Default Printer

I don’t know about you, but I have a poor habit of printing to the wrong printer. I remember being so frustrated walking a fair distance to one of many common printers to find out that the job I printed was sent to the wrong printer. I am no IT expert, but I realised after many long empty trips to the printer and few service requests that I have set the wrong default printer. I am sure you know, that a default printer is the printer all print jobs are sent to unless otherwise specified.

I dare say that this repetitive episode has reminded me to ask myself what default mode have I been operating from in my life? What printer am I using on a regular basis? What is my default printer? What operation system am I living, breathing and acting from? When I have made small and major decisions what mode was I operating from? And furthermore I reflected on how, as I have grown, I have been slowly transitioning from one default printer or mode to another.

I remember reading Carl Jung who says that we all wear masks. For Jung “persona” “is the individual’s system of adaptation to, or the manner he/she assumes in dealing with, the world.” It all starts with Persona which is the public image we like to operate from. The original word “persona” means mask, so persona is the mask we wear in public in order to impose a certain image about us: father, mother, chief, artist, official, president of republic, etc. Persona is therefore a result of social adaptation.

When you grow up, especially if you had a rough or traumatic upbringing you see the need to adapt. You begin to look at which printer you want to print from, which mode to operate from. You keep installing and downloading new printers depending on the people, place and role you need to play. Needless to say, you start to realise that in time that the list of printers is getting long for there are many roles to play in order to survive and get by.

Growing up and experiencing my share of traumatic events, displacement and discontinuity, then eventually migrating to Australia at 11 with a vocabulary of 5 words of English, you simply learn to adapt. You learn that you need to fit in, so you take on different roles, or printers you might say, roles such as a negotiator, a compromiser, the caretaker and peacekeeper. They become the most common printers you use later in adult life. They are set as default.

Yet as you grow older and move into mid-life, you being to evaluate your default printers. You realise that those old printers are no longer able to function in second half of life. Usually the evaluation process is born out of an encounter with brokenness, suffering, fragility, vulnerability, shame or death. You usually have to crash to get the wake-up call.

You realise that the old approach you used, the roles you played, the mode you operated from, and from which you made vocational, career, relationship or financial choices, may no longer bring you meaning or fulfillment, life, happiness or peace. That old spark is gone and a new way has to be forged.

Here you become restless. Looking at the many printers on the “Menu,” those you have downloaded and operated from, you begin to ask: Who am I? Why am I so unhappy? Who have I grown to be? Which of these printers or modes are more me? Any of them? All of them? Where can I find me more? Which is that truer and freer self that I can live from?

You see, because you used those old default printers endless times, often you developed habits and routines that have affected your self-esteem, have been self destructive, that have lead you and continue to lead you to places, decisions, habits and relationships where you are far less than yourself.

But how do you change? How do you seek transformation and move to a newer, freer mode? The journey can be slow and painful. If you seek to stay the same and use those old printers, that nagging voice, or the inner voice of love, that restlessness does not leave you. The voice of love beckons you to be more, to go outside those old city gates and look beyond the walls, cross those old fences and fly. And in your effort to ignore the voice, it comes back in many forms, shapes and sizes calling you to spread your wings. The Spirit of God, of love is relentless calling us to greater interior freedom, to live life to the full, not to settle for a bland existence, to go out into the deep.

Ahh that freer mode? You know how it feels. You may doubt if you have printed to it before, but you have. I know you have. We all have as we all have been created and are being created here and now in the image of God, of Love. We know that voice, that inner place of freedom where we are most truly ourselves. We remember times, encounters, places, situations, conversations, desires and decisions when we acted and were most truly ourselves, were most truly of God and for God and we know the fruits that these decisions have born.

The problem though is that we don’t trust it enough to go to it. We may have rarely printed to that printer for fear of being judged, misunderstood, rejected, for fear of being alone swimming against the current. Maybe we are still scared, frightened of others or of ourselves, of who and what we can be if we act from that space, afraid of our light. Maybe there are enough voices shutting us down, telling us it’s not worth it, what if this or that happens, what if you are rejected, don’t be stupid, go back to what is tried and true or they may role out that old famous saying, “the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.” So many voices, from within and from the outside that tell us not to go there and thus the transition is snail-like, three steps forward, two steps back. Make no mistake that this is fragile space for healing and transformation take time.

I have been recently re-reading the Story of Bartimaeus the blind (Mark 10: 46-52), who was a “beggar” “sitting by the roadside” (v46). When he saw the Jesus the healer, he began to shout to get his attention. He was scolded and “sternly ordered to be quiet” (v47). It’s not worth it, stay blind by the roadside, don’t you dare think about changing that old default printer for Jesus has no time for you. But he cried louder, enough is enough. And so finally “they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you (v49). And so, “throwing off his cloak,” the old printer you might say, “he sprang up and came to Jesus” (v50). Bartimaeus knows there is no going back, he wants to “see again” (v51). He is seeking healing and wants to print from that printer where he is most himself. That space where we see the world anew.

This isn’t easy. Why? Because many of our current choices and decisions came from that old printer and there may be much pain in changing them or seeing them in a new way. In addition, so many want us to stay that way for this is the printer they see us in. They may be even using the same printer themselves, thus we need the courage to move beyond the familiar, the courage to trust that printer and act from it, face up and confront, the courage to move on despite the turbulence ahead.

A key part of the journey is to be around people who know and accept us as we are, who love that fragile printer. They will help nourish this space. Reflecting on memories of the times we acted out of that space will help too. New decisions we make out of that space are still more powerful and provide great nourishment. No doubt prayer, especially prayer, time with God when I can be me is irreplaceable. Not because it is magical but because in prayer we are ourselves and there we are loved maskless and unconditionally.

So next time I print, I decide, I must check which printer I’m printing from. Find the one I am most me and set it as my default and trust it. I hear you say this needs courage. Yes courage, take heart then, stop delaying. Get up. HE is calling you. Healing is awaiting you from Jesus who as Pergola says “was contagious with life and health.”

It’s time to see, live and breathe again from a new default printer until we discover a freer printer to download and set as default.