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February 2 - February 3, 2022
When examining our family-of-origin formations, the naming of scripts provides interior revelation and positions us for the new scripts of the gospel.
In that moment, something shifted in me. No script was consciously handed to me, but the internalized message of I have to hold everything together was lodged in my heart and mind.
The work of examining my family-of-origin scripts has given me a window into my soul and an opportunity to believe and orient my life around the good news of the gospel.
truth. But unless I’m doing the work of examination, I will not locate the source of the wounded ways I’ve been formed.
The three family-of-origin influences (patterns, trauma, and scripts) serve as a cocktail of de-formation, entrenching us in ways of thinking and behaving that require patient and honest self-examination.
The goal of the genogram is not simply to see the dysfunction of our families (and it’s definitely not to provoke us to hate our families). The goal of the genogram is to move toward greater healing for the purpose of loving well.3
The interior examination of anxiety is another powerful practice to engage in. To be anxious is to be human.
Therapist and pastor Peter Steinke noted two types of anxiety: acute and chronic.4
As we name our anxiety and its corresponding stories, we give ourselves the opportunity to rise above it.
Alice Miller’s distinction between emotions and feelings to be enlightening. She wrote, “Emotion is a more or less unconscious, but at the same time vitally important physical response to internal or external events—such things as fear of thunderstorms, rage at having been deceived, or the pleasure that results from a present we really desire. By contrast, the word ‘feeling’ designates a conscious perception of an emotion.”5
The theologian who has helped me the most in seeing our feelings as part of a deeply formed life is Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556). After a tragic accident in which his knee was shattered in battle, Ignatius had extended periods for reflection and examination. In the course of his reading, praying, and conversations with multiple people, he discovered the role of feelings in locating ourselves in the world and discerning God’s will.
In his classic work The Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius calls upon the religious faithful to a practice of examination. This involves bringing to mind the presence of God in an ordinary day, noting the ways in which we have been present to or unaware of God’s presence. But one of the ingenious elements of Ignatian spirituality is the commitment to exploring the landscape of feelings. Ignatius called them consolations and desolations.
Consolations and desolations reveal feelings of peace, joy, and contentment, as well as feelings of angst, anger, and discontentment. But more than just naming the feelings, the goal is to lift the various feelings to help us discern if we are moving toward God or away from him.
There are many layers to this approach, but for our purposes, the presence and processing of our feelings is to help us examine ourselves in light of God’s presence.
As we sift through these feelings, we not only provide outlets for potentially soul-damaging effects but also have another means of communing with God and others. Emotions don’t die; ...
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Our reactions are a source of important revelation for our lives. They tell us more about ourselves than about other people.
The key is asking questions that are introspective in nature, such as, Why am I reacting this way? What is causing me to feel this angst? and Why am I so triggered by this person?
our reactions hold key insights for our own transformation.
In the examination of our reactions, we live from a place of depth, wisdom, and discernment. We find ourselves in a better place to reject the lies and stories that often distort our vision. Our perceptions become clearer; we make fewer assumptions and live without the heavy burden of self-justification, self-condemnation, and the need to judge others.
I resolved that if I found myself negatively or disproportionately reacting to someone or something, I would take a few minutes during the day to process that moment through five questions: 1. What happened? 2. What am I feeling? 3. What is the story I’m telling myself? 4. What does the gospel say? 5. What counter-instinctual action is needed?
The goals of self-examination are threefold. First, through these practices, we open ourselves up to the grace and presence of God.
Second, we live in the world with greater freedom, untangling ourselves from the web of inner dysfunction and confusion.
Third, we become a presence in this world, more capable of working toward peace with our neighbors and love for those who might be considered enemies.
We are accustomed to viewing, judging, and comparing others rather than ourselves. That’s easy. The way of self-examination is hard. But by God’s grace, the Spirit can help us.
Ron Rolheiser noted that throughout history, there has been a “divorce in Western culture between religion and eros. Like all divorces it was painful, and as in all divorces, the property got divided up: Religion got to keep God and the secular got to keep sex. The secular got passion and the God got chastity.”
My goal is to provide a pathway that helps us make sense of our emotional and sexual longings and to show how our bodies have everything to do with God and our spiritual development.
At the core of this relationship between sexuality and spirituality is desire and longing. What we do with our sexual desires and longings says a lot about what we believe about God.
Spirituality can be described as a vast longing that drives us beyond ourselves in an attempt to connect with, to probe and to understand our world. And beyond that, it is the inner compulsion to connect with the Eternal Other, which is God. Essentially, it is a longing to know and be known by God (on physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual levels)…. Sexuality can be described as the deep desire and longing that drives us beyond ourselves in an attempt to connect with, to understand, that which is other than ourselves. Essentially, it is a longing to know and be known by other people
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theologian Marva Dawn has perceptively delineated two kinds of sexuality that often get confused in our culture. Dawn noted that in Genesis 1 and 2, we are presented with two visions of sexuality: social sexuality and genital sexuality.
In Genesis 1, human beings are created in the image of God and given the holy task of relating to the rest of creation in ways that declare the harmony and interdependence of all things. As Dawn wrote, “Human beings are especially created to image God, and a significant part of that imaging is fellowship. In our relationships with each other, we model the community of the Trinity.”4 This longing for fellowship and belonging is stamped into the fabric of our souls.
We long to be seen and to see others from the earliest moments of human development. Whether in our living rooms or on the playground, we long for connection—for an immediate felt experience of closeness to a...
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In Genesis 2:24, however, we see another dimension of sexuality. God lovingly established a means of covenant love whereby man “is commanded to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.”5 Dawn explained that this new family unit is “especially marked by the covenantal sign of genital union.”6
As Dawn wrote, “I am convinced that, if the Church could provide more thorough affection and care for persons, many would be less likely to turn falsely to genital sexual expression for the social support they need.”7
Genesis 1 and 2 begin with God’s good creation. The Bible is off to a wonderful start. God creates a beautiful world marked by abundance, beauty, diversity, and delight. God lovingly and generously shares this world with humanity, creating Adam and Eve to be stewards of the created order. So far, so good.
In creating this boundary, God is establishing the dignity and capacity for freedom within humanity. He creates the conditions for choice—being able to volitionally love, free of coercion—which is essential for souls created in his likeness.
To sum it up, our sexuality is perverted by a powerful root of shame. Locating shame in our lives is actually quite a simple exercise. If we took a moment to identify areas we have great difficulty naming, shame is usually the reason for our propensity to hide and conceal.
Many people of faith live on a starvation diet. It’s the diet that sees our longings and desires (particularly our sexual longings and desires) as aspects of our humanity that need to be rejected, suppressed, or ignored.
Instead of the church being the community and place to help people make sense of their longings, the longings are seen as antithetical to a robust spirituality.
“Give me chastity and self-restraint, but don’t do it just yet.”11
Notoriously, in order to emotionally survive, those who subscribed to this diet often ended up living secret, duplicitous lives, looking for illegitimate outlets to meet their legitimate longings.
The unfortunate consequence in this is seeing our bodies, pleasure, and sexuality as impediments to true spirituality. This mindset, however, is shaped more by Gnosticism than by a biblical vision of creation.
Now certainly, there must be appropriate space within our lives with God to say no to some of the desires and passions that arise in us.
Far too many Christians have lived as if Lent were a year-round season of the church. But it’s not.
In fact, to fast when God calls us to feast is a violation of the highest order. We see this in the Gospels. Repeatedly, Jesus told his disciples to enjoy the feast that was before them, knowing that there would come a time when fasting would be the appropriate response to life. In the gospel of Matthew, while speaking of his presence among his followers, Jesus said, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast” (9:15). In other words, don’t subject yourself to something Jesus
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If the starvation diet is about repression, the fast-food diet is about reduction. This diet is the attempt to reduce our deepest longings to our physical desires. Whereas the first diet shapes many in the church, this diet is broadly consumed by many in the surrounding world.
C. S. Lewis aptly explained this: Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. [Humans] feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.12
There’s a popular quote (often attributed to G. K. Chesterton) that says, “The man who rings the bell at the brothel, unconsciously does so seeking God.” In other words, at the moments when our desires become illicit and we find ourselves trapped by their power, even then there is something deeper at work.
The starvation diet has no imagination to see sexual desire as a means toward God. The fast-food diet relegates sexual desire to being its god. Both are missing the point.
The gospel offers us a banquet. That’s what we all yearn for: a feast that doesn’t just fill our bellies with tasty things but nourishes our souls as well.
There is an invitation—whether married or single—to a life of communion, joy, and delight.
