Tag: Integration

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Virtue and Friendship

More than 2,350 years have passed since the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote the Nichomachean Ethics. I find his insights into human relationships as relevant as ever.

As I discussed in my last post, the moral virtues are not a matter of rule-following. They are the kind, patient, and consistent directing of the emotions toward that which is truly good.

How does moral virtue actually happen?

Modern philosophers (that is to say, Western philosophers of the last 500 years) keep making the mistake of trying to articulate abstract theories of ethics. Goodness is not something you define in a theory. We humans are hardwired to know goodness when we see it. No one has to teach a baby to laugh with delight, or to want to savor the good moments forever (“Again! Again!”).

Aristotle’s point of reference for virtue was not an abstract definition, nor a list of rules, but the virtuous person himself. This approach is so simple that it is often missed, even by Aristotelean scholars. Aristotle explains that most humans (those not too tangled up in their own vices and delusions) will notice virtue when they see it in another flesh-and-blood human. It is through relationship with virtuous persons that we begin to learn virtue. Over time, through the building of healthy habits, our pursuit of the good gets internalized. As we become virtuous, we are eventually able to pursue the good with relative ease, rather than having to struggle every time.

I used to illustrate these points to my high school students by viewing The Lion King. Young Simba perceived the bravery of his father Mufasa, and wanted to imitate him. He first went to the extreme of rushing into danger, and then to the other extreme of conflict avoidance (hakuna matata). Most of the animals readily recognized and followed Mufasa’s brave and just leadership, even if they themselves lacked courage. By contrast, his vicious brother Scar, in his envy and malice, refused to see his brother’s goodness, telling lies to himself and to others about what was good.

Aristotle emphasized that the very earliest human years are the most crucial for virtue formation. The same truth has reemerged in contemporary studies of neuroscience and human development. Infants and toddlers need nurturing caregivers to attune to them and to help them make sense of their emotions. When parents regularly attune to and respond, little ones learn that even their biggest emotions can be regulated. Regulated, not subjugated or suppressed! But if the parents never learned to regulate their own emotions, they will struggle to give to their children what they are not providing for themselves.

In our first moments of human existence, we are utterly dependent. We need another human to respond to us and soothe us. If that attunement and responsiveness is there most of the time, or even much of the time, we become emotionally secure. Through thousands of experiences of distress and response, our brain and nervous system learn to expect abundance and be more resourceful. We establish broad neural pathways between the calmness of our rational brain and the alarm system of our limbic brain. Little by little, we become self-regulating like the caregivers who are there for us.

Aristotle didn’t know about the nervous system, but he accurately observed how crucial early emotional development is. Without it, we will be emotionally insecure, which means that we will struggle to be virtuous. No affect regulation, no virtue. Thankfully, we can rewire our brains, but only if we become again like little children, receive our emotions with curiosity and kindness, and patiently “grow up” now in all the ways we missed earlier in life. To do all of that, we will need wise mentors and companions. In the words of Aristotle, we need to find virtuous people to learn from.

The more I’ve gotten in touch with my own emotions and learned how to engage emotionally with others, the more aware I’ve become that most human beings in our society today (including our churches) have no small amount of insecurity. I would be glad to be proven wrong on this point! But I find it true of at least 80% of the adults I meet, just as I have found it true in myself.

Again, Aristotle said it first. He describes most human beings as being either weak-willed or strong-willed. The weak-willed person sees what is good, but frequently fails to pursue it due to an intense interior struggle. The strong-willed person often does good things, but still struggles interiorly, experiencing unrest.  The vicious person (cf. Scar) doesn’t feel the struggle because he habitually rationalizes his behaviors, calling black white and white black. In Aristotle’s estimation, only a smaller number of humans are truly virtuous, emotionally regulated, pursuing the good, delighting in the good, and rejoicing in the reality that they are pursuing and delighting in the good.

This leads us to Aristotle’s reflections on friendship. The deepest and truest kind of friendship is only possible between virtuous people. Most friendships, he says, are friendships of pleasure or friendships of usefulness. Friendships of pleasure last as long as the fun times last, but dissipate when the shared pleasure passes. When tragedy befalls, it becomes clearer who your real friends are. Friendships of usefulness exist because one or both individuals are getting something out of the relationship. Both of these types of friendship are ultimately transactional. It isn’t necessarily bad to have relationships like these. It can be okay for some relationships to be mutually transactional. It’s just not a real friendship.

I would add a third kind of pseudo-friendship, calling it a “friendship of fear.” If your main motivator in life is fear, you are prone to surround yourselves with other people who feel similar fears. This shared fear-mongering allows you to gang up against “those people” who are the alleged enemy. Such was the vibe of the scribes and Pharisees, who thanked God they weren’t like those other people (Luke 18). Such was the relationship between the older brother in Luke 15 and the servant who joined with him in contempt-filled gossip as they witnessed the father lavishing a feast on the prodigal son. As with friendships of pleasure or usefulness, these fear-based friendship are also highly transactional. Because their fear is not yet integrated and moderated, such individuals are not yet ready for real friendship.

Virtuous people are capable of genuine friendship because of their emotional maturity. They are self-possessed enough that they can freely engage in mutual honor and delight. Aristotle obviously didn’t know Jesus, who was yet to be born, and so he didn’t know the great commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But his understanding of virtue and friendship provide a solid human foundation for that divine commandment. As I’ve written before, the equality taught in “love your neighbor as yourself” means that you are also invited to “love yourself as your neighbor.”

To the extent that I still have contempt for myself, I will struggle in a genuine friendship of equality. Where there is contempt, there is shame. Most of us struggle with a deeply rooted fear that we are not truly loveable. We fear being dismissed or rejected or abandoned. So we posture or build façades. We compare and compete; we envy and scorn. Show me someone who scorns others, tears them down, or calls them names – and I will show you someone who has an enormous amount of self-contempt, and is terrified of a spotlight shining on the deepest places in his heart.

Of all the emotions, shame is probably the hardest one to contend with and regulate. I do not recall Aristotle speaking on this point, but you can see that he “gets” it in the way he describes virtue and friendship. The virtuous person is happy because he desires the good, pursues the good, and delights in embracing the good. He has a healthy self-love, which is the foundation of friendship.

Friendship then allows this goodness and delight to flourish in abundance. If I am virtuous, I can see that this friend shares the same desire for and delight in the good. We can pursue goodness together and share our delight. I can desire the same goodness for my friend as I desire for myself. I can weep when he weeps and rejoice when he rejoices. My friend can delight in the fact that I am delighting in the same good as he is, and vice-versa. He sees and loves in me what I see and love in myself, and vice-versa. We can truly love our neighbor as ourselves.

As Christians, of course, this love of neighbor can surge to new heights, or descend into the depths of humility. It becomes possible to love Jesus in others, even in the distressing disguise of poverty (to quote Saint Teresa of Kolkata). In Luke 10, Jesus shows us that every human being is our neighbor, no matter how wounded or disfigured. We remain bearers of the divine image. The virtue of Charity (divine Love at work in us) allows us to be moved with compassion like the Father, causing us to move closer to littleness. It allows us to be kind to ourselves and to each other in our poverty. So many of us are still infants in our maturity, and need much kindness and compassion if we are to grow in virtue.

Most of what I share today I learned nearly three decades ago. But in so many ways I did not yet “get it.” Now that I am in a much deeper process of engaging and integrating my emotions, I find myself joyfully rediscovering old treasures. Whether returning to the wisdom of Aristotle or connecting with my earliest human needs for emotional security, it is much like the words of the poet T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

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The Law of Gift

“Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.” So said Vatican II, in words that John Paul II often repeated. Many call this principle the “Law of Gift.”

But what is “a sincere gift of self,” and how is it actually possible?

I’ve been re-reading John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, now over 40 years old. Okay, I’ll admit – I never actually finished it the first time around, twenty-one years ago. I found some of his reflections tedious and confusing. I drifted into other distractions. But in so many ways, I wasn’t emotionally and spiritually ready to engage all that he was saying.

At the time, I was gung-ho about upright sexual morality. So in my reading of Theology of the Body (TOB), I was scavenging for ammunition.  I wanted “the Truth” so that I could fight the culture war, save marriages, and help young people stay pure. I was well-intended but misguided, because I was conveniently avoiding the brokenness within my own heart!

Even so, I was captivated by the beauty of TOB: the inherent goodness of our bodies; the God-given glory of sexuality, and the invitation to make a free, total, faithful, and fruitful gift of ourselves. I began preaching that message of self-gift.

Meanwhile, I prayed and toiled that I might somehow be strong enough or good enough to be self-giving in that way. I tended to one of two extremes. When I felt like I was “succeeding” in my sacrificial self-giving, I was puffed up with a sense of grandiosity. Then, inevitably, I would struggle or “fail” and would be flooded with shame and discouragement. In both cases, I was keeping parts of myself buried deep, where no one could see them (not even myself!).

In recent years, the Lord has been uncovering layer after layer in my heart, and showing me repeatedly that he desires ALL of me – not just the presentable parts. As that journey progresses, I think I understand more fully the stunningly beautiful invitation of John Paul II. Under the loving gaze of God the Father, with much protection and nurturing from Mary my heavenly mother, I am invited to grow as a whole person so that I can make a free and wholehearted gift of myself.

There are two sides to this beautiful teaching: integrity and self-gift.

When we hear “integrity,” we tend to think of following the rules or getting it right. But the word literally means “wholeness.” I cannot give all of myself if I am unwilling to take hold of all the pieces of my heart – much less to invite God or others close. It is only when I grow in wholeness that I can make a total gift of myself.

Just as there are two sides to the Law of Gift, so there are two common ways of deviating. The first is the one that I was committing for many decades, namely, “spiritual bypass.” We avoid going into the painful places of our own heart. Instead, we rush to “love” or “serve” others. We tell ourselves we are making a gift of ourselves. We tell ourselves we are sacrificing or (in Catholic lingo) “offering it up.” But in many cases, we are actually avoiding the Cross. We are resisting a full participation in the paschal mystery. We are unwilling (or perhaps not yet ready) to enter into the suffering and death of Jesus, to endure the hope of Holy Saturday, and to encounter the newness of the risen Jesus. He eagerly desires to go into those places of our heart with us, but some of us are not yet ready.

“Gift” is only gift if we give all the pieces. That is what integrity means. It means being authentically human – not just a spiritual or cerebral being, but also fully alive in our emotions, our imagination, and our desires. It means being EMBODIED!

Many Catholics talk about “Theology of the Body” – but prefer to keep the teachings only at a spiritual or moral level. Rather ironic, isn’t it, since its focus is the body?  I’ve often suggested that TOB is like a giant crate we’ve brought home from IKEA. It’s an amazing addition to our home – or will be, if we ever take all the pieces out of the box, much less engage in the hard work of assembly!

Meanwhile, in the broader culture, there have been amazing breakthroughs in neuroscience, in developmental psychology, and in trauma research. Trauma shows up in the body. Trauma is healed in the body. I am in awe of how well these findings connect both with the teachings of Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II. But Catholic have been SLOW to integrate and make connections.  We need to!

If we do not, the opposite error will prevail – that of personal “autonomy” or “independence.” In a well-meaning but misguided effort to reclaim the shattered pieces, many contemporary clinicians exalt the Self (with a capital “S”) as the be-all and end-all. It is well and good to become disentangled from abusers or to overturn oppressive structures. But our true human purpose is to make a gift of ourselves – to be the grain of wheat that falls to the ground and dies and bears much fruit.

And that brings us back to the original quote, which articulates the Law of Gift: “Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.”

We are, at our core, relational beings – because we are created in the image and likeness of a relational God. We will never become who we are if we do not make a free, total, faithful, and fruitful gift of ourselves. But it is a “sincere” self-gift – one that requires authenticity and integrity. If we bypass the broken places, we will never become a whole person that way. Our “gift” will be far less fruitful, because our “yes” is not yet free and wholehearted.

May each of us grow in integrity and discover the ways God is truly inviting us to make a gift of ourselves!

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When Worlds Collide

How do you react when your worlds collide?

For those not familiar with the phrase, it’s that moment when two previously compartmentalized “worlds” in your day-to-day existence suddenly meet each other. Your church friends unexpectedly chat with your college roommate. Your business partners walk in on you while you are jamming out to your favorite song. Your 5-year-old daughter overhears a conversation with your golfing buddies. You get the idea.

The expression goes back to a 1995 episode of Seinfeld. Every episode follows the self-absorbed escapades of Jerry, Kramer, Elaine, and George. This time Jerry decides it will be a great idea to introduce Elaine to George’s girlfriend. Kramer immediately declares, “That’s gonna be trouble.” When Jerry expresses bewilderment, Kramer explains, “Jerry, don’t you see? This world here, this is George’s sanctuary. If Susan comes into contact with this world, his worlds collide. You know what happens then?” For dramatic effect, Kramer brings his hands together and then “explodes” his food all over the floor.

Sure enough, the moment George discovers this new development, he is terrified and enraged. He screams at Jerry, “Anybody knows – ya gotta keep your worlds APART!!”

Scene by scene, George comes unglued as his carefully compartmentalized worlds collide or collapse.  More than once he cries out, “You’re killing independent George!!”  At one point he rattles off all the different versions of himself: independent George, movie George, coffee shop George, relationship George, liar George, bawdy George.  His conclusion? A George divided against itself cannot stand!!

Thankfully, most of us are not so narcissistic as the Seinfeld characters. But we do tend to compartmentalize our lives, don’t we?

I often experience discomfort or outright dread when people get curious and start to know intimate details about me. Even though I desire to be known and understood, it feels safer carefully curating what this or that group of people know about me. It’s more instinctive than intentional. It just happens.

There are actually reasons why it happens!

On the one hand, there is the reality that not everyone can be our intimate companion. The Greek philosopher Aristotle wisely declared that “he who has many friends has no friends.” Authentic intimacy takes much time, effort, and mutual work. It is both practical and fitting that only very few people in our life truly know all of us.

Moreover, there is the reality that some people do not deserve our trust. They will use us or manipulate us; or they will bail on us when things get hard. In the words of Jesus, it is wise not to cast our pearls before swine. It would be masochism to share vulnerably with those who will trample on us afterward. Choosing companions carefully is prudence and wisdom! But some of us are so careful that we never actually choose!

Is there anyone who knows all of us? Many of us hide parts of ourselves even from those closest to us! Why?

As human beings, we are true sons and daughters of Adam and Eve – in all their beauty and all their brokenness.  We continue to harm each other – especially in our own families. Each one of us has suffered far more harm than we care to admit!

The greater the harm, the more we become like George Costanza. Shattered by the ways that others have used us, abandoned us, or taken out their contempt on us, we brilliantly create “worlds” for ourselves. We learn how to manage and control each one, creating the illusion of safety and connection. It really seems to work – until our worlds collide or collapse. Over time, what once helped us survive begins to ruin us.

George spoke more prophetically than he knew: A George divided against itself cannot stand! Juggling dozens of separate worlds becomes exhausting – not to mention lonely. We are created for communion – to know and be known, to love and be loved. If no one truly knows and loves all of us, we will be as empty as the characters on that show!

The New Testament speaks of our Christian existence as one of koinonia. It can be translated as communion, community, sharing, participation, or fellowship – and includes all of them. By his dying and rising, Jesus reconciles us to the Father, to each other, and to ourselves. Authentic communion and community become possible. But it is hard to find – especially in our churches!

I’ve enjoyed reading the works of Curt Thompson: The Soul of Shame and The Soul of Desire. He names four characteristics of healthy Christian community, what he calls “the four S’s.” When we truly belong in healthy community, we will feel Seen, Soothed, Safe, and Secure. Do we not all ache for those four things?

George Costanza looked at his group of friends as his safe space, his sanctuary. To a certain extent, they were. None of them expected the others to be perfect or to be someone else. But they all still felt the need to compartmentalize; they all ultimately lived selfish and empty lives. None of them truly felt safe or secure; there was no authentic vulnerability or intimacy.

As most of you know, I spent my three-month sabbatical doing intensive trainings to help provide more resources for those harmed by trauma or struggling with unwanted behaviors. I have noticed a glaring lack in our churches today – authentic Christian community is exceedingly hard to find!

In our struggle with sin, with addictions, or with emotional and spiritual sickness, we will not get well without authentic community. There have to be at least a few people who know and love ALL of us; there has to be a place in which we can truthfully say I belong here. Here I do not have to pretend or compartmentalize. I don’t have to hold things together or keep worlds apart. I just get to be. I will be seen; I will be cared for; I will feel safe and secure. These companions will neither condemn me nor excuse me. They won’t see me as a problem to fix; they won’t abandon me; they won’t reject me. They will speak the truth about what they see and it will feel great because it is deep and full truth. Like Jesus, they will see me in my wholeness; they will desire all the pieces of me; they will care about ALL my “worlds.”

Again, let us listen to the “prophetic” words of George Costanza: You’re killing Independent George!!

When our worlds collide, it feels like a death threat. In our brilliant survival amidst human harm, we get seduced into the illusion of “independence.” We think we can control and manage all these self-created worlds and not need anyone else in the process. It’s so much safer that way – or so we think.

But it goes against our true nature. We are created to depend totally upon God our Father and to become interdependent, existing together as one Body and one Spirit in Christ. We long for that communion, even as (like George) we feel threatened by it! In fact, he’s right – there is a real dying that precedes our becoming truly alive! We are terrified of losing what we have so carefully crafted. Even when we are ready, we still want to know what will remain on the other side. Will anything of me be left?

God understands those fears – yet it is the only way. When we are ready to stop compartmentalizing, Jesus is ready to lead us to authentic connection and communion. It will be the end of our worlds as we know them, and the beginning of the new heavens and new earth.

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