Trauma pain (TP) is generally experienced when you are the object of a narcissist's control or an alcoholic’s rage and abuse. It also happens at the hands of a pedophile or sexual abuse of any kind. It can be physical, emotional, and sexual.

Our ontology is a commanding force culturally. Divorce rates are high; 40% of the population is narcissistic. Evil abounds in the abortion industry. The Bible represents centuries of history that never seems to improve for humans. International corporations plot against the inattentive public, forcing vaccines designed to eliminate life.

Virginia Wolfe exclaimed, in 1910, “All human relations have shifted, those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change, there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct politics, and literature.” It was apparent then, as it certainly is a century later, that something had happened.

I’m posting this for whoever needs to read this, as I was blessed to have it show up on social media. After many years of struggling to understand the dynamic of being the black sheep, I feel like I finally have validation and understanding. I have been asking for clarity on the subject, and I finally have it. And his words on the matter gave me perfect clarity.

The apostle John invited us to fellowship with the congregation. A call to unity with the body of Christ. He wants to share what they have seen and heard. 1 John 1:3

How to share the gospel with a post-modern society. Here lies the challenge we face. Postmoderns live in the left hemisphere of their brain. They live in an abstract reality that they’ve created for themselves. They have done this to make a space they can be comfortable in, where they feel no threat. Berdyaev and McGilchrist both speak of this phenomenon in great detail.

Even questions about who we are, what is our true self about? And why didn’t relationships work? Why were our parents so angry and controlling or sad and distant from their children? Many of us have been asking these questions since we can remember and haven’t gotten any answers.

God’s ontology? The call to holiness is meeting up our ontology with God’s ontology. I came across this idea recently and remembered it like it was yesterday.

We generally speak on the phone once a week. We have been talking once a week for over twenty years. We usually met in a coffee shop on a Wednesday in Boise, Idaho. Same one, for twenty years. Then I moved, and he got divorced, and I was divorced and moved to Colorado, where I have settled in for the time being.

Reflection on a weekend spent with an old friend that I hadn't seen for several years and the exercise in "creative dialogue" we were able to engage in with each other with reflections on a narrative created by Thomas Merton, one of the great mystics of our time.