A Society In Regression

Picture a woman turning a corner and clipping the edge of a stopped car and then proceeding on the down the street. Several people were watching the event and were surprised at her driving off. The hit car belongs to a teenager who jumps out and runs after the hit-and-run driver and catches up at a red light. He reaches in and takes her keys and says "we need to call the police." She screams out, "You hit my car, you hit my car!" He realizes just how nutty she is, gives the keys back and begins to drive off. She jumps out in front of him waving wildly to stop him and he swerves to miss her and continues down the street while noticing in the rear view mirror that she is sitting in the middle of the street beating her chest! Two or three months go by and one day the police arraign the teenager for 'hitting the jaw of the woman' when he reached in to take her keys. At the trial the judge opines he has never seen so many witnesses come forward to testify for the defendant and he reprimands the woman and all "the monkey business" she created.

How did this situation get this far? This woman had persistently gone to the court and whined week after week and the person who decided if a charge should levied finally gave in (against her better judgment I may add) and let this farce of a charge go to trial…just to be rid of her. This decision cost the teenager time off work, money on court costs, and emotional exasperation of the fallible system.

Societal regression is an emotional process that societies go through when at least five characteristics are seen at all levels of the society (freely adapted from Edwin Friedman's writings):

1. Emotional Reactivity: the vicious cycle of intense reactions of people to events and to each other
   
2. The Herd Mentality: the process through which the energy for togetherness (read, sameness) overcomes the energy for individuality…and everyone moves to adapt to the least mature people.
   
3. The Blame Game: the emotional state in which family members focus on forces that victimized them rather than taking responsibility for their own being and destiny
   
4. Quick-fix mentality: the emotional state that has no or little tolerance for pain and constantly seeks relief than fundamental change
   
5. Lack of Clearly Defined Leadership: Is a failure of leadership seen when the leader is instinctual driven rather than regulating her emotions, adapts to group weakness, fearful to take any convictional stand, and is constantly putting out fires…this type of "leadership" is both a product of and contributes to 1 – 4.
   

Societal regression is profoundly more than just going backward! This regression is a likened to "devolution" and an increasing in immaturity rather than increased maturity in people who are learning to emotionally self regulate. We can have great 'progress' with technology and even with economics and at the same time 'go backward' emotionally.

Fundamental change can only occur when individuals pay attention to themselves and their reactions to what goes on around them (the emotional processes that govern our lives), so today I am placing behind me the folly of trying to will others to change and will continue to increase my tolerance for discomfort and focus on the moment!

Grace Understood in “Saving Private Ryan”

This post came from The Mockingbird Blogspot. I have included in its entirety…it is hard to improve upon this (http://mockingbirdnyc.blogspot.com/2009/04/matm-saving-private-ryan.html). I include a brief point at the end…enjoy and learn a bit more about GRACE…that ever elusive and indefinable TRUTH -- it often escapes us personally and conceptually but I still love to know more!!!

James Ryan walks through the American Cemetery in Normandy, an old man. He stops at a headstone, and falls to his knees, tears in his eyes. The headstone reads: John Miller. As Ryan's wife comes to his side, he says through his tears, "Have I been a good man? Tell me I've lived a good life." Moved, his wife assures Ryan that he has. Yet the tears don't abate. James Ryan can't be sure if he's been good enough.
In Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg marshals a wonderful ensemble cast to tell a wonderfully scripted, beautifully shot, movingly acted, and soul-crushingly judgmental story. John Miller is tasked with taking a squad of 8 men to find just one. Private James Ryan is the fourth son of a woman who has lost the other three in World War II. It has been decided that she will not lose a fourth. Miller's squad eventually loses every man in the effort to save Private Ryan.
Miller meets his own end defending a bridge by Ryan's side. With his last breath, he looks at Private Ryan and whispers, "Earn this." With these words, he dies. We flash sixty years into the future, and the octogenarian Ryan has clearly lived his entire life with this great weight on his shoulders. Has he indeed earned the salvation that Miller's squad gave their lives for? Miller himself, earlier in the film, muses, "He better be worth it. He'd better go home and cure a disease, or invent a longer-lasting light bulb." Has he discovered a cure for malaria? Has he invented cold fusion? That awesome upside-down ketchup bottle? As viewers, we aren't given to know. What we do know, however, is that he's worried. Why else does he beseech his wife to comfort him? We see that he has a beautiful family. His wife tells him he has been a good man. Clearly, leading a good life has not freed him from the judgment of Miller's words.

Christians too often hear these words, "Earn this," coming from Jesus' lips as he dies on the cross. We hear sermons to this effect: "Is the life you're living worth the death he died?" We live our lives trying to earn it, to become someone for whom such a sacrifice isn't so radically inappropriate. We turn into old James Ryans, worried that it hasn't been quite enough. The most shocking revelation of the film is that Ryan's wife has no idea who John Miller is! Miller's judgment has been so heavy that Ryan has not been able to share his name or story with his beloved for his whole life!
But Jesus doesn't say, "Earn this" from the cross. He says, "It is finished." Even more radically, he says, "I tell the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." The message of the Gospel is diametrically opposed to John Miller's "Earn this." Miller applies the law to Ryan's future in a way that Ryan can never escape. No matter how profound an altruist Ryan may become, the profundity of Miller's sacrifice will never allow Ryan to feel satisfied, or safe from Miller's judgment-from-beyond-the-grave. One word of law destroys the grace Miller shows in sacrificing his life for Ryan. But it is not so with Christ.

No word of law escapes Christ's lips from the cross. Incredibly, the word of law is applied to Christ ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"). We are freed, and safe. We don't feel compelled to hide what Jesus has done for us, as Ryan hid what Miller did for him, because Jesus expects nothing of us. Our Savior doesn't say, "Earn this." He says, "It is finished…you will be with me in paradise."

MY input is: I remember what Scott Hoezee tells about CS Lewis (in THE RIDDLE OF GRACE)...Scott writes that during a British conference on comparative religions, experts were debating what was unique about the CHRISTIAN faith. Was it the INCARNATION? Was it the RESURRECTION? On and on the discussion rambled when LEWIS walked into the room and asked "What is this rumpus about?" When he heard the debated issue he replied, "Oh, that's easy. It's GRACE!" And after further discussion all of the attendees were in accord with LEWIS, it is GRACE. The Unconditional LOVE OF GOD 'shed abroad in our hearts', the no strings attached GOODNESS of GOD pour out into our world 'free of charge!' That is the unique message of CHRIST! Not KARMA (you know, 'what goes around comes around'), not some BUDDHIST multiple pathway to NIRVANA, not the ISLAMIC CODE OF LAW, not the JEWISH CODE OF BEHAVIORS...NO, NO, NO!! There is NO need to EARN HIS APPROVAL...HE gives it to me! And I am deeply loved by God, completely accepted by God, fully pleasing to God, and possess eternal value because Christ gave His life to me and for me! I stand approved! My picture is on God's fridge door!!

What Do You Say To Someone Overcome with Shame!!!

Guilt is a God given emotional experience that is causes a person to change their behavior, often ask for grace and forgiveness, and lasts for about 10 minutes or so.......
However, many people suffer from shame...shame is a posture of life...shame says there is something fundamentally missing in my life...shame becomes my identity.
Shame is the core of most people who were reared in strict religious homes, were abused by trusted caregivers, or who have experienced some trauma in their life. Shame is not from God and causes one to be ashamed of who they are as a person and GRACE is the only hope for the shame based person. I know...I know...
For all who suffer shame and know God's Grace...let me say! You have great worth apart from your performance!! You know why? Because Christ gave HIS LIFE for you and thereby imparted ETERNAL VALUE to you...you are deeply loved by GOD, fully pleasing TO GOD, completely accepted by GOD, and totally forgiven by GOD.......now don't let anything in this life cloud your mind and erode this ETERNAL TRUTH!
Be free from your shame...

David Wilkerson is NO PROPHET!

There are NO prophets today!!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91097

Screwed up eschatology and emotion laden theology drives a fear based message! I mean what is the difference between Edgar Cayce/ Jean Dixon/Nostradamus and David Wilkerson?

Fear freezes the human soul in the past and constrains the human heart from enjoying the fullness of life! The crackpot Wilkerson (http://davidwilkersontoday.blogspot.com/) does not speak for God, never has, still does not and never will! God does not 'speak' that way today (Hebrews 1:1-2)! That is settled once for all!!

Fear is simply False Evidence Appearing Real and messages of fear appear real until they are critically examined for rational evidence and here with Wilkerson's message, none is found! Bereft of any rational basis, I soundly dismiss this 'message of doom and gloom!' An American Specific judgment is myopic and arrogant! I mean, think with me here, we are only 5% (really on 4.2%) of the world's population and yet we are to receive the majority of God's blessings and thereby the majority of God's judgment? You have got to be kidding?? Jesus Christ is my judgment and I am in NO fear of God's judgment (1 John 2:1-3).

It angers me that many people whom I love will tremble when hearing Wilkerson's words. Their faith and childhood psyche harkens back to gloom and doom and impending catastrophe! There is no hope, no grace, no goodness, and no love in that message. The fragile spirit of many will be crushed by such a message…that is not the message of the New Covenant (by the bye, Wilkerson and his ilk, seem to revel in citing Old Covenant passages that are specially written to someone other than today's Christ follower!!)! Begone you hobgoblin of fear! Brennan Manning once said this about the Specter of Fear, "A pox on you and your children!!"

No fear can live here!! Not in my heart! A heart of "love drives out fear!" (1 John 4:18).

I slept well last night and now I finish my morning brew of Brazil roast. Enjoy today, tomorrow, don't allow your tomorrows be limited by your fears!

Broken Becky?

Becky comes in broken in spirit, battered physically, and bruised in her soul. She has gone through hell at the hands of those who are to love her…she is a toy for her dad to play with…she lives through stuff that even horror movies will not touch. Maya Angelou wrote Still I Rise about the survival and the thriving of the downtrodden, battered, cheated, raped, pillaged, African-American race and it applies to Becky as well. Enjoy…
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Communication Breakdown…drives us insane…

How we process information determines the quality of our intimate relationships. There are three principles that govern this idea: 1. One cannot not behave. 2. One cannot not communicate. 3. The MEANING of a given behavior is not the TRUE meaning of the behavior; HOWEVER it is the TRUE MEANING for the person who has given it a particular meaning.

Principal one says we can never do nothing because even the so called doing nothing is doing something. Try to do nothing, try not to behave and if I am watching you I will say "you are doing something" because of what I am seeing at this moment…now hang on a moment.

Principal two follows naturally and I am communicating all the time. How many times have you said, "We just don't communicate"? All that this means is the communication at the verbal level is not very satisfying…but non verbal communication IS taking place and MEANING is given to the behavior even if the behavior is silence.

Now to the big one, Principal Three, which states that a particular behavior may be given multiple interpretations and that one interpretation is NO more correct (nor incorrect) than any other. Personal reality is subjective and how I create my reality will be formed from my assumptions and my particular frame of reference. However, it is only my perception…and that may or may not match your perception and for each of us that perception is equally 'true' and equally valid.

In addition to these three principals we need to understand that communication occurs in three modes; verbal, non-verbal and the context. The verbal is simply the words I use. The non verbal is my voice inflection, tone, facial expressions etc. The context is when I said what I said, why you think I said what I said, and where I said what I said.

When we mention communication breakdowns we usually are referring to the context and the meaning we give a particular piece of communication.

Want Your Heart To Be Uplifted!?!?

One tried and true strategy to offset the "blues" is to understand that you really don't have a problem...I mean relatively speaking! When you see what someone else is facing and realize that they have survived (and may even be enjoying life!) then you can "find strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow!" Here is one such person and I don't think for a moment that DAD or MOM would trade what happened here for the sorrow they experienced 17 years ago!

Take about 5 minutes and watch Patrick Thibodeau. Patrick, a young man from Maine with Down’s Syndrome, has been a manager for four years at his high school. He plays in practice with the team, but has NEVER played in an actual game. But on his Senior Night, he was allowed to start and as the video showcases, got to make some memories for the rest of his life. Wipe your eyes, call your friends, enjoy GOD'S GRACE and remember you have never had it so good!! Yeah, life is good!!