Then the challenge becomes how to let people know, hopefully in a rather gentle way, that you are no longer the you you used to be, but instead, a new you. There is a practice in the Narrative Theory (of Marriage and Family Therapy) of sending out letters, or making a certificate, somehow documenting, that through therapy you have changed, and you can call these people witnesses, witnesses to your change. Cool idea, even though it does seem a bit contrived these days, when you could just post a message on Facebook or Twitter it.
Or you could blog.
Part of my change process has been and still often is, a journey alone. I don’t often find people who think like me, or understand my passion for learning and my desire and ability to deconstruct strongly held religious and cultural views. I’ve often been told that I take things too seriously, and perhaps I do, I’ll try to be up for more parties. Yet it is this seriousness that partly drives me.
This is a long introduction, I’m sure. But here’s the stories....
Yesterday I read about two court cases where Marriage and Family Therapy students had sued Universities over having to accept GLBT clients and their lifestyle, and the students argued that with their Christian belief system, they could not. The Universities said that they were not asking the students to give up their beliefs, but to ‘suspend’ them, while they were seeing GLBT clients. This brings up an interesting idea to me, that it is not working from your belief system, but actually suspending it that is then being taught as good therapy. To this I have to say, hmmm.To this I have to say, “Who then is the healthy one in the room? The one outwardly struggling with their identity and how this works in their and the world, or the one suspending their belief, their worldview, acting not in integrity but pretending to hold a different worldview so as not to harm the vulnerable client?"
This brings me to the next story, also based on something I read yesterday, but this brought me clarity, not confusion, like the story above. I’ve been struggling with what I’ve been crassly calling to myself and close friends, “dumping the baby out with the bathwater” when it comes to my former Christian faith. If you have a dark sense of humor, you can get a bit of a chuckle from it. For me it works, because as I’ve studied theology and history, I’ve found so much of what has passed for faith, or God’s word, is just a lot of socially constructed verbiage meant to control people, a static faith grid put over a dynamic life force that won’t be contained. The Christian metaphors that permeate our culture then link up and people believe that someone saying, “God has a plan” for the fourth time that day gives them a divine comfort, when really the comfort was from the person who reached out and said the words to you. That you share metaphors for life only reinforces the human connection. It is the dynamic human caring that helps and heals, not the forced grid of what your behavior should be. The bible, by the way, does actually say, “Mercy triumphs over justice.” We swear on a bible for court, but where’s that verse built into our justice system?
Yesterday, around 5:00 pm, when I’d wished I was home, or taking a walk around the lakes, I was sitting in the Southdale area government center waiting to renew my car tabs. Realizing that this might take a while, I clutched my number, making sure it wouldn’t get lost, and ran out to my car to get a book. One of a number of books I’ve been reading lately on Buddhist psychology. I grabbed “Brilliant Sanity: Buddhist Approaches To Psychotherapy” and started reading, and this is what I read:
Coming from a tradition that stresses human goodness, it was something of a shock for me to encounter the Western tradition of original sin. When I was at Oxford University, I studied Western religious and philosophical traditions with interest and found the notion of original sin quite pervasive. One of my early experiences in England was attending a seminar with Archbishop Anthony Blum. The seminar was on the notion of grace and we got into a discussion of original sin. The Buddhist tradition does not see such a notion as necessary at all, and I expressed this viewpoint. I was surprised at how angry the Western participants became. Even the orthodox, who might not emphasize original sin as much as the Western traditions, still held it as a cornerstone of their theology.
In terms of our present discussion, it seems that this notion of original sin does not just pervade Western religious ideas; it actually seems to run throughout Western thought as well, especially psychological thought. Among patients, theoreticians, and therapists alike, there seems to be great concern with the idea of some original mistake which causes later suffering- a kind of punishment for that mistake. One finds that sense of guilt or being wounded quite pervasive. Whether or not such people actually believe in the idea of original sin, or in God for that matter, they seem to feel that they have done something wrong in the past and are now being punished for it.
It seems that this feeling of basic guilt has been passed down form one generation to another and pervades many aspects of Western thought. For example, teachers think that if children do not feel guilty, then they won’t study properly and consequently won’t develop as they should. Therefore, many teachers feel that they have to do something to push the child, and guilt seems to be one of the chief techniques they use. This occurs even on the level of improving reading and writing. The teacher looks for errors: “Look, you made a mistake. What are you going to do about it?” From the child’s point of view, learning is then based on trying to not make mistakes, on trying to prove you actually are not bad. It is entirely different when you approach the child more positively: “Look how much you have improved, therefore we can go further.” In the latter case, learning becomes an expression of one’s wholesomeness and innate intelligence.
From the Preface: The Meeting of Buddhist and Western Psychology, Choyam Trungpa, (p. ix-x).
I found these words comforting as I try to align my beliefs, values or passions with how I treat people and interact in the world. I too, came to find the belief in original sin to be stifling and horrible, and I find believing that I, and others, are whole and intelligent to be much more hopeful and suited to helping others believe that they can heal from life’s hurts. As I’ve been studying Buddhism, I’ve come upon many authors who claim that Buddhism (and/or meditation) is completely compatible with Christianity, and I would have to beg to differ. I find this a bit disingenuous, and an attempt to make everything palatable to those of us steeped if not in Christian faith, then in Christian tradition. The Christian tradition that makes pretending to be whole or holy or accepting, more important than aligning your intellect with your heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment