Weekly Blog
Tips, Tricks, Skills, Spirituality and Wisdom
Making enemies out of friends
I am not prone to thinking of others as my enemy. Oh, I do have enemies - but to me they are things like: substance use disorder, abuse and neglect, poverty and prejudice. All these things that, to my way of thinking, whittle away and endanger a world that welcomes the kingdom of God in its midst.
In order to find compassion, I believe my work in evaluating all my relationships is twofold: 1. Do not impose my interpretation (and expectations) of how the world SHOULD work on others and 2. Believe folks when they teach me how they believe the world should work. That way, I can make a wiser, more informed decision about how we relate to one another.
If I fail to embrace either of these two practices in all my relationships, I’m going to be danger of making several crucial relationship mistakes:
1. I am going to mistakenly believe that someone is a trusted friend in life when they are NOT.
2. I am going to limit my connections with others who might make awesome friends even though we are very different.
3. I’m going to bail on relationships that I could maintain with a bit more intentionality.
4. I’m going to hold on too long to a relationship that deserves a compassionate end.
Do any of these options feel like experiences you have had in your own relationships? I wonder if we each tend to have a pattern to our relationship problems?
To be continued...
We do not know enough to judge
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 The Message
The second principle that I’ve been mulling over is this: I am only responsible for living out my way of seeing. I have no right to judge yours, even if IN THEORY it seems like we should agree.
The person who demanded that I comply with his request or take on the status of “enemy” was a confusing relationship for me, because I was under the impression that we shared a set of core values. And, I believe that we did. But my mistake was thinking that we applied them in the same way too. And we did not.
Compassion to carry on a relationship or end it will be in short supply if we do not get a grip on how unclear we all are so much of the time about just about everything. No wonder we get confused when what we think are shared core values end up being expressed in such different ways. If we can see how we are all prone to walking around in a fog, then maybe we can find some compassion for one another as we continue to bump into things in the dark.
Disagreements and Deal-Breakers
Whether we are able to maintain a relationship or choose to let it go, there is a principle that applies to both situations all the time. We do not let the (feared, expected, dreaded, desired) outcome dictate the way we show up for the relationship.
As image bearers of God, we are called to show up for relationships with our truest, most loving selves. Our work is to have the courage to love others EVEN IF we do not get our way in the relationship.
There are limits. In cases of abuse, neglect, and years of evidence that someone is unable (or unwilling) to learn how to relate with some degree of reciprocity, these relationships may need to end.
But what has no limit is our capacity to do so with compassion, even love.
Once I was in a relationship tussle with someone over a disagreement related to how our organizations interfaced. When it became apparent that I was holding firm on my position he said, “I’m sorry to say this, but if you continue to take this position you are my enemy.”
I thought he was joking. He was not and proved it in the years that followed. But what I knew then has remained true for me - he was not my enemy. It is easy to confuse a disagreement as a deal breaker if we are more invested in outcomes than we are committed to living out of our core values and inspired way of seeing.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
- 1 Corinthians 13:12-13 The Message
Honorable image bearing
Honorable image bearers learn that failure is a thing, it happens all the time, it is inevitable, and it is never as big a deal as it feels at the time. When we don’t figure this out, we struggle in relationships as we compare and compete. People who can embrace failure as a norm have the energy to devote to cooperating and encouraging others.
I was in a public place with a television blaring. A commentator, speaking of President Bush during one of the services eulogizing him said, “President Bush was willing to risk failure in pursuit of a higher good.”
I thought to myself - you missed the mark buddy. He FAILED. President Bush failed over and over and over again. That is the point. It’s easy to talk about risking failure - it sounds noble and brave. But it is far more accurate to say that Bush failed spectacularly many times. It was a strength; he had the ability to move through it and keep going with his remarkable optimistic attitude intact. I wonder. Is that why he had so many unlikely friendships with folks that many would have thought were his enemies?
Why do we act so surprised, so defensive, so mad when we fail to get our way or have things go as expected? What if we were better at failing? Would it improve our relationships? Would it change the need to end some relationships?
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13, The Message
What might change if we radically adopted failure as an expectation? What if we saw it as a normal part of accepting life on life’s terms? What if failure didn’t feel so personal?
Ending relationships SHOULD be hard
One of the most poignant scenes during the various events eulogizing the life of George H. W. Bush, at least to me, was watching former Sen. Bob Dole rise from his wheelchair and salute the flag draped casket of President Bush. Once upon a time they were political rivals; Dole lost, Bush won the nomination for President. The fight for the nomination was bitter. After Bush became president and Dole was the Republican leader in the Senate, they worked together to accomplish their goals.
It would have been easy for these two fierce competitors to continue the rivalry after Bush was elected; they chose to do the hard thing and set aside the bitterness in favor of maintaining relationship. Perhaps in the beginning it was grudging, who knows? But on the day that Bob Dole said good-bye to the President, the nation watched transfixed as Dole paid tribute to his rival who became his friend. At 95 years of age, Bob Dole cannot stand without assistance. He could have stayed home and written a nice note of condolence to the family. Instead, he was driven to the Capital, loaded into his wheelchair and pushed into the room that held the casket of President Bush. His aide helped him to stand, and Dole raised his arm in salute. It was a tribute to not one, but two men who refused to choose rivalry over relationship.
It ought to be REALLY HARD to end a relationship because, if we are intent on bearing the image of God, we have worked so very very hard on loving others. In many ways, it needs to become almost automatic, this inclination to love well. It is certainly at the core of who we were all created to be - but this does not mean that we are particularly good at remembering that, does it? We should work so hard on loving, that loving is what we do. And if we must, absolutely must, end a relationship, it should feel unnatural and not our preference or an act of convenience.
Relationships morph constantly; few last a lifetime. We value them because the capacity to love others is the essence of humanity. When they end, we may come to acceptance and know that it is the best decision under the circumstances, but that does not make it easy.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love. 1 Corinthians 13:12-13, The Message
What can we do that will help us become better lovers, compassionate leavers, and honorable image bearers?