Tag Archives: Commentary on Human Condition

ramblings…

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I’m on my way to Frankfurt, Germany, for a 15 day trip with a team of 18 from our church, visiting with & hanging out with our sister church, Treffpunkt Leben…

One of my highlights of going to Germany (my wife & I go about 3 times/year) is that the Hefeweizen is absolutely incredible, & completely different than the American counterpart. The German Hefe is sweeter, smoother, with a great, great finish that has no need of any sort of fruit in in to make it taste better. (I know there are other reasons for putting a lemon, orange, lime, etc. in a beer, like “we’ve always done it that way,” but I digress.) On this particular trip, our team is wrapping up with a 2 1/2 day stay at a B&B style vineyard about an hour out of downtown Frankfurt… We’re really looking forward to the quiet, the rest, the connection opportunities, & yes, learning about & sampling the German wines…

On that note, I was getting ready to post a blog stating that I’d be out of town for 15 days, & wouldn’t be posting, when I came across this article A Snapshot of Christian Culture in the US of A; or why Christians in other parts of the world think Americans are a bit cuckoo… by Dan Kimball. Please note that I take 100% of the credit for the title of the link, & in no way am stating that Dan has labeled his article what I called it in the link…

#20

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My long awaited 20th high school reunion finally arrived, & Friday night & Saturday day/night, the Bean & I got the opportunity to interact & celebrate with a plethora of people, most of whom I had lost touch with upon my move to Carson City in 1987/88. Going into the evening, (Friday) I made a list – (as every good, organized person knows you’re SUPPOSED to) – of people that I wanted to make sure to talk with in the attempt to reconnect. I feel pretty blessed in that I was able to have significant & meaningful interactions with every single person that I put on my list.

Over the next couple of days, pre-Deutschland, I hope to post some pictures, organize some thoughts, & pontificate a bit about what I experienced. In a nutshell – it was an 11. My hopes for this weekend were realized. Prayers were answered. Thank you Jesus.

excerpt…

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I’ve been reading the “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” book by Peter Scazzero (check out THIS LINK to find out more.) It posits the idea that we can’t grow as Christ-followers beyond the point to which we have matured emotionally… therefore, its possible, probable that a 40 year old person, a Christian for 20 years, could still be functioning relationally as an emotional infant, child, or adolescent. Very insightful stuff.

The excerpt I’m sharing with you is from pp. 178,179 & gives some characteristics of different stages of emotional development – read it & weep.

EMOTIONAL INFANTS

  • look for others to take care of them

  • have great difficulty entering into the world of others

  • Are drive by the need for instant gratification

  • Use others as objects to meet their needs

    • EMOTIONAL CHILDREN

  • Are content & happy as long as they receive what they want

  • Unravel quickly from stress, disappointments, trials

  • Interpret disagreements as personal offenses

  • Are easily hurt

  • Complain, withdraw, manipulate, take revenge, beomce sarcastic when they don’t get their way

  • have great difficulty calmly discussing their needs & wants in a mature & loving way

    • EMOTIONAL ADOLESCENTS

  • Tend to often be defensive.

  • Are threatened & alarmed by criticism.

  • Keep score of what they give so they can ask for something later in return.

  • Deal w/conflict poorly, often blaming, appeasing, going to a 3rd party, pouting, or ignoring the issue entirely.

  • Become preoccupied with themselves.

  • have great difficulty truly listening to another person’s pain, disappointments, or needs.

  • Are critical & judgmental

    • EMOTIONAL ADULTS

  • Are able to ask for what they need, want, or prefer-clearly, directly, honestly

  • Recognize, manage, & take responsibility for their own thoughts & feelings

  • Can, when under stress, state their own beliefs & values without becoming adversarial

  • Respect others without having to change them.

  • Give people room to make mistrakes & not be perfect

  • Appreciate people for who they are – the good, bad, & ugly-not for what they give back.

  • accurately assess their own limits, strengths, & weaknesses & are able to freely discuss them with others.

  • Are deeply in tune with their own emotional world & able to enter into the feelings, needs, & concerns of others without losing themselves.

  • Have the capacity to resolve conflict maturely & negotiate solutions that consider the perspectives of others

    • Interesting, esp. as a mirror for self-examination. What rings true of me & my behavior? What am I able to see about myself? Next, I’ll take this to the Bean & ask her to honestly assess how I interact with her… & we’ll go from there…

    Thursday & it’s pouring…

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    My family moved in the summer before my 5th grade year – we didn’t leave Reno, but I had to change schools. For some reason, I didn’t get enrolled in the new school in time to go on the first day – I ended up showing up on about Day 4… I was petrified.

    The move meant lots of loss… loss of contact with old friends. Loss of a routine. Loss of being able to walk to school. Loss of the only house I’d lived in through my “aware” years (4-10.) Loss of neighbors… loss of living in town. Loss of feeling like my life was the best, most secure life that a kid could ever experience.

    I made friends eventually… after being relegated to the hopscotch court with 3 girls (true story,) for about 3 weeks, I caught a break because the other guys that played football at recess lost one of their players due to a broken arm or chicken pox (I forget which.) His loss was my gain. Someone threw me the football in an act of desperation & in my zeal I grabbed it & outran everyone on the playground field to the end-zone. I had a very small niche.

    I’ve never forgotten what it felt like to have nowhere to go at recess… to be passed over as non-existent by peers… to have the only people that even knew I was alive be the others that didn’t fit, that didn’t connect… I had thought I was a pretty confident person, that I’d be able to be me in just about any situations – I found that when I was out of my familar environment, I was frozen, unable to move, unwilling to reach out, because I was pretty sure that I couldn’t handle the possibility of rejection. It shaped me in ways that I’m still discovering. And it made me want others to never be in that situation – if I could help it.

    PS – I know its not raining from the sky today – but there are many, many ways that rain falls into one’s life, no?

    uh-oh.

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    Just when I thought I was doing a good job at monitoring my processings of life here on this blog, I find out:
    Free Online Dating

    This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words in various posts written over the last 2 years:

  • dead (17x)

  • death (16x)

  • pain (15x)

  • hurt (8x)

  • dangerous (5x)

  • kill (3x)

  • sex (2x)

  • suck (1x)

    • Thanks to Dan for the info on blog ratings… who’d a thunk it.

    Growing to Maturity…

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    The last week I’ve had several interactions & meetings that drove me to dig out my copy of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality for a refresher.

    The Scazzero book mentioned above, summed up, posits the idea that spiritual maturity & a true Christian experience can’t be separated from emotional health & maturity. E.g. emotionally immature people can’t/don’t grow to real spiritual maturity, even though they may have many, many years logged as Christians. Scazzero states, from his own experience, that only by becoming emotionally healthy can any of us truly grow to maturity.

    In my un edgy-cated opinion, based solely upon my interactions with a large cross-section of humanity, (with a varied Christian experience & length of tenure as Christians,) tends to bear out Scazzero’s hypothesis. One of the things that I’ve also noticed is that the “ministry” seems to attract, nurture, & reward emotionally unhealthy people – in that it, the ministry, becomes a valid place for a person to ‘get their strokes,’ though its often at the expense of others. And in the name of God. Why is this?

    I’m re-reading the book. And pondering these thoughts. And doing a lot of introspecting.

    more quotes from "Myth of a Christian Nation"

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    Confrontational Evangelism

    Read this & had to share this LONG excerpt from Myth Of A Christian Nation – on the heels of “Moral Guardians,” esp. interesting is the take on “confrontational evangelism.”

    The nationalistic slogan, “One nation, under God” influences many Christians to turn to the Old Testament more than the New (Testament) in their understanding of America & of the role of the church within America. Consequently, Christians often turn to the models of Old Testament “watchmen” & of John the Baptist to understand what they are supposed to be doing in the culture, rather than to the model of Jesus. Instead of living to sacrifice for others, we become the Official “sin-pointer-outers.” Instead of gaining a reputation of being humble servants who manifest Calvary-quality love, we gain a reputation for being moralistic & self-righteous…

    The Israelites understood themselves to be in a covenant relationship with God, & they also understood that the job of watchmen & prophets such as John the Baptist was to hold the people and their leaders accountable to this covenant. As a matter of principle, prophets & watchmen didn’t hold non-Jews accountable to God’s unique covenant with Israel; their role was only to hold Jews accountable, for the covenant that formed the basis of this accountability was made only with the Jews…

    The roles of prophets & watchmen have no application to Christians within American society as a whole… God’s covenant with Israel was not a covenant with America or any other nation. What’s more, the self-understanding of most people in America today is worlds removed from the self-understanding of Jews under the Old Covenant. When Christians model themselves after Old Covenant prophets & watchmen, they end up trying to hold people accountable to things these people know little about & care even less about. It is at best ineffective, & at worst it is positively harmful to the advancement of the kingdom of God.

    One of the most clear expression of the Old Testament model of evangelism today is found in an increasingly popular form of witnessing sometimes called “confrontational evangelism.” In this model people are taught that it is the job of Christians to get other to realize they have broken one or more of the Ten Commandments & that they, therefore, deserve God’s eternal wrath. The goat is to get people to see their need for a Saviour… the situation is no different from a Muslim telling a non-Muslim stranger who happens to be eating pork that he deserves to go to hell because the Koran forbids it. Why should the non-Muslim care what the Koran says?

    When Christians confront people on the basis of presuppositions not shared by the people they confront, they come across as rude & usually render the gospel less credible to the people they confront.

    I’m back, & these are my thoughts… the Christian that receives a “rejection” message from the people of the confronted culture view this rejection as a badge of honor, a real PROOF of the validity of their means & methods. (Check out Dan Kimball’s post on this topic.) Instead, I believe that the rejection has something to do with the distasteful taking of Jesus’ name in vain, portraying a Christ that fits our own model of Christianity, looks, thinks, & acts a like like us, & that really is looking forward to damning these sinners to hell. Ouch.

    Yet another reason that justifies the belief that babies are jerks…

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    David, recently relocated to Lawrence, a place where they have “real” college campii, (as opposed to the tripe that Nevada has to offer,) often comments that he believes babies are jerks… perhaps its because they’re so cute that they can get away with all kinds of devious behavior , & are never suspected for it, because, hey, they’re babies. It’s not like they’re doing this stuff on purpose. Or are they?

    This article says differently:
    “Following studies of more than 50 children and interviews with parents, Dr Vasudevi Reddy, of the University of Portsmouth’s psychology department, says she has identified seven categories of deception used between six months and three-years-old.

    Infants quickly learnt that using tactics such as fake crying and pretend laughing could win them attention. By eight months, more difficult deceptions became apparent, such as concealing forbidden activities or trying to distract parents’ attention.

    By the age of two, toddlers could use far more devious techniques, such as bluffing when threatened with a punishment.”
    READ Lying Babies article HERE