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Thu 12/18/2008
Charity or Compassion?
Topic: Christmas
Coming into Christmas, 2008, I find myself having new ideas this year. Partly because of the economic turn-down. Much more so, however, because of the Brene Brown's conference on shame resiliency. (if you are new to this blog, more info can be found at http://brenebrown.squarespace.com/ ) Compassion comes only when we learn to neither shame, nor to blame, another person who is experiencing misfortune. One can extend a lot of charity without having compassion. Jesus took the higher road. He told the bystanders to quit throwing their stones, to quit blaming. He looked into the eyes of people so that they could see his understanding as he extended his hand. That extension was not one of sympathy, but of the shared humanity that He knew and felt in his heart. Why? Because his life was filled with a mixture of joy and sorrow, of light and darkness. All because he dared to look at the light and darkness that fills our world. He looked beyond his own sorrows and needs, but felt them deeply. He knew what it was to live in poverty, and didn't consider that the worst thing in the world. Far worse, He realized and tried to teach us, is living in shame and self-doubt. Or feeling that life isn't worth living if we don't have all that Santa Claus makes us dream of having. So, somehow in kindness, yet without mincing words or lowering standards, he was saying to us: "Keep growing up and facing reality. In so doing, you will find peace, light, and compassion for people beyond your little world--the little world that stops at the borders or shores that you recognize as important."
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Thu 12/18/2008 9:02 AM CST
Wed 12/17/2008
Grown-Ups and Santa
Topic: Christmas
"It's like finding out that there is no Santa," a survivor, sexually abused by a priest in his youth, said to me in a one-on-one conversation years ago. He was speaking of the loss of the wonder that childhood allows, with the second chapter of loss that came years later when he asked his Church to provide protection for others and justice. He'd experienced twice the loss of the luxury of looking to people who can guide and instruct without hurting those who look to the "magician" that the Church seems to fabricate, giving priests the advantage of control and power that is beyond what the vast majority of humans can possibly use wisely and ethically. To the smallest children of our society, the men in the red suits are magicians who can make all dreams come true. To adults who haven't matured enough to stop believing in magic, that's what priests are, in fact. As grown-ups, we often fail to recognize our own power. Real power that is just as difficult to explain as the power we give to Santa. Or to a priest. Yet it's a power that we can all possess if our hearts understand real power. For Christians, it's the power to embody the essence of Christ, so that we do not become perfect yet can uphold very high standards of showing compassion toward ourselves in order to show more compassion to others. Thereby, having the possibility of creating Christmas every day!
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Tue 12/16/2008 4:44 PM CST
Tue 12/16/2008
Always in Practice
Topic: Christmas
As we work to become more shame resilient, we find our lives filled with more peace and joy--the very essence of Christmas! It never comes without a ton of work, however, and the filling of our lives with peace and joy has to happen again and again, else we become depleted and forget who we are. Like some of my piano students, I can slip into thinking that I'm old enough to quit practicing in the hopes of getting the "music" of my life where it's "supposed" to be. Where I can meet the relatively high standards that I like to hold in the way I do the things that are important to me. Parker Palmer, in an interview on NPR's "Speaking of Faith" Sunday, says that it is in the cracks that appear, because we are not perfect or always getting things perfect, that we find light. The light of self-acceptance, I'd say, that allows us to know that we are love-able and can possess the peace and joy of being "simply human" or "simply normal."
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 7:36 AM CST
Updated: Tue 12/16/2008 4:45 PM CST
Sun 12/14/2008
The Childlike Approach to Darkness
Topic: Shame
By dwelling in darkness, we refuse to see fragments of the light unless we can see the blinding fullness of all light. We want perfection rather than a broken world--the world that has always been, marbled and complex. So we sit like stones. Or spoiled children. Silent. Pouting. Or just having a useless temper tantrum. Dwelling in darkness, we do nothing to really clean up our own messes or any that we see in this world. Visiting or experiencing darkness requires commitment, as well as courage. Dwelling in darkness requires nothing except determination to stay in the same rut--just spinning our wheels. In that state, we can make a lot of noise, but NO music!
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Fri 12/12/2008
Misunderstandings about Darkness
Topic: Shame
Darkness is not just depression, though depression can dwell there. Nor is it necessarily the habitation for those who are oppressed. Darkness has many faces. Dwelling in darkness, however, is a choice that is far away from simply visiting or experiencing darkness. By visiting or daring to experience darkness, we find hope. By dwelling, we neither see hope nor dare to look for the courage to find it.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Thu 12/11/2008
The Greatest Darkness, the Greatest Fear
Topic: Shame
Ironically, the place of greatest darkness is fear and apathy. That place sits just outside the very place where we meet the opportunity to go into the depth of our souls, examining the darkness of past or present. For it is only in this examination that we are able to find real light--a light that allows us to walk with others, in a wide variety of circumstances, as they find the courage to go into the depths of their own souls. "Men love darkness rather than light" the scripture says. I now understand this on a deeper level than I ever did. Our human tendency is to love the common darkness of fear and apathy, rather than walking in the uncommon light of courage and compassion. It is the uncommon journey, however, that takes us to greater and greater heights so that we can see the blend of the darkness and the light in the threads of our own life, as well as in the larger world. Seeing it all in full view and still smiling through our tears. Not a smile of common happiness, but one of immense joy that comes as we learn to rest with the questions and be comfortable with the ambiguity. That, to me, is the meaning of a real Christmas.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Wed 12/10/2008 7:39 AM CST
Wed 12/10/2008
The Value of Sitting
Topic: Shame
Sitting is not more important than doing. It is a very necessary component, however, to doing. As we sit in the darkness, we gain insight. We also need to become comfortable in keeping a place to return to, to sit again and again, when we need the serenity of darkness. Yes, serenity! It truly becomes a place of serenity if we make friends with darkness. However, not as an exclusive friend. Just an important friend among many places in our lives. It is in the darkness that we learn to dig deep, so we can return to the light with renewed energy. Yet only if we remember that sitting is just a temporary condition. In the type of advocacy work that I do, I find that the most important thing--sometimes the only thing--that I need to say to most survivors of sexual and domestic abuse is that there is light outside the darkness. Even if that light does not come from the same sources that it once came.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Tue 12/09/2008
Wasting Time?
Topic: Shame
Is it wasting time to sit in the darkness? A lot of us have thought so, from time to time. Yet sitting there serves many purposes. Not the least of which is sorting the shame from the blame. And the blame from the guilt that allows me to take responsibility for my past actions, attitudes, beliefs, or approaches that will produce a very important change in me. So that I can, in turn, sit in the darkness with others.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 7:48 AM CST
Mon 12/08/2008
A Precursor to True Compassion
Topic: Shame
It's impossible for me to sit in the darkness with another unless I've dared to sit in the darkness of my own life. Sitting long enough to feel it, to accept it as a part of the process in life's griefs, and something for which I need not be afraid. I must be willing to sit until I am no longer tempted to run. Until the darkness becomes acceptable and is embraced as a normal part of every life, I cannot handle the darkness that comes with others' misery. Especially, I believe, if that misery is far different than mine, requiring me to imagine myself being in that exact place. It's much easier, therefore, to empathize with those who have suffered the same sort of pain that I may feel than it is to cross the bridge so that I understand the suffering that seems almost impossible for me to imagine. Perhaps we need to think of a new serenity prayer: "God give me the courage to imagine the pain of people far from me--culturally, geographically, and socially. Grant me the compassion to sit quietly, to walk with them, and perhaps to even take bold action on their behalf."
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Sun 12/07/2008
What about Humiliation and Embarrassment?
Topic: Shame
On some level, I've realized for years that being humiliated isn't the exact same thing as feeling shamed. In the years between 1986 and 1988, my husband and I experienced heavy doses of intimidation that were intended to shame us as we stood up and spoke truth to an organization that didn't want to hear the truth about it's complicity and collusion with sexual predators in it's midst. I now realize that they were doing this because they were afraid and felt shame themselves. What the shaming attempts felt like to me, though, were humiliation and embarrassment. Until I attended Brene Brown's workshop, I did not know how to draw a line between humiliation, embarrassment, and shame. Now I do. When I feel shame, I believe that I deserve what happened to me. Somehow what happened was because I did something or said something to "cause" it. To take it one step further, I see myself as "one down" (or maybe "one hundred down") from the people who dished out the treatment. Not ever feeling this way, in regard to anything that occurred in regard to our case of attempting to expose the unethical behavior of a predator colleague and the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) of the Southern Baptist Convention, I suppose I had experienced some extra-healthy doses of shame resiliency already--all due to a variety of factors over the first 40 years of my life. Not that I was 100% shame-resistant. None of us ever are! It's very humiliating, however, to be punished for speaking the truth--especially in the form of career loss and all of the economic disaster that goes with having this happen 10,000 miles from home. Isolation adds to the sense of helplessness. If I'd felt shame on top of humiliation, I probably would not have survived, I now realize. Fortunately, what I had along with the healthy doses of shame resiliency was what some called "righteous anger" that wasn't about to let power have the final say. Eventually, I ceased to feel humiliated and just started feeling embarrassed. That happened when I recognized, whether people believed me or not, that I had a rather common story to tell--even though the drama of being overseas and a person in a career of ministry myself made the story even more shocking to many. It was embarrassing to admit that I was seeming to "abandon" my career and ministry to which I'd felt a life-long calling. It was and still can be over-whelmingly laborious to tell the story and embarrassing to deal with the disbelief when I've tried to explain. It's embarrassing to be the underdog to this day. Brown says we can often, eventually, laugh at the embarrassing experience. Odd as it seems to many, I DO find the entire story of the spiritual wilderness experience, with an acute stage that lasted several years, to be somewhat humorous now. It's so ridiculous, and I often get a laugh as a reward for having dared to persevere. When I was a little girl, I considered "stubborn" to be a shaming word, often used by my mother. Today, I consider it a complement, for I realize that this is what has kept me from hibernating or being shamed for my persistence on many occasions in my life, in matters that I am thoroughly convinced are important enough to fight for.
Posted by Dee Ann Miller
at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Thu 12/04/2008 2:05 PM CST
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