Weekly Blog

Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom

Teresa McBean 3/20/21 Teresa McBean 3/20/21

Contemplating Your Journey

“When your road is a dead end, it’s likely that you’ll find it's only really just a bend, and though others’ roads are different, it doesn’t mean yours is wrong, so pick yourself up again, and just keep trudging on.”

Erin Hanson

I’m a sucker for a good journey metaphor. But perhaps we could add to this one. Maybe we could ask for someone to give us a hand getting up. And once arisen, maybe we could pause and thank the helper. If it feels as if the standing took all you had, look for a bench to sit on and contemplate how far you’ve come before you set out to where you are headed.

Breathe...rest...relax.

Teresa McBean 6/15/20 Teresa McBean 6/15/20

What God Wants...

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - Your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - And place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him… Fix your attention on God.

Romans 12:1-2 MSG

Is there a need for endless chatter about what God’s will for us is? I think not. We can sit quietly, contemplatively, secure in the knowledge that we have the meat of the message right here, right now. Next up? We ask how to personalize it in our own life. How do we stay close to God and receive his help? Who do we love in our everyday life? This is our choice.

Teresa McBean 2/12/18 Teresa McBean 2/12/18

Banishment

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Over the hours that this team sweated large and small stuff related to the recovery ministry woes they faced, they had to face a hard truth: relationships are conditional. Yes, yes, love is unconditional. But healthy relationships have conditions. This doesn’t sit well with our desires to be merciful and gracious. Mainly I think because we have failed to fully develop our own deep and wide understanding of the concepts of grace and mercy. But also because let’s face it - love is yummy. Limits are sometimes challenging to accept. One afternoon we looked at two passages of scripture that dealt with banishment: 2 Samuel 14:14 and Deuteronomy 30:4. We also hopped over to Jeremiah 29 and considered what God asked the Israelites to do while living as slaves in Babylon. (Lest we forget, they were experiencing a GIANT timeout/banishment as a result of their own stubborn resistance to God.) Here’s what we noticed:

No wonder Paul was ragging on the Corinthians! They were proud of the "restoration" but missing the point of what restoration truly is. Yes, God is ALWAYS finding ways for banished people to find their way back home. Banishment isn’t intended to be punishment so much as it is a tool for restoration. True restoration could not happen for the Corinthians without a "time out" to show the community that they were valuable enough to protect.
Banishment is sometimes necessary. In this church's situation, they had to at least determine (see how they are progressing through the stages of change?!?) if it was the tool they needed to use in their particular situation.
Even in the midst of suffering, God’s people are given a way to move through the suffering. They accomplish this by keeping a rigorous eye on thriving. Thriving is described in Jeremiah 29 as suffering AND continuing the work of building community. Sometimes building community means protecting community.

Part of our contemplation as a working team involved calming down and remembering our core values; next, we made a conscious choice to live by them. This required us to practice making amends. The guy who muttered the “too much estrogen” comment had to make amends not only to the female he poked, but he had to deal with the larger issue of gender bias. The team then had to identify how their core values would change the way they were processing. This took FOREVER! They worked for several meetings just on how to have crucial conversations without decreasing safety in the room. They had to learn about active listening. Look, it’s possible to get really old and never acquire these skills. But this team was willing and ready to learn. This posture of humility helped them when the time came to analyze the failure of the staff person that caused all this mess to begin with. Having had their own shortcomings exposed at times during this process, they were a gentler, kinder crew when they got back to tackling the original issue at hand. Are there skills that you lack that you need to go acquire before you can expect to see the fruits of your transformational labors?

Teresa McBean 2/11/18 Teresa McBean 2/11/18

What's our part?

Everyone has heard that there is sexual immorality among you. This is a type of immorality that isn’t even heard of among the Gentiles - a man is having sex with his father’s wife! And you’re proud of yourselves instead of being so upset that the one who did this thing is expelled from your community. 1 Corinthians 5:1-2

After much rumination and no small amount of people whipping out their seminary teachings, we finally got around to this: and you’re proud of yourselves instead of being so upset that the one who did this thing is expelled from your community.

Here’s what we noticed:

Paul was presuming that the sexual immorality was bad, but he was finding problems in places other than this guy’s bedroom.
Paul is pointing out an attitude problem of those who weren't being appropriately discerning about protecting the community. They were proud of themselves for keeping someone in the community who was putting the community at risk. Yes, it's good to seek restoration wherever possible, but we also must be discerning about the well-being of the entire group.
Paul was inviting the Corinthian church (and we could invite the same of ourselves) to pause and contemplate.

Here are some things we might contemplate when considering banishment:

Are we more worried about our reputation or the restoration of one who needs restoring?
Is our discussion centered around our core values? Or are we driven by a fear to protect something - our ministry success? What’s our motivation driving our thinking on this subject?
What core values are we in danger of violating as we wrestle through this problem if we aren’t careful?
How do we sort through and resolve our competing core values? Which of our many core values are pertinent in this particular situation?
What wounds/blind spots/prides/prejudices are in play in this room that need acknowledgement?

There were more noticings and contemplations, but this provides a general framework for the discussion. These questions became so intriguing, so challenging, so engaging, that even the Senior Pastor tucked away his ipad and leaned forward into the discussion. Here’s a wild and crazy idea I want to posit for your pondering: It is possible, when we sidestep shame, to get very invigorated by the prospect of leaning into change and inviting God to transform us. It’s exciting! It’s in keeping with the humanity within us that bears the very image of God. I’d invite you to consider that shame may be hindering your own enthusiasm for your own work of recovery.

Teresa McBean 2/6/18 Teresa McBean 2/6/18

Sore (but still moving)

The next stage of change is action. It’s the step we are tempted to jump to when we are feeling all inspired and sincere. However, our adrenalin for change has a short attention span! Pre-contemplation, contemplation, and determination are necessary intermediary steps.

It’s in those steps where we can settle down and figure out what action best fits our desire for change. I did not start going to fit camp in order to improve my swimming skills. We don’t swim in fit camp. I don’t go to fit camp to become more zen-like, whatever that means. I go to fit camp to gain strength, stamina and flexibility. I chose fit camp after six months of illness left me weak and stiff. I contemplated, researched, and determined before I showed up that first Wednesday morning to get whipped into shape.

Action is often the stage that we get most excited about until we actually have to practice it. Frankly, I like the idea of being strong more than I like practicing my sumo deadlifts. But this is what change involves - doing things that don’t come natural. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be something we need to practice or gather a support system to encourage us.

I’ve learned from my instructor that meaningful change is more marathon than sprint. She isn’t happy if I come in complaining of being so sore I can hardly move. She prefers that we progress incrementally so that we don’t get sidetracked by injury or disheartened by discomfort. I appreciate the way she thinks.

I’ve noticed that people who have managed to make long term meaningful changes in their lives often practice slow, steady, consistent steps toward their goal. The folks that burst onto the scene like shining stars promising the moon to others often fail to launch. Today, what is one small sustainable change step you can take?