Top 10 Regrets
Regret number 5 is …I cared about other people’s problems.
as many years as they have been
as close as any dearest kin
as like in ways as twin to twin
They still loved from a distance. Read more…
Top 10 Regrets
This post is about regret #1: I believed the sun would rise tomorrow.
I have almost always taken it for granted that I would wake to a new morning, sun and all.
Of course the sun will rise tomorrow and I will be here to see it, right?
William Tyndale was the first to translate the scripture from Latin to English so that people other than church leaders could read it. Translating scripture into the common language of the people was a crime in England and wherever else papal authority had enough influence. Even so, I’m pretty sure we would count “Bill” as one of the good guys. Still, after fleeing his home country, working in secret, and being betrayed more than once, this good guy was tied to a stake, strangled, and burned.
I’ll be in a few of the clips from the special series on relationships that Fox 17 is doing in November. Here is a link to one of them. Online Relationships
Update: for some reason they never ran the series. Don’t know why.
I love the circus, especially the large three-ring circus where there are always at least three shows happening at once. If you love the circus and want to know more about its interesting history and role in popular culture…
this blog post will be of no help at all with that.
On the other hand, I have some thoughts about work and responsibility in marriage. These seem to organize themselves rather nicely into three areas or circles of responsibility.
So your wife has been asking you for a while now to go to counseling… Now what? You may have a few questions about what to expect.
Will the counselor be on her side? What will I be expected to say? What if we get into an argument? What if I don’t like the counselor? How long will I have to go? Is what I say confidential? How will it help our marriage? Will we just fight all the way home afterward?
Let’s take them one at a time.
I have never hunted.
Well, except once at summer camp in the coastal mountains of California when three of us jr-highers decided to go after some rattle snakes with our wrist-rockets. (It was a family camp so I’m really not sure where our parents were.) The camp cook promised he would cook it if we caught it. Yes, it did taste like chicken.
Ok. Now that I’ve defended my manhood…
I have never hunted but I do know what those ugly orange vests are for. You’re out in the wild tuning your ear to the slighted rustle and interpreting it. You’re on the alert because you are in a sort of competition. You win if you can react before your prey does. Your reaction involves shooting and the prey’s reaction involves running.
At some point in human history, someone noticed that under those circumstances we can shoot at something that isn’t really prey, like a fellow hunter. So hunters wear something a little extra, the orange vest that says, “Hey, we’re friends. Remember? Don’t shoot.”
Hearing, sight, taste, touch, smell
What would life be like if we only had those 5 senses?
Image via Wikipedia
What about balance and proprioception?
If I closed my eyes I wouldn’t know if I were right-side up or up-side down. I wouldn’t know where my arms and legs were without looking.
What about… emotional self-awareness? I wouldn’t know how I felt about you or how I felt about me. I would have a very difficult time making decisions. (Yes, emotions are essential for making many decisions no matter how logical you think you are. Logic is always in the service of some emotion. ) I wouldn’t feel attached to anything or anybody so I wouldn’t feel loss. I also wouldn’t know if I belonged.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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…
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…
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
I posted earlier a simple rule for men to follow in talking to their wives. Now I have the companion rule for women. I want to make it clear that these rules are not gender specific. Either husband or wife is perfectly able to flagrantly violate both rules. I just thought I’d address one to the wives and one to the husbands, rather than hit you with it all at once.
(the rule in the previous post was Only tell him something because you want him to know you better.)
New Rule: Only ask him something because you want to know him better.
Of all the relational afflictions we suffer, being misunderstood seems to elicit an amazingly broad set of emotional responses. It can grab on to just about every feeling we have in our emotional pantry.
Someone thinks of us inaccurately and we get angry, self-critical, hopeless, defiant, cold, violent, sad, lonely, withdrawn, sarcastic, aggressive, passive, frustrated, vindictive, critical, smug, arrogant, condescending… I’m sure there are more. Those are just the ones I can remember seeing (or feeling.)
It seems to me there is some very basic need for someone to “get us” and all that that involves. After all, there are quite a few prerequisites for you understanding me, such as caring enough, spending enough time, reserving judgment, being gracious in your attributions, observing, being genuinely open to learning something outside yourself, avoiding comments that tend to shut me down or make me hide.
Obviously, there are many ways for that whole process to go wrong.
And yet, we crave it. We regularly monitor it. We’re ready to reply with, “Who do you think I am?! How could you think I could be capable of such a thing?! After all we’ve been through, you could believe THAT about me?!” along with the whole range of internal dialogues we keep to ourselves. Sometimes we get a chance to present our case, have our day in court, trying to explain ourselves more carefully. Other times, and these are much harder, we feel denied even a forum for explaining ourselves. We realize that the misunderstood version of ourselves is what is being carried around by another and we feel powerless to change it. This can happen when a relationship ends suddenly, when there is a death, or when we just decide out of intimidation, fear, or anger to let it stand. Yes, even out of anger (“If you want to think that, then fine!”) Our anger gets some satisfaction in knowing they’re wrong so we’re not going to help.
A substantial part of the burden Christ had to bear during his ministry was the experience of being deeply and publicly misunderstood. More than once he called out his closest friends, his disciples, for not “getting him”, his mission, identity, or intentions. Remember him asking who others were saying he was, and to his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” It seems likely that even from the start there were rumors about him being of illegitimate birth.
There certainly are things we do that contribute to others misunderstanding us.
We can put on self-protective masks, armor, and build complete fortresses. We can have significant parts of ourselves that we really don’t understand and accept. (those are closely connected by the way) But, we can work on these self-handicaps. We can get better at allowing ourselves to be understood. Friendships and intimate relationships are the most fertile ground for growth of this kind. We may also benefit from a professional counselor to make ourselves more understandable.
The hard news is that even if we are working on all of those things I just listed, we cannot avoid times where we are misunderstood.
I think about young children bickering back and forth, obviously unable to endure the other child not seeing it their way or understanding what they did or why. I see the same type of behavior in couples (of course not anyone I know, and certainly not in my marriage :)) believe it or not. That desperation and frustration to be understood, to avoid the loneliness of not being “gotten.”
Maybe we should add to the marriage vows right after “richer or poorer” something about “in times of understanding and misunderstanding.”
I’m coming to believe that allowing ourselves to be misunderstood after we have done all we can, the enduring of that loneliness, can be a type of spiritual discipline. It’s a giving up the need to defend ourselves or retaliate. The remarkable thing is that loosening our grip on that need actually opens the way for better communication and interaction which may lead, in the end, to our being understood a little better.
It really can be ok for someone to misunderstand me. It’s a natural consequence of being an individual, a separate person, and complicated person. And whether I want to say it’s “ok” or not it WILL happen even when I have done all I can to be clear.
I’ll be better off and so will my relationships if I can learn to endure it.
Many of you have seen the bumper stickers that say ‘Love Wins’ and I guess I tend to react inside with “Well, yeah, sort of, I think I know what you mean.” I’m glad that so many people are proclaiming the power of love and starting conversations about the real love expressed on the cross.
You know there’s a “but” coming, right?
But due, in part, to the work I see couples needing to do to repair their marriages, I want a little different message. Something like “Love is willing to lose” might be close.
“True love is willing to risk rejection” (thanks Brady) would be even longer and therefore a very poor candidate for your car’s rear end sermonette.
“A soft answer turns away anger.”
I’m glad that verse is in proverbs. But sometimes I have to ask myself if I really believe it, since I don’t always act like I do. Sometimes I ask my clients if they believe it. But for now let’s assume it’s true. :)
What exactly does it mean?
We only have a few words to work with here. I kinda’ wish it said more. What type of soft answer? Does that include silence? Silence is pretty soft right?
Umm.. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of the “silent treatment” knows it doesn’t feel very soft. But, I can make the mistake of thinking “Silence is not as harsh as what I COULD say so it’s a soft answer.”
So why is that other person still angry?
What is the ugliest word in the English language? My vote is for “guilt.” Even sin is fun for a season, but I haven’t found that to be true for guilt.
It would be so nice if there were a remedy for our sin AND our guilt.
Unremedied guilt can mess up our lives in so many ways. It provides a way for the world to still “be all about me” and my guilt. The weight of guilt narrows our world. Like a car that travels over and over again on a road that cannot sustain the weight, a rut is formed and once formed is almost self sustaining. It becomes the defining feature of that section of road. Forever after we give that rut “the attention it deserves.” We now refer to that section of road as “that place with the deep rut in it.”
Sometimes it helps to get a better handle on the context of our life.
Where am I? Who am I?
A genogram can be helpful.
David Hamilton
Guest Author
