What’s Caught My Eye…

Why don’t we encourage sufferers to aim for joy? Perhaps we think of suffering and joy as a two-step process, as if what we see in Psalm 126:5-6—We go out weeping and return with shouts of joy—is the only pattern. This view sees suffering and joy as fundamentally incompatible and unable to be experienced simultaneously. But that can’t be true. Scripture indicates that life in the age of the Spirit will have the hardest suffering and the greatest joy—and both can be experienced at the same time. The Apostle Paul illustrated this as one of the many of the implications of the gospel: “in all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Cor. 7:4).

This means that even when we are in pain, we can go in search of joy with the expectation that it will, indeed, find and surprise us. Think about the end of war and enemies defeated (1 Chron. 16:33, Ps. 27:6), water in the desert (Is. 35:6), how the Lord delights in the welfare of his servants (Ps. 35:27), how the Lord comforts his people (Is. 49:13), how the Father, Son and Spirit take joy in each other and, through Jesus, we are brought into that joy (John 15:11). Think about how forgiveness of sins has secured for us all the promises of God, which are summarized in his unceasing presence with us. This presence, and the future glory of seeing him face-to-face, is to be at the very center of our joy.

But in this search we still have a problem. The prevailing treatment and dominant metaphor today for alleviating pain is medication. We take a pill and wait for it to be effective. We give the treatment limited time to show its worth before we move on to a new prescription. Joy does not follow this pattern. It does not come quickly. In fact, if we expect quick results, we are not actually seeking joy and it will never come. Joy does counterbalance pain, but that is a side effect of joy rather than its goal.

Read the whole thing here: The Hard Pairing of Suffering and Joy.

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Mourning, Melancholia and the Clergy

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One of the things I come to understand over the years is that depression is simply part of the background noise for many clergy. And this holds true whether the individual in question is Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical Christian, male or female. This isn't to say that the cleric in question is incapacitated. Far from it in fact. Many of the clergy I know who are depressed are rather high functioning and often considered to be successful and even exemplary examples of pastoral ministry in their tradition.

But depressed they are nevertheless.

Freud somewhere argued that depression is a result of the loss of one's love object. In Freudian psychoanalytic theory, the love object is that person or project in which I invested my libidinous energies. While the term libido now has sexual connotations, this was not the case for Freud. Rather libido, was more a generic term for psychic energy (though granted, this energy can, and often is, in Freud's view sexual in character).

When that love object is lost, whether literally or figuratively, I experience depression, or (to use Freud's term) melancholia. Robert Clark, a Reader in English at the University of East Anglia​, in his brief essay on Freud's essay on depression, “Mourning and Melancholia”> (1917), writes that Freud thinks of depression or

melancholia as a “profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree that finds utterance in self-reproaches and self-revilings, and culminates in a delusional expectation of punishment.” (Penguin Freud Library, Vol. 11, p. 248).

And again, as I said a moment ago, while melancholia results from “the death of a loved person, but it might also occur when something has been lost as an object of love, or even when 'one cannot see clearly what has been lost. (254).”

Mourning, on the other hand, has a slightly different content. Again, as Clark writes, “In mourning 'it is the world that has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself' (254).” Clinically, “Freud noted that melancholics were inclined to accuse themselves of many failings in an entirely unjustified way, and noted that the accusations were such as should have been more correctly directed against someone whom the patient loves or has loved.”

Freud's description of depression then is of loss and anger turned inward against the ego or the “I” that should, more reasonably, be directed outward at those who have abandoned or failed me (and again, this might be literally or symbolically). While there is much that I would reject in Freud, it seems to me that his insight into depression is profound. It is all the more profound as I think about my own, and other's, experiences in ministry.

Loss is inseparable from ministry because it is inseparable from human life in general and the Christian life in particular. It is hard, for example, to read the sayings of the desert fathers and not come away with the realization that mourning is essential to the Christian life. For example, Abba Poeman says that “He who wishes to purify his faults purifies them with tears. . . . ; for weeping is the way the Scriptures and our fathers give us, when they say, 'Weep!' Truly, there is no other way than this.” And Isaac the Syrian goes so far as to say “The man who follows Christ in solitary mourning is greater than he who praises Christ amid the congregation of men.”

But if mourning is essential to the spiritual life, melancholia/depression has no place and reflects mourning that has gone terribly wrong. Again, as Freud reminds us, in mourning, I come to sense the poverty of the world—m ourning (to transpose Freud into an anthropology more consonant with the fathers) is the realization that though this world is a great and beautiful gift, it is nevertheless “transitory.” It is only to the degree that I realize this that, as St Gregory the Great somewhere says, I am able “to stretch out the mind in humility to God and [my] neighbor.” Mourning is what helps “preserve patience against offered insults and, with patience guarded, to repel the pain of malice from the heart.” Mourning is to foundation of my love of the poor and makes it possible for me to “give [my] property to the poor, not to covet that of others, to esteem the friend in God, on God's account to love even those who are hostile.” It is through mourning that I am able to be and lead others to become evermore that “new creature whom the Master of the nations seeks with watchful eye amid the other disciples, saying: 'If, then, any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away. Behold all things are made new' (2 Cor. 5:17).”

While mourning and melancholia are similar, they are not the same. Worse, if we are not careful we can easily confuse mourning and melancholia. It is unwise to expect clergy, or for clergy to expect from ourselves, a life of selfless service if we are not also clear that such service is different in tone and content from depression. I think rather too easily we all of us—whether clergy or not—allow ourselves to confuse mourning and melancholia; too easily when we ought to counsel detachment we are instead fostering depression.

Too simply be angry with myself, to see my own failings and shortcomings in isolation from any larger content that realizes my own (and other's) weakness is a way of life that is psychologically and spiritually unsustainable.

I am very much taken by St Gregory the Great's notion that the mournful person is able to stretch out, in humility, his mind to God and neighbor. To understand humility as if it were some species of melancholia is, I think, to misunderstand humility. Yes because of my manifold sins and transgressions, I fall short of the glory of God (see Rms 3.12). But do I realize that even if I were not sinful, I would—; as a creature—fall short of the Divine Glory?

Real mourning—as opposed to its counterfeit, melancholia—gives birth to real humility. And what is this real humility? I think St Gregory Nyssa offers a good a description as any I've read:

This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because like slaves we severely fear punishment, not to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some business-like arrangement. On the contrary, disregarding all those things for which we hope and which have been reserved by promise, we regard falling from God's friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life.

To befriend God and neighbor is, it seems to me, the fruit of humility and a heart that mourns for its own sins and the sins of the world.

Many clergy struggle valiantly to be friends with God and neighbor But their struggles are often undermined by their own, and others, confusion of melancholia and depression. Thinking about this I wonder if it might not be helpful for clergy, but also for all of us who love Christ, if we made a bit more room in our communities for saying goodbye and seeing all the little (and great) losses of life as blessings and not curses?

Nicholas Ray in his essay (“ Trauer und Melancholie”) on Freud's theory of depresstiont, writes that for Freud, mourning is “not – or at least is not only – a process of remembrance; it is a labour of severance, of slowly cutting ties with what has gone. The painful re-traversal of memories and expectations connected to the lost object is undertaken by the psyche with a separative aim in view.”

Watching the different disagreements and divisions that seem to be inflicting the Orthodox Church in the States, as well as the suffering of my fellow clergy, I wonder, if in fact we have not in someway undercut the hard work of mourning that Freud and the fathers describe? And, if we have, I wonder, what is the way back?

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Informality. Formality and Spiritual Formation: More Thoughts from CAPS

Friday afternoon at CAPS I sat in a plenary session by Saul Cruz entitled “Hope and Healing through Care and Counsel to the Suffering in the World.” Together with his wife Pilar, Saul is co-director of Armonia Ministries. Together this husband and wife team ministry heir to the poor communities in both urban and rural areas in Mexico. Saul is by profession a psychologist and family therapist, and has also been a university lecturer.

Unfortunately because I had to take care of details for a funeral in my parish back in Canton, I was in and out of the presentation. One thing I did hear was the presenters argument that (I'm quoting from my notes):

Transformation require NOT that I solve your problem, but rather help you accept RESPONSIBILITY for your own life. In this process, I promise to walk along side you—but I cannot replace you in your own life. For example, if a mother brings me her children, I can't raise her children for her—I can't become their mother—but I can offer to help her accept and bear her responsibility for her own children.

The fruit if this approach (again, quoting my notes on the speaker's presentation) is that “not only is the other person transformed, but I am transformed with them.”

Thinking about the informal approach popular among Evangelical Christians, I wonder, if something similar might be necessary with Orthodox missionary activity especially here in the US. My reason for asking this is that so few Americans have much background that lends itself to the Gospel in its fullness.

Unlike the New Testament and early patristic era, we seem to lack (or maybe more accurately, devalue) the great cultural touchstones of the ancient world, moral law and philosophy, that someone like St Justin Martyr saw as the two great preparations for Jewish and Greek acceptance of the Gospel. Large segments of those we would reach out to have little, if any, appreciation for philosophical reasoning (and indeed, this would include not a few Orthodox Christians among both the laity and the clergy). As for the moral law, if they think of it at all, many Americans see morality and natural law as oppressive and opposed to freedom, self-expression and self-determination (and again, this is so not simply generally, but also among many Orthodox Christian laity and clergy).

The value of a more informal approach in the current pastoral circumstances can be seen in two ways. First, there is the positive value of friendship in the spiritual life. To take only one example from the patristic era, there is the friendship of St Basil and St John Chrysostom. Each was able to support and encourage the other as he sought to do the will of God for his own life.

Spiritual friendship has deep roots not only in the tradition of the Orthodox East, but also the Catholic West. There is for example in the spiritual tradition of the ancient Celtic Church the notion of the “soul friend” or in Gaelic the anam cara. On his blog “ Soul Friend,” Chuck Huckaby writes that in “a culture steeped in the idolatry of individualism we call postmodernism, nascent attempts at creating community and godly order all too often tilt to the opposite extreme of cultic authoritarianism. In contrast, the "Soul Friend" seeks to build community and establish order based on the model of sacrificial servanthood, patient instruction and gentle admonition.”

Moving beyond the arena of Celtic Christianity, there is also the role of spiritual friendship in the monastic tradition—again both East and West. I mentioned above the example of Chrysostom and Basil, there is also the example of the 6 ^th century elders and saints Barsaniphus and John.

Moving to western monastic life, we have the example of the father of monastic life in the West St Benedict. Add to this, the example of Francis of Assisi and his companions as well as the life and ministry ofBernard of Clairvauxthe great monastic reformer and the work of one of his “spiritual sons,” the great English saint and author Ailred of Rievaulx who wrote, among other things, a treatise entitled “ Spiritual Friendship.”

Huckably's point about “cultic authoritarianism” speaks to my rationale for a more informal approach to Orthodox outreach and evangelism. Looking back on my own personal and pastoral experience, I realize more and more the importance of robust tradition of both moral law and philosophical reasoning in the development of a health sense of self. Again both in my own early life and in my pastoral experience, the general cultural absence of these twin preparations for the Gospel leaves the developing self deeply wounded.

Switching if I may to a more clinical approach, the wounding of the self, or more accurately the sense of self, is part of who in the psychoanalytic tradition we understand the development of a personality disorder, or a character disorders. According to the American Psychiatric Association, personality disorders are characterized by "an enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the culture of the individual who exhibits it".

Within the pastoral sphere, I often see people with avoidant personality disorder or (again to borrow from the APA): a "pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

1. Avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection

2. Is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked

3. Shows restraint initiating intimate relationships because of the fear of being ashamed, ridiculed, or rejected due to severe low self-worth.

4. Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations

5. Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy

6. Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others

7. Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing.”

Those who suffer from an avoidant style of relating to self and others often will look to the formality and structure of the Orthodox Church to serve in place of their own underdeveloped and wounded sense of self. In other words, rather than developing a healthy and robust sense of self, with all that implies about accepting one's strengths and limitations as well as being responsible for one's decisions, a significant minority of people look to religion.

In the case of the converts I've know this means that the look to the Church, and especially the liturgical /ascetical tradition of the Church, to offer externally the structure to their lives that should emerge from their own sense of self.

Because the Church, and especially her liturgical and ascetical praxis, serve as person's ego (which again has been wounded), if the the formality of the Church's tradition is not balanced with a more informal approach, we risk confirming and deepening the very deficient sense of self that has caused the person so much suffering in life. Or, to put it more directly, the weight of the Church's tradition crushes already fragile sense of self.

This is why, I think, we often see such polemical defenses of their new tradition from many converts (and not just Orthodox Christians converts): The tradition has come to serve as the self and in those struggling with a personality disorder (unlike a more typical psychopathology such as depression) the fault for their own unhappiness is always external. And how could it be otherwise, since there is no healthy, internal sense of self that can bear the responsibility for their pain.

Again this I think is the great wisdom of the Evangelical Christian approach to ministry, outreach and evangelism in general and Saul Cruz's own work in particular. Informality is I think a good beginning. It is not sufficiently certainly, we need to introduce and incorporate the person in to Great Tradition and this not only intellectually but also sacramentally. Why? Not only because of the wisdom of tradition and the objective importance of the sacraments for the life of faith, but for sound anthropological reasons. We need the Great Tradition, and especially its liturgical and ascetical witness, to develop the sound and wholesome view of self that many of us lack.

If people cannot bear a formal beginning—even if l the desire it like an addict does his drug—this does not mean we can forgo the formality of the Church. We cannot come to wholeness of being without the liturgical and ascetical tradition of the Church. If their cultural absence has made them seem foreign and deadly to us and so necessitates a more, indirect approach to the life of grace, this does not mean that the moral, philosophical, liturgical and ascetical elements of Tradition of the Church are optional. To think they are is to confuse sound, Christ-centered, spiritual formation with pedagogy.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

My Notes From Taylor's Presentation on Sexuality

Having referenced Debra Taylor's plenary session talk at CAPS in the post below, I thought some of my readers might be interested in the notes I took. (I could do this because my wife encouraged me to get a spiffy new netbook computer with an amazing 5-7 hours of battery life. Thank you Mary!) Needless to say, these note reflect what I took away from Taylor's presentation and any errors are mine and mine alone.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Debra Taylor, MA, “Prisoners of Hope: Is Healing Possible for Sexual Strugglers?”Institute for Sexual Wholeness (graduate program/ministry), Secrets of Eve (book)

Lk 4:18-19: The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me...: we are all of us the recipients of this same call to proclaim liberty to the captive, to set free those who are burdened and battered.

SECRETS OF EVE: survey of 2000 Christian women about the sexuality

Then and Now...

1. 
   
   Sexual desire
   1. 
      
      Women and sexual desire: we've been pathologizing women for being women
   2. 
      
      Masters & Johnson, Kaplan; desire—excitement--orgasm--resolution (linear model)
      1. 
         
         developed in a lab watching people having sex while hooked up to ekg and measuring sexual desire mechanically.
      2. 
         
         focused on women who were able to achieve orgasm through intercourse alone (only 1/3 of all women)
      3. 
         
         Question: is desire really the basis of sexuality in women? Is M&J model really true? And how is desire measured?
         1. 
            
            Inadvertently, many people—e specially women—were pathologized because their sexual desires did not match the research
2. 
   
   Basson's model of sexual desire: women's desire begins in sexual neutrality [You can download a pdf of the model here.]
   
   1. 
      
      Sexual stimuli (psychological factors)
   2. 
      
      Sexual arousal
   3. 
      
      sexual desire & arousal
   4. 
      
      emotional & physical satisfaction (orgasm not necessarily present)
   5. 
      
      emotional intimacy (and then, much her partner's confusion, sexual neutrality)
3. 
   
   Some, but not all, women, have spontaneous sexual desire. Some, but fewer still, have a higher sex drive then their partner
4. 
   
   Receptive desire counts (receptive desire IS sexual desire)
   1. 
      
      The central question from the research: Am I good enough

Body image

1. 
   
   primary factor influencing sexual desire in women
2. 
   
   98% women dissatisfied with their bodies
   1. 
      
      clinically and personally, the best thing I can do for the women in my life is to encourage in them a more positive body image
3. 
   
   protective factors
   1. 
      
      family of origin
   2. 
      
      gender role satisfaction
   3. 
      
      health
   4. 
      
      effective coping strategies (identify and resist harmful cultural stereotypes)
   5. 
      
      sense of holistic balance and wellness
4. 
   
   pain is a bigger problem than we knew in the 90's
   1. 
      
      we don't know the incidence of sexual pain disorders
   2. 
      
      little research has been done
   3. 
      
      1-6% of women have vaginsmus; 16-19% experience chronic or recurrent sexual pain.

STD's

1. 
   
   in the 1960's we knew about only 2 STD's syphilis & gonorrhea
2. 
   
   NOW we know about 30 STDs
3. 
   
   >50% of all people in the US will have an STD
4. 
   
   in a national survey of US physicians, fewer 1/3 test routinely for STD's
5. 
   
   50% sexually active persons will have an STD by 25 years of age
6. 
   
   2008 CDC reports HIV/AIDS spreading quickly among young males 13-24; number of males jumped 12%
7. 
   
   15% of all new HIV/AIDS cases are over 50

Prisoners of Hope

1. 
   
   hope is our most important tool
2. 
   
   to inspire hope in our clients, we have to experience hope ourselves
3. 
   
   what do you do when you lose hope?
   1. 
      
      What are my skills for maintaining/recovering hope in the face of human suffering?
   2. 
      
      Compassion is not a flaw, but a strength.

“Broken heart syndrome” a real, medical condition, we can physically die because of extreme sadness and lose.

Entrepreneurship & Evangelism: More Thoughts on the CAPS Conference

An interesting comment on economic recovery from Tyler Cowen of the Kauffman Foundation by way of Michael Giberson at the Knowledge Problem.  Referring to video of Cowen talking about blogging economics and other topics, Giberson quotes Cowen's  concluding comments on current economic conditions in the United States:

If there is one point I could get through about the mess we're in, it's that even if you think that the government needs to do something proactive, that is a holding action. Recovery is about entrepreneurship.

While Cowen's economic prescription has much to recommend it, what caught my attention is this: I think that it is not only the economic recovery but also the Church that needs to embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Let me explain.

With the reception of Fr Peter Gillquist and the other clergy and lay members of former Evangelical Orthodox Church by the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of American, there was an increase both in awareness of the importance of mission work and actual missionary activity undertaken both in the US and overseas by American Orthodox Christians. Unfortunately, as I have said before, that initial zeal was not always (in my opinion) always wisely guided and indeed has lead to an unfortunate narrowing of the Church's evangelistic outreach.

While not absolutely the case, in the main Orthodox evangelical outreach (especially in the US) tends to focus on disaffected mainline Protestant and Evangelical Christians and very little to either the vast number of unchurched Americans or our own lapsed Orthodox Christians.

Beyond our quasi-official policy of proselytizing and neglect of the unchurced and the fallen away, I am also concerned that we have largely neglected the worlds of academia and public policy and morality. While in the latter case there is some hopeful progress—f or example Fr Hans Jacobe's American Orthodox Institute—in the former situation we have limited our engagement to a few, woefully underfunded, campus ministry programs. And while we have built seminaries and one undergraduate college, after more than 200 years in the States, we still do not have even a viable parochial school system for our children.

All of this was very much on my mind this weekend while I was at the CAPS conference. In session after session, I saw people who desired the riches of the Great Tradition in both its Western and Eastern forms. Unfortunately, there was in attendance only two priests, myself representing the tradition of Orthodox Church and my friend Fr Christian Mathis, a Roman Catholic priest.

Let me say upfront, I am ambivalent about the lack of a numerically substantive Orthodox presence at CAPS. We have in the last 30 or so years gotten rather comfortable talking down to people. Oh granted, we're gracious when we do so, but in the main we are more comfortable talking to people who want to join the Church. We our happy to enter into conversation, really often a monologue, with those who affirm us, who see us the solution to their problems. We are less comfortable with those who wish to relate to us as peers—as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

I am not convinced that, with a few exceptions, we would prefer to avoid conversations with those people who have competencies and expertise in areas about which we know little or nothing. Let me offer an example of a CAPS presentation I found not only interesting and valuable but challenging.

On Saturday morning the first plenary session was presented by Debra Taylor, MA, of Institute for Sexual Wholeness (a graduate program/ministry focusing on sex therapy). Taylor offered us an update on the research into women's sexuality that she published in her book that she co-authored with Archibald D. Hart andCatherine Hart Weber, Secrets of Eve .

Taylor's presentation,“Prisoners of Hope: Is Healing Possible for Sexual Strugglers?”was a challenge to the gathering to imitate the words of Jesus in Lk 4:18-19: (the Spirit of the Lord is upon Me...) and ourselves as psychologists and pastors to proclaim liberty to the captive, to set free those who are burdened and battered in the area of sexuality.

What made the presentation unique was not just what was said, but what wasn't said. Taylor did not focus on sexual immorality—we did not hear about homosexuality, adultery, fornication, or masturbation. Instead she spoke with great eloquence on the suffering of married men and women as they try and understand each other's different, but equally legitimate, sexuality.

At the core of this struggle is not simply the fact that husbands typically don't understand their wives sexuality. This lack of understand is situated within a social (and for that matter, research) context that pathologizes women's sexuality and foster in women (and so also in men) an increasingly unrealistic and unnatural view of feminine sexuality and the woman's body.

Listening to Taylor as she related experiences from her own life and clinical practice, I wondered how I might apply her insights to my own pastoral work. How many married couples who come to see me either together or individually, I wondered, are suffering because of the very lack of mutual understanding that the speaker has articulated? Having spoken with current and former seminaries, I know that if sexuality is addressed at all in their coursework, it is only done so in terms of morality (and even this, I suspect, is rather deficient, but that's for another time). But sexuality is never addressed as it was in Taylor's work.

Considering the apologetic energy we expend on the fact that—u nlike Rome—we have a married clergy, this lacunae is troubling. If, as Taylor argued, many, even most, married couples suffer because of a lack of information about human sexuality, how can this not be true for clergy couples? And how can this lack of information not but have an negative influence not only on the personal lives of clergy couples, but the pastoral practice of the Church?

Let me return to the question of an entrepreneurial approach to outreach and evangelism. As in my experience at CAPS, as well as in my participation in other professional settings, I have found that my willingness to participate as a peer—albeit one who wears cassock, cross and cap—has always brought a rich reward both for me personally and for my ministry. And, not incidentally, it has also resulted in new Orthodox Christians.

Over the years, I have spoken with man men and women from various professions who have become (or have always been) Orthodox Christians. A consistent theme in the stories they tell me is the joy and gratitude to God they have for their Orthodox faith. But they also tell stories of frustration that there seems to be little interest among the clergy to make use of their professional skills and gifts. While these professionals are happy to be the spiritual children of the Church, they are also competent adults whose potential contribution to the Church is often greatly limited by the inability of the clergy to engage them as professional colleagues.

At its core, I think this inability of some—maybe even many—c lergy to engage the laity as professional peers (though different professionals to be sure) both is the reflects our limited vision of evangelical outreach and is also a contributing factor to our narrowness of vision.

One of the participates I spoke with at CAPS was quite taken by the patristic notion that what is not assumed by Christ is not redeemed. I wonder, are willing our we as a community and personally to work to redeem academia and the professions? Are we willing to engage those who challenge us not simply because of their interest in the spiritual life but because they bring to the Church skills and insights that are new to us?

Or, let me make this personal, do I want ADULT spiritual children who insist on the integrity and value of their own professional contributions to the life of the Church?

As always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome but encouraged.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Thoughts from CAPS

The opening plenary session here at CAPS was interesting. Gary Moon, Ph.D., who teaches at Richmond Graduate University offered a presentation titled “Psychology and Christian Spirituality: Puttting the Soul Back in Soul-o-logy.” Having studied as an undergraduate with the Jungian James Hillman I was interested in the direction that Moon would take with his own presentation. Hillman was (at least when he was my professor) antithetical to any suggestion that Christian (or really, any religion) could have a place in what he called “soul work.”
Moon argued, correctly I think, that historically modern psychology developed out of philosophy and ultimately Christian theology. Where his argument took a provocative turn when he referenced Nicean Christology. Where his presentation took an interesting turn was his argument that just as Christ held together divinity and humanity in Himself, so too Christians are called to do the same. Correctly, Moon identified this as the Orthodox doctrine of theosis (deification). Remember, that CAPS is composed primarily of Evangelical Christians and you have a sense of the radical nature of Moon's talk.
It was noteworthy for me that in many of the presentations I heard—as well as in my side conversations with conference participants—there is a clear desire for the the Great Tradition of the Church (East and West). While this desire for the Great Tradition does not extend to an explicitly stated desire to join the Church, my experience at CAPS suggests that there is more that we can do as Orthodox Christians in our evangelistic outreach. We have, as I've said before, not really extended our outreach to the academic world in general, much less the world of the social and natural sciences.
But we need to—not simply because people are interested, but because Christ has commanded it of us!
Anyway, I'll post more on CAPS tomorrow.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory

Erikson and Orthodox Pastoral Care

(This is a re-write of an earlier post that had a number of errors.  I'm using a new netbook with a smaller key board and screen, so my already minimal editing skills are being rather stretched.)

I'm sitting in the airport (my flights been delayed 1 hour and 20 minutes) on my way home from to the CAPS International Conference in Orlando, FL. Yes, I know, I've got a tough life—actually what I have is an incredibly supportive wife who encourages me in my undeniable eccentric priestly ministry.
In addition to being able to speak with colleagues, I did a poster presentation this year. My presentation—based based on a paper I presented at a conference last year—is a comparison of the. work of Erik Erikson and St Maximos the Confessor. Specifically, I'm looking at how they both look at the experience of failure.
While I say more on the content of my presentation later, as with most my academic work in psychology, the paper my presentation is based is more theoretical than applicative in orientation. My goal is to try and deepen how we in psychology understand the human person. So, my concern is not with St Maximos as such, but with (in the present case) the developmental theory of articulated by the psychologist Erik Erikson.
For those who know me, my interest in doing this is no particular mystery—this is simply a matter of transposing my own spiritual journey from the personal to the theoretical. In other words, my own spiritual life, my own faith as an Orthodox Christian, and my own admittedly eccentric ministry as a priest for that matter, grew out of my interest in psychology. For me, reflecting on Erikson (in the present case) is what inspired me to draw closer to Christ and His Church. Sort of like what the fathers call “natural contemplation,” or a reflection on creation that points the soul beyond creation to the Creator.
So why am I interested in Erikson's work?
One of the most interesting things about Erikson's development theory is that it is teleological. Human growth and development is not a matter of the blind working out of our genetic inheritance in response to environmental stimulus. To be sure as a disciple of Freud, the body (and thus later genetic research) has a role to play in Erikson's theory, but (unlike Freud) Erikson does not limit human development to simply the deterministic working out of bodily needs.
For Erikson human development not only has an identifiable goal it proceeds along following identifiable benchmarks. And not only that, there in Erikson's view of the matter there are also the possibility for missteps. These missteps are possible throughout life and while not necessarily fatal to our consonant development, neither are they inconsequential. At any point along the way, I can at any step off the path of wholesome development that would ordinarily lead from birth to death.
This potential for failure begins in infancy when the new born and is my constant companion throughout my life. It is this possibility of failure that I find most interesting in Erikson's work. Like other, more humanistic psychologists, Erikson has a generally optimistic view of potential. Unlike these other thinkers, however, he is clear about the possibility of failure—and this failure is one that increasingly is a consequence of the misuse of my own freedom.
The summit of human development is ego integrity. At this stage I come (or not) to embrace the totality of my life with all its successes and failures. Part of this embrace is the appreciative acceptance of my own contingency, that my life is the product not only on my genetic inheritance and free decisions, but also of factors over which I have no control (like the culture in which I am born and raised) and which could in fact have been different.
But I can also come to a point in which I refuse to be thankful for my life; I can deny or resent my failures just as I can overvalue or minimize my successes. Whatever the concrete form my lack of acceptance takes, it is grounded in a refusal of my own contingency as the condition of possibility for my own life. It is here, in my exercise (or not) of what Erikson calls the virtue of wisdom, that I have the opportunity to find not only myself, but also to reach out in beyond the limits of my own life and embrace others in compassion.
While Erikson's work fall short of the Church's understanding of theosis (deification) as the goal of human life, his work nevertheless articulates much of the human dimension of this process. In doing so, I think, Erikson's work has a valuable contribution to make to Orthodox pastoral care.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory

Game Theory and Trust

Besides the beginning of the Great Fast, my time these last two weeks have been has been taken up preparing for several presentations I'll be making between now and the beginning of April.

Currently, I am finishing the research for a two part online seminar on parish leadership (a webinar). In addition to reviewing the psychological literature on leadership, I've had the chance to look at some VERY introductory material in game theory (Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life, by Len Fisher and Game Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions), by Ken Binmore)

"Game theory?" you ask, "what is game theory?"

Glad you asked. I'll tell you.

Game theory, according to the Wikipedia (that online repository of everything) article on the subject, is a branch of applied mathematics that "attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others." In addition to its application in the social sciences (especially economics), the theory and insights of game theory have be applied to disciples as diverse as "biology, engineering, political science, international relations, computer science (mainly for artificial intelligence), and philosophy."

While there's a great in game theory that I find interest—and useful—one of the things that has caught my attention as a I prepare for my parish leadership seminar is what game theory says about fostering trust in interpersonal relationship.

When trust is lost, when I offend or hurt you, if I'm a descent person, my natural inclination is to apologize and try and win back your trust. While the first half of my response—the apology—is a good thing, my second step, my attempt to win your trust, is (assuming I've understood what I've read) is likely to have a result opposite that for which I hope (that you trust me). So the question now becomes why? Why do I so often fail when I try and win back your trust?

Game theory is concerned with "strategic situations." In somewhat simplistic terms, strategy is about acting to achieve a particular goal. A strategic situation is one in which the participants are each trying to accomplish a goal relative to each other. They might, for example, be in competition with each other, or they might cooperate with each other. The riding on a seesaw is an example of the later, game of chess is an example of the former.

"But what about restoring trust Father Gregory?! How do I do that?" I'll tell you.

The best way to foster trust or cooperation, or so some game theorists argue, is not to ask for it, but to offer it. That's why apologizing when I've caused you harm is a good thing and often brings a good response from you. And it is also why asking (or trying) to win your trust often fails. Let me explain.

When I, or anyone for that matter, apologizes I'm making myself vulnerable to you. My vulnerability, my willingness to be rejected or in some way hurt by you, demonstrates my trust in you to treat me with respect and to not take advantage of me. When, however, I follow my apology up with the request, "How can I earn your trust back," I am asking you to be vulnerable to me—to let your guard down by asking you to reveal to me (a self-acknowledge untrustworthy person) the ways in which I can hurt you.

Let me try and explain this a bit better.

My wife and I have begun house hunting in anticipation of our upcoming move to Madison, WI. Like most home buyers, we will apply for a mortgage to help us purchase our new house. Now in addition to a credit check (i.e., our character in financial matters) and a check on our income (i.e., how much money we've got), the bank will also require from us two things: a deposit on the house (that is, that we pay them a percentage of the house's cost) and collateral (in our case, the house itself).

Why does bank wants a deposit and collateral from borrows? The deposit isn't to lower the amount that they will borrow; nor is putting the house up as collateral meant to give the bank something to sell if the borrowers default on the loan. It is rather to raise the cost for the borrowers of their defaulting on the loan. In effect, the bank is willing to trust us (or any borrowers) only to the degree that we have something to lose if we fail to repay the loan.

Trust is won by my willingness to suffer loss if I am untrustworthy in our relationship. If dishonesty or untrustworthy behavior doesn't cost me anything, you are unwise to trust me.

At first this might sound a harsh and judgmental standard—it certainly did to me. But as I thought about it, I began to ask, what is it that I mean by trust? Is it simply a warm feeling or is it my ability to predict your future behavior? While forgiveness need not be mutual, trust must be. Trust requires that we walk together as it were. It isn't necessarily bad or sinful if we don't walk together—but if we don't walk together our relationship is not trustworthy for the simple reason that we aren't together on this or that issue.

What has all this to do with pastoral leadership?

I think were often pastors go wrong is that we are not clear as to the cost of failure to us if we fail in a pastoral relationship. Or maybe it is more accurate to say, the cost we bear for failure is not relevant to those we fail. Often clergy and laity deal in rather different "currency" from each other. Most priests I know that failure very personally, but this deep, personal sense of failure while sincere, is often not seen (or necessarily valued) by those that we fail.

I will, in my next post, come back to what might be a more meaningful pledge by clergy to those we serve. I suspect that much of the tension we see in the Church today reflects the fact that we do not have a shared standard of valuing the cost of behavior (whether perpetrated by clergy or lay leaders) that violates the bond of trust that holds us together.

Until then, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Confession & the Evangelism of the Faithful: the Regretful Penitent

My last post spoke about the place of education in the evangelism of the faithful. I argued that in the pastoral life of the Church education is not merely intellectual, but at the service of helping people see the outlines of the Gospel in their own hearts. This in turn can lead to a moment of crisis that typically leads in turn to in one of three ways: regret (a global sorrow for one's life), anger (a spiritual blindness or some other negative emotion often directed at the spiritual father, and ultimately God), and indifference (in which the person ignores or minimizes what is heard). I also said that these three responses are, or at least can be, grist for the mill in Holy Confession. In this and the following two posts, I want to look briefly at how I handle each response as a confessor.

Again, just remind people, my response will not involve what people have told me in confession. And again as I said last time, I do not think that the information I will offer is only for priests. People are often better able to approach confession with a open heart, more trust and less anxiety if they have some sense of what is, and is not, expected of them. Especially when people first come to me for confession I will tell them what is going to happen and the "ground rules." Chief among these ground rules is that they are free not to answer any question I ask them and not act on any advice I might may offer. I respect the freedom of the penitent to reveal as much, or a little, of his or her struggle as they wish. But I address the character of the confessor in a later post.

Now, to regret…

The regretful penitent comes to confession lamenting his or her past. Note that what I said here was "past" and not simply "sins." Merely looking back on one's life with sorrow is not the same as repentance though it is certainly may be a part of repentance. But a global regret for one's past is (I think) fundamentally unhealthy.

In both the East and the West the final morning service is the Office of Lauds—of the praise of God. The Church's liturgical tradition embodies what is I think a rather wise point of spiritual psychology. Repentance, as distinct from simple regret, bears fruit in the praise of God. The ability and willingness to praise and thank God sincerely is one of the key signs that the penitent has repented from his or her sins.

The fruit of repentance is gratitude, joy, and a lively awareness of God grace and mercy even in the darkest moments of one's life.

Likewise, the absence of gratitude toward God and an unwillingness, or even hostility, to considering the hidden mercy of God in the midst of one's sinfulness is a sign that the penitent has come to confession not with repentance for healing but mere regret.

My understanding and subsequent response to the regretful individual—and make no mistake, regret is always part of living as an individual, living not in communion with God and neighbor but within a world of one's own making—is guided by something I read by St John of Kronstadt.

The saint reminds the priest, that when hearing confessions he is not a judge but a witness to God's mercy. This means that both in word and deed, the priest most first remind the person, as St John writes in his own preparation for confession, of "the abundance of the Mercy of God." The harshness, the lack of gratitude (and the fear that typically accompanies it) reflects a more fundamental lack of an awareness of God's mercy. It is this lack that the confessor is called to respond to by his own gentleness.

But why is this gentle witness necessary?

For better or worse, people draw their view of God from their experience of the priest. For person whose self-image is framed by regret, the priest, by his kindness and acknowledgement of the goodness of the person, offers to the penitent the possibility of a new way of understand not only God, but also self and others. The confessor is called to model in confession what it means to love God and neighbor with one's whole heart and mind.

Even when correction is necessary it is important that it be given gently and with a clear and sincere indication on the part of the confessor that what is offered is offered not to shame the person but to comfort and heal. It is important as well that the priest makes clear that the penitent is free to act or not on the advice. Advice, like an epitimia (penance), is best offered rather than imposed.

But the witness to mercy must be more.

Any witness in the Church is necessarily prophetic. It is here where I think that confession becomes most challenge for confessor and penitent. As a witness of mercy the confessor is called by God is called to discern the presence of divine mercy in the life of the penitent. Building on what I said a moment ago, this means going beyond merely reminding the person that God is merciful. Bearing witness to God's mercy builds on, but necessarily transcends, the confessor being kind and gentle.

With the regretful penitent, I listen carefully to the life story that is told in confession. What I am listening for are those moments in the person's life where they may have overlooked the mercy of God for them. (As an aside, and without prejudice to "divine grace, which always heals that which is infirm and completes that which is lacking," I think my own training in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis has been a great help. After all, what is the unconscious but all that which is in our experience and yet, paradoxically, unknown to us?)

Bearing witness to the hidden presence of God and His mercy in the life of the penitent not only helps the person move from regret to repentance, it is also I think (to return to our more general topic) essential for the evangelism of the faithful. While education, or rather the lack of education, is a problem in the pastoral life of the Church, as I argued yesterday this is much more than simply an absence of information about God. The regretful penitent makes it clear to me that I (and all of us) suffer from is the lack of awareness of the mercy of God for me (God pro me, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has it) in the concrete circumstance of my life.

In and through confession the discerning confessor, leaning as he does on the grace of ordination and his own personal talents and gifts, is called to give voice to the presence of mercy. Failure to do so in any confession, but especially in the case of the merely regretful penitent, leaves the penitent just outside the gates to the Kingdom of God.

It also robs the confessor of what I have found to be one of the great joys of priestly ministry—the transformation of mere regret into repentance (metanoia or a Godly sorrow) in which regret becomes thanksgiving for the gift of life and this not only in the penitent's heart but also my own.

For now, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Polemics, Zeal and St Isaac the Syrian

Isaac the Syrian is probably the most eloquent patristic witness for the position I have been sketching out (you can read that post here). The saint writes that "Someone who has actually tasted truth is not contentious for truth. Someone who is considered by people to be zealous for truth has not yet learnt what truth is really like; once he has truly learnt it, he will cease from zealousness on its behalf." [Kephalaia IV.77; The Wisdom
of Saint Isaac the Syrian, translated by Sebastian Brock, (Fairacres, Oxford: SLG Press Convent of the Incarnation, 1997), p15.]

Commenting on this passage, David Goa, writes that like relativism, the zealousness that informs our polemical attitude "fail to discern aright what stands under the desire we have for that which is true." Both relativism and zeal, deform our desire for the truth "into an appetite." Once the pursuit of truth becomes an appetite, a passion in patristic terminology,

Whatever we come to look at and care about is then forced into conformity with the idea, image, or ritual that we have erected as absolute. We begin to hang all our hopes and dreams on the truth of our chosen framework, our precious absolutes (including the relativists' precious absolute that there is nothing of ultimate value). Our longing is captured by an absolute of our own making. It follows, almost without saying, that once we hang all our hopes and dreams on something that we claim as absolute, it is a short step to hanging all our fears on it as well. In this moment the holy longing of the human heart and mind that lies behind the search for absolutes becomes polluted. Zealousness for the truth frames how we see and understand and reshapes our response to the fragility of the life of the world.

Goa continues by observing that the symptom our passionate pursuit of the truth is a need for enemies. My passion (pathos) for the truth can only be sustained insofar as I stand in opposition to someone or something. But this approach is one "that reduces complexity and purpose to frame [my assumed] conclusions." But for the Christian "this is a false start for it begins neither at the heart of human nature or in the presence of God's love" but in fear. Again, Goa:  "For St. Isaac, zeal for truth is itself a symptom of a spiritual disease. Or, perhaps, it is a condition that tends to develop at a certain stage in the spiritual life and is itself simply a marker of that stage. It is the spiritual equivalent of adolescence where the young try out all sorts of ideas and actions with the conviction that no one else has ever had these thoughts or feelings and they are exploring them for the first time. How can it be that no one else has ever seen just how important and ultimate these thoughts and feelings are?"

There is a sense in which our zealous pursuit of truth "is part of the process of maturation." So when as a spiritual father I see the "zealousness for truth" spoken of by St. Isaac, I understand that it is "a stage in the spiritual development of the person. But just as with adolescence, if the condition persists, spiritual growth is arrested. One is stuck in the adolescent stage of the spiritual life."

Christ however calls us to wholeness of being. Part and parcel of this wholeness means that by God's grace and our own efforts "we are freed from the habit of taking refuge in abstract notions of truth. If we taste of truth at every Eucharist we know better. If we taste of truth every time we, like the disciples, find ourselves in Emmaus breaking bread with someone we didn't know we knew, we know better. We know better every time our hearts are moved with compassion."

But as I mentioned earlier, polemics, a zealous approach to the truth has a strangle hold on us because we do not wish to grow, to change. Our conversations are polemical because more often than not, our thinking about ourselves is static and rigid. Catholic/Orthodox polemics—at least as we see them in contemporary practice—are only accidentally theological. In the main (and I will address this more in another post) our polemics reflect our own lack of wholeness, of balance, of our own lack of virtue. We are, as I said earlier, neurotic

At the risk of misapplying the theory, I will in the next essay explore the different neurotic styles that seem favored by Eastern and Western Christians. To anticipate, Eastern Christians tend to see themselves as standing "against" others, even as Western Christians tend to move "toward."

But that for another day.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Psychology Professor Develops New Model For Collaboration Between Clergy And Clinicians

ScienceDaily (Jun. 2, 2008) — Many of the clergy who lead America's 260,000 religious congregations turn to psychologists who share their religious values when they refer congregants to social workers. However, this approach could impede people from getting the care they need, maintains Dr. Glen Milstein, Professor of Psychology at The City College of New York (CCNY).

For the past decade, Professor Milstein has led a multidisciplinary team of researchers in developing a new model for relationships between clergy and clinicians that is religion inclusive rather than faith based. Known as C.O.P.E. (Clergy Outreach and Professional Engagement), the approach is design to reduce burdens on both professions. It was described in detail earlier this year in the American Psychological Association's journal "Professional Psychology: Research and Practice."

The key to the C.O.P.E. model is the recognition that mental illness is a chronic disease with which patients sometimes can function and other times can not, Professor Milstein explains. "Clinicians and clergy perform distinct, complementary functions in treating these syndromes. While clinicians provide professional treatment to relieve individuals of their pain and suffering and move them from dysfunction to their highest level of function, clergy and religious communities provide a sense of context, support and community before, during and after treatment."

The program aims to improve care of individuals by facilitating reciprocal collaboration between clinicians and members of the clergy, regardless of either's religious affiliations. It is based on two principal ideas: The first is that clergy and clinicians can better help a broader array of persons with emotional difficulties and disorders through professional collaboration than they can by working alone, and secondly, that the program's success is predicated on collaboration easing the workload for both groups.

Professor Milstein describes the approach as "religion-inclusive" since it calls upon the therapist to both assess the role of religion in the patient's life and to educate themselves about the patient's religious tradition. Often that education includes contact with the patient's clergy.

Faith-based approaches, which call for the individual to be referred to a clinician from his or her own faith, can restrict care by excluding access to professionals best able to treat the condition, he maintains. Professor Milstein cites a research study comparing the work of religious psychotherapists with the work of nonreligious psychotherapists in treating religious Christians. The study found that nonreligious therapists who provided religiously informed psychotherapy achieved the best clinical outcomes for this group.

Working from the National Institute of Mental Health's four prevention categories, Professor Milstein and his team developed two handouts, one for mental health professionals and the other for clergy. They provide descriptions in a hierarchal format of the four care stages and illustrate when it would be appropriate for clergy to contact clinicians and for clinicians to contact clergy.

The goal of C.O.P.E., Professor Milstein explains, is for clergy and clinicians to provide a continuum of care, whether the person is fully functional, is under stress, requires treatment or is trying to avoid relapse. The approach has been used to facilitate collaboration between expert clinicians and clergy from a variety of faiths including: Armenian Orthodox; Roman Catholic; Ethical Culture; Hindu; Muslim; Judaism, as well as evangelical and mainline Protestant denominations.

Because clergy tend to see people throughout their lifetimes and in different circumstances, they often are in a better position to identify whether or not someone is functioning properly, Professor Milstein points out. For example, they are likely to distinguish between someone who has lost a loved one and is going through a normal bereavement process and someone who could be clinically depressed. "Recommending an intervention for someone who may be depressed relieves their (clergy) burden," he adds.

Similarly, religious communities can relieve the burden on the clinician by helping people reenter everyday life, Professor Milstein adds. "Religious communities are primary areas of social support for most people. If religion is an important part of an individual's life, the clinician needs to make that connection. They should contact the clergy and let them know to look out for and welcome the person back."

Conversely, he points out that the approach would not be helpful for patients who have had negative associations with religion or religious leaders. "The model is not a panacea, but, rather, an option to engage the whole person. Patients need to be assessed and treated individually without judgments about whether religion is good or bad."

Professor Milstein's research collaborators were: Amy Manierre, an American Baptists minister currently pursuing as Master of Social Work Degree at University of Houston; Virginia L. Susman, M.D., Associate Medical Director and Site Director at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Medical College, and Dr. Martha L. Bruce, Professor of Sociology in Psychology at Weill Medical College.

The research was supported by grants from: the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Research Fellowship Program in Psychiatry; the National Institute of Mental Health; the American Psychological Association and the Professional Staff Congress – CUNY.

My Interview on "Our Life In Christ" (Ancient Faith Radio)

Above: Our Life in Christ, program hosts Steven Robinson and Bill Gould,

Interview with Fr. Gregory Jensen on Psychology, Part One
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

From the program web page:

Steve interviews Fr. Gregory Jensen, an Orthodox priest and psychologist. Fr. Gregory discusses the place of clinical psychology within Orthodox spirituality, particularly as it relates to pastoral care and confession.

You download the interview as an mp3 by clicking here: Our Life in Christ.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory