Bulldozers, Escapists, Doormats and Saints -- Hopes for the New Year

I bought myself a gift for Christmas this year -- a book* on confronting without offending.  It's a good gift for someone who likes to speak her mind and often says things like, "Oh, I wish I hadn't said that..."after the words fall out of her mouth.

Here's what I'm learning:  There are four kinds of approaches to confrontation:  The Bulldozers (The book calls it them Dictators), the Escapists (the book calls them Abdicators), the Doormats (the book calls them Accomodators)  and The Peacemaker--the ones who make it all work out to everyone's advantage. (the book calls them Collaborators). 

I am a Bulldozer who wants to be a Peacemaker.

As a Bulldozer,   I plow through situations without a lot of forethought -- because, hey, why do I have to think it through?  Don't I already know how this situation is going to play out? Haven't I already been here a hundred times before?  Bulldozers don't wait around for others -- they know what they want and they go for it.  They don't listen.  They don't consider.  But here's the truth about Bulldozers:  We are fearful.

Bulldozers have learned that the best Defense is a Noisy Offense.  It works most of the time, too. You get what you want, when you want it...only Bulldozers often discover the destruction they have left behind when it is too late.

Then there is the Escapist -- One wrong move, and these folks run for the hills.  You find them living in the hills, away from population.  I found extreme cases of Escapists in Key West (as far South as you can go) -- Hawaii, (as far West as you can go), Alaska (you get the picture...)  For those who don't have the financial resources to escape geographically, they escape by other means -- drinking, drugs, quitting jobs without explanation, leaving relationships either through work-addiction, adultery, hobbies...
They hop around because they don't want to involved since involvement means committment, and committment means having to stay in something even when it gets dicey.

Escapists are the ephemeral folks in your life that you can never really pin down because they get quietly offended and move out of your life without a word.  They never say "Goodbye" or "Screw You" or anything. You just look around one day and they are gone.  It is so difficult to make relationships work with them because they won't stay around long enough to even try.  They burrow into their comfortable place and disappear.  Fear rules them, too, but they just respond differently from the Bulldozer.

Doormats are, well, Doormats.  They put up with just about everything to make things "easy" and "workable" and "fun" and "OKAY".  Doormats have no boundaries. They let people in from every direction and through every device available in the 21st Century.  They want to get along but at the root of every doormat is a motherload of bitterness and resentment.

They want people to notice how overloaded they are -- but then they take on more and more and more.  They have headaches and neckaches and upset stomachs and JUST NEED TO REST every once in a while, but they rarely do, because there is always someone else needing help.  They don't say what they want because they are fearful that if they do, everyone will leave, or dislike them, or that there will be chaos. They just allow things to  happen, but they are deeply frustrated in the process.

Of course the Peacemaker is the one every Christ-follower strives to be -- the one who can work things out and help everyone walk away from the situation a better person.  This is the Ephesians 4:29 person who speaks in a way that gives grace to everyone in ear shot.  No one is offended, no one feels diminished through the encounter.

This is my heart's desire -- to be that Peacemaker.  It's my goal for the New Year -- to be kind to others, tender hearted, forgiving each other,  to take on what's mine and nothing else, to have healthy, life-producing and satisfying relationships, to edify with my words, and not tear down. 

It's a long jump from Bulldozer to Peacemaker,  but God is a God of bridges between gaps, of restoration and healing.  He is the Light.  He can quiet my tongue and soothe my spirit, if I give Him all my fears and self-protective strategies. He has taken me from Broken to Whole, from Lost to Saved, from Confused to Certain -- why couldn't He take me to Peacemaker?









*Confronting Without Offending by Deborah Smith Pegues  (Harvest House Publishers, 2009)



 
 
 

A great gift for Christmas...

One by one they file into the small room I humorously call the "holy of holies", a concrete space of ten feet by thirteen feet -- cluttered with small tables and chairs, two computers, a locked cabinet, an antique file cabinet, and a table/desk sturdy enough for me to sit on, while the other chairs are occupied by the women in ill-fitting, orange jump suits and black rubber crocs.  There are no windows, the door locks behind them.  It could be claustrophobic, if you thought of it that way -- I prefer to think of it as an oasis of peace.  I play a favorite song from the computer speakers:  You are awesome in this place, Abba Father... and the tears begin to flow.  Tears that have been held back until now.  Tears that show all the aching inside.

The ritual of our weekly Bible study is little more, in my view, than an opportunity to be here, together, and invite God's healing presence into our lives.  We learn from the Bible study, of course -- but the true learning takes place in the spaces between the questions.  "Does God love me?"   "Where are my kids?"  "Can I be forgiven for all I've done?"  "Can I make it up to my family?"

One woman in particular is troubled with the idea that God does not love her enough to send her a job, give her a car and things that "other, good people" have.  She is on "work release" which means she is able to go out and try to find a job where she can work while she is incarcerated.  It seems to her that everyone but she is blessed, and that God is punishing her for her many sins by not giving her what she most desires right now in her life.

Does anyone else feel that God is angry with her for all the wrong she has done? I ask.  Many nod yes.

What do you think God sees when He looks at you?


A mess.  A screw up.  Someone who can't control her temptations.

I asked the woman if she thought she had come to the place in her life when she had trusted God, had said yes to the invitation of Christ to come in and have a relationship with her, to give her the Holy Spirit?

She said she had.

  We all go to the third chapter of the letter that Paul wrote to the church in Rome -- Here is says, in verse 22:  We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins.  And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done.    For all have sinned; all fall short of God's glorious standard.  Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty.

Now there is phrase that resonates with a room full of inmates:  God declares us "not guilty".

They eye me suspiciously -- tough women can't trust very well . 

It says you aren't guilty and you stand clean before God's eyes.

"And what if I sin again?"  one woman asks

"Then you ask for forgiveness," another one answers.

Silence.

"And again?"

"You ask for forgiveness."

They are all thinking the same thing:  "And again and again and again and again?  Doesn't he ever get tired of our messing up?"

Questions and What's Behind Them

Jesus ran into them:  questions to trap Him.   They were carefully constructed questions that would test his mettle:  Should we pay taxes?  Should we stone this adultress?

The questioners didn't want the answer, necessarily; they wanted to put Him into a box, make Him look bad, show Him for the poser they thought Him to be -- set Him up.

Another kind of question is a true, searching question, but with the feeling that the questioner already knows the answer, but wants to find some way to justify:  "I've done everything I can to be saved...what could possibly be left?" the rich young ruler wants to know. "I only started the sacrifices because you were late, " says King Saul to Samuel -- "What did you expect me to do?"

Here's a question posed to me in the ladies' Bible study yesterday in the jail:

"Is it a sin for me to sell drugs so my babies can eat -- cause I can't work and I can't get disability -- and I know if I had the chance, I'd do it again?" 

In other words:  Will God judge me for breaking the law if it's the only way I can eat and feed my family?

Now posing questions to answer questions is an age old technique:  When Peter was telling Jesus what everyone thought about Him, Jesus asked, "Well who do YOU think I am?" 

The Socratic Method, named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates,  is based on asking questions to stimulate debate

One Jewish writer says:  "as God leads us out of bondage in Egypt so the act of questioning leads us out of the bondage of ignorance."


There is nothing wrong with questions -- and the simple act of asking them aloud causes us to learn, before the answer is even offered.  Too often the teacher wants to rush in and answer without making true reflection available.

Doug Pollock, author of God Space and Irresistible Evangelism, believes in Questions. In fact, he offers a whole list of them on his website http://www.godsgps.com/ called "Wondering Questions".



So to the question about whether or not it is a sin to sell drugs to feed ones' babies, I give another question:
"Well, what do you think?"

In answering her own question, many truths are revealed:  she believes it IS wrong, she feels guilty, she honestly feels trapped by her lack of options. "But what about my babies.  I can't let them starve."

"Well where are your babies now?" another girl answers.  Are they better off where they are now, with you in here?

I said nothing(anything I was going to say would have sounded judgemental and alienating, I'm almost sure), and let the other women in the room answer the question, along with the questioner.  The power and wisdom of God was clearly at work, and the process so much more powerful than my going to Scripture, pointing to THE ANSWER, and moving on.

As a result of the questions and the discussion that followed, I learned (these ladies feel desperately trapped by their poverty and lack of options), they learned (it's okay to ask questions -- I already have the answers within me, through the Counselor living within me...) and we were willing to move forward in faith.  Later in the session, we discussed Advent and its meaning.  I had chosen a verse for the occasion before the class, but when it was read, God's ANSWER was manifest: Isaiah 1:18-20 (New Living Translation)

18 “Come now, let’s settle this,”

says the Lord.

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

I will make them as white as snow.

Though they are red like crimson,

I will make them as white as wool.

19 If you will only obey me,

you will have plenty to eat.

20 But if you turn away and refuse to listen,

you will be devoured by the sword of your enemies.

I, the Lord, have spoken

"I guess he's talking to me," says the questioner. 

Are you a boy or are you a girl? Gender Continuum and Ministry

The Gender Contiuum:



I genuinely struggle with this one: the women who are determined to be manly, the man who cultivates his femininity.

Take Gypsy, for example. Gypsy is what the world would suggest is a “woman trapped within a man’s body”. The Christ-follower, however, might say (as a friend of mine said to me): “God doesn’t put oranges on apple trees.”

In other words, that it is impossible for a man to be trapped in his own body and that he only feels that he is “an orange” based on some sinful consequence (not necessarily his/hers, but from somewhere along the ancestral line).

Yesterday, I gave my class of inmates a writing assignment: Tell about the bravest thing you have ever done. Gypsy wrote that her bravest act is living as she feels: as a woman, despite her parent’s objections, despite the objections of her (Christian) upbringing.

Gypsy wears an expression of tolerance and determination: I have never seen her without it. She is kind, thoughtful, delicate in her wording – all the things I have struggled to be in my life – all the things that were “feminine” I was told – all the things I have generally failed to achieve. I barge in, I speak directly, I often trample over people’s feelings in an effort to explain my views. In every way, I could be called (and have been called) “indelicate”, “forceful”, “opinionated”. These are characteristics we generally award men.

Gypsy endures all the ridicule that comes her way – I can only imagine how much more in her cell with males – with a charm and grace I could only dream of having.

In my Bible Study for women at the same jail, there are women who are rough and salty:
pierced, large, painfully rude, and aggressive. They get in my face, forget to say thank you, yawn loudly and wonder how much longer we have to go on with this particular subject.

Now these are women I identify with. I don’t feel comfortable with them all the time. I don’t even like them all the time, but I identify with them. These are the Tough Women. These are the women who learned to push back before they were trampled. These are the women whose souls are so pink and raw inside that they have to spackle them with a crusty exterior.

So which ones are men and which ones are women? Are we defined by our genitals or by our outer mannerisms? Are we defined by how we see ourselves? How we are seen by others? By God?

I am not going into the sexual choices that these outer manifestations of gender often stir up. Sex without marriage is wrong in my view, regardless of where one places him/herself on the gender continuum.

My question is this: What is “a man” and what is “a woman”?

When interviewed recently, the grandmother of the South African runner, Caster Semenya, whose gender has been disputed said, “ What can I do when they call her a man, when she’s really not a man? It is God who made her look that way?”

I also know that the bible speaks of eunuchs, the only real example I can find in God’s word about “gender confusion”:

For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it." Matthew 9:12

But it is not confusion at all, really: some eunuchs were made eunuchs for the purpose of protecting their female mistresses (Candace, Esther to name a couple from the Bible). Others become “eunuchs” for spiritual purposes – keeping themselves spiritually and physically uncontaminated so that they can achieve their God-given mission on earth more completely, without distractions (Paul is a famous example). In both cases, the purpose is clear and is often a choice of the one being “eunuch-ized”

Tony Warren of The Mountain Retreat (online) says,

It's the way of the world today to turn everything upside down. To esteem bad as good, and good as bad. To make quoted scripture evil legalism and un-compassionate…

Apostasy and sloppy exegesis mixed with carnal or humanistic thinking has also brought these abominable ideas into the churches. Many people today just don't care what the Word of God says. They just want to be called a Christian and to live in peace with the world. They are just too deceived to understand that peace with the world, is enmity with God.

Here’s what I know to be true: Any brokenness can be healed by God. Any blight brought upon us by generations before us can be taken away by the power of The Spirit living within us when we accept God’s deal: the Great Exchange – our ashes for His Beauty.  This can be the compulsion to drink or to control or to deny our sexuality.

We are who we are at the moment, in the Now. Those of us who are true Christ-followers need look no further than within ourselves – we have the Mind of Christ, we have the Spirit of God living within us. He will teach us. He will counsel.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of God living within them at this moment can, in the next moment. Just ask. He will dine with you. He will commune with you. He will live with you forever. You will be comforted and directed onto the correct path.

In the meantime, we must not retreat from the issues that are presented to us in this world, at this time: some people don’t feel comfortable in their own skin. Some people have been oppressed by others – even within the church – and have been wounded and pushed away.

And we, as followers of Christ, are called to compassion, to true agape love.  We cannot sift whom we will love from whom we will not love.  It's just not an option.  We are not the sifters, after all.  It's not our job.  Our job is to show the love of Christ in all situations and to all people, and to keep our eyes on our own faults and frailties. 

I choose to love Gypsy and the boisterous women inside the jail -- and the ones outside the jail, too.