Broken Beer Bottles

After the last set of marriage and family therapy intensives last week, I left in between feelings of doubt and excitement. Dan Allender, in his customary dramatic manner, spoke often of the hostile environment marriage counseling produces. He likens it to two arenas: a mud wrestling match or a bar brawl. “Have you ever been in a context where someone is trying to take a bottle that they just consumed and split your head open? Have you ever been hit in the face? Have you ever been knocked down? Have you ever been kicked in the stomach? Again, these are metaphors. Maybe.”

Good Lord. This is not what I signed up for. I picture myself in control, the couple attentive, amicable and agreeing. Dan makes me feel like I better bring a bullet proof vest to work everyday. Maybe I should’ve stuck with engineering. Math problems are much easier to solve than human beings.

To compound what feels like a monumental task is the fact that I would characterize myself as a ‘nice boy.’ This is part of a typology we have used in class, where a nice boy steers away from confrontation, one who will often agree to avoid conflict. Where does a nice boy fit into a bar brawl?

This is what I was left with, holding both a discouraged and excited self at the same time. Yet while I have a lot of work to do, and while I may be a ‘nice boy,’ I know there is a drive and passion that dismisses me from that same label. And Dan has reminded me of the call to step out of safety and into war.

I am reminded that Christianity is not an escape to a peaceful heaven, but a call to engage in the horrific injustices of this world. You will have to fight and lose terribly, get bloody and angry and suffer and scream at God, and actually feel something for this world, rather than pose an indifferent smile. How often I want to forget this. How often I want to turn down the knob of reality. How often I want to escape into a 'spiritual' place, yet I forget that my flesh and blood is spiritual, and we are called to engage in the flesh and blood of life.

Room for Glory

I am obviously entrenched here at Mars Hill in the study of psychology. It is incredibly interesting and so valuable for me to engage in, to really get a better picture of my own self, why I do the things I do, my motives, etc. It has uncovered a great deal (though I have only scratched the surface I’m sure), and I think anyone really going into ministry, whether a pastor or a counselor, should know more deeply who they are, to be attuned to the entire operating system that is continuously in flux below what we know as consciousness.

However, amidst all of the psychology, all of the explanations of life, I still feel there’s much space and mystery in me that cannot be explained by science and psychology. Psychology does not fully encompass and portray the complexity of the human condition. Psychology does not define me as well as Christianity. I do not come alive by psychology – I come alive when I experience the spirit of Christ. Why after spending so much time in the books, reading about who I am, do I never get the feeling, the rush of life and confidence about who I am as I do when I feel moved by the spirit of God in worship? Last semester, in my counseling sessions, I would often try to bring much of what I have learned in class, psychological principles, etc, to my time. While that would help, it would not compare to the presence I would bring when I felt moved by the Spirit, when I really felt like I was walking with the Lord. My facilitator would be taken aback by this presence, very noticeable and different.

Quantum physics seems to reveal this same mystery that traditional science and psychology cannot explain. Much of psychology wants to be able to explain every action by a causal relationship down to the biological event that takes place. They want to reduce every emotion and movement to the root, which they say starts with the neurons that fire in your brain, bringing a chain of biological reactions that lead to your action. This is what you would call a reductionistic approach, where all explanations of life and consciousness are reduced to the operations of the 3 pound chunk of brain tissue in your head.

And here is where quantum physics is revealing something different. They are finding that the further one tries to go down the scale of physical reality, the less material there appears to be. In fact, the farther we reach into the minute space of quantum physics, the more reality seems to consist of nonmaterial information. Instead of something physical, there is space and mystery, more pure potential for matter or energy or something of the like but they are not sure what. (What the Bleep Do We Know attempts to explain this)

Thus the mind is being revealed as something that is greater than the sum of the parts that support it. The whole – that being human life and consciousness – is more than the sum of all the biological parts that make up the human body. There is mystery, there is room for the spirit, for that which is greater, to dream up a world outside of that which is caused by neural firings.

So the point of this, for me, is to again by humbled by my own endeavor to learn all that psychology attempts to explain about my own self. There is more than me knowing everything. Information only gets me so far. I can gain all the knowledge in the world, yet this same knowledge will be my downfall, for I will be too arrogant to be able to simply engage in a genuine way that will really create transformation in the other person. There is learning, and then there is being. Psychology focuses more on the knowing, and the gospel focuses on the spirit, the attitude, the engagement and presence. The learning focuses on reductions, which is helpful and needed, but can be rather anemic, fairly dull, tedious. Being, on the other hand, is rich and beautiful. It is art. It is life. It is greater than fact. Being leaves room for Glory. And Glory is the richest life has to offer. And if we have hearts to engage in this spirit of being, we can then see the Glory that exists, the Glory that is pulsating out of all that is. This picture reveals both Glory and information. But it encapsulates life much better by the sum of the colors and objects laced together as a whole, than what any of them reveal on their own. As a whole, this picture reveals Glory. It is packed with expression of that which is greater than itself.

May we have eyes to see Glory, may we see through the lens of being, of wholeness, may our spirit bring a greater presence than what we know. Instead of simply talking with each other and exchanging information, may we engage in a way of being with one another that reveals the Glory of God. May our hearts have much room for Glory.

Classes

I thought I'd share to those outside of the school the new classes of the semester.

Practicum II - where we counsel one another and have the rest of our group watch. The best word to describe the experience was spoken by a classmate during our orientation: nauseating. It is intense enough to counsel someone, let alone having an entire group analyze you as you do it. We also meet outside of class to counsel each other on our own, and meet with a staff person to be counseled. That's a lot of counseling...(i think about 6 hours a week)

Marriage and Family Therapy - We get Dan Allender again, and the first set of intensives last week were good, though didn't quite have the punch that Faith, hope and love did for me. Still very good though. The first paper this week is on gender, God's design on this, specifically applying it to marriage. Definitely a difficult topic today, as we saw last semester with the people against fundamentalism attempting to protest against some of Mark Driscoll's comments on women.

Impact of Abuse - I'm pretty interested in this class, where for the first time I will really start to get a picture and engage in the harsh realities of domestic violence in the world, its affects and how to care for so many who have experienced the devastating consequences. Sexual violence, oppression, racism; all topics that cry out for one of the key themes of the Gospel, which is justice.

History of Therapeutic Perspectives - I don't know much about this yet, it just looks like it covers the major counseling theories and the men and women who formed them. Lots of psychology.

Celtic Spirituality - a one credit 'spiritual formation' elective that I needed to take that meets just one weekend. Interesting but probably least excited about this one.

Thin Blue Lines

I have been moved to express my two hour experience of church this morning. And once again, as has been the case every time I sit down to write - the onerous task of transferring experience into words on a page, providing the reader a little bit of the fullness of what happened. The joy and art of words and language...attempted again today.

In the midst of what I have described before as death in this deconstruction here at Mars Hill, this morning I found myself worshipping in the midst of life and what I know to be true. My certainty was found in these moments, within a spirit lifted so high I felt all but a thin line between me and heaven. Lost in the moment, my body open to move and sway wherever it pleases. Where I was given the full sense of what it means to be a man. Where I was given the fullness of what it means to feel.

All of this centered on words bellowing out by those around me, singing,
“All my delight is found in you Jesus.”

The power of those words in that room - ineffable yet indelibly formed into my memory.

There may have to be doubt for there to be faith, but there is also a certainty in His presence. How can one argue with a heart that is made fully alive?