Ayeka - "Where Are You?"

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Hill podcast with Dr. Chip Dodd. Sage Hill is a social impact organization that helps people see who they're made to be so they can do what they're made to do. Hey, Chip. Stephen. We're here in the Sage Hill studio. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Well, we've we finished our series On feedings. On feedings. And now we're we're just kinda starting in a new direction. And and one that compliments exactly where we just finished. Well, they all do. Oh, they do. Yeah. We don't we don't get far afield from the feelings. They kind of are the core. Those eight core feelings kinda run through everything that Sage Hill does. Through indeed. Yeah. How have you been doing? Stephen, I'm I'm doing well. I'm I'm just, spring's here. Well, actually, I'm I'm kinda dreading the garden of Sonia Jones. Organic garden. Yeah.

Organic gardens twice as much work as a regular garden? To me, they are because Still poor miracle grow on everything. Oh, no. No. Miracle grow is like the MSG. Miracle grow, no Roundup, no seven, no, ground bugs. There's no insecticide, no nothing. How do you keep the bugs? You don't get to keep the bugs off of. That's just part of it. No. No. No. They're they're organic ways. For example, eggshells. Eggshells ground up in the soil will often keep, I think, something from well, you have to talk to Sonia. Okay. I just do what she says pretty much. Vinegar? No. Something something. I don't know. But, yeah. So Stewed cabbage always kept me away. The smell of stewed cabbage I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like that smell. Yeah. Oh, man. Well I'm looking forward to, seeing what Sonya pulls out of the ground. It's gonna be great. She started her seeds. She has little plastic containers and little, like, sponges, and she did starts her seeds, the organic seed. She starts from seed? Yeah. It's air all heirloom.

You can buy organic plants that have grown a little bit. Well, it's just heirloom. What it is, it's it's plants that reseed. So you both She takes her plants the previous year. Well, you take the actually use it. It's the company itself is a Okay. So she's not reseeding her own. She does some. That's amazing. Yeah. It really is. Does that with some flowers and also some of the vegetables. But Wow. Yeah. It's really, really We go down to Bates Nursery every year and buy some organic plants and put them in our back our organic backyard and let them organically grow. Yeah. I'll tell you, Sonny and I have gone to war over Roundup. Oh, we don't do Roundup. Heather won't let me do Roundup. We go buy organic plants. But what about your weeds?

We just dig dig all the weeds out and she goes out every morning. Garden, I'm talking about sidewalks and block walls. We round up the hell out of that stuff. That's what I'm saying. That's what I thought. Okay. Yeah. No eggshells gonna get that stuff. We just round up. We've got no round up at all. Well, you're just a better person than I. No. We're just having to reorient everything and put in it's just Well, we're not talking about gardening today. No. No. So you were telling me early about a word, Hebrew word that you have found in scripture that is Actually, not in scripture, but this is a Really? Great story. Yeah. I think it's a great story. Well, will you please enlighten me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll do that. But there's a there's a there's a Hebrew word. It's a y e k a in in English. You You're gonna try to say that in Hebrew? Well, it's I looked it up. It's Aika. I believe that's correct. And I know that's that's right. Such a Beto pronunciation. I know I made it sound like Japanese or something, but but it it it it was fascinating to me because I picked it up in a novel. And, I, and and what it what it what it basically presented is this, it's a it's an old Hebrew it's a Hebrew word, ancient word that's still used in present time. And it it it's what a parent, for example, would call and say to a child that either she she or he doesn't know where they are, literally, physically, but also doesn't know where they are from the standpoint of where they are inside themselves. Wow. So so it mean aika means where are you? Where are you? Where are you? And it's one word that is a question, three words in in English. And it it clearly communicates, I'm not so much interested the physical your physical presence, I'm very interested to know that you are safe or to know where you are internally. Are you okay? Where are you? Because the person speaking it is in pain. It's a lament question. It's it's a lamentation. Present day. An ache. Yeah. It's an ache that you you are gone from me. Your presence is no present. Your here is no here. I miss you. Yes. And I wanna be with you. Yes. And it it assumes that there was a bond or closeness that was very present and has now ended. And unless I can know you from the inside out, my lament, my moaning, and my groan will continue. So the where are you is a question of caring, a question of of, on some levels, the wound of of of breaking apart. And so, turns out that is also the word that used the first question that God ever asked And Genesis That's the word That's the word. It's it's the same word. Wow. Yeah. And and so it's it's it's used all over the place, about relationship in in the Hebrew language. It's just just common as shalom. I mean, when somebody says goodbye, they say shalom in Israel. Right? And I've never been Oh, yeah. They did. They did. I'm sorry. But I mean, it's just a bye and shalom. But goodbye in English has almost nothing in it. Yeah. Shalom It's peace. Yeah. It's a blessing upon a person. Right. And and it's when somebody walks out of shop, shalom. You know, it's it's rich and deep and relational. And the the Hebrew world, Hebrew language, Hebrew mindset, Hebrew origins, Judaic or it's just it's so deep and rich. It's it's it's it's been, I think, so many ways skipped.

So we opened the podcast, and I said, how are you doing? That really was that really was asking a question about where are you. Yes. You really see. I know where you are. Where are you? Yes. Because you have a curiosity about me. Yep. A willingness to risk with me. Yep. Hoping to, like, if you can have my inside, you can delight in my presence and there's a loss without that. Right. And then if I were, you know, you know, if we moved on into if I were in trouble, you'd stand in my way perhaps. And those are love. Dan Allender talks about the four characteristics of love. So Genesis three nine, God comes into the garden where he is want to be with his people, accustomed want, and they're not there, but he, of course, can see them. He's God. And he laments. He moans. He groans. It it's it's the worst ache than a parent can possibly imagine because God knows heart relationship creation, who he's created, the love beyond love as we can picture it. So when God says, where are you? In English, it's where are you? But in Hebrew, ikah, it's, no. Until I can have that which you've taken from me back, I cannot be with you. Taking your presence from me. Yes. And I ache for it. Yes. And so what's amazing is and and I know that what I'm about to say let me just say it first, that when when the man or the it could have been the woman, but when the person when Adam said, I was afraid because I was conscious of my condition. I was afraid because I was naked. Naked and I hid. Yeah. And so I hid. And, you know, that was the answer. Yeah. Yeah. It was a telling the truth. Yes. That and and when he answered God's question truthfully, feeling his feelings and telling the truth, and he handed it over to the process. Gave it back. Yeah. No longer able to protect himself because he wasn't protected. God and Adam, God and humankind restarted a relationship. Now that's profound to me. And so when, now the tragedy is, of course, that, the relationship is is is walking it's the road of redemption, which is, as you and I both know, is year in year out, thousands of years old. But the most amazing thing was that when he answered the question to the lament, which was here I am, which is several times in scripture when when God says, you know, shows his presence and the answer is here I am. It's a statement of devotion. It's a statement of powerlessness. It's a statement of inability to escape. It's a statement of willingness. It's a statement of trust. It's a statement also there's nowhere else to go, and what's amazing is that when people answer that question, in several places in the New Testament Jesus says your faith has saved you, your faith has healed you. You know, he says to Bartimaeus, the blind man, what do you want from me? Bartimaeus says, I want to see. Where are you? The the, the bleeding woman touches the bottom of Jesus' cross. You touch me. Where are you? Where are you? Yeah. And it's Jesus comes into the world aching,

and he's asking the question Israel Israel, how long I've waited to take you under my wings? Where are you? Why would Yeah. So it's implied in the backdrop of all the stories. Yes. God that's the first question God asked. Three chapters in, two chapters are good, everything falls apart. And from that point on, God has never stopped asking this question of lament. It's a question that willingness to be in pain for, those who really frankly would love to do anything to avert the answer. Right. Because I mean, I was afraid so I hid. I mean, that is that's that's the great tragedy in the tragedy Yeah. Of living. So I just anyway, I just thought it was so profound, that the first question God ever asked is a is sort of a casual but needy question in the daily living. Human human plain, human level,

it has to be then one of the one of the kindness questions we can ask someone else is to really be curious about where are you Yeah. And to invite them. And and when a person begins to speak the truth of their heart and make confession, come into agreement with themselves, right, and another person, there's magic that happens there. I mean, it's a it's a transformative experience and just someone wanting to know and someone risking to tell that where they are. And, you know, Steve, that's incredible because, one of my deepest desire one of one of my deepest desires of my heart is that as my sons grow on into their lives, one is I frankly put, I I miss them, more, than I once did because they were there. And, so I I catch myself wondering a whole lot. Where are they? Where are you? Where are you? Yeah. And, the human part too is I want to know where you are from the standpoint I wanna hear that it's good. Yeah. But also there is the lament inside, no matter what your condition is, I want to know just where you are. A true curiosity. So when you said it's one of the most loving questions a person can ask,

it's a loving question when the person who's asking really wants to know, and they're willing to be Well, it's one of the also then, it has to be one of the most loving questions we can ask ourselves. There should be compassion with ourselves. Where am I? Mhmm. And begin to tell the truth about ourselves. Even if we don't like the truth, begin to tell the truth about ourselves to ourselves. Mhmm. That's a way we can really And guess what? Love ourselves. That what's amazing about that, I I heard I said, guess what? I heard what? What? Listen to this. Listen to this. But, there was a this guy, so I just went on a trip and there was a guy who was, well, we went on a cruise.

And a a guy on the boat from another land When you go on a trip, it's either the beach, a cruise, or Disney World. There's not a lot of Yes, one of those. But but this guy said said, going back to what you just said, one of the most loving things we can even do for ourselves is to answer the question. This guy was serving coffee and tea and he was he said free coffee and tea, coffee and tea, free coffee and tea. It kinda just, you know, sort of dance through the playfulness. Somebody said, what are you so happy about? And he said, you know, the joy of the Lord is my strength. And he did this. Somehow I'm trying to do an accent. He did this accent, spread his arms out holding a pot of coffee and a pot of tea. Yeah. And he said, I I wake up every morning at 04:30. And so I can spend time, and he didn't say this, but he spent time answering that question. Where am I? Where am I? And so that I can draw from the one who's asking me. Yeah. And and he said that if I wait if I don't get up that time, by 06:30, the noise has started in my brain. Yeah. Because everyone else is getting up and going back into our day. So he said, so if I if I answer that question that God is asking first thing and spend time with the one asking, love relationship, asking myself, being asked by God, then he said it lasts all day long.

There's a a book and a program called The Artist's Way, which is about, unlocking creativity and developing your own creativity, staying fresh, and not getting burned out creatively. One of the fundamental exercises in that in that, book is called morning pages, and it's where you just write, write, write, write. You're not writing for posterity. You're not writing a journal that you're gonna look back on later necessarily. Mhmm. You're just answering the question of where am I? And you're just letting all the voices and critiques and comments flow. And the woman that created it said it, because if you don't, they're gonna rattle around inside of you all day just begging to come out. It's There's no space in you. Yes. Yeah. And and I have asked, over the years just how much time do you spend with yourself in solitude in the mornings? And, the answer is tragic.

About how little time people spend with themselves. Yes. And solitude is, you know, leads to a conversation with God. Yeah. Even if you aren't a God person. It leads to conversation with Yeah. Something other that is in control Yeah. Of life, and you're not it. You're not I think that's why most people Don't do it. Yeah. Does it take some out of the control? Sure. I'll I'll what I'll do instead is I'll get up in the morning and possibly watch the news so I could be perfectly afraid and then glad it's not happening to me and then going about my day. Or know what I'm afraid of. Oh, this is what I'm afraid of. These are all the bad things happening. Yeah. So we sell fear instead of,

instead of possibility. Well, that's a great word. I bet I bet there's a blog coming out about this word. There will be. Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. Because it I just think it's very profound. It was wonderful. It's a really great I I love that about how little things like that could open up a whole world. Yeah. It's daily living. Yeah. Daily living. Thanks, Chip. Hey. Thank you, Steve. Alright, man. Alright. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill podcast. Wanna take a second to let you know about something coming up that we're starting called Sage Hill Leadership Lab, which is an opportunity for leaders, men or women who are leading in a professional context, they're entrepreneurs or doctors or nurse leaders or managers or church leaders or principals to come meet four times a year to be in a process of learning to lead more fully from the heart. To find out more about that, you can go to sage hill consulting dot com.