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.

Distancing ourselves

I personally find the idea of distancing myself from the culture out of which extremist Christian groups such as Westboro Baptist have emerged as quite enticing.  The kinds of arguments that emerge from those kinds of extreme (and even milder) groups who claim Christianity are many of the reasons my friends would claim as their reason for rejecting Christianity.

I thought this piece from The Onion was quite a cool idea, if not quite implemented as funnily as I'd have hoped from such a promising idea.  Its concept has Almighty God holding a press conference in which he distances himself from the Christian right in the US, and several of their intolerant policies.

I'd like nothing better than to have my totally legit and logically airtight reasons for my faith totally distanced from the lame arguments that my friends ridicule (read into that as much bravado and/or tongue-in-cheek humility as you see fit).  And I often do so when talking to said friends.

Further, some of my friends have been hurt by a 'ask no questions, just submit to these rules' type of Christianity that seems to find greater traction within that culture.  I'd like to distance what I think is a right expression of following Christ from that perspective also.

And yet, I'm not sure that I want to distance myself from the Christian right in the way 'God' does in this article.  In fact, I'm not sure if I can.

Doesn't that sound scandalous?  I think it is.  But it's the scandal of grace.

Not because I'm supposed to show them grace or anything noble like that, but because I am equally in need of grace.  I have no moral advantage over the worst of the Westboro lot that would give me any sort of 'in' with God.  I have in common with them the need to be rescued from my perverse views and foul actions.  And for many people who are part of that culture I also share with them a connection as we are both connected to Christ, sinners made righteous in Him.

Ultimately, to distance myself from the Christian right, while very tempting, is to distance myself from the God of grace who embraces foul people.

In the cross, God didn't distance himself from foul people.  He came near to them.  And when he did, we were so foul that we killed him. And Jesus knew we would.  And yet he says of foul people who killed him:

"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."  (John 12:32)

Now, this post could contain many caveats about how we practically deal with such massive differences, the calling out of false shepherds, discussion of genuineness of conversion based on evidence of the fruit of the Spirit, etc.  But we can discuss those in the crumbs, cos this crumb is about God not distancing himself from me, when the moral gap between me and God makes the moral gap between me and Westboro look pretty darn insignificant.