Your Christmas Present

  This reflection also appears as the second reading in our "Living Love:  Daily Meditations for the Season of Advent 2012." You can view or download our Advent Booklet on your mobile device or PC at www.LivingCompass.org/Advent2012.iml.     I have seen several different productions of "A Christmas Carol" throughout the years, and one of the things I enjoy is seeing how the three Christmas ghosts (past, present, and future) are portrayed by the different directors.  There is plenty of room for creative expression when it comes to creating the characters of the ghosts, and each time I've seen "A Christmas Carol" the ghosts seem to get bigger and more frightening.

You and I are the directors of our own Christmas stories each year, and we too, are allowed plenty of creative expression when it comes to how we will cast the ghosts of Christmas past, Christmas present, and Christmas future.

We are each visited by the ghosts of "Christmas past" this time of year.  Wonderful memories of Christmases past fill our hearts and are often accompanied by sadness as we realize what has passed and will never be again.  Our grief, of course, goes hand and hand with our gratitude for what has been.  "Christmas past" also fills us with joyful memories, especially when we reflect back to the magic of Christmas when we were children. If we are not mindful, any grief that visits us from "Christmas past" may also cause us to worry excessively about "Christmas future."  We may worry that Christmas will "never be the same again".  We may find ourselves having a hard time enjoying the holiday season this year because we are so focused on how "this is probably the last Christmas that...."  Grieving over the past or worrying about the future are places where any of us can get stuck.

The key to not getting stuck in the past or the future is to fully embrace "Christmas present."  We do this by "loving what is," by fully entering into the delight--and perhaps the challenges--that this Christmas means for us.  Our faith assures us that God's Love is equally present in the best of times and the hardest of times, and isn't that after all what the celebration of Christmas is all about?  I overhead a person say, "I'm the one in our family who is responsible for making Christmas happen."  I understand what they meant by that, but if they take that too literally, they are vulnerable to exhausting themselves and those around them.  We are all wise to remember who is truly responsible for making Christmas happen, and trust that this power, this presence, is what allows us to relax and receive the gift that is Christmas present this year.

Are You Full Yet?

As  each of us enjoyed our Thanksgiving meals this year, we probably paused  a few times to consider whether we should have one more bite, thinking  to ourselves, "am I full yet?"  If you ignored this question, or kept on  eating in spite of your answer, you no doubt paid a consequence for  it.  Instead of enjoying your Thanksgiving you probably ended up  uncomfortable and tired.Now we each have another chance to ask the same  question, "am I full yet?"  We will each answer this question numerous  times over the next three and half weeks as we prepare to celebrate  Christmas.  The pressure to overindulge this time of year is  immense.  It is easy to say "yes" to so many internal and external  expectations that we  do not realize the cumulative effect of our  decisions, until we are relieved that Christmas is over.  The paradox is  that all of this fullness leaves us feeling empty, as if all we did was  eat dessert after dessert, somehow missing the main course. So if trying to be so  full runs the risk of leaving us feeling empty, perhaps we might try a  different approach this year.  We might practice saying "no" to the  expectations that we put on ourselves and allow others to put on us.  In  doing this we say "yes" to our need for quiet, rest and deeper  connections with the people we love most.  In doing this we may discover  the other side of the paradox:  emptying our lives of some things will  help us to feel full. There is another essential reason to practice letting  go of the pressure of expectations this holiday season.  God has a  way of showing up in our lives in the most surprising and unexpected  ways.  If our lives are overly full, there is no room for such  surprises. Remember that in the story of Christmas the inn was full the night that Love was born.  Intentionally emptying our lives of  busyness, creates openings for Love to enter our lives and our  relationships anew this year, making room for the main course of the  season.

Singing Grace

This past Monday night was our turn to host our movie group at our house.  Our group currently consists of five couples and three children.  We take turns hosting the group which meets every other month.  The hosts provide a simple meal and get to choose the movie to be discussed at the gathering.  We chose Arranged for this meeting of our group, a wonderful independent film about the friendship between two young women, one a devout Muslim and the other an Orthodox Jew.  The website for the movie, found at http://www.arrangedthemovie.com/, includes the tag line “friendship has no religion.”  It's a beautiful movie and I highly recommend it.As our group prepared to sit down for our meal, we paused to say grace.  This group contains five clergy types and so it's a pretty natural thing for us to do.  I offered to lead the grace since we were hosting, and as I was just about to start I felt inspired to do something a little different.   As we all stood and held hands around the table I asked if we could begin our grace by singing together the first verse of Amazing Grace and that I would then offer a short prayer after our singing. I have no idea what I said after the singing.  I only remember the singing and the Spirit that filled our small dining room as we sang the words we all knew by heart.  We have lived in our house for twenty-six years and while there has been plenty of singing in our house, I believe that was the first time we ever sang grace.  Our singing of our grace allowed us to more deeply feel the grace, to truly experience it in the moment. As we gather with friends and family this Thanksgiving, may we all look for ways to “sing grace” together.  By this I mean don't necessarily mean literally singing together, although it could mean that, but connecting our expressions of love and gratitude with our deepest emotions.  Singing grace means finding authentic and heartfelt ways of expressing our love for on another.  It means not just going through the motions, but going through the emotions.  The classic Thanksgiving hymn begins with the words, “Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices.”  Singing grace means connecting our hearts with our hands and voices. Singing grace could may be a simple hug in the kitchen as you are cooking side by side.  Or it could mean sharing a special memory together.  Or it could mean sharing tears together over a loved one who is no longer with you.  Or it could mean watching old family movies, savoring the time together.  Or it could mean a spirited game of touch football in the back yard.  Or it could mean serving meals at your church.  Or it could mean calling or reaching to someone who is alone.  What singing grace might look like in your life, I don't know--but you most likely do.  Singing grace can happen whenever hearts and hands and voices join together to share authentic grace and gratitude. Grace and gratitude both come from the same root word.  Expressing our gratitude is giving voice to the amazing grace that we have experienced through our family and friends.  Singing grace is giving voice to that gratitude not just with our thoughts and words, but with our heart. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from all of us at Living Compass.  This year, may you find the opportunity not just to say grace, but to sing it as well.

Don't Try This At Home!

When a television commercial shows someone doing something potentially dangerous, it always includes a warning on the bottom of the screen that advises viewers: don't try this at home. I have seen such a warning on a commercial that featured a driver executing sharp turns in a sports car at very high speeds on a closed course. I have also seen such warnings on commercials that showed someone juggling knives or walking on fire. The warning to not try the activity that the viewers are watching at home is intended to protect the viewers from harming themselves, or someone they love even though it seems quite obvious to the viewer that the activity would be too dangerous to try on their own. As I watched the presidential debate this earlier this week, I felt like there should have been a similar warning scrolling across the bottom of the screen during debate: "Please, don't try this at home." At Living Compass we make a strong effort to teach couples, parents, teens, families, and organizations how to communicate in ways that are effective, helpful, and uplifting for all. Many of the communication skills that have been on display during this election season, and especially during the recent debates, do not resemble anything that we teach, and in fact are often a lesson in how not to communicate effective and uplifting.

Perhaps debating is a necessary and effective part of an election process. I can safely say, though, that debating is rarely, if ever, an effective strategy in any other kind of relationship. The goal of a debate is to win--to defeat your opponent. You score "points" with clever comebacks, put downs, and exposing weakness in your opponent's actions, words, or positions. In fact, the word debate derives from the same root word as does the word battery. Battery means to wound or beat someone in a hostile or offensive manner--as in assault and battery. This adversarial and aggressive style of communication was clearly on display in several of the more intense exchanges during this week's presidential debate.

Whenever I have a couple or a family in my counseling office who is locked in unproductive anger and conflict they will most likely be engaging in some form of debate with one another. Their communication alternates between attacking and defending and is designed to "win" points over the other person, whom they are at that moment experiencing as their "opponent." Each person is clear that the other person is fully responsible for the current mess they find themselves in and they they bear virtually no responsibility for any of the problem. The problem when this kind of communication happens in families or between friends, is that unlike an election, in the end, no one actually wins. In fact, everyone loses in personal relationships when communication sounds like a debate.

My goal in helping a couple or family that is locked in a cycle of debate is to help them replace that cycle of debate with a cycle of compromise. Com, the first part of the word compromise, means together. Compromise means to promise together, to work together for the greater good of the family, the friendship, or the organization. So, the goal of a cycle of compromise is to honor the integrity of each other's thoughts and opinions, to learn from each other, to acknowledge when the other person is right about something, to be honest about one's own shortcomings and mistakes, to acknowledge for the good of the team that sometimes it is more important to be helpful than right, and that in the end humility and calmness will be more helpful than ego and bravado so that in the end, the family or couple can work together for the good of the team.

When families and good friends work through tough issues and intense differences they provide a model for all of us, including our politicians, about the power of effective communication and the greater good that comes from a willingness to compromise and truly work together.

Top Secret

This past week we witnessed General David Petraeus' resignation as the head of the CIA due to a extramarital affair in which he was involved.   Presumably, General Petraeus believed that as long as the affair was a secret he could continue to exercise his responsibilities as the chief of the CIA. Once the secret was revealed however, he knew his only option was to resign.  It seems to be the nature of things that when people are hiding important information from others, they truly believe they can go on doing so without consequence.  Such is the power of denial and the power of secrets.  In the end though, the truth always comes out, and the magnitude of  the secret , and how long it has been kept, determine the consequences, which can be enormous.As a culture we seem fascinated with the secrets and lies of famous people.  We are  especially attentive when they go to extreme lengths to deny or coverup the truth.  I can only assume that we are fascinated by these stories because we see in them a projection of ourselves and our own struggles to be honest men and women.  Rather than expend energy wondering how a four star general, politician or celebrity could live a life of lies, perhaps we are best to look in  the mirror and examine our own lives for any secrets we might be keeping, big or small. The 12-step  recovery movement has a great saying:  "You are only as sick as your  secrets."    It's not just the content of the secret that is unhealthy, but what creates the greatest amount of dis-ease is the  emotional and spiritual energy it requires to keep the secret hidden.  If you've  ever seen the face of a young child who has stolen a cookie from the  cookie jar and is trying to conceal their guilt, you know how much  energy it takes.  It takes no less energy for adults to hide their secrets.   Adults who try to hide secrets may  instead find themselves hiding behind alcohol or other drugs, being overly busy, or avoiding important conversations and relationships. There is a great Robert Frost quote about secrets:

"We dance round in a ring and  suppose.  While the secret sits in the middle and knows." When a secret exists  within a family, the whole family ends up “dancing round in a ring and  suppose(s), while the secret sits in the middle and knows."  Families  can go to great lengths to hide a drinking problem, a mental illness, infidelity, domestic violence, verbal abuse, a child who is struggling or  financial struggles.  Without a word being said, everyone learns the  dance of denial, even though they all carry around the knowledge that  something is not right.  This dance can last a long time, but it cannot  last forever because the truth always breaks through in one form or  another.  The initial clue that a secret exists will often be the  breakdown in functioning of one of the family members affected by the secret,  such as when a teenager's grades begin to plummet, a spouse develops severe depression, or a  young child becomes paralyzed with fear. Another way to make this point is to say that it's not just that families keep secrets, but that secrets keep families.   They keep families from being fully  alive and fully connected to others.  On the other hand, when a family or individual has the courage to reveal a secret, when it is finally released, new energy and growth can occur for the family or individual.  So for example, when a spouse courageously reveals for the first time the secret of their abusive childhood to the other spouse,  the fact that this is no longer secret leads to greater trust and intimacy in the marriage.   Another example might be  when an adult child is able to confide with his or her parents and siblings that they are struggling with drug or alcohol addiction.  Bringing this secret out into the open will most likely begin a period of healing and new life for the family.

Every religion has rites for the confession of sins and evealing of secrets which provide a way for them to be released, and for healing to begin.  Jesus said, "Whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and  whatever is concealed or secret is meant to be brought out into the  open."  If you are burdened by a secret, maybe it is time to find  someone you trust with whom you can release it.   It could be a friend  or family member, or a rabbi, priest or pastor, or perhaps a therapist.   Find someone to help you tell the truth, your truth, so that you can  take that first step toward living an integrated, authentic life.  Because in the end, no secret is worth the cost of losing a job, a relationship,  or one's integrity.    When secrets are brought out in the open it is not always easy, but it is the first step towards having the peace of mind and heart for which we all yearn.