Religion in the City: The Stories We Hold

In a session not too long ago, a woman shared with me that when she was a child, her father told her that one of the reasons he and her mother were getting a divorce was how bad she had been as a child. Though we had some time to talk about her feelings regarding her father, the session was actually built around the hyper activity and oppositional defiant behaviors of her son. The two were in my office because of the little boy’s low grades in school and his constant fights on the playground. To be exact, the mother’s first words to me when she sat down was, “fix him”! Yet in truth the anger in the room that needed fixing was hers. Ironically, it was in sharing stories about her son’s behavior that this mother found space to share her own broken childhood story.

Last week my column focused on the myths and stories that we share in our communities of faith. The article centered around my frustration around that the stories communities hold on to the tightest are often ones that separate people’s beliefs rather than unite them.

This week I want to talk about how our individual and family stories have the power to shape the worldviews and self-image we have about ourselves. When we use words like “that’s the way life is” or “I’m not cut out for that”, we are speaking out of the our interpretation of stories we have observed and lived throughout our life. Last week I quoted one of my favorite books Black Elk Speaks, “…whether it happened so or not I do not know; but if you think about it, you see that it is true.” The truth that Black Elk is speaking about is built on stories that had shaped his worldview and tribal community for generations.

There is a school of thought in therapy circles which says most people organize their thoughts, relationships and opinions about the world around the role they believe they play in social stories or myths. It is often these same roles which interpret the narrative which outlines their life experiences. I believe more often than not the families and children which come to the shelter find themselves inwardly and outwardly homeless, first and foremost, because of the roles which they feel life or their families have placed them in.

Jesus used imagery in his parable about people who were inwardly and outwardly lost. Stories about lost sheep being searched out by a loving Shepard, a lost coin which reflects God search for the rarity of who we are. There is a Buddhist saying from Bhaddekaratta Sutta which could be translated, “Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Look deeply at the story that is.”

Myths and parables not only shape communities’ understandings and beliefs around faith; they also shape family and individual beliefs as well. Good counseling, case management and ministry must be built around developing gateways to and from the story’s which separate us from God’s love. There are religious myths which seek to untie people with God’s love and ones that are meant to separate the wheat from the chaff. We must keep the stories which teach inclusion of all people no matter their race, sex, gender or socioeconomic status. The challenge is to restructure our communal myths and subsequently our worldviews by shifting roles and stories to free people rather than bind them.

Last week I had coffee with a good friend who was telling me about her stepmother. “It does not matter how old I get, how successful my co-workers and friends see me, I will always be the nerdy, lazy child in the family!” My friend could reach all the professional goals she wanted, but when it came to her family, all she felt she had to work with was the role and stories which her stepmother had defined her as playing. In truth these childhood roles had affected her relationships, in essence her whole own self-esteem.

I am always amazed by the power that defined role-play has in the shaping of who people allow themselves to be. The roles parents place their children in, have the power to shape their self image and ultimately their religious and worldviews. This friend could teach classes, speak to groups and care for her family, but because of the role she had allowed her stepmother to enslave her in, she still sees herself as inadequate, selfish and lazy.

Family Systems Theory depicts four dysfunctional family roles that children are placed into. The first role is, responsible child, this child is made the hero in the family, they can do no wrong. The second role would be that of scapegoat. This is the child that is blamed for the problems in a dysfunctional family structure. The next role, mascot, makes a child the caretaker who is set up to constantly fix and placate the dysfunction in their family. Finally, most dysfunctional families have a lost child role where the child is left to constantly search for the meaning they have in either the world or the family they were raised in.

The good news I had to share with my friend is that the scapegoat role which her stepmother had placed her in did not have to be the story that defined her life. One of the powers of a good story is that it can be retold from several perspectives. Though it might feel important to a child to remain in the family role they were placed in, to keep the illusion of a family’s homeostasis, there is great power in claiming why a role was placed on one’s self and then subsequently claiming a view or version of one’s story which can redefine their life. With understanding and love, the inner child has the power to take hold of the stories which have defined their lives and depict who they want to be, rather than who they had been told they are.

One question a Pastoral Counselor often starts their counseling with is “what do you think God looks like”? The answer to that question usually outlines the role they feel they play in the lives of their parents. If someone depicts God as an old, judgmental man waiting to catch them in sin, that information can open up all kinds of doors into the stories which define who they feel they are. I once had a five year-old in a session tell me that he thought God looked like the moon. When I asked why the moon, he told me the moon, God and his dad always seemed to show up at night but seemed to be gone or not care during the day. The child in people first seeks to understand their creator through the images of their first known creator, their parents.

Which leaves me with a couple questions for you this week, first what roles do you play in your family? And secondly, what do you think God looks like and how do you think He/She/It defines your role in the world?