Since childhood, I loved Christmas because it was when Jesus came to live in our skin and be a boy-child. Over the years, I've grown regretful about it. What puzzles me is that Christians I dealt with assume that because Jesus is a miraculous baby, born of a Virgin, and a supernatural being, who will grow to be a supernatural and saving man, this will seem to allow Christians not to respect the natural boundaries I have put in place. ******* It's a massive struggle not to reverse engineer the text of the Bible given how I've been treated. It's hard not to see Mary as downtrodden, and a child-bride. I know this is a deviant reading. However, if you have a faith, I ask you to consider how your behaviour has affected a neighbour's relationship with the Lord, who is their strength in time of trouble. ******* Yes, being a neighbour includes what you post on social media, what you may chose to broadcast of your Sunday sermons, gossiping, announcing your good news with no regard to how honouring that is to your relationship with Jesus Christ and his wider family. I struggled to put a name on the problems I was having with Christians and the Church earlier in the autumn when I did a confidence course. My advisor, who was a Catholic, eventually helped me out and said 'people are being two-faced.' ******* I hadn't heard that insult since school. But I'm sure we all remember how hurtful it was when we suffered two-faced friends, rivals or boyfriends when we were at school. The solution was either to confront or walk away. ******* These days of social media influence, walking away is not as easy. Facing rumours in our lives is important. This is not as easy to do as it once was without those ripples of reactiveness to your assertive boundary controlling those relationships that surround you. ******* Social media is constantly 'begging the question.' We are mislead if we think that fallacious information, for which there is no public evidence, cannot be influential. We are misguided if we think that intimate affairs need to be transmitted before their time of natural fruitfulness has begun, because that may limit functionally and relationally, their worth. Even if a rumour is true, why cast our pearls to the pigs? For they will trample and destroy ******* Yet calling out 'untruths' or 'unfairs' is increasingly difficult in a visual-textual culture. Something that as an Art History graduate, I am hyper aware of and sensitive to. Personal argument in our day works its wonder partly through the 'magic' of connotation. ******* Objectivity, then, is hard to find. ******* Social media presents another problem because it gives people in general huge scope to be passive aggressive. Passive aggression means that a person voices their anger, dissatisfaction, or hurt in or with a relationship by indirect means. ******* Passive aggressive people often do acts that draw attention to their feelings in a way that makes those feelings hard to address for the other person, who finds themselves always in the role of the initiator, or the avoider. ******* Another form of passive aggression is not to challenge bad behaviour at all and let the person with whom we have the issue sit in their own mess. ******* This is not taking responsibility for how we feel. Instead, we allow people around us to act out how we are feeling to relieve us of having to be assertive and the risk of making enemies, or being rejected. ******* Passive people may fly under the radar for a while, but ultimately, they will end up themselves in the hot-seat. The irony is, this passiveness makes problems worse and worse. And increases genuine risk of abandonment. ******* My big problem is that I have confronted where I felt it was needed. Instead of feedback, I got left alone in those relationships to figure it out myself. ******* I cannot do this. You can't solve a relationship puzzle with one person. A second problem is that I feel treatment handed out to me is so unfair, that, if these people I have an issue with began to be nice, then that would be equally controlling of them. ******* They would then be attempting to control the relationship by buying me off with kind treatment after disrespecting my wishes for a long time. ******* When you don't respect a person's wishes then you erode their trust. And there is no rule that says forgiveness should condone treatment that has been unpleasant, hurtful, or cruel. Even if that treatment is mostly connotative and deeply difficult to pin-down. Only God can forgive and justify, or make right again. Jesus does that through the currency of our individual faith in Him. ******* Forgiveness means accepting that a story has happened and that it cannot be changed. Reconciliation is a skill. Forgiveness is a thought that, in time, influences our emotions. ******* Forgiveness is not appeasement. ******* Forgiveness is finding a painful truth and letting go of the hope that it could've been different. I am at liberty to forgive and then do what I want to do. The only way for me to be whole is to find what I want and grasp that. ******* Saying no won't necessarily get me what I want. ******* Saying yes to everyone is a 'no' for me too. ******* Trust is not a wholesale option, it is something that has to be built one person, one relationship, at a time. ******* That may mean filtering out people who are not prepared to work hard and respectfully for reconciliation; excluding people who can't or won't listen to the hurt they have caused by behaviours that could have been prevented and stopped. And putting a defensive wall in place to limit the havoc that broken people who need to work on their own core relationships can cause. ******* Heads up, everyone, because I know that being stern and a party pooper is in my future. ******* But if I am to have any future that is meaningful to me whatsoever, I feel I must learn these tricks and seek my kind, generous, loving spirit-filled Father in heaven to be my protector and my guide.
This message was composed for Instagram. And in that, I'll keep the strange formatting.
Since childhood, I loved Christmas because it was when Jesus came to live in our skin and be a boy-child. Over the years, I've grown regretful about it. What puzzles me is that Christians I dealt with assume that because Jesus is a miraculous baby, born of a Virgin, and a supernatural being, who will grow to be a supernatural and saving man, this will seem to allow Christians not to respect the natural boundaries I have put in place. ******* It's a massive struggle not to reverse engineer the text of the Bible given how I've been treated. It's hard not to see Mary as downtrodden, and a child-bride. I know this is a deviant reading. However, if you have a faith, I ask you to consider how your behaviour has affected a neighbour's relationship with the Lord, who is their strength in time of trouble. ******* Yes, being a neighbour includes what you post on social media, what you may chose to broadcast of your Sunday sermons, gossiping, announcing your good news with no regard to how honouring that is to your relationship with Jesus Christ and his wider family. I struggled to put a name on the problems I was having with Christians and the Church earlier in the autumn when I did a confidence course. My advisor, who was a Catholic, eventually helped me out and said 'people are being two-faced.' ******* I hadn't heard that insult since school. But I'm sure we all remember how hurtful it was when we suffered two-faced friends, rivals or boyfriends when we were at school. The solution was either to confront or walk away. ******* These days of social media influence, walking away is not as easy. Facing rumours in our lives is important. This is not as easy to do as it once was without those ripples of reactiveness to your assertive boundary controlling those relationships that surround you. ******* Social media is constantly 'begging the question.' We are mislead if we think that fallacious information, for which there is no public evidence, cannot be influential. We are misguided if we think that intimate affairs need to be transmitted before their time of natural fruitfulness has begun, because that may limit functionally and relationally, their worth. Even if a rumour is true, why cast our pearls to the pigs? For they will trample and destroy ******* Yet calling out 'untruths' or 'unfairs' is increasingly difficult in a visual-textual culture. Something that as an Art History graduate, I am hyper aware of and sensitive to. Personal argument in our day works its wonder partly through the 'magic' of connotation. ******* Objectivity, then, is hard to find. ******* Social media presents another problem because it gives people in general huge scope to be passive aggressive. Passive aggression means that a person voices their anger, dissatisfaction, or hurt in or with a relationship by indirect means. ******* Passive aggressive people often do acts that draw attention to their feelings in a way that makes those feelings hard to address for the other person, who finds themselves always in the role of the initiator, or the avoider. ******* Another form of passive aggression is not to challenge bad behaviour at all and let the person with whom we have the issue sit in their own mess. ******* This is not taking responsibility for how we feel. Instead, we allow people around us to act out how we are feeling to relieve us of having to be assertive and the risk of making enemies, or being rejected. ******* Passive people may fly under the radar for a while, but ultimately, they will end up themselves in the hot-seat. The irony is, this passiveness makes problems worse and worse. And increases genuine risk of abandonment. ******* My big problem is that I have confronted where I felt it was needed. Instead of feedback, I got left alone in those relationships to figure it out myself. ******* I cannot do this. You can't solve a relationship puzzle with one person. A second problem is that I feel treatment handed out to me is so unfair, that, if these people I have an issue with began to be nice, then that would be equally controlling of them. ******* They would then be attempting to control the relationship by buying me off with kind treatment after disrespecting my wishes for a long time. ******* When you don't respect a person's wishes then you erode their trust. And there is no rule that says forgiveness should condone treatment that has been unpleasant, hurtful, or cruel. Even if that treatment is mostly connotative and deeply difficult to pin-down. Only God can forgive and justify, or make right again. Jesus does that through the currency of our individual faith in Him. ******* Forgiveness means accepting that a story has happened and that it cannot be changed. Reconciliation is a skill. Forgiveness is a thought that, in time, influences our emotions. ******* Forgiveness is not appeasement. ******* Forgiveness is finding a painful truth and letting go of the hope that it could've been different. I am at liberty to forgive and then do what I want to do. The only way for me to be whole is to find what I want and grasp that. ******* Saying no won't necessarily get me what I want. ******* Saying yes to everyone is a 'no' for me too. ******* Trust is not a wholesale option, it is something that has to be built one person, one relationship, at a time. ******* That may mean filtering out people who are not prepared to work hard and respectfully for reconciliation; excluding people who can't or won't listen to the hurt they have caused by behaviours that could have been prevented and stopped. And putting a defensive wall in place to limit the havoc that broken people who need to work on their own core relationships can cause. ******* Heads up, everyone, because I know that being stern and a party pooper is in my future. ******* But if I am to have any future that is meaningful to me whatsoever, I feel I must learn these tricks and seek my kind, generous, loving spirit-filled Father in heaven to be my protector and my guide.
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I haven't posted since October because:
10/4/2016 My Gold Medal Church: Doubt Sandwich - Assertive Doubt, Expertise & My Abused Woman StoryRead Now I offer you a second vignette from my life where assertive doubt has helped me. It wasn't a church that stepped between me and the problem. Two women's charities, The Freedom Program, and Women's Aid, helped me. Specifically, these organisations reach out for women. We have to open up to the effects that harming our women has on the whole of our communities, including our churches. Children and men can be affected by domestic abuse, either as victims, or loved ones of women who become victimised. The whole economy suffers in productivity outputs and because benefits may be required when women go through trauma. Please read and consider, if your church should
Why we need expertise & partners to join us in the practice of assertive doubting: my experience with the Freedom Program & Women's Aid. Living free & alongside men & knowing you matter... One of the principles you learn about abuse when you go on the Freedom Program is that what matters is the outcomes the abuse brings about in the world, as well as in the woman. This is powerful. By implication it means that I, a woman, matter. And my feelings do. And my thoughts do. This is a bright light to turn on. But, from the Freedom Program's perspective I am the person who is moved by the actions of another. I am the dependent variable in a sick experiment. When everything is slowed down for me again, and I can see the power plays that I respond to for what they were, I understand that I am not going to able to move the abusive person in this context, because they have no reason to change. While I may be indispensable to them for my add on value, I will not be fulfilled because the abuser's warmth is inflexible to my demands, petitions and wants. Exposing inequalities & their impacts... There is no interdependence within these bullying relationships. I cannot be needed because that is extremely threatening to the abusive person; because my value is derived from the abuser, their persona, life history, and strengths. I am saying him and writing he. This is gender bias because there are female abusers, and abusers can group together. Men are less frequently abused than women the statistics seem to suggest. But different studies have pulled out different trends. That's why it's important to look for the affects of the abuse itself and not the method of abuse, because abusers are endlessly inventive, subtle, and adaptive. The point is that real people aren't caricatures. Real people are complex, contradictory and confounding. Abusive people may exhibit finesse and cleverness, religion and political commitment, fitness and self-discipline, hard working attitudes and organisational, leadership skills. They may belong to docile, encouraging mothers, sweet grandmothers and baby daughters; best friends and siblings, work colleagues and supportive bosses. They may be excellent in all that they do. Or the may be failing. Or they may be somewhere in between. Why belief is the crux of behaviour & internal illogic... The Freedom Program is a safe place to explore this and it focuses on the beliefs abusive men hold about women. Psychologists agree that we all hold dissonant beliefs and we can have two conflicting values, which would seem to mutually exclusive. But the human brain doesn't work with categorical logic. It works with feelings, emotions, and deep held assumptions and prejudices we may not even be aware that we hold. This is not to excuse abuse. These facts help to effectively camouflage abuse though, because even among civilians who are not militantly anti-women, there is a residual deposit that is passed to us through cultural transmission, in the media and between the generations of our families. Expectations of how women should behave are constantly changing. Getting our priorities straight... When we get a victim's evidence it is irrelevant what the rest of the world sees. Victim's experiences are not tried by women's charities as they would be in a Police station. Women who go to get help from domestic abuse services are not asked to prove anything. We know from research that humans would rather attribute violence to a stranger. The Freedom Program course is a time to practice reflecting on our experience as a guide to life. This is perhaps especially uncomfortable for Christians with their vocal commitments to 'unity.' In a later essay I'd like to examine forgiveness, reconciliation and the Old Testament notion of 'just compensation.' The intensity of intimacy... We are usually most experienced with people we know, and they have the most well-developed capacity to hurt us. Indeed, with the exception of stalking, where an abuser desires an introduction to his prey, in domestic abuse instances, violence is enacted with a pretext of familiarity. Throughout the life course, from child abuse, to school bullying, to elder abuse, honour killing, and domestic violence, these acts have an intimate framework, to a lesser or greater degree, that the victim may not even be in a position to influence. It would be absolutely fantastic if churches could help women to see this situation of 'strongmen' who accrue financial, natural, relational and economic resources for their own leverage in a different light. The light of sharing, equal access and community, which gives women a pathway to make their own movements. Belittling abusive experiences... Because domestic abuse is the elephant in the room we minimise experiences of abuse when they happen at work, in churches, and in schools. Low-level domestic abuse, or where there is not a clear relationship between victim and abuser, is waved away. But intercepting the trajectory of an abusive person can be unpleasant at any level. Remember that abuse is commonly a cycle. If you have experienced an upside of the cycle then you don't need to witness or experience a violent event to suspect that abuse may be a tool that a certain person may resort to. Abusers can also intimidate psychologically, economically, and coercively without using actual violence. It's imperative that pastors and church workers are trained to prevent violence and can assess its risk as they would any health and safety concern Preventing violence at the personal level (without blaming oneself for it)... On the Freedom Program, I saw that I can take control and begin to chose a different response when I am in a situation that taxes me. This sounds easy. It isn't. When you are provoked and anxiety is screaming inside your head it is very difficult not to step into that frame that the circumstances have created. What you have to understand is that abuse conditions you to be a person who behaves differently to how you once would have. I have sworn and gotten angry in a way I hope I never will again. So what does recovery look like? I may chose a fresh inward response to begin with. One that is not hackneyed from constant, unthinking, fearful repetition. I could hide behind a little lie of connection or deceit with the abusive person while gathering courage to make a better plan. This is extremely frustrating. As an abused person I wanted ultimate truth. Some reassurance that my reality is accepted by the world and I am not going crazy. For this reason, deceit can feel extremely hard to pull off, and it robbed me of emotional energy and self-actualisation too. But it is an option. It is a survival skill, and I have used it. I have lied. Moving forward & trusting again... The next idea is to begin to build trust with people who are not abusive. A good church could do wonderful things for recovery at this point if they were sensitive to the journey abused women are on. Whether abuse is recent or historic, we all have to move on eventually, or be doomed to trauma for life. We need spaces in churches that let women find their voices. Good structure enables positive doubting, and there must be a formal element to this. When I asked our rector if he had spoken to women dealing with domestic abuse before he answered 'no'. That is an incredible, and frankly unbelievable statement given his pastoral experience. Churches should screen for abuse, because if they don't they won't discover it. Assertive doubt in this specific instance means being involved with and aware of the work women's refuges do. There are areas of doubting within the church where our curiosity and empathic listening are not enough. We need to call on secular expertise. LINKS (sorry hypertext not working, copy & paste) www.womensaid.org.uk http://www.freedomprogramme.co.uk/online.php The following story is one I hope to share with local businesses in my work with the mental health charity 'Time To Change.' I don't plan on regurgitating the whole script verbatim. I'd like to borrow the main lessons. When you read my testimony, which centers on how my experience of depression first developed at school, I'd like you to think if you can see any opportunity for assertive doubt. I have coined this term to explain the type of concrete doubts we have about services, standards, and rules. We often need to reach out and ask for help when we are dealing with doubt that wants to assert itself and see a different outcome. My gold medal church would assist me in expressing my assertive doubts, and help me secure a better, fairer life that was safe to live in. They would not ignore, minimise or delay responding to my doubts, and would show concern for the quality of my life. An example where assertive doubt has been expressed in the Anglican Church is the debate over women priests, and now also about female bishops. I hope the women in these campaigns have been supported throughout.
What follows is dreadfully long. It was quite painful for me to write. Part 2 will be coming later this week. When I was 14 I got glandular fever. This was not from kissing. I was sad because the autoimmune disease caused me to miss months of school. A blood test showed I had it, and I underwent rapid personality change. I lost friends while away, became lethargic. I was miserable, depressed, prescribed sleeping pills, and had not kissed another soul! Giving me sleeping pills seemed an odd decision by my family doctor. I was sleeping all God's hours with night time insomnia and early waking that I think now was related to grief and anxiety. There are dozens of good, effective methods for stabilizing sleep. Glandular fever is called the 'kissing disease' because of its high incidence in adolescence and how it's passed. Frequently not serious, glandular fever is considered a joke. I was treated as if it was my inoculation against teenage life by adults in my path. As if it kept me safe from hard knocks. I was fatigued for years from glandular fever's aftermath. Looking back I think this is when my depression started, although I never had a conversation about mental health with my school, doctor, parents or other caring adults. The clinical term 'depression' was first introduced to me by a doctor when I was at University. So what happened when I was 14? My school refused to mark work I sent them. They denied me grades – as if I was on holiday. I got no feedback or reward for my effort. My home tutor refused to teach me because she wasn't a specialist in my subjects. She supervised, stopping by my house for a cup of tea and a chat. She spent three hours a week with me, and we used that time as if it was a homework club. I can't overestimate the harm to my confidence and burgeoning sense of identity. I was on free school meals at the time this happened, and to this day I believe that made a difference to the teachers who had a responsibility to me. When your parents don't work, you already carry a stigma at school. My parents were distracted by my mum's disability. They didn't engage well with the school to find solutions to the problems I was having. What was horrible was that school transmitted to me whether they intended to or not that my limited prospects were inevitable. I felt as if I had repulsed adult help. My doctor continued to give me blood tests. I wished I could have given them more of what they wanted. But I didn't know what that was. They certainly weren't being cheerleaders for my continued attendance. Neither was I punished. I felt abandoned and unloved. I played netball, hockey and badminton, sang in the choir and theatrical productions, when I started secondary school in 1992. I enjoyed creative writing and won the chair at the Eisteddfod, which in Wales is considered a big honour. I was in year 10 when I got sick, so these hobbies had been followed faithfully for over three school years. Within a few months, suddenly teachers wouldn't greet me in the corridor. They were adults I looked up to and trusted to keep me safe. What I would describe as passive aggressive behaviour continued until I was 18 within several settings, not only at school, also at churches I went to and to an extent with peers outside school, and tutors at college. It was difficult to talk about what I wanted. I was discouraged. Even today I struggle with getting help I need in my life. When I had a care plan my social worker wrote I was socially anxious and found it hard to trust people. The whole document was under ten words of handwritten text. When I did go back to school, I didn't find it easy to integrate. I found the noise too loud and I believe then I had severe anxiety. I was socially anxious because I was confused I hadn't succeeded in communicating through normal channels with teachers and friends. I found it frightening to navigate my social world again. I was intimidated by school. The threat I would fail my exams was a genuine one since I had a huge amount of work to catch myself up on. I remember studying from the revision guides I bought for science and that was the first time I had seen a large portion of the material. I returned to school with a huge desire for approval. I was at a dead end because I didn't know how to get what I wanted. Mix this cocktail up and you get experimentation, not all of it wise, or safe. By sixth form I was mildly disrespectful to teachers. My heart was let down. My body and my heart were in the doldrums. I genuinely felt like I'd been put in the rubbish bin. To this day, I find it difficult to throw objects away, and cling to them because the process reminds me of that time in my life when I was discarded. Those filters adults applied to my teenage years effectively said 'not now,' 'not her time'. I took this to mean that it would never be my time to fit in. I was sure I would never get what I needed from the people who were in my life. That was not a very resilient attitude to have. I would coach a teenager against this stance if I had the opportunity to counsel them now. All I needed was one adult to be kind to me. I wasn't looking hard enough for the silver lining. I didn't find that until I met friends at University who accepted me for who I was. This was shortly after swapping courses when I was 20. By that time we were all adults. This helped because children can get swamped by friends' mental health, however I believe they take their cues from parents and teachers, no matter how we say that peer groups are important. Being ill was a scandal. I felt that labels teachers chose didn't suit me. I began to doubt who I was inside. The person they had known before I was ill had evaporated. If you asked them I'm sure they would blame busyness. Actually, this was a stigma and it's interesting that it exists around mental and physical health. There is a close relationship between minds and bodies. Hundreds of children of school age have asthma and diabetes but the emphasis in my school was on managing those conditions. I wasn't a good manager of my glandular fever, partly because it was quite mysterious to me how my body was changing. What my body could and could not do wasn't well supported by people in my life encouraging me to safely do more. I could reach the ceiling of what my capacity was physically quite quickly. With the right help and patterns of rest I believe I would have recovered emotionally and physically. If I felt good I would push on and try to return to sports but my body needed gradual reintroduction to exercise and a base consistency. I struggled with relapses of fatigue until my late teens, and even now I monitor myself carefully. My tiredness could now possibly be attributed to other causes, for example, unresolved emotions. My peers caught the stigma I gave off and I became isolated. My attitude wasn't positive at this point. I had grown cynical. To be sicker than is not to be better than. I think it may have felt like this to my friends because I was asking for special treatment. Perhaps I seemed superior? Or special. Spiritually I also felt 'off.' Even though I was doing my best at school to catch up, I felt like I didn't deserve it. I began to believe that I shouldn't do well. I felt guilty when I succeeded. This is a belief that people with depression will often share that they have. I didn't know I was depressed. When I started following these beliefs with behaviour at University, I didn't know they were part of depression, even once I knew that's what I had. I tried to suppress my sad feelings, to distract myself from them and replace them by loving people who could reciprocate, and they were usually the younger members of my family, my niece and nephews. The last coping strategy is a good one, we all need love. Except I had adult needs as well and the children could not meet them, with the best will in the world. I put effort into sibling relationships. As time has gone on and I've become accepting of myself, I understand that my siblings and I have our own expressions of personality and not as much in common as I assumed we did when I was in my twenties. I had a Pollyanna attitude to my family, partly because I felt I'd failed to connect with my peer group once the structured activities I'd previously enjoyed fell away. I still put store by my family because they have helped to shape me, for better or worse. Can you see how, if I'd had a person of authority or influence to help me express assertive doubt as a teenager, I would have been better off? Have you ever used assertive doubt to explore a clouded issue? Did it change the outcome, or how you felt about what happened? Could you use the technique of assertive doubt in your church? (Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@cagatayorhan Creative Commons Zero)
I'm continuing my series of what I'd like my ideal church to feel like. This time, I'm addressing my own personal journey in Jesus and how that can be supported by a church when I'm in deep doubt. Do churches need to help with this at all? Do you believe personal doubt is a personal responsibility to resolve privately or with friends? I'd love to hear your thoughts. I will be looking at 2 more types of doubt in subsequent posts. Doubt and wonder, never flounder... While shame is extreme self-doubt, an existential habit of doubting can be a healthy one. I'd like to outline three types of doubt that I want a church to accommodate. The first is personal doubt. My own doubt in my God-dreams, and my personal abilities and progress, and in God himself. Doubt, in its noun form is a technique. It's not all bad. I say doubt is the kooky long-lost aunt of wonder – which I know as that jolt of awe, surprise or sticky-honey marvel that can catch us unaware. Doubt and wonder protect against unbelief, which is a gettaway car for broken relationships. Let's look at the happy emotions first. The zingers... When I use my senses without prior judgement I can welcome these switched-on happy vibes that electrify me. They in turn prompt gratitude, which is all sorts of exclamation points. I write exclamation points and question marks together occasionally. That is possibly because I am an impatient person. This sort of doubt, if indeed that's what it is, is triumphant. To doubt crass and hurtful experiences is the opposite of defensiveness – it's becoming open to the world again. I see skies of blue, and clouds of white; the bright blessed day; the dark sacred night... It's a beautiful day when a child waves at you from a tram car and you doubt all the unfriendliness you been juggernaughted by. When a long-lost friend seeks you out for a catch-up and you doubt all the times you believed you were no good. When a glorious day of sunshine presents a landscape that gives you new possibility to belong by walking into it and bringing friends to witness its beauty. The are tiny doubts that are welcome intruders into my cynicism and keep me hoping for shalom. These little moments boost our energy and prime us to experience good emotions. Unbelief is what you want to avoid at all costs, because experiencing that suggests you will be pulled away from your core values and cease to operate in the sweet spot you once envisioned. Values change over time, but when we give up on them life can become a frustrating and negative slide into uncertain waters. I've been an unbeliever and I wasn't close to my ideal self, not by a long shot. I thought love was only true in fairy tales; meant for someone else but not for me... Once unbelief kicks in I find my attention has drifted some place else already. I have replaced inquiry with idols. This is a deft manoeuvrer that is difficult at first to notice: idols like money spent needlessly, the wrong food consumed too abundantly, hobbies pursued selfishly, work completed expensively-- these are tiny shifts in attention that reveal I don't fully trust and believe any more in the provision of God. I'm not pedalling fundamentalism as I write this, we all know ourselves when a coldness has developed in our hearts due to a lack of trust. It is something I have truly struggled with. I can be an ice-queen! And when you trust your television, what you get is what you got... I want a church that can deal with my personal doubts. The good doubts that push me to go and make disciples, and the less holy doubts that can appear at first to be negative, but are nonetheless essential to how my identity is formed in Christ. These are doubts I tried to address by writing 15 minutes of questions a day, without thinking too hard before I began my work with the pen. I stopped when I realised this battery of questions could be simplified by asking: “Who are you?” Yes, I would ideally be addressing this question to different subjects: God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, my friends, my family, my Priest – myself (I took a songwriting course). What began as a litany of detailed 'why' questions ended as a 'who' question. The benefit of doubt is it keeps us in relationships where needs are not being fulfilled. We can release our expectations by doubting, and find alternative routes to becoming satisfied in life. Star Trekkin' across the universe, only going forward 'cause we can't find reverse... Instead of writing questions I'm now trying activities. I volunteer, go to art workshops and walking festivals, and attend courses. These adventures haven't settled the doubts I had when I returned to church, and pangs of doubt grip me still, I am easily hurt and keenly feel that God didn't plan me for a life of loneliness. However, I can accept that people at large, whom I meet at church or casually, do not have the answers I thought they did. I have to figure my life out for myself. This is not an altogether joyful feeling because in my life there is great resistance to change for a number of significant reasons that partly have to do with my values and how I would chose to live given freedom. Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep... Occasionally the urge comes upon me to surrender everything and weep. I stalled a volunteer opportunity for Keswick Convention this year. I was troubled that as a leader I should be better at faking happiness. If I had gone there and expressed a doubt by a tear or by a thousand tears, I wonder what would have happened? There's a fire starting in my heart... I want to believe that people change. Usually, exactly when you believe you've got to know them, they go and surprise you. If nothing else, helpful, robust doubting should prepare us for this. It should allow us to move toward or move on in our race, lighter than before. This is the second in a series I'm scribbling while choir at Holy Trinity is on summer break. I'm looking at what, in an ideal world, church would look like for me. I'm learning that unless you can articulate your expectations, churches and christians can't be expected to meet them.
Expectation 2: Let's Be Rooted And Grounded In Love (Shame Be Gone!) I want to show you who I am, so help me manage how I am feeling... One of my obstacles is that I cannot be clear, except for in brief chunks.What did you have for tea? Fish. What did you do this week? Volunteered at Mind. What are your hobbies? I like to sing. You get the picture. Ask a complex question. For example, what was your last job? And I will probably begin to waffle. Not because I desire to confuse... I find a linear story doesn't cut it when I adhere to the strict facts. To make my choices relevant to now and who I've become, I need to put a few thousand megahertz of emotion behind those words of mine. Please don't sponsor my shame - treat me kindly Also, because I've been rejected numerous times -- over and over again -- my shame receptors are sensitive. I frequently find myself in a “shame storm” as TED Talker Brene Brown, would describe it (she's a social worker who studies resilience). Shame is a feeling of wanting to hide, to close down, to cut off, to isolate, to protect, to conserve. Shame can make us angry. Shame can make us resourceful. Why do we cover up shame? I hate to reveal shame to bystanders. What if they agree I have those unique deficits that learning, life experience, and repentance won't overcome? Those ugly birth disadvantages that make me 'me'. What if my neighbours pass by on the opposite side of the street, and I don't find my good Samaritan? What if no-one wants to see me in my woundedness? We've all been around those sorts. The danger is real. The critics. The bullies. The distracted. Those who prefer a stiff upper lip, that does not tremble. Shame and I, we are frenemies, which is a hybrid word, bolting together 'friends' and 'enemies.' I know shame is bad for my health. I make a trade-off with it because it volunteers an immediate answer. And oh, how I search for those. Why? Why? Why? This comes back to the clarity expectation. When I am not ashamed, I'm prepared to ask, instead of "Why?", "Who?" And if you are a Christian the "who" is always Jesus, God the Father, or The Holy Ghost. How do I experience shame? Why is it terrible for me? If you experience shame, you may feel it distinctly in YOUR body pattern. You may want to lash back. Or you may want to outperform because shame says you are no good. For me, shame is like taking an eraser to a pencil drawing. It rubs everything out. My achievements. My relationships. My connections. This is particularly painful because I enjoy being around people. Shame is quick to arrive and slow to leave. I reach exhaustion. Shame leads to insomnia and migraines. I can't divert a shame storm without help. My shame experience is spacey, dangerous. I'm afraid it will cause a car crash; a fatal error while I'm on my bike. Shame is like the snow, in that (I could tell you stories) it abhors convenience and interrupts my routine. I don't recognise connections, memories, or dreams. I float round detachedly, like a butterfly, not presuming upon the world to be a person with thoughts or emotions at all. I don't deserve the 'feelers,' imagine they shunned me like rude, ingracious party guests. Without emotions I am simply animal. Shame is the invisibility cloak I give to my human vulnerability. And it hurts. I've given shame a bad press. Like sugar that is sweet and highly addictive, it has a lighter side. Shame can motivate us; can help us win. How? We run towards pride and away from fear. Shame can pressure us to find solutions to problems because of how fast we want to flee from grief and loss. If shame gives us the best solutions, that's another matter! But ultimately, shame will destroy our relationships. We can't experience the zenith of intimacy when shame distracts us. Like the snow, shame covers, and encourages us to present a defended, false self, that we need to melt away to restore ourselves so we can give and receive love. You need salt and light to dispel a shame storm. Vulnerability requires interpersonal risk and shame reminds us that can cause pain. When our relationships don't cost us we value them less and less. Soon we are in a shame storm cycle. What's the cure, please? Intimacy will heal me... I have found the cure for shame is to get around people who include me. Who make me feel as if I belong. These are people who are prepared to risk their own comfort to invite me to join the gang. They are Christians who use the five love languages that Gary Chapman developed to aid human exchanges of affection. They are: Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Quality Time, Gifts, and Words of Affirmation. The love languages give us a new vocabulary to connect and heal. When I feel close, then I feel grounded and rooted in love. I am resilient. I am sensitive. I am grateful. That doesn't mean moments of shame won't come. Comparison is a rapid route to shame, and to resist that is incredibly difficult when you enter into mutually beneficial relationships, in which you desire to be seperate, and free. But we can talk about that. I want to go to a church that deploys Christians to hand out umbrellas and build tabernacles when those pesky shame-storms gather. Where Christians look upwards toward the glory of God to find a mirror that will show them who they really are. And I want to meet friends. I want to know the depth of Jesus' sacrifice for me, and get to know what my peers and leaders have been redeemed from in their lives. Then I might be healed. A good church should proclaim, we have overcome this sin, and we will help you to. When I confess my shame, for a moment I will become vulnerable, and then a lover will gently run salt water into the wound. I want to find a church where healing is being rooted and grounded in love. Expectation One: Clarity What you see or hear is what you get? One of my big asks of Church is clarity. I enjoy messages that are straightforward and not esoteric. I like to fact-check what I hear with what I read in the Bible. I'm also a stickler for grace -- if such a thing were possible. I like to ensure the code the preacher expounds is verifiable by who turns up regularly in the pews. And that sinners are treated fairly. Straight away, it appears that my definition of a good church may make me appear a little self-righteous. When you deal with with strong undercurrents in church that spell DANGER Arguably, I carry higher demands of church since I was bruised by it. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that. Sharing my personal story of hurt and betrayal by the church is probably more compelling than reciting a wish-list of desired traits for a church to have. The problem here is the number of people who have turned away when I have told my story. There is a misfire, or I haven't found my right tribe. We're all in this together? I got a mail to my inbox that claimed 1/1000th of letters are opened and acted upon from companies selling products. I'm not a for-sale, I'm a person who acts and reacts to my life as if it were a story and I am the lead character in it (as we all do). I know mine is not the only story the creator is whispering into being through his divine plan. Whose is the ultimate truth? I am part of a larger tapestry, but my couple of frames have me in them and I want to make them count for something. The problem with stories is they are falsified at times. Even when dealing only with ourselves we know we cannot always be accurate in how we tell our tale. But I cannot tell a narrative of what happened to me without a beginning, middle and end that will let you make up your own mind if it's true. And I have to be judge and jury for my own integrity as well as I try and find my voice and ask “to whom do I belong?” Whose we are has a big impact on how we tell the story. Silence is golden? A painting has a frame, and a story has a medium. There is a gamble in writing a tale. Good stories trigger strong emotions. I can guarantee someone will click here who won't like it. If you are telling a tale and it's not a dominant one, and your audience finds it difficult to step into, there is a high probability you will be disbelieved. But it won't help you GROW This is especially true with factual stories because we hear them in a register of our brain that is searching for analysis, evaluation, and confirmation of the truth. Our mind hopes to defend our body from alarm and upset. On the other hand, I need to tell my story to someone (a therapist, a friend, a pastor) because my body is still healing from the trauma and stress it went through (and is still going through every day, in a way that is pertinent to it, and causes disease). Shock! Shock! Horror! Horror! So, victims are at high risk of disbelief because their stories are frightening. Victims shake our ideas of what is right, and put our audience in a zone they find uncomfortable. Every story needs a resolution. A storyteller has a burden to solve the problem they have offered. Here is what I want from a church: I want clarity that Jesus is the answer to my victimhood. Ironically, because I am the storyteller, this is also what a new church demands from me. I think I can; I wish I can I can guarantee that because you are a human being there is a preferred version of the future you secretly expect. I can vouch that you have private codes you wish people in your life would act by. Because we like to be in control of our lives, people will take their own expectations for granted. Standards fly under the radar and we don't notice them – until they are breached. Too often, we are not aware of the hopes that peer groups, family members and colleagues have of us, and that can create conflict. Me, myself, and I, or – ahem, “we” I used to believe that conflict was created by demands that were irrelevant to their second party. When a person doesn't share your dream they're less likely to help you to reach it, and that can cause frustration. Arguments bubble undetected, though, when demands are relevant to two or a greater number and sought so intensely that they squeeze out additional expectations that may be significant to life quality. This is basically selfishness. Family laurels... We're addicted to watching the Olympics in our home. My elder sister is visiting us with her family. We crowd around the TV at night – and I never usually watch TV, and never ever in our family sitting room -- to follow Britain's medal prospects, complete with our own running commentary. We enjoy sharing in team GB's success together. When athletes are interviewed after their podium finish, it's likely they'll say a variation on the following theme: I'm thrilled. I've got it! A gold medal to take home. This is for my family! This gold represents the last four years of hard work and all the sacrifices they've made for me. When your dream won't make the rostrum today... Athletes say this because families have put aside their range of everyday dreams. Husbands, wives, sons and daughters, mums and dads, and siblings, have allowed their superstar to pursue diet controls, body routines and man-hours that intrude into how intimate relationships are structured and, for a time, obscure their own expectations. The all-important WHY!!! Why do families sacrifice? Why do they live with the conflict this creates? Because the prize of being an Olympian carries the honour that will be remembered for generations. The process of becoming a champ, we are told, carries a smidgen of guilt for the discipline that winners require. Champions have to be controlling of schedules, budgets and distractions. This dedication affects not only the will-power of the champion, but everyone in their orbit. I'm sure the families involved value the Olympic athlete themselves far above the hoped for winning position, Do they feel valued in return by their VIP? Thank you speeches on national TV occasionally hint “yes.” This is gratifying as a TV viewer, we can all relate to the decision when we have chosen to put someone else first. For the athlete whose potential is elevated above all other demands, it seems sacrifice is a gift that is difficult to receive. This is humbling TV, that reminds us that humility is a virtue, prized in fact, by great achievers. I think you can! I wish you can! To recap, families with an athlete on the medal path are frequently at a crossroads. Time and attention is limited. Those near to an athlete chose to elevate the discipline of predictability above the intimacy of private expectations again and again. They hope this will pay-off. But of course, it's a big risk. Having someone who is prepared to take a chance on you shows there is a value in your endeavours. The triangle of dream, athlete and supportive family is one I have pondered lately, because of my own latent expectations of what a church could do for me, according to the expectations that I believe Jesus has of it, as his bride. This is a flawed analogy, but hear me out. I know I'm not an athlete. I'm an underdog who was once out of the prizes. I'm not looking for a church to compete for me though, I still want to win my own race. I want to find a place that will cheer me on. My gold medal race... who to share it with?? Let me run... Christians are familiar with the theme of sacrifice. I want to be crystal clear that my gold medal is relational. I want to “order my loves.” I want the honour in my life to flow in from the top, guided by the golden throne of Jesus, the King. And I want that glory to touch my friends and family, and my community. I want the whole field to run into the arms of Jesus. My greatest passion is Christ. And I understand that he is the narrow path whose training leads to abundant life. I have to come to terms with the Church being full of athletes with hopes of gold medals that represent salvation. The sporting types... In the Church, we all should medal, and that requires accommodation of infinite athletic events. What is finite is our will-power, attention and resources. But it's not right that some athletes are given false starts. We shouldn't be disqualified from grace, not by our singleness, marriages, jobs, and certainly not by our churches. I've told stories, and heard tales, in which this is exactly what happens. On the contrary, it is the hope of God, recorded in the Psalms, that every single one of those church-going, gold medal athletes we call Christians are to be given a supportive family to help them pull through. God puts the lonely in families. And I have been lonesome in my faith walk. If I had my moment on national TV to thank those who have helped me, my nightmare is they'd reply, watching their plasma screens, "Who is she?" Coach me beautiful & pump it up!!! I go into a church, I ask myself if the training I receive from the message, worship, informal conversation and servant-heartedness will lead me to life that will give me the spirit of a grateful athlete. I have high expectations. I want to be known, for my discipline, for my struggle, because I wear Jesus's team colours. I know that every church is 100% filled with gold-medal winning athletes as far as Jesus is concerned. Where is the place that will honour my achievements for the sake of Jesus' glory? Where can I learn to be authentic and grateful? Who will help me to be that performer? We all have the name of our events inscribed upon our souls and I am a good cheerer-oner. Like an athlete, I find it hard if a church betrays me on my journey to claim Jesus as my prize. I desire affirmation. I want a team who will cheer for me, pump Jesus up and bring out gold-medal quality in my relationships. Let's be real
If I have ever given the impression that I imagine I can go through life intact, in one piece, I apologise. I desire to feel a gamut of emotions from sad to happy and everything in between. (I can be ecstatic over one relationship and heartbroken over another, all at once.) I trust that this flexibility will give me strength, because I can create value for people in my life when I understand what they are feeling. We all experience emotions in our own patterns. What helps is having a connection with yourself that allows you to diagnose emotions and urges successfully, because knowing how you are feeling is a big clue to understanding the motives of your own behaviour. In turn, you can then begin to guess at the patterns of people who are like you. Eventually, perhaps even predict the motives of the behaviours of people who are not like you; who originate from backgrounds that have little in common with yours. This is the power of human emotion. What does not overpower us will help us transcend. Mindfulness: casting off selfish drives; putting our best needs first When we are in that space where we can retain a rationality and objectivity district from our selfish, visceral nature, we can become emotionally dependable and animated by our true desires. This is the big benefit of mindfulness, and why it is growing in popularity today. When you are being mindful, the chatter of life doesn't disappear. The pull of strong emotion will try and divert your attention away from the practice. What the mindful person can do is simply fade those narratives out in favour of re-focusing on the birdsong, for example, or the crash of waves on a beach, or the traffic noises outside the window. The pause: letting go to catch yourself up on how you're feeling The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy course I finished three weeks ago taught that we needed to take regular pauses in our day like this. The purpose of these was to step back from ourselves and then step back into the moment. When you notice what there is in the senses and sounds you come to know you are not causing these events to happen. Perfectionism or anxiety can take a back seat. Life just is. The idea is that being present will help me assess how my body feels, what thoughts I am having, and how appropriate my coping skills are at this time. If I am not the origin of events unfolding before me, then I cannot control the majority of them. I can reflect my values in how I respond to them. Will your anchor hold & how to find it? Because values are a keystone of ACT, we are hoping to arrange a support group where we can journey through what our values are together. Mindfulness is key to ACT, and we spent huge amounts of time on this because the logical order is “pause to find your anchor,” with the anchor being the reaction (feeling or thought) that would best reflect your values in the world. For example, a good anchor would be lovingkindness. It's surprising how we struggle as humans to articulate our values, and this is perhaps because we are bombarded constantly by objects or relationships we 'should' value, without thinking what would bring our values to their best realisation in the world, and give us the highest long-term emotional pay off. The process of finding values can be remarkably nuanced. Lovingkindness may incorporate a value of social justice, for example. A pause gives the opportunity to consider which value is of primary importance in that moment. Grasp the nettle & move on in spite of yourself? Yes, you can! My values are Christian. ACT processes refuse pat answers. I've endured a pain for the sake of my individual values within the faith, and it's interesting to look at that and examine the take I have on life. There is a 'grasp the nettle' element to ACT that may appeal if you are a person who feels easily bruised by life. I'm not ready to give up right now. This doesn't lessen the intensity of how I feel. To persevere in my Christian faith it's imperative that I learn to progress through my disappointment. We are all programmed to avoid pain. What ACT does is ask how you are coping with the pain you can't avoid. If coping is unhelpful, you are asked to feel the pain instead, and press on with a meaningful direction. The hope is that when you get to where you want to be the pain won't have prevented you from reaching your destination. ' I'm doing ACT therapy and it's helping me. I'm learning how to incorporate mindfulness in relationships. I've completed an Expert Patient Program to help me self-manage better, and a Coping With Life course that uses CBT to lessen anxiety and promotes stress management. Busy me! I wrote the following meditation to deal with the aftermath of my 10-year health path, which in itself can provoke regret and difficult emotion that I must deal with daily in prayer. This post is for the sick and the brave who have lost their definition of grace amongst pain, tears and heartbreak. A confession: I often feel that grace is someone else changing the light bulb. I know in my heart this is not what grace is. Grace is Jesus saying 'you are forgiven'. I used to think that grace meant that Jesus said 'I will supply what you need to change the light bulb'. Grace isn't that. God does provide, and that is gracious... Provision is a function of grace and not its entirety. Look at the Holocaust. Look at Genocide, and War. Grace does not unfailingly change our interior or exterior states. I have mental illness and Jesus hasn't magicked away my symptoms, I still struggle with internal weather. People around me don't (and perhaps can't) comprehend the social issues that have made recovery problematic. I'm a person who is always praying for solutions in her life. I'm looking feverishly for proof God loves me... That could come in the form of a person, or a goal I want to achieve, or even the restriction of damaging stigma or unhelpful behaviours from people placed in my life (or who wished they were)... Here is my little poem to grace. What the grace of Jesus says is: 'I am with you -- if the light shines or not!' What if Jesus says, then 'till the end of time I will be with you. In the darkness.' What if he claims 'I will light you from the inside.' What if he promises 'When light cannot be manufactured I will forgive you, you are not responsible for what I already have taken care of.' What if Jesus encourages 'I will help you to forgive yourself.' What if Jesus calls 'when no-one wants to help you I will let you relax into knowing that a sense of my touch is enough to give you a vision.' What if Jesus delights that 'at the end of the day, all of the work is done because you saw well when I provided the light, I will forgive you.' What if Jesus says that 'if at the end of the day, none of my work is done because you saw badly, I will forgive you, also.' What if Jesus longs that 'when you can do nothing, on one of those days when you fear hazard, I will pursue you in friendship.' What if Jesus said to me that 'we can hold hands in the darkness, until our lips whisper the same prayers. We will cry out together, “Abba, restore us!” Allow us to light up the room of ours. Restore us to glory, for we are one.' I can see now that grace is the power that will encourage me to worship Jesus for all he has done on earth and in heaven. Whatever state I'm in -- however meagre my offering -- this is possible. |
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