I will, but not for me, not for her, not for anyone, or any thing, but Him.  This is the air I breathe.

Oh, one last thing  before I end this brief post….from the bottom of my heart, thanks for your prayers (and all of you know who you are).

I visited two churches in the area last weekend.  One of them had the curious name of “Martillos de Guerra.”  That means “hammers of war.”  I find that to be an odd name for a church.  Latin people are passionate and the worship at this church was vibrant and infectious.  I felt good there.  That name, however, still bothers me.  For the last decade I have fallen away from my faith.  It has always been there with me, but I have tried to live as if it really didn’t matter.  It does.  But I don’t appreciate the all too common “christian” mentality of us versus them.  There really is no difference.  We are all sinners, right?  A Christian is a sinner who has made a choice that a non-Christian just hasn’t made….yet.  So this idea that we are at war against “them” is a little off putting, at least for me.  The bible does speak of a “spiritual warfare.”  But the emphasis placed is on the spiritual, as in not against flesh and blood.  Oh for sure, we welcome “them” to our churches and put on a happy face and extend a hand of fellowship.  But out there is a different story. On the street there is a sense of derision, of superiority, of separation (as the lepers are separated from their caregivers).  We don’t want to get too close, or we might become infected.  But Christians are not “at war” against other faiths, nor against those with no faith at all.  Christians are at war against the unseen forces of evil at play behind evil acts.  And the tools at our disposal are prayer and love, not derision, superiority, nor separation.  The oft quoted phrase “hate the sin, but love the sinner” is to me much more appealing than to be a hammer that beats them into submission, or that builds a wall of separation between us.  I don’t want to get too fixated on a name, because a name is what it is, just a name.  Or, is it?

My nephew, Sebas, and I were riding the other day.  He became frustrated that his horse always preferred to go right and he wanted the horse to stay left.  I told him to let the horse go where it wanted….to yield to the desire of the horse and not fight it unnecessarily.  He, in all his 14 years of equestrian wisdom, told me that if he did that the horse would think that she had the control.  I told him that she certainly did and that she might decide to show him rather matter of factly if he persisted in trying to prove otherwise.  You see the millions of years of evolution have not well equipped horses to do what we humans demand of them and have been demanding since around 4000 B.C. That is to allow us to throw across their backs the carcasses of dead animals and then to freely give us a nice smooth ride.  The remarkable thing is their willingness to succumb to this unnatural treatment.  But I have come to believe, and am learning more-so all the time as I study these majestic creatures, that the safest and surest way to that smooth ride is to be grateful for it. To make sure the horse knows that you know that it is more about him than you.  In this equation the horse is never wrong and if you find yourself bucked off, it is because you were.  In that way horse riding is a lot like the ride of life itself.  We want to make it all about us, don’t we?  But the “force” that granted us the privilege of the ride, would prefer it be more about Him.

I have always prided myself on being a humble guy. Listen to that…”prided myself on.” What an oxymoron that statement turned out to be. The very opening statement betrays a subtle underlying problem. And that is a constant yearning, obsession, and need to be validated. And a terrifying fear of its counterpart, rejection. I guess we all have it to one degree or another. And it is the antithesis of humility. I am not saying that the appreciation of validation is wrong. There is nothing wrong with feeling that swelling of the ego when applauded for some laudable deed. But, rather, what I am speaking of here is a desire for validation that really meddles with life. It tends to direct where you go, who you meet (and love) and what you do. I believe when one searches so arduously for this elusive “thing” called validation, it probably (perhaps certainly) means that there is none of it within. You are always on constant hunt for validation without. And that is a very dangerous safari. There are lions and tigers and bears out there who will eat you alive with rejection. And these days I feel as if I have been chewed up and spit out. So maybe it is time to stop this insane pursuit….like the intense little boy in the great recent film, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close. He doggedly pursued validation from his father, even after his father was gone, not knowing all the while that he possessed it to the nth degree. And so do we. We all possess it from our true Father and need nothing further, really. I believe realizing that fact is the essence of true humility.