Amy Durfee West’s Blog
“Throw your heart over the bars and your body will follow.”

An old Cherokee is talking to his grandson. “A fight is going on inside me,” he says to the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is anger, envy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, ego and fear.” He continues, “The other wolf is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside everyone.” The grandson thinks about it for a minute, and then asks, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee smiles and says, “The one you feed.”

I used to attend an adult Bible study class based on the Lectionary text for each Sunday. One Sunday we were talking about worry. I think the text was Luke 12:25, “And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?” One of the members of the class, Leela Putney, who was almost 100 years old at the time, said, “Worry is a sin.” She then told of being a young widow with five little mouths to feed, and of praying every day for God to provide for her family. And God did provide.

“Worry is a sin.” That statement hit me like a slap in the face. As my Baptist friends might say, it “convicted” me. I was a compulsive worrier. It was a deeply ingrained habit. I fretted and planned and schemed and fussed and worried all the time, but as soon as she spoke I knew Leela was right. If I believe in a God who loves me and wants the best for me; if I believe Jesus when he says “do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” then worry IS a sin.

I think everyone either acts out of fear or out of love. And the essence of faith is hearing that we are precious, beloved children of God, and then acting as if that’s true. The old Cherokee’s first wolf-and ours-doesn’t believe that. It thinks it has to solve all its own problems, fight all the time to get its share, make someone else lose so it can win. It sees life as a zero-sum game-dog eat dog (or wolf eat wolf). People acting out of fear do damage-to themselves and others. And when they do, they see negative consequences, which they then take as evidence of the correctness of their assumptions. The more they act out of fear, the more they see reasons to be fearful.

People either act out of fear or out of faith. When we feed the first wolf, we are doing something contrary to God’s plan for our lives. God wants us to be in loving relationship with God and with one another. When we act out of fear, we’re sinning. We’re acting as if we don’t believe that God really does love us and really will take care of us. When we act out of fear, we can’t help but feed the first wolf. God doesn’t want us to do that-Jesus said “fear not”-but God gives us a choice so that our relationship with God will be authentic. Love that is not freely given isn’t really love, so God leaves us free to reject the offer.

Jesus said that where your treasure is, there your heart will be. Do you treasure your worries? Does it make you feel more alive, somehow, to fret and fuss? Do you think your loved ones would fall apart if you didn’t step in and run their lives? Is that love, or is it fear? If you are the precious child of a God whose will is ever directed to your good, then isn’t that true of your spouse, or your boss, or your teenager?

The human mind is endlessly capable of rationalizing everything. I can get trapped into thinking that if I don’t worry about everything, then somehow the universe is going to grind to a halt. If I don’t try to fix every situation that my friends or family find themselves in, then disaster will strike. With that mindset, every misfortune or setback seems to validate my worry-sickness.

People either act out of love or out of fear. Acting out of love is an act of faith-faith that there is something more powerful than fear. Whenever we decide to let go of fear and anxiety, to renounce our attachment to it, we create a space that love can fill.

Being chronically fearful or chronically angry (which I think is a close relative of fear) can become a habit. It makes us feel powerful. We can come to treasure it. It causes “fight or flight” hormones to flood our minds and bodies, giving a surge of energy, making us feel more alert and alive. But what good is it? Do you treasure your worries? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. If you always act out of fear, can you really love? Leela said worry is a sin, and she was so right. If I would rather worry than trust God to take care of me, then I’m turning my back on God’s love and I’m voting against God’s promises.

But just as chronic worry can become a habit that feeds on itself and keeps reinforcing itself, acting out of love can become a habit too. When you act out of love, what you’re really doing is living out of faith. Fearful people are like the trapeze artist who won’t let go of one trapeze and jump out to grab the next one. They stay on one trapeze, refusing to let go, thinking it’s safer that way. Maybe it is, or maybe they’re just refusing to do their part in the show.

More than once, people have said to me, “I wish I had your faith.” That used to leave me speechless, but now that I’ve been hanging out in seminary for awhile I think I have an answer. In my experience, faith is not something that you either have or don’t have. For one thing, we all have some amount of faith. We believe in the law of gravity, for example. Most people don’t need convincing that the sun will come up every morning. We put faith in our watches telling time properly and in swallows returning to Capistrano-and so on. For another thing, faith is something anyone can choose. Every time we decide to act out of love instead of fear, faith grows. God doesn’t need a very big opening to break in and plant seeds of faith. Really, just the tiniest little shred of willingness to follow God’s law of love is enough to make everything new. Start feeding the second wolf, and the first one will starve.

If we can summon just a little bit of faith-decide to act as if what Jesus said is true, act as if there really is a loving God who wants to be in a loving relationship with us; if only for the sake of argument, if only as a working proposition, then amazing things begin to happen. Faith is, as the author of Hebrews says, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

I hope Jesus loves me. I hope God is love. I have never seen God, but once I started acting as if God is love and I am God’s beloved daughter, I began experiencing life as more joyful, more full, more rewarding, and more wondrous. Just as a life of fear keeps validating itself, so does a life of love. Instead of being addicted to worry, I learned to let it go. I thought I’d just find out what would happen if I chose love instead of fear, and that has never been a bad idea. I’m not saying everything has been fine and no bad things have happened. I’m saying I have a way to deal with the bad things. When something painful happens, I get out of God’s way, thank God for sticking by me and loving me, then ask God to show me the lesson, and give me the strength to step out again in faith. It always makes me grow. I have had my heart broken-but it was broken open.

Now consider Hebrews 11:12, which says: “Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendents were born, ‘as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.’” In Abraham’s time, the most important things were descendants and land. God promised both of those things to Abraham, and God delivered on the promise, although it seemed impossible, and it took a long time. For our time, what if we think about our legacy as spiritual descendants? What do you want to be remembered for? What values, dreams, treasures do you want to leave behind when you die? I have seen God take people who were “as good as dead,” and breathe new life into them, inspiring them to live lives of creativity and hope and love, to act as if the kingdom of God is not only possible, but here, breaking into a world of pain and fear, shining light into darkness. Out of that new conviction, that decision to love, have come spiritual descendants “as many as the stars of heaven.”

What do you treasure? Is it fear or love? If you treasure love, then you will grow in faith. You will see the world differently, and you will be a blessing to others. Whatever you treasure most, whatever you feed, whatever you put first, that will be what your heart will follow, like a sunflower follows the sun. If you choose love, then you will see everything in the light of God’s perfect love and goodness, and you will be changed.

When I started writing this blog I was thinking I would keep it fairly impersonal. Nobody really needed to know anything about my past, or anything especially revealing about me. When I wrestle with personal issues, I do it in prayer, or in a private journal, or sometimes in conversations with a few close friends.

I’m beginning to see it differently. When people talk to me about things they’ve read here, they most often comment on personal details. A professor mentioned my description of driving to Philadelphia in 2008, when I started crying and couldn’t stop. Someone else commented on my last post, where I gave some personal testimony about child abuse. There has been other feedback in that vein. That shows me that I connect with people most effectively when I am authentic. If I seem too different, too “perfect,” then people will not relate to me, and I will fail in my purpose. But I also have to be careful.

My reluctance to be self-revealing comes from having made a huge mistake in the early years of my awakening. When people start waking up they tend to tell too much, to the wrong people. I permanently damaged a professional friendship that way, and may even have set back my legal career. I didn’t know it until years later, when my former friend said something like, “Well, considering your background, it’s amazing that you’re not a complete basket case.” Then I realized that the distancing that she and some mutual friends had done years before were most likely deliberate, and not just because of some job changes and moves.

Exposing family secrets is critically important, but it must be done carefully and appropriately–at the right time, to the right people, in the right context. In my zeal to help others I didn’t realize how powerful the taboos I had discovered were. I wanted to help others uncover their own hidden wounds so they could also transform. I was trying to throw them a lifeline. My only reason for telling my truth was to help them discover theirs. I was especially anxious to do that for my siblings. One rebuffed me by saying, “That’s all in the past. Why dwell on it?” The answer seemed obvious to me. First you have to understand what happened. You can’t heal without debriding the wound. But I no longer expect people to wake up just because I tell them how well it worked out for me. They can’t see the connection.

We were taught not to understand, or remember, what happened to us as children.  Alice Miller’s core message is that Western culture has institutionalized child abuse as “normal.” People raised that way turn around and do it again, blindly, unthinkingly, unfeelingly projecting their own inner rage and pain onto their children, and passing on a legacy of abuse. As a result, they will not think they have anything in common with someone who discovers different language for “normal” child rearing. They will make distinctions that protect their parents and themselves.

We do this automatically. I’ve seen it time and again. There was the woman who told me she had broken several wooden spoons beating her toddler. She also worked as a volunteer counselor in a program for abusive parents, and saw no irony in that. There was my conversation last summer with the three young coworkers who had all been beaten and intimidated as children. The one who appeared to have been treated most cruelly was the one who most stoutly defended her parents. And there was the close friend who reacted heatedly to my fairly mild assertion that the things that make us fly off the handle are usually tied to unresolved childhood issues. He said, “That might be true for you, because you had a really weird childhood, but mine was normal and happy.” I know some of the things that happened to him, and although they were, in a sense, “normal,” he most certainly is not happy. He’s been depressed all his life, and he has generously shared the misery with everyone who has tried to love him. He’s also an alcoholic, and he’s in denial about that.

All the things that have happened to me throughout my life made me the person I am now. I am at peace with it, and I have no resentment or bitterness, but I had to work hard to get there. Cheap forgiveness doesn’t cut it. What’s needed is a very costly, painstaking forgiveness. While I completely disagree with those who say, “Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” I do think that suffering and hardship can be overcome and there can be growth and transformation in that. Going through the ordeal, and reaching the other side, can be transformational, but not the suffering itself. (Many things that don’t kill will, in fact, make you weaker. Chemotherapy is a great example. It might help you survive cancer–in fact it might be the only thing that saves you from death–but it will permanently damage your immune system, leaving you vulnerable to all sorts of other ills. It can even cause cancer itself. You are “stronger” in the sense of not being dead, but you are weaker in many other ways.)

I just want to plant some seeds. Anything that you defend very stoutly, especially anything that you say almost by rote, such as, “I always knew my parents loved me,” might be a cover-up. If you feel very strongly about it, and feel compelled to prove it, then it might be a “methinks the lady does protest too much” situation. Remember the movie “The Manchurian Candidate,” where everyone recited, word for word, the same story about what supposedly happened? People had nightmares that belied the official story. My parents said they loved me, but I had nightmares, and I eventually had to come to terms with the dissonance.

They loved me as much as they could, but, to be honest, much of what they did was not loving. I am no longer a helpless child whose survival depends on believing otherwise, and my ability to feel, my ability to lead an honest and authentic life of my own, depended on discovering that truth. I now love, honor, and respect them, and I am grateful that they gave me life, but I couldn’t give them real understanding and forgiveness until I first uncovered the truth. I had to face it, and feel the very justifiable and natural rage, pain, sadness, and grief that came with that, before I could accept them and love them unconditionally. It took decades.

Almost everyone says, “My mother loved me very much.” Shouldn’t a parent’s love be so sure, so steady, so constant, that it’s actually taken for granted? Children have every right to expect their parents to love them. They are entitled to it; it’s not a bargaining chip. It’s not something that any child should ever be in fear of losing. I do love my children, with a fierceness and power that amaze me, and I have felt that way for over thirty years. But when I die I don’t want them saying, as if by rote, “She loved me very much.” I want them to say, “She loved life, and she taught me how to do the same.”

In my department at the Children’s Defense Fund there are three other interns, all African American, and all young enough to be my children. One day we got to talking about child rearing, and I said, “when you have kids, please don’t hit them; kids can be controlled without violence.” They all said that “spanking” is not violence.

A lively discussion ensued. They said it’s a cultural thing. They said strict discipline was a matter of survival for African American families. I listened, and I appreciated knowing their point of view, but as the only person in the group who had actually raised children, I still maintained that you don’t have to beat kids. I quoted the author of one of my favorite books ever (the hilarious and touching, The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love,) “If you can’t control yourself, how can you control a child?”

“Disciple” means “student,” and “discipline” means “teach.” Do we really want to teach our children that being in authority means someone has the right to do physical or emotional harm to helpless, weak, dependent people? Do we really think that won’t do any psychological damage? Do we really think we’re wise and smart and self-controlled enough always to use that tool only when it’s justified and necessary, and only to an appropriate degree?

I agree that punishment, administered fairly and judiciously, can be a training tool. But it’s very difficult, as a human being, always to be fair, just, self-controlled, and sure that the child deserves the punishment that’s being administered. I also agree that there are worse forms of abuse than the occasional, judiciously-administered whack on the behind. Belittling, nagging, guilt-tripping, and other forms of verbal abuse are also wrong. Parents who don’t take the time to set boundaries and enforce them are failing in their duty as parents. Children need both nurture and structure, administered more or less consistently. Failing to correct children and teach them is wrong, and it damages them. But I still say you don’t have to hit them.

The interesting part of the discussion was when they asked me how I would handle certain situations. What would I do if a teenager mouthed off to me? I don’t know. I can honestly say it didn’t happen. My teenagers respected me, and they didn’t mouth off. I had not insulted them or been sarcastic, dismissive, or nasty, and they did not treat me that way. We had disagreements. We sometimes had hurt feelings and strong words. But they didn’t “mouth off,” so I didn’t have to do anything about that. Since they felt free to tell me what they thought, they sometimes said things I didn’t especially want to hear, but I appreciated their honesty, and I always learned from it. For example, one time a teenager told me I was acting like a “raving lunatic.” She was right about that, and I needed to hear it. I never thought that just because I was the mother and they were the children I was always right and they were always wrong. I’m human and I make mistakes. Don’t you? It didn’t mean I gave up my authority. They respected me more for being willing to admit when I had messed up.

The other interns also assumed that I was saying kids should be allowed to run wild. I didn’t do that either. I didn’t take things away. I did very little grounding. I didn’t use time out. I let them make choices, and let them deal with the consequences of their choices. Sometimes the natural consequence was the best one. Other times, I would impose a consequence, which was as logical and proportional as I could devise. The goal was to give them lots of practice making choices, making mistakes, and solving their own problems. Underlying it all was sincere, heartfelt love and empathy. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone screws up. The best kind of message about that is not, “Now you’re going to get it!” but, “What are you going to do about it?” (I learned about this from Foster Cline and Jim Fay, who devised “Love and Logic” for parents and for educators. I highly recommend learning how to do this. I’ve added a link to their website to my blog. You can also access it  here.)

Last week I attended the 16th annual Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry at the Children’s Defense Fund’s Haley Farm in Clinton, Tennessee. (For more information, click here.) In one workshop a young African American woman told of having been in an abusive relationship with a man, and said that there is an epidemic of domestic violence in the black community. In a workshop on ending zero-tolerance school discipline policies an older African American woman complained of parents’ and teachers’ hands being tied by laws and rules against beating children. She said that if her child disobeyed her she’d “give him some new dental work,” and that if he did it again she’d “rearrange his face.” Those didn’t seem like loving statements.

So–violent child rearing is “cultural,” and interpersonal violence in adult relationships is “epidemic,” and street violence is pervasive. Does anybody else see a connection?

I remember talking to one of my sons about corporal punishment. He said that all of his classmates who had been “spanked” at home had anger management issues, had problems with authority, and, as a result, had difficulties in school. My son is a high-energy, intense person. He was an intelligent, inquisitive, busy, persistent child. A preschool he attended interpreted that as misbehavior. It got so he was frequently in time-out when I came to pick him up at the end of the day. Instead of siding with the school without inquiry, I tried to find out what was going on. After talking with the director of the school, I determined that they simply didn’t have the ability to meet his needs, and found a different school program for him. No other school or teacher ever thought he had any behavior problems, though his first grade teacher figured out that he had a learning disability, and got him special help for that. How many school discipline issues are because of the way the school is structured, not because there’s something wrong with the kid?

Many adults say things like, “My parents hit me, and I turned out alright,” or, “It’s the way I was raised.” They buy the story that good parents hit, and that it’s for the child’s own good, and that it hurts the parent more than it hurts the child. Nonsense. My mother used to preface a beating by saying “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” (In cases where she used her bare hand, and it became red from spanking me, that might actually have been true.) I took her word for it because she was my mother and I trusted her, but when I had kids I just didn’t get it. I looked at those beautiful, trusting little people and I could not imagine battering or bullying them. I just knew there had to be a better way.

There is. If we want to raise children who respect others, who talk through problems and solve them rationally, who control their baser impulses, who make choices based on an inner moral compass and not on fear of being found out, who love themselves and take good care of themselves, then we have to treat them with respect and make sure they can trust us not to injure them. Any behavior that would get you arrested and charged with assault and battery if you did it to an adult is also assault and battery if you do it to your own child, only worse, because your child depends on you to keep her safe and to teach her right from wrong.

OK–so that’s how you were raised, eh? Are you completely satisfied with the way you turned out? No problems with procrastination, compulsiveness, addiction, overeating, depression? No fears or phobias? No trouble controlling your temper? No rage? No PTSD? If you have any of those things, you can heal from them, with appropriate treatment. And if your children develop any of those things, it won’t necessarily be because of something you did or did not do. But why not do the very best you can to raise loving, trusting, empathetic, responsible children?

One of the speakers at the conference spoke about turning his life around after growing up on the streets, engaging in a violent life, and being incarcerated. He said he had healed to the point where his past was no longer in his way. He can function despite the early damage. But, he said, he will never be completely free. It’s off to the side, but it will always be with him. I know what he means. That’s also true for me.

Two years ago, shortly before I left for seminary, a friend of mine invited me out to breakfast. She said there were other people, especially fellow Baby Boomers, who could benefit from knowing about my new life. She said, “Not everyone has your gift for verbal expression. If you write about it, you could light their paths.” Not long after that, the senior pastor at my home church in Denver asked me to talk to the congregation about my call to ministry. He said other people might be wrestling with some kind of calling, and hearing my story might light their paths. Until then I had not thought very much about that aspect of what I was doing, but I realize now that other people inspired me or gave me insights about myself that led to my decision to go to seminary. Just as I needed them, others might need me.

I’m different from all the other Children’s Defense Fund interns. I am the only seminarian, and one of only two interns of my generation. I think I am adding value, and some of that value undoubtedly comes from my life experience–as someone who raised five children and sent them to urban public schools, as a lawyer in private practice, and as a seminarian.  CDF is not an explicitly faith-based organization, but Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and guiding light, is the daughter of a Baptist minster and makes no effort to hide the Christian underpinnings for everything she does. Several of the other interns are in law school now, or are thinking about going to law school. (For photos and brief bios of this summer’s crop of CDF interns, click here.) For a mundane, but telling, example of how my life experience has been advantageous, I helped two coworkers fax a form to another CDF office. They had never faxed anything before.

All of the CDF interns are exceptional. They are the best and the brightest. I enjoy talking to them and getting to know them. As the only “elder” in the group, I stand out, but I don’t feel odd or out of place. Many of the interns want to be lawyers, and I walked away from a legal career. That is a conversation point. One young woman told me yesterday that she is interested in studying theology. At least one other intern is a “preacher’s kid.” Our lives are intersecting for this brief moment in time, but we all stand to gain from it.

So–is it weird to be a “chronologically gifted” person at school or at this summer job? No, it’s not. Palmer was a good place to start, because a substantial number of my classmates were in my age group. That will be less so at BU, but it won’t be a problem. While I was at Palmer I made friends with younger students. In that context we are peers, so there really was no generation gap. One young woman and I even joked about how, since she was a year ahead of me in school, she was “senior” to me, even though I have a son her age.

It helps a lot to have a beginner’s mind. I know that I know very little about this new gig that God has me playing. I know I can learn from others, no matter where they come from or how old they are or what their background. Ever since I drove east from Denver into the unknown of life as a graduate student in Philadelphia, I have had to trust that I am in God’s hands, and am doing God’s will. I made that leap, and it has turned out very well so far. After that, other changes and adjustments have come pretty easily, and I am glad I did it.

I love studying theology. I love teaching. I love making new friends of all ages. I am fascinated by the new situations in which I find myself, and the new lessons that I am learning. I am willing to be transformed by my experiences. My primary objective is to do God’s will. If I’m pretty sure that I’m doing that, then I’m willing to let all the other things play out however they are meant to unfold. I’m just along for the ride, trying to be useful, trying to fulfill God’s call on my life.

This summer I am staying with friends who live in Northern Virginia, two miles from the Brunswick, Maryland commuter rail station, where I catch a train into D.C. every weekday morning, and to which I return 12 or more hours later. My friends are providing free room and board, which is essential, since I no longer have any income. (Almost all Washington, D.C. internships, including the one at CDF, are unpaid. I was earning a little money as a ministry intern and a writing tutor, plus I got some rent for my house. That is all gone now.) So one of the new things I am having to face is that, technically, I have no “permanent address.” My house in Denver is on the market. I don’t know yet where I’ll be living in Boston. I am relying on the kindness, not of strangers, but of dear friends I’ve known for over 30 years, but, still, I’m dependent on charity. This is new for me. I have always been the one to offer hospitality and shelter. I have always been the one who could provide a soft place for others to land. Now I’m dependent on other people. In order to put myself in this position, I had to get over my illusion of self-sufficiency, and I had to be willing to let other people be of service to me. It is hard to overstate what a radical shift in self-concept this represents. It was very  tough for me. It’s fine now. We are getting along well, and enjoying each other’s company. My friends do nothing whatever to make me feel like it’s an imposition, or that I am a burden. It is kind of nice to have people to talk to and hang out with. It’s really nice not to have rent to pay. It is changing the way I see myself, and the way I define “success.”

I hope that what I’m doing will make it easier for someone else later on. Just knowing I did it might provide the impetus for someone else to follow a dream or a vocation. In the late 80’s I briefly tried working from home so I could juggle family and work with more autonomy. Years later another lawyer told me I had inspired her to do the same thing. Really, that’s how society changes. Somebody sees things in a new light, and strikes out in a new direction. Others observe that and decide to follow suit. Eventually what seemed avant garde becomes mainstream.

Our generation is getting to the age where financial pressures are less (or could be, if we’d downsize and budget). Many of us are still physically and mentally strong. There was a time when many of us rejected the values of materialism, militarism, and individualism. Now, even though most of us went ahead and conformed to those values, we might be ready to follow our hearts again, and find ways to be more loving and to be of service to others.

To anyone reading this who feels some stirring of the soul, my advice hasn’t changed. Spend some time examining your own heart, and your values. Pray earnestly about what God wants you to do. To the old “Desiderata” statement that, “You are a child of the universe; you were meant to be here,” I would add that you need to figure out what, in your case, would be the most meaningful, life-giving and life-affirming things for you to be doing with your life on earth. You were definitely meant to be here, but not just to take up space and consume resources. You were meant to fulfill some purpose or mission. Be mindful. Be prayerful. Be faithful. Be a seeker. Then answer the call once you hear it. Now is the time to find what you really care about and live a life that shows it.

Do not fear. God is with you. Be grateful for that, and be willing to submit to God’s will for your life. When you do that, you will find yourself in situations you never imagined, doing amazing things, and having the time of your life.

Blessings on your journey.

Monday I completed a research paper for my systematic theology class. My goals for the paper went from “I hope it doesn’t suck” to “Wow, what a cool idea.” In that shift, the paper itself went from an unoriginal and boring first draft to something I was excited about sharing with the professor.  The idea that grabbed me was a synthesis of my personal experience, some insights I had this semester in other classes and worship experiences, and two strands of thinking from the papers I had found on my subject.

Because of all the time I had allocated to work for other classes, I didn’t have much time to write the paper, but I had plenty of material. As I read I started playing with the idea that ended up being the main point of the paper, and I became more and more engaged with it. As the deadline loomed I had to incorporate that idea into the draft very quickly, but I found that exhilarating, because it was as if I was talking to the scholars, asking them what they thought of my take on the subject. My paper became a report about that conversation, not merely an abstract of other people’s ideas.

I’m glad I figured that out. That’s one more clue that I’ll be able to share with students. Reaching that moment of discovery and engagement is really the goal of writing anything. That is especially true of a theology research paper. With 2,000 years of scholarship available on any aspect of theology, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the mass of words, and to conclude that there’s nothing new to say.

There probably is nothing truly new to say, but each author brings something unique to the story. She or he can have a new conversation with one or two streams of thought, and reach a new insight. If it is new to the writer, it will at least be interesting to the reader, and it might help illuminate someone else’s path.

A classmate (who is not one of my students) told me that he had gotten far more out of the class than he had been able to articulate in his papers. He said he plans to spend the summer studying writing. I told him the only way to get better at writing is to write. The books can help, but the main thing is to do more writing.

I told him about “morning pages.” I learned about it from The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. Set the alarm for thirty minutes before you have to get up, and then, first thing upon waking, write three pages, longhand, nonstop, about whatever comes to mind. Don’t go back and correct or edit. Don’t worry about mechanics. Don’t even re-read anything for at least six weeks, and don’t show it to anyone else. Just write. I told him if he wanted to get better at golf, or at playing the piano, he’d mostly practice golf or piano. He might hire a coach, but the bulk of the improvement would come from practicing the skill.

Writing is a physical activity. We think of it as being a mental process, but that perception comes from a false mind/body dichotomy. The only two ways we have of sharing what we know or what we think are speaking and writing, and both of those activities are done with our bodies. I’ve seen students reach “aha” moments from the simplest bits of advice, and it always comes down to adopting some new physical practice, such as outlining, or mind mapping, or taking notes with a pen and paper. You can’t think your way into being a better writer. You have to write.

Another key to success in academic writing is to have fun chasing ideas. In one class we wrote reviews of academic papers, and we were talked about them in small groups. After I gave an oral review of the paper I had read, a classmate asked if I agreed or disagreed with the author. I said that wasn’t the point. The point of reading other scholars is to find out what they think. Follow the logic, assess strengths and weaknesses in the argument, and file it away mentally. Then read one of the papers or books that the author you just read cites. Then read another paper, and another and another. Follow the trail and find out where it goes.

To succeed at academic writing, a student has to go from seeing it as “working for” a particular professor to seeing it as her or his own mission. In what turned out to be our last session, I asked the student who fired me what she wanted from me. She said she wanted to be able to give each teacher what the teacher expected, as expressed in each individual syllabus. I said there was no way I could do that, because every syllabus is different. I said I could teach her how to write anything–a love letter, a bomb threat, a movie review, an exegesis paper–so the reader would understand her. I told her that if she wrote something good–readable, interesting, substantive, that would get her a better grade than slavishly following instructions about having subheadings or not, or using endnotes instead of footnotes, or whatever. The teachers have to give specific instructions about how to tackle each assignment, and I do spend a lot of time with students helping them detect, analyze and comply with “prompts,” but the main thing is to write a good paper. I actually had proof of that. This semester she and I had the same professor for two different classes. One week we each got a paper back from that professor with exactly the same feedback about how to do better, but I got an A on my paper and my student got a C. I think that was the right result, but it obviously had nothing to do with how well the student and I had followed directions.

Note: Two classmates and I designed this church as part of a group paper for Systematic Theology class. I ended up wishing there were such a church. I would love to be its pastor. It wouldn’t actually have to be non-denominational. It could be a “reconciling” congregation within the United Methodist Church.

“The Pilgrimage”

The Pilgrimage is a Christ-centered, holistic, Spirit-led community that seeks to learn what it means to love God and love neighbor together as members of God’s family. We welcome all saints and sinners into a dynamic, living community that practices fellowship, care for both humanity and creation, and insistence upon instituting just and life-giving social and political structures. Our formal worship services are liturgical and mystical. We promote sanctification of individuals and the church through means of grace (sacraments, study of scripture, prayer, fasting, covenant living, and works of mercy.)

The Pilgrimage is a non-denominational Protestant body in the Wesleyan tradition. At The Pilgrimage we maintain that the marks of the church are that the Word is truly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered. We also affirm with John Wesley that “there is no religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness” and that “evangelical faith should manifest itself in evangelical living.” We aspire to assemble the whole kingdom  of God in our congregation: we are multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-generational. We welcome everyone regardless of sexual orientation or marital status. We do not ask if people have “proper documentation.”

Sunday worship is liturgical, using orders of worship patterned after the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and the United Methodist Book of Worship. The senior pastor is an ordained United Methodist elder. Many lay people participate in worship according to their gifts. We have artists, professional people, singers, dancers, storytellers, and crafts people in our congregation, and we integrate visual arts, dance, and instrumental music into our worship services. In our preaching and Scripture reading we follow the Revised Common Lectionary.

Every Sunday evening we gather for a time of prayer, Bible study, sharing of joys and concerns, and a common meal. We conclude this time together by sharing Holy Communion. Once every quarter Communion is also offered in the Sunday morning worship service. All are welcome at the Lord’s table, regardless of age or church membership.

Most of our members meet mid-week in small covenant groups patterned after John Wesley’s “classes.” Many members had their first contact with The Pilgrimage through these small group meetings. The classes engage in spiritual disciplines and hold each other in prayer. When a class gets larger than twelve it is split into two smaller groups. Class leaders meet quarterly with the senior pastor, and have received special servant leadership training. Some class leaders have obtained formal theological training.

At The Pilgrimage we practice “believers’ family baptism.” Any person seeking to join the church who has not been previously baptized in a Christian church, plus all members of his or her family who have not been baptized, are baptized together, usually by total immersion. Anyone joining the church who has been previously baptized renews his or her baptismal covenant. Although we baptize infants and young children, we also stress the need for conscious acceptance of Christ by each individual when he or she is old enough. We practice the ancient tradition of the Easter Vigil, where catechumens are baptized at midnight on Easter morning, entering Christ’s tomb to be reborn as partakers of the Resurrection.

To us the essential marks of church are Word and Sacrament. We see the other “marks” (one, holy, apostolic, universal) differently than tradition sees them. There is unity in love, but that does not mean exclusivity, or insistence on only one way of doing things. Church should be holy-different from the dominant culture, set apart-but that does not require us to isolate ourselves from society. We follow the example of the apostles in their obedience to the Lord, but do not believe a monarchial episcopacy is necessary. And we think that when God sees the Church in all her forms, God perceives her inherent universality and unity. The mandates of liturgy, worship, ordinances, kerygma (proclamation), koinonia (fellowship/community), diakonia (service), and didache (teaching) are built into the design for our Sunday and mid-week gatherings. They are “means of grace,” and they promote sanctification of those who have been justified by faith.

The Pilgrimage sees evangelism and engagement with the larger World as necessary to a truly biblical, holistic ministry. Anything short of total engagement would be an inadequate response to God’s call. Rather than freeze doctrine, polity, and practice, at the Pilgrimage we think “the church is and always should be emerging.” Practical theology constantly responds to the experiences of the people, to the events of history, and to cultural context. The emerging church movement is, in a very real sense, a new Reformation, and we at The Pilgrimage believe that the Spirit has called and led us to live, love and work together in this congregation of the Christian church.

Unbelievably, my last semester at Palmer ends May 14 (plus a take-home final due May 20). When school is over I’ll have 2 more weeks to catch up on some paperwork, pack my stuff, do some sight seeing, and then move to Northern Virginia, where I’ll be staying with friends for the summer and commuting to Washington, D.C. for an internship at the Children’s Defense Fund. Then I’m moving to Boston to attend the Boston University School of Theology. I’ll finish my M.Div. there, and then enroll in a PhD program–somewhere–studying something. I tell people this whole going-to-seminary bit was not my idea in the first place, so I will await further instructions.

I will miss my Philly church, Arch Street UMC. It deserves a whole blog entry of its own, and I plan to do that, but it is an amazing, diverse, quirky, wonderful community. I did my internship there this year, and that was a great blessing. My church in Denver is wonderful too, and it does a lot of great things, but it is awash in physical and human resources. Because that was my frame of reference, I assumed that a church needs lots of people and money in order to do effective ministry. Thankfully, Arch Street has proven me wrong. The main thing a church needs is love. If it loves God and loves its neighbors, then, in mysterious ways, God provides.

One of my projects this week was a group paper on ecclesiology (the theology of church). Three of us were supposed to design a church, describe it, and then explain the theology behind the decisions we made regarding sacraments, ordination, worship, preaching, teaching and interaction with the world. Although I was the only Methodist in our group, we ended up deciding to propose an “emerging church” with Wesleyan roots. I wish the church we designed actually existed. I’m going to post the description on this blog (minus most of the theology) and see what you think.

I will miss my students. I’m down to four now. The one who was last to start working with me this semester arrived five minutes before her lesson time this week to announce that she no longer needs a tutor. I agree that she doesn’t need me, because she and I never formed an effective working alliance, and we both found it frustrating and disappointing. Even though I was able to help her make substantial improvements on two of her papers, she didn’t take away any lasting skills from those exercises. She just did what I told her to do in each specific instance, without generalizing the advice to other contexts. With the exception of correcting her footnote and bibliography forms, which she did finally do, she kept making the same mistakes over and over again.

I can usually connect with a student, inspiring enough trust and confidence so we can work together as a team, but she and I never did connect. I realize that happens, but the reason she gave for firing me is that she knows everything she needs to know about writing. She claimed she had gotten an “A” on a total train wreck of a paper, and that is just not credible. She had already handed it in by the time I got a chance to see it, but she said she planned to rewrite it, and wanted “feedback.” In what proved to be our last lesson, after a lot of thrashing about, I finally got her to look at one paragraph, find the topic sentence, and then tell me how each other sentence in the paragraph advanced the argument of the topic sentence. The topic sentence was weak, but she did have one, and she was able to identify it. The next sentence did relate to that one, and it did advance the argument. The remaining sentences in the paragraph had nothing to do with the topic sentence, so of course she couldn’t tell me what they were doing in that paragraph. Every paragraph in the paper was like that. She said, “Oh, now I see what you mean.” A week later she fired me. I will reflect on how I handled my end of it and see what there is to be learned from it.

By contrast, my other students are doing very well. The student who comes on Wednesdays was telling me last week that she kept thinking of things to add to a paper she was working on, and she could just hear me saying, “Now what does this have to do with your subject matter?” so she didn’t. She will have my voice in her head from now on, every time she goes to write something. (One of my Greek students from last summer told me recently that he made a mistake in a translation for his Greek Exegesis class, then recalled a rule I had taught him that would have prevented him from making that mistake. Teachers need to be aware of the programming that they download into their students’ brains.) Oh-the Wednesday student got 100% on her paper.

After one of my classes this week three classmates and I went out to lunch at an Irish pub. We all find that particular class frustrating, and after complaining about it for awhile we started talking about what makes a good teacher, and a good theology discussion. There are several teachers at Palmer who we all agree are excellent, so we used them to construct a model. Since I want to be a teacher, I paid particularly close attention. Maybe I’ll blog about it separately.

I’ve been doing some experimenting with homemade meat substitutes. After trying store bought seitan, which is a fake meat made with wheat gluten, I decided to see if I could make it myself. I found a video on the internet demonstrating how to make spicy Italian sausage. I tried it, and it was amazingly good, easy, and inexpensive, and much better than anything I’ve found at the store. Next I tried to make barbecued “brisket.” It came out OK, and I ate it all, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted. I’m going to keep refining the technique.

At church we’ve been having potluck dinner gatherings once a month. We alternate between Mondays and Wednesdays, to try to accommodate people’s schedules, but I can’t come on Mondays because I have class. Potlucks at Arch Street are a little different. We don’t turn anyone away, and some of our folks don’t have cooking facilities (or homes, for that matter), so I’ve been providing food every time, whether I can be there or not. I love feeding people, so it’s not an imposition. I have a policy of cooking for almost everyone for potlucks, regardless of dietary restrictions, and of making something delicious. This week I made a black bean casserole with a cornmeal crust. It was based on a recipe from Diet for a Small Planet. I didn’t bring my old, tattered copy of the book with me to Philadelphia, so I did an internet search and found something close enough to give me a jumping-off point. I was told it was a “big hit.” (Later I remembered a trick I recently learned. Amazon.com allows you to search inside books, so I looked at the actual recipe in the original book, and further refreshed my recollection.)

This week I pulled an all-nighter writing a paper. I can hardly believe I did that. I sat at my computer from 9 Monday night until 8 Tuesday morning. Then I slept for an hour, got up, showered, dressed, and went to class. I really have no idea if the paper is any good. I did my best, under the circumstances, but that was unwise. It’s a good thing I live at school, and didn’t have to drive to class. It would not have been safe for me to be driving in that condition.

You see, it’s like this: My life is run by a “committee” in my head. There are adults on the committee, but there’s at least one small child, and one teenager. The teenager took control of the paper project, and she just didn’t want to write it at all. The problem was that the criteria for the paper were impossible to meet. The instructions for what to do were inconsistent: Answer several questions about what you think, but don’t say “I.” Cite at least 15 sources other than the Bible, but do a thorough, personal review of the New Testament to find examples of the theme you’ve chosen, and base half the paper on that work. Don’t use long quotes, but talk about the scholarship on your theme, and interact with other scholars. Explain how what you learned fits with your faith tradition’s teaching, and say whether your preconceptions about it have changed. And keep it between 12 and 13 pages.

It is what it is. Time to move on to the next project.

I’m going to transfer to a different seminary in the fall. Before I give a more complete explanation of that decision, I want to emphasize that it is not because of any negative judgment about my current school. I deeply appreciate its many strengths, and I feel blessed to have begun my preparation for ministry here.

Following are some of the great things about Palmer.:

Real Dedication to Kingdom Values. Palmer’s motto is “The Whole Gospel for the Whole World through Whole Persons.” The school consistently strives to live up to that motto in multiple dimensions. The student body and faculty are very diverse. Over half the students are Black; mostly African-American but also African and Caribbean. Slightly more than half the students are women. About 42% of the students are white. Ages range from 23 to somewhere around 70. Half the students are Baptist, and some 30 other denominations make up the other half. The spiritual, emotional, intellectual and practical dimensions of ministry are woven through the entire curriculum. Spiritual formation, pastor self-care, keeping Sabbath, and means of grace are stressed in almost every class, and are the primary emphasis of some of the classes. The atmosphere is warm, collegial and loving. The concept of “holistic ministry” is constantly stressed. Palmer teaches that it isn’t enough to proclaim the “good news” of the gospel. The church must actually be good news to the poor, with a commitment to justice, systemic social change, and social action.

Academic Freedom. Palmer is a “bigger tent” theologically than I expected. On its website it describes itself as theologically conservative but socially progressive. Faculty are required to assent to a specific “statement of faith.” Before I got here I wondered how comfortable I would feel in a “theologically conservative” school. It was fine. In fact, I have found myself rethinking my positions on some things, and becoming more willing to at least entertain different viewpoints from those I held before. I have never felt out of place or disrespected for my views. In papers where I am expected to say what I believe, I have been honest, and I have never been criticized or downgraded for my opinions, nor have I felt any pressure to tell people what I think they want to hear. Community and relationship are valued more highly here than conformity.

Great Teaching. Palmer has assembled a talented and dedicated faculty from all over the world and from many Christian faith traditions. Both “regular” professors and adjunct faculty are deeply committed to their teaching ministries. They are patient, persistent, and dedicated. They bring a high level of professionalism to their work. Most of the teachers are also currently working in pastoral ministry. In their teaching they bring a real understanding of and sensitivity to the practical challenges of ministry.I think that’s critically important.

Scholarship. There are professors here who could teach anywhere they wanted to. They are well known for their accomplishments in fields of evangelism, social justice, and biblical scholarship. I don’t want to name names, because I don’t want anyone who I don’t mention by name to feel slighted. I assume, though, that there are unique things about Palmer that attract and hold them, and make them prefer Palmer to someplace more famous or prestigious.

Commitment to Christ. This may seem like something that would go without saying about any seminary, but Palmer is unabashedly Christian. I was talking to an alumna of one of the six schools on my list (shortly before I found out that I did not get into that school.) She made a strong case for attending her alma mater, but she said, “You know, it’s not actually a seminary. It’s a secular divinity school.” At Palmer, classes usually start with a devotional, almost always led by the teacher. People share joys and concerns, and they pray for each other. I don’t think going someplace that is less devoted to practical Christianity will make me lose my religion or anything, but I really appreciate having been in a place that gives priority to spiritual direction and spiritual formation. I went to seminary because I felt called by God. It would have been a bit disappointing not to find God waiting for me when I got there. In my first orientation session, in August, 2008, the leader announced, “God has called you all to be together in this place.” I needed to hear that. Although the school is thoroughly Christian, there is a respect for other faiths and a willingness to engage in interfaith dialog.

Commitment to Pastoral Ministry. Many of my classmates work full time, or have other major life commitments. A significant number of students are already working in ministry, some as senior pastors. The class schedule at Palmer is designed to help working adults get a solid theological and pastoral education. Required classes are offered at night or on Saturdays. Some people come in from three or four hours away. They can take classes on two consecutive days, and spend the night, making the most of their time in school. This is a huge benefit to the Church.

The six essays I wrote for seminary transfer applications took me forever to do, and I was disappointed in them. I thought they were over-written, and lacking in vitality. I worked on them diligently, and for a very long time, but I didn’t feel particularly inspired. Despite efforts to be original, to avoid cliches, to be clear, and to convey a sense of how important this calling is to me, I didn’t know if admissions committees would see me as I hoped to be seen. I sent them all in anyway, hoping for the best.

I’m more satisfied with some other writing I’ve done lately. As part of an independent study of Methodist history I read and then reviewed two books, one about the development of the world Methodist movement, and one about the life of Francis Asbury. I found it easy to write the reviews, and I did a good job. Maybe I was just happy to have something to write about besides myself.

Right now concern for my writing students is keeping me awake nights. I have a whole new group this semester. Of the three people from last semester, two did well enough that they are no longer required to work with me. The third student was close to that point, and might have gotten there after one more semester, but decided to suspend seminary studies.

I have four new students, and will soon add a fifth. As before, I like and respect all of them. We have great conversations, and I love hearing their stories. But I can’t figure out how to help them.

I keep buying books about teaching writing. I also collect articles. I have found some excellent university web sites, and I’ve copied many of their articles and worksheets. I give my students handouts to read and study, hoping they will learn from them. But it’s not working out very well. To me, it’s obvious that if I want to learn something new, first I read about how to do it, then I practice it, and I master it. To someone who doesn’t operate that way, it’s not an effective teaching strategy.

I wish I could get them to love the written word. If they loved words, then they would love reading and writing. If they loved words, then they’d relish the process of saying just the right thing. They’d connect their hearts and minds and spirits with each written assignment. They’d see that writing can be a way to pray, and to deepen faith by reinforcing understanding and insight.

Many of my students are already pastors. They preach and exhort and teach and pray, but for the most part it is extemporaneous, and oral. They say the Holy Spirit gives them the words that the people need to hear. I do not doubt that, but, regrettably, they don’t seem to think their written work is or can be Spirit-led or Spirit-inspired.

I wish I could teach a writing class patterned on “The Karate Kid.” I imagine myself getting the students doing things that seem completely beside the point, like Mr. Miagi’s “wax on, wax off” exercise, then, somehow, tricking them into writing in their own voices, with their own passion and creativity. Then they would quit worrying about word counts and mechanics and trying to impress the teacher, and they would pour out something heartfelt and profound. Right now, they are imprisoned by fear and loathing, by thinking it’s too hard, or too dull. I would give anything for the keys to unlock those cells.

Writing can provoke, transport, uplift, admonish, chasten, and inspire. It can give life. It can destroy. The written word is the foundation of civilization, and an instrument of social and spiritual transformation. It is sacred. It is magical. It is powerful. The Bible tells us that the law is written on our hearts. Our Hebrew forbears wrote the Shema on scrolls fastened to their doorways, and touched them when going out or coming in, praying “Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” We are People of the Book. Yet I don’t know how to convey a proper sense of awe about writing, or desire to do it.

I wish I could infect my students with a burning desire to write as beautifully, persuasively, powerfully and convincingly as possible. I’ll keep buying books. I’ll keep reading. I’ll keep praying and thinking and analyzing. I will find the keys.

Valentine’s Day, the most high pressure of Hallmark holidays, is coming up, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about love and marriage. Two men that I’ve known since they were babies told me recently that their long marriages are ending in divorce. I asked both of them to reconsider. I don’t imagine that I, someone who has been divorced twice, have a lot of credibility in that arena, and I don’t think they’re going to take my advice, but I had to try.

In a study of unhappy marriages conducted by the University of Chicago, (read the report here) researchers found two rather amazing things. One is that most of the unhappy people who divorced were still unhappy five years later, and the other was that two-thirds of the unhappy people who didn’t divorce rated their marriages as happy five years later. Furthermore, it was the unhappiest marriages that showed the most dramatic turnarounds. The only exception to the “divorce won’t make you happy” finding was where there was domestic violence. A larger percentage of violent marriages ended in divorce, and for those spouses there was an improvement in emotional and psychological well-being after the divorce.

The researchers found three patterns in the marriages that had transformed. The report calls them “the marital endurance ethic, the marital work ethic, and the personal happiness ethic.” Couples with the marital endurance ethic just hung in there and toughed it out. The work ethic involved people deciding to figure out better ways to do things, and make changes that led to greater happiness and satisfaction. In the last pattern, people took responsibility for their own happiness, and found it whether or not the marriage improved. (I would speculate, though, that if spouses attained higher levels of satisfaction and happiness independently, that would “spill over” into a better relationship.)

We tend to assume that the only two choices for unhappy spouses are to accept whatever situation is making them miserable, or to get out. It’s surprising to find empirical evidence that these assumptions are not necessarily true. With the exception of marriages involving spousal abuse, the study found no big differences between unhappy couples who divorced and the ones who didn’t.

I was in counseling with one of my kids for a long time. There were five years of great unhappiness and conflict. But I stuck it out. As a parent, I was not willing to give up, and I think that the mere fact of my refusal to cave helped the relationship be healed eventually. It also ultimately brought us closer, which was something I used to predict during the rough times. The report says the same thing about married couples. If they remain committed to each other, and to staying married, if they don’t give up, they stand a good chance of becoming much happier together.

In an interpersonal conflict that has a lot of emotional energy in it, there are two sources of that energy. One is whatever is being done or said; the other is how the other person is receiving it and reacting to it. I’m not saying we can make black into white by telling ourselves a different story, but I know now (from the hard times with that one kid) that it can be very difficult, when my buttons are being pushed, to take ownership of the buttons. The person doing the pushing is definitely doing something, and is responsible for his or her choices and behavior. But I am responsible for mine, and if I’m overreacting, or behaving badly myself, then that’s my department. The reaction shows me where my weak spots are, the places that I need to heal. If I don’t take advantage of those “teaching moments,” then I will continue to have the weak spots and they will continue to cause trouble for me in other relationships.

Another expert on marriages, John Gottman, says that in longitudinal studies of marriages his group is able to tell within three minutes of observing how couples argue which ones will stay together and which ones will part. They identified what they called the “Four Horsemen” of marital apocalypse: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness and Stonewalling. He also says that in good relationships, there is a strong underlying friendship that makes it possible, when things get out of hand, for repair efforts to be successful. There’s a video of Gottman talking about his marriage studies here.

The way human beings experience spiritual growth and maturation is within relationships, with God and with other people. Of all relationships, it is the “special love relationships” that have the most to teach us. Somewhere along the line I read that “you marry the person you’re supposed to marry until you learn what it is that you need to learn.” That doesn’t necessarily mean that once the lesson is learned the marriage then ends. It can mean you get to a new level of intimacy, love, and connection.  Although some marriages are truly destructive and dangerous, and can’t be fixed, people often take the wrong lesson from the experience, and they give up too soon. We should teach our young people that until there is crisis in a marriage, it’s really more like a long date than a real marriage. The crises are the places for deep soul work. If more people saw them as opportunities for growth, instead of focusing on the other person’s behavior, more marriages could be saved.

“People build walls when they can’t maintain boundaries.” The people who can’t hang in there through difficult spots in relationships of all kinds (parent-child, spousal, even business or friendship) have their own work to do–on their boundaries, on their communication, on clarifying their own values, and on their own deepest fears. If our only childhood model of love was uneven, flawed, or crazy, we grow up thinking that’s normal, and believing it has something to do with us. That makes us get side tracked into unhelpful things like trying to manage other people’s lives instead of our own, or thinking that if that person really loved me he/she would know what I want without my having to ask.

Often we partner out of need or emptiness or brokenness. A partner can’t fix those things. The partner holds up a mirror that reflects what needs to be transformed. It’s up to us to decide what to do with what we see in the mirror. All the while, of course, the partner is simultaneously working through his or her own “stuff.” That can get really messy, even dangerous, but it’s an excellent practice to ask oneself, “What is being taught here?” instead of, “How do I get my partner to change?” Getting mired in anger and resentment will hurt both you and the relationship. And it isn’t love.

So, on this Valentine’s Day, if you’re in a long term relationship, congratulations. Remember to tell your special one how much you love him or her, and be sure to show it, not just one day a year, but every day. And if you see any of those Four Horsemen galloping around, get rid of them. Your partner deserves love, respect, empathy, kindness and patience as much as you do (even if you don’t think so. Even if you’re really angry and think that so-and-so should be punished. Resist the urge.) Show how you want to be treated by modeling it. That doesn’t mean you have to put up with bad behavior, and if your safety is threatened, that is an entirely different subject. Instead of the Four Horsemen, learn to communicate responsibly and respectfully, with assertiveness and not aggression. Try to step back from the situation and learn not to take it personally. And be patient. Even if things are really miserable, you can take steps to improve your situation, and, five years from now, you might just be happily partnered–without having to abandon your current partner.

Happy Valentine’s Day.