On a Tapestry of Sound

Despite the chill I feel at my desk, the heater roars, ineffectually, but steadily—mere white noise that I generally endeavor to ignore.  In quiet, thoughtful moments, it returns to my awareness, and in an odd twist of perception, it seems as if someone were playing with its volume as my attention meanders to and away from it.  Reflecting on that noise, I expand my awareness, considering the other oft-ignored stimuli in my ears—the tapestry of sound hanging in the background while I work.

By Luis Lima89989, via Wikimedia Commons

I hear my own keyboard clacking faintly as my fingers slide here and there, pressing keys.  Farther afield, in various unseen corners of the large space in which I sit, chairs momentarily creak or roll.  Someone taps papers together.

To my right, a printer revs up with a whirr, and I hear it churning out documents, each page landing with a gentle tick.  Moments after it finishes, some unidentifiable machine in the coffee shop’s corner starts grinding away.  Before my muscles can start to ache with tension against the unpleasantness, the clamor stops, replaced after a while by the musical clinking of glasses being jostled together.

A soft creak emerges on my left as a student opens the nearer door leading to the vestibule, followed moments later by a louder “swoom,” like a great inhalation, as another student broaches the door on the far end of the same area.  My opposite ear hears a metallic click and snick, then a more generic thunk as some sneaky person uses the stapler at the front desk and sets it down, then departs with nary a tramp of a foot or a swish of clothing.

Through this mesh of sounds occasionally comes the scrape of shoes passing over the carpet by the doors, as well as the tapping—near and distant—of footsteps on waxed tile, varied with the intermittent squeak of tennis shoes or the slide of a foot—a susurrus like someone practicing soft-shoe. These are joined in some cases by the jingling of keys with each step, by the hum of a briefcase or bookbag rolling on wheels, or by the high-pitched “cling” of something metal striking the barricade around the atrium overlooking the library.  

A regular, percussive rhythm enters the room, joined shortly by a set of footsteps and the harsh, staticy jangle of indistinct music pouring from poorly insulated earbuds.  I give the student a minute to settle in, a chance for him to do the considerate thing and drop the volume.  Under the “music,” I listen to his steps, the roll of a chair, the plunky-creak of him sitting.  Moments later, the metallic beats fade away, leaving only the usual ambient sounds.

A woosh accompanies a small group of people who slowly tap their way into the room, one voice chattering above the rest as a student ambassador guides the prospective student’s family around the building.  Above the ambassador’s voice, and above the sharp, steady ripping of paper from a notebook, the familiar tones of an instructor carries from the far corner of the room where she conducts her class. Elsewhere, someone’s foot drums a quick rhythm, then stops just as suddenly as it began.

After the tour group passes, quiet voices continue to murmur here and there.  A laugh rises momentarily like birdsong above the forest.  For a moment, all fades to unexpected silence…

Then, a pair of coughs.  The symphony of sound resumes: The sibilant slide of a coat sloughed off of shoulders.  The quiet thump of a book set on a counter.  A ringtone, sharply cut off.  Approaching treads followed by the grinding of the pencil sharpener just yards away.  A high-pitched thrum, signaling that someone has activated the automatic door.  It admits quick, clicking footsteps and the faint whizzing of a bookcase wheeled along behind.

All the various sounds weave together, creating a tapestry of space and activity almost as clear as sight.  And through it all, though I still sometimes tune it out, the heater’s fan roars on like the din of a distant waterfall.

On Relating to Other Intelligences, or On Numbers

It's common knowledge that people's minds tend to be inclined toward different sorts of knowledge and understanding: musical, mathematical, linguistic, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and so forth.  While people can generally function in the other areas, they are typically less proficient than other people so inclined.  Unfortunately, we often forget to account for this difference in understanding when we communicate.  The result (aside from poor communication) may be impatience or scorn on the part of the speaker—and confusion, frustration, or anxiety on the part of the listener.  How, then, does one develop a sensitivity—or might we say bilingualism—for other intelligences? 

I would venture that the first step to improving communication requires basic empathy—insight into the other person's struggles.  Part of this requires acknowledging intellectual differences as, well, differences rather than a sign of stupidity.  Empathy may not help much with the nitty-gritty of how to explain ideas better, but it can improve one's patience with the effort of communicating and thus ease some of the listener's stress.

First, an important note on what not to do: When conversing with a person weak in one's favored area, one ought not think that speaking with this person is akin to speaking with a child.  Yes, one needs to simplify concepts and word choices or to try different approaches, but this perspective tends to make one's tone come across as condescending.  The parallel is also imperfect because a child's mental processes differ from an adult's beyond a mere difference in areas of intellectual strength; young children, for instance, cannot grasp figurative language or abstract concepts well.  But that topic is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.

Instead, a more accurate analogy is conversing with a non-native speaker—something to which most people can likely relate in some way.  For the other person, one's jargon and assumptions of basic knowledge may be unfamiliar or may take extra time to process.  

To illustrate this, I can only draw upon my own experiences as an example.  As I do so, I hope the reader will keep in mind that this illustration could be applied to any other area of intelligence, as well.

                                                                    * * *

For me, numbers are a kind of foreign language, one I’m only partially familiar with.  As with a foreign language, I understand some words automatically; I can immediately grasp numbers one through five, for instance, as easily as I understand “¿Cómo estás?” and “adios.”  I can quickly regurgitate memorized answers to basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division questions involving numbers under 12.  Given time and perhaps paper, I can answer more complicated questions of the same.  Patterns are also easy to recognize when they’re ascending or descending in ones, twos, fives, tens...  But everything else?  Foreign.

Let's give this some context.  I’ve been studying Spanish off and on for some time.  Perhaps I hear or read a sentence, such as Sus ojos son azules y su pelo es marrón.  My thought process goes something like this: “Okay, azules--that’s blue.  Ojos… ojos… that’s either eyes or ears.  Must be eyes, if they’re blue.  Sus--well, without context, it could mean ‘your’ or ‘his’ or ‘hers.’  Anyway, somebody’s eyes are blue.  And… pelo, marrón… I should know those words… oh, hair!  Marrón… it doesn’t mean blond—that’s rubio.  Must be brown.”   There--translation more-or-less complete… but several seconds have gone by, and if other things have been said in the interim, I either missed them or, by hearing them, didn’t finish translating that first sentence. 

This example mirrors my thought process with numbers—particularly numbers I hear, but also with those that I see.

When I first glance at a page of numbers, it’s gibberish—a foreign alphabet.  As I study individual components, I recognize the “language” as one might recognize Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, or Russian text.  In the same way, I may identify the "language" of dates, times, recipe amounts, temperature, tech specs, construction dimensions, addresses, phone numbers, statistics—and the language of basic math, fractions, decimals, percents, algebra, geometry.  Higher levels of algebra, as well as calc and trig, look more like French or Italian to me—languages I've never studied, but whose cognates and Latin derivations make parts of some sentences recognizable.  

If I care to put in the energy, I may then “translate” the numbers and find their significance or the answer.  I may have to re-read some numbers multiple times so I can remember them well enough to compare them with another set of numbers elsewhere, as when I check out our finances or try to understand a news report that's loaded with comparative statistics.  

With spoken numbers, I have to process each one first into its physical, written shape, then into a sense (like a blurred picture) of the amount—accompanied by a judgement of whether that amount is high or low for the given things to which it is applied.  This judgement is complicated by a certain amount of number confusion.  When translating, I often mix up the words "thousand" and "hundred," so when I hear "twenty-five hundred dollars," I have to think about where the comma would go to get an idea of the amount, whether $25,000 or $2,500.  When given a second number, I often can't recall the first well enough to compare the difference unless they're both rounded or smallish numbers, or unless they're written down and I have a moment to compare the two side-by-side.

Thus, written or spoken, this processing of numerical information takes more time for me than it seems to for others.  Moreover, when time is pressed (as on timed tests or when others wait for me to reply or to finish my turn on a board game), it creates emotional stress—as when a foreign language student faces an onslaught of information in a poorly-understood language.  Self-consciousness makes it all worse; I think of myself as being relatively intelligent, so I hate feeling judged for my slowness—my apparently stupidity.  In consequence, when feeling pressed, I will more likely rush and make mistakes or have frantically muddled thinking that slows me further.  I become tense and irritable and more prone to angry outbursts.

To cope—and preserve my sanity and relationships—when I don’t have to process a difficult number, I don’t bother.  So when Joel rattles off the “really cool” statistics for his latest D&D character, describing stacking bonuses to AC, hit, or damage—or when a student talks about statistics for his research paper—I react based on the context or the person's tone because the numbers don’t register quickly enough in my brain for me to make sense of them.  Unfortunately, when the context doesn’t tell me what importance the numbers hold, I must ask the other person to slow down, repeat, explain their significance... or I change the subject. Again, I imagine foreign language students do much the same thing when they don’t understand a word or words.

    
                                                                          *   *   *

I hope that this parallel helps readers have a little more patience and understanding with people who become stressed whenever numbers (or musical terms or emotions or other aspects of the various intelligences) come up in conversation.  The speaker would do well to slow down or explain it in alternate ways, and the other party will keep up a lot more cheerfully.

Readers, do you experience the same difficulty processing numbers? Following "easy" dance steps? Understanding music? Something else? Share it in the comments below.

On the Pipe Organ

      After ten years of piano lessons and over ten additional years of playing sporadically for myself and for church, I've recently begun practicing on my church's pipe organ.  So far, it's been an interesting experience and requires more concentration and research than I'd anticipated—and I still have a lot to learn.

Photo courtesy of commons.wikimedia.org--
I hope to get a photo of the organ I practice on soon, but this'll do for now.

      As a kid, I played around on the organ my Dad still owns—a relatively portable harmonium (reed organ) that has only one manual (keyboard), two pedals for pumping air through any open stops (sets of pipes), and no pedalboard (keyboard for the feet).  However, comparing a pump organ such as that to a true pipe organ is like comparing a pauper to a king.  Pipe organs boast two to five manuals, a pedalboard, shoes (foot pedals to get dynamics), a relatively wider variety of stops for each set of manuals and the pedalboard, and generally includes several pistons (buttons for preset stop combinations).  In addition, I need not pump the bellows myself (nor hire choirboys to do so, as needed in Bach's day); now an electric blower may be turned on to do the job.

      Already I'm throwing a lot of terminology at my poor readers, and I haven't even named the manuals or common stops!  But this gives the uninitiated a small feel for the complexity of the instrument.
     To proceed with my experiences with pipe organs--during high school, I had dabbled on my church organ in Topeka a couple times.  Yet, without proper instruction, I didn't really know how to use it, and learning it was a low priority, what with ballet and homework.  When I decided to start learning the organ more recently, our organist recommended I start by practicing hymns.  
      "Sure, I can do that," I thought.  I decided to spend time practicing after giving my weekly piano lesson; I'd be at the church anyway.  The first time I stayed late and turned the key to activate the blower, I found the organist's hymnbook has no pedal line and no notes about what stops to use.  The names of the stops also meant little to me.  What was I to do?  I played around a little, getting used to the sound of each stop (and feeling like a kid expecting a parent to come scold her for being too loud, especially when I played the Principal stops).  Then I went home to research. 

      I found a list of guidelines for stops to use for various types of hymns and music for other parts of a service.  I also looked up as many stop names as I could remember, wishing I'd thought to write them down.  I did so before the service on Sunday to allow me to look up the rest of the stops later, and found out from our organist that when a pedal line isn't written, we're to omit the bass line of the music in the left hand and instead play it with the feet.  Doing so, I found that next Tuesday, requires an unexpected amount of mental and physical coordination, even for a pianist and former dancer. When a pedal line is included (as on much of my organ books and the free sheet music I obtained from the internet), the musician has to read three lines of music; one for each hand and one for the feet.  I haven't decided yet which is more challenging.
      Each practice session has gradually improved my ability to play and also revealed new unanswered questions, requiring further research at home.  I generally love living in the Information Age, with information a click away.  Unfortunately, web searches for pipe organ tutorials weren't as fruitful as I'd hoped.  Sites I found either covered basics I already know, generalities that don't help, or specifics for a much more complicated organ than I have access to.  The most useful, best-organized site I've come across so far has been piercepipeorgans.com--which I truly wish I'd come across first.  I instead found most of the information that this site so helpfully contains scattered piecemeal in a dozen other sites amid less useful info.

My current unanswered questions are as follows:

• How can I compensate for stops (and manuals) that my organ doesn't have, but which a piece of music calls for?  (Is it possible or advisable to substitute certain stops, and if so, which ones?  Or would doing so compromise the quality and authenticity of historical music too much?  Could multiple manuals be compensated for using the pistons?)
• When a piece of organ music directs the musician to change between manuals, how do I know which staff/hand(s) the words refer to--is it always above or below the staff it applies to?  What does it mean when a piece of music repeats a direction to change to the same manual it's already on?

      Lately, frigid temperatures in the sanctuary have kept me from remaining to practice after piano lessons; I would feel guilty heating that large space just for one person for a couple hours.  Perhaps bringing a space heater might be in order... but that's a thought for 2015.

On Being a Novelist (Someday)

      I don't like strangers and friends knowing I'm writing a book.  (Ironic, right, since I'm posting this on the internet?  But please don't ask me for a summary.)  I don't mind my immediate family knowing my progress; they're my support group.  Yet, I feel uncomfortable when it comes up in conversation with others.  It's almost like a bragging point for those close to me (or at least a conversation topic for moments of silence), but I'm not comfortable sharing the tentative plot lines behind my projects; it sounds a little juvenile in summary, and not everyone cares for the particular genre I write in.  I likewise wince when others ask me what I've been up to today and I can only answer "writing."  "Writing what?" they inevitably ask, and there we go...
      My reticence is not true modesty but more like embarrassment.  It took me some time to think through the cause since I do rather like the general direction of my story (though I perpetually feel it needs improvement).  Fear of criticism is always part of revealing one's work, but in this case, it occurs to me that talking about the unfinished book feels rather like counting one's chickens before they hatch--like empty boasting, especially since I've yet to publish a book and I've been at my main project for over ten years--and stuck with an incomplete story of around 28 chapters for at least two.  Will I ever finish it?  I hope so.  When I do, then I'll be much happier to promote my work (or so I trust).  Do other writers feel this way?  Let me work in anonymity though I publish in (one can hope) renown.

On Rosewater

        Sometime after the first frost last year, I pocketed some ripe, bright red rose hips from some of the bushes at work and tried out an online recipe for rose hip tea, which is purported to be quite healthy and moderately tasty.
        It was vile.
        Admittedly, I generally prefer black tea over herbals, but even after adding honey, I had to pour the remains into the sink and didn't bother using the rest to attempt rose hip jam.  Still, the idea of roses as food still interests something in the romantic side of me, especially since our new house came with five rose bushes--two pink, two red, and one yellow.  In my search for a better-tasting recipe for rose hip tea, I discovered rosewater.
        I'd read about rosewater--it was discovered and commonly used in the middle ages and gets references in books set in that era, but I'd never known how to make it, nor what good it might be.  It's not as if it's a common product in modern groceries.
        Rosewater's uses are actually quite varied--applied directly for acne or tired eyes, or as an additive to skin creams, hair rinses, moisturizers, after-sun care, etc.  It's a light, short-lived fragrance, and a tablespoon or two can be added into drinks and foods such as mint tea, lemonade, rice pudding, milk, yogurt, butter cookies, fruit salads, and almond dishes.  (Sources include stylecraze.com and boisdejasmin.com).

        Distilling rosewater is actually quite simple.  I've made two batches so far, a couple weeks apart.  I first gathered as many fresh rose petals as possible, after tearing off parts that were bug-eaten or withered.  (I don't use pesticides other than a couple of ant traps on the ground and, apparently spiders.  I had a bad scare with a dime-sized arachnid hiding in one of my red roses!)  We'd had some frosts that limited the number of eligible blooms, so I couldn't gather quite the 2-3 quarts the recipe called for.  I ended up with four cups of petals, and even that much required between six to ten roses, which I was obliged to take from all five bushes.)

        These went into my largest canning pot, in the middle of which I placed a well-scrubbed stone since I didn't have the recommended brick.

        I added water to almost cover the petals, and placed a heat-safe bowl on top of the brick.  Then, after inverting the lid, I heated it up.

        Once the water boiled, I brought it down to a simmer and covered the lid with ice to create a home still; the steam condenses on the cold lid and slides down to the center where it drops into the bowl.  The petals lose their color after being boiled and turn the water brownish-pink.

        Every 20 minutes, one has to check the potency.  I discovered that it helps to have a large bowl on hand to dump the icewater--being careful not to let it drip into the bowl of rosewater.  Then, one takes a tablespoon or so out to taste.  The recipe says to repeat this until the bowl has between a pint and a quart of strong-smelling and -tasting rosewater.  However, with my limited amount of petals, I found that after the second 20 minutes, it was tasting a little diluted, so I stopped.  The result fit only into one small plastic container.

        I've since learned that other people make rosewater without the distillation process: They wash the petals and use distilled water for boiling, then steep the petals perhaps an hour or overnight. Then they strain the petals out and cool the water in the refrigerator it to make it last longer.
        By the sounds of it, the shelf life is shorter with the non-distilled method.  How much shorter, I've no idea; I have found no information on the shelf life of the method I used, but by smelling and tasting my batches, the older one is clearly less fragrant than the newer, though both taste similar.  My husband actually prefers the delicacy of the older one--however, another point to consider is that my first batch included a couple yellow blooms while I had none available for the second, and I've often felt that the yellow roses have a nicer scent.  Whether either batch will remain potent last long enough for them to make good Christmas gifts remain to be seen.  We'll have to wait and see, and in the meantime, I should have some rosehips to experiment with in a couple weeks!



Update Dec 2014: Our rosehips didn't develop before the first frost hit, so we'll have to try next year.

On Infertility

For those who aren’t familiar with the exact definition, infertility is the inability to become pregnant after a year of trying.

One year.  

This definition implies that medical professionals and society expect a healthy couple to conceive with relative ease and celerity, and this does seems to be the case for 90% of the female population (womenshealth.gov).  Unfortunately, the other 10% of us have difficulty getting pregnant… including me.  

This can be a difficult topic to write about.  Even when feeling at peace about it, remembering and writing about previous emotions brings on the tears, and I find I have to stand and walk a bit to find my calm again.  It has likewise been hard to know quite how to pray about this situation and hard to know whether, and how, we should act on it.

Joel and I have had six lovely years of contraceptive-less marriage, and my periods continue to appear like clockwork.  We’re still young—just barely under 30.  I got a clean bill of health after my Pap, and Joel has a healthy sperm count.  We’re both a bit heavier than we ought to be, but not to the point of obesity.  We exercise fairly regularly and eat healthfully (well, I do—and I can sometimes convince him to do the same).  We don’t smoke or get drunk (I don’t drink at all).  I take the recommended vitamins, and we make the most of my fertile time when our schedules allow.  But each month brings another disappointment.

Thankfully, that’s all it’s been lately—a mild disappointment.  But about two years ago, I was an emotional mess.  My inability to conceive consumed my mind and left me feeling defective, even worthless, despite knowing in my head that my worth comes from Christ alone.  Grief over my barrenness was compounded by Joel’s disinterest—even relief to not have a child.  I knew we weren’t trying as hard as we could have (I didn’t want to press the issue with Joel’s attitude of “if it happens, I’ll be a dutiful father, but if not, great!”), yet without contraceptives, I thought we still had a good chance.  ...It didn’t happen.

After a few months of praying for Joel to want a child, and then praying for either a child or peace without one—and after a mildly embarrassing emotional breakdown in front of a sweet prayer warrior from our church who agreed to pray for us—God gave me the latter.  

I have greater peace of mind now, but that’s not to say I don’t still have good days and bad—days when I can easily look upon children and new mothers without a thought to myself, when I can consider my potentially childless future with stoicism or even contentment… and days when the same things send a dagger of grief through my heart, and I burst into tears at the thought of an infant I may never hold.  However, since then, the months have passed with only the occasional pre-menstrual tears and postmenstrual let-down, and I quickly regain my equilibrium and faith.  

Then, on our anniversary earlier this year, Joel’s gift was the announcement that he’s ready to really try to have a kid.  I actually cried with joy; Joel looked rather nonplussed.  In the half year since then, we’ve increased our efforts to conceive ...with the same result.  Infertility.

I’m rarely sure how to pray about our lack of a little one.  Of course I should always pray “Thy will be done,” and I continually pray for contentment in all circumstances.  But does that mean I shouldn’t also pray for a child?  I consider how “Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived” (Gen. 25:21).  They were childless twenty years and only received their twins by prayer.  Centuries later, Hannah prayed so fervently for a child that the priest Eli thought she was drunk, but God heard her distress, and after she promised to give her firstborn to serve the Lord, He gave her Samuel plus five other children (1 Sam 1-2).  

As one continues to read through scripture, one sees that from bold, specific prayers come curses and blessings, healing and deliverance—this from the petitions of ordinary people as well as prophets and kings.  However, we know we receive only what we ask in Jesus’ name—i.e. on His behalf, or according to His will—hence part of my dilemma.  Are children God’s will for us?  Isaac surely knew that God planned for him to have a child because descendants were part of God’s promise to his father Abraham.  But Hannah couldn’t have known the Lord’s will in her case, right?  How many others prayed for children and never received them?  Then again, our Lord prayed for his cup (his death) to pass him by.  He still had to face it, but apparently there was no harm in his asking.  But then again, we must ask and not doubt (Matt 21:22, James 1:6), and I don't know God's will enough to not doubt I'll receive children.

Aside from concerns about the Lord’s will, I also wonder whether my motives for desiring children are good.  Though our culture no longer expects couples to get pregnant in the first year of marriage, enough of a undercurrent remains in the questions that people ask newlyweds to eventually make a childless wife feel she’s defective somehow—psychologically if she doesn’t want kids (yet or ever) and biologically if she wants them but can’t seem to have them. Considering this cultural pressure, do I wish for children selfishly, because it’s cultural expected, or out of an honest, natural, or godly desire for them?  Do I think a baby will make me feel more emotionally secure?  (What a joke that would be, considering some of the hurtful things children say!)  Still, I wonder if it’s my mind, biology, or spirit longing for kids.

Thinking along these lines, do I really want a child?  On the one hand, I consider all that work and stress and expense and disruption of raising a child, and I wonder if I really want to bring a child into a Fallen world where he or she will face untold heartbreak and hardship.  On the other hand, I consider all that love and joy and laughter and hope, and I consider how much I'd like to bring a child up in Christ’s footsteps, to be a light to the next generation.  My opinion just will not remain consistent.

Should Joel and I truly set our hearts on having a child, we then face the question of what to do if our infertility continues.  Is childlessness a sign we’re not living within God’s will properly or not praying properly?  But then, we live in a Fallen world, so infertility may be merely a symptom of that and not an indication of God’s disfavor; in addition, plenty of rebels against God have no difficulty getting pregnant, and Job and the apostles are examples showing it is not correct to equate temporal blessings with one’s spiritual status.  
Again, could childlessness mean God is preparing us to adopt or foster a child?  Should we seek professional help to conceive a child, knowing God has given doctors the wisdom and skill to help people such as us, or should we accept on faith that God knows best and go on as we have been?  Admittedly, without children, we have more disposable income to give to charities and more time to invest in building up the church.  Is our faith and handling of this undesirable situation meant to be an example to unbelievers?  Could God be preparing us for some some great upheaval in our lives that a child shouldn’t go through—whether an all-consuming ministry or death?  Does God have a specific plan or work in mind for us, or does it not matter where we live and what we do because He can make use of us regardless?

Am I overthinking this?  

Probably.

Infertility poses an endless cycle of currently unanswerable questions and difficult decisions.  I find that I've come full-circle, that I’ve known nearly from the beginning what I should do: I shall pray for both a baby and peace without one, and for the ability to hear and heed God’s direction when He gives it.  Then I’ll trust the Lord to bring us what He knows is best.

On Transformation

Upon a person’s conversion or rededication to Jesus, outsiders and even the convert himself might easily think, “well, now the hard work’s done!”  Certainly the hard work of salvation is done—and has been done for two thousand years.  And certainly accepting Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit is glorious and fills our lives with inexpressible joy.  However, not only is it grossly untrue to presume our life path will now be swept clear of all difficulties and work (cf. scriptures), but that attitude can harm the faith of all concerned by setting up unreasonable expectations destined for disappointment.  The persecution of our Lord and the early Church reveal the truth that “in this world [we] will have trouble” (John 16:33).  This we could perhaps weather with inner peace.  However, conversion also begins the painful, chaotic transforming of our souls to resemble Christ’s, and many find this internal process far more challenging than external difficulties.

No matter how far we were from Christ before, beside the emotions of joy and relief, the experience of being born again may feel somewhat frightening, even traumatic—to die to ourselves and be emptied of what was once our very identity for the sake of starting a new life in which we follow Jesus and are identified with Him.  Everything changes: the values that define us, our cherished ideas about the world, our habits of thought and deed, our understanding of who and whose we are—and for our pains, we get our pride torn to shreds as we confess we are not as independent and inherently good as we like to think—that we do not belong to ourselves but must give up our right to ourselves to God.  Although this transformation continues our entire lives, it can be most traumatic when the Spirit first begins to make us His own.  

Everyone who belongs to God has experienced some form of this transformation, whether abrupt or gradual, soul-wrenching or merely pin-pricks.  We all likewise know the pain of “cognitive dissonance” between the World’s attractive ideas and our inherent sin nature, which we must uproot, and the perfect will of God, which He wishes to plant in us.  God must have his way with us, like a potter molding clay or a silversmith refining metal; the process hurts but is necessary for us to be conformed into the image of Christ.

Are you still being transformed by God’s Spirit?  Or do you resist the hands of the Potter in favor of being conformed to this world?