Words that stuck from Morning Prayer. (For the very observant, I was using the English rather than the Scottish lectionary today.)
Baruch ch. 4:
Learn where there is wisdom,
where there is strength,
where there is understanding,
so that you may at the same time discern
where there is length of days, and life,
where there is light for the eyes, and peace.
After a busy morning and early afternoon, and in anticipation of an evening meeting, I though I would take an hour of this rainy afternoon to sit and read. I have recently moved my favourite chair into my study for just such moments.
But I made the mistake of logging on first, and it seems my chance at the arm chair is gone. I suppose it’s a change from her sitting on the book…
There’s an interesting article by Martin Smith at Episcopal Cafe on the subtleties of racism.
Smith is reflecting on a racism study in the States in which a group of black and white people have a conversation. The blacks then tell the researchers which of the whites spoke to them as equals, and which were insulting. The white group is divided accordingly. They repeat the exercise , and immediately after the conversation, both of the white groups are given cognitive tests.
What they found was that the group of white people who behaved well towards the black people then performed poorly on the tests, while the obvious racists performed better. But then, when both groups were given the test at a later time, the ‘racists’ and ‘non-racists’ performed equally well. The theory is that the group of white people who had treated the black people well had used so much mental energy filtering their responses in order to do so, that they had none left with which to take the test. The obvious racists hadn’t modified their behaviour, so they came to the test fresh.
The conclusion is that most white people — even if they appear to behave in non-racist ways — are nonetheless racist.
Now, Martin Smith argues that the veneer of equality that marks the liberal church prevents us from facing the truth and doing the harder work of changing our hearts. We say all people are equal when in fact we believe no such thing, and we lie even to ourselves.
I suspect there is more truth in this than most of us would like to admit. But, I wouldn’t want to condemn the group that worked so hard at conversation that they failed the cognitive tests.
Surely there are times when change involves a choice. And that choice involves deliberate action.
We look at Christ, and learn the infinite worth of each human being. We come to know and believe that all people are equal. But that comes after much in our society that tells us otherwise. Head and heart don’t move all at once. So, when the head is in the lead (which is not always), we behave as the person we are trying to become. We do what believe is right and wish were fully true for us, even if old patterns of sin have not yet been transformed and redeemed. And that takes energy.
I would be hugely encouraged if everyone left church on Sundays totally unable to perform on cognitive tests because they had been working so hard at trying to bear witness to what they were becoming. If we can learn to behave consistently as if we believe something is true, then I suspect the day will come when we find that it has become true for us. Heart and head will match.
But if we continue to behave badly simply because it more honestly reflects our hearts, we may never learn to change at all, and might even confuse our consistency with integrity.
Once a year, or so, I make a point of browsing at length in a section of the bookshop I don’t usually go to. Business, home, New Age, Self-help, science, biography — anything other than fiction, poetry, cookbooks, or religion really. And then I come home with whatever strikes me. Good or bad, it will open up new lines of thought. So this time, it was Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve.
Friedman has worked variously as an organizational consultant, a family therapist, a White House adviser and a Jewish rabbi, and the book is a mix of all these things. The main thrust of the argument is that when we are driven by anxiety, we tend to make choices that are maladaptive — choices that move us towards regression instead of growth, and that leave us ‘stuck’ instead of freeing us from the problems that threaten to engulf us.
In a society driven by anxiety, therefore, the only hope is for ‘leaders’ (by which he means everyone ‘from parents to presidents’) to gain enough emotional distance from the dominant patterns around them that they can model a different way of being.
So far so obvious.
But he makes one observation that has stayed with me all week. He says that too often, in maladaptive patterns, we herd around weakness. That is, in a poorly functioning group (family, church, community, nation) our group processes adapt to that of the most immature members and we organize around dysfunction.
That seems counter intuitive at first. But it doesn’t take long to think of all the classrooms that fail because of one unruly pupil, all the families that crash because everyone is trying to dance around the most difficult member, all the visions that die because one or two people refuse to engage with change.
Friedman argues that instead of organizing around dysfunction, we should be resourcing strength: throwing all our support behind the strongest members of the group, giving our time, money and energy to those best able to self-differentiate and maintain emotional distance, because it is only when the natural ‘leaders’ are free to lead that the group gets ‘unstuck’ and can begin to grow.
So, I have been wondering: what would it mean to resource strength? Would it mean, in one’s own life, putting more time into the things one does well, and not worrying so much about the rest? Would it mean, in the church, focusing on the points of growth, the points of potential — trusting that the trouble spots would sort themselves out if the climate changed?
It is a strangely liberating idea.
And for a natural pessimist like me (redemption doesn’t allow us to remain pessimists, but we all have an initial base line…) — for a natural pessimist like me, the very exercise of naming the strengths and affirming the points of growth seems like a good idea.
So, that’s the game for this week: what strengths should we be resourcing — in ourselves, in our communities, in our churches?
For those who can be bothered, there’s another bit of the argument and a quotation that made me laugh below…
Continue reading “resourcing strength”
wonderful exchange 