One More Truth – Reflections on faith, truth, and being human

2. Release

July 1, 2020 by michelle Leave a Comment

I don’t experience the world with my emotions. It’s easier to make sense of thoughts and ideas, so when uncomfortable emotions arise, I am notoriously horrible at showing them, sorting them, and for sure, resolving them. It took many years of growing up to acknowledge this. It took just as many years to admit ‘stuff it’ wasn’t working out.

The common language for emotional resolution – ‘let go, don’t worry about it, surrender it’ – didn’t give credit to the significance of whatever I was trying to resolve. How do I just ‘let go’ of something that mattered? That had meaning? That impacted and shaped me? That still makes me question myself and my value? How do I let go of something I don’t understand? I needed a physical image for the emotional process.

Release. That’s a tangible word. It’s a fitness word, so that works for me, but it’s also a word that implies there is effort and care involved. It implies I must be intentional and willing.

Relax connects the mind and body; release connects the body and emotions. When I release the tension of emotions, my body releases tension. When I release body tension, I’m more attuned to the emotional triggers making me tight or uncomfortable. Releasing these tensions means I can live freely. Fully. I can have conversations about polarizing issues without forcing compassion (kind of impossible to do anyhow) or demolishing my reputation. I like that.

I mentioned in Step 1 that this series is not-so-secretly about working on yourself. Knowing what you’re carrying with you is definitely part of the work. Identifying what is no longer useful is part of the work. Acknowledging the obstacles that trip you up and acknowledging they are tightly stitched to your pride is part of the work. Identity is emotionally connected to all sorts of things. Here are several things I’ve discovered I’m better off releasing:

Control. It’s not mine to have. Self-control, however, is a great pursuit (and a fruit of the Spirit).

Being right. It’s not that it doesn’t matter, it’s just that the desire to be right is an unrelenting motivator and unfulfilling motivation.

Motive. Speaking of motivation, when hidden reasons for doing something drive my willingness, I am not headed in a safe direction.

Platform. A platform is rarely shared. Jesus was all about presence, not platform. He invited conversation where more than one voice could be heard. Lives were changed when He brought His presence into unexpected spaces.

Agenda. Similar to motive, but much more obvious, an agenda is focused on self-promotion. It’s often attached to a platform. Unyielding, rigid – no good. The best agenda – particularly in conversations of conflict – is to keep myself disarmed and composed, possibly disarming the other person. My composure and calm promotes peace within the conversation, and often within others around me.

Resentment. It is a bitter, bitter poison. Forgiveness is the ultimate release. I can forgive people, mistakes, circumstances, myself – but l have to be willing first.

Ruminations of blame or regret. I do what I can to restore, but I cannot rehash. It steals too much from me. I ask myself this: “So what am I going to do – go back in time?” If the answer is no, I release the temptation to press rewind.

Fear. Also known as worry, concern, shadow thoughts, anxiety, insecurity, panic, hesitation…the list is long. Fear is pervasive and can attach itself to anything, including the ‘shoulds’.

The ‘Shoulds’. Unreasonable or unrealistic suggestions, projections, accusations, or ideologies. Before I grab a ‘should’, I ask myself if I want to hold it. Saying “I don’t accept that,” saves me from the future work of release.

Release is a process. I know this because Christ’s perfecting work in and through me continues. But within my faith relationship, I’ve found that release is also a trust. When I strip the clever from my weakness and the fake from my insecurity, gather all the complicated things inside me, and lay them before the Lord in prayer, His grace covers me. His love strengthens me. His will moves me into something better.

Step 2: Release the tensions.

Thanks for sharing:

1. Relax

June 28, 2020 by michelle 4 Comments

I’m currently on vacation. The waves and cooler weather make relaxation easy here. The sand and sun relax my body. I’m not concerned with time or what’s being eaten for dinner. If sand gets tracked into the little cottage, I’m not worried about it. The kids – who have all surpassed me in height, as of the quarantine – are burying each other up to their necks and taking pictures. We’re jumping the Pacific’s icy waves, and we’re laughing together. I am relaxed.

What could ruin our good time together?

Expectations.

Relaxing my body is a great thing. My spirit is confined to my body, and if it’s comfortable in that body, all the better. But relaxing doesn’t begin in the body – it starts in the mind, particularly in the area where my unspoken, subconscious expectations are hidden. These expectations – of myself, of others, and of situations – are often unrealistic, and unchecked, they have the power to damage relationships, ruin a good mood, and burden my body. Until I confront them and evaluate if they are reasonable, beneficial, or worth clenching up over, I will continue to demand someone meet my expectations.

Relaxing my mind by relaxing my expectations is a proactive approach to life. It takes diligence and practice, time and focus. It requires ownership, and yes, it is work. I don’t want to spoil the next 4 steps for you, but this little series about having conversations with people who make you mad because their ideas are so archaic and their beliefs are so out there they must have the IQ of a gnat, is actually a series on how to work on yourself.

Because the only person you can control is you.

When engaging in conversations about topics that divide people, you only have control over you.

To expect more than that will negatively affect you – mind, body, emotions, and your biological systems and responses. You’ll get tied up out there in the big world where people have the free will to think, act, look, speak, feel, and decide differently from you.

So relax your expectations.

Expect people will disagree with you. Expect to be misunderstood and judged. Expect to have convincing explanations, strong research, and loads of passion, and expect that someone may not care. Expect challenges and moments where you are tongue-tied or corrected. Expect self-centeredness to come at you, and sometimes, come out of you.

‘Ok, Michelle, so just lower my expectations, toss heavy issues I care about to the wind, and become a pessimist?’

No, that sounds miserable. And in times such as these, when hard conversations need to be had and people are hungry for a glimpse of humility within these conversations, we can’t throw away opportunities to share the truth about things that matter. Here’s the beauty of relaxing my expectations in people and outcomes: it raises my capacity to hope and remain hopeful.

In faith, I expect that God will uphold the truth.

In hope, I expect that He will convict hearts and reveal understanding, in His time.

In trust, I expect that He sees all, knows all, and He is a Judge who is perfectly fair.

Because of His love, I expect that when my beliefs are challenged, when my understanding is questioned, when my doubts are activated, God is faithful to renew my spirit and refresh my peace when I come to Him and ask.

No matter who disagrees with me, I still get to be me.

Unchecked expectations carry the false belief that I will experience security and satisfaction when my expectations are met. Hope reminds me that Christ meets those needs. I can relax. That’s good news.

The topics are big and the issues are important, but promoting change within patterns of thinking and behavior is a long game. Endurance, patience, and humility are virtues for this long game. A conversation about a polarizing issue is a hopeful step toward change and understanding, but don’t expect that destiny rests in the outcome of one conversation.

Step 1: Relax – it’s just a conversation.

Thanks for sharing:

How to Have Conversations about Polarizing Issues (with Humility & Compassion)

June 25, 2020 by michelle 8 Comments

I recently gave a presentation to leaders of trauma-informed organizations here in Phoenix. The topic was chosen by the group’s organizer: ‘How to Have Polarizing Conversations with Compassion.’ Being an election year, the topic was timely. Then came COVID, and people declared sides over trivial things. George Floyd’s life was taken. Then protests and riots and more lines in the sand.

Polarizing. Still a timely topic, and certainly not a new one.

Jesus lived during times when choosing a side, declaring right and wrong, being offended and defensive were full-time hobbies – much like today. Jesus’s ministry was one of healing, silencing storms, and engaging in conversation with people of different backgrounds, views, reputations, and beliefs. The omniscient God of the universe came into a broken world and talked with broken people of limited knowledge about polarizing issues, and He listened. He loved. He responded with compassion, free of passive aggressive remarks and condescending pontifications.

Jesus knew all the rights and wrongs, but His message of truth and grace wasn’t called the ‘right news’. It was called the Good News, a message that says grace is for everyone. Paul calls it the gospel of peace, and when I read the conversations Jesus had in the gospels, I can see why. Within every interaction Jesus had with people ‘on the other side’, it is impossible to overlook the distinct peace.

The distinction is this: Jesus didn’t have polarizing conversations, He had conversations about polarizing issues. He was met with fear, pride, and knowledge, and He extended patience, affection, and mercy. He never wavered.

Which means I must ask myself, as a Christ follower, do my actions, words, and behaviors reflect a gospel of peace and a God of compassion? Am I loving my neighbor as myself?

If not, I’ve missed the point of receiving God’s grace. I’ve forgotten I needed it and need it still. I’ve forgotten that others need it, too.

There are viewpoints I don’t agree with and beliefs I don’t support, but a person is connected to these various ways of seeing the world, and Jesus says to love people. In this polarized environment, within polarizing issues, Jesus says to love people because He loves people. Love without cost or obligation – the same love He gives me. My obedience to Christ is measured by my love for others.

Can I be honest? Sometimes, I don’t know what to do with this.

Paul defines obedience in a practical way: finding common ground with everyone. In the midst of different people, cultures, behaviors, thoughts, rules, and customs, Paul doesn’t get distracted by the differences. Instead, he focuses on finding common ground. Not for his own comfort, but for the good and benefit of others. He finds the biggest patch of sameness he can find and welcomes others to join him, so that maybe – if trust is built and safety is felt– the gospel can be shared. Paul knows the privilege of sharing happens on common ground.

The truth about common ground is, I will never, ever find it without humility. Humility reminds me I am not God and there is an order to things that my finite mind can’t imagine or comprehend – or keep. If I believe I’m smarter, wiser, less ignorant, more educated, justified, more important, better than, more right, the most right, or the most special person on earth, it will be impossible to find common ground with anyone else. Without humility, it is impossible to hold truth, extend grace, and respond with compassion. Without humility, it’s impossible to talk about anything that matters.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing 5 steps for having conversations about polarizing issues with humility and compassion. These steps may challenge you (they continue to challenge me), but I hope you’ll join me. It’s gonna be good.

Thanks for sharing:

I Will Love

May 31, 2020 by michelle 4 Comments

My high school was next to an orange grove in central Florida. The property was beautiful, with rolling green hills and an open courtyard where students gathered before school and between classes. The campus was brand new my freshman year, and although it was still unfinished on the scheduled first day of school, we started classes anyway. We spent the first couple weeks dodging wires, plastic sheeting, and construction workers.

Being new, our school had things the other high schools didn’t have, like a state of the art computer lab, an engineering class, and a home economics room with commercial-grade appliances. We talked about these things with students at the other high school, because people like to talk about new things that make them better than everyone else.

Our school was unique in another way we didn’t talk much about – we were a desegregated high school. The boundary lines for our school were all over the county, bussing us in from middle-class neighborhoods, neighborhoods where all the kids would most definitely attend cotillion, neighborhoods with a lake, and neighborhoods that weren’t called neighborhoods – everyone called them the projects.

Being the South, we were generally polite to each other, but honestly, we quickly and instinctively segregated ourselves. I could walk you through those hallways and show you where the various groups gathered – the Puerto Rican kids, the kids that spoke Spanish but were not Puerto Rican, the black kids, the rich white kids, and the not rich white kids. It seemed natural to find people of a familiar lens and understanding. The regrouping was a reflex more than a recoil of hatred, at least that was my experience. The bell would ring and the groups would shuffle and blend in classrooms – a diverse mix of kids all sharing space in the highlands of Florida.

During my senior year of high school, I was a white, pregnant teen. There was no group for me in the hallway. My friend lost her brother to Cystic Fibrosis that year. There was no group for her in the hallway. I had a friend without arms, and she wrote with her foot up on the desk, and believe me, when I was putting her sandwich between her toes at lunch, there was no group in that lunchroom for her.

In crisis or loss, when life is completely rearranged, we don’t need a group that looks just like us or thinks just like us – we just need a safe person. Someone who receives us. Someone who will listen. Someone who doesn’t have a hundred answers or a hundred questions. They don’t have to understand – and they probably won’t – but they are understanding. They admit life is a privilege, but living it in a human body is hard. (Let’s not forget, Jesus took on a body. It was part of the sacrifice.) Safe people appreciate the human condition is complex and unique, joyful and painful, sometimes full and other times lonely, and they find common ground with anyone – any skin color, any class, any belief or viewpoint or party.

Nostalgia prompted me to dig my high school yearbooks from the closet last week. All those late-nineties trends – my kids and I had a good laugh. Turning those pages, I was reminded I had many safe people. There was Dr. King, the guidance counselor with the messiest desk I’d ever seen, who reworked my schedule to maximize my year. There was the dean of students who saw the office ladies hassling me after a doctor’s appointment. He not only reprimanded them, he told me to come directly to him for anything office related for the rest of the year. There was Raymond and Sara, Ian and Alicia, and Jessica who drove me to and from school. There was my younger sister, Cara.

I did not find these safe people congregated in a group in the hallway – I found them all over the school. They were white, they were black, they spoke Spanish. They were older than me and younger than me. They were comfortable with themselves without thinking too much of themselves. Beyond my situation, they saw a person. They saw me, they accepted me, and it made all the difference in the person I have become. This is what I believe: acceptance is the most generous gift you can give a person.

The world doesn’t need more people who are willing to love others, if. The world needs more safe people who say, ‘I will love.’ For those of us following Christ, we don’t have the option to love – Christ loved us first. We can’t say we don’t understand acceptance – we gladly accepted grace and salvation. We must – and I’ll write more about this soon – let go of being right and let go of deciding wrong, because only then will we be safe people. We must love free of duplicity – mind, heart, body, and will.

Oh, friends. We are well aware of the human condition these days. We are seeing the destruction caused when the human will is motivated by unchecked shadows that go completely dark. We are a diverse mix sharing space on this planet. We must pray to God He’ll help us see people as people, because only then will we pursue the most good. For all people.

Thank you for reading, and as always, thank you for sharing. One More Truth is for everyone.

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