An unmarried couple, living together for five years are attending your church. They are unmarried because the woman’s ex-husband is threatening to reduce child support if they do marry. The couple plans to marry next year when the child support ends. They are now asking to join the church: What do you do?

The post generated  some great discussion. Sadly, however, some commenters began to accuse the hypothetical couple of “fraud” and even “criminal” behavior because they were living together to avoid losing child support.

A similar situation developed on Salon about two months ago: Rebecca Golden wrote about her part-time job cleaning houses. It received many compliments from Salon letter-writers. But then a few folks noted that Ms Golden is on disability and, you guessed it, began to accuse her of benefits fraud.

When confronted with information gaps, people are quick to fill them. Unfortunately, we often choose to fill them with negative, rather than positive, assumptions.

After all, based on the information that Michael gave us, the hypothetical couple might just as easily been hamstrung by a vengeful, controlling ex-husband who knew that his ex desperately needed money to care for their disabled child, but who also enjoyed putting her in a “difficult” position by preventing her from being legally married.

And Salon readers could have thought to question whether those on disability can have some earnings (they can).  But in both cases, folks went straight for the jugular, despite the fact that the readers on Internet Monk are supposed to be Christians, and Salon readers are supposed to be liberal, hip, and intelligent.

Right.

Now, of course, I point this out because I am well-familiar with this sort of behavior: It is one of my specialities. I assume the worst about people and situations, even when the information that I have doesn’t really point to such a conclusion.

I’ve considered the following reasons for my negative assumptions:

1. I don’t want to look/feel like a fool, so I preemptively try and be clever. (So I figure I will be wise as a serpent and all that.)

2. I don’t want to be disappointed. (So I will assume the worst and if I am wrong, well, then I have a pleasant surprise!)

3. I’ve watched too many crime shows on TV.  (Bad Lainie!)

But whatever my reasons, these negative assumptions about others are bad things. They take up my time and energy in negative thought and self-righteous indignation. They can lead to my bearing false witness, and, perhaps more importantly, this way of thinking is a real bar to relationships with people.

(And can you imagine anyone wanting to join a church where people assume you are a criminal fraudster just because of your living arrangements?)

I’m working on finding other ways of filling gaps. . .I’m going to start, or try to start, with a bit of grace.

]]> http://www.lainiepetersen.com/2009/10/16/filling-in-the-gaps-badly/feed/ 0 http://www.lainiepetersen.com/2008/12/12/more-on-how-i-waste-time/ http://www.lainiepetersen.com/2008/12/12/more-on-how-i-waste-time/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:07:20 +0000 LainieP http://www.lainiepetersen.com/?p=375 A few days ago  I blogged on how I waste time by inappropriately reacting to situations and circumstances. Since the incident mentioned in that blog post, I have been trying to observe myself engaging in this behavior in hopes that I might detect a pattern and correct it.

To both my relief, and dismay, I have discovered that there is indeed a pattern. My relief is the result of having detected a pattern, but my dismay is the result of discovering that this pattern is pretty complex.

To demonstrate, I am going to use the following (fictional) scenario as an example:

1. Someone calls me a “dummy”.

2. I react by feeling hurt, sad, angry, and confused.

3. My hurt feelings give rise to one or more of the following responses: I snap back with an insult of my own, I wander off feeling sorry for myself and trying to figure out why that person doesn’t like me, I begin to wonder if that person is going to try and turn others against me. . .and so on.

Notice that my responses (which take up the bulk of my time and energy) are not directly the result of being called dumb, but are instead in response to my hurt feelings. My responses are only secondarily connected to the situation: The time and energy that I invest in my responsive actions is primarily connected to my emotional reaction, not the incident itself.

This is a hard pattern to challenge and change, so lately I have been just trying to pay attention to this process.  I’m trying to catch myself between my emotional reactions and my continued response. I’d like to think that eventually I can get enough distance between the emotion and my response so as to figure out whether I am making an appropriate investment.

I’ll keep trying, anyway.

So where was I?

Ah yes.  In my last post I expressed dismay at the way that my own posts, as well as some discussions on other blogs, were treating the issue of transparency. It seemed to me that we were going ’round in circles, with a lot of hand wringing and caveats and personal opinions getting in the way of coming to any conclusions.

My primary problems with the way that “transparency” is being discussed are:

1. We seem to be equating “transparency” with “being honest when we screw-up”. Now this sort of honesty may well be a fruit of transparency, but it isn’t all that transparency entails.

2. We also seem to be confusing personal transparency with the sort of transparency that we expect from politicians and/or business leaders in their professional dealings/practices.  Again, I’d like to think that professional/political transparency is often the fruit of one’s personal transparency, but I would argue that being transparent in one’s fiscal processes (for example) is different than being personally transparent.

I think that we need to recognize the difference between transparency as a way of being vs transparency as a description of a set of behaviors. As long as we define transparency as something that we do, rather than something that we are, we are going to run into roadblocks, exceptions, and quandries.

More on this over the next few days. If you want to read what some other bloggers have had to say, visit:

KW Leslie’s Baring the Secrets of the Soul

John Smulo’s Wanna Play Peek-a-Boo?

Sally Coleman’s Just as I am. . .reflections on transparency

I am concerned that we may not have very good working definition of “transparency”, and that, as a result, we (not Sally, John and myself, but anyone who has an interest in this discussion) may be talking past each other.

So I am going to think about this some more and then try and write some stuff on what I think transparency is and isn’t.  Depending on what I come up with, I may even end up revising my other posts on this topic.

Peace out.

As I discussed in yesterday’s post, transparency is tricky. While it is often demanded, particularly in the church, there is little in the way of support for those who are transparent. Transparency often means that truth results in consequences, and those consequences are often not good.

Still, we need to keep trying to be transparent, even as we evaluate how we ought to go about self-disclosure.  Here are some ideas on how to accomplish appropriate transparency:

1. Consider the Scope of Your Transparency

My mother once gave me some very wise advice. She told me that if I was ever in a social situation and I belched (or worse), that I should say “excuse me”, but only as loud as the belch itself. In other words, be polite to those who heard you, but don’t announce the event to those who weren’t even aware of it.

We need to make sure that our transparency is appropriate: Broadcasting a personal failing that only affected a few people is not only unnecessary, but it can also be a twisted form of self-aggrandizement.

2. Consider that Once the News is “Out” People Likely Won’t Care About it After a Few Months (or Even Weeks!)

When I was 18 (and quite unmarried) I got pregnant and decided to carry the pregnancy to term. When my best attempts to keep my condition failed, I was constantly worried that people were always “talking about me”.  While I know that my family and social network likely engaged in an initial flurry of gleeful gossip, that all died down rather quickly.

(In fact, I was told point-blank by my parents and some older friends that I was NOT a topic of conversation, or was I at the forefront of everyone’s mind!)

Because humans are mostly self-centered, we are convinced that everyone is always thinking about us, for good or for bad. But the truth is that most people are far more concerned about themselves than they are other people.  We need to keep perspective about transparency: Yes, we risk being gossiped about and ostracized (in some cases), but a new “flavor of the week” is just around the corner. Trust me.

3. Being Transparent is not Equivalent to Putting on a “Kick-Me” Sign (i.e. You aren’t obligated to take abuse.)

Being transparent is just that: Letting other people know about the challenges, struggles, and yes, the good things in your life.  When we are transparent about difficulties (or even outright screw-ups), we are doing so in order to be honest and to prevent more misunderstandings and misdeeds from occurring.  We are asking for help and support from others in our struggles.  What we are not asking for (nor do we deserve) is “punishment” in the form of ongoing admonitions, nasty remarks, and inappropriate intrusions into our personal lives.

For Christians, being transparent ought to be the fruit of grace, rather than the means by which we try to achieve it. When we are transparent, need to remember that while we may still be working through our guilt, nobody ought to be adding to it. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you “deserve” the condemnation and abuse of a busybody just because you did something wrong.

4. Giving an Accounting: To Whom are You Accountable?

This is a sticky concept, but I am going to give it a whirl. I think that sometimes we overestimate just who we are accountable to.  Public figures have an even more difficult time with this, because they have such a large sphere of influence.

But I think it is an important question to consider when we are talking about transparency.  Do we really owe someone who reads our blog occasionally the same level of transparency that we offer our spouse? Our children? Our pastor? Our employees?

Determining accountability is a crucial step in appropriate transparency. It is also probably best addressed in another blog post.

5. Being Transparent When You Can’t Be

There are times when “being transparent” steps on the toes of others. If our being transparent is going to incriminate or endanger another person, is against the advice of an attorney (i.e. a legal case is pending), or is going to cause humiliation for innocent/not-so-innocent bystanders, we need to shut up, step back, and think about how we are going to deal with the situation.

One way of coping with a situation like this is to consider point #4 and figure out who we are accountable to.  If we are able to be transparent with our “inner ring” of accountability, we not only are able to get the support that we need, but we have demonstrated, against any future insinuation, that we were appropriately accountable and transparent.

The other option, which I am not a fan of because it can cause more problems than it solves, is to be partially transparent: You can tell people that there is an issue, and that you have been taking steps to deal with it but that you are unable to reveal what it is. The trouble is that this approach will get people curious, gossiping, and perhaps some in the “investigative path”.  On the other hand, it may be an option under circumstances where you believe that the “truth will come out” eventually, and you want to prepare people for the eventual revelations.

For Tomorrow:  How We Can Support Transparency

How do we heal in the absence of closure?

As the old saying goes “Time heals all wounds.”, and in most cases, this is true. As we distance ourselves from a hurt we can begin to live and interact with less caution, to feel joy and happiness again. But it is easier to recover from an emotional or spiritual injury when we have experienced “closure”: Either an understanding/reconciliation reached with that person who has hurt us or, at least, some measure of justice. When we are not afforded reconciliation or justice after a hurt, we are left in a state of limbo, where healing comes much more slowly, much more unevenly, than if we are able to experience a definite resolution.

I liken the difference between healing with and without closure to the difference between the healing of a nasty cut that is cleaned up/stitched up by a doctor and a cut that is allowed to close up “naturally”. When the cut has been treated and closed, it will often heal faster, have fewer complications, and its scar will be less noticeable than an untreated, “unclosed” cut. Likewise, when we have had closure after an emotional/spiritual wound, negative emotions are less likely to fester, we are less likely to obsess over unanswered questions, and more likely to trust and rebuild relationships.

For those of us who do struggle with the uneven, messy scars of unresolved hurts, there is a silver lining: Because we didn’t heal as slowly, because our “scars” are jagged, uneven, and prone to aching in bad weather, we remember more. We’ve been there, done that, have the t-shirt. We might be a bit more disciplined in our interactions. We might be able to share our experiences more effectively. We might even be able to be more present for those who are experiencing a similar hurt.

But all the silver linings in the world don’t make these wounds less painful, do they?

For various reasons I have been researching the problem of verbal abuse, as well as ways to deflect it. I came upon this gem, which suggests the “Boring Baroque Response” to being verbally baited. I highly recommend it to all my readers!

As many of my friends and readers know, the past year has been very, very difficult for me. Without getting too far into personal details, I have realized that many of my difficulties have been the result of ongoing self-deception (aka “lying to myself”). In recent months I have been examining some of the ways in which I have lied to myself and have been writing them up in a more private journal. In addition, I am going to be posting some of my insights here in my blog:

Insight #1

“Identifying a problem and the dynamics of that problem are all well and good, but they don’t solve the problem nor do they necessarily enable one to change the behaviors that cause the problem. In fact, the identification of the problem and its dynamics can often become a trap: One feels smug about developing “understanding” while continuing in the same behaviors. This can lead to even greater complacency, even if the immediate situation is resolved or acted upon. The problem still exists, and the problematic behaviors still exist. Thus, real progress is seldom made.”

A therapist friend of mine recently remarked that one of the great false assumptions that people have about therapy is that it is supposed to help them “understand” their problems and situation. However, a good therapist will focus on getting their clients to change their behavior, whether or not the client fully “understands” their situation.

While there is nothing wrong with identifying problems in relationships, patterns of behavior, or trying to understand people’s motives, the “understanding” does nothing to change the situations that people find themselves in. In fact, it takes up time and energy that might be better used in removing oneself from, or changing, the negative situation.

Think about it this way: If a person is in a house and they smell gas, what is their best course of action? Is it to try and understand where the gas is coming from, learning the cause of the gas leak, and studying the properties of natural gas? Or is it to get the heck out of the house before they asphyxiate or get themselves blown up? There is time enough for “understanding” after one flees the danger. The important thing is that one acts in response to what they know to be a negative situation, even if they don’t yet fully understand it.

When we tell ourselves that we are gaining mastery over a negative situation because we understand it, even though nothing has changed as far as our behavior or participation in that situation, we are lying to ourselves. We want to believe that we are “taking action” and/or are “being proactive” because we have thought the situation or circumstances through. Yet all we are doing is continuing in the same behaviors, the same patterns, the same (dare I say it) sins as we always have. We just understand them a bit better.

This is not helpful.