Thinking Outloud

From Madeleine L'Engle's Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage:  Speaking of her 40 year marriage to her husband Hugh Franklin: "We were not a latter-day Heloise and Abelard, Pelleas and Melisande when we married. For one thing, the Heloises and Abelards, the Pelleases and Melisandes, do not get married and stay married for forty years. A love which depends solely on romance, on the combustion of two attracting chemistries, tends to fizzle out. The famous lovers usually end up dead. A long term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love. Of course, the culture tends to glorify the passionate whirlwind romance, rather than the steady committed marriage. Anyone fortunate enough to share in the latter, to enjoy true love, realizes how empty is the former." 

Wow. That's all I could say. As a pastor, I would occasionally visit with people who reported Near Death Experiences (NDE) on an operating room table, a hospital bed, during a car accident or heart attack. Without the necessary and pretty impossible to get research, I wasn't sure what to think about these very similar but unusual events in people's lives. All I could say was Wow. This article, published April, 2012, in the online magazine Salon, is written by psychology professor and research scientist at the University of Montreal, Mario Beauregard. It is excerpted from his book, "The Brain Wars," and talks of recent research into this quite common human event. I was always talking about life after death, but was quite sure I knew, really knew, nothing about it. I would speak in the language, images and ideas of my Christian faith tradition. Here is new brain research that confirms what many have said about their experiences, and points to a new truth: that ...

Today I was talking with two different clients about the research done at the VA in Minneapolis in veterans experiencing PTSD - finding in brain scans that traumatic memory seems to "reside" in the right hemisphere of the brain, right above the ear. So happy to have located a story on this research, and want to pin it here :-) Thanks to Dr. Apostolos Georgopoulos for his continuing research! On the brink of a PTSD breakthrough

Every so often patterns seem to emerge from the diverse clients I see. Here's what I'm noticing now: 1. Couples in my area are coming to counseling at higher distress levels. In our initial conversations, they easily say their problems go back years, not months. This often translates into one or both of the couple completely emotionally "finished," and only coming to counseling out of a sense of obligation or the expectation that the divorce process in their county will expect some kind of counseling to occur. Very often, men in these marriages are slow to agree to get counseling help. They may view the marriage differently, or be reluctant to reach out for support. When the wife begins to seriously talk about separation, the husband wakes up and says he's ready and will often make the initial phone calls to therapists. 2. Couples have less confidence in counseling. Perhaps it comes from more choices for treatment (online, email therapy, coaching, pre...

I contribute to a regular newspaper column every couple of months for the local paper, and have done so since 1997. That's well over 100 different Spiritual Reflections on faith, the world, church and us.  This round, my column is being published on Holy Saturday. Because I agree that the newspaper has first shot at publication, I can't print the whole thing here. But I am going to print out my last two paragraphs because, well, I want to. The whole thing will be in the Savage Pacer tomorrow, and on their website Monday.  Here's how the essay ends. For any and all who may read what I have here, I wish you the grace and faith to see yourself as one for whom this resurrection happened. Happy Easter.            Easter, which will be celebrated in countless churches around the world tonight and tomorrow, and for weeks afterward, is the celebration of a completely improbable rebirth. The experience...

Most couples come to therapy when they have completely run out of steam. While there is a great deal that MFTs can do to help, it's not a time in the family when people feel resilient, optimistic or energized. In order to create permanent change, one needs a good deal of hope and energy. And so does one's partner. I've observed that for many couples (especially those who have had a less-than smooth relationship history, full of stops and re-starts, difficult emotional turmoil, previous long-term partners and/or huge life stress) there are much better times to come to couples therapy and have a much bigger chance for successful growth. They are: 1. Before marriage . PLEASE consider pre-marital counseling, whoever you are. There are fabulous tools available to me as a therapist to assess your relationship as it is now, help you understand your unique partnership in basic system and personality terms, and help you enter the marriage more awake to your strengths a...

It was a huge surprise, and really flattering. A lead psychologist working for the Minneapolis Veteran's Administration Hospital Center called a couple of weeks ago to recruit me for a part-time job. I am exactly what she wanted, she said: a licensed therapist who is/was also clergy. No one, other than myself and my smallish circle of family, friends and clients, think that my double expertise is anything remarkable. To have someone outside my circle seek my particular set of education, experience and interest and ask me to work for them was, well, a first. After days of thinking, reading, talking, prayer and observation of my own reactions, I've said yes to the work. I'll be trained in a research protocol, leading a small group of soldiers who are suffering with PTSD to use their own spiritual resources to assist in their recovery. I will lead the group in a church in my area of the cities, and go up to the VA weekly to join in consultation group of the therapists who ...

College Athletes Getting Played             Many kids dream of being a professional athlete, and their first stop is getting a full ride at the best university in the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). These kids will have a lot places to choose from, with over 1,000 schools and 400,000 student athletes under the umbrella of the NCAA (Who We Are 1). What they don’t know is that even “full ride” college athletes end up in debt, along with having the stress of balancing the demanding sport with a just as demanding course load. Student athletes have a full time job, travel included, at their university with the sports they play. Scholarships are a good starting point to compensate them, but it is not enough; collegiate athletes should get paid every year beyond those scholarships to help keep them out of debt and make them a more reliable player for their team.         ...

SERIOUSLY? I won't start fights on Facebook. But a post I read has me fuming. A female pastor claiming that being against women clergy in the church isn't really sexism, it's just "bound conscience," and we have to respect those folks who believe this way. I have been trying to craft a response to her post for an hour and I have just come to this:  I see "bound conscience" as racism, sexism, and homophobia all dressed up in fancy theological clothes. The incarnation of Jesus isn't just about God's love for the male, privileged body. It is about God's redemption of all human flesh - whatever color, race, gender, ability or age. And those who preach this gospel ought to reflect the diversity of this God-loved human race. Bound conscience?! That is the power of discrimination : it creates self-hatred in those who are hated by the majority. Our blindness to our own condition continues to amaze me. Here's my bottom line: It is not OK w...

Hope and Help for Your Nerves by Claire Weekes My rating: 4 of 5 stars I help people with their thinking, emotions, relationships and beliefs every day. This little gem, written back in 1969 by an Australian physician/psychiatrist should be in the hands of every person who has ever suffered with a full-on panic/anxiety disorder. We call that general diagnosis "GAD" or Generalized Anxiety Disorder today. There are a lot of great resources out there to help. This book is quite personal, clear and wonderful. It's not perfect; she suggests leaving the family for up to several months to recover, which is not something I would easily advise to anyone. And all the advice will probably not be enough without therapy, but it's a helpful adjunct. Her principles of treatment, and they are right: 1. facing fear as a normal emotion running too high in your life 2. accepting that it is doing that at the moment, and it WONT KILL YOU 3. learning to rise, or float above or behind th...

So, you may know that I was a parish pastor for 20 years. It was a brutal ride most of the time. As I reflect upon those years now, from the relative safety of 9 years away, I think it would have been a joy if I had felt that my seminary education and the role I was given in the churches I served really wanted ME to be there. Me, rather than some kind of cut-out, public symbol and personal mascot to the historic values and expectations of ministry. Because I will tell you, my life as a pastor was the life of someone shaped to live a role a certain way, and while it worked for me on occasion, all the while it was strangling me.  As I listen to Nadia preach and speak, as I read her sermons (link below,) I recognize in her words so much of what I wanted to say, to be and to be appreciated for as a person, as a young adult, as a mother, a woman, a spouse, a pastor.  Her journey, unique as it is, makes me wistful for a past I didn't get to have : the chance to be a pastor as a ...

Over ten years ago, during the most difficult part of my career as a parish pastor, I took a quick summer trip back East with my two young children to visit my family. We flew in, and my parents picked us up from the airport. Toward the end of that visit, I coerced my parents into taking the 100 mile trip from their home to the town of my childhood. Though we had talked about it weeks before on the telephone (and what seemed at the time, promises were made), it took several tries before I could get at least one of them to agree to go along. I'd love to see Fairfield again, I said. I haven't been back since high school, over 30 years ago. As I talked, I could see from their faces that my desire struck them as odd. Though my grandparents on my mother's side had continued to live there long after we left, and lived in their home until their deaths many, many years later, the relatively close town of my childhood held little interest for my parents. I pushed. Finally we agree...

Yes, I believe many of us are more smitten with our smartphones than each other. I'm wondering when that will finally feel painful enough to control ourselves. Not soon enough.

Getting the Love You Want : A Guide for Couples by Harville Hendrix My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.5 stars Hendrix and I have preaching and church ministry as a young adult in common. I love this about him. What I don't love is that his psychology model is born of psychoanalytic and Freudian models. He believes that we marry unconsciously to heal the wounds that our early lives have inflicted upon us, and that good marriages heal those wounds. I believe instead that we marry others who feel instinctively familiar, like family, to us. In both good and bad ways. And that is our own work, our individual, relational and spiritual work, to heal our wounds. I think that is too heavy a load to lay on one relationship, particularly your spouse! I am indebted to him, however, for teaching us/me the Imago Dialogue model. I use it almost daily in my practice to slow partners down, get them to listen to each other without reflexive defense, problem solving or arguing points of fact. It's the...

Today in Minnesota was a milestone day : it's the first day that marriage for gay and lesbian couples became legal in our state. In courthouses, hotel lobbies, and backyards around the state couples who have waited for years, sometimes decades, recited vows, were blessed and declared spouses. It is a day of great joy in so many lives! It's expected by those in the know that hundreds of new marriages of same-sex couples will be taking place in the weeks to come, and I say God Bless every one of them with a long and happy life together. But, should there be any same-sex couple that in spite of all the joy around them, is tense, uncertain and uneasy, I hope they also hear this message somehow: just because you can, doesn't mean you must. Gay and lesbian couples have all the same challenges that heterosexual couples have. But they also have a huge, additional stress: that of being part of a discriminated minority group. At the last big social survey, about 3-5% of the popul...

I didn't go to church today because I couldn't face another stripped-down summer liturgy. Bleh.  Recycled sermons, vacationing preachers, substitute organists, empty pews, last moment lectors, absent acolytes, no choir, no coffee hour. The church on vacation isn't pretty.  But that's not our only problem. We have a problem of relevance. We are trying WAY too hard to find it. When church leaders chase the latest opinion polls, and change their main Sunday liturgies to meet the "market," those who have been shaped by the liturgical traditions of the past are left to embrace the change or leave. What seems to have been left out of the rush to seek the seeker is that the Church was never more embracing or growth-filled as when it was the keeper of mystery, ritual, prayer and sacrament and served the community. (1st - 3rd Century CE) It will be a sad, sad day when a generation hence American mainline churches are empty (like Europe) and leadership wishes we had h...

One of my clients played this for me in session today. It's a short, priceless video about the way men and women seem to listen differently. Just watch, and you'll see.

29 years ago I was ordained a pastor in the LCA, now part of the ELCA. Today, my former synod is meeting in assembly in my last congregation, 3 miles from where I sit. I'm not there because a few months ago my denomination took me off the roles as a pastor because I no longer serve in a ministry position. It was a process, and it took years, but I'm out. Do I miss it? Yes. And No. I think it's a terrible mistake to take experienced and quality clergy off the roles of the church simply because their call took them out of the parish and into different ministry. I do think of my work as a therapist as holy work. Even better than my work as a pastor. But in our denomination, ordination is to Word and Sacrament, and once I left the parish, I was more a word, healing and service person. I wasn't preaching weekly, or celebrating baptism or Holy Communion regularly. My work is in the world, not the church. So I am out. So I miss that role, some of that work, that chance t...

On the days I don't go to the gym, I realize how much longer my days used to be. I'm so glad I'm a gym rat, but I miss those couple of hours of time I once had. Here's what I would do with a bit more time in my day. 1.  Subscribe to and read The Christian Century magazine again. 2.  I'd spend a bit more time cooking dinner. 3.  Spend more time outside, year round. That's my short list. As I critique myself, I do believe that I spend too much time online with social media. Perhaps that time could be tightened in order to accomplish the more fundamental, slower, no technology things I have on my list. What would your short list be?

If this were happening in my back yard, I wouldn't be so calm. It reminds me of the 1960's movie, The Blob, which at the time, was one of the scariest movies I had ever seen as a 12 year old! Moving mountains of ice come ashore at Mille Lacs | kare11.com