An Organic Faith Community

A faith community is often an important part of creating and maintaining a healthy support system. Why? I am glad you asked. The way I see it, by the time I make it to the weekend, I feel bruised and battered by the world (sometimes excited and honored, but not as often), and I want some down-time to release the build up of stress. Just one of the many reasons I enjoy the Sabbath, however, not my main focus today.  By attending church, I am taking the opportunity to release the relational/emotional poisons that build up in my attitudes and actions, and instead am actively seeking the antidote. This does assume that the church body you attend is able to filter out the following poisons:

• Out loud shaming – What’s wrong with you?

• Focus on performance – love and acceptance is earned by doing or not doing certain things

• Manipulation – What people think of us is more important than what is

• Idolatry – An impossible to please “god” who is obsessed over people’s behaviors from distance.

• Having to deny thoughts, opinions or feelings different from those in authority.

• Unbalanced interrelatedness – either under (neglect) or over (enmeshment) involvement in the lives of others. Everyone is responsible for everyone else, while ironically no one is responsible for himself or herself.;David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderon The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse

A focus on performance drives weekday activities. Are duties being completed at work? Are clients satisfied? Are children completing homework and getting good grades?  Is the house clean? Lawn mowed? If certain tasks aren't done it can affect employment, grades and one's own reputation involving the ability to care for home and family. It is often very discouraging to attend a church where the focus is on performance. Some people are able to thrive on it, for a while, but most individuals just wilt under the pressure of having to perform, when instead they need to be renewed for the fight ahead the next week. To show you how evident the expectations of performance are even in a church,  research shows, "new families are welcomed (into a church) according to two basic traits:  Is the couple good-looking? And is the couple outgoing? Failing these, a family too often is left to its own devices to connect with the congregation." (Bill Ehlig and Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D What Every Church Member should Know About Poverty). A faith community, a body of believers, plays an enormous role in a individual and family's future...every weekend hope is offered, that this isn't what life will always be like, that there is a future that is better than this drudgery. What happens when instead of hope, a church experience offers more drudgery, more performance, more of the same? Life becomes about making the right people happy so that they just leave me alone. No hope, few dreams, and profound discouragement. A healthy functioning church body, operates much like the plants and trees around me that take the co2 that I breathe out, a poison to me, and instead releases o2 into the air, an elixir of life. A healthy church body is able to absorb my attempts at making worship about performance, and release grace into my surroundings. The only antidote to obsessions of performance and perfection, is recognizing that I can never earn my own salvation, it is freely given to me by my Savior.

Here is my vision of the role a faith community in a person's life:
I have to perform during the week to meet other people's expectations (Supervisor, Teacher, Neighbors, Family, Friends). This fills me up with stress because I know that I can't perform perfectly all the time. On the weekend, Sabbath (Saturday) or Sunday, I attend a worship service. I bring all of the ugly attitudes, thoughts and actions with me that have bombarded me all week in an attempt to perfectly perform my roles. From the moment I am greeted, with kindness and warmth,  when I arrive to church, I have already begun to exchange my ugly thoughts and attitudes for hope, forgiveness and Grace.Some weeks I may have more ugly thoughts, attitudes, and actions that others. As I grow in Grace, each week there might be fewer ugly thoughts, and a deeper appreciation of the Grace I have been shown, and then I might be able to carry a little bit of that Grace back to my family, my neighbors, my community, and any other part of my support system. This vision recognizes then that a worship experience is based upon the mental, physical, emotional,  relational, spiritual health of the other members of the faith community, and each week my spiritual experience will likely be different. A grace oriented faith community, will focus on showing each other grace, filling each other up with hugs, encouraging words, acts of service, quality time together, and caring gifts (Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages).

This shows how tentative an organic faith community experience can be. Being in an organic faith community means it reflects back the spiritual health of the people attending. Individuals focused on performance, will reduce a worship service to a drudgery, just one more thing to get through. However, individuals focused on Grace, on the One, on our Savior, will fill each other with up love, support each other through the storms, and celebrate the victories, and will draw men, women and children to Him.

You mean all of them?

Last night I watched part of "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding." Oh, how I had forgotten so much in that movie, and I don't think I have seen it since I married in 2006. The main character "Tula" is from a greek family, and she has 27 1st cousins. She marries "Ian" an only child. I laughed so hard. Mostly from identifying the challenges of being an only child, marrying into a nosy, noisy, and  highly involved in each others lives family. I don't have 27 first cousins, but I think that the family I have make up for it in opinions and personality. :)  At times I wasn't sure if my hubby would "sink" in the craziness of it all, or "swim" along with the flow of all the family around us. This also didn't count the many families that my family has been close with all of my life 25+ years, or just a good portion of my life 8-15+ years, and seem like family. When I thought of my previous post on taking your your spouse's support system as your own,  when you marry them, these are some of the challenges that come along with it.

It isn't comfortable, and can be painful sometimes. Each family has different traditions and weaving them together to create meaning in a new family, may seem more like "trial and error." But use those opportunities to learn more about what the other person prefers. Show your spouse how to interact with each of your family members. Practice and rehearse how to say it, when to say it. Your familiarity with your support system will be important in helping your spouse manage offenses and hurt feelings.

Conflict is often a part of the equation as you decide on how to interact with family and friends.
It can be helpful to observe you partner's coping skills - my hubby and I discovered that he was too forceful and inflexible, and I was too mild and easy-going. It takes a balance of those skills to keep a healthy couple, but also maintain a support system.

I have enjoyed introducing my hubby into my large group of friends and family, who have been very supportive of our marriage and life together (although not always each of our decisions). So when the pastor/priest asks do you take your bride/groom? Just remember they come with all of their support system, the obnoxious, loud, loving, caring, opinionated group and that is what makes them so special.

The month of weddings...

Oh, the challenge of a wedding. Going into the wedding celebration, with all of the planning, and excitement and dreaming,  its supposed to be about just the bride and groom. Right? I thought myself when I married my hubby, that the wedding was about the two of us, celebrating with our families and friends. I realized quickly, that a wedding based on just the two of us, created a one-dimensional view point of what was actually occurring. A wedding identifies a significant change, in the life of an individual, a couple, many families, communities, perhaps even a workplace, or two. A wedding changes your support system permanently - and through the process the support systems a bride and groom have in place will either grow larger, or shrink, depending on how the bride and groom handle the changes and challenges.From my observations a wedding typically shrinks a couple's support systems because they don't need anybody, they have each other. Then when a couple have a baby it increases their support system again, as a new life seems to offer opportunities to restore previously damaged relationships. 

Its not that I am arguing with anyone over the significance of the day for the bride and groom. Its a special, beautiful day. After I received my wedding pictures from the photographer, I discovered its hard to take a bad picture of a bride and groom, when they are so happy and in-love, it reflects in the photos (that was a relief). I think its important though to recognize, that the changes that have occurred and will occur, did not just impact the couple, and a strong predictor of whether a marriage will last is if the individuals, families, couples, close friends and confidantes in the bride's support systems are supportive of the marriage.

For example: I observed a couple that decided to get married quickly, the time from meeting to marriage was 8 months. Initially the bride's support system saw the couple as a good match. However, during the engagement, it quickly became clear that the groom was increasing his controlling and abusive behavior. When this was mentioned to the bride, she removed herself from her own support system and went through with the marriage. The marriage didn't last.

Sharing the Journey

I find it an extraordinary event that a couple will let others come along and support them when they are dealing with uncertainty in the world, often a pre-cursor to a crisis of faith. I recognize that there are boundaries to a marriage partnership. Its a given that a couple will have conversations about life decisions, and that 95% of those decisions have little to do with anyone else' opinion. The fact of the matter is that the two people who have to deal with those decisions are the couple.

Occasionally though a couple cross my path, that are willing to let other's view their pain, without dumping it on other's in anger, and seek solace in the company of fellow believers that they may be lifted up and supported through their times of trial. When that happens, it takes my breath away at the beauty and vulnerability, and absolute trust that their needs will be met one way or another. Oh, that I could have that kind of faith, in God as well as fellow believers. This past week, I witnessed a family as they lost their young child due to a tragic accident, from a distance, but nonetheless, they willingly let people, (and I mean thousands of people) follow details of their ordeal. Through the process thousands of people worshiped with them and prayed with them through the ups and downs, seeking healing, but ultimately accepting their prayers would not be answered the way they hoped.  I sobbed my way through the requests for prayers, adding my own requests that he be healed,  and felt stunned when I heard that their little boy had passed away. I am truly touched by this family. One comment by someone, miles away captured my thoughts "Thanks for letting us share the journey with you."  Truly, they were an example of vulnerability and graciousness, in an angry and bitter world.

Ben Ricketts Fund
Veridian Credit Union at the Cedar Heights location.
The address is 3621 Cedar Heights Drive, Cedar Falls, IA 50613.

The seduction of "What if?"

I have come face to face with my own expectations and wrestled with them several times over the years. Every time I realize in my marriage that I am again dealing with an expectation, not reality, I am humbled again. Marriage is tough enough without my romanticized fantasies. Now that we are into our marriage a few years, I find a new weed popping up "What if?"
http://spheresofgrace.blogspot.com/2010/01/great-expectations.html

Opportunities often arise in life that require a decision from my husband and I, either individually or as a team. Other times situations happen to us either by the decisions of others, or sometimes sin taints our lives in ways we didn't imagine. Those are the times I find myself haunted by "what if?" and if there was something I could do to change or prevent the outcome we received, then perhaps I had a chance to change the outcome, and just missed my opportunity. In fact the more I think about it, I really truly should receive a "mulligan" a "do over" so that I can get what I want. I think back to the countless times I went over in my mind and discussed with my husband the pros and cons of taking a different job last year. I occasionally still find myself seduced by the fact that if I had said something different, or done something different, or increased company income more, the decisions would have been different. I am also incapacitated at times with how I could have made things happen my way if I just tried harder. This drive, obsession even,  implies that I have control over my future, or the future of my marriage, or the future of my family. Interestingly I find this quote by C.S. Lewis the most refreshing, and able to snap me out of my obsessions, so that I am no longer  mesmerized by "what if?"

"'Oh, of course. I'm wrong. Everything I say or do is wrong, according to you.'
'But of course!' said the Spirit, shining with love and mirth so that my eyes were dazzled. 'That's what we all find when we reach this country. We've all been wrong! That's the great joke. There's no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin living.'"
C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce http://users.on.net/~muller/Christ/Csquotes.shtml


Of course I am wrong. Of course my decisions were wrong. 
I love the notion that God loves me through my blindness, and that as I open my eyes to the blessings in my life,  I will enjoy even more what he so bountifully gives me. 
 

"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:11 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+11&version=NIV

My Father in heaven wants to give me good things. It means though, that I have to trust that He will give me my heart's desires in His time, even though it may be in a different manner than I had planned. 


Blessings to you and yours!!

Broken Hearts

 I have always enjoyed observing individuals and attempting to discover motivations for different actions. Most importantly, how do psychological forces affect our relationship with God? One of my favorite areas of study is attachment. Attachments formed in infancy will influence every other relationship we have throughout or lifetimes. Profoundly though, I believe people who have experienced attachment trauma, will struggle to make any trusting connection with God.

Attachment trauma occurs when a child is removed from the care of their birth mother and is placed in the care of another person. Trauma may also occur if a parent does not respond in a prompt, caring, sensitive manner to the needs of a baby during its first six months, up to the age of 1 year. Attachment trauma will likely occur as well if a parent is abusive to the child. Abuse may be in the form of neglect, physical, emotional or sexual.

Here are the five criteria needed for an attachment relationship to form:
(Attachments Dr. Tim Clinton and Dr. Gary Sibcy)
1. Proximity

2. The caregiver provides a safe haven

3. The caregiver provides a secure base from which to explore the world

4. Any threat of separation induces fear and anxiety

5. Loss of the caregiver induces grief and sorrow

When attachment trauma occurs, a child learns that the only person who will meet their needs, is themselves. Parents are not to be trusted because they are "lazy" and "only care about themselves." Denise L. Best LMHC shared a story at a training on Attachment Disorders about a child who had been removed from her home and placed in a pre-adoptive home. The family moved to adopt the family, until the last minute when they changed their mind and then packed this child up and took this to another foster family, and left this child there(the child did not know them, and was left there without a familiar face to adjust on their own.) Eventually the new family filed for adoption. However one night close to the finalization of the adoption they went out to eat, and their child stood up, went over to another family and attempted to join them for dinner. When this child's family asked what they were doing, the child said simply "I am choosing my new family." The message coming through loud and clear was that this child didn't trust adults to continue to want them and care for them. Imagining a feeling of love is even more scary, because this will create a feeling of vulnerability, and a child who has attachment trauma will fight to prevent feeling vulnerable again. These scared and hurt little people eventually grow up to form adult attachments and may not have the relationship skills they need to develop healthy relationships.

Dr. Donald Joy Ph.D, has done extensive research on marriage relationships, primarily focusing on the steps of physical bonding that occur as a couple is dating.  The first people in life that we "bond" with of course are our parents, but as everyone knows fathers and mothers have different approaches to connecting with children. Mothers tend to have a very "concrete" approach to mothering. Having carried a child in utero she is often familiar with their individual cycles of wake and sleep, and due to feeding, changing and playing with a child, often has an intimate knowledge of who their child is, preferences and all. Fathers have a more "abstract" approach to fathering, as their first connection with their child might have been feeling him or her kick several months into the pregnancy. Fathering for them didn't really start until they met the baby for the first time at birth. Fathers often get to know their child through experiences, and challenging their child to try new things; a mother is often focused on meeting  the everyday needs of the child. How then do these natural human needs for attachment and bonding impact our ability to create a trusting, saving relationship with God?


Our relationship with God and the church tend to mirror our experiences with our fathers and mothers. Our experience with God will tend to mirror our experience with our fathers (God has always expressed Himself to us as our Father), and church tends to mirror our experiences with our mothers (the church in the Bible is continually referred to as the Bride and expressed to us as female). An individual who has a strong attachment to both of their parents, and trusts what their parents tells them will have an easier time creating an "abstract" faith relationship with God, and will have an easier time relating to church members in a church environment, a "concrete" experience of faith every week. What happens though if you remove a parent from someone's experience? If you lose a father either through death, divorce, or abandonment, the abstract relationship skills will not have been experienced, and so relating to a "father in heaven" will be difficult. If you lose a mother, either through death, divorce, or abandonment, the concrete relationship skills of relating to other people will not have been experienced, so relating to people in a "church body" will be difficult.  Attachment trauma though carries a whole different set of consequences.

Individuals who have experienced attachment trauma struggle to trust anyone other than themselves. If they have lived with their siblings during the time of abuse,  they may also trust their siblings. Adults are often viewed as lazy, bad people who don't care about the needs of children and are not to be trusted. The question was asked at the training on Attachment Trauma "how long does it take a child to heal from attachment trauma?" The social workers of the group suggested 2-5 years, maybe 10 at the most. Foster Parents of the group started with 10 years, and one said "27 years." Our trainer said that "27 years is the most realistic time frame mentioned."  One child who experienced 30 different foster care placements by the time this child was in elementary school, most likely will never heal from that level of trauma.

How do you reach out to someone who has experienced attachment trauma, and is unable to accept love, or compliments for that matter, and is completely distrusting of people they meet? How does a person who experienced attachment trauma develop a trusting, saving relationship with a God that appeared to abandon them to the care of abusive caregivers? It is my personal belief that marriage will continually be attacked, as it provides a safe haven for children, and provides both "abstract" and "concrete" relationship skills for children to experience as a part of their natural development. Fatherhood for the last generation has been under attack, as more and more children have been raised without fathers (my own husband included), the result is that their Father in Heaven is much more difficult to understand. Motherhood, which seemed to be the last safe haven of relationships, in my opinion is under attack as well. Some adults are unable to maintain a relationship at all with individuals in the church body, even though these relationships are much more tangible and desperately sought after. I have seen individuals leave a wake of destroyed relationships through multiple churches, as they seek someone to relate to, all the while completely unable to relate in a healthy manner themselves. These are challenging times to reach out to people in the name of Christ. Much has been done that damage an individuals abilities to relate to God and the body of believers and it will take a compassionate, caring and flexible church body to meet the needs of these individuals. New believers won't become a part of the church in a night, a week, or a month of Bible studies. I believe it will take a generation of caring (individually and as a church body) about an individual, their accomplishments and their relationships, before they will consider taking the steps of belief, and establishing a relationship with the only One who can truly heal their broken hearts.

Playing the map in front of you.

This past month I read a book called "deep survival" based on research of accidents and deaths and what are the deciding factors that a person will survive. I found in there the mental action of "bending the map" where instead of dealing with the terrain, weather, supplies at hand, an individual deals with the "idealized map" in their mind. Its a way of denying the conditions an individual is in, and can be quite detrimental to survival. I often then try and apply these skills to everyday life and how I handle playing "the cards dealt" or "playing the map" in front of me.

My husband and I have beater cars. No other way to describe them, they have been driven hard and have lots and lots of miles on them due to the nature of my job. I might easily put 700 miles on a car a week. This last month, it was like perfect fail time for each of the vehicles. By the beginning of this week, we had completed four repairs in four weeks. Car-pooling with my husband is a little challenging due to the fact that I usually work 1st shift and he works later. So days I car-pool with him, tend to be very long days for me. This last Tuesday, my husband and I had to run an errand together, and following its completion, I was going into work, so we took both cars. We get to our destination and my husband says "I think there is something wrong with my car, I barely got it here." When we came back out, my husband managed to get the car started, but it only made it about six blocks down the street. The only way I can describe it is due to the stress involved, my brain just shut down. I refused to play the map in front of us, all day. It didn't help that during the course of the day I also talked with three families that were in the process of losing, or working to get their children back in their care through the court systems. By the end of the day, we also had another repair completed on my car, as well, and a very wary husband who gave me lots of space. So to review,  we had a total of 6 repairs in five weeks, and I don't want to even talk about how much money it cost us.  Its amazing how a good night's sleep, and a little space to process what happens can help my frame of mind. My husband and I car-pooled again the next day due to his car not being completed, and as I pulled away from his office, and in the high wind down the interstate, the seal on my back window started to pull away from the car, this time I just laughed due to the ridiculous nature of actually needing another repair, and called my husband to let him know. Next week for repair number 7 in 6 weeks, I will stop by the auto-body shop and see how much they charge.

It is very important though to be in a place mentally that you can play the map in front of you. Denial only endangers your own life, and the lives of people around you, at worst. At best, denial makes for a miserable human being, that no one wants to be around, just ask my husband.