Sometimes we process a new thing suddenly, like flipping a switch. Other times we process a new thing gradually, like turning a dial.

I’ve observed this in my own life. It’s how I can get into trouble. It’s also how I can get out. Actually, I think I use the dial to get into trouble and the switch to get out.

For example: denial. I allowed my life to slowly become more and more sad as I tried to stay within the walls of my church for much longer than necessary. I slowly dialed up the denial to match the pain in my life… like a morphine drip. Then, all of a sudden I realized I simply couldn’t take the pain anymore and I flipped the switch.

Immediate relief followed. But then a new kind of pain presented itself… the pain of learning how to be beyond the church. Enter the dial. I got into trouble. Then, when Lisa finally, and I mean finally, confronted me on my shit, I flipped the switch.

I like how one of our newest members said it in her post, Another Newbie Learning the Ropes”:

I feel like life has broken the faith of my childhood, but that as I allow my questions and my doubt to interact with those broken pieces, I am slowly creating a faith that is more beautiful, more valuable, and more alive than what I started with.

She mentions kintsugi, a Japanese art that takes broken pottery and repairs them with gold. Something suddenly breaks, is slowly repaired with gold, and is suddenly a beautiful bowl again.

Switch or dial. How do you do it?