IT FEELS LIKE TODAY

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practicing the discipline of remaining unknown while also having an online journal

i promised an entry explaining more fully what i'm trying to figure out when it comes to being known. this is an intimidating endeavor, but here goes...

you know how you have some deep-seated fears that seem irrational to everybody but you? i think pretty much everybody has one or two. mine is the fear of being misunderstood or "misknown." for the life of me i do not get why i am so scared of people getting the wrong impression of me--i just am. part of it must come from wanting very deeply to be known. i don't want to be missed. i think that's a good thing, that i want to be known. but sometimes that desire paralyzes me. what if people think i'm someone that i'm not? what if they pass judgment about me without really knowing me? what if they decide that i'm not worth knowing after only one or two interactions? scary, huh? like i said, this is a fundamental struggle. that's the bad news.

here's the good news: i'm learning a ton. this is one of those times in my life when i feel like everything is falling together, making sense. it seems like everywhere i look there are clues for where to find freedom and peace. this is one of the reasons i started this journal. there's just so much and it's all in my head! it's so good to get it out there to be heard...and maybe even understood.

in 2 corinthians 6 there are a bunch of prepositions that describe the life of a servant of God, and i think they're starting to describe my life: "in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown." what i love is the first line--in truthful speech and in the power of God. all i can do in order to be known is speak the truth. that's my only responsibility. if i speak the truth, and get arrested for speaking blasphemy, like Jesus did, it will still be acknowledged throughout the universe as truth, though the world rips its garments. dallas willard writes about what he calls the discipline of secrecy: "the frantic efforts of religious personages and groups to advertise and certify themselves is a stunning revelation of their lack of substance and faith. Jesus, surely with some humor, remarked that a city set on a hill cannot be hid. secrecy rightly practiced enables us to place our public relations department entirely in the hands of God, who lit our candles so we could be the light of the world, not so we could hide under a bushel. we allow HIM to decide when our deeds will be known and when our light will be noticed."

i'm calling this the discipline of remaining unknown and i've decided to take it on. i have decided to stop clamoring for attention. i have decided to do good deeds behind closed doors in the hopes that no one will ever know i did them. i have even decided to allow others to misunderstand me. the last one is the hardest. sometimes it feels like my most basic instinct is to do whatever it takes to vindicate myself. it's my flight or fight response. i either run and hide so that no one has the opportunity to misknow me or i spend half my time trying to devise ways to get the real me unquestionably out there. it's not so much fun. so i'm done. or at least i've started being done.

now you might ask what the heck i'm doing starting an online journal. that's hardly the discipline of remaining unknown, is it? hardly. that's what i said. but then i really thought about it. talk about an opportunity to be out of control of what people think! if you misunderstand me, i can't do anything! go ahead, develop a negative opinion of me! i won't even know! completely misread me! i won't be too upset. it'll give me an opportunity to believe God when He tells me that i am fully known, with or without you crazy people. AND! i am a city on a hill. no matter how much you misunderstand me, you can't hide me.

oh yeah, and the other thing is, like i said in the previous entry, i really want you guys to know me. so that's why i started this journal. heh heh. it's all quite complicated, isn't it?

ps. don't worry, i won't tackle such serious topics every time i write, so as not to exhaust you. as proof, i will provide you with some less serious universal truths:
1) any poster that i hang up will invariably fall down everyday...and i'll just keep putting it back up resentfully
2) any grocery line that i push my cart into will invariably stop moving for as long as it takes to make me late for wherever i need to be next

5:41 pm - 11.15.2005

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there's music playing: robbie seay band (it's also raining real hard)

i'm reading: the spirit of the disciplines by dallas willard