Isaiah 61: 1-3. *A perspective on adulting teaching, and empathy* and Parenting.
What does anointed mean? What is the table and when do we let go of it?
My interpretation? Home based. Home cooked. The collective agreed upon. Learned. Enjoyed.
True freedom is found in surrender. It’s in letting go of the table because you know where your foot is going to land. It’s the foundation. It’s the agency.
It’s sovereignty and trust summed up in a life lived.
It’s a babies first steps, and it’s the gasp and astonishment followed by an event that’s happened billions of times. That’s the collective part.
The source of the example of the meaning of.
Happiness.
Joy is found in knowledge.
I can walk, on my own.
That’s why it’s shared. It’s the recognition of a shared independence. The dinner table isn’t just a dinner table any more, or a coffee table either. It’s where family is. It’s where you find the cupboard with celebrated victories. It’s the wall where the photograph is celebrated. Not the images, the image of. It’s why they call it home base. It may be a thing, may be a person. It’s a place none the less.
It may have been home. It may have been something that you trusted.
Trust is where it started.
You made the decision, and then you learn. You get to decide before the collective does. You get to define it for yourself.
That’s why they call it agency. It’s your declaration to the world, but you had to decide it yourself first.
The miracle happened in the abandonment.
The collective decided that language was good. So we learned that too. We also learned how to silence voices in the process.
It took me this long to see the languages of my life.
I’m referring to self identity and home as the same thing. Family is home. You were born from it, you were nurtured by it.
However, when we look at it differently,
Families are born from fear.
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Learning the hard way.
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The puck met the goal. We won, we lost.
But let’s focus on the bright side first. Let’s focus on the ice.
The anointed place, person, value, and means.
It’s the source of who you are. It’s recognition of the place where you did the learning. Where you learned importance. It’s where you felt safe to learn quietly in the dark, and in the light of shared celebration. It’s where you are your most vulnerable. Completely safe. Yourself.
Fear is created when that safety is violated. It’s not complete anymore. The bright side had a dark side. Even the sun can’t hide that violation.
We recognize completeness, we can’t help it. Because we want it. We also recognize shared brokenness, but that’s a whole other thought.
Recognizing your true identity and sovereignty is the first part. Home is where the heart is.
If we search long enough, and test the very nature of our sovereignty, eventually we will return to anything that resembles home.
Lamentations 3: 25-28
Sometimes home is silence.
When you understand the mimicry, you understand the maker.
When you understand the manner, you understand the man.
Mannerisms are mimicked. That’s called fashioned after.
…there I go again. Saying the same thing 4 different ways. My parents do that a lot.
This is why I should have thought further about the potential impact of my choices. It’s an optics thing. I should know. This is a constant dilemma.
Alas, Anya. I’m a natured and nurtured photographer. I must clarify. I must be still.
The problem lies in the fact that trying to maintain “optics” only speaks to the maker of the lens, not the maker of the light, or the one receiving it.
Sometimes it’s time to speak up so that the optics correct themselves and start looking at the right light. That’s the photographers job.
Being an eldest brother, I had to understand this early. The position holds the line between sibling and authority figure.
Sometimes consequences have actions.
Unfortunately I’ve had to be the example of that too.
Looking back at it, it requires a pretty strong foundation on God. To be a good older brother that is. To be a good example of a father, a brother, a protector, caretaker, ass wiper. After 7 of them, it was a lot.
I need and need to be a good example of empathy and consequence at the same time.
I had to learn to set boundaries lovingly. I didn’t have the authority to do anything else. That’s a tough lesson to learn. It’s hard to be a good example unless you’ve both witnessed and lived the example.
I’ve struggled with the concept of example. I’ve struggled to be a good example.
Why?
I fail a lot all the time, again, differently. That’s why…
God is God because He has to be. For me too.
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Nathan has to be Nathan too. Because God made him for Him.
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Nathan was made to mimic and evolve accordingly.
Evolution starts with pain. But then something happens.
Love breaths and sings, cry’s are cried, and the rebirth of self happens again.
We do it ourselves again and again, and we still can’t get the identity right.
That is, until you learn to love brokenness.
Like a Musician.
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Love songs
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Death metal.
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Worship Music.
Let’s be clear about something involving music.
Music evokes empathy and validation of that internal evolution in real, self directed time.
That’s why we like it. It’s purely up to us if we like it or not, and if it’s perfect or enjoyable to us, we can enjoy it on repeat.
It validates us.
Fortunately, Nathan came out an absolute mess. His timing was abysmal. Shuffle mode. Same with his parents. I’m grateful. Sometimes dying to one’s self is part of the process.
Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery.
That’s the process. It’s the rebirth and awakening into a calling that you weren’t exactly ready for in the first place. You had to hear the example of the music to be played.
That’s why music and song is so often referred to as a church. It’s home no matter where you are. It’s where you discovered the drumbeat of the anointing because that’s where your kit is. It’s where you get educated before you walk out the door.
But that’s when the real discovery begins.
It’s when you return home and find it different than when you left it.
You go back to the temple to pray, and what you see there, doesn’t exactly reflect the thing you trusted while away.
Tables get turned. Sickness gets healing, and eyes opened.
The discovery of the anointment. That’s the meaning of the verse. It’s been read for thousands of years. It’s time to start taking it personally.
The discovery of the true identity. The certainty that drives action.
Certainty derives from knowledge and trust.
That is recognition. That’s the process.
Seeing is the observation of the process and the result. Observing the Father is observing the Son. The son can’t help but mimic the father.
That’s why it’s irritating. It’s the mirror. It’s the reflected image of what the result should be.
Asking the mirror or the lens to correct their optics is never a bad thing. Image quality is important.
Train up a child in the way that they should go, and when they are old, they will not depart from it. Stick with the program, trust the process.
Learning from the Father, is the actions of the Son. Learning from the Mother is the actions of the Daughter. The process of the teacher, well sometimes we teach ourselves, doesn’t matter what the orientation is.
The process isn’t the sex of it. The process isn’t the Identity. It’s the definition behind it. It’s in the shared definition of agency.
The process of you becoming an adult is not your parents kicking you out of the house, it’s the process of you kicking them out of yours.
Christianity mimics the process.
I love God for that so much, the patterns of process. The structure and the shape. The photographer and the lens.
I’ve been gifted with an anointing.
The problem however is that it’s taken me this long to finally use that Bible verse as both a reference point and a personal declaration.
Proverebs 20: 11-13
Even my fingers are tense as I type.
Then I breathe. I remember my education.
I’m anointed because my parents are anointed.
That’s the lesson.
Then I remember that in the furthest reaches of my memories, I can still hear the laughter and the sightless search for the truth.
It was the wisdom of my parents to give me the gift of sight through experience. It was a summer camp for assisting others with visual impairment.
It taught me empathy.
That’s the first anointing that I see in people.
It’s the brightest light.
I’m a photographer of that.
When the light dims, I check the settings, check the exposure, regain my focus, and compose myself.
Be still, Be silent, know thyself.
Know the creator and know the weapon.
Art after all, is only discarded after its invalidation.
If the light of the art has changed, it’s time to change to see it differently, it’s time to adjust the tool with the anointed hand.
True art needs no defence, it requires guardianship.
That’s why Mary and Jesus showed up with empathy. They had learned to trust.
……Joseph must’ve been scared shitless and had to learn empathy in the process.
He probably had a pitchfork and was ready to use it.
But that’s just another perspective on anointing.
Joseph certainly needed to understand defence before being entrusted with carpentry.
That’s why the tables being turned is significant.
If Jesus had entered the temple and found dinner, well…
2 Corinthians 3:18
