Green with Humility? by Susan Caldwell

Hedonistic cultures increase the need for all those who can hide their disfigurements and ill wanted actions to desperately to do so. I once read a book where the main character was green. Being green on the outside would make it difficult for anyone to live undetected most especially in a community that aspired to outward beauty and social charm. The make believe country in which this green individual lives is such a place. The ironic twist was that although labeled as “wicked”, undesirable and unattractive when measured against her cultures’ definition of good, she would prove to be more honest and gallant than those around her whose physical beauty and social graces were publicly esteemed.

I like to think of being green, as being real. And being real to me is being fully human. That means accepting my disfigurements and taking responsibility for my moral imperfections. Yet, I know green is not the desired look in our society, either. The constant struggle is not to succumb to my culturally trained instinct of hiding my true nature in the hope of appearing to achieve our cultures definition of good, while still aiming for a higher moral standard and the eternal true good.

This dilemma carries over and seems most apparent, as I look at my spiritual journey. Although aspiring to live by what is good and true is the goal, no person that I know of has yet to meet the standard of perfection. (And here ironically, perfection really does mean not being green.) Therefore guaranteeing any attempt at achieving godliness will bring failure because I am green. The truth is no one can follow a belief system that calls him or her to emulate a perfect standard.

It is here that the Savior enters. He is the Truth, the Perfect Standard, and the One I am to emulate and bringing with him the gift of grace. “It is by grace you have been saved.” And now the real tension begins. What I really want grace to be is a new standard of perfection using me as the measure. But that is not what is being offered. I used to think grace was what covered my shortcomings; or to keep with the analogy of being green, grace was camouflage. Okay, well if not that then maybe grace was what would eventually change me or would help me to appear less green by diluting my color little by little. Since I am still as green as ever, that’s not proving to be true.

Perhaps then what grace does is set us free, free to keep aiming at truth all of our green lives regardless of the outcome. And grace must have truth as its standard or it is valueless. Truth and grace are often seen (and treated) as mutually exclusive. Maybe there were meant to be inseparable. It isn’t so much that they need each other, as it is they together produce the end result we are all able to achieve.

I am left then with this dilemma. When I choose this standard of truth and grace by which to measure my life, what then is the outcome of my efforts? Humility.

How Do I Love Thee??? by Susan Caldwell

I am really struggling today with what love looks like. And sadly I am coming to the conclusion that my definition of love looks an awful lot like my definition of God, it looks a lot like me or perhaps it is the one characteristic of God that for me carries the most power, the desire to reflect what I value most about who I think God is. Justice. Years ago I found a bible verse that affirmed my nature and gave my definition of love credibility. Micah 6:8b “ …to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God.”

Because the emotions/actions called for in this verse are ones I am able to achieve, this became my definition of loving God. I certainly was not going to look up 1Corinthians 13, Paul’s chapter on love and use that as my model for defining love. That definition, I decided was not how I was to love, it is how God loves us. It is word for word the list of God’s true character, His very nature. Not ours.

To use this as the model by which I am to love all others leaves me, well, unable to love anyone. Because I cannot by nature, love this way. My nature is one of selfishness. I love others for the sole purpose of what I may get from the relationship. This is even why I try to love God. For the same reasons I try to love anyone, in the hope that they will love me in return; that my needs will be met, that I will not be alone, afraid, or unhappy; that I would be good, seen as good, obedient and more powerful. Even if I could give up what seems to be a desire to control others by loving selflessly I would still hope that God would love and provide for me (thereby meeting all my needs).

Maybe I am not alone here. Maybe we all do this.

So what then is the answer? If I continue to love others with my definition of love even though they are only able to receive their own definition of love, they will reject my love and neither of us get what we are hoping for. I don’t get loved and others don’t feel loved.

When my oldest daughter was four years old she suddenly exclaimed from the back seat, “Are you going to be a good Mom or a bad Mom today?!”
“Are you going to get me a Slurpee or not?!”
Suddenly my entire weight of glory as a Mother hung in the balance. If we were heading home for dinner getting her a Slurpee at that time would be the defined by most people as a “bad Mom”. So the truth was by whose definition did I want to be measured by?

This is how I think we approach loving each too. We decide when, where and by whose definition we will love.

So what do I cling to here for hope…That God’s character, his very nature is love and so even though we chose our definitions when and how and where we will love, he always chooses to measure us by his love.

To be me or not to be me... by Susan Caldwell

“To be or not to be, --that is the question:--Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortuneOr to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them?"


Although this quote is from Hamlet I was drawn to it while reading King Lear.

In the play King Lear, when Cordelia cannot express her love for her father in a way that he desires to hear it…she is not only cut out of the will, she is completely disowned. I can’t help but wonder here, if she was not thinking…whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them? Okay well at least that is how I have often felt when faced with whether or not to speak up about family issues…which by the way, can carry with them a similar end.

Honest, courageous, family-less, misunderstood Cordelia, her life would have been so much easier if she would have just kept her mouth shut…or more truthfully filled it with placating untruths.

Shakespeare may have written most of his plays about kingdoms and leadership and love but under scoring all was some child/parent/sister/mother/brother/father working out the tension between to be or not to be honest with your family members.

And if Shakespeare couldn’t figure it out, genius that he was, I am not sure I am ever going to get it right. I do know Cordelia ends up proving her love to be true even if it was not understood from the beginning. This then becomes my hope, that I will not be cast too far away from the kingdom so that if/when seen my actions may be understood, even when my words are not.