Dark Knight Dialogues

In the book, Hold Me Tight, one that I highly recommend for couples that are struggling with maintaining a loving relationship, Sue Johnson, the founder of EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) describes couples' "Demon Dialogues". They are Find the Bad Guy or the blame game where couples place fault for problems on each other rather than owning their respective responsibility. The second one she names Protest Polka or pursue-withdraw where one partner is feeling an unsafe disconnection from their mate and is noisily pursuing reassurance while the other feels just as unsafe but is pulling away. The final demon dialogue is the most debilitating and the one that couples are most often stuck in when seeking marriage counseling. It is Freeze and Flee or withdraw-withdraw where both partners have put their emotions in a self protective deep freeze. John Gottman, an eminent marital researcher refers to this as "stonewalling", where the other partner is emotionally "walled out".

Almost all couples experience episodes of demon dialogues. Ever since Adam blamed God and Eve for his eating of the apple, deflecting personal responsibility and blaming someone else is a reliable ploy. Protesting, even angrily, is a normal response to feeling disconnected from the one you love. We need emotional security and it comes in the form of our intimate other. The "protest" in Protest Polka is also referred to as "anger of hope" because we hope someone will hear us and respond. When we are hurt and feel misunderstood it is not unusual to pull away and lick our wounds. It becomes critical when we stay emotionally closed and sealed believing our partner is like an enemy. Most couples are able to recognize what is going on and pull back from totally disconnecting, especially when it begins to threaten the marital bond. If the Freeze and Flee pattern continues, divorce is usually not far away.

How safe and responsive is your mate or loved one? Maybe you do not even think about your relationship is these terms but you should. When we make ourselves vulnerable to someone in the name of love we expose our being or heart to the pain of rejection. Every one of us asks the fundamental human question "Am I loved". The answer determines much of the course of our life, especially our relationships.

There are two basic responses to threats to our emotional vulnerable selves. One is to avoid emotional engagement; the other is to anxiously demand safe attachment. We have either made a decision to stay away from emotional connection or we are critically demanding it. These "Demon Dialogues" are born out of threats to our emotional well being and once that threat is communicated, we need to drop the demon in dialogue. And it is amazing what happens when we learn to recognize our "demons" and let them go. Which demon are you most likely to participate in?

We all long for connection and safe place where love is real. Do you believe that? If you are asking the basic question "Am I loved?" don't you think your partner is too? We all need the same thing when it comes to relationships and the power of believing that and acting as if it is true is amazing. A friend of mine that has great wisdom once said to someone who was complaining about how unwilling people in her life were to be vulnerable and close, that if she became safe for others they will be safe with her. How true this is.

A Disorder Named Gollum

There are a couple of random thoughts running through my mind. One has caught my attention: "Everything that is inconsistent with love will die." The other thought is something Dallas Willard and others who write on spiritual formation have said that sin is desire run amuck. Eve's original sin is a problem with desire: "…the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom…" Genesis 3:6.

Paul and James of the Bible have written similar statements like James 4:1-3 "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." (NIV)

All of us can identify with "desires that battle within you". We are often at war with ourselves struggling to make the right choice or not give in to self destructive behaviors. We have desire for more food, sex, money, or love. We feel unsatisfied and we continue to try and fill ourselves with something. According to Webster, desire means "to long or hope for….." What are you longing or hoping for? What are you hungering for? Are you able to satisfy that hunger? Is it enough for you or do you hunger for more?

I think these two random thoughts are related. Everything that comes of my desires that are not born of love will die. Some would say they must die and I would agree but saying they will die is more hopeful. Just because we believe something should die does not necessarily mean it will die. Our disordered longings and hungers whose appetites are never ending create an all consuming preoccupation with satisfying them so that it chokes the life out of everything else. If you are familiar with the Lord of the Rings you may remember Gollum, a grossly deformed and internally tortured creature who is a graphic example of the death that disordered desire brings. Every thought and action he has is directed toward possessing his "precious" ring. His all consuming desire for the ring produced nothing but murderous impulses and finally his death.

A picture of desire satisfied is seen in Psalm 131:2 "But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me." Mothers know how challenging it can be to wean an infant. Resting comfortably in their mothers embrace without protesting and demanding breastfeeding happens as the mother calms, soothes, and provides for the child's needs in different ways. The infant learns to accept and trust the mother's love quieting and stilling its demands for breast milk. The child can now move on and be satisfied by other nourishment.

This metaphor of satisfied desire happens in the context of a loving embrace. The mother's sensitive and attentive responsiveness to her baby is what makes the transition to solid food possible. This transition is a transition of desire. We think we need one thing but love points the way to what we really need. Love teaches us to reorder our desire to that which gives life and away from that which brings death.

Frodo, the ring bearer in the Lord of the Rings understood Gollum's battle with desire. He too struggled with the desire of the ring's power. He responded to Gollum with compassion where others turned away in revulsion. Gollum initially responded to Frodo's mercy and kindness but he was unable to make the transition and rejected love's embrace. His battle within was won by the compulsive desire to possess.

It has been said that Eve was seduced by Satan into believing that God was not truthful with her about dying if she ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She stopped trusting God and decided for herself what is good to desire. Her desires, her hungers and longings were no longer guided in the loving embrace of her Creator. She was on her own, furtively grasping for nourishment that would never fully satisfy.

Are your desires guided by love's embrace?

Face of Love

It matters how well you have been loved. It also matters how well you love. I listened to a sermon recently that quoted John Eldridge from the Sacred Romance. He wrote something to the effect that it is a rare person who has been unconditionally loved, or "loved for who she is…" The implication is that we are often loved for who someone else wants us to be and that this is a primary source of our sense that something is wrong with us. We sense that we are not accepted so there must be something wrong with us; otherwise the important people in our life would not want us to be something other than who we are. Even writing this makes me feel confused!

It is often stated that a primal or basic human fear is the fear of abandonment, the fear of rejection and isolation, a fear of being left alone. If you saw the movie Castaway with Tom Hanks you have a sense of what isolation does to someone and the extreme measures it takes to survive living only within your own thoughts. How often do we need someone to talk to simply to help us get out of our own thoughts? Tom Hank's character Chuck Noland ended up creating a relationship with "Wilson", a soccer ball, in order to survive. He had to have a conversation with "someone." It is a commonly held understanding that we are hard wired for connection to one another. It is how we are designed.

This should be obvious to all of us how important we are to one another. But like the air we breathe we take it for granted; until something goes wrong and we can no longer breathe in the air we need. If you have ever experienced even a hint of suffocating you know the panicked helplessness. The same is true for the emotional air we breathe. How good is the air of your important relationships? How do you love those most important to you and how do they love you? What kind of emotional climate do you live in? Are you confident that you will get what you need or are you afraid (even unconsciously) that they really are not there for you. Or maybe you just deny that you need anyone.

One of the "thoughts" that kept Chuck Noland going in his drive to survive was the remembering of his relationship with his wife to be Kelly. The memory of the love they had and the hope of loving her in the future helped keep Chuck alive and more importantly motivated to get home. He had what is called "emotional resiliency", the capacity to soothe oneself in the face of disconnection. Those who have been loved well have a basic sense of security that their needs will be met, if not now, soon, if not soon, later. They have a living hope that love is real and present for them. Is love real for you? Are you emotionally resilient? Do you believe that even in its felt absence love exists? And what form does love take? What kind of face does love have for you?

These are profoundly important questions that we all need to answer. Questions about love are spiritual questions and all spiritual questions are ultimately questions about what it is to be human. We are the presence of love that makes love real and we are most human, most truly our self, when we believe in and live in love. We are the form that love takes. We are the face of love to one another. What kind of face do you make?

 

 

Waiting on Love

One of the most poignant and powerful illustrations of the rhythm of significant relationships is the stages of separation that John Bowlby observed in young children experiencing separation from parents. While they are more obvious in children who generally have little difficulty expressing their emotional and physical reactions to things they don't like, the same stages are evident in older children and adults. When people we love do things that threaten us we express our displeasure (protest), if the threatening behavior continues, we become sad and experience a sense of loss (despair), and finally if the sense of separation (you are not there for me) continues long enough we emotionally disconnect (detach) in order to protect ourselves from further emotional pain. We conclude that it is better to be alone than to be rejected.

This rhythm of attachment tells us a great deal about who we are. It is a running commentary of how well we love. Do we listen, hear and respond to the protests of our loved ones? Are we sensitive to their displeasure and their pain? Do we adjust our behavior to reassure them or do we just keep on doing our thing? How well do we know what they need and what is important to them or is it just what is important or significant to us that matters? And perhaps most importantly, are we able to suffer through their insensitivity and even rejection of us while still being open to receive them?

An important quality of how well we love may be seen in our capacity to suffer. Growing in love, becoming more loving, is growing in our willingness to give of ourselves. Many pastors and teachers of religious faith frequently talk about this. Most often, it is expressed in behavioral terms of serving by doing more for someone else and doing less for you. So they focus on our behavior, what we do. Do we go on a mission trip or a golf trip? Do we perform a service project for somebody else or focus on our own projects? Unless we look in our hearts and examine our motives for giving of ourselves we might not really be growing in loving others.

I think we need to consider what suffering consists of to help us know what love is. What does it look like to suffer and what does suffering do in us? How does our capacity to suffer for another develop? What affects it? Who are the most loving people you know? Reflect on what they are like. How do you feel around them? What is it about them that tell you they love? Is it what they do or who they are? Do you know about their life or just their behavior? I would suggest that you know someone loves not just by how they behave but by experiencing a presence that welcomes and invites connection.

Henri Nouwen says we are to become like the father of the prodigal son (a metaphor of God's love) who was shaped by waiting for his sons to deal with their stuff. Nouwen says: "A large part of the father's life has been waiting. He could not force his younger son to come home or his older son to let go of his resentments. Only they themselves could take the initiative to return. During these long years of waiting the father cried many tears and died many deaths. He was emptied out by suffering. But that emptiness had created a place of welcome for his sons when the time of their return came. We are called to become like that father."

I love this statement "emptied out by suffering" that creates "a place of welcome", a place of love and joyful connection. Suffering creates a space in us to love each other, and it involves the helplessness of waiting.

The next time your relationship is threatened, and you notice the rhythm of attachment that tells your loved one you're feeling threatened, consider working on learning how to wait and suffer in order to create a space of connection. You will feel the distress of separation but resist expecting a change in their behavior. Empty yourself by letting go of your demands. Create a safe space for them to come home.

Marathon Sex, Love and Happiness

Last week I opened my local paper and in the Health and Family an article caught my attention: "…sexual marathon helped rebuild their marriage." The article reviewed a couple of books about consecutive nights of sex with their spouse and the positive effect it had on their marital relationship. One of the books is by self professed evangelical Christians from North Carolina, my home state. The wife, Charla Muller gave her husband a gift of sex every night for one year for his fortieth birthday. The title of the book is appropriately 365 Nights A Memoir of Intimacy.

My immediate response to this was bordering on disdain. I have counseled too many couples who have tried to improve and/or save their marriage by having sex in every way and place imaginable. While it probably improved their sex life, I could not think of a single incident where having sex more frequently and creatively saved a marriage. Fortunately the article was well balanced and covered reasonable issues like sexual frequency in marriage is different among couples and individual couples experience of a satisfied sex life is varied. What is good for the goose is not always good for the gander.

Most married couples understand this about sex and have found ways to adjust to a frequency and schedule that works for them. I know my goose has certainly influenced this gander to adjust and, well, learning to do without is a growing experience is it not? Of course, be willing to give when you don't feel like it defines mature self sacrifice. These competing arguments for good will often create some interesting discussions! "Honey, are you sure it is not your turn to be self sacrificing tonight?"

On the thing the article did not mention that is relevant to increased sexual activity and an improved marital relationship is the role of the so called "love" hormone oxytocin. It is released during orgasm in both men and women and is thought to be associated with emotional connection: "This is one of the first looks into the biological basis for human attachment and bonding," said Rebecca Turner, PhD, UCSF adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study. "Our study indicates that oxytocin may be mediating emotional experiences in close relationships."(Oxytocin: the hormone of love)

Since the late nineties researchers have been trying to understand the role this hormone plays in emotional connection and human attachment and the results have been very interesting. Of course some have been quick to latch on to the thought that we can manufacture emotional connection with a nose spray and you can find web sites selling the concoctions. The scientific results are more complicated and interesting than snorting a quick fix of "a tight connection to my heart" (Bob Dylan song) or having sex as often as you can in hope that something connects.

What is apparent from the research and human experience is that the presence of oxytocin is associated with human attachment. This "tend and befriend" hormone is associated with feelings of pleasure and well being and the more attached and positive your past and current relationships are with significant others the more likely you are to have these positive and pleasurable states from being with them. In other words, the more we have positive and rewarding interactions with our spouse, children or parents the more oxytocin is released in our system. We literally are biologically designed to experience pleasure in taking care of and being close to one another and the more we do it the more we experience it. Sadly, what is also apparent is that those with a history of emotional deprivation have less oxytocin released in their system when interacting with significant persons in their lives suggesting that being with others does not create feelings of pleasure and well being( Monitor on Psychology - The two faces of oxytocin). In other words, they likely do not receive the same comfort and pleasure from intimate relationships.

Our marathon sex couples would not have had such positive results on their relationship from all their sexual encounters if they did not already have a connective relationship. Their increased sexual activity no doubt enhanced their attachment and feeling of well being but it did not cause it. Those that do not have a history of connective and rewarding relationships cannot create connection by having more sex or snorting oxytocin. They have to do it the old fashioned way by risking entering into relationship and experiencing the power of a loving presence. It is what everyone desires and needs so who ever you are with and however disconnected they may feel, trust and believe that you both are seeking the same thing.

 

 

 

(Re)Creative Life

 

I have been on vacation and then catching up from vacation so I have not taken the time to write. My vacation with my family and extended family was rewarding and rejuvenating; it was a time of recreation. The word recreation is a great word; its spelling implies its meaning: to re-create ourselves, to give ourselves an opportunity to recover and restore. It is similar to the purpose of the Sabbath, to rest from work and enjoy creation. When God rested on the seventh day it was not just to stop working and rest, it also involved enjoying His completed creation.

Many of us, including myself, just stop working to rest. We do not usually remember to reflect and enjoy what our work has accomplished, what we have helped create. Most likely, we don't think of ourselves as one who creates. But we should. If we are made in the image of God, and I believe that is our fundamental identity, this means we possess something of God's power to create in us. And when His Spirit is alive and active in us, the power to create is magnified.

We tend to limit being creative to artistic work or new ideas and solutions but to create also means in a more fundamental sense to bring something (that is not currently there) into existence; to make something happen or give rise to something that did not currently exist. What separates our creative power from God's is his ability to create ex nihilo: out of nothing. We are creative from and with the "materials" we have been provided; God brings into existence something from nothing.

Maybe you are wondering how this applies to you? Maybe you do not think you can or have created anything or if you have it is not of much value. Please stop thinking that. There are two basic effects of our creative powers: the power to create something useful and good, or the power to destroy. We are either building something up or tearing something down. Jesus says in the Gospel of John 10:10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may life, and have it to the full."

Consider your life and what effect it is having. You are a force. You have power to create. What creative forces are working within you? Examine your actions, your words, and your behavior. Are they life giving or life destroying? Consider your relationships. If you are married is your spouse growing and thriving? Have the two of you created a full life or is your marriage falling apart? What about other relationships? Are they fruitful and productive? What kind of creation are you making of your life?

Love the One Your With (for life)

How satisfied are you in your marriage? That is a loaded question for many couples. One of the marital satisfaction assessments I use with couples I see for counseling a very pointed question is asked: "Would you marry the same person again?" Obviously a "No" answer is an indication of just how difficult saving this marriage will be. There has been so much pain, difficulty, and disconnection in the relationship that the person cannot imagine going through that experience again. They believe they made a mistake and married the wrong person.

In our society there is still a strong expectation that we are to marry for life. Even though this expectation appears to be weakening most marriage vows include something like "till death do us part". We are making an incredible commitment and many of us fail to keep it with divorce likely for 43-46 percent in the first 15 years of marriage. It is interesting that the divorce rate has come down from a high of 53 percent in 1979. I do not believe we are getting better at relationships, especially long term committed ones. I believe some of that decline is due to more people choosing not to marry. In fact, 59% of the population is married, down from 62% in 1990 and 72% in 1970 (http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsus.shtml). There is an apparent trend that marriage as an expected rite of passage of adult life is losing momentum.

Maybe one of the reasons for the decline in the number of marriages is due to fear of failing. Individuals who have observed their own family's failure to stay together may want to avoid the pain and trauma of divorce. Of course that assumes that "getting married" has anything to do with relationship pain and trauma. When any involved and "committed" (whether for life or not) relationship breaks up, there is pain and trauma. Just remember, or ask your teenager, what it was like to break up with someone in high school.

It is obvious to anyone who has been in a committed relationship that we are designed for relationships to last. Why else would it be so painful when we lose a relationship if we were not made for lasting attachments to one another? We can even think of ourselves as an "attaching species". Think about it: we become a part of, attached to many things like organizations, communities, teams, churches, etc. Something about our identity is in whatever or whomever we join. It is possible to even think of addictions as attachment disorders. We become overly attached to and engaged with substances and behaviors. We even become identified by the substance we are addicted to; "I am an alcoholic". Most, if not all addictions have roots in poor or dysfunctional parental attachments. A major component of any recovery program is finding a healing community of available and responsive people. That is part of the power of Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you happen to find yourself in a difficult relationship and you believe getting out of it will solve your problem, please think again. You will find something or someone else to attach to or become a part of that defines your identity and it may be worse than what you already have. Please consider working on your present relationship and learning how to make it work. We can learn to establish secure, safe and rewarding relationships; we are made to be in harmony with one another.

Built to Last

I regularly counsel couples whose marriages are struggling. It is something of a passion of mine to help preserve marriages. My marriage has lasted 19 years this week, May 14th. Notice how I say "lasted" as if it is supposed to not last. I should say I have been married 19 years. I never really think or wonder about my marriage not lasting. I know it will except death do us part. Obviously I have a wonderful wife and life mate who whole heartedly loves me. Many people think she must be a saint to love me as wholly as she does. I agree. I can be a difficult person to live with; but then so can we all.

Couples come into my office often voicing a similar sentiment of never concerning themselves with their marriage not lasting. And then something happens that threatens the relationship like an affair, or a sickness like depression or cancer, or some other event that weakens the marital bond. There are basically two kinds of marriage; those that have a secure bond and those that don't. Those with a secure bond can endure most anything life throws at them. Those with an insecure bond usually can't.

Dr. John Bowlby believes, and years of research and development of his theory of human attachment confirms, that we are biologically wired for a few intimate relationships. In other words, we are created to have close, secure, and safe relationships with a few individuals or "significant others". It is the way things are supposed to be, and it is exactly what God did as described in the creation account of Genesis. Something in us is wired to expect someone to be there for us and with us. As God says in Genesis, "it is not good for man to be alone." Attachment is a fundamental fact of life and we should expect our parents or other caregiver to be there for us and for our marriages to be "built to last".

There really are no surprises when significant human relationships go as designed. We develop a secure sense that we are important to someone else and they are important to us. Simply, someone is there for us who we can trust and depend upon and because of this we realize we are valuable. This helps us develop a secure sense of self and we come to "expect" that others will love us and we will love others. We have a fundamental confidence that relationships will work.

When Adam said to Eve: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh", it is a statement reflecting the fundamental created oneness of man and woman. When a man and a woman are united and joined into a one flesh union as husband and wife it is a relationship that is 'built to last" because it is basic and fundamental to who we are. Just like we are made for living and breathing in an oxygenated environment so are we made to be together; vulnerable, naked and unashamed.

Please view your loved one without all their coverings of fear and defensiveness based on a lie that we are not acceptable and lovable just as we are.

Bones, Spock, and Captain Kirk

Any one of us knows the joy and pain of relationships. Of course this statement fits only if we are emotionally engaged with them. It is the "stuff" that makes relationships dynamic and vibrant. It is also the stuff that makes them painful and difficult.

What does it mean to be emotionally engaged and how do you tell if you are? Why is it so important that we be emotionally engaged or attached to our children or our spouse or our friends? What is the big deal about emotions anyway? Well, it turns out that emotion is central to how our brain works, especially with memory. In fact, everything we experience in life is being assessed by our amygdala, the so called center of the emotional brain, and it processes information before we even know it. Do you remember the last time you became emotional? Think about a recent emotional experience like becoming angry or sad. You were "into" the emotion before you had time to think. The emotion is just there, it is not something you make happen like when you figure something out with your "thinking brain" and put the plan into action.

Some individuals find it very difficult or even "alien" to experience intense emotions or they are very restricted in their emotional expression. It might be that the only emotion they experience is anger or fear. It is like their emotional brain is not as active or sensitive to emotional experience. If you have ever seen Star Trek episodes then you know of Spock and how "human emotions" are alien to him and his decisions are made solely by logic. Or, if you know someone who has experienced a stroke their emotional expression is different. For some stroke victims there is no emotion associated with anything. They are extremely flat and unresponsive and very difficult to connect with. We need emotional expression to connect with one another.

Another character in Star Trek is the contrast to Spock; it is Bones, the passionate and emotional physician who is constantly frustrated with Spock's cold logic. Bones is emotional about practically everything especially when it involves relationships. He is always accusing Spock of not "caring" because he believes Spock's decisions and actions are unaffected by what happens to others. And of course Bones' actions are almost always effected by how it affects others and he places a premium in his decision making on what it will mean to someone else. Sometimes this clouds his judgment.

And then there is Captain Kirk. He is the balance point to both Spock and Bones. Where they are metaphorical extremes, he is the metaphorical center point, making decisions considerate of both emotion and logic. Captain Kirk is the model of how our brain is supposed to work. He is passionate and emotionally engaged with his crew and friends but able to make the "tough" decisions when necessary. He is able to engage both his "emotional brain" and his "thinking brain". One does not dominate the other and his decisions are better, more likely to be the right one because he is using his whole brain to make the call.

Which character do you identify with? Consider your important, significant relationships and assess if you are more of a Spock or a Bones. Maybe Captain Kirk describes you. More likely, we find that we can be all three depending on the circumstance. Try and observe in what situations you are more likely to be emotionally engaged and calmly considering options like Captain Kirk. What circumstance brings out the "Bones" in you where emotional expression dominates? When are you primarily considering the facts regardless of its affect on others?

Work on becoming more aware of what circumstances and contexts bring out which Star Trek character. It is in those circumstances where a Bones or Spock dominates that we have growing to do. When Captain Kirk shows up, we have learned that we can both emotionally connect and thoughtfully consider options to make sound judgments.

Compassion and Betrayal

We all know that those closest to us are the ones that can hurt us. The members of our family or our spouse are those with whom we are most vulnerable and therefore most exposed to being disappointed. When we are vulnerable we open ourselves by letting down our guard and allowing those who love us to be close. What our family or loved ones say and do to or about us has an impact on us; they have the power to affect us. Being hurt by a loved one is like a dog lying on its back, wagging its tail anticipating its belly being rubbed or scratched and instead it gets picked up by its paws and thrown across the room. The dog was calmly and restfully expecting love and affection and instead is assaulted. Sometimes we treat the ones we love just like that. We cause one another to suffer.

One of the definitions of betrayal is to cause suffering. Betraying someone is to turn someone over to suffering. Contrast that with the definition of compassion. It means to suffer with someone. If we cause someone we love to suffer by how we treat them then we are betraying them. If we enter into someone's suffering then we are being compassionate with them. In families, marriages and other intimate relationships we often find ourselves betraying in one context and offering compassion in another. Our betrayer can also become our source of compassion and vice-versa. This is a characteristic that make relationships so difficult and confusing. It will take some effort of reassurance before the dog you threw across the room will let you scratch his belly again. The only way to do this is to offer compassion, to enter into and own the suffering you caused.

I have often thought about Judas and why he hung himself. He betrayed Jesus turning him over to suffering. The great paradox is that Judas' betrayal brings salvation to those who believe in Jesus. Jesus' death on the cross is God's awesome demonstration of compassion. According to the Bible, he suffered with and for us in order that we might be set free from sin. Our betrayal of Jesus is not too different from Judas' betrayal. We too have turned Him over to suffering because of our sin. But when we receive salvation from the Cross we participate in the compassion of Jesus. We believe that He loves us no matter what we have done. Judas' suicide is a commentary on what happens when we believe compassion is not available for us. If we believe like Judas that we must bear our suffering alone there is no place for suffering to go and it destroys us.

In our intimate relationships we need to understand this relationship between betrayal and compassion. We need to be able to enter into one another's suffering even if we are the cause of that suffering. Being compassionate with one another, being willing to suffer with each other opens up the door to freedom from suffering. Otherwise it will destroy the relationship; just ask the dog.