The Same List

Posted by jael on Mar 30, 2011 in Parenting, Spiritual Journey |

The 7 Deadly Habits catalogs them.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is the grandfather of all skills books about them.

It’s even on Twitter:

NoWealthButLife
Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. -Ursula K. LeGuin
3/30/11 11:07 AM

The Beatitudes pours them upon a crowd from a mountain top

The largest measure of earthly joy we receive and share is relational.

The largest anguish of earthly sorrow we mine is relational.

We are a relational creation wired to plug into each other and create community.

Dr. Covey, Dale Carnegie, LeGuin and Christ all talk about the same list of behaviors that seed and wound relationships:

Behaviors that Wound Relationships

  • impatience
  • intolerance
  • blaming
  • jealousy
  • pride
  • shame
  • selfishness
  • unforgiving
  • malevolence
  • self-righteousness
  • abuse
  • suspicion
  • fear
  • worry
  • hopelessness

Behaviors that Seed/Maximize Relationships

  • patience
  • acceptance
  • affirmation
  • humility
  • wonder
  • Grace
  • honor another
  • keeps no record
  • rejoices in truth
  • protects
  • trusts
  • hopes
  • loves

Each day we are given an opportunity to Trust Love and move in community.

The behaviors we choose bring wounding or fruit to those around us.

I have been given this gift of today.

My children have been given this gift of today.

Together we have an opportunity to follow the Call of Love upon our lives together.

There are relational valleys in the lives of a couple of the girls I most love in this season.

I pray that together we may build upon the wise relational templates all around us.

I trust my Portion Deliverer will fill our every deficit so that we may support each other to not just walk it out, but dance it in a joyous gig accompanied by Praise!

With my love and my sadness
I come before You Lord
My heart’s in a thousand pieces
Maybe even more

Yet I trust in this moment
You’re with me somehow
And You’ve always been faithful
So Lord even now

When all that I can sing
Is a broken hallelujah
When my only offering
Is shattered praise
Still a song of adoration
Will rise up from these ruins
I will worship You and give You thanks
Even when my only praise
Is a broken hallelujah

2 Comments

Anonymous
Mar 30, 2011 at 4:03 pm

Hi Jael!

Love these relational reminders, however they bring up for me something else; what to do with the negative emotions which inevitably come at times to all us humans in relationship? I have read somewhere that in order to know how hard you have to work on your spiritual progress, you must be willing to travel the depths of what we have inside that we deem “ugly” and accept it. Fine. But how do I make it go away?! How do I not act out on that feeling of fear that has literally possessed my entire body and mind, that jealousy that just hit my trigger so hard I feel like I could vomit? Medication works for some and sometimes works, but literally Jael, where I am is simply this, “God help me, God help me, God help me.” I am finding I cannot think my way out of the possession of those deadly emotions and perceptions, I have to pray. It would be so cool to hear ways in which you or others you have spoken to acknowledge, accept and transform these above negative emotions you mentioned, both long term and in the heat of the messy moment. I love love love your blog. -A


 
Anonymous
Mar 30, 2011 at 4:04 pm

Here is another one that helps
Remembering that everyone is just as scared as I am sometimes and love conquers fear.


 

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