Second In-Church Sermon; Mental Clarity

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Second In-Church Sermon; Mental Clarity

Post by K » Thu May 22, 2014 8:14 pm



My mic was apparently mal-adjusted at some point, because I was almost totally inaudible for the first few songs. Well, I also just blended with Glen's voice well, so it's not all bad, and part of it is just that the recording doesn't pick up sound nearly well enough (You really had to be there to tell what a dramatic difference I'm referring to.), but you can certainly tell that my volume was too low, especially at the parts of "Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb?" in which only I sang. That was disappointing; I know that quite a few people like to hear me sing.
Bloody puss-bucket, I was awkward. I got even more nervous with technical difficulties going on, of course.
I was sleep-deprived.
I was having an allergy attack. I also might be a little sick. It's hard to tell because I have a good immune system.
I get nervous around pretty women. Our church has quite a few of those. It's a wonder that I haven't yet had a heart attack, really.
Ever since I was about 10, I've been nervous when speaking because, whenever I speak, I feel rushed, like someone just said hi and carried a bit of conversation to be sociable, not because they respect me enough to care what I have to say. Note that I didn't explicitly mention lack of respect as a hindrance to mental clarity, but I did mention pride, which causes selfishness and lack of respect. This feeling is not unfounded; people have flat-out admitted such a sad state to me. Aside from giving me instinctual nervousness when attempting to communicate, this has prevented me from getting much experience to overcome the matter. The problem is cyclical.
I was expecting a certain friend to be there who ended up being unable to make it. That one friend made all the difference; I knew that she would stop me at some points to ask for clarification, as she has told me before that she didn't get along well with public school until college, so her vocabulary is not what she'd like it to be, whereas mine is quite expansive, and that would open others up to also interrupt for clarity. This would have extended the sermon length so that less of it was ad-lib at the end.
I had planned the length to be around the 45-55-minute range. I had timed myself on the majority of the sermon at 40 minutes, so I assumed that the parts that I added afterward and the interruptions that I was expecting would put me right about where I should have been. Thus, I did intentionally speed it up a bit so that I could have some room for interruptions and add-on discussion points, but I underestimated how much I sped it up.
Because of all the other troubles, when I got to points at which I had add-on pieces already planned mentally, I totally spaced them and hurried along. I didn't even remember most of them when I was explicitly trying to, as I was discomforted by the fact that I had finished so much earlier than expected.

There was also the instance in which a typo prevented us from identifying and getting to read Psalms 11:5-7, which reads,
"5 The Lord examines the righteous,
but the wicked, those who love violence,
he hates with a passion.
6 On the wicked he will rain
fiery coals and burning sulfur;
a scorching wind will be their lot.
7 For the Lord is righteous,
he loves justice;
the upright will see his face."

In conclusion, yes, I know. I've told myself enough what a big screw-up I am, and others discussed it with me, too. I know, really. Even though I'm sure that most or all of your criticism is intended constructively, you can save it, unless it's actually something that I didn't think of, because I've probably already thought of it and beaten myself up sufficiently for it.
I appreciate some friends' attempts to make me feel better about it, but you'll all just have to deal with the fact that I will remain at least somewhat miffed because I'm disappointed. Whether you see the reasons as legitimate issues or cheap excuses, at the end of the day, what matters is that I had planned this greatly, and it didn't go as planned. I want that to be clear so that people A) don't underestimate my cognitive competence on the matter and 2) don't feel bad that I will still feel bad about this.
On the upshot, during the lengthy pauses during which I sleepily blanked-out on how I had intended to say something, the pause lengths weren't as bad as they had seemed. When I was up there, it felt like I was pausing for eons, when it was really just a few seconds. I also handled things pretty smoothly at the beginning, when I realized that I had skipped the opening that I had intended, then made it come together after those first few term clarifications.
That being said, here's the sermon. Let's hope that Youtube doesn't mess up the quality too badly.

I'll list the add-on pieces here:
We saw in Phillipians 2:1-11 that the mind of Christ referred to humility in order to focus on real matters, not positions of esteem, even when one is in a position in which one would expect a focus on esteem. Jesus exemplifies this by being humble enough to focus on ream matters, even though He was God and could have just gone on about how cool he was and still been right about it. We saw in 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 and Romans 12:2 that the mind of Christ is a matter of spiritual, mental discernment. We asked ourselves at the start, "What is the mind of Christ?" Put simply, it is all things. It is a matter of bringing all thoughts captive to God's Way, not just the thought paths that we've been taught in this world. It's about reasoning things out all the way with a blessed perspective, rather than the processes of worldly thoughts.
If you are unclear on something, not only is it good to humble yourself and ask for clarity, but it is your moral responsibility to do so. There is no shame in getting confused. We all run on different channels. "Smart" people can be confused in dumb ways, and "dumb" people can get smart things; it's not a black-and-white, smart-or-dumb paradigm as much as we like to think. We learn differently. Some of us have classified, mental issues that are dubbed as "disabilities" that hinder us. Some of us just have minds that don't get along well with one kind of learning or another, but do get along with this other kind of learning that is less common. Then, you know what? Some of us really are just dumb. So, what, though? What if you're not as smart as the average? What if you're no genius? What if you're just normal, but a topic seems like a genius thing? So, what? You know why God doesn't address the matter of what to do when you "can't" learn something? It's because you still can. Either you can, or you can bloody-well try, and God will work with whatever you do manage to piece together. We all get confused. We all have trouble learning something or another. Sure, you don't have to learn every detail about every subject that you ever encounter. Sure, you don't have to learn how to draw, play an instrument, play a sport, or otherwise do something that is aesthetic (artsy-fartsy) or recreational, if you're not into it. When someone makes a case that you should learn something, though, "I'm too dumb," "I'm too old," "I'm too stubborn," or any other variation of "I can't" is not an excuse. God can bless your mind with His if you let Him. That's why there is no shame in getting confused, but there is shame in staying confused.
As I mentioned earlier in this description, the only mind-clouds that I mentioned so far were pride, fear, and obsession. I think that I've made my point pretty clearly on fear, as that was the top motivator of this lesson in the first place, but let me expound just a tad on the others. As I mentioned earlier, selfishness and lack of respect for others is a direct result of pride. Pride comes in many forms: One can be selfish or disrespectful without having the esteem that is necessary to consider oneself as proud. Even if you refuse to acknowledge these things as derivatives of pride, though, you must see that they cloud clear thought. It can be as blatant as outright ignoring someone, as subtle as just not caring enough for someone's input, or anywhere in between. It's obvious to see how these get in the way o communication, and, without communication, we can not expose ourselves to the spiritual progress that God intends us for, the main reason why He gave us fellowship. That brings us to passion. As only a few people will recall, I taught a Sunday school lesson about passion and obsession. The term, "passion," has three definitions. One is "nature," from which we get the term, "compassion." We show empathy and sympathy for each other because we share (co) the same nature (passion), and it is part of God's design that we unite with those of the same nature. Another definition is "suffering," which, given our acknowledgement of a sin nature, is pretty easy to understand as related to the first definition. It's the third definition that brings God to explicitly speak against passion: Part of our sinful, human nature is a feeling that we give in to, a compelling feeling to do something that, in some way or another, excites us or draws us in. Part of our nature is the third definition of passion: It's the "emotion of obsession." I opened up that Sunday school lesson to group discussion, but let me just go over some observations: Obsession with your partner prevents you from truly loving him/her. Passion for one person hurts your relationships with everyone else. Obsession with equivalence in relationships prevents you from developing special, close relationships properly. Passion consumes your time and resources. Obsession with bureaucracy and by-the-book procedures prevents you from fluidly making righteous adjustments. Passion for a church limits your perspective from others that you could learn good things from. Obsession with prophesying what's right and wrong can prevent you from taking other measures to be merciful, and vice versa. Passion for accomplishing a task can prevent you from making a clear, working, smooth plan for it, and vice versa. Obsession with bringing someone up can cause you to forget to exhort yourself or others. Passion for teaching can cause you to forget to make an effort to learn, and vice versa. Obsession with giving can cause you to mis-manage your gifts, become an enabler, and not have the appropriate resources to give to others when you're supposed to. Look at all the problems that passion and obsession cause just off the top of my head, and I can go on! At this point, you must see how it prevents clear, Christ-like thought, right?
When we lack mental clarity, we can classify it as a sort of mental laziness. Laziness isn't some unpreventable disease, brethren. It's a problem that we have to deal with. As I said, we live by faith, we die by faith, and that faith, along with God's plan that we recognize by that faith, is a constant thing for our Christian lives. God doesn't say that we're supposed to take a break from shaping ourselves to be like Him. He doesn't say that we're supposed to learn "just enough" and let that be all. He doesn't say that we have to listen "when it seems important" and never else; He tells us to derive learning and clarity constantly. As 1 Thessalonians 5:17 tells us, we are to pray constantly. As I said, this is because God wants to continually shape our minds, constantly give us understanding and discernment, perpetually give us the mind of Christ. You're not supposed to give up; His plan for you keeps going.
I went on for quite a while about literary and between-the-lines communication and the fact that we need to use clear minds to get the whole communication. When someone is a "Grammar Nazi," or, as I'm dubbed, "Grammar Hitler," do you now see that it's not just some excuse to put you down? Do you see why people want clarity in speech and writing? You can't assume that everyone will just know what you mean. You know what you meant because you wrote it; of course, it looks clear enough to you! You can't tell how clear it looks for the rest of us, though. Some of us aren't as good at between-the-lines communication as others anywhere. Some of us have more trouble reading between the lines in one medium than on another; you often hear that, for instance, sarcasm is hard or even impossible to interpret online. This shouldn't be as hard as it is. If the writer can clearly express him/herself and the reader can clearly interpret what is said and implied, the actual sound fluctuation, the physical tone, shouldn't always be necessary. We should be able to interpret that tone, as others, through all sorts of media. We shouldn't rely on the physical sounds of voices fluctuating, the body language, the facial expressions, and other between-the-lines communication. We should be able to express some between-the-lines communication if we use literary communication correctly. Some people may use language corrections as though they're some sort of personal attack, perhaps to discredit whatever you're saying, but, by and large, you should assume that someone is just seeking clarity. Take it in stride, err on the side of kindness, and learn from it no matter how it was intended.
That applies to all sorts of criticism, too. When someone issues to you a complaint, don't just look at your end reaction; look at the whole thought process. When you determine whether or not it is intended to be constructive or destructive, when you determine whether it was phrased correctly or could have been softer, whatever, is that where you stop? Do you just feel bad or feel good about it? Often enough, when people get a criticism that they don't like, they just shut it down. It may be a valid criticism, something that they really should work on, but, because it was intended or interpreted in an unsavory manner, they don't take it to heart. If you are thinking clearly, though, and truly trying to conform to what Jesus would do, you know that anything can be put to use. When Joseph, son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers, he made the best out of the situation, and God showed Joseph that it was all part of His glorious plan. Likewise, even when someone is trying to tear you down, by God's grace, you can learn and use it for good. To illustrate my point, refer to this simple flowchart:
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