Marriage as Formation
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The formation model of marriage begins with the assumption that the purpose of my marriage is to confront me with my immaturities and weaknesses within a context of love and support.
The goal is for my spouse and me to push each other to overcome limits on the way to becoming fully human. (While reading this sentence the movie Remember the Titans came to mind. The co-captains of the football team, one black and the other white, push through their conflicts with each other and their team mates as they demand what is best for the entire team.).
happiness to infect one's marriage. We're designed to avoid abject misery if we can, and so it takes at least a few positive expectations to get us entangled in the whole mess in the first place. The problem occurs when we actually start to believe that happiness is the raison de plus of marriage (see Note 1).
Since we don't have to worry about about survival, we worry about personal enrichment (see Note 3). And the All-American strategy for enrichment is consumption. (Is it just me, or are more and more commercials including some take on, "Buy our product so you can get the happiness you deserve.").
Happiness and consumption go together. I purchase a bike. If the bike works for me, then I'm happy. If it doesn't work for me, then I'm unhappy. I get another bike. If I can't afford to get another bike, then I'm REALLY unhappy.
Questions for Reflection:
Please forward this information to anyone you know who has been touched by this illness.
I've referred you to Mark's blog before, but I just finished reading The Neurobiology of Forgiveness, and felt I needed to help get this one out there. Mark is doing an amazing job of distilling reams of science-babble into nuggets we mere peons can grasp.
Freud was convinced that ultimately we would discover the biological processes that drive personality and perception. The mystics, past and present, have all been convinced that we are capable of being so much more human than we are. Neurobiology seems to be providing a lens through which to understand the biology of becoming human.
I'm telling you.... this stuff is amazing. Of course, that's probably what Copernicus was thinking also...
-1. Mentally and spiritually healthy people are generally hopeful, content, thoughtful, relational, and loving. The ultimate indicator of maturity from a Christian standpoint is sacrificial love (which, by the way, does not mean being a doormat).
2. However, life constantly confronts us with various challenges that generate anxiety and challenge our capacity to be loving.
3. When we are generally "healthy," we are able to receive anxiety as a warning sign that something is going on that needs attention. We are able to step back, realistically assess the situation, choose a reasonable course of action, and follow through. When I'm in a good place, I see the anxiety as MY responsibility, and do not expect others to manage it for me. I might even see the anxiety as a GIFT that reveals pockets of immaturity in me that need attention.
4. Sometimes a situation generates more anxiety than a person can manage. This creates, by definition, a "crisis." When we are in crisis mode we become reactive, losing the ability to think creatively about our circumstances.
5. When we are in crisis, and become reactive, we tend to engage in short term strategies that might temporarily alleviate the anxiety, but are rarely effective in the long run (unless you happen to be an alligator) These reactive responses include things like attacking, running, blaming, giving in, etc...
6. In any crisis, therefore, it is imperative that we get the help we need to manage the most pressing aspects of our anxiety in order to not make our situation worse (if I respond to my wife leaving me by "medicating" myself with several 12 packes of Corona, and then wreck my car, I've not exactly elevated my situation).
7. Some people, however, maintain a chronic level of anxiety that virtually keeps them in a state of reactivity 24/7. This chronic anxiety may come from any number of sources, but, without support, we usually develop chronically life-limiting stragies that allow us to cope with the anxiety just well enough to get through the day. (Many marriages devolve into a connection that is little more than an exercise in reactive anxiety management.)
8. Twenty-plus years of experience as a therapist, along with my own stumbling attempts to understand and cope with the challenges of my life, have convinced me that we will not move from the ditch of ineffective coping strategies back on to the road towards maturity unless we understand and address our anxiety.
There's so much more to say on the subject, but I think this summary captures the gist.
What do YOU think? Am I being too simplistic or reductionistic?
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In the email exchanges that followed, I asked Milt if any of the church fathers read this as an awakening story. Here's a portion of his response:
Yeah. The earliest reading of the garden story was not as a fall at all. Iranaeus read it as though the original couple were children in the garden. Their disobedience was therefore naïve and caused them to grow up, as it were. Thanks to Augustine (and the eventual state legitimization of Xianity), the church began to read the story as a “fall.” Quite a switch. So, there’s a serious difference between an Iranaean theodicy and an Augustinian one. John Hick, I think, has an interesting article on this. Pagel’s book, Adam and Eve and the Serpent, explains this garden reading more thoroughly.
I'm offering this to you for two reasons: 1) I thought you might find it interesting, and 2) I think this is a good example of how complex the development of our Christian "tradition" can be. Religious education rarely includes an overview of the many competing points of view that make up our interpretive tradition. Hence, many people simply assume that the understandings of scripture they were taught as children are the only true interps.
But I digress... the sermon can be found at: Do You Really Want a Choice?
Note: Milton is one of those amazing guys who reads about 42 ancient languages, earned a D.Phil from Oxford, teaches in a religion department, AND is an expert piano technician. As Milton's wife, Karen, likes to say, "My husband is brilliant in numerous ways... none of which earn any money."
For some reason, that I don't recall, I began to introduce the encounter between between the woman and the serpent with the statement, "Then one day, Possibility slithered in to the garden." My point simply has been that the serpent was able to get the woman to question the state of her life.
Clearly, some possibilities are "designed" to appeal to the small self (see the Matthew passage), but many possibilities in life are a problem because of the anxiety we bring to them.
So.... What thoughts do you have?
