Resolution: Can't Change Others, Change Yourself

Over 25 years ago, in Grad School, my Counselor Education professor--a very bright woman--made a comment that only two things change people: Religious Conversion and Loss. At the time it made an impression on me. So much, that I can recall it now.

I am not sure if that is absolutely true. In my life it has been to some degree. But, love has also changed me...God's and People, and even my departed cat Barnabas. It is weird when people make too much of their pets, but is also too dismissive to underestimate the power of companionship and care that a pet can bring into a life, particularly when someone has been neglected, an outcast, etc.

It has been a rainy and cold month of December and early January here in Pa. Not cold enough for snow but miserable. All rain and no rainbows recently. Some very difficult things have happened this weekend--a long outworking of one of the issues outlined below in broad terms. It is now over thank God and I need to let it be over and face forward without losing the lessons. Bury the corpse. Let the Dead bury their Dead type of thing.    

Within the last ten years, I was involved in two very difficult relationships that went from very positive to very negative. Without getting into a lot of details, my conscience is clear in terms of how I responded and reacted. While not free from fault and sin, I have come to see that both scenarios were made immeasurably worse by what I have come to conclude as character issues of the other party.

Where I beat myself is that I saw the issues and problems in glimpses before making the serious decision to commit--a commitment that had a trajectory over a long-period of time. Hard to extricate myself from, with a great deal of self-recrimination about how I could have been so unwise. I knew better and decided to believe in the other peoples' better angels.

I had no right to have higher expectations of these people and I have no one else ultimately to blame besides myself. If I had been a young man maybe I would have an excuse, when the decisions had to be made of whether to end the relationship or continue, I kept myself on the relational train tracks and paid a fairly serious price, when I had the age at least to stop before taking the next step. Why I didn't, I will never really know.

The best thing I could have done in both instances would have been to conclude the relationships when  I had the chance. It would have been hurtful and harmful yet I think ultimately it would have brought about the possibility of positive change because of the loss that would have ensued. I think it could have been a remedy to some deep-suited issues. I lacked confidence in my insights and decided to not confront. Instead, I went along. I think I was afraid of being alone.

I have to grant that I could be greatly deceived in my determinations but I think I have done the hard work of separating the wheat of truth versus the chaff of self-justification. It has take time and the wind of wisdom to discern this but I think I have for the most part.  There were things that happened that neither side could predict, so there are problems not directly attributable to guilt but more of just life in a broken world.

When I consider how hard it has been to change myself, it gives me a deep pause about ever engaging in efforts to change other people. We can confront and provide consequences and care but we also may need to burn a bridge so that a better bridge of relational integrity can be constructed sometime in the future--even if we never cross it again as I think will be case with these two situations.

I suppose that we need both Paul and Barnabas in our John Mark lives (Acts 15:39).

And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus,
   
It is worth reading the ins and outs of the background of this story. Lest we forget, Paul was much welcomed by Barnabas into the inner circle of early Christians after being a murderer and persecutor previously of the Church (before his conversion). So, even though I think Paul had to do what he had to do, Barnabas also had to do what he  had to do which was to bind the wounds. I am sure Paul reflected at some point of the crucial role of Barnabas in his own life after the big fight.

So hard to have these qualities of Paul and Barnabas in the same person. Even the best of people only have fragments of God's character. Together we form a body but without each other, we are disconnected and dismembered. I surmise we need rainbows in the rain over our life's bridges. God brings the colors of our personalities together.