Posted on by Abe Austin

Unfulfilled Dreams- Never How You Think

Years of Longing)

In the last post I shared the recent experience I’ve had of getting a dog, something I wanted ever since I was a child, and the realization that so much of that dream was specific to my childhood and therefore had to be let go as something that could never be fulfilled. This was an interesting experience and it got me thinking about other dreams that I still have.

Probably the most prominent of those dreams is the one for my own career. I’ve often fantasized about being able to start a small business and spending my working hours on projects that I personally care about. My degree in college was Computer Science with an Animation Emphasis. I’ve been able to do a lot with the Computer Science, programming websites and applications for large businesses, but I haven’t really been able to do anything with the Animation Emphasis part. I did try to make a go of it in the Video Game industry when I first graduated from college, but the experience was very distasteful and made me promise to myself that I would only venture back into there on my own terms.

I long to make my own software, my own animation tools, my own gaming engines, my own games. The dream is to be able to subsist entirely off of these personal creative projects, maybe even earn enough to hire another developer or two and build fun things together. I’ve started many projects that I hoped could become my first product, but I’ve always petered out before I had anything that could actually be sold.

Still, I dream of success. I dream of one day making something that’s just good enough. It doesn’t need to be a great hit, it doesn’t have to become famous, but I would want it to be successful enough to quit my 9-to-5 and justify working full-time for myself.

But then, I remember what it was like finally getting the dog I’d always wanted, and that sure didn’t play out as expected. Would it be the same with this?

Inevitable Disappointment)

I’m sure it would be. I cannot think of a single time in my life where I’ve imagined how something would go, and then it was exactly what I’d expected. Serving a mission for my church, going to college, driving a car, getting a job, getting married, having children, owning a home…the list goes on and on. Not a one of these played out how I had envisioned. Some of them were better than expected, some worse, some just different, but never how I thought. Surely it would be the same with my fantasies of starting my own business. Surely not everything would be good about the experience. There would certainly be monotony, tedious paperwork, setbacks, anxiety…yet none of these feature in my fantasies.

The more I fantasize the experience of forging out on my own, the more I set myself up for disappointment. I don’t think that it’s bad for me to have this goal, and I think it genuinely would be good to achieve it, but if I’m too married to a particular image of how it’s supposed to be, I’m likely to receive a good thing and be put off by it still the same.

What I’ve come to realize is that some dreams have to be given up entirely. The timing passes, the opportunity disappears, or there is no assurance it will ever happen. Other dreams can still be retained, but the idea of exactly how they play out must be surrendered. I can have my dreams, but it’s probably best to keep them vague and broad. I can be in love with the idea of owning my own creative business, while leaving the exact manifestation of that open to interpretation.

Having no dreams is a recipe for living a lackluster life. Having too specific of dreams is a recipe for never being satisfied with what you get. Ambition is fine, but let God work out the details, and be happy for what good you do receive, not sullying it by obsessing on what you didn’t.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Unfulfilled Dreams- It Isn’t the Same

Years of Longing)

I’ve wanted a dog for as long as I can remember. I used to watch movies as a boy like Old Yeller, Beethoven, Benji, Homeward Bound, Iron Will, and Balto, then beg my parents to let us get a puppy. I honestly don’t know how my mother felt about it, but my father was always against them. He had grown up with pets, lots of them, and had no interest in dealing with them again. We did get goldfish a couple of times, but that was it. Left to no other recourse, my siblings and I would make pets out of whatever we could. We would catch bugs and put them in jars, make “alien baby dolls” out of paper, and play pretend where my sister would discover the rest of us as wolves in the wild and lead our pack.

It just wasn’t the same.

Of course, eventually I grew up. And for a long time, I had many distractions to keep me from getting a dog. I was going through school, I was starting my career, my wife and I had a newborn, and then another, and then another. We’ve been building our little kingdom for thirteen years now, and just a few weeks ago it started to dawn on me that we had reached a certain level of stability. We have our own home, with a fenced-in yard, no major projects going on, and the kids just got on summer break. So I spoke to my wife about how this was the first really convenient time for us to have a dog of our own. Things moved very fast, and 48 hours later I introduced our new dog to our children!

Since that day, it has been a lot of fun! I’m really glad to finally have the dog that I’ve wanted for over thirty years. But…if I’m being honest…it isn’t the experience I’d always dreamed of.

Shifting Dreams)

In hindsight, it never could be. My dream had always been to have a dog in my childhood. I imagined going out exploring on summer days with my “good boy” by my side, letting him sneak into my room to sleep on my bed, and having a friend and a protector who would never leave. But things just don’t work out that way with a dog at this stage of life. These summer days I’m shut in the office, working to provide for the family. The dog tries to sneak onto the bed, but I can’t stop thinking about how dirty those paws are and tell her to get off. And I’m much more the protector than that dog will ever be.

Like I said, in hindsight, this is obvious, but in the days following getting the dog, it came as a real disappointment. I can still have a good experience with this dog, and I really am doing so, it’s just never going to be the “good experience” I had always dreamed of. That dream was inseparably connected to being a specific age, and I’m simply not that age any longer. That dream is gone, and that’s all there is to it.

But you know who that dream isn’t gone from? My kids. From my ten-year-old to my three-year-old, each one of them has spent hours each day playing, chasing, and laughing with the dog. They’re excited to feed it, excited to bathe it, even excited to scoop up its poop!

And so, my dreams need to shift around a fair bit. I have to let go of the old dream that was no longer possible. I have to accept the new dream, which is still good, but different from what the old one was. And I have to be content to see the old dream live on in my own children. This whole experience got me thinking about other dreams and hopes I’ve had for my life, including ones yet unrealized for my adult life. I realized some important lessons there, too. Ones that I will share in my next post.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Sharing Feelings- Difficult Conversations

I Would Rather Die)

In my last post I made the claim that the type of “sharing feelings” that men need most is admission of guilt and shame. Honestly, that probably goes for women also, but I don’t have extensive personal experience with that, like I do with men. I have seen many men burdened with depression, fear, anxiety, and purposelessness. That has been me, myself. In every case, the first step that must be taken, and then taken repeatedly again throughout life, is the admission of one’s secret wrongs, so that forgiveness and surrender can take place.

These are inherently difficult conversations to have. I cannot think of any that would be harder. Disclosing your deepest wrongs is the single most likely way to break relationships, face painful consequences, and risk total abandonment. It is social and emotional suicide, and many men would rather commit actual suicide than go there. One of the most common things I have heard (and personally felt) is that men feel like admitting these things would kill us. We men often only make these confessions because we finally decide that a quick and sharp death is better than the long, drawn out one that we are experiencing. What a shock and amazement to discover that actually this is the path to life.

Jesus described the path to life as “strait and narrow,” (Matthew 7:14). The things that we must do are clear, precise, and narrowly defined. They are simple and accessible to all. Yet “few there be that find it,” because the first step of that path is the one gate that most of us think we will never pass through: confession of our shame.

Culture of Confession)

I believe confession is necessarily hard. I do not think it will ever be easy. A lot of people talk about changing the culture to make it more acceptable for men to “talk about their feelings,” and I do believe we could make a push to normalize confession culturally, removing the social stigmas around it that are unnecessary, but I don’t think it will ever actually stop being anything less than the hardest thing we ever do. It simply isn’t in our nature to make confession until we have exhausted every other possible option.

And that’s okay. We can never become the greatest version of ourselves without fear, sacrifice, and restoration. Facing something that scares us to death and breaking through that barrier is the gateway into new life. Jesus, himself, explained this when he said, “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Paradise is only available to the reborn, and rebirth assumes the death of the old self.

Thus, even if we ever did create a culture of confession such that there was no fear in admitting to our deepest wrongs, there would still be a need for another crippling fear that we would rather die than face, and a courageous leap into that death, and a rebirth on the other side. Personally, I consider it more likely that confession will just always serve as that primal fear.

I want to be clear that I absolutely know how hard the things I am advocating for are. I know it firsthand. I do not encourage men to seek this soul-shattering experience lightly. I only advocate for it because I know it is the only way, and that what is on the other side is worth it. In fact, it is so much more than just “worth it.” It isn’t that life continues on the other side of confession, it is that it begins. Everything before it is simply a walking death. Everything after it is the genuine article. And so yes, I acknowledge that this is hard, but I bear my witness that it is right and true. May I meet you one day on the other side.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Sharing Feelings- Unburdened Shame

Different Shares)

In my last post I talked about the claim that men struggle because they don’t share their feelings, and how there is a real truth to that statement, but that too often the proposed solution is unhelpful, even harmful. For too many, “sharing feelings” just turns into complaining, to shifting blame outwards, and finding others to stoke one’s feeling of righteous indignation. Feeding one’s rage is quite the rush. It feels “good” in a power-fantasy sort of way. But it does not do good for us. Ultimately, it only makes things worse.

I also mentioned in my last post that there is such a thing as acknowledging and surrendering genuine wounds, and that is healthy. The critical difference is that this healthy sharing is oriented towards accepting and releasing, not clutching and festering.

What is more, there is another sort of “sharing feelings” that is healing, needed constantly throughout life, and it hardly ever gets discussed at all. Usually, it only comes up in religious contexts, while the broader world shrinks from it at any cost. And that is, confession of guilt.

Admitting Wrongs)

By far, the bottled-up feelings that afflict the most people and cause the most damage is their shame. The feelings that men (and I suspect women, too) most need to share with one another is their deep regret, embarrassment, and guilt.

People try to live without shame by just not acknowledging it. By being “shameless” and pretending they don’t feel bad about what they have done. But if one cannot own their own shame, then they cannot be freed from it. Genuine shamelessness comes from fully embracing it, fully sharing it, and fully giving it to God. As James taught us, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16).

Of course, you mustn’t just share your greatest flaws with just anyone. “Cast not your pearls before swine,” (Matthew 7:6). Our sins and our crimes against God and man are very vulnerable and must only be shared in the most sacred and trusted of space. But shared they must be. We should all seek a group, a sincere friend, or an honorable spiritual leader where we can bring out our worst and receive of their best. And we must have this communion continually, as new wrongs require new confession, and we live in a perpetual cycle of taking on burdens and then having them taken off.

This is the sort of emotional unloading that will actually make men healthier, stronger, happier, and whole. Not complaining about the wrongs of others, but admitting to the wrongs of themselves. This is where true healing begins.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Sharing Feelings- Unhealthy Communication

Dangerous Suppression)

A common plea that is made today is for men to better “express their feelings.” Men are recognized as being a lonely, unsupported demographic, prone to bad behavior because of unresolved turmoil within. And in my experience, there is some truth to this. I have been a man deeply troubled by the unspoken tribulation within me, and that profoundly negative state of mind did lead me to violate my own conscience and cause harm to those around me. Finding men’s groups where I could talk freely and also going through some one-on-one therapy was extremely healing.

But it didn’t have to be. One thing that I have learned for sure is that not all men’s groups and not all therapy is created equal. Some of it is extremely helpful. Some of it is useless. And some of it actually causes more harm. And what it comes down to is this: just what feelings are being shared.

Unhealthy Sharing)

The sort of “feelings sharing” that I see actively causing damage is when men complain about all that is wrong in their lives, and spiral into greater and greater feelings of anger. This is something I see both men and women having a problem with actually. This unhealthy communication isn’t about getting the anger of out their system, it is about validating and reinforcing it. Those that participate often respond with something like, “oh yeah, that is ridiculous, and that’s just what I’m dealing with, too…” which only multiplies the angry sentiment. It isn’t commiserating; it is compounded misery.

To be clear, genuine wounds do need to be addressed. Everyone has formative suffering in their lives, and carrying those burdens alone is unhealthy. Healing from these is very sacred, but it looks different. It looks like surrendering, accepting, forgiving, and releasing. If there is rage, it is expressed so that it can be let go of, not so that it can go back into the feedback loop of pain, to rage, to pain.

Healing from genuine wounds does not come by rehashing one’s anger over and over and over. It comes in a moment of holding, accepting, and then letting go. Anything that looks different from that tends to be about driving the pain deeper, not getting it out.

And, let us be honest, not all that gets shared in these misery sessions is genuine wounds. Often it is complaining about things that we don’t like in other people, ways that they trigger our insecurities, ways that they prevent from getting what we want. Most of these complaints don’t deserve any of our time at all, let alone the hours and hours of moaning that some people give to them.

This is what unhealthy sharing looks like, but I mentioned that I had also seen good in another form of men meeting together and sharing the weightier things of their hearts. So what does that look like? I will go into detail tomorrow.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Purposeful Pain

Much of what we call “suffering” is simply going through pain that we don’t think we’re supposed to. We had a plan or an expectation for life, and the pain is ruining all of that, and it can be a crippling disappointment that some never grow past.

Growth comes in accepting. It comes in saying, “Well maybe this is the right pain for me. Maybe this is here for me to learn how to get through it. Maybe this is exactly the path my quest was meant to follow.” Purposeful pain yields growth, meaningless suffering only yields agony.

Posted on by Abe Austin

What Really Matters

Often, that which we value most is not what we assume. The only way to know our true priorities is to observe what we compromise at the expense of what else.

Do we keep our belief in God’s commandments quiet when those around us oppose them? Then we value society more than God.

Do we pursue early sexual gratification, even though we know it will make us unattractive to a potential spouse? Then we value pleasure more than family.

Do we ignore our neighbor asking for help loading their truck so that we can have a nice evening to ourselves? Then we value self more than community.

And through it all, we may tell ourselves that God, family, and community matter to us most, but our actions reveal the truth of the matter. They do not. Social acceptance, pleasure, and self are our true priorities. But the good news is, our priorities can be altered, we just have to make sacrifices. Choose the commandments, the abstinence, the community service, even when we do not want them. In time, the heart will change so that we do.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 13:47-59

47 The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen garment, or a linen garment;

48 Whether it be in the warp, or woof; of linen, or of woollen; whether in a skin, or in any thing made of skin;

49 And if the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it is a plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed unto the priest:

50 And the priest shall look upon the plague, and shut up it that hath the plague seven days:

51 And he shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the plague is a fretting leprosy; it is unclean.

52 He shall therefore burn that garment, whether warp or woof, in woollen or in linen, or any thing of skin, wherein the plague is: for it is a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire.

53 And if the priest shall look, and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin;

54 Then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more:

55 And the priest shall look on the plague, after that it is washed: and, behold, if the plague have not changed his colour, and the plague be not spread; it is unclean; thou shalt burn it in the fire; it is fret inward, whether it be bare within or without.

56 And if the priest look, and, behold, the plague be somewhat dark after the washing of it; then he shall rend it out of the garment, or out of the skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof:

57 And if it appear still in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it is a spreading plague: thou shalt burn that wherein the plague is with fire.

58 And the garment, either warp, or woof, or whatsoever thing of skin it be, which thou shalt wash, if the plague be departed from them, then it shall be washed the second time, and shall be clean.

59 This is the law of the plague of leprosy in a garment of woollen or linen, either in the warp, or woof, or any thing of skins, to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean.

We conclude this chapter with an examination of what to do if an infestation is found within a garment. The garment might be made from the skin of an animal, or from flax that has been spun into linen, or wool from a sheep. Given its organic nature, it was susceptible to spreading disease, just like human skin. In this case, there were two stages of testing. The first was to see if the discolored spot spread. If it did, the garment was destroyed. If it didn’t, the spot was cleaned. If the cleaning had no effect, the garment was still destroyed. If it did have an effect, then the discolored section might be cut out and patched, or if it appeared perfectly clean it could be used without modification.

Throughout this chapter we have compared the presence of leprosy to the spreading of dangerous ideologies and trends in society. In today’s verses, the corruptible garment may well represent a man-made creation that has gone astray. Like a leaking nuclear reactor or an internet filled with pornography, things that we make with our own hands are just as susceptible to spreading corruption that harm us. As with the garment, we can consider whether the creation can be cleaned or patched or salvaged, but if not, it must be destroyed.

This concludes the preliminary instructions regarding the treatment of leprosy in man and garment. In the next chapter we will learn some more about the rituals and offerings to be made for the sake of a leprous person, and we will continue to consider what symbolic meaning that might have more broadly for our day.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 13:42-46

42 And if there be in the bald head, or bald forehead, a white reddish sore; it is a leprosy sprung up in his bald head, or his bald forehead.

43 Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh;

44 He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head.

45 And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.

46 All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.

In today’s verses we finally learn what was required of a person who was found to be infected with a leprosy. A person with leprosy was ritually unclean and was not to draw too near to other people, and so we see a sort of quarantine being described. The infected person was not entirely shut away from the rest of society, but he did need to live out on the fringes of the population. He could be in the same place as other Israelites, but he had to announce his approach with a cry of “unclean, unclean.” The instruction that his upper lip needed to be covered sounds like he would wear a sort of scarf or veil, functioning as a sort of olden-day medical face mask.

Going back to our analogy of a spiritually sick society, when we discover a population that has adopted a harmful ideology, we tend to lessen our connection to it. Usually, these groups are not completely eradicated, but they are kept at a distance, until their members abandon their troublesome and reintegrate with the healthy population. Examples of this might include the Hippie population and the Trans movement. We never made such organizations and ideologies illegal, but society moved apart from them, and these organizations and movements have gradually dissipated over time.

Thus, even as we recognize, call out, and distance ourselves from the ills in our society, it is with the intention of rehabilitation and reintegration, not eradication. Preventing the spread of harm is essential, but we still recognize that the infected are a part of us, and we want them to rejoin us as soon as they are clean again.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 13:38-41

38 If a man also or a woman have in the skin of their flesh bright spots, even white bright spots;

39 Then the priest shall look: and, behold, if the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white; it is a freckled spot that groweth in the skin; he is clean.

40 And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.

41 And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean.

Today’s verses present a lesson that might seem laughably obvious, but which have a deeper symbolic meaning worth considering. In today’s verses it describes that simply going bald is not a sign of leprosy. If there is a discoloration of the skin, then that might indicate that the hair is falling out due to an underlying illness, but a man who goes bald as part of the regular aging process is not cause for alarm!

Simple and obvious, perhaps, but thus far we have seen how the principles for recognizing leprosy have all been important lessons in how to recognize social spiritual infections as well. And just as how natural baldness is not in-and-of-itself a sign of leprosy, a civilization suffering a loss is not in-and-of-itself a sign of spiritual decay. The fact is, sometimes baldness just happens, and so, too, sometimes tragedy just happens.

We live in a fallen world, after all, where things will not always be ideal. Tragedy remains tragic, whether it is a consequence of wrong decisions or a random act of nature. To know if a society has gone astray, we need to look deeper than what has happened to them, we need to look at what happenings are coming from them. Only then can we know clean from unclean.