Being Brave in Marriage

What does being brave look like to you? This is what it looks like for "Gwen" a retreat participant I've had the honor to journey with .  This is her heart. 

"I spent a weekend with the women from my church talking about living a wholehearted life. The key points we stressed were, show up, be seen and be brave. During the weekend, some long held issues about my marriage surfaced. What did being brave look like in my marriage? Leaving? Staying? I spent the next month thinking about all that I learned and praying for an answer. I found mine. God showed my that being brave was making the decision to stay in my marriage. I realized I hadn’t shown up in a long time. I was always on the fence. Never in and never out.

I realized that my arena was my marriage. There weremany people in the cheap seats that didn’t have a clue what I was struggling with who told me to leave. The box seats were filled with society’s perceptions about an unhappy marriage. Leave…you don’t have to put up with that. I have a few dear friends who have earned the right to hear my story. They are in my seats of empathy and self compassion. They are present, they listen and they pray.

The decision wasn’t easy and it didn’t make things better instantly. But I am brave, I can show up and when I need to, I can be seen!"

By "Gwen" (shared with permission)

Running Up . . . and Running Away

 

The Twin Cities is hosting the Senior Games and for a whole slew of reasons, I love that people who are 70 are taking up swimming for the first time, or someone who is 65 is re-engaging their love for softball.  The Senior Games?  Redefining aging one event at time.  This is 3rd chapter living at its best.

This inspires me to be in the Senior Games one day.  Maybe I'll resurrect my high jumping efforts.   While two of my brothers were state competing high jumpers, I was afraid to leave the ground.  I was terrified of actually jumping . . . which is a fairly integral part of the HIGH jump!  So I'd run up . . . and run away.  

My personal victory was the day I came home and told my mom, "I jumped!  I didn't stop!  I actually jumped!"  

I didn't compare myself to the girls who were real high jump contenders.  I compared in lots of other destructive ways (and would never claim to currently have whipped this) but because I knew I didn't have a prayer of winning, I gave myself permission to lower the bar . . . literally.  Brené Brown quotes her friend, Laura Williams in the Daring Way™ curriculum, "Comparison is the thief of happiness."  So true!  So true!  This is so true because it is speaks to where lots of us live and the space where lots of us struggle for our authenticity.  

Which takes me to Jesus' injunction not to judge. "Judge not lest you be judged."   Growing up I thought judging (or at least not admitting to judging or harshly judging myself for judging) was about making sure I was being nice - this kept society humming along.  Being nice made Jesus happy.  I also thought that if I was nice enough there would be nothing about me that would be judgment worthy.  

But I missed this whole bigger point - to stop at keeping society humming along would be like to walk into the Louvre and only visit the gift shop.  When I'm judging, I lose access to joy, to connection, to empathy, to all the things that Jesus taught and freely gave.  When scarcity drives me to compare, I struggle to be truly present to the one I'm judging and there is a wall between us.  I struggle to show up - and I imagine you do to.

It's like running up and . . . running away.  

So, here's a gift from Brené's research that can actually help us get back on our emotional feet - we judge around areas/issues that we feel vulnerable to be judged in ourselves . . . and we will find someone who we think is doing worse than we are.  With this critical awareness, judgment can alert us to where we are hurting and where we need support from others and compassion for ourselves.  

The support and compassion so next time we run up . . . and jump!

Create Calm and Carry God's Peace

You’ve seen it.  The Keep Calm and Carry On poster.  It was designed in England at the beginning of WW II.  Despite not being well received at the time by the Brits, the Keep calm slogan has had a resurgence of popularity.  You can get t-shirts, hats, posters, mugs all with the variations.  

    Keep calm I’m a Ninja.  

    Keep calm and swag on.  

    Keep calm and hug your dog.  

    And this beaut - keep calm and aaah, a spider!      

    For lots of us, this is the wrong beginning point.  It is the wrong assumption to assert that we will be keeping calm b/c that means we have a modicum of calm to start with!  Are you stressed out?  Are you stressed out but pretending not to be?  

    For lots of us, we often don’t know we have another choice.  Saying to keep calm is like saying, go lasso the moon.

    So for those of us who have no calm to keep, let’s start at a different point.  Let’s start from the point of learning about cultivating calm and still and letting go of anxiety as a lifestyle - wholehearted guidepost #8 of Brené Brown’s research. 

    Calm is maintaining perspective while managing emotional reactivity in the moment.  First, we practice calm when we don’t over-identify with our emotions.  Calm helps prevent the negative emotions from ‘carrying’ us away.     

    Second, Brené found in her research that calm people breath.  People who are being calm and emotionally centered in anxious situations breath.  So, play along with me - Take a breath.  Now take a really good deep breathe.  That is the breath of calm.  

    As part of your wholehearted journey, breath more and connect it with prayer.  Before you answer a stressful question, breath and silently pray, “Help, Lord.” Before you send that email that is worrying you, breath and pray, “You’re here, Lord.”  Lots of my pastor friends and I love that breath in Hebrew is ruah.  Ruah also means spirit or wind - the breath of God, the spirit of God.  Breath and spirit are connected.  When we cultivate calm and still, we reconnect with God!

    Now let’s define the next part of this - still.  Still defined by the data is, ‘created by clearing the emotional clutter and allowing ourselves to think, feel, dream and question.’  It is quiet of the soul.  We can get there through walking, singing, sitting silently in prayer, painting, trimming trees - where do you hear God’s voice the best? 

    Before it ever emerged in the research, calm and still were God’s ideas.  Sabbath? - remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy - and to keep God’s people WHOLE.   Sabbath rest and stillness free us from emotional exhaustion.  They invites us to see that God’s love and presence are for us and to TRUST God has us even when sin and the brokenness in our lives say otherwise.  Sabbath is countercultural in a society that values exhaustion as a status symbol.  If we are seldom calm but often exhausted, we will struggle to hear God’s voice and discern God’s best for our lives and community.

    Jesus prayed in stillness.  The gift of still is we see more of God and less of the troubles.  No wonder St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will” (12:2.)  How do we transform our minds when they are packed with brain ants all the time?  

    On the cross, Jesus gives the gift of still - we don’t have to worry about our futures or our pasts, there’s forgiveness, second chances, new beginnings.  

    So, maybe the new slogan should be, “Create calm and carry God’s peace.”  Amen

Reflections on the Minneapolis Area Synod Assembly

This past weekend I was at the Minneapolis Area Synod Assembly with a display sharing about the Daring Way™ for Faith Communities.  I had so many great conversations with church leaders about connecting our faith and courage – it was so fun to imagine and plan with the pastors, council members, and parish nurses who stopped by about how this will support their ministries!  

One of those who stopped by was our keynote speaker, Brian McLaren.  I was thrilled, grateful and immediately drawn to his kindness, humility, and servant nature.  Those were my thoughts when he was presenting to over 500 people and when it was just us talking for a few moments.  What a blessing this man is!  

Brian McLaren talked about God having downward mobility and how community is expressed in the tensions between what he termed the public and the individual in his keynote.  It was great fun to listen to Brian, especially after reading his books.  He’s the type of man I’d love to go on a walk with and talk about all the connections between his writing and journey of faith and Brené Brown’s research and how it connects to faith.

If we were on that walk maybe we’d talk about - 

Because God has downward mobility, we can give ourselves permission to stop hustling for our worthiness.  How does our theology and Scriptural interpretation support or challenge connection?  

Because so much in our culture connects the public to the individual but sidelines the community, developing critical awareness and cultivating hopeful churches is really important.  Then we’d talk about the fascinating interplay between the neurobiological traits of hope and how that connects to Scripture!

Brené gives us the great language of vulnerability as the path to connection, innovation, faith, accountability.  In Brian’s writing there is the great capacity to hold tension in compassionate love and responsibility to greater social good.  How in church leadership are we encouraged to practice vulnerability?  How is vulnerability in leadership misunderstood?

This walk could go for several miles!  And I imagine others would join in along the way.  And that’s the point – to walk with each other, exploring the things that matter together, clarifying, having the a-ha’s, and becoming a stronger community in faith.  

Let’s get out our walking shoes!

The Things that Break Our Hearts

I’m excited to be preaching on Sunday at St. John’s Lutheran in Shakopee as part of a series on Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Guideposts - Cultivating Faith and Courage.  The ultra cool thing?  When Pastors Linda, Christine and I scheduled out the calendar, this Sunday’s assigned lectionary text of John 15:9-17matches up with the joy and gratitude guidepost.  This lesson includes Jesus saying, "I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy.  Yes, your joy will overflow!"  We didn’t plan that out!  My fellow liturgical junkies will appreciate how that ‘just happened.'  The Spirit is at work!  

I wrote my sermon on the plane returning from a retreat I led a few weeks ago.  That was before the rioting in Baltimore.  Or the earthquake in Nepal. Or the visitation and funeral for a young man who dead too soon. Or tornadoes in OK, KS, and TX. Clearly, I'd had some rewriting to do.

So the question quickly becomes a very old question - How do we talk about joy when so much tells us it is foolish, when there is so much to grieve?

First, Brené’s research - rehearsing tragedy or holding joy at bay doesn’t insulate us from the hard things.  The hard things will find us but we absolutely can deplete our resiliency to the hard things when we don’t practice joy and gratitude.  I remember being on a mission learning trip to Mexico and the community organizers working in squatter clusters talked about their rhythm of work:  act and celebrate.  Celebrating wasn’t if, when, and maybe.  It was just as essential as pounding the pavement.  They knew celebrating would keep them going.  

Second, faith and theology - I love reading Working Preacher and this week the amazing Dr. Karoline Lewis began her reflection with this FB post from a working preacher she knows:

“Nepal, Baltimore, school shootings, cancer, suicide, poverty, discrimination, apathy, violence, ignorance, spite, abuse, injustice. Some days it's just too much for my little heart.”

We all know that space.  It is so true.  I will add to the conversation what’s been rolling around in my soul this week:

Avoiding heartbreak is like lots of armor that won’t protect us the way we think it should; it is seductive and tantalizing but it isn’t real.  Instead, the joy Christ talked about at the Last Supper offers a different way.  A way in which our hearts get broken again and again and again but because your heart is broken, and so is mine, and so is yours and yours and yours and so is the heart of Christ when we pick up the pieces and start to put them back together again, I’ve picked up some pieces of yours, and yours, and yours, and yours, and you all have picked up pieces of mine, and we’ve all picked up some of the heart of Christ. . . 

Maybe this is one way we become new creations.  

Plan B's and Bounce-back-ability

      The conversation went something like this:  

     Me:  You’re out of rehab!  How was it?

     “Mary”:  You know, I’m glad to be done.  They treated me so well and I’m walking again.  Boy, there were some people there who just forgot that we are all in this together and they used foul language but I just try to remember that getting upset doesn’t solve anything anyway.”

    I left this brief 2 minute conversation thinking, ‘that’s one resilient lady; I want to be like her when I’m 80.’  She was resilient and optimistic.

    My best guess landing in a rehab center wasn’t her Plan A.  It wasn’t a vision of her best life, her ideal self, or her desired way of spending time.  But she was willing to embrace this new twist in her life of plan B as something she could manage and get through.  She saw in others how they clung to Plan A  and thus struggled to accept the situation.  

    We all have Plan A – getting into the college of our dreams, or days spent in retirement golfing, or even how a difficult conversation with our spouse/partner or child will turn out.  But life doesn’t guarantee that it will be Plan A’s all the way through.  

   I've had the incredible blessing of working with or even observing people who demonstrate a strong capacity to 'roll with the punches.'  Maybe you have too.   When we are nimble and flexible emotionally we can have a plan B that doesn't feel second fiddle; it might be different from what we were planning but we can still find purpose and meaning there; we can still find the blessings of God there.  God is really good as plan B's - because God is always looking for a way for us to know God's love, to use our gifts, and to walk in wholeness.  I think of Joseph's whole journey being thrown into a cistern, being sold into slavery by those who were intended to love him, being in a foreign prison, and how God was working.  Joseph sums it up by saying, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Gen. 50:20).

Resiliency and optimism, products of vulnerability help us with the plan B. 

    So what exactly are resiliency and optimism?

    Brene Brown’s and Martin Seligman’s research are so helpful.  They’ve learned that resiliency is our ability to bounce back; to feel the hard things but to know we will get through it – it sounds like going for the Plan B or C or D or E.  The huge piece is that when we are resilient we believe we can affect positive change in our lives and we set achievable goals and then work towards those desired outcomes.  Resiliency says, “I’m not done yet, I can figure this out, and I’m going to get to work now.”  That's the bounce-back-ability part.

     In our family we talk all the time about being Plan B-ers.  For us, it is intricately tied to faith and trust.  And it has proved a helpful mantra when we arrive at the MN History Museum on a Monday only to find that the museum is closed!  Then we say to our children, "Hey, we are Plan B-ers, we can figure this out, how about the Children's Museum?"  And off we go!

Hearts Walking Around Outside Our Bodies or AKA Parenting Vulnerability

In honor of Mother’s Day on Saturday night, my husband, Tim, and I went to see the world premier of Mom!  The Musical at the Ames Performing Arts Center.  It was great!  We laughed, we got teary eyed, we marveled at the talent and all they could do with a mop!

 As I reflect on the poignancy of this musical, I saw again how parenting is one of the most vulnerable things we will do.  Brené Brown defines vulnerability as risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure.  So, with that definition in mind, think about parenting.  Vulnerability shows up from the very beginning.  If you’ve been pregnant, remember that feeling of uncertainty and concern as you wondered about your growing baby (vulnerable!)  Birthing a baby - that’s full force vulnerability!  Leaving the hospital with a baby feels risky (vulnerable!) – I bet there’s a boatload of parents who take the slow route home from the hospital!  

And it goes on – do any of these sound familiar - what do I do when my preschooler clings to my leg at daycare drop off?  When there is bullying?   How do I send my children to school when I'm concerned about violence?  When is my child ready for his/her first sleepover?  What do I do when my adult child is making choices that are destructive?  

Before our oldest was born a wonderful parishioner gave us a poster quoting Tomassi that said, “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous,  It is to decide to forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  Yep, sounds about right!  Sounds like vulnerability. . . 

. . . except sometimes we go out of our skins trying to avoid vulnerability.  Brown's research shows that we move out of our authentic space when we are trying to avoid these feelings of uncertainty, risky, and emotional exposure.

When is it hardest to hear and act on Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God?"  

Learning what we do when we are trying to avoid vulnerability is really helpful in parenting; because with knowledge comes power.  So the invitation is to compassionately observe in ourselves what we do -  do we yell more?  Clean more?  Binge eat?  Disengage?  Blame others?  Control, control, control?  This takes courage to see in ourselves and we aren't alone in what we do - there are lots of dedicated parents who find themselves downing a chocolate bar when they are stressed!  Knowing our habits gives us knowledge to begin to change our patterns.  For me, when I’m avoiding vulnerability I scour through the house looking for things to throw away; that puzzle missing a piece is on its way out, that toy truck missing a wheel stands no chance!  

The thing is, vulnerability is the path between our hearts and the hearts of our children; we can’t meaningfully connect to our children without it.  Whether our kids are still learning to write their names or are running a company, Brené Brown’s words on parenting from Daring Greatly can guide us, “Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting."  

So, the invitation is to try, circle back, try again, and know we aren't alone in figuring out how we want to show up in parenting.  

Connecting Faith and Shame Resiliency

    As a Lutheran pastor and as a facilitator/consultant of the Daring Way™, I love making the connections between faith, Scripture, and theology and shame resiliency, the guideposts to wholehearted living, and vulnerability.  Just the other day, I jotted in the margin of Luke 19 (the story of Jesus and Zacchaeus) “guilt response!”   I am making more connections and seeing Scripture in new ways every day because of Brené Brown’s work and because I have witnessed how the Daring Way transforms, heals, and empowers people which sounds like Gospel work.   

    If Brené Brown were writing this article, I imagine she would share that faith and courage are the organizing principles of her life and yet, it was through her attention to high standards of research practice and methodology that she uncovered all this data that supports what a life of faith can look like.  

    While I could write a dozen pages on this subject, I know you, the reader, may not have a dozen minutes to read this, so I’ll share some of the connections I see . . . and maybe have a sequel post!  

    1)  When I give presentations in churches and to church professionals, and run Daring Way groups at Luther Seminary, I share that the research reveals that shame is the fear of disconnection and isolates us and causes us to believe that we are powerless to change our situations, our actions, or our thoughts.  Brené Brown says, “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we can change.”  To put this in the Lutheran theological context, we would say that is bondage.  

    When we are in shame, we are very likely to engage in behaviors that perpetuate shame; behaviors that are destructive like not standing up for the weak, lashing out at family, shrinking and people pleasing, withholding love, bullying, addiction, etc.  

    In a theological framework, we are then in a shame/sin cycle which pulls us away from connection to others and God.  Think of St. Paul writing, “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do"  (Romans 7:15)”  The Daring Way gives tools to build awareness of when we are in shame and what we tend to do so that we can make more authentic and non-destructive choices the next time.  

    2)  Perhaps you’ve been part of a church in which you felt like you had to fit in and you really didn’t belong. . . that the ‘all are welcome’ on the church sign seemed to come with a caveat.  And you didn’t return to that church or you left it as soon as you were old enough or independent enough.  When shame is used to manage behavior it will lead to disengagement.  The Alban Institute has recognized this.  Alban’s Karen McClintock writes, “Many faith communities teach the doctrine of shame, often without knowing it” (Shame-Less, 2).  And later, “I believe congregations are in decline because they have become shame-bound” (“Challenge,” 1).  When we feel our place and belonging is conditional, it damages our soul.  

    3)  I believe God models vulnerability - as defined as risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure - when Jesus comes as a dependent baby and Jesus.  I think of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”   This is found on everything from bumper stickers to wall hangings; in this most beloved verse we see that there is no guarantee for God that we will love back; there is no guarantee that we will treasure the gift God has given; that’s what vulnerability is.  Doing something anyway, even when there is no assurance.

    4)  Shame devalues our worth.  It can make us believe even God doesn’t love us or we are beyond the loving reach of God’s compassion and grace; I know this because I’ve sat with elders at the end of their lives who are in this struggle.  

    Yet, we are created in the image of God and in baptism, God claims us as His own; no matter what; we are God’s beloved.  I connect this to the theology of the cross in which we learn that God is with us in our suffering and comes down to us.  Learning how the armor of perfectionism and numbing can separate us from others and God has been the critical awareness some clients I've worked with have needed to begin to understand that God does love them.

    5)  Martin Luther highly valued vocation and affirming our calling to use our gifts for the service of God and others.  Shame, of course, would have us believe we don’t have any gifts and if we do, they are of no value to anyone else.  And if we can push through those two messages, that if we use our gifts and look like we are enjoying it, we are getting prideful.  Brown’s research and the practices that are part of the Daring Way teach us to see how shame is keeping us small and robbing us of joy; thus freeing us to use our gifts and connect our creativity, purpose, and trusting faith and intuition to God’s calling in our lives; which supports the Lutheran value placed on vocation.  

    6)  The whole Daring Way™ process is steeped in empathy, valuing our story and the stories others bring; again and again those who have participated in a Daring Way™ group really value having created this safe space together.  I would say even a holy space; as one participant shared, “this group allowed me to hear the Holy Spirit.”  This work helps us trust faith and intuition more and invites us to explore who God has created us to be; while using language that is accessible.

McClintock, Karen A. “The Challenge to Change.” Alban Weekly 426 (September 24, 2012). 

Online: http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=10084

________. Shame-Less Lives, Grace-Full Congregations. Herndon, Va.: Alban Institute, 2011.