His lips quivered as tears moistened his eyes. But maybe that was just my imagination.
No, I could have sworn I saw his lower lip quivering. And no mistaking, I heard his voice cracking just a bit.
It was all there---the suppression of grief, the futile effort to hold the emotions in check, the chin lowered to the chest---exposed. His mournful tale has been told by others for eons: the friend who disappointed, a relationship destroyed, the future uncertain.
And as he sulked away, dissatisfied with explanations, I couldn’t help but hear Jimmy Ruffin singing his 1966 Motown hit, “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?”
And maybe Mick Jagger too, if not answering Ruffin’s question, at least offering hollow consolation to the brokenhearted: “You can't always get what you want/But if you try sometimes/well you might find/You get what you need.”
Unfortunately, there’s usually an enormous stretch between getting what you want and accepting what you need. Broken relationships can pain the heart, sear the emotions, and tear asunder an otherwise intact character.
Some relationships are unhealthy and even toxic. It’s not always easy and often takes courage to walk away from an abusive relationship, regardless of whether the abuse is verbally or physically administered.
And then some relationships end because of disappointment in the people involved. Sometimes friendships end abruptly; other times they die ever so slowly. Some can be repaired; more often, they remain severed.
How can we weather the storms of a broken relationship and at least allow for the possibility of healing?
Here are some ABC’S for a fractured relationship:
Admit to your part for any damaged emotions. Readily claim responsibility for your mistakes in the relationship. Shirking accountability stymies further personal growth. Is it remotely possible that you are not perfect and that the other person may not be totally wrong? Even if it is not feasible or appropriate to speak personally with the offended person, evaluating and admitting, if only to yourself, your own shortcomings will make fruitful relationships more likely in the future.
Be your better self. Rather that descending to the lowest common denominator of raw emotion verbalized in hurtful words, expressed in unkind actions, and enacted in retributive behavior patterns, be the best you can be. Rise above the flack.
Compassion is best expressed in the action of one four-letter word: L-O-V-E. Try sensing how the other person might feel. Rarely is anyone totally base. At least try to imagine the loss they might be experiencing. Restoration may not be advisable, but love in some form might be available. A compassionate heart comes as we walk through our own experiences of pain and loneliness.
Henri Nouwen spoke of this loneliness and how embracing it can become part of our journey towards healing hurt emotions. In his essay, “Stay with your Pain,” he wrote: “It is not easy to stay with your loneliness. The temptation is to nurse your pain or to escape into fantasies about people who will take it away. But when you can acknowledge your loneliness in a safe, contained place, you make your pain available for God's healing.”
What then becomes of the broken hearted who may not get what they want but what they need? It all depends on whether they allow their open wounds to be immersed in the healing waters of God’s grace.
That healing may not come all at once, but it ever so surely flows to those who venture reconciliation with God, themselves, and others. “I am the Lord who heals you,” (Exodus 15:26), God reminded the wounded nation of Israel.
It’s in the midst of the brokenness and strife that we may find some kind of peace of mind, maybe--- for after all, if life is to be lived, it must be lived in the midst of the failed relationships, forced alienation, and damaged emotions of brokenhearted people. If peace can’t be found there, it won’t be found--- for the world of the brokenhearted is the world we live in.
And what becomes of the brokenhearted is what becomes of us.
Contact David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his website, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Pardon my Blush
I could feel the veins in my face grow suddenly warm as I imagined my cheeks glowing bright red, signaling to all that I was blushing.
It happened in the post office. Clinking shut the little door to my mail box, I whirled around to see the usual long line waiting at the counter. And there with her back turned to me was one of my parishioners. I sneaked up to her and bending my finger to form a knuckle, tapped her on the arm, mouthing a clicking sound as I did, thinking she would laugh when she saw that it was me, her pastor who was teasing her.
Only when she turned around in surprise, it wasn’t my friend; it was a complete stranger.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” I attempted an apology as I stepped away from her. “I…I thought you were someone else.”
By now, everyone else in line had turned around, curious to see what was happening, wondering what exactly I had done to this innocent victim of my misplaced prank. I thought I noticed one lady edging closer to the counter.
I backed out of the post office, in the words of Roberta Flack, “all flushed with fever.”
Later that day, right after lunch, I happened to see my friend’s son-in-law downtown. I told him my story of how I had thought I had seen his mother-in-law at the post office but startled someone else. We both laughed.
Moments later, back at the office, I glanced in the mirror.
What was that on the side of my face? Oh my goodness, a splotch of brown balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing from lunch. Now I wondered if the son-in-law was laughing at my story or the brown tobacco-juice-looking stain glaring on the side of my mouth.
And again, I felt, “all flushed with fever.”
That evening, I was telling my wife the story of my two faux paus.
“Did you have any appointments this afternoon?” she asked.
“Just one,” I answered. “Why?”
“Because you’ve got mustard on the front of your shirt.”
She wasn’t kidding--- there it was, bright shining and yellow, between the third and fourth buttons.
It was all in a day’s work: Through each awkward event I felt that rush of blood to my cheeks and a faint light-headedness.
It’s called blushing, and scientists believe it’s is a common human reflex that developed in our evolutionary process over tens of thousands of years. It’s akin to a “flight or fight” response to our nervous system, an involuntary reaction. We have a sudden rush of adrenaline, our pupils grow larger, and our digestive system slows down to allow the blood flow to be directed to our muscles.
One theory is that blushing came to signal that a social norm had been broken. Neuroscientist Mark Changizi in his book, The Vision Revolution (BenBella, 2009), claims that we developed unusually strong color vision so that we could detect subtle hue changes in other peoples’ skin and could thereby deduce their emotions. His results “showed that in the context of transgressions and mishaps, blushing is a helpful bodily signal with face-saving properties. It seems therefore unwise to hide the blush or to try not to blush in these types of contexts.”
In other words, blushing actually evokes sympathy and in effect disarms an otherwise threatening situation.
Ahh, so that explains that dear lady’s kindness to me in the post office, “That’s okay, I understand,” I thought I heard her say as she beamed an empathic grin. And what’s a little tobacco, I mean balsamic vinaigrette, on the side of the mouth but a cue for more sympathy? And mustard dribbled down the front of my shirt? Bring on the compassion.
Come to think of it, as I reflect on that day, I believe I was the recipient of more warm heartedness than usual.
I’m getting up extra early tomorrow to practice a little blushing. And if I can’t come by it that way, I’ll just wear a brown penny loafer on my left foot and a black wing tip on my right.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He is also an adjunct professor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his web site, www.davidbwhitlock.com
It happened in the post office. Clinking shut the little door to my mail box, I whirled around to see the usual long line waiting at the counter. And there with her back turned to me was one of my parishioners. I sneaked up to her and bending my finger to form a knuckle, tapped her on the arm, mouthing a clicking sound as I did, thinking she would laugh when she saw that it was me, her pastor who was teasing her.
Only when she turned around in surprise, it wasn’t my friend; it was a complete stranger.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” I attempted an apology as I stepped away from her. “I…I thought you were someone else.”
By now, everyone else in line had turned around, curious to see what was happening, wondering what exactly I had done to this innocent victim of my misplaced prank. I thought I noticed one lady edging closer to the counter.
I backed out of the post office, in the words of Roberta Flack, “all flushed with fever.”
Later that day, right after lunch, I happened to see my friend’s son-in-law downtown. I told him my story of how I had thought I had seen his mother-in-law at the post office but startled someone else. We both laughed.
Moments later, back at the office, I glanced in the mirror.
What was that on the side of my face? Oh my goodness, a splotch of brown balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing from lunch. Now I wondered if the son-in-law was laughing at my story or the brown tobacco-juice-looking stain glaring on the side of my mouth.
And again, I felt, “all flushed with fever.”
That evening, I was telling my wife the story of my two faux paus.
“Did you have any appointments this afternoon?” she asked.
“Just one,” I answered. “Why?”
“Because you’ve got mustard on the front of your shirt.”
She wasn’t kidding--- there it was, bright shining and yellow, between the third and fourth buttons.
It was all in a day’s work: Through each awkward event I felt that rush of blood to my cheeks and a faint light-headedness.
It’s called blushing, and scientists believe it’s is a common human reflex that developed in our evolutionary process over tens of thousands of years. It’s akin to a “flight or fight” response to our nervous system, an involuntary reaction. We have a sudden rush of adrenaline, our pupils grow larger, and our digestive system slows down to allow the blood flow to be directed to our muscles.
One theory is that blushing came to signal that a social norm had been broken. Neuroscientist Mark Changizi in his book, The Vision Revolution (BenBella, 2009), claims that we developed unusually strong color vision so that we could detect subtle hue changes in other peoples’ skin and could thereby deduce their emotions. His results “showed that in the context of transgressions and mishaps, blushing is a helpful bodily signal with face-saving properties. It seems therefore unwise to hide the blush or to try not to blush in these types of contexts.”
In other words, blushing actually evokes sympathy and in effect disarms an otherwise threatening situation.
Ahh, so that explains that dear lady’s kindness to me in the post office, “That’s okay, I understand,” I thought I heard her say as she beamed an empathic grin. And what’s a little tobacco, I mean balsamic vinaigrette, on the side of the mouth but a cue for more sympathy? And mustard dribbled down the front of my shirt? Bring on the compassion.
Come to think of it, as I reflect on that day, I believe I was the recipient of more warm heartedness than usual.
I’m getting up extra early tomorrow to practice a little blushing. And if I can’t come by it that way, I’ll just wear a brown penny loafer on my left foot and a black wing tip on my right.
David B. Whitlock, Ph.D., is Pastor of Lebanon Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ky. He is also an adjunct professor at Campbellsville University in Campbellsville, Ky. Contact David at drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com or visit his web site, www.davidbwhitlock.com
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Should Christians Pray for the Death of President Obama?
Although the Republicans have been going at it for several months, we are not yet into the heat of the presidential race, and already some Christians are praying for the early demise of President Obama.
When I say, “demise,” I mean death.
At least that’s the implication of the recent email sent by Mike O’Neal, the Republican speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. That email followed a previous one in which O’ Neal had referred to Michelle Obama as “Mrs. Yomama.”
I doubt O’Neal will be a dinner guest at White House any time soon.
O’Neal is not the first to invoke a prayer for the early exit of President Obama. Soon after his election, some conservative Christians circulated a bumper sticker which called on Christians to pray, tongue-in-cheek, for the president: The “prayer” cites Psalm 109:8, a Bible verse in the
form of a “prayer for Obama,” which says, “May his days be few; may another take
his office.”
O’Neal’s email was an extension of that bumper sticker mentality.
The problem is in the phrase, which neither O’Neal nor the bumper sticker purveyors quote directly, but which immediately follows their scriptural citation. It reads: “May his children become fatherless, and his wife a widow. May his children wander as beggars and be driven from their ruined homes.”
Although O’Neal issued an apology saying he only meant that Obama’s days in office be few, the Scripture, taken in context (and O’Neal is apparently interested in the context for his email stated, “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”) calls not just for the cessation of employment, in this case the presidency, but for the cessation of life for the person of interest, the enemy---in this case President Obama.
For centuries thoughtful Christians have struggled with this passage, since Christians are not supposed to curse their enemies. The psalm is part of a group of psalms called “imprecatory psalms,” because they call on God to deal with enemies, in some cases, as in Psalm 109, by removing them from planet Earth. Many of the Early Church Fathers dealt with the problem by interpreting this psalm as a prophesy of Judas, since Peter quoted it in the upper room after the suicide of Jesus’ traitor.
Christian apologist and philosopher, C.S. Lewis, spoke of how Psalm 109 “strikes us in the face…like the heat from a furnace mouth.” Lewis pointed to the spirit of hatred expressed in these psalms as a way of reminding us of the evil that resides within each of us, directing us to the humility and love we find in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.
Certainly Christians should be mindful that Christ’s love prevails over hatred and evil. But, in regard to the Scripture O’Neil and other Christians like to cite in hopes of a convenient termination of the Obama administration, they should be mindful that the interpretation of this psalm hinges around verse 6, where the cursing of the enemy begins. Some maintain that David, traditionally believed to be the author of the psalm, is not cursing anyone but is rather quoting those who are cursing him. Indeed, some modern translations, like the New Living Translation, supply the words, “They say,” at the beginning of verse six.
In that case, by citing this passage, O’Neal and certain right-wing Christians are actually siding with the enemies of King David, the ones who made the false accusations against God’s anointed one, the ones David cried to God for help and protection against, the ones who prompted David to pray: “Let them curse me if they like, but you (God) will bless me!” (Psalm 109:28)
By analogy to the current situation, Obama would be the one falsely accused by the enemies of God---in this case, the Christian right.
Those summoning God to respond to their “Obama prayer” of Psalm 109 should not only reflect on the legitimization of calling on a loving, forgiving, merciful God to slay another Christian (President Obama is a professing Christian, regardless of what one thinks of his political agenda), but they should also be mindful, as they so cavalierly quote Scripture, of whose side they find themselves on.
Praying for the judgment of an enemy is easy.
But loving one is Christian.
And thoroughly biblical.
When I say, “demise,” I mean death.
At least that’s the implication of the recent email sent by Mike O’Neal, the Republican speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives. That email followed a previous one in which O’ Neal had referred to Michelle Obama as “Mrs. Yomama.”
I doubt O’Neal will be a dinner guest at White House any time soon.
O’Neal is not the first to invoke a prayer for the early exit of President Obama. Soon after his election, some conservative Christians circulated a bumper sticker which called on Christians to pray, tongue-in-cheek, for the president: The “prayer” cites Psalm 109:8, a Bible verse in the
form of a “prayer for Obama,” which says, “May his days be few; may another take
his office.”
O’Neal’s email was an extension of that bumper sticker mentality.
The problem is in the phrase, which neither O’Neal nor the bumper sticker purveyors quote directly, but which immediately follows their scriptural citation. It reads: “May his children become fatherless, and his wife a widow. May his children wander as beggars and be driven from their ruined homes.”
Although O’Neal issued an apology saying he only meant that Obama’s days in office be few, the Scripture, taken in context (and O’Neal is apparently interested in the context for his email stated, “At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!”) calls not just for the cessation of employment, in this case the presidency, but for the cessation of life for the person of interest, the enemy---in this case President Obama.
For centuries thoughtful Christians have struggled with this passage, since Christians are not supposed to curse their enemies. The psalm is part of a group of psalms called “imprecatory psalms,” because they call on God to deal with enemies, in some cases, as in Psalm 109, by removing them from planet Earth. Many of the Early Church Fathers dealt with the problem by interpreting this psalm as a prophesy of Judas, since Peter quoted it in the upper room after the suicide of Jesus’ traitor.
Christian apologist and philosopher, C.S. Lewis, spoke of how Psalm 109 “strikes us in the face…like the heat from a furnace mouth.” Lewis pointed to the spirit of hatred expressed in these psalms as a way of reminding us of the evil that resides within each of us, directing us to the humility and love we find in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ.
Certainly Christians should be mindful that Christ’s love prevails over hatred and evil. But, in regard to the Scripture O’Neil and other Christians like to cite in hopes of a convenient termination of the Obama administration, they should be mindful that the interpretation of this psalm hinges around verse 6, where the cursing of the enemy begins. Some maintain that David, traditionally believed to be the author of the psalm, is not cursing anyone but is rather quoting those who are cursing him. Indeed, some modern translations, like the New Living Translation, supply the words, “They say,” at the beginning of verse six.
In that case, by citing this passage, O’Neal and certain right-wing Christians are actually siding with the enemies of King David, the ones who made the false accusations against God’s anointed one, the ones David cried to God for help and protection against, the ones who prompted David to pray: “Let them curse me if they like, but you (God) will bless me!” (Psalm 109:28)
By analogy to the current situation, Obama would be the one falsely accused by the enemies of God---in this case, the Christian right.
Those summoning God to respond to their “Obama prayer” of Psalm 109 should not only reflect on the legitimization of calling on a loving, forgiving, merciful God to slay another Christian (President Obama is a professing Christian, regardless of what one thinks of his political agenda), but they should also be mindful, as they so cavalierly quote Scripture, of whose side they find themselves on.
Praying for the judgment of an enemy is easy.
But loving one is Christian.
And thoroughly biblical.
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