If it’s good enough for Indiana Jones, it’s good enough for me?
Seriously, I have no idea. Despite the reassurances of many of the people I trust that the bridge is safe, it looks dodgy enough to me, and my experience of stepping out onto it tells me that it wobbles in places it shouldn’t. There must be another way across somewhere.
Haha, that is me right there!
Much better at trusting people than trusting God. When people tell me to ‘put it in God’s hands’ I tend to run in the opposite direction. Complete scaredy cat I’m afraid
Comment by theseoldshades — March 18, 2009 @ 1:30 am
wow… that’s a toughie.
trust, faith… would it be the same if we knew absolutley?
is there any other option?
Comment by Welshdisastergirl — March 18, 2009 @ 1:33 am
Is it just my imagination or on you on some creative roll these days? I’m just loving these most recent ones Jon. Keep it up!
Depends – what’s on the other side of the bridge – meaning how badly do I have to get there? Sometimes there are holes put in my path that test me — other times I’m a dumbass who fell down when it could have been avoided.
When I did my MLTB (mountaineering) we were taught to TRUST our equipment and nothing else. If our equipment was sound then go for it, if it wasn’t then risk your life.
“Faithfulness is the source of faith. A promise has only as much value as the person making it. In evaluating his words to us, we are actually judging whether or not we believe that God is trustworthy. Faith is not spelt R-I-S-K. It is spelt T-R-U-S-T. Unless, of course, you consider God to be a risky bet.”
Uh, and the answer to the man’s question should be “I have walked on a bridge build by the same guy, it didn’t look safe either, but I got over safe and sound.
And once I got part of the way across, I realised the bridge was much more stable than it seemed at first.”
What do i see here? Well sometimes there can be very persuasive people that can convince you to trust in things that are very unstable and your instinct can be to go a different direction but because you are being told you do it.
I am thinking especially of people who are just stepping into faith / church for the first time. There is such a great responsibility here and so often this can be abused by directing people and forcing them down paths that are too unstable. Foundations not built yet etc. etc.
How hard it is to step back and just let people amble along the scenic cliff path when we know that if they just take that “leap of faith” they can get there much quicker.
In evaluating his words to us, we are actually judging whether or not we believe that God is trustworthy.
Is it always as straightforward as that though Bo? ‘Evaluating his words to us’ also involves a judgement of what those words really mean surely?
Many, many years ago, I, fully convinced that God was trustworthy, took a ‘leap of faith’ based on a certain passage of scripture – by which I mean that I did certain things (as a sign of faith spelt t-r-u-s-t) that put me in a position where GOd would have to do something – or I’d be struggling. The ‘trusted in’ outcome did not materialise and……I struggled. At the time, I went through all sorts of contortions in an attempt to explain this apparent let-down by God and to stifle all the resulting questions I had.
Now I look back on that incident and see that it had everything to do with the particular approach to scripture and faith which shaped the Christian community with which I was involved – and nothing to do with whether God was trustworthy, or even with what faith might actually be and how we put it into operation.
Will @ 18 I agree absolutely – people must be allowed to make this journey at their own rate – not forced to do something because of someone else’s take on what faith demands.
if you can’t trust the bridge but you’re convinced there’s no alternative way across… what then?
Hang on a minute, why am i putting my trust in a bridge? i never signed up to put my trust in a bridge. I thought i was supposed to be trusting a person.
I think it depends one what the bridge is, and where it leads to.
I have heard pastors talk to their churches about taking a leap of faith for the building fund. And it was a big financially secure church. I would imagine that that bridge looked like the Golden Gate bridge, but would actually flap around in the wind. It wasn’t worth our faith.
But sometimes the bridges we do need to cross will look feeble, but they can be strong when we take steps on it.
trust is THE BIG ISSUE for me. it really lies at the heart of my profound anxiety. agraphobia, fear of bridges, travel, all sorts… whenever it wills!
no trust… the fear that i am not held… how does one find trust?
any wisdom… any one?
many ordinary things in life become very near impossible as a result of this for me. any comments, help, welcome.
@jonbirch:
thank you for your openness. i have my issues with trust, too. so i don’t really know, but isn’t it by experiencing being held that i can build trust again? even if it is by ministeps?
we had this little bibleschool in a castle, by a lake, in winter. and our teacher told us to walk on the frozen lake.
it was not about how great or small our faith into the ice was but how thick the layer was.
people with a big faith would have broken into the cold water if the ice was too thin.
but as the ice was thick enough people with little or no faith at all could step onto it and experience step by step that the ice was strong enough to hold us.
Brunettekoala – we can trust God. We can’t necessarily trust people or what people say about God.
Aren’t the bracelets really cheesy? We Want Jack Daniels!
Sorry if I didn’t make much sense.
jon – trust can only come through experience. It is a bit like respect. Some people expect respect because of who they are. For example, a bishop who expects respect because he or she is a bishop is never going to be given respect. Someone like Tom Wright comands respect because he is someone who you can’t help but respect.
Miriworm – yep.
March – excellent example. Experience has proved that you can trust the ice.
Jon, I guess that some form of trust and risk assesment underlies many of the activities we do on a day to day basis – getting in a car, crossing the road, climbing the stairs, using an electrical appliance etc. – but most of this is subconsciously processed. Some of the things that cause us anxiety are maybe no different in actual risk terms than this everyday stuff but they loom large because they intrude on consciousness – either because they are unusual events for us or because we have a bad experience/memory, or because they’ve recently been prominent in the news etc. I try and remind myself of that in these scenarios, in order to get some perspective on the actual degree of risk entailed and whether my reponse is proportionate. And I try and think of ways I can minimise any perceived risks and manage any associated anxiety. Which is ok for managing ‘ordinary’ levels of anxiety, but I’m not sure that it’s of much use if anxiety levels are such that they are completely disabling. Professional help from someone with the appropriate training and skills is sometimes what is needed to get to the bottom of these things and to help devise ways of managing them.
‘many ordinary things in life become very near impossible as a result of this for me.’
My heart goes out to you – I know how this kind of anxiety feels. About a year ago my OCD got so bad that I was barely eating because I felt like plates and cutlery weren’t clean enough, and I was on the border of being underweight. A year on I still can’t drink out of glasses at the pub, or ever eat at someone else’s home.
I can’t use certain forms of travel (particularly underground trains) because I get panic attacks and feel like I’m going to faint with the anxiety. When I try praying in these situations I feel very alone, to be honest, because the fear feels so much more immediate and ‘real’ than anything else. And I can’t help but think of the people in horrible situations that must have said final prayers to God…what if in my final prayer I feel alone? What if He doesn’t reply? My big fear is that when I really need God, I’ll just hear silence.
‘The fear that I’m not held’ is something that I am also trying to cope with too.
Crikey that all sounds a bit depressing! Apologies for that, just thought it might help to know you’re not fighting the fear alone.
Living day in day out with General Anxiety Disorder and OCD makes passages such as ‘perfect love casts out fear’ seem so empty.
I’ll say a prayer for you today, Jon. Maybe we’ll get an angel sent to watch over us! God bless you xxxx
@Robb – ahhh! Ok get it now. Yes, they are, but I admit that I had a WWJD bracelet I sometimes wore and it DID serve as a good reminder at times to love more like him…
I’m also with Robb on trust comes from experience. I have trust issues too. I can relate to Hayles’ story a little bit because I have emetophobia (fear of vomiting). I scrutinise food, I struggle to eat any food I’ve thrown up in the past. I point blank refuse to use coaches or ferries (because people get sick on them). Someone sitting next to me threw up on a plane 2 years ago, and I don’t know how I’m going to get to South Africa in July. When I’m like that I’m usually too busy running away and screaming for prayer to be an option.
HOWEVER…I would like to encourage you because I have experienced that perfect love casting out fear. But it came from a place where I needed to trust God with my fear for the sake of someone else.
I’ll also say a prayer for both Hayles and Jon today. I believe there are already angels watching over you.
If you would all be so kind as to put on a purple stole:
Forgive me for I have sinned. I too bought a WWJD bracelet when I was a brand new baby Christian. Back then I was at university and wanted to fit in. I wore it for about a day and then The Lord healed me of the affliction*.
Remember not to break the seal of the confessional!
Can’t work out if this is relevant or not.
Yesterday I was talking with a guy who in years gone by would have been referred to as “the diocesan exorcist”. We were discussing healing and he in passing mentioned something eminently sensible. Sometimes people get all over excited when it comes to the brain and make demands on people.
“You’ve got Jesus and everything will be alright. You don’t need to take those pills anymore, you have Jesus!!”
The problem is – the chemistry of the brain is still the same. The serotonin is still low and the depression is still there.
*feeling that I needed to “fit in” with the Christian Union.
12 years of professional help later, (occupational therapy, to get me up and moving… behavioral therapy, to get me behaving … cognitive analytical therapy, to analyze my cogs … and now with a lovely psychologist who i will be working with on trust.) it has been a long journey but i have met some helpful people.
i have found that good experiences can help to a degree, but bad experiences are equally if not more common… so it has been impossible to re-learn trust through experience in the way i’d hoped to. impossible to gradually build up on something until i no longer find it hard.
thanks for your openness hayles and bk. all the best with your own struggles. it’s nice to be understood ain’t it?
robb… i am in no doubt that my situation is as physical as any other bodily affliction. it comes through two lots of genes and lands on me. my siblings have both had there struggles and are sensitive to mine, yet they have proved far more resilient than i and have for the most part found fairly reliable mechanisms. me, i’m still searching and struggling with the basics.
I guessed you’d probably already been down that route Jon – sorry it’s not been entirely succesful but here’s hoping that you’ll get somewhere better with the help of the ‘lovely psychologist’. Prayers for you, Hayles, BK and all those imprisoned by debilitating fears, whatever the cause.
Meant also to say that I think you are so right to disaggregate this from any ’spiritual’ reading of the situation Jon. So often, there is a tendency for christians to make a connection between cognitive problems or mental health problems and ’spiritual issues’ which is not only totally spurious but also hangs a stonking great millstone round the neck of the sufferer – as if they didn’t have enough to bear
pat… a natural and unfortunate consequence of dualistic theology i’m afraid. you’re not wrong. … and yet to your comment.
btw… i love the word ’spurious’.
Jon: “it has been a long journey but i have met some helpful people.” – sounds like a pilgrim’s progress to me =] Reading that really made me smile.
It is good that you are not exactly like your siblings, cos we already have one of both of them and don’t require duplicates. We do need one of you with your exact experiences and gifts and outlook, though. There aren’t any others of them and we would be deficient if this particular person was missing. (I know you know all this). What i am trying to say is that you’re doing a damn good job of being you. You’re a natural at it. And being you is a necessary and worthwhile task. I know i have very much appreciated the excellent job of being you that you’ve been doing and would like to thank you for it.
Struggling with some things and being flipping amazing at others is part of who you are. Same for me and for your siblings and everyone else, though the combinations of struggle and amazing are endlessly varied.
Whilst i wouldn’t have wished the struggles on you, and whilst i will pray they are alleviated, i am thankful for all the good that i see in your work and your character, and i know some of that good has come out of those struggles.
BK, Hayles, absolutely the same to both of you too. =]
awww. asbojesus people are the best. Mwah!! to all of you lovely blog readers!
PS to Jon – I’m with Linus, it sucks that you’ve gone through/are going through that stuff, but at the same time God is bringing some really cool and encouraging stuff out of it. I know so many of your cartoons and comments have really uplifted me, challenged me, encouraged me.
I started across the bridge a long time ago, and I still can’t even see the other side
It has let me fall a long way at times but has not let hit me the ground. I can see many of the ropes I thought were important have frayed or snapped – but still the bridge is intact enough, just.
Behind me the bridge is missing the deck – there’s no way back.
The more I think about it, the more I think there is not a one size fits all wisdom, but rather a seasonal wisdom. There are times when we must trust…there are times when we need to weigh up the situation and err on the side of caution.
I am considered something of a freak in just about every circle I mix with these days on account of the fact that I can’t drive. Fact is, I really don’t want to drive. Never wanted to, though I have failed two tests. Shortly after I failed my second and I was not taking any lessons due to the last credit crunch we had, a friend, a lovely young woman, had recently passed her test. She had a crash in her car, killing herself, her dad and her brother-in-law. She left behind a little daughter. I don’t trust myself to have the judgement needed to be a good driver…but more than that, I don’t trust the other nutters on the road, whose numbers seem to grow exponentially each week. More than anything I can’t get out of my head the idea of a car being like a loaded gun…I can’t do that responsibility thing.
chris f… it’s all i have too, but i still don’t really trust it.
DON”T READ ON IF YOU ARE OF NERVOUS DISPOSITION. if you’re like me, then some images are not helpful. clare finds these stories slightly amusing… i find them darkly so…
i’ve umm’d and aah’d about whether to post them.
carole… i’m the same with cars. i knew plenty of people who’ve been killed. i’ve seen someone killed and also mopped up after an horrendous accident where the pedestrian survived… but barely.
years back, my friend and i remember me saying to a teacher (after an awful accident outside school) ‘do you think his mum will want his teeth?’ humour helped me cope, but i think i knew then i’d never make a good fireman.
when i was just getting through the worst of illness, i went up to london to stay with jon and jen baker for a week. they looked after me so well. half way through the week my confidence was not too bad. i said to jen, ‘i’m just going to pop up the road and get a couple of bottles of wine for dinner’… i left the house and made my way to the off license, which was only 200 yards down the road, if that. i’d almost reached my destination, when there was a screech and a bang and a motorcyclist skidded over the pavement in front of me (sans bike, which ended up a few yards away) whacking his head against the off license wall and lying unconscious.
i went into the off license where they were already doing the 999 thing, bought my wine and went home with yet more unhelpful experience of the world being a dangerous and untrustworthy place.
these are just two stories which seem to have been the kind of things my brain has photocopied large. i have many more, even worse stories, but i’ll not air them here. i don’t really trust anything or anyone it seems, i don’t rightly know how it started, but i know a whole bunch of experiences that just back it up.
what clare finds funny (bless her) is that a man with an anxiety disorder plucks up courage to leave the house and witnesses an accident right in front of him. even i can see that that does have it’s amusing side. hmmmmm.
Awful stories, Jon…but yes, there is a black ironical humour there. Humour is a coping mechanism, that I know well. I saw a person interviewed on the TV once. She worked for the railways and spoke of her first experience of clearing up after a suicide. As she struggled to cope, her more experienced colleague spotted a lone arm on the track. The hand was positioned in a two-fingered salute. He just said, in a dry Glaswegian twang, “Aye, and the same to you, pal!” I think it broke the tension.
I remember crushing beetles underfoot as a child, without a second’s consideration that I was wiping out a life. The fact that the same thing can happen to a human being horrifies me.
Hello!
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PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
Comment by RaiulBaztepo — March 28, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
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If it’s good enough for Indiana Jones, it’s good enough for me?
Seriously, I have no idea. Despite the reassurances of many of the people I trust that the bridge is safe, it looks dodgy enough to me, and my experience of stepping out onto it tells me that it wobbles in places it shouldn’t. There must be another way across somewhere.
Comment by Timbo — March 18, 2009 @ 12:36 am
Haha, that is me right there!
Much better at trusting people than trusting God. When people tell me to ‘put it in God’s hands’ I tend to run in the opposite direction. Complete scaredy cat I’m afraid
Comment by theseoldshades — March 18, 2009 @ 1:30 am
wow… that’s a toughie.
trust, faith… would it be the same if we knew absolutley?
is there any other option?
Comment by Welshdisastergirl — March 18, 2009 @ 1:33 am
Is it just my imagination or on you on some creative roll these days? I’m just loving these most recent ones Jon. Keep it up!
Comment by anita — March 18, 2009 @ 2:42 am
Depends – what’s on the other side of the bridge – meaning how badly do I have to get there? Sometimes there are holes put in my path that test me — other times I’m a dumbass who fell down when it could have been avoided.
Comment by beckyG — March 18, 2009 @ 4:03 am
very good question!!!
Comment by Laura — March 18, 2009 @ 4:13 am
I like Becky’s answer.
Comment by shelly — March 18, 2009 @ 4:53 am
I hate that feeling of realizing I’ve devoted my life to climbing up a dead end
sometimes so much feels so irrelevant
Comment by subo — March 18, 2009 @ 7:24 am
When I did my MLTB (mountaineering) we were taught to TRUST our equipment and nothing else. If our equipment was sound then go for it, if it wasn’t then risk your life.
Comment by dennis — March 18, 2009 @ 7:28 am
it’s not about great or small trust. but about how great or small the thing is i put my trust in.
[sorry for stating the obvious]
Comment by march — March 18, 2009 @ 8:48 am
Surely it all depends on WHO you are talking to?
Comment by Miriworm — March 18, 2009 @ 9:17 am
Trust can only come from relationship and that takes time, effort and investment.
http://www.beatthedrum.wordpress.com
Comment by beatthedrum — March 18, 2009 @ 10:26 am
Good question. Why should I trust that silly bridge. Doesn’t look too safe to me!!
Comment by brunettekoala — March 18, 2009 @ 10:49 am
for what (or who) does THIS bridge stand for? THIS
Comment by HisGal — March 18, 2009 @ 11:03 am
whoops..too quickly with the ’submit’ button..sorry..
Ehm..I wanted to say: THIS one sure doesn’t appear to be too reliable..
Comment by HisGal — March 18, 2009 @ 11:05 am
“Faithfulness is the source of faith. A promise has only as much value as the person making it. In evaluating his words to us, we are actually judging whether or not we believe that God is trustworthy. Faith is not spelt R-I-S-K. It is spelt T-R-U-S-T. Unless, of course, you consider God to be a risky bet.”
http://www.24-7prayer.com/content/966
Comment by Bo — March 18, 2009 @ 11:14 am
Uh, and the answer to the man’s question should be “I have walked on a bridge build by the same guy, it didn’t look safe either, but I got over safe and sound.
And once I got part of the way across, I realised the bridge was much more stable than it seemed at first.”
Comment by Bo — March 18, 2009 @ 11:17 am
What do i see here? Well sometimes there can be very persuasive people that can convince you to trust in things that are very unstable and your instinct can be to go a different direction but because you are being told you do it.
I am thinking especially of people who are just stepping into faith / church for the first time. There is such a great responsibility here and so often this can be abused by directing people and forcing them down paths that are too unstable. Foundations not built yet etc. etc.
How hard it is to step back and just let people amble along the scenic cliff path when we know that if they just take that “leap of faith” they can get there much quicker.
(think that makes sense anyway)
Comment by Will — March 18, 2009 @ 11:18 am
Is it always as straightforward as that though Bo? ‘Evaluating his words to us’ also involves a judgement of what those words really mean surely?
Many, many years ago, I, fully convinced that God was trustworthy, took a ‘leap of faith’ based on a certain passage of scripture – by which I mean that I did certain things (as a sign of faith spelt t-r-u-s-t) that put me in a position where GOd would have to do something – or I’d be struggling. The ‘trusted in’ outcome did not materialise and……I struggled. At the time, I went through all sorts of contortions in an attempt to explain this apparent let-down by God and to stifle all the resulting questions I had.
Now I look back on that incident and see that it had everything to do with the particular approach to scripture and faith which shaped the Christian community with which I was involved – and nothing to do with whether God was trustworthy, or even with what faith might actually be and how we put it into operation.
Will @ 18 I agree absolutely – people must be allowed to make this journey at their own rate – not forced to do something because of someone else’s take on what faith demands.
Comment by Pat — March 18, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
Because everything we’ve tried to bridge the gap fails miserably and leads to death, so, God builds a bridge to us.
It’s the abc of evangelical theology Jon, do keep up.
Comment by Jonathan — March 18, 2009 @ 12:29 pm
Runs and hides from the ‘Bridge Diagram’ of evangelism!
Comment by beatthedrum — March 18, 2009 @ 1:20 pm
if you can’t trust the bridge but you’re convinced there’s no alternative way across… what then?
Hang on a minute, why am i putting my trust in a bridge? i never signed up to put my trust in a bridge. I thought i was supposed to be trusting a person.
Comment by Linus — March 18, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
I think it depends one what the bridge is, and where it leads to.
I have heard pastors talk to their churches about taking a leap of faith for the building fund. And it was a big financially secure church. I would imagine that that bridge looked like the Golden Gate bridge, but would actually flap around in the wind. It wasn’t worth our faith.
But sometimes the bridges we do need to cross will look feeble, but they can be strong when we take steps on it.
Comment by Andy M — March 18, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
i go over bridges all the time,
wouldn’t walk over that one though.
Comment by gilly — March 18, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
Ribbit
FROG
Ribbet
People – now that’s your problem!
Comment by Robb — March 18, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
@Robb – FROG as in the cheesy bracelet? That’s our problem?? BK doesn’t understand (but she is pretty slow on the uptake).
Comment by brunettekoala — March 18, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
trust is THE BIG ISSUE for me. it really lies at the heart of my profound anxiety. agraphobia, fear of bridges, travel, all sorts… whenever it wills!
no trust… the fear that i am not held… how does one find trust?
any wisdom… any one?
many ordinary things in life become very near impossible as a result of this for me. any comments, help, welcome.
Comment by jonbirch — March 19, 2009 @ 2:03 am
Trust is found thru’ experience and that means probably getting hurt from time to time.
Comment by Miriworm — March 19, 2009 @ 8:36 am
@jonbirch:
thank you for your openness. i have my issues with trust, too. so i don’t really know, but isn’t it by experiencing being held that i can build trust again? even if it is by ministeps?
we had this little bibleschool in a castle, by a lake, in winter. and our teacher told us to walk on the frozen lake.
it was not about how great or small our faith into the ice was but how thick the layer was.
people with a big faith would have broken into the cold water if the ice was too thin.
but as the ice was thick enough people with little or no faith at all could step onto it and experience step by step that the ice was strong enough to hold us.
Comment by march — March 19, 2009 @ 8:48 am
Brunettekoala – we can trust God. We can’t necessarily trust people or what people say about God.
Aren’t the bracelets really cheesy? We Want Jack Daniels!
Sorry if I didn’t make much sense.
jon – trust can only come through experience. It is a bit like respect. Some people expect respect because of who they are. For example, a bishop who expects respect because he or she is a bishop is never going to be given respect. Someone like Tom Wright comands respect because he is someone who you can’t help but respect.
Miriworm – yep.
March – excellent example. Experience has proved that you can trust the ice.
Comment by Robb — March 19, 2009 @ 9:21 am
Jon, I guess that some form of trust and risk assesment underlies many of the activities we do on a day to day basis – getting in a car, crossing the road, climbing the stairs, using an electrical appliance etc. – but most of this is subconsciously processed. Some of the things that cause us anxiety are maybe no different in actual risk terms than this everyday stuff but they loom large because they intrude on consciousness – either because they are unusual events for us or because we have a bad experience/memory, or because they’ve recently been prominent in the news etc. I try and remind myself of that in these scenarios, in order to get some perspective on the actual degree of risk entailed and whether my reponse is proportionate. And I try and think of ways I can minimise any perceived risks and manage any associated anxiety. Which is ok for managing ‘ordinary’ levels of anxiety, but I’m not sure that it’s of much use if anxiety levels are such that they are completely disabling. Professional help from someone with the appropriate training and skills is sometimes what is needed to get to the bottom of these things and to help devise ways of managing them.
Comment by Pat — March 19, 2009 @ 9:23 am
‘many ordinary things in life become very near impossible as a result of this for me.’
My heart goes out to you – I know how this kind of anxiety feels. About a year ago my OCD got so bad that I was barely eating because I felt like plates and cutlery weren’t clean enough, and I was on the border of being underweight. A year on I still can’t drink out of glasses at the pub, or ever eat at someone else’s home.
I can’t use certain forms of travel (particularly underground trains) because I get panic attacks and feel like I’m going to faint with the anxiety. When I try praying in these situations I feel very alone, to be honest, because the fear feels so much more immediate and ‘real’ than anything else. And I can’t help but think of the people in horrible situations that must have said final prayers to God…what if in my final prayer I feel alone? What if He doesn’t reply? My big fear is that when I really need God, I’ll just hear silence.
‘The fear that I’m not held’ is something that I am also trying to cope with too.
Crikey that all sounds a bit depressing! Apologies for that, just thought it might help to know you’re not fighting the fear alone.
Living day in day out with General Anxiety Disorder and OCD makes passages such as ‘perfect love casts out fear’ seem so empty.
I’ll say a prayer for you today, Jon. Maybe we’ll get an angel sent to watch over us! God bless you xxxx
Comment by Hayles — March 19, 2009 @ 10:09 am
@Robb – ahhh! Ok get it now. Yes, they are, but I admit that I had a WWJD bracelet I sometimes wore and it DID serve as a good reminder at times to love more like him…
I’m also with Robb on trust comes from experience. I have trust issues too. I can relate to Hayles’ story a little bit because I have emetophobia (fear of vomiting). I scrutinise food, I struggle to eat any food I’ve thrown up in the past. I point blank refuse to use coaches or ferries (because people get sick on them). Someone sitting next to me threw up on a plane 2 years ago, and I don’t know how I’m going to get to South Africa in July. When I’m like that I’m usually too busy running away and screaming for prayer to be an option.
HOWEVER…I would like to encourage you because I have experienced that perfect love casting out fear. But it came from a place where I needed to trust God with my fear for the sake of someone else.
I’ll also say a prayer for both Hayles and Jon today. I believe there are already angels watching over you.
Comment by brunettekoala — March 19, 2009 @ 10:50 am
If you would all be so kind as to put on a purple stole:
Forgive me for I have sinned. I too bought a WWJD bracelet when I was a brand new baby Christian. Back then I was at university and wanted to fit in. I wore it for about a day and then The Lord healed me of the affliction*.
Remember not to break the seal of the confessional!
Can’t work out if this is relevant or not.
Yesterday I was talking with a guy who in years gone by would have been referred to as “the diocesan exorcist”. We were discussing healing and he in passing mentioned something eminently sensible. Sometimes people get all over excited when it comes to the brain and make demands on people.
“You’ve got Jesus and everything will be alright. You don’t need to take those pills anymore, you have Jesus!!”
The problem is – the chemistry of the brain is still the same. The serotonin is still low and the depression is still there.
*feeling that I needed to “fit in” with the Christian Union.
Comment by Robb — March 19, 2009 @ 11:43 am
thanks peeps.
12 years of professional help later, (occupational therapy, to get me up and moving… behavioral therapy, to get me behaving
… cognitive analytical therapy, to analyze my cogs 
… and now with a lovely psychologist who i will be working with on trust.) it has been a long journey but i have met some helpful people.
all the best with your own struggles. it’s nice to be understood ain’t it? 
i have found that good experiences can help to a degree, but bad experiences are equally if not more common… so it has been impossible to re-learn trust through experience in the way i’d hoped to. impossible to gradually build up on something until i no longer find it hard.
thanks for your openness hayles and bk.
march… nice one.
Comment by jonbirch — March 19, 2009 @ 12:11 pm
robb… i am in no doubt that my situation is as physical as any other bodily affliction. it comes through two lots of genes and lands on me. my siblings have both had there struggles and are sensitive to mine, yet they have proved far more resilient than i and have for the most part found fairly reliable mechanisms. me, i’m still searching and struggling with the basics.
Comment by jonbirch — March 19, 2009 @ 12:19 pm
Thanks for being so open Jon. I will keep you and everyone else – all of you – in my prayers.
Comment by Robb — March 19, 2009 @ 12:27 pm
I guessed you’d probably already been down that route Jon – sorry it’s not been entirely succesful
but here’s hoping that you’ll get somewhere better with the help of the ‘lovely psychologist’. Prayers for you, Hayles, BK and all those imprisoned by debilitating fears, whatever the cause.
Comment by Pat — March 19, 2009 @ 3:04 pm
robb, pat…
Comment by jonbirch — March 19, 2009 @ 3:06 pm
Meant also to say that I think you are so right to disaggregate this from any ’spiritual’ reading of the situation Jon. So often, there is a tendency for christians to make a connection between cognitive problems or mental health problems and ’spiritual issues’ which is not only totally spurious but also hangs a stonking great millstone round the neck of the sufferer – as if they didn’t have enough to bear
Comment by Pat — March 19, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
pat… a natural and unfortunate consequence of dualistic theology i’m afraid. you’re not wrong.
… and yet 
to your comment. 
btw… i love the word ’spurious’.
Comment by jonbirch — March 19, 2009 @ 4:44 pm
It’s an attitude that totally infuriates me I’m afraid Jon
And it was a toss up between ’spurious’ and ’specious’
Comment by Pat — March 19, 2009 @ 6:57 pm
Jon: “it has been a long journey but i have met some helpful people.” – sounds like a pilgrim’s progress to me =] Reading that really made me smile.
It is good that you are not exactly like your siblings, cos we already have one of both of them and don’t require duplicates. We do need one of you with your exact experiences and gifts and outlook, though. There aren’t any others of them and we would be deficient if this particular person was missing. (I know you know all this). What i am trying to say is that you’re doing a damn good job of being you. You’re a natural at it. And being you is a necessary and worthwhile task. I know i have very much appreciated the excellent job of being you that you’ve been doing and would like to thank you for it.
Struggling with some things and being flipping amazing at others is part of who you are. Same for me and for your siblings and everyone else, though the combinations of struggle and amazing are endlessly varied.
Whilst i wouldn’t have wished the struggles on you, and whilst i will pray they are alleviated, i am thankful for all the good that i see in your work and your character, and i know some of that good has come out of those struggles.
BK, Hayles, absolutely the same to both of you too. =]
Comment by Linus — March 19, 2009 @ 8:34 pm
ooh, two nice words, pat. with ’spurious’ just pipping it!
thanks so much, linus.
Comment by jonbirch — March 19, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
awww. asbojesus people are the best. Mwah!! to all of you lovely blog readers!
PS to Jon – I’m with Linus, it sucks that you’ve gone through/are going through that stuff, but at the same time God is bringing some really cool and encouraging stuff out of it. I know so many of your cartoons and comments have really uplifted me, challenged me, encouraged me.
Please keep being yourself!!
Comment by brunettekoala — March 20, 2009 @ 12:38 am
whilst we’re havin a bit of a love-in, same applies to your blog BK: uplifting, challenging, encouraging. Also makes me laugh. Good stuff =]
Comment by Linus — March 21, 2009 @ 11:27 am
I started across the bridge a long time ago, and I still can’t even see the other side
It has let me fall a long way at times but has not let hit me the ground. I can see many of the ropes I thought were important have frayed or snapped – but still the bridge is intact enough, just.
Behind me the bridge is missing the deck – there’s no way back.
So I trust the bridge. It’s all I have
Comment by Chris F — March 21, 2009 @ 11:55 am
The more I think about it, the more I think there is not a one size fits all wisdom, but rather a seasonal wisdom. There are times when we must trust…there are times when we need to weigh up the situation and err on the side of caution.
I am considered something of a freak in just about every circle I mix with these days on account of the fact that I can’t drive. Fact is, I really don’t want to drive. Never wanted to, though I have failed two tests. Shortly after I failed my second and I was not taking any lessons due to the last credit crunch we had, a friend, a lovely young woman, had recently passed her test. She had a crash in her car, killing herself, her dad and her brother-in-law. She left behind a little daughter. I don’t trust myself to have the judgement needed to be a good driver…but more than that, I don’t trust the other nutters on the road, whose numbers seem to grow exponentially each week. More than anything I can’t get out of my head the idea of a car being like a loaded gun…I can’t do that responsibility thing.
Comment by Carole — March 21, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
i will, bk. thankss.
chris f… it’s all i have too, but i still don’t really trust it.
DON”T READ ON IF YOU ARE OF NERVOUS DISPOSITION. if you’re like me, then some images are not helpful. clare finds these stories slightly amusing… i find them darkly so…
i’ve umm’d and aah’d about whether to post them.
carole… i’m the same with cars. i knew plenty of people who’ve been killed. i’ve seen someone killed and also mopped up after an horrendous accident where the pedestrian survived… but barely.
years back, my friend and i remember me saying to a teacher (after an awful accident outside school) ‘do you think his mum will want his teeth?’ humour helped me cope, but i think i knew then i’d never make a good fireman.
when i was just getting through the worst of illness, i went up to london to stay with jon and jen baker for a week. they looked after me so well. half way through the week my confidence was not too bad. i said to jen, ‘i’m just going to pop up the road and get a couple of bottles of wine for dinner’… i left the house and made my way to the off license, which was only 200 yards down the road, if that. i’d almost reached my destination, when there was a screech and a bang and a motorcyclist skidded over the pavement in front of me (sans bike, which ended up a few yards away) whacking his head against the off license wall and lying unconscious.
i went into the off license where they were already doing the 999 thing, bought my wine and went home with yet more unhelpful experience of the world being a dangerous and untrustworthy place.
these are just two stories which seem to have been the kind of things my brain has photocopied large. i have many more, even worse stories, but i’ll not air them here. i don’t really trust anything or anyone it seems, i don’t rightly know how it started, but i know a whole bunch of experiences that just back it up.
what clare finds funny (bless her) is that a man with an anxiety disorder plucks up courage to leave the house and witnesses an accident right in front of him. even i can see that that does have it’s amusing side. hmmmmm.
Comment by jonbirch — March 21, 2009 @ 2:44 pm
Awful stories, Jon…but yes, there is a black ironical humour there. Humour is a coping mechanism, that I know well. I saw a person interviewed on the TV once. She worked for the railways and spoke of her first experience of clearing up after a suicide. As she struggled to cope, her more experienced colleague spotted a lone arm on the track. The hand was positioned in a two-fingered salute. He just said, in a dry Glaswegian twang, “Aye, and the same to you, pal!” I think it broke the tension.
I remember crushing beetles underfoot as a child, without a second’s consideration that I was wiping out a life. The fact that the same thing can happen to a human being horrifies me.
Comment by Carole — March 22, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
Ok, I think I’d get on well with Clare. She has a similar sense of humour to me! (Sorry Jon).
@Linus – thank you. I think blogging has become my therapy!!
Comment by brunettekoala — March 22, 2009 @ 9:23 pm
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
Comment by RaiulBaztepo — March 28, 2009 @ 9:34 pm
Hello ! ^_^
My name is Piter Kokoniz. Just want to tell, that I like your blog very much!
And want to ask you: will you continue to post in this blog in future?
Sorry for my bad english:)
Tnx!
Piter.
Comment by PiterKokoniz — April 7, 2009 @ 10:46 pm
thank you piter, and welcome. i guess i will produce cartoons for quite a while yet. while the conversation is alive i shall continue. blessings! j
Comment by jonbirch — April 7, 2009 @ 11:57 pm
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