Justice or Mercy?

Last week we considered Mercy’s two meanings:

• to be compassionate and forgiving to someone
• and to provide help to those in need.

In discussion of the first meaning, one reader asked, “When is it time for mercy, and when should I stand firm?” In answering, I’m keeping in mind three concepts:

• Jesus admonishes us to forgive “seventy times seven.”
• We must set limits to protect ourselves and others from people who feel no remorse when they take advantage of us.
• If in authority, we must teach others about responsible behavior.

I read a quote lately something to the effect of “Forgive the unrepentant and accept the unoffered apology.” It seems whenever I try to write about forgiveness, a beloved member of my family has been deeply hurt and so I truly struggle with my subject matter. The temptation for me is to not even try to forgive people who show no regret for what they’ve done.

That’s certainly the easier path; if they aren’t sorry, why struggle to forgive them? Because a lack of forgiveness grows into bitterness and harms our mood, our nature, and our very souls. We forgive the unrepentant, in part, to keep them from having negative influence over us. In addition, our own pardon depends on how we have pardoned. In the Our Father we pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We must work through our hurt in order to be ready to reconcile if the offender ever does apologize and ask for forgiveness. For more on  Steps to Forgiveness , click this link.

Consider the story of the Prodigal Son, who after demanding his inheritance squanders it on immoral living. When the money is gone and he is hungry, he realizes the error of his ways and returns repentantly to his father.  This story could also be called the Merciful Father. He has been watching daily for his son to return and, when he sees him in the distance, the father runs to his son with open arms and even sets a feast to celebrate his return. Obviously this man had done the hard work of forgiveness long before his son reappeared.

The son was sorry, the father forgave him, and showing him mercy, celebrated his return. But notice, when the son left, the father didn’t search for his son and drag him back, only to have the son leave again. The father’s mercy and forgiveness were ready and waiting for when the son had learned his lesson. I think of push-over parents who never quite enforce the threatened or natural consequences for their children’s disobedience. These parents are not being merciful. In fact, in their desire to be always the “happy, friendly, cool parents” they are keeping their children from learning the lessons of growing up responsibly. They are not merciful, they are selfish. They don’t want to feel those temporary emotions of their child’s anger, and instead forgo an opportunity to teach the child a valuable life lesson. 

In short, within our relationships, we must work to forgive time after time. However, mercy is not the same as leniency and our children must learn lessons from their mistakes. Those lessons are our responsibility to teach them. No matter how many times they make mistakes, we must continue to love them and be ready to run to them with open arms. People whom we are not in authority over are also deserving of our ready forgiveness and unending love, and in some cases we’ve built a strong enough relationship that they might be open to learning from us. But if not, and if that person continues to be harmful to us or our loved ones, we must set boundaries for acceptable behavior and sometimes limit contact with them. However, we should never “cut a person off” permanently.

We do the work of forgiving them in hope that in the future we can reconcile. A person who hurts us or others repeatedly must sometimes be loved from afar. This might mean putting a child in time out and then discussing why before they return to play. It means avoiding someone who is destructive in their treatment of our family until they show through their actions and words that they understand the extent of the damage they caused to such depth that it will keep them from ever wanting to repeat their behavior.

In serious situations, this realization may require counseling or spiritual growth to accomplish. (As may our attempt at forgiveness.) An abuser must realize how he or she makes the abused feel. An unfaithful spouse must acknowledge and know the hurt he or she caused, to such a profound depth that the very idea of hurting a person they love that way becomes unbearable.

There is a time for mercy and a time for justice. Where would our society be if a court always granted leniency to criminals? Our parole boards exist to make this choice carefully. A serial murderer requires the full extent of justice to protect our society. Sometimes the balance between justice and mercy is obvious. But in those times when it isn’t, when we aren’t sure which direction to lean, let’s err on the side of mercy tempering justice’s demands.

We must ask ourselves, what is in the long-term best interest of the person to whom we consider granting mercy? Because a child needs to learn responsibility, the long-term merciful choice is to enforce consequences, so they become well equipped to deal with the adult world. If an adult has learned a lesson and is truly repentant, mercy rather than punishment is due. If he or she is unrepentant, justice and discipline may bring the transgressor to realization of better ways.

An element of Justice exists in Mercy which keeps an unscrupulous person from being allowed to continue bad behavior without consequence. Mercy is not a warm fuzzy emotion that accepts any behavior. It is hard-won forgiveness (sometimes a daily decision) and a reaching out to someone who understands their mistake and is determined not to repeat it.

Betty Arrigotti

Author of Christian Love Stories:
  Hope and a Future (Oaktara 2010)
  Where Hope Leads (Oaktara 2012)
  When the Vow Breaks (CreateSpace 2015)

Everyone Needs to Forgive Somebody

-- 
Betty Arrigotti
Author of Christian Love Stories:
  Hope and a Future (Oaktara 2010)
  Where Hope Leads (Oaktara 2012)

www.BettyArrigotti.com

Our Father… Bless Our Families

Our Father –

Who art in Heaven –

• Our Papa God reminds us there is another life, another existence where all will be well. He helps us put into perspective this life and our nagging worries. Our attention should focus on the next life, knowing God is there, too, and we will know joy with him forever.

Hallowed be thy name –

• This phrase balances the concept of Papa God with a reminder of the awe-inspiring nature of All Powerful God, as well. He is all holy. His name is holy and we should speak it with respect and humility. Like our own children, whom we want to trust us and yet respect us, we owe him honor.

Thy Kingdom Come –

• We look forward to a better world but we can’t just sit and wait. We must also work to bring improvement to this world. Within our families and within our world, this phrase reminds us to strive to constantly improve ourselves and our relationships.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven –

• Our children must learn to obey us as parents in order to be safe and to grow into successful, law abiding adults. It might feel better to us in the moment to let their disobedience slide, but we owe it to them to respond consistently, even though they will be angry with us for a while. It is our job to model for them that their actions have consequences so that when they are adults they will not expect to get away with infractions.
• We, too, must constantly strive to discern and obey God’s will, in order to become the fully actualized people he created us to be.

Give us this day our daily bread –

• So much of the world is not assured of daily bread, let alone quality nutrition. And yet, we have more than enough. This phrase reminds us how desperately the world needs us to share our abundance.
• In a broader sense we are asking God to provide what we need, trusting he will. Not what we want, necessarily, but what we need.
• It also states us how truly simple are our daily needs. What do our children need daily? To be loved, protected, educated, fed, and clothed. Perhaps we need reminding that our children don’t NEED all the activities, toys, or electronics that we want to provide them. They need more of our time.

And forgive us our trespasses –

• We will make mistakes. We all do.  Let’s teach our children by example how to apologize quickly and ask forgiveness. Here is a useful template from www.cuppacocoa.com for a sincere apology:

1.     I’m sorry for…   Be specific. Show the person you’re apologizing to that you really understand what they are upset about.

2.     This is wrong because… Until you understand why it was wrong or how it hurt someone’s feelings, it’s unlikely you will change. This is also important to show the person you hurt that you really understand how they feel.

3.     In the future, I will… Use positive language, and tell what you WILL do, not what you won’t do.

4.     Will you forgive me? This is important to try to restore your relationship. Now, there is no rule that the other person has to forgive you. Sometimes, they won’t. That’s their decision, and that’s not something you automatically get just because you apologized. But you should at least ask for it.

As we forgive those who trespass against us –

• It’s a two way street. If we want to be forgiven, we must forgive others, even those who aren’t sorry and never apologize. God knows it cripples us to hang on to anger but when we release our grudges it releases our spirits. A family who learns this need never worry about mistakes tearing the family apart. Or resentments eating away at us from the inside.

And lead us not into temptation –

• No, God doesn’t ever “lead us into temptation.” We do fine leading ourselves there, or stumbling into it. From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Simplified, 2846-2847, “Sins come from consenting to temptation. We ask God not to lead us into temptation, meaning ‘do not allow us to enter’ or ‘do not let us yield to’ temptation. God cannot be tempted and he tempts no one. This petition asks him to block our way into temptation and to give us the Spirit of discernment.” We ask God to protect us from temptation and when we are subjected to it, to strengthen us so we turn away.
• When we are tempted, God will “provide the way of escape, so you may be able to endure it” (1 Cor 10:13).
• We pray our children will avoid temptation. We need to communicate very directly with them about temptation and how difficult it is to stay strong. This is where role play practice comes in. “What would you do if someone asked you to…” Don’t let the actual situation be the first time they have to figure out how to respond.

But deliver us from evil –

• Protect us, God, from this world’s wicked ones.
• Protect our children as they go out into the world. Keep evil away from our family!

For God’s is the kingdom and the power and the glory! All will be well. We simply need to trust in his love for us.

Blessings on your week!
Betty

Traits of a Healthy Family

Today let’s look at some simple lists and then, if you make it through to the end, I’ll offer my own two recommendations for building healthier families.

First, an addition to the Single Parent Family topic from two weeks ago. In Dr. Phil McGraw’s book, Family First: Your Step-by-Step Plan for Creating a Phenomenal Family, he lists

The most profound needs of children who are adjusting to life in a single parent family:

1.         Acceptance – They need acceptance. They need to know that they are important, that they are a priority. They will try to gain approval because their sense of belonging to the family has been shattered.

2.         Assurance of Safety – Parents need to go beyond normal efforts to assure their children that although the family has fragmented, their protection is solid. The key is to maintain a normal pace, boundaries, and routines. They need to know that their world is predictable and that it’s not going to change on them.

3.         Freedom from guilt or blame for the divorce – Children often assume the blame for the dissolution of a marriage. Be conscious of this and assure your children they’re blameless.

4.         Need for structure – They need structure more than any other time in their lives, because this is when things seem to be falling apart for them. Enforce discipline consistently and with the right currency for good behavior. They need to see that the world keeps spinning around, and they’re still an integral part of what’s going on.

5.         Need for a stable parent who has the strength to conduct business – Whether or not you feel brave and strong, you have to appear to be the best for your children. Do everything possible to assure them of your strength, and in doing so, you make it possible for them to relax. Show yourself to be a person of strength and resilience.

6.         Need to let kids be kids –

•          Do not burden your children with situations they cannot control. Children should not bear such a responsibility. It will promote feelings of helplessness and insecurity, causing them to question their own strengths and abilities.

•          Do not ask your children to deal with adult issues. Children are not equipped to understand adult problems. Their focus should be on navigating the various child development stages they go through.

Now on to all families:

In Traits of a Healthy Family by Dolores Curran, she writes that families for ages held traditional goals:

1.         To achieve economic survival.

2.         To provide protection.

3.         To pass on the religious faith.

4.         To educate their young.

5.         To confer status.

These goals were largely taken for granted until the 1900s. Today we focus instead on relationship. Curran writes, “We marry so we can love and be loved, not feed and be fed. We join together in a search for intimacy, not protection. We have children so that we can give and be given to, care and be cared about, and share the joys of connecting with posterity, not for old-age bread and bed. Abraham Maslow once observed that we are the first generation in the history of peoples sufficiently beyond sustenance to be able to focus on the quality of our relationships.”

Here’s Curran’s list of the traits of today’s healthy family:

1.         Communicates and listens

2.         Fosters table time and conversations

3.         Affirms and supports one another

4.         Teaches respect for others

5.         Develops a sense of trust

6.         Has a sense of play and humor

7.         Has a balance of interaction among members

8.         Shares leisure time

9.         Exhibits a sense of shared responsibility

10.       Teaches a sense of right and wrong

11.       Has a strong sense of family in which rituals and traditions abound

12.       Has a shared religious core

13.       Respects the privacy of one another

14.       Values service to others

15.       Admits to and seeks help with problems

Not a bad list to strive towards. I think I like it better than Stephen Covey’s but I’m offering his list for those it might appeal to. In Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, Covey writes:

“Good families—even great families—are off track 90 percent of the time! The key is that they have a sense of destination. They know what the “track” looks like. And they keep coming back to it time and time again.” 

Stephen Covey’s list of habits for effective families includes:

1.         Be Proactive – Become an agent of change in your family

2.         Begin with the End in Mind – Develop a family mission statement

3.         Put first things first – Make family a priority in a turbulent world

4.         Think “Win-Win.” – Move from “me” to “we”

5.         Seek first to understand . . .then to be understood – solve family problems through empathic communication

6.         Synergize – build family unity through celebrating differences

7.         Sharpen the saw – renew the family spirit through traditions

Well done! You made it to the end, so here are

Two of my suggestions for growing a healthier family:

1.         If you know you make unhealthy choices in an area—whether physical, emotional, spiritual or relational—get whatever help you need to become healthier.  A family benefits whenever any member improves.

2.         Spend more relaxed time interacting with your family. Sacrifices you’ll need to make for this to happen (turning off the TV, computer, and cell phone) are worth it. You won’t regret it. In our marriage, from the time our fourth was born, we made time for a date night each week (in order to complete a whole sentence and keep our relationship strong.) During the hectic years with four elementary school daughters, we restricted them each to one activity beyond faith formation classes. Schedules became more complicated with teenagers, but we flexibly enforced Sunday afternoons as family time and, with rare exceptions, expected everyone home for dinners.

I’ve quoted him before, but I still love Matthew Kelly’s concept that the key to thriving relationships is carefree timelessness. By this he means spending time with people without an agenda, simply to enjoy their company. “No matter what the relationship, whether spouse to spouse, parent to child, friend to friend, or person to God, increase carefree timelessness and it will deepen.” *

Does anyone remember the commercial, “Try it, you’ll like it”? Try family carefree timelessness today. You will like it, even if the eight year old stomps his feet and crosses his arms. Or wait, maybe that was the fifteen year old. Secretly, they’ll love having your focused attention.

Blessings on your week!

*For more information about carefree timelessness and Matthew Kelly visit www.DynamicCatholic.com

Boundaries within Families

We are half-way through our Lent. Are you feeling discouraged by your attempts to change yet? Yes, me too. Unfortunately, every family of four will have four saboteurs, ourselves included. It seems to be human nature to resist change. But we “keep on keeping on” in hope and trust that we can improve.

This week let’s look at one building block of healthy families – boundaries.

According to Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin by Anne Katherine, a boundary is a limit or edge that defines you as separate from others, a limit that promotes integrity. Healthy boundaries build healthy families.

Here are some excerpts from this fascinating book:

Personal Boundaries:

We have different type of boundaries:

• Physical – Our skin is our boundary but we also maintain around us an invisible circle or comfort zone. Its size is fluid depending on relationships and culture.

• Emotional – We have a set of feelings and reactions that are distinctly ours. Feelings can be used to determine a course of action. They tell us when something seems dangerous or threatening or safe. A warm response brings your feelings back to you. You get to know yourself better. This combination—of effective feedback and knowing yourself better—creates an emotional boundary. It fills in the circle of who you are and creates a space outside of you of who you aren’t.

• Spiritual – We are the only ones who can discern the right spiritual path for ourselves.

• Sexual – We have a choice about who we interact with sexually and the extent of that interaction. Boundaries limit what is safe and appropriate sexual behavior from others.

• Relational – The roles we assume define the limits of appropriate interaction with others.

Boundaries and Children

Boundaries begin to form in infancy. In a healthy family a child is helped to individuate, to develop a self-concept separate and unique from the other family members.

Parental attention develops boundaries.

• Interest in a child’s activities helps the child value what she can do.

• Interest in a child’s thoughts helps the child expand his sense of his own mental processes.

• Guidance helps the child realize that certain choices are superior to others—an essential aspect of boundary development.

• Expressed concern communicates a boundary—that the child is nearing a limit.

• Physical affection communicates that the child belongs, that he or she is part of a unit. It helps the child develop the boundary of “us” and “not-us.”

• Both too much distance and too much closeness between parents and children lead to problems. To a child, too much distance means abandonment and emotional neglect. Too much closeness—enmeshment—prevents the child from developing his own individuality and can foster in him a feeling of being responsible for the well-being of his parents.

• Meeting feelings  with disapproval or harshness teaches children to push them down, to separate themselves from their feelings, and to ignore the valuable information they contain.

• Feelings met warmly, with encouragement to talk about them and help to identify them—when a parent correctly interprets children’s facial expressions, body language, and the feelings connected with them—develops children’s understanding of their inner selves. Learning about and connecting with feelings is essential for complete boundary development.

What strengthens emotional boundaries?

• The right to say no.

• The freedom to say yes.

• Respect for feelings.

• Support for personal process.

• Acceptance of differences.

• Enhancement of uniqueness.

• Permission for expression.

What harms emotional boundaries?

• Ridicule. Contempt. Derision.

• Sarcasm. Mockery. Scorn.

• Belittling feelings.

• Stifling communication.

• Insistence on conformity.

• Arbitrariness.

• The need to overpower.

• Heavy judgments.

• Any kind of abuse.

• Abandonment.

• Threat.

• Insecurity.

Boundaries in Marriage:

If, as children, we had to deny our true thoughts or feelings to be safe, as adults we are likely to continue to deny what’s true for us. If boundary development was severely harmed when we were children, therapy may be the most efficient route, in order to not carry boundary damage into our relationships.

Ideally, the marriage contains enough togetherness to preserve the boundary of “us” and “not-us” and enough separation to preserve each person’s individuality. In a healthy marriage, each person is whole and intact. They choose to live together. Each could still survive if something happened to the other.

Acceptable degrees of intimacy and distance can vary. Communication is the life-blood that keeps the partnership fluid and vital and clarifies each person’s needs for intimacy and separateness.

Intimacy comes from knowing each other very well, accepting shortcomings and differences, and loving each other anyway. Enmeshment, on the other hand, is attempting to feel and think as if you were the same person. If only one partner is set up to do the thinking and make the decisions, that partner (let’s say the husband) will see himself as more powerful and important, even if his wife is the one who keeps the show going. This imbalance can cause the supportive partner to feel less important, less sure of her value and the worth of her ideas, more dependent on her husband, and more enmeshed.

Too much distance in a relationship leads to a cooling of romantic interest. Surprisingly, enmeshment can do the same. Enmeshment means someone’s individuality is being squashed. An enmeshed person is not known. True intimacy, in which each person is well known, leads to emotional closeness and easily into physical closeness. If partners aren’t talking about problems, feelings, needs, and wants, they’ll feel less known, and distance will grow between them.

Intimacy takes work.

Boundary violations, whether too distant or too close, can be healed right away if the sufferer tells the intruder that a boundary has been violated and the intruder immediately apologizes or somehow expresses concern about the violation. Note the two parts to this. The one whose limits have been breached must make the offense known and the offender must respect the limit.

So, what’s the goal of a person who wants to be healthy? To form boundaries that have some flexibility and some definite limits, boundaries that move appropriately in response to situations—out for strangers, in for intimates. Boundaries should be distinct enough to preserve our individuality yet open enough to admit new ideas and perspectives. They should be firm enough to keep our values and priorities clear, open enough to communicate our priorities to the right people. With good boundaries, we can have the wonderful assurance that comes from knowing we can and will protect ourselves from the ignorance, meanness, or thoughtlessness of others.

Boundaries bring order to our lives. As we learn to strengthen our boundaries, we gain a clearer sense of ourselves and our relationship to others.

Intact, clear boundaries enhance the family and prepare children for healthy adulthood.

Blessings on your week!

Betty

Single Parent Families

Welcome back to our 4 minute focus on building strong families!

One chapter in Building Christian Families by Mitch and Kathy Finley deals particularly with single parent families. If you are, or have been, part of a single parent family you will recognize the truth in what they write. If you are blessed to be part of a two-parent family, please read this anyway in order to build empathy for the special challenges you have been spared and perhaps to consider helping struggling families.

The single parent family is a true family and a legitimate form of home-church. Let’s follow the example we see throughout the Bible as God shows a soft spot in his heart for “widows and orphans,” or any family who needs extra consideration.

We all have our limits, and it’s only realistic to accept them. However, single parent families have special challenges we should be sensitive to:

• Both parent and children have gone through painful disruptions, whether because of abandonment, divorce, or death. Sources of income must be developed, a move to a new house or apartment may be necessary, and children might need to attend different schools. The grieving process may continue for many months, or even years.
• Parent-child relationships must be redesigned. A non-custodial parent may struggle to pay child support, worry about religious upbringing, have more time to be depressed, or feel acute loneliness.
• While couple parent families sometimes deal with the temptation to leave the main responsibility for parenting to the other spouse, the custodial single parent responds to the demands of children all day long and does it alone.
• Where a widowed parent may be looked upon by the wider community as courageous, others often view the divorced parent with suspicion or judgment. In some worship communities, the single parent who is divorced often feels shunned, ignored, even subtly ostracized. Yet divorced single parents have a deep desire to belong, to be a part of their church community.
• Single parents worry that their children will never have witnessed a normal man/woman, husband/wife loving relationship.
• Single parents must often deal with two particular temptations: the temptation to self-pity and to resentment.
• Many single parent families experience degrees of fear and anxiety that the typical couple-parent family does not usually know with such intensity. Financial anxieties may head the list, but a vague, undefined fear of what the future may bring is not far behind. The single parent is unable to share these fears and anxieties with another intimately known adult. She or he lives with these feelings constantly, so the fear tends to compound itself.
• In the two parent family, it is crucial for spouses to spend time regularly on themselves and on their friendship as a couple. It is equally important for the single parent to carve out of the week a few hours for leisure and, now and then, for prayerful reflection.
• The single parent often finds it necessary to struggle against the tendency to become isolated. Single parents have a need for sympathetic friends and for warm relationships with two-parent families. Single parents often need little more than a sympathetic listener, and they can frequently find this by forming friendships with other single parents and hopefully, by membership in church groups.

On the other hand, single parents may have some advantages over couple parents.

• They build strength as survivors, even though both parent and children have known much anguish.
• Children of single parent families are sometimes more mature than many of their peers from two-parent families. They have, of necessity, been trusted with significant responsibilities at home.
• Single parents may be more free to lead their children in their chosen faith life. In two-parent families, value conflicts which relate to the spiritual life of the family sometimes develop between husband and wife.

Single parents are like all parents:

• No parent or set of parents can give children everything they should ideally have.
• Most parents today often feel guilty about not spending enough quality time with their kids.
• All families know insecurity.
• All parents are called to conversion of heart and life, to trust God above all, to turn away from fear and anxiety as motives for action, to love God and others as the source of life’s meaning and purpose. Parents are called to do this even in the midst of meaninglessness and the temptation to despair. This is true faith, in the real world.
• All parents need other parents to simply commiserate with, to talk to and share their burdens and joys. We should never underestimate the value of honest talking and listening among peers, for it is a terrifically valuable service that all church communities should offer to parents.

Finleys remind us that a basic principle for all parents’ spirituality is to “keep on keeping on.” May God help all of us, married and single to persevere in our effort to parent well.

The Family as Church

Blessed Pope John Paul II declared, “The family in fact is the basic unit of society and of the church. It is the ‘domestic church.’”

Mitch and Kathy Finley, in Building Christian Families, write:

“Within the family, the foundational experiences of the Christian life happen best, for both children and adults. For most people, it is within the fabric of family life that faith becomes real. In family life, we experience the deepest joys and our deepest anguish, which means that in family life we most often discover the Cross and Resurrection of Christ in our own experience. […]”

“Within the family and around the family table, children experience the meaning of the Eucharist long before they receive their First Communion. Within the fabric of life in the domestic church, child and adult experience the meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation, apart from any official sacramental celebration of the experience. In the family, both adults and children experience the Christian life at its most immediate, where the seeds of faith are planted and cultivated daily.”

The family is the fundamental building block of the Church. Family spirituality is defined by the Finleys as, “A family’s ongoing attempts to live every dimension of its life in communion with the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus the Christ.” We first learn our spirituality primarily from our family. As Christians, our purpose in life is to serve God and his people, to work for the good of others, that we may all grow closer to God as we build his kingdom here on earth and spread the Good News of his love through our actions.

Do your children know what it is to be Christian? And what it means to be Catholic (or your denomination)? Or, more broadly, what are your children (even grown children) learning about spirituality as they observe their parents’ everyday life?

If your children are little, think back to your own childhoods. What did you look forward to about how your family expressed its faith? What were your family spiritual traditions on Sunday mornings? On holidays? On vacations? I remember whirling around the living room with my grandpa on Sunday mornings after Mass, my feet placed carefully on top of his dress shoes. Does that memory make me more Christian? Actually, yes, I think so. I knew in those moments that Sundays were special days of joy. Days to spend with family. Not simply because they were days off, but because they were God’s day.

If your children are teenagers, do you speak openly with them about your faith? Do you ask them what they think about social justice, or priests they have known, or some of the ethical questions we struggle with today? Do you visit other parishes so they begin to understand the universality of our Church? Do you reach out to the less fortunate as a family?

Last weekend, my husband and I watched a documentary, Into the Arms of Strangers, about the 10,000 children who were sent away in the 1940s from German occupied lands to strangers in England, in their parents’ desperate hope of saving their lives. The separation traumatized both parents and children, but their children lived, when 1.5 million children who stayed behind did not survive. The story touched us deeply as we listened to these children, now grown into elderly men and women, talk about how their parents struggled, in the few days between learning their children were accepted to the freedom trains and sending them off, (in most cases, never to see them again) to impart to them all the wisdom and faith that they would have spoken and modeled over their lifetimes.

Whatever the age of your children, even if they are greying themselves, don’t leave for later what you want them to know about your very personal faith. If you are uncomfortable at the thought of talking about such a personal issue, (Why are the most important things to say the hardest?) consider writing it down today. Here’s a start:

I know there is a God because once…

I know He loves me because…

I believe He wants me to treat his children with love and respect. I learned this when….

I know God answers prayers. He answered mine once when… (Maybe he said no, and you only came to understand what a good thing that was later.)

I believe in heaven. I’m not looking forward to dying, but I’m looking forward to asking God a few questions when I get there. And I’m looking forward to seeing my loved ones: _____.

I know God forgives. I learned this when I was forgiven once by ____. If they could forgive me and I know God loves me even more than they, He must forgive us even better.

I chose the church I attend because______ (our family always has been, or I converted because, or whatever your story is)

Our faith should be so important to us that we take care to pass it on to our children as a family treasure. May we recognize our treasure this week!

Blessings,

Betty

Unconditional Love

Welcome to this new Lenten series of 4 Minutes for Growth!

This year we concentrate on the family.

John Powell, S.J., starts us off with his timeless book, Unconditional Love: Love without Limits. I chose this book because unconditional love must be the basis of family life. Though we all fall short at times, loving without preconditions should be our goal—the type of love we continually strive to achieve and maintain. Unconditional love says, “No matter what, I will not reject you. I’m committed to your growth and happiness. I will always love you.”

Powell reminds us that love is not a feeling, but rather a decision and a choice. We choose to place another’s welfare on the same level as, and sometimes even above, our own. By so doing we bring true meaning to our lives. Such meaning, or self-fulfillment, is an elusive quality which we can’t capture by direct pursuit but only attain as a by-product of loving.

Unconditional love says: I will love you, I will encourage you by helping you to be aware of your strengths, and when necessary I will challenge you to grow.

Most times this love will be tender and gentle, but not always. Sometimes unconditional love must be tough love, when truly wanting what is best for someone’s growth and happiness means not giving them what they want, but rather what is essential. A spouse may need to firmly point out a loved one’s self-destructive choices, or a parent will set limits to protect a child who is not ready for the independence he or she demands. A wife might ask her husband to cut back on his time away from home, or a mother might forbid a son to attend a party that “everyone else” is allowed to attend. Love is not unconditional if it weakly allows poor choices in order to avoid uncomfortable confrontation.

However, even tough love is not harsh. Sometimes as parents we think we need to constantly correct in order to assure our children’s proper growth. But a child does not flourish under criticism. Rather, Powell contends:

There is nothing else that can expand the human soul, actualize the human potential for growth, or bring a person into the full possession of life more than a love which is unconditional. […] Unconditional love is liberating. It frees the loved one to be authentic and real.

I think most people would agree that our children deserve unconditional love. We parents know we fall short, but we remain determined to love our children no matter what they do. It gets harder, though, when we turn it around. Shouldn’t we love our parents unconditionally, too? They weren’t perfect, but neither are we. And, even more difficult, what about our siblings? Heaven knows, siblings can find and attack our vulnerabilities. Do I need to love them unconditionally after what they did… or continue to do?

(Apologies to my two brothers. I’m speaking generally here, not specifically. Though I also apologize for when I didn’t treat you with the love I should have.)

Granted, not all family members are healthy to be around. Sadly, some are caustic, and boundaries must be raised in order to protect our emotional well-being. We mustn’t fear that loving another unconditionally will mean losing ourselves. In fact, in order to love another we must first love ourselves, as much as we are able, unconditionally. God has made us and declared us good and he has shown us we are loveable and worthy of the greatest sacrifice. So we come to love others, not out of weakness, but out of strength and awareness of our worth. It would be unloving to allow others to treat us with disrespect.

Yet, for spiritual and emotional health, unconditional love calls us to endeavor to forgive the wrongs of the past, even from a distance. That way, if the family member ever makes changes for the better, we will be ready to reconnect.

God’s word to us in the Bible is full of stories of unconditional love. We read of the prodigal son’s father, who knew unconditional love requires forgiveness and so ran to embrace his son at his penitent return. We believe that Jesus demonstrated unconditional love as he died for our sins and yet bid his Father, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

These are our models for building strong families. We must offer our family a lifetime of striving to love them unconditionally, forgiving them for their mistakes and asking forgiveness for our own, but always trying again to love, encourage, and challenge each other to be the best we each can be.

Next week we will turn to Building Christian Families, by Mitch and Kathy Finley.

Blessings on your first week of Lent!

Man to man about marriage:

My husband George is an amazing spouse! We celebrate 35  years of happy marriage this week, so I invited him to offer advice to men about marriage. Here’s what he had to say:

Respect:

• A woman is a gift of great value to be treasured throughout your life. She is easily the most valuable gift you will ever receive on this earth, and must be treated with respect at all times.
• Be cautious with criticizing her, even in private.
• Never express disappointment about choosing her to be your partner, or comparing her to previous partners, or current acquaintances.
• Never speak as though you’ve had enough, or would ever consider leaving her or ending the relationship.
• When you’ve hurt her (or learned after the fact that you’ve hurt her), apologize. And mean it. Even if you have rationalizations in your head, just go with the apology. Try to understand why she was hurt, even if you don’t think that you would have been in the same situation. Only if you can do it without sounding antagonistic, ask her for advice on what you could have said or done differently to handle the situation.

Careers:

• Don’t ever talk about money as though it were ‘yours’. All money is ‘ours’ in the family, regardless of whose paycheck it comes from.
• Never treat your job as more important than hers, whether you make more money than she does or not.
• If she does take a traditional role in your family, such as at-home mom, remember that she’s doing this by choice for your good and the good of the family, not because she’s any less capable.
• With your children, take care that they realize that her staying home or working away from home are options, and neither is an expected role for women.

Gratitude:

• Thank her for the normal things she does daily for you and the family. Even if you thank her every day for the same things. There should be several times each day when you acknowledge her efforts and thank her:
• When you get up from a meal: “Thank you for dinner!” (And clear your place.)
• When clean clothes appear in your drawers or closet: “Thanks for the clean clothes!” Or when there’s clean laundry on the bed to be folded: “Thanks for doing the laundry!” (Help fold them and put them away, at least your own items.)
• New groceries in the fridge or cabinet: “Thanks for shopping for us!”
• When you notice that a room looks especially nice, tell her so! (But avoid any comparison with past condition.)

Attention:

• Give her a generous hug, at least three times a day. Hold on to her as long as she wants.
• A woman needs to be told that her looks please you. And she needs to hear it frequently. Never just count on her ‘knowing’ that you love how she looks all the time (even if you do). When you notice something nice about her clothes, or hair, or face (or figure!) or whatever, tell her she looks great, or pretty, or nice, or whatever you feel. But don’t force it, or make something up. This shouldn’t be hard; of course you love how she looks! And don’t compare to any previous time (you look better today than yesterday). And don’t say that she looks nice ‘today’ (possibly implying that she doesn’t on other days). But OK to say that she looks ‘especially nice today’.

Communication:

• Don’t tease her by saying something that isn’t true, or isn’t what you mean, as a joke. Don’t make her guess if what you say can reliably be taken at face value, or must be tested for believability before accepting it. It may be funny to you, but never is to her. It’s embarrassing to be made to feel stupid by believing something false that was said in jest.
• Be cautious with other teasing, as well. Preferably don’t tease her about anything! Teasing is never nice, even if she seems to laugh, go along with it, and say that it’s OK. She could fear that there’s a grain of truth in whatever
  you’re teasing her about, whether there is or not (and there often is).
• Talk with her! She loves talking with you, about anything (as long as you’re not the one doing all the talking).
• Listen to her! And pay attention while you do. She needs to know that you’re hearing what she has to say. Ask her, every day, how her day went. And listen while looking at her, not while reading, or checking email, or watching TV. Remember that sometimes she just wants to be heard, and doesn’t want to you offer advice or try to ‘fix’ the things she tells you about. (But be sure that when she does ask you to fix something, you take it seriously!)
• Learn how to disagree (and even express your anger) without raising your voice. A raised voice in a man is a danger signal to a woman. No matter how well she knows you, she may fear being physically or emotionally hurt.
• If not done as part of your marriage preparation, realize that you likely have different methods of resolving conflicts, and that you now need to have a common method. It’s best to have some rules that you discuss when you’re not emotional.
• Never try to make her feel stupid.

Family & Friends:

• Women need family and relationships, much more so than you might. Don’t try to keep her from seeing or communicating with friends or family. And be sure to consider this strongly in decisions about where you’ll live or what job you’ll take.
• Never complain about your wife to friends or family.
• Never embarrass her in front of the children, or anyone.
• Make an effort to compliment her in front of others, and say how proud you are of her, for whatever reason that you are. Or what you like about her, or why your treasure her.

The Future

• Realize that you both brought dreams, goals, hopes, and desires to your relationship. Some of those now need to be subjugated to hers, and to the higher dreams and goals of the relationship. When you marry, you agree that your personal priorities will change to support your joint relationship. You don’t need to give up everything, just realize that some things may not be possible right away, and that some may no longer be appropriate.
• Ask her what her dreams and goals are, and what she’d like to see in the relationship. And then, simply listen, and listen some more.

Betty here: Didn’t I tell you he is an amazing guy? Some of these recommendations come naturally to him and some we’ve learned the hard way, over the years.

Ladies, be careful how you show this to your husband so that he doesn’t feel criticized! Maybe instead, thank him for how he currently shows his love for you. Positive reinforcement goes a long way!

Blessings on your week!

Sacred Marriage Cont’d

What did you think of Gary Thomas’ idea that God designed marriage to make us holy even more than to make us happy?

There’s more intriguing wisdom in his book Sacred Marriage. As a husband, Gary speaks from his own perspective about the care of wives. Of course, all he says can encourage wives to treat husbands as treasures, too. He writes:

• “My wife was created by God himself! How dare I dishonor her? In fact, shouldn’t it even give me pause before I reach out to touch her? She is the Creator’s daughter, after all!”
• “The biggest challenge for me in upholding my spiritual obligation to honor my wife is that I get busy and sidetracked. I don’t mean to dishonor her; I just absentmindedly neglect to actively honor her.” Quoting Betsy and Gary Ricucci, “Honor isn’t passive, it’s active. […] Honor not expressed is not honor.”
• “Quoting Dr. John Barger:  ‘[When women] love, they love quietly; they speak, as it were, in whispers, and we have to listen carefully, attentively.’ Isn’t God also this way? Doesn’t he intervene in most of our lives in whispers, which we miss if we fail to recollect ourselves and pay careful attention—if we do not constantly strive to hear those whispers of divine love? The virtues necessary in truly loving a woman and having that love returned—the virtues of listening, patience, humility, service, and faithful love—are the very virtues necessary for us to love God and to feel his love returned.”
• “In his audiotape series According to Plan, C.J. Mahaney pleads with men to recover [a] sense of sacrifice. He points out that sacrifice isn’t sacrifice unless it costs us something, and then he leaves a challenging question hanging in the air: ‘Gentlemen, what are we doing each day for our wives that involves sacrifice? What are you doing each day for your wife that is costing you something?’”

The author also shares a thought aimed primarily at women who have allowed this appearance-focused society to damage their self-esteem:

• “Continuing to give your body to your spouse even when you believe it constitutes “damaged goods” can be tremendously rewarding spiritually. It engenders humility, service, and an other-centered focus, as well as hammering home a very powerful spiritual principle: Give what you have.”

He speaks to all of us about creativity:

• “You were made by God to create. If you don’t create in a thoughtful and worshipful manner—whether preparing meals, decorating a home, achieving a vocational dream, responsibly raising children—you will feel less than human because you are in fact acting in a sub-human mode.[…]The creation, of course, must have a proper focus—namely, the glory of God.”
• “When this sense of creation is lost, marriage loses some of its spiritual transcendence. […] If we don’t nurture a godly sense of creativity, we will experience an emptiness that we may perversely and wrongly blame on our marriage. The emptiness comes not from our marriage, however, but from the fact that we’re not engaged in our marriage. We’re not using this powerful relationship in order to create something.”

And he continues his thoughts on creativity to include the creation of family:

• “As people created in the image of God, we have a responsibility to create. […] Creating a family is the closest we get to sharing the image of God.”
• “Building a family together isn’t a side avocation. It takes enormous energy, concentration, and self-denial.”
• Quoting Jerry Jenkins, “Tell your [marital] story. Tell it to your kids, your friends, your brothers and sisters, but especially to each other. The more your story is implanted in your brain, the more it serves as a hedge against the myriad forces that seek to destroy your marriage. Make your story so familiar that it becomes part of the fabric of your being. It should become a legend that is shared through the generations as you grow a family tree that defies all odds and boasts marriage after marriage of stability, strength, and longevity.”
• Quoting Evelyn & James Whitehead: “In our marriage we tell the next generation what sex and marriage and fidelity look like to Christians. We are prophets, for better and for worse, of the future of Christian marriage.”

Then he extends the idea of family and asks us to be of service to the world because, “When marriage becomes our primary pursuit, our delight in the relationship will be crippled by fear, possessiveness, and self-centeredness.”

• “But a man and woman dedicated to seeing each other grow in their maturity in Christ; who raise children who know and honor the Lord; who engage in business that supports God’s work on earth and is carried out in the context of relationships and good stewardship of both time and money—these Christians are participating in the creativity that gives a spiritually healthy soul immeasurable joy, purpose, and fulfillment.”
• “I will be most fulfilled as a Christian when I use everything I have—including my  money and time—as a way to serve others, with my spouse getting first priority (after God).”
• Quoting Evelyn & James Whitehead, “Christianity has long called us to this truth: Marriage must be about more than itself because love that does not serve life will die.”
• “We allow marriage to point beyond itself when we accept two central missions: becoming the people God created us to be, and doing the work God has given us to do. If we embrace—not just accept, but actively embrace—these two missions, we will have a full life, a rich life, a meaningful life, and a successful life. The irony is, we will probably also have a happy marriage, but that will come as a blessed by-product of putting everything else in order.”