Pecking away at truth

“Ultimately, love is all that matters and is the only thing that's real.”

“You can't ever truly listen to another person and do anything else at the same time.”

“It is only because of what often seems like unsolvable problems that we grow mentally and spiritually.”

“We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often 'Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.'”

“Until you truly value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything genuinely useful with it.”

“The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.”

“Life is impossibly difficult. This is the great truth, one of the greatest truths—it is a great truth because once we see this truth, we transcend it.”

“We cannot let another person into our hearts or minds unless we empty ourselves. We can truly listen to him or truly hear her only out of emptiness.”

"Problems do not go away by themselves. They must be faced honestly and transcended or else they remain or repeat, forever a barrier to the growth and development of the spirit."

-- M. Scott Peck

Yesterday at Love Machine, M. Scott Peck came up on more than a few occasions, and I had such vivid memories of some of his brilliant insight and wisdom, and then I received a few S.O.S. messages last night that I just woke up to this morning that seemed to be custom designed, practically searching for some of this wisdom, so here it is.

The dynamics which make up our daily life are quite simple. We will have problems with each other and ourselves. These are all to be expected - in fact, they are necessary. We must face these problems head on, and wrestle with our deepest fears about ourselves, fighting through the very natural blaming, hurting, and rejecting of each other, and this will help us grow and mature. If we accept the process, we can find peace, even in our ongoing growth and transformation, and if we don't, we can always choose painful "stuckness." Ultimately, the goal is to get to the bottom of ourselves, where we can completely empty ourselves out to meet God and Jesus, and to let Him and him show us the way, to light the way, to lead the way, especially to be the way in our genuine and compassionate connection with others. There are no "short-cuts." There are no easy answers and quick fixes. The path is hard, and few take it. Mystery is way too mind-boggling for the masses. Most want management and mastery instead. There is no help for that. You must let it go to live and love. Love is real. Our stories, distractions, and defenses are not. We must let the mystery of it have us. We don't want to. We are addicted to our stories, our frustrations, and our drama.


But let go we must, or we die way before we die.

As Heather's birthday weekend approaches, my spirit is Soren

"It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey." (Yes, we can be a defiant, rebellious lot.)

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom waiting to be snatched." (It is an invitation, not a punishment or threat.)

"Love is all; it gives all, and it takes all. Love does not alter the beloved in its pouring out; it alters itself and grows."

"It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important. The hard part is discerning this." (unless you're a child; then its easy - see below)

"It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his deepest desire by intentionally passing through (vs. avoiding, circumventing, or denying) its opposite." (Yes, as adults, we so often must make fools of ourselves before arriving at our desired destination, and we're damn good at it.)

-- all of the above by Soren Kierkegaard

And it's not really that hard, Soren, - in fact, it's often child's play, or should I say child's artistry, if you're lucky enough to have a brilliant little child available to teach you. And, man, is my little Heather (who turns 6 on Sunday) really available. She brings obedience (to God, if not always to me), freedom (to my anxiety), life- and love-altering love that grows and grows, powerful discernment of what's really significant and important, and she frequently and so patiently walks me through the opposite of love (on my part) to get to it. She brings the whole package, in mind-blowing simplicity.

Let me give you an example of what I mean:

Last night I was laying with Heather in her bunk bed, helping her fall asleep, and she kept fidgeting around endlessly, and I finally said, "Heather, will you please stop fidgeting." She said, "But Dad, that's the way God made me, with lots of energy that needs to wind down." I smiled and said, "OK, I will try to be patient." She then said, as she gently patted my chest, and this is the part that really blew me away, "Just be as patient as you can, Dad, and that will be good enough, and I will love you even after your patience runs out. But my love for you will never run out, no matter what, even when you send me to my room. I will always love you."

Lesson received, Heather, as my spirit is Soren.

"The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught by it. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you."

-- Soren Kierkegaard



Yes, she most definitely catches me in truth's snare, and I am delighted to keep being caught by it.

Recognizing the voice and nature of truth

Yes, friends, there are 20 quotes here, all about truth, and they are truly priceless, and they are offered as a tribute to those of you out there in search of truth - on a courageous and dedicated journey of truth in your life - knowing that it is a treacherous trip, to be sure, that many often claim to be on, but few actually take seriously, willing to risk everything in pursuit. This is in honor of the true "seekers" and "takers of that journey," wherever you are. I love you and walk with you every step of the way, crying and laughing at both the holiness and utter ridiculousness of the ride, and I can be with both. Enjoy! This is juicy stuff!


"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end, but only after a long, hard, dangerous journey; if you look for comfort and security, you will not find comfort, security, or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, total despair."

-- C.S. Lewis

"It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to search for and one day discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of harsh, unrelenting opposition, to stand up for it before it is clearly perceived by the many."

-- A. A. Hodge

"It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depths, where few are willing to search for it."

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it; ignorance may deride it; but in the end, there it remains."

-- Winston Churchill

"In order to be effective, truth must penetrate through lies like an arrow - and that is likely to hurt."

-- Posthumous Pieces by Wei Wu Wei

"The truth; it is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."

-- Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

"Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers."

-- George Prentice

"No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of some profound truth."

-- Francis Bacon

"I give you bitter pills with sugar coating. The pills are harmless; the poison is in the sugar."

-- Stanislaw Lec

"Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend."

-- Rabindranath Tagore

"Unthinking respect for human, intellectual authority is the greatest enemy of truth."

-- Albert Einstein

"Pretty much all the honest truth-telling there is in the world is done by children."

-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."

-- Josh Billings

"The voice of truth is easily known; it is quiet, relentless, undemanding."

-- Anonymous

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."

-- George Orwell

"Lies, however numerous, will be caught by truth when it rises up."

-- Anonymous

"The language of truth is unadorned and always simple."

-- Marcellinus Ammianus

"From error to error, one discovers the entire truth."

-- Sigmund Freud

"Everything you add to the truth subtracts from it."

-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few."

-- George Berkeley

Helping the young "warriors," "wenches," "wrestlers," and "writhers" out there effectively wrestle truth from within themselves

I saw the movie, "The Wrestler," last night, and OMG!!! It depicted the wrestling version of what I could have easily ended up like in the business world (like the used-up old salesman, Willy Loman, in the 1949 Arthur Miller play, "Death of a Salesman," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Salesman), had I continued on the track I was on. I was so moved by the film, and by Mickey Rourke's brilliant performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, that it inspired this search for related material, and this amazing find, of some incredible pearls of wisdom (take your time with these; they are a real blast) as it relates to the brutal inner battles I have faced and that I am now supporting out there on behalf of all the "still hinges within" (see last quote below). I am a bold, relentless stand that all self-destruction cease and desist, knowing that that stand will more often than not NOT be heeded, and that it really can't, and that my job is not to make people heed it, but to heed it myself.

"The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self, can occur very quietly in this world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed."

-- The Sickness Unto Death

"You know, if you live hard and you play hard and you burn the candle at both ends, you pay the price for it in the end. You know, in this life, you can lose everything you love, and everything that loves you."

-- Randy "The Ram" Robinson (played brilliantly by Mickey Rourke), in the amazing movie, "The Wrestler"

"There are at least two kinds of cowards. One kind always lives within himself, afraid to face the world. The other kind always lives out there with the world, afraid to face himself."

-- Roscoe Snowden

"The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us."

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

"People wish to be comfortably settled: only as far as they are uncomfortably unsettled is there any hope for them."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, 1841

"The only man we have any respect for, is he who uses all the endowment he has, and uses it until he bleeds."

-- Martin H. Fischer

"Each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against ourselves."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr., in Strength to Love, 1963

"The finest thing in all the world is knowing how to fully belong to oneself and one's Maker."

-- Michel de Montaigne, in Of Solitude

Self-destruction and self-enlargement are the effects of cowardice in the highest extreme."

-- Daniel Defoe

"It's not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it's not possible to find it elsewhere."

-- Agnes Repplier

"Almost always it is the fear of being fully ourselves that brings us to the mirror."

-- Antonio Porchia, in Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

"The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge."

-- Eckhart

We are all equally embattled, can often be equally embittered, and now can be equally emboldened. I am thrilled to be "the mirror" and the reminder of each person's "still hinge," cupped in the hands of God.