What is scary to you about the prospect of going underneath the water line? Doing it with someone else?
What is exciting about the prospect of going undernath the water line? Doing it with someone esle?
Which aspect of the maturity assessment, in the category of underneath the waterline, would you like to dig into a little more fully. Any parts that you don't understand.
Your responses can be from the book, workbook, sermon, etc...
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5 comments:
I know God loves me as I am, but I fear HUMAN rejection or judgment more than anything. I can gloss over most people's opinion of me, but if I really respect someone, I need to know they "approve" of me. Don't know why it's so important other than maybe it's from the family of origin stuff - parental approval - always illusive.
Re: Patricia
Sometimes I find it difficult to expereince what I know to be God loving me when I am expereicnign rejection and judments from others (real or percieved).
It always amazes me how easy it is to lose track of something great when there is something relatively small that is contradicting or challenging in my life what I know to be true in me head.
I read this quote this morning and feel like it expresses very well my longing to live underneath the waterline in community, not just in my joural or prayer life.
I think it also hits on a big frustration/disapointment I have with church, small groups, friendship, etc..(not as "The Pastor", but as a underneath the waterline community seeker).
I think (hope) that most people want to expereince this, but very few actually connect beyond the surface. Longing for it, sometimes tasting it, almost always iniating it seems to make me more lonely than not, because it amps up the expectations.
"Ubuntu is the essence of being human [...] we say a person is a person through other persons. You can't be a human in isolation. You are human only in relationships. [...] So we say that 'I need you to be all of who you are in order for me to be all that I am.' Because no human being is totally self-sufficient. In fact, a self-sufficient human being is subhuman." [...] If you want to be human, we are not going to be able to be human in isolation. It will be that we are human together."
- Desmond Tutu
Maybe i keep myself too protected, but i find when i am actually going under the water line with the people i choice, usually there is no risk. Then again i do a good job at scanning who it is safe to go under the waterline with, so i guess maybe i am not faily answering the question.
That to say under the water line is almost always a good time, even when it is "hard" to understand deeper things about myself, in a short amount of time i am grateful for the value of it.
I came across a quote from Henri Nouwen from his journal,"Not being welcome is your greatest fear." That pretty much nails it for me. How often do we often enter a room of strangers and want to feel welcome, but aren't positive we will be. Being emotionally naked before God can be difficult, but doing that with others requires a lot of trust in them, and the self-confidence that you can deal with your own reactions however they respond.
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