on accompaniment, attentiveness, and contribution
Talking about fixing problems… is not the same as actually addressing them.
Yes, talking about strategy is important. It should also not be confused with the action, the actual fixing.
Here may be the hard part: Talking about a problem, finally getting it out in the open can feel good. A sense of relief follows. But if we let the tension of the moment drain all the way out, we will never do the thing we said we would do.
Mistakes were made (but not by me) is a delightfully devastating book chronicling the human tendency to avoid responsibility, to self-justify, to make ourselves look good.
Seen in one way, it lays bare our compulsion to try to control our own sense of goodness.
Holiness, by contrast, consists in coming to realize that:
(1) we are, truly, not any better than anyone else and are quite capable of petty and destructive behavior.
(2) we are, in fact, very, very good… much more so than we could ever manufacture by ourselves, and that unique goodness is a wildly extravagant gift.
Seeing this frees us to avoid the exhausting dead end of a life lived out of the “mistakes were made but not by me” mantra.
So freed, we are able to see that (and talk about how) we participate in a system that is not functioning as well as it could. And then we can ask: “How can I help?” “How can I show up in generosity, bravery, and love to participate (better) in this system?”
The answer to these questions may likely consist in doing less things, but seeing more deeply.
From September 1940 until the following May, in a period called “the Blitz,” German bombers dropped thousands of tons of explosives on the city of London.
Eight million Londoners moved in shelters and subway stations to avoid the destruction of these raids.
And from that time, there is data to suggests that mental health in London improved.
“Not only did these experiences fail to produce mass hysteria, they didn’t even trigger much individual psychosis. Before the war, projections for psychiatric breakdown in England ran as high as four million people, but as the Blitz progressed, psychiatric hospitals around the country saw admissions go down. Emergency services in London reported an average of only two cases of “bomb neuroses” a week. Psychiatrists watched in puzzlement as long-standing patients saw their symptoms subside during the period of intense air raids. Voluntary admissions to psychiatric wards noticeably declined, and even epileptics reported having fewer seizures. “Chronic neurotics of peacetime now drive ambulances,” one doctor remarked. Another ventured to suggest that some people actually did better during wartime.”
Tribe by Sebastian Junger (pages 47 and 48)
Wild, right?
So, certainly, the paragraph above does not describe everyone’s experience of violence. War is not a good time.
It does make me think, though, that meaningful, communal struggle actually does make us happier, in the long run, than lives oriented around individual comfort.
Instead of constantly rearranging our lives to make them more pleasant, let’s seek lives of responsibility and active love.
My life is blessed with ample evidence of the depth of the interior life of children, and I know that I want to center the recognition of this reality in my life. And yet! It is easy for me, in the daily churn, to forget this depth and / or to act like I haveContinue reading “Children Are Capable of Depth”
Have you ever seen one of those cable news finance shows with the stock ticker running on the screen? They are tough to watch for any length of time. There is a LOT of information (paired with emotion-laden narratives spun from that information).
XYZ is up! (But for how long!?)
ABC is down! (Catastrophe! And then HIJ said this thing about LMNOP!)
Sometimes, we do a similar thing with our inner lives, “ticker watching” how happy we are at any moment. We survey and analyze everything that happens through this narrow “happy” lens until we are so exhausted we cannot find the happiness we sought in the first place.
Better to suspend this hyper-analysis, orient our interior life to a longer time horizon, and live more deeply into the experience of active love.
This will lead to places that do not look “happy” at first glance, but ultimately to a deeper joy, more durable contentment, and lasting peace.
Take a look at this picture.
From pg. 81 of the wonderful Thanks for the Feedback by Stone and Heen
It is a diagram of what is happening when we do something and someone reacts to it. Pretty basic interaction, right?
Not at all! It is so complicated!
It turns out, that it is remarkably difficult to see our behavior (and the impact that it has) objectively.
Yes, we ideally have access to what is inside the left-hand, smaller circle… “my thoughts & feelings” and also “my intentions,” though even these are not always accessible to us depending on our inner state!
And then, we have partial knowledge of our behavior… partial because it is so hard to perceive our facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice.
And unless the other person chooses to share, we have no visibility on the things solely in the right-hand circle: “my impact on them” and “their story about me.” These form the basis of their feedback.
Our relationships (and so our life) get better when we have more visibility on our behavior and our impact on others.
So, where to start?
1. Mindfulness practice – This deepens and refines my perception of and receptivity to all of the inputs in the graphic.
2. Taking myself less seriously – Humor (particularly the self-deprecating kind) lowers the stakes for the person who might take the risk to clue us in on what we are missing.
Here are some constraints on how we communicate things that matter to us.
1. In order to be heard, we must speak the message in the inner language of the one who we want to listen.
2. We typically see and hear people as we are, not as they are.
3. People can sense when they are not really being heard… and when this happens, they muffle and hide their true inner language. (After all, why waste the effort on someone who is not listening?)
Put another way, we have to demonstrate ourselves worthy (typically by offering non-judgmental, kenotic presence) of someone’s inner language.
4. We can’t speak a language we’ve never really heard.
Seeing all the potential problems that can arise?
In order to communicate effectively, we are going to have to stop thinking about how badly we want to be heard long enough to focus on that person and really see and hear them.
The other morning, our four-year-old emphatically observed:
“Did you know that I can’t see my face?!?”
And he is right! Without a mirror (or the like), one cannot see the non-verbal cues that their face communicates.
This reality is kind of a bummer, too, since the face gives off a huge amount of information, and we have evolved to subconsciously interpret even the smallest, quickest emotion on the face of another.
So, what do you hope to unconsciously communicate?
The answer may represent yet another reason for committing to a slower, simpler life and to mindfully accept what we feel when we feel it.
Because I can’t see my face, but everyone else can.
Remember that moment in Pirates of the Caribbean where Jack Sparrow finds himself on a different ship with cannons firing on his beloved Black Pearl?
“Stop blowing holes in my ship!” he wildly protests.
I think that we blow holes in our ship – more than we are aware or would like to admit.
In families, when we harbor the grudge or the old way of being…
In the church, when we cling to “commentary” instead of weaving communities and offering contribution… when we polish a tiny idol rather than pray for the Mystery…
And on the earth, when we do not acknowledge what is happening and imagine a new way forward together.
For Lent, let’s give up blowing holes in our ships.
Lots of things in life are scarce.
Opportunities to take responsibility are not among them.
Responsibility for one’s actions or anger or aloofness…
Or for what is happening to the earth…
Or for a languishing ministry at church, a weak workplace culture, that pile of dishes…
Or (and perhaps most importantly) for engaging that person who needs to be seen as they are…
Chances to take responsibility abound.
The opportunity to say “I’m here. How can I help?” is a grace and a gift.
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