Tag Archives: community

The president who drove Christians back to basic faith

A life in the Spirit, Life as the church, , , , , , , , , ,

If you are hesitant to have faith in Jesus and express it these days, I am not surprised. I think many of us already feel burned and the unburned have felt the heat. If we say anything in public it might be on camera for Homeland Security to discover, or some social media coup-collaborator might go after you! For instance, I advertised my research presentation on Facebook and about 1000 people took a look at the post. I put my psychology/Christianity integration work out there and people listened. Despite positive impact, there is one comment I keep thinking about: “Amazing the hate in the hearts of people under the guise of research it simply exposes bias and lack of critical objectivity.”

The comment was another example of DARVO by a rather religious person I rather like – in the flesh, at least. He did not deny Trump is a sociopath, directly, he went straight to attacking me, personally, as someone with hate in my heart pumping out research that lacks objectivity. This was all in the cause of defending the victimized president and his followers. Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender — that’s how it works.

Golden Trump at the merch site at CPAC in 2021 (AP/John Raoux). Click for source

But Trump is no victim. He even has worshipers. Millions of Americans have faith in him. The comparison has been made for years between how the children of Israel freely combined their gold to make a calf to worship while Moses was up in on the mountain receiving the law and the shocking number of Americans who worship Trump.

I am amazed they so freely give up their rights as Americans under the law. As poorly as those laws protect many citizens in this historic republic of the rich, they are better than nothing. Nevertheless, people follow Trump, who remodels the White house with gold while denying the poor their average-$187-per-person monthly SNAP benefit. Then one of them ferrets me out in my obscure space in the blogosphere to call me full of hate toward the poor president.

It all makes me want to set the next impossible goal in the hope we can apply the truth in Jesus to the present disaster our federal government is creating. So here goes. Here’s another shot at the basics of faith in Jesus tuned for our time.

Love them all

I come from an era when people used to dress in rainbow wigs to get noticed at sports stadiums holding up a signed that said “John 3:16.” I was embarrassed but still approved of their audacity. They were determined to get the basics of Christian faith before as many eyes as possible. We’ve always got to try something.

We’ve got to try something or people might miss the truth in John 3:16: The promise of eternal life in Jesus is made to every single person, everyone, all of them. Love them all. Even love your enemies.

Mexican congressman Braulio Guerra sits atop the U.S.-Mexico border wall that divides Tijuana, Mexico, from California on March 1, 2017. Twitter/@BraulioPRI

This loving includes the immigrants Stephen Miller demonizes. I have been to our southern border where so many immigrants arrive and quite a few scale the wall. It did not take me too long before I was having dinner with a young couple from Honduras who took the risk to try to get into the U.S. with their baby! It was not hard to love them.

Love them in Honduras. Love them in Mexico. And love those strangers when they get into the U.S. by legal means or not. That’s Christianity now and forever. Loving Donald Trump does not take precedence. The U.S. does not take precedence. God loves everyone in the world.

Christian community is adaptable and porous

We just finished the All Saints Day triduum, which celebrates the saints, the “whosoever” who followed Jesus, who are part of the transhistorical body of Christ. I celebrate them in a blog I keep as my online altar of remembrance and admiration.

The history of the church is an astounding story of discernment and inclusion, especially if you don’t emphasize the corrupt parts of it. It’s too bad the over-emphasis on STEM courses is making  such history-keeping obsolete. After the 2008 financial debacle, students started gravitating toward majors they believed offered them greater job security. So, according to my grandson at Pitt, it is hard to find a student who  reads any book these days, much less history books.

The lack of reading apparently includes reading the Bible. According to a 2024 article, from  2011-2021 “Bible Users” — which are people who interact with Scripture in any medium at least three or four times a year (apart from in church) hovered between 50 percent to 60 percent of the U.S. population. But in 2024, the number of Bible Users was down to 38%. That means in the last few years, millions of Americans have not even glanced at a Bible for any significant reason. It shows.

Meanwhile, in China, Xi is cracking down on the wildly adaptable and porous, often underground church, arresting the leader of one large element just before Trump arrived last week. [PBS video]

The Chinese church has continued to grow, even as their government tried to Sinicize it,  that is, conform it to the Communist Party line about what is acceptable Chinese culture. Their perseverance is another example of how the church has grown and changed throughout its history. Christian community has been repeatedly corrupted by men, primarily, since its conception, who have seen it as an opportunity to get some power. But the Chinese, Congolese and Brazilian churches give me hope these days, even as the church in my own country is tied up with a deluded need to protect an endangered past, even tied to a form of nationalism that belies the transnational nature of the church.

The church is always the hope of undermining cruel and corrupt leaders, even the sociopaths who always know the weaknesses in a person or a nation and exploit them. People of faith always upend the status quo because the church never depends on it to be itself; it is the body of Christ in any culture.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem for his last week of upending, he named himself the rejected “cornerstone” and said the kingdom of God would be taken away from the rejecters  “and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed” (Matt. 21). When the motley crew called the church, the body of Christ in action, produces the fruit of the kingdom of God we are the rock that helps rejecters not get crushed.

Eternal life cannot be caged

The point of having eternal life cannot be reduced to an argument about whether my trans grandchild has been duped by woke fools or by the medical model of solving human conundrums. Love them all. Let them in.

Like John 3:16 says , trust in the risen Jesus transcends the latest expression of lies and greed directing the deceivable. Nevertheless, we have several versions of the Trump Bible, from which he profits. Some people have such a weak grasp of the Bible and the history of the church that they have been duped by the latest tyrant! It is not the first time, unfortunately.

But as all Bible readers know and all church historians can verify, wise men go home another way.  Disciples leave their nets. Centurions can repent of their murders. Women can become the first apostles. Believers like Paul and Silas can sing open their prison doors and save their jailers. Martyrs, like those Rome killed, upend state propaganda. Saints like Francis of Assisi and John Wesley, as flawed as they are, change their corrupted church and violent governments profoundly, starting with their own transformation and dogged conviction.

Eternal life cannot be caged. To experience our freedom and receive our joy, we must act out our faith, no matter the mess in which we find ourselves.

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Today is Martin de Porres Day! Get to know this Peruvian champion of the poor at The Transhistorical Body.

Your small group in the church: Key to thriving?

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Leadership, Life as the church, Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , , ,

In a new survey, the Gallup organization interviewed people across 142 countries and asked them a series of questions to determine whether they felt they were thriving in their lives or struggling or, worst of all, suffering.  It reminded me of a presentation I made in 2016 to small group novices about how the church could be a place to help people thrive.

Last week David Brooks interpreted the Gallup findings for us in the New York Times:

The number of people who say they are thriving has been rising steadily for a decade. The number of people who say they are suffering is down to 7 percent globally, tying with the lowest level since 2007. This trend is truly worldwide, with strong gains in well-being in countries as far-flung as Kosovo, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and Paraguay.

Unfortunately, there is a little bad news. Some people reported sharp declines in well-being. That would be us. The share of the population that is thriving is falling in America, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In 2007, 67 percent of Americans and Canadians said they were thriving. Now it’s down to 49 percent….

People thrive when they live in societies with rising standards of living and dense networks of relationships, and where they feel their lives have a clear sense of purpose and meaning. That holy trinity undergirds any healthy society. It’s economic, social and spiritual.

I spoke with Dan Witters of Gallup, who broke down some of the contributors to social and spiritual health. People who are thriving are more likely to feel a strong attachment to their community. They feel proud of where they live. People are more likely to experience greater well-being when they join congregations and regularly attend religious services. Feeling your life has purpose and meaning, he adds, is a strong driver of where you think you are going to be five years from now.

The sociopath president Trump is terrible fruit of this awful decline of  economic well-being, relationships and meaning. He’s bankrupting us, dividing us, and doesn’t mean a thing he says, much less attends to deep meaning.

The young people in the West are the hardest hit by the decline in thriving. So my wife and I decided our basic reaction to Trump had to include starting a small group. Our first try has not totally failed yet. But we quickly found out just how hard it is these days to get people together who don’t know a lot about getting together.

The small group is the basic unit of the Church.

In the U.S. we Jesus followers might think the individual is the basic unit of the Church. If we are moral, we might think it is the family. But I think the Bible and common sense tells us it is a small group which is the basic unit. Many church people call that small group a cell, a construct within the Body of Christ held together by the Spirit of in love — not born of flesh but of God.

In Acts 20:20 Paul notes how he has been teaching the church in Ephesus in public, like most churches do on Sunday morning, and from house to house — or in all the places where they are gathered to love or serve as a small group. The house to house groupings were like cells in the body of Christ.

The towns and cities Paul visited were relatively small. The churches in them were small in number, too. His teaching assumes people know each another. He’s not writing for the internet. We say “it takes a village to raise a child” because we need to remind ourselves  we are that village. If we did not reinforce our relationships, we might be swallowed up in the huge media machine that makes sameness a substitute for connection. Being the church might become attending a Sunday event featuring Joel Osteen, thinking our common experience or common connection with the person on the screen is connection with each other.

We can lose the essence of what Paul is teaching house to house — to people who are supposed to love each other like family in practical ways, even though they are only family because of Jesus. If we are not a vital part of the basic units of the church, we not only lose the redemption inherent in those relationships, we lose the psychological development inherent in struggling to build them and we remain unfaithful and unhealed.

What do you think of that? Do you have a place in your church where you are the body of Christ? Where you can be healed and be a healer? Where you learn to love? Where you can have healthy conflict that convinces you the process of facing difficult things is not so scary?

Creating groups

I have spent my whole adult life trying to create a place where people can receive what Paul is talking about. So often church people have been in class where they are thinking about doing what Paul is talking about sometime after class! Then they go to the service, which is often another lecture and mainly individuals consuming a religious product.

When Jesus was walking around with his disciples, he was demonstrating the basic wisdom of living as a small group. People caught stuff as they went along. They found some people they could follow and discovered who was a betrayer. They fought over who was the greatest. They were indecisive and unsure. But Jesus was in the midst and they figured stuff out together. They learned self-giving love, they learned how to doubt and be restored, to grumble and be corrected, to ponder and come to agreement. They got a chance to earn a secure attachment, differentiate from their past, learn a new script and act it out in a safe place. In a lot of places the church has deprived people of a chance to mature in Christ, so twentysomethings want to go to therapy when they are mildly anxious – their therapists end up being substitute friends and spiritual guides.

The paradigm we came up with in my former church was simply designed to fly on two wings: a large group wing and a small group wing, everyone energizing our movement. Everything we did was done in groups. Even the pastors of the 4-5 congregations did most of what they did as a team. I think this is so important because the essence of what we do is love. We are meant to be together as surely as the godhead forms a small group – father, son and Holy Spirit.

In the early years, I had some interesting and sometimes wild cells.

In one new cell, we had multiplied from another one that got too big to be face to face enough. Our core group included a somewhat shy Asian architect, our host, a loud South Philly guy who had a coke habit he was trying to kick and his longsuffering wife, and a woman who had just come off heroin and had wandered into the church for a meeting because she saw “hope” on the door — a genuine borderline personality. There were a couple of others who were not so comfortable and me. I did not have my doctorate yet, but I was beginning to earn one practically through my work with this little system. It was a very dysfunctional system I remember fondly. The couple  would continue arguments in the group. The recently-clean woman was an expert at pointing out the vulnerabilities in everyone. The architect wondered why she had ever allowed these people to meet in her apartment, since she had mainly done it to get some friends, not experience this challenge.

Needless to say, this was not a cell that worked out for long. It died. Some groups must die a natural death, otherwise it is hard to get one to live.

Even though we did not thrive, I learned a lot about how to nurture a small group and help people live in them.

  • The couple needed marriage counseling, so my wife was already inventing Circle Counseling, since you can’t solve every problem in the small group, especially when it is not professionally led. This is often the problem with church groups – they are not porous, their “holiness” requires them to have all the answers so no one can admit they don’t have the answers.
White corpuscles gathering around the injured or unincorporated mass
  • Plus I began to think about how some situations, like a couple having conflict or a person addicted to cocaine, might need to get some space in a relational container to heal — a small group with a purpose, like white corpuscles rushing to wounds.
  • And I had my second chance to make a treatment plan for a borderline person to be part of the church. It would not be my last.

Most people who have BPD suffer from:

      • Problems with regulating emotions and thoughts
      • Impulsive and reckless behavior
      • Unstable relationships with other people.

People with this disorder also have high rates of co-occurring disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and eating disorders, along with self-harm, suicidal behaviors, and completed suicides. The malady can be inherited. Is likely trauma-based or family-induced.

Borderline people are attracted to groups in the church but they often kill them. They desire stable people to balance their instability. Unfortunately, they like the ready “hosts” loving people are to feed their insatiable neediness.

Growth requires risk

The needy woman got better and ended up in her own apartment. Her growth required risk — hers and ours. I am amazed that a good third of the Christians in the country are obsessed with their own safety and are filled with fear. We should be the ones safe to risk our utmost and undermost for God’s highest.

A lot of small groups create a nice homeostasis that feels like mother’s milk but often curdles. Groups centered on Jesus need to keep moving with the Spirit, keep growing and renewing, to be healthy. Some churches have Sunday school classes that began when the members were the “young married” class and they are still together in their sixties!

Church leaders need to keep things flexible and changeable, as various and unpredictable as are the members. One reason for this is that spiritual and psychological growth takes risk.

Personal growth requires the interacting flows of relationship building and faith development. Healthy small groups have these complementary flows swirling around in them. That flow makes them good delivery systems for the spiritual food we need to grow and act. It’s a bit like I need to keep the air moving in my basement so the water that recently flooded it does not stay there long enough to grow toxins.

Small group leaders attempt to maximize the positive impact of the movement while minimizing the impact of the inevitable perils. They are always gently helping people to take the risks they need to take.

Making a relationship with a Christian, listening to the story of Jesus, entering a small group meeting, telling one’s story, listening to others, daring to express thoughts and gifts, praying with others, taking responsibility for others and the cell, bringing another person to Christ and the small group, joining in the Sunday meeting, taking action to serve others, making a covenant with the others in the church, giving birth a new cell — there are many risks along the way.

Here are some examples of the elements of each flow that we can encourage, and the risks we can learn to encounter with wisdom:

Do you have any experiences in small groups in the church that just didn’t work out well? Or just felt too risky to you?

Many times the risk reaps benefits

Not long after that other cell died, I formed a cell with a couple of bike messengers and their girlfriends. They all knew “A,” who was a sweet, but not-too-Christian guy in the church. This time the experience was electric and formative. These people became so close they met quite a bit outside the meeting. Some of them eventually became roommates and four of them became two married couples. They loved the opportunity to grow deep in love and to tackle the hard questions of faith and justice together. The group got so large that we multiplied it three ways and they sent me out to make another one from scratch.

What was so different about this one?

  • Groups like their homeostasis and if they can’t form it, they do not cohere. This one became a safe place.
  • Leadership. They liked “A” a lot and me enough. I was a lot older than them, but since they all came from relatively unstable families, I provided some parent power. If you therapists have twentysomething clients you are probably doing that, too.
  • Youth. They were pliable. I think groups are especially important for young people because they have so much to learn about having relationships. And do we really want to send people out into the world thinking that they can or must face all the huge issues of our day and the huge organizations that run it by themselves with only their hand held computer?
  • They wanted what the group offered. At least enough of them did so the others either went with it or kept their criticisms quiet.

Have you ever been in a group that worked out well? What was the best thing about it for you, personally?

A few main themes for training leaders

My presentation was mainly to leaders who were training leaders. So we concentrated on that quite a bit. Training small group  leaders is a lot like training group-therapy leaders. The big difference is the church’s twin flows of real relating and real-time experience of God’s presence.

Regardless of the flow, it is a major temptation to turn an expansive cell into a closed therapy group. People love therapy groups. Once they have been vulnerable with a small group, they don’t really want to repeat the initial risks of forming more relationships.  But it is just that risk which makes them alive and valuable.

Leaders who catalyze the growth we all need to keep experiencing are precious. Here are a few of the important things they must help us do to form life-giving small groups:

  • Learn how to listen and teach people to listen, to God and each other. — Everyone is writing their story, day by day, and they need to tell it.
  • Create an environment of safety. Leaders always need to wonder if they are controlling things out of their own fears and needs or effectively shepherding people along their uncertain, God-directed way of love and truth.
  • Encourage the dance of the big and small. The individual and group both matter. The promise of freedom and our deep need for covenant are dancing. We must honor uniqueness and promote mutuality.
  • Protect the EGR – There is always and extra-grace-required person — at least it will feel that way to people who are not good at relating. The leader protects that person from the group and protects the group from that person. We are all moving somewhere deeper and fuller. We are unfinished. Our present weaknesses and sins have hurtful consequences. That’s a given the leader monitors.
  • Embrace before people believe or behave. One does not have to believe to belong. A small group is like meeting Jesus along the way — therapists might call it “client-driven.” Implying that someone is not “doing the group right” probably won’t help them face the risks they must take to connect with God and their true selves.
  • Don’t deprive people of reproductive rights.  If a church expects their small groups to grow and change, we all learn there is enough love to go around. Love grows as big as it needs to be. We are always changing which always feels risky. When we give birth to the next basic unit of the church, we all get the thrill of bringing new love into the world.

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Today is Clare of Assisi Day! Celebrate her at The Transhistorical Body.

 

 

Mutualism: Creation keeps speaking the truth in love

A life in the Spirit, Building community, , , , , ,

The little back plot of land behind our new house needed to be reclaimed. Some kind of bamboo-like shrubs had overtaken it over 15-or-so years of neglect. We could not dig them up by ourselves, so our GC found Anthony from the Northeast who came in with his backhoe. He arrived later than promised, since he tried to get his too-tall trailer under a bridge and had to back it out of a single-lane road full of honkers. He had a long day.

Nevertheless, he worked hard. And we had a nice time getting to know each other. He was happy I guessed his unpronounceable last name was Polish. Similarly, the man from Guinea who had been working that morning on our cul-de-sac garden out front was happy I thought he might be from Conakry, which he was. The whole strange day felt like an island of mutuality in an ocean of polarization. My neighbor came out to explore gardening with me. The father groundhog came out at dusk to see what became of his wilderness. The first bird came to the new feeder. We were all in it together.

While Trump vainly tries to reignite the smoking heap of the Reagan Revolution, even as his past with Jeffrey Epstein nips as his backside, we all seem to be wishing for togetherness more and more. Last week lots of us were out in the street on John Lewis’s death day remembering how much we want to live in community. We really like mutual respect and we do not like diseased predators. The burgeoning protests are a natural reaction to the unnatural, survival-of- the-fittest heresy perpetrated by Eurocentric colonizers who still think their ill-gotten gains make them the fittest to rule.

Mutualism

Contrary to the new Darwinism-by-keyboard we face, there is a small backlash of mutualism that lapped on my doorstep last week and then kept reappearing when I got outside my living room and into my new neighborhood.

For instance, I learned in biology, when a symbiotic relationship between two different species is mutually beneficial, it is called a “mutualism.” This month, scientists studying ant plants in Fiji discovered a variation on mutualism. In a particular ant plant, two normally-antagonist breeds of ants were housed in adjoining chambers of the plant’s reproductive chamber. The ants were fed, the plant was fertilized, warfare was averted. The discovery took the biological study of mutualism to a new level [Phys.org]. Christian skeptics of Darwin’s natural selection theory of evolution, based on competition, quickly noted how his theory falls apart if animals and plants of different species are cooperating [UCG Canada].

The original sin may, in fact, be competition. The major achievement of mental and spiritual health may , in fact, be mutualism – a return to nature as built by the Creator for the way of love. As a marriage and family therapist I can give witness to the reality that competition for scarce resources of grace and hope (and the less-useful justice) can destroy one of the main factories of mutualism in the world: marriage.

My testimony this week is a paean to mutuality, again. I may have failed to bring about a golden age of togetherness through the church, as I intended to do. But every day is a new opportunity to be a true self, reflecting the glory of Jesus, who is the ultimate example of mutualism, becoming one with humanity and so teaching truth and love. From Guineans to groundhogs, we are designed to live in harmony. The more survival-of-the-fittest, the less fit we all are.

Three contrary things mutualism teaches

Christians need to outthink this era like they did for the first three hundred years of church history. So Morton Kelsey said when he took one look at Reagan. At the protests, I take heart when I see people outthinking the fraudulent leaders we have in the U.S. You can see their genius in their signs (well, not mine, usually). For example, my favorite sign last Thursday was this lovely piece of 3D art depicting the despicable Stephen Miller as a puppeteer. I wove my way through the crowd to get a close up picture. People who are carrying the weight of art and literature now are important.

Every scrap of community needs to be nurtured. Tony the backhoe man usually takes one-half down, these days, before he gets started because people don’t pay him. He told me he once took a sealed envelope from a business owner he respected and assumed the $8700 in cash he was owed was in it. He did not want to look disrespectful by opening it up and counting it. When he got home it was $8200. He went back in the morning and the guy said, “Get off my property. You should have counted it before you left.” Nevertheless, he took the risk to trust me. Some people never learn how to be bad. I gave him a tip.

Hope will not disappoint us. Ants look for food all day and ferry it back to their queen and the next generation. They are tempted to fight for it. Then an ant plant adapts to their differences and provides a way for both needy groups to get what they desire and provide what they can. It feels miraculous. We wander into goodness all the time, as well; we’re surrounded by it. For instance, we finally got our new backyard to square one by the surprising efforts of someone who went through hell to get to us and was suspicious we might not pay him, but who hoped it would all work out.

If we don’t find our way into Creation’s mutualism we will likely compete ourselves to death, saying that “selfishness is natural” on our way to the grave. If we keep hoping that love will find a way, we might be surprised that the best we could do to help it along, even though we are just one plant in a forest, is more than enough.

Emotional paralysis: What we can do about it.

Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

When we are experiencing a persistent sense of emptiness or numbness, an inability to connect with others on an emotional level, constant feelings of fear or anxiety, and a limited range of emotional responses, we’re in “emotional paralysis.” I think this is a national issue right now. Instead of dealing with it, we are getting acclimated to it.

by Kiselev Andrey Valerevich

A persistent sense of emptiness or numbness makes it challenging to connect with others on an emotional level. This leads to loneliness and a sense of detachment from the world. It also leads to fear or anxiety, to a state of heightened alertness, being on guard for potential emotional triggers. This vigilance is mentally and physically exhausting, which only makes things worse. Soon, emotional paralysis makes our range of range of feeling even more limited. Joy, pleasure, or even sadness are often the first to go. We can end up disengaged from life and unfulfilled. Relationships become strained and work suffers which causes more anxiety and loneliness which often deepens the numbness.

In many cases, emotional paralysis can be accompanied by physical symptoms: no appetite or overeating, sleep issues, susceptibility to illness, and fatigue. Persistent headaches and muscle tension can be a result of emotional stress. The mind-body connection is a powerful one, and when emotions are suppressed or blocked, they can show up as physical pain and discomfort. Some people have panic attacks at some level and their doctor looks for a heart attack.

Causes of emotional paralysis

When we sit down in therapy we often uncover past experiences, especially in childhood, that lead to emotional paralysis. It is cliché to point it out, but childhood trauma, such as abuse or neglect, can instill fear of vulnerability. This fear leads to emotional paralysis as a way to avoid re-experiencing the pain associated with past events.

What’s more, if we have unresolved emotional conflicts or a lack of emotional support and reciprocation, especially during critical developmental stages, it can be paralyzing. If a person grew up in an environment or is subject to one now where emotions are suppressed or dismissed, they may internalize the belief that expressing emotions is unacceptable or weak. This learned behavior can lead to emotional paralysis, as individuals struggle to identify their feelings and communicate them effectively.

The individual causes of emotional paralysis are somewhat easy to identify. Numb people often intuitively know them, they just don’t want to feel them. They are often weighed down by the responsibility they feel for dealing with the circumstances robbing them of life. So external factors are sometimes overlooked or dismissed. They say, “Whattya gonna to do?” or  “It is what it is.” or  “Can’t complain.” I greet people in my elevator with “How’s it going?” and I regularly hear, “A day above ground is a good day.” Or they just stay silent. They walk down the street or ride around isolated by headphones. Some may feel unable to leave the house, which requires an online job, which leads to further distance from love.

National paralysis

Your emotional paralysis is not all your fault. There are things happening to us every day, especially now, that cause it. We often wonder out loud why people under authoritarian regimes don’t do something about their plight. Look at the symptoms above and it seems clearer. They are paralyzed.

We are living in a “plight” right now. We can’t sell a condo we thought would go faster. Mortgage rates feel higher. Future economic stability is uncertain. Prices seem to be inflating (at least my chocolate has gone up!); toys are already showing a tariff bump. Lumber and gypsum tariffs are making houses more expensive. ICE raids undermine the workforce. Trump politics create a wait-and-see mentality. I had some emotional paralysis for a while as my new reality moved in like a climate change event. Traumatic or overwhelming, present circumstances are tending to numb us out.

 

 

 

 

Americans live in a big country with a big government. When it gets upended and the ways to change it are cut off, it is traumatizing. We have narcissistic entrepreneurs running government like it is a business in which breaking things is supposed to lead to innovation, and they call it conservatism! Amateurs have wrecked the AIDS program in Africa, bombed Tehran, excavated for a concentration camp in the Everglades and made lying normal. The Congress is full of self-interested cowards.

What’s more, the Church is in stasis. The only good statistical news for U.S. congregations  is that young men are returning to churches where patriarchy is practiced. Most churches remain paralyzed in fracture. It still troubles me that the main dividing issue of the last few decades has been homosexuality. That’s where people draw lines? Not with gun violence and military spending? Not with poverty and income inequality? Not with unorthodox spiritualities and biblical illiteracy? Not with the hollowing out of community and leadership?

It is no wonder so few people devote themselves to the common good, run for office, or build a business that is not just for profit. They are emotionally paralyzed and live in a system that contributes to it every day. Ultimately, getting out of national paralysis in the U.S. is a collective effort that requires both systemic and individual shifts in behavior, coupled with a commitment to finding common ground and working towards constructive solutions.

Overcoming numbness

Things change and people grow. I am amazed when clients are suddenly on the other side of the tipping point towards mental health. A lot of factors can contribute, of course, but the main one is usually they wanted to stick with it. They let themselves want to be happy and then decided to be so. I am always glad to help with that. If you feel the paralysis I’ve been describing, you might want to join them in finding a new way. Here are tried and true pathways to feeling and feeling better.

Make yourself talk

A friend, a spouse, your pastor or priest, a stranger on vacation might all have a listening ear. The way out of emotional paralysis is exercising emotion, which almost always includes communication. A psychotherapist can speed up the process by identifying past traumas, patterns of belief and external influences. They can suggest alternative ways to cope and help form new strategies for living. A lot of paralyzed people consume tons of useful media which talks at them all the time. But impression without expression will likely equal depression.

Force yourself to practice self-care

This topic often feels “woo woo” to numbed people, so that’s why I said “force yourself.” You may think numbness is normal.

Paralyzed people are often that way because they tried being who they are and getting what they need and “it did not work.” They are reticent to try again and get hurt again. Lack of self-worth leads to lack of self-care. Nothing is as simple as that last sentence implies, of course, but instead of waiting to feel better we can start where we are and take whatever steps we can to take care of ourselves. Take a walk. Go to the gym. Put out a resume. Go to church. Call a long-lost friend. Go see the neglected relative. Write the story. Play your instrument. Get out the journal. Read the book. Take the class. You probably know what you need to do. You will just have to do that thing which is good for you. You will probably have to make yourself do it and face the homeostasis blocking you.

Get into a support network

I hope your job feels like a support network — that is so rare, I hate to mention it, since it is where we spend most of our time. I wish that extended families always felt like a support network, but a shocking number of us are estranged from them.

It is common knowledge that we’ve lost a lot of community, but it is still crucial to mental health and happiness. When we are alone, we are more subject to paralysis. Clients have done these things to get some community started: demanded change in the workplace, started  a family connection time (at least a group text), joined a running group, went back to church, joined a writing group, got on the board of a nonprofit. There are ways to connect if you’re looking.

Learn contemplative prayer

I saved the best for last. The thing that has worked for many clients is learning to be still and see what is on the other side of silence. I suggest many books for this and reading a book is a good way to start. One discovered the book mentioned in this post last month [link]. You could go on a retreat or take in a seminar about contemplative prayer and make some new friends. You could make (or restore) a deliberate, daily time for God to heal your trauma, reinforce your value, inspire you to try hard things, and reassure you it will be OK. Soul work is really the whole work.

I will always long for community

Building community, Spiritual direction, , , , ,

Dan White is a kindred spirit I have never met. We’re just Facebook friends. As his story leaks out, snippet by snippet, I admire him more and more as I watch him heal and further develop as a healer. He was deeply engaged in an organic, neighborhood-based church with some nouveau-Anabaptist sensibilities as a community member and pastor. I haven’t heard the whole story, but he was cast out. He posted this the other day:

6 years after I Ieft, I was able to walk my ole neighborhood in Syracuse, NY. I left in a lot of pain. A couple from our Church heard I was in town and asked if we could meet up. I had immediate panic that it was probably a surprise attack. I was not going to accept their invitation but heard the Spirit say – “it’s safe, go.”

How many Jesus followers and people of all kinds are feeling a similar dread when they think they will see someone who hurt or abused them? In Dan’s case there was some healing. But so often there isn’t.

Broken community can really hurt. Many of us from our former church know a lot about that. We’re scattered to the four winds. A book was written to take a skewed look at our demise. It is like salt in the wound. I’m not out six years yet, like Dan, and I already walk in all my old neighborhoods and sit with some old relationship groups. I’m not raw or afraid. But when my new pastor asked about my past last week, I could still get emotional.

Community matters

I will always long for community. I think that is how it is meant to be.

But then, I have never lived alone, not once. I know I am rare. The builders in Philadelphia are building hundreds of apartments designed for one person. About 34% of the population of my city already live that way. The builders are responding to the market demand for isolation.

Unlike those developers, I have been trying to build community for my whole adulthood. The church is a community of love gathered around Jesus. Building that community means a deliberate attempt to connect heart to heart, soul to soul, mind to mind and strength to strength. It is loving like Jesus in truth and action.

Communities other than the church also have such traits in their ideals (like my condo association and the Republican party). But I think we need Jesus to pull it off — the entities I mentioned are decidedly not succeeding. Even when we try to follow Jesus we blow it big time. The promise is one day we will experience it in its fullness. The glimmers we get in our time are miraculous, since the hostile environments in which we bloom are strong.

First Xmas of Sierra St. Household 1981. Verifiably not hippies.

Did I build it or did it build me?

A recent book that fictionalizes my story says I first explored community in a hippy commune. I admit to being hippy adjacent, but if I took the name hippy, it would be a disgrace to the whole idea. So much for journalism. What we did when we moved in together was get deliberate about our life together. We had a common mission and were tired of commuting to our relationships. So we created an intentional household. Acts 2 gave us the solution we needed.

Demo day for the church building we built.

Eventually, that household planted a church. The intentional community was personal and the church was public. The church just celebrated its 40th anniversary.

After we were in Pennsylvania for a few years, we felt moved to plant a new kind of church community in the thirsty but resistant territory of Philadelphia. I loved it. I was a bit lonely at times since most of my comrades were 20 years or more younger than me. But the whole thing was so filled with the joy and laughter of love, I still smile to remember those decades.

Maybe communities grow up like children

Most communitities resemble families. And like families, they grow and change. People move out of the house. People bring new people into the family. Its changeable, even if you don’t want it to be.

So far, all my children and their families live in the Philly metro. I could walk to the home of one of them tomorrow and steal Halloween candy. But we don’t share a roof or even a church now. I miss that, but I don’t regret their growth. Community is always forming, or at least trying to. If it is unformed or deformed it tends to die.

Ultimately, maybe a bit like Dan White experienced, our previous congregation blew up. It deformed big time and people tell stories about it. I don’t really know why it died, for sure; the leaders surprised me with an invitation to leave, so I did. But if the journalist is right, the destruction had a lot to do with power struggles and conflict over individual rights philosophy. Score one for the developers.

We don’t get it right all the time. Friendships die. We cut people off. Children move to Germany. The government bombs Gaza. We get divorced. We undermine churches no matter how well we build one. [One of my most-read posts]

But the need for community will always surface. We make families. We connect in love and build communities. And if we don’t, we want to. If we are outside looking in, we feel lost.

You can expect some love to present itself

Jesus came to seek and save the lost. And he has a lot of friends. They are building community.

Some friends wanted to come over while my wife was housebound, but they caught Covid bad. So we took our first post-surgery outing to have dinner at their house last weekend. The food and conversation felt sweet. I felt a sigh of relief to be loved when so often I doubt I will be.

Remnants of our former church survive. But for hundreds of people its institutional death-match was a huge loss of community. Now it is a case study in loss. People are still recovering, years later, tainted by conflict and cut-off. They’re like couples who lost a child, or had to forgive an affair, or who split because of abuse. The former loves seem unreachable. Now they’re looking to connect in a sea of one-bedrooms, wondering what to do.

I think most of us will find a new way. Dan White has. We recover because we must. We need the love. It is out there to be found.

Over 100 years old and building new community.

I’m surprised I found a new place at St. Asaph’s Episcopal, walking distance from our home. I’m back in a little church. When my wife was laid up from surgery, they brought us food. Then a person from a former place brought herself — a friend from the California church flew out to care. Friends from our former Philly church checked in and prayed. There was a lot of  deliberate loving! There was new, conscious tie-building. It was the love that cannot be killed rising up again.

How do we build the new community we need?

A life in the Spirit, Building community, , , , , ,

During our daytrip last week, I ran into a member from my former, now-dismantled, church. The church was fairly large, so it’s not unusual to connect with someone. But it has become all-too-usual to feel some real loss when I do.

A leaf falling apart

We had a lovely community, not long ago. I needed it then and I need it now. But community is hard to build if you’ve lost it. And it is even harder to rebuild once someone wrecks it. A lot us us have a lot of building to do.

I still don’t understand what life is like post-pandemic, but I know it changed. We’re more distant. And I really do not understand what is happening with U.S. politics, no matter how much I read and think about it. We’re strangely at one another’s throats. We need to get it together, as in face-to-face.

The lack of community can be jarring.

For instance, I decided to post part of Heather Cox Richardson’s column on Facebook last week. The portion I posted was mainly quotes by Donald Trump taken from an interview I found enlightening and disturbing.

My childhood neighbor and elementary school classmate commented:

Man what are you smokin’? If you believe all that clap-trap you need help.

I told my wife about this and she said, “He wrote that to his friend?” I tried to make an excuse for him, but it did not really work.

I replied to him — which I rarely do. I usually just take down self-incriminating things I think people will regret later (or I think they should regret). I said:

The “claptrap” in the excerpt were mainly quotes from Trump. I’ll leave your reply up, since we’re childhood friends (just looked at your class photo from [our elementary school]), but you did not really respond to what I posted.

I did not want to sound too defensive. But I was offended. I had not posted any commentary, just quotes, since I don’t always hear what Trump says and I thought others should just hear what he said. I’ve cast a lot of shade on Trump since 2015, but I wasn’t doing it this time. My friend replied:

Take it down, that’s what liberals always do but I guarantee you the country would be better off with Trump at the helm because the US will die a horrible death if Biden’s re-elected.

You might have examples of this kind of anti-community in your life, too.

How did we get so fragmented?

Researchers have a lot to say about our fragmentation. I’ve said a bit, too. But apart from why it is happening, we have to endure how it is happening.

  • Churches feel distant. Many of them died or were hobbled during the pandemic.
  • A lot of families are split up, even when they are together. 1.2 million people have died, so far, and are still dying from Covid. That means millions of people are still mourning. Six million children have or had long Covid; all the rest are also recovering from shock and from the loss of schooling. Mental health deteriorated so much in the past five years, it finally became a public topic. There are many reasons dissociation is a “thing.”
  • All things public have been suspected of being dangerous or false for 4 years. Many people still won’t go inside a restaurant, get vaccines, or believe a government official.
  • People think virtual groups and ideological corrals are community. They may provide like-minded connections, but they don’t build a society where free interchange and growth happens.

I can see why people who have been pastors, like me, die in the saddle. They want to be deeply embedded in a community. I decided to get out of the saddle, but I sure miss living and serving among people with whom I have built connections.

A person called me last week to see if we could get together and talk about what happened to the church and to me on the way out. They said, “I heard you got thrown out.” That is not completely true, the leadership just changed the agreement that allowed for me to stay a member of the body, but not lead. Instead, they sent me their policy saying I needed to be gone for a year and then they could discuss my return. I was already not employed by them, but I did not cause them a problem by maintaining my ties. They were well on the way to church suicide, anyway. The phone call last week, years later, was another reminder of what has been lost.

We need to build new community

My present little church I’m joining is still talking about getting back to what they were before the pandemic. I don’t think that is going to happen, but I can see why they long for it. I’m still lamenting the community I have lost, too.

But my experiences this week have encouraged me to change. I have four convictions I think the Spirit has inspired for me to follow.

1) Accept the community you have.  When I was praying this morning, I again decided not to be arelational. I may not have the community I lost. But I have the one I have and I should live in it.

2) Build something on the foundation presently given, not on the past. I spent years living in something I loved. You probably felt deeply about the last twenty years, too, one way or another. Regardless, the patterns you made are familiar to you and you would hate to change them. I can relate. It is hard to think of changing and building at my age, but what else do humans do? And if you follow Jesus, there is no time you have followed enough. He’s moving.

3) Don’t give up on the unity of the Spirit. The history of the church is consistent. In all the bad times, good people get together and create new and sometimes radical responses to their lack of community (one of my favorite examples). I know most of the encampments now on college campuses are not built in the name of Jesus. But those people are having experiences of community they will never forget – I’ve danced a bit on the quad myself! New community can spring up.

4) Have an inner life that leads to an outer love. If you are more alone than ever, you are probably closer to God than ever, even if you don’t feel it. If we turn into our aloneness and let it do the work of revelation and integration, it will lead us to self-giving love. And that love is the heartbeat of community.

Francis and the Living Stone

A life in the Spirit, Building community, Film/TV, Life as the church, , ,

As I rummaged around in past messages I prepared for the church, I came across this one from 2000 focusing on Francis of Assisi and building a church of “living stones.” My interest was heightened because I am reading a classic book about him: The Road to Assisi: The Essential Biography of St. Francis. I thought you might like to be reminded of him, too. In these days of strained community, he is an inspiration.

Bernardo becoming a living stone

Francis of Assisi and others who went before him in what is called the “monastic movement” became strange mentors to me as a follower of Jesus. Francis’ life and his legacy, in particular, reached across 700 years and lit a fire in me that hasn’t died out yet. I read a book about him once called The Last Christian and I can appreciate what the author was saying. He had a very passionate, New Testament, close to the earth, filled-with-the-Spirit kind of life.

In his early twenties Francis liberally used his privilege as a rich man’s son, and was quite the life of the party in Assisi. He was known for his poetry, songs, and for leading the scandalous line dance called the farandole. Call it unfortunate or blessed, he and his friends made up a generation of young warriors who were sent off by their fathers to pillage a neighboring walled city. The war, and Francis’ sickness (or was it a desertion?), left him a changed young man.

In the middle of his desperation, God somehow revealed himself. She didn’t reveal herself through the church — the institution which had blessed the war and received the spoils. It was through nature. Whenever you see a lawn ornament of Saint Francis (and I have one in my living room, if you’d like to), there is always a bird perched on him somewhere and often a bunny at his feet. That’s much cuter than necessary, since his most spectacular association with animals is with a man-eating wolf. But it is a reminder that he sort of got the message straight from God, through the sun, moon, stars, fire and water.

In my twenties I discovered a movie about St. Francis that brought him home to me even more. The 1970’s was a time when a lot of people were acting out how sick they were of their parents’ materialism and war, and a lot of them were again finding Jesus outside the established church. I was very influenced by the whole movement of the Spirit that was going on. Then I saw this movie that put it all together for me. Here was the Francis, about whom I’d read, in a movie directed by Franco Zeffirelli with a lot of hippie trappings called Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

But it wasn’t just the cool-at-the-time packaging of Francis that got to me, it was the timeless content. The word of Jesus breathed truth into the first century, into the 1200’s, and into 1975, and the Spirit of God is doing it today. I hope the following clip from the movie helps draw you into what God is doing in every age.

In this scene, Francis quotes from our scripture for today from 1 Peter. “You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house.”  After Francis left his parents to live free as a beggar, he heard a message from God, “Rebuild my church.” He took this message quite literally and started rebuilding a run-down church building out in the country. As Zeffirelli tells it (and who knows exactly how something happened in the 12th century?) Francis’ old drinking buddies and friends began to come looking for him. They found him doing this project. In the clip we’re going to see, one of his future main men, Bernardo, comes to see him. Bernardo has just returned from the Crusades and is disillusioned. He has a choice to make – follow his desire to be real, or get roped into the politics and power-grabbing of the powers that be.

During their conversation, Francis apparently begins to see that the idea of rebuilding the church is not much about buildings at all, it is about people built into a spiritual house. It is about a new community based on Jesus and his ways, not just on his own personal convictions about rejecting the ways of the world. You can see the light dawn as Francis talks to Bernardo about a building stone he’d like to have. Bernardo gets the idea that the cornerstone he’s talking about just might be himself.

Obviously, it is a very European message coming from this movie. At the time of Francis there were already a world-full of acceptable versions and depths of Christianity around. I don’t think one size fits all. Sentiments from medieval Europe may not play too well in Asia or Texas or even in my neighborhood. But in every culture and every style of thinking, I believe Peter is saying the same thing. It is the same thing Francis heard, that Bernardo heard, that I hope you will dare to hear again tonight. It is the bookend phrases of our passage tonight. Very simple:

As you come to him, the living Stone–rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him– you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood…Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.

The living stone rejected

Jesus rejected, Francis rejected, Bernardo getting on the wrong side of Emperor Otto of Brunswick, you chosen by God but rejected by people — this is normative. Followers of Jesus inevitably are called out of the world as it is, as it lives without Jesus as king, and they are built into what amounts to a countercultural community – not anti-cultural or supra-cultural community, just a group of strange people. People filled with eternity are foreigners in this passing away world. Whenever the body of Christ gets comfortable in the easy chair of any culture, it loses its heart. If it isn’t strange to the world it is strange to God.

It is so hard to be strange, that evangelists have often offered workarounds. In Mexico they made it easy for Aztecs to follow Jesus by amalgamating European saints to Aztec gods. In the U.S. they made the church as individualistic as the Declaration of Independence and as bottom-line-oriented as our brand of capitalism. Presenting Jesus in the robes of any culture, kills the whole thing, as far as I can see. I tie my heart together with the people all through the history of the church who have gathered together around Jesus to listen to him, no matter what habits they had from the culture they came from. They did not hate themselves or their ancestry; they just loved Jesus more. Jesus is transcultural – he’s alive in all cultures and subject to none. That’s what I hope you will go for, too.

Peter teaches like we are his family or comrades:

Brothers and sisters, my friends, we were chosen, made alive, and we are being built into the place where the Spirit of God lives. We are the people of God, now. We received his mercy. It makes us strange. So come out that world and don’t go back to be it. When you interact, love it like God does, and to call people into life with you.

This scripture has huge implications, but two main ones stick out.

We all need to keep letting our minds get changed about who we are.

This is the main thing a culture defines for you – who you are. Culture is just “how we do things, what kind of people we are.” So we say, “I am an American. We know we  organize our country around the pursuit of profit and property. We die for individual freedom. Etc.

But the main thing Jesus defines for you is also – who am I? I am a child of God, a member of his family, a part of his household. I am a citizen of the kingdom. I am a valued part of the body of Christ. This mercy I have received demands a response. Etc.

Our pre-Jesus culture and the desires it built into us, needs to get subordinated to the king. There’s a big interior process that needs to keep maturing.

How we decide what to do needs to be transformed, too.

What we do gets launched from our identities as one of the people of God. We are not just our own. We were bought by Jesus and we were transferred to his kingdom and we were given an assignment in the family business. It isn’t all about you; it is also all about God and all of us. That’s going to make a big difference in how you spend your time and decide your schedule. When we decide what to do, we will consider the people of God in general, and the people of God specific – our Church and our church.

Some people see this as an imposition on their freedom, if they still see life as coming from themselves instead of from God and through his body. They make transactions with their time and resources between the church and themselves because the church is something and they are something else.

But once we were no people, but now we are the people of God; that truth demands attention. We have the constant challenge of seeing how we, in union with God, interact as a body and interface with the people we meet — especially those driven by society meeting the undriven.

I’m boiling down a huge discussion topic, maybe you should talk about it in your cells again. I just hope you get this. We are into something new, strange, other-worldly and laced with the Spirit of God.  It feels real to me, and exciting, like I found a piece of meat I could really sink my teeth into (apologies to vegetarians). Peter is talking about life with substance, real people, being the real people of God with Jesus in their midst. I’m as hungry for that as Francis ever was.

I think the communion table is the perfect symbol at the center of this countercultural community that God keeps forming in every era and in every territory and tribe that will welcome him. Tonight we are very much a community gathered around Jesus. As we hand one another bread and then the cup we reaffirm that our desires have been freed from sin and the bondage of living without God in the world, and as we take the body and blood of Jesus from one another we are reaffirming that we are the people of God, one with the whole body throughout the world and throughout time, and one with one another, especially, face-to-face.

I believe in you: I’m rarely talking about me

Film/TV, Music, , , , , , ,

It is still hard to fathom how I could have attended my 50th high school reunion last week! Some of my classmates had to take a good look at the yearbook picture on my name tag to figure out who I was. I hardly remember who I was myself. If you did not know me then, you probably can’t spot me above in the El Chasqui (yearbook)!

Just like in high school, Jo Glidewell (cheerleader, choreographer, enthusiast) and Kim Tomlinson (childhood buddy, artist, hambone) got me to do a song at the reunion. I reluctantly complied, just like I always did, and pulled out my big hit of 1971: “I Believe in You” from How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. Here is Robert Morse, who originated the role of J. Pierpont Finch, singing it and acting kind of cringy. (You can also hear Ferris Bueller and Harry Potter give it a go on YouTube).

My reunion performance was not a triumph. My wife tried to save me some embarrassment by complaining that it was just a bad song. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the experience.

I liked some of the interjections with which I decided to annotate the song. So I thought I would replay them for you. They speak of love and acceptance. It might encourage you to know that believing and community still exist. I found them in many places among the Chino High School Class of 1972.

A surprisingly meaningful song

When I played the part of Finch in our very own high school musical, I sang “I Believe in You” while staring straight into a spotlight which was supposed to represent a mirror. When my father saw that spotlight flash on my face, I imagine him thinking, “You still have time to get off that stage. Run before this song begins!” Meanwhile, I imagine my mother thinking, “ Finally, my years of living vicariously through this child are coming to fruit!” I found out later that sophomore girls were enjoying my star turn, as well, which was an unexpected bonus. BTW – The character I was playing was conceited, too.

FINCH:
Now there you are.
Yes, there’s that face.

I still remember how terrified I was to sing that line. But it was exhilarating too – like an acrophobe skydiving.

Now there you are.
Yes, there’s that face.
That face that somehow I trust.

All my acting skill was applied to looking smooth, since, for sure, I had absolutely no trust in that young man crooning to himself in the pretend mirror.

Now there you are.
Yes, there’s that face.
That face that somehow I trust.
It may embarrass you too hear me say it.

Even though I was performing an embarrassing and badly organized reunion skit in poor circumstances (like Whoopi in Vegas), I was not really embarrassed, which says something about singing to a community which pretty much unconditionally accepts everyone at this point. The old people at the 50th loved their small town and were no longer divided up by clique and race so much. They would have applauded any and all in the clan and not felt hypocritical at all (and clap they did).

It may embarrass you too hear me say it.
But say it I must,
Say it I must

Kim was sitting up front as I did my thing holding her guitar (“I Believe in You” is not a guitar song) and chiming in on her kazoo a bit. In sixth grade we also sang a song at our commencement. It feels very warm to be doing something silly with an old friend for the umpteenth time. I think we all felt we could use more of that kind of thing. You probably do, too.

You have the cool clear
Eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth,
Yet, there’s that up turned chin
And the grin of impetuous youth.

At this point in the performance, I was already realizing that although there was plenty of song left, I was not going to sing it. But I told them how these lines ended up being surprisingly accurate. Maybe I was type cast: Seeker, yes. Impetuous, yes.

The following summer I would be an exchange student in Indonesia. Once there. my seeking fueled a major turn in my life’s direction. In my senior year, I became fully depressed and a full-on adult Christian. By the time I “came out” as a Jesus follower in college, I was well on my way to becoming a pastor and church planter. That seems impetuous even now.

Oh, I believe in you,
I believe in you.

I did not believe in me. But I certainly came to know who I could believe in, and still do.

I grabbed Kim’s hand as a symbol of what these final lines meant to me.

And when my faith in my fellow man
Oh but falls apart,
I’ve but to feel your hand grasping mine
And I take heart,
I take heart.

I have mostly lived in cities my whole life. But scrappy, relatively poor, small-town Chino, before it was gobbled up by the mega L.A., did me a lot of long-lasting good. They are my fellow people. And my people were at this reunion. Some had gone on to become very successful and wealthy. Most of us were glad we kept a job. Many of my people had deepened their faith, like me, which made the community even sweeter. I told them folks all over the country had heard stories about them and envied my sweet upbringing. I think our time together was the classic, “We don’t have much, but we have each other” kind of experience we did not know we were having when we first lived it.

In the fractious, perilous world my generation has given humanity, it is good to know that people can still love each other and focus on the community which binds them together rather than the powermongering that tears them apart. It might be a good idea to look around in your past too, and see all the good that might be hidden under the debris of all your worry and troubles. It was good for me. The goodness I found is a nice place to come from.

The power of virtuality: Will teletherapy close the office?

Psychological growth, , , ,

The other day, therapists working with Circle Counseling considered how we are going to manage the new reality of teletherapy. I’ll get to that.

But first, I’d like to think about what is happening to us humans in the age of virtuality, of which teletherapy is a part. I am not sure what virtuality means, completely, but how I am using it is:

you and me, individually, connecting to the great power that is the internet.
You and your screen,
you and your headset,
you and your Oculus, etc.,
accessing experiences, products, and representations of people
outside of embodied, mutual physicality.

I did not bother looking for a better definition. It would be nice if we shared one. We need some kind of common understanding for this new experience, but that will be hard to find. Because part of the facts of living in our new condition is that each of us has our own experience and resulting definition of what just happened. And we don’t need to explain it to anyone, just conform to the rules that let us into different parts of the internet.

There is a new creation occurring

I decided I needed to get serious about what I, my family, partners and clients were experiencing in the solitude of our virtual lives when I happened upon an article in the New York Times about a Japanese man, Akihiko Kondo, who is among a growing number of people who have intimate relationships with animated, but inanimate, characters. He married a fictional character in 2018: “Hatsune Miku, is a turquoise-haired, computer-synthesized pop singer who has toured with Lady Gaga and starred in video games.”

Mr. Kondo is one of tens of thousands of people around the world who have entered into such unofficial marriages. Some of the characters they marry come from manga. Manga is a style of graphic storytelling which is a mainstay of Japanese publishing and popular worldwide. A child of one of my acquaintances lost their job because they are an “otaku.” In their case that meant they were addicted to manga stories in a way that made them unable to relate to reality. Their experience gives me sympathy for Mr. Kondo. I wonder who among my loved ones is losing their hold on reality right now.

The younger my clients are, the more likely they are to feel disembodied. Some are more comfortable with virtuality than merely human reality (as in the many young men who have difficulty with sex because they are acclimated to porn). Many are avoidant, mistrusting of “reality,” which is so uncontrollable. I’ve noted a   vicious cycle. Their relationship with virtuality is often about controlling their anxiety. But virtuality ends up controlling them and creating more anxiety. Those feelings, in turn, require deeper commitment to what controls them.

I am pondering what our wholesale adoption of teletherapy, which I can accomplish in pajama bottoms and never leave the confines of my home (perhaps ever), is doing to the people we want to help. Is using the medium attaching them more securely to it? Can they ever receive what I offer if they never make the effort to know me (or themselves) as a living breathing human? Or is it OK to marry a fictional character?

Where is teletherapy leading?

I practice teletherapy and now have clients from all over the country. NPR is constantly recommending the latest in teletherapy businesses. And even though I am sounding suspicious, I know I have provided helpful therapy screen to screen — sometimes to people who would not have received it otherwise. So is there really a problem? Is there any line at all from teletherapy leading to manga addiction, much less a direct line? I don’t know. I just have a hunch there might be something worth considering.

Months  before the omicron variant hit, researchers were producing articles on how teletherapy was radically changing the practice of psychotherapy. Even as my comrades were talking about what we are going to do, I got on my other screen and found an article from March of 2021 titled, “Will We Ever Again Conduct in-Person Psychotherapy Sessions?” A few of us had already decided, “No.” Others wondered if they wanted to get back in an office. And others were dismayed the question was even being asked because they needed off the screen.

Keep in mind, the researchers I uncovered were writing about research done a full year before Omicron was discovered in South Africa and quickly turned the world upside-down again. Two and more years of adaptation to lockdowns and social distancing is more than enough to solidify a new approach.

After more than a year, the researchers reported positive experiences with online psychotherapy. Long before the pandemic, some cognitive–behavioral therapists had positive attitudes toward teletherapy. Psychodynamic people, like me, were less enthused. In their study, the participants stated the pandemic changed their attitudes toward teletherapy. Over 60% said they now preferred it.

However, 70% of the participants agreed that remote work is more draining. Nevertheless, 78% agreed with the statement: “Remote therapy can be as effective as in-person therapy.” I think screens can suck the life out of us, and I believe the powers that run them are intent on doing just that. But I don’t feel drained by remote work. What’s more, even though I think good work is done virtually, I don’t think it is one to one comparable with what happens in person. I guess that puts me in the 30% of something.

This little piece of research and just looking around will tell you teletherapy is here to stay unless some compelling reason forces us out of the arms of virtuality the same way we were forced into it. We’d have to break a habit.

Click for NY Times article

There are reasons we won’t break the habit

Many clients prefer teletherapy. Thus, I have met entire families as they interrupt mom’s session. I’ve had sessions in several cars. Every session begins with making sure the connections work. Many sessions are interrupted by some glitch. But no one needs to go anywhere and sessions can fit into the catch-all schedules we concoct now. Why rent an office if you can work from a free one?

Vaccinations have made a big difference since the researchers were talking to their participants. But health concerns remain. Many of us can’t risk carrying home some unknown virus to our aging parents, who now live with us instead of virus-ridden care facilities. You may be concerned about what it means to your own health when you think about signing up people you don’t know for therapy — some populations would be more likely to be carrying the virus! If masks are required when new variants strike, that makes in-person therapy not much better, if not worse, than online.

Insurance for teletherapy was set to expire as the pandemic waned. But it appears people will be reimbursed at the same rate for teletherapy by providers. The new online businesses advertising relentlessly will take a chunk of the increase therapists might have realized. But if you already have an established practice on your own, the cost of not needing an office is a nice, needed pay raise.

There are reasons we probably should break the habit.

I wrote my dissertation on an ethical issue, and I often lean into those questions. Teletherapy makes me wonder, “Is confidentiality affected by teletherapy?” I don’t mean “Is Google somehow listening?” But few of my clients have a devoted space to do quality work. Babies come to therapy. Children interrupt. Any number of devices need to be quashed. When at home or in a closet at the office (unless you see execs with a corner suite) there is a sense of holding invasive things at bay. It is distracting. And it is often not private. Confidentiality provides safety. An office overseen by  a caregiver who provides it for caring is a benefit.

I also wonder if doing therapy out of my home is boundary breaking. Maybe you blur your background and hope your head stays in focus. Or maybe you have constructed a background that makes your circumstances appear neutral. But we know where you are. I think many people do good work by visiting people in their homes to do therapy. Some people have little office buildings in their backyard. Good work is done many ways. But I wonder if it serves the unique process of a client when they are enveloped by the personal world of their therapist. Granted, the office can do that too. But at least the office is, by definition, a place where professional services are dispensed, often by a person licensed to give them.

My main issue with not breaking free of virtuality has to do with community. When our therapist group was sharing I felt hungry for more togetherness and most of them voiced similar feelings. Let’s talk about cases. Let’s have dinner. Let’s build some love. We are starving. Yes, we are just coming out of the weirdest two years ever, perhaps. But our starvation is the future if we conform to the changes the pandemic accelerated. I think psychotherapy is best accomplished in the atmosphere of the beloved community Dr. King preached. Attachment issues are best repaired in a place where people attach. Psychotherapy is about our bodies, not just our minds instructing our reactions and feelings. I think people feel it if therapists are not lone rangers, logging in from wherever with whoever.

The new atmosphere of virtuality is an ongoing dialogue worth having. Elon Musk did not spend $44 billion on Twitter instead of climate change action for nothing; he probably wants to be the chief oligarch. The internet domination system is the future. I’m having the dialogue about virtuality quite practically this week. On one hand, just less than half my appointments are in person this week. But on the other, we are flying to Toronto out of a conviction we need to show our faces at an important conference. It is hard to spend the money, time and energy to travel when the governments still feel like protecting their borders (especially getting back into the U.S.!). But really being there and building something planted in creation makes a difference, I hope. Maybe I will have more to say about what not being virtual is like next week.

The church in the rearview mirror

Psychological growth, Spiritual direction, , , , , , , ,

I went on retreat last week because my class required it. I wanted to go, theoretically, but I had a lot of natural resistance born of the grief I bear over the loss of my community. I’m glad I went. No matter how many times I experience it, it is always a wonder to feel the ocean of grace in which we swim when life is feeling dry.

If you are grieving (and what Covid-experiencing person is not?) or depressed, or in some other state of mental illness (which is the broad plain on which we all stand right now), you probably feel some resistance to doing what is good for you, too. Like someone texts and asks, “You want to get a drink?” You look at your sweats and reply, “Don’t think so. Early day tomorrow.” Then you sit back down on the couch and wonder, “Why did I do that?” Maybe you call them back. Maybe you get another bowl of ice cream. It is resistance. I had some.

My retreat view

Nevertheless, there I was in Brigantine looking up the beach to Atlantic City from the 7th floor of that weird resort that sticks out like a sore thumb. I love to walk on the beach, so I did. I don’t usually walk with headphones in like everyone else, but I did. I don’t know why I retain the Dave Crowder Band in my iTunes worship playlist, but there he was:

He is jealous for me;
loves like a hurricane. I am a tree
bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory.
And I realize just how beautiful You are
and how great Your affections are for me.

And oh, how He loves us so.
Oh, how He loves us,
how He loves us so!

I sang on the deserted beach, “You love me. Oh, how you love me.” And tears surprised me. I needed to remember. I needed to keep walking, with my afflictions eclipsed by glory.

Don’t hold on to the church that was

I’ve been having a tough time living outside of community for over a year, now. I don’t really move on. I retain a sense of belonging to all the places I have been before. I’ve always left them with a blessing and mutual care. Not this time.

As I read through my journal from the last three months, I came across a moment when I was quite low and felt drawn to sit in the chair before my icon wall and see if they said anything to me. There was Mary Magdalene kneeling before Jesus outside the tomb. He told her, and he told me, not to hold on to him.

This exchange between Mary and Jesus always says a lot. That’s why it became a well-known icon. This time I heard it revealing how Mary is holding on to this splendid moment. Jesus tells her, “There is more to come. Go tell people it is coming.” More specifically to me, I heard. “Don’t hang on to the Jesus that was – as wonderful as that experience was. There is more to come for you and them.” I have been waiting in the upper room, more like wandering in my wilderness. And the time has come.

I finally needed to see my old church in the rearview mirror. I don’t mean like the Meatloaf song, exactly. But I’m sure you’re missing him, too. I mean I had to finally admit the old church is gone (which is fine, things grow and change) and the new church does not want me there. Actually, the email the Leadership Team sent to me had a policy statement for former pastors attached which said something like, “Here’s how you do not exist here for another year and then we can negotiate your return.”

Time to move on

Miller with his workbook

Even though I have this big feeling that bothers me, when I look at the road ahead, as short as my road may be, I know there is an awful lot of beautiful scenery coming. Last week I had two experiences that made the way clearer. I got officially shipped out by my former leaders and I picked up Donald Miller’s book A Hero on a Journey.

I did not like Blue Like Jazz (Miller’s best seller). As it turns out, he also doesn’t like it that much anymore. I’m not super jazzed by his new book either. But he doesn’t think it needs to be perfect. He’s changing. I’m changing. And I am surprised he is helping me.  One of my clients is reading the book, so I thought I’d check it out. Among the many good things Miller does as he channels Victor Frankel, Jesus, and any number of entrepreneur gurus, is to remind me that meaningful lives happen when you are going somewhere you want to go and you name it.

That’s how my former church got going. It was all about being the church for the next generation. I wanted to go there. I hope that is where it is going now. I may not know much about that because I think people aren’t supposed to talk to me. But I’ve decided to keep going and I trust they will, too. We’ll all meet up again someday. Jesus is still walking beside me, but right now he’s like one of those companions whose step is always a bit ahead of yours. They are with you, but they know the way. As a result, new things happen. Here I am writing memoir style like Miller, assuming you’ll benefit. Here I am looking into what is next, knowing Jesus knows the way just as he has always demonstrated. Who knows what could happen?

This leg of my journey is starting out like the Gotye song that interested me so much in 2013 (and has interested 1.5 billion viewers on YouTube since). There has been a lot of cutting off since 2013 (and remember it’s counterpart “ghosting?”). I got a four-page policy statement detailing how they would “treat me like a stranger.” And yes, “That feels so rough.” It’s a loss. Telling a bit of the story right now feels like a good way to get moving.

As influential people pushed me toward the edge, I started noticing how many people out there are in the same boat — out to sea in an ocean of pandemic and institutional crises. I had wanted to prevent such disaster in my church with my elaborate transition strategy. But that didn’t completely work out. I can accept that fact. We are all moving on. Jesus is excellent at pioneering a new way for us.

Turn into the wind

I can’t imagine myself living outside the church in the future. I’ve never been outside of community like I am, for now. After I got the email it was final. I wrote them back and wished them well. And I definitely meant that – I love those people and I love their church. Jesus is walking beside them this very moment. Who knows what could happen? I suggested they call me up (or text, of course), now that they have me situated.

Whatever good things I am finding as I hit the road, it is still hard to see that church, the old one and the new one, in the rearview mirror.

And yet it is shockingly easy to turn into the sea breeze and find myself singing

You love like a hurricane. I am a tree
bending beneath the weight of your wind and mercy.
Oh, how you love me!