The work of forgiveness 15

Let's now explore the sixth and final step in the process of forgiveness I am using.

6. Have some clarity about what the forgiveness will look like in this case. I may realize forgiving one person looks different from forgiving another.

I think forgiveness looks a bit different from person to person. The way I forgive may be different from what works for you. I also believe that what is needed in forgiveness is unique to the person being forgiven. It matters whether the person is alive or dead. It matters whether this is someone you can conceive of having a future relationship with or not. It matters whether the person is such a damaged individual that there is little hope (never no hope, of course) of them ever coming to a place of understanding about their actions, or whether they are a sensitive soul who may one day wish to examine the events and move towards reconciliation.

There are many other factors as well. You and I, doing the forgiveness, is unique. Each person needing our forgiveness is unique. Each situation is unique. And so forgiveness also looks different in each case.

At the end of the process, therefore, it is a good practice to consider what your ongoing forgiveness of the person is going to look like, so you have a measuring stick to recall when they come to mind or you cross their path in the future.

You will want to consider some of the things mentioned above, as well as a few others. Is there a personal safety issue involved, such that you need to distance yourself from the person? Is the person able to hurt you from afar, perhaps through social media, phone calls, chats with other people in your circle? Was the incident isolated or part of an ongoing situation? Would you want to contact the person again for possible reconciliation? Would you consider making the first move, or would that be up to them? How will you manage thoughts and feelings that may bubble up inside in the future?

Consider these and other factors that apply in your case. From your forgiveness perspective, write down what ongoing forgiveness will look like in your case—what you will and won't do, how you can keep yourself healthy, and how you can maintain the forgiveness you have found.

In the next post we will consider some things this state of forgiveness does and does not mean.

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Here we are, still in step 5 of the forgiveness process I am using. I'd like to consider with you when we can know we have forgiven the person.

I think some of us can sit down at this point, offer the person to the Lord, pronounce forgiveness, and not look back or be bothered about things later on.

Others of us, and this includes me, operate a little differently. I have enough doubt in myself that making a pronouncement that "sticks" internally for all time doesn't seem to work. When I try to work that way, I inevitably find myself thinking at some later point, "Have you truly forgiven this person?"

That's just me and my insecurities. I find things work much better for me when I can come to some kind of realization here in step 5 that I feel much more kindly towards the person than I did before beginning the process. Or that I have let go of a desire for retribution, or for them to admit what they did and ask forgiveness from me. I feel a sense of progress when I can pray for, instead of at the person.

When I sense a change in myself regarding the other person, I am, in that moment, forgiving them. And when I sense further change, I am forgiving them. When I realize the change has persisted within me over time, I am continuing to forgive them.

What works for me is a realization that I am in the process of forgiving, not that I have, in a moment, completed the task. And not that, having forgiven them, I can move on and never think of them again. I want to persist in this state of forgiveness, and when a thought of the person comes to mind, to realize I am still holding them in this grace. To be able to continue to pray for them and want the best for them.

That is what is working for me.

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!

In the Advent season, those of us from liturgical backgrounds are reminded every year by the scripture readings that guide worship that Advent is not just a season of hope and joy because of the coming of Christ. It is foremost a season of preparation for his coming.

Churches that use the Revised Common Lectionary find some of their scripture texts and sermons are about repentance and Christ's second coming of judgment. It's possible, of course, to skirt these texts and choose only the ones that are about hope, joy, and the coming of a better world through the Messiah. But even these texts hold an aspect of repentance in them. The hope of a better world is one where the rough places will be made straight, the poor will be fed, injustice will be no more, safety and peace will reign.

Excuse me, but those things will not happen unless humans wake up and start living in different ways. In other words, we need to be about repentance. The Messiah comes, in part, to provide a  example to us about what living out God's priorities looks like. He comes in part to enable us to do it ourselves. And he comes, in part, to provide forgiveness for those who realize they have not been living as God desires. Those who repent.

"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!" -- John, Matthew 3:2

"Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near!" -- Jesus, Matthew 4:17

It's no accident that both John the Baptist and Jesus make repentance—turning away from the way you used to live, and living a new way in accordance with God's commands—the focus of their preaching. God's message to us has been all about repentance ever since we first started sinning. What is the message of the Old Testament prophets? Repentance. What do Jesus and John the Baptist and Paul and others in the New Testament emphasize? Repentance.

So in Advent it should come as no surprise as we prepare for Christ's coming and the promise it holds for the world, that part of our preparation is to repent. In the clutter of the "Shopmas" season, taking the time to take stock and repent is one of the best ways we can honor the birth of our Lord.

The work of forgiveness 13

Here we are, still in step 5 of the forgiveness process I have been using.

Usually, once I've written down my reflections and considered them, I realize I now am feeling differently about the person I need to forgive. I may empathize with their situation, if not their actions. I may better understand their limitations, for in going through the forgiveness process I have also run across and considered some of my own. I often begin to feel a sense of sorrow and sadness towards the person and how they live. Not so much a sense of pity, but instead a sense of understanding that they live with their burdens (acknowledged or unacknowledged) just as I live with my own.

Because I took the time to complete steps 1-3, I can rest in knowing the actions that were committed, as well as the consequences of the actions, have been noted and considered, not swept under the rug or "cheap grace-d" away as if they never happened. I can also rest knowing these actions, and the person responsible, have been committed to God.

And so I find in this step I actually begin praying for the person, rather than at the person. There is still a sense of hoping and asking that the person may someday realize what they did and that reconciliation may be possible. But it is no longer out of a sense of me wanting to "give them the what for" or "having my day in court" with them, or making sure they know how much they have hurt me or others.

It is more in a sense of wanting the very best for them, for them to come to healing, just as I am coming to healing. For them to experience Christ more fully, just as I am. For them to be freed from unhealthy ways of thinking, feeling and acting, just as God is doing with me. And for these things to happen for them whether or not we ever reconcile, and whether or not I will actually be a part of their lives from here on out.

These are the things, I am learning, that start to happen as I move closer to forgiveness. I think they are part of what forgiveness looks like. But when can we say the person actually has been forgiven? I will explore that in the next post.

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Step 5 is the time to consider what God is showing you, and make a list that reflects the changes you are experiencing inside.

5. Reflect on what I am learning, come up with new perspectives, continue to an attitude of forgiveness, and realize there may or may not be an actual moment when I feel the work is complete. It may be more of a continuum where I gradually come to feel more forgiving than I had before.

The list I make in this phase is a kind of settling into a place where forgiveness is possible. It usually contains some statements acknowledging the hurt the person's actions have caused. But it also includes reflections on other things (good things, areas of growth, positive changes, etc.) that might not have come about were it not for the person's sins.

I often include on the list the ways my perspective on the person and their actions have been changing.

It can include my best estimation of the "why" behind the actions. Perhaps the person was blindly defending a family member. Perhaps they have an emotional disability. They might have been yearning for acceptance by an influential person. This is not excusing the behavior. It is trying to understand it.

Sometimes I need to throw up my hands and admit I do not understand, and probably never will. This also goes on the list. It is not an insurmountable situation though, as it helps me identify more with Jesus' act of forgiveness on the cross for people who "know not what they do."

These are by no means the only kinds of reflections you can write down in step 5. Whatever insights you are finding are helpful should go here. Whatever has the potential to move you towards forgiveness should be considered and noted.

The work of forgiveness 11

I'd like to stay in step 4, where you have given your burden of forgiveness to the Lord and are waiting on and trusting in him.

I have found that interesting things can happen during this step, when I know what I have given him and already am feeling some relief from the burden of needing to be angry and hurt.

Sometimes, another couple of things the person has done will come to my mind. These may be underlying larger issues that I had not been conscious of while I was focused on the more immediate, specific problems. When this is the case, I don't chastise myself for not thinking of these things in the earlier steps. Rather, I thank God for bringing them to my mind or helping me become aware of them. And then I simply add them to the other things I have placed before God and entrusted to him.

Another thing that can happen is that I begin to see the person differently. I might remember that they have had a tough life, or a difficult childhood. I may think about their current struggles. Maybe there are family issues. Maybe health issues. Maybe they have emotional problems or mental health issues. Perhaps they are unaware of how they affect others in general. They might believe they have to prove themselves to everyone. Do they have problems at work? Are they out of work? Perhaps they are under great stress. They may have suffered a loss or are lonely. In this step, I often begin to feel compassion for the person and the issues they are facing, even if those issues are self-created.

This can lead to gaining a sense of the reasons the person may have had for doing what they did. It doesn't mean I need to agree what they did was good. It doesn't change their actions or the effects their actions had on me and others. But it might help me to understand what made sense to them.

In this step I sometimes get a sense of how God sees this person, and also of how God sees me. That is always helpful.

Leave room in step four for God to show you whatever he wants. Do not be surprised at the directions in which he takes you. When new insights come to your mind, take time to consider why you are being shown what you are. Be open.

The work of forgiveness 10

Step four in the forgiveness process I am using is a time for rest, for quiet contemplation, for waiting on the Lord.

4. Bring steps 1-3 before the Lord, resting in him to help me forgive and gain insight into the person and situation.

One reason you can rest calmly in this step is that you have worked hard and devoted time in steps 1-3 to consider the person and your expectations of them, list their behaviors that need to be forgiven, and explore why those behaviors require forgiveness. You have been honest about the person and honest with yourself.

Now you can lay all of this before the Lord in trust that he will know what to do with it, and help you to proceed to forgiveness.

I find it helpful to imagine all the things on the lists I have made are gathered together in a kind of satchel or backpack that I can carry to God and leave with him. Sometimes it is good to imagine you are leaving these things before God's throne or his altar. Or you could picture leaving them at the foot of the cross. Use whatever kind of image is helpful to you.

You have done the best you can at considering the issues, and you have now given them to God. What will he do with your concerns, your feelings of hurt, your anger, your sense of being wronged? What will he do with the person who has done the things that have hurt you and possibly others?

You can trust that because of his character, God will be just, righteous, faithful and merciful. This is a good time in which to contemplate God's holiness, his character, his call to us to forgive, what Jesus said about forgiveness, and Jesus' passion and death on the cross. Read portions of scripture on these subjects. Recall hymns on these themes. Spend time in prayer, being open to hearing God's voice.

It is fine to let this step take a while—several days or longer than that if it feels right and necessary. Here is where a lot of healing can happen for you.

It's only 'Shopmas' if you let it

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT, 2013— I like Christmas. I don't like Shopmas. I had not heard of this term before I read this column in The Washington Post today, but it fits the situation perfectly.

With all due respect to my conservative Christian friends, I don't think it is people saying "Happy Holidays" that constitutes a War on Christmas(TM). Whatever war there was on Christmas was fought and lost back in the late 1800s when the gift-giving and Santa Claus-y stuff started taking control.

This year, I think, a new boundary has been crossed and obliterated. It's the Shopmas incursion on Thanksgiving, one of the last fairly pure holidays we have in this country. This year Shopmas crossed the Thanksgiving midnight barrier and bled well into the day of rest itself. Thanksgiving, not "Black Friday," is now the official start of the Shopmas lunacy.

Who are these people that fall for the Shopmas hype, that go for the doorbuster deals and camp out and stampede, and all that other stuff we see on the news? Why is shopping news anyway?

The commercials are especially insidious this year, whether they are Walmart's endlessly repeated ads or Target's "be a better competitive shopper than everyone else" offerings. The point seems to no longer be giving gifts to those you love, but beating those you love at at the gift-giving competition.

What competition? Are real people actually in competition with each other to see who can have the most perfect season of excess? To be the most clever at shopping? I am not sure I know people like this, but they sure seem to be all over the TV ads.

Some day I would like to see wide swaths of Americans rejecting the Shopmas hype, dialing it back, and living more sanely. Perhaps this is already happening, but it is not getting noticed through all the hype of our retail industrial complex.

For myself, I am focusing on Advent this year. Preparing myself quietly for the coming of hope into to our human mess, once again. I am reading the passages from Isaiah, the Gospels, and yes, the apocalyptic verses that are part of the Advent Lectionary but often get overlooked. Because with the coming of the infant Messiah, one of our tasks is to remember the second coming of Christ and the Day of the Lord he brings with him.

I'll buy some gifts, and decorate my house, and be with my family, yes. But it's only Shopmas season if you let it. I'm not going to let it. A quiet protest, focusing on where my hope lies, is how I plan to spend the next four weeks.

The work of forgiveness 9

In my process, once I  uncovered my expectations of the person I need to forgive, and then listed what behaviors needed to be forgiven, I was surprised to find I needed to add a step before I could continue to forgiveness.

3. What was it about these behaviors that made me angry or hurt?

While I knew the behaviors on my list made me angry, one thing I have learned over the years is that I often do not know why I am angry. Or hurt. Or happy. Or sad. Or any emotion, really. I have to think very honestly about the cause of my emotion before I understand it.

I used to think emotions were these pure things that come upon you very suddenly, and that they were always true and trustworthy. I thought they could be counted on in life to steer you in the right direction.

I was very wrong. I have learned from experience that emotions are easily manipulated and can come upon you so suddenly that sometimes you can't handle them. They are raw things, and they can be very untrustworthy.

So when I am in this process of forgiveness, this step forces me to look at why the person's behavior has made me angry, or hurt, or sad. What has happened because of the behavior? What are the effects? As I contemplate these things, I also check my emotions, to see whether they are self-serving or genuine.

Step 1 helps you understand what you expected from them. Step 2 compiles a list of what they did. Step 3 looks at the damage resulting from the person's actions.

I have been surprised as I go through this process how often I am not angry or hurt because of what happened to me. More often I am upset at what happened to others. So as you go through step 3, do not hesitate to look beyond what was done to you, and include the bigger picture of how others were affected in your consideration.

As with the first two steps in the process, take your time, be thorough and honest, and bathe your thinking in prayer. Ask God to show you what really needs forgiving.

When you are finished with this step, you should have a pretty good idea of what it is you really need to forgive.

The work of forgiveness 8

A look at the second of the items in the process of forgiveness I am using.

2. What specific behaviors by this person violated my expectations?

Early on I realized I couldn't just call a person to mind with only a general sense of what they had done, and then forgive them. Whenever I tried to do it that way, I later would remember some specific incidents and behaviors I hadn't earlier considered, but which were definitely part of the picture. Then I would feel like I really hadn't forgiven them because I had not forgiven them for those specific things.

The result was that I felt as though I had gotten nowhere and that they were still on my "still to be forgiven" pile.

Since general forgiving wasn't going to work for me, I realized that for each person I needed to make a list of specific things that had been done that needed forgiving.

How I compiled my lists

This takes some time; don't rush things. It may take several days or weeks of consideration for you to come up with a good list.

You should find a quiet space to draw up your list.

It helps tremendously to pray before, during and after the list making time. Ask God to show you the real truth of the matter. Ask him to help you be fair. Ask to see things in a new way—the way he wants you to see them. Ask to be shown which things are the most important, and which are more minor.

Stay as concrete as you can and focus on specific actions, incidents and behaviors. If these things seem to be part of a pattern, try to figure out what the pattern is. I found that at the end most of my lists consisted of patterns of behavior, and that individual incidents were just examples of those patterns.

Once you have what you feel is a fairly comprehensive list, allow yourself time to reflect and edit. I find I typically add a couple more things upon reflection, and also modify some of what I already have written down, clarifying, being more fair or more precise, seeing things in a different way, etc.

It is OK to cross things off the list that you realize are not a big deal. It is OK to suddenly realize something new and add it to the list. The point of making the list is to figure out the scope of what needs forgiving.

Once you have a settled list, it is time to move to the third step of the process.

The work of forgiveness 7

Here is a closer look at the first step in the forgiveness process I am using.

1. What do I expect from a person with this kind of relationship to me? (My expectations of a co-worker, for instance, are different from what I expect from family.)

I noticed it was much easier for me to forgive some kinds of people than others. I could not figure out why until it dawned on me that I had different expectations for someone who was, say, a friend, than someone who was, for example, a paid professional.

I realized that if I had few expectations of someone, they were a lot easier to forgive. If I had a lot of expectations, even if I wasn't really aware of them, I found myself struggling to forgive without quite knowing why.

It hit me one day a few weeks ago that I was treating one group of people differently than another. After sitting with this for quite some time, I threw up my hands and said in exasperation, "So-and-So is easy to forgive, because they didn't know any better, but Person XYZ absolutely should have known better."

I had a different, higher standard for Person XYZ than I did for So-and-So. Was that fair? When I looked at my relationship with and expectations of each of the two people, I realized it was. They had done similar things I needed to forgive. But one person was in a position of authority and leadership, while the other was not. I had legitimately different expectations for each person.

That's when I realized that what I expected needed to be a kind of baseline to factor into forgiveness. Knowing my expectations helped me to understand why behavior that didn't live up to them was so troubling to me. It gave me a context and a key to moving forward with forgiveness.

The work of forgiveness 6

I should issue a warning about this forgiveness business.

I have found one of the most important, and healing, things about it is a willingness to be completely honest and to seek God's truth in the matter, wherever it takes you. And that includes being shown that sometimes you are more than the victim. Sometimes you had a part in what happened and need to ask God for forgiveness for your role before you can move on to forgive others.

I suspect this is part of the reason why we put off forgiving. We know, somewhere deep inside, that we were not 100 percent the victim, that some of the fault lies in ourselves. When I have been at least open to this possibility, sometimes I sense things I could have done differently or attitudes I harbored that contributed to what went wrong. Other times I sense no fault on my part. But it is good and pleasing to God to be open and available to the real truth of what happened.

As difficult as it can be, if you did have a part in things, discovering what it was, coming to terms with it, and bringing it before God can be very freeing for yourself, and can help you on your road to forgiving others.

Important note: I want to be clear that I'm not talking here about forgiving emotional or physical abuse, rape, incest or other heinous acts where there was a clear aggressor and a clear victim. For that I believe seeking professional counseling and legal help is essential, and that you should not be searching internally for what you might have done to "lead on" the aggressor or do any other such blaming of yourself. You may actually have been in this situation for years because aggressors in these circumstances often pull that ploy. It is part of their abuse. In your case, getting better may actually mean learning to stop searching for "your part" in what happened. Trained professionals can help.

The work of forgiveness 5

Why did I need a step-by-step process before I could forgive?

I found that once I had gotten a place where I wanted to forgive someone, I was looking at a tangled-up ball of thread. There was what they had done, how I and others had been hurt, the ripple effects and collateral damage that had ensued, residual feelings of fondness I had towards them, how God was in the situation, my anger at the sin itself, and on and on and on.

I simply did not know how to look at this jumble of emotions, anger, judgment and love and just forgive.

I wanted to be fair. I did not want to leave something out. I wanted to bring God into it. I wanted to be honest. I wanted to acknowledge that I and others had been damaged. I wanted to show compassion. I did not want to let the person off the hook by pretending what they did was OK.

Just looking at the tangled ball of thread and trying to forgive the whole thing was not going to get me anywhere. I needed to untangle it. And the only way I knew how to do that was to go step by step, figure out what my expectations had been (one pile of threads), what specific actions had violated them (another pile), and why this had made me so angry (yet another pile). Only then could I move on to resting in God and moving towards forgiveness.

The work of forgiveness 4

One of the difficulties in forgiving is how to go about it. I learned a long time ago that forgiveness has nothing to do with excusing the behavior, pretending it did not happen or that it did not hurt. The painful behavior happened. It was wrong. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness does not give a pass to the behavior.

Nor does forgiveness equal reconciliation. Forgiveness can happen without contacting the offender. It does not mean you need to restore a relationship with them. It is in large part about not allowing the behavior of the person to continue to dominate and consume your life in the future. It is a gift you give yourself, that allows you to move on with scars, rather than open wounds.

Because I had a number of people and situations to forgive, I realized I needed a multi-step process to help me with forgiveness this time around. I needed to forgive each individual for only the behaviors they produced, I needed to be as thorough as I could, and I wanted to be as fair as possible. Here is what I came up with, which so far is working for me. I will examine each step in the process in some detail in future posts.

A forgiveness process

1. What do I expect from a person with this kind of relationship to me? (My expectations of a co-worker, for instance, are different from what I expect from family.)

2. What specific behaviors by this person violated my expectations?

3. What was it about these behaviors that made me angry or hurt?

4. Bring steps 1-3 before the Lord, resting in him to help me forgive and gain insight into the person and situation

5. Reflect on what I am learning, come up with new perspectives, continue to an attitude of forgiveness, and realize there may or may not be an actual moment when I feel the work is complete. It may be more of a continuum where I gradually come to feel more forgiving than I had before.

6. Have some clarity about what the forgiveness will look like in this case. I may realize forgiving one person looks different from forgiving another.

The work of forgiveness 3

A lesson I learned more than a decade ago, when I had to do some other major forgiveness work related to the church, has been helpful to me again this time around.

And that is, you cannot just sit down and force yourself to forgive because you know you're supposed to. Or because yes, it's the right thing to do. Or because, if you're a Christian, it's something Jesus thought was pretty important and you feel terrible about not doing it. Or because you realize it's been a while and you need to get on with it.

You have to want to forgive before you can start the process of forgiving.

The thing I learned the first time around, is that if you realize you don't want to forgive, you can ask God to help you want to want to forgive. Let that sink in. If you don't yet want to forgive, it is perfectly acceptable—and healthy—to pray that God will help you want to want to forgive.

This is an honest acknowledgement of where you are if you don't want to forgive yet. Perhaps you are in a place where you need to think some more, to try to make sense of what happened. Or you are so hurt that you need to be able to hang on to the feeling of being a victim a little while longer. You know you don't want to stay in that place forever, but you are not ready to give it up just yet.

The healthy thing to do is to understand where you are, own up to it, and admit you are not quite ready to move on. At the same time, you can be open to a change in perspective where you could move from where you are now, to a place where you would want to want to forgive.

Once again I find myself in need of forgiving some big things. And once again this advice (I wish I could remember where I had read it all those years ago) has stood me in good stead. Getting to a point where you actually want to forgive is possibly just as hard as the actual forgiveness process itself.

The work of forgiveness 2

One thing I am learning is that forgiveness moves in and out of focus. At times I believe I have completed the work with someone. A while later I remember some new, different thing that must be examined, considered, and forgiven. Although this does not set me back to square one, it does teach me that forgiveness is a journey that's a bit longer and more complicated than you might expect.

I try not to get frustrated by this, and instead see it as the way forgiveness works.

It is as if I am a farmer in the northeast preparing a field. At first, many rocks turn up in the field. Each of them must be dug out, examined, and put aside—perhaps into a rock wall. After a while of this, the field has far fewer rocks and can be used to grow crops.

Yet rocks still remain. In fact, some of them would probably have laid buried if it were not for the earlier plowing and removal of other rocks. Occasionally the plow will hit them unexpectedly. What does the farmer do? Once again dig up the rock, examine it, and add it to the rock wall. If the rock is left where it is, sure, crops can be grown. But whenever it's planting or harvest time, that rock will impede the process. Better to dig it up, deal with it, and then move on.

Forgiveness is like that, I think. We are walking this journey with God, open to examining and dealing with any rocks he brings to our attention, in the timing he chooses.

The work of forgiveness 1

It's been nine months since the church I helped to lead closed its doors, and during this time I have been learning a lot about myself, my relationship to God, and where I need to get my head on straight before I attempt to join and serve in a new church.

Among other things, I realized I had to come to terms with the way our church slid into its death spiral, work out my feelings towards those primarily responsible for the loss, and, because this latest church failure was similar to previous church problems in my life, make sense of the larger picture I have witnessed.

Even with a whole lot of soul searching, it took me the better part of a year to start understanding:
How angry I was.
Why I was angry.
Who I was angry with.
Why I needed to go through a process of forgiveness before I could have anything to do with a new church.
What a process of forgiveness even looks like in my case.

I hope to share my forgiveness journey with you in installments over the next months. 

The problem of sin

From some reading I am doing...

Over time a web of exclusively self-centered acts builds networks of vanity, violence, oppression and delusion, and such iniquity is visited upon the children "to the third and fourth generation." Such sin, our shared negative heritage built up through many lifetimes, spreads like a cloud of poison gas, blinding us to the true mutuality and complementarity of life.

(Tilden Edwards, Living Simply through the Day)

Sums up the problem of sin and the human condition quite nicely. Worth pondering and considering what can be done about it... then taking some action that goes against this flow.

Thinking with the church

From the New York Times report on Pope Francis' interview with Jesuit publications:

Asked what it means for him to “think with the church,” a phrase used by the Jesuit founder St. Ignatius, Francis said that it did not mean “thinking with the hierarchy of the church.”

“This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people,” he said. “We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”

All denominations, as well as individual churches, should meditate on this simple truth. It might help solve some of the clergy/laity and hierarchy/local church problems with which Christianity is afflicted.

Snark: the new way to shame congregations

The United Methodist Publishing House launched a website in 2011 called Ministry Matters. There are blog articles, preaching, teaching and worship resources, a library (subscription required) and evangelism and outreach ideas. The site's tag line is "supporting Christian ministry with resources, community and inspiration." It says this about itself:

Ministry Matters is a destination site for all church leaders [emphasis theirs], both paid and volunteer, interdenominational and nondenominational. The site’s goals are threefold: to equip, connect, and inspire people in ministry. While pastors will find much content designed specifically for them, other church workers, teachers, and leaders will find lots of helpful stuff as well.... Ministry Matters aims to serve Christians of many denominations—or no denomination at all!... 

The content comes from many different sources, some official, some not. Some are "big names" in the UMC world, and some not so much. The site is unevenly curated. Some articles hit a home run, most are at least mildly interesting, but a surprising number of entries just seem to be rants or vents. They are snarky, shortsighted, unhelpful, and—quite honestly from a lay perspective—rather insulting.

Posts like these are not uncommon on the site:
How to rid your church of young people
10 ways to remain 'favorite' pastor

Ministry Matters may say it is a "destination site for all church leaders," but articles like these go right for the jugular of the laity. In what way is this "helpful stuff"? It seems instead just another tired example of the thinking that the problems in churches are primarily the fault of the backwards, ignorant, selfish people in the pews.

Once again, I'd love to see the day when clergy and laity actually talk to each other and serve together. How about it?

Search me, O God

Psalm 139 is one of the "biggies." In it, the psalmist talks about the God who knows everything about him, inside and out. He expresses trust in this God and a willingness to be searched, known and corrected by him. The psalmist's goal is to live in fellowship with him.

This psalm is so familiar to us—the part about being known before birth, God knowing when we sit down and rise up, knowing what we will say before we say it, not being able to get away from God. And of course, the praise to God who knows us so intimately.

We marvel at this psalm and use and pray it all the time.

But—do we really want to invite God to search us and know our hearts, test us and know our thoughts? Do we want Him to see if there is any wicked way in us... and then correct us and lead us in the way everlasting?

When I think about Christian leaders I've known who have gotten off track and done damage to themselves and their churches, what they have in common is that they got away from Psalm 139—they did not keep in mind God's searching and purifying role in their lives. Perhaps they believed they had already ordered their lives and had been "good to go" for some time. They believed their own PR, or made their own plans believing these were God's plans, or they saw themselves as God's chosen ones whose thoughts and ideas were always the right ones. They weren't open to the counsel of others or to God's correction.

When we read and pray Psalm 139, we should do so with a full understanding of what the psalmist is saying. What does it mean to be open to God searching your motivations, reaching down into your soul, and showing you what He sees there? What does it mean to ask Him to dredge things up and then lead you on His path?

This is a psalm to sit with and contemplate for a long time before accepting what it teaches and incorporating it into your life. It is not a psalm to be taken lightly.

We will so order our lives

There's a promise of commitment congregations in my faith tradition make whenever someone is baptized. This statement is designed to remind everyone that the growth and living out of the Christian life is nurtured in community. The commitment we, the congregation, pledge at baptism, reflects a understanding that, day in and day out, it is the example of other Christians that helps each of us see what the faith is all about.

The commitment promise opens with the phrase, "With God's help, we will so order our lives after the example of Christ that..."

I've been pondering Colossians 3:1–17 recently, that mysterious passage that talks about our new life hidden in Christ and what it should look like. There's a veritable laundry list of things to put aside and things to embrace:

To put aside: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed; anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language; lying.

To embrace: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience; bearing with each other, forgiving each other; love, and the peace and word of Christ; gratitude; praise; wisdom.

When I think about the churches I have been part of and what beset them, when I look around at what the most prominent and vocal Christians in this country are known for, when I mull over what passes for Christian dialog on the Internet, and when I look at my own life, I see too many of the things we should put aside and not enough of the things we should embrace.

And then I wonder about the Christian witness in this world. Are we "so ordering our lives" or not? It seems to me that when the world considers our witness, it does not see enough of the example of Christ in those of us who go by his name. And those children and new believers that we are to bring up and nurture in the tenets of our faith? What exactly is it we are teaching them?

When we get caught up in endless "culture war" finger pointing at those who are not Christian and couple it with the intramural fighting that we've become known for, how is that "so ordering our lives after the example of Christ"? Who, exactly, is coming to know Christ this way—and those who are, what is it they think the life hidden in Christ is really all about?

When we build our churches around things other than those that mattered the most to Jesus himself, what are we teaching our children and new believers about what it means to be Jesus' disciples?

If we say "Christian" on the outside, but are filled with those things we are to put aside and exhibit very little of what we are to embrace, what good are we? When and where this is the case, the picture shifts from engaging in nurturing and building up people in the faith to assessing what kind of damage are we doing to them.

Pastors vs. laity. Laity vs. pastors.

At the end of 2000, I decided I needed to take a sabbatical from four decades in the United Methodist Church. When I walked away, I was worn out, burned out, jaded and angry, first from watching what happened to family and friends who served in the church, and then from what happened to me and people I grew to care about when we also served.

In 2013, as I weigh whether to rejoin the denomination, I'm uncovering a lot of old reminders of why I left. And they're making it hard to return.

At the top of the list of things I need to come to terms with if I return is the terrible chasm and disconnection between the UMC's clergy and its laypeople. It's the main reason I needed to take a break back in 2000, and things don't seem to have gotten much better in the interim.

The UMC is not alone in this regard. Many kinds of churches suffer from the uneasy relationship between clergy and laity. This recent opinion piece on the Alban Institute's website illustrates the issue.

Being a clergyperson, the writer sees the problem from the clergy's perspective. And that perspective is that the laity are sheep who are unreasonably dependent on, and have unrealistic expectations for their clergy. If only the laity would take more responsibility, be more mature, stop seeing the church in terms of what benefits them, and serve and welcome those who are on the outside, clergy tell each other, things would be so much better and we could really be church.

Then there's the counter perspective of the laity. They've seen clergy who do think their role is to have all the answers and the congregation's role is to follow them. They've been led by clergy who like being in charge with a more or less helpless congregation that they alone can lead. They've noticed that some clergy do not want to share power in the church with even their most mature members and will use their position to make sure that does not happen. They've been talked down to by clergy do not think people in their congregation even have ideas, or that if they do, that they are silly, or stupid, or "backwards," and certainly not based on what the latest church thinking happens to be. And they suspect some clergy enjoy feeling superior and "closer to God" than their congregants, and are more than happy to have a handy group of people to blame for things that do not work and problems that arise.

How do I know this? I am in the strange situation of having a foot in both camps. I went to seminary and am ordained, but I have spent most of my service in a lay capacity. I know how clergy complain to each other about their people, and I also know how frustrated the laity are with their clergy and denominational officials.

What I have hardly ever seen is an actual dialogue on equal footing between clergy and laity, where any of these kinds of issues are discussed and perspectives shared. Instead, each camp mutters about the other behind the closed doors of their own camps.

So let me say it here. Laity, you can be pretty immature, lazy and petty. Clergy, you enjoy the power and the feeling of spiritual superiority. And by the way clergy, you do hold most of the cards and you haven't played them very well over the years.

This is not just a UMC problem. It's a problem in all churches. We've got to figure out a way to work together, not at cross purposes. Things would be so different if clergy and laity were actually partners who had respect for each other, rather than people who see each other as problems and antagonists. Let's power share and responsibility share and honor our mutual and separate gifts. To get there, though, we first have to be willing to at least talk to each other. The time to start is now.

All in the family: recent observations in the gospel of John

If you would like to know what I learned about my relationship with God from a recent reading of the Gospel of John, visit my devotional website and read the posting "God is not my boss."

Glimpses of grace

I used to occasionally be allowed to preach. It was one of the greatest joys of my ministry life.

I think I was fairly good at it. I felt God gave me things to say that challenged and helped people. But I could have been a lot better if I had been allowed to do it on a regular enough basis that I could have practiced and developed my craft.

I'm still coming to terms with why that did not happen for me. Sadly, even after graduating from seminary and being ordained, the churches where I served were not in healthy enough places themselves to mentor me and my gifts. The pastors did not do it for me, and I in turn did not do it for other current church leaders like myself or for people who were taking discipleship seriously in the congregation. We were all just struggling to hold these places together.

We were dealing with the crises of the moment, always, always. We were not imagining or building for a better future. Yes, we should have been. But we were doing the best we could with what we had, and taking away another night of the week when one was already spending three or more nights at the church, and putting in 20-30 hours on top of full-time jobs to keep the place going...  Maybe in hindsight we should have been more forward-looking. But that's always easy to say. What I remember is just being continually exhausted and frustrated. Not in any kind of place to innovate or mentor or look to the future.

Actually, I think that's how a lot of ministry goes in the local church. You know what you want to accomplish, how you want to serve Christ. You have a heart for it. You feel a calling towards it. The Holy Spirit urges you on. But there's your people, with their dysfunctions and issues and problems. And survival is always a concern. And so, what you can manage at best is small victories related to the vision God's given you. The rest of it remains elusive and out of reach.

And yet.

I actually think God's OK with that. With the effort, I mean. With the intentions and the small results that come from trying to stay on message even though so much remains unrealized. And every so often he gives us glimpses of his grace to help us keep going.

I didn't get to preach much, but God-things have resulted anyway. A few weeks after I preached on John's prologue at a Christmas Eve service, a shy woman in her 20s in our congregation presented me with a painting she had made, showing the light shining in the darkness, which the darkness could not overcome. What I had said that night had resonated with her and inspired her. Her painting is one of my most treasured possessions.

The other day I received an email from a former congregant who had taken notes in her Bible on a Sunday I had preached, more than a year ago. She was in a time when she needed encouragement, and going through her Bible, she came across her notes, and what I had said, and God spoke to her again. She then emailed me to let me know what had happened, and she in turn encouraged me on a day when I was having a difficult time.

These glimpses of grace keep you going in ministry, even when the overwhelming preponderance of what we do seems to not bear fruit. You have to be attentive and recognize them when they come along, because like the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit they are easily missed.

I wish I had been able to preach more. I wish I still had opportunities to preach now. But I am gratefult that the times I did, God took what I said and did something with it. That's about as good as it gets.

Family relationships in John

As an example of reading the Bible on your own as an adult, I'd like you to try this exercise, which I recently completed myself. It's from the book, Becoming God's Beloved in the Company of Friends, by Mary Pazdan.

Go through the Gospel of John, focusing on one thing: what John (and Jesus within this gospel) have to say about Jesus' relationship with the Father. Make some notes whenever you see a passage or verses that mention how they relate to each other.

•  What themes do you see mentioned multiple times?
•  What are some of the key features of their relationship?
•  How would you describe their relationship?

Then, when you see Jesus explaining how humans can become part of this relationship, take notes on:

•  What do humans have to do to join Jesus and the Father?
•  What benefits will humans have in the relationship?
•  What will be expected of humans in the relationship?

Now look through your notes. What conclusions do you come to about Jesus and the Father? About what salvation is all about? About what the gospel of John is about?

In a forthcoming post, I will share with you what I learned when I did this, how this has affected my walk with Christ, and why I am glad I continue to read the Bible as an adult.

What do Christians know, and when do they know it?

I've led a lot of Bible studies and small groups, in both mainline and evangelical churches, and I continue to be astonished about my fellow Christians' lack of understanding of the Bible.

I've found it's the people who grew up in the church who have been the hardest to get into an adult study group. This seems to be because they think they already know what the Bible is about: what it teaches, what it tells us about God, and what its instructions are for living our lives. They learned these things as children and it's hard to convince them they would benefit from reading the Bible as an adult.

What do Christians know, and when do they know it? If you grew up in church, your understanding of Scripture probably started in Sunday School, where you learned Bible stories. So you believe you know the Bible. But really, you don't. Sunday School teaches kids sanitized versions of selected stories with action and memorable characters and miracles and children in them.

Children's Sunday School is a start to learning about what we believe. It's where you get the basics in child-sized, discrete portions. Sunday School is where you learn that Jesus loves you and you learn "what God wants from you."

But it's not where you learn that the whole of Scripture weaves certain themes about God and people, about what our problem is, and what God's solution is. It's not where you realize that the timeless issues plaguing the human race—issues we suffer through today just as people did in biblical times—require God's equally timeless response and our repentance.

It's not where you learn the Bible is not sanitized for your protection. Those perfect characters you learned about as a child are not perfect at all—a real eye-opener for adults who re-read their stories. They seem to be more like us, filled with flaws, making mistakes, and sometimes acting very badly.

It's not where you have to wrestle with the hard parts—the system of sacrifices, the genocides, the treatment of women and children, the slavery. In Sunday School you don't have to ponder how a Bible that was written a long time ago for people living in a very different world than ours still has relevance for us today.

A lot of Christians operate at the same level of understanding they gained as a child. But when we never progress past the Sunday School Bible story view and grow into an adult faith, we do both ourselves and God a disservice.

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The other place Christians tend to learn about the Bible is through Christian authorities, whether a pastor's sermons or the things that Christian celebrities tell us to think as we watch them on TV, listen to them on the radio, go to their rallies and read their books.

Unless you are reading, on your own, the passages these folks interpret for you, you are stuck with  their views on what's important, why it's important, and what you should think about it. Sometimes authorities get it right, but sometimes they're way off base. How will you know unless you are reading the Bible for yourself?

A friend of mine is searching for a new church. She went to one recently where in his sermon the pastor came to some conclusions about faith and the work of Christ that were patently wrong. The pastor had a point he wanted to make, and he was going to make it even though he had to twist Scripture to get there. And so he said that some verses meant something they did not mean at all.

Alarms went off in her head. Had my friend not known her Bible, if she had not read and wrestled with and understood the Bible as an adult, she would not have blinked an eye at the pastor's dangerous interpretation. But because she had, she knew that was not going to be the church for her.

Even if you've spent your life in the church, it's vital to open your mind and read the Bible as an adult. It's important to read big sweeps of the Bible, to see how passages connect, and what messages God repeats to us. It's crucial to experience words that make you uncomfortable or cause you to scratch your head. It's important to read the parts that seem grounded in ancient ways of thinking, and to wrestle with what they could mean for us today. And it's critical to see how the context of a passage helps us to better interpret what it says.

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Some people come from specific upbringings where they memorized Bible verses key to their church tradition's worldview. They believe they know the Bible because they have quotes for many different occasions. Bible memorization is helpful, both for ourselves and for others, but only when the individual verses are grounded in their surrounded passages and not left to stand alone out of context—either the context of the Bible or the context of the occasion for which they are used.

I once knew a woman who sprinkled all her conversations with Bible verses. No matter the topic, she had a number of verses to share that she thought settled matters. The problem was, most of them did not actually apply to the situation, and she was totally unaware that was the case. She had been raised in the "prooftexting" tradition and saw the Bible as a collection of regulations to live by, do's and don'ts, and promises that God was obligated to fulfill. Over the years, she harmed quite a few people by dispensing "biblical advice" in an authoritative tone that was both inappropriate and guilt inducing. But because of her upbringing, she thought she had a handle on what the Bible says, and that she was doing people a lot of good. She had learned things as a child and just carried that system with her into adulthood, never realizing the Bible isn't a recipe book.

We owe it to ourselves and to God not to sell the Bible and our faith short, but to give them the attention and thought they deserve. The rewards are rich, both for ourselves and the people in our lives. But when we are content with the faith we inherited as a child, and what we were taught when we were young, we rob ourselves of an adult understanding. Reading the Bible as an adult is one of the keys to developing a mature faith that is ours, not someone else's, and to helping, not harming people with what it says.

Who preaches your sermons?

I'm a strong believer that what comes out of a preacher's mouth during the sermon should be based on their personal study of and interaction with Scripture, the needs of and prophetic challenges facing their congregation and the world they inhabit, and what they feel the Holy Spirit is leading them to say.

Period.

That's why I bristle whenever I hear a sermon where the preacher's jumping on the latest bandwagon opinion spouted by their denomination or religious political affinity group. Or when preachers use sermon illustration collections, or worse, purchase entire sermons. And we wouldn't have issues with "Christian" flacking firms creating sermon tie-in content designed to boost the sales of the motion-picture industry (Hollywood and "Christian" films alike), or the latest "Christian" book the industry hopes will become a best-seller phenomenon.

Churches are constantly being bombarded with materials that promote the ideas of the mega-star pastors du jour, the next marriage-saving seminar series, the latest way to finally appeal to those hard-to-reach 18-35 year old demographics. They're hit with missives to preach about certain causes, get certain people elected, make sure certain other people don't get elected, March on Washington™, oppose this, work for that.

Every one of these so-called opportunities, whether they come from the secular or the ecclesiastical world, is someone trying to manipulate the church, whether for financial or political gain. These people don't care about you and don't care about your people. They just want to make a buck or use you to advance their cause. All of them. Even the people with whom you naturally might agree.

None of us should be naive. Churches and church folks are just another demographic to be exploited. And in these days of data mining and personalized advertising and other advanced techniques, this stuff is going to be coming at you and your people faster and harder every year.

So for heaven's sakes, be aware. Don't let your church become an arm of Christianity, Inc. Don't let other people put words in your mouth. Use your brain, your connection with the Holy Spirit, your prayer life, your immersion in the Bible, your observations about your congregation and the world around you today. Build your church around how your people, your community, and the world need to be touched by God. Every week, tell them something God's given you right now, specifically for them.

The real power of God comes from his interaction with you, and you with your people. Don't give it away to pale imitations.

An example of true repentance

A few days after I posted about the importance of taking repentance seriously, the news broke that Alan Chambers, founder of Exodus International, had apologized for the ministry and was shutting it down. Here is his apology in full.

It is an example of the kind of repentance I was talking about. Chambers is direct and contrite. He spells out all the ways Exodus hurt people. He acknowledges his part in it. He talks about how in trying to do good, he did great harm. Most importantly, he is ceasing what he is doing, ending the behavior, and looking to see what God will do next.

We rarely see this from Christian leaders of any stripe. That's stunning when you think about it.

It will be more than interesting to see what God does with this kind of repentance. I look forward to watching the developments.

Taking repentance seriously

A key part of salvation, a part that is for us to do, is to repent.

In both the Old and New Testament, God makes it clear again and again that one of the things he wants from us is to repent (*see some good references below*). If sin is the fundamental problem between us and God—and it is—then when we desire to come to God and receive his salvation, part of that desire needs to be a resolve to stop sinning, to look at our life and begin to change what needs to be changed to bring us increasingly in line with what pleases him.

God promises us that when we accept his salvation and desire to do this, he will give us the power to live differently. That's one of the things the Holy Spirit does in us.

Repentance does not mean feeling bad about what you have done and how you have lived in the past and thanking God that Jesus' work covers all that so you can now go to heaven, even if you actually do not plan to examine and make changes in your life from here on out. That's not what salvation is all about, and that is certainly not repentance.

No, the Bible is clear throughout in letting us know repentance means stopping, considering our lives, turning from how we used to behave, and living in a new way that pleases God.

I'd argue that you can't tell whether someone's really repented until time has passed and you see how things turn out, because repentance happens over time.

Don't get me wrong—I don't mean the qualification for repentance is that a person never sins again after accepting Christ. That's unrealistic and a ridiculous thing to argue. Come on now.

What I mean is that one component of accepting salvation means you're willing to actually look at your life and not live it the way you've always done in the past. It means you first look to God and what pleases him, and then you see how you have missed the mark (sinned). And you resolve to make changes, and you actually make them, and then you see what else does not line up, and you make changes, and on and on and on until the end of your life.

That's what salvation looks like in practice. That's repentance. And anything else is... not quite salvation, I'd argue. It's both your fault and the church's fault for not being adamant about what the "after" part of salvation entails.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke of cheap grace. I think cheap repentance is a component of that. Say the prayer and Jesus forgives your sins... and then just keep on living your life as you have been. I don't see a lot of churches showing people how to repent and what it should mean for their lives afterwards. We are living in an era of cheap repentance.

And I believe the church is suffering internally as a result. Our churches are full of people who've "received Christ" yet still behave in self-interested, dysfunctional, sinful ways that affect not only themselves, their families, friends, neighbors, and co-workers, but others in the congregation and the Body of Christ itself. Instead of working for the Kingdom, they're at best non-participants and at worst stumbling blocks and moles, agents of the enemy.

And most of them don't even know it, because most of them have never been told otherwise.

Now, let me be clear. I don't know what God does with folks who "accept salvation" and keep living the way they always have. I'm not going to go there now. Let me just say I trust in God's mercy and his justice, his faithfulness and his righteousness. We'll find out when we get to the Kingdom.

But I do think churches need to do a much better job of being clear about what salvation and repentance mean before the "prayer is prayed" or Christ is confessed. And we also need to do much better at walking alongside new Christians and showing them the ropes once they do join our ranks. Anything less does them a great disservice and is slow suicide for us.

* See—
The Book of Judges to understand a cycle of sin and repentance in Israel. In your opinion, did Israel really ever repent during this time in its history?
1 Kings 8 and 2 Chronicles 7 for God's word to Israel at the dedication of the temple.
Matthew 3-4 for what both John the Baptist and Jesus have to say on the matter.
Luke 16 for Jesus' parable about the rich man and Lazarus.
Revelation 1-3 for the importance of repentance within the Body of Christ.

It's no longer working

Somewhere in my 40s, I started noticing something about people in my age group. It's become more apparent now that I'm a decade past that. Perhaps I see more of it because I'm an ordained minister and people tend to confide in me. But I really think I am on to something.

What's hit me is how many people who have been trying to make life work on their own terms seem to hit the wall at about this point in their lives. However they've been coping with life's realities become less and less effective with time, and now it's to the point where it's crumbling.

Addictions don't fly under the radar anymore—now they're causing real damage. If they've been self-medicating to get by, it's no longer enough. If there are financial issues, at this point the hole seems impossibly deep. If mental health hasn't been looked after, now its built-up repercussions are taking a real toll. If there has been physical neglect, disease has set in. It's also the time when friendships, marriages and families fall apart.

In every aspect of life, people can no longer get away with living as they did when they were younger. The chickens come home to roost in these decades.

Everywhere I look in my age group—friends and family, co-workers and church folks—all seem to be hanging on by a thread as they experience setbacks and major life disappointments, many of their own making.

What an opportunity for the church to offer hope to ordinary, broken people, to really reach out with a message of love, acceptance and healing.

Book review: The Wisdom to Know the Difference

Being in a season where I am re-evaluating my service to the church, I picked up this book last month at my local Cokesbury store's closing sale. (RIP Cokesbury brick-and-mortar stores.)
Flanagan's premise is to explore the facets of the oft-quoted Serenity Prayer, specifically: to accept what cannot be changed, to change what can be changed, and to have the wisdom to know the difference between the two situations. Her book relates the stories of a number of people whose lives embody one or more facets of the prayer, and provides commentary on what they have learned over the years.

I confess to almost not making it out of the first chapter, the weakest part of the book. Here Flanagan makes a number of sweeping general statements about the way things are in the world, and why they are that way. She bases her statements on statistics and studies that she never  sources, either in the text itself or in footnotes. In this age of massive political spin permeating so much of what we hear, watch and read, attribution is critical. One cannot get away with statements like, "numerous studies have shown...," "most psychologists agree...," or "in one study, researchers learned..." without the careful reader immediately asking him or herself, "Which psychologists? What studies? Funded by who?" The lack of attribution immediately raises suspicion about Flanagan's agenda; it would have been easy to fix these omissions. Unless, of course, Flanagan was just being sloppy and vaguely remembering that some study somewhere had made her point for her.

Fortunately, once Flanagan starts introducing her protagonists, the sweeping statements fade to the background.

Christians reading the book must take into account that Flanagan is a Quaker, and brings that group's practices, thought and quirks into her writing. Some may be disappointed in her ecumenical embrace of wisdom found in non-Christian religions. This didn't bother me very much except in her sometimes references to "the wisdom of the universe," which I felt was going a bit too far. Others may tire of the frequent references to AA and other 12-step programs. Given the subject of the book and the role the Serenity Prayer plays in these programs, I did not find the time spent here was wasted.

Flanagan is at her best when talking with the interviewees and summarizing what they have learned through their experiences. It is in these passages that she makes her most important, and most helpful points.

While the book is unevenly written, it contains enough actual wisdom to make it a worthwhile read. I profited from what I learned, often in unexpected flashes of recognition and solidarity with the situations of those profiled. I suspect most readers will mine enough gems to make their time with Flanagan worthwhile. But I also expect what each reader gains from the book will be different, as some of us need to accept, some of us need to get up the courage to change, and we all need wisdom to navigate our particular circumstances.

The Wisdom to Know the Difference, by Eileen Flanagan
ISBN 9781585428298