Do what you can

Didache 6:1-2

See that no one leads you astray from this way of the teaching, for such a person teaches you without regard for God. For if you are able to bear the whole yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect. But if you are not able, then do what you can. 

What can I do today? 

Another talk for Rvwang youth on heritage language maintenance

 This summer I was privileged to speak again for a Rvwang American youth audience on how and why to value and use their heritage language. I built on the 2023 talk with some content and analogies from Kim Potowski and M. Paul Lewis and Gary Simons. In an unexpected turn of events, my flight back to Portland was cancelled and so I got an extra day in Fort Worth, and was asked to speak two more times for kids at the Rvwang church VBS. (Unfortunately, those were not recorded.) So I got more practice in refining the message and incorporating it in my own story. If you would like to listen, see the video at the link below, and also the embedded PDF.

"Dvci karu / Language benefits", at the Rvwang Youth Conference 2024 in Fort Worth, TX, 7/4/2024

Quiz questions for afterwards:

1. Can you name the 4 sustainable levels of the language mountain hike? 

(history, identity, orality, literacy)

2. What is the app for typing Rvwang on your phone? 

(Keyman)

3. If you can use many languages, what are you? 

(multilingual)

4. What is one image for someone between two cultures? 

(a bat or a bridge)

5. Name two ideas for a family language plan. 

(decide who, where, and when to use what language; if your parent or sibling speaks English, pretend not to understand, or give a guess in the home language; try to keep using the home language; put up signs at home; plan family language activities; ask about your family history; take quiet time alone to practice; listen to stories of other heritage language learners)

Poetry in Job

I wanted to share with you something I read this morning about the poetry in Job. Scholar Robert Alter says there are three levels of poetry in Job -- the three friends have one level, with some high points but ultimately repetitive and uninspiring. Job has another level, more passionate and creative with its attention to the details of nature. And finally, you have the poetry of the Lord's response, which surpasses them both. 

See below: 

The third—and, ultimately, decisive—level of poetry in the book is manifested when the LORD addresses Job out of the whirlwind.

Here, too, the Job poet’s keen interest in nature is evident, but in an altogether spectacular way that, one might say, trumps Job in the game of vision. 

The poet, having given Job such vividly powerful language for the articulation of his outrage and his anguish, now fashions still greater poetry for God. 

The wide-ranging panorama of creation in the Voice from the Whirlwind shows a sublimity of expression, a plasticity of description, an ability to evoke the complex and dynamic interplay of beauty and violence in the natural world, and even an originality of metaphoric inventiveness that surpasses all the poetry, great as it is, that Job has spoken. 

Many readers over the centuries have felt that God’s speech to Job is no real answer to the problem of undeserved suffering, and some have complained that it amounts to a kind of cosmic bullying of puny man by an overpowering deity. 

One must concede that it is not exactly an answer to the problem because for those who believe that life should not be arbitrary there can be no real answer concerning the good person who loses a child (not to speak of ten children) or the blameless dear one who dies in an accident or is stricken with a terrible wasting disease. 

But God’s thundering challenge to Job is not bullying. 

Rather, it rousingly introduces a comprehensive overview of the nature of reality that exposes the limits of Job’s human perspective, anchored as it is in the restricted compass of human knowledge and the inevitable egoism of suffering. 

The vehicle of that overview is an order of poetry created to match the grandeur—or perhaps the omniscience—of God. 

The visionary experience that this poetry enables for Job is of a vast creation shot through with unfathomable paradoxes, such as the conjoining of the nurturing instinct with cruelty, where in place of the sufferer’s longing for absolute darkness the morning stars sing together and there is a rhythmic interplay between light and darkness. 

Source: Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary: Three-Volume Set (pp. 5889-5890). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition. 

I thought that was really cool how, even through the levels and styles of poetry and dramatic-descriptive vision, the Holy Spirit working with the writer of Job can let us pour out our complaint, and then when we've exhausted our ability to speak, He shows us something wider and more mysterious than we knew to look for, lifting our eyes off ourselves to see the Creator's vision of the whole creation. 

 Hope this encourages you today.

A gentler Lewis

Even CS Lewis got tired of the fighting words and culture wars of his day. He wrote The Abolition of Man in 1943, lambasting secularists as "men without chests"; he followed with the dystopian novel That Hideous Strength in 1945; but by 1953, as Peter Brown recalls, Lewis looked uncomfortable in his own debating club because of the "directness of argument that bordered on rudeness--even browbeating" that was popular among young men at Oxford at the time. Brown saw Lewis as "a subdued figure, sitting low and long in an armchair, by no means the center of attention" and "ill at ease". Brown sensed that Lewis "was caught in his own reputation." Much happier was his glimpse of Lewis exuberantly expounding Milton in a majestic lecture room. He had a peace and confidence about him as a Christian apologist that was nourished by late-night talks with old friends and visits to the countryside. See Peter Brown's memoir Journeys of the Mind chapter 26.

Thoughts on family

 Here's the latest in my reading on cross-cultural psychology in an attempt to complexify the pop-psychology understanding of boundaries and separation-individuation:

According to Turkish psychologist Cigdem Kagitcibasi, it is possible for a family to be close and interdependent and still give their children autonomy and individual responsibility. It's also possible for parents to exercise both a high level of control and a high level of warmth (closeness), as long as the control has a positive meaning in the understanding of the child, and especially if this fits with the surrounding culture. American culture in the 20th century emphasized individualism (high autonomy, low connectedness), and psychology mistakenly took this as normative and healthy; many cultures in the Majority World were traditionally low autonomy, high connectedness. With families from these traditional cultures moving to the cities now, they are becoming more high autonomy, high connectedness, which Kagitcibasi says is a healthy target.

All this reminds me very much of grid-group analysis in Doug Fraser's cultural anthropology class.

I want to hold onto Kagitcibasi's idea that autonomy and closeness are both in-born human needs. Kagitcibasi does us a service in framing these as two different axes on the same plane rather than as two opposite points on the same axis. That we can have both if we do it right.

I also want to complexify the developmental perspective. Henry Cloud and John Townsend say in their book Boundaries that certain aspects of the soul may have been damaged or underdeveloped in childhood, and that they can be developed later in life in safe community. I would add to this a perspective championed by Laurie and Matt Krieg that lists a number of core needs (e.g. to be seen, to be known, to matter to someone) which we are created with, which are sometimes unmet in childhood, and crucially, which are designed for God to fill primarily, and thence indirectly to be filled by others in community. So it's not quite a matter of needing to develop boundaries to keep God and others at arms-length until one feels safe, but rather getting close to God (including through lament) and then becoming safe enough to let others come close too.

Finally, I think social and cultural change has affected not only the Majority World but also the US. Thus, in a family like mine that continued my grandparents' generation's parenting methods in some ways, and in other ways followed certain psychologically- and historically-informed neotraditional reactionary movements (e.g. literature by Mennonites, Bill Gothard, James Dobson, and the patriarchal homeschooling and home-business movement etc.), what we got was moderate to high closeness, high control, and also opportunities for high autonomy and personal responsibility. And yet as the surrounding culture shifted and called for less control, and my parents had less energy, I think there developed more tensions that were difficult to resolve because there was less energy and flexibility to maintain the family system and because certain existing practices took on different meanings when compared with the changing cultural context.

This makes me want to look more tolerantly on my parents' choices, as examples of burdened agency imperfectly working toward an ideal.

I also would like to add some sort of goal of maturity to this discussion of family systems. It's not enough to want your children to grow up to be autonomous, interdependent agents. This has to be a mediate goal on the way toward virtue. I don't mean Gothard's list of 49 character qualities; I feel that's too complicated and focused more on numerology than coherence. To be honest, I don't have a list yet. But I'd like go back in history and look more toward the mystical moral development program of Evagrius Ponticus and John Cassian (and earlier the Apostle Paul), with their idea of shedding the old self with its troublesome passions, proceeding toward singleness of heart and charity, and putting on a new self with new practices that lead to patience, a moderate selflessness, and clearer and more personal knowledge of God and others.

Another group of psychologists who would agree with Kagitcibasi are Ashley Barrrera, Markie Blumer, and Shayna Soenksen. In a 2011 article, they stress the importance of careful listening on the part of the counselor to find out the cultural background, family context and specific story of each individual they counsel, so they don't make hasty generalizations based on binary values like enmeshed vs individuated families. Even kids from enmeshed families can turn out well, depending on the meaning they place on their relationships and how they grow from them.

Last week I watched the film Ragamuffin (2014), depicting the life of musician Rich Mullins, especially in his tense relationship with his dad. A motif was a swinging lighbulb in the dark, from a memory of how as a young boy helping his dad fix a tractor, he hadn't held the light still and his dad had berated him. It was only after a retreat with a mentor, Brennan Manning, where he got alone and poured out his heart in lament to God, and then wrote a letter as from his then-deceased father to him, that he was able to reconcile the memories and remember how his father apologized afterward for his outburst and reaffirmed his affection for him. Somehow the processing of the overwhelming feelings unlocked the more complex memories and enabled him to re-evaluate his dad in a more balanced way, regain God as his true father, and recapture his love for his earthly father, leaving aside the unmet expectations on both sides. I have hopes to, slowly, over time, continue to do the same.

Recommended reading:
William Harmless. 2004. Desert Christians: an introduction to the literature of early monasticism. Oxford Univ. Press.
Cigdem Kagitcibasi. 2005. Autonomy and relatedness in cultural context: implications for self and family. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Vol. 36, No. 4, July 2005, pp.403-422. https://local.psy.miami.edu/faculty/dmessinger/c_c/rsrcs/rdgs/peers_social_general/Kagitcibasi_2005.pdf
Grid-group cultural theory. https://changingminds.org/explanations/culture/grid-group_culture.htm

Ashley Barrerra, Markie Blumer, and Shayna Soenksen. 2011. Revisiting adolescent Separation-Individuation in the contexts of enmeshment and allocentrism. The New School Psychology Bulletin 2011, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp.70-82.

Evagrius on persevering with persistent thoughts

 I have had a persistent fascination with Evagrius of Pontus, ever since I read about him in John Mark Comer's book Live No Lies. His notebook entitled Antirrhetikos or Talking Back (translated by David Brakke, 2009) is a long list of specific tempting thoughts classified under eight headings, with each thought countered by a verse from Scripture. 

Here are three of my favorites, creatively addressing the feelings of impatience, laziness, and loneliness that try to make me think of giving up the fight:

Against the thought that supposes that in a single hour the evil thoughts of fornication will flee from it:

'I will not cast them out in a year, lest the land become desolate and the beast of the land multiply against you. Gradually I will cast them out from before you, until you have increased and will inherit the land' (Exodus 23:29-30).

Against the intellect that is contending with thoughts of fornication, but does not want to shake them off of it completely and does not recognize the fetter of sin and the anxiety of evils:

'And Delilah said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he woke up from his sleep and said, “I will go out just like every other time, and I will shake them off.” And he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. And the Philistines seized him, cut out his eyes, brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he ground at the mill in the prison house' (Judges 16:20-21).

Against the soul’s thought that succumbs to distress and sadness and supposes that it is the only one that is tempted so severely:

'Discipline yourselves, keep watch. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering' (1 Peter 5:8-9).

As Evagrius says in Praktikos 6, "There are eight general and basic categories of thoughts in which are included every thought. First is that of gluttony, then impurity, avarice, sadness, anger, acedia, vainglory, and last of all, pride. It is not in our power to determine whether we are disturbed by these thoughts, but it is up to us to decide if they are to linger within us or not and whether or not they are to stir up our passions." 

Surfing the urge

G. Alan Marlatt and Jean L. Kristeller. 1999. Mindfulness and meditation. In William R. Miller (ed.), Integrating spirituality into treatment: Resources for practitioners, 67-84, at 78-79. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

As an example of ... insight meditation procedure, Marlatt (1994) developed the technique of "urge surfing" in the treatment of addictive behaviors. Designed as a relapse prevention method, the purpose of urge surfing is to help clients cope with craving or urges that otherwise might trigger a setback or lapse. Ask the client to first self-monitor any urges, cravings, or strong desires to engage in the target behavior (e.g., to ingest a substance or to engage in a high-risk sexual behavior). Encourage clients to identify the specific form that the urge takes when it occurs. Urges often take the form of a verbal intent or command, such as "I must smoke or I will go nuts" or "Just this once won't hurt me" or "Damn it! I OWE myself a drink after this!" Such verbal statements may or may not be accompanied by strong physical sensations or desire cravings. Such urge reactions often appear to take the form of classically conditioned responses, usually triggered by a cue or situation associated with the target behavior (e.g., a recent ex-smoker sees an open pack of cigarettes lying on the table). Contextual and environmental factors such as the client's mood and social environment may also elicit strong urges to indulge. 

This method first arose in the course of working with a client who was trying to give up smoking. After he had quit for a week, he reported constant urges to smoke that felt like a growing ball of discomfort that was increasing in intensity to the point that he felt that he would "go crazy" unless he gave in. Recalling a prior account of his reputation as a surfer during his youth, the therapist asked, "What if you could see the craving in the form of a cresting wave instead of a growing ball?" We then discussed his experience as a budding surfer. He described how he learned to keep his balance as the ocean wave swelled up beneath his surfboard and he rode the wave as it finally crested and diminished in size. He learned to keep his balance without being "wiped out" by the wave. He agreed to transfer this surfing metaphor to his meditation practice. As soon as he experienced any indication of a rising urge in his thoughts or feelings, he would direct his full attention to this growing wave while keeping his balance until the wave gradually crested and subsided. Because many urges in fact take the form of conditioned responses elicited by trigger events, their duration and intensity do not necessarily last unless they are reinforced by engaging in a consummatory response (smoking or drinking). The client reported using this meditative urge surfing technique as an effective means of coping with cravings to smoke.