Positive Faith in Scripture: Upbuildings

“God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it.”

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11, Message

Here we see similar language to yesterday: a life of faith is actually about “life.” Insanity! It’s hard to imagine, in our culture, that God actually wants us to live a full life. More often we’re left with the idea that we need to hide who we really are because, if we’re found out, we’ll be excluded from the group. So, instead, we spend so much time managing appearances so we can appear as good (if not better) than the next person in line.

But this is no way to live! It’s not life- it’s prison. Imagine a faith community where people are encouraged, affirmed, built up, together. Brothers and sisters in arms. It’s hard to imagine- we don’t see enough of this.

This isn’t some hippy modern idea either- as the passage above shows, it’s quite literally 1st century stuff. Positive faith isn’t new- it’s biblical.

Maybe we do need to go back to the good old days- the days where we recognized and acknowledged the good in each other and attempted to build it up.

Re-Train Your Brain!

I have a friend who is not as old as I am but old enough to make up her own mind about everything. She can drink or not, smoke or not, work or not, marry or stay single, be sexually active or celibate. These are her choices. But she struggles to make choices because every time she makes a decision her mother gives her grief. Nothing she does is quite right. She's either selfish or not taking good care of herself. She is either too frugal or a spendthrift. The feedback, contrary and inconsistent, would be funny if my friend did not care so much about her mother's approval.

My friend has a boundary problem. I'm thinking about buying her a hoola hoop and suggesting she learn how to wear it as a shield against her mother's intrusion. It's easy to poke at the mom and blame her for my friend's distress, but that violates my core value of taking responsibility for every single part of life.

My friend shares this value but she is struggling to practice it. So is it a value for her? Yes, I believe it is and I have seen her over the years develop good skills with others. But her mom might just be her final test in taking responsibility for her life. All of it. Including learning to reject, let go of, activity resist HER REACTION to her mother's words.

Yes, that's it I think. She cannot control her mother but she can learn how to practice new ways of responding. Her brain, lazy as all brains can be, prefers that my friend respond with despair just like she always did when faced with so much negativity as a child. She will have to try all sorts of new tricks of the trade to re-train her brain to stop caring so darn much about her mother's opinions.

This is hard work. It will be learned clumsily over time, so long as she practices. She's practicing and I'm excited to hear, over time, how it works for her. This I know - if she figures this out, she will be able to be more loving to herself and maybe even her mom. That's a big win from my perspective.

Just Say No

Just say no. Although this slogan was a complete failure in the war against drugs, it could still serve a purpose. When my friend Anne decided to become a goat and chicken mother on a little plot of land that certainly resembles heaven, she didn't get transported there through magic fairy dust. She had to DO a lot of purging.

For months I watched Anne let go of paintings, outfits, jackets, children's tea sets, matchbox cars, extra dishes and furniture. She had to actively reject the doubters and naysayers who thought a woman of a certain age might consider a lovely retirement home but perhaps should refrain from daring to dream that life could be MORE with LESS. Anne ignored it all; she discarded the advice of those who knew her but did not know the inclinations of her heart. Anne finally learned how to just say no so she could say yes to her life - not her friends' life or her children's life or even her beloved husband's life - her life.

I wonder if sometimes she felt the weight of rejection when not every single person jumped up and down with glee over her news to sell the family home and move. I myself remember floating the idea of downsizing one time with my adult kids and our son Michael said, "Who's going to pack up my childhood memories?"

I didn't know how to answer Michael then, but I do now - thanks to Anne. Now I would say to my son, "You. You carry your memories in your heart. You own the ones you save and the ones you pitch. You get to take the memories you treasure with you everywhere you go. Dad and I will text you our new address when we move."

Now, unlike Anne, Pete and I chose a different path of reinvention which required a home renovation. This means that all my children's memories are still packed away in storage bins with regular invitations from us to come retrieve them any time they want. We're still waiting on Michael to retrieve his precious memories - I suspect there is a lesson to be found in that small fact.

The word "NO" looks different for each of us but it does involve rejecting one thing for another. If we are not willing to purge, how will we ever make room for the newer, better problems and joys that await as we get more clarity about who we want to be when we grow up?

A Tale of Lovingkindness..

“What we know matters but who we are matters more.”

Brene Brown

My mother grew up as an only child, but she wasn’t one. Here’s what happened. My grandfather married a woman and had a little boy they named James. When James was a baby, his mother died of food poisoning. My grandfather went hunting and found a lovely young woman and married her with some haste. But not hastily enough. Since my grandfather had to work and knew nothing about raising no babies, James went to live with his paternal grandparents. When my grandfather remarried, he went to fetch James but his mother would not give him back. I judged my grandfather for his lack of rigorous pursuit in retrieving James. I suspect my mom did too.

My mother loved her brother with endless abandon. I was never quite sure where he stood in regards to his feelings about her until my grandfather died. The work of caring for my grandmother, closing up her home and resettling her with my mom, fell to my mom. She didn’t mind. My grandmother only had one specific request: make sure James gets his mother’s sewing machine. It was one of those antique wooden cabinets with the large pedal? I loved that thing.

It was a hot and humid August day when we drove down to clear out the house. James came by to pick up the machine late in the afternoon of the final day of moving. My mother was thrilled to see him. He, in turn, unleashed upon her decades of anger and resentment. No one in that house stood up for mother; they just listened as he ranted and raved. Now mind you, my poor mom had done everything in her power to love her brother. When his wife left him with a young child to run off with another man? My mother took that little boy into our home until James had found him another bride. And unlike her grandmother, she gave him back when asked. She had asked him to take ANYTHING from the house he wanted - frankly, there wasn’t much. He hadn’t even wanted the sewing machine, but my mom insisted on that point.

I was appalled. My entire life I had heard what a great Christian man my uncle was - is this what that meant? Was this hesed? No. But the story continues…