Seeing Beyond

I tried something new this month.  Early in May I climbed into “Snoopy” the 10-wheeler manure truck, and tried to keep my place in the repetitive twenty-minute race of three trucks roaring between corral and field. Since we feed our cattle hay in the winter months the growth of the manure piles is proportional to the melting of the haystacks.  By spring the corrals are filled to bursting. In addition to being inconvenient, these ugly piles accost our eyes and noses whenever we go near.  It’s no wonder we wait impatiently for the manure and the fields to dry enough to accommodate the trucks.    

During the three days of hauling I had plenty of time to think as I pelted along the well-known route, load after load.  Around and around I went and I thought about reframing. 

Reframing is the work of consciously looking at something in a whole new way.   Often the word describes looking at something perceived as negative, ugly, or painful and finding ways in which it may benefit the growth of beauty or wholeness.  I see manure hauling as an act of reframing.  For days we give time and attention to ugly, smelly manure and spread it out as nutrients on our fields to benefit health of the soil and growth of the crops.  In the passing of nutrients from soil to plant to animal to soil there is a beauty of which plain old manure can remind us, if we choose to see it. 

Here are two situations when reframing can be useful:

1. Conversations when people are upset.  Really listen during these conversations; also notice possible feelings or values that fuel intensity. Then restate what you heard and noticed, leaving out verbal explosives and evaluations.  Finally, ask if what you heard matches what the person was saying.  This isn’t about protecting oneself, or putting words into someone’s mouth.  Reframing in these situations means focusing on the nuggets of conversation that aide better understanding.

2. Experiences we rehash. We all have formative stories.  These experiences have shaped our perceptions of ourselves as well as the world around us.  In these instances doing the work of personal reframing helps us tell our important stories in new ways.  Often difficult experiences stimulate growth.  Reframing means taking our eyes off of the painful, the ugly, and the inconvenient, looking instead for ways in which these same stories have contributed to growth, newly reached health, or beauty just discovered. 

The crew cleaned out the corrals in record time this year. Still, three truck drivers and a loader operator devoted three days to making the nutrients in that manure available to the plants in the fields.  Reframing is an action that takes time, effort, and patience but can help us see how difficult conversations or experiences contribute to growth and better understanding.    

I write this blog for Common Ground Conciliation Service. Read about our work with non-profit organizations at http://www.commongroundcs.org/

Potential

First thoughts of planting season begin when the days lengthen and seed catalogues come with every day’s mail.  Gardeners drool over the colorful pictures of vegetables and flowers as they make lists of seeds to buy.  Then when the air and earth begin to warm and there’s less chance of frost it’s time to roll up our sleeves and start planting.

I remember planting in the garden with my grandma each spring.  She must have had a map of her future garden in her head because she gave very confident directions of where to make shallow ditches and sprinkle different kinds of seed.  Though the seeds didn’t look like much at the time, we’d cover up each row with a great deal of hope and pat the earth firm.  Then the garden looked as empty and bare as ever, so we’d mark the beginning and end of each seed type with a rock or a small stick so that we’d know where we’d already planted.  Sometimes though, when the plants came up and Gram would go out to count them and crow over them, she’d find a patch where we’d double planted.  She’d shake her head and laugh even after the plants matured and she pulled radishes from around her onions.

I’m sure you’ve heard planting used as a metaphor for actions and consequences.  We can’t always see the immediate effects words and actions have on others.  Yet, as we wait and watch we can see the fruit of what’s been done. In her book, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Maya Angelou uses this metaphor of planting: “Although nature has proven season in and season out that if a thing that is planted bears at all, it will yield more of itself, there are those who seem certain that if they plant tomato seeds, at harvesttime they can reap onions.

Too many times for comfort I have expected to reap good when I know I have sown evil… Now, after years of observation and enough courage to admit what I have observed, I try to plant peace if I do not want discord; to plant loyalty and honesty if I want to avoid betrayal and lies.”  

Whether positive or negative, we often see the consequences of our actions in the level of health reflected in our relationships.

Yet, as I write, I see how people could use these words to place the entirety of blame on themselves for unhealthy relationships.  I am encouraging owning responsibility for the seeds we plant but blame is entirely different; it’s a beginning to violence.  We plant seeds not only in our relationships with others, but also in the words we speak to ourselves, our “self-talk.”  This self-talk can be overly critical, and we often become what we call ourselves.  Take responsibility for your own planting instead of placing blame; and remember that others plant seeds alongside yours.

Be intentional about the seeds you plant even as you remember that we cannot take all credit for the growth.  Be aware of the effect your words or actions may have in your interactions with others and in your own self-talk.  Chances are that violence begets more, and perhaps greater violence, while kindness produces increasing kindness.  

Just a reminder, I write this monthly blog for Common Ground Conciliation Service.  Check out the website at: http://www.commongroundcs.org/

Wait For It

I ate a fresh strawberry today.   Of course it isn’t strawberry season in this part of the world so I enjoyed every bite.  We have to wait until June for strawberry bounty but the added warmth of the greenhouse made these tastes possible.  Even with that added care I’ve had to wait for harvest; I’ve watched those strawberries for months.  I watched the plants bloom, then the petals fell off; soon little green berries started growing larger, and finally I watched the traces of pink increase.

This time of year I’m hungry for spring and I think about planting, the miracle of growth, and waiting.  As I encourage people to practice skills that foster healthy communication and relationships I also think about how far a little patience with each other can go, in the midst of conflict or otherwise.  Maybe comfortable family relationships, friendships, and good coworker interactions are kind of like planting a seed and waiting for growth. 

Growing things takes time and the life within a seed and the emergence of a plant is nothing short of miraculous.  Of course there are things you can do to help the process.  It all begins with preparing the soil and planting the seed.  Then you can make sure the plants have the nutrients they need, you can water them, and you can plant them in a place with the appropriate amount of sunlight.  But you have to wait to harvest.  And even then you aren’t entitled to one because we aren’t capable of making the harvest.  We cannot create health in relationships just as we cannot create growth in plants.  Growth and health in relationships are gifts just as much as the new buds of spring.

As we see signs of spring all around us, look for the new green shoots of friendship. Celebrate the buds of new growth in old relationships.  Look for, and wait for, the possibility of healthy growth in relationships that have been painful.  Definitely take time to nurture and care for your relationships with the people around you.  Then have a little patience and remember; growth is a gift and a miracle too.  

Close Contact

I enjoy making music.  So during my time at a private two-year college I made my way across campus for choir rehearsal at 2 o’clock every afternoon.  Students auditioned to become part of this twenty-singer choir so we saw entrance into Bel Canto as a privilege.  We performed at the college celebrations, sang for area churches, and toured three times a year.  Of course, spending that much time together formed us into a group in a social as well as musical sense.

We all participate in groups, be they family, social, faith-based, or others, so here’s some information about group dynamics.

People in groups affect each other.  Part of choir tour was being with the same people for an extended period of time.  Being tired, excited, nervous, grouchy… spread through the bus like an infectious disease and affected our music. The accuracy of our pitch depended on the group mood.  When conflict sprang up within the confines of our shared space we couldn’t do anything together very well and our singing suffered.

Sometimes groups are called “systems.” Like a mobile above a child’s crib, if something disrupts one piece the whole thing moves.  Not all groups are as intense as college kids on choir tour, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ve all experienced the current of emotion running through a group to which we belong.

We often conform to group norms. Performance dress code was one expectation for group members in Bel Canto.  Women wore long black dresses and pearl necklaces; men wore tuxedos.  I forgot my pearl necklace one day.  In that case conformity meant calling my hosts, whom I had just met the night before, to ask them to search through my duffel bag, find my necklace, and bring it to the concert that evening so that I could match my choir mates.

Living up to group expectation has its place, and yet there needs to be a balance to conformity.  We call too large a dose of conformity “groupthink.” 

We are still responsible for our individual behavior.  In a small choir everyone is responsible to pull their weight.  Each individual adds his/her musical knowledge, attention, and voice to create the choir’s sound.  It’s not the same if anyone either dominates with a soloist tone or relies on the rest to pull them along.

In every person there is tension between our desire to belong and the pull of our own individuality.  Groups splinter and become ineffective if people balk at all conformity and resist group norms.  On the other hand, groups can follow a leader to irrational conclusions or make hasty decisions based on that growing storm of systemic emotion if no one confronts the pervasive thought.

Since we all belong to groups, here are a few challenges for healthy group participation:

1. Be aware of the emotions passing through the groups in which you belong.  See if you can feel and process the emotion without passing it on to others through your speech or actions.

2.  Choose some groups that share your core values.  The effects of groupthink show us the importance of diversity; so don’t place yourself in a situation where social pressure will push you to act in contradiction to your values.

3.  If a group moves toward a decision you don’t agree with, be courageous and speak up with an alternate perspective.  Dissent often creates tension in the short run, but it also serves as a group’s main source of balance.  The minority voice may break the spell of groupthink and create a space for a more open conversation.

Sources:

Groups: Theory and Practice by Shawn Meghan Burn

Creating a Healthier Church: Family Systems Theory, Leadership, and Congregational Life by Ronald W. Richardson.

Chicken Talk

 Perhaps you’ve heard the term “old biddy.”  This phrase has several meanings, one of them being a chicken, specifically a hen that is over one year old.  It isn’t an affectionate term, but it is a descriptive one.  We just gave away our old biddies a couple of weeks ago; we were tired of the drama.  Most animal groups have hierarchies and the pecking order in the hen house is one of life or death.  That’s right; biddies kill the hen that’s on the bottom socially.  This just seems to be what chickens do when they get older.

 The outcast hens don’t appear to be any different than the others, but after a few days of getting pecked away from water and food they start to run.  They run everywhere and from everything, sometimes with a flock of pursuers, sometimes without.  Then they hide.  They won’t eat or drink.  They just wedge themselves in a tight spot and stay there.  This, of course, means death unless they’re rescued.

This year there were two such hens.  Neither one would have lasted another day in the hen house.  One disappeared after the first day in the great outdoors. We found her body later, wedged in between bales of hay; she’d been too afraid to even see the food and water put in front of her.  The other hen stuck around though.  We named her Lop because after all, it’s hard to ignore something that comes running at the sight of you and follows you around like a puppy, talking the whole time.  It took a couple of days and lots of good food for Lop to gain her self-confidence again.  In fact, she didn’t make any noise for weeks.  But as her feathers grew back she made friends with the dog, got on speaking terms with the cat, and even persuaded the heifers to let her warm her feet on their breakfast hay.  Though she thrived outside in winter temperatures of nights well below zero and daytime temperatures only in the teens, she couldn’t survive the social dynamics of her own kind. Even with her newfound confidence she turned her back on the offer of returning to the warm chicken house where she would be safe from predators.  Now that the other old biddies are gone though, Lop decided the hen house looked all right. She lives inside again, apparently happy with the group of young hens.

Now I realize I’m anthropomorphizing here by attributing human characteristics to chickens.  I see a common denominator though, between people and chickens: social fear.

 Fear doesn’t let us think things through.  Fear justifies our over reactions.  Fear talks us into protecting, at all cost.  Fear creates tunnel vision so that we can’t see open doors.  Fear turns those around us into enemies.  If unmanaged, fear sinks us into behavioral patterns that put our own perceived well being above all else. 

By the way, the fact that I am writing on this topic is rather ironic.  You see, I am irrationally afraid of chickens.  Not long ago Mom found me holding Lop at pitchfork point because the chicken had me backed into a corner.  Fear had turned the friendly, newly confidant chicken into my enemy.  I know first hand: fear justifies irrational behavior.

My question for you this month: who looks like your enemy because of fear?