I recently published an article titled “Orange Man and the Juice.” Some of you may have read it here or maybe got an email in your inbox and read it there. Or maybe I decided to take it down before you even seen it.

A thoughtful reader reached out to me a few hours after I posted it, and they had a lot to say. Through a conversation, they made it clear that what I wrote seemed “backhanded” and condescending. They did not feel that I was being fair or charitable in what I had written. They said I was attacking and stirring dissention and hate. I appreciated the feedback, hard as it was to hear.

It’s probably fair to assume others read it and felt similarly. This is not what I had hoped for, and I’m disappointed that I caused this to happen. I am sorry I was uncharitable, and I regret that failed to achieve my intended purpose for writing it. I want to be someone who is willing to not only think out loud but to do so in a way that is respectful and invites the reader in. It seems like what I wrote felt disrespectful and pushed the reader away. I am sorry for that.

I have some big concerns around the church and church folks locking arms with Trump. I feel confused why there aren’t local voices speaking out – the silence is deafening. So I am not aiming to make those who have hidden Trump in their hearts feel warm and fuzzy – I am aiming for some conviction where there is political idolatry. It doesn’t seem like I achieved that though. It seems like my work in that post didn’t serve anyone (or very few), and it didn’t convey what I hoped it would. So again, if you read it and felt I was being insulting or condescending, please hear me say I apologize.

Peace.

Two Memories

I’m fascinated by black light. When you turn off the everyday overhead light sources and turn on an ultraviolet, you see things you had know idea were there.

In my senior year of college, I was recording a weekly podcast with my best friend. I was taking a theology class called Critical Issues, and it covered three debated topics: the historical Adam, women in ministry, and homosexuality in the church. Since our podcast content was basically whatever we were paying attention to that week, we began discussing homosexuality in the church, and I began writing about it as we went. Our listenership was rather small. Occasionally, we’d boost engagement with a giveaway or a friend would comment they’d found an episode interesting. When we began discussing issues of sexuality, that changed rather quickly. People listened, many with deep concern.

The memory I have is this: I’m standing in my basement apartment and sending my parents a text before going to church on Sunday morning. I’m telling them that despite the horrific blowback we were getting – being called a heretic and a threat to the church, being sat down at a diner and begged to steer away from this issue – I was basically a good kid. Maybe a bit of a disgrace to them among the church folk, but still a Christian, still trying my best out here. Looking back, it’s a bit perplexing: the conversations we were having on the podcast were simply working to explain different views – we hadn’t even taken a position. It was still too much apparently. The span of those four episodes were one of the most anxiety ridden times of my life to that point. People got really worked up. I got really scared. I remember phoning a friend in Phoenix and telling him how disheartening it all was.

Memory number two: I’m sitting on a plane which will soon be in the air to Ohio. It’s January 2021, about a week after Trump lost the election and his supporters broke into the capitol in D.C. I have spent many hours over the course of several days working on a piece called “Three Lies We Believed” which outlines some ways Evangelicals had been deceived by Donald Trump. Fairly cognizant that this piece would generate some backlash but confident it was important to write anyway, I hit “publish” and vow not to check Facebook or anything else until our trip is over.

Like our podcast episodes, my writing generally floats into the void without much fanfare. A typical piece such as this one will be clicked on between 20 and 200 times. On our layover during the return trip I check in – readership is looking quite different. Within a few days, it’s been viewed over 1,200 times (more than 1,800 now). Strangers reach out to me. I’m lambasted by Facebook warriors from my church and local community coming to defend Trump as well as encouraged by others who appreciated the piece. Fearing the backlash, a friend who helped me write the piece chooses to keep their name off it.

Black Light

My current work is counseling. A prevalent fear for those of us who are beginning as therapists is what if I say the wrong thing in a session? What if I miss something really important? To this, seasoned therapists reply, don’t worry about it – if it’s really important, it will come back up with the client soon enough.

I’ve been writing on this site about many different things in the form of 196 posts for more than 8 years. For me, this has functioned as a sort of black light which I’ve shined over topics as varied as communication, theology, politics, gender and sexuality, addiction, the death penalty, therapy, brain science, the church, giving to the poor, work, and more. And this “black light” has revealed a certain invisible energy living inside of some of these things, an energy that keeps coming up. The hottest issues are sexuality and politics. But that’s no great revelation – a Thanksgiving get-together could have told you that! But why? Why would someone take the time to sit me down and beg me to stop writing and talking about sexuality and politics? Why would more than a thousand people read something I wrote about Trump?

Identity (who are we?)

I contend that both issues, sexuality/gender and politics, are largely about identity. If identity is at the core of these issues, then it makes sense why people get so fierce so fast when they come up. You’re not just talking about Biden or Trump or Kamala – you’re not just talking about being gay or straight or bi. No. You’re tapping into some of the deepest, most sensitive parts of those listening. You’re probing around in emotionally charged issues and likely triggering a lot of energy around wounds and confusion carried from the past.

In Evangelical spaces, the boundary line drawn to determine who is “in” and who is “outside” is usually extremely important. When churches split, sometimes over seemingly ridiculous disagreements, they’re working out what it means to be “in” – who will we accept and defend as our own, and who is “other.” The power of this is in the benefits and protection you get from being “in,” and there’s a certain purity necessary to achieve this. I think this is confusing for folks who’ve never been inside these circles. They say things like why do you have to hate gay people so much – can’t you just accept their existence even though you disagree? For so many, to do that would violate the purity of the group. It would alter the identity and shake them to their core. So it’s much better to never even have a serious conversation about the issues. This was well summarized by a member of a small group I attended who said with a smile: if they don’t like how we do things, they can just head on down the road.

Who Is God?

When we did the podcast episodes, we explored some of the various ways of reading key biblical texts on homosexuality. Turns out there are several ways of reading them. But to acknowledge that (that each passage can be read to mean different things) is a terrifying reality for many. There is a deep comfort in the concrete certainty that the way your denomination/group reads the Bible is the singularly correct way. I think it must be really scary for those convinced of this to consider there are actually many way to read most passages, and that scripture isn’t crystal clear, nor was it meant to be.

If you entertain the idea that there may be different ways to read a passage of scripture, you open yourself to a version of reality in which God might have to be ok with folks coming to different conclusions in good faith. If you are 100% convinced God is in the business of damning to hell those who don’t read the Bible the way you do, then it becomes pretty confounding when you hear about four, count them four, ways of reading a single passage. I mean shoot, how could you even be sure you’re not the one being damned to hell? The odds are now more like 25%.

And ultimately, what you may be forced to consider is a God who isn’t quite as hell-bent on damning. I think for a whole lot of folks, there is a certain comfort taken in knowing that those outside the camp will burn for eternity, punished in all the ways imaginable. If you are used to a church and society which is governed by clear rules to keep the right people in and the wrong people out, it’s very disorienting to consider a supreme being who doesn’t operate the same way. And maybe if you are “pastored” (or parented) in this punitive way, where you do what I say or you get disciplined, it will be very hard to imagine that God could be different.

“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. And God will do the shattering.” – C.S. Lewis

Underneath

I don’t suppose that most people who are clickety-clacking on their Facebook keyboards or boiling in silent rage at Thanksgiving are very conscious of the above mentioned dynamics. They probably are not saying to themselves well, if I begin to consider this perspective, my view of my own identity and concept of God may become fuzzier. No. But this probably is what’s happening unconsciously. There is a realization, at some level, that this is freaking dangerous – and I if were to accept any part of this, it would shake me to the core. I would no longer be able to make sense of the world in the same way. My categories for who is “us” and who is “them” wouldn’t work anymore. And possibly, I would no longer be “in.” And maybe even God would hate me.

So I want to try to keep this all in mind when I’m talking or writing about such topics as sexuality and politics. I am in fact asking people to confront with me the fundamental pieces of their identity. And I’m possibly even asking them to re-evaluate their concept of God. These are not easy things to do – though I believe they are some of the most crucial, worthwhile and God-loving things we may take part in.

“There’s only two things that human beings are ever saying: please and thank you.”

That line is from Marshall Rosenberg in one of his trainings on nonviolent communication. I have become very interested in his method, and I decided I would try to review here what I learned from reading his book. In this method of speaking and living, there are 4 components: observations, feelings, needs, requests. And there is a process for communicating with these 4 pieces:

1. Observing: the concrete actions we observe that affect our well-being
2. Feeling: how we feel in relation to what we observe
3. Needing: The needs, values, desires, etc. that create our feelings
4. Requesting: The concrete actions we request in order to enrich our lives.

The first thing I’ll say is that i have found this to be hard! One of the central tenets of the Anabaptist/Mennonite faith I was raised in is non-violence. Reading this work caused me to realize just how shot through with violence my life is, from actions and speech to perceptions of myself and others.

Observations

“The first component of NVC entails the separation of observation from evaluation” (p. 26). To observe means to state what we witness without “mixing in any evaluation.” A key piece of this is remaining within our own perspective and not assuming the view, thoughts, feelings, ect. of others. This is so hard, but I’ve really noticed how it changes the way I relate to people in conversation. Marshall gives the following example of a sentence which mixes evaluation in: Janice works too much. This is not an observation but a judgement. An observation might look like: Janice has worked past 5 p.m. each day this week. I’ve really noticed as well how often I put “positive” judgement in my statements. For instance, “You did a really good job on the painting!” This sort of statement still moves me, the speaker, into a position of judgement above the other person and their effort with the authority to say whether it was good or not.

The reader might wonder, so who cares then? Why shouldn’t I make judgments if they are positive? If our relationships to others (and our children) is built on something stronger than positive evaluations, I think we have a much better chance at genuine connection. Marshall writes, “When we combine observation with evaluation, others are apt to hear criticism and resist what we are saying” (p. 32). One way to observe without judgment is to connect our observations to our feelings.

Feelings

I’ve noticed we quite often begin sentences with “I feel like…” For instance, I feel like those colors don’t match or I feel that this restaurant would have good food. While there are certainly feelings involved in these statements – we aren’t stating feelings at all. These are beliefs, thoughts, opinions, etc. NVC helps us to look beneath thinking into feeling. A good rule of thumb is that anytime the word “that” comes after “I feel,” an opinion rather than a feeling is being shared. While it is popular in many circles to lament how touchy-feely our society is or how everyone is always concerned about their emotions these days – I think exactly the opposite is true.

We are not trained to know or express what we’re feeling. We are in fact trained as children to produce behavior based on what we think other people want from us. We learn how to gain positive feedback from teachers, parents, and friends by performing the actions that they want – we are not taught to honor what we’re feeling. This is a fundamentally disconnected way of being that produces adults who act out of overwhelm from feelings they don’t know how to express or communicate and who live to solicit feel-good reactions from other people.

Marshall writes, “In NVC, we distinguish between words that express actual feelings and those that describe what we think we are” (p. 42). He gives these examples:

Description of what we think we are: “I feel inadequate as a guitar player.” Similarly, when we talk about how others are feeling or doing, we aren’t really expressing our own feelings. For instance, “I feel ignored” and “I feel unimportant” – these aren’t feelings I have, but rather it is my interpretation of other peoples’ actions or feelings toward me. Descriptions of what we think about other people also aren’t feelings: “I feel like you’re being an idiot.” An expression of actual feelings would be: “I feel disappointed in myself as a guitar player.” or “I feel impatient…” or “I feel frustrated…” “I’m angry.” “I am feeling grateful for your hard work.” “I’m feeling worried as I listen to you speak.”

A key concept of NVC is that no one but me is responsible for my feelings. And no one can make me feel anything. Marshall writes, “what others say and do may be the stimulus, but never the cause, of our feelings. We see that our feelings result from how we choose to receive what others say and do, as well as from our particular needs and expectations in that moment” (p. 49). He goes on to describe 4 options we have when we hear negative messages, such as someone saying “you’re the most selfish person I’ve ever met.”

Option 1: Blame myself. Here we accept the other person’s judgment and might say something like, “Oh, I’m so sorry! I should’ve been more sensitive!”

Option 2: Blame the other person. Here we reject the judgment and blame the other person by saying something like, “You have no right to say that! I am always considering your needs” (p. 50).

Option 3: Sense our own feelings. A reply could sound like, “When I hear you say that I am the most self-centered person you’ve ever met, I feel hurt, because I need some recognition of my efforts to be considerate towards you” (p. 50).

Option 4: Sense the other person’s feelings. A reply in this vein could sound like, “Are you feeling hurt because you need more consideration for your preferences?”

Needs

The claim that needs are universal, that they are common to each of us, is my favorite insight from non-violent communication. According to NVC, needs are what gives rise to feelings. Marshall writes, “If a wife says, you’ve been working late every night this week; you love your work more than you love me, she is saying that her need for intimacy is not being met” (pp. 52-53). However, it may be rare that we (and others) actually state our needs; often, they are encoded in our complaining or judgements. I find it a real comfort to know that even those people whom I understand the least, with whom I am very uncomfortable, have the same needs I do underneath their feelings. They just don’t know how to get them met. The sorts of needs we all have are things like: autonomy, integrity, celebration, play, emotional safety, respect, trust, connection, air, food, rest, appreciation, etc.

I really resonate with Marshall’s observations that many of us have not been taught now to express our own needs or how to ask for others to help meet those needs. Stating my needs can be really hard at times. It’s a lot easier to sulk, be short with someone, or just be quiet than to figure out what I’m feeling > what need is behind it > and ask if the other person would be willing to meet that need.

In taking responsibility for our own needs, Marshall notes 3 stages, and I must note that I find myself quite at the beginning here. First, emotional slavery. In this first stage we believe that we are responsible for other people’s needs – we feel responsible when others aren’t happy. We haven’t learned to differentiate their needs from our own. We take on the responsibility and blame for others’ discomfort. Second, the obnoxious stage. Here, we have become aware that there are very high costs for taking on the feelings and pain of others, and so we can be quite offputting in our effort to remain free from the burden of responsibility. We may also express our needs in ways which are rigid and don’t help others to connect with what we need. Third, emotional liberation. “We respond to the needs of others out of compassion, never out of fear, guilt, or shame. Our actions are therefore fulfilling to us, as well as to those who receive our efforts” (p. 60). We are able to take on full responsibility for our own needs and to communicate them clearly while also being “equally concerned that the needs of others are fulfilled” (p. 60).

Requests

The final component of NVC is making requests. In the event that our needs are not being met, Marshall writes, we first observe, then we state our feelings and need, and finally, we make a request. A key here is to use positive, rather than negative, language. That is – don’t say what you don’t want someone to do; say what you do want. And when we make a request in NVC, it is specific and concrete rather than vague and ambiguous. “Often, the use of vague and abstract language can mask oppressive interpersonal games.”

Maybe the most important thing to differentiate in this fourth piece of NVC, is requests vs. demands. Requests let the other person know what we are feeling and needing and what action we would like. Demands happen when consequences will result if the other person doesn’t do what we ask. This can be tricky because the past is very important. If in the past we have guilt tripped, blamed, or otherwise punished those around us for not doing what we wanted them to, then it is likely they will hear a demand in any request we make. Marshall writes, “to tell if it’s a demand or a request, observe what the speaker does if the request is not complied with” (p. 79). And when the listener hears a demand, they are left with only two options: submit to the demand or rebel against it. In a true request, we are able to extend empathy and compassion even when the other person doesn’t comply.

“My belief is that, whenever we same something to another person, we are requesting something in return. It may simply be an empathetic connection – a verbal or nonverbal acknowledgement…Or we may be requesting honesty: we wish to know the listener’s honest reaction to our words. Or we may be requesting an action that we hope would fulfill our needs. The clearer we are on what we want back from the other person, the more likely it is that our needs will be met.” (p. 74)

In listening to interviews with Marshall and watching his trainings on YouTube, it is clear he viewed NVC as the best way to communicate and that everyone would be better off using it. I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. I think NVC’s primary tenet is that needs, which it sees as intrinsic to each person and universal, produce feelings. And connection to those feelings as well as explicit communication about them are the best way through life and relationships.

On a podcast episode, I recently heard Danny Cohen, a nonviolent communication expert, refer to this method as a societal update. That is, sort of an evolutionary movement in communication which advances those who adopt it, though society on the whole is rather behind it. I’ve been weighing whether NVC is for everyone in their current time and place. I think the answer is no, sort of. I think our mode and method of communication produce the reality in which we participate, and NVC works to produce a reality in which feelings and needs are elevated to importance, named, and shared.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m meaning yet. It’s not just a matter of going up on the triangle of needs – one could argue it’s easier or more effective to satisfy basic physical needs when we’re communicating with NVC. But I think it has more to do with the elevation of emotional reality. I think this is a fairly recent phenomenon. NVC produces and maintains a milieu in which emotional needs and states are primary and explicit. It seems to me that, without training or a rule of life, very often emotional reality is not explicitly primary when physical needs are going unmet or threatened by scarcity.

I recently visited Tony, my mechanic, who runs a great shop staffed mostly by himself and a few other older gentlemen. One of the first things Tony said to me on my last visit was “Get your foot off the f@&%in’ chair!” And after very helpfully performing an $80 inspection on a vehicle I was thinking of purchasing, he the performed a touching act of care and generosity when he didn’t charge me at all. In delivering that gift, the last thing he said as I moved to pay was, “Ahhh get the f^$% outta here!” Because I know Tony a bit, I was able to easily receive the messages underneath his language which I heard as

1. Hey, I know you well enough to joke with you – and also, I have a need for order and cleanliness, and would you please take your foot off of the office chair?
2. I can see you are trying to make a hard decision about purchasing this car. I feel grateful to be a part of this decision, and I would like you to know that I support you as friend and won’t be charging you today.

I think Tony could really benefit from learning NVC, no doubt. And I hope he does. However, it would also create a new reality for him, a new dynamic for his co-workers. I’m not sure he would like the feel of it to be honest. So, in keeping with the first tenet of the NVC process [observation without moralistic judgment], I can observe that Tony might benefit from NVC, but I don’t blame him for employing a very sharp and profanity laced speech. For me, it is very important that my speech makes room to explore my own feelings and needs in a way that others can connect with – and also that it helps others be comfortable doing the same. So Tony’s way of speaking wouldn’t serve me very well.

If it is true that NVC is an “update,” then as we move “forward” (which I’m still debating about…) our emotions become a more explicitly acknowledged piece of our reality. Some people go through their entire lives and very rarely stop to examine or connect with what they are feeling. I would contend though that feelings are still a really vital part of their life. People who refuse to discuss their feelings still feel anger, pain, shame, guilt, etc. They still have the needs that produce those feelings. Whether or not you talk about them has little to do with their presence. I would compare it do my home’s attic. Until recently I’d never got up there and crawled around. It was hot, dark, and very hard to navigate. But whether I ever took time to look or not, the insulation up there (or lack thereof) really affects our home’s temperature. I think crawling into the attic is necessary to advance in my ability to maintain my home. I think explicit acknowledgement of feelings and needs are necessary to grow in my relationships.

I’m not prepared to say NVC is “better” than Tony’s method or anyone else’s. But NVC does contribute to the creation of a world which aligns with my values. I also think this is the kind of world being envisioned in scripture and Christian teaching which I also value. The question is: does your communication produce a reality you want to inhabit – a world where you want to live? If the answer is no (I don’t like how my communication works and what it creates), then it may be time to explore a new way of being and communicating.

I love the idea that all anyone is ever saying is please or thank you. I want to learn to listen for the please, the needs and feelings and pain encoded into even the most harsh words of judgement and complaining I hear. And I want to be able to lean deeper into the celebration and thank you that others are extending to me in all their wonderful ways.

I set a goal of publishing on this site as least once each month. But I’m not within a few hours of finishing the post I’m working on. So instead, before April winds down, here is a paper from 2019 which I wrote on indirect communication and came across today and thought was rather nice.

Indirect Communication

            Indirect communication entrusts the receiver with some of the work. Soren Kierkegaard attempted to live his life, at least in some manner, to this end. Like Don Knotts as Barney Fife, he played the fool for the sake of the viewer, hoping they might get some use out of his foolishness. We do not take Barney Fife very seriously, but he is no doubt a very serious man. He is blind to his vices, and this works within the viewer the feeling of seeing beyond the veil, glimpsing something which the character cannot. Of course, that is the whole point. This is why Pat McManus, the outdoor humor writer, was so profoundly hilarious. In his wild stories, he portrays himself as the fool, leaving the reader to do the work. This indirect approach to communication leaves much of the responsibility with the receiver.

            Kierkegaard speaks about the direct/indirect communication dichotomy in terms of illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. In his paper Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication, Poul Lubcke describes illocutionary acts as “giving orders, to beg and beseech, to threaten and to warn someone.” This contrasts with perlocutionary acts which he describes as “the enterprise of trying to move somebody’s heart or to persuade him” (Lubcke, 34). This latter is an attempt to “bring a listener to the point of decision [and] is in the indirect mode.” (Lubcke, 34) According to Lubcke, Kierkegaard equates perlocutionary acts with indirect communication.

            At the end of his paper, Lubcke clarifies

“It is a necessary condition for all kinds of indirect language that we already have a knowledge of the possibilities about which we are going to decide . . . in my opinion many of the philosophical distinctions that Kierkegaard took for granted, e.g. the distinction between direct and indirect communication…no longer (if ever) belongs to our cultural horizon. It is, therefore…a task to reintroduce them” (Lubcke, 38).

The Gospel as Indirect Communication

            We can define orthodoxy and go to great lengths and great volumes to do so. But orthodoxy is only an indication, not a description, of Christianity. The gospel is about an individual’s life, relationships, and way of being in the world. Using broad terminology, I can describe aspects of the gospel; the gospel is about liberation for captives and healing for the broken, but I cannot define what the gospel will look like in the life of another – nor should I wish to. The gospel allows space for healing, for grace to be received and given, and for personhood to develop in the process of becoming. And this gospel is at work all over the earth; it cannot be defined by words on a page. For “Christ plays in ten thousand places / Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his / To the Father, through the features of men’s faces” (Hopkins, As Kingfishers Catch Fire).

            Kierkegaard suggests, “The most one can do is make it more difficult for someone else not to choose” (Lubke, 33). When the church frames the question as conform or be banished, there is not an authentic choice being presented. In that situation the outcome of each path is quite apparent. Kierkegaard wishes for a manner of choice in with the outcomes are not certain, where we are free to choose and faith is required. He wishes for all men to be like Abraham on the mountain, where a leap of faith is required. For Kierkegaard, it is better that we look the authentic choice in the eye and make the wrong one than to blindly do the right thing. As discussed in class, we ought to present the gospel in hope that each man might interpret his existence in light of the work of Christ.

Communicating the Gospel

            Christian community ought to serve as a fortification for believers but must not negate choice. There exists within some communities a culture which compels participants to adhere to a certain mode of being: wear certain clothes, speak in a certain manner, i.e. play the game. Often, there are clear identity markers indicating who is in and who is out. In this kind of environment, the choices about someone’s life have been made long before they have arrived at them. The choices left to be made are rather small and deal only with how to live within a predetermined way of being. This is not authentic choice. Kierkegaard is adamant “one person cannot choose for another” (Lubcke, 33).

            Christmas is an annual celebration of indirect communication. Christ could have come riding on the clouds and compelled every person to believe in him in an instant. Still Christ came into the world in the manner in which every person comes into the world. So it was with his life and death. He worked as a carpenter and died the death of a savage. Scripture points to instances when his glory became visible, such as raising the dead, calming a storm, or knocking men to the ground with only a spoken word. But Christ did not reveal himself to the point of negating faith. He often spoke in riddles, teaching in parables and then escaping before people could catch him.  Christ performed perlocutionary acts which presented a choice to those around him.

            Perhaps we must come to terms with our own faith before we are in a position to present the gospel to others via indirect communication. It takes much discipline and restraint to care for a person while allowing them to make their own choice. The easier thing is to enter into an argument, to try and outmaneuver the other. Much discernment is required as well. How can parents allow their children to develop as persons while also guarding them from encounters which will corrupt their being? How can pastors shepherd without controlling? It is a good thing, Christ said, for him to leave us so that the Spirit could come. And it is this Spirit which enables us to reckon with these looming questions, to become even as he leads us through the dark.