Let me switch gears here and return to filling in a bit more of the psychological content of jurisdictionalism. These comments are offered in response to something that Robert posted a few days ago. He writes:
Without naming names, it would be helpful to take this discussion out of the theoretical and into the practical of our present day situation. Veiled references to a minority group of broken and wounded individuals just leave me a bit puzzled.
First, forgive me for being unclear. I do not have a discrete group or groups in mind when I speak about a minority of individuals within a parish, diocese or jurisdiction.
Rather, I think that in any community, whether we are talking about cradle Orthodox, converts, laity or clergy, there are broken individuals whose attraction to Orthodoxy while often sincere is also mixed with an attempt to avoid intimate human relationships.
To be stereotypical, think about a parish composed primarily of converts in which the vast majority of the community's energy is focused on keeping a strict liturgical cycle. Or, and again to traffic in stereotype, think about a a community of cradle Orthodox that is internally divided into self-selected factions based on village or geographic region from the "Old Country." In both cases the people substitute a formal category external to the person for a bond of love which is always person.
So in the first case, the deal we make is this, we'll have a beautiful liturgical life, but we will never speak to each other except superficially and then only in insofar as we must to arrange the service schedule. In the second case, we remain indifferent to those parishioners who are not from our region (or our families) in the Old Country. Again what matters is not person but some standard external to the person. In effect, the parish is not a community of persons but a mere association of strangers whose interactions are purely formal and always mediated by some structure external to the person.
You see this kind of behavior in families in which there is some type of abuse—physical, sexual, emotional or chemical. In order to keep the painful truth of Dad's alcoholism, for example, at bay we speak about anything else and everything else. Yes, dear old Dad might be asleep drunk in the middle of the living room floor, but we simply walk around him. (And when I worked in mental health, I heard just this story more than once.)
What I'm getting at is this, while we need to care for these individuals, we must be attentive that we not allow those who come to the Church to avoid healthy, intimate human relationships to set the tone and the agenda of the Church. And under no circumstances should they be placed in lay or ordained leadership positions.
There are, sadly, some people who are so psychologically wounded that normal, healthy forms of human intimacy are painful and even impossible. When these people seek out the Church, they often do so not for healing but in order to find in the formality and structure of the Church as means of escaping intimacy and love. What they seek is not communion but collusion.
If given the opportunity to do so, they may very well create for themselves a well ordered, theologically sound, liturgical perfect community that is, tragically, spiritually dead. Or they might create, as the late Fr Alexander Schmemann would have it, a museum to the past glories of Byzantanium or Holy Rus, But again for all its beauty and fidelity to history, it is not a living community but a diorama.
I know this sounds harsh but we need to guard against what I see is a growing tendency to emphasize tradition over person. This is simply wrong. Why? Because instead of being lead by Holy Tradition into an ever deeper encounter with God and neighbor, they use Holy Tradition as an escape, a shield from what they (wrongly) perceive to be a hostile God and a hostile neighbor. When this happens, rather than being a hospital for sinners, the Church becomes a source of new and deeper wounds.
As always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, they are actively sought.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
<span style="">There is another variant on the question of "intimacy and love;" that being the sort of people who press their emotional needs on others. An incident comes to mind; we attended a Church and were confronted by a strangers who insisted on hugging everyone present following the liturgy. When we were obviously not enthusiastic we were offered the words, "It's what Christ would do." Needless to say we never returned. We noticed also that a lot of people had quickly slipped out of the door before the "happening."
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is an extreme example but I find a lot of people are uncomfortable with dealing with the emotional needs of others, while under less pressured circumstances would gladly be a part of a balanced Christian community. I know one fellow who would just die if he were approached for a hug but has organized an operation to distribute blankets to the homeless, and has befriended the elderly and shut-in in his parish and visits on a regular basis. To an outsider, who did not know of his quiet work, he would appear to be inordinately into a "well ordered, theologically sound community" and prone to escaping "love and intimacy".
External expressions are culturally conditioned. I come from a formal English family and I can not remember being hugged by anyone, much less my parents. I saw infants and young toddlers being hugged but when I became a "little man" it all stopped. Some people comment that this must have been horrible but I never felt slighted by this form of upbringing not feeling that I missed something in my childhood. I had a rich childhood with fairly formal interactions with my parents but also a lot of contact and interaction with our servants who imparted on be a broader worldview than I would have had otherwise. My parents love for me was expressed in their desires for my moral instruction, formal education and my general wellbeing.
I make these points in an effort to show that in parish setting people come from all sorts of experiences and cultural backgrounds and to make assumptions as to who is "spiritually dead" is a dangerous thing. People offering hugs might well be a contributing factor to the spiritual downfall of others by presenting through intrusive pseudo-intimacy a shoddy counterfeit of Christian love. At the very least it will drive many people away. </span>
Reader -
ReplyDeleteI think you are actully giving a good example of the point Fr. Gregory is trying to make when he says, "In both cases the people substitute a formal category external to the person for a bond of love which is always person," although it appears the two of you are using the word "formal" in two different ways.
Formal may mean acting in a reserved manner (your definition) or it may mean being concerned with the outward form as opposed to inward content (which is I think the usage here).
Your "huggers" (shudder) are extremely "formal" in the latter sense of the word - They have substituted an external convention (hugging everyone) for an actual loving relationship with any of their hug-victims. If they actually loved those other people, the huggers would be focused on them as individuals, and thus sensitive to individual desires for personal space, etc.
As a reserved individual myself, I don't automatically equate exuberance with holiness or spiritual health, and often times it is quite the opposite - the loudest person in the room is the least spiritually healthy.
I agree that one needs to be both prudent and cautious in evalutating the emotional/spiritual health of others, but isn't that part of a priest's job description? Furthermore, don't we all have a responsibility to consider the fitness of those we elect to lead us? Such evaluation isn't "judging" - saying that a person is damned or saved - but part of the prudence with which most of us live our lives, but often forget once we enter the Church doors.
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">
ReplyDelete<span style="font-size: 8pt; color: black; font-family: Verdana;">Matushka,</span>
<span style="font-size: 8pt; color: black; font-family: Verdana;">It is true that one needs to be "prudent and cautious in evaluating the emotional /spiritual health of a person" and while it may be a part of a priest's job description the sad fact is that most priests (or for that matter people in the mental health field) have poor boundaries and are extremely unaware of the baggage they come with. I am the Executive Director of a residential facility serving troubled adolescents in foster care and this sort of experience has been helpful in sorting out the manipulative behavior that so often affects the health of a parish setting. It seems the same folk who trip through life treating people as an object of a cost/benefit calculation to be "loved" or discarded as convenient in the end are the ones who will cling to some enthusiasm that seems only to blind them further as to their true condition. In the end truly loving someone can hurt a lot. This is a risk most people will not take.</span>
</span></span>
There's some bothersome assumption you're making about how behavior represents disfunction. People stepping around their drunk Father on the floor are striving to function given the limitations they perceive.
ReplyDeleteWithout extensive investigation (and even with it there are no guarentees) you cannot say for certain whether their coping mechanism is the best option available to them.
To say that those new converts relating to others primarily through the formal mechanisms provided by the services is disfunctional is a very narrow definition of function. It also anticipates the end of the journey before the beginning and assumes that certain outword manifestations are necessarily negative.
Outside Forgiveness Sunday, it's obvious that only certain people kiss eachother in the old world way. I, myself, only do so with the Reader. It is not that I am disfunctional with the rest, but that my relationship with the Reader is special and this behavior has become a manifestation of its sacred nature.
Function isn't meaningful (like the ship of modern psychology) without a goal. The goal here is salvation, not a Rockwellian Poster of a Baptist-come-Orthodox Church Potluck. I think you could be in danger of making culturally triumphant judgments, rather than insightful psychological assessments.
Intimacy is the opiate of the extroverts (I know, because I am one), but even as a teenager I knew that 2nd base didn't belong on the first date.
David, the data on the enabling family dealing with the drunk father is pretty clear: it IS functional - for that context. What makes it dysfunctional is trying to apply the same distorted rules and responses to relationships not marred by addictive behavior.
ReplyDeleteThe issue is not, so far as I can tell, the appropriate levels of intimacy among different qualities of relationship such as you describe. That sounds perfectly healthy. The issue is that the Church attracts dysfunctional people who - at some level - know that they need healing, but who use the formal structures of the Church (or God) to avoid the real pain of genuine love and transformation. St. Isaac of Nineveh refers to the difficulty of transforming the heart, noting that you must be prepared to stand the stench. How many of us put down the cross at the moment we begin to feel its weight?
St. Theophan made this point in the opposite way, when he describes those seemingly devout folks who become worse rather than better. I think, then, the point is not different (and suitable) expressions of affection for different levels of relationship, but rather the persistent aversion to the very intimacy at the heart of the liturgy and the life of the Church. In short, it is the dysfunction of using God and His Church as a way to protect oneself rather than - at least eventually - allowing yourself to be healed and transformed by His love.
David,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments.
First, my own observations were not directed toward converts but rather reflect what seems to me to be a more general tendency that I've noticed in a number of Orthodox parishes.
At least within psychology, the determination that something is dysfunctional does not mean that it is not, in the moment, the best of a series of bad options. It is rather to say that it reflects a misstep that takes the person off the path toward wholesome development. Of course this isn't (as you allude to) an absolute statement about the person's future. But it does reflect a likely, if not the only likely, outcome.
Yes, the goal is salvation and it is precisely in light of that goal that I think we need to be critical of the tendency of some to make use of mere formalitty avoid the demands of love. This, or so it seems to me, to be the soteriological implications of the argument that Schmemann was making against nominalism.
This doesn't mean that we should reject the formalism of the Church's tradition. Rather we need to remember that the formall structures of the Church are meant to serve our growth in love and communion (theosis). The Tradition of the Church is not the goal--the Tradition is meant to serve our proclaimation of the Gospel not (as sometimes happens) substitute for it.
While I'm sympathetic with your criticism of modern psychology, I do think that your criticisms might be misconstrued and be taken as a justification for our being unwilling to make moral judgments. In one sense we could argue that all of us on the way to the Kingdom of God, or that everyone is simply doing the best s/he can do in a fallen world. I don't think that's the argument you are making but it is an argument that is often made by both those ourside and inside the Church.
Again, thanks for your comment!
In Christ,
+FrG
Chrys,
ReplyDeleteChrist is Risen!
Thank you for your observations--you've put the matter better than I.
In Christ,
+FrG
Matushka Mary,
ReplyDeleteChrist is Risen!
Thank you for your clairification of my often muddled writing.
In Christ,
+FrG
Reader,
ReplyDeleteChrist is Risen!
Thank you for your comment--it helps me understand your thinking. I could not agree with you more. My concern is precisely with those aming us who have poor boundaries and who use the Tradition of the Church to manipulate others. While I'm not sure that I would agree that most priests have poor personal boundaries, I do think some priests do and that this harms the life of the Church.
I'd be interesting in hearing more (offline) about your work if you would like to tell me. If you wish, you can email me by clicking the email button.
In Christ,
+FrG
How functional is the functional person who has no place at the table for the dysfunctional?
ReplyDeleteI came to the Church with nothing, and am happy to sit on the floor. I fear for the wealthy more than the poor.
David,
ReplyDeleteChrist is Risen!
I'm not sure if we are understanding each other. I don't want to exclude ANYONE from the table (and the Table). What I don't want them to do is it at the head of the table.
My concern is not exclude anyone from the Church. That said, I also don't think we should give over clerical or lay leadership in the Church to those who are themselves emotionally dysfunctional.
Granted that psychological functionality is not the same as sanctity, we need look no further than the witness of the fools for Christ's sake. At the same time, however, this difference doesn't mean that we should be indifferent when we have evidence that a leader (or potential leader) is not psychologically dsyfunctional.
One of the reasons this is important is that osychologically damaged leaders will often try to meet their own unmet psychological needs in and though those entrusted to their care. When this happens people are hurt and the work of the Church is left undone.
Bottom line: Ministry--whether clerical or lay--is not for the spiritually or psychologically immature or damaged. Granted or wholeness is only always relative and that there are often individuals who are on the dividing line between those who can and can't serve. These certainly are hard cases, but hard cases make bad laws.
In Christ
+FrG
I think we are misunderstanding, or at the very least have an a different approach to certain vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteThere are things I hear "in" your words, I think, more than the words themselves. And this morning I'm not really in my best mind to piece out which is which. (Little sleep last night and a fussy baby this morning.)
We are different species, the healthy and the unhealthy, and we speak in different tongues. I cannot reconcile (formally) the very reasonable need to remove dangerous people from positions where they can harm others. (I do not know when this conversation became about clergy, you seemed to be talking about parishers in general as well.) As I was saying, I cannot reconcil that need with the knowledge that we are all dangerous people. There is no group "over there" that if we could just fix-or-remove the remaining whole would be healthy.
The evil in them is the same evil in me. This is why my attention is on my own plate during lent. This is why I repent of being such a burden to my spiritual father. If he would only release me from bothering him, I would.
I am a blight on the Church and a thorn in the side of anyone who has to deal with me. I simply trust that God will reward you for this trial.
My greatest sin is that I believe this is the proper attitude to have, so my eyes are blind to the possibility that healthiness is anything other than prelast.
David -
ReplyDeleteYou have put your finger on one difficulty with written communication: the inability to hear tone, see facial gestures and body language, etc. This can cause any of us to "read in" to anothers writings. For example, I cannot tell from the tone of your last posting whether it is meant to be sarcastic or sincere.
Assuming it to be sincere, I would agree that we are all wounded in one way or another, but I don't think we are all "dangerous." In fact, I'm not sure what you mean by that particular adjective.
And yes, psychological/spiritual healthiness is definitely a matter of continuum rather than dichotomy, but this is cause for greater prudence rather than less. If everyone came neatly labeled, we wouldn't have to have the discussion, would we?
I think the main point of the original blog piece was simply that we need to be attentive to not only our own strengths and weaknesses but those of the people around us, and that I need to respond both to "my" weakness and "your" weakness with compassion. However, part of that compassion is not intentionally putting Person A in a situation where one can reasonably predict their particular weakness is going to cause
real harm to the Person A and/or those around him/her.
For example, you wouldn't leave your baby with a 5-year-old baby-sitter while you went out, right? And why not? Because, while it is possible that both the baby and the toddler would be fine when you came back, it is more likely that one or both would be injured because the toddler is not capable of the leadership role into which she's been thrust.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not drawing a direct comparison between any clerical/lay leaders and a toddler. I simply use the example to illumine my point.
Matushka Mary,
ReplyDeleteI am utterly serious. But I'm also inappropriate. This sort of conversation requires much more context. I'm afriad that I'm only more likely to add confusion.
Again, I'm not speaking against prudence. I'm speaking to two things. First, that deciding who to chose as a babysitter is an individual decision that's based in context. I read culturally biased broad brushes in these jurisdictionalism posts.
Reserved people are not emotionally dysfunctional.
Second, as a dysfunctional person I don't relate well with those who claim function. I've met many people who appear to function and you find that their inner life is a wreck, they simply hide it better. Thus I wear my dysfunction on my sleave a bit.
David, I am increasingly confused by the responses. You dismissed what I thought was a very insight illustration (the babysitter), as contextual. In what possible context could a five-year be a suitable choice? You mention culturally-biased. In what way?
ReplyDeleteNo one is saying that wounded people can not lead or serve. Father Gregory has, in fact, written a good deal about "wounded healers." The dysfunction, as I noted before, is more than mere developmental maladjustment. It is using the Church and using God to AVOID the pain and process of transformation. We all do this to some degree, yet - as you yourself give eloquent testimony - we confess our failings as failings. The User does not.
If this has failed to make it clear, consider Scripture. Three servants were given talents. They were each rewarded based on how well they managed those talents. Leadership at any level - at least within the Church - should reflect the same process: it should go to the one who - wounded or not - is fruitfully already doing the work. The issue of the level of leadership or participation we are given reflects both the calling of God and our willingness to grow in love. IF we put someone in leadership who is not ready for it - or who has debilitating issues - then we will damage both him and those he seeks to serve. Love would seek to avoid that - for the sake of everyone - as much as possible.
David - Like Chrys, I am also confused by your response to my last note.
ReplyDelete(1) All prudential decisions must be contextually based - whether that decision is who to hire as the babysitter or who to elect to parish council. And, yes, culture is certainly one context, but nobody here is suggesting that one culture is automatically better than another (which is what I assume you mean by cultural bias).
(2) I have no idea where you got the idea that I think reserved people are "emotionally dysfunctional." Actually, if you follow this same thread backa few messages, you'll discover that I have, in fact, said the exact opposite.
(3) In fact, I'm not particularly fond of the term "dysfunctional" at all. All of us have been wounded in our lives -- the question is how we respond to those wounds. We can choose responses that lead to healing or we can, instead, choose to inflict greater harm on ourselves and/or others. A good spiritual parent (or a good therapist, for that matter) will help us find ways to choose the former course. But, again, finding that guidance for our lives generally requires the exercise of God's gift of prudence.