Not a Machine

My dad was not mechanical. He could not look at a problem in the house and fix it. My dad was relational, and he understood life at an emotional and spiritual level. He could look at a problem in the relational home and fix it.

My dad understood the value of invisible tools most people never think about or value as tools. The importance of words, the power of dreams, the unconscious drivers of generational trauma, and the tools of forgiveness, compassion, the essential work to find a mentor and be a mentor.

My dad fought against the mechanistic movements of business, school, and church—the drive to turn people into machines.

He believed in the human as a divine creation capable of so much more than we imagine. Instead of the mind like a hard drive, filling up with data, he viewed the mind like a garden, organic, growing or diminishing similarly to how a garden thrives.

Positive and thankful words like water, memorized scripture like fertilizer and nourishment, prayer like oxygen, love as sunlight.

I consider ways I treat myself as a machine. The constant expectation of production, expediency, output, or perfection is high. The capitalism of mechanistic living, for what purpose?

“Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.”

– Deuteronomy 30:19-20