Kinship

Whether one celebrates this Sunday as a Christian holiday, an opportunity to welcome the spring, or an opportunity to gather with friends and family just because, I see it as a good opportunity to think about kinship.

Early this morning I was listening to Krista Tippett interview Father Greg Boyle, the Jesuit priest who has formed a partnership with homeless, gang members in LA.  This partnership now includes many small business ventures.  His simple message of faith has allowed many who have lived without hope to begin to live with hope.  How is it that this man who in a priest in a church with many rules, costumes and rituals and which sometimes seems to separate us from our commonness has managed to establish such a sense of kinship with/ among the homeless gang members?  How does this man set a stage for this seemingly  daily reenactment of the Easter miracles?

Father Boyle talks about a “common calling to delight in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship”.   Kinship?  He also asks, “How can I help the wounded if I don’t welcome my own wounds?”  Is this then how one acknowledges kinship?  Does one have to face one’s own wounds? Our wounds may not be the open sores which being nailed to the cross created.  They may be less visible to ourselves and others.   The wounds may be the pain of not knowing or believing that we are enough; of not believing that we belong.  The pain may be the pain of knowing that one a secret part of oneself that one thinks would others to reject one.  The pain may be the pain of knowing we have hurt others. The pain may be our secret dysfunctional family which appears to be the model to the community at large. The pain may be a physical as well as an emotional war injury.

There are a million reasons why we fail to acknowledge kinship with each other.  I suspect that it is very fearful for many of we humans to think of ourselves as essentially no different from the person in prison, the person who is a member of a violent gang, the person who is different in terms of sexual orientation, the person who dresses differently, the person who earns millions of dollars and has several large, well staffed homes, or any of the persons with whom we decide we have nothing in common or who have nothing in common with us.

Father Boyle takes the words of love and “makes them flesh”.   This is something which it seems as if we professional helpers have often failed to do.  We basically distrust ourselves and our colleagues.  We believe that we need a book of rules/ethical guidelines which can end up not protecting those we serve but keeping us separate from each other.  Unlike the 12 step program for recovering addicts, we may create an atmosphere in which we are the helper and “the other” is the client. Soon, if not careful, we forget that those we refer to as clients are merely the mirrors which helps us view ourselves and, thus, provide us an opportunity to grow emotionally and spiritually. 

In the private practice in which I worked for many years, we spent many hours formulating a simple statement of purpose which we called the philosophy which would guide our behavior.  We could also have called it a mission. Basically it stated that the goal of  the counseling service was to create a space in which those we referred to as staff could continue their healing journey and then invite those we would refer to as clients to share in that healing space. To be sure, we added some guidelines of how we would implement this policy.  Our most significant concern was that we practice the same level of honesty and openness that we know those we called clients had to practice if they were to heal.  This meant that we would have to help each other not confuse our needs with those of the clients. Essentially we did not want to treat others as objects to be used or allow others to use us as objects. 

We assumed that there was a relationship of kinship which presumes equality regardless of age, income, ability to pay, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other characteristics which do not define our sacred humanness.

Many professional organizations would and do insist that we need to spell out in many pages what it means to protect the clients from the professionals.  In the not too distant past, the ethical guidelines for most  professional organizations were a few simple statements similar to the 2/3 page philosophy of our counseling association. 

I am sure that the some Bishops and others in the Catholic Church would and do worry about the level of equality which Father Boyle has with and for whom he works.  I am sure that he, in their words, risks putting himself being accused of inappropriate behavior.  I suspect, however, that the risk is minimal even for those who have been living at the survival level.  My experience and apparently the experience of Father Boyle is that when we genuinely put ourselves in a relationship with our brothers and sisters instead of doing for “the other” there is very little risk of being falsely accused.

One might question if this approach does not create fuzzy boundaries.  Although I understand the concern, I think, on the other hand, that when we put ourselves in “relationship with” we are more aware of the gifts we have to offer each other and more likely to honor and respect those.  The commitment, for example, to be a teacher or counselor with someone is a very sacred commitment.  The commitment of the student or counselee is also a sacred commitment.  Because we love and respect each other we are going to take our respective roles very seriously.

Before seeing/talking with a student or client I remind myself of the following:

·      First and foremost I am entering into a relationship between two sacred human beings.

·      This could  be the last moment of life for one of us. Thus, I need to live my life with that truth in mind.

·      If welisten carefully we will reflect what is needed to be heard from both of us.

Father Boyle would sum this up by reminding himself and us that our common calling is to delight in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship.