Conversion: The smoking woman and the dejected church planter

A life in the Spirit, Spiritual direction, The Mission, , ,

Our dear friend from California visited last week to catch up and cheer up. She is such a great guest! She is a kind listener, so she got me telling stories from my early forties when I left her in California for the wilds of Pennsylvania. It was a time in my life when so much was changing! She teased out bits and pieces I had not considered for a while. For instance, she had not heard many specifics about the sufferings and joys of church planting.

First baptism six months later.

I told her a few stories, but I am not sure she got many accurate specifics. The older we get, the more we remember the results of an event or our interpretation of it, rather than remembering the basic who, what and when, etc. (Levine 2002). So a story I told her about a fulcral moment in my midlife history is true, but not in a scientific way. It feels a little like a story from my beloved The Little Flowers which, if not factually true, should be.  I told her I almost never told one important story. She suggested I should, so I am about to.

I gave the telling a trial run at my spiritual direction group. One of the members of our group was about to meet me at the time I was making the memory, a long time ago, now. He said, “I have never heard that story.” I think he was a little disappointed in me, since he had heard many more, less important stories. He suggested my children would benefit from knowing it, so in case I did not tell them, here I go.

The ineffectual church planter

When I came to Philadelphia to plant a church, I had a full head of steam and plenty of conviction. I even had the support of the Brethren in Christ, who generally saw urban areas as far off worlds, at the time. I had inspiration but I did not have a very specific plan. I intended to “make relationships” and let the church organically unfold. This did not go over well with my bishop who thought a phone campaign or some other methodology would work better. After I began, I thought he might be right.

My basic plan entailed walking the streets of downtown Philly and showing up at various street corners, schools and institutions looking for the people God had already contacted who I would gather to form a new church for a new generation. Before I established an office at 4th and South, this was a very dubious process. It was just me and God snooping around.

One day this snooping seemed especially fruitless and downright stupid. I was trudging back to our home in West Philly, head down, defeated. I had nothing. What’s more, I doubted every reason I had moved my family to this unknown place. “No one will talk to me; why would they? I’m not interesting; I’m too old to meet the people I’m looking for. I’m not cool. I’m not nearly as extraverted as I need to be. I’m shy about getting rejected for being overtly Christian. I’m fishing without a hook.”

By Roger Ge in the Daily Pennsylvanian

I did not want to go directly home because I was in a bad mood. It was like I had been hunting for my hungry family and did not have the skill or luck to bring home some meat. “We are all going to starve!” So I sat down in one of the secluded seating areas at Penn to sulk. Looking back, it was like I had a screen up between my mind and the Holy Spirit, because I just did not want to hear it. “Say what you will; I am not listening.” This was unusual, to say the least — I’m not sure I had ever done that. I sat there like I had a spiritual migraine, moving as little as possible, eyes squinted against the light.

The smoking student

Before long, a young woman sat down on one of the other benches to smoke. She was dressed in a mildly punk outfit, her hair bright red. I involuntarily flinched at her presence and curled away a bit. I tried to ignore her, but her smoke wafted my way. She distracted my pity party. But I stayed resolutely rooted in my disgust.

I was succeeding at being inert until she took the few steps across the seating area and stood in front of me, cigarette in hand. “Excuse me” she said. “I feel like you are someone I should be talking to.”

My first reaction was she was trying to help me, I looked so miserable. So I was embarrassed. But I managed to say, “OK. I’m Rod.”

She sat down next to me and looked at her feet. I remember her name, but I don’t recall the details of her story. I probably threw away the journal in which I recorded them. But it was a sad story. It was an afraid story. She was considering ending her life, she felt so alone and unloved.

I told her a bit of my story too. She was surprised I was a Christian and had no idea what a church planter was. But she could relate to how terrible my day was going. She said about my failure, “Maybe I am the only one available today.”

She wanted to hear about faith. “I have nothing else to lose,” she said. I don’t remember how I presented Jesus. And I don’t remember exactly how she received him.

My conversion

I do remember what meeting her did to me, however. I learned two lessons from that encounter which stayed with me for the next 25 years and still inform how I see myself and others.

The first was crucial: It really does matter how much I suck. I hope we have stopped saying “suck.” But it hit the nail on the head then. I was sitting there sucking as a church planter and God nudged someone into my lap. It is exactly what I had hoped would happen in one way or another. One of the reasons I have rarely told this story is my interpretation is too miraculous for me. I don’t like to promise God’s intervention because then I will have to explain Gaza, or Trump, or something. But I took her appearance as a sign. She might as well have been singing with the heavenly host.

The second revelation was equally important: I have no idea what God is going to do. It became inescapable that anything might happen, including things I had never before imagined possible —  things could happen even if I was resisting, or had given up hope! The worst kinds of situations were likely to be filled with God’s presence. Two losers being depressed at Penn save each other. It is so unlikely, it must be God.

I told my friend, I think I became a Christian that day, too – an actual, adult Jesus follower. I had been a pastor for years and had not been doing terrible things. But I had never quite experienced all those stories in the Bible: Thomas doubting then seeing, Peter sinking then reaching out his hand, Paul wandering into Philippi and meeting the only woman at the place of prayer, the Psalmist praying, like I sang in an old song, “From the ends of the earth I call to Thee, when my heart is faint.”

I was right about God’s ability to create something out of nothing. But being right is different from being present when it is happening. I was right about being less-than-able to do what I was called to do, but I was wrong about what God was able to do. I knew the stories about Gideon, the Samaritan woman at the well, and others, but I had never been like them very much, yet. They were probably fortysomethings.

I have forgotten many of the specifics of that day — and that whole year, to be honest. But I do remember the meaning of them. I embarrassed myself plenty of times and felt awkward and out of place countless times, but I was never likely again to think my mild suffering was useless. Sucking actually proved to be an advantage for the mission I was given.

And I became much more adept at expecting God to do the unexpected, even more than I asked or imagined, as Paul told the Ephesians. I was converted that day to a faith that relishes uncertainty, because I came to know God who does not live in my mind and principles. My hope is frail, my memory is weak, my imagination is narrow. God is someone else, altogether — and continues to pleasantly surprise me.

Why isn’t the election about climate action? — there are reasons

Climate, Psychological growth, The Mission, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The election has apparently boiled down to a discussion about the economy (which that doddering old fool, Joe Biden, led into the post-pandemic envy of the world), and the border (which is challenged but apparently better off under the present administration, even though Trump torpedoed the rare bi-partisan solution the Senate hammered out). Meanwhile, the existential threat to the whole world, climate change, is not even on the radar. How are our leaders not talking about the biggest issue we face and why are we allowing them to get away with it? We have our reasons.

The false prophets who rule the world, right now, or threaten to do so, could kill us all. So why do they do it, and why do so many of us keep listening to their lies? We seem to have very little capacity to see the wolves under all that sheepskin (Matt 7:15).

Controlling the airwaves

As Donald Trump has proven over and over, liars become powerful when they control the narrative. Back in the day, when our church was training an expanding pool of cell leaders, one of the hardest lessons to learn was what to do when a person dominates the evening’s conversation. A fledgling leader could easily let a needy or naughty person lead the group down an annoying or unhelpful path just because they could not figure out how to make them share the airwaves. The loudest person in a small group is often the de facto leader. Trump lies loudly. He knows that even when he gets attention for being bad, he is controlling the news cycle.

But why do so many people end up believing his loud lies, or forgive them, even after they are told the Haitians are not eating pets in Springfield Ohio?

Since Donald Trump’s successful playbook started surprising people in 2015, psychologists have been writing about why wannabe autocrats do what they do and why so many people commit to them.

We can see why Trump does it, he wants power. But why do people buy the big lie? There are reasons. Let’s not call them “good” reasons, but we have reasons for preferring something other than truth. [Here’s one article about that I’m using today].

Four reasons people follow false prophets

See what you think about this explanation:

  • We believe “pre-facts.” We are generally preoccupied with what might happen (we spend a lot of time “what-iffing”). It is good habit for surviving. There may be no cars in sight, but we still teach our kids to look both ways because, “You never know.” So we believe a car might run us over. That’s a pre-fact. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is true. It could happen. When we believe something might happen, if someone says it is happening, even if it isn’t, we will likely believe them, or forgive them for lying. Fearsome immigrants in the heartland could be eating beloved pets — or they might, you never know.
  • As a result, we get on unethical bandwagons. If we believe someone’s lies will become true, we reserve the moral condemnation they deserve. In one study, participants who were primed to believe a lie was likely to become true were less likely to hold others accountable for spreading lies on social media and more likely to share disinformation themselves. The stronger the gist was felt to be true, the stronger was the prefactual effect.
  • We become committed to the gist despite the facts. When participants imagined prefactuals more vividly and believed there was a good chance of the facts changing, they were less likely to judge lies as unethical, because they experienced the gist of the statement as true, even if the facts weren’t quite right.
    ……It is astounding, isn’t it, how the Mosaic Law flies in the face of every nation’s fear of being overrun or polluted by strangers. Leviticus 19:34 says, “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself” That never seems to go with the gist.
  • Our fears compel us to preserve a lie that fits with our bias. We like to think we are rational, but unconscious things motivate us all the time. If we are focused on the what ifs, negative or positive, we are motivated to “go with our gut” which is often a pre-factual “gist.” We all deny unwelcome truth and adjust the facts to conform to preferred outcomes.
    ……In Western cultures, especially, “motivated reasoning” is a mechanism people commonly use to preserve a favorable identity. To maintain positive self-regard, we (unwittingly) discount unflattering or troubling information that contradicts our self-image. It’s a way we avoid or lessen the distress we feel when we get information that makes us uncomfortable — instead of naming the wolf, we dress it in sheep’s clothing. It’s easier.

I can’t stop thinking that Donald Trump might win the election because enough of us prefer his delusional presence, which distracts us and confirms our own wishful delusions. We prefer going with his lies to dealing with the climate terror facing us and the painful changes every society needs to make to save the planet. After all, accepting that climate change is real portends unpleasant environmental consequences and would require most people to head them off by making significant changes in lifestyle. Changing one’s mind and changing one’s lifestyle is hard work; people prefer mental shortcuts—in this case, having the goal fit their ready-made conclusions.

Undermining climate action

Instead of having anything helpful to say about the recent hurricanes in the South, Trump kept himself in the news by suggesting FEMA was going to deprive Republican areas of aid. State officials, red and blue, immediately debunked the lie, but his narrative fit the gist many people live in – a pre-factual world where something is coming to get them, the government, Venezuelan rapists, or trans-loving Army colonels.

The most discomforting reality, however, is blowing in with the latest storm. In case you missed it, the increasingly powerful “El Nino” climate pattern has reduced the flow of the Amazon River in Colombia by about 90%. In Ecuador, which relies almost entirely on hydroelectric power, people are enduring energy cuts of up to 14 hours per day, knocking out the internet and sapping the country’s economy.

In Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, the government is cutting water to residential homes at regular intervals and the mayor has suggested that people “bathe as a couple” to reduce consumption.

A drought-stranded boat in the Solimoes River in Brazil, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon River. Credit: Bruno Kelly/Reuters

Long sections of the Amazon River have turned into dry, brown beaches, and officials are dredging sections to make them deeper. In Brazil, wildfires fueled by searing heat and prolonged dry conditions have consumed vast swaths of forest, wetlands and pastures, with smoke spreading to 80% of the country. It has led to canceled classes, hospitalizations and a black dust coating the inside of homes. (NYTimes)

A drought covering large parts of the Amazon rainforest is especially worrying because it is the globe’s most important carbon sink, absorbing heat trapping gases.

Carlos Nobre spearheaded the multi-disciplinary, multinational Large-Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia that revolutionized understanding of the Amazon rainforest and its role in Earth’s ecology.

Carlos Nobre, the climate scientist, says dryer conditions diminish the forest’s ability to take in those gases, worsening global warming. The less rain means less effective trees taking carbon out of the air. Then they burn, adding carbon to the air.

Nobre notes that the recent drought has crossed several unsettling milestones: never has so little rain fallen in the rainforest, never have dry conditions lasted so long, and never has such a vast region of the jungle been affected.

The drought comes amid another worrisome moment: In January, for the first time, the planet’s average temperature hit 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels for 12 consecutive months. Temperature levels beyond that would lead to consequences that would make it challenging for societies to cope, to say the least. Nobre confirms that many scientists and policymakers did not expect the globe to hit that mark for years. They are worried the earth’s warming is accelerating. “We are scared,” he said.

Keep your feet on the way of Jesus

People cherry pick the Mosaic law to find things that are ill-applied to postmodern culture.  It is like a party game or it makes an amusing meme to pass around on social media. Meanwhile they ignore the revelations that contradict their pre-factuals. That’s why the law had to tell people, “Don’t kill or ostracize the stranger, treat them like God treated you when you were a refugee in Egypt.” And why Jesus, the fulfillment of the Law, says, “No, don’t just love people who love you. Love one another as I have loved you.” We strain out some gnat of preferred gist and swallow a camel of lies about reality. Save us, Lord.

Right now the false prophets are loudly leading us to ignore the most important truths about our life together on Earth. They help us occupy ourselves with fantasies which fit our warped views of ourselves. Even those of us who know this are flummoxed about what to do. We scroll screens to calm our anxiety and withdraw from difficult community-building right when we are most needed.

I have not managed to changed the U.S. political system – I’ve tried, but it got worse under my watch. I have reasons to give up. I could not even make significant change in the church – what we did was great for a season, but it got blown away. I have reasons to be cynical. But I still feel obligated to walk with Jesus, the way, the truth and the life and trust God, step by step, no matter what storm arises.

The liars are providing delusions. We’re set up to believe things that confirm our alternative facts about ourselves and preferred futures. The overwhelming info machine in our hands is not helping. Even so, many more of us need to invent and support radical climate action or there will be little future to enjoy. I think Jesus would like to help us with that.

********************

If you want to read more of what I’ve written on climate action, here’s the link.

In Christ, I am not defined by “the land”

Doing Theology, , , , , , ,

The boundary between Palestine and Israel is thick, but ever-changing. Our first stop, after we crossed it was at a hotel facing the huge, concrete border wall, festooned with artful graffiti. It was overwhelming. Going outside and feeling the wall’s shadow was terrifying – even though I knew I would soon move beyond it, with a quick flash of my good-as-gold U.S. passport!

Then we stayed with some Palestinian Christians (please let the fact they exist sink in). We visited the factory where they make creches from Holy Land olive wood for export. Then we visited people who had their olive groves chopped down and sheep herds destroyed by Israeli “settlers” reclaiming “their” land, often with the whole-hearted support of American Evangelicals.

My Palestinian hosts felt invisible to the Christians of the world. They reminded me of the refugees I visited in El Salvador who squatted in unwanted land called “marginalized territory.” There they received no services and were not contacted or counted by the government – they were officially invisible. The “undocumented” in the U.S. try to stay invisible.

Knowing we belong and where we belong is such a deep human desire. Being displaced and feeling displaced is such a deep wound! So the world’s constant violence about the land is overwhelming. I listen to people who do not feel seen quite often, so I know many of us  carry the trauma of being left out or cast out deep inside. If that’s you, last week’s post might help.

Competing for land

Even though we all put our feet on the same land called Earth and raise our arms to heaven in the same air, we still lay claim to pieces of it; we put up walls around it and exclude others. Some people say Eve was did just that when she was offered a deed to the Garden of Eden by some ever-present snake/property developer. I think the Evangelicals (who are these people, actually?) are still eating that apple when they overwhelmingly support Trump/Vance in their cause to deport people who don’t belong in “our” land, the United States, the kingdom where God rules — alongside Israel, the latter being a sliver of land where a great deal of U.S. weaponry resides.

Russia wants Ukraine, and Putin says his Imperial designs come in the name of the Church. The leader of Iran, who visited Putin last week, wants Palestine back in the name of Allah. China provides Russia with the electronics it needs to do drone warfare; it wants Taiwan and put barbed wire on the border with Nepal in the name of the Communist Party. The Europeans and North Americans were settled behind their thick borderlines long ago, having filled their coffers with the spoils of colonialism and having created a world order that kept them in charge of distributing the goods. It is all about the land

One of the deepest heresies the church has promoted, since Constantine made it fully visible, has to do with the Promised Land. When the 17th century Europeans turned the Bible into a collection of factoids to probe and test, much like they would during one of their revolutionary new science experiments, Protestants took on a this-worldly sense of the land. They collected all notions of “kingdom” in the Bible, mixed and matched them, until they ended up with a land-based religion infused with an otherworldly exceptionalism.

In their new, modern theology, God distributed land to those he chose and empowered, and that meant others had no rights to it or rights in it. If you violated that mandate, God would punish you as surely as he destroyed Jericho. The big lie of 1948 was that the new nation of Israel, granted by the British, was “a land without a people for a people without a land.” The new, secular democracy of Israel was equated with the Promised Land of the Bible [1960 mythmaking]. Now, if you speak for the Palestinians Christians you are antisemitic at best and anti-God at worst.

Citizens of heaven

I won’t go into all of that — even though it was jarring to see the ruins of Palestinian homes in Canada Park, 7000 acres devoted to the re-greening of “the land” not far from the valley of Armageddon. I am mostly wondering how Christians gave up the New Testament for a reductionistic view of the Old?

Heider Abu Ghosh at the ruins of his childhood home in Imwas, now Canada Park, built on the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1967.

When my children were in elementary school they were folded into our new church with its radical Anabaptist flavor. It was the Reagan era, after all, and something needed to be done! So we planted a church. I had all boys, so I decided they needed a club we called “Boystown.” It was short lived, but a lot of fun. I think I may have learned more about life from it than they did.

The guiding verse for Boystown is from Philippians 3, in bold below. We recited it every week.

For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.  But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,  who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Philippians 3:20 is one of the Bible verses I wish had become popular. Instead, I got, “Nothing is impossible with God.” This is more relevant: Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As Reagan was defeating the “evil empire” (followed by Bush’s Axis of Evil and now just the Putin-Trump hotline), I wanted my kids to learn the basic worldview of a Christian: You don’t get your identity from the world, or from the land, or from some jingoistic manipulator on a screen, you get it from God. You are a perpetual “illegal alien” or you are not following Jesus — that’s the Jesus who rises from the land transformed, not trapped in it, not subject to it, not defined by it.

I deeply care about the disputes of the world and the people who are rolled over by the powerful men, primarily, who tell you they are defending you when they are just making empires for their legacy, raising their “flag,” so to speak. Otherwise, I would not be able to drop the place names I’ve already dropped. But being against all the warmongers and land-stealers is not good enough. I have no intention of keeping quiet about the evils of the world, but my sense of self is not as someone who is merely against evil or for just land distribution.

What Paul was teaching the elementary boys — who no doubt had just been competing with their brother for a place on a bean bag or who had lost a competition for their own room, was, “Who you are is named in relationship with God. Where you belong is in the transcendent kingdom of heaven, any place where Jesus reigns. Your country is no longer defined by powerful humans, you are free to be your true self in Christ, no matter what they say or do.” You follow Jesus:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. — Colossians 1:15-17

I wanted them to practice some radical acceptance of that reality.

Pledge the appropriate allegiance to the flag if everyone is standing up, but you know who you are. If you need to take a king’s ex while the Star Spangled Banner is playing, go ahead. Just remember that Jesus did not even bother, he knew who he was, and still does. You are a citizen of heaven just like He is and one day your body will be just like his is. Believing that Gospel will likely get you in trouble when someone wants you to die to to preserve their land, but it is what it is.

Receive the shush of God and face today’s troubles.

A life in the Spirit, Climate, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , ,

I made a trip to the front desk to get the gel packs the OT suggested when she heard about our icemaker breaking. On my way, I stopped by the mailbox and soon opened my Peace and Justice Journal from MCC. {MCC U.S. National Peace and Justice  Ministries]. It was all about the Congo. It made me smile.

Just in case you can’t quite place it.

Some of you might wonder, “Why in the world would any news from Congo make you smile?” — especially when your icemaker is broken! It’s true, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most desperate places in the world — so much suffering! The Human Development Index places it at 180 out of 193 countries (2022). It is completely off the radar of most Americans. But ever since I read King Leopold’s Ghost around 1999, I can’t keep it out of my mind. Having met MCC workers from the Congo and followed the scant news we get about it, I’ve developed an affection.

Plus, this week, on Oct. 12, it is Simon Kimbangu Day (see The Transhistorical Body]. The Congo has produced some amazing Christians. Oct 29 is Christophe Munzihirwa Day. Add to this that one of the most inspiring books of the last decade is Emmanuel Katongole’s Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa  in which he shares first-hand stories of Jesus followers in the Congo leading the way.

Shush child

In the midst of my own turmoil, which has a decidedly “first world” look to it, I am hoping for some encouragement. You probably are, too, since you are facing an election, a Middle East war and your own troubles. If you’re from the U.S., you might have some connections in North Carolina or in the other areas pummeled by Hurricane Helene – our NC contacts survived relatively well, but they are surrounded by devastation and grief. I am going to say few more words about the Congo, but first, let’s all take a minute in God’s arms and receive a collective shushing.

Don’t fear, because I am with you;
don’t be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
I will surely help you;
I will hold you
with my righteous strong hand. — Isaiah 41:10 (CEB)

When I first read that verse as a kid, I heard, “You need to stop fearing, because it is wrong to fear when God is with you – and he might be displeased.” Maybe I needed that for a developmental season.

But in my later years I hear God shushing me like I used to softly speak to my troubled babies and grandchildren: “Shhh. Don’t be afraid, I am with you. I will always be here as long as I have breath.” When God, the eternal breath of the Spirit, shushes, it is truly an unending promise along with immediate comfort.

I suppose you know we instinctively started shushing babies as soon as they were born because we could feel their shock at entering a world of new and unfamiliar sounds. I suppose when we feel overwhelmed, our bodies may remember the time we experienced our own initial trauma. Shushing recreates the familiar sounds of the womb, providing a sense of comfort and security for that dear baby.

Nowadays, we have machines that shush for us. Some of us create a womblike environment in which to sleep, we are so anxious and so surrounded by anxiety-producing sounds. It is hard to sleep in my neighborhood because there are drag races on a street nearby – one of the last in Philly without a big speed bump!  You may have fireworks and sirens going off all night. But be careful how you cope. I think after we are six years old, or so, we had better take care not to become dependent on a machine to sleep.

For now, would you like to slowly go through that shushing word from God, stored up there in Isaiah for you? I think it should take you six deep breaths to get through it. Take a deep breath and slowly read a clause as you exhale. Take a next slow inhale through your nose and gently exhale as you move through all six lines. If you do it again, that is even better.

Shush over the Congo

Now maybe we can consider the Congo and the 115 million people who live there. Over 7 million of the Congolese are displaced persons, driven from their homes by conflict or corruption. It is hard to say just how many refugees add to the population, but there are hundreds of thousands from Burundi, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Rwanda. That list of countries sounds like a litany of war, terror and starvation to me, a wound on the world.

We have to consider the Congo because raw materials in the eastern part of it are essential for the world’s rush to replace fossil fuels and save the planet. To reach the zero emissions targets by 2050 will mean a 600% increase in mineral demand. The provinces of North and South Kivu, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are crucial to providing the global supply chains with the coltan, gold, and cassiterite which fuel green economies.

SMB coltan mine near Rubaya, DRC. © Junior D. Kannah/AFP

Kivu is also the home of the largest and fastest growing population of displaced people. DR Congo has 250 local armed groups and 14 foreign armed groups fighting for territory, mines or other resources in the country. In North Kivu, one major armed group, M-23, controls much of northern part of the province. They control key coltan mining villages where people make their money in illegal mines, excavating without machinery. M-23 uses motorcycles, trucks and boats to smuggle coltan into neighboring countries  in order to avoid the heavy taxes levied on mineral sales inside DR Congo. Imagine living there, if you aren’t there right now.

Knowing about the Congo can be overwhelming — especially when you feel burdened with problems of your own. I can relate to that. I hope this is not true of you, but I cycled in and out of feeling overwhelmed last week. I needed to turn and turn again into that loving embrace of God, who surrounds me with grace and feeds my hope. There are so many things that are far beyond our capacity to control! If we still feel we need to do that, we have to shrink our world until it is very small. If we keep ourselves that small, the Congo might as well be on another planet. Anything outside your apartment might feel foreign!

We all need some encouragement. Even though this post is filled with difficult things, I hope it also encourages you to latch on to the vast resources of God at your disposal.

Here is a final prayer to acknowledge our need to turn into God and hear the shush of our loving parent — if your are a Mennonite, you might recognize it from Voices Together.  Again, take it slow, one breath a line.

Gracious God, when there is nothing we can say,
We give you thanks that your Spirit intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words.

Loving God, when there is nothing we can do,
we give you thanks that you are working for good
in this world of struggle and pain.

Holy God, when there is nothing else we know,
we still give thanks that nothing in life or in death,
nothing in heaven or on earth,
nothing in this world or the world to come
will ever separate us from your great love through Jesus Christ.

Maybe we should all try that again, praying with the millions of faithful Congolese people, with the people suffering from the aftermath of the hurricane and other disasters. Pray it with the many people pouring out love, skill, time, and resources to help them, and with the faithful lovers in your own life who are there for you, or will be, often when you least expect them and rarely because you feel you deserve them.

**************************

Further resources for learning about the Congo and climate issues:

U.N. Humanitarian Affairs [link to Congo efforts]

U.S. Institute for Peace [Congo emphasis]

Indigenous Environmental Network [just transition]

World Resources Institute [minerals and climate]

Friends of the Congo [statement on climate change]

 

Defensiveness wrecks love: Respond to it inside and out

Marriage and Family, Psychological growth, , , ,

When I sat down to pray, I realized I felt steely. I didn’t think I was defending against God; I was just generally ducking and covering, not wanting to get defamed or abused again. I was a bit brittle, withdrawing, muted. My short stint on the condo board has been accompanied by a daily dose of attacks by a distinct minority of unhinged homeowners. Plus, gangs of kids are doing do-nuts next to our City Hall,  Netanyahu is bombing apartment houses in Lebanon and J.D. Vance is doing what he does — it all has me on higher alert than usual.

We need to be reasonably defended, or we will end up being rolled by the evil players in the world, right? But if I am over-defensive, even knee-jerk defensive, I will be spending my prayer time recovering (thank God that is possible), and when it comes to love relationships, I may be more troublesome than intimate. There is nothing worse than feeling attacked on Broad St. and then attacking my wife in retaliation soon after I come home!

Being defensive can become a way of life, instead of being the inappropriate behavior it is. My marriage counseling clients often demonstrate their habitual defensive dialogue right before my eyes. If I suggest they are being defensive, they often get defensive. (Note to self: “If you label someone to their face – as in ‘You’re being defensive,’ they are likely to feel attacked or demeaned.”) It would not be unlikely for someone to respond, “No I am not being defensive, I am trying to be heard.” Or maybe even, “I don’t want to be in a relationship like I had with my mother, cowering and hopeless.”

It is often very helpful to learn to listen to your partner according to the deep things that make them feel defensive. Try not to say, “I feel like you are talking to your mother and I don’t want to be your mother.” If you can say something like, “I think I hear you, can you tell me more?” They are more likely to be more than merely defensive before long.

Defensiveness kills relationships

Defensiveness is a serious problem. According to John Gottman, it’s one of four patterns—criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling—that lead to divorce. [Video]

Defensiveness is also very frustrating. You may feel you’re “just trying to be honest” and your partner “isn’t really listening” to you when you are mostly just being defensive. While you are making your defense, it may seem like they’re just rehearsing a comeback, because they are. Your defensiveness is calling their own defense system into alert.

Maybe you’re doing the best you can, but they can’t hear you because they’re too busy explaining that you misunderstood them to begin with (or even misunderstood yourself)! Or they are clarifying their intentions. Or making excuses. Or saying you caused everything. Or saying you do it too. Or pointing out something else you do wrong.

Click pic for thoughts on breaking habits

Such a defensive dialogue is a bad relationship habit. (Yes, relationships have habits). It needs to change. There are inner and outer aspects to that change. Let’s start with the inner.

You’ve got to be OK with yourself.

I told a client not long ago — a charming, rather religious, wife, “It is important to let your mate develop. They are on their way to their best self and you can help them. But you can’t just defend against their incompleteness. Their sketchy insides are not a reflection of you nor are you in charge of them.” Then I held up clasped hands and separated them into two fists. “I think married love is two healthy people coming together in a kiss. It’s not being wadded up into a messy ball. Married love is like the verse in Psalm 85 that envisions a great future: ‘Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.’” We unpacked my micro sermon together.

Marriage is one of the best relationships we are given to work out love – the kind of relationship we desire from the moment we are born. Our loves are wounded and even broken, but they are healable and realizable. Marriage helps us heal and develop — and often because it is so messy.

The defensiveness that inevitably comes up in marriage most days, needs to be listened to in love: first in God’s love, and then in our own love for ourselves. Then, hopefully, we can hear what is going on with us in the context of lasting love with others: parents, mates and friends. Exercising the trust we build on the secure base on which we stand is a daily process. But if we know we are in that good process, we love better.

Like all our personal feelings and experiences, defensiveness has a few sides to it. Acting it out unconsciously will almost always have a bad effect. But having no sense of being defended will not work for good, either.

Like I was saying before, appropriate defense is crucial to have a secure sense of self. I am myself and not a part of someone else or subject to someone else’s power. If you violate me or you don’t accept or respect me, I need to respond to that.

But then there is Israel. Everyone keeps saying, “Israel has a right to defend itself.” But did thousands of people need to die and whole territories laid to waste? Married partners often feel they have a right to self defense and feel justified in laying waste to their partner!

Having the power to destroy someone is not the key to a love relationship or living peacefully with our neighbors. Not reacting defensively is better. Lack of defensiveness allows for listening; it is better for making real change possible – the kind of change every person and every relationship must experience to grow and to build the intimacy we all crave.

But an unconscious lack of defensiveness can easily become a defense in itself. For instance, I thought a long time about responding to an email from the Condo Board’s loyal opposition this morning. I decided to get involved because they had told an outright lie about what I had said in the Association meeting. It might have been easier to hide, to “let it slide,” instead of being vulnerable enough to be who I really am.

In our Bible study last night we edged on this topic. Is the opposite of being defensive being accepting? Or can accepting also be a lack of healthy boundaries? Is the opposite of being defensive being curious? Being hopeful? Being uncertain in a good way? We all need to figure that out. We might need to hold our conclusions lightly as we continue to love and learn.

I think not being defensive is a very spiritual process, full of discernment and of trust in God’s presence. It can be painful. Not being defensive can look like the same kind of self-giving, even suffering love Jesus expresses. I find it painful because defensiveness is often a response to criticism and I felt a lot of criticism when I was growing up. It may set off an alarm bell in you, too. Should I respond to the alarm bell or take a better way?

Throwing a wrench in the pattern

Therapist say things like “Let’s see if we can nip this defensiveness pattern in the bud,” Or  “If you don’t like your partner’s defensiveness, make sure that you’re not causing it by being critical.” Or at least they imply you can fix things if you just stop doing things wrong. They write whole books about it.

They are right of course. People do make their relationships a lot better when they are taught to relate. When they change their mind and their behavior, an old pattern is violated and a new pattern can form. Love gets a chance to grow. When we see a pattern and throw a wrench in our relationship’s habit, things get better. Things can change from the outside in as well as the inside out.

The therapists give us “five easy ways to stop all this defensiveness.” They are probably right, of course. Applying good ideas is picking the low-hanging fruit of change. If you are not willing to take basic relationship advice, then you should just accept you’re going to stay unhappy in love. “Why would any one do that?” you ask.  They are defending themselves.

Likewise, if all you are going to do is keep defending against someone’s defensiveness and blame all the issues on them, you’ll just be playing your part in the endless relationship-breaking cycle. “Why would anyone do that when they can see their behavior is ruining what they want?” They can’t see through their defensiveness.

Change takes more than good intentions and rigorous discipline, both of which can feel a bit false. It takes a good heart. I think inside out is probably more important than outside in. But while you are waiting for everyone to come into their fullness, pick some low-hanging fruit. Daily small steps are usually how we humans get to deeper destinations.

Three ways to stop defensiveness from wrecking love

The worst-case scenario is when your loved-one’s criticism leads to your defensiveness. Then your defensive response leads to their next criticism — which then leads to your next defense.

This can happen in a flash. I hear about it all the time. In a few minutes, defensiveness and criticism can escalate, and turn into contempt and stonewalling. That’s not good. A cycle like that can go on indefinitely—for weeks, months, or years. Couples who bicker constantly can be this cycle for decades. That’s not a happy life.

First idea. When you need to talk about a problem, make a soft start. Don’t “blow them out of the water” to get their attention. Don’t initiate the conversation with an abrupt, loud, or angry remark. Instead, use a soft tone, say that you want to talk, and ask “When would be a good time?” Get their consent. Make an appointment. Don’t give up, but wait if you need to. If you avoid asserting yourself because it feels like conflict to do so, you might need to rehearse what you need to say.

Second idea. Figure out how to turn your criticism into a request. Criticisms are about the past; requests are about the future. Criticisms are about negatives; requests are about positives. Shift from a past negative to a future positive.

For instance, instead of the criticism, “You never lock the door!” you could use the request, “I feel safer when the door is locked. How about putting it on your mental checklist for a week?”

If you try behaviors like this you’ll help undo what is threatening. You’ll figure out what your loved one could do, going forward, that would help. You’ll be addressing the solution, not just the problem. When you make a request like this, people are much less likely to be defensive.

Third idea. One of the best cures for defensiveness, if probably the hardest, is to find some part of a request or criticism for which you can honestly take some responsibility. And respond to that first.

You might not agree with everything that has been said. But find some part of it you can acknowledge in good faith. Address that part first. Stay on that topic until your partner experiences some relief. Don’t shift to other parts too soon.

For example, if a wife says, “You’re working too many hours, like you always do.” Don’t say, “Well, I wouldn’t have to work so late, if you’d do more.” That response would be A+ defensiveness and we are trying to fail. Try saying, “That’s true, honey, I have been working late.”

The first response probably leads to a fight — our fears are screaming, “Man the battle stations!” The second response doesn’t lead to a fight. It seasons the conversation with validation and vulnerability – our fears are soothed, “I am being heard.”

The first response is a classic turn-around: “I didn’t do it, you did it.” Maybe you even got in their face or made yourself look bigger when you said it. Maybe they could see your face turn red or get “that look.” The second response acknowledges some responsibility for what the other person is experiencing.  Maybe you gave a soft answer to their hard-edged statement. “A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.” (Proverbs 15:1 KJV).

Listening to people explore their loves and lack of love makes me marvel that love springs up in the world every day. No matter how many ways we try to kill it, our desire for it comes up with the sun. I think we were built for love — the deeper we look inside, the more we find it. I think our relationships were built for love, too — the more we look out at all those people with grace, the more opportunities we find to build it. Defensiveness is a basic way we can ruin it. Discerning where we are reacting to fear instead of having healthy self-respect is the work of prayer and I hope it was the conversation you had inside while you read this.

With some help from David Woodsfellow and John Gottman

The seed: An earthy story from Jesus (2016)

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Spiritual direction

In 2016 I was an itinerant, moving among our congregations with basic teaching about developing a life in Christ. This one is about the “earth” stage when faith first takes root.

Dates harvested from Hannah, pollinated by Methuselah at the Arava Institute. Photo by Marcos Schonholz

First, let’s talk about the seed that grew this date palm in Israel. This is a Judean date palm that you would have seen everywhere in the time of Jesus. But there was so much war in Palestine during the Roman era that date palm groves were destroyed and this species became extinct by the year 500.

But an amazing thing happened. During excavations at the site of Herod the Great’s palace near Jericho in the 1960’s, archeologists unearthed a small stockpile of seeds stowed in a 2000-year-old clay jar. For the next forty years, these very old seeds were kept in a drawer at a university in Tel Aviv. But then, in 2005, a botanical researcher decided to plant one of the seeds and see what, if anything, would sprout.

She said, “I assumed the food in the seed would be no good after all that time. How could it be?”  She was soon proven wrong. The old seed from an extinct palm sprouted! The resulting tree has been named Methuselah. It has been eleven years, now, and the tree is not only thriving, it has produced pollen, which has been used to germinate seeds on a wild date palm. It is producing more seed.

Jesus probably loves that story — and not only because he was in Jericho many times and had to pass Herod’s palace on the way up the hill to Jerusalem. I think he loves it because God loves seed stories. God is very earthy. For instance, just before Jesus was crucified, he pictured himself as a seed. Everyone read it: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” (John 12:14)

That’s a great way to see a seed – as something that dies to its former way of being as a single, encased seed and transforms into a plant and a seed bearer. God is very connected to how the earth lives. Like you heard a couple of weeks ago, our rendition of the Way of Jesus begins with Earth because God begins with the earth. The creator is earthy, God even became one of us – God got buried in us, got buried in the earth, God has experienced all the longing and loving of being a spiritual being in a body like ours as part of the Earth.

Talking about seed

I hope I can get you comfortable with how Jesus is talking about seeds. In the earth, in your body, in your spirit and not just in your mind. I am going to talk about a word, but if you just hear it like it is a word “seed” on a page, I will fail. The word will be truly extinct. I am talking about Jesus talking about a word like a seed, a Spirit-empowered, miraculous transformative seed.

Jesus and the Bible writers are very comfortable with talking about seed. Like I said, He probably loves that story about an ancient seed in a scientist’s drawer that miraculously comes to life. And he has some favorite stories he made up himself. Jesus tells a very basic parable about the sower and the seed he sows. You might remember it: A sower goes out to sow and the seed finds all sorts of soil with which to interact. Some seeds don’t sprout well. Some are eaten by birds. Some sprout and are choked by weeds. And some find fertile, watered ground and thrive.

  • I suppose Jesus told that story because he like seed stories. But more so he was talking about himself, the seed, the word of God. It is kind of a Trinitarian-like story, isn’t it? – God the farmer, Jesus the seed, the Spirit charged environment as the soil.
  • By extension, the Bible writers who quoted Jesus telling the parable, did that because they were talking about their word, their seed of Jesus they cast by writing it down.
  • There is a lot being taught in that little story. But it all goes back to: The story of Jesus is like a seed that grows in a fertile spirit and an open mind.

One time I experienced a seed of the word lying dormant in one of my oldest friends. When I was in the fifth grade I was awarded the title of “best couple” with my childhood friend, Kim. We were not even embarrassed to be best couple since we had been like brother and sister since first grade. After I left town to go to college I became a full-on evangelistic Christian, sowing seeds like crazy. One time I came back to town and ran into Kim. As she told me the story later, I was totally obnoxious. My side of the story was that I was totally, somewhat blindly, into being a newly “out” Christian. At some point in the conversation I said, “Why aren’t you a Christian yet?” Not exactly the best seed sowing. She told me much later that she swore at that moment never to be a Christian.

I did not remember this event at all until she wrote me a letter about it fifteen years later. Usually it was just Christmas cards between us, but this time I was surprised to get a letter.

She started off with, “I hate to tell you this, but I am a Christian.” She went on to say, essentially, “I vowed I would never become a Christian since you were so obnoxious about it that day. But I was so depressed and my family was such a mess, I guess I did not know what to do. At one point I was feeling especially down and desperate and to my dismay, you came to mind saying, “Why aren’t you a Christian?” And I did not have a good answer. I went to the nearest church the next Sunday and to my surprise, I became a Christian. Thanks.”

The spiritual seed I had planted, a very tiny, compromised seed, had laid dormant for a long time! One would suppose it was extinct. But, to even Kim’s surprise, it sprouted!

  • Amazing isn’t it? How did that happen? How did the seed germinate in you?
  • And if the seed of faith has never effectively sprouted in you, what do you think is happening right now?

The germination process

The Bible writers are fascinated with this spiritual germination process. The whole New Testament is kind of a long telling, in all sorts of variations, of how the seed of God is planted in people and how it grows a new, eternal life in them.

If you dig in to what they are saying, the Bible writers might be more comfortable with seed than we are. For instance, the word for the seed sown in the field in the Lord’s story is the same word for human seed: sperma, shortened to sperm in English.

Paul teaches: “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” – (Galatians 3:29). That’s a nice argument about how Abraham’s faith is the deeper way to know God than Moses’ law. Don’t worry if you don’t know about all that yet. Paul’s basic intention is to talk about being re-seeded by faith through following Jesus. He does not mean we magically become offspring of the father of Judaism, Abraham. He means we are seeded with new life in the Spirit and end up having a remarkable family resemblance to Jesus.

John says, No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. (1 John 3:9). This is even more explicit. Being born of God is like you were an ovum and the spiritual sperm of God wriggled its way into you and started an incredible spiritual cell multiplication. The seed remains in us John says – it is like God’s spiritual genes combined with ours and are creating a new being who can justifiably be called a child of God.

It is all very earthy and organic, isn’t it? So I get upset when people try to fit this word of God Jesus is and which Jesus sows into the tiny, head-bound, rational philosophy that runs the world. God is the sower and Jesus is the seed. Jesus is the sower and his words are like seeds. The disciples are sowers and the Lord’s words are like living seeds, the Bible is like their seed chest.

  • It is so troubling when the word of God, that seed which lasts when everything else is extinct, gets reduced to whatever phrases a person can remember from reading the Bible.
  • Then the Bible gets subsumed under a scientific idea of a word, in which words all become data, and the Bible becomes a book among all the books, in the category “Great religious books.”
  • By now, the whole idea of faith can be reduced to an emoticon. Way too tiny.

All that stuff I just said is a LOT less than what Jesus is and what Jesus, Paul and John are talking about in the parts of the Bible I have shown you or told you. But a lot of Christians I have known, and even more I have heard about, think the seed Jesus is talking about is the Bible, or some factoid from the Bible or some principle drawn from the Bible. And they can reduce the idea down to clip art.

It is not just a seed thought

The seed is often seen as a thought. And Luke 8:11 quotes Jesus saying about his parable of the sower: This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. It sounds very rational. Here is the logic if you think Jesus is being merely rational:

  • If the seed is a word, that means a thought, we read words with our mind.
  • And if we are reading words about God, they are in the Bible.
  • So Jesus is talking about finding the seed in the Bible, since that’s where the parable is anyway.

That kind of thinking works if you are committed to a world that is rational. If you think truth is thought-derived or science-and-math-derived, then you might be thinking right now, “What else could that line possibly say?”  If that is what you are thinking then you are probably having an argument in your head most of the time because you believed  Descartes and everyone who built on his dictum that, “I think, therefore I am.” When it comes to faith, you probably think “I believe certain things to be true, so I act on them.”

But there is more. When Jesus is done telling his parable of the sower to the crowds, he says, “If anyone has ears to hear, let her hear.”

He is not just making an argument by telling his story, he expects the listeners to be impregnated, to be planted with the seed through relating to the Son of God and hearing the word.

  • The seed in the story is not just about some thing.
  • The word of God is not the “concept of Jesus” from somewhere else where thoughts come from. It is not a thought that can happen without a body as Descartes thinks truths must be.
  • Jesus is not talking about the word reduced to a book or reduced to someone’s limited understanding.

God doesn’t exist, like Descartes said, because we couldn’t imagine him if he didn’t. God exists in another plane of existence altogether that is beyond one’s mind, beyond what we can fully imagine — like God is doing in the person of Jesus and like Jesus is doing as he tells his story of the sower. The whole process of God sowing the seed of grace and truth is about a person in their environment struggling to receive the life being born in their world, like you and I are doing. At some point we are like the seed, like the soil, like the sower. It all goes together in this ecosystem of love Jesus is revealing.

The seed growing in you

A sower goes out to sow. The seeds sown find all sorts of soil with which to interact.

  • Some seeds don’t sprout, or have such shallow roots in rocky soil they wither in the sun.
  • Some are eaten by birds right off the hard path.
  • Some sprout and are choked by weeds.
  • Some find fertile, watered ground and thrive.

The seed is the word of God, the one who is telling the story about himself is enacting the story as he tells it. Jesus was talking about himself, the living Word of God, and his words are seeds for those with fertile ears. The Bible talks about Jesus telling about himself. The whole book, Old and New Testaments, looks to Jesus, quotes and admires Jesus, and applies the resurrection life of Jesus. The story of Jesus coming, present, working, and coming again is like a seed that grows in a receptive spirit and an open mind.

When Jesus says something to you, he doesn’t want to change your mind, he wants to change your life. If God’s seed sprouts in you, you are going to reproduce life like Jesus lives. If God’s seed remains in you, you are going to feel like living whether all your thinking is in line with your faith or not.

The point of faith is not just thinking correct thoughts and carefully fulfilling conscious behaviors. The seed is planted deeper in us. I say that most of what we do is not all that conscious, anyway. Most of our reactions are pretty automatic. They are mainly trained by who and what we love, not what we think. Starting with our parents, our loves lay out the track for what we do. Our reactions are directed toward what is ultimate to us.

During this speech we have been doing a lot of thinking together. But more important to our faith is how you have been training our loves to live in love. Being in this environment, and exercising the habits of it train our loves for living — this behavior directs your desire back to God. It is where the seed of new life is planted and nurtured.

If you bought the alternative view that you think therefore you are, then you probably have had a constant debate with what I have been saying. You’d have to in order not to lose your sense of self. Descartes taught that doubting is the basis of truth-seeking. You can’t be rational if your mind doesn’t dominate all your other functions.

But Jesus comes along and insists that who and what you love determines who you become and how you live. I suppose it is, “I love, therefore I am.” Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commands.” (John 14:15).

  • When he says that, is he saying “Figure out the commandment and do it right, think it through and act — believe and so behave?”
  • Or is he saying, “My sheep hear my voice and come when I call, they love me and I love them, and I care for them like a shepherd.” I am with them as they seek me in the street and they will find me.

I say, and I think the New Testament writers back me up, that it is the latter. The seed doesn’t just change your thinking, it revolutionizes your loves. Like the Psalmist says, talking about the Law of Moses that Paul says is a weak precursor to the Word of Jesus: I shall run the way of Your commandments, For You will enlarge my heart. (Psalm 119:32). The seed of God is at work in us to train our loves so we love God again and receive the love that all our other pursuits seek in vain.

If you want to be fertile ground for the seed of God, if you want your soul to be a fertile womb for God’s life to be born, stay immersed in the activities and environments that train your loves. Do them, run in them, never merely think them. Have a life, give into the living places.

I think we have organized a healthy environment for you. For instance, we are trying to put together a track that can augment what happens in our cells on the Way of Jesus website that is filled with Gifts for Growing. It begins with Earth for people who are good soil and for those who may not even have the seed planted yet. Stay in it. If you don’t know Jesus yet, or don’t know if you want to trade in your rationalism, that’s OK. We made this environment for you. It can train your loves while your mind catches up.

  • I won’t go much further except to say run in the way like someone who wants their desires trained for intimacy with God and reconciliation with others.
  • Engage in the rituals: Daily Prayer, Communion, This meeting.
  • Be in the cell. It happens every week to train our loves.
  • Study the Bible like a site map not a text book.
  • Be baptized and join in the covenant.
  • Make the church’s map and move with us as we ratify it on the 25th.

These are exercises for a spiritual being in a body. They help us get started again and again, especially when what we think proves to be outmoded and becomes extinct.

Your mind is an ecosystem: May you reach a positive tipping point

A life in the Spirit, Climate, Psychological growth, , , , , , ,

mind as ecosystem

I’ve been in the room when clients reach a tipping point. It is an honor. It is a moment when so much good work has been done it overwhelms their previous way of life. New beliefs and possibilities crowd out their previous view of themselves. They say, with some surprise, “I actually woke up the other day feeling good about myself. I think people call it joy.”

The self-defeating personality

Recently, some “masochistically-organized” clients started to tip. Let me create a composite of my experience with such dear people to let their stories inform what I’m trying to say. The people to whom I am refer are not “actual” in a personal way.

The two I am picturing are both “self-defeating” in their personality style, so we often talk about core beliefs having a “sticky” quality. Something like a less-than-permeable lining taints whatever is coming into their thoughts and feelings.  One of them described it like the burned-on gunk on the bottom of their ceramic skillet corroding their inner life. When they were young they were told they were no good and were severely punished for it. Another was left alone in a world where they were foreign and got the impression they were shameful. There is a lot more to their stories than that, of course.

You may have heard the term “masochistic” used to describe someone who derives pleasure, sometimes sexual, from being hurt. That is an extreme version of a common personality style. The disorder has been removed from the DSM, but clinicians have been revisiting it lately because clients keep showing up with the general characteristics.  A person with this self-defeating personality style probably started out with painful family relationships. They began to avoid successful or pleasurable situations because such circumstances did not fit in with their view of themselves as bad.

They may try to please others at the expense of caring for themselves because they still want to be seen and affirmed and taking care of others seems like the only way to get there. Their identity ends up based on caring for others, often people who are difficult to care for. At the same time, they are often isolated and do not seek help for themselves because they feel like they are flawed and are ashamed to be seen.  They self-sabotage – most hopes. Any positive narrative, any optimistic action faces a strong interior argument against it. They probably long for a different kind of life but have a terrible time taking action and often take up addiction as a way out of the problem.

The round-about way to health

In the process of unlearning these negative core beliefs about themselves we’ve scoured  the goo off the skillet bottom, so to speak, and let the original creation be seen and cared for. It took a while; it was burned on. And it seemed like fruitless work to begin with, since “I am just a pan bottom” and “it is my own fault I let myself get so messed up.”

For these and many other clients, their journey to better mental health did not follow a straight path. The meandering process of self-discovery and making new choices is very frustrating for many of us because we have adopted a metaphor for our minds that is inadequate for describing what is really going on in us. Metaphors matter.

Zachary Stein has spent a decade trying to change the metaphors we use to describe ourselves from mechanical to organic — that seems like an obvious choice since we are organisms and not machines. But you are probably comfortable describing yourself as “not firing on all cylinders” or “not computing” something. In a nice article, Stein gives a history of why we think like we do.

Scientific models of the human mind have evolved through a series of metaphors. Sigmund Freud used several metaphors to describe the mind, but the one with the most explanatory power was the metaphor of the steam engine. “Psychic energy” was understood as if it were steam compressed within a chamber. Bottle up too much energy and tension, and it will eventually explode elsewhere as a neurotic symptom that you cannot understand. Sex, of course, was the great pressure valve for Freud, a necessary way to release potentially dangerous buildups of energy. The dynamic workings of the mind, which Freud used to explain psychopathology, were all metaphorically related to the basic mechanisms that drove the machines that propelled the Industrial Revolution.

This view fell out of favor in the 1960s when cybernetics came on the scene, and soon computers replaced steam engines as the dominant metaphor for the mind. By the 1980s, the metaphor of the “mind-as-computer” was fully embraced by the emerging field of cognitive science, and it continues to dominate thinking today. By now it has even seeped into the popular culture and become a part of our everyday school vernacular. According to this metaphor, the brain is hardware and the mind is software. The mind is fundamentally about “information processing,” and our individual information processing units vary only in terms of their speed and memory capacities. Smart students have a lot of RAM and fast download speeds. Students who are struggling just “don’t have the bandwidth.” If students follow the right programs and sub-routines, they will encode the right information, which will be stored in memory and made available for retrieval later.

My clients, including the two composites I am thinking of, often feel like they are flawed and need “re-programmed.” Since I can’t effect that, they are often frustrated with me, too! Unfortunately (I guess), they are not computers. They are organisms and are much more variable and subject to their environments and history than a machine.

You are an organism, not a machine

Just as they are, my clients are much more beautiful than a machine. I often point that out, which does not always go over well, since they think they are worthless unless they have utility to someone else. If they ever do anything wrong (and who doesn’t?) or experience some setback (and who won’t?) their lack of value is reinforced. They assume they are about to be thrown out for a better model. They either double down on some guilt-ridden good-deed-doing or double down on avoiding their fruitless search for love. My admiration of them for who they are right now does not compute. Their metaphor won’t allow it.

Dr. Stein reinforces what my faith taught me as a child. We are organisms in the ecosystem called humanity. What’s more, the various elements that make us who we are individually form the psycho/spiritual ecosystem of our personal humanity. Jesus called us a system of heart, soul, mind and strength. Paul’s metaphor for life in the Spirit pictured us as members of Christ’s body, each an honored part. Our right/left brain, brain/mind/body reality is a flexible, moving, adaptable reality.

Stein refers to the great Swiss psychologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget to get some back up for insisting on an organic metaphor to describe us.

Piaget argued that the mind is best understood as an evolving organism — living, growing, and self-regulating in a metabolic relationship to its environment….

According to this view, the mind is best understood as a complex and dynamic system, always in process, always changing, growing, and becoming more diverse and differentiated. At the same time that they grow in internal complexity, ecosystems also become more integrated and specialized, filling up their niches and fostering symbioses. Ecosystems are composed of a wide variety of independent and yet co-evolving species, so there is not one central “unit” that can serve as an overall measure of the ecosystem. Rather, to understand an ecosystem, you must take multiple measurements in a variety of places across a variety of time scales. Ecosystems are also sensitive and actively responsive to the larger environments in which they are nested. They can be easily disrupted and thrown off balance, but they are also generative and creative, self-regulating, and self-transcending. They are adaptable, open systems, and are constantly in a state of dynamic equilibrium. As ecosystems evolve, they display nonlinear growth, with jumps, dips, regressions, and daily and seasonal changes and rhythms. Their growth is not simple and linear, but messy and dynamic. And no two ecosystems are the same. Every ecosystem is unique. Give two ecosystems the same input and you should not expect the same output.

Daniel Hannah depicting the metaphor.

Your personal ecosystem can change, too

These days our sense of being a part of an ecosystem is more apparent than ever since we are increasingly aware of how creation’s climate is changing. We are afraid of a negative tipping point that might occur any day. Scientists seem to know what humanity needs to do to reverse the impact of what we unwittingly did.

You may have already applied that last thought to yourself. I think we all know if we apply new behaviors and avail ourselves of new knowledge, our psychological ecosystem will change. It might not be easy if the previous habits of our hearts are burned on. Or to be more ecological, it might not be easy if an invasive weed has taken over the backyard of the new psychological house we are building (God help you if it is bamboo) and we need to dig for a while to get it unearthed.

I’ve had clients who were not only masochistically-oriented, they were computer programmers! I know of such a composite person who had filled up their life with a lot of positive action: anti-porn worksheets, meds from a psychiatrist, care from social workers, self-help books, and psychotherapists. I often wondered out loud how they could avoid going over a tipping point — a psychological application of Malcom Gladwell’s first book. They saw their searching as a series of examples of how nothing ever worked out for them and how they were a shameful failure, doomed to go the wrong way.

Yet they fitfully persisted. Until one day they came in and said, “I feel different. I remembered myself thinking a negative way and realized it was a memory, not a present reality.” They had gone over the edge. In their case, one of the central features that pushed them over was returning to the church. They went back to the one place they knew they were loved for who they are. Thank God they did not encounter a priest who reinforced their sense of being a terrible human being! In God’s ecosystem of love, the various positive elements began to cohere and a new environment was made.

One of the reasons I love the difficult work of psychotherapy is how realistic it is. It doesn’t work like an internal combustion engine or a computer. It is much more like the Earth, subject to the weather, to dry seasons and wet, and subject to constant surprise and endless change. But in our process, we can also be sure the sun will come up on time every day.

From my window, I look out over the huge expanse of trees in Fairmount Park; the sun is setting right now. That view makes it easier to also see my clients reaching out like the limbs of trees finding the light. The other day, when the Circle Counseling therapists met, I had to say how honored I felt to be in the room to see it dawn on them.

*********************

Today is Cyprian of Carthage Day! He was a leader facing the persecution of the church, disunity, and a pandemic! He was a prolific writer, so he offers us insight into his faith and the life of the Church in the 200’s. Honor his life at The Transhistorical Body. 

A few tweaks to improve “Draw Me Close To You.”

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, Music, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , ,

I was walking in the woods listening to music, which I love to do when I am not walking with my wife — I like her even more than my music!

I realized something about my music as I walked. I have three versions of one song on my playlists — one by the artist who made it popular, Michael W. Smith (Kelly Carpenter wrote it), one by Marvin Winans, and one by me! I guess I like “Draw Me Close To You!”

But now, after further meditation, I want a rewrite. I will record mine again with improved words, once I am done writing this.

The original song was written because Kelly Carpenter was tired. He was doing church hard and losing the reason he was doing it. He saw himself getting in the way of God’s work. He wanted to get out of the way, to get back to his first love and do things the right way, regardless of the cost.

That’s OK until it goes too far. His lovely little mantra has inspired renewal all over the globe by now (i.e. – a Malagasy version). But I think people may take away some unfortunate messages from it.

A few lines of “Draw Me Close” need a re-write

Draw me close to you
Never let me go
I lay it all down again,
to hear you say that I’m your friend

There is a problem here. I think underneath the lines, he is saying, “I don’t believe you love me unless I lay down my life.” Some people miss the whole point of the gospel because when they hear Jesus saying, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” they think Jesus is teaching them a lesson rather than giving them a gift! They think Jesus is putting the sacrifice on them instead of himself!

You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place
[I wanna] feel the warmth of your embrace

No rewrite needed here. It is so true. “All my loves are reflections of yours, Lord.” But let’s go on.

Help me find the way
bring me back to you.

I think there is an emphasis in this song, and in most of Evangelicalism, that reinforces, “I need to find the way.” I suppose if you’re not sure you are God’s friend, you probably feel lost most of the time. Several of my Christian clients just can’t be found. Being a lost seeker is their identity. If they stopped being one, they would betray who they are, be false to themselves, lose control.

[Cause] You’re all I want

This might be the worst line. I don’t think it  is true. This song is full of a lot of other wants. He wants to feel better. He wants to live the right way. He wants to stop wasting his energy on foolishness. He wants to look good in the eyes of others. He wants to write a good song. (He wants credit for writing it, even if Michael W. Smith got all the money and fame). He wants God’s approval. He wants security that he is close to God. He wants to feel things.

Some of his wants are needs. Some of them are desires. Most of it is mixed up and that is just how it is with us.

You’re all I’ve ever needed

This might be the best line. So true. At the bottom, top and all around our needs is our need to live securely with God in the love of Christ and the nurturing of the Spirit.

You’re all I want
Help me know you are near.

When I sing this, this is what I mean: “Ultimately, you’re all I want. In the meantime, help me.” Because I don’t always know what I want or know you are all around me. What’s more, I don’t respect my desires, which often makes me feel like I ought to be in control of myself and what going on around me, when I obviously am not.

Maybe we just don’t know what we want

When it comes to desire, Christians, especially, are not too conversant. They think things like, “I need to lay down my own desires so I can get in line with what God desires for me.” Philip Sheldrake wrote a whole book about getting over that error in his thinking. Here is a bit.

On the other hand, desires undoubtedly overlap with our needs and neediness, although it is still possible to distinguish between them. Both may be conscious or unconscious. In fact, it is not unusual to experience a conflict between the conscious and unconscious levels of ourselves. As we reflect on our lives, we can come to understand more clearly how unconscious needs had the capacity to drive us to behave in ways that we actually disliked or that failed to express our truest self. For example, we may be driven by a deeply buried need to succeed, and to be seen to succeed, while on a conscious level we say to ourselves and to others how much we desire to operate differently!

When we choose to talk of befriending desires rather than simply responding to needs we are implying that desires involve a positive and active reaching out to something or someone. Such a movement goes beyond our temporary reactions to immediate circumstances and actually touches upon deeper questions of our identity and our ideals. — Befriending our Desires Philip Sheldrake

Rather than laying down our desires and pretending we know what we want, we should respect our God-given capacity to desire and work out our desires in love.

Strangely enough, David Brooks touched on the same subject last week as he lamented the state of the U.S. culture, dominated, as it is, with micro moments of dopamine jolts which keep us from realizing our deeper meaning. He says:

The problem with our culture today is not too much desire but the miniaturization of desire, settling for these small, short-term hits. Our culture used to be full of institutions that sought to arouse people’s higher desires — the love of God, the love of country, the love of learning, the love of being excellent at a craft. Sermons, teachers, mentors and the whole apparatus of moral formation were there to elongate people’s time horizons and arouse the highest desires.

The culture of consumerism, of secularism, of hedonism has undermined those institutions and that important work. The culture has changed. As Philip Rieff noticed all the way back in his 1966 book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic, “Religious man was born to be saved; psychological man is born to be pleased.”  — “The Junkification of American Life” by David Brooks (NYT Sep 5)

“Draw Me Close to You” is probably another little dopamine hit for a lot of worshipers. When they heard the first few piano chords the night the video was made, they got a chill of recognition and anticipation. The next song after the video was another little hit with little content but lots of feeling that left them wanting more.

When the “psychological man” (it was 1966, sorry women) gets to the words, looking to be pleased, I think they are more likely to be displeased, essentially unpleasable and perpetually looking for the next thing that might satisfy their unbridled hunger.

Maybe Rieff should have also said the “psychological beings” are born to be pleasing and never quite achieving the necessary splendor — TikTokkers getting abs to get clicks, Christians getting passion worthy of their ideal self and God’s approval.

Let’s make a few adjustments

Draw me close to you
Never let me go

Let’s keep these lines. Just think of them another way. Don’t sing them like you’re a wild bronco resisting  and needing to be broken. Sing it like a  distraught child who needs to be wrapped in security and comfort. Try it. See if you can be drawn in close to God right now. God is close to you.

Instead of  “I lay it all down again, “ try

I tune my ear for grace again

Instead of “to hear you say that I’m your friend,” try being more present, less aspirational,

I hear you say that I’m your friend

Or have you never heard that, personally, even though Jesus says it in John 15?

Let’s keep this part:

You are my desire
No one else will do
Cause nothing else can take your place

Just a small edit, below. Because it is so true: all my loves are reflections of yours, Lord.  Let’s lean into that. I don’t just “want to” feel your embrace; I welcome it right now.

I feel the warmth of your embrace

Instead of “Help me find the way
bring me back to you” try:

Guide me on the way
Through the dark to you.

I general, I think this song could use more mystery and less transaction. Regardless, let’s not be perpetual prodigal children, wandering in our individual wilderness. We are not in or out of salvation, we are in it all the time. I think this song was always about being in it with God, even when I feel a bit in the dark.

Instead of “[Cause] You’re all I want,” try

You’re who I want

Let’s keep it personal. God is not merely a better desire than the other desires I can choose. Besides, she chose us, according to John 15, we did not choose her.

Let’s keep this:

You’re all I’ve ever needed

It is so true. At the bottom, top and all around our needs is our need to live securely with God in the love of Christ and the nurturing of the Spirit.

You’re all I want
Help me know you are near.

Let’s just keep in mind, we’re saying, “Ultimately, you’re all I want. In the meantime, help me.” Because I can’t even keep myself in the reality of your nearness.

With just a few simple tweaks

Is it OK to tweak a very popular song? I obviously think so. So does Michael W. Smith, since he changed the words to the original (which actually made more sense than his). I think my tweaks help us in three important ways:

  • They help us get out of our power struggle with God.
  • They acknowledge we are full of needs and full of desires. Our needs are not always aligned with our desires. Our needs matter to God. Our desires lead us to experience God. There is a tension between them, but not a dichotomy. We need to be aware of the tension and not think our needs are desires and vice versa.
  • They help us not to lie to ourselves and God. Saying, “You’re all I’ve ever needed,” acknowledges our sense of never being satisfied.

Let’s amplify that last bullet to close and acknowledge we are all needy right now. Even as I sing “You’re all I’ve ever needed,” in the back of my mind I am worried I am spending too much time writing this post and wondering if anyone even cares if I did. What’s more, I responded late to someone’s email and I think they’ll think poorly of me. I also ate too much for lunch at a smorgasbord yesterday and feel like I need to get up and get some exercise.

Singing “You’re who/all I want,” also acknowledges the largeness of our desire. Desire is what I worship with. It is what gives me hope of something better. It is place in me where I decide to do something that is from my best and meets God’s best like a kiss. “You are my desire” answers back to God’s desire for me and the burning passion of Jesus to see me come to fullness of life.

Simple songs make a difference. I can sing Kelly Carpenter’s song and let it mean what I want. But I can also sing it with him and relate to the strain he felt when he wrote it. He felt a bit bad about himself and how he was blowing it. He wanted help to get on the right path. Not so bad.

But I just want to note, his desire for God had apparently already put him on the right path. After he had his epiphany, he went home and wrote a song God was drawing him close to write. All over the world, people use it to express their deepest desire.

Most of our worship should acknowledge how much we want to be close to God, not just how much we would like to be close if were weren’t so terrible. Because God has drawn close to us and is close to us right now.

What do you do with a “Gotcha!” question? : VP Harris shows the way.

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, Leadership, , , ,

What does one do with a “gotcha” question? Here is a lesson from Vice President Harris.

Dana Bash, after trying to get Harris to admit she flip flopped on fracking for no scientific reason after she became a national figure (and someone who needs to win Pennsylvania!), brought up Donald Trump’s remarks about whether or not she is really Black. Bash must have been asking about this because that is what every voter needs to hear from a potential candidate, right? “No!” you say? “It was because the CNN anchor, and her network, were hoping stoke a juicy pissing match to make some headlines?” You are probably right.

Unfortunately for Bash and CNN, the Vice President did not take the bait. Her entire response was: “Yeah. Same old tired playbook. Next question.” That’s one thing you could do with a “Gotcha.” Maybe sigh and say, “So boring!” or “So without grace, much less wisdom.”

Gotcha epidemic

Maybe we all need to rehearse our responses. I don’t know if this is happening where you live, but “gotcha” is like a cultural trait around here. Criticism appears to have become an obligation. And catching someone doing something wrong is a sport – even if one needs to make up the wrong out of whole cloth (meaning a patched up mess of scraps masquerading as whole cloth, which was quite expensive in the 16th century).

Trump’s unlawful invasion of the Afghanistan War veterans section of Arlington Cemetery was intended as a “gotcha.” They wanted to tag Kamala Harris with somehow ordering the evacuation during which thirteen soldiers were killed by a bomb — the same evacuation Trump caused by announcing a deadline Biden decided to approximate. Trump intended to show the world how little Harris cares for Afghan War veterans on the sacred day of observance his team concocted. It’s the same old tired playbook. But it happens every day.

I think it happens to most leaders everywhere these days. For instance, I told you I was elected to my condo board. I can’t decide if I was honored to be noticed or not, but one of the members of the loyal opposition to the board spread the rumor that I was illegit because I was delinquent in my payments. Gotcha! Our volunteer lawyer called me up in a tizzy, afraid my reputation was going down the drain. She assured me she informed them I was not delinquent. I think I disappointed her by not being too upset. I’ve been treated worse by people I loved more. And I was wondering if being deposed might just be a good idea.

Such indignities are so common news about them seems normal. For instance, an anonymous complaint was recently filed with the University of Washington where Robin DiAngelo submitted her 2004 dissertation, “Whiteness in Racial Dialogue: A Discourse Analysis.” She went on to write a hugely influential book based on it titled What Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. Her book is true and was hugely successful. The internet says she might be worth $5 million now. Her writing and speaking contributed to institutional comeuppance all over the country.

The complaint accuses DiAngelo of “research misconduct,” and details 20 instances in which she appears to have drawn on the work of other scholars and reproduced it without proper attribution (I just cut and pasted that sentence from the NYTimes). A conservative newspaper got hold of the complaint and published it. At the University such complaints are confidential — but no more. Before there can be a rational or relational process, there is Gotcha! “Similar complaints have been filed against diversity officers at Harvard, Columbia, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison” (NYT – don’t want more complaints).

Tim Walz’ approach

At the CNN 20-minute-spread-over-45-minutes interview, Tim Walz was apparently there for eye candy. He wasn’t asked too many questions. But, of course, he was asked why he said he carried a gun in war since he was never in combat. He could have said “The U.S. has been at war since I was born and I served in the National Guard for 24 years.” He did not say that in the interview. Bash asked him, “A campaign official said you misspoke. Did you?” I’m not sure why he did not say he misspoke, exaggerated or whatever he was doing. So what? I’m sure he knew people knew he had never been on the front line or directing drones from Nevada. But make sure you don’t make any mistakes in what you say!

His reply was a pretty good example of what to do with a gotcha, however. He said,

“But again, if it’s not this it’s an attack on my children for showing love for me, or it’s an attack on my dog. I’m not going to do that, and the one thing I’ll never do is I’ll never demean another member’s service in any way. I never have and I never will.”

It is OK to talk back to deceivers or just mean people trying to make you look bad — the same people who are making all of us afraid to say anything. I heard from two clients last week who did not want to keep a journal because they actually feared someone would find it and publish it. Even private thoughts are subject to investigation! Gotcha has an impact on our psychological and spiritual development! So like Gov. Walz, we should talk back — especially if the fear has been installed in you.

Our condo building is full of gotcha, like I said. We have a lot of wonderful people, many Jesus-loving people. But even they get caught up in the zeitgeist of thinking some conspiracy is afoot and we’d better uncover it. (Hmmm. Could the nightly stories of about on all those crime dramas have anything to do with that? I was so glad when Marcella was finally over! [Exhaustive recap]. But the reruns of White Collar were still on the list [Matt Bomer shilling]). I get so many indignant emails I started deleting some senders automatically.

That’s sad, isn’t it? Everyone needs community. No one should be summarily deleted. Condo associations are some of the last associations we have left! We need to associate or we get sick. The gotcha era seems to be an hysterical reaction to being so alone and afraid. If someone is out to get us, a lot of us will get them first. If everyone is out to get us, then everyone needs to be got.

John McWhorter’s suggestion

What came to John McWhorter’s mind as he watched Harris find her way through the gauntlet of skepticism, criticism and lying that surrounds everyone in even mildly public life, was not joy, no matter what Oprah said. It was the cautionary tale he learned from being swept up in the adulation of the first black president.  He does not think people were crying at the DNC because Harris is a seismic shift towards a renewed era of democracy. He thinks they love her because her Blackness symbolizes something. He says:

It’s time, then, to evaluate Harris according to — you knew this was coming — the content of her character. When I urged that about Obama in 2008, some people took offense. They didn’t like being told that they were objectifying him. They said I was underestimating Obama’s record of achievement. I eventually fell in with the idea that his Blackness was cool and important. I know better now, and I hope we all do.

I wish Harris well, partly because I sincerely believe that my tween daughter — and possibly our guinea pig — would be a better president than the megalomaniacal, incurious, unqualified lout who is the alternative.

But just as it diminishes Harris to cherish her primarily because she is not Trump, it diminishes her to cherish her primarily because of her skin color and a vague sense of what it signifies. We truly honor Harris in fashioning the mental exercise — and it is an effortful one, I know — of assessing her as an individual.

That is another way to deal with the gotcha. Accept yourself and be content with  who you are. And let others be who they are. Have the courage to be who you are, tell the truth, and let the chips fall where they may [American woodchopping idiom]. Keep your eyes on the main thing. McWhorter says he is an atheist, but he also says his views were influenced by the Quaker schools he attended here in Philadelphia. He sounds a bit like the Apostle Paul,  when he encourages us to see character not superficialities.

So let’s let Paul have the last word. He goes way beyond asking us to avoid seeing people according to the normal superficialities, shame and fear which divide us. He claims Jesus has made us all the same in his death and all unique in his new creation. Not even a “Gotcha!” can do anything about that!

For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! — 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

 

Stories ten-year-olds tell, and political conventions

A life in the Spirit, Film/TV, Psychological growth, , , , ,

We spent last week with three ten-year-olds and a younger sister. A few people have checked in tosee if I made it through in one piece! No problem at all. I was sad to come home. It was glorious.

Alongside the laughs, the grandchildren taught me a lot. Even though I remember being an elementary-age person, I can no longer feel what it was like very well. Nothing happened to arrest my development, so I seem to have cruised through fourth and fifth grade.

As a result of my benignly neglected memory, I almost forgot about the storytelling. As I saw the kids in action all week, I remembered I was also a typical, 10-year-old — full of stories I would like to tell, if anyone would listen.

Story in the making

Around my family table, a good story was prized when I was growing up. My mother was an especially avid and witty teller-of-tales, most of which were true. She was good at exaggeration, which is one of the ways we spice up our relationships, amuse our friends and make new ones [or so it is researched].

As a result, my siblings and I could reenact scenes from the DMV because our mother amusingly or angrily recast her day for us over dinner. We took her exaggerations even further and expanded them into imaginative fiction. For instance, “Mrs. Caputo,” one of her quirky co-workers, had an SNL-worthy storyline of her own, even though we never met her. My dad was quieter, but I still feel like his co-workers at the supply house were family-adjacent, even though I rarely saw them.

Stories make meaning

Ten-year-olds are in the psycho/spiritual development stage when people learn to make meaning. So elementary school children usually like stories and tend to be preoccupied with rules (especially those they violate — or when others violate the one they just made!). For instance, on the van ride home, there was an argument whether the oceans cover 75% of the Earth’s surface or two-thirds — and about “Why did you say 75% instead of ¾?” (BTW, Google says it is 71%, so they were both equally wrong, which would have been rather discouraging to know). They were aggressively using new skills to evaluate their previous, childish ways and compete, often loudly, for some respect at the adult table.

At this stage of development, we learn ways to make sense of the world and deal with it. We can now evaluate and criticize our previous stage of imagination and fantasy. The youngest of the four grandchildren we had last week was holding on to her past. So she demanded a stuffed unicorn as a souvenir. Alternatively, her older sister spent a good deal of time in withering criticism of unprovable facts — if you did not want to watch a movie, you’d better have a good reason! She also gave me a few disparaging looks once the thin plausibility wore off one of the unbelievable tall tales I find amusing to tell.

The gift of this stage is narrative. It feels powerful to form our own stories and re-tell old myths. Grasping our own meaning and influencing the meaning of a group experience can be intoxicating.  During one lunch, two of them were telling stories about previous vacations. Each had an example to give. The conversation was beginning to shift when an unheard member stood up from his peanut butter and loudly said, “Stop! I am trying to tell you my story!” They politely turned and gave him his due. I was glad he had a place where he could expect someone would listen!

In the elementary years, there remains a quality of literalness to our stories. We are  not fully ready to step outside the stories and reflect upon their meanings. Children take symbols and myths pretty much at face value, though they may be touched or moved by them at a deeper level.  The faith of many people remains at this level all their lives. If you were watching the political conventions, I think your vestigial ten-year-old self was often touched as symbols evoked truths and plausible-sounding stories were told to fill the experience with meaning. Plus, the “fact-checkers” activated your own primitive fact-checker to ponder whether “Coach” Walz was lying or not [NPR expert].

The joy of storytelling

My glorious vacation happened right in the middle of this development stage. So a lot of LOUD narration of everything was going on, including most TV shows (only their tablets could stifle them, really). Early in the week, my grandchildren invented a game which  reflected the new Time Bandits series for kids we found on Apple TV. (Caution: My wife found it almost intolerably boring).

The kids loved it. In the stories about the bandits, they bumped up against something magical and something factual at the same time – the same thing they were doing every day! In their derivative game, they let one of their squad be the director of an improv story. The director assigned each one a part, then he/she set the scene, and told them to act it out with further coaching. They did this at least once a day accompanied by gales of laughter.

What my wife and I did for four days was see what was happening at the DNC after the kids went to bed. Like it happened all day in our beach rental, there was a lot of storytelling going on every night at the convention. I realized at what level most of the DNC sessions were aimed: the ten-year-old level. Most speakers had a script about “Coach” Walz and “Comma-La” for the audience. They kept re-telling a story until we could all tell it. The candidates needed to be established at the level most of us are living. We make meaning with stories.

Unfortunately, adults can get stuck in such an elementary-school understanding of the world. No matter how many times Kamala says, “We need an adult in the room,” it is hard to be one if everything is aimed at our ten-year-old selves. Trump is called “weird” and so he refuses to say Vice President Harris’ name correctly. The whole convention chants it properly, so he literally says, “I’m not weird, they’re weird” [CNN]. That’s very elementary school stuff, and it appeals to vast swaths of the country.

A lot of the so-called “evangelicals” with the RNC seem to be Christians stuck in their ten-year-old stage of faith development. As a result, they are usually stubbornly self-centered — as in, “You ate the last donut!” (prepare to die) or “An embryo has human rights!” (prepare for prison). They often find themselves in trouble because they have not yet mastered living according to principles, even though they love them — as in, Papa has to tell them, “You never leave the door open, especially if the air conditioner is running” or “Israelis and Gazans both have terrible stories to tell and terrible leaders to endure.” As undeveloped adults, they are the “You’ll go to hell Christians” — very committed to the rules being followed (especially by someone else). The “We won’t go back” people holding USA signs at the DNC might not be much different.

If adults stuck at ten years old end up maturing into the next stage of development, their transition often occurs in a very dramatic way. The childish faith most of us experienced might suffice until our psychological patterns are disturbed or we experience an epiphany and meet Jesus in our twenties or have a spiritually-productive mid-life crisis. All our stages of development begin with baby steps, whether we are still babies or not. Some of us take first steps of adult faith when we are older. It can feel weird.

I wonder if we can effectively run a country, a church, or anything at a ten-year-old level.  After all, those people can’t remember to pull the shower curtain shut before the bathroom floor is flooded! Is there an escape from immaturity prison? Is any transformation possible? Maybe, since the Time Bandits keep finding a portal episode after episode. And maybe, since both conventions kept promising an escape from the present, as well.

But as I watched Apple+ monetizing historical stereotypes and feeding them to us from their endless archive, and the DNC doing much the same, I had to wonder. It might be harder to get past our ten-year-old stage than I would like to think.