Doing work with my SoulCollage® cards has been an important part of my wonderful Christmas Season this year. Christmas has been an unfavorite season for me for many years--dating all the way back to my 9th year. But the prayers of my Grace Group and the making of and dialoguing with cards has meant for me a break through this year. I'm very, very grateful. Nothing changed on the outside, but a lot has changed on the inside--maybe even a new birth.
I made this card a number of years ago, but it had a new message for me this morning. And part of that message included a new work I learned yesterday: "en-factuation". A friend of mine "made up" the word and shared it with me yesterday. It's a good word, best defined by "story".
If you'll notice in the upper right corner
...these old biddies are the "en-factorators". When one person "en-facts" another, they look at a person and cover that person with a story of their own making--they encase that person with their own "facts", and live their lives according to their own made up stories. They spoke to me this morning:
I am the "en-factorator". I am frozen in another time, another place, and another experience. I stand outside your time and space--outside your heart--and I believe my own story about your life. I have you imprisoned behind a curtain of shame. I have decided your fate, and I have whispered my story of your life to you, to myself, and to others, repeating as facts the lies I made up and calling them "true".
Then, there's the Shadow:
...and this morning she spoke to me, too:
I am the Shadow who lives behind that "curtain of shame", but what you've spoken about me, I refuse any longer to believe. I choose instead to stand on my own experience, my own knowledge and my own truth. I refuse to let your "story" about my life determine my identity any longer. I am free--free to color my own world, free to transform that curtain of shame into a window into the past, and free to be my own true Self. I am free to decide for myself who I am, and I choose to believe no longer the lies you tell about me.
And this morning, she turns her back on the MaskMaker, speaking: I will no longer put on a mask to protect myself or to please you. I choose to show my own true face and to choose my own name. And I will tell my own story based on what I know to be true.
As with dreams, I also know that each person on this card is a part of me. I am the "enfactuator"; I am the MaskMaker, and I am the Shadow, my own True Self, the really, real me, unfrozen by time and old stories, a person of color, bold and free.
I know I have "en-factuated" about others--it's hard not to look from the outside as if it's the inside and to "know" for certain I'm right about someone else. But the truth is, I can't know for certain all that's true about another, especially when I've enfactuated them from past experiences. People change--daily it seems. If I want sincere (pure) relationships, I must at least attempt to relate with people in the present moment. Seems that's part of 1 Corinthians 13's "love" chapter:
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, IT KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails."
Someone told me a number of years ago to "chew on this Scripture for a while". And I've been chewing ever since.
If I have ever en-factuated you, I apologize, and I ask for your forgiveness. Let's attempt to see each other with Love's eyes, at least for this very moment.
Have a great 2012!
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