The Training Wheels of Gratitude

Fatigue, too much people time, and too many calendar entries in one space make me grumpier than usual.  Way past the end of a long day, we were at a local big box buying a bike for the granddaughter. We had an hour or less of daylight, laundry to do, and an early morning work appointment.

I was not in a terrible frame of mind--but I wasn't in the running for peaceful person of the year, either.

The bike was assembled, which was a very good thing.  The only preparation was removing the tags and fitting the helmet to the rider.  Her bike riding experience is pretty limited, so this might have been an exercise in frustrated futility.  She hadn't yet learned how to work the coaster brakes, so there was more than a little physical risk involved.  I envisioned a trip to the ER and some tall explaining to do to her mama.

The first few trips down the driveway were movie stunt material, but no one was injured.  The best ride was the one where she took her feet off the pedals in a panic and still somehow guided the bike through the garage and out the walk-in door, ending up against the gate of our deck uninjured and shouting, "I'm OK!  I'm OK!"  She was OK, but I was descending into not-OKness at a lightning pace.

Then it all clicked.  She got the whole brake thing.  She turned the bike and headed back down hill.  She maneuvered through the obstacle course that is half of our garage.  She stopped and started on command and had complete control of the vehicle.  I watched her grow half a year in five minutes.  It was one of those moments of a lifetime.

And I thought, "Why do I embarrass myself by complaining?  what an ungrateful fool I can be!  We are drenched in blessings at every moment.  All I want to say is thank you."

An evening that had self-induced misery etched into it was transformed into a momentary miracle.  And I was blessed enough to be present for the moment and the miracle.  It was wonderful that our granddaughter got to have this experience.  But the real miracle was that her crabby papa got to have a little conversion event.  It isn't often that we get to have a mood transmuted in minutes.  But when it happens, there's nothing better.

Sometimes it's good to go for quantity on a gratitude list.  I could certainly produce several pages right now.  But in truth, quality is just as good.  I am grateful to have my life, my heart, and my perspective changed by a little girl on sixteen inch wheels in a Hello Kitty helmet, shouting "I'm OK!  I'm OK."

Yes, sweetheart, you certainly are.  And so am I.

Keeping It Human

"How can people be so mean to each other?"  If you have never heard that question or asked it, you probably live under a rock.  I have heard it over and over as I have worked with churches in conflict.  And it is a question worth answering.

In his article, "Hope on the Battlefield," Dave Grossman reviews the studies of battlefield kill rates in the history of western warfare.  In the wake of World War II, studies revealed that the majority of American soldiers did not fire at the enemy.  In fact, it appeared that only about fifteen to twenty percent of the soldiers did actually shoot to kill anyone.  What caused this phenomenon was "the simple and demonstrable fact that there is, within most men and women, an intense resistance to killing other people--a resistance so strong that in many circumstances, soldiers on the battlefield will die before they can overcome it."

This created problems for the military--problems that have been overcome through intentional training. According to Grossman, that training involves three elements: desensitization, psychological conditioning and denial.  This triad makes up what one expert described as "manufactured contempt."

How can people be so mean to each other?  I was struck by the presence of contempt as the determining factor.  John Gottman points to the same attitude as one of the coffin nails of a marriage in trouble. Gottman refers to contempt as the second horseman of the marital apocalypse.  Contempt leads to disgust.  These emotions permit us to regard another person as less than human.  That is the basic requirement for meanness on the part of most people.

In marital breakdowns, the same elements exist as in warfare.  Couples gradually lose their sensitivity to one another's pain.  They train one another through repeated dysfunctional exchanges to treat each other badly and to respond in kind.  And they begin to deny the humanity of the other person.  Once that happens, the end of the marriage is clearly in sight.

I see this in high conflict divorce situations.  When one of the parties curls an upper lip in disgust and derision, I know that we probably need to call for a brief recess in the process.  Once contempt is unleashed and disgust is expressed, it can be very difficult to pull the conversation back on to a civilized basis.  People who are disgusted with one another will say things that they would not say to other people even on their worst days.  Of course, if you are disgusted with someone then you believe you aren't dealing with people at all.

That's the point.

The same thing happens in church conflicts.  Perfectly reasonable people begin to describe each other as monsters, freaks and demons. That is the necessary condition for treating another human inhumanely.  Think about how the victims of genocide have been described.  The Nazis described the Jews as dangerous vermin needing to be exterminated.  Hutus referred to Tutsis as inyenzi, a Kinyarwanda word meaning "cockroach."  Couples in disintegrating marriages will use dehumanizing terms for one another as well.  It's easier to squasha cockroach than it is to hurt another person.

So in high conflict situations, it is always necessary to pull people back from the depths of disgust.  It can help in some mediations to ask--in private caucus--each parent if the other party is a relatively good parent.  That can restore some humanity to the perceptual mix.  Sometimes parties will become vulnerable enough through tears and frustration to allow the other to connect to them again as people. In church conflicts, I fight doggedly against ever allowing any conflictor to describe the other as demonic. A frenzy to kill is never far from any such description.

So, let's keep each other as human as we can.  Then it's not so easy for people to be so mean to each other.

Overcoming Stranger Danger

"We are a very friendly, welcoming bunch here, Pastor.  We are always so glad to have new people with us.  We go out of our way to make people feel at home here.  We're big on hospitality."

When I hear such descriptions, I know that I have my work cut out for me as a church consultant and coach.  That much protesting usually points to anxiety about being a closed off and unfriendly bunch.

We are wired to live in small groups and to be suspicious of strangers.  Studies using functional MRI data show that when we see the face of a Stranger, our amygdala gets activated.  We are preparing for a fight or flight or freeze response. This is the case even when subjects get the stranger images at a level beneath conscious perception.  

That little anxiety button heats up even before we know what's happening.  Then we create reasons for why we feel anxious.  I'm walking down a city street.  I pass a person or a group from the "Other" category.  Perhaps that category has to do with race.  Perhaps it was to do with economic situation. Perhaps it has to do with age or culture.  It doesn't matter.  If I am honest, I will admit my anxiety and my desire to move to the other side of the street.  That anxiety flares in advance of my conscious thought.

If that's the case, then is welcoming the stranger in church a losing battle at the physiological level?  Or as Robert Sapolsky puts it in "Peace Among Primates," "Is it possible to achieve the cooperative advantages of a small group without having the group reflexively view outsiders as the Other?"

Sapolsky's answer is a qualified yes.  He points to work done by Susan Fiske and colleagues on responses to strangers.  In one experiment the psychologists would "subtly bias the subject beforehand to think of people as individuals rather than as members of a group."  Sapolsky notes that with this kind of advance priming, "the amygdala does not budge."

So, welcoming The Stranger as a generic category may well be counterproductive in psychological terms.  But if we can prepare congregations to welcome individuals rather than categories, the whole game may change.  

I know this is the case in my experience with congregation-based prison ministry.  If we were dealing with generic Manacled Man or generic Prison Chick, then the response was negative and anxious.  But as soon as these folks became human beings with names and lives and stories, the response rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.  Suddenly, these were "our" inmates.  More than that, these were our friends, our neighbors, our fellow pew sitters and after a while our fellow members.

When I was a redevelopment pastor, I would routinely get pushback when I reached out to people who weren't white, middle-class and already churched.  The generic Other was frightening and alien.  But create the chance for actual and personal encounters and everything changed.  Suddenly welcoming that particular stranger became a snap for most folks.

This is why mission trips are so effective in building passion for partnerships.  This is why it is so important to bring real people, for example, from Tanzania to Nebraska.  Generic Tanzania person is a stranger, and the amygdala becomes unsettled.  But my friend from Moshi is not a stranger.  She has stayed in my home.  He has visited my school.  They have ridden in my combine.  And my amygdala no longer budges.

"Humans may be hardwired to get edgy around the Other," Robert Sapolsky concludes, "but our views on who falls into that category are decidedly malleable."  

"...remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us."  (Ephesians 2:12-14).

Doing What Comes Naturally?

"If we could manage to see people on other continents as part of us, drawing them into our circle of reciprocity and empathy, we would be building on, rather than going against, our nature." Franz de Waal, evolutionary biologist.

A congregation is bitterly divided by a conflict.  The troubles have gotten to such a point that the pastor has been asked to leave.  Many had hoped that once this personal flash point was removed, things would get better.  Things, of course, have not gotten better.  Now the conflict becomes a blame game.  "You ran our pastor out of the church," one side spouts, "and now what will we do?"

Image provided by Greg Hennigs

The other side is equally harsh.  "You were a bunch of damned fools for listening to that miserable excuse for a preacher.  You were naive.  You were used and manipulated.  We saved you and our congregation from years more of such terrible leadership."

Now family members experience tense silences because this is a forbidden topic.  Now people pass each other in the church narthex without speaking or making eye contact.  Now the attendance has dropped by forty percent and neighboring congregations are seeing visitors from the troubled congregation.  Now prospective members show up one Sunday and never come again.  Who needs more tension and trouble in their lives?

Then one brave and mature soul makes a move.  "It could be," this courageous character says, "it could be that those other folks have some good reasons for feeling and acting the way they do.  Maybe we should try to understand their perspective."

The simple saint's compatriots hiss with horror.  "Traitor!  Dupe!  Wolf in sheep's clothing!  How could you ever take their side?  You know the real truth of this situation!  You know how terrible those other people are.  How could you even consider their perspective?"

Perspective taking in the midst of a heated conflict is an example of great moral and emotional courage. That perspective taking--the first step toward genuine empathy--is a good way for a person to be drummed right out of the group.  And yet, that is the only real path toward reconciliation.  Choosing empathy is always choosing the hope of healing.

de Waal points to the story of Yosef Lapid, former Israeli justice minister.  In 2004, Lapid made the unthinkable suggestion that Israel might be wrong in demolishing Palestinian homes in the West  Bank. He was labeled a traitor, an enemy sympathizer.  But Lapid remembered an image of an elderly Palestinian woman standing in the wreckage of her home.  He then thought of his own grandmother, a Holocaust victim.  Lapid connected the two stories and built a bridge of empathy.

(I now see that Lapid's son, Yair, is leader of the second most powerful element of the current Israeli coalition government.  Yair continues his father's perspectives on Palestinian settlements and a two-state solution).

Shane Snow notes on LinkedIn that telling a compelling story will be the most powerful business skill in the next five years.  That is so because such stories build the bridge of empathy.  Such stories move us in the direction of our better nature.  And that is a direction we wish to go, if only someone will have the courage to take another perspective and tell a powerful story.

Are there such courageous saints in your community?

Thickening My Skin

Is there really such a thing as "thick skin" when it comes to the insults and assaults that go with everyday human interaction?  

I have heard about people who are thick-skinned.  I have even observed them in action.  Insensitive dolts hurl insults at them and they smile indulgently (if they even notice).  Brutally impolite folks point out minuscule flaws in their appearance, speech, personality, grooming, hygiene or penmanship.  And they glide along as imperturbable as a swan on a somber stream.  Bosses and coworkers gleefully offer stinging critiques during 360 degree assessments.  And these superhuman types thank them for the character deconstruction.

How do they do it?

And then there is the mysterious interchange of "giving one another a hard time."  Some folks appear to me to be wickedly brutal in their verbal assaults on one another.  Yet, these odd creatures treat it all as a game or even a competition.  "If I didn't give you a hard time, you wouldn't think that I cared," they may say.  I have no idea what that really means.

So what is this thick-skinned business anyway?  Many people are not highly sensitive persons, so those who are really do have pretty thin external membranes in emotional terms.  I have never been able to develop that thick skin in any natural sense.  I think that genetically I am unable to produce the extra layers of emotional covering.

So as an introvert who is highly sensitive, I find the emotional work-arounds to get through the day relatively happy and serene.

I work not to take myself so doggone seriously.  Of course, I can write those words, but I can live them out only in fits and starts.  I really am an amusing and often foolish creature.  I have odd habits and goofy idiosyncrasies just like everybody else.  Life is a lot more fun when I can just laugh at myself.  When I do, people get closer to me and I don't feel so alone.

After all, who do you know who as a seventh grader read the entire World Book Encyclopedia one summer for entertainment?  Yes, that was me.  No wonder I didn't get much of a tan that year.  Who brought home a pigeon in formaldehyde for dissection because it sounded like fun?  Me again.  Who reads this behavioral psychology stuff for relaxation?  Me.  Wow, I must be lots of fun at parties, eh?

Well, if I run into another overly intellectual introvert who's bored to death with all the frivolity, I am actually a laugh a minute...or not.

And I remember that most of the behavior that passes for thick-skinnedness is either narcissistic obliviousness or a well-practiced defense mechanism.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words really will hurt me--unless I have a measure of sociopathology.  Only people who are damaged somehow really and fully don't care what other people think.  Many are less responsive than are we more sensitive types.  Many will laugh it off (even as they plan their revenge for another and opportune time).

None of that means that poking one another is pain free for the majority of folks.  When I remember that, then I feel less alone and less likely to respond badly.  I have not been singled out for mistreatment any more than you have.  One of the real keys to happiness is simply to remember that most of what people say is about them and not about me.  I don't have to accept delivery on that trash if I don't choose to do so.  And I can make choices about how to respond.

Finally, I can choose my friends.  And I can choose what to share.  Being thick-skinned is not really an option for me and my introverted colleagues.  Having healthy boundaries is.  Especially as public leaders, we pastors have to be able to let people into our lives without allowing them to deflate our spirits.  Perhaps that is as good a definition of mature leadership as there is.

Astonishment is Over-rated

I've been thinking about the ways that introverts get penalized for being quiet--at least in parish ministry situations.  It's no wonder we sometimes feel like the drive-by victims in the drama of life.  How many of you highly sensitive introverted types have heard this one?

"You're just not available at all.  When you're here, your office door is always shut.  And you're gone most of the time, it seems.  Are you really at the library or at the coffee shop or holed up in your study at home?  I think you're just slacking off and don't want anyone to know it."

Many folks like noisy and active work environments.  They are energized by the conversation and can work in the midst of the competing sounds.  I just can't do that.  I can produce more in two hours of quiet concentration than I can in two days in what many people consider a normal environment.  Others might think I'm unavailable, but I think I'm just trying to do my job.

Then someone complains, and I'm astonished.  

Or who about this one?

"You've been here three months and have never talked to me once individually.  I'm here a lot.  I'm always ready to talk.  Lots of people are willing to talk to me all the time.  So I have to conclude that you just don't like me or that I've done something to offend you.  What's wrong with you?

I know that person who is always talking to someone.  I see that cluster of people, and I'm sure that I will be in intruder, an unwelcome outsider.  I certainly don't want to appear like some needy hanger-on who can't find anyone with which to have a conversation.  And I have other things to do as well.  The conversational types can get plenty of attention without me.  And besides, I can't imagine that I would have anything useful to add anyway.

The someone takes me to task for being distant, aloof, closed off and unwelcoming.  And once again, I'm astonished.  

And then there's this one, an oldie but a goodie.

"I passed you in the hall the other day, and you didn't even acknowledge that I was there.  I smiled and said hello.  You sort of nodded and went on.  It was like you didn't care about me at all.  Couldn't you tell that I wanted to talk with you about something important?"

I had just heard about the death of a child in the parish.  I was a bit shaken by the news, and I was headed off to call the family.  I was storing energy, focusing on what I would say and not say.  I was preparing myself for whatever might come along.  I was lost in concentration.  I'm not sure I remember even going past the person who made the complaint.

But there it is.  And soon there's a phone call to the bishop about that cold and unfeeling pastor.  And once again...you guessed it...I'm astonished.

Of course, we can talk abut codependent and passive aggressive people who might be able to manage their own feelings and expectations better.  But that's not the whole story.  Many people process life outside their heads and expect that I will do it the same way.  

Not likely.

When I'm rested and at my best, I know enough to slow down and step out of my head.  Sometimes I even have to say to myself something like this: "You're going to be with a crowd of people now.  Many of them will want some of your time and attention.  They don't care if you have anything significant to say.  They wouldn't notice if you did.  They're not wired like you.  So, make an effort.  Make a connection.  You know you'll like it--at least a little bit."

Yes, that sounds incredibly lame.  And in spite of that fact, it seems to work.  At least when I have that inner pep talk I am astonished less often. 

Betrayed...Again!

"I have never felt so betrayed in all my life!  After all I've done for (you can fill in the name here)! I've listened to him/her for hours on end.  I've traveled and talked and tolerated all sorts of whining and self-pity.  I have defended her/him to detractors.  I have taken time away from work and family and fun for him/her.  I have lost sleep and poured myself into her/him.  

And now...now...now...after all that, he/she has the nerve to attack me/criticize me/gossip about me/abandon me (this is a multiple choice exercise--select all that apply).  I'm not sure I'll ever trust anyone again!"

I have had that conversation with myself on numerous occasions (although not right at this moment).  I have heard that rant from others on equally as many occasions.  This is the deeply painful experience of betrayal.  And we highly sensitive introverts are of all people the most vulnerable to such assaults.  We make all sorts of internal investments in the people we serve.  And then we expect that everyone will know just how much we give of ourselves.  AND we then expect that no one will ever take advantage of that personal investment.

After all, these people owe us, right?

Wrong!  Of course, we grown-ups know how this works.  And yet, we highly sensitive introverts still have the nerve to be mortally offended when it happens.  How do I talk myself out of the pain, depression, shame and rage that come with this overly-developed sense of personal betrayal?

1.  I have to remind myself over and over and over that the power of human sin has not been erased as of yet from the universe.  "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Peter 4:12).  I haven't yet been freed from that power, and I shouldn't expect that anyone else will get it right all the time either.

2.  The people most likely to need my support and care are also the ones most likely to disappoint me (and themselves).  Otherwise they probably wouldn't need the help and support I might be able  to offer.  Those we invest in most deeply are precisely the ones who most often will leave us feeling abandoned and ashamed.  Preparation for that possibility can lessen the impact.

3.  I need to remember that this isn't about me.  So much easier said than done, of course.  I am, after all, the center of the universe, right? (see #1 if you need a refresher on this perspective).  People make the best decisions they can at any given time.  Otherwise they would make other decisions.  That doesn't mean we always make good decisions.  That's a different conversation.  But people usually do things that make sense to them at that moment.  I may think that I am the victim of a terrible injustice. But the person who has hurt me likely believes that the action made perfect sense, and that anyone in her/his position would do the same thing.

4.  So I strive to avoid the Fundamental Attribution Error.  I try not to evaluate people's external behavior in terms of the impact on me internally.  I can describe the behavior, but I have a much harder time ascribing motives and intentions--at least with any accuracy.  Others really are not bit players in my drama.  They are following their own scripts and are usually trying to do the best they can.

5.  Life is like boxing.  Defend yourself at all times.  Don't expect others to be wonderful simply because you demand it.  At the same time, I need always to find ways to let others in to my heart and spirit and mind.  Otherwise I simply become an island of isolation.  "And a rock feels no pain...and an island never cries" (Simon and Garfunkel reference--no extra charge).

We highly sensitive introverts have to adjust to this.  The majority of people are far more thick-skinned than we are.  That's not better or worse.  It's no different, as I've noted before, than being a left-hander in a right-handed world.  I can pout and protest.  Or I can develop better skills and resiliency in order to interact.  At my best, I choose the latter.

If only I were always at my best...