Matt's Homepage

An amazing project: Postsecret.

People write a secret on a postcard, a secret they have never told anyone, and mail it to this guy who puts them on his website.  They are amazing and extremely revealing about what people are carrying around with them.  Sometimes they are happy things, but often they are secrets and problems that are really are destroying them.

One of the most amazing things of being here at the seminary (but is true of the church universal) is that we are in a ‘hospital for souls’.  I can say that I have uncovered and pulled up all kinds of things from my own past that I’d never told anyone or realized were affecting my decisions.  The worst part about mistakes, tragedies, and pain from our past is that until they find healing, we become trapped under their weight and influence.  They secretly and subtly influence our decision making and loving others.

We are not really free in our life until we have found some peace and healing with them.  As I was examining my own freedom and how my own life is going, I got exposed to theosophic prayer – which is a way of bringing Christ into our pasts and help heal those things that we still blame ourselves for or have trouble letting go of.  It is interesting that Christ is present not only today, but through all time.  He can, and is, and was present for all the things that happened in our life.  He is willing to journey to those places with us now that we are ready to receive the healing from those events of our past.  It’s been an amazing experience of growth and healing that I’m still journeying through.

It’s just fascinating that in a modern world where we deny religion and God, people still have a craving for the very things that confession provides.

Here I sit at almost 9pm at night.  I have three essay questions to write and prepare, and at least 2 chapters of a book to read – all for a midterm tomorrow morning.  Next week is spring break.  If I can only…just…make…it…before…I…expire…. <gasp>

I was just reflecting on how many people talk about their “needs” in relationships.

As I discern my own calling, I realize more and more that love is never about my needs.  I and we all have needs, but it is only Christ that could or does fills all the hopes of my heart.  My life is about how that wholeness that Christ creates in me allows me to freely give the gift of myself to others however they need me and not need anything in return.

Dante, the author of the famous books Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, was madly, and for most of his life, in love with a woman who scolded him that he needed to have full love for God before love of her.  One cannot love, enter a vocation, or marriage until one is free to live without it as well.  Real loving is a gift of self that pours out from abundance, not need or obligation.  If we do not get to love someone or something with this understanding (because circumstances prohibit it) it may hurt, but not more than just disappointment that you are not able to give yourself in that way.  Paul tells us that love never seeks itself or its own interests.  But to love in this way requires that we are totally rooted and free of ‘needing’ something from others – that all our identity is already fulfilled in following Christ.

My 30th birthday is coming up next week. This Saturday (Mar 5th) I’ll be having a little gathering in Portland to eat and share this great milestone. Please email me if you’d like details.

In other news, I’ll be putting up the hacking of my ebay account a year ago and the amazing fun I had tracking the guy down. We ended up getting things squared away and contacting his ISP before he could get his grubby mitts on anything. But the amazing script work and process he used was very informative. I’ll be putting the story and the email/logs I collected up soon.