Ah-Ha! Fleeting moments of Wisdom

"Ah-ha! Now I have more questions..."

I've no understanding of the concept of wisdom, as far as I can tell. I've heard it used in ways that make  me feel, "Ah-ha!" But never in ways that make me think, "Ah-ha! Now I understand!"

I was drinking a Yogi Tea the other day with some friends. Yogi®  writes inspirational quotes on the string paper, and we enjoy reading them. The ceremony goes: talk and laugh until the tea has cooled enough to sip. Only after taking a sip, may the quote be read. Once read silently, it should then be read aloud and discussed.

On this particular day, my quote was "Wisdom becomes knowledge when it is personal experience."

Ah-ha! Now I have more questions and feel further from understanding. Excellent.

Knowledge has never been the real focus of my pursuits. Nor has wisdom. I want understanding. I'll spend hours, weeks, researching and gathering knowledge if it will lead to understanding. But once discovered, it's the understanding that sticks with me, not the knowledge. (This has a tendency of making it difficult to share that understanding with others, I'll say.)

I'll spend an entire summer skateboarding, but once I understand the mechanics, I lose interest. I've spent years practicing latte art; now that I understand it, I am bored. I don't seek to perfect the skills, only practice until my mind grasps them.

Are these practices wise? I'm thinking not.

There's a correlation between knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. There's also a contrast. The urge to pursue these contrasts and correlations has been growing. I need to understand them, because I want to understand wisdom. Thus, I share the rest of this post not because I necessarily want you to read it, but because it's a piece to the puzzle that, to ignore, would lead me to incomplete understanding.

Fleshbook Facelift

I have been on the verge of deactivating my Facebook account. If I weren't in the midst of some awesome conversations, I would do so. A series of reasons have urged me to keep it. Contact with distant friends and family. The teaching, revelation and conversation I get from the friendships I've found there (Click here for some examples).

Recently the desire to deactivate has been growing. And I've started telling myself to keep it, if only to promote my blog. Papa has spoken to me directly, three times now, on the issue of self-promotion. First was a suggestion to stop checking my page views. I get curious. I want to know if people are reading. I get motivated to write more when I see people are reading more. And therein lies the heart of Papa's suggestion, I believe. I don't ever want to alter my content in order to gain or maintain viewership. This is the same as a pastor altering her message to please (sometimes conversely, to chasten) her congregation, a reason I've quit following teachings in the past.

The second time was to reveal to me the issue I was facing, because I hadn't been aware of an issue at all. I knew what I didn't want to do - cater to crowds at the expense of truth and honesty - and figured that was enough to prevent myself from doing it. What I didn't realize is I was laying the groundwork to do just that, and could very well wind up on a soapbox I didn't know I'd built.

Why aren't you checking your pageviews? Papa asked.

I am trusting that if anyone will benefit from my writing, Papa, you will provide them with it.

I do not need to promote myself. Doing so is an act of mistrust. (Personal revelation, with various factors contributing. I don't suggest this is the case for everyone!)

When I allow my writing to be altered by fear of a negative reaction from a reader, even for a brief moment, I am allowing pride, doubt, vanity, and a host of other demonic forces to influence me. Not good. Not my goal. The third time Papa spoke was today, through the following Fleshbook post from Praying Medic. For me, it was confirmation that I can trust Papa with this blog. I do not need to self-promote. Papa is my provider. He will provide for both reader and writer. This is good news, because it speaks into a slew of other areas in my life. (It also confirms several aspects of our conversation that would simply be a repeat of Medic's note were I to share. But dang, this is  a good note.)

Fleshbook Weekly

Pete*, a regular customer and friend from my coffee shop, has had some life-shifting God encounters recently. I will be sharing his stories once Papa gives me the green light, so I won't go into detail now. However, he and I had a conversation yesterday that provides an added layer of relevance to both this edition of Fleshbook Weekly, and Pete's growing list of encounters.

"You told me God was going to reveal Himself to me in ways I could never imagine," Pete told me as I sat down.

A hive kept by Craig Adams, whose bee keeping practices
are as Spirit inspired as his Facebooking. (click for more)

"Now that you mention it, I remember saying something along those lines," I replied. I'd said it during a conversation we'd shared with Winter, which was the first of several of its kind to come after it. The discussion was full of stories and prayer, so the particular sentence that stuck with Pete hadn't really stuck with me. Funny how God speaks to and through us without our awareness sometimes.            

"Right, well I'm not quoting you perfectly accurate, but that's the gist of it. And I laughed then, but that's exactly what's happening." We both laughed. Pete's disbelief was not unmerited; his history with religion is a painful one, and the claims Winter and I made were bold at the least. I remember telling God afterward, look Papa, we spoke way too boldly for you not to back us up.

"I bought a Bible," Pete continued. "I've even been reading it. I feel like I owe you guys that much."

"Is it any different this time around?" I asked.

"Not really, to be honest. Still pretty boring. But I'm doing it because I feel like I should."

Fleshbook Weekly

Technically, the meat of this edition of Fleshbook Weekly is actually a post on a friend's blog, The Pilgrimgram. This friend, who goes by Nor'West Prophetic on Fleshbook, shared a link to the post today, though it was written in 2007.

Interesting that Nor'West found it pertinent to repost today. In fact, it wasn't until a touch of research that I even noticed the post's age. As I read, I heard echoes of conversations Papa and I have been having over the past week about the vitality of community, provision and giving. I've got drafts in the works for upcoming posts on these very subjects. They're still drafts because I'm waiting for the right conversation with Papa to call them good. The post Nor'West shared strikes me as a significant element of that conversations.

Without further ado, click to read "Spend the Oil."

Fleshbook Weekly

I've had a startling and liberating realization recently: Facebook is the closest thing to organized church that I regularly "attend." For this reason, I've decided that I will share an insight my Facebook friends have led me to each week. The series shall be titled "Fleshbook Weekly." (If "Fleshbook" makes you say huh? here is something sort of like an answer.)

I participate in enough spirit-filled groups and follow the updates of enough spirit-filled folks, that any time I need an easy drink of milk, I can log in and find someone whose got one poured and chilling for me. Yesterday, a post in The Spirit World*, a group that consistently and intensively discusses off-the-wall topics like translocation and levitation, provided a link to the podcast below. 

Talk about milk. Ian Clayton, speaking from the Courts and Government Conference 2012 in Wales, hit on just about every key word Papa has spoken to me about in the past month. Divine rest, and praying into violent, threatening weather systems, have been on my mind a lot. "Rest means total tranquility in the midst of chaos," Clayton says."...Jesus had dominion over weather because he was functioning out of rest." He connects the two concepts as though they were never separate.

 "Everything must come out of rest. If it's done out of striving, and out of the work of your hands, then it will fall. Because what you do is finite. What He does is infinite." Bam. Fresh perspective, new insight, writing material, and a completely refreshed and rested mind. And I got it all while practicing yoga in my room.

Fleshbook: my daily Church experience

Have you every heard Facebook referred to vehemently as "Fleshbook?" Generally I hear the term used by religious folk who think they're cleverly reaching a lost generation by using their own technological vices against them. 

If I sound irritable or judgmental, I honestly don't mean to. I'm deeply discontent, though, with Christ's followers claiming places, activities, technologies, etc. as negative and thus to be avoided. Negativity is not a fruit of the Spirit, therefore not from God. If we're claiming something as negative, we're not claiming it for the Kingdom, folks. We're claiming it for that devilishly cunning Satan.

Nothing we see as "dark," for whatever the reason, should remain dark after we've seen it. Sure, Facebook provides a forum for people to share in vanity. To post fleshy pictures to see how many thumbs-up can be accumulated. To update the world on how many beers were consumed last night. 

Fleshbook: Whose Kingdom claims it? 

Facebook is also a place alive and teeming with Holy Spirit revelation, prophesy, encouragement. Healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the poor - these are all topics of dedication for various groups I've joined on "Fleshbook."

Come to think of it, if Church is the body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12. Particularly 12:12-end), perhaps Fleshbook is a perfectly accurate description for my daily social experience on the website. 

Case and point - a link to one of the more brief but Spirit filled-to-overflowing conversations I've had with a Fleshbook friend: That Poverty Spirit, by Passion Scribe Lyriic