Welcome to retreat, come and BE

Waves crashing on the shore, an all-to-unfamiliar sound.  The pitter-patter of rain between short bursts of downpour.  Darkness, no other sources of light.  No competing sounds with those waves breaking.  The occasional wisp of air.  The cool and still air.  The lovely Decaf brewed coffee.  Sitting on a cold wooden bench.  My senses feeling...

You might think I’d give writing a break whilst on retreat, but the truth is I don’t get anywhere near enough time to retreat into my own head and heart.  Writing is what I’ve done for nearly 15 years now to connect to me, to my life, to life itself, to others as I reflect on my relational performance, and ultimately to God.  Writing is connection.

It’s a privilege it is to feel.  It really is.  I’ve grown to love the feeling of the primary emotions that many people ordinarily shun.  Feeling my skin, feeling my sadness, feeling my lack and accepting it, feeling how small I am in my world, yet how beloved I am by the Creator.  These are all huge blessings.  They’re connection, connection with the eternal.

I returned from leave four days ago.  Those past four days back at work have been a whirlwind of information, fielding calls, emails, texts, and all of this is noise.  From presenting a brand-new 3-hour workshop for the first time, to meeting with six different firefighting crews over two days, to commencing an investigation into a critical incident, to conducting four counselling sessions in my other work.  The past four days has felt like a marathon at sprint speed, and I’ve been constantly connected to adrenalin, apart from the counselling which I find gets me into an entirely different, contemplative space—it’s just another person’s material and not my own (which is fine).

As I sit here on this worn bench at this wonderful Baptist campsite that holds so many good memories, we’re welcomed into the presence of freedom, space to contemplate, find God, and to hear what life is saying to us.

At this point of finding space has finally arrived, I do wonder how YOU are going.  Have you had time to have that honest chat with yourself about how you’re faring?

Honestly, I’m interested.

How do you connect with yourself?  It’s not just introverts that need to get away and find a place to find themselves all over again.  Extraverts burn out too.  Too much inevitably is too much.

How are you going with your self-care?  How long’s it been since you got lost inside a book, or on a hike, or within the concepts of the enormity of life?  Jesus had to be alone, and it wasn’t because he was an introvert.  That’s a secular attribution that he was.  Jesus loved people, but he also knew his life force was connection with the Father.

It’s better to be honest about being frustrated than fake a false joy.  It’s better to admit there’s a gap and that we’ve still not found what we’re looking for.  There’s no shame in not having the answers—and indeed, it’s refreshingly courageous to stand up in a room of fakers and tell the authentic and vulnerable truth.

At least that way the door to one’s healing is cracked ajar.

How are you going?  How are you REALLY going?

All I can tell you is that FIVE minutes of this wave-pounding, raining, cold bliss is enough to show me that a whole weekend doing this is going to do me and my life and my family a LOT of good.

Welcome to feeling.  Come and feel!  Welcome to retreat.

Comforters take comfort in knowing nothing as they comfort

The greatest test of humility in a comforter is their abiding, unknowing presence with a person who’s bewildered in their suffering.  Not needing to answer the harder questions, demonstrating the ability to NOT dare to attempt to “fix” the situation or the person; that’s the prerogative of the comforter who takes comfort and has peace in knowing nothing about the unknowable things in helping a person who’s experiencing an impossible situation of grief, change, hardship, torment, betrayal.

~

In my counselling training, arguably the most important concept I learned was the process of “unknowing.”  That is, as helper, to know that knowing nothing—to put off all one’s own knowledge—was not only necessary to help, but vital in not getting in the way.  That is, “unknowing” helps most as a helper of children and it also helps in helping adults.

Such unknowing is the true skill and humility of the craft of counselling.

Unknowing is integral to holding space.  It’s the active part, silence being the inactive part.

Comforters must actively unknow what comes up in them as they help.  The most urgent thing to unknow is where a trigger is taking us.  At times as counsellors we get triggered, so a vital part of our process is to process the trigger, taking account of it, for later.

All unknowing at the level of helping is essentially about giving a comfort only God can provide. This means WE must get right out of the way—no explaining, no “human wisdom,” no “this is what I did” (that’s mentoring), no examples.

In context of the deeper, harder questions...
Comforters are neither explainers nor example-givers.
Comforters cannot pretend to know they know the answers.

Not that a comforter can’t speak.  They CAN!

They CAN encourage and thereby strengthen.  They CAN affirm by holding up the proverbial mirror.  “What you’re facing right now would challenge anyone.”  “You have a lot of courage facing this fear.”  “You facing your sadness and fear shows massive faith.”  “Faith is stepping forward one moment at a time, and you’re doing just that.”  “Know that when you doubt but don’t give up, that’s huge faith.”  “Everything you’re feeling is normal in your situation.”  “Getting help and drawing on support right now is one of the wisest things you can do.”

None of these things are said initially, however.  
They can only be said in context, and they 
always need to be contextualised.

Encouragement and affirmation have their place, but they’re always after we as comforters know where and how and when to place them.  Speaking of where, how, and when...

~

What comforters are urged NOT to do is explain away 
the “how,” the “why,” the “when,” the “what,” etc, of mysteries.

The “how” is an interpretation of what is needed to resolve the situation.  Especially when it comes to loss, when there might be a million or three hows, there is no definitive “how.”  Even though there are models for therapy that give some guidance on process, never do they ever give the definitive way.  Much discernment and respect for the nuances of the situation itself are required.

The “why” imputes that the comforter knows not just the mind of God, but information far beyond any human’s capacity, into the inscrutable purposes beyond rationality.  Nobody knows this stuff, and nobody’s got the “gift” of this discernment.  Only the person who’s suffering themselves may unravel such a mystery (usually with a variety of help and support)—and not everyone does—and that’s a process that can take years, even a lifetime.  It’s no shame on a person to never determine the “why.”  Indeed, of all the paradoxes of life and God, those who become most mature have ultimately learned to accept what they couldn’t possibly understand.

The “when” is also a future-focused explanation, and again, only God can lead a person to knowing when grief turns to acceptance, when to begin the work forward into intrepid change, when to take drastic steps, when to up the ante, etc.  In this, there’s a lot of potential damage done to a person and their situation if even one element is neglected.  Timing can be an inscrutable thing, and the individual person’s discernment is vital.  Again, a variety of help and support over the years proves invaluable, but it’s the person themselves who puts the pieces together—all comforters need to respect this.

The “what” again is about pretending to know the situation with exact intimacy, which is beyond human knowledge.  This has the feeling of putting a finger on the situation and identifying the “what” of the problem, and then the “what” of the solution.  This is a dangerous and an inevitably foolish practice.  It reveals in the helper someone who must be right, who must know what they’re doing, a person who is a gifted helper in all situations.  But this is NOT how you become a gifted helper in all situations.

Gifted helpers in all situations use a process of trust and poise in intentionally NOT knowing.  Their process works by promising to DO nothing without God revealing it through the person they’re helping.

The unknowing comforter is an ally who can be trusted because, as God is their witness, they know they walk on sacred and holy ground with the person.  It’s about walking with the person in their unknowing and walking together on the path of eventual discovery.

Comforters are urged NOT to attempt to answer the inexplicable questions or to “fix” the situation or the person; the “how,” the “why,” the “when,” the “what,” etc, of mysteries is unknowable.  It is best to simply “walk with” the person suffering.  They don’t need (or want) you to “fix” or know anything.

Permission to sit with and launch from the fawn response

Anyone reading this who has had to deal with a narcissistic person, or to work within narcissistic structures, as an empathic and empathetic person, may have noticed the use of the fawn response.

The fawn response is a necessary appeasing of a relational dynamic where there is no choice but to accommodate an unrealistic expectation on the behalf of a person or situation that is demanding and thereby controlling.  In that moment, we are holding space not only for ourselves, but we are catering for others who are also affected by at times woeful behaviour.

The fawn response buys us time, and there is a nuance within the adult behaviour that can ameliorate this fawn response, bringing safe empowerment into the dynamic below the threshold of what the narcissist can see.  So there is a way where an initial fawn response transitions from fawning to adult behaviour which is seen by others in the dynamic as strength in an otherwise impossible situation.

Adult behaviour from a transactional analysis viewpoint, is logical, reliable, realistic, responsible, and rational—and that’s what you can transition into, even as you notice your initial response, that placates the person who is operating out of a narcissistic space, which is demanding and controlling and leaves no room for anyone’s agency.

This is an affirmation that fawn response, that may have left you feeling ashamed of or guilty of falling into, again and again, does have its purpose in that moment neither you nor anyone can control, for it is controlled by a demanding other.

Giving ourselves permission to operate out of a trauma response is one way we can engage with a therapy that works with what is already in our bodies that forms our responses now by instinct.

Essentially, there is more than one way to blossom out of the trauma responses that have stuck to us out of the trauma we have been exposed to.

More and more, as we see ourselves transitioning from the permission giving space to the adult space of taking some of the space back, we see others respond with peace and security, given the leadership we can provide—even out of the initial fawn response.  This is noticed in the reduction of overall anxiety, and in the confidence of a rising agency in us and those others affected as we quietly and respectfully unify under tyranny.

This is a godly concept, because through divine help, we have the increasing capacity to notice our fawn response, and to not fall into self-diminution, but to respond with a ‘grey rock’ (“nothing to see here”) stealthy courage, bringing in the adult behaviour that is necessary to ameliorate what is otherwise an impossible situation.

And even if the situation isn’t ameliorated, even if we provoke the bear, we find we have an increasing ability to not be intimidated, to stand our ground gently though firmly.  From such strength there is great capacity to hold safe space for anyone in the dynamic.

When we notice our fawn response, or it could be fight or flight or freeze, we are garnering awareness, which is strength, because choice is emerging, and empowerment is the next emergent step.

Out of awareness is the opportunity of action, and from the biblical view point we can see how nothing can overcome those who have faith in God to restore power to those once-weaker places.

Prospering even when you don’t (meditation of Psalm 37)

There’s an ever-present desire in life to prosper, yet everyone who desires to do good inevitably finds those who desire to do evil tend to prosper more.  This is a common phenomenon.  Whenever we feel our good intent or deeds are ignored or get us nowhere, yet we notice another with malevolent intent or deeds succeeds in their way, this truth is borne out in life.

Being that it is so common that those with malicious intent and actions succeed in life, this can easily lead us to throwing our hands in the air.  We are tempted to lose heart in despair, or we become cynical, and we certainly feel disempowered.

This is where bathing in Psalm 37 can assist us no end.

When we read words like, “Don’t fret when people succeed in their ways, when they work their wicked schemes, or envy the success of those who do wrong, for like the grass they’ll wither soon, like plants they will die away,” our intrigue rises, and we are entranced by the metaphor.

Immediately, as we read on, we find there’s an inherent blessing in sowing by the faith of doing what maybe seen as an invisible good.  What I mean by that is, few if any may notice, but there is ONE who notices everything; the only important one from an eternal perspective.

Whenever there is fear for the narcissist who plots their wicked schemes, there is a reciprocal reality, “the LORD laughs at the wicked, he knows their day is coming.”

As we stand in advance of the righteous justice that is about to ensue, our heart is prepared for the justice of vindication, which will shine like the noonday sun at its proper time.

The more we bathe in Psalm 37, the more we may find that there is an invisible nature to life that we often fail to see.  The evil reap their reward, as do those who do good.  Life has a way of evening the ledger, depending on what we do, but it does take years in the process.

The wisdom of God would counsel us to be mindful of these years, to be patient for the decades, and to hold the centuries in respectful regard.  Nobody gets away with anything.  And we are all grass.

“Better the little the righteous have than the wealth of the wicked, for the power of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous.”

Reading verses like this couplet above (vv. 16-17) we’re admonished that there really is no reason to fall for the temptation of fretting for what mischievous people seem to get away with.

When we’re reminded that the blameless receive divine care, and we take that wisdom on board, we can focus then on doing what we can to live as if for the audience of one.

There truly is no truer peace than the resolve that says, “Despite what I see all around me in this situation, and what is happening to me because I am a threat, I will do good anyway.”

This truly is the essence of Christian living, and it is the design for life in a world where people who do evil seem to get their way.  And in a world where evil seems to reign, there’s only one cogent defence—true belief in the (eventual) justice of God.

It’s no coincidence that this psalm decrees as a theme that I those who do good will inherit the land, that they will prosper materially and not just spiritually.  This is a balm to anyone who has suffered financial loss or abuse at the hands of a fraudster.  And there are many women in this position because of how society treats men and marriage.  Those who have been broken financially are counselled to simply work hard in recovery, to do what they can, and to consider what it will be like when that restoration occurs.  We place much stock in the physical land in this physical life, can you imagine the value of the land in eternity?

The other key theme of this psalm is the inevitability of the wicked perishing.  This is both a warning and an encouragement; a warning to those who are tempted and worse motivated to manipulate and deceive, for those who will listen, for there are many who will not, and it’s an encouragement for those who are committed to good to continue in that vein by faith.

I will conclude with this: the couplet verses 25-26 tell of an older person’s testimony:

“I was young and now I’m old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.  They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be a blessing.”

Perhaps the key to this verse is in the answer to the person who says they have seen the righteous forsaken.  The answer is in the second verse, verse 26: the focus of those who appear to be forsaken is on generosity and not getting ahead.  Only those who are full of faith can live generously whilst in the circumstance that appears to be forlorn.

The measure of our faith is our resilience in adversity, and all that sets us apart from failure here is the commitment to simply do good, to do what we can, to trust that things will work out.

Our focus cannot be about those who prosper in their manipulations and deceit.  There is no life there, only spiritual death in discouragement and despair.

The evidence of the eternal is plain for anybody with insight.  The fact that we do not live here on earth forever, that there is a death for each of us to endure, and that there is good and evil in this world, when the heart evidences there is only one right way, is evidence enough that there is a world beyond, where all things will be made new one day.

It’s worth doing good for, 
and focusing on the good, 
no matter what happens on this earth.

Whenever a person decides to live this way, the way of Psalm 37, they will prosper even when they don’t.  Their faith leads to overcoming temptation for despair, and in transcending the desire to make comparisons that lead to envy, joys are added to peace and hope abounds—despite their apparent circumstances.

This Psalm 37 life is a life to be lived to be believed, and in living it, belief is fortified and assured.

The gap between the head (thoughts) and heart (feelings)

Probably the thing we most struggle with in life is the gap between our head and our heart, between our thoughts and our feelings.  Let me explain.

It’s the resolve we make in our minds to lose a habit, or to forgive someone, or it’s a plan we make, or accepting the magnitude of beneficence in God’s grace.  But these resolutions we make in our minds don’t always translate into feelings that align or actions we sustainably execute in the outworking of life.

Addiction is always far easier to overcome in our mind’s eye than it is in the effect of the drawling days where our resolve may be gradually weakened, where we might relapse.  The mind is easily inspired to do what is right, but the heart and the habit lag in response.

It’s the same when we endeavour to forgive someone who has hurt us.  We decide that it is best to forgive and so we do.  Not long after that, however, a lot of the time we want to rescind that forgiveness.  This in effect is what happens when our heart remains suspicious, and our heart is looking for evidence that they do not deserve the forgiveness we have extended.

Then we have the situation of the plans we make; bold plans to reform our lives.  Many times I have made these plans in my mind in a day or an hour or two.  But plans that seem doable hardly ever translate into change because there is a lack of will to do all of what it takes to walk out a new lifestyle that usually requires a more diligent work ethic, over the months and years.

It's like the idea that has penetrated western religion over the decades, centuries, and millennia, that God is a judging God, and not a God who has forgiven our sin.  Many people can accept the concept of God’s grace and cosmic forgiveness at a head level, but cannot yet feel his forgiveness in their heart.

~

There is always gap between our head and our heart, and we all experience this.

None of us is saved the grief of wanting things to be different from within ourselves.  Frustration can so easily become despair as we find ourselves in the land of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is the term psychologists use to describe the anxiety we experience when there is a lack of continuity between the head and heart, between our thoughts and our feelings.

Being that it is common that the heart does not often follow the head, our opportunity is to sit in the cognitive dissonance, and agree what we really want with mindfulness.  It’s about avoiding frustration and sitting in acceptance.  It’s about acknowledging the journey and taking the pressure off, that we’re not exactly where we want to be but at least we are on our way.

~

Being more intentionally mindful about the goodness of God in the grace that has forgiven us, we enjoy more moments of living in that forgiveness, and we find there are fewer times we feel judged and condemned.  Slowly but surely, we begin to live a freer life, even as we begin to congregate with the like-minded.  We avoid legalistic churches and legalistic people.  We congregate with the like-minded, safe and loving people, where community adds to our desire for and actuality of healing. And we experience much more life as a result.

In terms of our plans, we begin to realise that there are all kinds of idealistic plans we could make, but we begin to accept our life for what it is, and the realistic hopes that we bear.  There are still so many things we can do, but we can’t do everything, and we begin to realise there is a sanctity in doing one thing, and in doing that thing well.  And there is peace in that.

When it comes to a person or a situation that we struggle to forgive, we are given the perspective that we can’t change what we would love to be different.  We more fully realise that the situation is complicated, yet the opportunity is to move forward.  We recognise that there is no stock in harbouring grudges and bitterness against anyone, no matter how deserving they seem to be.  It’s powerful when we realise that forgiveness is a process, and the fact that our head has decided to forgive the person or situation is enough. And then we simply focus on the positive things we wish to do, leaving the extended ruminations, acknowledging they take us nowhere.

The habits that entrap us in lifestyles that are not good for us are our most powerful opportunities for living the life we’ve always wanted to live.  It’s worth the effort, one day at a time, to live honestly and abide by one’s mind, trusting not in our feelings, and to travel by faith through what Jesus calls the narrow gate toward a burgeoning life of hope and freedom.

Writing wedding vows and more importantly keeping them

Whether they’re called an oath, a covenant, or vows matters much less than their substance and the keeping of it or them.  Imagine the power between two parties who keep their word!  Of course, we only need to browse the Bible to see how God made covenants with us and how we frequently broke them.

For the wedding vows, on the other hand, it’s hoped they are meaningful, and a great enough motivation for the keeping of them.  For a couple who hold them close to their hearts.

Let me say first and foremost that marriage was always designed for both parties to be equal under God.  There is no such thing as a man having the right of way, or leadership, or anything else over the wife, because that’s God’s prerogative alone.  It’s a bit like how often we use the “Proverbs 31 Woman” image to put pressure on wives when there is no such contrastive image to put pressure on husbands.  Just doesn’t seem right to me.

I want to keep returning to the concept of two equally motivated, committed, and humble partners in marriage, because without two equally motivated, committed, and humble partners in marriage, marriage doesn’t stand a chance.

There is little wonder there is so much divorce when we consider the abuse and neglect that occurs in far too many marriages.

A marriage where there are two equally motivated, committed, and humble partners is indicatively a marriage where vows were taken and they’re keenly observed.

Vows are a great way to prepare for marriage,
just as they are a great way to prosper in marriage.

It is now that I hand us over to a structure for the writing of vows from my wife, one of the most committed people I know regarding marriage vows.  She customarily frames couples’ vows as a gift to them having taken a photograph of their ring-adorned hands adjacent the wedding certificate.

Notice the combination of these symbols of marriage: wedding rings, marriage certificate, and wedding vows.  These symbols are the centrepiece of the unity in marriage, a unity depicted by two equally devoted partners, and God as the third person in a “trinity” which is a force to be reckoned with in this world.  Similarly, there is the image of a cord of three strands that is not easily broken—from Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

Rings signify the continuous, unending nature of love that never fails, and they are a physical symbol that each partner wears on the hand to remind them of their marriage.  The marriage certificate is the document that symbolises the covenant the two have made before God to each other and to witnesses.  And the vows are the spiritual underpinning—the very heart—of those two more graphic symbols: the rings and the certificate.

When vows are adhered to, when both partners take them seriously, continuing to abide by them, both partners are a gift to the other, a gift of commitment above all else.

When it comes to crafting the vows, each partner must think intentionally about what they have that they wish to give to the other.  The structure that my wife handed me has a response in the vows to the traditional consent each partner gives as they enter into the marriage covenant.

The first part of the structure is a sentence or two that responds to the part of the consent that says, “for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health.”  A meaningful way of saying this is, “I promise to persevere when times get tough, knowing that any challenges we might face, we will conquer them together.”  Marriages are tested under strain, just as lives are.  It’s the “for worse... for poorer... in sickness” parts of any marriage that feel like a crucible for silver.

The second part of the structure answers the last part of the consent, “to love and to cherish.”  A couple might craft vows that say, “I promise to respect, admire and appreciate you for who you are, as well as for the person you wish to become.”  For me, that says, “I love and cherish you.”

The final part of the consent includes the words, “from this day forward until death parts us.”

Vows don’t need to be long and elaborate, but they should be meaningful to the couple who are avowing their love for the rest of their lives to their partner.

Again, it must be said, that if both partners are willing to abide by their vows, a successful marriage it will become, but obviously the keeping of vows is best judged by the other fair-minded partner.

Partners to marriage, therefore, ought to be humble enough to seek the feedback of the other to the extent of the question, “Am I loving you in accordance with my vows?”

Both partners must be able to answer this question honestly and with a heart for the other.

A marriage where one or both partners proudly hold that they are holding up their end, yet the other doesn’t think so is a marriage of insanity heading for divorce.  In these situations, as a counsellor, there’s nothing that can help a couple like this.  It’s a conflicted marriage at best, and at worst it’s abusive.

The tenets of peacemaking in the resolution of conflict apply so much in marriage.  If both partners can get the log out of their own eye, staying in their own stuff without meddling in the other’s stuff, there is potential for growth in both as individuals.

That longest of afternoons, evenings and that first morning

July 1 is no longer a dark memory, instead it is a fond memorial for a season of life we truly found God.  Not that we needed to “find” God, but we found a way through an impossible season of grief carried by our faith underpinned by the unknown and untold prayers of the hundreds and possibly thousands.

But it was that first day, when we were still dazed in considerable numbness, not knowing what to feel, that we found ourselves in that first afternoon, that first evening, and that first morning after.

It’s like the time you or a loved one had your or their cancer diagnosis—a prognosis that seemed or was terminal.  You reeled from numbness to disbelief to sheer despair all within a minute or so.

Our prognosis was terminal.  Though Nathanael was growing very well!

That first afternoon I recall a visit from a couple of family members and the main concern was for logistics because they knew that’s all that could be offered.  We weren’t in a position where we could be helped.  There was nothing that could help us that day.

We needed to be able to be together as a husband and wife with their 15-month-old son.  We needed to simply live out that first afternoon, that first eerily quiet evening, the vacuous din of a serene yet empty morning after the first day.

I recall posting our ultrasound scan photo as a slide with a few bullet points on it for people to pray.  I found it unconscionable to not reach out.  As a pastor within a church of 300+ people, we would either keep this private or we’d be bold in seeking prayer—we chose the latter.

Keeping it private neither served us nor did it serve that church because people wanted to support one another.  Besides, I was the pastor of pastoral care, and it made no sense to hold everyone out.

So I posted the photo and then wrote an article I titled, When Bad News Becomes Brokeness.

Part of that article were these words:

Leaving the ultrasound consulting rooms, having been waived of the fee, a meld of shock and watery eyes, the thing I noticed was how comparatively inconsiderate people were. But they didn’t know what we did. It wasn’t their fault. We had such special information. Suddenly we are positioned in the frustrating dilemma that the world is far behind; our friends and relatives have no idea and breaking the news brings all kinds of reactions – sadness, of course, guilt, silence, echoes of support, and even naivety.

As I look back now, my main interest is curiosity for what exactly we felt.  I want to be back there, connected to a time when I needed to be connected.  It feels as if a key wrestle of that moment was just how to break the news, not knowing how people would respond, and not wanting others’ responses to affect us—whether it was that we might be ignored, placated, or possibly worse, mollycoddled.

As I sat at the computer in the early 6AM time that following morning, I was perhaps the numbest I’d been, yet strangely raw, and still desperate to DO something.

I do like to connect with that time, and I think this is proof that the hardest times of loss we face will often be the making of us afterwards if only we can keep stepping in faith.

As I look back on that day eight years ago, I actually want to go back there and just sit with my former self.