Your D.E.'s Column - From the Heart...

”It is our anxiety that connects us,” said Peter Steinke at a seminar I attended in December. The word “anxiety” comes from the root “angustia” or ”angura” and loosely means, “to create pain by squeezing or choking.” It affects our ability to breathe. Our ability to fully nourish our minds, hearts and whole body is severely altered when the anxiety in our systems gets so high, that we cannot breathe in either a full breath or inspiration. Steinke says that churches tolerate extremely high levels of anxiety because they love deeply and want their churches to be peaceful havens from the rest of the world. He has dedicated his life to helping congregations look at the healthy practices that will allow them to thrive even in times of conflict and strife. I want to share some of his insights with you today. Lets turn first to the predictable behaviors of anxiety:

• We magnify the differences between us;
• Trap ourselves in imaginative gridlock;
• Develop an “either/or,” “black/white,” “us/them” thinking;
• We begin to spawn data; sending letters and e-mails;
• Resort to name calling and diagnosis;
• We label each other away; Become uni-focused.

Do you recognize any of these behaviors? What happens to us when we choose to connect to each other in an anxious system? (Remember, it does take two to make a system anxious.)

• We loose our ability to learn from each other.
• We stop hearing what the other has to say.
• We can even forget that we really like them!
• Our muscles tighten and we can lose our ability to reason well;
• Our development is arrested and we often resort to behaviors that served us well when we were young, but do not serve us well as adults;
• We can forget our principles and values.

How do we respond in this system? “Reduce the anxiety” is the simplistic, though not necessarily helpful answer. Steinke has a number of simple strategies help you accomplish that de-escalation: Name the anxiety rather than pretend that it does not exist or will go away.

• Become more playful with each other; (remember we like these folks!) impish irreverence is a very useful tool;
• Ask each other, “What is the worst thing that will happen if we continue like this?”
• Disconnect the anxiety, “The smartest one shuts up first”;
• Don’t explain, justify or defend;
• Do something physical, alone or together.
• Challenge each other, by mutual agreement, on language and behavior that separates your community into factions;

Left unchecked, anxiety dumps itself and its fruits most often on the most responsible person or on the most vulnerable. We do not “have” anxieties, but rather “are” our anxieties. If the situation is one of acute anxiety, it will pass and we can go on. Chronic anxiety, however produces irrational behavior and the ability to control our emotional lives becomes dwarfed. We become “injustice collectors.” We hurt each other in chronically anxious systems. I do not suggest that guiding your churches through difficult times is as easy as it would look at first glance. What I suggest, however is that one of the most important reasons that churches exist is to help us find and model more powerful ways to be communities of faith, resistance, love, and hope. We know very readily what we want to happen in our congregations. I invite each of us to search our responses, behaviors and actions in light of that dream. It is worth the hard work, and is the holy work of communities of faith.

— REV. MARY CHULAK HIGGINS, DISTRICT EXECUTIVE