One Important Reason Not to Judge

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

— Matthew 7:1-2 (NRSV)

That is justice in a nutshell! What we give, we will get. Imagine what we will get when we are full of grace. Imagine what we could get, the prize for our faithfulness, when we refuse to judge and we advance to the other person the benefit of any doubt.

Judgment is justice. How could we, therefore, judge? We are not just... unless, that is, we are in positions of anointing—in a role that requires us to judge.

There is at least one important reason why we shouldn’t judge—perhaps the most obvious reason—and we could be fooled for thinking we shouldn’t need to be told or be reminded; that seriously underestimates our fallen natures. We develop mistaken views in a flash.

One important reason not to judge is we truly don’t know what people have been through, or are going through.

Don’t Underestimate the Range of Experience

Some float through life and are relatively undamaged by the process of existence, yet some are severely scarred and have endured much more than most could comprehend, let alone endure themselves.

For most of us, we fit somewhere in the middle. We have endured hardships, but we have also been significantly blessed.

The point is, there is such a range of human experience that one human mind cannot even begin to grasp what it may be like for another person who they might easily judge. They judge at their peril, and at the peril of the judged. Both the judged and that ‘judge’ are condemned. The former is condemned by isolation, by bigotry, and by unsaid blows to the heart. The latter, whether they recognise it or not, are cursed in this circumstance, let alone what is arranged for them in eternity. Yet we all judge when we know we shouldn’t, and at repentance we are forgiven by God for our arrogant ignorance.

The truth is, from a Christian viewpoint, we worship an inclusive God. Jesus came here and vouched for the outlier, was an advocate of the oppressed, and railed hard against the privileged; those who were stingy, snobby, and stuffy.

***

In the Christian world it is very unbecoming to judge. Those who will judge, who engage in conflict easily, are spiritually short-sighted (as we all tend to be from time to time), and don’t respect the suffering that others have been through or are going through.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Balancing the Inequities In Marriage

“You know it’s never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It’s always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.”

— Jodi Picoult, Mercy

If there’s one sound generalisation which we can attribute to marriage it’s that it’s forever unbalanced; one reaching toward the other, and hopefully there is reciprocation, but never the perfect reciprocation. Where one partner excels in doing the housework, it’s hoped that the other partner pulls their weight in some other way. One does the ironing, whilst the other does the dishes. That’s the idea.

Within all the imbalance there is ideally a meeting of the minds toward relational compromise—toward a mutually-agreeable acceptance.

But those who are married will usually have more realistic expectations; marriage is no fair-weather ground where calm seas prevail at all times. There are the inevitable fronts and swells. Choppy seas are starkly metaphorical for those conditions that arise suddenly, producing perfect storms of indifference where the waves of conflict smash against the rocks of trust and respect.

Marriage is ebb and flow—a continuity between two souls with separate passions, entrenched beliefs, individual baggage, and divided priorities, who, due to the circumstances of their togetherness, must make the best of what they have, which is neither theirs or the others’—but theirs together.

Is Balance Achievable or Even Desirable?

Without being defeatist we could wonder whether the myriad variables in marriage are worth balancing or not. Would we be better served to appreciate whatever contribution the other can, or is willing, to make? The danger, of course, surrounds those who are minimalist by nature; the characteristically selfish. No partner wants to be a doormat.

There has to be a way through for the responsible partner; a way of them surviving with their sanity intact. They may have little influence over changing their partners.

Rather than despair there is another option. For the responsible partner, the one who makes the lion’s share of the sacrifices—the most functional one—there is safety and wisdom in reaching a landing of identity beyond the partnership.

What enters the room, now, is the idea of singleness-of-identity in marriage.

Holding Single and Couple Balls in the Air Simultaneously

Perhaps one of the most resilient methods for making marriage work is the ability to draw on two concepts of identity: 1) the married person as they are identified within the couple, and 2) the married person as a single person.

One of the things I will always be grateful for—and my wife is within herself, too—is that we spent a sufficient amount of time as single people before we married. So for us, to become single again within moments of our marriage is not hard. Indeed we desire it. It’s important as married couples that we can gain fresh perspective through the beauty of space.

Every good relationship draws on space. Good relationships can subsist in the midst of conflict, because partners understand when distance is appropriate so that mental and emotional processing may take place.

Marriage is not weakened by space, and by the identity of singleness; rather it is strengthened. Marriage is also strengthened in the acceptance of the things we cannot change.

***

When the inequities within marriage can be mutually accepted, and the couple are just as happily themselves as they are in the unit, marriage is a beautiful institution.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Prayer of Protection from Selfishness

The prayer of the Psalmist to his Lord:

“Turn my heart to your decrees,

and not to selfish gain.”

— Psalm 119:36 (NRSV)

In this day and age, or in any day, we may be blessed most of all in relinquishing our extraneous desires. When we become aware of our overburdening desire, that which is selfishly motivated, we will be blessed when we take courage to turn back to God by turning our hearts to the Lord’s decrees. In New Testament language these decrees—the ordinances, precepts, and commandments of God—God’s Law—are love.

Love is the higher law.

When we pray a prayer for protection from selfishness, we pray for awareness of our motives, and for the courage to surrender wilfully our selfishness to God. We pray, additionally, that we might come to repent in orders of love toward those close by us; our loved ones, our friends, our work colleagues, and those we fellowship with in our church settings.

The Prayer for Protection from Selfishness

Most gracious God and Father of all creation,

I bear witness of your glorious nature and unfathomable power for goodness. Nothing compares to you, O God. I come before you, as I do always, as a servant who has no right to do your work, apart from the right with which was bought for me by Jesus Christ my Lord. I am humbled in your Presence when I think of being apportioned work within your Kingdom; that you consider me worthy enough to join in your work. Your work is the biggest privilege of my life.

I confess before you, Almighty God, that I have this motivated self-interest and that I seem to be unable to live without selfishness when I’m without your Presence. I need you, for I need your protection against this foe: the extraneous desire. Without you in my life, my life would be pointless, and my selfishness would completely ruin me.

I thank you in advance for the things you are already doing in and through my life to expunge my encroaching sin. Whilst I am aware, I can give my selfishness to you. And as I act in selfishness, please Lord, remind me of my folly of short-sightedness.

I need you, Holy Spirit, to continually reveal the vanities of my desire. Draw me into your Word, Lord. Help me be honest regarding my poisonous desires. Help me to find ways of quelling my selfish desires. I ask for the peace that transcends understanding in order that the glory for having controlled these selfish desires runs to you, O God.

It’s in Jesus’ salvific name that I pray, AMEN.

***

Where would we be in life without love? We would be marooned; vanquished without purpose; completely devoid of hope. Everything that is selfish sets itself against love, but everything that is selfless promotes love.

When we pray for protection from selfishness, we pray for God’s power to know his will and to love God and everyone else more.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

When Just Your Presence Is Best

“Sometimes we speak because we don’t like silence, yet often the silence can speak more powerfully and helpfully and our words.”

— Ray Brown (In “Whose Hand Is This?”)

In being the support behind a family having been devastated by a catastrophic stroke, my father-in-law, Ray Brown, the pastor shepherding this family with a life and death struggle, is poignant in speaking about the power of plain presence.

Many harsh and debilitating situations are beyond words, and indeed our wordless presence there is infinitely more powerful when there is no answer to the suffering.

The Power of Plain Presence

We hardly want to believe this—that our presence, many times, is worth more than our words—but God speaks through a silent vessel more readily than when we carefully select our ‘Spirit-filled’ words. This is especially true when suffering is inexplicable, when the frustration cannot be eased, or when there just seems to be no answer.

The power of plain presence is palpable in situations where words fail.

But we can only know this by faith, for our silent presence just seems so useless to us, but to the people we support it is space for lament, as it is the sort of respectful care of a love that discerns unknowable needs (so far as words are concerned).

The power of plain presence, of sitting bedside, or of sipping tea, or of wiping tears, seeks not to heal the soul—because only God could do that, in conjunction with time—but instead it is about the best sacrifice one could make; just to be there.

Knowing When to Restraining Our Words

This seems to be the underpinning message behind the above quote. When we acknowledge that words can “empower and encourage or hurt and damage” sometimes speaking is just too much of a risk, when a humble silence will add its own eternal value.

This is a difficult thing to learn for us extroverts (for I am one) but prudence is wisdom, and where there is pain the intentionality of our words cannot bring healing. If God is to use words through someone like us, it will be inadvertent. We cannot manipulate the action of the Holy Spirit.

Restraining our words may be as simple as praying to God in those moments, “Help me be silent and available, Lord.”

***

A silent presence can speak louder in terms of care and respect for the vulnerable than our words. Where our words may be fraught with danger, the silence of presence is God’s way of speaking volumes without a single utterance.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Reference: Rosalie Leaney, Gordon Leaney & Geraldine Mellet, Whose Hand Is This? (North Fremantle, Western Australia: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1999). All quotes used are from page 13.

Healing Experiences of Emotional Trauma

“We don’t heal in isolation, but in community.”

— S. Kelley Harrell

With certain obvious exceptions, this article is pointed at the everyday experiences of family trauma and how we heal them. Sexual and physical abuse is beyond the scope of this article. What is directly in view is the power struggle known to emotional abuse—which, in my view, can be traumatic to the point of producing conniptions where normally steady souls can become mentally compromised for a time.

Family, despite what we might believe, is often a great source of emotional trauma. When we have suffered how are we to heal what we have suffered?

The Destructiveness of Isolation

The opposite of empowerment, so far as family trauma is concerned, is isolation. The more we try to isolate or deny the issues, the more problematic they become.

Take an industrial pipeline, for instance. When pressure in pipelines builds beyond the design of the pipe-work, there needs to be a relief valve to allow the excess pressure to be relieved to protect the whole pipeline from bursting open. Likewise, anybody who insists on remaining in their isolation is condemning themselves to a potential implosion of soul; it’s a cesspool devoid of logic. The pressure will build and build, and anger threatens to spew over the edges into violence.

In so many ways the devil is engaged in pushing people further into their isolation. This enemy of God knows the destructive power of silence, where purging the pressure is truly the only way to go when it comes to emotional trauma.

The Problem Shared Is a Problem Halved

Issues propagating emotional trauma in the family system can be healed when we share them with trusted loved ones who have the emotional capacity to hold what we share, without getting angry.

The importance of having somebody who listens to us seems obvious. All we need do is reach out.

Because we find ourselves in situations where family sometimes hurts us, we need family or friends who can listen without judging too much. And as we share, we are encouraged to be ourselves, without denigrating or condemning ourselves. The trusted person who can listen wants us healed, and they will do whatever they can to support this.

***

Family, of all people, has the ability to hurt family. When we have been hurt or betrayed it is vital that we seek healing; that we resist isolating ourselves, and find a trusted loved one or friend who will listen to us. Our healing is founded in our sharing.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Miss Communication Meets Mrs Clarity

Having a good relationship is not just about communicating better; it’s more about attending to the miscommunication that diminishes and destroys meaning in relationships. Miscommunication is the biggest relational challenge we face in this world where communication characterises the quality of relationships.

But not only does communication dictate the quality of our relationships, it often defines our relationships’ strength and longevity. Most divorces will be precipitated within the sharpness or dullness of miscommunication.

Clarity is what we sorely need in redressing such miscommunication.

Exploring How Miss Communication Can Become Mrs Clarity

If we can agree that clarity is the antidote to miscommunication, we can transform a negative into a positive. We are much more likely to decrease our miscommunication when we focus positively on improving the clarity of our communication.

If we personify miscommunication as a novice (Miss Communication) and clarity as the more experienced person (Mrs Clarity) we can know that our communication faults can be addressed; that we all have hope for development toward the enhancement of our relationships through clearer communication.

Beyond the frailties of the human mind, which is prone to lapses and absentmindedness, there is much we can be mindful for when it comes to communicating with marital partners, loved ones, work colleagues, and friends.

Much miscommunication can be addressed by taking care of the words we use, when we use them, and even by how we communicate. Nothing substitutes a face-to-face conversation where both are focused on the conversation, the words are kept plain and understandable, and then agreement is reached and then reiterated. When communication is crystal clear, clarity is achieved. Both parties are under no false allusion.

Blessed are relationships that are rich in clarity; where trust has been nurtured and continues to grow in multiplicity, because communication issues are averted in the planning before they reach crisis point.

Miss Communication is the person of inexperience, of ineptitude, and of moral lack. Such a person doesn’t have the diligence to care so much for the relationship to make all the effort required to circumvent misunderstanding.

Mrs Clarity, on the other hand, has learned, both by easy and hard ways, that Miss Communication is no option for her. She has made her metamorphosis from that state of incapable inexperience to a more preferable state: a reliable person to be in relationship with.

So, if we were to use marriage as a metaphor, we might imagine Miss Communication being swept off her feet by Mr Clarity. Such a marriage of understanding is consummated when Miss Communication becomes Mrs Clarity.

***

Relationship success is not just about communicating better. It’s more about reducing the amount of miscommunication. Clarity of communication takes care and effort to check and recheck. Clarity is the outcome where trust and respect are valued.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

One Million Forms of Happy Marriage

When it comes to marriage we may have a view,

Of others and their marriages and how they don’t hold true,

But instead there’s an idea that refreshes our sight,

There are a million happy forms of marriage alright!

There are many marriages around,

Which make all kinds of sound,

And though we think there’s abuse,

The truth is, in these, there’s finally a truce.

Then there are marriages of hardly a word,

Relationships were no utterance is ever stirred,

But we shouldn’t assume they have it together,

Instead they could be at the end of their tether.

The colours of marriage fill the screen,

Of every hope, and plan, and childhood dream,

There are only two who can judge how they fare,

Hardly another soul should ever but dare.

***

It’s a tricky business getting involved in judging things, especially marriages from afar. As married couples, singles, or divorced persons we have all had opportunities to judge or be judged. We have all experienced the placement of the slide under the social microscope. And although our fallen nature is given to the sin of judging another, we go on in that venture or we are a victim of it—or usually both.

When we consider, however, that there are a million forms of happy marriage (to use a round number as indicative of the many varieties of relational happiness) we have the opportunity to broaden our perspective. Judgment is seen as narrow-minded. With such a skewed perspective we hardly make a reliable witness.

Instead of venturing into the narrow-mindedness of analysing somebody else’s relationship, we are blessed all the more to analyse our own relationships.

This is the turning point in our thinking that converts us back to repentance.

Perhaps if we see unhappiness in others’ marriages, we are merely entering into transference from our own issues. What are we hiding from? This highlights the classic truth that Jesus raised in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7:1-6). We might see fault in the other, but that is a speck compared with the plank in our own eye.

If we were to focus, instead, on the things that are working in other people’s marriages we might more readily recognise, in appreciation, the things that are working in our marriages.

We cannot hope to know the happiness enfolded over another couple in their marriage. But we can endeavour to look for the positives in order to learn what we might apply to improve our own.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

The Open Courage of Vulnerability

“To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”

— Criss Jami

How might we know that we trust God in the midst of our relationships? One way we can know is by our courage to share our vulnerabilities with trusted others. When we are prepared to share our weakness, in making ourselves vulnerable, we show our strength; the strength of honest courage to cast upon our relationships the real ‘us’. When we offer our world the real ‘us’, we invite our world to reveal itself in the same vulnerability. Not all our offers are taken up, but invitations to courage are invitations to the abundant life.

Vulnerability is one of the biblical paradoxes. By sharing our weakness we show our strength. Strength is derived from trust. And God does not disappoint.

The Quality of the Best Relationships

Christian living in summation is the best of relationships, because it invites the community, living in all sorts of networks, to be relational by being vulnerable. This is the commitment of realness.

By practicing a trust in people by sharing our awkwardness, fears, embarrassments, and inadequacies, we practice trust in God. Where we can practice a trust in people we not only exercise courage in doing that, but we are blessed by God through the provision of the abundant life.

The abundant life is the reward for authenticity.

The abundant life is an investment in our lives and in the lives around us.

The abundant life is a state of giving back to God.

All in all Christians should be at the top of the pile regarding the quality of their relationships, being that they relate with the relational, living God, who lives in them, all around them, everywhere.

When we acknowledge the Presence of God we note with crucial endeavour the importance of being honest, because we stand in the court of God.

By being vulnerable with God, via the honesty of our prayer and life, noting that God is alive and relational, and being vulnerable with other people, we can be at home with ourselves.

If we feel no trepidation for judgment, we are free; we experience the abundant life.

***

The abundant life is enjoyed when we have the courage to share our vulnerabilities. In trusting God and trusted others with knowledge of our weaknesses, we show courage and strength, and we redeem the abundant life.

Things go never better for those who are real about themselves.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

The Gift of a Simple Kindness Shared

“As ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes all any of us needs in life is for someone to hold our hand and walk next to us.”

— James Frey

Humanity makes complicated what God intended to be easy.

When it comes to loving people through their problems, we make much ado about listening well and attending to the little nuances of another person’s felt need. Much of the time, however, we either underestimate or overestimate what people actually need. We misunderstand easily.

Especially in responding to the normally well-adjusted person, there is the opportunity to keep our helpful support to the minimum required in order to just be there by our availability. This is half the battle: to be available, and more poignantly at the right time.

Most of us don’t need a lot of constant support to get through our battles; it’s more the preparedness of someone to help, to be there, where they can be relied upon.

A Short List of Simple Kindnesses We Can Share

1.      Offer the infirmed a visit and come on-time. Enjoy just being there in their company. We don’t make the visit about ourselves; we get curious about them. We might read them a book, or bring them up to date with news. It’s important that we see this opportunity as one where we can do something innovative for them that they can’t do themselves, but would like to have done.

2.      Going for a walk with somebody in some portion of mental anguish is a good distraction. We wish to offer them some fresh perspective without forcing it down their throats. We hope that the joy we may have might permeate their consciousness. But to be a kindness, we ought to be thinking of their benefit through such a simple act as going for a walk.

3.      Actually doing something for somebody, notwithstanding how small, can make such a huge difference, especially when they don’t expect such kindness of grace extended towards them.

4.      Making a meal or offering hospitality is a simple kindness with great practical value. It’s a true gift when we can do something for someone which is beyond their ability to do for themselves.

It’s important in our support that we don’t disturb a person’s dignity. There’s not much point in seeking to help by blessing someone if we create damage instead. Sometimes the little things count for so much more. And it’s always a good idea to consider our motives when we give simple kindnesses. It’s got to be about them or it’s a waste of time.

***

We can do much to encourage the lowly of heart through simple kindnesses. Everyone needs a friend at their lowest ebb, but we needn’t ‘rescue’ them. When we can be that balanced friend we come to be blessed to be a blessing.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.

Feeling As Uncertain People Feel

“In these times I don’t, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don’t want what I know and want what I don’t know.”

— Marsilio Ficino

The state of ambivalence in people—of going to and fro in undecided fashion—is annoyingly common, and for the more decisive of people it’s a test of both patience and grace. Loving people who change their minds frequently, and not knowing ‘where’ they’ll be at any given moment, leaves normally decisive people feeling rather indecisive. It can be seen as an intrusion on our person to have to deal with indecisiveness when we prefer just to go one way or the other.

Then there is the added complication; the person we deal with who is ambivalent to the point of us never being able to achieve any sense of intimacy, trust, or rapport with them.

Engaging In Our Own Uncertainty In Order to Empathise

Our empathy for those people who appear more uncertain than we are needs to come from understanding ourselves when we have been more or less uncertain.

Everyone has had their uncertainties. And if anyone thinks they have never been uncertain they might also have made many more mistakes in life than the average person. Decisiveness can be a mark of pride; of self-sufficiency; of ignorant self-certainty.

Not all decisiveness is borne of wisdom. Much of it may actually be borne of folly.

So sometimes, especially when we are honest, we see our own uncertainties in true light. And then we recall the sense of ourselves in fear of conflicts for either approach or avoidance (at the same time!). Empathy for undecided others is easy when we consider the inner conflicts they must be struggling with. Whether these inner conflicts make any sense to us or not is beside the point. When someone is in inner conflict they deserve our empathy, understanding, and support.

Practicing Active Empathy

Apart from the exceptions where we need to facilitate decisiveness, particularly in working situations, we can afford to extend grace through the practice of active empathy.

So this is not just about understanding; it’s also about doing something practical to demonstrate our empathy. Feeling as uncertain people feel is the catalyst. But true feeling, in an interactive way between two people, occurs when support is needed and also given.

As far as uncertain people are concerned, the support we can offer is grace in our interaction and the reduction of pressure. Simply put, we back off.

***

Feeling as uncertain people feel, loving the indecisive, requires patience. But empathy grows out of understanding how foreign to peace inner conflict is. We are much more patient and understanding when we recognise the other person is conflicted. Then it just makes sense to back off and give them the space they need.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.