Healthy Boundaries Series 4: Thoughts and Feelings

This is a series about maintaining healthy boundaries within relationships.

The guidelines stated in this series may challenge a lot of long-standing habits. It is my experience that these old societal habits are unhealthy and that these new boundary markers point us to healthier ways to navigate our interpersonal dynamics and shared experience. I recommend that readers consider these guidelines and try them on before starting in with arguments. The suggested changes are nuanced and will possibly threaten our collective go-to behaviors for judging and attempting to manipulate other people's choices.

These boundaries outline what is ours to control and what is not ours to control. They keep us in our own business and out of other people's business. Poor boundaries encourage us to spend too much time trying to manage other people's lives and discourage us from the hard work of managing our own. It is a spiritual practice to move increasingly into managing our own business and to get out of everyone else's. The more we do this work, the clearer we will also become in identifying what is our shared business, and how to navigate that as well.  Without this work, we will do poorly in managing shared or public business.

Credit for identifying and articulating these boundaries goes to Mark R Carlson, MS, MDiv, Marriage and Family Therapist in Huntingdon Valley, PA. USA

Healthy Boundaries Series Article 4: Thoughts and Feelings

This article might be the most immediately applicable and needed in the world today, given how much of our communication online is fraught with tension and poor behavior. 

Do not speak with authority about anyone else's thoughts, feelings motives, intentions, or desires. 

As this boundary is crossed regularly and egregiously in much of our public discourse, it is no wonder we may believe it is acceptable.  If everybody does it, then maybe it is something that is okay to do.  Unfortunately, jumping to conclusions about other people's thoughts, feelings, and intentions is one of the first weapons of the weak.  Yet, it is modeled everywhere, so we all tend to do it.

This is where I point once again to the Golden Rule.  If you don't like it when someone does it to you, don't do it to them.

Do not speak with authority about anyone else's thoughts, feelings motives, intentions, or desires. 

If you want any discussion to devolve quickly into defense and attack rather than productive dialogue, go ahead and tell someone else what they are feeling, meaning, or intending. Even if you are sure you know what is going on inside someone else's head, announcing it as fact is a violation. It is deeply disrespectful. It will get you in trouble.

This is a very hard boundary to honor, particularly when we feel ill-used or deceived. "You are lying to me!" crosses the boundary. "I do not trust your words," keeps you firmly in what you can actually know.  Then, if they come back at you with, "Are you calling me a liar?" The answer is, "No. You might be lying to me. You might not. I can't know. Only you know if you are lying.  But I do know I don't trust your words."

Can you see the difference?  You will be keeping your conversational boundaries clean when you stay out of the other person's business (thoughts, feelings, intentions) and in what you can genuinely know, which are your own thoughts, feelings, and intentions.

It is not easy. It takes practice.  It can be especially frustrating when the other person is not abiding by the same rules.  But it will leave you in integrity.

I know what you are thinking. "This is crazy!  This is too hard!" (Actually, I can't possibly know what you are thinking.  I can guess. I might guess fairly accurately. But only you get to be the authority on what is going on in your own head and heart.)

Here are examples of the sorts of statements one might find on the internet or in life. Can you pick out which ones cross a boundary, and which ones stay respectful?

1. "Releasing that news item today was politically motivated. The other party only did it to ruin our chances."
2. "Wow. That is not at all what I got from reading that article."
3. "If you think you have a right to have a gun, you are selfish."
4. "If you believe in taxation, you believe in theft."
5. "I cannot understand why you voted for Trump. Do you want to try to explain your thinking?"
6. "You forgot my birthday. You must not love me."
7. "What you just said made me uncomfortable. I need some time alone."
8. "You voted for Obama, therefore you are a white-hating, man-hating baby killer."
9. "I don't actually feel safe answering you right now. I need time." 
10. "If you would just do a little research you would know I'm right."

I hope that was easy. If it was, I suspect you are on the road to learning better civil discourse and healthier communication skills.

(Or maybe you already were. I can't know. But it sure made a snappy ending!)

Following are the other entries in the series:
Money
Health
Family of Origin

"Blessed Are the Virgins..." The Unpublished Beatitude

“Blessed are the virgins, for they will not be called whores and stoned to death.”

heavily adapted from 

Spiritual Reflection #1

For TH680 A

October 13, 2012

Warning: the following post challenges traditional religious values around female sexuality.

Most of the couples that come to me to be married have already been living together for some time.  I was raised to believe that any sex outside of marriage was evil.  How do I resolve this childhood teaching with today's western culture statistics?

In particular, the female participant in "fornication" was defined as being, "of loose morals," or a "fallen woman."  (The male was just acting like a male.)

Raised to be “pure” before marriage, and to pray to be blessed with that sacred union, I went so far as not to engage in anything sexual before I was engaged just to be absolutely sure.  (Shut up!)  
My marriage failed.  (I said shut up.)

Paradoxically, despite what I was taught, I never felt judgment toward those I knew who had had sex before marriage. What matters still to me is who they are in the present moment, not their sexual history.  Neither does their sexual history seem to affect the quality of their marriage relationships.  Many friends who were sexually active before marriage are still married, for example. I, who did it perfectly, got divorced. In fact, very little of what I was taught about sexual morality in my childhood seems true in life.  At best, it is profoundly simplistic.

But look at these quotes, used in my upbringing:


"After her maidenhead has been breached and her virginity tasted, a maiden becomes a wife, and if not a wife, a whore." (from my childhood tradition)

"But if … evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then … the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones. . . . So you shall purge the evil from your midst." (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

I have to admit, simply seeing such material gives me a chill.  I shudder, knowing how the uneducated and ignorant use these texts without understanding their culture or context.

Either today's young people are sinning, or there is another way to understand their choices around sexual activity that fit my gut sense that they are in no spiritual danger.  Everything I know from psychology says that our self-knowledge and emotional intelligence---our ability to take healthy responsibility for our lives and live in respect of ourselves and others, indeed our psychological or spiritual hygiene---is what matters, not the state of our sexual experience. 

While I was taught to believe that there was something innately sacred about intercourse and female virginity, I no longer believe that something terrible happens to a girl’s character if she crosses this threshold before she is in a traditional marriage. 

There are many Biblical quotes that counter the fearful ones above, if Biblical quotes are needed.  We are advised not to be too judgmental (Matthew 7:1) That the ones who are without sin are the only ones who can cast a stone (John 8:7) And then there are the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-11). Nowhere do we read among the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the virgins, for they will not be called whores and stoned to death.”

My understanding is that a prohibition of sex outside of marriage makes a great deal of sense in an honour/shame culture, when women were more property than people, and where a pregnancy out of wedlock greatly jeopardized a woman's worth and therefore her chances of survival.  In ancient times, to impregnate a girl and leave her without support would be essentially to create a whore and bastard. That was the sin. The prohibition was realistic and pragmatic in its day. It was to prevent victimizing the vulnerable population, not control the sex-act itself. In many cultures even today, single mothers remain profoundly socially and financially disadvantaged, including in much of North America, and it is STILL women who bear the brunt of this reality. rarely do the fathers experience any consequence.

Based on these realizations, I no longer believe that something terrible happens to a girl’s character if she crosses this threshold before she is in a traditional marriage.  That is NOT what these prohibitions are about.

       Until the extremely recent introduction of birth control, combined with the increasing ability of women to support themselves financially, the harsh reality for women much of the world over was shame, loss of all community or family support, and all too often descent into sex work as the only remaining way to support themselves.

So, if the key issue for our historic prohibition of sexual activity outside of marriage is that it once put a girl at tremendous risk, then the moral issue is about protecting a vulnerable population (women and infants) from greater poverty; it is not about the status of a woman's hymen.  

The moral codes in so many religious teachings are about the moral obligation of the community and those in power NOT to victimize those who are vulnerable.  This social code is found in many ancient traditions, springing from times in which women could not engage in sexual activity without a very high risk of impregnation. It was about protecting women from having to carry, deliver, and raise a child without any means of support. But we turned it into the opposite---shaming and shunning women who were discovered to have been "violated" whether voluntarily or involuntarily, requiring them to do the very things from which the moral code was designed to protect them.  We even shamed the "bastards" as if they too, were somehow deserving of being born into a reality that judged them based on something over which they had no control.  What a mess we have made of things!

If God is love, then the Divine Being is concerned about healthy interpersonal dynamics, mutual caring and support, and about NOT harming the vulnerable. God is concerned with the wellbeing of a person’s soul, not the sexual history of their body.

          If we could understand these things, perhaps we would ease up on our fearful desire to control each other's sexuality and spend more time on WHY such laws were created.  If the laws were created to help us not treat each other badly, maybe we could see that treating each other badly should never be the outcome of following such laws.

         That makes sense.  Stay safe, respect yourself and all others, and be at peace.

Palms of Praise - sermon for Sunday, April 13

“Palms of Praise”

Rev Alison Longstaff, April 13, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Psalm 8; Matthew 21:1-9; Portions: HS 878:5

I want to start this sermon and end this sermon with hands. 

Why hands?  Because it is Palm Sunday.

A palm branch is called a palm branch because it is shaped like a hand.  This is actually true in several languages.  English is not the only language that likens that leaf-shape to a hand.  Perhaps this is because of correspondences. (For those who are new to Swedenborgianism, “correspondences” refers to the perception and science that every created thing has a spiritual meaning and communicates a spiritual idea.  This is not a new idea, because we see it in ancient cultures, in ideas like totem animals, using crystals for healing, and even in astrology.  We don’t necessarily buy into any of those individual expressions of correspondences, but we do love to work with and explore the idea that God’s wisdom shows up in many places in many ways.)

So, back to hands. Even today, when you see a crowd in St. Peter’s square, or at a rock concert, or when a celebrity passes on a float in a parade, you will see people lifting up their hands.  We raise our hands in recognition and honor.  And we raise our hands to say, “Do you see me in return?”

In our story for today, not only were the people lifting their hands in praise and greeting of the Lord when He entered Jerusalem, many of those hands had palm branches in them, extending and enlarging the hands that were raised in praise and celebration.  They wanted to greet Him in a big way, not only saying “I honor you.”  But, “Please see me too!”

Now, perhaps on first glance, you might think this strange custom, of waving palms and casting branches and garments before the Lord has no points of resonance for us today.  We rarely see people riding donkeys, and if we do, we don’t feel compelled to throw our jacket down in front of them, or to rip branches off trees so we can wave them.

So let me help you see just how much we are like these people and still do just what they do.  For example, I’m sure you remember those days when the streets were all mud and we had to pick up our long skirts to keep them out of the….  Hmmm.  Maybe not.  But surely most of us have seen those images in movies of the chivalrous days when a gentleman would throw his coat down in a puddle before a person he respected and honored (usually a lovely lady) to protect her dainty feet and frilly skirts from the filth.  

That action is the same action as the people of Jerusalem are performing when they lay their garments before the way of the King.  Very likely they were covering up some of the nastier stuff that was lying in the Jerusalem streets. It was sign of great respect.  It was saying, “You shouldn't have to step in that.” It was a sign of respect so profound that the individual would sacrifice the clothes off their back to spare this person such an indignity.  And remember, they didn't have a lot of clothes back then!  They couldn't just run into the house and grab something out of the rummage sale bin.  

This is more like you doing this with your favorite sweater, your best suit, or that expensive coat that you love so much—laying it down over animal waste or smelly garbage or even human excrement, to then be walked over by many feet, grinding that garment deeply into the muck.  Then after all the excitement has passed, you can peel it up out of the filth so you can clean it.  Because it is the only one you have and you need it.  That garment is how you stay warm in the chilly desert nights.

Do you feel that now?  The significance and meaning of that action?  Now that is sacrifice!  That is devotion.

A custom that we still have today that has descended to us from that same ritual can be seen at the Oscars, when we lay down the red carpet before North America’s royalty.  We have paved so much of North America and gotten so far away from living with live-stock by now, that we have lost the visceral, emotional, practical connection to the ritual.  We don’t think, “I’m so glad she’s not ruining her Dior garment and Sergio Rossi pumps in that donkey—er, by-product.  Yet the red carpet ritual is descended from the very same tradition.  The garments and branches in the road in today’s Scripture were Jerusalem’s way of laying down the red carpet for the Lord.

But do we see people waving branches to honor a passing celebrity these days?  Well, maybe not branches.  But have you witnessed a sporting event recently?  There are lots of big things being waved—flags, banners, signs, posters, and giant foam hands. Giant hands.  It is a way of declaring support and loyalty. It is a form of claiming that team or star as one’s own.  And when the camera pans over the crowd, don’t the signs and banners catch your eye? Those individuals want to stand out.  They want to be seen.  They are publicly declaring their support for their hero.

That sort of cheering, rowdy, crowd energy that you see in the stands at a big event, or on the streets of London when Will and Kate drive by, is the sort of cheering crowd energy and declarations of faith and hope that we see in today’s story.  Now do you feel it?  Surely you have been in a crowd like that.  Surely you have thrown your faith and hope in with a team, or a political candidate, or some guru-figure at least once in your life.  That is what was happening on the streets of Jerusalem that day.  It was as real and relevant and exciting for them then as it has been for us in our experiences.

Now you might say, “Yes, but I've never mistaken Oprah, or Obama, or Patrick Dempsey for God!”  Well the truth is, very few, if any of the people in that day saw Jesus as anything other than their next physical king.  This human from Nazareth (so they thought) was going to rise up, overthrow the Romans, cleanse Israel from all foreign oppression, and make their nation a strong and respected nation once again.  Hurray! They would no longer be occupied and oppressed.  This man was their Messiah at last!  Their expectation was that he would become their earthly King—restoring Israel to herself and establishing her peace and freedom for all time to come.

And that was almost what Jesus had in mind, except it was the peace and freedom of all of humankind, for all time to come that He had in mind—which was a much bigger and more ambitious goal than to be a finite king of one earthly nation for a limited time.  So He went straight to the Temple, representing our spiritual center, and began to throw out the money changers. 

The first step in any renewal is to remove the things that stand in the way.  We cannot have a “buy and sell” attitude about our status with God.  God is not a vending machine, that if we offer a certain amount of prayers the right way, or sacrifice the right amount of chickens or fat oxen at the right time, we can then expect certain rewards or favors.  God’s love is unconditional and constant.  His/Her desire for our happiness is immediate and without reserve.  It is we who put in barriers and expectations between us and God, and decide we aren’t good enough or deserving enough to access God’s love directly.  It is we who think God will like us better or pay more attention if we “prove” our devotion.  It is we who create rules about God’s love and reduce our relationship with the Divine to something requiring transactions and debt and the exchange of “money.”

And it is we who interpret not having our prayers answered according to our specifications in our time frame as God not hearing our prayers and not loving us.  In that case we are just like the people in Jerusalem, who had a specific notion of what Jesus was going to do for them.  When He didn’t go to the Palace and throw out the Romans, but went to the Temple and upset the religious leaders, they began to withdraw their support.  Their Messiah was letting them down, and they began to abandon him in droves.  No doubt you have lived this in some version in your life.  I know I have. 

How many of us who expected Obama to turn the whole mess of the US government around after His election, have downgraded our loyalty and expectation since he hasn’t delivered the way we thought he should?  Or if loyalty and expectation connected with Obama doesn’t work for you, no doubt you can think of any number of groups, individuals, doctors, new health regimes, diet plans, or self-help books that you have signed up with or committed to only to have your hopes for wholesale salvation from whatever it was not be delivered.  We know this experience.  We live it all the time. It is easier to understand this people’s wholesale abandonment of Jesus during His trials and crucifixion when we can connect it with our own disappointments and disillusionments. Yes, they completely misunderstood what His mission was, and we often do too. 

So this is the lesson for us.  It is showing us the gap between Jesus’ intentions for our salvation verses our ideas of what we think we need to save us.  God always answers prayers and the answer is always “YES.”  But God’s “YES” answers the deeper longings, the underlying unhappiness, the whole shooting match of why we are asking for aid, not the face request.  It is a little like Extreme Home Makeover, Spiritual Edition, where we ask for help with a leaky basement, and meanwhile while God is working behind the scenes to give us a whole new dream home. 

But unlike Extreme Home makeover, God’s Divine Plan doesn't unfold in a week while we go to Disney World. No such luck. God’s Divine plan takes a lifetime of work, with lots of apparent set-backs and losses.  Sometimes we get little peeks at what blessings might be coming, but much of the time the journey can feel like a lot of lonely hard work. 

Like the people in Jerusalem, we all tend to expect on some level that God should make our personal lives relatively free from the really nasty problems that other people have.  And when He doesn’t, we sometimes jump ship, and hitch our wagons to something promising a more immediate “salvation” than God seems to be offering.

I know that sometimes I can’t help but hope that the next diet plan will be the one that locks in a slender figure for me forever.  I can’t help but hope that some new love or some big lottery ticket, or maybe Oprah discovering my awesome self will finally rescue me from the endless drudgery of budgeting and prioritizing and telling myself “no” because there simply isn’t enough money. 

Because I am human.  And that is what humans do.  We have incredibly short attention spans compared to our infinite God.  God’s plan for our salvation is so much bigger and grander and far reaching for us in scope and comprehensiveness and timing than we can possibly imagine.  We expect Jesus to come rule our little city and overthrow or mortal concerns and trials.  And we do get grumpy when He goes to the Temple instead and calls for a spiritual cleanse.  But the grand outcome will be ever so much better and more miraculous and comprehensive than even the grand coup at the end of “The Sting.”  There is a lot more going on behind the scenes than we can ever see; there is a lot more being set up and guided and put in place for the eternal happiness of the whole human race, than our small expectations and hurts and hopes can possibly fathom.

So welcome to the human race.  Welcome to Palm Sunday.  Every day is Palm Sunday when we look at life this way.  Every day we lift our hands to God in praise, expectation, hope, supplication for aid, and in desperation to be seen and loved.  And every day we may feel let down or overlooked.  We may buy the illusion that some other god is going to do what we want.  Or we may be lifted up in the joy and mystery, open to whatever may come.  We might just follow Jesus to the Temple, and trust in Him even through the crucifixion, ready to greet Him when He rises on Easter.

There is so much more to say, and no time left.

Let me leave you with a few correspondences for your contemplation. 

When anyone raises their hands in religious ecstasy, it is rather like a flower lifting its face to the sun, open to being fed and nourished from the rays of sunshine.  It is a receiving action.

Hands also represent what we do, our effectiveness, our power.  Things in our hands are an extension of our power.  Like Moses’ staff, and Gandalf’s staff and Harry Potter’s wand.

Palms are also quite sensitive.  The hollow is like a receptacle, and the driving of a nail through that soft place is the violent rejection of what the palm is offering.  The palm represents vulnerability and compassion.  An open hand represents “there is no weapon here.” 

And finally, it is okay that yours and my expectations of God often fall short of the mark.  We are human.  It is okay that we even sometimes turn on God, and abandon God because He doesn't live up to our expectations.  God knows we will do this.  We are still part of the story. And yes, even parts of us and times in our lives will sometimes crucify the presence of God because we are so threatened by what it represents.  Forgive yourself.  And try not to be afraid.  Even if we crucify the God of Love, She returns more powerful and more loving than ever, still intent on redeeming the whole human race, which is all parts of us in the story, not just the “good” parts.

Welcome to Palm Sunday.  Welcome to life.

Amen.

Readings

Psalm 8 NKJV

O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

² Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise
Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

³ When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
⁴ What is humanity that You are mindful of them,
And the children of humankind that You dwell with them?
⁵ For You have made humanity a little lower than God,^[b]
And You have crowned them with glory and honor.

⁶ You have made them to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under their feet,
⁷ All sheep and oxen—Even the beasts of the field,
⁸ The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.

⁹ O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Matthew 21:1 – 9, 14-16  As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away." This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: "Say to the Daughter of Zion, 'See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.  A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!”

Heavenly Secrets 878 [5] In the Word, the hand stands for the Divine power.  Indeed "hand" is so significant of power that it became its very symbol in ancient times, as is evident from the miracles that were done in Egypt, when Moses was commanded to stretch forth his hand, or his staff, and this accomplished the miracles.

Withholding, Fear, and One Cause of Suffering

The opposite of love is not hate, it is FEAR.  

Let me say that again.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is fear.

Think about Love.

Love opens us up.  It creates warmth, expansiveness, trust, and generousity.  It gives without holding back.  Its whole intention is to give happiness and blessedness, relief and comfort to another.  It shows up without fear or reservation.  It is exemplified in the life of Jesus (among others), giving without reserve, giving everything, even one's very life.

Now think about fear.

Fear shuts us down and closes us up. Fear pulls inward, retracts, and withholds. Fear rejects, invalidates, minimizes, and turns its back. At best, fear shutters the windows, locks the door, and hangs out the "Closed" sign.  At worst it attacks.

So why do we so often choose fear over love?

Why do we withhold love from one another?

Why do we withhold resources, service, respect, and privileges?

Honestly?  Why?

Why do we create class systems everywhere we go?  (Don't kid yourself, North America has classes, and yes, we are ranked worthy or unworthy based on our status---primarily based on wealth.)

What are we so afraid of?

Honestly, there is PLENTY to go around on this planet, but the resources are all squirreled up and held by a handful of people to the detriment of many.  And the less we think there is, the more we all withhold.  And the more we all withhold, the less there is.

God has more than enough love and we all come from God, but somehow we choke love off so there isn't enough to go around.  Why do we do that?

FEAR is sometimes given the Acronym, False Evidence Appearing Real.

While fear can serve some very good purposes, it also can be a treacherous ally.  It shuts down life in the name of safety.

Where there is generosity, there is bounty.  Period.  When ALL are generous, there is bounty.

But when we are all stuck believing that there isn't enough, we all start withholding and stockpiling.  It is FALSE that there is not enough.

And if I'm holding onto mine until you let go of yours, we will never get anywhere.

We have all suffered from the withholding of love.  We see suffering everywhere from the withholding of resources (medical services, adequate support, education, you name it).  We have all suffered.

When will we decide that there is more than enough and start opening up the floodgates again?  For if I give freely to you, will you not relax and begin to give freely too?

Open the floodgates!

Just some thoughts, borne of frustration.

Alison