The Company You Keep

Sometimes your circle decreases in size but increases in value.

Unknown

In our community we are truly lucky ducks. We have our recovery tools and our faith perspective to challenge and inspire us to constantly grow and learn new ways of being in the world. One of the first pieces of advice given to people in need of recovery is to change people, places and things.

The founders of mutual aid societies like AA knew from experience that early in recovery it was not safe to hang out with people and in places associated with using. This organization has done a great job of giving us short phrases to help us remember wise principles. If mutual aid societies are not your jam, the book of Proverbs provides the same advice.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them; but whoever listens to me will live in safety and be at ease, without fear of harm.

Proverbs 1:32-33 NIV

No matter where you find support and encouragement for transformation, this simple, basic advice is always on target. Stay alert. Maybe notice what kind of friend you are to others and consider what kind of friend others are to you. Sometimes we need to make changes that will help us and others continue on the path of transformation. Are we living in support of our values? Are the people we surround ourselves with living in ways that challenge us to keep challenging ourselves through much needed self-reflection?

Combatting Feelings of Unworthiness

Note to self: Quit holding on to your unworthiness. It may be familiar, but it’s not a friend. You were worthy from the day you were born, and nothing you do will ever take that away. So welcome your worthiness IN. Erica Layne

I had a friend who got into the habit of lamenting her poor parenting skills. We, her friends, got into the habit of reassuring her of her parenting prowess. The more we affirmed, the louder she berated herself. After a while, it was annoying to listen to her constant put downs.

Finally, we performed an intervention. We decided to agree with her and see what happened. If I had understood the concept of ambivalence and how that relates to change, I would have understood the situation better. None of us knew about this principle, but we somehow managed to stumble into the cure.

We were hanging out at the park and our kids were running around while we sat on blankets, happy for a warm sunny spring day. She began her lament. We started responding like this: “Wow. You know, that does sound pretty bad.” Or, “Gosh, maybe you need to get some support to help you improve your parenting skills.”

Stunned, she began to defend herself!!! After several rounds of this rodeo, she realized what was happening and she had a real moment of clarity. “Wait a second! I’m defending my parenting all of a sudden!” Yes she was.

So we told her our perspective. We talked about how tiring it was to constantly act as her booster rocket to launch her out of her parental despair. We asked her to consider two things: 1. Give up the habit of self-recrimination or 2. If you think you are that bad, get help to change.

To her credit, she did both. It was a hard habit to break, but she did it. She has raised four amazing children. But I sometimes wonder when I reflect back on those days of young motherhood - where would she have ended up if she had not been willing to accept that she was worthy of being the kind of parent she aspired to become?

What familiar old messages of unworthiness do you need to release or address?

A Path Forward…

Yesterday I talked about my grandson’s “mirror moment” when he saw his beloved cousin Norah imitating his best tantrum moves. Mirrors can be extremely helpful in the gym for improving our form. Metaphorical mirrors like the experience Christian had can also be helpful. They assist us in seeing how we are behaving in ways that, for whatever reason, we might want to change. This helps us see what we don’t like, but then what? We need a path forward.

I am a fan of self-reflection and taking stock. But I also need guidance and good coaching. Otherwise, my self-reflection is more likely to result in rationalizations and justifications for my actions with a side order of denial thrown in for good measure. The prayer of St. Francis provides a suggested path forward. Today, let’s look toward the horizon… and pray:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace -

That where there is hatred, I may bring love -

That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness -

Where there is discord, I may bring harmony -

Where there is error, I may bring truth -

Where there is doubt, I may bring faith -

Where there is despair, I may bring hope -

Where there are shadows, I may bring light -

Where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted -

To understand than to be understood -

To love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Live.

The St. Francis Prayer

Mirror, Mirror

My grandchildren are learning how to throw amazing tantrums. During our traditional Sunday lunch, Scott instructed his daughter to sit up in her chair. Norah considered this cruel and unusual punishment and let us all know by sliding out of her chair onto the floor and melting down in a toddler tantrum. I noticed her cousin giving her the side eye with a little smile thrown in for extra charm.

“Christian, what do you think of that?” I ask, nodding toward Norah.

“Norah is having a fit Meme. She needs a snack or a nap.” he replies.

“Yeah, but what do you think about it? Where do you think she learned her moves?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs and shows all the indications of a male child quickly losing interest in a subject his grandmother finds fascinating.

“Dude, those are all your moves! She is TOTALLY imitating you!”

A troubling look of possible self-realization passes over his cherubic face and then he makes his counter move. “No way Meme! I do not do that!”

“Oh, yes you do my friend. This is what it looks like when you have trouble leaving Meme and Pop’s house, or when Mom gives you consequences. If you don’t like this way of handling problems, we could talk about new ways to handle big feelings, just let me know.”

He nods. So often we see (and judge) in others behaviors that we do not recognize in ourselves. Although Christian has yet to take me up on a conversation about coping with big feelings, I did notice this past Sunday that when I gave him his “transition” time warning for heading home, he and I made eye contact as he was lifting up his little foot for a big stomp. He pauses and quietly lowers his foot. He pauses; he nods. He leaves without a whimper at the appointed time. Sometimes it helps to look into a mirror of sorts

Do you like what you see in your mirror? Are there any behaviors, beliefs, or attitudes that you find particularly annoying in others? Can you find some common ground? If so, we might also find more empathy for others and maybe a gentle impetus to change a few things in ourselves.

A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.

Ken Keyes Jr.

A Friendship with Jesus…

In the gospel of John, Jesus invites us into his circle of friendship. In this circle of love we can expect the following: love, honesty, loyalty, mutuality, intimacy, companionship and more. We’ll get to the more in a minute, but first, consider this:

A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.

You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

I shall not call you servants any more, because a servant does not know his master’s business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learned from my Father.

You did not choose me, no, I chose you.

John 15:13-16

After the initial rush of gratitude for all that friendship offers, we need to pause and count the cost. Jesus was offering friendship with conditions. In human friendships following commands should NEVER be part of the equation! But with Jesus, he is saying that friends of his have common values, listen to his voice, and follow him. When we accept friendship with Jesus we are also surrendering to know everything Jesus learned from God. We are signing up for the kinds of friendship God endorses.

Friendship involves suffering. It requires humility. It invokes the opportunity for patience.

Over twenty years ago when I signed up to participate in Northstar Community I had one of those rare moments when I sensed God explicitly giving me directions and offering me the opportunity to be his friend and follow him. It was a warm summer night in 1998, the sun had set, and a group of us had just left a meeting with our beloved Pastor James Pardue. We paused under the portico that stands between the church and the parking lot. It occurred to us that permission might indeed be granted for us to launch this new pilot project. It came to me in a flash of insight that this might “work” and perhaps it would last longer than 8 weeks. I did not want to be gone from my routine, the weekly spiritual food found in Jim’s carefully crafted sermons, my tenth grade Sunday School class that I loved teaching with my friends Rob and Jean, being on the same schedule and in the same building as my kids. But deep down in my heart, I knew something else. I knew that if we started this new thing, I had to be willing to stay for the long haul. Creating space for suffering folks would mean, for me at least, that if they gathered, I could not abandon the effort. I think I said to Pete, “You know, if we join this effort, and if it works, we have to be committed. This is not the kind of thing you enter with half a heart.” I had my own baggage and a certain lethargy in my feet about taking on this kind of project. But my heart had other ideas about spiritual friendship knowing that God invites us to lay down our life for not only our friends (the families of this church we had been in for decades) but HIS friends. I believe that once we experience being chosen by God for friendship, it becomes necessary to be the kind of person who chooses others - whether or not it suits our preferences.