Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

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Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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The Spiritual Life

May 2003

Influences and Freedom, and the difference between Responding and Reacting

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

Ever so often I get a chance to go looking fore an opportunity to grow. This last month I went to the second of a series of leadership workshops called "Self Differentiated Leadership" put on by the Nebraska Conference and held at the Benedictine Monastery in Schyler. The series of worships are using the Generation To Generation Family Process in Church and Synagogue by Edwin H. Friedman. To simplify this rather complicated and mind-numbing book and series of lectures, the main idea is that we are influenced not only by our genetic inheritance, but also by the histories of our families all the way back so long we don't know any of their names. Wow, that feels like I am in the middle of a flood and being rolled over and over along the riverbed. As I thought about it, there are a lot of people who feel like they barely have any influence on their lives and part of the reason is they don't know how they come from are still influencing them. But the "Good News" is that we are not trapped with no hope when we know what is influencing us. We can choose what we will let make decisions for us. We are not trapped by either our genetics or by our family history, but we are influenced by them and have to take that into account and either cooperate or work against it to become our best selves. We are helped in this because there are other influences on our lives we can cooperate with our work against to help us make good choices, including our own minds and God. So I was listening for the techniques or levers to help us become free to make our own decisions and listen for the voice of God that can lead us into a New Life and our whole self. And I heard two gems I would like to share with you.

If you want to have an identity, become your own person, a true self, you have to be in some kind of relationship. This is where you find out who you are. I don't mean you have to be in a romantic relationship, it can be any kind of loving, close relationship, like family or loving friends that feel like family and care about you, or even God. But you can only find out who you are when you love and receive love from another, when you are in a relationship.

But strangely enough, if you are having trouble or trying to work on and through a relationship, you can only do that kind of work if you spend time alone. In order to make decisions, to see clearly what is going on between and inside you in a relationship, you have to spend some time away from those influences so you can see them and make decisions on how to Respond, instead of just Reacting. You are never free when you are Reacting, only when your are choosing to Respond. To be your best self in a relationship, you have to think of who you want to be and how you want to act, and then choose that act toward your loved one. Not based on what they are doing, but on who you want to be. Then will you be free, and strangely enough, so will they. For acting like that helps those you love also get free of the systems that are still influencing them and learn to choose their best, most Christ like selves. In this way can we be a blessing to ourselves, to others and to the Kingdom of God.

Of course how you work this out will be your own adventure for you and God to walk through, and it will not be easy or uncomplicated. But it will be glorious. If we support each other in this kind of work, and encourage each other to reach for our best selves, what wonders might God do through us and what joy might we find in our relationship and shared love, one with another?

May God continue to Bless You.
Your Brother-in-Christ, Reverend Michael Lee Burgess

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