Mindfulness meditation: Sweet Emotions {part 3 of 6}
Listen: “Head Above Water” by Avril Lavigne
We all live our lives on a rollercoaster of emotions. When we have pleasant emotions, we scheme of ways to get them to stay. When we have unpleasant emotions, we think of ways to get them to go away.
For decades I spent my life trying to battle, fight, conquer, suppress, and defeat my unpleasant emotions. Without my awareness, I had been unduly influenced by an ancient Greek perspective on emotions which taught that emotions can’t be trusted. Many of the ancient Greek philosophers and writers believed that powerful emotions were the direct working of evil spirits dwelling in the soul (Homer, Xenocrates, and Euripides, for example, see chapter three “The Philosophy of Pathos” in The Prophets by Abraham Joshua Heschel). Even the Apostle Paul at times equates certain pleasant emotions to the “fruit of the Spirit” and unpleasant emotions like outbursts of anger to the “desires of your sinful nature” which need to be fought against (Galatians 5:19-23).
The best of modern psychology and studies in neuroscience reveal that suppressing emotions is not the best approach to human health and flourishing. Emotions are not evil; they are a part of the human experience. It’s important to normalize the entire spectrum of human emotions. We can easily slip into unhealthy attempts to avoid, numb, or suppress our unpleasant emotions in order to get rid of them. This approach is ineffective and backfires in the long run. It’s like trying to hold a beach ball under water indefinitely. It eventually explodes back to the surface. Marc Brackett is the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and I highly recommend his book Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Brackett’s research demonstrates the importance of learning how to recognize, name, and allow our emotions as an important beginning to understanding and regulating our emotions.
When it comes to unpleasant emotions and circumstances: What we resist persists. We all experience waves of emotions throughout our lives. Like waves in the ocean, our emotions rise and fall. They don’t last forever. If we constantly push away our emotions, we end up with an iceberg of emotions hidden beneath the surface of our consciousness. These buried emotions will often exert unwanted influences on our mental health and behaviors.
Sometimes our desire to push away our emotions was taught to us by our authority figures. You might take a moment and reflect on what range of emotions was allowed in your family while you were growing up. What emotions were allowed in your family? What emotions were not allowed? What range of emotions is okay with you today? Most people judge themselves when they have certain emotions which they perceive as unwanted or even evil. We tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel a certain way and judge ourselves for having normal human emotions. The best approach is to recognize and allow our emotions to rise and fall without judging. Instead, be curious, open, compassionate, and non-judgmental towards the whole spectrum of our emotions.
When you sit for a quiet meditation, learn to observe your emotions. Be curious about your own emotions. Recognize them and explore them. Notice how your emotions reside in your body. Where do you feel your emotions in your body? Then, be loving and kind to yourself. No feeling is final. Walter Mischel is known for the famous “Marshmallow Test” which he conducted with children. He would present a child with a marshmallow and give them a choice: Eat this marshmallow now or wait and enjoy two later. He would leave the room and then watch their response by video camera. It’s hilarious. Some children turn away and don’t look at it. Some smell it or lick it, but try not to eat it. Some nibble at the marshmallow, but don’t eat the whole thing. Some eat the marshmallow instantly.
Meditation can help us explore all the emotions we experience in life. Without being critical of our emotions, we can learn to explore them, smell them, and lick them like a kid with a marshmallow. Through daily practice in meditation, we can become skilled in emotional intelligence. American poet, Danna Faulds, credits the practice of meditation with giving her reliable access to a vivid inner life of creativity. Her poem “Allow” captures the essence of emotional intelligence:
There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in—
the wild and the weak—
fear, fantasies, failures, and success.
When loss rips off the doors of the heart
or sadness veils your vision with despair,
practice becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your known way of being,
the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
Mindfulness Meditation: Breath & Body {part 2 of 6}
Listen: “Just Breathe” by Eddie Vedder
Many expressions of Western Christianity suffer from a disembodied spirituality, opting instead for intellectual debates centered around doctrinal purity. It’s most evident in the hundreds of Protestant denominations across the globe which have sprung up since the Reformation. Western Christianity features a spirituality that largely exists as an intellectual pursuit of “pure” doctrinal statements about everything from the nature of God, the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the number of sacraments or ordinances, the correct mode of baptism, the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, the second coming of Christ, and the list goes on, all of which have resulted in wars, divisions, and Christians fighting Christians (not to mention all the hatred towards other faith traditions). Apart from conversion and Pentecostal experiences, Western Christianity features many forms of doctrinal intellectual masturbation.
It’s a disembodied spirituality which occurs largely in the mind. Certainly, we are to love God with our mind, but also with our bodies and our whole being. We need a renaissance of embodied spirituality. Thank God we have the contemplative, mystical, and mindfulness meditation traditions to help us with this much needed course correction.
In his book Soulful Spirituality, David Benner describes a dialogue he had with a Taoist professor from Zhejang University named Zhang Xin Zhang concerning the importance of breath as the meeting of body, spirit, and soul. After hearing Zhang describe his meditation practice, Benner was struck by how important paying attention to his breath was in his practice.
Zhang: Am I not right that Christian’s understand their origins to lie in the infusion of divine breath into the dust of the earth? (Genesis 2:7)
Benner: Yes
Zhang: Am I not right that you understand each breath to be a gift from God?
Benner: Yes
Zhang: Am I not right that you understand that the Spirit of God is with you, moment by moment, breath by breath?
Benner: Yes
Zhang: Then how do you fail to see the immense spiritual value in attending to those moment-by-moment expressions of the presence of God?
Breath as an anchor to the body. Most humans regularly disassociate themselves from their bodies and get lost in thought—ruminating on past hurts and regrets, rehearsing future fears, and numbing emotional pain.
Breath is always with us and focusing on breath can help us connect with our bodies and pay attention to the present moment. Breath is a doorway to embodied spirituality which can foster awareness, help heal trauma, increase focus, lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and nurture gratitude.
Try sitting with a comfortable posture for five to fifteen minutes and focus on your breath. Notice how easy it is to lose focus on your breath and get lost in thoughts. Simply notice this and gently bring your thoughts back to your breath.
Ways to deepen breath practice. Start your meditation by taking three or four deep breaths. Then try some of the following ways to play with your breath and deepen your focus.
• Take deep breaths and hold your breath for thirty seconds or more, then exhale.
• Alternate breathing between your nose and mouth. Notice the feel of the breath entering and leaving your nose and mouth.
• Notice your breath on the back of your throat.
• Feel your breath above the lips.
• Expand your lungs and belly as you inhale, then collapse your lungs and belly.
• Focus on the space between your breaths.
• Focus on the beginning, middle, and end of your breath.
• Quiet your attention with your breath.
Some people may struggle with focus on breath. That’s ok. We always want to bring a kind, curious, non-judgmental attitude towards our meditation practice. Our inner critic will want to tell us we are doing it wrong. Be kind to yourself as you practice breath work.
Alternative anchors for the body. If breath is challenging, you might try some other ways to anchor yourself into your body.
• Do a full body scan. As you sit, scan your body from your head to your feet or from your feet to your head. Feel your feet contacting the ground. Wiggle your toes. Scan up your legs to your sit bones contacting your chair or the earth beneath you. Continue up your body to your stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, face, and head.
• Notice feelings in your body such as pain, warmth, cold, hot spots, tingling, tightness, tension, and pleasure.
• Use your five senses to feel your way into your body and notice your surroundings. What do you smell? What sounds are you hearing? What can you see? Gently touch, tap, stretch, or massage different parts of your body. Hold your hand to your chest and give yourself a hug.
The consequences of disassociating. Most humans have experienced pain and trauma to various degrees. We become skilled at numbing, avoiding, suppressing, and disassociating from emotional and physical pain. According to Brené Brown, “We cannot selectively numb emotion. If we numb the dark, we numb the light. If we take the edge off pain and discomfort, we are, by default, taking the edge off joy, love, belonging, and the other emotions that give meaning to our lives.”
By disassociating, we exacerbate our issues in the following ways:
1. We increase emotional fatigue and exhaustion by trying to suppress our emotions indefinitely, like holding a beach ball under water.
2. We increase our anxiety.
3. We develop unhealthy escape mechanisms.
4. We cut ourselves off from the wisdom of our body. For a classic treatment of the importance of the body in healing trauma, read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk.
Mindfulness meditation is an embodied spiritual practice with numerous benefits for mind, body, and spirit. For those in recovery (which is most people to one degree or another), it is an essential component of step eleven: “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.” As Eddie Vedder sings: “Stay with me. Let’s just breathe.”
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
Mindfulness Meditation: An Introduction {part 1 of 6}
Listen: “Morning Has Broken” by Yusuf/Cat Stevens
Most of my life I have begun my day with a morning devotion. I started a devotional practice while I was in high school which included prayers, scripture reading, occasional journaling, and meditation. My meditation practice was focused on deep reflection and memorization of my favorite scripture passages. I memorized thousands of scripture passages through the years including whole chapters of the Bible, select paragraphs and verses, and the Sermon on the Mount.
At the end of 2018 I went to rehab in Georgia to detox off of Xanax and alcohol which I had used every night for two years due to a thirty-year struggle with insomnia. While in rehab I was exposed to a therapy model called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) which has a mindfulness meditation component. I learned about the neuroscience of the brain, the science of addiction, and the science behind mindfulness meditation.
After I got out of rehab, I decided to pursue mindfulness meditation and incorporate the practice into my morning devotions. I found a meditation group and started practicing with the group. In 2023 I enrolled in a two-year mindfulness meditation teacher certification program (MMTCP) led by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.
There are many forms of meditation practice. What do we mean by mindfulness meditation?
What is meditation? Meditation involves training, directing, and focusing our attention in a deliberate way. It is the human capacity to open to perspectives larger than our ordinary consciousness or our small sense of separate self.
What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, caring attention to the here and now. Traditional components of mindfulness (Pali/Sanskrit traditions) include two wings: (1) Receptive—a spacious, kind, non-judging awareness of the present; and (2) Active—an appropriate response to the present situation rooted in lovingkindness.
Reactivity. The most ancient part of the human brain is called the amygdala. It’s the fight, flight, freeze part of the brain. Our amygdala wants to help us survive so it records experiences which could potentially kill us at a deep emotional level. Once an experience is embedded in the deep memory, our amygdala scans the horizon of our experiences looking for similar threats. Our amygdala is hypersensitive, and it can easily detect threats which do not exist.
Daniel Goleman coined the term “amygdala hijack” in his work on emotional intelligence. An amygdala hijack is “an immediate, overwhelming emotional response out of proportion to the stimulus because it has triggered a more significant emotional memory and threat from our past experiences.”
Most people struggle at times with a “racing brain” or “monkey mind.” My insomnia is rooted in my anxiety disorder which causes my brain to race with thoughts which I can’t turn off at night. Most people live their lives in reactivity due to this human phenomenon. Even mild forms of a “racing brain” result in disconnecting our bodies from our brains and make it extremely difficult to live into the present moment. Our brains are always regretting something from our past (a past behavior or conversation) or fearing something in the future. I have a strong planning brain which is goal oriented. My “to-do” lists which are connected to my future goals are on hyperdrive for fear I forget something or fail to foresee potential threats and opportunities.
Another uncomfortable intrusion is a harsh inner-critic. I know people who are extremely loving to other people, but they have a harsh inner critic of themselves (shame). We humans can be ten times harder on ourselves than we would be towards other people. All of this reactivity can cause a sense of foreboding joy even when things are going well. Our amygdala is always scanning the horizon looking for potential threats.
This constant reactivity in the brain (to ourselves, our circumstances, and other people) can cause us to search for ways to calm ourselves of the stress it creates. Resisting, suppressing, numbing, and disassociating become regular habits which we incorporate into our lives to survive the stress we feel.
Benefits. Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, said: “Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in that space is your power and your freedom.” The science of mindfulness meditation reveals that the practice helps calm the mind, open the heart, and expand the space between stimulus and response. Mindfulness practice supports healing from anxiety, insomnia, ADHD, and PTSD, and fosters self-compassion, wisdom, and lovingkindness.
Four foundations. Mindfulness practice focuses on four foundations: (1) mindfulness of body; (2) mindfulness of feelings; (3) mindfulness of thoughts; and (4) mindfulness of experiences, relationships, and life processes. Its practices are found within all the great faith traditions, especially among the mystic and contemplative practitioners. It’s one of the cornerstones of the recovery tradition (Step Eleven): “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God….”
Poet T. S. Eliot wrote: “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
Waves Of Emotion
Listen: “Serotonin” by Girl in Red
As I was watching the Chiefs AFC Championship game against the Baltimore Ravens on January 28, 2024, I experienced waves of emotions. I had a hard time sitting down. I was jumping out of my seat, at times yelling at the TV and pacing in the living room. In the three hours of viewing the game, my emotions went from the heights of joy and excitement to the depths of discouragement and frustration. All those emotions for a game that has little bearing on the day-to-day realities of my life.
Sunday, February 11, 2024, I watched Super Bowl LVIII as the Chiefs played the 49ers. I got so frustrated I turned off the game during the second half, but I was recording it. When the normal time length of the game ended, I didn’t hear any fireworks go off, so I assumed we lost. Then, well beyond the end of the normal game period, I heard fireworks going off in my neighborhood—I immediately thought: “We won in overtime!” So, I went back and watched the game knowing the outcome. It was glorious! I’ve been a Chiefs fan since we won Super Bowl IV.
The following Wednesday, February 14, I was watching the Chiefs parade from the comfort and safety of my own home. It was a proud moment for Kansas City, and I was soaking in the joy while I was preparing for my Ash Wednesday service amidst the Chiefs celebration, Valentine’s Day, and Ash Wednesday.
Then, shots rang out. Chaos ensued. People started grabbing their kids and running for safety. KC police went into action. What started as a proud, showcase moment for Kansas City ended in trauma for many. The investigation is ongoing, and facts are coming in slowly, but, at the time of this writing, one person was killed, 22 others were injured, and two juveniles have been charged.
One of my close relatives was friends with the person who was killed (a DJ on a local radio station), and another friend had a nephew who was shot in the buttocks. This was a family event. Schools and businesses closed for the parade with an estimated 800,000 in attendance. In a matter of minutes, Kansas City went from the heights of collective joy and solidarity to the depths of collective trauma.
What are the healthiest ways of living with our emotions? All of us have experienced the roller coaster of emotions which we call life, and what CBS Wide World of Sports tagged years ago—The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.
Let’s set aside the social critique of gun violence in America and focus on living with our emotions in healthy ways. (Btw, I am in agreement with over 60% of Americans who want sensible gun control in America, and Missouri gun laws are abysmal. As a follower of Jesus, I have always tried to live by the Sermon on the Mount and take non-violence seriously.)
The importance of emotional intelligence. In 1995, Daniel Goleman published the bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence (EI), which highlighted the importance of EI in leadership performance. EI is a better indicator of leadership success than IQ. Goleman defined EI as a set of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance: self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, and relational management.
I was a big proponent of applying and teaching the insights of EI to my pastoral team at Vineyard Church in Kansas City, MO which I founded and pastored from 1990 to 2019. The problem that developed for me personally was that I tried to manage my personal emotions (particularly emotions which I considered negative like fear, anger, anxiety, and sexual energy) with some unhealthy strategies.
Unfortunately, as a young student of the Bible, I interpreted the Apostle Paul’s admonition in Galatians 5:16-23 as a prescription for managing my emotions. Paul talked about a battle between the flesh and the spirit. (It certainly feels like a battle at times, but we need healthy strategies for managing our emotions.) I wanted the fruit of the spirit which Paul described as things like love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and kindness. So, I tried to battle, suppress, avoid, and conquer my negative emotions in order to experience the fruit of the spirit.
The pathway to healthy emotional regulation. The problem is that battling and suppressing negative emotions does not work. A classic analogy: It’s like trying to push a big beach ball under the water and hold it under water indefinitely. It eventually pops up out of the water. Neuroscience and psychological insights have shown that “What We Resist Persists.”
Resisting negative emotions actually backfires and gives them more power and energy. A better, healthier technique was introduced by meditation teacher Michele McDonald about 25 years ago called RAIN Meditation. (Also see, Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN by Tara Brach.) The meditation practice of RAIN is a healthy way to process negative emotions.
R—Recognize what is happening. Research has shown that just taking time to pause, identify, and name an emotion is the first step for down regulating our sympathetic nervous system. (See Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett.)
A—Allow it. Whatever the emotion is, allow it. Receive it as a guest. “Hello fear and anxiety, my old traveling companions, how are you today?”
I—Investigate with a gentle, curious attention. As you investigate your emotions, don’t judge or be critical of your emotions, even if you don’t like it. Try to investigate the emotion with openness, curiosity, and non-judgment.
N—Nuture with kind presence. By practicing RAIN meditation, we can begin to observe our emotions without identifying with them and getting caught in them. Emotions will rise and fall like waves in the ocean.
This is also a practice which can begin a healing process for our individual and collective trauma. I wish you peace and lovingkindness on your journey towards well-being and wholeness.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
Faith: Risk with Direction
Listen: “Shake It Out” by Florence + The Machine
How many of you love New Year’s resolutions? How many of you hate New Year’s resolutions? As we press into 2024, what new faith adventures will unfold for us? I know. Some of you dislike risk and adventure, but it’s actually impossible to live without it. The riskiest thing you do most every day is to get in your car and drive.
I had a spiritual mentor (John Wimber) in the 90’s who often said: “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.” He was focusing on the adventure dynamics of faith. The word “faith” can mean different things. We can talk about faith traditions like Christianity or Buddhism, which focuses on belief systems. Faith can also mean “trust.” Trust in God. Trust in people. Trust in ourselves. And sometimes faith is closely related to “hope.” We take a risk and hope for a good outcome. A well-known passage in the Bible says: “Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:6).
I like to think of my spiritual journey through life as a faith adventure. I’ve always loved outdoor adventure, and I enjoy taking risks which relate to desired outcomes. You can’t grow spiritually without taking risks. You can’t grow a business or an organization without taking risks. A faith adventure always involves a potential for failure which is why many people are risk averse.
Several years ago (2018), I was attending a pastor conference. Pastors tend to talk shop, church shop, so I usually ask pastors what they do for fun. It gets the conversation off church, and I learn more about the person. On this particular occasion, I was having dinner with a pastor from Ireland (Andy Masters). When I asked him what he did for fun, he said: “I love to rock climb.” I was so excited. I have asked hundreds of pastors this question around the world for a few decades, and this was the first pastor who told me they liked rock climbing. I have been rock climbing since my late teens.
We talked rock climbing for the next hour, and then I asked him about his family. He said his wife was a singer. I asked what kind of singing, and he said: “She’s a jazz singer and tours with Van Morrison.” His wife, Dana Masters, is an African-American jazz singer whom he met in Los Angeles one year. They married and built their home in Ireland together, and Dana was recruited by Van when he heard her sing one night in Ireland. I was so surprised.
Andy had always dreamed of rock climbing in Colorado, so in the summer of 2018 we took his whole family to Colorado for a rock climbing adventure. Dana’s mother came along to watch the kids, and she shared her experiences of marching with Martin Luther King, Jr. So amazing!
Prior to traveling to Colorado with the Master’s family, I was on a vacation in Ireland with my sisters, and I met up with Andy in Ireland. I wanted to mountain bike and rock climb in Ireland. Andy set me up with one of his young friends who was a mountain bike pro in Ireland. His friend found an Irish mountain bike for me and before we began the ride, he said: “Oh, by the way, Irish mountain bikes are different than American mountain bikes. The brakes are reversed.” I’m glad he told me, but I didn’t think much of it. We hopped on the mountain bikes and started climbing up a mountain. It took us over an hour to climb up the mountain and then came the fast bomb down the mountain. He’s flying down the mountain, and I’m trying to keep up.
We come to the first big drop off a rock ledge, and I push the bike out in front of me to get behind my seat so I can land the drop on my rear wheel. For years I have used my right rear brake to control the rear wheel when it hits the ground. I do it automatically without thinking.
The problem this time is that I am hitting my right brake which in Ireland is my front brake. I unintentionally locked up my front wheel, and when it hit the ground it launched me over my handlebars. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to tuck and roll out of it. I’m flying through the air like Superman, and I’m thinking: “This is going to hurt.” I arched back so I wouldn’t face plant, but I landed in rocks and tore myself up. I was bleeding from my elbows, chest, and knees. Nothing was broken, so I got back on the bike and finished the ride. But I was more mindful of my brakes for the rest of the ride. Tough lesson.
Some risks don’t turn out well—a new relationship, a new job, a new company, a new adventure. Some risks can be very foolish. Some risks can be a little edgy, not foolish, but on the edge. But all of us take risks, even if it's driving our car to the grocery store. Faith adventures always involve risks, and nothing we do in life is risk free (except maybe watching television in your comfy chair but I knew a guy who died of a heart attack in his comfy chair).
So how do we navigate the risks inherent in this world in which we live? My whole life I have been very driven to accomplish goals. I have always had a 3–5-year plan, and I worked the plan year after year. I have failed many times, and I have succeeded many times. I loved being a visionary leader and leading my church to exciting growth year after year for almost three decades. Always taking calculated risks that usually paid off well.
Suddenly, while I was pastoring one of the fastest growing churches in America, not riding an Irish mountain bike, I crashed and burned spiritually. I found out I couldn’t fly and tore myself up emotionally and spiritually. I went through a massive meltdown and lost most everything—my career, my community, my marriage, and even my faith was shattered.
Everything went dark. Loss on top of loss. Darkness like I have never experienced. The only passage in the Bible to which I related was the one Jesus quoted from the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1-2).
I had lost most everything, and I needed a safe place to fall apart. The recovery community was that safe place for me. In the midst of my darkness, I had no vision, no 3–5-year plan, no direction, no sense of guidance.
In fact, I didn’t care if I lived or died. But I was still breathing. Barely alive. Without any vision, my only mission was survival—One Day at A Time. I was talking to Brian McLaren processing some of my grief, and he said: “Sometimes survival is underrated.” Just survive and recover—One Day at A Time. That was never one of my ideas of a faith adventure, but in my case, that’s all I had in me—survival.
As I started stringing some days together just surviving, I started thinking about the rest of my life. I still have breath. I’m still alive. How do I want to live the rest of my life? I had no great vision, but how do I heal and move forward?
I started focusing on the kind of person I want to become. As I was questioning everything, even God’s existence, I thought: “Even if there is no God, there is love in the world. There is beauty in the world. There is creativity in the world. There is flourishing in the world along side darkness, suffering, destruction, and evil.” So, I decided I wanted to give myself to what is lovely and beautiful while focusing on becoming the kind of person who helps advance love and beauty in the world.
I boiled everything down to a few core values with the intention of becoming a more loving human being. For me, I latched onto some core values in the recovery community—rigorous honesty, vulnerability, humility, and gratitude—all of which are enveloped in love. I decided to be rigorously honest and vulnerable about who I am and what I am going through with a safe and loving group of people.
This was a new faith adventure of sorts—risk with direction. Could I trust God even in the darkness? Could I trust people again? Could I find a safe community in which I could fall apart and rebuild? Was I willing to take the risk with a clear focus on becoming, instead of my typical 3–5-year plan? I could crash and burn all over again. I knew I couldn’t fly. Already tried that.
Perhaps, if you don’t like making new year resolutions, maybe you can just focus on becoming. What’s interesting for me is after a few years of focusing on becoming, my vision is starting to percolate again. I guess I haven’t ventured too far from my roots. As I conclude this blog, I am reminded of one of the Apostle Paul’s most famous quotes from the love chapter: “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
Faith Adventures for 2024
Happy New Year to everyone!
As another year ends, we look forward to 2024 with hope and faith at Spirituality Adventures.
Join us in-person or by live stream Friday night January 12 for Martin, Music, and the Movement Now! Music by Calvin Arsenia, Kadesh Flow, and Just Angel. Keynote Speaker is Dr. Nicole Price. Panel Discussion with Pastor Michael Brooks, Pastor Greg Ealy, Pastor Anthony Mondaine, and Pastor Fred Herron.
I started a memoir last year and came close to finishing the rough draft over the holidays. I am working with an editor and hope to publish it in 2024!
Don’t miss our weekly podcasts which are released on YouTube and all the podcast platforms and be sure and subscribe and share all your favorite episodes.
Risk with Direction
Take a few minutes and listen to my new talk on faith, goal setting, and the art of becoming.
Wishing you a new year filled with fresh gratitude, awareness, love, beauty, and creativity.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2024
gift economy
Listen: “Kind & Generous” by Natalie Merchant
I was born in Wichita, Kansas, but moved to the Kansas City area in 1966. I was five years old living in Prairie Village, Kansas. My dad was hired by TWA when the airport was located downtown. While I was attending Prairie Elementary School, the YMCA put on a program called Indian Guides at the church across the street from my school. Indian Guides was an effort to teach white kids indigenous culture.
I was seven or eight years old when my dad enrolled me in Indian Guides. It was my first introduction to North American indigenous culture. By the way, the program was eventually critiqued, and the name was changed to Adventure Guides. But for me, as a seven-year-old, I didn't understand all the different perspectives which were contained in that critique. As I kid, I ended up loving indigenous culture. I started reading books about indigenous culture and started studying the history of all that happened with indigenous peoples: the broken treaties, the stealing of the land, and the indoctrination of European perspectives on land rights. I didn't know any of that when I started Indian Guides, but I developed a love for indigenous peoples because of the program.
And it was a love that continued throughout my whole life. I actually like the indigenous vision of seeing all of nature as living beings. It’s a healthy vision. There are passages in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures which reference mountains singing and trees clapping their hands (Isaiah 55:12). If you read Psalm 19, notice that the first Bible for all living beings is nature itself. The first Bible is nature. Psalm 19 observes how all creation speaks—the voice of nature speaks—and it sees all of nature as living beings from which we can learn. I have always loved nature, and I love that indigenous vision of nature.
I recently read a new favorite book on indigenous culture. As many of you know, I love bicycles, and I love books. If you hang out around me long enough, I'll encourage you to ride a bike, and I’ll recommend a book or two. The book is by Robin Wall Kimmerer entitled Braiding Sweetgrass. She published this book with a small press back in 2013, but it's one of those books that every artist dreams of. It basically became popular by word of mouth. Over the last 10 years, it's sold 1.6 million copies. Robin studied as a botanist, but her family background was of mixed descent with a strong indigenous heritage from the Algonquin tribes, particularly the Potawatomi tribe from the Great Lakes region. The subtitle of her book is Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.
As we explore the topic of generosity, I think Robin Wall Kemmerer’s book, which integrates indigenous wisdom with scientific knowledge, has some beautiful insights which need to be integrated with our Judeo-Christian tradition.
The first insight comes from the indigenous origin story of humanity. Robin opens her book with the origin story of how humans landed on this planet according to her Potawatomi tradition. It’s the story of “Skywoman Falling.” Skywoman existed in the sky before she fell to earth. Skywoman steps through a hole in the sky, falls through the sky, and plunges towards dark waters. As she's falling, geese see her and flock to her aid and catch her to soften her fall. As she falls, she hits the dark waters and begins to plunge into the depths of the dark water. Other animals see this and move to her rescue. A muskrat swims down, pulls her up, and gives his life for Skywoman. As the muskrat takes his last breath, he's got some mud in his hand.
A turtle offers her support for Skywoman and says: “Put the mud on my back.” Skywoman is rescued by the animals and the turtle. As Skywoman expresses her gratitude, she begins to spread the mud on the turtle's back and dance in gratitude on top of the mud, which then begins to expand. The whole earth expands out of this mud on the turtle's back. According to Potawatomi tradition, North Americans live on Turtle Island. That's the name of our homeland, Turtle Island, according to indigenous peoples.
What's beautiful about this story is that humanity is in harmony with nature, not at odds with nature. That's a big point—an origin story where humanity is in harmony with nature, not at odds with nature.
Now, if you think about the Christian origin story, and by the way, there are many origin stories from ancient cultures. The Judeo-Christian story starts in Genesis 1 &2. What you see is humanity made in the image of God, men and women, both fully made in the image of God. And they're placed in the garden, a beautiful garden sanctuary. The whole garden is like a garden temple. In Genesis 2:15 humanity is given responsibility to “tend and watch” the garden and all of creation. Humanity's task is to tend and watch, to care, to steward, to nurture, and to live in harmony with all creation. It's a vision of harmony with nature. It's a beautiful vision.
Unfortunately, what happens for many Christians in various Christian traditions, is that they start the Christian origin story in Genesis 3. Genesis 3 is a story of shame, cursedness, and banishment from the Garden of Eden. For some people in Christianity, Original Sin becomes the origin story. I think if you start with Genesis 3, you end up distorting the origin story. Shame is certainly a condition which humans experience. I experienced deep, dark shame in 2019, but shame is not our true identity. We need to be healed from shame. Genesis 1 & 2 describes our true nature and true calling—one of Original Blessing and Goodness. Genesis 1 & 2 calls us to live in harmony with nature—in sustainability, mutuality, and reciprocity with nature. Shame banishes us from the garden, and we live in enmity with ourselves, each other, and the planet. We need to learn from indigenous wisdom and restore a vision of Original Blessing from Genesis 1 & 2.
The second insight Robin gives us regards how indigenous culture values a gift economy versus a commodity economy. Kimmerer reminds us of how Europeans arrived on Turtle Island with a different view of the world. Europeans didn’t see nature as living beings with which to live in harmony and reciprocity. Rather, they viewed nature as a commodity—a commodity which could be conquered, owned, bought, and sold. Commodities can cease to be gifts. Gifts create harmonious relationships with the gift, the giver, the receiver, and the co-creator.
Think about it, we human beings can't live on our own when we're first born. The fact that you exist means that you have received gifts of nurture and support just to be living and breathing right now. You've received thousands of gifts which have been bestowed on your life in order for you to exist. Gifts of food, water, clothing, shelter, and love, all of which derive from nature, family, friends, and acquaintances.
We have to draw upon nature for living water and bread of life. We live in community, hopefully in loving community, and in harmony with nature. But if we view everything as a commodity, we begin to lose the relationship with nature and with each other. So, for example, how many of you have ever received a gift from somebody that was just a commodity, that was purchased at a store, maybe a big box store? They gave it to you as a gift, but it really didn't mean a whole lot. Anybody have some items laying around their house or in your closets or in your garage that were just simply a commodity? And the origin of that particular gift is almost meaningless, right?
On the other hand, how many of you have received a gift given with love which produces a loving relationship with the giver? Every Christmas my mother would decorate a Christmas tree, and on that Christmas tree she would hang the ugliest Christmas ornament that you could imagine—front and center. It was a Christmas angel I made for her when I was in the first grade. It was made out of something like flour and water. It was like a Play-Doh angel. Remember the Pillsbury Doughboy? It was a female version of that, a chubby little angel with wings, with little chubby, short legs, and with a big chubby belly. I shaped it with my hands and painted beautiful golden hair and blue wings. I think it’s one of the ugliest angels I’ve ever seen. Over the course of time, its wings fell off and then its legs fell off.
After a few decades, it was just a head and a body, but it still made its way onto the Christmas tree. And my mom cherishes that gift. You understand why it's not a commodity, right? There's a relationship with me, the gift, and my mom. But honestly, if we could learn to live like that with all of creation, with all of nature, if we could begin to restore the relationship with gift, giver, creator, and receiver, with what we eat, with how we live, and with how we love, then we would be living in the loving, uncontrolling, ever giving, ever creating heart of God.
There's a beautiful vision that Robin Wall Kimmerer is trying to reclaim by writing Braiding Sweetgrass. She's trying to restore this vision of generosity, of receiving and giving gifts, and of seeing all of life as a gift. We have a relationship with all living beings and nature and people who give into our lives. And then we give back with love and beauty and grace and generativity.
Proverbs 11:24-25 reads: “Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed” (NLT). I don't prefer the word “wealthy” because we all of a sudden think of bank accounts, but what we're talking about is a vision of generosity and reciprocity. If you want to reap what you sow, don't just sow one seed and check on it every day and pull it out of the ground just to see if it's working. That's sowing with stinginess. Sow everything generously. And then don't worry about how it comes back, but trust that it will come back. This is reciprocity, a karma of sorts—sowing and reaping. It's a gift type economy where we give and sow freely, generously out of a heart of love and gratitude because we've received so much. We keep those gifts in motion, and there's a flow and a relationship between the gift, the giver, and the receiver.
Indigenous peoples cherished a gift economy where everything's in motion. You give and you receive; and you receive and you give. But all of a sudden, European settlers didn’t see it that way. Indigenous peoples were stigmatized as “Indian Givers” because they wanted something back. But no, that wasn't the vision. It wasn't like giving a single seed and then expecting something back in return, but it was a vision of gifts in motion. One of scattering seed all over, and then it comes back. And there's a reciprocity of love with nature, with living beings, and with humans. That's the flow of generosity—the heart of God—a gift economy.
Think about Gollum in Lord of the Rings. When he got the ring, what did he say? “Precious” and “Mine.” “It's mine.” So that's the stingy version. But the generous will prosper, and those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed. Think about the difference between homegrown, homemade versus store-bought commodities where there's no relationship. Our calling is to move into a gift economy.
Robin Wall Kimmerer also brings out is the difference between gift economy and private property. As you know, indigenous people didn't believe that someone could own the land. The land is the land. The land owns the land. Mother nature owns the land. The Great Spirit infuses the land. People don’t own the land. We simply live in reciprocity with the land and with nature. We receive gifts from it, and we give back to it. We live in sustainable ways with nature, with living beings, and with one another. But Europeans were more like Gollum when it came to the land: “It’s mine.”
I hope you’ve figured out by now that you don't take anything with you when you leave this planet, right? We can try. I mean, if you visit the Egyptian pyramids and some of the wealthy pharaohs, they buried a bunch of stuff with them for comforts in the afterlife. But really, we don't take it with us, right? You leave it all behind. You know, the old funny statement: “There's no U-Haul’s following a hearse.” I've done hundreds of funerals, and you don't take it with you. You leave it all behind. Who owns it? Who owns your stuff? Who owns your house? Who owns your car? Who owns your things? Robin Wall Kimmerer shows that in a gift economy, nobody really owns it. It's all just a gift in motion.
The land owns it. We can't own it. We can share; we can receive; and we can give. We can live in harmony. But if we try to own it and possess it, then we are moving off course. According to Psalm 24:1, who owns the earth? Psalm 24:1 says: “The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all its people belong to him for he laid the earth's foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths” (NLT). So God owns it. It's not ours. It's on loan, right? Everything that we have is on loan. And Robin Wall Kimmerer beautifully illustrates through her tradition how we desperately need to return to a vision of a gift economy—for our own well-being and the well-being of all living beings and the planet itself.
We keep everything in motion. Everything is in motion. God is always self-giving and co-creating with all of creation. And we live in that reciprocity with all living beings. And we recognize that it's not ours. It's a gift that we've received, and it's a gift to be shared. There's a responsibility that comes with the gifts that we receive, and there's a responsibility to share the gifts that we receive. There’s an interesting verse that most people have never read or noticed in the Torah. The first five books of the Old Testament (The Hebrew Bible) is called the Torah. One of the Torah passages, Leviticus 25:23 says: “The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me [God]. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me” (NLT).
So Israel doesn't own the land. We actually don’t own anything. It’s on loan. I think that's really what the Torah's pointing towards. The Torah is more in sync with the indigenous wisdom of a gift economy. There's a celebration every fifty years called Jubilee in the Torah. People who have lost land and fallen into debt are forgiven. Debts are forgiven and land is redistributed. Jubilee resets everything. And the land goes back to original ownership. You don't ever lose your land forever. There's a beautiful vision that everything we have is just on loan, and we don't really own it. We can steward resources with a new vision of gift economy.
With this vision of a gift economy, Robin Wall Kimmerer calls us to live in harmony and gratitude with nature, other living beings, one another, and the plant itself. Through ceremonies we can live with a new sense of gratitude and awareness. This is what mindfulness meditation does for me. And according to Robin, we can create our own ceremonies or rituals for gratitude, thanksgiving, and awareness. One of the things that her dad did, even though her dad had been separated from the Potawatomi tradition due to some of the European practices that separated indigenous peoples from their lands and from their native ways, was teach Robin the ways of indigenous wisdom.
Robin recalls how they would go on family camping and canoe trips in the Great Lakes area, and every morning they would get up her dad would make coffee. When he made coffee every morning, he would boil it and pour off the coffee grounds that rose to the top, similar to the ancient coffee ceremonies in Ethiopia. He would pour the coffee grounds into the land, and they would become one with the humus. He would give thanks to Tahawus, which was the indigenous name for Mount Marcy meaning cloud splitter, and the Great Spirit.
Robin often asked her dad how far back in history the coffee ceremony originated. She wanted to know the richness of that history because as a trained scientific botanist she had lost some of the magic of the indigenous teachings of plants and nature. She was thinking that there was some special, magical tradition that extended back in ancient indigenous practices.
However, Robin records her father’s response and her own:
“I’ve been thinking about the coffee and how we started giving it to the ground. You know, it was boiled coffee. There’s no filter and if it boils too hard the grounds foam up and get stuck in the spout. So the first cup you pour would get that plug of grounds and be spoiled. I think we first did it to clear the spout.” It was as if he’d told me that the water didn’t change into wine—the whole web of gratitude, the whole story of remembrance, was nothing more than the dumping of the grounds?
“But, you know,” he said, “there weren’t always grounds to clear. It started out that way, but it became something else. A thought. It was a kind of respect, a kind of thanks. On a beautiful summer morning, I suppose you could call it joy.”
That, I think, is the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle like grounds mingled with humus, transformed like steam rising from a mug into the morning mist.
What else can you offer the earth, which has everything? What else can you give but something of yourself? A homemade ceremony, a ceremony that makes a home.
The first Bible is nature itself. Psalms 19 declares: “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known” (Ps 19:1-2; NLT). It's a beautiful way to immerse ourselves in the loving, self-giving heart of God who co-creates a gift economy with all of creation.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Negativity/Positivity Bias
“Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones,” according to Rick Hanson, author of Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. One of the most ancient parts of the human brain is called the amygdala. It sits on top of the brain stem and regulates our fight, flight, freeze responses. These responses are ancient and hardwired into our brain in order to protect us. In the ancient world of hunting and gathering, one’s survival depended on a quick reaction to potential threats that could kill you.
The amygdala is not the thinking part of the brain; it’s the reactionary part of the brain. It scans the horizon of our human experience looking for threats and warning us by activating limbic system for fight, flight, and freeze. It stores threatening experiences by recording them emotionally. This is how PTSD occurs.
Once a threatening emotional experience is stored deeply in our brain stem our amygdala continues to scan the horizons of our human experience to warn us of another potential threat. The more powerful and threatening the experience, the more deeply it is stored in our brain. It evolved this way to help us survive.
Unfortunately, in the modern world, our amygdala can overreact—an amygdala hijack. The term was coined by Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Today, it is considered a formal academic term by affective neuroscientists. According to Goldman, an amygdala hijack is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat.
This is the source of our negativity bias. Negative emotional experiences stick like Velcro. Our minds quickly obsess on negative emotions, replaying past regrets and future fears. It’s the source of my long history with insomnia—my racing brain—which keeps me up at night.
How can we regulate an overactive amygdala? Certainly, some people need professional help (such as a psychiatrist, therapist, and group therapy, myself included), but we can also develop resources within ourselves. This is where mindfulness meditation can help.
Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, has famously stated: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Mindfulness meditation helps grow the space.
Rick Hanson has pointed out how we need to nurture and cultivate positivity. Negativity sticks like Velcro, without any effort on our part. Positivity is a different creature. Hanson says we need to reflect on positive experiences for at least fifteen seconds for these experiences to stick, otherwise they slide away like Teflon. We, in a very real sense, have to rewire our brain with spiritual practices like meditation and contemplation.
Here’s a simple practice for you to try. Find a quiet place to sit for five to ten minutes and follow this process for a guided meditation which will help you nurture positivity and happiness. Try it and let me know how it goes.
Find a comfortable posture. Sit and take three deep breaths. Relax and scan your body from head to toe. Focus on relaxing your muscles and places of tension in your body. Take three more deep breaths and allow a half-smile to form on your face.
Bring something to mind that brings you joy. It might be an experience in nature, in a forest or by a lake, stream, or ocean. It might be an experience of dancing with a loved one or a moment with a pet. Take a deep breath and bring this memory to mind. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations which this memory elicits. Hold this memory for at least one minute.
Bring something to mind that is a blessing. Think of someone or something for whom you are grateful. Take a deep breath and bring this memory to mind. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations which this memory recalls. Hold this memory for at least one minute.
Bring something to mind that makes you laugh with joy. Think of an experience with a person, a pet, or a circumstance which caused joyful laughter. Take a deep breath and bring this memory to mind. Remember the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations which this memory contains. Hold this memory for at least one minute.
Express gratitude for these experiences. Verbalize your gratitude. Take a moment and journal (or voice memo) your gratitude for these experiences. Take a deep breath and sense the joy of being alive.
This is a simple exercise. It doesn’t take much time. And you will quickly feel the benefits of this mindfulness practice. If you incorporate regular meditation practice over a period of time, just like physical exercise, you will begin to rewire your brain with a greater capacity to experience and cultivate positivity, joy, and happiness.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Ever Growing, Changing, and Evolving
Listen: “Courage to Change” by Sia
I’m Not There is a 2007 musical drama film loosely based on the life of Bob Dylan. It’s one of the most unique biographical films I have ever watched. Apart from the film’s opening caption which states—“Inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan”—Dylan is not mentioned or seen except in the song credits and concert footage at the end of the film.
Six different actors depict six different facets of Dylan’s public persona—Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw. While I watched the film, I thought of how we all grow, change, and develop as human beings over the course of a lifetime. I thought it was a beautiful way to depict how we humans evolve and/or devolve.
I have always valued human growth and life-long learning. I love learning, reading, exploring, and sharing what I have learned. Sometimes I wish I could download new information to my brain, like Neo in the Matrix movie when he learned Kung-fu. I try to foster my own personal growth and to nurture the growth of others—spiritually, mentally, socially, physically, vocationally, and recreationally.
Many psychologists have explored stages of human development, such as Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages—Infancy: Trust vs. Mistrust; Early Childhood: Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt; Play Age: Initiative vs. Guilt; School Age: Industry vs. Inferiority; Adolescence: Indentity vs. Confusion; Early Adulthood: Intimacy vs. Isolation; Middle Age: Generativity vs. Stagnation; Old Age: Integrity vs. Despair.
Brian McLaren has done a great job of applying stage development theory to stages of faith in his book Faith After Doubt. He condenses a vast amount of stage theory research into four stages of faith—Simplicity: Dualistic/Right or Wrong; Pragmatic: Success or Failure; Perplexity: Critical/Relativistic/Honest/Authentic; Harmony: Inclusion and Transcendence.
I think all of us can benefit from stepping back from our lives and reflecting on our own life’s journey from a stage development perspective while asking ourselves the deeply complex questions: Why am I here? What is my purpose? Where am I going?
Over the last couple of years, I have felt compelled (by God or myself or a combination) to write a memoir in which I reflect on my own life journey from a “philosophical/theological/stages of faith” perspective. At this point, I have found an editor with whom to work, and I have written the rough draft on fourteen of approximately twenty chapters. I hope to finish the rough draft by the end of 2023.
I’m having fun with it. Instead of “six different facets of Dylan’s public persona,” I am thinking of “three different facets of Fred’s public/private persona.” My public and private personas will hopefully meld into one. Instead of “inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan,” it will be “inspired by the ministry and many lives of Fred Herron.” This isn’t grandiose thinking; it simply gave me some interesting framework through which to reflect about my own journey. I think everyone could write a similar memoir and benefit from it. That’s why I love to do story-based interviews on my podcast—Spirituality Adventures. We grow best together, and we can learn from each other.
At this point, I am thinking the memoir will have three parts: Southern Baptist Fred, Vineyard Fred, and Prodigal Pastor Fred. Here’s a brief preview. I hope it comes out in 2024.
Southern Baptist Fred
Growing up Baptist
Drugs & Rock and Roll
Following Jesus
Called to Christian ministry
Education (BA, MDiv), ministry experience
Conservative/moderate theology
Vineyard Fred
Charismatic leanings
Church planting with the Vineyard
More education (DMin, PhD work)
Hebrew/Progressive theology
Mega-church pastor
Prodigal Pastor Fred
Private/Public meltdown
Darkness & DoubtsFalling Upward
Recovery/Meditation
Process theology
Love & Grace
Prodigal is an old English word which means “extravagant.” Someone can be extravagant in waste like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke story (Luke 15:11-32), or someone can be extravagant in grace like the Father in the Gospel of Luke story. I have been a “prodigal” in both senses at different times in my life. Mostly, however, I have desired to be extravagant in love and grace—Always. If I err, I try to err on the side of love and grace. For me, it’s Love & Grace. Period (1 John 4:16)!
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Original Blessing
Listen: “The Blessing” with Kari Jobe & Cody Carnes
In 2019 I was buried in the deepest shame I have ever experienced. I didn’t care if I lived or died. My worst failures which I privately confessed had been publicly exposed in December of 2018 while I was in rehab. I hated myself. I was humiliated. I wanted to disappear from the planet (or at least from Kansas City).
A friend from the National Prayer Breakfast mailed me a copy of Richard Rohr’s book, Falling Upward, which got my faith off the ventilator. I started reading all the books Richard referenced which led me to Original Blessing by Matthew Fox. These two books provided valuable perspectives which ignited my journey of healing from shame.
Unfortunately, many Christian traditions have taught people to live out of a concept called “original sin” instead of “original blessing.” In the Bible, “original blessing” is the ancient story of creation in Genesis 1 & 2. There are deep truths in this ancient creation story which speak to our true identity, our true self. However, many Christians skip Genesis 1 & 2 and start the Christian story in Genesis 3, which is a story about shame.
Shame is a human experience, but it is not our true identity. Sociologist/author Brené Brown has spent her professional career studying the damaging effects of shame and how to heal from shame. She defines shame as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection” (brenebrown.com, January 15, 2013). It usually results in a harsh inner critic which tells us we are “never good enough.”
In Genesis 3, humanity experiences shame (Adam and Eve), but shame does not come from God. God never stops loving and never stops pursuing humanity. Shame is a human condition which causes us to think we aren’t worthy of love. We separate ourselves from belonging and connection because we don’t feel worthy. Shame shatters our human dignity and causes us to live in the shadows of superficiality and isolation. Shame is never healthy (which is different than guilt) and can only be healed through our own vulnerability and the unconditional love we can offer ourselves as well as receive from God and other special, loving, grace-based humans.
If we live out of shame (Genesis 3), then our origin story can sound something like this: “Human beings are conceived and born in sin. Humans are so dirty and rotten that they deserve to burn in hell for all eternity. Humans are desperately wicked at the core of their being.” What parent holds their first-born child and thinks such destructive thoughts? I can’t look at a newborn without believing in God. Babies are crazy good and beautiful, and I’ve always wanted to be a father and experience the transforming, unconditional loving bond of parenthood.
Shame is not the original ancient story, but it is often portrayed as such by some Christian traditions. In Genesis 1 & 2, we find a noble story of human origins, a deeper truth about the human condition. It goes something like this:
Original Goodness. As creation unfolds, God delighted in the goodness and beauty of all creation, including human beings. God declared over and over again: “It is good!” Genesis 1 & 2 were written in poetic prose, so it’s like God was singing over creation with love as creation bursts forth.
Original Creativity. As God sings and creation bursts forth, God called all creation to “multiply” or “co-create” with God. A loving God calls all creation to thrive with creative energy—singing, dancing, laughing, celebrating, innovating, dreaming, loving, serving, nurturing, painting, gardening, skipping, surfing, climbing, sailing, caring, cooking, eating, drinking, building, harvesting, planting, and growing. Creativity is at the heart of the human experience as we partner with God to create beauty and loving community.
Original Dignity. “So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27; NLT). Matthew Fox quotes the German Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart: “…hidden in all of us is something like the original outbreak of all goodness, something like a brilliant light that glows incessantly and something like a burning fire which burns incessantly” (Original Blessing, p. 5).
Original Responsibility. “The Lord God placed the human in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it” (Genesis 2:15; my translation). The setting was a garden sanctuary, and the calling was our responsibility to care for the planet and all of creation: to lovingly tend, nurture, care, and participate in the beauty of nature. Nature explodes like a symphony, and we play our part as we participate in making love and music.
Original Community. “Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for humans to be alone’” (Genesis 2:18; my translation). Forty years ago, only three percent of Americans reported having no friends. Today its thirteen percent. About twenty-eight percent of Americans die alone, without any friends or family around to love and support them. Isolation is the breeding ground for shame. Vulnerability is the pathway to healing shame. We need each other, especially in our struggles with shame.
This changes the human script, the inner voice of our true self and true identity. Even though we can experience shame and feel separated, we are never separated, never unloved, never cut off. The God of Love seeks connection through unconditional love. In Genesis 3:9, while Adam and Eve were hiding in shame, God pursued humanity: “Then the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’”
God’s love seeks to heal our shame and our brokenness. The divine spark of human dignity is never destroyed or abolished. Maybe marred and banged up, but not eliminated. The fire is always burning and so is God’s love. As the Apostle Paul reflects, “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s children should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is” (Ephesians 3:18; NLT).
Our true identity from Genesis 1 & 2 sounds more like this: “We are people of breathtaking worth and dignity, created in the image of loving God. As sons and daughters of the God of the Universe, we are deeply loved and valued. We are called to be caretakers and co-creators of goodness, love, and beauty.”
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Romans 8:38; NLT).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
9/11 Memorial REDUX
Listen: “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys
I visited the 9/11 Memorial Park and Museum for the first time August 19, 2022. I walked up to the South Tower Pool and looked down at the names which are inscribed upon the stone wall surrounding the fountain of water: the names of the people who died in the South Tower on 9/11. The first name I looked at was Richard Herron Woodwell. I did a double take. There are over a thousand names inscribed around the South Pool honoring the lives of those who died, and the first name I see is Richard Herron Woodwell. My dad is Richard Lee Herron and I am Frederick Lee Herron. What a strange coincidence.
I took a picture and sent a text to my dad. As I was walking through the museum, I went into the exhibit in which they display the pictures of all who died. I specifically looked for Richard Herron Woodwell. As I was standing and looking at Richard Herron Woodwell’s picture, a couple next to me was talking about Richard. As I overheard them talking, I realized the guy was a friend of Richard. I introduced myself to the couple and told them about seeing Richard’s name inscribed on the South Pool. I told them it was the first name I noticed and that my dad is named Richard Herron. We both stood there and puzzled over the chances of that scenario actually happening. What a strange synchronicity.
I am not assuming I am related to Richard Herron Woodwell, but both my dad and I looked him up online. Richard was a graduate of Dartmouth (1979) and an investment banker working on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center Tower Two on September 11, 2001. On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Jim Wasz, who was Dartmouth Class President of 1979, wrote a beautiful tribute to Richard Herron Woodwell (1979.Dartmouth.org). Maybe this blog will find its way to his surviving friends and family.
Seeing Richard Herron Woodwell’s name at the 9/11 memorial reminded me of how interconnected we are as humans. Sometimes it takes a tragedy like 9/11 to remind us of how connected we really are. Our nation feels so divided twenty-two years after 9/11, but the reality is that every human on the planet bears the image of God—we are touched with a divine spark. The nature of that divine spark is love. “God is love, and those who live in love live in God and God lives in them” (1 John 4:16).
I was reminded of this when I listened to the phone calls that were made from the passengers of hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11. The 9/11 Museum has a room in which you can listen to all the calls which were made from that flight. Every call was a call to a loved one. Knowing that death was imminent, each passenger made calls to the ones they loved in order to express their love verbally one last time. Love unites us.
The other experience I had while I toured the 9/11 Museum was my own memories of 9/11. Twenty-two years ago on Tuesday, September 11, I was preparing a message for the grand opening Sunday service of Vineyard Church at our then new location on 169 highway. I had started small groups in 1990, and then launched our first Sunday morning service at Lakeview Middle School in September 1992. We had grown to about 400 people at the middle school by September 2001.
I was preparing a new grand opening series of messages on the topic of God’s love and grace. I was gleaning from Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace.
I wanted the church to be founded on extravagant grace and love.
On that Tuesday morning twenty-two years ago, I remember going downstairs and turning on the TV and seeing the second plane hit the second tower. I fell to my knees and began to cry. I rethought my message for the Sunday after 9/11 and stuck with the theme of love and grace. I thought our world needed it. I heard so many pastors in America spewing hatred towards all Muslims in the world and LGBTQ+ people in America. All I could think of were the words of Jesus to love our neighbors and our enemies. Violence does not heal violence. Hatred does not dispel darkness—only love can do that. We had over 800 people attend that grand opening service, doubling our attendance in one week.
Twenty-two years later, I still think we need extravagant love and grace to heal our own lives, our nation, and our world. Jesus’ life and message was saturated in extravagant love and grace. Let’s immerse ourselves in that life-giving stream.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2022
Wounded Healers
Listen: "What was I made for? by Billie Eilish
Hurt people hurt people. It’s true. If you have lived long enough, you have been hurt by wounded people and you have wounded others yourself. However, the reverse is true as well. Healed people heal people. In fact, the best healers are people who have suffered, gone through a healing process, and learned to transform their wounds into sacred wounds.
How do wounds become sacred wounds? I remember reading a book by Henri Nouwen when I was in college entitled The Wounded Healer. The title alone grabbed my attention, but the content struck a deep resonance in my spirit. Nouwen believed that our common wounds and sufferings could be the starting point for our service to one another. Through openness, honesty, humility, and vulnerability, we can help each other heal from our wounds.
As a teenager, I had a transformative spiritual experience and became a follower of Jesus. At the age of sixteen, I felt called by God to devout my life to serving in Christian ministry. Prior to that sense of calling, I was participating in the recreational drug culture of the 70’s. I really wasn’t into formal religion or church, so I was wondering why God would call a teenager with a spotted past into ministry. Nouwen’s book gave me hope. Jesus was a wounded healer. Maybe I could be a minister of the “wounded healer” ilk. I felt a deeper sense of my calling: to be a wounded healer.
From that point on, I never tried to hide my past from anyone. Throughout my forty-year ministry career, I would occasionally mention my past in a sermon or in a counseling session. Every time I did that, I would have teenagers or adults who were struggling with drugs, addiction, or other life issues, and they would seek me out to talk about their struggles. It was like a superpower in ministry. My vulnerability about my past would give people the courage to open up about their own struggles.
I never imagined I would go through a three-quarter life crisis due to insomnia. In my late fifties after forty years of successful ministry, I wound up in rehab for a two and a half year Xanax and alcohol problem. I made some poor decisions under the influence of those drugs, and I hurt myself and others. I was humiliated and ashamed. I didn’t care if I lived or died. I thought my life and ministry were done.
On September 10, 2019, after a public fall from grace, a loss of my career, and the end of a thirty-seven-year marriage, I decided to give the recovery community a chance. I ended up finding a sponsor and took a year to work through the twelve steps while also working with two therapists.
When I got to the twelfth step, I was reminded of the concept of “The Wounded Healer.” The big book of AA didn’t use that phrase, but the concept was crystal clear: “Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It works when other activities fail. This is our twelfth suggestion: Carry this message to other alcoholics” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 89). Alcoholics helping alcoholics. Wounded healers. It’s one of the brilliant cornerstones of the twelve-step program, and the principle applies to all our wounds and sufferings (divorce, cancer, grief, death, crisis, etc.). We don’t heal in isolation and secrecy, but we do have the potential to heal together as wounded healers.
Richard Rohr is one of my favorite authors who has written on this topic so beautifully in so many of his books. Rohr says:
If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become cynical, negative, or bitter. This is the storyline of many of the greatest novels, myths, and stories of every culture. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children (Richard Rohr, “Transforming Pain,” cac.org, October 17, 2018).
So, I decided once again to be honest, open, and vulnerable with my wounds and my fresh past, instead of isolating and hiding. And much to my surprise, it’s true again. My sacred wounds are helping others heal. Spirituality Adventures and my new work with Living Water Christian Church—it's all about how God calls all of us to be Wounded Healers.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Restorative Justice
Listen: “Apologize” by Timbaland
One of the principles of recovery is taking responsibility for any harm one may have caused another human being. It’s called “making amends” in the recovery world. Jesus called it “reconciliation” and encouraged all human beings to practice it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught people to prioritize reconciliation above religious ritual. Jesus said if you are in a worship service and you remember someone has something against you, “Go and be reconciled to that person” (Matthew 5:23-24). In fact, Jesus consistently called upon the perpetrator and the victim to work through a process of forgiveness and restoration whenever possible—even loving and forgiving our enemies—otherwise, we live in cycles of hurt, bitterness, revenge, harm, and violence.
A few years ago I was doing some reading and came across the concept of “restorative justice.” It caught my attention, and I read some articles on the concept. One of the modern pioneers in this concept is Howard Zehr who developed his work at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. He’s written more than two dozen books on the topic.
Zehr has sought to teach restorative justice principles to families, schools, communities, prison populations, and even cyclical violence between nations such as Israel/Palestine. Zehr has also provided a critique of our justice system in America which is often focused on “retributive justice” or punishment of criminals. Restorative justice seeks to implement a relational process of restorative mediation between victims and perpetrators in the context of their relationships, families, and communities—healing and restoration are the focus.
In his book, Changing Lenses, Howard Zehr highlights six guiding questions in the process of repairing harm:
Who has been hurt?
What are their needs?
Whose obligations are these?
What are the causes?
Who has a stake in the situation?
What is the appropriate process to involve stakeholders in an effort to address causes and put things right?
In the Twelve Step recovery process, the substance abuser and the sponsor work through the steps together, which results in making of list of people one has harmed and then seeking to make amends with those people wherever possible (except when it may cause further harm). In the Restorative Justice process, trained mediators help individuals, families, and communities work through steps of restoration between victims and perpetrators. The core values upheld in the process of restoration are—Relationship, Respect, Responsibility, Repair, and Reintegration—the 5 R’s.
Most human beings live in cycles of hurt, pain, bitterness, unforgiveness, blame, and revenge. Even when we have inflicted harm on someone else, we tend to focus on what they did wrong. We justify our wrongdoing by blaming their wrongdoing. We even try to find allies who agree with us about the other person’s wrongdoing, expanding the network of those who are harmed and offended.
Someone has to break the cycle. Either the victim or the perpetrator can open the door to the potential of restoration by valuing a process of restorative justice. Blame, resentment, and revenge never heal the wounds; it usually perpetuates ongoing harm and violence. Violence does not heal violence. Resentment does not heal a broken heart.
In one of Marin Luther King, Jr.’s most famous sermons, he said: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Forgiveness is a beautiful pathway for healing hurt and trauma. As humans, we can immerse ourselves in a contagious, healing flow of love and mercy by advocating for practices of restorative justice, making amends, and peacemaking. We are called to the ministry of reconciliation and restoration in all its healing ways (2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
What We Resist Persists
Listen: “Breathe Me” by Sia
For most of my adult life I believed it was my job as a good Christian to battle and resist negative, unpleasant, and disruptive emotions and thoughts. I drew upon passages in the Bible to reinforce this idea. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote about the battle between the “flesh” and the “spirit” (Galatians 5:16-26). So my interpretation of these passages led me to commit myself to battling, subduing, resisting, and defeating my negative thoughts and feelings.
Certainly, there are things in life which we should resist such as social injustice, but what about our own thoughts and feelings? Resisting our own negative thoughts and feelings often has the opposite affect. We end up empowering what we are resisting through the negative energy we use to resist it.
For example, spend an entire day trying not to think about lust, anger, fear, or some thought or feeling you don’t want to have. Get up in the morning and commit yourself to resisting a specific thought or feeling. Chances are, you will empower the very thing you are trying to resist. You will think about it more often throughout the day as you focus on not thinking about it.
Try another approach. Neuroscience and mindfulness meditation offers us the practice of RAIN. Instead of resisting, try listening to your thoughts and feelings, especially negative and unpleasant ones, with openness, curiosity, and self-compassion. Recognize the unpleasant thought or emotion by naming it. Allow the unpleasant thought or emotion by letting it exist without judgment. Hold it with kindness. Investigate the unpleasant thought or emotion by asking questions, like a good therapist. (What is the worst part? What am I believing? Where do I feel these emotions inside?) Nurture the unpleasant thought or emotion like a good friend or therapist would do. Offer yourself love, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, or protection.
The practice of RAIN helps in the process of healing negative emotions through kindness, love, and self-compassion. It also encourages positive emotions by nurturing love, acceptance, forgiveness, and compassion.
Practicing RAIN can calm and transform our inner critic. So many times when we focus on resisting unpleasant thoughts or emotions, we end up turning ourselves into harsh critics of ourselves. Our inner critic grows stronger, louder, and harsher. We end up treating ourselves with harsh judgment, even cursing at ourselves.
And perhaps the Apostle Paul was simply acknowledging how we sometimes feel like we are in a battle with our thoughts and emotions. His remedy was life in the “spirit.” Paul identifies the fruit of the spirit as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22); and Paul encourages us “fix our thoughts on what is true, pure, lovely, and honorable” (Philippians 4:8).
As Richard Rohr encourages: “Your first energy has to be “yes” energy, and from there you can move, build, and proceed. You must choose the positive and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds—it takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons” (Just This, “what you resist persists,” p. 44).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Emotional Intelligence
Listen: “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac
In 1995, Danial Goleman published his best-selling book Emotion Intelligence. I was always reading books on leadership, and Goleman’s book struck a deep chord in me. His thesis was simple: Emotional intelligence (EI) is a better indicator of leadership performance than IQ. I immediately resonated with this idea based on my experience and intuition. By the late 90’s when I first read his book, I was leading a growing church of several hundred people meeting in a middle school, raising funds to purchase thirty acres of land and build a church, and developing a pastoral and volunteer team of over one hundred people.
Goleman believed a leader could grow and develop a set of five EI competencies which would enhance leadership skills including:
Self-awareness: the ability to know one’s emotions, strengths, and weaknesses and recognize their impact on others;
Self-regulation: the ability to manage one’s disruptive emotions;
Social skills: the ability to manage relationships;
Empathy: the ability to consider other people’s emotions when leading and making decisions;
Motivation: the ability to discern what motivates others.
By 2018, I had lead the church to almost three decades of explosive growth and a volunteer ministry team of over 2,000 people. Despite the success in church growth and my application of EI skills, I still went through a personal meltdown.
As I look back, I think my practice of self-regulation was done in an unhealthy way. What do I mean? (Be sure and read my blog: https://spiritualityadventures.com/blog/a-good-death.)
It’s possible to be self-aware of negative, unpleasant, or disruptive emotions and actually attempt to over-regulate these emotions in an unhealthy way. When I experienced negative emotions, I always tried to battle, suppress, and conquer my negative emotions. I would try to fight them and beat them. This is an unhealthy approach in the long run. I practiced this approach for forty years of my life, and became a harsh critic of myself.
Current research shows that negative, unpleasant, or disruptive emotions need to be recognized, allowed, investigated, and nurtured (research from the fields of psychology, sociology, and neuroscience all agree on this approach). It’s a practice I’ve learned through mindfulness meditation called RAIN. (I will write more on the practice of RAIN in a future blog.)
It seems antithetical. When we experience a negative emotion, we naturally want to avoid it, push back against it, or numb it. Why would we want to change our tactic?
Research has shown that what we resist tends to persist. Fighting and resisting negative emotions actually escalates and empowers them over time. Marc Brackett is the Director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He is an advocate for introducing emotional intelligence training in public schools. As important as reading, writing, arithmetic, and science are, EI is even more important. And yet, most people have had zero formal training in EI.
Brackett wrote an excellent book which lays out his vision for EI entitled Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Brackett shows how just learning to recognize our negative emotions and name them is a healthy way to begin to heal and regulate our emotions.
Mindfulness meditation teaches us to sit with our negative emotions with openness, curiosity, and self-compassion. Think of how a therapist listens to a client’s negative emotions, acknowledges them, names them, validates them, and helps to investigate them. A therapist would never condemn a person for having negative emotions. I’ve never heard a good therapist say, “You shouldn’t feel that way.” Yet we beat ourselves up all the time for feeling certain ways. Many of us have a vicious self-critic banging around in our head. A therapist helps a client get in touch with those emotions in order to learn, heal, and grow through them.
Meditation teaches us to sit with our body, our emotions, and our thoughts like a good therapist for our own selves. It teaches us to be as kind and loving to our own selves as we would be towards a beloved family member, friend, or pet.
Inviting our negative, unpleasant, or disruptive emotions to sit with us for a loving, compassionate conversation is an extremely important step towards understanding, healing, and regulating our unpleasant emotions.
“Good morning fear. Good morning anger. Good morning regrets. Good morning anxiety. How are you today? Let’s have a talk.” Once you listen for a while, they calm down and relax. You might even learn something. They just need to be heard and held with love and compassion, like you would hold and comfort a hurting loved one.
Compassion and love grows and expands from ourselves to others, to the planet, and to the Universe. Love never fails.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
A Good Death
Listen: “Mask” Matt Maeson
Tristan, the protagonist of the short story Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison, is said to have had “a good death.” Is there a good way to die and a bad way to die? Physically speaking, many people reflect on it; but what about spiritually? All of the great religious traditions speak of the importance of shadow boxing. There is a part of our self, our ego, that is a “false self”—a persona built on a shaky foundation that needs to die or be transformed. There is also a “true self” that needs to emerge. The real you.
If you are from the Christian tradition, you are aware of the Apostle Paul’s writings. He talks about dying to the self quite often. One of the classic chapters on this topic is Galatians 5. Paul writes, “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions” (Gal. 5:17). Then he describes the fruit of the sinful nature: “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these” (Gal. 5:19-21). Notice that the fruits of the sinful nature (or false self) are a list of behaviors. These behaviors can be symptomatic of the false self. They are not a list of core emotions (with the exception of anger, but the focus is on the outburst not the anger itself).
I think this is an important distinction which could lead to a good death versus a bad death of the false self. For decades I tried to “die to self” by subduing, ignoring, or battling my negative emotions. I was thinking this was the way to die to bad behaviors. However, the opposite is true. Suppressing negative emotions leads to a host of other issues like depression, anxiety, guilt, and shame. (See Hilary Jacobs Hendel, It’s Not Always Depression.)
Let me explain through a traumatic childhood story (what Hendel would call a small “t” trauma). Between my kindergarten and first grade school experience, we moved to a new neighborhood in Prairie Village, Kansas. I would walk about a mile to school (even in the snow, uphill, both ways). On the way home, I was bullied virtually every day. A large, heavy set third grader would confront me on one of the corners and beat me up almost every day on my way home.
I would arrive home in tears, and I didn’t want to go back to school. My dad decided to teach me how to box. He taught me how to make a fist, how to throw punches, and how to avoid punches. He sparred with me in the living room. I remember when he thought I was ready—he looked me in the eyes and said, “Now Fred, if the kid tries to beat you up again, you fight him back. Don’t come home crying again, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Now I was really scared. It was like double jeopardy. I went to school the next day and could not concentrate on anything. All I could think about was the fight. I was a nervous wreck.
Well sure enough the kid was at the corner and started to bully me again. I made a fist and started swinging. I had never fought back. I caught him off guard. He fell backwards to the ground and I sat on his chest and just started pounding on his face with my fists. All my fear and anger were poured out in that moment of violence. I don’t think I was strong enough to hurt him, but his pride was wounded in front of his friends. I exhausted myself and let him up. He ran home crying.
I walked home on an adrenaline rush. I felt like I had defeated my biggest fear. I gained the respect of all my peers. Nobody messed with me again. I had fought back and won.
My dad loves me with all his heart. He’s my greatest fan. I’ve often thought about what I would have done in his shoes. He knew if he went down to the school and tried to fight my battle for me I would not gain the self-respect I needed. It was a different time culturally in America (1966) and most dad’s in America would have done the same thing. Even if I got beat, my dad knew that if I put up a good fight I would gain respect. Like two MMA fighters hugging after a bloody fight.
Interestingly, I didn’t become a bully. In fact, that’s the only physical fight I have ever had my entire life (with the exception of karate matches). I learned how to stand up for myself and gain respect in other ways. My dad taught me those skills as well. But thinking back, it did have a negative consequence. I learned how to subdue my negative emotions through battling them and fighting them. I never learned how to listen to my negative emotions with love, curiosity, openness, and self-compassion. What are my emotions telling me? When I linked up negative emotions with negative behavior, I felt like it was my job to fight, battle, and subdue my negative emotions.
This is not a good death spiritually or emotionally. Suppressing, ignoring, or fighting negative emotions does not work in the long run, and it causes a multitude of other problems. A good death to the false self sets us free; it integrates and transforms us. A bad death just makes us more ill.
While Paul in Galatians teaches us about the struggle between the false self and the true self (very real), describes the fruit (symptoms) of the false self and true self, and points to our resurrected self in Christ as our hope; he does not provide a model for dealing with negative emotions. It wasn’t his focus.
The psalms of lamentation are the best place in Scripture to learn how to deal with negative emotions. There are about forty-two psalms of lament in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). If you read through all of these psalms you would see a pattern: invocation, complaint, request, hope, and praise. The complaints express every negative emotion in the human repertoire. (Hendel identifies core emotions as fear, anger, grief, excitement, disgust, and sexual excitement. The famous “Feeling Wheel” developed by Dr. Gloria Wilcox identifies core emotions as sad, mad, scared, peaceful, powerful, and joyful. Core emotions are hardwired in our brain and body. Hendel identifies inhibitory emotions as shame, guilt, and anxiety.)
This pattern of expression of negative emotions in the Psalms of lament is a healthy pattern. We need to learn to listen to our negative emotions and express them. We might share them with God, with our journal, with a friend or partner, with a support group, or with a therapist. But it is important to hear and to understand our negative emotions. It’s also incredibly important to end up in a place of hope and gratitude as we express our negative emotions. That can take effort—even a daily gratitude list when we don’t feel grateful.
The Psalms of lament give us a mentally healthy pattern. At times these psalms are messy and raw and vicious. They express doubt and anger towards God. They question God and challenge God. I have talked to many people who don’t like these psalms—they are too raw. But it’s so important for emotional, spiritual, and relational health. The individual and communal Psalms of lament make up almost a third of the book of Psalms. Jesus quoted from Psalm 22 on the cross. Even Jesus felt utterly abandoned by God and expressed it.
Healing comes by releasing negative emotions in a healthy way. Hendel gives a simple four step process which can be applied throughout the day: (1) pause and breath; (2) tune in and listen to your body; (3) Identify underlying core emotions and name each one; and (4) think through best actions. I have had to work on this process in a deep way through therapy, journaling, mindfulness meditation, and prayer.
Our negative emotions are important and they must be integrated into our true self. They will teach us important truths about ourselves. Our negative emotions can lead us to positive change at work, at home, and at play. They have a purpose. I am learning how to do this, but quite frankly, I’d rather just beat up my negative emotions. Sharing them makes me feel weak, but I’m telling myself that’s not a bad thing—feeling weak. It’s a good death.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
False Alarms
Listen: “Where is My Mind?” by The Pixies
Last week I lost my wallet and my brain freaked out. I facilitated a six week introduction to yoga and meditation for beginners by recruiting two of my friends who are teachers. We decided to do a ninety minute class with 45 minutes of yoga followed by 30 minutes of mindfulness meditation. We held the class at Living Water Christian Church, advertised it on Facebook, and had about twenty people show up for the first class.
We had to move all the furniture to make room for the twenty yoga mats, and I set my wallet and keys down on a table top before class began. We had a great opening night which released a flow of peace and gratitude in my mind and body.
I greeted people after the class, helped get the furniture back in place, and did a bit of debriefing with Brian Fritz and Pam Hausner who taught the class. When I arrived home after the class and got settled, I realized I didn’t have my wallet at some point.
My first thought was that I had left it on the table at the church or maybe it had gotten misplaced in the shifting of all the furniture. I went back up to the church and searched everywhere for my wallet. No wallet.
Now I am starting to feel a bit panicked. Not like a clinical panic attack, but an alarm went off in that ancient, reptilian part of my brain—the amygdala.
I knew most of the people in the class, so I was thinking that maybe someone saw my wallet or maybe somebody accidentally moved it or picked it up inadvertently. Everybody had their wallets and purses strewn around the room before class. So I got back home and started texting people and asking them if they had seen a wallet, and I asked them to double check their stuff just in case it had gotten misplaced.
By the next morning I heard back from everyone in the class—no wallet. Now my anxiety is shooting through the roof. I’ve misplaced my wallet on several occasions over the course of my life, but I always found it relatively quickly. My schedule has been crazy busy and the thought of canceling credit cards and replacing everything in my wallet, including my drivers license, created a great deal of stress.
I start praying prayers of complaint. “Really God, like I need this right now!” That’s a common prayer for me whenever something goes wrong. I’ve had a lot of those prayers in the last four years. Not that it’s God’s fault. I have trained myself to talk to God everyday and that’s the way it comes out when I’m pissed at myself or some circumstance. I start cursing myself or some force out there in the universe. It’s irrational, but hey, that’s the point of this blog.
Our amygdala can be highly irrational. It’s the “fight—flight—freeze” part of our brain. It evolved to protect us from predators and keep us alive. It’s where trauma is stored and how PTSD emerges in our lives.
I have often wondered whether or not I have an over-active amygdala. No kidding. It’s the source of my anxiety disorder and my decades of struggle with insomnia. It’s certainly a human condition, but some humans are definitely more susceptible to amygdala hijacks—an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus. The emotions triggered by the amygdala are real, but they can be highly irrational.
I have been in many situations in which my amygdala actually saved my life—like hiking, driving, rock climbing, cycling—situations in which my life was actually threatened. But most of the time my amygdala overreacts to circumstances which are not life threatening like relational conflict, rejection, past regrets, or future fears.
I can get angry at my amygdala. It wears me out. It’s constant “fear alerts” trigger my anxiety and insomnia. I can get triggered by some “imagined threat” which actually does not exist, but my anxiety over it can last for a few hours or days until I figure out the threat is not real. Then I finally calm down.
Outwardly, I have managed to present myself as calm and confident through the years, but inwardly I can be a basket case (thinking of a Green Day song).
Which brings me back to the practice of mindful meditation. For decades I would try to fight, suppress, conquer, or subdue my negative emotions triggered by my amygdala. It didn’t work well over the long haul.
Meditation has taught me to sit with my negative emotions versus fighting them. I am learning to sit with my negative emotions and be curious, open, and compassionate. I have treated my amygdala (which is me, a part of myself, my body) like an enemy for so many years that it is challenging for me to befriend it. It’s always trying to save me and protect me; it’s just a little too hyper-vigilant.
Self-compassion has taught me to be kind to myself, my body, my mind, my amygdala. I am consistently kind and forgiving towards others, but I can be extremely harsh towards myself. Meditation helps me practice unconditional friendliness towards myself.
Viktor Frankl famously stated: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” The neuroscience of meditation has shown that mindfulness practice expands the space between stimulus and response (neuro.Wharton.UPenn.edu).
So I have been sitting with my old enemy—my amygdala—and making a new friend. We’ve been having chats and listening to each other. It’s a rambunctious child with good intentions trying to protect me, and for that I am grateful. It calms down after a while and I am able to see the world, and circumstances, through a new lens of gratitude.
By the way, after I had gone through the hassle of canceling my credit cards, ordering new cards, and going to the DMV for a new drivers license, I found my wallet. It fell out of my pocket at home after class and slid under the bathroom shower curtain. False alarm. My wallet was never lost. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? (A nod to the universe and Alanis.)
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Mountainfilm Festival
Listen: “Superposition” by Young the Giant
May of 2023 turned out to be super busy month culminating with a trip back to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado to do some writing on my memoir and hang out with some new friends at the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Colorado over Memorial Weekend. It was an amazing weekend with Rod and Alli Colburn and several of their friends who are former Seventh Day Adventists along with one former fundamental Baptist pastor and one former Vineyard pastor (me). The Colburn’s rented a big house which overlooked the town of Telluride, and Samir Selmanovic created some of the best brunches I have ever eaten. I would have never guessed I could have so much fun with a bunch of recovering Adventists!
First of all, an update on my memoir. I spent several days before and after the Mountainfilm Festival in the beginning stages of writing my memoir at the Cimmaron Coffee & Books in Ridgway, Colorado. I have felt compelled to write my memoir, and I am working with an editor that Brian McLaren suggested. Things may change but my working title is Becoming a Prodigal Pastor. Currently, I am thinking it will have three parts: Part 1–Southern Baptist Fred; Part 2–Vineyard Fred; and Part 3–Prodigal Pastor Fred.
As I was shaping up the outline for the memoir, I remembered seeing a movie on the life of Bob Dylan called “I’m Not There,” in which six different actors depict different facets of Dylan’s public personas. It got me thinking about how we grow, deconstruct, and evolve over a lifetime—navigating change, episodes of darkness, transitions, and new beginnings. I’m hoping to have it out by next year.
Secondly, a brief description of the festival. The Mountainfilm Festival has been running since 1979. I first heard about it years ago because some of my favorite rock climbing, mountaineering, and outdoor adventure documentaries have been released at Mountianfilm. It’s the longest running documentary film festival in the country and focuses on outdoor adventure, environmentalism, social justice, and culture.
I loved it. There were times when I was crying due to a featured social injustice or an environmental crisis; there were times when I was crying due to inspirational stories of the indomitable human spirit exhibiting love, courage, and beauty.
Here are my top picks. I would encourage you to watch these documentaries when they get released.
Wild Life. Jimmy Chin and his wife, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, are hands down my favorite outdoor adventure filmmakers. From Meru to Free Solo, Jimmy is not only one of the best climbers in the world, but also one of the best filmmaker. Wild Life is a tribute to Doug Tompkins, who is founder of The North Face who spent most of his wealth buying up over a million acres in Patagonia to preserve nature, re-wild, and create National Parks.
By the way, if you are not familiar with the story of the friendship between Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia & Black Diamond, and Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face, then you need to check out two documentaries: 180 Degrees South (2010) and the newly released Wild Life (2023). Their friendship and life work is an American treasure and truly inspirational on multiple levels.
It was so fun to see Jimmy Chin introduce his new documentary, Wild Life, and then do a Q & A afterwards, which was a highlight for me. I have admired Jimmy from a distance, so it was a joy to see him up close and in-person.
The Grab. This one was sobering and disturbing from filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The Grab is a global thriller that takes you from Arizona, Zambia, China, and Russia and follows investigative journalists as they uncover how governments, private investors, and mercenaries are seizing food and water resources at the expense of entire populations.
Patrol. Another sobering documentary which uncovers the threat to the last remaining rainforests of Central America due to the illegal activity of cattle ranchers who steal acreage and raze large swaths of rainforest to graze their herds. Brad Allgood and Camilo De Castro Belli have literally risked their lives to expose this illegal activity.
Bill McKibben. Not a documentary, but Bill gave the opening talk for Mountainfilm. I hope to meet Bill in the near future and do a podcast interview with him. I have always had a love for nature, outdoors, and environmentalism as a side-gig to my pastoral career. Bill’s main gig and life work is as an American environmentalist, author, and journalist who has written extensively on the impact of global warming. I wish all of you could have heard his thirty minute talk—a sober evaluation of the current state of our planet mixed with some hope if we act boldly. If you care about our planet and are over the age of sixty, check out his most recent project, Third Act, which organizes people over the age of sixty to work on climate and racial justice.
I was only able to view a small number of the feature documentaries and missed out on all the shorts, but I hope to go again. I came away from the event with a sense of renewed purpose around my lifelong love for nature, mountain biking, rock climbing, and the Rocky Mountains.
Nature is a source of inspiration and spiritual renewal. It’s good for what ails us. Make sure you get a regular dose of immersion into the beauty of nature, and let’s do what we can to heal and save our planet.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Post Traumatic Growth
Listen: “Elastic Heart” by Sia
I am a bit of a sci-fi fan whether I’m reading a good novel by Ray Bradbury or Philip K. Dick or watching a movie like Blade Runner. In my journal I have frequently describe my life after my three-quarter life crises like “post-apocalyptic” living, feeling like I was emotionally hovering somewhere between Mad Max and The Book of Eli. It felt like a bomb went off and destroyed the foundations of my life built around faith, marriage, community, and career.
Extreme darkness, doubts, questions, and disbelief haunted my existence and the ghosts still linger with me today. Thankfully, I didn’t try to forge through the dystopia alone. My family and some long-time friends loved me through it. I found new support and friends through recovery groups, faith leaders, and therapy.
At some point in my ongoing recovery, I realized I was dealing with personal and religious trauma—some self-inflicted and some inflicted by others. A few years ago I came across some of the research around Post Traumatic Growth and found it helpful. (See “Growth after Trauma” by Lorna Collier, apa.org, November 2016, Vol 47.)
Some psychologists distinguish between resiliency and Post Traumatic Growth. Resiliency is a characteristic which helps us bounce back from adversity. Trauma, however, is not something people bounce back from quickly. Trauma wrecks havoc on our fundamental foundations and belief systems making it extremely difficult to bounce back.
Post Traumatic Growth does not deny deep pain; it processes deep pain in healing and generative ways. Through therapy, recovery groups, and deep friendships, Post Traumatic Growth can coexist and begin to emerge alongside PTSD. Some of the signs of Post Traumatic Growth are:
A deeper appreciation of life
Stronger relationships with loved ones and survivors
Recognition of new opportunities and possibilities
Inner strength as a survivor
Spirituality changes and evolves
This kind of growth does not happen quickly or easily. We have to do the work. There is a saying in the Twelve-step community: “It works if you work it.” Growth is not a solo process; it’s a community process. We need loving, safe people to connect with us at our deepest experiences of pain. Alcoholics connecting with alcoholics. Abuse survivors connecting with abuse survivors. We heal in safe spaces with safe people who have developed empathy and found hope.
I recently reread all of the resurrection appearances of Jesus reported in the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After the crucifixion of Jesus, the disciples were doing some “post-apocalyptic” living. They had witnessed the brutal torture of their beloved leader. Their world was blown apart and they were filled with doubts, questions, and disbelief.
Peter had consistently pledged his loyalty to Jesus and was ready to fight and die for Jesus, but in the darkness of night when Jesus was arrested, fear overtook him and he denied ever knowing Jesus three times. His epic failure resulted in deep depression. There’s a scene in John’s gospel in which Jesus appears to Peter and recommissions him three times. At the place of deepest failure, Peter is loved, forgiven, affirmed, and recommissioned.
Richard Rohr says, “If we do not transform pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children” (Richard Rohr, “Transforming Pain,” cac.org).
Healing from trauma is a slow community process, but there is hope. People do heal—together!
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023
Forgiveness
Listen: “All Apologies” by Nirvana
Forgiveness sounds like a great idea. Most people believe the world would be a better place with more forgiveness. Most people love to receive forgiveness from God or others for any harm they have caused. But, forgiveness gets exponentially more complicated when it comes to actually forgiving someone else (or even ourselves) for hurting us deeply.
One complication is that we love to be right. There is a saying: “The world is divided into people who think they are right.” End of quote. Sometimes we can feel hurt simply because someone disagrees with our views on politics, religion, or fashion. For some people, being right is more important than love, and they can quickly slip into blaming other people who are wrong (everybody but themselves) for their own problems and the problems in the world.
But there is a deeper complication with forgiveness. How do we forgive ourselves when we hate ourselves? How do we forgive someone who has wounded, betrayed, or abused us? Forgiveness is not always easy. Forgiveness does not always feel safe. If we forgive our abuser, does that open us up to further abuse? If we forgive our betrayer, does that make them right and us wrong? What about justice? Shouldn’t they suffer for what they have done?
Over the course of my life, I would consider myself as someone who was always “quick to forgive.” Quick to forgive others for sure. Sometimes I would “beat myself up” emotionally before I forgave myself. Certainly, I was harder on myself than others, but I valued forgiveness and lived without resentments. In addition, I can’t count the number of sermons I delivered on forgiveness.
That all changed a few years ago when I went through an emotional hell on earth. My heart was filled with anger, humiliation, and shame. Forgiveness seemed impossible.
Forgiveness of self. I was filled with anger, first and foremost, towards myself. I had failed to live up to my own standards. I had a personal meltdown due to a mixture of insomnia, ministry burnout, addiction, and an unhappy marriage. My personal failures were broadcast publicly around the world, and I wanted to disappear or die. I hated myself.
Fortunately, I had some close friends and family who loved me through it. I had preached God’s forgiveness my whole life, but in my darkest moments I felt abandoned by God. I started sharing my deepest, darkest failures with my therapist, close friends, and new friends I found in recovery groups. Shame had engulfed me; but, as I shared with my sponsor, my therapist, and my friends, they loved me despite my failures.
They modeled God’s love for me. They modeled forgiveness for me. Sharing my shame with loving people helped me regain confidence in forgiveness and compassion for my own self. A couple of bad years didn’t have to define the rest of my life. Forgiveness, I found, is best experienced in a loving community of forgiving people.
Forgiveness of others. Anger and resentment can feel like protective armor. It can protect us (we think) from future hurt, future abuse, or future powerlessness. Anger certainly needs to be heard, understood, and processed with safe people (like a therapist, sponsor, or close friend); but anger and resentment is not the cure for a wounded heart.
In the recovery world, resentment is a danger to sobriety and spiritual health. “Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically” (Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 64).
An old adage: “Resentment is like swallowing rat poison and hoping the rat will die.” Forgiveness frees our heart from the damaging affects of resentment and bitterness. In some ways, forgiveness is simply letting go of what the other person owes us. It doesn’t mean the other person is right. It doesn’t mean you become a doormat and let someone abuse you again. Forgiveness can be accompanied by healthy boundaries and tough love.
Forgiveness of God, the Universe, and Reality. This may sound odd to some people, but I think it is important. Shit happens. At times it feels like God or the Universe has conspired against us. Forgiveness of almost everything seems to be in order if we are going to press into love, beauty, creativity, and social justice—forgiveness of God, the Universe, Circumstances, Accidents, Injuries, Genocides, Tornadoes, Diseases, and Pandemics. Not to live in passivity and inaction, but to move forward in life with the grace of acceptance without the burden of resentment. It’s a way of making peace with Reality—What Is—dealing with life on life’s terms.
Richard Rohr reflects: “Our first forgiveness is not toward a particular sin or offense. Our first forgiveness, it seems to me, is toward reality itself: to forgive it for being so broken, a mixture of good and bad. First that paradox has to be overcome inside of us. Then, when we allow God to hold together the opposites within us, it becomes possible to do it over there in our neighbor and even our enemy” (“Including Everything,” can.org, August 31, 2017).
Forgiveness is a process. It’s a commitment to a lifestyle of forgiveness. Forgiveness is central to wholeness, health, and spiritual wellbeing. It is essential for healing nations, families, and individuals. As Jesus taught us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:12).
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2023