On Being Human at the Table for Everyone

June 19, 2013 — 16 Comments
grace at the table for everyone

Photo Credit: 27147 via Compfight cc

The Table (Seating)

We stand in the doorway to a round room with walls lost in the shadows. Dim-warm light comes from a source unseen, illuminating the center of the room. Dust motes float languidly through the light with no place to go.

And in the middle of the room—in the middle of the caress of light—a table. Round. Roughly hewn. Solid. Inviting.

The air sizzles and cracks with the sound of cooking food. Aromas waft in from doors unseen and the smell makes the mouth flood.

A crowd of people stands in the doorway and lines the walls, at the edges of the light.

And then the mad rush begins. Because the table invites, and everyone is desperate for a seat and space looks limited. The mass begins to shove and scramble as people claw for a spot at the table.

The big, round table begins to fill as people claim seats. Eyes are desperate and searching as the mass collides upon the center—everyone afraid to be left out of this game of musical chairs.

And the table fills with people.

And fills.

And fills.

And everyone is getting seated and it’s magic and eyes get wide and wonder at the mystery, and the table expands without growing and everyone has a place.

The guests settle in and the food appears and the food is everything promised by the aroma and more. The food is Grace and it is endless and there is always enough to go around and the reality of it all begins to descend upon the jostling crowd:

At the table of life—at the Table for Everyone—the seats are limitless and no one is excluded and the food is Grace and breaking bread there is like coming home and coming together.

When Everyone Unsubscribed

Several weeks ago, I published a post about honoring the dignity and humanity in everyone, including people with different sexual orientations. And within minutes of the mailing, I received an avalanche of people unsubscribing from the mailing list. For the first time ever, a slew of readers told me directly in comments and by email they were unsubscribing because they were disappointed at the questionable and undesirable content.

The next day, due to a glitch in the delivery system, the email went out again. The response made the previous day’s reaction seem benign. Readers were concerned I was prescribing a belief, advocating for a political platform, or morally undermining our culture.

I wasn’t.

I was inviting everyone to the table.

Because I think we are desperate for spaces in this world where we can begin to put down all of our competitive identities—including sexual, racial, ethnic, religious, political, economic—and encounter each other with grace, as members of a human community who have more in common than in conflict.

I think we are desperately in need of a Table for Everyone.

The Table (Eating)

The table is full, yet there is elbow space for everyone and always space for more. The food has descended before each person and everyone gets the same amount because bottomless Grace is immeasurable. And the meal begins.

Except, for some people, it doesn’t.

For some people, arms are crossed. Scared and protective? Angry and aggressive? Both? They never expected a Table like this. They are wondering who put together the guest list, and who invited these people? These people who are wrong, who need to be corrected.

They try to be tolerant for a while, but eventually arms uncross as they push themselves away from the table. They get up. They walk away into the shadows.

Do the people at the Table revel in their departure? No. Because at the Table for Everyone, a loss is felt and people call out, begging them to return and to stay and to join. Some may return. Many won’t.

Meanwhile, there’s a second group of people at the table who aren’t eating. They’re like giddy schoolchildren. They’d dreamed of a Table for Everyone, but in the midst of their shame, they had decided “Everyone” didn’t include them. They aren’t hungry, because they are being fed simply by their belonging. They are too grateful to eat. All they want to do is call their friends—their companions in shame—and to spread the good news.

To let everyone know the Table is full but there is always room for more and everyone is invited.

Everyone else is eating. Talking is sporadic and it comes in murmurs and giggles. Because when you are consuming Grace—and it is consuming you—you’re mouth is too full to talk about who belongs and who doesn’t. You just sit. Together. And partake.

When I Apologized

Several weeks ago, after the second email went out, I sent out a third email, apologizing for the duplicate messages. I asked for grace in my messiness. And Dear Reader, you gave it to me. You sent me a bunch of emails thanking me for writing and giving it away. Dear Reader, you told me I had a place at your table and you fed me with grace, and for that I am deeply grateful.

And it made me realize, we are in relationship across the miles, aren’t we?

Despite the vastness of cyberspace and the actual geography separating us, on this increasingly interconnected globe, we are all in relationship. We are a mass of messy, broken humanity with a diversity of beliefs and histories and backgrounds. Yet when we truly encounter each other, when we let each other in, those distinctions begin to bleed away and the space between us shrinks and we get to be fully human together.

So, here in this space, I want to build a Table for Everyone—a big, round, rough-hewn table with a place for everybody.

I will keep writing about grace.

I will invite everyone.

I will hope you join me.

And I will hope we can partake together in the Grace raining down upon us—the Grace that is filling the Table for Everyone like an endless feast for all of humanity.

———

Comments: You can share your thoughts or reactions at the bottom of this post.                

Audio: To listen to an audio version of this post, click on this post title: On Being Human at the Table for Everyone-Audio [If you would like to save it to your device for later listening, right click the link and choose the option to save.]

Free eBook: My eBook, The Marriage Manifesto: Turning Your World Upside Down, is available free to new blog subscribers. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can click here to subscribe, and your confirmation e-mail will include a link to download the eBook. Or, the book is also now available for Kindle and Nook. 

Preview: Next Wednesday’s post is tentatively entitled, “How a Chocolate Chip Bagel Almost Destroyed My Marriage.”

Disclaimer: This post is not professional advice. It should be read as you would read a “self-help” book. For professional and customized advice, you should seek the services of a counselor, who can become more intimately familiar with your specific situation. Counselors can be located through your insurance network or through your state psychological association.

In Grace , , , , , ,
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A Father’s Letter of Apology to His Boys (For Father’s Day)

June 12, 2013 — 15 Comments

Father's Day Keychain

Dear Boys,

Today, I arrived at my office door, my mind spinning with countless concerns—house repairs and my therapy clients and blog comments and how to convince your mother I was right about something completely inconsequential. I found myself lost in the crowd of my various identities—homeowner, psychologist, writer, vindicated husband.

But then I found my office keys and the keychain you made me for Father’s Day and the three big, brightly-colored letters you inscribed upon it:

D-A-D.

I got ambushed by my most important identity—Father. And I realized for an entire morning, like so many mornings before it, I had gotten distracted from my most sacred role by all of my perfectionism and sense of duty and fear of rejection and desire for affirmation.

And something inside of me cracked.

I think it was my ego—the voice inside telling me if I want to be good enough I have to look perfect, take care of everyone, win everybody over, and be right all the time.

Boys, I want to apologize for my fierce but fragile ego.

Boys, I want to apologize for all of the ways I let my ego prevent me from being the kind of father of which you are completely worthy:

I’m sorry for every time you’ve needed an embrace and I gave you something less because affection requires time and presence and vulnerability.

I’m sorry for every time the projects in my life have been more important than the people in my world.

I’m sorry for every time I’ve demanded respect, instead of earning it.

I’m sorry for every time I’ve said, “No,” simply because I can.

I’m sorry for every time I’ve told you to be humble and then turned around and acted like losing was the end of the world.

And I’m sorry for every time I didn’t say, “I’m sorry,” because they are, I’m learning, two of the most important words a father can say.

But mostly, Boys, I’m sorry for all the times I have communicated in subtle and not so subtle ways that your worth is conditional upon my approval or my mood or the consent of my fragile ego.

Boys, don’t let anyone—including me—convince you that your worth is rooted in anything so transient as another person’s opinion of you.

Your worth is conditional upon nothing.

You came into the world with infinite value and you will leave it in the same way, regardless of what you do or don’t do in this life. I know this seems too good to be true—in fact, many people will tell you it is a recipe for entitlement and narcissism—but if you can learn to trust it, you will be free.

Free from the game of ego inflation in which so many of us are constantly embroiled.

Free to live what is written on your souls, rather than what other people have written upon you with their own brokenness and wounds.

Free to love yourself—and therefore others, as well—without condition and without limit in a world that places every kind of condition upon love and belonging.

Free to create beauty and abundance in a world that seems to be threatened by both.

Free to become portals of grace in a world that thrives on shame and condemnation.

Boys, instead of placing conditions of worth upon you, I want to become a reflection of your worth—I want to mirror the awesome beauty I see in both of you, so you can begin to see it in yourselves.

In the end, Boys, I hope you can spend your lives knowing who you are, instead of constantly proving who you are.

With deep admiration for who you are, all the time, wherever you go, whatever you do,

Dad

———

After my last letter, an interviewer asked me what words I would have for my boys. My first thought was, “Just two words: I’m sorry.” Because those two words have the power to undermine the ego game in which boys and men are so often encouraged to compete.

So, I wrote this for my boys—because I want them to be free of the game.

And I wrote it for the men who have had the courage to sit in my office, to feel broken, to let their egos die, and to discover who they really are.

And I wrote it as a permission slip to a world of fathers who have an opportunity to fundamentally change the way our world works, by freeing the next generation from the game we play, one father and one son at a time.

———

Comments: You can share your thoughts or reactions at the bottom of this post.                

Audio: To listen to an audio version of this post, click on this post title: A Father’s Letter of Apology to His Boys-Audio [If you would like to save it to your device for later listening, right click the link and choose the option to save.]

Free eBook: My eBook, The Marriage Manifesto: Turning Your World Upside Down, is available free to new blog subscribers. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can click here to subscribe, and your confirmation e-mail will include a link to download the eBook. Or, the book is also now available for Kindle and Nook. 

Preview: Next Wednesday’s post is tentatively entitled, “On Being Human at the Table for Everyone.”

Disclaimer: This post is not professional advice. It should be read as you would read a “self-help” book. For professional and customized advice, you should seek the services of a counselor, who can become more intimately familiar with your specific situation. Counselors can be located through your insurance network or through your state psychological association.

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Are We Damaged Human Beings or Luminous Creatures Made of Stardust?

June 5, 2013 — 14 Comments

And what if the answer is, “Both?”

stardust

Photo Credit: vtooky via Compfight cc

Rural Iowa. A family wedding. Late night dancing. Children with sore feet. An isolated stretch of highway carries us back to our motel through cornfields and darkness.

Suddenly my wife asks me to pull over, tells the kids to get out of the car, and whispers, “You have to see the sky.” Raised within reach of Chicago’s light pollution, my kids had never seen the night sky unveiled.

We get out of the car. We stand beneath a canopy of diamonds.

Have you ever stared up into the black, star-pregnant expanse? Have you ever looked up into the vastness of a universe hurtling away from you at an unfathomable speed? Have you ever gazed upon the light of stars a billion years old?

In a cornfield in Iowa, I look up. And I feel inconsequential, unanchored, like pollen in the breeze.

I feel small.

My oldest son stands next to me, unusually silent. I wonder if he is feeling small, too. But then he looks up, and with awe in his voice he says, “Daddy, did you know humans are made of molecules from the first stars? Daddy, did you know we are stardust?”

Why Small is Only the Beginning

I think the heavens give us what we need.

As adults, we need to feel small again—it is a good and necessary experience. When we swell up with ego, feeling small shrinks us down to our actual size. When we think the world revolves around us, feeling small puts us in our proper orbit. Humility is a good thing—perhaps the best of things—and a night sky can humble an adult in a heartbeat.

But for children, who exist in a perpetual state of smallness and humility, a night sky is an entirely different kind of reminder: we are creatures composed of a brilliant light.

I think all of us need to stand in the middle of a cornfield in rural Iowa with a third grader and be reminded we are small-messy creatures and transcendent beings with the heavens in our blood.

I think we need it, because for most of us, the voice of shame has been whispering its pious rebuke at the edge of our tattered hearts for years. And it goes something like this:

“You are small and broken. Be aware of that alone. Stardust in your bones? Don’t be ridiculous—that’s a bunch of poetic nonsense, the fanciful musings of a child, romantic naiveté, the magical calculations of a bunch of physicists. Quit being arrogant and start getting real—who do you think you are to imagine you are more than small and damaged?”

When shame has convinced us that our smallness and brokenness is incompatible with our goodness and beauty and transcendence, we need more than a night sky to embrace the full, wondrous reality of who we are.

We need proof.

Which is why I’m going to tell you about my neighborhood.

Where Small and Magnificent Meet

In my neighborhood, I know a young boy who loves to read. He’s putting down his books this summer and strapping on a pair of running shoes. Instead of racking up pages, he’s going to rack up miles and raise money for his favorite charity.

That is smallness.

And stardust.

In my neighborhood, I know a family who annually hosts a lemonade stand one week a year to raise money for Blood:Water Mission. Last week, they raised thousands of dollars to give clean drinking water to people they have never met.

That is smallness.

And stardust.

In my neighborhood, I know a couple who had their hearts cracked open by orphans on the other side of the globe. They quit thinking of the orphans as “those kids,” and they decided to think of one of them as “my kid.” They will adopt him this summer.

That is smallness.

And stardust.

In my neighborhood, I know a woman with three children and a busy family. For the last decade, one night a week, she has sat up through the dark hours attending to a disabled boy who is not her own, so his parents could get some rest.

That is smallness.

And stardust.

In my neighborhood, I know a young girl who shouldn’t be alive. In infancy, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and for months her parents were more familiar with the hospital than their own home. Last autumn, her family organized their annual 5K race to raise funds for research into the disease. Hundreds of people ran. One of the runners was their daughter.

That is smallness.

And stardust.

My neighborhood is just an ordinary neighborhood filled with ordinary people. Yet, at the same time, I live in a neighborhood that is, quite simply, a constellation of stars. A neighborhood of people who know they are small. And who act like they are made of stardust.

To put it simply, I live in a neighborhood of people who have been animated by grace.

Animated by Grace

Grace is ridiculous.

In one breath, it gives us a vision of our smallness and our brokenness. It gives us the freedom and courage to touch all the ways we are so fallibly human.

While in the very next breath, it gives us a vision of our magnificence and our transcendence. It gives us the freedom to know we are glorious and good and beautiful.

People who live within the freedom of this kind of grace become free to love themselves, to love each other, and to bear witness to a world that is both broken and absolutely radiant with beauty.

And you don’t have to travel to rural Iowa or to my neighborhood to be touched by grace and to become aware of your smallness and your stardust.

Because you, too, live in a neighborhood of shooting stars.

Because you, too, are both messy smallness and brilliant stardust.

Because you, too, can be animated by grace, right where you are.

I think we live in a world in which the whisper of grace is getting louder and our shame cannot withstand it and it is transforming everything within its embrace.

I think the whisper of grace is getting louder and I think it’s coming for you. And when it finds you, I think you will be the adult stargazer and the child stargazer, all at the same time.

———

Comments: You can share your thoughts or reactions at the bottom of this post.                

Audio: To listen to an audio version of this post, click on this post title: Are We Damaged Human Beings or Luminous Creatures Made of Stardust?-Audio [If you would like to save it to your device for later listening, right click the link and choose the option to save.]

Free eBook: My eBook, The Marriage Manifesto: Turning Your World Upside Down, is available free to new blog subscribers. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can click here to subscribe, and your confirmation e-mail will include a link to download the eBook. Or, the book is also now available for Kindle and Nook. 

Preview: Next Wednesday’s post is tentatively entitled, “A Father’s Letter of Apology to His Boys (For Father’s Day).”

Disclaimer: This post is not professional advice. It should be read as you would read a “self-help” book. For professional and customized advice, you should seek the services of a counselor, who can become more intimately familiar with your specific situation. Counselors can be located through your insurance network or through your state psychological association.

In Grace , , , , ,
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Breaking News: Celebrity Divorce Causes Global Uprising

May 29, 2013 — 10 Comments
love and power

Photo Credit: Janrito Karamazov via Compfight cc

(UnTangled News)—The world was rocked yesterday by a cataclysmic event—a divorce—that will alter the course of humanity and the future of the planet.

Although details of the event are still being sorted out, we can confirm some basic facts:

For millennia, Love has been married to Power, clinging to Power and riding on his coattails, relying on Power to transform people and the world. Love had low self-esteem—she was afraid to exist on her own in the world, afraid of what people would do to her and say about her.

But yesterday, something changed. In hearts and homes and villages and cities and nations, Love finally gave up on the relationship. Love just up and walked out on Power, ending their partnership for good.

One close friend of the couple, who goes by the name of Inertia, was quoted as saying, “They were always at odds with each other. They kept each other in check. While they were together, you got the sense nothing would ever change. And I kind of liked that.” Inertia went on to add, “Now that Love is free of Power, I’m afraid she’s going to change everything.” Inertia refused to comment further, saying he needed to go take his Pepto-Bismol.

Reports from Around the Globe

Reports pouring in from around the globe suggest Inertia’s worst fear may be coming true—now that Love and Power are divorced, Love has been free to sacrifice and to lose and to be vulnerable and to invite and to release and to honor:

An older brother quit beating on his younger brother, picked him up, dusted him off, and offered to be his friend and his mentor.

A father quit screaming at his children—quit demanding obedience and respect—and instead began to whisper, coaxing them into love and respect by honoring their dignity.

A mother relinquished control over her children—she just gave up on perfecting them. She decided to let them be kids, to love them, and to accept whatever judgment comes her way from other parents about her messy children.

A wife quit wielding power through silence and isolation and withdrawal. She crumbled and confessed her broken-terrified heart to her husband.

A husband stopped acting as if sex was his daily right, looked his wife in the eye, and told her he would love her to the end, no matter what their marriage bed looked like.

A standoff over a parking spot dissolved into a friendship when one man freely offered the spot to his competitor and then volunteered to take him to lunch.

Violence, anger, and aggression have decreased precipitously in the last twenty-four hours. Road rage has evaporated, school cliques are dissolving, political debate has quieted to a murmur, churches are talking with each other instead of competing against each other, and the NFL is considering cancelling next season as it explores ways to revamp its game around something besides power and dominance.

Love and Power Hold Press Conferences

Sources close to Love say she is not interested in speaking with the media. Since the divorce, she has become much more quiet and contemplative. Although many are suggesting she will have no strength to bind the world together on her own, she is not interested in defending herself.

Her best friend, Grace, issued a final statement on her behalf: “My good friend Love is thrilled to be free and unfettered again. She is excited to go quietly about her business with little fanfare. She’s eager to spend her days becoming more intimately familiar with the hearts and minds of people everywhere. She’s a little rusty, so at first I’ll be reminding her how to invite people, instead of ordering them around.”

In contrast, Power immediately held a press conference. Reports suggest it was difficult to record his tirade, because the seating chart was incredibly stringent, most reporters couldn’t find their seats, and anyone left standing was thrown out. Those who did remain say Power was essentially incoherent with anger.

Power’s best friend, Shame, apologized on Power’s behalf, admitting, “Power and I have gotten away with some heinous things because, with Love by our side, we could convince people of our benevolence. I guess now we’ll have to find other ways to appear benign.” Then Shame, horrified at its own honesty, turned to reporters, looked them in the eye, and said, “None of you are good enough, either. At your core, each of you is rotten and horrible and depraved. Admit it to yourselves. Embrace what you are. And then join us. We’re about to go on quite a rampage.”

Public Reaction

An official spokesperson for the Government responded calmly to the upheaval, suggesting the story was hearsay and rumors. He stated, “This is ridiculous. Love and Power will never break up. They wouldn’t risk that kind of instability.” Reporters noted, however, that despite his calm demeanor, his eye was twitching and his collar was wet with sweat.

Another government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated, “Government is terrified. If Love is free to do her work, then Government won’t be the most valued person in the room. And that makes Government very nervous—it needs to be the most needed thing around.”

Religion was divided over the events. In part because that’s what Religion likes to do—divide itself—but also because it has been such a strong public supporter of Love, while quietly relying on Power to grow its numbers. One ecstatic pastor was heard to say, “We’ve been waiting for Love to come home. Faith and Hope have been missing their sibling.” In contrast, another prominent pastor lamented, “We can’t run our business without Power and his buddy Shame. Love should reconcile with them immediately.”

The recording industry was also abuzz with the news. Kanye West tweeted: “When I rapped ‘Do you have the power to let power go?’ I had no idea I was talking about Love.” Minutes later he issued another tweet: “Then again, I’ve always said I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Huey Lewis got wind of Kanye’s “prophecy” and immediately took umbrage. He stated, “Man, I’ve been singing about the Power of Love since Marty McFly went back in time. This isn’t news. We’re the News.

Finally, psychologist Kelly Flanagan issued his analysis, “When you live with Power long enough, you become ashamed. You just stop trusting in your own goodness and strength. Yesterday, it appears, Love simply quit being ashamed of herself. She got confident, quit clinging to Power, and became fully herself.”

He smiled, “And that’s all we’ve ever needed her to be. I don’t think anything or anyone is beyond her reach now.”

———

Comments: You can share your thoughts or reactions at the bottom of this post.                

Audio: To listen to an audio version of this post, click on this link: Breaking News Celebrity Divorce Causes Global Uprising-Audio [If you would like to save it to your device for later listening, right click the link and choose the option to save.]

Free eBook: My eBook, The Marriage Manifesto: Turning Your World Upside Down, is available free to new blog subscribers. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can click here to subscribe, and your confirmation e-mail will include a link to download the eBook. Or, the book is also now available for Kindle and Nook. 

Preview: Next Wednesday’s post is tentatively entitled, “Why Alcoholics are the Luckiest People I Know.”

Disclaimer: This post is not professional advice. It should be read as you would read a “self-help” book. For professional and customized advice, you should seek the services of a counselor, who can become more intimately familiar with your specific situation. Counselors can be located through your insurance network or through your state psychological association.

In Community, Grace , , , , , , , , , , ,
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How Smartphones Paved the Way for Same-Sex Marriage

May 22, 2013 — 41 Comments

In the 1980s, anti-gay hysteria reached a fever pitch. By 1996, attitudes toward homosexuality had changed little, with only 27% of Americans in support of same-sex marriage. But by 2011, the majority of Americans favored same-sex marriage, with young people overwhelmingly supportive.

How does a culture transform at such an unprecedented rate?

Perhaps we hold the answer in the palm of our hands…

smart phones and same-sex marriage

Photo Credit: gailjadehamilton via Compfight cc

I grew up in a rural town in the heart of Illinois. Black people were an oddity, homosexuality was a locker room joke, and an immigrant was someone who moved in from one town over. Now, my sister is married to a Black man who is both a brother and a friend, and two of the most trustworthy and caring men in my life have been gay.

And in 2004, I met an immigration attorney.

I was completing my post-doc residency, a young psychologist eager to debate anything including immigration and foreign policy. Meanwhile, the small immigration law office down the street needed someone to provide psychological evaluations.

Someone cheap.

Like an unlicensed post-doc trying to feed a growing family.

Almost a decade later, I’ve completed over two hundred evaluations. And I don’t debate immigration anymore. Because immigration no longer exists for me as a concept to debate. Immigration is immigrants. Immigration is people. Immigration is a living, bleeding story.

Immigration is a man who came to our country legally. A man who works seventy hours a week to support a family in the U.S. and ailing parents back home. A man whose wife was brought to the country illegally when she was five years old. A man whose wife is now a legal resident but is being removed from the U.S. as a penalty for how she arrived. A man whose children will not be able to function without their mother. A man who is having panic attacks and lives his days powerless to hold his family together.

Immigration is no longer an issue I debate. Immigration is people I value.

And I think a generation of people is beginning to feel the same way about homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

Homosexuality Isn’t an Issue, It’s People

Technology has begun to connect us in previously unimaginable ways. In my once isolated rural hometown, you can stand in the middle of main street with a smartphone and video chat with almost anyone in the world. Across the globe, our lives are becoming deeply intertwined and the cast of characters in each of our stories is expanding exponentially.

And it’s changing everything.

For many of us, our stories have become inseparable from the stories of our gay relative, lesbian friend, or our questioning co-worker or barista or Facebook friend or blog subscriber or Twitter follower or son or daughter.

When we let people from other “groups” into our lives—and even more importantly into our hearts—politics begins to fade, and we experience humanity in a whole new way.

As one.

This sense of unity was described by astronaut Frank White as the overview effect:

“I was looking out the window, and as I was looking down at the planet, the thought came to me, ‘Anyone living…on the moon would always have an overview. They would see things that we know but don’t experience, which is that the earth is one system, we’re all a part of that system, and that there is a certain unity and coherence to it all.’ And I immediately called it ‘the overview effect’.”

But I don’t think we need to orbit the earth to experience the overview effect. We merely need to enter into the cosmos of another person’s heart.

A generation of people has launched itself into the hearts of others, and there is a growing sense of unity and coherence amongst people. And as a result, for many people, homosexuality is no longer an intellectual or theological concept to debate.

Homosexuality is people we know and love and cherish.

Trading in Our Egos for Unity

In the next month, the Supreme Court is likely to announce its decision regarding the definition of marriage. The debates will be, I’m afraid, increasingly vicious and dehumanizing, because violent debate is the only kind of debate that exists between egos.

Our egos tell us our worth exists in comparison to other people. So our egos have a huge stake in maintaining a sense of division. Our egos will cling to our differences and strip others of their dignity, in order to clutch on to a fabricated sense of superiority. Our egos will relish the bitter debate.

But I hope.

I hope a generation of people who have experienced a sense of connection and unity and coherence will give birth to an entirely different kind of conversation.

I hope a generation of people will zip the lips of their egos and speak with the tongue of their hearts.

I hope a generation of people will speak out from the calm, quiet place within where fear is wilting, egos are withering, and grace is blooming.

I hope a generation of people will reach out to each other with grace.

Because grace is always an invitation.

Grace pulls us together, instead of driving us apart. Grace transforms our dialogue from a battle into a homecoming. Grace turns our most contentious debates into subversive acts of love and belonging:

They become an opportunity to love,

to joyfully enter into the story of another,

to make peace,

to listen with patience,

to reach out in kindness,

to give create something good,

to be faithful in relationship,

to be gentle in our differences,

and to control ourselves instead of everyone else.

Regardless of what we believe about homosexuality and marriage, I hope we will trade in our egos for that kind of unity.

I hope.

———

Comments: You can share your thoughts or reactions at the bottom of this post.                

Audio: To listen to an audio version of this post, click on this link: How Smartphones Paved the Way for Same-Sex Marriage (Audio) [If you would like to save it to your device for later listening, right click the link and choose the option to save.]

Free eBook: My eBook, The Marriage Manifesto: Turning Your World Upside Down, is available free to new blog subscribers. If you are not yet a subscriber, you can click here to subscribe, and your confirmation e-mail will include a link to download the eBook. Or, the book is also now available for Kindle and Nook. 

Preview: Next Wednesday’s post is tentatively entitled, “Breaking News: Global Uprising, No Going Back.”

Disclaimer: This post is not professional advice. It should be read as you would read a “self-help” book. For professional and customized advice, you should seek the services of a counselor, who can become more intimately familiar with your specific situation. Counselors can be located through your insurance network or through your state psychological association.

In Community, Grace , , , , , ,
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What Good is Gratitude When the World is Tearing Apart?

May 15, 2013 — 15 Comments

For millennia, the world has been torn apart and patched together again. A month ago, it felt like something tugged hard at the world and the stitches began to pop. One after another. After another…

gratitude

Photo Credit: Edward Allen L. Lim via Compfight cc

The Week the Stitches Popped

On a Sunday night, I read about Kermit Gosnell, a licensed physician in Philadelphia who is on trial for delivering live babies and then cutting their spinal cords with scissors.

On Monday afternoon, the Boston Marathon was bombed. Three people died. Legs were amputated.

On Wednesday morning, I was brought to a standstill on the highway. A massive accident shut down all six lanes of the interstate in front of me. For hours.

That evening, a fertilizer plant in west Texas exploded. On an ordinary night, it just blew up. Fourteen people were killed. Two hundred were injured.

Around the same time, the rains in Chicago began in earnest. When the sun rose on Thursday morning, Chicagoland was submerged in a historic flood. Our basement and garage were no exception.

Late Thursday night, gunfire broke out on MIT’s campus. One bombing suspect was dead. Another was injured and on the run.

Friday. Chicago remained a town-under-water while from Watertown, Massachusetts, the television broadcast surreal scenes of door-to-door searches. The second suspect was caught around dinnertime and we went to bed with a sigh of relief.

But Saturday morning we awoke to news of a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. Two hundred more people dead.

Just one week of a world tearing at it’s patched and mended seams. One stitch after another.

And those are just the stitches of which I’m aware. We all had stitches popping that week that will never make the CNN scroll.

What are we to do in the midst of such devastation and heartache? The psychologists and the theologians are both telling us we should be grateful.

Grateful?

What good is gratitude when the world is tearing apart?

Gratitude as a Balm?

For centuries, almost every faith tradition has emphasized the practice of gratitude. And around the turn of this century, in an ongoing effort to bolster human resilience, “positive psychologists” took notice of the ancient traditions and sought to harness the practice of gratitude for the benefit of psychological and emotional health.

In the last decade, psychological research has consistently shown individuals who experience higher levels of gratitude also report higher levels of “subjective well-being”— they are happier, less depressed, less stressed, and more satisfied with their life and relationships.

This is good news, and the news is getting out. Countless books have been written, scores of “gratitude apps” can be downloaded to phones and tablets, and everyone seems to be talking about how much better they feel since they started their gratitude journal.

But I think there is bad news lurking beneath all the enthusiasm, because I’m hearing questions like, “I want to feel good, so how do I practice gratitude?”

The bad news is we’re turning gratitude into a tool to get what we want—to feel good. It’s tempting to use gratitude like a metal detector to hone in on comfort and satisfaction—it’s tempting to make it about us.

And when we do so, we strip gratitude of its ultimate power.

Gratitude Like Knee High Boots in Slop

On a flooded Thursday, my wife and I were faced with saturated carpet and warped furniture. Our basement was flooded with water, but even worse, my heart was flooded with despair.

Too many stitches were popping and it felt like a free fall without a net.

Then, around mid-morning, a friend texted me and simply asked, “What time am I coming over to help?” By mid-afternoon, he was hoisting rolls of carpet padding over his shoulders as it rained down dirty rainwater upon him.

On a flooded Thursday, my friend gave me something far more powerful than manpower. He gave me gratitude.

And the power of gratitude is this: it is the way we look outward instead of inward. It is the act by which we remember the world and forget ourselves. It puts our ego to sleep and awakens our sense of connection to everything and everyone else.

On a flooded Thursday, I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy—my toes were ice cubes and my fingers were shriveled prunes.

But on a flooded Thursday, I realized gratitude is like a pair of knee-high rain boots for the heart—when we put it on, we can wade right into the flood waters of sorrow and devastation this life and this world rain down upon us.

Gratitude Doesn’t Just Enjoy, It Joins

The storms-of-life are coming, aren’t they?

Or for some of us, they’ve already arrived and the waters are rising.

I don’t have any magic solutions for drying up the mess. But I do think, when we give ourselves over to a life of gratitude, we will be prepared to wade into the pain and suffering of our lives.

Yet I don’t think a life of authentic gratitude ends in self-preservation. Because when gratitude takes ahold of us, we begin to forget about ourselves altogether, and we start to remember a world that is tearing apart and in need of re-stitching.

You see, to a grateful heart:

The laughter of children is pure joy, and also a reminder of powerless women being taken advantage of by a corrupt doctor in Philadelphia.

A pair of running shoes and an open road is ecstasy, and also a reminder of bombs on a Monday afternoon and legs that will never run again.

Safe travels are a relief, and also a reminder that not everyone made it safely on a Wednesday morning.

A green lawn tipped with dew is suburban satisfaction, and also a reminder of a Wednesday night in a fiery fertilizer plant.

A clear dawn and the rays of a warm summer sun are a caress, and a reminder of a quaking earth in China held by the same Big Light.

I think gratitude might be the place where pain and peace meet. Because when our gratitude propels us into a torn-suffering world, we will be immersed in something other than ourselves.

And that, I think, is the definition of peace.

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Disclaimer: This post is not professional advice. It should be read as you would read a “self-help” book. For professional and customized advice, you should seek the services of a counselor, who can become more intimately familiar with your specific situation. Counselors can be located through your insurance network or through your state psychological association.

In Mindfulness & Gratitude, Psychology , , , , ,
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