Braving the Wilderness book by Brené Brown
Greetings all!
Today is Friday so that means Robert and I have been on the island of Patmos for 4 whole days, going on our 5th day. I hope to pass along a picture or two to Mary Childs to post. I am having trouble figuring out the blog. She has volunteered to help me so I am taking her up on it. Thank you Mary!
Braving the Wilderness book by Brené Brown
I packed three books to read, two are about churches, and one is Braving the Wilderness The quest for true BELONGING and the courage to stand alone. Pastor Teena Racheli wanted to read it so she and I each got a copy. Thank you Teena! Also, my psychologist best friend Jodi recommends Brene Brown.
Anyway, I finished the book this morning. On the last pages Brown repeats results from interviews she did with 8th graders. They broke into small groups and answered this question:
What is the difference between fitting in and BELONGING. Here are their answers in summary:
Within a few days, I heard about a church in Seattle where coming out means telling someone that you go to church! And I am hearing that in Greece, "don’t ask don’t tell" is much preferred. Someone who works at a used bookstore in Skala, the main town in Patmos, talked with me. I gave her a copy of The Divine Spark. She said, “It is a good book, a very good book, but it is not a book for Patmos.” She and I have a date to talk further next week. She was on her way to Athens. I hope to bring a new friend we met yesterday to come along and be our interpreter. But, I am guessing she means that the Greek Orthodox Church presence is huge on this island, so this book might just not fit in. Not fit in. More on that next week when she returns.
For now, I want to end with another thing Brené said and now I am greatly paraphrasing. She comments on how the U.S. has gotten more divided than ever, politically, for sure. On page 76 she writes, “Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive. Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools. They are emotional offloading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst. And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should include the politicians, media, and strangers onTwitter with whom we most violently disagree. When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own and we betray our faith.”
She takes a case in point. ... Can you believe that "black lives matter" and also care deeply about the well being of police officers? Of course. Can you care about the well-being of police officers and at the same time be concerned about abuses of power and systemic racism in law enforcement and the criminal justice system? Yes. I have relatives who are police officers....” WOW, then she goes on to ask this question, “If it is the case that we can care about citizens and the police, shouldn’t the rallying cry be ‘All Lives Matter’?” Then, she articulates in a way that makes sense to me, maybe I haven’t heard it said like this before. She lives in Texas and knows a lot about racism..
Her answer to that question is, “No. Because the humanity wasn’t stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lies of black citizens. In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo the level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to RE-humanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery.”
Wow... being on the island of Patmos is fun because I got to read her book in two days.. woohoo. And I know I’ll love the other two books too.
Now to end this terribly long blog, a few of my take-aways from Brené is that it is our job to see the face of Christ in everyone, and that includes those who have opposite views than we do. Brown quotes a woman who teaches conflict transformation. This teacher says sometimes in a conflict, we avoid really talking to understand.
The next time I find someone who thinks it is a sin to be gay, my homework could be to say, “Tell me more about your view, I am sincerely interested to find out how you came to this view.” Even though neither of us will necessarily change our minds, we have listened and maybe learned.
Lastly, since the topic of this book is true belonging, Brown says it is rather amazing how many of us humans have such deeply negative self talk. Deeply self critical. She herself did not feel she belonged as a teen, so that message is still in her head as a 55 year old adult. (I’m guessing her age). She leaves us with this and again, my words:
Today is Friday so that means Robert and I have been on the island of Patmos for 4 whole days, going on our 5th day. I hope to pass along a picture or two to Mary Childs to post. I am having trouble figuring out the blog. She has volunteered to help me so I am taking her up on it. Thank you Mary!
Braving the Wilderness book by Brené Brown
I packed three books to read, two are about churches, and one is Braving the Wilderness The quest for true BELONGING and the courage to stand alone. Pastor Teena Racheli wanted to read it so she and I each got a copy. Thank you Teena! Also, my psychologist best friend Jodi recommends Brene Brown.
Anyway, I finished the book this morning. On the last pages Brown repeats results from interviews she did with 8th graders. They broke into small groups and answered this question:
What is the difference between fitting in and BELONGING. Here are their answers in summary:
Belonging is being somewhere where you want to be and they want you. Fitting in is being somewhere where you want to be, but they don’t care one way or the other.Belonging is being accepted for you. Fitting in is being accepted for being like everyone else. If I get to be me, I belong. If I have to be like you, I fit in.Based on what these kids said, I wonder if this describes and affirms why churches need to continue to find ways to reach out to those in the LGBTQ community. What if we asked LGBTQ people, “How many times at church do you feel it is more important for you to hide who you are, than to truly be yourself?” I wonder. For example, married heterosexual people might kiss, hold hands, or just sit close. Others might say, “We could never nor would we ever want to do this.”
Within a few days, I heard about a church in Seattle where coming out means telling someone that you go to church! And I am hearing that in Greece, "don’t ask don’t tell" is much preferred. Someone who works at a used bookstore in Skala, the main town in Patmos, talked with me. I gave her a copy of The Divine Spark. She said, “It is a good book, a very good book, but it is not a book for Patmos.” She and I have a date to talk further next week. She was on her way to Athens. I hope to bring a new friend we met yesterday to come along and be our interpreter. But, I am guessing she means that the Greek Orthodox Church presence is huge on this island, so this book might just not fit in. Not fit in. More on that next week when she returns.
For now, I want to end with another thing Brené said and now I am greatly paraphrasing. She comments on how the U.S. has gotten more divided than ever, politically, for sure. On page 76 she writes, “Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive. Humiliation and dehumanizing are not accountability or social justice tools. They are emotional offloading at best, emotional self-indulgence at worst. And if our faith asks us to find the face of God in everyone we meet, that should include the politicians, media, and strangers onTwitter with whom we most violently disagree. When we desecrate their divinity, we desecrate our own and we betray our faith.”
She takes a case in point. ... Can you believe that "black lives matter" and also care deeply about the well being of police officers? Of course. Can you care about the well-being of police officers and at the same time be concerned about abuses of power and systemic racism in law enforcement and the criminal justice system? Yes. I have relatives who are police officers....” WOW, then she goes on to ask this question, “If it is the case that we can care about citizens and the police, shouldn’t the rallying cry be ‘All Lives Matter’?” Then, she articulates in a way that makes sense to me, maybe I haven’t heard it said like this before. She lives in Texas and knows a lot about racism..
Her answer to that question is, “No. Because the humanity wasn’t stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lies of black citizens. In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can’t undo the level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to RE-humanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery.”
Wow... being on the island of Patmos is fun because I got to read her book in two days.. woohoo. And I know I’ll love the other two books too.
Now to end this terribly long blog, a few of my take-aways from Brené is that it is our job to see the face of Christ in everyone, and that includes those who have opposite views than we do. Brown quotes a woman who teaches conflict transformation. This teacher says sometimes in a conflict, we avoid really talking to understand.
The next time I find someone who thinks it is a sin to be gay, my homework could be to say, “Tell me more about your view, I am sincerely interested to find out how you came to this view.” Even though neither of us will necessarily change our minds, we have listened and maybe learned.
Lastly, since the topic of this book is true belonging, Brown says it is rather amazing how many of us humans have such deeply negative self talk. Deeply self critical. She herself did not feel she belonged as a teen, so that message is still in her head as a 55 year old adult. (I’m guessing her age). She leaves us with this and again, my words:
Become more conscious of any time your self talk includes these thoughts:
- I don’t fit in, or i don’t belong because I am XYZ. (Not smart enough, not good enough, etc, not the right XYZ...). Catch yourself!
- If you look for ways people are negatively judging you, you will always find what you are looking for. Stop looking.
- And now big time, my words, not hers... True belonging is an inside thing and it can actually have nothing to do with how many friends you have.
I am a beloved child of God. Amen.
- It is feeling whole, respecting yourself, honoring and then knowing