The Inner Critic

The Inner Critic

(“…one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Ephesians 4:6)

All you ever wanted was to be heard,
to be seen,
to be understood as
simply a boy who wanted to play
under the trees with half a dozen friends
who lived next door.

But you ran away sometimes,
you hid in the garage sometimes between
the musty moving boxes filled with photography
magazines.
You ate the candy you bought from the neighborhood store.
There, with a home-made crystal radio plugged into your ear
you heard
“Stop in the Name of Love” for
the very first time.

You knew you would be found,
you knew you couldn’t wait it out past
supper time. You wished you were
somewhere else where moods were quieter,
where
you knew how to build a playhouse out of
wood scraps from the back yard.
Or how to make a paper kite from yesterday’s
Herald Examiner.
Or were smart enough to know when to cry.

One day you started away toward downtown,
a half mile from home,
six blocks south where you bought your first
walkie-talkies that barely worked a block apart.
You dropped your bag filled with coins you had
saved since
Christmas and walked home to try them out
with your brother.
Nothing ever was as good as you hoped.

You made robots out of tin cans and pipe cleaners,
models of the San Gabriel mission out of shoe boxes,
and read encyclopedia articles randomly.

The voice you liked the least was the one
that critiqued everything you tried. It was
not your father’s nor your mother’s nor even
the voice of the principal at school. It was your
own
that scolded you, that told you how short you
fell below the norm. Even getting straight As
could not silence it.

The voice chased you, didn’t it, right past
the age when you married, had kids, and then beyond
the day when the last left home. And you tried
everything to make life sing the way you had
read about in those Faith Magazines.

Nearly 70 now, not 7, you rummaged through
storage boxes in the garage and drank a glass of
wine midafternoon. Some days the critic is
silenced while the divine soothes the DNA
that it damaged with its harangue demanding
perfection. The critic needed to

Feel loved too.

Silence Sits Like a Scornful Goddess

 

Silence Sits Like a Scornful Goddess

(“Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” John 6:27a)

Silence sits like a scornful goddess
laughing at the loneliness that invades
uneven thoughts.
When the center is wound tight like
a yoyo string, others watch
as the moods rise and fall
at the whim of the hand that controls
its flight.

Music fills the cavities, smooths
the breaks,
but never makes up for the lack
of conversation.

Silence mocks the inner craving
for more than a day without pain.
Rings on the fingers are reminders,
amulets around the neck,
but they are less than the invisible
waves of familiar voices between
sips of beer and messy tacos.

But the moment one friend captures
the threaded wander of the tears
no one else can see

Is the moment songs are restored,
hands warmed,
and words connect with words
to mean more than their sounds.

Smile on Us

Smile on Us

“O God, restore us! Smile on us! Then we will be delivered!” Psalm 80:3

Whose smile are you missing today? Perhaps the brightness of a loved one who passed away? Perhaps a friend, still living, whom you have not seen for far too long? My mother had one of the biggest smiles in the world. It helped, I suppose, that her mouth spread across half her face. And, when she smiled…she smiled full throttle. Her eyes would sparkle, the corners of her mouth stretching nearly ear to ear revealed her teeth in unabashed display. If you caught her in one of those moments, you knew the world was right again.

Perhaps the reason my mother’s smile meant so much is that, as her child, I longed for her approval. You rarely needed to ask her what she was feeling; it was written across her face. All of us want esteem and support from the important people in our lives.

There are times when our hearts wane in our love for Christ. In one sense, that is to be expected. We are humans with normal emotions that can rise and fall with the events of the day or the current chemical makeup in our brains. But, when a long season sets in where we are complacent in our longings for Him, we need to pray as the Psalmist does here.

“O God, restore us!” There is an admission here that, left to ourselves, we would continue in the doldrums. The Psalmist does not say, “Here I come…running back to you,” as good as that impulse would be. He recognizes the need for the inner spark that only God Himself can provide.

Don’t misunderstand this. If you need someone’s help to ignite a burn pile, for instance, you don’t call on them to help, and then drench your pile of branches with water just before your friend arrives. You put yourself in the best position possible to respond to their promised help.

So it is when our interests in God’s good gift in Christ has waned. We do well to cry out, “Restore me!” But then we must awaken our own lagging passions. Even the slightest movement back toward God is received from Him as love itself. The Prodigal Son, after spending all his father’s inheritance on selfish pleasures, finally decides to go back home because he can at least get a good meal there.

We cannot judge how pure the son’s confession was. But, we do know that when the father saw his son coming up the driveway he rushed from the front porch and hugged him close, before the son ever confessed a thing.

God doesn’t want us cringing when we grow spiritually drowsy. Even if our life with Him has become completely lazy, His greatest desire is to welcome us back our home with Him. That is why the Psalmist asks for God’s smile.

When we are distant from Him life becomes frightening and full of danger in our minds. We pray, “How long will you remain angry at your people while they pray to you?” (verse 4) When we are not assured of God’s love and protection, then every difficulty seems like evidence that He no longer cares. When we should see His smile, we see His frown.

In some ways it may be true that God withdraws from us at times when we are in the doldrums. But, if He does, it is only to allow our hearts to long for Him anew. He is not punishing, but He is letting us know the hollowness of life without experiencing His constant presence. If His momentary “absence” causes us to arise and ask for Him to restore us again, then we delight in the reunion with our Beloved.

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge a bit of spiritual slumber. The disciples fell asleep at Jesus’ darkest hour, right? You’re in good company. Jesus asked them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you won’t be tested.” Get up, ask Him to restore you and seek His smile again.

The Psalmist knew the Lord was his only hope for being “delivered”. Believe me, I know the forces that can keep us from taking the first simple spiritual restoration. Chronic pain is a barrier that can dull not only physical and emotional senses, but spiritual ones as well. I have learned (or am learning) the necessity of the constant cry, “O God, restore me!” That is one prayer He always answers.

Find His smile again. Do what you did when you first knew His love. Begin again, you will find Him as gracious as ever. You will find Him strong enough to bear your weakness.