[Featured Post] Marriage and Scooby-Doo (and the Freedom of Mystery)

This featured post comes from the blog Untangled: A Psychologist's Reflections on Therapy and Life

Marriage and Scooby-Doo (and the Freedom of Mystery)

 
They’ve messed up Scooby-Doo. 

When I was young, you could always count on “the gang” to solve the mystery. The monster always turned out to be some rich-white-male capitalist trying to rip off somebody. I liked Scooby-Doo, because there was a mystery, followed quickly by solutions. In the newer episodes for a new generation, the monsters turn out to be…monsters. The mystery never really gets solved. The point of the show is to experience the mystery, rather than to solve it. 

But my kids love it. They prefer mystery to solutions.

Maybe I need to learn how to love mystery again. Maybe we all do. Our marriages and our world may even depend upon it…

I’m not alone in my quest for solutions.

Just last night, I sat in my living with a group of friends—our children playing outdoors in the June twilight, echoes of laughter drifting on the breeze through open windows—and we talked about the ways we try solve even the most uncertain and mysterious of human experiences. Does a particular feeling mean we made the best job decision? Does our children’s happiness confirm we moved into the right neighborhood? Does a sense of accomplishment mean I have used my time wisely?

Uncertainty everywhere. Mystery everywhere. And all of us on the endless hunt for solutions, for answers to the timeless, unanswerable questions.

While our kids played.

Why do we yearn to solve the mystery? I think we search for solutions because they bring the illusion of certainty, and certainty brings a sense of safety. And we will go to incredible lengths to feel safe. In fact, we have been encouraged to do so from the womb.

Before we were born, most of our parents were purchasing the safest, most disaster-proof crib on the market. They were installing plugs in the light sockets and putting mouth-sized things in cupboards out of reach.

And once we could speak, they plied us with questions, searching for answers. Our parents wanted us to explain our every emotion, and they wanted to know what possessed us to do this or that. Our teachers were always looking for a specific answer, because standardized tests don’t measure mystery.

And the world knows we will pay an awful lot to purchase a feeling of safety. From the moment we earned our first paycheck, businesses were selling us the solutions they create. So, we have become convinced that iPhones are the answer to our disconnectedness, or that a particular neighborhood is the answer to our children’s education and future. Or we settle on a particular theology or a particular church, so we won’t have to wonder anymore. Or we eat kale and expensive vitamins and we think we have found the answer for perfect health.

We seek solutions because they make us feel safe. For a while.

But, inevitably, something happens:

An accident.

Or a diagnosis.

Or an affair.

Or maybe nothing happens, and we simply notice the gnawing sense of unease has returned—the questions are back, and we resume our desperate scramble for answers.

You see, as it turns out, solutions do not bring the peace and freedom for which we are so desperately searching.

Last week, I was in the kitchen finishing the dinner dishes, when my eight-year-old son, Aidan, walked in to the room. He was wearing a flannel bathrobe, with eyeglasses slightly askew, and he was holding a book about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (Parenting fail?)

A little gray hair and a pipe, and he might have been an elderly man enjoying his retirement.

Of course, what came out of his mouth only added to the effect. He said, “Daddy, the thing I love about God is that the more you think about him, the more questions you have. And I love questions and mysteries.”

Out of the mouths of babes.

His words ruptured me—they were truth and art and revelation, and they took my breath away. But even more than the words themselves, I was struck by the sense of peace and freedom with which they were uttered.

Because having solutions does not bring peace and freedom.


Peace and freedom come when we relinquish solutions and revel in the mystery.

When we stand on the threshold of mystery, we will be afraid at first, because it feels chaotic and dangerous. But if we can stay there, if we can dip our toe into the waters of mystery, we may be transformed. 

We may become like children again.

My two-year-old daughter, Caitlin, has just entered the “why stage.” She asks the question, “Why?” with impunity. And in the end, with dimples popping and a glimmer in her eye, she always answers herself in this way: “Because that’s the way it is supposed to be.”

That answer is enough for her. 
 
She’s not asking the question in order to find the answer—she’s asking because her eyes are opening up to a vast, glorious world, and her questions are an expression of wonder in the mystery of it all. Her questions don’t require answers. They only require asking. 

How might we enter into this kind of mystery and revel in it? I think we can begin by dipping our toes into the on-going, unsolvable mystery of the people to whom we’ve committed our lives. I think our marriages could be a training ground for a people learning to revel in the mystery. Because the truth is, we are all walking mysteries, even to ourselves. If we can never fully know our own depths, how can we expect to fully comprehend the depths of another? Our husbands and wives are bottomless mysteries that defy solving, and we are left no choice but to live in their mystery.

What would happen if we became like children again, reveling in the mystery of the people we are married to, rediscovering the joy of asking questions—not in order to nail down answers, but simply as a way to honor the glory in the people next to us and to acknowledge the wonder in the world around us?

I think we might be transformed into a childlike people, trading the safe harbor of feeble, temporary answers for the vulnerability and wonder of endless questions. I think we might live our relationships and our lives soaked in the freedom and peace of a child discovering. We might stare long at a spider web and wonder at its complexity. We might look at a night sky and marvel at the vastness. We might look into the rebellious eyes of our child and melt at the mysterious universe behind them. We might trade in the violence of certainty for the awe-inspiring peace of the mystery, and in doing so we may unleash freedom in our marriages, and in our families, and in our friendships, and in a world captivated by the need for certainty.

So, tonight, fall asleep next to your spouse. But in the morning, allow yourself to awake to a stranger. Awake to the mystery of another wondrous creature, and become like kids again, forsaking the safety of certain-answers and reveling in the multiplication of questions.

Tomorrow, unleash some mystery into the world, and live in the peace and freedom of it.

[Video] Worse Than War

In this documentary Daniel Jonah Goldhagen probes the how and why of genocide, and more importantly what should be done to stop it.

I logged into my youtube account a couple days ago and someone I forgot that I was connected with had recommended this documentary therefore making a link to it appear on my home page.  The timing of this was quite interesting because recently I have been thinking a lot about genocide, discrimination, etc.  I found this video to be both fascinating yet difficult to watch.  Before watching be prepared to go through a wide spectrum of emotions.  Here it is.  Feel free to share your responses in the comment section.

Uncommon Company

Courtesy frederickcountymd.gov

When working for a common goal, you may find yourself in uncommon company.

My wife and I recently decided to stay at home and watch a movie together (something we hadn't done for awhile), and we decided, via a coin-flip, to watch the movie Big Miracle.  Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the movie, it involves the plight of a family of Gray Whales trapped by the ever-increasing arctic ice.  This true story highlights how people, and nations, who were normally at odds with each other came together to help these stranded animals.  One exchange in the movie that stands out is when a Greenpeace volunteer and an oil-drilling executive who were both helping the whales each confess that the other person was not so easy to hate as they used to be.

As I thought about this film, I couldn't help but think about a story told by Carl Wilkens in his book I'm not leaving. (you can find my review for the book here).  He told the story of how a group of orphans fled their orphanage to avoid being murdered.  Wilkens discovered that when the children left they took only the clothes on their backs.  He then decided to go back and retrieve their personal items, and upon arriving he stumbled upon a group of armed men looting the orphanage.  After a very tense negotiation it was decided that the orphans should have their things, and the very men the orphans were running from helped Wilkens load the various items into a truck to be delivered to the children.  A surreal moment indeed, but an ideal illustration of what can happen when people work together for a common goal.

While you or I may not find ourselves in such extreme situations or in such unusual company, whenever we work on a project bigger than ourselves, we may find ourselves working with people with very different views than ours.  We should not allow these differences to derail our goals, but rather we should allow these differences to enhance both the project and ourselves.

Have you ever worked on a project that brought you in contact with uncommon company?  Feel free to share your story in the comment section.

[Featured Post] The Price of Prejudice

Courtesy news.adventist.org

Many of us are a bit too young to remember when the Chamberlain case became worldwide news, but it serves as an illustration of the depths to which people can sink.

Opinion: The Price of Prejudice

"You baby killer!" yelled the schoolboys at Julie as she walked to her Adventist School in Strathfeild in 1980. She ignored the taunts as she'd done every day since the Chamberlain case broke sensationally in the tabloids. But this time, as she walked, a half-full can of Fanta hurled by her head as the boys cheered.

Julie wasn't alone. Many Australian Adventists of the period have stories of harassment, from prank phone calls to public abuse. The hatred that underpinned the anti-Adventist bigotry was more than uncomfortable; it likely influenced the decision to prosecute the Chamberlains and the subsequent miscarriage of justice.

As we go through the process of healing the scars from that period, it's incumbent on us to evaluate carefully what we've learned about our national vulnerabilities in the process, as well as what we still need to learn.

What is particularly surprising about the anti-Adventist bigotry of the period is that it happened at all. Australia is, after all, one of the most diverse and tolerant societies in the world. We look at attacks on minorities around the world and shake our heads. The brutality, the tribalism, the ignorance and the scapegoating that undergirds the hatred spewed at minorities from 1930s Europe to modern-day Iran seems entirely remote and foreign to us. And if you had to pick an innocuous faith community, it would have to be the vegetarian, noncombatant, healthcare providing, granola-making and education-cherishing Adventists who had a century's worth of contributing to Australian society by the time the Chamberlain case broke.

If anyone could be safe anywhere, it would have to be a peaceful faith community with a long history and deep roots in a tolerant and progressive society.

And yet in our society, in our lifetimes, the tabloid press used the most debased and defamatory claims to whip up intense hatred of Adventist Christians. And this let lose the inner demons of many Australians. When Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor three decades ago, it's reported that cheers were heard from pubs all over Darwin. It's chilling. But it happened. That is the result of hate filled propaganda mixed with a mob mentality, even in an enlightened society in modern times.

Wendy Harmer, the prominent comedian, graciously apologized on Tuesday for her role in promoting bigotry, noting that "such was the firestorm of hatred, all rationality was lost."

The most profound lesson we can learn from the Chamberlain case has nothing to do with dingoes or even the flaws in our justice system. The most profound lesson is something that we've learned about ourselves: we now know we can be turned into lynch mobs as easily as any other society at any other time.

So let's stand guard of ourselves. Because if there's one thing we can know with certainty, there will be another firestorm of hatred against another Australian community sooner or later. And unless we have the character and the courage to stand up against it, the results will once again be terrifying.
Next time around, as a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, I want to be there standing arm in arm with whoever is targeted, defending them, and in the process, defending what is best in our ideals and our national character.

--James Standish is the Communication director for the Adventist Church's South Pacific Division, based in Wahroonga, near Sydney. He previously served as secretary of the United Nations NGO Committee on Freedom of Religion and received an award from the American Sikh community for defending civil rights in the wake of 9/11.

Read the news story here.

[Book Review] I'm Not Leaving. by Carl Wilkens

In his first person account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Carl Wilkens challenges the reader to not only end genocide, but also the selfish attitude that leads to it.

Genocide, to those familiar with the term it brings to mind stories and pictures we would rather forget.  Yet we must remember it if we are to put a stop to it and prevent it from reoccurring, and that is one of the goals of this book.  I'm not leaving. comes from a unique perspective in that Wilkens was the only American to remain in the country of Rwanda while the Hutu tribe sought to exterminate the minority Tutsi tribe.  You will find very few statistics in this book because numbers are so large as to have very little impact on our lives.  Rather this book focuses on the stories of the people involved on both sides of the divide.  This paragraph from the book summarizes this thought well.

"While the stories written here happened during the genocide, this book is not really about genocide. It is more about the choices people made, actions people took, courage people showed, and sacrifices people gave in the face of genocide."

His story begins with probably the most difficult choice anyone would have to make.  The choice for Carl to put his young family in a departing truck while he stayed behind in a country on the brink of disaster.  He goes on to talk about how his life was constantly in danger despite his association with the humanitarian organization ADRA, how so many others risked life and limb to help those who were less fortunate (mainly orphans), and how he often received assistance in his work from the very people carrying out the massacre.

However, these stories almost never happened.  Soon after the killing started, a murderous mob appeared at the gates of the Wilkins' home with the intention of killing the entire family.  This mob was fended off not by a show of force, but by stories.  Little grandmothers and mothers with babies in their arms told the mob how the Wilkinses helped them when they had problems and how the Wilkins children played with their children.  Carl and his family had reached out to those who were different than they were, and because of this their lives were spared.

I'm not leaving. flies in the face of a world embroiled in an "us versus them" mentality (Something I wrote about recently as well as some time ago).  I had the privilege of hearing Wilkens in person and talked about people having the attitude of "the other" in the sense of how much better the world would be if the other were not in it.  He said that we all are in danger of harboring such thoughts, and we need to realize that there is a world outside my shoes.

I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone.  You can order a copy of it here.

[Book Review] Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Courtesy bn.com

Every so often I read a book that really gets me thinking.  Man's Search for Meaning is one of those books.

For my birthday I received a gift card for a book store (yes, they still exist) and as I was perusing their website I discovered Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.  The paperback version was quite affordable, so I ordered it along with some other books so that I would not have money left over on my card.  My wife, daughter and I recently went on a trip that involved a lot of flying, so I brought it along with some other books so that I could make good use of my time.  I ended up completing the entire book on that trip and highly recommend it.

Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the concentration camps of WWII, describes in the first part of the book what goes through the head of those who found themselves on the wrong side of Hitler's final solution.  His personal involvement and active mind gives the reader a unique perspective of what happened on the inside.  He didn't seek to shock people with stories of brutality and violence, but rather showed how that one can maintain their humanity in such a dehumanizing situation.

The second part of the book dealt with his method of psychotherapy called logotherapy.  Merriam-Webster defines logotherapy in this way.

"a highly directive existential psychotherapy that emphasizes the importance of meaning in the patient's life especially as gained through spiritual values"

In contrast to the Freudian method which places most of the emphasis on what has happened in the past affects your present choices, Frankl focuses primarily on how one's present choices affect what happens in the future.  When reading this part I would recommend taking frequent breaks, or at least not reading it when you are tired (like I did) because some aspects of his therapy take some effort to process.

I would recommend this to anyone, especially to history buffs who want more than simply names and dates, and to those dealing with difficult situations.

Of Freedom and Squeaky Wheels

Photo courtesy peasandhappiness.com

Those who profess to follow Jesus should not be like those who do not, especially in regards to whining and complaining.

I had to run a quick errand last night and as I was doing so I turned on the car radio.  I tuned in part way through an interview with an Iranian man who talked about the various death threats he had received and how he was living in hiding in Germany.  It turned out this situation came as a result of a song he had written and performed.  Yes that's right, the Iranian officials were so offended by a song (that the artist stated was simply meant as satire) that they sought to kill the one who performed it.

This lack of freedom was especially contrasted to the abuse of freedom I saw yesterday where people cussed and complained ad naseum because the propositions and politicians that were passed and elected were not the ones who they wanted passed and elected.  Now I do not know the profession of those who had posted all this vitriol, but I sincerely hope that they were not professed followers of Jesus.

The prevalent philosophy in this world seems to be based on the old adage "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" which means that if we make enough noise (i.e. complain) we will eventually get what we want.  However, such a philosophy is in direct contradiction to the way Jesus lived His life when He was on this earth.  He took all sorts of abuse, but not once do you see Him muttering to Himself or venting to His disciples, "Those stupid blankety-blank Pharisees . . ."  If anyone had an excuse to complain it would have been Him because being God, He had the unusual position of always being right.  How much less room to we as flawed human beings to complain when people do not agree with us and our views.  Maybe they are right and we are wrong, or maybe both of us are wrong and the correct view is held by someone else.

So next time we are tempted to complain, maybe we should follow a not-so-old saying and check ourselves before we wreck ourselves.


Have you had an experience where complaining only made the situation worse?  Feel free to share your story in the comment section.