Comments on: the flogging machine

By: kathyescobar

kathyescobar — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:21:39 +0000

mike, thanks for always calling me out of that damn machine! love ya

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By: mike

mike — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:24:50 +0000

hey kath, i first heard of the flogging machine on a radio show in the early sixties. the character, farley mc clute, would go into the state of the art, world famous flogging machine and turn it on. all you heard was the sound of someone getting pummeled and farley crying out in pain. i, always, thought it was funny, when i heard it. little did i realize, then, that i was farley and that i had spent most of my life in that damned machine. with the love from you and others in my life i’m starting to see:
1. God doesn’t want me in there.
2. my friends don’t think i deserve to be in there.
3. the devil is thrilled to death when i go in there.
i’m going to try hard to listen to the fisrt two voices in my life and try to, at least, limit my time in the dreaded flogging machine.

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By: kathyescobar

kathyescobar — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:02:19 +0000

gary, thanks so much for your honesty!! so many times i don’t “feel God” either, i’m like “where in the hell are you? i am trying to find your peace, hope, something….” and it’s just not there. but people, for me, so many times pick up the slack. real true face to face conversations. or lovely online conversations where we just feel less alone in our crazy thoughts and self-condemnation. sometimes it’s my only hope…thanks so much for sharing. i love the blogging machine thought, too. it has been one of the most encouraging things to me these past 2 years, people out here sharing their journies…

jenny, as gary said, i love the blogging machine, too! so good….

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By: Gary Means

Gary Means — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 19:32:10 +0000

I really love Jennifer’s comment about the blogging machine. I think that being part of a healthy, loving community is one powerful antidote to the power of the flogging machine. We get to experience alternate perceptions of the world, and especially alternate perceptions of who we are.

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By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 05:52:26 +0000

See the power of the “blogging machine” to counteract the flogging machine? Here’s what occurred to me. You get to get all that stuff out and it loses some of its power. We get to identify with what you say. It helps us and then we affirm you. We all get to connect a little bit and put it further in its place by our not isolating so much. Hooray! Of course we could do this in person in community, too, but it might be more embarrassing. But hey, we’re working on that, too.

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By: Gary Means

Gary Means — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 04:32:51 +0000

Yes, I had a flogging machine installed early in my childhood. There have been time when I got healthier and the power was dialed back on the machine. I seemed to be more peaceful in general back then. The key for me seemed to be:
1. a willingness to face the Truth in my life.
2. a willingness to embrace pain.
3. a sense that God was active in my life.
4. a determination to surrender my life to Him.
5. meds

That was then. This is now. I used to say that a lot to try to combat the machine. But I say it now because the power on the machine has been dialed up again, God feels distant, I deal with pain poorly, I don’t even think about surrendering anything to Him (because He doesn’t seem to be around) and if it weren’t for the meds . . .

Anyway, you’ve described the flogging machine phenomenon perfectly!

BTW, I came here from Erin’s blog.

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By: kathyescobar

kathyescobar — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:52:42 +0000

erin – i am encouraged, too, that the more open we are about our tendency to “go in there” the more likely it is that some of our friends will yank us out!

jonathan – you are always so encouraging, thanks

glenn – yep, let’s be the other voice, the louder one, the stronger one, that one that gets through with grace, peace, hope

pam – that is why i believe in fighting for safe community, because the church was certainly never supposed to be about flogging…

che – thanks for stopping by! yeah, i wish we could have actually had a conversation at off the map. maybe another time? it was so great being with erin and pam in portland with no time or people constraints. i also really agree with you, there are certain people/things that are certain triggers and send me there faster.

sue – glad you came by the blog. there’s one thing that is so clear–i can be so self-absorbed! and that is what the flogging machine really fosters. i always say the years i have lost in my life focusing in on myself in my head! anyway, glad that the distance is getting shorter…

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By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:04:20 +0000

Hey, Kathy. Came over from Erin’s place. Yes, I’m in the flogging machine less and less, too. It is a pointless place, isn’t it. (Actually,I was quite horrified to find out how much my ego was caught up in the whole flogging machine thang – I’d beat myself up because I wanted to be perfect and strong and better than anyone else just so I could have power over them – I hate to admit that, but there it is, and the Christian culture encourages that kind of competition; how strange is that?

Glad to hear you and Erin and lots of others are removing ourselves from the place that God never asks us to go to. I think when you start realising that he NEVER treats us in that way.

Still, having said all this, I still do venture into that stoopid machine at times

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By: Che V.

Che V. — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:36:13 +0000

I followed the link from Erin’s site…I love this post.
Thanks for putting words to it..the flogging machine. I’ve spent most of my life in it, but now God is helping me to stay out…..alot of the time. Still find myself in there sometimes…
Don’t you find that there are issues that get you in quicker? I do. Certain things still set me off so fast…
Just wanted to say Hi, since we met at the Off-the-Map conference. I was with Erin the whole time…
You were one of the people I wished I could have visited with over coffee…

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By: Pam Hogeweide

Pam Hogeweide — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:28:38 +0000

great metaphor about our self-loathing and tendencies for self-rejection and all that fun stuff. I’m spending wayyyyy less time in the flogging machine than I used to.

Ya know, religion is just one great big flogging machine, isn’t it?

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