The Freshwater Challenge From James
- Image via Wikipedia
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God‘s likeness… Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? – James 3:9-11
The Other 167 Hours
life outside the session
Author Archive
Am I close to seventy times seven?
- Image via Wikipedia
Lord, I keep track of others’ sins much better than I keep track of mine. I hope that’s okay. But I’m very committed to that seventy-times-seven teaching on forgiveness. For example, I know that Jim, the new guy, has only sinned against me 13 times and Aunt Gracie is at 55… no, make that 56 counting the comment she made during the Easter Egg hunt.
Hope Quotes That I Hope You Like
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. -Proverbs 13:12
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1
Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers. -Robert Ingersoll
Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent. -Mignon McLaughlin
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope. -Samuel Johnson
The miserable have no other medicine. But only hope. -William Shakespeare
We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr
The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring. -Bern Williams
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope. -Epictetus
Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily. -Lemony Snicket
Anger: Part of the healing process?
A reader asked a question in response to an earlier post and I think the question is important enough to warrant its own post.
Question:
I understand that those types of anger should not happen… but I think that expressing anger is healthy, doing it the right way… Anger is part of the healing process, is it not?
Anger Management: Beyond the Phone Booth
- Image via Wikipedia
In a previous post I explained that “just letting it out” is not a reliable way to manage anger. I want to continue here with more about anger.
Our emotions offer behavioral suggestions and prepare our body to carry out those behaviors. Anger suggests to us that we actively defend ourselves against some perceived threat. Apparently it’s been rather common throughout the ages to be vulnerable to sin in the midst of that active defending. Paul warned the Ephesians (4:26) about it almost 2,000 years ago. So, our angry behavior may be just plain wrong, even though motivated, in part, by a drive to defend ourselves.
How could that happen? I think much of our mistaken angry responses fit one of the following patterns.
Anger Management: How many people can fit in a phone booth?
- Image via Wikipedia
We have all heard anger talked about as if it were people stuffing into a phone booth. It gets more and more uncomfortable and the only way to make it better is to let some out. Get it off your chest. Don’t stuff it down. Let off some steam. Many think of anger management within a pressure-release model. I would like to convince you otherwise.
Depression: Online Tools
If you’re interested in keeping track of your mood, here are a few options. All of them are free. Don’t use any of these to determine a diagnosis but just to keep track of how your mood is changing.
Tired, depressed, or just don’t feel like it?
- Image by kevindooley via Flickr
You know those times when you don’t even feel like feeling like it?
“It” can be almost anything,
- getting out of bed,
- doing that household chore,
- going somewhere,
- seeing someone,
- talking,
- listening,
- making a decision,
- going to bed.
There are many ways the story can play out from there. There are lots of possible responses that may be okay, including just not doing “it.” Let’s assume you have come to the conclusion that you want to change your outlook on things. It’s like admitting that you’ve been taking pictures of your life with your thumb over the camera lens. You know you don’t like the pictures you’re getting. They’re depressing or irritating and I’ll bet that your response to the pictures is starting to get on the nerves of someone around you.
Motivation: If I don’t yell, how will anything get done?
- Image by Clover_1 via Flickr
Yes, we can motivate people by yelling at them. (How else would we explain the existence of Little League?) It does motivate people to do something, but it may not be their best. It may motivate them to hide. It may motivate them to do what it takes to get us to stop yelling. If our goal is to help cultivate a lasting and positive change in someone, we don’t want to start with showing them that we are out of control ourselves. Remember that no matter what the words are that come out, the message of yelling is, “Please, someone calm me down because I can’t calm myself down.”
Social Anxiety: Monsters Under the Bed
- Image via Wikipedia
Fear and anxiety get in the way of relationships. We want to feel safe. We like it when we can relax.
We all know certain people who are easy to be around. We know others whom we would rather not run into. I think most of us would rather be in the first group. So how does that work? Does it have anything to do with monsters under the bed?
Top 10 Ways to Ruin Communication in Your Marriage
If your goal is to whittle away at the foundation of your relationship each time you fight, here are 10 field-tested strategies. They are in no particular order and can be used in any combination you like.
There is one foundational strategy that is not optional. You must hand over control of your emotions to the other person. That way, when you get so mad that you yell, or behave in some other offensive manner, it is only because they have made you so mad. They had better try to keep you calm. If emotions cause you to shut down or get overwhelmed, it is also because they made you feel so bad. Either way, they better be more careful. This is known as the Eggshell strategy.
With that foundational strategy in mind, you are ready to pick freely from the 10 listed below.
Disappointment: God knows this is important to me, right?
We don’t get very far down the road of life without hitting disappointments. Some are like a bug on the windshield, some like potholes, some like a bridge out, and some like being blind-sided.
As children we may first suspect our disappointment is our parents’ fault when we can’t have that sleepover at Jimmy’s. Or, it’s our sister’s fault that we felt such disappointment when “she ate all the Captain Crunch. ” Maybe there was a time when we felt like Santa was the source of our biggest disappointment. To many children, of course, for these to be their only disappointments would be a dream come true.
As we move out of childhood, we are faced with proms, interviews, tryouts, auditions. We have little, everyday hopes about green traffic lights, details working out in our favor, work and school assignments, weather. We have secret hopes about relationships, acceptance, recognition. We have private hopes about marriage, pregnancy, finances, job changes. We have public hopes about recovery, healing, success in ministry or business, college admission. We even have some hopes that are so large and close to the heart that we have never had the courage to say them to ourselves.
In Search of the 167th Subscriber
I’ve been getting good feedback about the email subscriber option that was just added.
As a way of saying thanks for subscribing and getting your friends to subscribe, I want to send 2 free copies of the pocket-size book, The Other 167 Hours, to the person who becomes the 167th subscriber. That way you can keep one and give one to the person who told you about the blog. For privacy reasons, I won’t announce the names, but I will let you know when we hit number 167. I’ll contact the winner by the email address you provide when you subscribe.
167hours.net is just completing its first year and we are approaching 20,000 page views. Thanks again for reading and telling your friends.
Marriage: Why do I love you? Because I can.
I want to suggest that the only satisfying answer to the question, “Why do you love me?” is, “Because I can.”
This question is different from asking what you like about me, or what initially built an attachment between us. It’s okay to have specific answers to those questions.
New Email Subscription Tool
I decided to add a nifty little tool, on the side bar to the left, that lets you get email notices whenever something new is posted. Frankly, I don’t mind you stopping by as often as you like just to check for new posts, but life gets busy and if a reminder will help, then it’s just the thing.
You supply your email address and you’ll get a link sent to you announcing each new post. That’s all you’ll get from it, no SPAM or strange emails.
Or, just stop by often.
Managing Stress at Work for Medical Staff
I think the first of the year is prime time for work frustration and dissatisfaction. People are trying to get used to the idea of going back to work after the holidays, or still resenting the fact that they didn’t get time off over the holidays. There are stresses built into systems and organizations where we work, and there are individual vulnerabilities inside each of us. Improvements in either of these areas can make a huge difference in how we experience work.
The performance of medical staff, for example, seems to improve as the staff are able to address a few basic emotional questions. I want to discuss those questions here. Maybe I can focus on other occupations in future posts.
I want to point out that when I call them “basic” questions, I mean that they are important, universal, and foundational, not necessarily easy or trivial.
What right do I have to be here?
The “impostor syndrome” is that feeling that if other people only knew my faults like I did, I would be “found out” and have to leave. What do I do about the fact that I have faults and short-comings, even bad habits? When taken together as a whole picture, warts and all, am I still acceptable, even valuable here? Or am I just lucky no one has noticed yet? If I have settled this question, I can be properly assertive and focus on the task at hand instead of being anxious.
Boundaries and Respect in Marriage (and Soccer)
Boundaries and respect are important in all areas of life and almost always have to be learned from experience. I understand that marriage differs from soccer and since my wife’s shins bruise easily, I really don’t get the two confused very often. But, there are some similarities.
In college, I had the good fortune of being coached by a former member of the Brazilian national soccer team. English was clearly not his first language. He had some key phrases he would repeat, at varying intensities, trying to wring out the last possible bit of meaning from the words. Hand gestures were added liberally to the phrases to provide additional nuances. But the things he could do with that soccer ball!
Taking Turns: Do we ever really learn?
In a world without peers, or equals, there would never be a problem with taking turns. If someone has a higher status than you, of course they would go first and you would go next, if at all. If you have a higher status, then you never have to wait for others, right? Everything’s fine. No confusion. No problem. Everyone knows who goes first at the intersection, who steps aside when you meet in a hallway, who enters the door first.
- Image via Wikipedia
But what if there is another? An equal, a peer, a spouse? What if we each have strong opinions and emotions that we need to understand and communicate (not necessarily in that order.) Let’s add into the mix a fear I have that I will never get a turn if you go first. What if what you say only makes what I have to say more urgent? What if it has to be solved now? What if there is no time to waste, because these emotions are so uncomfortable that I can’t imagine just containing them for another day or so. Read more…
Grief: What if it still hurts?
When a new year begins, we all become more aware of the passing of time and the passing of years.
It’s a good time to think about the blessings of the past year and identify hopes and goals for the future. I would recommend you do that.
But that’s not all that happens, is it?
(By the way, those of you who have had no pain or disappointment in your life can skip to the end now. Thanks.) Read more…
It’s not like I need it.
How’s that get-o-meter working? You know, that thing that measures how much you are getting from your spouse, church, job, friends, children, relatives, the “Relationship”… You know that thing you check every now and then just to make sure you’re not being taken advantage of? …just before you say,”All I do is give, give, give and never get anything back!”
Yeah, that thing. You better make sure it’s handy because Christmas is just a few days away and you would hate to be caught without it! Things might not be fair. You might be asked to do something for someone who hasn’t really carried their fair share. I mean, fair is fair! Right? Come to think of it, Christmas seems to be the time when many of us got our first get-o-meter as a child. (Ooh, that means mine is getting pretty old.) Yours is still working fine, just like when you where a child? Isn’t it? Exactly like when you were a child? Read more…
How easy is it to overlook beauty?
How easy is it to overlook beauty? Pretty easy, apparently.
The Washington Post, along with a world-famous violinist and his $3.5 million violin, decided to find out.
You can read the complete Washington Post article with video here. Or, if you are in a hurry, you can read a summary here.
What have you overlooked today?
Is it still cool to be busy?
I few years ago I was at a conference where a psychologist was reporting her research on the idea of a Sabbath. I don’t remember her name or much else from the presentation but I remember her saying that in America the only Sabbath we believe in is cancer. She meant that we are very particular about what we count as a socially acceptable reason for doing nothing, and cancer is one of the very few remaining. During tight economic times, it may be especially difficult to justify a day of rest. Read more…
Are you sure that’s on the table?
You’re in a competition, a heated discussion, an argument…
Somewhere, deep inside, you have an idea of what’s really being debated, what’s really on the table. What will be won or lost? Pride, bragging rights, your job, your marriage, money?
How about that job interview? What is really on the table? What does it feel like is on the table? Is it your personal value, your professional value, God’s blessing on your life, your economic future, the approval of a parent, the chance to change jobs, the chance to get this particular job at this particular time?
How about that argument with your spouse? What does it feel like is up for debate? The love of your spouse, your marriage, your pride, your free time, your independence?
The Pain of Knowing
I often work with people who are trying to find the courage to know what they know.
Imagine standing in front of a wall that you are about to paint. You look at it and decide that red would be a perfect color for the wall, and you’re right. It would be.
You have a paintbrush in your hand. Next to you is a step ladder with an open bucket of paint on top. You reach up and dip your paintbrush into the bucket.
But, something’s wrong!
Your paintbrush comes out yellow. That bucket is full of yellow paint! Yellow is definitely not the right color for this wall.
More Emotions of Fatherhood
Do I have what it takes? That’s the question that John Eldredge suggests every boy is asking as he grows up. It got me thinking about boys and fatherhood and the emotions of fatherhood. Read more…
Life by the Slice
Biting off more than you can chew can be messy and embarrassing and certainly takes some of the joy out of eating. There is one built-in limit that partially protects us from taking a bite too big: we can only open our mouths so wide. I wouldn’t advise letting that be your only guide, but for the sake of children everywhere I’m glad we at least have that. And, since almost all of us have learned the lesson early in life we should feel free to apply it wherever it may be helpful… figuratively, I mean.
Where’s that remote?
We love to be the one with the remote. Right?
In spite of our attachment to the remote, there are some occasions where we seem to willingly give it away. It happens with our emotions. It’s like we have an emotional remote control and we allow it to be in the hands of some other person. That person then seems to have almost complete control over what we feel, when and how much. Or maybe we are the one that seems to be handed the emotional remote control every time that person comes around. We feel horrible if we can’t find the right channel, and we usually can’t.
Believe. Behave. Be Moved.
If the 3 R’s make up education, the 3 B’s make up experience.
Believe. Behave. Be moved.
I have done all of these. I will continue to do them. So, will you. They are not optional in life. (Psychologists refer to them as thoughts, actions, and emotions, which isn’t nearly as catchy.) I don’t intend to convey a set sequence by the order in which I listed them. They come on stage in a manner reminiscent of the classic chicken and the egg question. But, they do all come on stage. Of course, belief (or faith) is a very familiar concept for the Christian. Whether it should be listed before or after “behave” is something you’ll have to consult James about. They definitely do better when they work as a team.
On the Death of a Small Civilization
Apparently it was Pat Conroy, author of the Prince of Tides, who first said, “Each divorce is the death of a small civilization.” I think of his words every time a couple in my office tells me they are heading toward divorce.
Marital work is the hardest work I do as a psychologist. It is impossible for me to do it well without becoming personally invested in the success of the marriage. I gather all the hope I can find and pile it together. When the death occurs, I feel grief “as if a million voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.” I don’t pretend to feel the loss to the extent that my clients feel it when a marriage ends. But I do feel it.
How to build a two story life
Although I am the son of a carpenter (No spiritual metaphor there. My dad really did build a lot of things.), I am not a builder. Still, I am familiar with the rule of thumb builders and architects use when it comes to designing houses, “It’s cheaper to build up rather than out.” It refers to the time and money saved by not having to build a larger basement or foundation and instead just build a floor above.
But, (and here’s where the metaphor starts) I think the opposite is true in building a life. Sometimes, I feel the inclination to just focus on one story, the story of my own little local life on earth at this moment. Yes, somewhere inside is this natural desire to be a part of a larger story, a second story, but expanding my own ground floor just seems more important or practical, demanding less energy. The second story, larger and maybe even more real, is the spiritual and eternal drama of God seeking and redeeming a people for himself, and going on to redeem all creation. Yeah, a pretty big story!
It’s just that I catch myself building out rather than up.
Can we count our blessings by counting our wounds?
If you haven’t yet read Jeanette Winterson’s article in the Wall Street Journal from last friday, you should.
Here is some of what she points out about blessings and wounds:
The French verb “blesser” means “to wound.” Original etymologies from both Hebrew and Anglo-Saxon bind “bless” with a bloodying of some kind—the daubing of the lintel at Passover, the blood smear on the forehead or thigh of a new young warrior or temple initiate. Wounding—real or symbolic—is both mark and marker. It is an opening in the self, painful but transformative.
Here is a link to the complete article: In Praise of the Crack-Up
The Power of “Okay”
The word, “Okay” or “OK” has a puzzling past with conflicting reports regarding its origin. Wherever it came from, it has become one of the most useful words in the English language. It offers a powerful reorientation to the struggles in life, whether those struggles are relational or logistical.
Just in case you have been overlooking or underusing this word, I would like to offer an expanded translation of the term. Of course, words take on different meanings in different contexts. So, let me clarify that I am not referring to the rather mild and common response to, “How are you doing?” I am referring to an intentional posture toward any of the many challenges that are thrown at us in life.
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.
I suppose the title of this post is worth saying. So, it’s worth saying it wrong. Good thing, since many people do get this saying wrong. I bet you’ve heard people say, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”
Yeah, that’s kind of helpful to know but, not nearly as valuable as, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.” You don’t hear that as much. Come to think of it, I might be the only one that says it that way. Boy, that’s embarrassing… unless it’s true.
For the sake of simplicity let’s use these labels:
Version A
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.
Version A-
It it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing wrong.
Running with scissors
Do you remember that feeling you had the last time you saw a child, maybe one of yours, doing something that could hurt themselves or another person? Maybe it was running with scissors. Maybe it was standing too close to the edge of a cliff. Maybe it was swinging some object on a string around and around as they spun with their eyes closed. (Maybe it’s too easy for me to think of these examples and my neurotic parenting style is showing.)
You wanted to stop it, right? And not just because the child could get hurt, but also because they could hurt someone else unintentionally. But you’re kind of in a bind, right? If you run right up to grab them, bad things could happen. Someone could get hurt. If you tell them, with some urgency, how dangerous you think it is, they might decide to prove you wrong by pushing it a little. Someone could get hurt. If you do nothing at all, someone could get hurt.
Wow! I’m sure glad we outgrow that running with scissors thing! At least I think we almost do… mostly… more or less.
If time heals all wounds, why do ambulances have sirens?
Healing does take time, but so does gangrene. It would be a mistake to overlook the action oriented aspects of healing. Sometimes there are things we need to do in order to heal. Just waiting is not enough. What we think of as optimism turns out to be neglect. Read more…
I let my emotions get the best of me.
If you have ever said to yourself, “I let my emotions get the best of me” or, even worse, had to say it out loud, you know that your emotions can be very persuasive. They seem to demand our attention with urgency.
One way to define emotion is “an increased probability of taking certain actions.” Sadness increases the chance of crying. Anger increases the chance of yelling, or doing something violent, anxiety increases the chance of vigilance, or unproductive pacing.
Just learn to talk to each other? Really?
I find myself, when working with couples, trying to convince them of the following principle:
Even though there is issue x,y & z that seem to be the problem, if you learn to talk to each other first, x,y & z will not be such an issue.
It sounds simplistic. Right? Talk, talk, talk, blah, blah, blah.. Let’s get down to the “REAL” issues!
Here is how it works and it really is far from simple.
Can’t we all just get along?
short answer: Thankfully, no.
longer answer: Okay, think for a minute about the building of Solomon’s temple back in about 1,000 BC. From what I understand it was magnificent. Materials from all over the known world were used, gold, stone, wood, fabric. It all came together to form the temple. I’m particularly interested in the large stone boulders, or slabs, because of the weight and the amount of work it must have taken to get them in place. Weight and bulk were basic characteristics of those stones.
It shouldn’t be this hard!
How hard should [insert your situation here] be? How hard is it supposed to be?
I bring up this question because it has huge implications for our mood and consequently, our level of functioning, including interacting with others.
We ask this question about school, growing up, relationships, college, dating, work, marriage, parenting, finances, growing old, life, (golf?)… and then we think of an answer. For some reason, in my experience, personally and with my clients, the answer tends to be, “Not this hard!”
But, how do I know that? Where have I gotten my ideas of how hard life should be?
What do I want?
What do I want? It seems to be a question we ask often, sometimes even out loud. A search on google today found it being asked online about eight and a half million times. We add different phrases to the end, like:
- to do
- to eat
- to say
- for my birthday
- for Christmas
- from my spouse
- in life
- to major in
- to do for a living
You can google Abraham Maslow for a very famous answer formed in a sort of pyramid of priorities for survival.
Here is my answer to the question.
What is forgiveness?
Let’s be clear on one point. We do bad things.
We are not “good people” in the absolute sense. We are people of worth, but we do decidedly bad things. Things where, “Oh, that’s okay” doesn’t really cover it. It really wasn’t “okay”, that thing we did. But we can admit our bad deeds if there is such a thing as forgiveness.
If there is no forgiveness then we probably would be better off telling ourselves that we are good people that never really mean to hurt anyone. We make mistakes, but don’t do bad things. Apart from not being true, this attitude would serve us well… if forgiveness did not exist.
Luckily, true forgiveness really does exist. So what is it? Forgetting? Accepting an apology? Acting as if it never happened?
Obedience
Have you heard the word, “obedience” used lately in public discourse, not counting church? My guess is that if you have heard it, it was in the context of “blind obedience” or in some other pejorative manner. The concept of obeying someone else runs counter to our modern sense of independence and self-direction. Find your own way! Follow your heart! Think for yourself!
Just a quick skimming of the Bible brings out passage after passage on obedience, submission, even becoming a servant to others. Ouch! It’s almost un-American! But, obedience is a useful concept, right? Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of understanding and choosing and may even have authority issues from time to time. But, I’ve been thinking about what obedience allows us to do. As a Christian, of course, there is the specific moral duty to our Creator. Apart from that, there are some very practical benefits to obedience in general.
The first, and frankly, not the most compelling for me, is that obedience allows us to cooperate with others. The side of the street that one drives on may seem, and actually be, arbitrary. If I were the only driver in the world, I’m not sure I could reason myself into choosing one side of the street over the other. But in a world of millions of drivers, I can obey the traffic laws and get where I’m going in cooperation with the other drivers on the road, or, I can risk my life, do it my way, and probably not get where I want to go. I don’t do this obedience out of a special reverence or affection for whoever decided that the right side of the road is the correct side. I have no idea even who that person was. Life just works better when we cooperate.
A much more interesting benefit of obedience, I think, is that it allows us to accomplish things we don’t understand. It allows our work or actions to be better or smarter than we are, in a sense. It allows us to go beyond ourselves, be more than ourselves, not less.
The Case for Early Marriage
Mark Regnerus wrote the following article in Christianity Today magazine. (FYI: It is not rated G.)
Amid our purity pledges and attempts to make chastity hip, we forgot to teach young Christians how to tie the knot.
Virginity pledges. Chastity balls. Courtship. Side hugs. Guarding your heart. Evangelical discourse on sex is more conservative than I’ve ever seen it. Parents and pastors and youth group leaders told us not to do it before we got married. Why? Because the Bible says so. Yet that simple message didn’t go very far in shaping our sexual decision-making.
Finding Hope Through Humility
I think I’ve learned something about depression, something that surprises me. When we are depressed, although we may report low self-confidence, there is one area in which we all are very confident. We are very confident that our depressive view of the world, self, and future is The Truth.
Yes, we may depress ourselves more by telling ourselves we have no reason to be depressed, but our mood indicates otherwise. On some level, somewhere, among all those lightening fast interpretations our brain is making from the data around us, we have a strongly held belief that feeling depressed is the right conclusion given all that we know (a key phrase I’ll come back to.) It seems so true that to not believe it and feel happy would be kind of… crazy. Who would deny reality that much?
Creative Leisure
“Why do you have to go to work, dad? It’s summer.”
This question from one of my younger children a few weeks ago highlights the tendency many of us have to associate summer with more leisure activity. I figured, since it is summer, that even when I can’t actually experience leisure, I might as well write about it. I thought I’d start with an article in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts.
Hegarty, C. B. (2009). The value and meaning of creative leisure. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3, 10-13.
Both the fields of creativity and leisure have been investigated in numerous studies. Surprisingly little has been discussed about their interrelation, although creativity is among the five functions of leisure identified back in the late 60’s.
- relaxation
- diversion
- knowledge
- social participation
- creativity
Christians should readily accept that leisure time is important, since it was identified as a legal obligation for the Jewish people a few thousand years ago. Hegarty defines leisure as “a psychological state… in which the participant has a high sense of perceived freedom and intrinsic motivation.” It happens when we feel like we can pick among various options and when the motivation seems to naturally flow from the experience itself. We find our self saying, “I don’t have to do this, but who wouldn’t want to?”
A Glance at Faith as Creativity
In the 1950’s psychologists began to study creativity in earnest and today there are thousands of research projects to draw from if one is interested in the topic. I check in on the topic now and then out of curiosity but also for professional reasons because I always have a number of artists of one sort or another in my case load. Just as great wealth takes more time to manage, so also a person with exceptional creativity needs to see managing the creativity as a responsibility they dare not neglect.
I came across an article in Review of General Psychology* that presented a model of 4 types of creativity, called the four-c model. As I read the examples and definitions of each type it occurred to me that a developing faith and a growing relationship with Christ may have a meaningful overlap with these types of creativity. So, I’ve set out to briefly discuss here, the four-c model and what, at first glance, seems a useful way to think about faith development, especially as it relates to seeing Christian meaning in the world.
Does it help to expect the worst?
“If I expect the worst then I won’t be disappointed.” I’ve heard that theory expressed at least a hundred times. You probably have too. (By the way, do you expect to enjoy reading this article?) I’ve flirted with the theory many times myself. You too? I like to call it the Eeyore Theory.
I probably won’t get that job.
It’s just a matter of time until she breaks up with me.
I know the medical tests are going to come back positive.
I doubt that I’ll like this movie.
It seems to make sound logical sense. Right? Brace yourself. Prepare yourself. When the bad news arrives you’ll be ready. On the other hand, if it turns out to be good news then it’s icing on the cake. Surprise, it’s good news!
Some psychologists*at CUNY, Harvard, and University of Virginia decided to test this theory. As you may expect, they were primarily interested in the emotional benefits of the theory. Us too, right?
a drive through the night
One late night recently, I had to take an unexpected drive over to the lake shore to pick up one of my children. She was camping and not feeling well. It was after midnight on a weekday. So, the 2-lane road, passing through village and township, belonged almost exclusively to me for the better part of an hour. The radio became all but useless by the time I was 15 minutes into the trip, having, apparently, ventured outside the bounds of civilization.
With that distraction unavailable to me, I began noticing the trees that fell within the range of my high-beams. One behind another, they crowded forward for their 1.5 seconds of fame, which simultaneously climaxed and ended as my car raced by, forcing them off stage until their repeat performance for any driver that may come along after me. The closer I got to the lake, the more they organized into an over-arching stance similar to the “victory tunnel” that soccer parents will form after each match. In this victory tunnel, I suppose I am the celebrated.
Marriage Spinning Out of Control
There’s a concept that I am certain is crucial for our development. I’ve been trying to find the best way to communicate it for some time now. I’m pretty sure there have been times when I’ve tried and failed. In those times, I’ve probably made it sound like a crazy idea. For a while, I even stopped trying to communicate it because if taken wrong, it could be rather offensive.
Have I gotten you nervous now?
I think I’ve found an analogy that may help me. If not, please forgive me. Let me know and I’ll keep working on it.
Remember merry-go-rounds? It’s curious that they have somehow managed to survive so long without seat-belt laws. But it just wouldn’t be the same with out the challenge of hanging on. Remember that one “darling child” who would keep spinning it faster and faster, undeterred by the children on board begging to slow down? Sorry, if I’ve awakened any repressed memories.
From what I’ve observed, there are at least two methods for exiting the merry-go-round.
-
Contributors
-
Conversations
-
David Hamilton
