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I went to a BBQ out on a farm this weekend and had a great time. They had a couple of horses and I took one for a ride. I’m not much of a rider yet, and can count the number of times I’ve ridden on two hands, but I do love it.

Horses are beautiful, beautiful animals. The coolest part is that of all the horses I’ve ridden, each one has a unique personality, style, likes/dislikes, and temperament.

Recently I was talking with a good friend about what has so captured and enamored me about horseback riding since I started about a year or so ago. One of the difficult things for me in CPE and life in general is to just live through and let my emotions really speak to me. To live my emotions and not just ‘work through’ them. There is always a fear that one’s emotions can get the best of you – anger, tears, or attractions might overpower you and make you do things you shouldn’t.

Now there are plenty of people in the world that this is true of – and they need to learn how to use their heads when encountering the power of their emotions. But for others, it’s the other problem – we live shallowly because we do not let our emotions really speak to us. I’ve learned this at CPE as the power of others emotions can wash over and into you – and you share in that place with them. This experience is what I think about each time I ride a horse.  When I saddle up and get on, I marvel at the wonder of it. Here I am on an animal that is a 1000 times stronger than I.  It could throw me, run off with me, or just do whatever it wants in general. Yet, it chooses to follow my lead – within its own temperaments of course.  As you travel through the terrain, horses subtly pick out their own footings and paths. You can direct him, give encouragement and reprimands as needed – yet he is really the power that takes you where you’re going. There is a gentle surrendering of the details to the power of the riding that will get you there. I have begun to see my own emotions that way. If I learn to let them be the power that I ride – to let them just be – I live life so much more fully. It brings so much more richness to my relationships, friendships, and living of each moment.

While there is some fear that my emotions might get the best of me, one of the other supervisors told a couple of us: “Don’t worry. You’re so in control in your head, you’ve got a long way to go before you’d go overboard. So just let it go for a while. You’ll learn the edges in time.”

Time to go riding

The Myers-Briggs personality profile test is probably one of the most widely known and used tests.  One of it’s 4 metrics is I(ntroverted) vs. E(xtroverted).  It may not come as too much of a shock that I come out very I(ntroverted).

I always saw this as meaning that introverted people didn’t enjoy being around other people but preferred to be solitary. I have recently learned that this anti-social trait is not what this metric points to at all. Instead, it simply means that one processes emotionally/mentally/spiritually what is happening to them in an internal way (internal dialog with the self vs working it out with others).  It doesn’t mean that the person is in any way anti-social. In fact, a person could be a very big people-person; yet be extremely introverted. Even more interesting is the realization that the commonly understood anti-social aspect is actually an unhealthy expression of introvertedness if one is too solitary or feels alone in their emotional/mental/spiritual work or lack good social skills.

Being afraid of others, afraid of risk in relationships, desiring to escape into controlled worlds of our own making (addictions to computer games, pornography, alcohol, and many others are good examples), afraid of socializing, or adversity to other people isn’t suppose to be what an introverted person is at all. I realized this because I recently met a very integrated and healthy introverted person in my work here at the hospital.  What surprised me about this person was that he is a very public minister of almost 20 years; yet is extremely introverted – probably more so than me. Yet, he saw that introvertedness as a tool for his work with himself, his family, and the people he met; not a hindrance. For him, understanding his own introvertedness allowed him to help others process how tragedy, joy, hope, or fear felt or worked internally on a person. He could very accurately and amazingly zero right in on what sorts of things were going on inside himself and others when they were going through all kinds of life-changing events (both good and bad) by how it was affecting the internal workings of the person (mind/emotions).

When we go through a difficult time; sometimes emotions can well up and overwhelm us for what seems to be no real reason. Other times, we have an experience that rocks our life – to the point we can’t work or eat or sleep – but we don’t know why we are in that state – or how to process or recognize the emotions that are underneath it. What this guy showed me, what healthy, integrated introverted people can bring, is how one can make sense of life events by being very attuned to the internal state(s) these events bring.  Yet are mature enough not to become slaves to those internal states. It helps them recognize when things are happening to them or others from an internal psychological/emotional/spiritual standpoint and then process through them. This is in contrast to extroverts who might have the same experiences but can only work them out in the interactions and in the context of other people. Both are equally healthy and functional ways of processing what happens in our lives.  Yet, both methods are simply the starting points of our natures.  If one simply stays in those modes (introverted people who pull into self-centeredness/away from necessary and healthy relationships with others or extroverted people who losing their personal responsibility for actions or identity by always referring it to others), it becomes unhealthy and destructive.

Which one are you? How do you processes what happens in your life? Have you really become healthy and integrated in that expression? Can you step beyond your initial tendency to embrace to the larger reality of how that is just the first step in a two-part process

I’ve been reflecting on, and becoming more aware of, probably the most missed element of Christianity – it’s communal and unitive half.  The way we REALLY achieve human/societal/global/country and community unity.

Christians (especially American Christians) see their faith in a heavily personally/individual fulfilling/transforming/relational reality.  Witness the more modern rise of the phrase: “Have you accepted Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?”.  And while this is a good question, it is only half the reality of Christianity.  We must remember that Christianity and God constantly break through our assumptions and God explodes into our lives with a reality that constantly challenges and stretches us to re-frame our understanding of God, the world, and ourselves.  If we are not experiencing this constant reframing and being challenged to accept a new depth of understanding of God, ourselves, and our roles for each other – we haven’t really begun our life of faith.  It gets called ‘dying to self’, ‘total transformation of self into the eyes of Christ’ and many others – but this is what it really means.

If our encounter with our faith isn’t like this – we aren’t really experiencing faith but something else…  But back to my point.  I’ve realized that it is really part of God’s plan that our life as Christians and our personal salvation is an inherently LINKED reality.  We are not meant to find fulfillment or salvation on our own.  That is why we have the Church – which tradition has long called her the mother or the womb from which Christians are nurtured and born.  Jesus came and set an economy of salvation into order.  While he did come down to earth in a finite form and a short span of years – and also enters our lives and hearts in a real way – he set up an economy of salvation that he desires to work through, and requires us to have families, parents, relationships, societies, churches, elders, popes, priests and prophets to help the body grow and develop.  He wants us to all be participants in his plan of salvation.  This means that if we are flying ‘solo’ in our faith life; we are missing much of what God is trying to teach us through others.

This what I’m finding in things like my CPE assignment.  We encounter the explosion of Christ into the world through the written words of the Gospel for sure, but we must also see the Christ trying to come out of each person and learn from the Christ present in what his current disciples have learned.  While imperfect, if we do not, can not, or are too stubbornly independent to rely on, share with, and learn from other Christians (and non Christians!) and have them rely on us, we will miss the very real and unitive element of Christianity that carries us beyond our own myopia of self-centered faith.  It is only when we are in relationship with the Christ in others, and they in relationship with the Christ in us, each helping that image of truth and reality become more and more whole that we can ever hope to become one mind and heart.

I always try to remember that in heaven I will live in perfect unity with all those around me that make it there too – even the ones I don’t agree with right now – and heaven is not a reality that will be some big surprise; but should be the kind of kingdom of God we are living and bringing about now.

One of the interesting reflections that has really been sitting with me is on the kind of world we live in.  I realized that up until this point, I always just looked at the world as a machine or something ‘out there’ which I’ll just have to manage in.  Now, I’m beginning to see how as my generation gets into their prime working days, we actually ARE the world.  We are the ones defining policies and setting moral standards at work, government, etc.  My individual decisions on how to live my life now set the stage for others.  If I choose to promote being a selfish b*stard, then I have just created a part of the world that way.  All those that interact with me will experience that – but if I selflessly give of myself, then a part of the world really becomes that.  You ARE now the world my children, what will you choose to do with it?  It’s a great impetus to action and responsibility.  The world is exactly what we make of it what did I help make it today?