Parakalein

Michael Yapko who I studied with in 1996 used to say and probably still does the truth that not every though you think is worthy to be thought about!  In my devotional this morning, I

1. ALL Parts  When Welcomed Learn to live in Peace and Harmony with Each Other
   
   
   
   
   Just about every religious group that I know, have visited or been part of over the years has a sign out front that says a number of versions of this statement:
   
   
   All Are Welcome!
   Everyone is Welcome!
   There is A Welcome Here for You.
   
   
   I was recently on Cape Cod and a church there had cancelled their early service in favor of cheering on Bicyclists’ who were in the Pan Mass Challenge which  is the largest single charity fund raising event in the USA.  They raised nearly $50,000,000.00 dollars/funds for cancer research and treatment.
   
   
   It reminded me that when I pastured a church in Albany NY several years ago we gave water to runners as the marathon course came by our churches front door.  One runner was so impressed that we were out there creating a sense of welcome that he actually cam into a service the next week in sneakers and shorts and running shirt.  He though dressed differently than any other person in the church that day felt welcome.
   
   
   The IFS model provides a model for churches to become more serious about doing what they are saying.  In other words creating a sense of welcome for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, sociological-economic position, political posture, personal habits, sexual preferences, level of neatness, need to control, entitled or excluded, even regardless of faith orientation or the lack of it.  Imagine if regardless of anything people really felt welcome.  The principle of Welcoming all parts has helped me to help the United Church of Christ and its leadership to identify more and more ways in which by welcome here to fore excluded people who engage in certain excluding practices are now thankfully welcome.  The church is to be a place of inclusivity, of “judgment free zone” the essence of which is to welcome all parts.  Really!  To welcome them so that hey can in the presence of light and love be released form their burdens and freed to live life in the most abundant way.  Which are the words of Jesus, Rumie, Buddha etc.
   
   
   Jon Lennon wrote over 50 years ago,
   
   
   Imagine
Song by The Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon

   1.             Imagine there's no heaven
   2.             It's easy if you try
   3.             No hell below us
   4.             Above us only sky
   5.             Imagine all the people
   6.             Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
   7.             It isn't hard to do
   8.             Nothing to kill or die for
   9.             And no religion too
   10.         Imagine all the people
   11.         Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
   12.         But I'm not the only one
   13.         I hope someday you'll join us
   14.         And the world will be as one, 
Imagine no possessions
   15.         I wonder if you can
   16.         No need for greed or hunger
   17.         A brotherhood of man
   18.         Imagine all the people
   19.         Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
   20.         But I'm not the only one
   21.         I hope someday you'll join us
   And the world will live as one


   
   
   
   
   
   
    Jesus prayer “That they might be one” becomes our practice as welcome all parts as if they are one with each other in the internal system of our soul.
   
   
   IFS “All parts are welcome” helps the serious Christian church to welcome all regardless of anything as that welcome creates the balance in the system that creates a solar system of balanced energy, beautiful hopefulness, and boundless glassy sea of peace.
   
   
   Below is a picture of the true Jesus.  Not the Jesus wrapped up in church clothes nor the Jesus who sits in judgment of those who do wrong, but the true Jesus full of “grace toward all and Truth about Life and light and the power of light and love to bring peace to all people of earth.  It is the message of the Gospel, Christmas=, Easter and for all time, it is the message of the Good News to which all are welcome to take part on, surround themselves by and immerse themselves in.  He welcomes =all who were on that sad day in September.  Regardless of anything about any of those people, what they did the night before, whether they went to church the week before or not, whether they were straight or gay, whether they were rich of=r poor, whether they were sick or well, whether they were young or old they were e=welcomes by the Jesus who has no favorites, plays no favorites, but alas showers the favor of love grace peace and forgiveness for all.  While there  is no justice we can minimize the injustices by increasing the capacity of welcoming all parts..
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   The United Church of Christ which has begun years ago to be a covenant based church has placed the emphasis not on doctrine or dogma but on the dynamics of community.  In UCC churches the standard greeting that is in keeping with the spirit of all parts are welcome is,” Wherever you are on life’s journey, whatever your transition in life is at this time, whoever you have been and whoever you are to become you are all welcome here.  Regardless of your personal preferences, your faith or religious traditions, your sexual preferences, poor political persuasion, your ecommerce status, your sociological position, your commitment to green space or blue space,  your health or hygiene habits, and regardless of your music or worship service preferences you are welcome here.
   
   
   Paul writes in Ephesians 4:
   
   

As i was walking this morning I recalled a young woman who I met several years ago who had been in treatment in a major city for depression.  She had had by the time I saw her, many sessions/treatments of Electro Shock Therapy.  Her first words to me sere that she was dead and know one seemed to realize it.  People would argue with her using reason to pull her out of the depth of death that she was in.  In short, know one believed her.  I chose to believe her and ask her what it was like to be dead without anyone getting it.  We spent a lot of sessions talking about her feelings, and exploring her realities rather than debating them.  I recall asking her how it was that we were talking if she was dead and she said she had parts that could recognize people who she could trust and speak with and I was one of them so it is a kind of special dispensation (my word).  She talked about being a black sheep in her family and that she would rather be a dead black sheep than a live white sheep.  She gradually convinced herself that she must not be dead because somebody was believing what she was saying.

One interesting thing about the myriad of interesting things in this case was that it was not psychotherapy that helped her out of her "death" but her own hearing of her own talking herself out of it.  She had no insurance so I saw her for a nominal fee.  In time she stopped coming as she traveled a good distance to see me.  I recall one day when she realized that she had driven herself to the appointment that "dead people do see and can drive".  Later she thought that was bizarre.  I saw her years later and she was married with one child and playing the piano at the church I happened to attend that day.  She thanked me for giving her life back to her.  I suggested that she found her life and took it back herself.

For the next several years I continued to practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist, Social Worker, Individual therapist with offices in Albany and MA.  I continued to take insurance and self payers at a lower rate.  Parakalein as a concept first given to me in Albany while still a pastor 20 years ago developed into a more cohesive therapy of "along side of" focus when I trained as an internal family therapist with Dr. Richard Schwartz.  The self is in all of us and alongside of all our parts to provide care comfort and compassion to self and others.  In the recent couple years as I have gone through a contemplative, reflective, recalerbrating time both of my personal living and my professional functioning I have come to a new morphed understanding of the concept of parakalein that is not different but more refined.

Just this morning I came up with a tentative name for this new focus:  Internal Redemptive Services/Counsleing (IRS). The focus is to reach:
1. we need no external redeemer that absolves us of responsibility
2. we need to be responsible for our injuries internal and for the injuries we inflict on others regardless of rationalization or excuses
3. we need to see that we are all the same only different after all"*
4. When the external redeemer image or person is tapped the internal redeemer is ignited with its dormant hoe, faith and love for they are eternal and internal in all of us

Here are a few starting points for Parakalein 2016

1) office closed in Albany may reopen one day a week in a new location, 901 Washington Avenue

2) Suffered a Depressive episode in March 2014 due to Stress of Losses, Compassion Fatigue, and tendency to Hypomania.

3) when asked by an insurance company why I would continue to see a patient after they had said they would not pay, a part of me said "Because I care about people more than about money!" (Compassion fatigue without self care can lead to self effacement, Compassion without self care can lead to self negation)

4) The goal of therapy is to be a catalyst for healing of brokenness, liberty for captives, human growth and development to the place of healthy awareness of self and others, mature dependency, mutual respectfulness, and the ability to speak and hear the truth in love.

5) That a pay as you go policy, without insurance that can mask true commitment to the work of therapy, and a professional focus that is not as much about psychotherapy as it is often defined but "healing the soul" as it is self defined, challenges me to change the focus and orientation of my work in the future beginning when I reopen my office in West Stockbridge.  The focus will be not "heal thyself" as in the inference in Biblical Christianity when Jesus is mocked by: "He saved others himself he cannot save".  Jesus was already healed and whole as a soul and spirit but he was in process of redeeming the body.  The focus will be to find the healing power that is God given in every human being.  It is not external redemption but internal redemption thus the developing name "Internal Redemptive Services".  Parakalein is sharpened in its focus not to harpoon other foci but to see counseling as Jesus envisioned it and as the Holy Spirit does it in people as more like a "player coach" than an expert counselor.

During the last several years I continued to see clients beyond what an insurance company would pay, regardless of their ability to pay, and regardless of the extent of debt I was creating for myself and them.
If I had all clients pay up all their bills today I would have approximately $37,000.00.  I saw an IFS therapist for a while and we let my bill grow into a few hundred then I dropped out partly out of embarrassment and partly out of shame and guilt.  A year later he informed me he was waving the debt.  I thanked him and realized I had not done the same but was neither able to ask for payment of forgive the debt.

I think it was Dr Karl Menninger who said "Adults biologically produce children, Psychologically, Children produce Adults!"

Have you been to a baby shower and seen all the gifts: multiple blankets, multiple toys, many diapers or a diaper service for the more environmentally focused?  Recently my wife was invited to a baby shower and she cam up with a creative basket of little things that because they do not in themselves cost a lot would not be thought of as a gift but all together they were a low cost high reward kind of gift.  Key word "thoughtful" not "costly".

What is the best gift we could give parents in waiting:  A gift Pack of 9 small items not high in cost but high in reward:

1. Love:  It is the only gift that lasts forever.  It is sometimes tough but always tender.  It makes the best of the worst of times and remembers to give God thanks for the good times.  It hates faking it but loves being it.  It is honest but not harsh, gentle but not weak, and long-suffering but not a doormat.

2. Joy:  Like singing in the rain, walking a scary path, feeling the storm clouds threaten, and the safety of your feet slipping off the rock into sinking sand. "Count it a Joy" regardless of how good or bad it is. The apostle brother of Jesus hints that the secret of Joy as Jesus had, when he despised the cross but desired to go through the suffering to teach us all that going through suffering with Joy is not because in some hypomanic state you believe it to be good nonsense.  Joy transforms the fear and pain of suffering into the growth through suffering.  Victor Frankl's "redemptive suffering".

"Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross while despising the shame....is the author and finisher of our faith life and so, with courage and trust and without fear of loss, let us run the race that is before us " (Hebrews 12:1-2)

3. Peace:  It is like the sea of glass in revelation, in pleasant places with pleasant partners, without a palace or cabin in the woods, in the most difficult of moments and the moments when all is well in the world it is a steady sense of "it is all good" which then works at making it good.  It is a peace that surpassed human understanding.

4. Long suffering:  Humility calls us to be vigilant in trusting people to have their and other's best interest in mind!  Long suffering is not being a doormat that others wipe their feet on so to invite and encourage honesty and humility to form and be experienced.on you.

5. Gentleness: Which is not weakness or the absence of strength but the strength to be quiet and humble while being hard and firm.  An Old Indian Proverb reads,  
There is nothing so gentle as real strength
There is nothing as strong as true  gentleness 

6. Goodness/Kindness: When tempted by emotions to be unintentionally nasty or rude, harsh or unpleasant, insensitive or mean take a step back, pay attention          and be intentionally kind.  When you fail as a parent, sibling or friend be strong and courageous enough to step out                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            of the battle and into a place of peace where you can say, "I was wrong.  I am sorry"!

7. Faih:  Praying with and for your wife and family no matter what.  This is not about going to church as good as it is to identify with a community of faith.  This kind of faith sees what no one else sees as it sees potential in a son or daughter.  This attribute of faith sees the problem and confronts it head on facing fear with the courage that has said its prayers!

8. Meekness:  This attribute is often confused with soft spoken, introspective, humble But on the contrary it is the capacity that you have all power but also the discipline to not use that  power intimidate 

9 Temperance or Self Control:  For the late nights and really mornings It os the tests the capacity and the audacity  yo self regulate on the arms

These 9 are strangely similar to those in Galatians that we refer to as the Fruit of the spirit

She said to her 13 year old son as she was roughly and angrily shoving him into their car, "What is wong with you, you are 13 years old and you cannot read a simple paragraph".

My little boy part was really triggered but my social appropriate scanners said she is in a state she cannot hear even if an angel appeared to her and your compassion meter is already full so I said nothing.

At the same time a part of me recalled that I sometimes could not read a story without wandering off in my mind to another topic, issue or concern.  It was not that I could not read it was that I could not stay focused because of the business in my head of good things even kind things but also distracting or exciting things.  Prof Crouch at Yeshiva University burned two concerns into my self of being now they are moving into my sense of well being.  They are "focus, focus, focus and make friends with commas".  Thank you Elizabeth I get it at a deeper level than ever.

pixture

I thought what is wrong with you as a parent that you cannot se your part.   Scolding and yelling at people even if you are right does not usually help the situation. Often our fears or nervousness gets the best of us and while we intend to be caring and concern what comes out is judgment, accusations, nastiness.  What if this woman could have seen the problem as their shared problem and the solution probably a  shared effort that calms ever ones fears and feels compassionate and caring.  It would be a traditional "win win" Amen!  So if there was a way to think that the part of me that is frustrated with you right now wants to see you as the problem, but my angry and hostile reaction exacerbates the problem rather than ameliorating it.  Shared view of the problem results in shared participation in the solution

Wisdom that is from Above is full of peace and love
It is gentle and kind when speaking words of confrontation
It is patient and persevering when other perspectives it hears
When misunderstandings happen, love fills the bowl with tears

Peace is the cry of the World all around
The varied ways to achieve it are everywhere found
While peace talks are held in a harbor of pearls
Plans for war in the other's heart twirls

Peace after all is elusive at best
When the heart is nit at rest
Deceit and maneuvers the day manipulates
The night plans the head he decapitates

He told me I had no peace and I needed some
He shouted it at me, I  mused myself to unwind
The one who has peace is calmer after all
Where the frightened soul by his anger is blind


The trick is so clearly divine
to give up my life without losing it in time
It is the fragmented pieces in the mind of hatred
That must be sacrificed to the power of red

Patience and perspective win out over time
The way of peace is to put all hostility and war too bed!
What brings peace is not military or police at night
It comes when all hearts in compassion are right

 Truth, when spoken in anger, judgment and out of fear can be nasty, disrespectful, wreck less cruel,rude, and life imprisoning.

Winning the War

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. -Ephesians 4:32

Dr. Michael D. Yapko is a clinical psychologist and author, whose work is focused in the areas of treating depression, developing brief psychotherapies and advancing the clinical applications of hypnosis.

Dr. Michael Yapko who I studied with in 1996, is a clinical psychologist in California.  His focus is on treating depression, and developing techniques of self hypnosis. One of the mantra's I recall from my training with him was the truthful statement "that not every though you think is worthy to be thought about!"  In my devotional this morning, I began to think of many similar statements.......here are some of them