Archive for the ‘thoughts’ Category
I agree with Elisabeth that “where I am weak is when I get to see God at work,” though I think it might be good to consider what this may or may not mean. How does God work with or in spite of our weaknesses? He can certainly override or bypass or compensate for our inbuilt weaknesses when he chooses, but I expect, like any other miracle, it is the exception rather than the rule for him to work contrary to the traits with which he uniquely designed each of us (and the circumstances by which he shaped us). Not only the abilities, but the limitations he gives us are integral to our design, a key part of who we are. A car is great for driving, but it is pretty bad at sailing. If we make a car to also sail, those adaptations will hinder its ability to drive well, which is its true design. 
Allow me to get personal. I was raised by a mother who was not time conscious and a father who was very time conscious. This was the source of much contention, especially Sunday morning, and both my mom and dad agreed that the “right” way to be was prompt, which of course meant my mom was inadequate and my dad was adequate. Dad was organized and Mom was disorganized; Dad planned out everything well in advance and Mom flew by the seat of the pants; Dad was very analytical and Mom was not. We were taught by both parents that we should emulate our father in all these things, because this was godliness, and thus avoid the weaknesses of our mom.
Most of my life I fully believed this to be true. My dad even taught a college ethics course that included a section on the moral necessity of being good stewards of our time. The good ol’ American values of productivity and efficiency were apparently a fundamental part of God himself, handed down to us in his word. The verses in the Bible about being punctual are fairly meager, so he used arguments such as the injury we did others by being late (“keeping them waiting”), which was both selfish and unthoughtful. It is more the emphasis than the idea which became a real problem for me. One could argue that good stewardship of the body requires daily bathing with soap for good health and so make showers a moral issue, but I don’t think I would go there with it.
It was decades later that I started to question this thinking. I found that examples of godliness in Scripture seemed to have a very different perspective of time, one that did not include minute hands on sundials. Jesus himself seemed to be much more God conscious and people conscious than time conscious, and he regularly chose to live by the former values at the expense of the last.
I don’t mean to suggest that punctuality is of no worth, but I wonder if it does not fall farther down the scale of true values than most white, middle class Americans would like to think. I wonder if it is a constant source of judgment towards other cultures and people who value it much less. Might our insistence on timeliness do more injury to individuals and relationships than our being more flexible with our schedules? In fact, is too much of a need for promptness a weakness of another kind and is flexibility perhaps a strength? Do we unnecessarily devalue the traits of some folks instead of appreciating their uniqueness and important contribution to perspectives, relationships and plans?
I find myself valuing strengths in others that I do not have. But instead of simply being grateful for and blessed by their contribution to my life, I compare myself to them and challenge myself to be like them… and then judge myself for falling short. I tell myself that I must be as organized, as gentle, as confident, as humble as they are. These are all good things to work on, but things that do not come naturally to me as they do to others, and in fact, they usually have their own downside. People who are temperamentally gentle often have a very hard time confronting others; Those who are typically confident tend to be less open to the perspectives of others.*
If I use a lot of energy trying to “fix” these weaknesses I attribute to myself, I not only make no room for others’ contributions to my life, but I end up undermining my own unique gifts. Others become competitors to me instead of partners, and relationships suffer. The differences between us that were meant to teach us, unite us and make us interdependent become the very things that drive wedges between us because I expect others to be like me and shame myself for not being like them.
Let's Work Together!
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*Of course, we usually think of humility and gentleness as virtues (moral attributes which are acquired) and organization and confidence as character traits (nonmoral attributes which are given). So for the purposes of this discussion, let us leave aside the “virtues” and think simply of “traits.”
Elisabeth’s comment raises at least four additional issues in my mind. The most apparent one, I think, is the distinction between enabling (as AA uses the term) and supporting. When people take too little responsibility for themselves, offering blanket assistance may not be the most helpful thing to do for them. We need to take this into consideration so that we do not inadvertently hurt or weaken others by our aid (such as parents do when they over-protect their children).
When folks are in need, love calls us to discern how best to serve them. It seems to me, the better we know someone, the better we can identify his or her true needs (so perhaps the best way to serve them is to get to know them). The difficulty lies in determining whether the crutch I offer will aid or hinder healing, and I have many potential problems in sorting out this quandary.
I tend to expect of others what I expect of myself, but this is a dangerous measure. Each of us has unique struggles and strengths, clarity and confusion, emotional surplus and shortage, speed of growth in different areas. If I don’t even know my own heart well, how can I presume to know another’s? I tend to expect too much of folks (and others’ tend to expect too little of them). Without realizing it, I tend to help or deny help to others for the wrong reasons (because it feels good to be needed, because I am proud of my abilities, because I feel obligated, because I resent the inconvenience, because I am suspicious of their motives). I rarely if ever respond out of pure love.
How can I tell when folks are being negligent, failing to do what they can easily do, or whether they are in genuine need of a hand up? Without even deciding that question, I know of a number of vital ways we can support others. We can accept them for who they are, we can feel and express empathy for their sense of need, we can listen and ask questions, we can offer encouragement and insight from our own similar experiences, we can be honest about our hopes and concerns regarding them and the strengths and weaknesses we bring to the table. I have discovered in relationship to my wife that what I need more than anything else is someone to understand and accept me as I am. It is far more important than the help they do or do not give me.
The Comfort of Caring Hands
In a message to a friend I wrote the following some time back. I would love to get everyone’s thoughts, to get a dialogue going. Are you game?
When I said that different folks are helped in different ways (and by different kinds of people), I meant that even the downcast are each sad in his or her own way, with unique history, issues, perspectives, coping strategies, resources and the like. When I was struggling in Calcutta with deep depression, a well-wisher sent me a copy of “Spiritual Depression” by a noted evangelical writer. The author’s premise was that depression always arises from a lack of faith. I have discovered in my own life that depression and sadness may be a demonstration of a much deeper faith. Many people are too afraid (i.e. lack the faith) to allow themselves any unpleasant feelings. They constantly keep such feelings at bay by various means of escape (entertainment, overwork, even reading the Bible). It often takes a great deal of courage (i.e. faith) to acknowledge one’s unpleasant feelings, and if we push those feelings away, we will never discover what they are trying to tell us about ourselves.
So many folks are also afraid that not challenging their friend’s moodiness will encourage him either to mope and cling to his depression (a “pity party”) or to use his depression to manipulate others. These two unhealthy responses do occur. On the one hand, no one is completely honest, even with themselves, about their feelings. So some folks use depression to avoid their true feelings because of fear of acknowledging their anger or sadness or pain (just as other folks use cheerfulness to avoid their genuine emotions). On the other hand, they may use their depression to try to control others. The solution for both types of folks is not to push them out of feeling sad, however, but to help them discover their true feelings beneath their depression while maintaining good boundaries relationally and emotionally (i.e. not yielding to manipulation).
Some folks want you to cheer them up from their sadness, either because they are not ready to face their deep unpleasant feelings or because their sadness is superficial and probably only circumstantial. (After all, no one likes to feel depressed—everyone would rather always be genuinely cheerful if it came with no negative side effects.) They may in fact need “cheering up,” though in my perspective even these folks are usually more benefited by an expression of sympathy for their sadness, at least initially and tentatively: an offer to be with them in their pain, if they wish, instead of helping them to avoid it.
After writing about my “Aha” moment, I found it was not such a new discovery after all, because I journaled about it months ago. It was something I had started to learn and then forgot. In the past I would have judged myself for this “neglect of the truth,” but I’ve discovered that this is how I learn… with fits and starts, do-overs and false leads. Here is my entry, a more insightful “Aha” about forced compliance (slightly edited to make sense to others):
I realize why I have been feeling increasingly depressed, and it is a long term, pervasive problem. Although it involves performance, it is not tied to “should” or “well done” (big issues for me). It is rather anchored by a sheer “must,” tasks about which I feel I have no choice. Although obligation may also be part of the driving force, it is not uppermost—failure to do what should be done results in guilt and shame, but failure to do what must be done results in anxiety. It is a direct appeal to the will rather than the conscience.
In childhood when my parents told me to do something “Now!” in sharp anger, I reacted out of sheer compulsion. I responded quickly in fear—well, not in conscious fear, since the idea of disobedience was too remote to have the consequences of that even occur to me. It was a stronger and quicker motivator to compliance than an appeal to obligation or shame. It completely bypassed my ability to think regarding the matter and was reflexive, like jerking the steering wheel to avoid a collision. There is no consciousness of fear in such a situation—it is first react, and then feel—and if the danger and escape are both over in a flash, there may not even be an aftershock of fear, perhaps not even of relief.
Whenever authority figures take charge with an obvious and absolute expectation of compliance, I feel I have no choice. The thing must be done without a single additional consideration. Only in the case where the demand was to break a clear moral standard did I stop to consider and refuse, but this was simply because there was a higher authority still, namely God, the one of whom I was most afraid. “Because I said so” was a common enough reason offered by mom to insist on obedience regardless of how we felt, what we wanted, or what opposing reasons we offered.
When an absolute is imposed on the will, the damage to self worth does not come through a sense of shame, but through a sense that someone else’s will and wish has priority over mine, that I am more or less a cog in the wheel of the accomplishment of their objectives. It is the worth-denying position of a slave. It is very depersonalizing to know that one’s feelings do not matter, and that is the real crux of the situation. If something really must be done and I must do it out of personal necessity (in other words, I don’t want to suffer the consequences of it not being done) and I am acting out of that motivation, it does not feel as though my feelings are being scorned.
But naturally the same action can spring from different motivations, so I can perform the act out of a sense of powerlessness and disrespect leveraged against me, or out of my sense of what is best for my own needs. Even if the pressure is there from an authority figure, or from someone whose opinion or valuation of me I feel a need, I can still learn to respond out of a different motivation, a motivation that validates my own feelings and chooses based on what is best for myself. Of course, keeping that person’s good will or affection may seem paramount to me, but then the two different motivations appear to coalesce, and I am not free. In such a situation I need to ponder the next lower level in my psyche—the co-dependence I am feeling—and work through that issue until I am free enough to respond without undermining my self worth.
The key for me is to bring these dynamics to consciousness and then try to support and affirm my desires and fears. I think there are many ways I can do this. I can adjust the time frame, the means to the goal, the goal itself, and in other ways try to accommodate my distresses and desires, but I especially need to work on understanding and redirecting the motivation out of which I choose and act. I must always stop to understand what I am feeling and why, to validate and affirm those feelings, to allow myself the human right of choice, and to choose and act from this affirmation of myself. It does not mean I will refuse to act in the best interest of others. My soul needs its true feelings affirmed, not necessarily fulfilled in that moment. I believe affirming my own longings is a cornerstone of self-care, not selfishness.
Sara Layman’s “Alleluia” posts were part of the inspiration for my new blog.
“Alleluia Day 106: Once, for a few weeks, my eldest daughter went to sleep-away camp. When I picked her up we went to the craft cabin to pick up her artwork. She couldn’t find her work. I found what looked like her initials on the back of one plaster of paris Jesus but she said it wasn’t hers. “No, Mom! When I painted my Jesus’ eyes, the paint ran down his cheeks.” The craft counselors spoke up, “Oh no, don’t worry about that. We spent all day touching up the paintings and fixing them!” I couldn’t believe my ears. Seriously, I did not want someone else’s painted Jesus in my house (at all!) the only value that piece had was that my child worked on it, was proud of it, and wanted me to see it and have it. They removed the value (for me). My child didn’t want the edited piece either. Why is it that I want to edit my efforts to try to make them appear perfect to others? Did Jesus reject those who washed his feet with water because it wasn’t expensive perfume? Of course I’d like my work and art and efforts to be perfect but if they aren’t – after all I’m not perfect – isn’t it better to have the honest, heartfelt efforts rather than the manipulated and contrived results? Will I, in response, accept all gifts without strings or criticisms? Alleluia!”
I love this post of Sara’s, which she gave me permission to use. How rich to think of two kinds of worth for any creation, the inherent worth and the worth derived from the heart of the creator, and the second has no real relationship to the first. If it is a genuine expression of the individual’s heart, and I see it as such, then it cannot be poorly done, then it is more precious to me than all other creations, no matter how grand and glorious they are. Whatever we offer to God hangs now on his refrigerator door.
Janathan Grace Reflections 