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Finding
a Way to Bless Rather than a Reason to Judge
by
H. Wallace Goddard
Humans have
a tendency to categorize. When we confront a new person, we promptly
(and often unconsciously) start a process of sorting that person
into categories. Educated or not? Religious or not? Nice or not?
Attractive or not? Decent or not? Articulate or not? Your filtering
criteria may be different from mine, but it seems that we all sort
people into categories based on whether they meet the qualifications
that we judge to be important.
Jesus was often
criticized for His failure to use appropriate filters. "Behold a
man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners"
(Matthew 11:19, emphasis added). Had He no standards? Simon the
Pharisee was quite certain that Jesus' inability to discern the
tainted nature of His admirers undermined His credibility as a prophet
(Luke 7:39). Jesus was gracious and supportive of adulterers, tax
collectors, the blind, and lepers. We might wonder why the holiest
among us was so undiscerning.
A Troubled
Second-Grader
Some time ago a mother asked my counsel about her second grade daughter
who was constantly in trouble at school for lying and for not cooperating
well with classmates. In the oft-repeated scenario, the daughter
breaks a rule and, when confronted, lies and gets in trouble with
her teacher, then her counselor, her vice principal, and finally
her principal. Then she comes home to be in trouble with Mom. After
two years of this, Mom was fed-up. She told me that she had met
repeatedly with school professionals and they had not been able
to find anything that works to curb the girl's lying.
There is hardly
anything that undermines trust as quickly and thoroughly as lying.
It is both insulting and condescending. The sensitive connections
within a family are especially devastated by dishonesty.
When the mother
told me that two years of seeking answers had yielded no benefits,
I should have panicked. But the Spirit of the Lord whispered to
me that the answer was so obvious that we all had missed it. Humans
often stumble in darkness at noon day. I suggested to the mom that
this little girl wanted more than anything else to be loved, to
be safe, to be cherished. She isn't very skillful at winning good
will. She gets crosswise of the system and, in a panic, she tells
a story to try to avoid trouble. Then all the adults get indignant
: "How could you lie? Do you think we're stupid enough to believe
you?" And the little girl feels hopeless and desolate. She tells
another tall tale in order to win the good will she desperately
craves. All the adults get madder still.
One of the
great surprises in our experience as foster parents was that many
of our foster children defined truth as that set of statements
that was most likely to keep them out of trouble. At first we were
indignant. With time we learned to appreciate the life experiences
that had led them to that point.
What kind of
person was the second grader who was chronically in trouble for
lying? When we visited her home, she excitedly showed us her brother's
gerbils. She wanted to be helpful. She spoke excitedly of books
she was reading. She wanted friendship and good will. The good news
was that she was still trying very hard to win the good will of
the people around her. That takes a lot of courage for a child who
is in so much trouble so much of the time.
Am I Supposed
to Ignore Her Lying?
As we talked about the problem, the mother asked, "Am I supposed
to ignore her lying? I have tried everything. I even promise her
that she will not be in trouble any time she tells us the truth.
What can I do?" She wept.
We could have
talked about the developmental reality that clarity on "objective
reality" is a developing aptitude for children. We could have talked
about the fact that people create realities that shield them from
the unbearable. But those ideas do not provide immediate guidance
on how to respond helpfully to a girl who lies.
I suggested
that, when the daughter tells a story, we don't need to get stuck
in lectures on lying. Neither should the adults accept the story
as truth; we can recognize it as a story. "Wow. That is a great
story. I'm sure you wish it happened that way so that people would
not be mad at you." "You and I both wish that were true. It would
make life so much more pleasant." There must be no trace of irony
or accusation, certainly no sarcasm. While there is no mistake in
anyone's mind that the story is an invention, it is not necessarily
a sign of a permanently sick and warped child. The first job is
to do no harm.
Our second
(and perhaps most challenging) job is to understand what the story-telling
means to the child. We cannot help a child whom we have tidily categorized
as bad. For the child, story telling can actually be an attempt
to create a harmony with fantasy that she does not know how to create
with her behavior.
Story telling
can be a useful skill. She can be invited to tell the story that
the principal experienced, the teacher experienced, that the wronged
classmate experienced. Creativity should be cherished and nurtured--at
the same time that truth-telling is cultivated.
But we cannot
help anyone we do not love. We have no right to correct anyone we
do not presently cherish. Are we willing, as adults, to recall the
stories we told as children? Have we kept enough of our humanity
alive that we can see why a child might resort to distortion of
truth? Do we have enough Christianity alive in us to look on a child
with compassion? Just as we will ultimately be judged by an high
priest who is touched by the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews
4:16), so our children should be guided by adults who have compassion
about the challenges in their lives.
We can better
understand the child's behavior when we capture the issue behind
her actions. Normally we act as if the child's issue were, "I wonder
if I can act with disregard for everyone's rights and needs and
still manage to avoid responsibility." I don't think that is the
question that second-grader was asking. I think she was crying out
in desperation, "Will someone please love me and understand me?
I want to be a good kid, but I keep doing dumb things and I keep
getting in trouble. I am all mixed up. Can anyone see beyond my
mistakes to a frightened child who wants to be loved and taught?"
Hope for
Human Understanding
The psychologist, Roy Baumeister has studied the human tendency
to cultivate what he calls "the myth of pure evil." We imagine that
people who do bad things do them with relish, without regret, and
without regard for others. Of course since the beginning of time,
people on the other side of that judgment are looking back through
that same dirty lens and seeing us as the first offenders. The cycle
of recrimination never ends. There is no hope for human understanding.
There is no hope for peace.
No hope except
One. "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from
the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields
to the enticings of the Holy Spirit" (Mosiah 3:19). The only
hope for ending millennia of misunderstanding is to allow the Divine
to remove the judging and categorizing that divide us.
I suggested
to the mother that she could make sure that the problems at school
did not cause a total eclipse of the child. Mom could fill her mind
with the child's finest moments so that she is prepared to hug,
cherish, and play with this struggling child. That little girl is
begging for love but doing all the things that guarantee that she
will get judgment, accusation, and punishment. As adults we need
to break the cycle. We need to get out of our automatic reactions
and answer that little girl's plea with heavenly balm. Along the
way we teach her skills for dealing with situations that are currently
overwhelming her.
Learning
Well When Loved Well
Humans do not learn well until they are loved well. That is true
for second-graders and for octogenarians. Before we left the home,
we witnessed that little girl reading a story to her mom that she
had written and illustrated. It was amazing. This little girl wrote
intelligently, read beautifully, and illustrated wonderfully. She
was happy in this one little area where she is still able to succeed.
That little island of competence should be cherished and enlarged
through adult help.
Incidentally,
it is worth noting that every story contains multiple perspectives.
There is more than lying that might help us "classify" that little
girl. When she was two years old, she was at home with her mother
who had come home from a dental appointment with a headache. While
that little girl played, her mother, who had a chronic disease,
died of an unusual reaction to the dental anesthetic. When Dad called
home, it was that little girl who had to say, "Daddy, I can't wake
Mommy up."
After her mother
died, the little girl was raised primarily by her grandmother since
her Dad worked long hours and traveled. Then Grandma died. Then
Dad remarried. In addition to an older sister, that girl now had
two older step siblings who generally found her to be a nuisance.
That is a lot of history for a six-year-old to sort out. That is
a lot of life to shoulder with her small frame.
I don't know
how her life history made her both desperate for love and willing
to tell stories to keep from disappointing people, but we hardly
need to be surprised. What that little girl needs is not careful
analysis as much as patient compassion. There is no great lecture
or any system of consequences that would help that little girl stop
lying. But there is love. Love is the great curative. Love sets
us free to grow. That is why the Great Physician gave a new prescription
for healing the universal maladies of mortality:
A new commandment
I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another.
By this shall
all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
(John 13:34-5)
The natural
man will respond (and I fully expect several corrective e-mails),
"So we just ignore right and wrong? We just have a big love-fest
and fail to teach rightness?"
Nope. I'm saying
that rightness starts with my attitude. I must not launch into correction
until I have my guidance system in order. When I have filled my
soul with love and compassion, then I can say some inspired combination
of hopeful truths: "O sweetheart! It must be so painful to be in
so much trouble. I know how much you want to have friends and be
good." Some part of my message will probably be expressed in tears
of compassion. We can only heal when we love rather than lacerate.
When we are filled with love for the child, we can invite responsibility.
"What did you learn from today's painful experiences? How can I
help you do better?"
There is a
human tendency to react to people with correction and follow remediation
with appreciation. The only problem with this sensible approach
is that it doesn't work. Father has asked that we invert that common
regimen. We can never properly correct unless we, filled with the
Holy Spirit, feel love and respect for those we hope to help. When
the Holy Spirit fills us, we discover that that little girl is in
the same big category that all of us are in: the category of struggling
and imperfect human beings. She, like the rest of us, needs people
who find a way to bless her rather than a reason to judge her. We
can all be grateful that Heavenly Father has done just that for
us. In fact, we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).
In the last
General Conference, Elder Holland invited just such an approach:
". . . we can help others, calling down blessings on them even as
they make supplication for us. We can cheer every talent and ability,
wherever it is bestowed, thus making life here more nearly what
it will be like in heaven."
References:
Baumeister,
R. F. (1997). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New
York: W. H. Freeman.
Holland, J.
R. (April 2002). The Other Prodigal. Ensign.
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