1
00:00:01,760 --> 00:00:04,760
Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that

2
00:00:04,840 --> 00:00:08,000
Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become

3
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,360
Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian Podcast.

4
00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:15,560
Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking

5
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:18,200
Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world

6
00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:22,319
Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that

7
00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:25,640
Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to

8
00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:29,680
Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this

9
00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:32,639
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer, joined by

10
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:36,000
Speaker 1: my co host Ashishin Varma, and today we're joined by

11
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:37,440
Speaker 1: a special guest, David J.

12
00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:38,120
Speaker 2: Van Dyke.

13
00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:41,839
Speaker 1: David is a professor at Wheaton College, head of the

14
00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:46,040
Speaker 1: Marriage and Family Therapy program, and co host with his

15
00:00:46,440 --> 00:00:50,520
Speaker 1: wife Tara on the With You podcast. And they also

16
00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:52,720
Speaker 1: have a book coming out with IVP, so plenty of

17
00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:57,280
Speaker 1: stuff going on. The IVP books out this February. I

18
00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 1: think you said right right, so very good. Well, welcome

19
00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:02,320
Speaker 1: to the podcast, David, Thanks for being here.

20
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:04,039
Speaker 3: Thanks James, I'm glad to be here.

21
00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, So talk a little bit about maybe we just

22
00:01:07,840 --> 00:01:10,320
Speaker 1: kind of jump in a little bit but what do

23
00:01:10,360 --> 00:01:13,120
Speaker 1: you talk to us a little bit about how marriage

24
00:01:13,160 --> 00:01:16,240
Speaker 1: and family therapy works at Wheaton College. So within the

25
00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:19,760
Speaker 1: program you oversee what's the overwriting philosophy of marriage and

26
00:01:19,800 --> 00:01:22,119
Speaker 1: family therapy and how do you all think about it?

27
00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:24,880
Speaker 2: And then maybe we can jump off questions there.

28
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the first thing I always try to

29
00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,160
Speaker 3: help people understand is marriage and family therapy is very

30
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,759
Speaker 3: different from counseling and from clinical psychology. And everybody thinks

31
00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:39,080
Speaker 3: when you think of mental health, it's just psychology in general.

32
00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:43,319
Speaker 3: Marriage and family therapy is a way of thinking about

33
00:01:43,480 --> 00:01:48,720
Speaker 3: health and pathology from a relational, systemic way. So the

34
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:53,160
Speaker 3: easiest way to describe that is, if someone is diagnosed

35
00:01:53,200 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 3: with depression, it's more of the family depression that resides

36
00:01:56,880 --> 00:02:00,760
Speaker 3: in the individual than it is just the individual's biology.

37
00:02:00,800 --> 00:02:06,600
Speaker 3: And neurobiology matters. Medications really important in treating some mental

38
00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:10,000
Speaker 3: health things, but we're looking at the relational side of

39
00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:15,240
Speaker 3: it of how it helps create maintain that symptom and

40
00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,000
Speaker 3: that the symptom serves the system rather than just individuals.

41
00:02:19,480 --> 00:02:22,880
Speaker 3: So when you think about clinical psychology, they're doing testing

42
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,520
Speaker 3: looking at kind of what are the root causes within

43
00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:30,119
Speaker 3: the individual counselors are looking at resilience of the individual.

44
00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:33,359
Speaker 3: Marriage and family therapists are looking at the relationship. And

45
00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:36,840
Speaker 3: this can be working with an individual thinking about the

46
00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:40,360
Speaker 3: relationships that they're in, the actual relationships like marriage and

47
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:43,839
Speaker 3: family members coming in or even consulting with churches. So

48
00:02:44,240 --> 00:02:49,320
Speaker 3: you think about pastor's moral failure, it ends up being

49
00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:52,440
Speaker 3: a congregational issue than just that was a bad hire.

50
00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:54,600
Speaker 2: Yeah.

51
00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:57,040
Speaker 1: Interesting, I mean I was first, I think I was

52
00:02:57,080 --> 00:03:00,400
Speaker 1: first probably introduced to marriage and family therapy side of

53
00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:04,240
Speaker 1: seminary by Edwin Friedman's book Failure of Nerve, where he

54
00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:06,400
Speaker 1: talks a lot about marriage to family systems, and so

55
00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,320
Speaker 1: what it sounds like you're describing is very similar to

56
00:03:09,320 --> 00:03:12,760
Speaker 1: what he's describing. Would that be from a layman's perspective,

57
00:03:12,760 --> 00:03:13,440
Speaker 1: pretty accurate.

58
00:03:14,040 --> 00:03:18,600
Speaker 3: Swedman took one specific kind of family systems theory. It's

59
00:03:18,639 --> 00:03:22,200
Speaker 3: called from Murray Bowen Bowanian family therapy, and so he

60
00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:25,160
Speaker 3: took that and really applied it to congregations and to

61
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:29,240
Speaker 3: synagogues and actually to leadership of looking. He talks a

62
00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:32,679
Speaker 3: lot about non anxious presence and it's kind of the

63
00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:38,280
Speaker 3: center of the person. Nowadays we talk about neurobiology so

64
00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:40,960
Speaker 3: we talk about the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex.

65
00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:44,120
Speaker 3: But if you think of fight or flight, we have

66
00:03:44,160 --> 00:03:48,480
Speaker 3: a reaction that if I'm not feeling comfortable with you, James,

67
00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:52,880
Speaker 3: or with you Ishiesh, I'm going to get reactive, and

68
00:03:52,920 --> 00:03:55,720
Speaker 3: that reactivity is going to be informed by my family

69
00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 3: of origin. So if our family never talked about things,

70
00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:02,080
Speaker 3: my response to a perceived threat will probably be shutting down.

71
00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,520
Speaker 3: If I come from a highly conflictual family, I'll come

72
00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:09,800
Speaker 3: after you. But it's a default mode, and Friedman talks

73
00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:12,840
Speaker 3: about that in terms of individual leadership but also within

74
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:16,760
Speaker 3: the congregation of how do we get centered and acknowledge

75
00:04:16,800 --> 00:04:20,600
Speaker 3: our feelings, understand what's being evoked by the context that

76
00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:25,000
Speaker 3: we're in, and then intentionally that kind of executive functioning

77
00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:28,960
Speaker 3: of our brain respond to what's going on rather than

78
00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:31,640
Speaker 3: just reactive. I'm sure neither one of you have ever

79
00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:35,839
Speaker 3: been reactive, and so you only work from that executive functioning. Yeah.

80
00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:39,280
Speaker 1: I don't even understand what you're talking about. So it's

81
00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:43,520
Speaker 1: what are these reactions you're talking about? Maybe it's yes,

82
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:49,360
Speaker 1: it's like Freedman, Yeah, yep, exactly. So Freeman is more

83
00:04:49,480 --> 00:04:51,800
Speaker 1: narrow though than what you guys would do. Like, he's

84
00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 1: really applying a fairly one specific theory and there are

85
00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:56,920
Speaker 1: multiple theories of which I'm just not aware.

86
00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:57,720
Speaker 2: That's what I'm hearing.

87
00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:03,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, he just one specific theorist and there's I don't know,

88
00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:07,279
Speaker 3: probably thirty five that are commonly accepted. So it's different

89
00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:14,120
Speaker 3: ways of attacking relationships, maybe not attacking addressing relationships.

90
00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:15,440
Speaker 2: Either way.

91
00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, I tend to be more sports minded, so you know,

92
00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 3: therapy is a competition, you know.

93
00:05:23,839 --> 00:05:27,760
Speaker 4: Competition, reaction, attack. That sounds sounds like sports perfectly to me.

94
00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:30,520
Speaker 3: That's right, And it's marketing.

95
00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:30,760
Speaker 2: Right.

96
00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:32,800
Speaker 3: If I work from a bone and want people to

97
00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:35,839
Speaker 3: be more intentional, you have to create a little anxiety.

98
00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:40,320
Speaker 4: That's marketing, job job satisfaction right there.

99
00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:42,240
Speaker 2: Right, that's right, that's right.

100
00:05:44,160 --> 00:05:47,800
Speaker 1: When you when you think about doing marriage and family therapy.

101
00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:50,919
Speaker 1: So we've I've had other counselors on and they really

102
00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:53,440
Speaker 1: just do more one on one counseling. But part of

103
00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:56,280
Speaker 1: what I find interesting what you're saying is when you

104
00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:58,920
Speaker 1: think about and you mentioned it, like when a pastor

105
00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:02,560
Speaker 1: has some sort of moral fail, it becomes a congregational issue,

106
00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:06,599
Speaker 1: it becomes a family issue. How do you how do

107
00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:12,600
Speaker 1: you train students to think through the overlapping domains there. So,

108
00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:15,560
Speaker 1: in other words, you've got the family and the organization

109
00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:18,040
Speaker 1: sort of butting up against each other and it creates

110
00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:21,200
Speaker 1: this whole complex of problems that you know you've got

111
00:06:21,440 --> 00:06:23,680
Speaker 1: multiplied across multiple things.

112
00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:27,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not for family. Therapy is not for the

113
00:06:27,480 --> 00:06:32,560
Speaker 3: faint of heart because there's so many movings and quite frankly,

114
00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,480
Speaker 3: a lot of people, because of the individual culture here

115
00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:38,960
Speaker 3: in the US, are are only thinking about the internal state,

116
00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:43,839
Speaker 3: the emotional and the thoughts of the individual. I want

117
00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:45,479
Speaker 3: to be careful how I say this, because I don't

118
00:06:45,480 --> 00:06:47,640
Speaker 3: want to kind of clipped out. But I'm not really

119
00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:50,919
Speaker 3: interested in the stories that families are telling. I'm interested

120
00:06:50,960 --> 00:06:53,440
Speaker 3: in the way that they're interacting around the stories. So

121
00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:57,080
Speaker 3: psychologist counselors are going to delve into the meaning. Their

122
00:06:57,160 --> 00:06:59,599
Speaker 3: questions are going to be more why why are you

123
00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:02,000
Speaker 3: feeling that way? Why are you doing that? Why are

124
00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 3: you thinking that? I'm more interested in how and what

125
00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:09,320
Speaker 3: so when that happens for you as ye, how do

126
00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:13,800
Speaker 3: you respond or how James, how does your family respond

127
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:15,600
Speaker 3: to you when you're doing that? I'm going to be

128
00:07:15,640 --> 00:07:19,440
Speaker 3: tracking the relational piece that informs or shapes that and

129
00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:23,880
Speaker 3: so getting students to think think relationally. And part of

130
00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:26,800
Speaker 3: it's about I mean, if you've noticed already I like

131
00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:30,280
Speaker 3: doing interaction. So pulling people into interaction with me as

132
00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:33,680
Speaker 3: I teach to give them a new experience, then maybe

133
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:37,760
Speaker 3: what they anticipate that counseling would be. And we have

134
00:07:37,920 --> 00:07:40,720
Speaker 3: it set up in a developmental frame our students. We

135
00:07:40,760 --> 00:07:45,080
Speaker 3: have a clinic at Wheaton College that's just for relational purposes.

136
00:07:45,880 --> 00:07:50,880
Speaker 3: We work with individuals, couples, families, but we're mainly thinking systemically.

137
00:07:50,920 --> 00:07:54,440
Speaker 3: And so the first eight weeks the students start, they

138
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:59,160
Speaker 3: watch me or one of my faculty doing the therapy

139
00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:01,800
Speaker 3: and they're we're on camera, and then we take a

140
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:04,360
Speaker 3: break from the family. They stay in the room. We

141
00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:06,600
Speaker 3: talk with the students of here's what I'm thinking, here's

142
00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:09,040
Speaker 3: what I'm doing, what would you do in the room?

143
00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:10,960
Speaker 3: Go back and do it. So they observe us for

144
00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,360
Speaker 3: about two months, and then we divide them into groups

145
00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:16,600
Speaker 3: and one or two of them are working with families

146
00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:19,400
Speaker 3: and we are the rest of the team and myself

147
00:08:19,720 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 3: are behind the mirror and they're doing the work or

148
00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:24,560
Speaker 3: behind the camera and then they come in and so

149
00:08:24,600 --> 00:08:27,440
Speaker 3: we have them see it, we have them kind of

150
00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:29,720
Speaker 3: sweat it out and do it and just have all

151
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:31,960
Speaker 3: sorts of anxiety. So a lot of that supervision is

152
00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:34,640
Speaker 3: just like, don't forget to breathe, don't forget to stay

153
00:08:34,640 --> 00:08:38,360
Speaker 3: in your body, be a normal human being and respond.

154
00:08:38,600 --> 00:08:41,720
Speaker 3: And then we send them out into the wild in

155
00:08:41,800 --> 00:08:45,079
Speaker 3: their second year, and we have placement partners all over

156
00:08:45,160 --> 00:08:49,600
Speaker 3: the Chicagoland area. So that's the mechanism of how we

157
00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:54,000
Speaker 3: do it. It's very experiential. It's what we say in

158
00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:57,880
Speaker 3: supervision even isn't as important as how I'm interacting with

159
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:00,600
Speaker 3: them around supervision. So I'll model what I want them

160
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:05,160
Speaker 3: to do more than tell them. There's in teaching they

161
00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:10,280
Speaker 3: talk about you can tell, teach and model, and we

162
00:09:10,360 --> 00:09:13,160
Speaker 3: really try to do the modeling of the experience that

163
00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:15,080
Speaker 3: so that they'll go in and do the same thing

164
00:09:15,200 --> 00:09:19,280
Speaker 3: rather than saying, okay, focus on emotion because that tends

165
00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:21,120
Speaker 3: to be more of the individual approach.

166
00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:26,920
Speaker 4: So within that, can you help me understand a little

167
00:09:26,960 --> 00:09:30,000
Speaker 4: bit more? You said you you don't like to hear,

168
00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:33,880
Speaker 4: or you're not interested in what the story is. Now

169
00:09:33,960 --> 00:09:37,080
Speaker 4: a lot of times we'll talk about how a story

170
00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:39,640
Speaker 4: shapes a person, how they get to where they are.

171
00:09:39,920 --> 00:09:41,840
Speaker 4: So I'm assuming within that it's not that you don't

172
00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:45,480
Speaker 4: want to hear the story. What what exactly do you

173
00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:46,200
Speaker 4: mean within that?

174
00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:51,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair, I would say, I think, I think

175
00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:54,400
Speaker 3: I do. I'm not interested in the story. I'm interested

176
00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:58,280
Speaker 3: in what the story does. So it's like C. S.

177
00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:02,200
Speaker 3: Lewis Chronicle of Narnia or or Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

178
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:04,600
Speaker 3: The story is interesting, but what it does is more

179
00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:07,240
Speaker 3: interesting to me. How it's moving the reader, the kind

180
00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 3: of the myth of what's being talked about speaks to

181
00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:16,400
Speaker 3: kind of a deeper truth. And in families and in churches,

182
00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:19,400
Speaker 3: you talk about certain things over and over again. I'm

183
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:23,760
Speaker 3: interested in what that does more than oh, that's a

184
00:10:23,800 --> 00:10:28,240
Speaker 3: fascinating story. Tell me more. There is approach of systems

185
00:10:28,280 --> 00:10:31,520
Speaker 3: where we look at the dominant discourse. It's called narrative

186
00:10:31,559 --> 00:10:35,080
Speaker 3: family therapy. That there's major stories that we tell. We

187
00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,920
Speaker 3: tell about ourselves, we tell about our spouses, we tell

188
00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:41,520
Speaker 3: about our kids, and we look at you know, maybe

189
00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:45,160
Speaker 3: that story has you stuck from new possibilities as a family.

190
00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:49,120
Speaker 3: So not in the church sense, but in the therapeutic sense,

191
00:10:49,120 --> 00:10:52,280
Speaker 3: we kind of deconstruct that story. We pull that story

192
00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:56,800
Speaker 3: apart and look for minor, minor narratives that maybe are

193
00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:59,600
Speaker 3: underneath exceptions, if you will, Like no one can do

194
00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:02,199
Speaker 3: everything all the time, and so we look for exceptions.

195
00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:05,960
Speaker 3: So you might say, oh, James is a bad boy, Well,

196
00:11:05,960 --> 00:11:09,240
Speaker 3: that's a narrative about antich nature, Like the essence of

197
00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:12,920
Speaker 3: James is bad. There might be a way of languaging

198
00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:15,360
Speaker 3: that of saying, oh, James made a bad life choice there,

199
00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:18,240
Speaker 3: or James made a bad choice to hit his sister.

200
00:11:19,320 --> 00:11:22,680
Speaker 3: And if we just in doing that, the behavior still

201
00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:25,880
Speaker 3: is the same. James still has done something. The story

202
00:11:25,960 --> 00:11:28,480
Speaker 3: is there, but the function of one is about his

203
00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:32,560
Speaker 3: self worth and one is about the behavior. And so

204
00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:36,000
Speaker 3: we look at like that. That's how I think about story.

205
00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:39,800
Speaker 3: It's what it does more than oh, I can't wait

206
00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:42,280
Speaker 3: to get to the ending. Well, the ending is the

207
00:11:42,320 --> 00:11:44,400
Speaker 3: function of the way it's happening, and so we can

208
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:46,680
Speaker 3: play with the way that's happening to get to a

209
00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:51,320
Speaker 3: new outcome. One thing that really disturbs my students is

210
00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:53,520
Speaker 3: when I first meet them, I say, you know, people

211
00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:55,680
Speaker 3: come to me and say I have this problem and

212
00:11:55,720 --> 00:11:57,920
Speaker 3: I want you to solve it. And my response as

213
00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:01,040
Speaker 3: a clinician is, I have no idea, idea if we're

214
00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:02,559
Speaker 3: going to solve that or not, but I'm going to

215
00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:05,280
Speaker 3: help you respond differently and there'll be a likelihood of

216
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:08,880
Speaker 3: a different outcome. And I think that goes to thinking christianly,

217
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:12,400
Speaker 3: because if I could say you come to me and

218
00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:14,840
Speaker 3: I'll do something to you to get a different outcome,

219
00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:18,320
Speaker 3: that's very godlike. I'm not smart enough. Maybe there's some

220
00:12:18,360 --> 00:12:21,400
Speaker 3: therapists out there that are smarter than me and can

221
00:12:21,559 --> 00:12:24,520
Speaker 3: kind of promise that they can get that outcome for you.

222
00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:29,560
Speaker 3: For me, I understand, I'm limited. I can't get all

223
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:33,439
Speaker 3: the pieces to James point. There's so many layers interacting

224
00:12:33,559 --> 00:12:36,400
Speaker 3: we can't know them all all the time. So we

225
00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:40,320
Speaker 3: approximate it and go, let's try something different to see

226
00:12:40,320 --> 00:12:43,200
Speaker 3: if we get a different outcome. And it's called second

227
00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:47,079
Speaker 3: order change. We're not going to change the behavior, We're

228
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:54,560
Speaker 3: going to change the rules to the system.

229
00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:53,200
Speaker 2: How much so.

230
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:57,520
Speaker 1: I came out of Biblical studies, my PhD's in Old Testament.

231
00:12:57,559 --> 00:12:59,960
Speaker 1: I did a lot with hermeneutics, and when we think

232
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:03,679
Speaker 1: through hermeneutics, this is a lot of the way, in

233
00:13:03,720 --> 00:13:06,400
Speaker 1: the best sense of the term hermeneutics. I've been taught

234
00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:09,320
Speaker 1: to think about these things, right, you think about the

235
00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 1: how you think about the actual process of interpretation. You

236
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:20,160
Speaker 1: don't think about the destination, although the destination always matters, right,

237
00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:22,880
Speaker 1: But you don't think about the destination. You're thinking about

238
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:25,240
Speaker 1: how do I go about this process? And I think,

239
00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:27,719
Speaker 1: as I've gotten older and just done more of it,

240
00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,200
Speaker 1: what I've realized is that some of the things like

241
00:13:30,320 --> 00:13:33,000
Speaker 1: that I've read in Friedman or other places, this sort

242
00:13:33,040 --> 00:13:36,440
Speaker 1: of relational component that you're talking about has an awful

243
00:13:36,480 --> 00:13:41,360
Speaker 1: lot to do with hermeneutics. The negotiation of doctrine. Hashish

244
00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:43,560
Speaker 1: and I have actually talked about this offline, sort of

245
00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:47,920
Speaker 1: like that it part of the problem we see in

246
00:13:47,960 --> 00:13:50,760
Speaker 1: the church. And don't only put words in your mouth, Hashish,

247
00:13:50,800 --> 00:13:52,520
Speaker 1: but part of the problem, at least I see in

248
00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:55,280
Speaker 1: the Church is that we tend to get too narrow

249
00:13:56,320 --> 00:14:00,719
Speaker 1: right and stuck in a doctrine, so that doctrine functionally

250
00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:03,720
Speaker 1: becomes what the Bible should be. You know, our interpretations

251
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:08,040
Speaker 1: start to rule things, or they become too broad so

252
00:14:08,160 --> 00:14:10,080
Speaker 1: that they mean nothing and there are no real guard

253
00:14:10,160 --> 00:14:15,160
Speaker 1: rails and we have no particular you know, boundaries that

254
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:18,000
Speaker 1: we could set. And so then the way you're the

255
00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:20,400
Speaker 1: way you're describing what you do in marriage and family

256
00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:22,600
Speaker 1: therapy feels to me like what I'm trying to do

257
00:14:22,800 --> 00:14:26,160
Speaker 1: when I talk to two people in churches about look,

258
00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:30,360
Speaker 1: negotiate the boundaries, recognize that you may be off one

259
00:14:30,440 --> 00:14:32,680
Speaker 1: way or the other, but then just admit that you're

260
00:14:32,680 --> 00:14:34,320
Speaker 1: off one way or the other and try to get

261
00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:36,160
Speaker 1: a little bit, you know, recalibrate.

262
00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:38,280
Speaker 2: Right, it's that constant recalibration.

263
00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:40,840
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering how you think about that or if

264
00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:43,600
Speaker 1: you have any insight into you know, the hermeneutical moves

265
00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:49,760
Speaker 1: that that marriage and family systems might actually engender within

266
00:14:49,840 --> 00:14:50,600
Speaker 1: other fields.

267
00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:54,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think you kind of get right

268
00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:56,880
Speaker 3: to the heart of it there. One of the biggest

269
00:14:56,920 --> 00:15:00,600
Speaker 3: critiques in doing integration with marriage or family therapy and

270
00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:04,960
Speaker 3: Christianity is that it's not content based. So marriage and

271
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:09,520
Speaker 3: family therapy is process oriented, and to the farthest extent

272
00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:13,960
Speaker 3: of it, it's a moral, but there's no morality to it,

273
00:15:14,040 --> 00:15:16,320
Speaker 3: like here's the best way to have a marriage, here's

274
00:15:16,360 --> 00:15:20,440
Speaker 3: the best way to have a family. There, and so

275
00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:23,520
Speaker 3: that can be kind of a challenge from the church

276
00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 3: side of things of well, there's right and wrong, and

277
00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:28,920
Speaker 3: I'm like, yes, I don't disagree there's right and wrong.

278
00:15:29,240 --> 00:15:33,360
Speaker 3: This tool doesn't determine right and wrong, but it provides

279
00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:37,080
Speaker 3: the way of accessing right and wrong based on whatever

280
00:15:37,120 --> 00:15:40,880
Speaker 3: your foundational core is. So, if it's christ we have

281
00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,040
Speaker 3: an understanding of what's right and wrong, and then we

282
00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:47,080
Speaker 3: have this tool, whether it's a hermeneutical tool or a

283
00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:50,800
Speaker 3: marriage and family therapy tool, to help the process to

284
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:55,600
Speaker 3: more and more approximate what we're looking at as an outcome.

285
00:15:56,720 --> 00:16:00,560
Speaker 3: As a clinician working in the regulatory body and working

286
00:16:00,600 --> 00:16:03,160
Speaker 3: in the community, not in the Christian community, but just

287
00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:07,120
Speaker 3: in the community in general, my job is to enter

288
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:10,360
Speaker 3: in and look at how is a system not working,

289
00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:13,960
Speaker 3: how it's stuck. So I think you're talking about boundaries there.

290
00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:18,360
Speaker 3: How do we get unstuck? And the challenge is it's

291
00:16:18,400 --> 00:16:20,360
Speaker 3: not unstuck in that I think you should do it

292
00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:23,760
Speaker 3: this way. It's unstuck to see what emerges and that

293
00:16:24,600 --> 00:16:26,920
Speaker 3: makes people uncomfortable, and I think it does both in

294
00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:30,440
Speaker 3: family therapy and in hermeneutics. Of there's a desire of

295
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:33,080
Speaker 3: take me by the hand, walk me, tell me exactly

296
00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:36,200
Speaker 3: what I need to do to get there. Unfortunately, Yeah,

297
00:16:36,280 --> 00:16:38,320
Speaker 3: like you're saying, I'm a lot older than you, and

298
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:41,280
Speaker 3: as we get older, we realize the more tightly we

299
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,200
Speaker 3: hold to trying to control that, the more we live

300
00:16:44,480 --> 00:16:46,800
Speaker 3: for the fall. Right. I mean, that's what bond we're

301
00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:49,200
Speaker 3: talking about. We've become the arbitrator of right and wrong.

302
00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:52,880
Speaker 3: We live in the place where God is living, and

303
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:58,320
Speaker 3: it's seduction for us, as in I'm sure in seminary

304
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:02,320
Speaker 3: and in the church there's a there's a pull towards

305
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:06,240
Speaker 3: tell me, just tell me, and there's a poll for

306
00:17:06,320 --> 00:17:08,960
Speaker 3: young clinicians to just like, hey, can you fix this?

307
00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:12,159
Speaker 3: And I'm like, that's why we call our company and

308
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,199
Speaker 3: our podcast with you is what we can promise is

309
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:20,040
Speaker 3: will be with you in this. We don't promise any outcome.

310
00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:21,919
Speaker 3: I can't go, oh you do pre marital with me.

311
00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:24,960
Speaker 3: I'll give you a stamp of approval that your marriage

312
00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:27,840
Speaker 3: is going to last fifty years. Well that's that's you

313
00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:31,440
Speaker 3: say it out loud, it's ridiculous, But actually underneath, that's

314
00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:34,280
Speaker 3: the that's the precepts that we're working on. And I

315
00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:36,760
Speaker 3: think that's for me. I think we're on the on

316
00:17:36,880 --> 00:17:41,359
Speaker 3: the same kind of trajectory as you're talking about metis now.

317
00:17:41,440 --> 00:17:46,199
Speaker 1: I like the idea that emergence. The Knuffin framework is

318
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:48,080
Speaker 1: one that I've used. So I teach in the m

319
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:52,160
Speaker 1: A program at Wheaton College of the Leadership Program, and

320
00:17:52,280 --> 00:17:55,840
Speaker 1: so I do the Biblical Yeah, yeah, so I do.

321
00:17:56,080 --> 00:17:59,080
Speaker 1: I do a course called Biblical and Theological Foundations of Leadership,

322
00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:00,920
Speaker 1: and part of what we addressed in there is the

323
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,040
Speaker 1: Conuffin framework, and it has this whole sort of idea

324
00:18:04,119 --> 00:18:08,199
Speaker 1: that when you're in a complex or chaotic situation, what

325
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:10,720
Speaker 1: you're trying to do is manage back down to the complex.

326
00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:12,840
Speaker 1: And then you know, in a chaotic situation, you're trying

327
00:18:12,880 --> 00:18:15,320
Speaker 1: to manage back down to the complex and then allow

328
00:18:15,800 --> 00:18:19,679
Speaker 1: the solutions to emerge from that complex environment. When you

329
00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:23,399
Speaker 1: have that sort of simple like my tire was flat,

330
00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:26,680
Speaker 1: so I changed it sort of one to one logic, right.

331
00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:30,240
Speaker 1: You know, when it's a simple relationship, you can have

332
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:35,640
Speaker 1: solutions that are relatively straightforward, right, But in complex relationships

333
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:38,840
Speaker 1: or even complicated relationships, sometimes you have to let the

334
00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:43,000
Speaker 1: system sort of solve the problem for you. Almost you

335
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:46,359
Speaker 1: have to wait for it. And I think that for

336
00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:50,960
Speaker 1: aspiring leaders, that's a really helpful way of thinking about it.

337
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:52,879
Speaker 1: And then when they think about, okay, what is the

338
00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:56,160
Speaker 1: biblical theological foundation for that, it's like, well, now you've

339
00:18:56,200 --> 00:19:00,600
Speaker 1: got this whole set of dispositions and behavehaviors that you

340
00:19:00,640 --> 00:19:04,720
Speaker 1: could actually implement in any given moment, but they may

341
00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:08,280
Speaker 1: look very radically different depending on the time, and so

342
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:10,720
Speaker 1: you know, you can illustrate those through a number of

343
00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:11,880
Speaker 1: different biblical characters.

344
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 2: You know, like you're telling me David.

345
00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:17,920
Speaker 1: Never war armor into battle, or that he just didn't

346
00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:21,359
Speaker 1: wear armor into battle when he fought Goliath, right, like

347
00:19:21,560 --> 00:19:24,240
Speaker 1: that kind of idea, and it's like, there's something unique

348
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:27,720
Speaker 1: about that one moment that wearing the armor would have

349
00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:32,000
Speaker 1: been problematic, whereas in all the other times it's not problematic.

350
00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:34,080
Speaker 1: And so we've got to get our heads around this

351
00:19:34,200 --> 00:19:37,240
Speaker 1: idea that yes, there's a right and wrong, but that

352
00:19:37,359 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 1: oftentimes it's also very situational and we're trying to implement

353
00:19:42,359 --> 00:19:47,080
Speaker 1: and execute something that's appropriate fitting within that setting. But

354
00:19:47,240 --> 00:19:49,560
Speaker 1: I love that emergence language. I just think it's I

355
00:19:49,560 --> 00:19:51,800
Speaker 1: think it's super helpful for people when they start to

356
00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:54,080
Speaker 1: realize that, oh, the solution is just going to pop

357
00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:57,639
Speaker 1: up somehow as long as I keep responding in an

358
00:19:57,640 --> 00:19:58,600
Speaker 1: appropriate fashion.

359
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,400
Speaker 3: I was working with it. I'll tell you stories about

360
00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:08,679
Speaker 3: all the skies enough that you know, good clinical item.

361
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:10,879
Speaker 3: But I was working with his family that came to

362
00:20:10,920 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 3: me and they were frustrated with their son and he

363
00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:17,480
Speaker 3: was not complying to the family rules. And I'm like, well,

364
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:19,800
Speaker 3: tell me about it, and they're like, well he was.

365
00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:22,800
Speaker 3: He was misbehaving. So we took access to the car.

366
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:26,080
Speaker 3: He continued to misbehave, we took access to his phone,

367
00:20:26,920 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 3: and so then he just hung out in his room.

368
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:31,800
Speaker 3: So then we took his computer, and his behavior continued

369
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:34,720
Speaker 3: to exist the same way. So we took his door

370
00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:37,800
Speaker 3: because he was just locking himself in his room, and

371
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:39,840
Speaker 3: then we took his bed, and they said we finally

372
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,359
Speaker 3: came for family therapy because there was nothing, nothing left

373
00:20:42,359 --> 00:20:47,680
Speaker 3: to take and they were trying that single tool, if

374
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:50,239
Speaker 3: he will hammer to fix it, and it was like,

375
00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:52,639
Speaker 3: we actually have to look at what his behavior is

376
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:56,760
Speaker 3: serving for the larger system. So he's he's keeping you

377
00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,399
Speaker 3: all engaged. So I was like, thank you, Billy for

378
00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:02,040
Speaker 3: bringing your family in the therapy. You've been working really,

379
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:06,119
Speaker 3: really hard. To get everybody to the point, and U

380
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 3: and the parents look at me like I'm crazy, But

381
00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:14,760
Speaker 3: Billy smiles and he in some level he gets it right.

382
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 3: His behavior isn't his own. His behavior is part of

383
00:21:18,119 --> 00:21:21,399
Speaker 3: a larger system. And I'm like, what what if we

384
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:23,879
Speaker 3: responded differently? What if we change the rules of the

385
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:28,199
Speaker 3: game back to competition? Right, We're working according to a

386
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 3: certain set of rules. Those rules developed over time and

387
00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:35,120
Speaker 3: were necessary for that historical period of time in our family,

388
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:39,160
Speaker 3: in the Church, in the for the Hebrew people. Uh.

389
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:41,840
Speaker 3: And then context change. How does the how does the

390
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 3: moral core stay the same? But the expression might need

391
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,240
Speaker 3: to change? And we call that systemic change. We kind

392
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 3: of change change the rules of the game. We don't

393
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:53,760
Speaker 3: change the morals, but we change the rules. And I

394
00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:56,800
Speaker 3: think it taps into the salvation story. If you look

395
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 3: at the arc of scripture and you guys have gone

396
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 3: to some you know this, but I'll give a quick

397
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:05,560
Speaker 3: quick telling of it. Of this is kind of how

398
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,119
Speaker 3: I talk about marriage and family therapy integrated with Christianity.

399
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:13,120
Speaker 3: We are created for intimacy in the garden. Whether your

400
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 3: theological anthropology is relational, structural, functional, multi dimensional, We're created

401
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 3: for intimacy, and God values intimacy. He pursues us. It's

402
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 3: good for us not to be alone, to be in

403
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:30,240
Speaker 3: human relationships and in relationships with Him. We violate that

404
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 3: and we get kicked out of the garden. He pursues

405
00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:36,240
Speaker 3: us in the tabernacle, he pursues us in the temple.

406
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 3: He pursues us. When we can't respond, He gives us

407
00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:42,199
Speaker 3: the law of like. And the more we try to

408
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 3: actually do the law, the more we were doing it.

409
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:49,280
Speaker 3: We're trying to reconcile the relationship which we can and

410
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 3: we continue to be our own be our own gods

411
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:56,679
Speaker 3: rather than leaning into him. Then he comes in the incarnation,

412
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 3: and in the Incarnation, Paul talks about the new covenant.

413
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 3: It's a systemic change. The rules of the game have changed,

414
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:06,199
Speaker 3: and now there's a potential in responding to Jesus that

415
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:10,240
Speaker 3: we can have a different trajectory. It doesn't mean that necessary,

416
00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 3: depending on your theology. Everybody chooses that limited it. Tom,

417
00:23:14,359 --> 00:23:15,879
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get into all of that, but

418
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 3: there's a possibility because of the incarnation, life, death, and

419
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 3: resurrection of Jesus, there's a new possibility for right relationship

420
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:27,439
Speaker 3: with God and then we see the end of the

421
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 3: story in Revelation twenty one and twenty two, seeing God

422
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 3: face to face and that deep intimacy again. So for me,

423
00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 3: the arc of Scripture is a relational rupture and repair story,

424
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:43,679
Speaker 3: and we can see the systemic change of at just

425
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,600
Speaker 3: the right time, there was a systemic intervention. What used

426
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:51,399
Speaker 3: to work wasn't working. Christ came in and changed the

427
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 3: rules of the game that allowed for something new for

428
00:23:55,160 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 3: me and for kind of those that I train and oversee.

429
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 3: That's what I want them to see. We get to

430
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,240
Speaker 3: be christ Like, not necessarily in proclaiming the Gospel, but

431
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:07,440
Speaker 3: modeling that systemic change in the therapy room with families,

432
00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 3: with churches, with congregations. That that's the difference, which is

433
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:16,080
Speaker 3: very different than the individual psychology kind of way that

434
00:24:16,119 --> 00:24:20,399
Speaker 3: they're doing integration. Sorry, I get excited, I get going.

435
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 3: I'm sure you have lots of questions, but that's kind

436
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 3: of what you stimulated in my head. James.

437
00:24:27,640 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great. Can I jump off of that and yeah,

438
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:35,120
Speaker 4: maybe pinpoint some dynamics there that I find especially interesting.

439
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 4: So kind of pulling together a lot of the strands

440
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:44,240
Speaker 4: you've been talking about. I find this very interesting, we've

441
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 4: come to a place.

442
00:24:45,359 --> 00:24:45,920
Speaker 2: I think.

443
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 4: Clinical work has especially been important in helping us understand this.

444
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 4: That we are unreliable narrators. We have a tendency to

445
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,439
Speaker 4: be very open to suggestion, especially when we are already

446
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 4: you know, we can push back really well, we're good

447
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:06,840
Speaker 4: at that. But when we're comfortable with the situation, when

448
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 4: we trust someone, or when somebody is able to speak

449
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 4: in a way that is more amenable to our wants

450
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 4: or desires or our ways of framing things, we can

451
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 4: be very open to the suggestion at the same time,

452
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 4: and so we end up having these forms of narration

453
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:27,359
Speaker 4: coming together in ways that may or may not actually

454
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 4: be helpful to understanding how we get to the present.

455
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:33,119
Speaker 4: And now we throw in this dynamic of there are

456
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 4: multiple narrations. So I think about the family environment of

457
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 4: what you were just describing, where a parent might think,

458
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:43,359
Speaker 4: what are you talking about? You're crazy? Why would you

459
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 4: describe things this way? Whereas the sun he smiles to me.

460
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:51,679
Speaker 4: That signals they both, you know, assuming one narration from

461
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,280
Speaker 4: the parents, which is probably not already the case, and

462
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 4: one from the child. They're entering in this environment thinking

463
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 4: very differently about how they got there. Yeah, and yet

464
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 4: on your side, you know what you experience in that moment, right,

465
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 4: you get the smile on one side, the frustration on

466
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 4: the other side. How do you leverage both of those

467
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 4: reactions at the same time in order for it to

468
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 4: be a productive environment for both sides.

469
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:26,199
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question, and this will be you know you

470
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 3: know me is she? So my answer would be it

471
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 3: depends is the which I starting bank, But it depends

472
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 3: because I'm going to think about how that system is

473
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 3: actually working, and my response is going to be unique

474
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 3: to how they're holding those narrations and those what those

475
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 3: narrations are doing. So sometimes I might side with the

476
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:51,679
Speaker 3: parent just to depending on how things are working, or

477
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 3: side with the child or you all are wrong. So

478
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 3: there's a theorist called Salvador Manuchin. He did structural family therapy.

479
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 3: He said every family he ever saw over sixty years

480
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 3: of clinical work was wrong. Why they came into therapy

481
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:08,520
Speaker 3: because he said, if they were right, they would have

482
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 3: fixed it, and so their stories, the way they were

483
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 3: organized was off, and his job was to enter in

484
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 3: and give them a different experience, which often meant he

485
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 3: looked a little crazy because he was responding if you

486
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 3: think about our interactions. We're always giving each other emotional

487
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 3: bids to respond in a certain way. The way we

488
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 3: frame our questions, the way we position where we have

489
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 3: eye contact, how we position our body. Do we meet

490
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,680
Speaker 3: in shared location, do I meet with you in the church?

491
00:27:38,760 --> 00:27:41,119
Speaker 3: Do I make you come to my office? All of

492
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 3: those things, in a very subtle and unaware way shape

493
00:27:47,320 --> 00:27:51,399
Speaker 3: our behavior. And as a family therapist, I'm going to

494
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 3: listen to all those narrations. I'm going to feel I've

495
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 3: done enough work and done this long enough. I can

496
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 3: feel the polls in my body, so I can feel

497
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 3: how a parent is trying to make me side with them,

498
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 3: or trying to turn me against the child, or the

499
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 3: child's trying to be really negative about the parent and

500
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 3: get me to feel negative about them. I sense all

501
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 3: those dynamics because I've had lots of reps, right, I've

502
00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 3: had a lot of iterations to see that, And so

503
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 3: I'm going to figure out how do I position myself

504
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 3: given all the relational play that's going on in the room.

505
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,359
Speaker 3: For a young clinician, for a pastor that's trying to

506
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 3: do marriage or family work, they can have some basic skills,

507
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 3: but pretty quickly if the system isn't flexible, they're going

508
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 3: to be over their skis and feel stuck. And then

509
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 3: when we get stuck, we start blaming. I'm going to

510
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 3: blame the parent, I'm going to blame the child, I'm

511
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 3: going to blame the system, I'm going to blame the

512
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 3: pastor well, when blame happens, it's because we haven't figured

513
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 3: out what are all those narratives, what are the polls,

514
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:58,200
Speaker 3: and how we can respond differently? Does that make sense

515
00:28:58,240 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 3: as it does?

516
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 2: Yeah?

517
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so it's hard for me to give like

518
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 3: one answer of how to do that. It's a process

519
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 3: and you can kind of track like it's hard once

520
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 3: you start seeing things systemically, it messes with your whole

521
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 3: world because I can see kind of from from an

522
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 3: individual experience up to kind of geopolitical of what's going

523
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 3: on now. There's lots of lots of bids and lots

524
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 3: of different rules in ways things are organizing, whether it's

525
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 3: right or wrong behavior. To get out of it, we

526
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 3: have to realize what the game's being played, and it's

527
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 3: not necessarily the outcome that we have to attend to.

528
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 3: But I think in Western society we tend to be

529
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 3: very outcome based kind of proverbs wisdom based, if we

530
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 3: do this, then we'll have long life. If we obey

531
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 3: our parents, things will go well with us, and if

532
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 3: we don't, bad things will happen. Well, there's two other

533
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 3: wisdom books. There's the kind of perspective wisdom books in

534
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 3: terms of Ecclesiastes of saying, well, yeah, but really you're

535
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 3: just vapor, you're heavil or getting to job where there

536
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 3: was something bigger, talk about perspective, there's something bigger going on.

537
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 3: His suffering wasn't a function of any direct thing he

538
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 3: his family. It was a spiritual kind of situation that

539
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 3: was going on of does humanity love God for who

540
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 3: God is or only what he does? And God's response

541
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,480
Speaker 3: in the end of Job isn't to deal with his suffering,

542
00:30:25,800 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 3: isn't to explain. He gives perspective like let's talk about

543
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 3: inanimate objects. How much control do you have over that? Oh,

544
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 3: let's talk about animate objects in people and animals and ostriches,

545
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 3: and it's like, what is going on here? Well, God's

546
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 3: kind of giving a systemic perspective of there's pieces here

547
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 3: working that you have no understanding of, and you're part

548
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 3: of this do you trust me? Do you love me?

549
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 3: Do you believe I have the best for you even

550
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 3: in suffering for me? This system's perspective fits within that

551
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 3: wisdom literature and how I try to then help students,

552
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 3: help pastors kind of enter into suffering and the narratives

553
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 3: around that in different ways.

554
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great, And obviously a major difference between the

555
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 4: job dynamic and ours is that at least we can

556
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 4: look at the framing of how God is asking the

557
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 4: questions and say, well, God it, God can answer those questions.

558
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 4: He's just posing him in our case, in the therapist's case,

559
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 4: in your case. Right, it's you don't even have that benefit.

560
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 4: So now you're sitting in the midst of sometimes subconscious

561
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 4: or unconscious varying narrations.

562
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 3: Right.

563
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 4: I think part of that reality being unreliable narratives is

564
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 4: we don't even know that we're being unreliable. So many

565
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 4: things have suggested themselves to us and interwoven with our

566
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 4: experience of an event that even after the fact, those

567
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 4: can change. But then you've got the dynamics you're drawing

568
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 4: in as well, that sometimes there's power plays, right, Yeah,

569
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 4: And what I appreciate, and this is going to betray

570
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 4: a bit. We're talking sports, so I may as well

571
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 4: bring in sports. It betrays my my tutelage from the

572
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 4: great Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson, who brought this up before,

573
00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:14,239
Speaker 4: but he says he was very adamant in telling his

574
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 4: team and convincing his team that yes, obviously we're trying

575
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 4: to win a championship, but we don't get from the

576
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 4: beginning of the season to the end of the season

577
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 4: with merely that goal. It's about being attentive to every step,

578
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,720
Speaker 4: and it's a thousand foot journey or a thousand step

579
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 4: Journey'd constantly be reminding them, and I think you really

580
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 4: convinced them of it, and that's what made those teams

581
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 4: so consistently good. And I, you know, maybe wrong source

582
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 4: of wisdom, but to me, that's been an important lesson

583
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 4: that I've tried to carry into everything. Right, you know,

584
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 4: whether you're teaching a class. I've had the privilege of

585
00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 4: teaching several of the classes, some of the students in

586
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 4: your cohorts with the marriage and family therapy, and I've

587
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 4: tried to engage them in a way where I say,

588
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 4: think less about where we're going and think more about

589
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 4: how the actually matters, that the journey matters. So we're

590
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:07,239
Speaker 4: building here, and it seems to me like that's very

591
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 4: much the mindset you're trying to bring into therapy, right

592
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 4: that where we end up obviously does matter. You want that,

593
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 4: you want that child and those parents to have a

594
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:22,160
Speaker 4: sense of togetherness, a sense of shared dynamic within their

595
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 4: marital or sorry, their family dynamic. But also the steps

596
00:33:27,400 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 4: they got to be attentive to pay attention to where

597
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 4: they are, pay attention to how they're posturing themselves, maybe

598
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 4: in ways that they do know, or maybe in ways

599
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 4: they don't know. Is that fair to say?

600
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 3: Yeah? And it made me think of to to certain

601
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 3: I mean, I love Phil Jackson even though I'm a

602
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 3: Pistons fan, so I love beat the Bulls. But that's

603
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 3: a whole other conversation. But Phil has more Eastern philosophy, right,

604
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 3: So you were saying, absolutely, Wisdom's He's much more from

605
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 3: a collectivist philosophy if you look at that, if you

606
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 3: look at marriage and family therapy. So I travel the

607
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 3: world speaking to missionaries, churches, and different societal groups globally

608
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 3: and get so much better recognition and understanding than I

609
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 3: do here in the States, and it's the ruggeded individualism

610
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 3: versus more of a collectivist. I think both cultures are

611
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 3: really really important and we can learn a lot from them.

612
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 3: But for instance, in Illinois, there are ten thousand licensed counselors,

613
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 3: there are five thousand licensed psychologists, and there's nine hundred

614
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 3: and sixty eight licensed marriage and family therapists. So one

615
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 3: in fifteen our relational focus, and it's a market force.

616
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 3: It's the idea we think very differently as Americans, as

617
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:49,760
Speaker 3: Western philosophy, that it's about me, It's about my personal

618
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,360
Speaker 3: relationship with Jesus, It's about my therapist and someone to

619
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 3: be there for me. But I bet you a suite

620
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 3: that talks about emotions being cultural creations. And most of

621
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 3: the study is done from a Western mindset that emotions

622
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:12,879
Speaker 3: are mental internal and it's and essential, where the rest

623
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 3: of the world, more community based relational base are. It's

624
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 3: external kind of mine my emotions versus ours. So it's outer,

625
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 3: relational and situational. Well, which frame we come from is

626
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 3: going to be how we find our solutions. And for

627
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 3: a couple example, I tell a married couple what would

628
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 3: it be like if they're a Christian couple coming to me,

629
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 3: what would it be like to love your spouse as

630
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,279
Speaker 3: an act of worship rather than what you feel they

631
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 3: deserve or what you're trying to get from them. Because

632
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 3: we have a lot of transaction in our relationships. I'll

633
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 3: do the dishes and hopefully get lucky that night. Right,

634
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 3: it's a it's a transaction. I'm hoping to do something

635
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 3: for you so I get something. What if I just

636
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:02,239
Speaker 3: do the dishes because I want to honor God, and

637
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 3: I do the dishes as an active worship, It's a

638
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 3: very different It's a very different relationship, and it frees

639
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 3: us up to respond differently. It's also thinking about parents.

640
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 3: I think in the seventies, eighties, and nineties when we

641
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:24,359
Speaker 3: all grew up, the Christian parenting books were very much prescriptive,

642
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 3: if you do this, your kids will turn out okay.

643
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,919
Speaker 3: I mean doctor Dobson started some of that with dare

644
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 3: to discipline and if you just do it right, not

645
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 3: only the individual, the church, society, everything will be okay. Well,

646
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 3: that's a very mechanistic view. And I tell parents, I'm like,

647
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 3: so we both believe that God is our perfect father? Right,

648
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 3: God's our father. God the Father is a perfect father.

649
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 3: How are his kids doing. So if we really think

650
00:36:56,040 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 3: about our behavior and we have a perfect parent, then

651
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 3: that blaming the parent has to stop. There's not a

652
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 3: direct back to your point, James, a one to one connection.

653
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 3: It's much more complicated. And so I want to free

654
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 3: parents up of like do your best. I know, I

655
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 3: know parents that have done the best, and painful things

656
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 3: have happened. I know parents that have done horrible things.

657
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 3: Almost at horrible parents, language matters, parents that have done

658
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 3: horrible things and their kids can out find there's not

659
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 3: a direct relationship. There's a probability if we if we

660
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 3: live rightly as best we can. To scripture and relational science,

661
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 3: there's a likelihood of positive outcomes, but there's no guarantee.

662
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,080
Speaker 3: And so then why do we why do we strive?

663
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 3: Why do we live well? Our hope is that we

664
00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 3: have a God who loves us, and we're responding from

665
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 3: that love place rather than some kind of extrinsic I'm

666
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 3: trying to force something to happen, make something happen. And

667
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:58,240
Speaker 3: it goes back to phil like take the next step.

668
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 3: You don't necessarily know where this jorney's going. You have

669
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 3: a perspective of where you'd like it to go take

670
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 3: the next step, because that's we only can control our response,

671
00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:10,959
Speaker 3: and then we'll see what the next step is after that.

672
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 3: That's a hard space to live because it means it's

673
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 3: letting go and having having some dependency on that.

674
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: It's it's been interesting over the years. So I worked

675
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: with smaller churches out in New England for some time

676
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: my current position, and one of the things we talked

677
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 1: about was discipleship. And as we're talking about discipleship, you know,

678
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: everybody wants to understand what that is, right, and uh,

679
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:40,399
Speaker 1: and and what's the goal here?

680
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:40,839
Speaker 3: Right?

681
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 1: Like what are we what are we shooting for? And

682
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,399
Speaker 1: so you got some of the similar answers. And then

683
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,279
Speaker 1: we started talking a little bit about the persecuted church

684
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: and and I said, what if we rethought the goal

685
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: of discipleship as being able to maintain our convictions even

686
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: if at some point down the road in the United

687
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:00,800
Speaker 1: States we don't have the religious freedom that we have today.

688
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:03,680
Speaker 1: Is there a way for us to prepare ourselves to

689
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 1: be so resilient and so faithful that if persecution were

690
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: to come, we remain uncompromised. And I think, as I

691
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: look across sort of what you do in marriage and

692
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: family systems. It strikes me that that's sort of part

693
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,759
Speaker 1: of what has to be I guess I'm wondering, is

694
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: that part of what comes into the equation. So I mean,

695
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: I'll give you the story. My daughter has done gymnastics

696
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: for a lot of years and when she was younger,

697
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 1: there was a meet where she fell off the beam

698
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:33,800
Speaker 1: and she cried and was really frustrated.

699
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 2: Wasn't hurt, she was just really frustrating.

700
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 1: Her coach went up and very sternly said, get back

701
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 1: up on the beam and finish your routine, right. And

702
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 1: I'm kind of sitting along the side just not right,

703
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: because I'm like, kind of I don't really want my

704
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 1: daughter to cry, and I don't really know that getting

705
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: back up on the beam is the best thing, you know,

706
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: Like I've got all these things circling around in my mind.

707
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:57,879
Speaker 1: And so she got up, she did it, you know,

708
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: everything was good. And then it was a few years

709
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 1: later she fell off the beam again and she laughed.

710
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:06,800
Speaker 1: She hop back up on the beam, finished your routine

711
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 1: and was done. And I was like, that may be

712
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: the most vivid and happiest moment within her whole gymnastics

713
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: career of actually watching her fall off the beam and

714
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: laugh and be happy about it and get on because

715
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there like it built a resiliency in her

716
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 1: that is going to carry into other aspects of her life.

717
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 1: And I think that's just absolutely crucial. And so I

718
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 1: guess what I'm wondering is when you do marriage and

719
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 1: family therapy, just to kind of connect the dots on that,

720
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: do you think through you know, I mean, our context

721
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: is changing. There's a lot of different pressures on us.

722
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: There's a lot of you know more there's a lot

723
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: more instability economically, politically, whatever. But there has to be

724
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: a sense, right in which we respond to each other

725
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 1: in such a way that we can build resilience as

726
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: opposed to chisel away at it.

727
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And would I would say in that story,

728
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:02,359
Speaker 3: you and her coach both loved her. It was just

729
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 3: in different ways, right You were you were connected to

730
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 3: the emotional part and wanting to soothe soothe the pain. Uh.

731
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 3: The coach was interested in helping her work through the pain.

732
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:18,879
Speaker 3: It wasn't discounting it. It wasn't being cruel or being

733
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 3: It could look that way from the outside because it's

734
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 3: like emotions are tender and you know that that coach

735
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 3: was a jerk, but it was really loving in a

736
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 3: different way, loving to say the hard thing. But my

737
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:34,719
Speaker 3: guess is your her coach and she had a good

738
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 3: relationship that enoughational equity was built up that he that

739
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 3: the coach could say something that might come across in

740
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 3: other contexts is really harsh, but was safe enough that

741
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 3: she got up on the bean and did it and

742
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 3: learned a lesson from that. That he was community or

743
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 3: the coach, I don't know he or she, Yeah, she was.

744
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 3: She was communicating your you have strength, this isn't going

745
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 3: to break you. This is Yes, it's painful, but continue on.

746
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 3: And you you were there like I just want to

747
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 3: hold you. I don't want to be in pain anymore.

748
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 3: Both are really important, but in different context it's going

749
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:18,799
Speaker 3: to have different outcomes. Systems wise, we talk a lot

750
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 3: about homeostasis or kind of balances the way that you

751
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,120
Speaker 3: just like in your family probably say well, that's just

752
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 3: the way you can that's a homeostasis. There needs to

753
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 3: be enough pain in the system to try something different

754
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 3: because we're going to go back to what's familiar comfortable.

755
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 3: I think kind of with cultural, political religious things going

756
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 3: on in the US. For the last twenty thirty years,

757
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,800
Speaker 3: it's been pretty comfortable being the dominant, dominant belief system

758
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 3: and having having privilege of But as pain gets entered

759
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,080
Speaker 3: into the system of it's going to challenge us to

760
00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:01,200
Speaker 3: respond differently. The question is are we Are we doing

761
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 3: that now or are kind of Are we coaches in church?

762
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,320
Speaker 3: Are we coaches in our family? Do we have enough

763
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 3: relational equity? Is there enough sense of safety and community

764
00:43:11,760 --> 00:43:14,399
Speaker 3: and connection that then we can say the hard things

765
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 3: and grow or if not, I mean that's that's what

766
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,840
Speaker 3: is key. It starts with relational safety and connection. Do

767
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 3: we have enough? And I think COVID hit us hard

768
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 3: because we all became a little more isolated, and so

769
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:34,879
Speaker 3: then the homeostatic balance became we just do our things

770
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 3: on our own. We worship at home. Nothing wrong with

771
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 3: worshiping at home. Uh. And yet that there's for me.

772
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:47,800
Speaker 3: The church is about embodied connection and their science is

773
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:52,320
Speaker 3: about embodied connection. That we're not meant to be an isolation.

774
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 3: Isolation is a is a poison to the human existence.

775
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,439
Speaker 3: And yet that's what we were put through in lots

776
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 3: of different ways, and that has become the default. I

777
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 3: see it with students, I see it with couples. Everybody

778
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:11,919
Speaker 3: likes telehealth better than being in person, and it's there's

779
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,680
Speaker 3: more accessibility. I know all the positives, but the embodied

780
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,720
Speaker 3: part is what I worry about because I think that's

781
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 3: the space that builds safety for us to then be

782
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 3: able to build resilience. And so how are we thinking

783
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 3: about our bodies? How are we thinking about a body

784
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 3: settling bodies? As God or Tae talks about like coregulation.

785
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 3: I can't just regulate my emotional system on my own.

786
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 3: I need there's a power of doing it in community.

787
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:47,479
Speaker 3: Confession in church practice isn't just in my head to God,

788
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 3: but it's about because He already knows all that I

789
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 3: have to confess. My turning towards him is an act

790
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 3: of intimacy. How are we doing that with each other?

791
00:44:57,080 --> 00:45:01,840
Speaker 3: Not in terms of like shame or guilt or sick pleasure,

792
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 3: hearing struggles, but being intimately connected. Yeah, so resilience is

793
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,600
Speaker 3: going to come from that foundation and then help navigate

794
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 3: suffering struggles. Without that foundation, I think that's where we

795
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 3: need to build. I mean, we can't have hard conversations

796
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 3: of whichever end of the political spectrum you fall on,

797
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 3: or whichever end of faith spectrum you fall on, and

798
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 3: all the topics, all the kind of self identified topics

799
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: that are out there. We can't have interesting conversations and

800
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 3: struggle because if you don't agree with me, you are

801
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 3: denying my personhood versus we are safe with each other

802
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 3: and we can hold different ideas and we can still

803
00:45:44,600 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 3: love each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's where I

804
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,440
Speaker 3: would have the systemic change is we need to be

805
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 3: in community, We need to be developing safe connection that

806
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 3: then we can do the hard work. But if we're

807
00:45:57,600 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 3: trying to do the hard work beforehand, it's going to

808
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:02,880
Speaker 3: lead to fracturing. And I think that's what we're seeing

809
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 3: in micro and macro perspectives.

810
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 2: Do you go go ahead, ashiz?

811
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 4: I wanted to pick up on some of these threads

812
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 4: again where perhaps I'm miss hearing, and please correct me

813
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 4: if i am. It sounds a little bit like some

814
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 4: of these cultural dynamics that are sort of accelerants that

815
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 4: at least from my observation, it seems like the gap

816
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 4: between generations is much more exaggerated due to these cultural

817
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 4: accelerants than perhaps they used to be. Is it would

818
00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 4: you say that's fair?

819
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean things are moving fat. Look at technology.

820
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 3: My great grandfather, I knew, came over to the US

821
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 3: and immigrated here and had a horse drunk cart, and

822
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:53,919
Speaker 3: I knew him that was the main technology. We've gone

823
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 3: to that to where we have personal computers in our

824
00:46:56,600 --> 00:47:00,120
Speaker 3: pockets as phones and they actually, you know, we're doing

825
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 3: spiritual or anthropic is doing spiritual formation of technology, of

826
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 3: trying to give a moral core, uh to technology. That's

827
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 3: a huge in one hundred years, that's a huge development.

828
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 3: And it's strange. We can't we can't even get to

829
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 3: a homeostasis before the next change comes. And so this

830
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,840
Speaker 3: this amount of dysregulation and speed of that between isolation

831
00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 3: and technology. Yeah, it's putting a unique I would say

832
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,320
Speaker 3: it's putting a unique strain. I like the accelerant idea

833
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 3: on society in a new way. We have to adapt

834
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:36,080
Speaker 3: faster and it's harder.

835
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wonder what that does for resilience. Now, I'm

836
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 4: speaking completely off the top of my head at this point,

837
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:45,719
Speaker 4: I have no research to back it up. I want

838
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,360
Speaker 4: to be careful about making too hard of claims, but

839
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 4: I look at I look at my kids, for instance,

840
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 4: and I sometimes I get the sense that all of

841
00:47:55,960 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 4: these different factors, as complex as they are, has has

842
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 4: weakened the ability to work in them a kind of resilience.

843
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:08,760
Speaker 4: And I don't know if that's that's one of those

844
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:11,719
Speaker 4: I'm getting older and therefore I think, you know, it

845
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 4: is much easier to be resilient. It was much easier

846
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 4: to do this or that when I was younger. I

847
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 4: want to avoid that, And what I really want to

848
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:22,320
Speaker 4: be concerned about is how do I develop them towards

849
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:26,960
Speaker 4: resilience without the sort of without a sort of emotional hardening.

850
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:30,880
Speaker 4: But I wonder if there are fresh challenges, at the

851
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 4: very least, whether or not there is a less of

852
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 4: a tendency to resilience or not. Are there fresh challenges

853
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 4: and ways that you have had to develop to say generationally,

854
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,279
Speaker 4: there are new ways to look at the process of

855
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 4: helping people become resilient.

856
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:49,600
Speaker 1: If I can piggyback on that before you answer. So,

857
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 1: one of the one I was going to ask was

858
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: somewhat related. I think what I see happening a lot

859
00:48:57,120 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 1: with technology is we're trying to solve every problem. So

860
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: there's the transhumanist movement, which I think there's soft transhumanism

861
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: happening a lot of places. I think people are transhuman

862
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:10,719
Speaker 1: and they don't even know it, sort of. And the

863
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:14,359
Speaker 1: idea is that we're we're taking these technologies and we're

864
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:18,200
Speaker 1: saying this is the solution to this problem. But inevitably

865
00:49:18,239 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: the revenge effects come back around and it creates different

866
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: problems within the system that we hadn't thought of when

867
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:28,120
Speaker 1: we executed it. And so you get into all of

868
00:49:28,120 --> 00:49:31,359
Speaker 1: these different aspects of like con road and I think

869
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: it was in the seventies, you know, the tyranny of

870
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: small decisions, Right, We're all making these little micro decisions

871
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: without really thinking through the system dynamics. And so when

872
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,399
Speaker 1: we don't do that, then ultimately some of these things

873
00:49:43,640 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: we plug in, they're going to have some there.

874
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 2: I liken it to like a baby's mobile.

875
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: You touch one side, another side is always going to

876
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: move in generally in unpredictable ways.

877
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 2: Then you could really understand.

878
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: And so kind of to piggyback that into ashi this question,

879
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: I think is, yeah, is my perspective on that accelerant aspect.

880
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,319
Speaker 3: So there's there's a lot here. I'll try to do

881
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:16,959
Speaker 3: it in two minutes and just an aside of there's

882
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:21,920
Speaker 3: a there's a scholar in Romania Rodica Mocan who's doing

883
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 3: a lot with transhumanism and studying there. I forget who

884
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 3: the artist was, but had had a cyber arm attached

885
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 3: to him and then was on and gave access to

886
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 3: the internet, so anybody could go on to the Internet

887
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 3: and move this arm and engage with him, and it

888
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 3: was anyway, it's fascinating to the collectivist idea and disembodied

889
00:50:51,239 --> 00:50:54,799
Speaker 3: transhumanist kind of thoughts and what does that mean? How

890
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 3: how much cyber input can I have before I lose

891
00:50:58,239 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 3: my image bearing kind of amago day, Like, where does that?

892
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 3: I think theological anthropology questions are super important right now

893
00:51:07,800 --> 00:51:13,359
Speaker 3: as we continue to have technological assists, and so there's that.

894
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:18,920
Speaker 3: I think a regarding resilience, the starting spot is optimal frustration.

895
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:23,319
Speaker 3: So I think from what we were talking about, the

896
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 3: systems perspective of resilience is how do we help our

897
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 3: kids identify and us as well identify what optimal frustration

898
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 3: is and how to navigate it. I think we're I mean,

899
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 3: there's lots of things going on in my life right now,

900
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 3: and I get lots of messages from friends about how

901
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 3: to alleviate pain, how whether it's physical, dealing with death

902
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,719
Speaker 3: of a parent, all of these type of things. It's

903
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,440
Speaker 3: how do you make the pain go away? And that's

904
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 3: not resilience, right, that's numbing. And the benefit of numbing

905
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 3: it won't feel the pain. The downside of numbing is

906
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:05,720
Speaker 3: we don't feel, and so the absence of pain also

907
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,400
Speaker 3: means the absence of joy, the absence of love. And

908
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 3: I feel like through technology, through messaging, through medication. I

909
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:18,839
Speaker 3: was a board member at a Bible camp and over

910
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 3: ten year period, seeing how many kids went from not

911
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:25,280
Speaker 3: having any medication to everybody, we had to hire extra nurses.

912
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:30,040
Speaker 3: I believe it. I believe there's necessary. I'm thankful for

913
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 3: medicine and medication. I just worry that we lean too

914
00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:37,480
Speaker 3: hard to We want to treat the symptom, get rid

915
00:52:37,560 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 3: of the pain, and we're missing the heart issue. Like

916
00:52:39,920 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 3: if I have a pain shooting down my arm, I

917
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 3: can treat the pain in the arm, but it's really

918
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 3: the heart issue. And I think a lot of times

919
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 3: around resilience with our kids in school system and families,

920
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 3: we're trying to manage pain rather than fostering flourishing we're

921
00:52:56,239 --> 00:53:00,359
Speaker 3: trying to manage the symptom rather than looking at how

922
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,600
Speaker 3: what are good ways of responding to suffering? How is

923
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:09,320
Speaker 3: suffering connected to love more than sin or equally connected

924
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:13,760
Speaker 3: to love and sin. So there's negative consequences for negative behavior,

925
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 3: but there's also I know the potential of suffering is great.

926
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 3: As a father and a grandfather, the love I have

927
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 3: for those kids has the potential for deep suffering, and

928
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 3: what I want to love them less, so I don't

929
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:31,960
Speaker 3: feel the potential for suffering. I think that's the navigation

930
00:53:32,080 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 3: we've made as a society over the past couple of decades,

931
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:39,320
Speaker 3: is we were so good and creative, we're going to

932
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 3: take pain away, But in doing so, we've taken away

933
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 3: the resilient potential and the need for development with optimal frustration.

934
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 3: And there's a beauty in coming together in painful things,

935
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 3: like certain things won't have solutions, but I have a

936
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 3: couple of friends that will enter with me in it

937
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,520
Speaker 3: and sit by the fire in the ash with me,

938
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:07,480
Speaker 3: And there's such a beauty in that. I can't even

939
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 3: tell you. I get emotional thinking about it. So thinking

940
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 3: about parenting, that's where I started, like, how are we

941
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,359
Speaker 3: navigating optimal frustration. How are we looking at the edge

942
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 3: where it's good for our daughters to fall off the

943
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 3: bar right the balance beam rather than man want to

944
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 3: I want her to succeed. I want her to get

945
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 3: a college scholarship that she needs to. I could put

946
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 3: pressure on her to be on the beam, and then

947
00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:37,760
Speaker 3: when she falls off, then I've added to the suffering

948
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 3: versus life'sful little disappointments. The growth part is how we

949
00:54:42,320 --> 00:54:45,320
Speaker 3: respond to them. It's how we respond, not why they happen.

950
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:50,760
Speaker 3: And that's the system's idea compared to individual psychology approach.

951
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:57,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, what I'm partly hearing in that correct me if

952
00:54:57,160 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 4: I'm wrong, is that sometimes we MISIDENTI by resilience, that

953
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:06,680
Speaker 4: we we perhaps think that we're generating the ability to

954
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:09,239
Speaker 4: be resilient, or we think of ourselves as resilient, when

955
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 4: really what we've done is we've walled ourselves off from

956
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,319
Speaker 4: those things that we need to be resilient towards. Is

957
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 4: that a fair Yeah, not a challenge that you've given us.

958
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:23,279
Speaker 3: I would also say, don't pray for patience, don't pay

959
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 3: pray for resilience, because what you're praying for is difficult

960
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,840
Speaker 3: times because those things. If you look at Paul saying,

961
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 3: you know, perseverance leads to right, there's the pathway there

962
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 3: of resilience and spiritual formation comes from how we navigate

963
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,160
Speaker 3: these things faithfully over time. And it's not about the

964
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:46,839
Speaker 3: lack of them. It's about how we go about addressing them.

965
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:49,360
Speaker 3: And as parents, we don't want our kids to suffer,

966
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 3: but sometimes love is how do we come alongside them

967
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 3: and not take it away, but give them the confidence

968
00:55:56,480 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 3: that this isn't going to break you. The suffering that's

969
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 3: going on for you right now. She's the suffering that's

970
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 3: going on for you right now, James. It's not going

971
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,760
Speaker 3: to break you. God is with you. It's gonna suck,

972
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 3: and it's going to be painful and it's going to

973
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:15,719
Speaker 3: be awful. Sorry about the language, but it's it's when

974
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:18,440
Speaker 3: when you see Paul uses a lot of gritty language,

975
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 3: right scuba crashet of like there there is painful things.

976
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:27,320
Speaker 3: It's not going to break you. You have a community,

977
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 3: you have a loving God, you have me as a

978
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 3: therapist to come alongside you, to be with you. That's

979
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:39,280
Speaker 3: where resilience comes out of. It's not solving the problem.

980
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:43,399
Speaker 3: It's not alleviating the problem or preventing the problem. It's

981
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 3: going through it together that we see the formation of

982
00:56:47,360 --> 00:56:50,800
Speaker 3: perseverance and long suffering and the fruits of the spirit

983
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:53,719
Speaker 3: coming out of that, not only resilience, but I would

984
00:56:53,760 --> 00:56:55,760
Speaker 3: say the fruits of the spirit spiritual formation.

985
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 1: Well, David, this has been helpful and good, and unfortunately

986
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 1: we're about out of time, and so really appreciate your

987
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 1: perspective on this.

988
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 2: I think I resonate so much with it.

989
00:57:07,120 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 1: I think that system's oriented perspective is just sort of

990
00:57:10,239 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: become part of the way I think about things, you know,

991
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:18,040
Speaker 1: whether it's org capacity and consulting, or you know, thinking

992
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 1: through some of this stuff from a leadership perspective, and

993
00:57:20,120 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 1: then obviously the marriage and family therapy. It just makes

994
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:26,439
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. And so we've had conversations about

995
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:29,120
Speaker 1: systemic sin, which is almost the dark side, you could

996
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 1: call that the the uh, you know, de optimized suffering

997
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 1: in the other direction sort of right, And so just

998
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 1: really helpful and really insightful, and appreciate you being here.

999
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 3: Man. Yeah, thanks, it's been fun talking with you guys.

1000
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 3: And I'm going to have to read up on hermanuticts now.

1001
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 2: Well, night Resources Oh, go ahead.

1002
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 4: You've learned from your students. You mentioned second order earlier.

1003
00:57:56,880 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 4: I've learned that what her minutation mean by second order

1004
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 4: and what MFT mean by second order are not the

1005
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:06,360
Speaker 4: same thing. So go and be aware of that.

1006
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 3: Okay, that's a good pointing.

1007
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, everybody check out. The books come

1008
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: out in February, so we won't have links to it

1009
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:18,280
Speaker 1: or anything, but hopefully David'll be back on the show

1010
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 1: to talk about it and then also check out the

1011
00:58:21,160 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: podcast with you if you're interested in more things around

1012
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 1: marriage and family therapy. But otherwise, come on back for

1013
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: the next episode of Thinking Christian. We'll catch you all

1014
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 1: next time.

1015
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:31,200
Speaker 2: Take care.

1016
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: I just want to take a second to thank the

1017
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:35,720
Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on

1018
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 1: the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com,

1019
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:42,320
Speaker 1: you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network.

1020
00:58:42,560 --> 00:58:45,919
Speaker 1: They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.