Mature Loving

Having celebrated Valentine’s Day earlier this week, a brief discussion of the section on “Love” in the late Scott Peck’s 1976 best seller, The Road Less Traveled, seems in order. I actually assign this reading to the students I teach in a Webster University graduate course called “Marriage and Family Counseling.”

I don’t know how much marriage counseling Dr. Peck practiced in his professional life. Typically, psychiatrists focus on the medical aspects of mental health treatment, leaving the various forms of outpatient psychotherapy to others of us in the field. That’s how I work–in tandem, and effectively so–with my colleague, Dr. Lucy Preyer, a psychiatrist.

But Peck’s insights into “loving relationships” certainly apply to the many couples I’ve counseled over the years. Since most marriages I’ve encountered haven’t been compromised by such “deal breakers” as physical violence, dishonesty or an addiction. Some have. But not most.

Rather, what I have observed far more often are married partners who, if unwittingly, have allowed themselves to become “defined” too much by one another, such that they present as mutually “reactive” to their spouse in rather predictable ways. As in, for example, “I’m this way because s/he’s that way,” and vice versa.

So I’m usually helping married partners become better “self-differentiated” so that they can then relate to one another less “reactively”–be it “attacking, defending, avoiding or withdrawing”–relating in healthier, more mutually respectful, secure and intimate ways. In other words, I help people better define and develop a more “authentic self.” Or as yet another psychiatrist, the late Murray Bowen, put it: “A self is more attractive than a no-self.”

As I wrote in a previous blog, a simple rule of thumb, applicable to almost any interpersonal relationship–and certainly a marriage–is this: “The more I’m trying to change you, the more you will be resisting me.” It is only as I change, that you will have to change; at least if we’re to sustain a relationship.

I say it this way because relationships, in however many different ways they may be defined, are most fundamentally “emotional systems.” And when one part of the system changes, the other part must adapt accordingly.

Hopefully, the sustaining of a relationship in the face of such change will be for the better. But not always. Often relationships fracture as the result of one of the parties changing.

Or here are some other patterns. One person’s change may lead to a healthier future with or without someone else; while her/his partner’s refusal to change may lead to a continued less-than-fulfilling future with or without whomever. I’ve even known couples who have divorced, and although they no longer “live together”: as an “emotional system,” they might as well still be married in the ways they continue to be “defined” by (and are thus just as emotionally “reactive” to) one another. They may even proceed to enter a new relationship with someone else that is just as “highly reactive” as the one they abandoned (even if disguised as appearing different in whatever way or other). Indeed, one might ask, what have they accomplished?

The hoped for positive outcome when one person in a relationship changes is not guaranteed. What is certain, however, is that “the more we’re trying to change whomever, the more they will be resisting us.”

What I’ve just explained, in fact, stands at the core of what is taught and practiced in the important program of Al Anon, the corollary of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Among Scott Peck’s important insights in the “Love” section of The Road Less Traveled is how he contrasts at least two different (and rather distinct) views of so-called “loving relationships.” One is common in our culture. It might be termed “secular.” It’s the view that the purpose of a “loving relationship” is “to get my needs met.” As if anyone could ever totally “meet the needs” of another.

This, Peck calls “the myth of romantic love.” Which he defines as a “collapse of one’s ego boundaries.”

Life is Football Without a Helmet

Have there been any awards that Summerville (SC) High School’s John McKissick hasn’t won in his distinguished 60-year football coaching career? The latest being the “Don Shula NFL High School Coach of the Year” honor presented to McKissick at the festivities surrounding the recent Super Bowl.

Coach McKissick began teaching and coaching in (what was then) small-town Summerville in 1952, and in his legendary tenure he has won more games than any football coach in America, at any level–high school, college, or the pros–with a record of 594-143-13.

My family and I moved to Summerville in 1975 when it was beginning to explode, population-wise, a part of the greater Charleston tri-county area. By that time, Summerville High School was one of the largest in the state, and in the ensuing years two other high schools, of a similar size, have been added to accommodate the school district’s burgeoning number of students.

The Top Final Regrets of the Dying

My childhood friend, who lives in St. Louis, frequently e-mails me articles on various topics. A recent one was a summary of a book by Australian author and song writer, Bronnie Ware, entitled The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. It reflects her experience working, apparently, for a number of years with terminally ill patients receiving palliative care in various hospice-related programs.

Each of the “five regrets” evoked at least some response on my part, which I’m here sharing. Perhaps you will find the list evocative too. What are your responses? If you were giving yourself a grade on each of these, what would it be?

Faith as Denial?

I was remiss in reaching out to my friend after he lost his job. In fact, he was out of work for nearly two years, and I failed to connect with him.

He had worked faithfully and effectively in the same job for 18 years, but a corporate downsizing decision was made in a city far removed from where he lived and worked and–if one day he was gainfully employed doing a job he loved and did well–the next day he wasn’t.

Even though I’ve had his name and phone number on my “to do” list for months, I had yet to contact him. Except recently I accidentally “ran into him” and apologized profusely for being so neglectful. He assured me he was not offended, reporting that he now has a new and different job, one he finds both challenging and rewarding.

As we talked, briefly, while setting a date to have lunch together, he shared something with me he said he had discovered during his painfully frightening time of being unemployed.

“I learned how faith and denial are often the same,” he said.

At which I found myself thinking, as I walked away, “I wonder what he means by that?”

So the first thing I asked him, when we had lunch together recently, was to explain his “faith as denial” statement. And considering the awareness, sensitivity and insight with which my friend is blessed, not to mention how he has cultivated such gifts across his lifetime, through both formal training and related experience, I believe we would all do well to ponder his explanation

Habitat’s Grandfather

In recent days, our nation has celebrated, in particular, the life and legacy of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; and, in general, King’s vision in the ongoing struggle for civil rights on behalf of those dis-enfranchised, in whatever way, with respect to the “American dream” of dignity, freedom and justice for all.

Concerning the latter, if many these days likely know the story of the late Millard Fuller, the “father” of Habitat for Humanity, and may have even participated in this vital ministry which provides suitable housing for those who might not otherwise be afforded such, I’m also aware of how few seem to know the story of Habitat’s “grandfather.”

The late Reverend Clarence Jordan (pronounced Jerdan, in his south Georgia drawl) grew up in prominent, affluent family circumstances. Following his graduation, with a degree in agriculture, from the University of Georgia, Clarence attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he graduated with a Ph. D. in the Bible’s Greek New Testament.

Along the way of his youthful journey, despite the culturally defined conformist appearance, Clarence was becoming notably radicalized with respect to the claims of Christian discipleship. “I tricked myself,” he once told me. “I memorized the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), so I could show off as an aspiring young minister. Except, then I started paying attention to what Jesus is saying” in that seminal portion of scripture.

If “pacifism” were ever an acceptable ethical norm anywhere, it was hardly, here in America at least, during the height of our nation’s engagement in World War II. Yet Clarence had become a “pacifist.”

Nor was the nation, much less Jordan’s native Southland, prepared for his vision of “inter-racial community.”

Not to mention, the economic implications, expressed so formidably in the Sermon on the Mount, for the kind of Christian “community/fellowship/communion” the Greek New Testament calls koinonia.

“I knew no self-respecting Southern Baptist Church would ever call me as its pastor,” Dr. Jordan would later say. Thus it was in 1942 (a year before I was born) that Clarence and his wife, Florence, along with another young couple, the Martin Englands, who shared the Jordan’s vision of “radical Christian community”; with, in fact, the financial assistance of a wealthy Jewish businessman, from Louisville, the Jordans and Englands cobbled together enough money to finance the purchase of a modest parcel of land, near Americus, Georgia, on which they proceeded to farm peanuts and other southern specialties.

They called it Koinonia. Indeed, a “radical witness to Christian community” resting on those three moral principles: non-violence, racial equality and the economic justice of mutually and voluntarily shared material resources.

If Koinonia’s neighbors may have looked askance at the Jordans and Englands and others who joined them during those early years, still relations were cordial enough to avert open conflict.

By the 1950′s, however, as the larger civil rights movement became so threatening to so many, certainly in the South, along with the “Red Scare” of the “McCarthy Hearings” in that Cold War era, Koinonia became the object of overt violence, including death threats and failed assassination attempts aimed at Jordan, his family and followers. An economic boycott, perpetrated by the local business and financial establishment, represented even more grave consequences. But for the support of friends from across the country, Koinonia’s witness might have been destroyed.

Yet it was when the Jordans were expelled from the nearby Southern Baptist Church in and through which, as faithful members, they had served with sincere devotion; indeed, it was this, more than any other form of being violated, that broke Clarence’s heart. The “formal charge” was that of “befriending colored people,” including “inviting them to church.” This, in a congregation that supported the sending of missionaries to Africa. The Jordans had betrayed the local mores and manners of southern civility. Those good church folk found such Jordan kind of Christians too threatening to be around, and for Clarence, it was like being kicked out of his family.

In the face of such painful reality, Clarence Jordan’s sense of humor served him as well as his intelligence, character and courage. Or as he once put it, after having been investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee: “I can’t imagine being a Christian and not being called a Communist. And to become defensive, that’s like running for your birth certificate anytime someone calls you an SOB!”

The late Ken Chafin, another distinguished Baptist minister, put it well, when he said: “Clarence Jordan loved his enemies. Clarence’s friends didn’t necessarily love his enemies, but he did.”

I met Dr. Jordan in 1968, not long after Millard Fuller had come into his life.

To Hate Whom?

I recently attended a gathering at which an evolutionary biologist, a distinguished professor at South Carolina’s flagship university, offered his observations and answered questions from the audience following a video presentation sponsored by the National Center for Science Education.

The subject of the event was an exposing of the flawed attempt, these days, on the part of those (some with accepted academic credentials) whose religious/political agenda includes an attempt to subvert the teaching of evolution in the science classes of our nation’s public schools. “Flawed,” in the sense that what is variously called “Creationism,” “Creation Science,” or “Intelligent Design” is an ideology that does not conform to the rigorous definition of “science,” which is not a “belief system,” but “a method of carefully and objectively studying natural phenomena in ways that can be empirically verified.”

The current and notably seductive political strategy of the “Intelligent Design” advocates involves what they call “teaching to the controversy.” As if there were such a “controversy” concerning the “theory of evolution.” Which there appears to be, at least from a religious and political perspective on the part of, seemingly, many. But hardly on the part of those who hold to an authentic definition of “science” as a “method.” Since “evolution” is not in question according to the latter standard. Nor is “evolution” a “theory,” as the term is commonly used, meaning merely an “opinion.” In other words, “evolution” is not something to “believe in.” It is, rather, the best explanation yet available for understanding the “material world” according to the accepted methods of “science.”

The professor I’m referring to–to his credit, he was considerate, even humble enough to acknowledge that “science” is not an all-inclusive method for explaining everything. For instance, he noted that “science” is not necessarily “moral.” It is, rather, value-neutral in its commitment to “objectivity” over “subjectivity.” Nor, he continued, is “science” concerned with what we typically consider various “emotions,” including something as ambiguous as “love.”

And while offering such a caveat, he made this revealing statement: “The Bible,” he said, “it tells me who to hate.”

Really?

What Time Is It In Your Life?

In the “signature chapter” of my book, Balanced Living: Don’t Let Your Strength Become Your Weakness (Wipf and Stock, 2009), I mention several different “tensions,” common to our living, which challenge us to seek appropriate “balance.” Indeed, one of these “tensions” involves the question, “What Time Is It In Your Life?”

Which, as we embark upon yet another New Year, would seem (pardon the pun) a rather “timely” subject to explore. In fact, there are surely those today who would argue that, as a culture, we are not only in “too much of a hurry,” but are also exposed to too much stimulation (from the media and otherwise) too fast to assimilate, much less reflect upon very deeply.

In a Hebrew-Christian-Muslim worldview, “time” is both real and defining, containing meaning and purpose. Unlike the Platonism of the ancient Greeks, or the cyclical, non-historical perspective of the classical Eastern Religions, in which “time” is a meaningless concept.

For Jews, Christians and Muslims, life has both a beginning and an end. Or in the words of a once-popular beer commercial, “You only go around once.” Except Jews, Christians and Muslims would say, “You only go through once.” Since our historical worldview is linear. Indeed, the idea of “re-incarnation”–another chance–is foreign in Hebrew-Christian-Muslim theology and ethics, a factor that seems to heighten the urgency and intensity of our living. ‘Though it would also appear that, within the finitude of such a linear worldview, there are also “second chances,” or even more perhaps.

In the Christian New Testament, there are two Greek words for “time.” One is chronos; the other, kairos.

Chronos is calendar and clock time; it is measurable and predictable. It characterizes most of our living, be it well or poorly organized. My wife and I, for instance–if we hardly “have a marriage made in heaven”–it is also (almost) not an exaggeration to say that “we are never late.” Whereas, I’ve had any number of ministers who have confided to me that their “worst marital arguments” have typically been on Sunday mornings, involving just trying to “get to church on time.”

What’s that great axiom of the psycho-pest? “If you’re early, you’re anxious; if you’re on time, you’re compulsive; and if you’re late, you’re angry.”

Kairos is more accurately translated “timing,” or “timely.” Unlike so many of the seemingly tedious moments so often characteristic of chronos, those unique, even rare moments of our lives when so much is at stake, when important decisions are made, or events occur which can, in fact, be life-altering–these are what the New Testament speaks of as kairos. Since so much may often “turn,” if you will, on what happens, indeed the consequences of such times.

My friend, a theologian, is also a passionate football fan. When we’re together at a game, much of what is happening is mere chronos. But then, there are times when it’s “fourth-and-one.” Are they going to “punt,” or “go for it” (a “first down”); are they going to “kick a field goal,” or “go for a touchdown?” That’s when my theologian-friend exclaims: “It’s the kairos, the kairos!” And those sitting around us assume he’s “speaking in tongues.”

In a worldview that embraces the importance of “time,” the tenses of life–past, present and future (in English, at least)–they are significant. There are, for instance, those who seem to spend most of their lives, as we say, “living in the past.” As though they are somehow “stuck back there,” somewhere, either developmentally, or in terms of particular events or decisions; “holding on,” it would appear, to a particular “success,” or even a perceived “failure.” As though whatever it may have been, positive or negative, was the most important thing they ever did, or that ever happened to them (past tense).

At the other extreme are those who may, arguably, “over-value” the future. I say “arguably,” for if such an emphasis may be prudent, as in considerate, thoughtful, even realistic, proactive “planning” and “preparation,” it can also be delusional, when a “waiting for my ship to come in” may distort the reality of the past or sabotage a more responsible way of living in the present; as it were, a “running from” the claims of at least two other important dimensions, in time, both with comparable claims on our lives.

I suppose, of the three, living most fully in the present is the healthiest priority. Not a casual carpe diem. Nor a clinging to or running from the past, but being sufficiently informed by it, as well as having made peace, with an attitude of gratitude for both the good and the not so good of it. While also living into the future with integrity, joy and conviction, a sense of reasonable hope and promise.

Perhaps you’ve seen the following clever observation. A friend sent it to me some years ago. It reads: