Less Noble

Sometimes I read why writers write, or why bloggers blog, or why people publicly share their stories.

Recently, I've read (again) that people share to warn others, to help others, to inspire others.

In one piece I recently read regarding the why and how-to of memoir, the author went into the reasons for memoir...one of the main reasons being to teach lessons of life, or something to that effect.

Huh? Is that one of the main reasons to write memoir? If so, I'm obviously an outsider.

I understand that learning about life lessons can be a result of reading memoir. But it's not why I read memoir; nor it is why I choose to share parts of my story publicly.

I didn't read further in the article; I was already turned off.

I don't blog to necessarily teach.
I don't blog to necessarily warn.
I don't blog for some noble or altruistic motive.

Why do I blog? I've asked myself that questions thousands(?) of times.

I write because, at least for now and for past decades, writing is like breathing to me. I attribute journaling to having a profound influence in my life.

But journaling is private; it is not for public eyes.

Why do I now make many of my pennings public on a couple little-known blogs among millions?

As I've written in other blog posts, the answers are multifaceted.

This morning in my blog search box, I typed "why do i blog?" and clicked "Go!" That was a vain attempt; I quit counting the results at 50-something blog posts that showed up.

To quote a few snippets from a few past various blog-posts dribblings...

• "...One facet, currently, and perhaps the main facet, is to give voice and (dare I add) to find my voice...whatever that exactly means at any given moment...Why do I like the color purple? Why do I like chocolate?"
• "Is it a selfish act that I speak out loud? Is it a selfish act to write out loud?...Perhaps part of my coming forward has to do with the deafening silence from the places beyond me of which I have no control..."
• "...Again, I find myself back at the same question I have asked myself 1000 times. Why do I blog? Why do I put my inner thoughts on public display? Why does an artist display their art for others eyes to see, ears to hear, hands to touch?...What an ugly world it would be if we chose to not be."
• "...Sometimes I want to shout with all my lungs can muster, 'Don't hold me down!' And then quietly state, 'Let me be me.'...What I write may not be popular. What I write may sound unreal. What I write may bore someone to tears. It doesn't matter. It's my story. For me to write is part of my life. I cannot hide it in my journals and in secret places anymore."
• "I was thinking last night that perhaps I am "done." Perhaps I am done writing....But what then would I do? I thought I had so much to write about. My doubts are currently high. Not that they were low before. I have continually struggled with the gremlins in my head telling me I make things up and questioning my motives as to why I write what I write."
• "... Whatever is written and read, the reader interprets as the reader will. The reader brings their life experiences with them to the page....Why do I, Carol, write publicly?... This is something I come back to again and again. If I were to create, design, display a poem or a piece of music or work of art - why do I put in on display? That would be a good question for any artist, would it not?..."

But today Carol, why do you question this again? To that I have an answer.

Because I again read someone's reasons for public writing which are to teach and educate and share life lessons.
And I then feel my reasons are less noble.
And they probably are.
And that is okay.

Sympathizers

I'm not big on reading celebrity tabloids. When I do read them, as well as other events that make the news, I often think about the millions of untold stories that never make public news. An example: when I read about shootings, I often think about the young boy or girl shot down on an inner city street that day. I feel sure it must happen on a daily basis, but the victims or event are not newsworthy; so we don't read or hear about the event. (I realize not every shooting can make the mass media news, but that makes the little-known shooting no less significant to the surviving family and friends.)

On February 1, Dylan Farrow published an open letter stating her adoptive father, Woody Allen, had sexually molested her when she was a child. Prior to reading that letter, I had heard somewhere along the way tidbits about the abuse allegations which first came out toward the mid-90s. Other than that, I was ignorant.

The open letter got my attention. It is well written. It is sincere. It is direct. The letter makes one nauseous that such heinous acts occur and that they go unpunished.

A few of my thoughts after I read the letter and feeling sick to my stomach...
God, what a horrible thing to live through.
To come forward like this, she must be exploding inside, no longer able to tolerate the silence and to witness the abuser receiving accolades.
I wonder if others will come forward? I wonder if they will be believed?
I think of [various names withheld]. [Names withheld] ended up cutters and will struggle all their lives.
Wasn't Mia Farrow one of the ladies Maharishi made sexual advances toward?
Dylan is bringing this up 20 years later. Could this be a case of false memories? But it doesn't sound like she went to a therapist that implanted false memories.

That last question drifted in my mental space. Some might think it cruel to even consider that question, especially in response to such an open letter which puts the author (who has suffered great trauma) into such a vulnerable and triggering position.

Why would I question such? There are layers to that answer.

A few tidbits of the layers:

• I have a very close friend who was falsely accused of sexual harassment.
• I have read many an account of false accusations that have ruined lives.
• I learned about 'false memories' first via Jeanette Bartha, who has lived her own hell and came out the other side. Since learning about Jeanette's story, I've read others and have conversed with some of those people as well as with Jeanette. (Jeanette has written a book which I look forward to reading once it is published.)
• I stood up for a friend who was falsely accused (but not of sexual abuse or harassment). The result was that I got scapegoated by the friend's accusers, and I lost some friends as a result. (Granted, I stood up for that friend clumsily but as best I could at the time.)
• I have been the recipient of publicly damning and false accusations; once it is done, it is done. I could only state my case in response. What people believe is up to them. Regardless, it's a hard lesson to learn and live and one that I think the falsely-accused most likely never forgets. It's a hard pill to swallow (at least it has been for me) that people whom one thinks one knows are actually a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

A day after reading Dylan's open letter, an article from The Daily Beast which was published five days before Dylan's open letter came across my cyberscreen. This article fills in some details about the Allen-Farrow family environment at the time (toward the mid-1990s) of the initial Woody Allen sexual abuse allegations. I then looked up and read a bit about Mia Farrow and I was left wondering if she is a possible manipulator behind the scenes. I think that the author of The Daily Beast article probably wanted to leave that impression regarding Mia. If so, it worked (which then caused me to question The Daily Beast article). [Of course, there are now many articles on the subject hitting the cyberscreen.]

I have witnessed people, who have questioned (with good reason) certain allegations in regard to something as horrendous as sexual abuse, get labeled as "rape or pedophile sympathizers" or as "pedophiles" themselves when it is the farthest thing from the truth. Such labels can be extreme conclusions made possibly from projection; or trying to make sense of one's own trauma; or because of cultural memes, to name a few possible reasons.

It's never easy for victims to speak up. It takes lots of soul churning and sleepless nights and gut wrenching "what ifs."

Neither is it easy to speak up for the falsely accused. More soul churning and sleepless nights and gut wrenching "what ifs."

I think questioners are more likely sympathizers with truth...and with victims...and with the falsely accused.

The Next Book

How do I explain to myself so-called "answered prayers" or what I have referred to as "God moments?"
If I were to tally "answered prayer" versus "unanswered prayer," on which side would the scale weigh heavier?

*****
In The Way, all prayers should "line up with the Word." God's will is always health and prosperity, so as a Way believer I didn't pray for "thine will be done" on matters in which I already knew "thine will."

"Thine will" regarding health and prosperity was stated clearly in III John 2, "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."

Therefore, as a Way believer I thanked the Father for having already met my need through the work of His son, my lord and savior and brother, Jesus Christ. I confessed my need met as a present reality, and I prayed thanking God for the healing that Jesus Christ had already earned for me, earned for mankind.

If I didn't receive healing or a physical need met, there must be a breakdown somewhere on my end. For some reason I must not be meeting the criteria of III John 2; that is, my soul (mind/emotions/intellect) wasn't prospering. Believing fell into the category of soul. If I didn't receive, I simply wasn't believing big enough.

I could "build my believing" by "putting on more of the Word" which meant more study of the scriptures, more retemories, more silently and personally speaking in tongues, more giving, more witnessing the Word to others, more fellowship with like-minded believers. After all, light casts out darkness. God is all light and in Him is no darkness at all. God made himself manifest through His written Word, the Bible, and through the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. Those alone were the only true beacons that can cast out darkness. Sickness was dark. Sickness was death in part or in whole. Sickness was never God's will.

But why with so much accurate Word, why were not more Way Household believers prospering and in health?

My neighbors, the Speers, were "unbelieving believers." That's what we in The Way called Christians who did not have the accuracy of the Word like we did. Even though the Speers didn't believe the accuracy of the Word, they always seemed in good health and seemed to have their need met, and they had this laid-back approach to life of which I wished I had more. I liked them. They must just have big believing. After all the law of believing worked for saint and sinner alike, regardless if they were Christian or not.

It must have been around the year 2000 as I perused the self-help section bookshelves at Borders for my next book. On the bottom shelf toward the left I saw it, The HeartMath Solution.

"HearthMath." That's that the organization I read about in Pearsall's book and in that educational article about how when people shake hands the brain waves of one person will line up and match the heart waves of the other person, or something like that.

As my manner was, I pulled the book off the shelf, found a chair, and began to read. Then I'd decide whether or not to buy the book.

By the time I was into the first chapter I was already highlighting. I was engaged and intrigued.

The heart, can literally think? Not linearly, but emotionally. When I point to me, I don't point to my head; I point to my heart area. When I feel love or gratitude or sorrow, I don't feel it in my brain; I feel it in my heart...and sometimes my gut.

I was already quite familiar with the language of emotions from other books I'd read. I already felt and believed that my mind was all through my body not just in my brain, in the sense that my nervous system was communicating all the time throughout every system of my body. I was already entertaining the idea that intuition was a real sense, just like our other senses...even though that thought didn't quite sit well with what I knew about devil spirits and the Word. I had assigned intuition as a man-made counterfeit for the spirit of God working in situations and people. Intuition gave man the glory when it was God at work in the situations, and God should always get the glory. Intuition was at best ego; at worst devil spirit possession.

Do I dare continue down this path looking into intuition as a possible reality?

The electro-magnetic field radiating from the heart is about 5000 times greater than that of the brain. Magnetism attracts and repels. Maybe that's the key to receiving, maybe there is a physiological side to this "law of believing."

Gratitude is one of the strongest heart power tools helping heart rhythms come into coherence. The Word commands over and over to be thankful. The Word says the heart is where believing is generated, "for with the heart man believeth." And believing is what appropriates results. I build my believing by putting on the thoughts of the Word. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It doesn't say, "in his brain;" it says "in his heart."

Could it be that as I learn to tap into this heart intelligence that I will build my believing and thus bring to myself healing results and answered prayer via that magnetic power of the heart? Do I dare even mention this to anyone? It seems so out there.

I spent over two years working that HeartMath book. Reading and re-reading and checking out other books and reading and re-reading about the role of emotions in physical healing, about the placebo effect, about spontaneous healing, about cellular memory, about the heart as a thinking organ. I bought a physiology coloring book to try to broaden my understanding of my autonomic nervous system and how it communicates.

Toward the latter 90s I had thought, If I can learn to somehow retrain my autonomic nervous system, maybe I can get well.

****
How do I explain to myself so-called "answered prayers" or what I have referred to as "God moments?"
If I were to tally "answered prayer" versus "unanswered prayer," on which side would the scale weigh heavier?

Maybe I'll write another post in the future addressing those questions. And maybe not.
****