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"Grace" Literally Means Free - Philosophy of Therapy Paper

“Grace” Literally Means Free

“Going on from there He saw another pair of brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they were in their boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and He called them. (4:21) Observe two things: First, they’re with their father. There’s the patriarchal family – James’ and John’s loyalties are clearly to Zebedee. Second, they are working. Those are the two sacred cows of kinship culture: family and occupation. You don’t call those into question. Yet Jesus does! And at once leaving their boat they followed Him. (4:22) Jesus tells his followers to leave their families of origin because the families we grow up in keep most people from asking bigger questions. Finding one’s soul is always leaving one’s comfort zone, letting go and going to a bigger place. Leaving our ‘father and our nets’ may also involve questioning our career choices, our family prejudices and our class perspective.” (Rohr, 1996)
As far as having an actual approach to therapy at this stage, there is nothing solid enough to stand on, though there are plenty of theories to consider. However, I do have a foundation from which I see all things, and that has a very heavy impact on my worldview of therapy and a person’s health psychologically. This foundation comes straight from the scripture used in the introduction when Christ calls two of his disciples out of the boat to follow himself. He calls them away from their father and their work, their family and their security, in order to find life (dependence on God) – I know that is not how Webster defines life, but I am much more comfortable with Christ’s definition which means I don’t have to depend on myself. To do so would be worry (sin and death).
So knowing this, I see the deep-rooted reason for all misery: dependence on self (pride), without knowing forgiveness.
The interesting thing is, this is the kind of person our culture breeds through our schools (education and sports/both extremely competitive) and media (which portrays rich people as the sexy winners in life/poor people are the dirty criminals who rape and kill the rich people).
So, as much as I want to help husband and wife use all the correct communication techniques understand boundaries and triangles, etc., I would be as empty as the rich man to send these persons home only to be comfortable with their false security they developed from the illusion hard work, savings, retirement, insurance, etc. This is a world that knows nothing of depending on God, and so falls into the right wing republican trap of believing abortion is murder, but war is not murder, but necessary to keep us secure from evildoers and poverty. That is awful and empty.
This is certainly not to devalue the understanding we our given through the research and theory of psychoanalysis and counseling. It just isn’t enough, just like theology and philosophy are not enough. I do really want to connect the truth of the gospel with a good understanding of the psychology of persons and their social network. I think in order to do this, we have to deeply define terms that are both used in the gospel and in therapy, such as trust.
Wow, what a huge word to define. When we trust someone else, God, or even ourselves, we become dependent. One of webster’s definitions of depend is “to hang down from”. That is a powerful image. The ones we really trust are holding us as we dangle over a cliff. That is not secure, and 20/20 would certainly tell us that it is not safe. Is that how we trust God? I don’t think so, because the cliff represents all sorts of false securities that we trust in, such as riches and safety.
So to trust in God, we need to jump “out of the boat of our parents and security”, off of the cliff, away from the world, dangling there holding on to the hands of God, experiencing LIFE (I hope to define this later). Now, we have certainly seen people put their trust in other people, especially as children, and they have been let go of and dropped to the bottom. Why is that? I guess Christians would blame it on the devil or evildoers, but I would imagine that the evildoers are all the ones who have been dropped by friends and family who were also dropped (genogram stuff here). The big picture to me here is this, if Christians understood Christ, hung over the cliff by the finger of God (real security), maybe there would be more than one Mother Teresa, people would be loved, and they again could trust themselves, other people, and eventually God. That is empowerment (authority given to us). It only comes from dependence.
I feel that we need to define security very well also, since we are always worried and consumed by it. It has much to do with fear and anxiety. Webster defines security as “freedom from fear, anxiety, danger, doubt, etc.” I can’t believe we trust our competitive capitalistic system so much as to feel free from fear, anxiety, danger, doubt, etc. I know we aren’t free from it at all. Apparently, even as Christians we love capitalism for our financial security (that is so scary), and we love and support our military that is made up of our lower and middle class to keep us financially and physically secure from the evildoers, as well as police to take care of the criminals who are criminals because the church failed to love them. We can never know God as a community if our security remains in any system, rather than the Kingdom that Christ said is with us. Security from finances and government is a house built on sand.

I guess that staying on the cliff is much more comforting than facing one’s reality of death and also the dependence on something else other than themselves (hopefully God). It is a jump of faith in which we do die to ourselves in order to live in Christ.
Earlier I mentioned the phrase “if Christians understood Christ”. Here may be a significant reason they don’t, and also why they are manipulated to think they can have security in both the established government system and God: “We’ve tended to soften Jesus’ conflict with the system ever since we became a Church of the establishment. The year that we blame is the year 313. That is the year of the Edict of Milan or the Constantinian Revolution. It is then that the church changed dramatically and changed sides dramatically. Up until that time the Church was by and large of the underclass. It identified with the oppressed and the poor; the Church itself was still being oppressed and Christians were being thrown to the lions. It reads history from the catacombs; literally from the underground, which always gives you a different perspective than ‘those found in palaces’ – exactly how Jesus distinguishes his cousin John (see Matthew 11:8).
…Once we moved from the bottom of society to the top, we developed a new film over our eyes, and we couldn’t read anything that showed Jesus in Confrontation with the establishment. We became the establishment. Clear teaching on issues of greed, powerlessness, non-violence, non-control and simplicity were moved to the sidelines, if not actually countermanded.
We’ll see as we get into the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus intended for us to take the low road. He intended us to operate from the minority position, from the position of ‘immoral’ minority, much more than the moral majority. When you’re protecting your self-image as a moral, superior or ‘saved’ person, you always lose the truth. The daring search for God – the common character of all religion – is replaced with the search for personal certitude and control.
As long as the Church was underground in some sense, as long as we operated from a minority position, we had greater access to the truth, to the gospel, to Jesus. We in our time have to find a way to disestablish ourselves, to identify with our powerlessness instead of power, our dependence instead of our dependence instead of our independence, our communion instead of our individualism. Unless we understand that, the Sermon on the Mount isn’t going to make any sense.
As soon as people are comfortable, they don’t want the truth beyond their comfort zone” (Rohr, 1996). Judas and the Pharisees knew this well. Their expectation of the Messiah had nothing to do with faith. The Pharisees constantly wanted Christ to prove himself through miracles even as he already had done miracles in front of them. There was one other who wanted Christ to prove himself; SATAN. Wow. The thing about Judas is, he expected Christ, as the Pharisees did, to prove himself as the Messiah by conquering Rome, ending the Jewish oppression, and reign on high. He died on a cross, crucified by them, because Judas decided to not follow Christ, but rather take the wide path of thirty silver coins. To say it differently, he manipulated the Son of God with the affection of a kiss for something that seemed more comfortable and secure, I guess because Christ was here to love and conquer evil by dieing on a cross, rather than killing the Roman oppressors (evildoers). Wow, what does that mean for us? I wonder if financial security in our culture is that same manipulated affectionate kiss towards God. One last thought about false security, “Do not be afraid” is the most frequent line in the Bible. (Rohr, 1996)
I have also heard it said, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (King David) That means to me that to fear God means to not be afraid of anything else like love, hate, trust, security, intelligence, emotions, humility, pride, etc.
Respect cannot be demanded for ourselves, it can only be given of a free will to someone else. Humility never asks for respect, because humility knows that it doesn’t deserve it, but it always gives respect to others. Can you imagine what our society would look like, especially the so-called right wing, if humility was an essential value instead of pride. “It comes direct from hell” (Lewis, 1952), C.S. Lewis says of pride. “It is the complete anti-God State of Mind.” (Lewis 1952) Can you imagine what a family would look like that knew humility in their heart and soul? Christ, The Son of God, said of himself that he came to serve, not to be served. I sure hope that we no longer believe the phrase “In God we trust” or “God bless America” about our prideful, competitive nation. I don’t think the Olympics represent the humility of the world either, but it is a good symbol for the war for global domination. Looks like Enron got caught with steroids and have been disqualified in the 100 yard dash to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Well, here is a last quote about the humble person that C.S. Lewis seems to know. “Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. …He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.” (Lewis, 1952)
To understand love, we should not read Chicken Soup for the soul books. To really understand love, we must first understand compassion. “The word compassion is derived from the word pati and cum, which together mean ‘to suffer with’.
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” (Nouwen, 1982) With that definition in mind, let us discover what this love and compassion might look like if we were to experience it. “He was riding listlessly in some wayside place, apparently in the open country, when he saw a figure coming along the road towards him and halted; for he saw it was a leper. And he knew instantly that his courage was challenged, not as the world challenges, but as one would challenge who knew the secrets of the heart of a man. What he saw advancing was not the banner and spears of Perugia, from which it never occurred to him to shrink; not the armies that fought for the crown of Sicily, of which he had always thought as a courageous man thinks of mere vulgar danger. Francis Bernardone saw his fear coming up the road towards him; the fear that comes from within and not without; though it stood white and horrible in the sunlight. For once in the long rush of his life his soul must have stood still. Then he sprang from his horse, knowing nothing between stillness and swiftness, and rushed on the leper and threw his arms around him.” (Chesterton, 1924) I like to replace Chesterson’s word fear in the previous quote with the word love. I think that is what came out of St. Francis that day, and I think that is the real definition of love and compassion – to throw your arms around a leper (junkie, alcoholic, homeless person, HIV positive child, prostitute). It certainly provides a real picture of how God loves us, dirty, undeserving, under-serving sinners.
I don’t think you can ever separate the words love and compassion. They are two words that mean the same thing. What if we were able to understand this love and compassion and show it first to our families, and then to our world? Again, maybe there would be more than one Mother Teresa in the world - “Loving should be as normal to us as living and breathing, day after day until our death.” (Stern, 1998) We might even begin to understand humility as I described it before. “Love is the strongest force the world possesses, and yet it is the humblest imaginable.” (Gandhi, 1995)
Security is, of course, the thorn in the side of the rose known as Forgiveness. “Most of Jesus’ teaching is about one thing: forgiveness, which is the great and necessary thaw of all human history (letting go of hurts)” (Rohr, 1996). Webster’s definition of thaw is “to get rid of the chill, stiffness, etc., resulting from the extreme cold.” I think I understand that to mean that forgiveness provides warmth, vulnerability, humility/soft, trust, love, real security, cooperation whereas the opposite would be cold, hard/pride, insecurity, hate, competition, and the like. Christ asks us to pray, “forgive us our trespasses or debts, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Webster defines forgiveness this way, “to give up resentment against, or the desire to punish; stop being angry with; pardon – to overlook – to cancel or remit a debt.” Webster defines pardon, “to release”. If this doesn’t fly in the face of our wartime culture, where if it feels good do it, and the divorce rate is through the roof, then we do not know the Kingdom that Christ taught us about. “Once you replace morality with the philosophy that says ‘if it feels good, do it’, there isn’t anything to forgive.” (Wright, 50) Christ even says that those who forgive know the kingdom, and that those who don’t forgive, do not know the kingdom of God. That is the sadness of the empty soul of the world.
The world thinks it needs to be better than the rest of the world, when it only needs to be. “And, once we start inhaling God’s fresh air (forgiveness), there is a good chance that we will start to breathe it out, too.” (Wright, 1996)
“I believe with all my heart that mercy and forgiveness are the whole gospel” (Rohr, 1996). I believe with all my heart that is the most loaded statement made since Christ announced the forgiveness of sins to the world. “Who is this man, that even forgives sins?” (Luke 7:47b-49) If that is true, and I tend to believe that the Franciscans have the best grasp of the gospel since they live it like Christ lived it, then the way we look at life, the way we pray, the way we counsel, the way we parent and befriend, the way we define life, is as dramatic as the father running to the prodigal son. It will force you to choose life or death – “get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’’. (Shawshank Redemption) If mercy and forgiveness are denied, so is God. Hope is then lost, because all HOPE lies in mercy and forgiveness.
Christ taught us that relationships are more important than rituals or rules – love is the greatest commandment and “why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?” or “is he going to heal on the Sabbath?”, both asked by the Pharisees trying to fit their rituals and Christ into their understanding. That didn’t work out to well. The point is, that these terms I tried to define are essential to the gospel, mental health counseling, and relationships in general. My question is, how do we even begin to understand our clients, their families, our families, our world, our religions, if these “life” words are not exhaustively clear in meaning and action?

As the therapist, parent, husband, and friend, I am an expert and model on some levels, helping people discover and know what the essential aspects of living life really are all about. I feel that they can know this without acknowledging Christ with their lips, just as we can acknowledge Christ with our lips and not know him or the aspects of the gospel that we discussed earlier, which are Christ is His essence. I guess I have to hope so anyways, because I am not here to give my clients, my wife, my child, or my friends ultimatums, but rather to guide and love them. I feel that as models we need to develop a relationship with them and have a connection that is deeper than therapist/client. I know that is not traditional, and even known to be dangerous as far as transference and countertransference is encountered in therapy. However, I hope to be in a non-traditional position that provides that grace to relate, listen, and teach those that are stuck individually or in their social realm (family, friends). My general role in persons lives is to listen, share, and connect with them through short term or long term relationships, but from that, know that the person feels empowerment to search and find the truth, whether it be understanding abandonment, or what it means to leave the false security mentality and lifestyle in order to follow Christ. I really feel that once people realize what that means, community can be experienced, instead of capitalism.
The goal of therapy is first that the client/person is able to stand outside of themselves and understand why they are who they are or why they do what they do. An addict in treatment to become sober from drugs, alcohol, or sexual addiction, also needs to understand “abandonment” and how that has implications within the addiction and with all significant relationships. There has to be meaning involved for real and substantial change to occur.
Yes, behaviors can change to relieve certain temporary distress, but I want people to transcend their circumstances and live without worry. One good example is Pam and her parents in the videos we watched in class. The one substantial “catch” was the “object relations” therapists who caught the father in a moment of emotion and asked him about it. As it turned out, it had to do with his son who committed suicide. In the other three or four sessions, the structure was questioned, positive talk was achieved, reframing occurred, homeostasis was discovered, triangles were analyzed, but until we found out that dad couldn’t visit the grave, Pam couldn’t clean the house without her Brother, mom could hardly cry, and if she did, she was alone, grief and forgiveness were not achieved or even wanted. After that session, I just could not believe both therapist and client had danced around the issue, even if it was unknowingly. I guess I question the expectation of therapists and therapy itself. Do we just hope we catch that moment of emotion that lasted less than ten seconds? If we don’t, do we just settle to change their structure and behavior and let them die without knowing real forgiveness, mercy, trust, humility, love and compassion? I think my goal for therapy, friendship, and parenting is to not let them die without knowing real forgiveness, mercy, trust, humility, love and compassion. It is also my hope that this HOPE might be given through those who have received it as well. I think that is the great commission, actually.
“This revolution comes about through the Messiah, and his people, sharing and bearing the pain of the world, that the world may be healed. This is the Kingdom-message, the Advent-message.” (Wright, 1996)


Reference List
Chesterton, G.K. (1924). Saint Francis of Assisi. New York, New York. Doubleday of Random House.
Gandhi, Mohandas. (1995). The Wisdom of Gandhi. New York, New York. Citadel Press.
Lewis, C.S. (1952). Mere Christianity. New York, New York. Touchstone of Simon & Schuster.
Nouwen, Henry J.M. McNeill, Donald P. Morrison, Douglas A. (1982). Compassion. New York, New York. Doubleday.
Rohr, Richard. (1996). Jesus’ Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount. Cincinnati, OH. St. Anthony Messenger Press.
Stern, Anthony. (1998). Mother Teresa: Everything Starts from Prayer. Ashland, OR. White Cloud Press.
Wright, N.T. (1996). The Lord and His Prayer. Cincinnati, OH. Forward Movement Publications. Grand Rapids, MI. W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.