Keeping your grace

The Gottman Institute is a ... well I don't really know what they are. But I do know that they send me emails with insights on and provocative questions about how my marriage is going. And that's pretty cool. It's kind of like what I should be like with my friends but only rarely take the time out to do.

Tonight as I was reading one of their little emails, I was asked, "What's your conflict style? When arguing with your partner, do you have a signature move?" After running through various jokes in my head involving 90s fighting cartoons, I asked Mel what my signature move was.

We worked out that I'm at my worst when I perceive that Mel isn't at her best. So when I feel like she's not engaging in the ways that I'd find most helpful, my frustration can peak into criticism and anger.

As the conversation went on I heard myself saying, "In those moments, I find it hard to keep my cool." But as I heard the words instinctively knew that that wasn't quite what I was trying to say. It's not that I fly off the handle. It's something that's actually worse in a way. Something more fundamentally important. And then it clicked. I don't so much fail to keep my cool. I fail to keep my grace.

'Keeping my grace' is about whatever is coming towards me, I'm compassionately caring for the other person. It's about remembering that my goal in every interaction is to love them. My objective is not to defend myself. It's not to be proved right. It's to love (in my actions) the other person. When I lose this perspective, this approach, all my default learned behaviours kick in. That's when I bring out my signature moves. The most effective fighting strategies I've got, well-honed from years of battles in my family of origin.

So. Just wondering. How are you going at keeping your grace?

I've worked out a few things I need to do to be able to keep my grace. But we can talk about that in another crumb.

This is what Easter means

The following piece began life as an article written by Melissa and myself for a newsletter for an aged care facility. The occasion was Easter 2021.

Lockdown, masks, sanitiser and nasal swabs. This last year has reminded us how inescapably physical we are. That patch of dry skin, cracked from the constant hand washing. Masks that fog up your glasses. The hugs we want but can’t have.

We're powerless to escape our physical bodies and their limitations. And so the protocols rule our lives.

I wonder how the first Easter would have played out had it happened in 2021. Not long having walked out of Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, Jesus appears to his followers and says to them, “Touch me!”. 

I hope he’s sanitised.

“Touch me and see,” Jesus insists. “A ghost does not have flesh and bones like you see I have.” There’s something about his resurrection that Jesus wants to make sure his followers understand. It’s not just his spirit that they see. It’s his body. The same one that they saw killed days earlier.

“Look at my hands and my feet. It’s me!” (Luke 24:39)

Jesus was not only recognisably himself, but his body was the same one he had before. It was him. Thomas had only to reach out and put his fingers in the holes in Jesus’ hands to confirm it. Not just a spirit, a body. And not just any body, his body.

This isn’t just a curiosity, however. This is the pattern of Spirit-enabled resurrection. 

Jesus’ resurrection life wasn’t an escape from physical existence. Resurrection by the Holy Spirit is the fulfilment of physical existence. You will not leave your body behind, escaping the trappings of everyday life. The resurrected in Christ will pass him the fish and ask him for the salt.

What then for those who can no longer taste? Whose legs no longer work? Whose eyes do not recognise their own children?

They are not looking forward to the simple easing of their pain. Passing from the body and its limitations. Escaping to a world without these things. This is not how it will be for those in Christ. They will glory in the balance of the spices. They will run. And they will recognise their loved ones when they see them.

This is what Easter means.

Happy Easter.