i am exiled from the good land

i would summarize god's character as "worthy of imitation"

god is worthy of obedience

and worthy of imitation

what god is like is always "what to be like"

-

we can imagine someone worthy of obedience who is not worthy of imitation

"do as i say, not as i do"

they are wise and right enough, or powerful enough, such that it's a good idea to obey them

but someone is only worthy of imitation when it is good to be like them

god is king of kings and lord of lords, but also exemplar of exemplars

-

if our final destination is to be conformed to the image of the messiah (romans 8:29), and we are instructed to be imitators of god (ephesians 5:1), to imitate people as they imitate the messiah (1 corinthians 11:1), to be complete as our heavenly father is complete (matthew 5:48), and so on, then the character of god is always such that it would be good for us to be like that

if god is angry, it must be an anger worthy of imitation.

if god hates sin, it must be a hatred worthy of imitation.

basically, i am suspicious of the idea that god's ways are not our ways to the point that god's goodness is unrecognizable to us as good - especially because we presume that there are exceptions for god that would be unacceptable for humans

of course i get where that's coming from, but we are also told to be imitators of god

so, again, what god is like is "worthy of imitation"

and there are many portraits and concepts of god which are far from good examples.

i keep coming back to improv

i think it's because improv is this game we can inhabit to embody openness

openness, spontaneity, surrender, attentiveness, and curiosity, rather than an imposed structure of control

that is what is so appealing about saying "yes and." that humour and beauty and joy and something wonderful could come from just being here enough to see what's available to play with - without pre-planning an ideal outcome or a way to get there.

-

however, i've been thinking about a possible counterpart to "yes and"-ing, which is going along

that is, a kind of "yes" without an "and." this is saying yes to every first good idea, jumping onto every bit, leading to incoherence

and directionlessness eventually invites the dream of structure and hierarchy and institutionalization and optimizing.

which may be true

but i think there's something about how rather than needing to say "no," or discerning what to say no to (which is still important, don't get me wrong)

we can be mindful of how there's always multiple things to say "yes, and" to in every offer

like it's not about NOT saying "no" to an offer that seems immediately revulsive and unfunny to you

but about saying "yes" to the other interesting things going on - the other, perhaps more subtle, invitations there

(there's always interesting things going on)

the thing about yin (surrender) and yang (determination)

is that sometimes we deceive ourselves about being in yin,

and we exert as much energy trying to surrender

and lying to ourselves about what we're okay with

as it would have taken to change our circumstances

if we were not so afraid

1. self-compassion is a wide-enough home for all of you to live in.

2. compassion is recursive. you can have compassion on your complete inability to have compassion for yourself.

3. compassion is not primarily about trying to put up with yourself. it is about releasing the stories that tell us we need to be put up with.

love says "it matters that you're around" - and means it

love says "it's good that god made you" - and means it

"Year 1 of Transforming My Yard into a Wildlife Oasis" (link)

"Inside My Flooded Cave Ecosystem (One Year of Growth)" (link)

"How Being 'Hard On Ourselves' Sabotages Long-Term Discipline (And What To Do Instead)

"how to set resolutions"

you are like a plant

"You Can’t Simply Decide to Be a Different Person"

"the way to spend less time on this app is to prepare more interesting sources of interaction and information, and allow your focus to shift automatically" / "btw I think this is the way to get things done in general, using interest, desire, and attraction instead of discipline or self-control" - @ftlsid

maybe you're not actually trying

on being really real:

are minds made of wonder?

"i once met this girl who followed her heart so strongly i was smitten"

a collection of links on nice guy-ism as a defense mechanism:

• https://x.com/eatnik/status/1894688415846674461
• https://x.com/AskYatharth/status/1894544048012013969
• https://x.com/AskYatharth/status/1861225531817238936
• https://x.com/AskYatharth/status/1794256844443291736
• https://x.com/AskYatharth/status/1347305987376443394
• https://x.com/RichDecibels/status/1406910001743073287

interesting bc this is the kind of stuff i'd be more curious about but it really does seem to contradict a lot of my foundational beliefs re: the way of jesus, eschatological/resurrection gender, etc.

gosh im confused

keywords: memetics, psychofauna, social contagion, social construction

Book Review: Crazy Like Us

improv is a kind of forgiveness meditation

improv without forgiveness is impossible

and vice versa

surrendering to unconditional acceptance of reality

some notes on first reformed:

• excellent sound design and pacing. my heart was racing in the last ten minutes. what people might call a "fever-pitch"
• watching this was like looking in a mirror. really helped me reorganise some existing feelings. really helped me see myself from a new angle (as one might see one's side profile for the first time in a changing room).
• still don't really know what i think
• superbly written. superb understanding of these things of christianity. feels very written by an insider. would be surprised if it wasn't.
• the thomas merton reference and its payoff was hard-hitting. again, feels very earned and as if it was carried out by someone with insider knowledge of a very specific kind of spiritual malaise.
• i want to be so grateful for my friends (sam recommended this movie as part of a 140-film letterboxed list they made for me what the heck!)

• most recently: god revealed to me that i was not wholeheartedly willing to live for him. not wholeheartedly willing to listen and obey him. i wanted him to be god but not my god. did i really want to hear his voice? no, because what if i had to obey? i was hoping to get away with a lot of things.
• i've learned a lot about experiencing god as an intimate personal presence in my life. definitely learned in 2024 that i experienced god as an object, and at worse, as an abstract idea for discussion. god (unfortunately, but happily) has intruded into my life and made his presence known. god sees me as "you." god pays attention to me. at every moment, i exist in god's attention.
• thank god for twitter, for h.l. griffin, and for the immanuel approach. really is filling in a lot of gaps in my understanding of prayer and connection with god
• i honestly can't handle shadow work. i hate looking at the ugly parts of myself. i hate feeling like i'm a fake, that i'm a fraud, that everything good about me is a lie covering something uglier. it makes me feel so hopeless. and yet it feels true. i hope i'm not so ugly. but i'm very lucky to learn a lot from IFS, from curious compassion, from heidi priebe, and from immanuel approach about not being afraid. don't be afraid. don't be afraid. god is in it. god is in it.