Could grief and situational depression be blessed gifts?

Absurd thoughts sometimes work in absurd situations, and if there’s an absurd situation from life’s viewpoint it’s the situational depression in grief.  But because grief happens, and because it is a situational depression that causes us to dig deepest for resources we never thought we had, grief is an unenviable but inevitable opportunity to become stronger.

This is not to say that we ‘fix’ grief through some egregious prosperity gospel.  We can’t and don’t fix grief.  That’s exactly the point.  It’s a central biblical principle that what breaks us makes us.

Yes, you read that right.  What breaks us makes us.  Look around at every single hero and redemption story, and indeed the story of the Cross.  Victory comes out of the jaws of defeat.

But how does this operate when the conquest of darkness hangs over your very life?

Just like the fact that grief breaks us, we must always hold onto that faint hope that it will all be worth it in the end.  This is centrally about what we tell ourselves—by faith.

What the psychologists call cognitive behaviour therapy is actually a tool of faith.  We simply loan the best-case-future-reality and believe upon it in the present.  I mean, what have we got to lose?  On the contrary, grief’s situation makes us desperate to gain anything.

No matter how bad things get, if we hold onto the hope that we WILL make it through, even though we WILL be broken many times, we find a way to be realistically stoic in the heat of the battles of grief.

To do exactly what I’ve mentioned above, it’ll mean being humble enough to draw on wise support.

It’ll mean being prepared in advance for many heartbreaking hardships.  Bearing such a struggle takes massive humility, so if you’re doing it, going without in every single way, you’re doing it and you ought to be proud of yourself.

It’ll mean risking your belief in the good coming.  What I mean by that is there will be times when you’ll feel foolish for trusting that good can come from the very worst of situations.  Where we’re most tested in grief is in the longevity of it—it lasts and lasts and lasts.  It threatens our hope and pushes us to the brink of despair.  But believing in the good coming tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s important in grief and situational depression to reset our expectations.

Our hope needs to be reset in the reality of a new normal.  That old normal is gone, and that’s the hardest thing to come to terms with.  Even as we arrive momentarily in that cherished hope of that grief stage of acceptance, we enjoy that reality trying not to insist that we’ve landed there.  Grief is a convoluted and very long journey.

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I started by talking about the absurd.  What is absurd is the thought that grief and situational depression could be a blessed gift.  But things in the economy of the Kingdom of heaven tend to turn worlds upside down.

Consider that the very thing that threatens our identity actually deepens us in our identity.

But to be deepened is not an overnight process, and it relies upon a humble and consistent trust that gradually emerges over time.

Bargaining, while it’s understandable, proves ultimately to be a waste of time, and though anger is also understandable, it tends to exhaust us.  Grief and situational depression are the long game.

The hardest thing about grief and situational depression is that they feel so final.  The paradox is it’s terrifying to let go of the old self, but in letting go of it, what comes is a better, deeper, more compassionate version.  This is a blessed gift; not in the process of grief and situational depression, but afterward.

Be gentle and patient with yourself because ‘afterwards’ takes longer than we’d like it to, but afterwards is also inevitable.

Here is an assurance of the hope expounded here.  I know so many people who have practiced this craft of grief, and they all attest to the truth that what breaks us makes us—if we journey by faith.

Unresolved shame only makes things worse

It doesn’t matter if it’s a family or an entire institution, shame is what drives cover-ups and what’s underneath shame is pride and fear, and a bad belief that you can cover up truth.

Well, you can’t.  You can try, but what happens when we’re found out.  We don’t have a leg to stand on.

The trouble with shame is what is makes us do in terms of what we make others do.  Cover-ups are expensive in the terms of the lies that need to be shared.  Lies only dilute our strength.  They ravage our hope.  And then guilt gets to us through the haranguing sense of regret.

Families are a system that harbour lies.  There’s always a skeleton in the closet or five.  It’s one person’s pride that propagates the death of hope where everyone is conspired to hold the line.  And how does one who’s a truth teller deal with the conundrum of being sworn to secrecy.  It leaves such a person in a bind!

Shame changes everything along the trajectory of hope.  It strips whole families of the joy they could have if only the person driving the agenda allowed the truth to materialise.

Unresolved shame only makes things worse.

For organisations and whole institutions, cover-ups occur.  They occur due to cultures that rely on ‘optics’ driven by a strong focus on curating an image that drive those organisations.  Sometimes the images projected are a far cry from certain realities reflected in the culture.  And there’s a cost for those truth-abiders in those organisations.  They bear a trauma to the identity of their integrity.  It’s easy for many to turn a blind eye.  But for some, especially the empathetic, it’s traumatic.

Unresolved shame only makes things worse.

For individuals who bear the pain of shame that cannot be processed because someone else is in control, my prayer is that those dynamics shift for you.  When you get the opportunity, do what you can to properly and adequately process the guilt and shame that has stuck to you that wasn’t even your fault.

12 ways I do Christian marriage counselling

I originally wrote the following in June 2018.  I’ve broadened it a little in this version.

Some marriage counselling journeys are tune-ups, some are overhauls (nothing wrong with that), and some—where there’s abuse and/or neglect—I’m afraid to say are salvage for the scrapyard.  But there should always be hope for some form of reconciliation for peace, whatever the state of any relationship, together or separated.

Here are 12 ways to describe how I do Christian marriage counselling, framed as questions to those in the room with me:

1.             Tell me about you. What work have you done on your marriage previously? Have you done a Prepare-Enrich inventory or similar? What do you already know about yourselves from previous marriage counsellors and mentors? What tools are you already equipped with? We need wisdom to quantify where the issues reside, and what to work on first.

2.             Teaching will be provided. It goes without saying that a lot of time can be needlessly consumed and wasted on red herrings that end up making matters worse. Getting torn up on present conflicts that only retraumatise, for instance. Marriage counselling is a place not only to hash things out, it’s a place to learn and discover. The counselling relationship is intended to model safety. It needs structure. Teaching the tools to equip the couple is an inherent part of good structure. I use and teach PeaceWise peacemaking, Transactional Analysis, boundaries in marriage, internal and external locus of control, languages of apology, and prayer, among a host of other tools depending on what’s required.

3.             If you’re committed Christians, what is your theology for marriage? The hope is there is agreement on whether an egalitarian or complementarian approach is best. I lean toward an egalitarian approach, but if the couple in the room with me are both won to complementarianism then that’s fine with me. There must be a shared vision for marriage. Most of all, what is most fundamental about marriage is that it is about loving the other to such a degree that we are consumed less by our desires and more by what we can give them, this gift that God has placed into our hands for companionship and safekeeping.

4.             Talking about vision, and this is pertinent especially for those in second marriages and blended families, I like to know what vision the marriage partners have for cohesive family in the broader context of the word ‘family’ i.e. with ex-partners and families. My preference is for a vision where the broader family can get along and do so without faking it. Though sometimes we do need to fake it until we make it. A cohesive broader family context is such a gift to the children. It is a vision for the best kind of reconciliation possible in a broken circumstance. How will celebrations of our children’s eighteenth and twenty-first’s possibly be joyous occasions where parents and step-parents get along as friends, or at least be friendly? It has to be a vision we work toward.

5.             What gauge do you have for your own baggage? What self-awareness is there? And is that perception of good self-awareness shared by your partner? Most of us think we’re further along the growth path than we actually are. Does your partner think you are self-aware, and of equal importance, able to manage your emotionality? We all have more work to do; we never truly ‘arrive’. Our perceptions of our own humility and character, in the context of marriage, are often bloated beyond reality. And that is okay. That is pretty normal. It’s time to be brutally honest. Honesty will never kill us, but pride can end marriages or at least kill them of the kind of life they ought to have. We need also to recognise that growth is dependent on a change of mind at a heart level; only a change of mind at a heart level (Christians call it repentance) creates sustained changed behaviour.

6.             For those in second marriages, what baggage are you reading into your present partner from previous partner/s? It’s common to see in a present partner what we struggled with and ultimately rejected in our former partner. It is often a default, because our vision is now piqued or skewed a particular way. Could it be true that we might have a bend toward a certain kind of perception? What stories are we unconsciously saying to ourselves? Is a skewed perception preventing you from seeing what is virtuous and acceptable about your present partner? Baggage will always prevent contentment in marriage.

7.             A warning needs to be issued: please expect matters in your marriage to get worse before they get better. I need you to be patient—with each other and with me. Too many times we see that marriage counselling as the silver bullet when in all reality most people leave counselling far too late when significant damage has already been done. Undoing the damage takes time. A fair expectation for change is 1-2 years. If it took years to get into the bind, or you’ve been struggling for years, it will take time to work it out, but all that work is definitely worth it.  What’s most important is the willingness to begin the work, and the commitment to follow it through. All I’m saying is it is challenging work. Counselling is necessary, but most of the work is done by the couples applying the principles spoken about. It all takes time.

8.             Two prayers for me as the helper in the session are, 1) ‘Lord, make me aware of what I need to be aware of in this situation’; and 2) ‘Lord, am I seeking to serve this couple or to exert power?’ I am a helper and I am responsible. I recognise I have power, and that power is influence. It’s a precious thing I must take seriously. I want you to know that I want you to challenge me if ever you feel it necessary. I am aware of the power I have and need to have to help you. But, relationally we are equals here. That said, I want you to be aware that your perceptions are yours alone, and they need to be tested with others to see if they are shared, otherwise they are only your truth and not the truth.

9.             As dynamics develop in the session itself, the above questions need to be at the forefront of my mind and thinking, even to the extent of discerning whether each partner in the couple is seeking to serve the other or to exert power. We are always aiming to serve the other and die to self. Wherever we cannot model that there will be a gentle bringing to account.

10.          Where does the Third Entity feature in your marriage? Is God central in the Presence of your marriage? Do you take things to the Lord, individually about yourselves and together as a couple? Does God convict you of your sin? Does God help you get the log out of your own eye? Does that then lead to confession, apology, forgiveness and restoration? Again, I teach PeaceWise.

11.          I want you to leave your first session, and do this in subsequent sessions too, prepared not to react angrily with your partner for what they said or did not say or for anything they did. Take it to the Lord for a day or three. Raise it only in a productive way. Value and exemplify the safety we will model in this counselling process.

12.          Finally, I am going to ask you to trust me. This may be a strange request given that you are already trusting me. But what I am asking is that you would continue to trust my guidance, especially when it is one of you only who wants to rescind that trust. If one still trusts, the other ought to trust me enough to share with me how I’ve hurt you or missed you. Challenge me. If you both are of one accord to remove your trust, I will respect your decision. By all means, test what I say with others. If it isn’t from God, it needs to die.

Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash

Unequal yoking of love in relationships

When I’m in the familiar role of relationships counsellor I’m often stunned at how unequal relationships are, and I’m not talking about the role of spiritual belief.

I’m talking about how one partner won’t bend the way of the other, where this other partner is used to doing all the heavy lifting in the relationship.  One is more selfish than the other—it’s an unequal yoking because there’s always an inherent unfairness in the relationship.

Unequal yoking used to be a thing (and still is) for couples where there are inherent differences in faith, belief, and values, and is likely to cause conflict later.  It’s important too, and it corresponds to sharing equal willingness to work for the relationship and for each other, partners ‘yoked’ with the same spiritual commitment.  It’s crucial overall that both partners share equal willingness to work for the relationship and for each other.

Equal yoking is a term that emanates from oxen ploughing where two equally yoked oxen would do equal amount of work, ploughing effectively and efficiently, pulling together.  It’s no different in relationships.

Couples who show up and demonstrate an equal willingness to work in doing their own work in support of the other are more or less equally yoked.  But too many times I’ve been disappointed to find that one is not willing, and almost all the time I see the partner make up for the gap.  “If he won’t do it, someone has to do it.”

Unequal yoking is, however, not the fault of the partner making the relationship work by compensating for their selfish partner.  The truth is, they can’t be 150 percent adult to make up for the 50 percent adult in their partner in the key moments of the relationship.  Being mature, they deserve, and they need a mature partner.

Unless the partner who is selfish and lazy has a heart change there won’t be any hope of lasting change in the relationship, sad as that is to say.  I think the partner who has put up with poor commitment over the years already knows this.  Their choice is sad: put up with it or enter what seems and often is hard change to start over.

It’s annoying to me when I reflect on the priority that’s been placed on spiritual unequal yoking, when there are people who profess Christian faith who are as selfish and lazy as selfishness and laziness comes.  There are plenty of entitled Christians.  For me, it matters far more that the pragmatics of the relationship work so both partners can enjoy the fruit of partnership, which is support, which is love.

It all comes down to the willingness for one to sacrifice consistently for another.

If there’s no consistency in the sacrifice for the other, you need to question the love.  If there’s no consistency in the sacrifice, as a partner, you don’t feel as loved as you do when there is a consistency of sacrifice.

The very best in a relationship is when both partners attempt to outreach or outdo each other in their love.  Ironically, selfish and lazy entitled partners expect to be ‘loved on’ yet do little or nothing to reciprocate.

As a counsellor, it positively excites me when I see two partners willing to sacrifice for the other.  It can take some time to diagnose the opposite dynamic—that is, to see the lack of commitment in one partner—but it’s always sad to say, “I’m not sure I can help you.”  Sometimes it’s the case that the partner who’s being taken advantage of can see it clearer in counselling and this might equip them to make a decision.

People who show they consistently sacrifice and care for others are suited to partnership.  Others who can’t or won’t consistently sacrifice and care for others aren’t suited to partnership.  It’s about as simple as that.

Blessed are the peacemakers, they’re called children of God

Peacemaking is a much-confused term.  Some people think it’s peacekeeping or keeping the peace at all costs.  I think the term “peacemaker” best describes the person who is committed to a THIRD way of living.  This is not a centrist way of living, but an entirely different way.

Think of it this way.  You don’t have to go very far in this life to be drawn into any manner of controversy, argument, or division—just visit social media, or partake in any form of news media.  There’s always an angle spun, and it’s the human propensity to make for a judgement.

Fr. Richard Rohr, a contemplative Catholic priest, calls this dualistic thinking—the thinking that judges everything right versus wrong, good versus evil, positive versus negative.  And this is our human way.  The first stage of the practice of contemplation is becoming aware of how quickly we form judgements in our thinking.

These judgements are not helpful, because they’re informed by many biases that almost all the time we’re hardly even aware of—unconscious biases.

Peacemaking is a commitment to a third and better way.  Peacemaking holds open the tensions that exist between two views and helps us stay away from being polarised one way or the other.  Peacemaking protects us from making decisions that seem wise at the time but end up being ill-considered. Peacemaking also protects us from deciding things that hijack our emotions.

Peacemaking, in terms of living at peace with others, is about considering information and deciding in the best interests of everyone.  And particularly on divisive issues, asks “Do I need to form a view in this situation?”

The thing is, every single day of our lives there’s an issue or issues that threaten to separate close friends and divide us as communities because we think it’s required of us to have a set and firm view.

Think of the Novak Djokovic controversy at present or the mandatory vaccination debate.

We may have strong views one way or the other on these and other issues.  Peacemaking takes us into the wisdom of asking, “Could there be a counterpoint here?”

The truth is, it’s those who really are peacemakers, those who are not owned by one faction or another, that are truly the children of God.  These are the ones who hold out for what God thinks, and God is truly never for one faction or another.

For God’s ways are higher than our ways, and God’s thoughts are inscrutable (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Peacemakers hold the sanctity of the human beings higher than the issues.  In fact, the issues are inconsequential.  For peacemakers, it’s so much more important how we treat each other than who’s apparently right and who’s supposedly wrong.

So if you find yourself thinking “I don’t want to have a view on this,” or “I’m not sure my viewpoint will be helpful in this debate,” perhaps you’re a peacemaker.  There is evidence that God is in you in your seeking to unify people and not divide them.

Peacemakers are safe people because they believe beyond prejudgement the very best of every person—now that’s a challenge, isn’t it!  They believe in the potential of people to change, and they believe people do change when they’re treated right, justly, and fairly.

Peacemakers believe in reconciliation, in justice as God sees it (not as we think it is), and they believe that kindness, gentleness, grace, patience—the fruit of the Spirit, and speaking the truth in love—are the way to live.  And peacemakers hold themselves personally accountable, first and foremost, to live out of these commitments.  To this end, the peacemaker is first and foremost getting the log out of their own eye in conflicts.  They believe that their own accountability is integral to building a bridge where there’s tension.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken

“The mistake most of us make is that we build our homes in other people in the hope that they will deem us worthy of being welcomed inside.  We feel so abandoned and empty when people leave, because we’ve invested so much of ourselves in them.”
― Najwa Zebian

Enmeshment is the relational phenomenon where a person or both people in a relationship lose themselves in the other person.  Boundaries and emotionality are too permeable and pliable, and there is no solid sense of self in one or both.  The self is lost in the other, and where there is no solid sense of self, there is little that can be made as a strength for the relationship.

One of the commonest things I talk about in relationship or couples counselling is the important three dynamics that are well conveyed by Ecclesiastes 4:12 — “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

It takes two solidly attached people to build that third strand which is not so much the glue that holds them together, because the individuals in their personal solidity don’t need to be glued to anything or anyone — they’re autonomous, free persons (or should be).  The third strand is the strength they share from the autonomy each one brings.

But many people who end up in committed relationships are not autonomous or free.  They otherwise crave another person or thing to sink their identity into; another person to complete them.  It’s a trap any of us can fall into, mind you, especially when we’re otherwise challenged by hardships that test our sense of personhood.

The issue within relationships built on the shifting sands of losing ourselves in the other is it leaves us on tenuous ground.  It’s too big a burden for the other to carry, and it’s a constant vulnerability for the person who has plunged their personhood into another person—in making their home in them.

This is where things become unstuck, ironically when one brings pressure to bear on the other to commit.  This typically occurs when ‘the love wears off’ — code for the relationship has gone from the romance phase to the power struggle phase, which is normal as part of the 5 stages of relationships.  Tensions build when the person who has lost themselves in the other becomes especially needy.

We all have needs and it’s fair in relationships to have some of our needs met by our partner some of the time, just not all our needs all the time.  There must be some sense of solidity in each person in the relationship so they’re capable of holding themselves by themselves when necessary.  This sort of thing can cause some people to feel excruciatingly alone.

Back to the autonomy that should be present in every person in every relationship.

It’s a good sign that your partner views you as an autonomous person with the capacity for your own ideas, thoughts, and personhood.  What you think and say should matter.  So should what they think and say.  The best couples hold tensions well and can most certainly, and respectfully, agree to disagree.  It’s a relational red flag when one is not allowed their view or must fall into lockstep with the views of their partner.  When this is at the extremes, it’s abuse.

A cord of three stands is not quickly broken.  The first two strands combine to create the third, but those two strands must of themselves have sufficient selfhood and strength to offer to the other so both can come together in weaving the third strand.

For Christian couples, that third strand is seen as a God-strand, and certainly makes for a strength of unity between the two.

Compassion for the post-traumatic stress that’s commonplace

Those of us who know anything about trauma know that trauma sticks, and past traumas can leave us susceptible to certain vulnerabilities, some around triggers, others around no-go zones, others again that impact on our mental health, and all of trauma has impacts on our relationships, too.

The truth is life leaves us scarred, whether it’s through what is seen or otherwise sensed that we shouldn’t have been exposed to (the abhorrent), what we know that we cannot unknow, how we’ve been treated, abused, manipulated, or betrayed, or loss that rips us away from the life we just were never prepared to say goodbye to.

Then there’s the vicarious trauma that we pick up through the traumas that loved ones suffer that we suffer at a deeper, more complex level because we feel the trauma and we also feel for the loved one who has been traumatised.

Then there’s the ambient stress that traumatises so many individuals who feel incapable of absorbing that stress.  It’s not easy living in today’s uncertain world.

Resilience, for want of a better word because it’s so loaded, is quite a finicky concept when it comes to trauma—for instance, people may claim they’re resilient, but they haven’t been exposed to what others have, or they bear a strength that they have no business claiming credit for.  If you’re naturally strong in any way, less is there the personal credit, and more is there the credit for Creator or genes—genetics are less to be bragged about and more to be thankful for.

From what I can see, the role of post-traumatic stress is huge in everyday life, and not everyone is aware of the role this trauma-procured stress in their lives.  If they were, there would be less self-recrimination, less self-condemnation, less judgment, less rejection, less broken relationships.

But what is really needed is first acknowledgement if what took place and second, action in the form of holding space to properly validate what’s been experienced.  This validation alone calms the person bearing the stress of the effects of trauma.

Think of times when we’ve had panic attacks, triggering, bouts of rage, overwhelm, numbness, dissociation, catatonia, etc.  Yes, these are common to the traumatic stress response.

We need to know we’re not alone in suffering stark and dark emotions that cause us to shrivel in shame, which only serves to retain us in the post-traumatic stress cycle.

We need to talk about post-traumatic stress in everyday parlance because it’s an everyday phenomenon, and instead of ostracising people who ‘react’ when they’re hypervulnerable to stress, maybe we can be empathetic enough to ask the question of ourselves: “Could it be a trauma response?”

When we consider reactions, we know fight and flight, freeze and fawn.  Fight seems obvious.  Traumatic stress causes counterattack for the perception of attack.  And in flight, people run away or withdraw in fear.  It stops many in their tracks, immobilising a response, so the response of freezing is a lack of response.  And fawning is agreeing or assenting to that which we’d prefer to reject or disagree with but feel we can’t or don’t have the power or will to.

Trauma responses are not a choice, they’re a conditioning, so the person cannot be blamed for ‘reacting’ or ‘overreacting’.

What can be done to serve the person who’s embattled in their post-traumatic stress?  Keeping our hearts open in compassion to offer the person space, particularly after their reaction when guilt and shame loom big.  Helping someone understand why they’ve responded how they have helps them know there’s a cause beneath the symptom.

Compassion always explores deeper beneath presenting problems, and looking to empathise, compassion holds space for the person needing understanding and encouragement.

Unlike in narcissistic rage or coldness where there is self-justification and no contrition, those triggered by post-traumatic stress deal with significant guilt and shame afterwards.

If it’s you that reads this and says, “there’s something in this for me,” I want to tell you personally that I’ve been there.  It’s more often the case that people have experienced post-traumatic stress than there isn’t, and particularly if you’ve borne the pressure of what has broken you, it stands to reason there’s got to be some knock-on effects.

I also want to call us to hope for recovery, knowing that as we face that which has pushed and perhaps broken us, in safe spaces with safe people, recovery is not only possible, it’s probable.

A final word for those who battle addiction of any variety.  Consider that it’s trauma that underlies the presenting problem of addiction.  It’s the same for those with personality disorders and just about every other malady.

When we acknowledge the trauma, empathy is a far easier response.

Empathy, foundational and essential for pastors

“There was a time when pastors and priests might have gotten away with a lack of empathy.”  I said this to my wife, but then she corrected me: “But do they really get away with it?  Think about your Dad when Mum lost Debbie.”

Sarah was right.   The local Anglican minister in the small north-west town we lived in, when my parents had lost their third child to stillbirth, gave some spiritual platitudes to my father that would have been more common in 1973.  And because the platitudes were completely inappropriate (especially from someone who should have known better) my father turned from faith as a possibility for help in a time of grief.

It was a real tragedy, because my parents could really have done with that pastoral support.  The subject of my sister’s passing is still hardly mentionable for Dad, the grief runs super deep.  Imagine if it were different, and that Anglican minister had attempted to befriend my Dad—with empathy, which is no strings attached and entirely as equals.

A LACK OF PASTORAL EMPATHY, AND WORSE, PAIN AND TRAUMA

I think in yesteryear, when people didn’t question what ministers did out of respect for the position, ministers could get away with a lack of empathy, personally.  But they did the name of God damage when they did.

When you think about it, it’s utterly ironic and perplexingly abhorrent that any minister—who is a SHEPHERD remember—would so consistently fail to care for anyone (given shepherds care for their sheep).  Without empathy we cannot achieve true pastoral care.

Think about examples in years past when not only did ministers and the church fail to demonstrate empathy, but they also did the opposite and produced trauma through sexual abuse and spiritual abuse.

One would venture to say that where there is a lack of pastoral empathy, pain and trauma result, or are at least more likely.

BUT WHAT IS EMPATHY?

Empathy is THE non-negotiable ‘gift’ of anyone in a pastoral role.  That’s right, before any other gift, empathy is required, and therefore INFORMS every other gift.  Empathy must be part of pastoral personality.

But all too often pastors are lauded for the number of books they’ve read, as great thinkers, as theologians, as leaders.  But what use is knowledge, thinking, theology, or leadership without empathy? Recall Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8:1, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  Empathy IS the character of love.  Out of the heart everything flows (Proverbs 4:23), so first and foremost pastors need empathic hearts to be pastoral.  It doesn’t matter otherwise how visionary or entrepreneurial a pastor is if they can’t/won’t feel another’s pain.

But what even is empathy?

It’s stepping inside the shoes of another person, so much so that a person cannot fail to know how to support someone who needs it.  And for those who need support, especially in the church or Christian setting, pastors are the ones to provide that support.

Empathy is operant when the OTHER person, and what they feel and THEY say they need, is considered right.  In empathy, it’s ALL about the other person.  Empathy requires us to put all OUR power aside to serve the other.

Empathy is truly a gift of a life experience of suffering.  Few people have the gift of empathy without first having to ‘earn’ it through personal hardship and spiritual toil.

Let’s come back to what it looks like for a pastor to not have empathy.

Well, a minister without empathy knows that they need it, and you can know this by the IMPRESSION they create externally to others as they feign compassion.

This actually makes the pastor more of a hireling shepherd (one who does not really care for the sheep), because in feigning care when empathy should be their way, they instead weaponise inauthenticity against those in their care.

Think about it this way, when someone pretends to care for you and you know they don’t, that feels like manipulation.  Their feigning of care is for THEIR benefit, where care is always for the OTHERS’ benefit.

PASTORAL EMPATHY, TODAY

This is where I want to land the article—pastoral empathy in today’s world.

I know people who criticise ‘wokeness’.  But for me there’s a lot to be said about a world that’s woke.  In today’s world, there’s much less tolerance for a failure to care from those who have a role to care.  There’s more accountability than ever, and that’s good.

I’ve seen too many examples directly and indirectly of ministers failing to care, and worse feigning care when they knew they didn’t.  And sadly, some of those lauded as the best leaders are in that number.  I’ve personally called some of these to account, and each time I’ve done it it’s landed me in tenuous positions.  I’ve had to learn to trust God to work on these leaders’ hearts, to let it go.

More and more these days, God’s light of truth will shine on pastors who fail to exemplify empathy.  And that’s good.

~

One final thing to say.  If empathy’s not your thing and you’re a pastor, you’re a pastor in name only, a shepherd who does a lousy job of caring for your sheep.  Find a better vocation.

Determined to Live

I want to tell you a story that only came about in our minds today.

You see the image of the tree stump with a little sprout emerging which shows that despite it being cut down, the tree refuses to die.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

We moved into our home in February 2018, and about June 2019 we got one of those ‘trim your tree or else’ notes in our letterbox.  We know our side neighbour affected, so we worked together to trim the tree back the next Saturday morning.  It’s deciduous you see, dropping leaves in the Australian Autumn (mainly April-May).  Those leaves required daily sweeping up, and our neighbour was sick of it, but also knows us and didn’t want to offend.  To be honest, I’m not the best gardener, and when my wife saw how much we took off the tree there were tears and many of them, and quite a serious angry rant!  For a little while.  But the side neighbour was happy.  And my wife came to accept what was.

Fast forward to August 2021.

Our back neighbour asked his sister (another dear neighbour of ours) to get my phone number.  I agreed that she could share it, intrigued what it might be about.  The long and the short of it was he was keen to chat, and we had that chat over the fence.  He was extremely tentative, and I think he’s had some very negative neighbour experiences.  He basically offered to pay to trim the tree, pay to cut it half down, or pay to cut the whole thing down... as you can see it’s a big stump and less than a few feet adjacent to two fences—not a good place to plant a large tree.

But he was very worried about offending us, and I must say that initially we were horrified that he was even thinking such a thing.  About 15 minutes later, however, the wisdom of the situation was plain.  He was offering to pay to fix a problem for all three of us—himself, us, and our side neighbour.  All three of us where busy cleaning our yards daily and the fences were looking more tenuous.

Quickly I went back out to the back fence and dialogued more with Frank (not his real name).  What impressed me most of all was Frank’s concern for us, giving us options, and certainly not demanding anything; we could have refused him, and I know he wouldn’t have resented it.  The cost of the tree removal was going to be about $1,500, and we wouldn’t have apportioned such funds for such a purpose.  But we knew that at some stage, the tree would need to go.

So the tree was lopped in mid-August 2021 and we got to save a couple of pieces to do some art with.

That’s where the story should finish.

But just look at that sprout!  So leafy and green and alive looking.  Signs of life.  Signs of a living thing refusing to die, determined to live.  Despite it appearing completely dead for four months.  There was still life in it.

It says something about the resilience in living things.  And it speaks to human resilience too—especially in the context of the ‘deaths’ we experience in our lives, like those dreams that flame out but birth other dreams, or those losses that deepen us if only we go there and face the truth of them, or those plans we make that seem thwarted where God demands patience of us to be content in the exile of the present situation.

Think of those things that we faced and that nearly conquered us.  They always caused us to resist what they were doing to us.  If we were abused and violated, we didn’t just sit there and take it, or if we did because of our innocence, we resisted through the seeking of justice—these are the things of life because they speak to justice which is always a restoration of balance.  If we suffered anxiety or depression or grief, somehow, we were deepened as individuals, and compensated by an enlarged empathy.  We found we needed to be resilient to claw our way out of a very deep pit, and that took courage and resourcefulness that much of the time we never knew we had.

The sprout shows us who WE are.  We’re all determined to live, just as we’re determined that others live, especially those we deeply care for.  Though we’re never truly satisfied in life, that life force in us called hope impels us to create the vision of reality we desperately seek to realise.

Finally, it reminds me of my mother and her health, and others like her, who continue diligently obeying the doctors to live as long as she and they can.  Life is precious.

Determined to live, we’re much stronger than we realise most of time.