The Black, The White, and the Gray

By some definitions, I almost fit into the baby boomer generation.  On some lists, I am one of the first GenX’ers.   That really doesn’t mean a whole lot to me, but it does mean that when it comes to television and movies, I have some wonderful memories.   I loved the “Brady Bunch” and the “Andy Griffith Show”.  I loved “Happy Days”, the “Mary Tyler-Moore Show”, the “Bob Newhart Show”, and Carol Burnett.  I watched the “Big Valley” and “Gunsmoke”.   I saw all the Disney movies at the theater – “Herbie”, “The Shaggy Dog”, and “The Computer that Wore Tennis Shoes”.  I also remember seeing “Star Wars” for the first time in the theater.  “Star Wars” has been described as “Western” set in space.  I can see that.  There are the good guys and the bad guys.   There were gun fights and a little romance.  One of the things that we loved about these shows is the clear distinction between the good and the bad guys.  Good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black.  Luke and Leia wore white, Darth Vader wore black.  It was easy to identify those on the side of right (truth, freedom, goodness) and those on the side of wrong (deception, control, and pain).  We could cheer for victory of good over bad and we loved when the villain was ultimately defeated.

In recent months, I have been watching shows like “Justified” and “Banshee”.  In these shows, the main protagonist would wear more of a “gray” hat.  Raylan Givens in Justified is a Federal Marshall and while he is supposedly on the side of “good”, he is known for pushing the limits of legality to get the so called bad guys.  In the show, Raylan’s arch nemesis is Boyd Crowder, who is an unapologetic lawless opportunist who demonstrates anti-social traits, but somehow manages to win the support of the audience with his intellect, wit, and occasional demonstration of sensitivity (not to mention his distorted view of justice.)  In “Banshee”, the new sheriff in the fictional town of Banshee is known as “Lucas Hood”, but is in fact a violent ex-con who was recently released from 15 years in prison.  The local sheriff’s deputies often try to run the town “by the book”, but the new sheriff is often doing seemingly impulsive things that violate protocol, but provide a kind of vigilante sense of justice.  As the series progresses, we realize that Sheriff Hood has had to reap consequences for double-crossing a crime boss years ago, but has suffered so much that he now seems to function as much out of unconscious flashbacks of PTSD as from meditated action.  There are other “bad guys” in the show, but it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the actions of the “bad guys” from the actions of protagonist.

In this “post-modern” world where there are now very few absolute truths, the line between right and wrong has become blurry.  For those of us who prefer the clarity of black and white the gray of the post-modern hero can be frustrating or disorienting.  As I want to complain about how “gray” the world has become, I open my Bible.  I read story after story of the great biblical heroes that had moments of frailty, moments of weakness, and moments of devastation.  Just this past Sunday, my pastor preached about David, his life, and his legacy.  I recognize in David my own struggles.  Maybe not my exact struggles, but the humanity of seeking to follow God, but often falling short of my intentions.   I identify with the words of Paul in Romans 7:19 that the good I want to do I do not do and the evil I do not want to do, I find myself doing.

David is remembered as a man after God’s own heart and he has a great legacy.  However, he is not remembered without his faults.  He is remembered with them.  The existence of his faults does not wipe out his good.  Too often we look at people as all good or all bad.  We long for a day when people could be categorized into white hats and black hats, but the reality is that each of us has white hat and a black hat we can wear.  While it can be frustrating and disorienting at times, perhaps the post-modern ideas are not as foreign as I had once thought.   I would love for there to be clear-cut good and bad guys sometime and I think there is value in having true heroes that inspire us to be better versions of ourselves.  However, I realize that human beings in the real world are rarely so clearly defined.  We must live with the ambiguity.  We live with the mystery and seek to be our best and encourage the best in others.  We offer love and grace to one another in the struggle.  We should not be complacent with the gray, but we cannot avoid the human reality. 

Content vs. Process

When meeting new clients (and others), I encounter a variety of comments that reflect common misconceptions about psychotherapy.  One is that the focus of therapy is for me to evaluate the client and tell them what to do.  Many people start their therapy a bit defensive because they are fearful of my judgment or correction.  Some people have mocked the process of therapy by saying that therapists never tell you what to do and only “Listen”.  Others have said to me, “Why am I paying you to listen to me when I could just be talking to a friend or family member?”  The difficulty with all of these assessments is that they assume over-activity or inactivity on the part of therapist.  With the distortions of the therapeutic process portrayed in film and television, I cannot really blame people for these misconceptions.  Unfortunately, there are also a number of people in the world practicing some type of counseling who contribute to these stereotypes by their methods of practice.  The very terms we use for this type of care are also confusing – counseling, therapy, psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, etc.   In a previous post, I commented on the technical differences in these various terms.  However, what makes the process of psychotherapy different from talking with a friend or other type of helper is the attention to the process of therapy.  Because this part of the relationship is often managed in subtle ways, people often perceive that the therapist is not doing much, but the reality that is that the process is rich with reflection.

Fundamentally, what makes any type of counseling or psychotherapy beneficial is the quality of the established relationship.  However, in the process of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and Pastoral Psychotherapy, the therapist is mindful of the dynamics of the relationship, monitors these things, and uses them (hopefully) for the client’s benefit.  These types of dynamics can exist in other relationships with friends, etc, but it is rare.  Psychotherapy is, by definition, a relationship between two (or more in the case of couple or family therapy) people for the benefit of one of them.  Everything the therapist does or says should be for the benefit of the client.  In order to do this, the therapist must be aware of many dynamics that are simultaneously at work in the counseling office.

When a person comes to therapy, the issues they wish to discuss and the struggles they have with these issues constitute the “content” of the session.   However, the forces that motivate a person’s behavior are also important.  The therapist should be reflecting on the selection of material presented and the content of the material.  After a particularly painful session of dealing with something like grief, a client may come in the next session and talk about more mundane or superficial issues.  The therapist’s job is to note the shift in tone and help bring to awareness the change.  When a client presents a memory of events, the therapist is focusing on how the person was affected and how they behaved in the events presented, but he or she is also focused on how the person seems to be feeling as they are presenting the material.  The therapist should not make assumptions about what the client felt, how they are feeling, or why they behaved in a certain way.  The job of therapist is to note that such feelings and motivations exist and to ask questions to raise the client’s awareness.  This is why it has become cliché for a therapist to ask questions like “How did you feel when that happened?”

Completely out of the awareness of the client (at least it should be) is the therapists’ reflections on another set of dynamics in the room – his or her own.  As the client is sharing, the therapist is also monitoring his or her own feelings about what is being shared.  He or she is monitoring the experience of the person and noting what they observe and hear.   The therapist is monitoring how his or her own story is connected to the client’s story.  The goal for the therapist is to be able to separate his or her own experiences from the experiences of the client.  In order to do this effectively, the therapist should have done sufficient therapy for their own personal issues and to receive adequate supervision and/or consultation on their work.  The therapist becomes less effective when he or she assumes what the client will or should feel instead of allowing the client to discover what they actually feel.

While the therapist may provide some education on common dynamics of interaction or personal development, their primary goal is to allow the client to discover how he or she plays out these dynamics in their own life.  Any intervention or action on the part of the therapist should be in the service of this self-discovery or to help provide an environment that contrasts the clients’ previous hurtful experiences.  By observing the clients actions, monitoring feelings, and dealing with the dynamics of the client’s relationship with the therapist, the therapist creates the opportunity for growth and healing.  The client’s experience of the resulting relationship between therapist and client can then grow beyond the walls of the therapy office to the other parts of the client’s life.  The goal for the therapist is to create independence for the client and not to foster dependence.  Advice-giving and such activities, while helpful, only keep the client dependent on the counselor.  When the therapist helps the client discover his or her own ways of dealing with things, then they are able to apply that understanding to novel situations.  The experience of this growth within a therapeutic relationship is generally experienced by client and therapist as deeply meaningful.  In pastoral psychotherapy, this growth and self-reflection will often include reflections on faith, God, and spiritual development and the process of the therapy itself can be experienced as quite spiritual or holy. 

So, far from doing nothing or doing everything for a client, the therapist works with the content of the client’s issues while monitoring the internal and relational process of therapy.  The therapist should maintain a calm exterior, but should always be actively reflecting internally.  I have found this process personally, professionally, and spiritually enriching.   I know that the quality of a good friendship can accomplish similar purposes, but for me, there is no substitute for a meaningful therapeutic relationship.

Integrated Church... Not Yet

I attended the First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa,Alabama from the time I was 4 until the time until I was about 11 or 12.  That year, we were sitting in the sanctuary waiting for the morning service to start when there was mild disturbance at the back of the sanctuary (which would have been the front entrance of the church).  We would later learn that an African-American couple had come to the church to worship, but they were turned away at the door by some of the greeters.  My parents were appalled and we left the church shortly after that.

My parents were good like that, though our family was not perfect at all.  While all people were welcome in our home, racial jokes still slipped into our conversations from time to time and there were some very well-meaning comments about “those people”.   While imperfect, there was a stark contrast between my family and some of the others in our area.  We had hateful and threatening notes tacked to our door by a neighbor when my parents invited ALL students from local schools to Youth for Christ meetings in our home.  My mom was hesitant when I wanted to invite my friend, Henry Pickens, home from elementary school because there were still those that openly and actively sought to segregate our society and who responded with anger and hatred.  On this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I am grateful that things are not as they were.

Because of my experiences as a child, I am so pleased when I see a growing mix of race in my current congregation in Nashville (First Baptist Church). I am also sure that things are not the same at the First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa as they were in the 70’s.  I love that it is a person’s desire to be present in church and their desire to worship God rather than anything else that makes them welcome in our buildings.  I realize that the dream of Dr. King has not yet been fully accomplished.  Our churches are still predominately segregated by color.  Racism has gone underground and become more hushed.  People realize that it is not acceptable to hate out loud, so they do it quietly behind closed doors and in their hearts.  Sometimes I hear people say, “I’m not a racist.  I just think…”  Whatever comes out next is almost always a racist statement.  People have not yet owned all of their biases and we have not come to place where all people are truly seen as being created equal.  We keep finding new groups of “others” to alienate and segregate.  However, I know it is not as it was when I was a child.   I continue to pray for a day when our children will be judged not by the color of their skin (or their nationality, or any other external quality), but by the content of their character. 

Les Miserables on Christmas

My tickets to the new Les Miserables (Les Miz) movie have been purchased for a couple of weeks.  I am taking the family on Christmas day.  I have seen the musical numerous times and cannot wait to see the cinematic adaptation.  While not traditional “holly jolly” fare for Christmas, Les Miserables may be a suitable Christmas Day story.

While not a “religious” play, Les Miz has numerous spiritual themes.  Most of the characters are dealing with their ideas of God, sin, punishment, grace, or providence.  Jean Valjean has broken the law and paid with consequences and makes a spiritual journey from bitterness to gratitude and love.  His path involves a spiritual encounter of grace mediated by the priest that takes him in and passes through his own struggles with personal responsibility and self-sacrifice.  The grace of the priest who gives Valjean his silver is contrasted by the police detective, Javert.  Javert’s life is built on a religious certitude in which he works to ensure that every crime is punished and every law is followed.  He is driven by his desire to live a morally upright life and he, therefore, has little patience or grace for those that do not follow those rules (even when for a supposed “greater good”).  

The women of the play seem to have less a sense of control of their own destinies.  Fantine and Eponine both deal with harsh realities of life and struggle with disappointments and tragedy.  Fantine’s moving song, “I Dreamed a Dream” is a gut-wrenching examination of how life can be so different from the dreams and expectations that we have when we are young.  Eponine’s “On My Own” is more melodramatic, but includes her feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair.

Each of the above characters spends some time in reflection on life’s meaning and purpose, while the Thenardiers, in their comedic relief, provide an example of the unexamined life.  Thenardier does provide a bit of reflection on the dark side of humanity, but he seems to accept his own evaluation and he bases his life on lack of trust and his own selfish ambitions.   Both Thenardier and Madame Thenardier readily use others for their own gain and represent the more base aspects of human nature. 

All of these reflections on the nature of God and humanity are beautiful representations of our own struggles as we deal with the realities of our own world.  We are confronted with the evil of school shootings, a growing sense of financial insecurity, a government in stalemate, wars around the world, and struggles in our daily lives.  It can be easy for us to long for a time when things will be set right and it can be tempting for us to fall into despair and feel alone and forsaken.  This is the world and reality into which God inserted himself and took on our frail form; not the form of a soldier or a king, but the form of an infant.  In the Baptist tradition, we often want to move too quickly from this Advent story to the story of “Good Friday” and Easter, but each of those holidays has its own reality.  The time of Advent is the time to reflect on the reality that God has come to us in our form.  God knows our struggles and knows our fears.  God has come that we may know that we are not alone and that we may know God’s love that casts out our fears.

The last sung line of the musical, “Les Miserables”, is “To love another person is to see the face of God”.  Throughout the musical, as throughout our lives, the terrible is moderated by the loving and caring presence of another.  While we continue to hope for the day when God will come to us again and set everything as it should be, for now, the presence of God is not experienced as the absence of strife, but as “God with us” (Immanuel) as mediated through the love of another.  As we seek to live out the kingdom of God in our own lives, to embody the love of God, we mediate God’s presence for others and find peace within our own existence.  God broke into our world in a miraculous way and took our form and those of us who follow His way should seek to embody God’s form for those in our lives. The hope of God in the midst of uncertainty, fear, and tragedy is the story of Christmas and the baby Jesus lying in a manger.  Let us rejoice with the angels in singing “Gloryto God in the highest and on earth peace to all.