Going to University and taking a psychology course one is bound to come across the works of Walter Bradford Cannon.  He stated that the human nervous system responds to perceived threats by either  fighting the response or by fleeing (taking flight) from the threat.  His work details how our lives want to be in a state of homeostasis (in other words, being in equilibrium, or harmony with itself).  When a point of stress or emotional stretching to our normal comfort levels occurs, we will take a fight or flight response.  I would like to offer three variations on this idea of “fight or flight” in how we apply this psychological principle in our lives by looking at three separate principles.

1.    We try to fight in order to take flight

2.    While we are in flight we want to stay in sight

3.    Whether we fight or take flight, rest is always best

I am reminded of the importance of “fighting” perceived obstacles in our lives that discourage us from achieving our goals by reading about the journey of Dr. Seuss.    A writer at an early age, Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote in his local college fraternity humor magazine.  During the Great Depression, Geisel supported himself and his family by drawing advertisements for household named companies like Ford, General Electric and Standard Oil.  Always attentive to life’s simple and complex mannerisms, Geisel was inspired to write his first book after listening to the rhythms of a ships engine.  After writing And to Think that I Saw it On Mulburry Street Geisel went to a publishing company to see how his work could be developed further.  After being rejected, Geisel, who was using the pen name Dr. Seuss for his work, went to another publisher, and then to another, and then to another, and then to another and finally after the 27th, rejection, Seuss found a publisher who was willing to publish his first book.  It was during this journey that Seuss wrote other children’s books as well as political cartoons for daily newspapers.  He, along with a business partner Ralph Warren,   tried to invent an  Infantograph (a device that could tell parents what their child would look like when they were older).     It was also shortly after getting this first work published where Seuss turned his interests to political causes getting involved in the US military and writing scripts for films that dealt with conflict.

   It was not until later on where Seuss was inspired to write several other children’s books like Horton Hears a Who, The Cat in the Hat, and The Grinch that Stole Christmas to name a few.     Being aware of his limitations as well as his strengths,  Seuss always had a knack for the creative. 

Here’s what he had to say about his inspiration for the Grinch that Stole Christmas

I was brushing my teeth on the morning of the 26th of

      last December when I noted a very Grinchish countenance

      in the mirror. It was Seuss! Something had gone wrong with

      Christmas, I realized, or more likely with me. So I wrote

      the story about my sour friend, the Grinch, to see if I

      could rediscover something about Christmas that obviously I’d lost.

Through writing several popular and inspiring works, Seuss never won some of the well-known awards for children’s literature such as a Newberry Award.  Although not recognized in formal award for his children’s literature, Seuss’ imagination lives on through his motivational characters like the Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, and Horton.   Seuss suggested that the imagination leads to discoveries that the mind cannot fathom.  Looking at Dr. Seuss’ journey in life, we see that there were lots of struggles.  Through a desire to not just fight, but to cooperate with his struggles,  and rest in his creativity and resiliency, Seuss discovered  ways to overcame challenges.  The gift of imagination, and the awareness of life’s intimate yet seemingly mundane idiosyncrasies brought new worlds and new characters to life.   

When we choose to fight in order to take flight, we can embrace our God given imaginations as a thing of beauty as we become aware of our unique and awesomely crafted imaginations. 

When we think of prison many images come to our minds.  It could be the shackles on someone’s feet or hands preventing them from getting away from the authorities.  The orange, or “black and white” striped clothing that many prisoners uniformly wear as part of living in the prison.  It could be the barred doors, the barbed wire, the yelling and screaming from other prisoners, or the cold, institutional looking cells.  Whatever your opinion or picture, prison is a place to house those who have chosen to disobey civil laws causing intentional or unintentional harm to others.  Violators of justice are sent to prison to protect civilians from being harmed again while giving the offender the potential to be rehabilitated themselves.    The same can be true with the inner prisons that we intentionally build around our souls as a means to “protect them from the outside world.”  Those living on the “outside of our lives” looking into our life may not be able to detect this prison through casual conversation.  The prisons we construct are often gradual, piece by piece, layer by layer as we experience inner pain from the outside world.  The true self that is represented by the soul can be “attacked” by the outside world for not conforming to a culture that often desires assimilation and uniformity.  Every time we hold back from saying something that we truly believe (in a way that honors the other person, yet holds our principles in tact) so that an uneasy truce between the relationships can be held, another piece of the inner prison goes up).  Whenever we tell ourselves, we are not good at anything, and we choose to live a life purely of routine and familiarity, without exploring the depths of talent and gifting’s given to us by our Divine Author, we are closing the barred doors to the inner cell of the heart.  Or whenever we see suffering in the world, feel that it’s a tragedy, yet do take action to bring justice for others because we are “too busy” trying to drown out the inner cries of our true self by making our outer selves appear important and  “all together” we are placing the barbed wire around our inner cells so that our true self cannot escape.    

How can we break through such an oppressive inner sentence where we proclaim ourselves the judge, jury, and hall monitor of our inner selves?     

Back when the emancipation proclamation was instated in 1863, not many slaves, living in prisons of their own, were freed.  It was not until the 13th amendment was adopted in 1865 where slavery was official abolished in the United States despite its presence in modern day through other means such as Human Trafficking. Despite the victory won for human freedom, many people continued to live as slaves as they did not know anything about Abraham Lincoln, or the freedom that they were given except that they knew there was a freedom possible and that there was an Abraham Lincoln.   For those of us living in our own inner prisons, we can take comfort that there is a Divine Emancipator in our midst who desires to set us free from our self-made prisons.  It is when we become aware of this Divine Emancipator and His sacrificial work on our behalf where we can experience the joy and freedom from the inner slavery to addictions, emotional turmoil, seemingly insurmountable stress, and inner wounds we have received.  Despite the many layers of emotional brick and steel that we try to surround our true selves with, our Divine Emancipator designed our true selves and knows who we are on the inside out.  In fact, he was the one who was able to escape a fortified tomb from the inside out with guards patrolling outside in case someone tried to free him from the outside in.  As we get to know the Diving Emancipator who is on the outside, and invites us to bring him into the darkest areas of our insides, let us ask ourselves a question: what might the Divine Emancipator be up to in our lives today in tearing down the bricks of our inner prison?   

I have recently become aware of the gift that eyesight really is.  To see the world in color, clarity with all its texture, shape and complexity, sight is a great privilege to those who are able to use it.  I empathize with those who struggle with failing eyesight, or who have never been able to see the world yet am amazed at how their depth of insight into other areas of life often surpasses those who have sight.

Musician Ginny Owens is a good example.  By the age of three a degenerative eye disease quickly limited her eyesight until she was completely blind.  This set back in her communication with the world did not deter Ginny from expressing herself.  Ginny discovered music as a means to communicate her emotion and talent.  Music became her “journal” as she made observations and her unique perspectives on life. 

As Ginny grew up, she chose to attend Belmont University in Nashville TN and received a bachelor’s degree majoring in music.  She solicited her talents shortly thereafter as a music teacher.  Many people became skeptical of hiring a blind music teacher.  Ginny quickly ran into several perceived obstacles on the road to her dream of teaching other people how to have a heart and passion for music.

 It was through this struggle that Ginny accepted her reality and found other ways to teach others music.  Ginny quickly found a calling as a musical artist and was signed to a record company.  Since then, she has sold nearly one million records and performed over 1500 shows presenting her talent and gift for music to the world. 

Ginny does not let fame prevent her from touching hearts and lives of people through other means.  She started her own charity called Fingerprint initiative.  This organizations partners with non for profit organizations such as Compassion International, International Justice Mission, and Habitat for Humanity to help the less fortunate of the world have a voice through social justice initiatives.

She has since encountered several other challenges and has chosen to rise above them.  Her mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 while choosing to become an independent artist.  It was through these struggles that Ginny decided to teach middle school students music in New York while also choosing to take a sabbatical from her music career to be present with her mom during her cancer treatments.

Ginny’s mom is now cancer free and believes “God intends for each of our lives to be filled with meaning and purpose, and my desire is to communicate that through the lyrics I write, the music I sing, and the life I live.”

It is easy to see the dark spot on the white page and focus on that dark spot.  For Ginny, she chose to see the white on the page and used the dark spot to highlight the white.  What dark spots in our lives are causing us to only see black?  How can we use the dark spots in our lives to magnify the white?

(image taken from www.brianmason.com)