Brainwashing

I have been brainwashed!

This process was not conducted under the bright lights of systems lighting or under the power of drugs and hypnotic suggestion. Immediately I think of the film "The Manchurian Candidate" when brainwashing actually became a legitimate term in the 1950's. My brainwashing was simply being born and raised in an American culture where busyness has been deemed a virtue.

Doing double duty tasks and accomplishing long checklists of goals consume our thinking and activity. We've even added devices to make that drive easier with the Blackberry's, IPhones, and Palm Pre's we carry about. With computers in our pockets we can check email while shopping, follow the stock market while eating out and surf the web to find out what movie is playing with directions on how to get there - all while driving down the road! We have been brainwashed to think that busier is better and that sitting doing nothing is a waste of time.

So when God calls us into the practice of solitude we rebel. Sitting alone with God seems like a waste of time while our checklist sits unattended. After all what do we DO when we practice "being" with God. Here we go again...we want to be reading the Bible, praying, listening to music, or a CD or reading as part of our "time" with God - sophisticated Christian brainwashing!


I have found that learning to just sit before God has been the hardest thing I've ever done in my Christian life. Yet this is the place where the experience of His love impacts me the most. For the "being with God experience" in solitude leads to the expression of His love in my own life while living in community with others. That's because in solitude I can embrace His love first hand as He embraces me.


The phobia I have is that the "sounds of silence" will cause me to see myself as I really am under God's flashlight and sometimes that frightens me. It's much easier to go on being somebody else by identifying my worth by what I accomplish. So I stay busy in order to avoid the true realities of who I am and who God is. Brainwashing ultimately leads to fear of being found out that I am not the person you think I am.


Beyond that phobia is a God waiting to just be with me because He truly loves me for who I am. After all He created me and values me as truly unique. Being with Him in solitude eventually leads to "fear washing" and a life of genuine freedom to be myself within the context of loving people.


So, excuse me while I return to God's morning rinse cycle...