Stephen W. Hiemstra's Blog, page 233

Nemesis

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Art by Stephen W. Hiemstra

“My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent.

If they say, Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;

let us ambush the innocent without reason; …

my son, do not walk in the way with them;

hold back your foot from their paths”

(Prov 1:10-11, 15)

In the third and fourth grades, I attended Brent Elementary School[1] which required that we meet a school bus every morning, but on other occasions I walked there or rode my bicycle. Generally, I crossed Good Luck Road, walked to Jodie Street, followed Jodie all the way to the Carrollton Parkway. Going right on Carrollton Parkway, I could cut across Brier Ditch by going up the hill to Charles Carroll Junior High School and down the other side which had a sidewalk. But that route was dangerous if the usual bullies were hanging around when it was safer to go left on Carrollton Parkway cutting over to Lamont Drive. Turning right on Lamont Drive took you all the way to the school, but it was a much longer walk and more difficult because of the hills.

The bully problem around Charles Carroll stemmed from the fact that the school sat on a hill surrounded on one side by Brier Ditch and on the other side by a deep creek. For a long time, the only way across the creek on our side was to cross on a fallen tree. So if someone picked a fight with you, they would simply say in front of all your friends: “I will meet you at the creek.” If you did want to fight or be pushed into the creek, it was a long walk home down Lamont Drive. Everyone was happier when they later built a reinforced steel bridge across the creek.

In third grade, I had a friend named Michael who I used to enjoy working with in class. He and I built the only working telegraphs in our class that year, but the following year he started hanging around with a gang that enjoyed picking fights on the playground during recess. One day in recess, he threw sand in my face and grabbed the kick ball that I had been playing with. When I cleaned the sand out of my eyes and went to retrieve my ball, a gang fight broke out. Michael began throwing punches while his gang harassed me. I threw the gang off my back and fought back with Michael until the teachers broke up the fight. They sent us to the aid station where the nurse cleaned up all of Michael’s blood; they then sent us to the principal’s office where our parents were called and we were sent home.

Michael never reformed, but he always kept a nervous eye on me. Apparently, most of his victims did not fight back. We shared a shop class later in eighth grade where he spent the hour sharpening wooden knives on the sander to threaten people with—including the teacher. By the time we reached high school, Michael disappeared into the juvenile detection system never to return.

[1] http://www1.pgcps.org/MargaretBrent.

Taitz Teaches Thoughtful Eating (part 1)

[image error]Jennifer L. Taitz. 2012. End Emotional Eating. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications. (Goto part 2)

Review by Stephen W. Hiemstra

In early January, Cub Run Recenter, where I swim, is busy each year with New Year’s resolutions athletes. After that, the new faces mostly disappear and the regulars return to their usual routine—raw will-power is normally good for about two weeks.

Addressing the limited resource—will-power—in her book, End Emotional Eating, Jennifer Taitz observes:

“Willpower, as it turns out, is less about will then it is about skill. Mischel [author of a study about the marshmallow test] explains that willpower relates to the ability to strategically direct attention. For example, teaching children [age 4] to pretend the marshmallow is just a picture transforms low delayers [kids unable to delay gratification] to high delays. Obsessing and focusing on the marshmallow creates intense temptation … In this book, you will learn to sit with temptation by paying attention in a particular way … you will practice living in full contact with the present moment, learning from your feelings, copying with distress skillfully, and developing self-compassion.” (1-2)

A key component in her Zen-influenced approach is developing mindfulness which she defines as: “present-focused, flexible, nonjudgmental awareness.” (3) Another key component is the idea of acceptance which she defines as:

“a willingness to experience thoughts and feelings, even uncomfortable ones. It doesn’t mean endorse things we don’t want to experience or running headlong into unpleasantness.” (3-4)

While Taiz’s approach targets patients with eating disorders, like binging, bulimia, and anorexia, much of the book reads equally well for people (like me) who struggle with maintaining a balanced, healthy relationship with food.

Some of you may be like me and be suspicious of ideas, like mindfulness, which arise out of Eastern religions, like Zen Buddhism. It is good to be vigilant. In this context, I would make several observations.

God, as creator of heaven and earth, is also the origin of all knowledge, including knowledge of ourselves. In Proverbs, for example, we read: “The lips of the wise spread knowledge; not so the hearts of fools.” (Prov 15:7 ESV) We should not fear knowledge, but instead focus on making sure it is used faithfully.


Mindfulness is being aware of our thoughts, emotions, and responses, which is a skill that comes also with continuous prayer and meditation. Devout Christians routinely practice mindfulness.


Mindfulness comes close to meditation as when a Zen author might encourage meditation on physical things, like a raisin. The Christian focus in mediation is more typically on Christ (as in the Jesus prayer) or on scripture (as in Lecto Divina). Recognizing that we worship the creator, not the creation, mediation on physical things may be helpful as spiritual exercise, but would not be otherwise encouraged.

As Christians, it is our responsibility to understand the uses and abuses of any kind of knowledge, but especially knowledge in the spiritual realm. As such, Taitz’s work is helpful as a tool for dealing with the special problem posed by the sin of gluttony, sometimes referred to by its Latin name, gula, which has historically been called one of the seven deadly sins.

Dr. Jennifer L. Taitz is psychologist specializing in dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) with degrees from New York University and Yeshiva University, also in New York. She writes in ten chapters, including:

Understanding Emotions and Eating
Accepting the Idea of Acceptance
Mindful Moments
Emotional Intelligence
Surfing Urges and Developing Realistic Confidence
Minding Your Mind
Coping with Difficult Emotions with a Second Helping
Cultivating Self-Compassion
Tasting Values
Ending Well and Beginning Again.

The book begins with acknowledgments, a foreword, and introduction; and ends with a list of references (iii-iv). Because Taitz offers wonderful reviews of pertinent literature embedded in her discussions, you may find the list of references especially helpful.

Jennifer L. Taitz’s book, End Emotional Eating, is accessible and interesting to a wide lay and professional audience both because of the topic and because the approaches suggested may be helpful in coping with a range of obsessive and addictive behaviors. Sprinkled throughout the chapters are helpful exercises to promote application of the concepts under discussion. I read the book to help me succeed in ramping down my weight and ramping up my exercise routine in the New Year and was pleased with what I learned—I suspect  that you will be too.

In part 1 of this review, I have given an overview of Taitz’s work. In Part 2, I will look in more detail at some of her concepts and teaching.

References

Fairlie, Henry. 2006. The Seven Deadly Sins Today. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Kelly Koerner. 2012. Doing Dialectical Behavior Therapy: A Practical Guide. New York: Guilford Press. (Review: Koerner Explains DBT and Supporting Skills; http://wp.me/p3Xeut-1uP).

http://www.FairfaxCounty.gov/parks/rec/Cubrun.

The Apostle Paul writes: “pray without ceasing,” (1 Thess 5:17 ESV)

Fairlie (2006, 155-156) writes: “Avarice is more interested in possessing than in the possession. Lust in sexual activity than in sexual feeling, and gluttony is more interested in eating than in the food. It is the appetites in themselves, and their need for gratification, that takes over one’s life.”

Win Entry to CCW Hosts Self-Publishing Conference on January 28, 2017

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Contest to Win Free Entry to Self-Publishing Conference starts today and ends on Saturday, January 14th.  

Enter online at: http://CapitalChristianWriters.org.

Capital Christian Writers is hosting a one-day self-publishing conference on Saturday, January 28, 2017.

9 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at The King’s Chapel, 12925 Braddock Road Clifton, VA 20124

Thinking about publishing your own book? Learn why self-publishing can be an effective way to get your book out to readers – and how the process works!

For program details, visit:

http://CapitalChristianWriters.org/index.php/2017-self-publishing-conference.

Prayer for Open Doors

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Photo by Stephen W. Hiemstra

Merciful father,

Thank you for the freshness of a new day, a new week, and a new year.

When possibilities seem available, boundless and within reach, like a child who discovers dandelions for the first time.

Remove the blinders that limit our vision, the muffles over our ears, and the clamp that pinches our noses—re-invigorate our lost, yet youthful senses.

Bless us that we might bless those around us.

In the power of your Holy Spirit, give us open doors that we can walk through and never look back.

In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Latin American Missions

[image error]“And a ruler asked him, Good Teacher,

what must I do to inherit eternal life? …

When Jesus heard this, he said to him,

One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have

and distribute to the poor, and you will have

treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

(Luke 18:18-2)

As my time at Cornell University grew closer to an end in 1979, my anxiety grew because I had accepted admission, I thought, to the doctoral program only to learn later that my admission was contingent on maintaining a straight-A average. As the son of an economist, I knew that I would spend the rest of my life living in my father’s shadow if I did not finish a doctorate and I had no contingency plan for finishing up. I therefore explored options that would allow me to improve my Spanish and continue in Latin American studies. My uncle John suggested that I consider spending some time overseas working in missions with the Reformed Church in America (RCA).

The RCA sought missionaries that would live and work in Latin America so I was eager to apply. The interview required a psychiatric examination so I made a day-trip to Princeton, New Jersey to meet with an evaluator. There I took a series of written tests, including a Rorschach test and an opportunity to draw a recreational scene. In going over the Rorschach test, the evaluator seemed surprised that I noticed an increasing use of color in ink blots, as if no one had previously noticed. He also seemed interested in the tennis game that I drew, because it pictured me with my best friend who was also considering ministry.

In the interview that followed, no mention was made of my examination, but focused more on the ministry requirements, should I enter missions. The interviewer pointed to the relational component required for effective missions work, while I was more concerned with the technical requirements, having just finished graduate work in agricultural development. When we discussed salary, I flinched—working full-time for the RCA I would earn less than in the internship that I had had the previous summer working for the federal government. If I had completed a seminary degree, he explained, the RCA could offer me a higher salary. However, the conversation broke down when the interviewed told me that the RCA required at least a ten-year commitment of missionaries.

Ten years!

I had been thinking of working in missions for two or three years, but ten years was outside the scope of my thinking. In 1979, I was single and only 26 years old. I had never planned activities more than about five years into the future. What woman would consider even dating me knowing that I earned only a meager income and would disappear to parts unknown for an entire decade? No wonder that the interviewer passed over my examination results quickly; the idea of a ten-year commitment freaked me out and I could not continue the discussion. I left the interview distraught over my school situation and the prospect of never enjoying a decent job and normal family life.

Top 10 Posts on T2Pneuma.net During 2016

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The list of the most popular posts at yearend always makes interesting reading and the 2016 list is no exception. (Click on the post titles to view the post). Here is the listing:

Plueddemann Demystified Leadership Across Culture

71


Martinez Family Ministry: OASIS Mission in Manassas VA

61


La Promoción con Kindle Termina esta Semana

46


The Owl

41


Open Letter to Our President Elect, Donald Trump

28


Joy Riding

26


Living into the Image

22


Vietnam

22


Koerner Explains DBT and Supporting Skills

20


Germany

18

The most popular post in 2016 was a book review written on March 31, 2014. The title is:

James E. Plueddemann.  2009.  Leading Across Cultures:  Effective Ministry and Mission in the Global Church.  Downers Grove:  IVP Academic.

The topic is leadership in world missions and the book is both informative and controversial.

The second most popular post was a guest blog featuring Pastor Julio Martinez.

Pastor Julio is from Mexico and felt called to plant a church in Manassas, VA. He also has a lively Spanish-language radio show on Tuesday evenings (click on the post for more information).

The third post was an ad that I promoted on Facebook and through Kindle in Spain, Mexico, and Puerto Rico for my Spanish title:  Una Guía Cristiana a la Espiritualidad. During the fall, I abstracted the prayers from this book and published them as a separate eBook in Kindle and EPUB.

The fourth post, The Owl, reflects on a psychology class experience at Parkdale Senior High School. The sixth post, Joy Riding, also focused on my time in high school. The same is true of the eighth post, Vietnam.

The fifth post featured an open letter to president-elect, Donald Trump, the day after the election.

The seventh post is the sermon, Living into the Image, that I preached on September 4th at my oldest daughter, Christine’s, wedding.

The ninth post is a book reviewing an important new approach in psychology for dealing with borderline personality disorder, which was previously held to be untreatable.

The tenth post talks about my experiences traveling and living in Germany as a foreign exchange student.

What is surprising about this list of popular posts? It is perhaps not obvious that both highly technical (leadership in missions; treating mental illness) and highly emotional posts (high school experiences) made the list. It is perhaps also not obvious that Spanish language posts would get a lot of attention.

Thank you for following T2Pneuma.net!

If you would like to be a guest blogger or have suggestions, drop me a line anytime at T2Pneuma@gmail.com.

Sign up for my email newsletter on my author site at: StephenWHiemstra.net.

 

New Year’s Prayer

[image error]Merciful father, Light of the World, Spirit of Truth,

Thank you for the gift of life, time to enjoy, and the many blessings that we take for granted.

Forgive us for our wasting of your gifts, for the sins that we willfully commit, and for the good things that we forget to do.

Have mercy on us.

Cast out the demons that torment us, the desires that demean us, and spirits that hide us from the truth.

Be especially near.

Help us to reflect on our weaknesses, our sinful behavior, and our neglectful hearts.

Grant us strength to meet the challenges of the new year and the grace to extend our blessings to those around us.

In Jesus’s precious name, Amen

Boundaries Revisited

[image error]“But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was,

and when he saw him, he had compassion.” (Luke 10:33)

Boundaries Revisited

By Stephen W. Hiemstra

In the summer of 2002, Pastor Rob Bromhead at Centreville Presbyterian Church preached a sermon which referred to a book by Henry Cloud and John Townsend called Boundaries. What is a boundary? Cloud and Townsend write: Just as homeowners set out physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t (25). The sermon intrigued me. That afternoon I went on-line and ordered a copy of the book.

Reading through Cloud and Townsend, two points made a big impression on me.

The first impression came from Cloud and Townsend’s reading of the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-35. They ask: why do we call the Samaritan good rather than great? They observe that the Samaritan saved the life of the man assaulted by robbers and cared for him (this made him “good”), but the Samaritan did not depart from his business trip to take care of him; instead, he delegated the man’s care and continued his trip. In other words, the Good Samaritan did what he could, but maintained healthy boundaries on his care giving.

This insight into healthy boundaries in care giving impressed me greatly because for years anxiety about not being able to “save the world” had left me feeling powerless to initiate simple steps of charity that were well within my reach. The healthy boundaries displayed by the Good Samaritan therefore empowered me to take steps to become more charitable myself. While I still could not save the world, I could offer charity to the needy person in front of me.

The second impression came from Cloud and Townsend’s observation about abuse. Abusers are people who disrespect other people’s boundaries. It is our responsibility to communicate our boundaries; it is their responsibility to respect them. Both parts are important in reducing the relational uncertainty that often causes pain, anxiety, and stress.

Thinking about stress, I remember working years earlier for a manager who was a screamer—if you offended his sensibilities, he threw a loud tantrum. After experiencing a couple of these tantrums, I went to a friend who knew him better to ask why she continued to work with him. She responded that she really enjoyed working with him because once you knew what his hot buttons were, life was easy—he was very consistent. In other words, my screaming manager had well-formed boundaries and, contrary to my initial assessment, his staff did not see him as abusive.

Cloud and Townsend’s teaching about abuse alerted me to problems in my own life. In the office and at home, I lacked safe time and space, and experienced a feeling of being out of control because I had let other people hijack my boundaries. In the office, when I began to assert personal boundaries, my supervisory took offense and over the next year engineered my early retirement along with six months severance pay to walk out the door. At home, I asserted personal boundaries by volunteering to serve as an elder at church in the fall of 2002.

My three-year term as elder began in January 2003 and in our first meeting I volunteered to serve as clerk of session. While many people view the clerk’s role as primarily being the chief note-taker, I viewed the clerk as the chief lay leadership role in the church. Thus, when Pastor Rob appealed to the elders to help out on Sunday mornings by offering personal testimonies (we lost our associate pastor), I told him: “I do not feel comfortable offering a personal testimony, but I will help you preach.” Over the next year I preached about once a quarter and began teaching adult Sunday school on a regular basis.

The engineering of my retirement took the form of a series of short term research projects under tight supervision. Projects that others might work on over several months, I had to complete in about six weeks. Topics were carefully scrutinized by supervisor and the final reports had to meet specifications acceptable to a bank examiner. When another colleague of mine was placed in this situation, he filed a discrimination lawsuit; in my case, I simply cranked out half a dozen studies that were published internally. But that was not the intent—the basic strategy was to put me on a treadmill and crank up the speed until something broke, which it did.

In early 2004, I found myself approaching an administrative deadline for early retirement with no word as to whether my request to retire would be granted. The stress was enormous because a campaign was underway to organize an employee union at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and management released no information to me or anyone else about who would be allowed to retire. Although I had applied to retire and my office planned a sendoff party on Friday, as of Thursday morning I had no decision from management.

Thursday afternoon, I was whisked into the office of the Senior Deputy Comptroller for Economics. Without the benefit of counsel or another job offer, I was confronted with the necessity of negotiating my departure package alone without much preparation. Would I get early retirement, the six month severance package promised, or find myself pushed out with neither? In order to retire without a position, I argued for early retirement and the six months severance because without both I could not make ends meet—both were granted.

Although I was not able to find another federal position, I interviewed for a software consulting position the following Monday and, in the coming days, I used my severance package to pay off my mortgage. In February, for example, on a whim, I attended the inquirer’s weekend at Princeton Theological Seminary and applied for admission, much to the dismay of my immediate family; for kicks and giggles, I was also studying Greek when time allowed. Early in the summer, I succeeded in finding a consulting placement and applied for a permanent position as a financial engineer with the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). When the OFHEO position eventually came through in August, my high hourly wage as a consultant allowed me to argue successfully for about a 30 percent increase in salary over my prior federal salary, a completely unexpected windfall.

Particularly in view of my windfall, the sequence of events—sermon heard, boundaries established, windfall received, preaching felt—began to weigh on my mind and I remembered my pledge to God in 1992 over my son’s hospital bed: “Lord, do not take him, take me.” As time passed over the next couple of years, I felt God’s call, but did not know exactly what to do about it.

Reference

Henry Cloud and John Townsend. 1992. Boundaries: When to Say YES; When to Say NO; To Take Control of Your Life. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Karr Voices Memoir Clearly

[image error]Mary Karr. 2015. The Art of Memoir. New York: Harper Perennial.

Review by Stephen W. Hiemstra

Writing a memoir evokes a special brand of fear. No matter how you approach the topic, the fear is that your life story is not worthy of being told and the mere attempt to tell it is to be guilty of exaggeration and pride. No matter how good the writing, the fear is that you do not stand in the company of presidents, kings, and celebrities. Against this fear, one can only aspire to write clearly with distinction and to seek out a good book or two to aid in this vain enterprise.

In her book, The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr points to other motivations, somewhere between the writer “trying to make sense of the past” and “readers thirsty for reality” (xiv). Memoir invites the reader into the private life of the author in a verbal strip-tease, undertaken for catharsis or paid therapy (xxi). Something anyone can aspire to writing memoir, even if the readers may be limited to an immediate circle of friends and family. The primary requirement is having memories that you are willing to analyze against a particular theme and to share with readers. These memories need not be absolute truth, but they need to be spoken with an authentic voice.

Karr emphasizes voice as the authenticator of good memoir, writing: “Each great memoir lives or dies based 100 percent on voice.” (35) The truth of memoir is not absolute—sworn on a Bible—truth, but rather a more interesting subjective truth—truth told with an authentic voice. It is subjective, in part, because we lie more often to ourselves than we do to other people. Karr validates her own accounts with the people she writes about (5). It is interesting, in part, because an authentic voice embeds the veils that we use to cover our inadequacies. Uncovering the veils and exposing the lies they cover up is painful, as Karr explains: “You have to lance a boil and suffer its stench as infection drains off.” (12) Yet, this catharsis liberates our true selves, a necessary step in healing and in personal growth, as Karr admits: “I often barely believe myself, for I grew up suspicious of my own perceptions” (22).

Part of authentic voice is admitting your motivation in writing. Karr argues: “Unless you confess your own emotional stakes in a project, why should a reader have any?” (97) While this advice might seem to be a terribly female observation to make—why can’t I just lay out my hypothesis, you say?—communications professors often admonish their students that complete communication requires both an idea and an emotion. Authenticity requires complete expression—why is that hypothesis so important that you spent at least a year or more examining it in great detaiI? Chances are good that the emotional stake is already substantial and its substance needs only to be recognized in your writing. A novelist might refer to this stake as an emotional hook to grab the reader.

Karr’s voice shows ironic tension. She is consciously literary—dropping great quotes from famous memoirists and dotting her work with cutesy new ways of expression. The tension arises when you see her photographed wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots more fitting of her Texas upbringing. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” as Shakespeare writes in Hamlet.  Voiced tension is a source of conflict and, as such, is interesting.

Cowboy boots aside, Karr writes prescriptively in 24 chapters, each with its own theme. A particularly important theme in her writing comes in chapter 6: Sacred Carnality. While one’s mind naturally runs to carnal, as in carnal knowledge, Karr uses carnal to mean sensual in description, as in the five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling (71). For those of us more comfortable in non-fiction, analytical writing, this carnality is necessarily forced, as she readily admits (75). By utilizing carnal description to move the action, dialog can be used more like a spotlight.

Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir is helpful addition to any writer’s library. Karr’s cites from numerous famous memoirists (check out the appendix listing) aptly makes the point that memoir is a wider genre than the usual political and celebrity autobiographies, and the creative potential in memoir is greater than the usual A-B-C chronologies. I would never have guessed, for example, that a favorite film of mine, Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979) was based on a memoir by William Herr:  Dispatches (1977). Karr’s book has already encouraged me to purchase a memoir that she recommended; it has been a great encouragement in my own memoir project; and I have already gifted this book to a friend. Great book; read it.

References

Angelou, Maya. 2009. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.” New York: Ballantine Books.

Herr, William. 1977. “Dispatches.” New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

http://asfaculty.syr.edu/pages/eng/karr-mary.html; http://www.MaryKarr.com; @ArtSciencesSU; @MaryKarrLit

@MaryKarrLit

 Angelou (2009).

 

Christmas Prayer

[image error]Heavenly Father,

We give thanks for your special presence with us at Christmas

when you came to us, abided with us, suffered with us,

and made us members of your family.

Such a gift! Such a surprise! So underserving!

We confess that we desperately need you—the light of the world.

Lights on a tree, lights in the yard, lights in the mall, all pall against your light.

Let us not forget; leave us not alone; be ever nearer each passing day.

In the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to look around us each and every day and extend your light even further.

Through Jesus’ special name, Amen.