systems thinking – Page 4

Series Finale of a New Way to See Your Life: Look Closely, It’s a Butterfly

My annual eye exam includes putting on funky 3D glasses to spot an image hiding on the page. One of those images is a butterfly. (Do not use me to cheat on your eye exam, you have to find it yourself!) Wrapping up our five weeks of family systems thinking based on Roberta Gilbert’s book, “Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interaction,” the hidden image of a butterfly sums it up. First, let’s review.

Part One: Your own life is incredibly interesting. Instead of trying even harder to be a better human, imagine wearing a detective’s jacket. Look closely at your life. What matters to you? How are you pursuing your goals? How can you respond to life’s challenges more maturely? Systems theory is a way to responsibly look at your own life and identify unhelpful patterns you likely learned growing up.

Part Two: To handle stressful parts of our life, we often engage in triangles. When we are frustrated with a spouse, boss, friend, or parent we complain to a third party instead of directly dealing with the problem. We blame the other person in the conflict in order to keep from admitting our own contribution to the problem. We even hope to change people. The triangle keeps us from seeking a healthy solution.

Part Three: According to systems theory, each person is an individual self. At our best, we are connected to the people who matter to us without taking responsibility for them. This looks like two partners sharing the work of running a household, or a parent of young children working toward “an eventual equal relationship” with them (Gilbert’s phrase). Look at your life and see where there might be an over/underfunctioning relationship. Hint: it is a relationship that drains you.

Part Four: Fusion occurs when we care so much that we lose our own selves in the relationship. Trying to keep the peace, we keep our own hopes and dreams quiet. In pre-marriage counseling, when a couple tells me their parents never argued or disagreed, I wonder which one of them gave up their own voice for the sake of unity.

And finally, the moment you have been waiting for, the finale!

Systems thinking is a way to look at relationships within your family of origin (the family in which you grew up) and your generative family (the family with whom you live as a grown-up). In relationships, there is a level of anxiety. By anxiety, I mean emotional intensity such as fear, anger, or depression. The way in which you respond to anxiety has everything to do with what you learned growing up. Your challenge now is to notice your responses and become more responsible in how you handle them. You can only change yourself. The goal is not to evolve into a perfect human, but simply to be aware of your own self. We make progress when we are aware of our emotions without letting them take over.

To wrap things up, who do you know who handles stress well? Picture a moment when emotions are intense. At the family Thanksgiving table when your uncle spouts out his extreme political view, or at a board meeting in the thick of an argument. This person remains calm and speaks thoughtfully, stating his or her own views clearly. The person does not blame others, but is responsible for his or her own words and actions even though not everyone will agree. That person’s calmness eases the tension in the room.

This is an example of emotional maturity. When I meet with a couple that is stuck, I listen for the person who speaks without blaming. The person who can articulate the problem without blaming is the one person who can make a change in the relationship. He or she can see beyond the intensity of emotions to remain an individual self. This person has thought through what matters most and can tell you their own hopes and dreams. Although this person is connected to family, he or she does not depend on family to move toward goals.

What makes us timid with our own hopes and dreams? Of course, we do not want to disrupt our family. Being human is to have deep desires to feel connected to friends and family, and so we adapt our behavior to fit in. We sacrifice our own unique perspective and goals to keep the peace. This is like looking at my eye doctor’s 3D image and seeing only dots. No butterfly stands out.

The person you thought of earlier is like the 3D butterfly who does not get lost in the picture. It is the individual who keeps calm amid stress because that person knows what he or she stands for, while at the same time remains connected with the people who matter most. Being true to your own beliefs and goals might at times disrupt the lives of those whom you love.

My call as a pastor sometimes disrupts my family’s schedule. Because of the time and emotional complexity, my work demands more of each of the four people in my life. And yet, every time I complain to God about this, I am somehow affirmed that this is the work God needs me to do right now. My kids know I will miss some of their performances; if they want clean clothes, they need to do their own laundry; their time off might not match my time off. I need each of their own unique contributions to our family. They know I love them so much that I want them to learn to depend not only on me, but also on themselves.

My prayers for each of my three kiddos are shaped by my desire for their independence. “God, help them learn to trust themselves, for I know you are deeply a part of each of them.” The same individuality is true of my marriage. “Lord, thank you for this person who is so different from me, who encourages me to be myself.”

Systems theory teaches the way toward healthy relationships is to remain connected to your family of origin. If those family members are no longer living, have conversations aloud or on paper with the person who was the greatest challenge to you. Working out relationships with our own parents and siblings sets us up for better relationships with the next generation. This work can be scary, but you can handle scary on a day like Halloween! This scary work requires you to speak up when you might rather not, and to stay connected when you might rather end the relationship. At your best, you recognize the butterfly in the picture that is you, without letting your own unique self get lost in the demands of everyone else’s lives.

Why did God create people so differently, making relationships so challenging? Argh.

Here is a prayer to encourage you to keep learning about your life.

Good one, God, making as all so different. However, it’s hard to be impressed by your creative genius when you’ve made it an enormous challenge to share the same earth, same nations, same neighborhoods, same workplaces, same homes with people who drive me crazy. What I learned from generations before me created patterns in my life in all of these places. Grant me clarity to look objectively at my life to recognize the healthy patterns and to let go of the unhelpful ones. Give me courage to speak up, grace to forgive and let go, curiosity for my own life, and wisdom to stop trying to change other people. Thank you for making me this way, even though I still have so much to learn. And you have more than enough mercy for this lifelong learner, your beloved child. Amen.

A New Way to See Your Life, Part Three: How to Light the Unity Candle

In her book, “Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions”, Roberta M. Gilbert describes two people who meet, are attracted to each other, and grow intensely close. Even thinking about being together makes each of them happy. Soon after, they are considered “fused,” meaning when one person is happy, so is the other. When one person is frustrated or sad, so is the other. Their interactions become intense, trying to return to and maintain a state of happiness. They work so hard to keep each other happy, knowing when one of them is happy, so is the other. They constantly struggle in their pursuit of good feelings. They have lost their own selves in the relationship.

If you have attended a wedding ceremony when a new couple lights a unity candle, you might remember they light one candle using their own individual candles. “Be sure not to blow out your own candles,” I tell couples during rehearsal. “You are still your own person in your marrage!”

This idea is confusing in part because of the movies. When couples fall in love in the movies, they become like one person, synchronized, fused. They are together in every sense of the word, but that relationship only has to last until the credits roll! In real life, couples are not to become one person, they are to remain two separate people with their own ideas, hopes and dreams; their own opinions and worries; their own friends and connection to families of origin; having their own unique relationship with kids. “Relationships become uncomfortable, not because we care too little, but because we lose too much of ourselves in them.” (Gilbert, p. 77).

You can identify a fused relationship in your life by noticing which relationship feels most demanding and even draining. Gilbert asks whether there are unrealistic expectations tied up in this relationship. Another question for self-reflection is whether you can spot fusion in your family of origin? Could the people in your family have their own identities and priorities? What did it look like when one person expressed opinions that differed from the family, or when a family member moved far away?

As my teenagers add years to their lives, I both enjoy and am challenged by their individual perspectives. Aware of how fusion makes it difficult to be our own selves, my kids are not required to agree with me, nor am I required to agree with them. We can have our own thoughts regarding politics, relationships, gaming, and music. It is so much fun, and again challenging, to equip them to be their own unique persons, like individual candles that keep burning. Each of my kids are valued members of our family not because we agree, but because our different ideas make our family more interesting.

In my marriage, I was slow to learn what a gift it is that my husband and I sometimes see politics and theology differently. In the early years of marriage, it seemed as though the goal was to be like-minded. (Again, the movies!) But thank goodness like-mindedness is not the goal! In my family of origin, too, it has been a blessing to have parents whose own opinions and perspectives differ, which offered even more perspectives growing up.

Fusion in families stunts our individual growth. When we try too hard to keep the peace and fake our agreement, we miss out on each person’s individuality. It is, in fact, enriching to live under the same roof with someone who respectfully disagrees with me, even though it can be a pain the neck! Growth is hard. I am challenged to keep learning, and to keep defining my own perspective.

Next week, in the last part of this series, we will zoom in one more step to notice our human tendency to be together, think alike, and avoid conflict. I will share a few last thoughts to encourage you to keep your own candle burning, just as Jesus said: “In the same way, let your light so shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

If I’m Washing Dishes, Look Out

If my life were a movie, there would be a hundred scenes of a crabby me washing the dishes. It isn’t that I do not enjoy washing the dishes. It’s not the worst chore. What ticks me off is that washing the dishes is someone else’s chore. And that person seems to “forget” the assignment and get lost in a screen. Instead of maturely asking the person to wash the dishes, to quote any toddler you know: “I do it myself!” And the wrath of Lisa is felt at every corner of my home.
“Mom,” the person will later say, “I would have done the dishes…eventually.”
And it’s true! Eventually, had I been more patient and mature, that person would have washed the dishes without my transforming into such a crab. I could have ignored the dirty dishes and read a book, but instead, I jumped in and overfunctioned.
This is one of my biggest human struggles. And as you will notice in yourself, struggles within your family relationships often match your struggles in your work relationships. At home and at work, I tend to agree to do something before I think it through.

At home, when we overfunction for a spouse or child, typically that person learns to underfunction. We teach people how to treat us. To balance out a relationship, one person’s overfunctioning perpetuates the other person’s underfunctioning. In a marriage, we might adopt this relationship based on marriage as we saw it growing up. For instance, in the marriage we saw growing up, one partner did all the cooking while the other watched tv, so that seemed normal. Or maybe one partner constantly worked on the marriage while the other jokingly (but not jokingly) complained about it. In both of these examples, one partner is overfunctioning.

Roberta Gilbert described overfunctioners in this way:
“Advice-giving,
Doing things for others they could do for themselves,
Worrying about other people,
Feeling more responbility for others than is actually needed,
Knowing what is best for others,
Talking more than listening,
Having goals for others that they don’t have for themselves,
Experiencing periodic, sudden ‘burnout’ or severe illness in other forms,
Taking charge of others’ lives,
Doing well in life, but someone close to them is not.”

Underfunctioners, on the other hand:
“Ask for advice when what is needed is to think things out independently,
Get others to help when help is not needed,
Act irresponsibly,
Listen more than talk,
Float along without goals,
Set goals, but don’t follow through,
Become mentally or physically ill frequently,
May have substance addiction problems,
Put others in charge of their lives.”

The goal in a relationship is for each partner to be equally emotionally responsible. For the overfunctioner, Gilbert points out, this sounds preposterous! The overfunctioner assumes he or she is the most responsible, but in truth, overfunctioning simply perpetuates the problem. She points out the best way out of an over/underfunctioning relationship is for one person to ask, “What is my contribution to this relationship pattern?” That’s a bugger of a question. It means I cannot blame my kid for neglecting the dishes again!

In any relationship, each of us plays a part. If you step back and look at your life like you would watch a movie, you will notice the part you play. From there, you can thoughtfully work to change patterns that need changing.

A New Way to See Your Life, Part Two

You come home from work replaying in your mind a heated argument with a co-worker and you snap at your child when he asks what’s for supper. After watching your daily dose of breaking news, you join your friends for coffee to discuss how terrible the world has become. For the thousandth time, your spouse left bits of toothpaste in the sink tonight, even though your spouse knows it grosses you out. You are so angry you won’t even say goodnight.

We live our lives with people, including and not limited to strangers, friends, co-workers, news reporters, and family members. In systems thinking, connection with another human being creates what is called an emotional system. An emotional system can shape your behavior. Your frustration from work goes home with you and you snap at your child as you snap the dry spaghetti noodles, even though your child had nothing to do with that encounter at work. Watching the news makes you anxious, so you share that anxiety with friends, making yourself and others more anxious. You are grossed out by the toothpaste in the sink, but know you will resurrect an old argument if you bring it up.

Any relationship you have with another person (spouse, parent, child, co-worker, boss) can create intense emotions, even if the subject is toothpaste. When emotions flare up, we tend to bring a third person into the mix. Picture this. You have a tough conversation with a co-worker and at the end of the day, you can’t stop thinking about it. So when your child asks, “What’s for supper,” instead of responding “Spaghetti”, you pass along some of your anger by shouting, “SPAGHETTI!” It’s not your kid’s fault your day was stinky, but it was an easy way for you to pass along some of your anxiey.

Or, you keep watching that “breaking news” show all day (seriously all day?) until it’s time for afternoon decaf with your friends. “Can you believe that president/senator/CEO/principal/football team/liberal/conservative #&*&^(&(@! What is this world coming to?” Anxious news-watching generates more anxiety when we sit with other anxious news-watching people, but it makes us feel better (for a little while). At least we’re not the only anxious ones.

Or you call your mother to complain that your spouse is basically still nine years old and unable to handle toothpaste, instead of peacefully suggesting toothpaste tablets directly to your spouse when you aren’t both too tired.

This is called triangling. Instead of dealing directly with the person with whom we have conflict, we take our anxiety outside of the relationship to calm ourselves down. Not all triangles are negative, yet some can become destructive. Roberta M. Gilbert suggests these are common ways we find ourselves in a triangle:

Talking against the boss, the minister, or the teacher to people other than the boss, the minister, or the teacher;
Gossiping;
Having an affair;
Taking a morbid interest in other people’s problems, and
Thinking more about a child or anyone else than one’s own marriage or life. (Extraordinary Relationships A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions, p. 53)

At our more mature moments (when we are rested and fed), we recognize our dangerous position in a triangle. We feel yucky when a friend gossips and we join in. We try over and over again to stop the affair. These unhealthy practices distract us from the real work that needs to be done on our own selves. Yes, you are a work in progress and therefore it takes work to be you. It takes hard work to notice your feelings without letting them take over. It takes hard work to admit when you acted immaturely. It takes hard work to be a responsible, non-blaming human in the 21st century…and in the 1st.

A story in Luke’s gospel illustrates. Jesus has come to visit the sisters, Martha and Mary. Martha is preparing food in the kitchen while Mary sits and visits with Jesus. Martha is ticked and Mary is enjoying herself. Instead of asking Mary to help in the kitchen, Martha passively agressively creates a triangle with Jesus. “Jesus, tell my sister to grow up.” (paraphrase mine). Jesus says nothing to Mary, instead addressing Martha. “Mary is doing what’s best,” he explained to the sassy sister, avoiding being triangled in the drama that is sisterhood.

It takes guts to avoid an unhealthy triangle. (Leave it to Jesus to nail it.) Can you spot a triangle in your life you don’t like? How might you directly address the person with whom you have a conflict?

Glossary

Emotional System: “In difficult relationships, emotions reverberate from person to person, very much like the excitement caught by a herd, beginning with one anxious individual who perceives danger.” (Extraordinary Relationships A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions, p. 9)
Triangle: To calm a relationship between two people, a conflict often spills out into a third person. Or, when news makes us anxious, instead of processing and dealing with the news maturely, we raise the level of anxiety by inviting other people into it.
Conflict: Relationships move from close to distant and back again, from up to down and back again. In between close and distant, up and down are periods of conflict. Conflict is not negative, but instead offers an invitation for people to grow closer if handled honestly and maturely.

A New Way to See Your Life, Part One

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So, you want to be a better mom.

You read some books and pick up a few new techniques. Meditation makes you more patient and extra sleep makes you less crabby. You love the new and improved you!

But then life gets stressful. You don’t have time to meditate and the hours you could have been sleeping you spent worrying. You can’t believe what a terrible mom you’ve become. It’s as though no matter how hard you try to be better, you remain only human!

Every mom wishes she could be a better mom. Each year, more than $16 billion is spent on parenting books and nearly $10 billion on parenting-related apps. Moms try hard, carry so much guilt, worry every possible worry for our kids, and criticize our partners for not worrying enough. When a woman visits me, their pastor, with real struggles like these, I encourage her to be gentle on herself. Jesus already saved us, so the hard work is already done. You are God’s beloved, I remind her.

Then I ask questions to wonder with her how she grew so worried:

“Where does you guilt come from? Whose voice is telling you to try harder?”

“How do you manage your anxiety?”

“What would it take to dial back how hard you’re trying?”

And this one might seem out of place, but it’s important: “What would you like your own life to look like these days?”

This month, I am sharing with you a new way to look at your relationship with your own self, with others, and with the society in which you live, no matter where you live. This particular way of looking at life, called systems thinking, has guided my work as a pastor and at the same time my life as a wife, mom and daughter. Disclaimer: Systems thinking will be wildly interesting for you Enneagram 5’s (here’s looking at you, Audrey!), and perhaps a lot of words for others. While it might seem complicated, I hope you will stick with me each week and watch as you look at your life in a new way. Like algebra, each blog will build upon the next to complete the equation.

Also like algebra, you are who are you today based on the building up of unique experiences in your life, particularly in your formative years. Research suggests most of us continue to pattern our lives using what we learned of relationships growing up. How we experienced conflict and family togetherness in our original families informs our expectations for our own families. This is neither good nor bad, it is simply important to know.

I hope these next few weeks transform you into a bit of a detective. With enough curiosity, you might see a new view of your life and become more aware of your mature and less mature responses. Our lives can be factories of anxiety, which easily brings out the worst in us. Although meditation and extra sleep are lovely, they are not as effective as getting to know your most important asset: you.

Glossary
Systems Thinking: A theory of how individuals and relationships function.
Maturity: Being responsible for your own emotional self and life direction. No one is mature 100% of the time. Think of all the sleep-deprived and hangry mom! 70% is a healthy target.
Anxiety: Emotional intensity that can be acute (short-term) or chronic (last many years or generations). Anxiety (including stress and worry) is constantly present in our lives. Depending on our maturity at the time, we have agency to choose how to react or respond.

This 5-part series was inspired by my reading of this book, and I will continue to refer to her work: Extraordinary Relationships: A New Way of Thinking About Human Interactions. By Roberta M. Gilbert, M.D. Second edition: 2017.

Book Review: Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen

One difference between parenting littles and teens is knowing what to say. Littles erupt with questions and deeply desire for their beloved grown-ups to answer them. Teens seem to deeply desire you are there when they need you, but mostly hope you stay quiet. During the teenage years, the eruption of questioning reverses from the young to the old, but the old quickly realize, unlike the young, that questions must be rationed. I find a reasonable average of questions to be 3-5, depending on when they last ate.

I am convinced every parent of teenagers only pretends to know what she or he is doing. When I hear a recommendation of a book for teenage parents, I want to hope to find just the right wisdom in that book, but most parenting books seem to me to be aspirational. Raising teenagers is freaking hard and no book has easy answers. Kids are humans and therefore too complicated to be reduced to a manual.

But this book! I cannot remember how I happened upon it, but it is the very best parenting book I’ve read. I borrowed the audio, read by the author, from our local library. In Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen, Michelle Icard guides readers through talks that overwhelm parents like me. Tough stuff: friendship, sexuality, pornography, hygiene, money, how to dress, privilege, and behavior. She is funny and yet grounded, honest that the role of parents is never to protect kids from the world but to equip them to move around the world safely.

Her acronym is easy to implement into conversations with my teenagers and has been a helpful guide. Icard calls her framework for conversation the B.R.I.E.F. Model:

Begin peacefully.
Relate to your child.
Interview to collect data.
Echo what you hear.
Give Feedback.

If you have kids or grandkids who are teenagers or soon to be teenagers, this book will challenge you. What grown-ups like to do (when we are not at our best) is to apply our own teenage experience to the lives of teenagers today. This is an excellent method to raise defensiveness in teens and immediately stop a conversation.

A better way, provided by Icard, is to be intentional in deciding when to have a tough conversation. And to respect teenagers enough to give them a heads up. “Begin peacefully” is great advice for beginning any tough conversation, not only with a child, but with a spouse or co-worker. Be careful when you enter into a thorny conversation. Don’t do it when you are tired, hungry, or ticked off at someone, including your child.

Even though teenagers are quickly gaining independence, there is so much they are trying to figure out from moment to moment. In many ways, it has never been more challenging to be a teenager. They have access to every kind of yuck on their devices, and so they need a loving and forgiving guide to be there and begin those conversations peacefully, not out of anger or fear.

When I drop off my daughter at school (the only person I drop off anymore) I remind her “Jesus Loves You,” and she does the same for me. I cannot walk with her through the hallways or around the playground, but I can do my best to prepare her for situations she might encounter. And more importantly, we can remind one another that Jesus’ love does not expire, and it is not revocable. Jesus’ love cannot be undone. Teenagers, like all human beings, easily forget this promise. We make mistakes and then make the mistake of assuming our mistake undoes the promise of Jesus’ love.

Although I can attest to how hard it is to raise teenagers, I can also tell you it is much easier when I get to remind them (probably more than they prefer) that Jesus loves them, all the time.

Six Words to Avoid

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Last year, the book Embodied: Clergy Women and the Solidarity of a Mothering God got me wondering. Pastor Lee Ann Pomrenke invites readers to notice the unique lens through which women who are clergy understand their work. (For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use the word “pastors” to include both deacons and pastors.)

Pastoring and mothering kids share more in common than I’d realized in the early years of my vocation. Both involve caring for people in a way that surrenders the course of our lives to other people’s lives. Pastors and mothers may plan their days, weeks, or years, but the trail is blazed by the people whom we love. For mothers, careers are temporarily set aside to care for family. (Less often but sometimes, fathers do this work.) For pastors, family vacations are shifted when a funeral comes up. For both mothers and pastors, holidays are self-sacrificing and labor-intensive in order to create memories for others. You carry around your own examples, pastors and moms, of the way your life has been shaped by your generous love for others.

Reflecting on the past couple of years, I am noticing something else pastors and mothers share in common. A less obvious commonality between pastoring and mothering can be found in the way we either empower or disempower the people whom we love. This is some of the hard, hard work of pastoring and mothering! If we peel back the layer of “It’s easier to do it myself”, we notice we are keeping other people from doing it themselves.

Time for an example! Preparing for a Sunday off this week made me realize I’m the one who turns on the sound system and sets up the Facebook Livestream even though there are ushers and techs who are perfectly capable and willing to do this quick and easy work. During the course of the pandemic, pastors did the majority of the volunteer work for a spell and I became accustomed to “it’s easier to do it myself.” But now, there are plenty of fingers to press the green button to turn on the sound and type in a welcome on the livestream.

At home, the more work I can teach my kids to do (laundry, cooking, cleaning), the easier my life is. But this is daily hard work! It’s finding a balance between encouraging and nagging, teaching and letting go, caring and not caring. Empowering others is messy, grinding work at the same time it is the most faithful work demanded of pastors and mothers.

I know the balance is off when I get crabby. When my kids don’t do their laundry or chores or the sound system doesn’t get turned on or something else gets missed. Crabby is like a warning light reminding us to step back and notice whom might we empower and rely upon. The truth is, it isn’t easier to do it myself again and again. It is easier if others know what to do and how to help.

I was sure by the time I’d been a pastor for 17 years and a mother for 15 that I would have a better grip on these things! But life is never like that. Humans aren’t wired to learn most things once and for all. We learn again and again and then once again. And in the learning, we learn (not once but again and again) to be gentle on ourselves, to loosen our grip on life, and to give thanks for the people whom we love who shape the course of our lives.

Parenting is Both Loving and Not Caring

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Kid: “Mom, blah blah blah.”

Mom: “I don’t care. But I do love you!”

Doesn’t that feel good? Not caring can feel so dang good! I don’t care about a lot of things. I don’t care if if I catch the news every day or if I’m a few minutes late for some things. Okay, for several things! And it’s not just me. My husband doesn’t care about the laundry on the floor or if the bed never ever ever gets made again.

I don’t care if my kids earn perfect grades or become impressive athletes. I don’t care if they stop going to church or never leisurely read another book. I will never stop loving these three young humans, but I will never care about absolutely everything they do or do not do.

Like two sides of the same coin, love and not caring go together. You could also say love and letting go, if that sits better. Or, parenting is as much hands off as it is hands on. No matter the words, this work is not for the faint of heart! It may be easy to love our own kid (most of the time), but it is a great challenge to know when not to care.

Straight up, here is the importance of not caring: you will not rest if you 100% care for every single detail of your kid’s life every moment of every day. You cannot be you, a full self, a healthy human, if all you do is care about your kid. Sometimes, it is best not to care.

Let me be clear. There are parents who literally do not care an iota, which is often related to mental health or trauma or addiction. I’m not advocating for that. Do not stop caring for your kid’s basic needs. That is not cool. This is what I mean: I am learning to care less and at times not at all when the timing is right.

Let’s start at the beginning. When a doctor hands a parent a brand new baby, or you receive a child through adoption, you do not promise to protect this child from every possible problem. You do not promise to raise that child to perfection, or become the most remarkable caregiver. Before and after becoming a parent, you are as human as ever. The writer of Ecclesiastes, perhaps the world’s first life coach, assured us there is a time for every season under heaven. I agree. There is a time to care and a time to not care.

I am slowly learning this complex parenting wisdom, which grows more complex as my kids add years to their ages. I feel it in their schoolwork, which I hope they do well and work hard and I will support them as best I can. However, as much as I love for them to do their best, it is perfectly fine that I do not care so much for the end result. I can point out their grades, but not take their work personally. I can remind them and be clear with my concerns, and after that I need to know where my own parental responsibility starts and stops. Their future is completely out of my hands, unlike when they were little.

When they were little, I chose my kids’ day cares and babysitters and often even their friends. Now, none of that is true. They will choose their post-high school path, just as they will choose their own friends. They will choose their hobbies and whether they care that they wear dirty-looking work jeans to school every dang day, making it appear that our family shops for clothes out of the trash bin outside the thrift store. Again, out of my hands.

I love them so much, and I refuse to care for all the details that shape their lives. If parenting is raising small humans to grow into independent and helpful adult humans, then at some point, I have to hand over the burden of caring so much.

Perhaps this is God’s way of loving us, too. In Isaiah 43, God loves us and we belong to God. This chapter is the only moment in the entirely of the Bible when God explicitly states: “I love you.” But like the stoic parent who does not say the words out loud every single day, you know it’s true. The absence of the words do not make the parent’s love for you any less, only quieter. From the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation, God’s love for you sings from each chapter.

I will fiercely love my kids as long as I live, and sometimes my love will be elevator music they can hardly hear as they learn to do life on their own. It will be there, my love for them, at times by way of quiet background noise, yet still they will know it is there. Lingering and steady; that I both love and do not care because fierce love risks stifling both our lives. The poet Rainer Rilke puts it this way: “We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go, for holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”

How to Have a Theological Discussion (John 3:1-21)

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(John 3:1-21 NRSV) Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ²He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” ³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹²If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
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Of course, I am not Jesus. In no way, shape or form would I compare myself as a pastor to Jesus the rabbi and the guy who died for my sins. However. I must say that when a curious person approaches me with a theological question to kick off a theological discussion, I am so much gentler than this rabbi! As a pastor, I meet a curious person where they are in their theology and experience, wherever that happens to be.

Reading this text, Jesus comes across as abrasive to me, hardly receptive to the reality that a devoted Pharisee (in many ways Jesus’ archnemesis) has willingly approached him in order to learn from him! And Jesus seems to have little interest in meeting Nicodemus where he is.

Nicodemus first admits he cannot understand how Jesus does the signs he does, such as turning water into wine. Jesus shoots back at him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

What?????????

How did Nicodemus, who had gathered so much courage to find Jesus in the dark of night to escape the notice of his Pharisee friends, keep himself from turning around and sneaking out the backdoor? What kept him in the conversation that was sinking farther and farther from his theological understanding? Why is Jesus, in my perspective, so hard on this curious dude?

If you were to ask my one-line advice of how to change the world, it would be this: “More curiosity, less certainty.” Only when we are as courageous as Nicodemus to admit when we do not understand, do we become open vessels to be filled with new mercies.

Jesus uses a different approach to theological discussion that looks to me like confusion and criticism. And that reminds me of how theological discussions often unfold today. “I know this and therefore you are wrong.” “I am a democrat/republican/libertarian/white person/nonwhite person/old person/young person/impoverished person/rich person/a man/a woman/Protestant/Catholic/Evangelical/just so right and therefore why would I try to learn anything from you?”

These days, the discussion, if ever we can call the way we exchange theologies a discussion, is like trying to play tennis with a medicine ball. We do not get very far and we miss the whole point. We use the wrong equipment. Instead of curiosity, we use condemnation. Instead of the faithful Jewish way to discuss theology, which is centered in the questions, we cling to easy answers.

Nicodemus utters questions in this dialogue. Jesus gives answers. We do not know how the discussion ends, although we do know Nicodemus is sympathetic to Jesus’ ministry each of the two times he appears later in John’s Gospel (7:50-52, 19:38-42). Nicodemus was not put off by Jesus’ abrasiveness. We might surmise that Nicodemus, who came to Jesus in the dark, was awakened by his words: “those who do what is true come to the light…” Later on, it is in daylight that Nicodemus the Pharisee helped remove Jesus’ body from the cross in John 19:39. In the light, he cared for the one whose body did not survive the darkness.

One takeaway to this story may be that Jesus can have whatever kind of theological discussion he darn well chooses! It can be abrasive or gentle, dialogical or a lengthy monologue. While that works for Jesus, it will never work for humans in the 21st century.

How do we talk to each other about God?
What do you do when a friend with a contrasting view of the Bible insists hers is the only acceptable view?
How do we respond to those who imagine one exclusive translation or approach to the Scriptures? Or that Jesus would die only for certain people? Or that Jesus wants the best for only a particular group?

I would not do what Jesus did with Nicodemus, which would shut down a discussion. We can, however, trust that when light seeps into a discussion, there is wiggle room for the Holy Spirit. And maybe, months or even years down the line, as was true for Nicodemus, good will come from that discussion.

Tell me, have you ever been part of a theological discussion that went well?

Beginnings

Each of the four gospels begin differently. Mark hits the road of Jesus’ ministry running by beginning with his baptism. John begins in the very beginning with the Word that was there when the very first wind blew over the face of the earth. Luke begins with the Christmas story as we hear it each Christmas Eve in churches. And Matthew begins with a tree, a family tree that is.

At first glance, the first chapter of Matthew’s gospel is booooring. It resembles the terrible stretches you encounter if you’ve ever determined to read the Bible from cover to cover. Begat, begat, be-oring. Yet Matthew’s beginning, like all our beginnings, matters. In the long line of the faithful, the fearless, and the forgotten, Matthew draws a line from the beginning to Jesus. He establishes Joseph’s and then Jesus’ credibility as a member of the tribe of Judah. Like a bouncer perched at the door of the world’s most exclusive club, Matthew is letting Jesus in by uncovering the Messiah’s beginning.

Christmas is the story of Jesus’ beginning, which I find so interesting because your feelings around this holiday are profoundly shaped by your own beginnings. The way you celebrated Christmas (or didn’t) as a child shapes how you approach every single December 25th. Did you gather with few or far too many family members? Was it delightful or dreadful? Did you eat ham, turkey, or something nonconforming? How were gifts exchanged? Did you open them on the 24th or 25th or another day? Was church a part of your party? If so, was that delightful or dreadful?

These happen to be rich questions for pre-marriage counseling. They give each partner a glimpse of the other’s beginning. We can piece out expectations, hurts, and joys of each unique family, and conversation is carefully cracked open around the distinct dysfunction of each of our families.

Looking back to my own beginnings, I have fond memories of Christmases with cousins and cookies and my Grandma Florence’s outrageously oversized tree. I grew up in a small town where much of my family resided within three blocks of my house, including my grandparents. This meant we celebrated Jesus’ birth three times each year in under 24 hours: at each grandparent house and our own. There was a consistent and equitable routine to our Christmas celebrations. My husband’s memories are similar and yet different. It took a few years to recognize that the differences in our Christmas beginnings created differing gift-giving expectations. Gifts were a big deal in my family and not so much in his. Food was also a point of discussion. His family ate tiger meat (raw seasoned hamburger) and my family ate lefsa.

Once my husband and I understood the diverse rituals that marked our own beginning Christmases, we could establish some of our own. Remembering our beginnings clarified some of our feelings around this feelings-filled holiday. Christmas is filled with feelings. Like emptying a stocking (a big deal at my house and not so much at my husband’s), admire each feeling as it comes. What do you miss about your beginning Christmases? What are you thankful to shed?

The birth of a Savior, the beginning of Christmas, assures you the beginning matters less than the ending. Your ending is full of feelings of joy and joy alone for families of every level of dysfunction. Yes, even yours.

PRAYER PRACTICE

Light a candle. Tell God in writing or out loud a childhood memory that shapes your understanding of this season. Do you need to let it go? Create a new practice? Celebrate the memory? Share it with God, the Word who was in the beginning, who became flesh to write your ending.

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