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Over the years I have been invited on numerous occasions to share with church and college groups on various mental health and relational topics. My favorite subjects to speak on include the purpose and process of marriage, healthy life perspectives, and anger resolution - which encompass within their scope such familiar issues as anxiety, depression, addiction and more. These talks have always been greatly appreciated by those who have heard them.The Purpose of Marriage
What if we consider that there is, in an ontological sense, a purpose of marriage. That is not the same thing as saying that marriage has purpose or benefit. We know that it has benefits. But does it have an immanent purpose - a purpose abiding within? Would this have some bearing on the biblical point of God's hatred for divorce?In The Purpose of Marriage I have attempted to briefly explore the nature and implications of an immanent purpose of marriage. This purpose quite possibly has to do with the integrity of a basic fabric not only of the human community but of the human being.
Life Perspectives
The material presented in this talk began as a basic anger management curriculum I had designed for teen and parents. As I further developed the material, it became ever clearer that fear, which drives anger, is the stuff life's journey is made of. It all has to do with our need for value, control and power.Fear of the numinous is natural to mankind because the human individual is aware of himself. In short, he knows that he is mortal, which implies that there is something other than mortal. In addition to a concern over stressors that present themselves daily, men and women possess an underlying or intuitive sense of an imminent and unknown final fate. No, people don't go around contemplating mortality. But they do go around contemplating how to avoid it - how to better position themselves in their career, in their relationships, in their neighborhood, in their church, in their group, in their society. These considerations result in behaviors that can be categorized in three ways: retreat, aggression, and surrender - all ways of securing power, control and value. These respectively correspond to three life perspectives, each with its own set of emotions.
Understanding our natural movement from one perspective to another is tantamount to managing our fear, our emotions, our lives. The most desirable and beneficial perspective to have is what I refer to as the eternal perspective, where value control and power are secured through surrender. But how do we get there? This is the focus of Life Perspectives.
Anger Resolution
Instead of anger management, I refer to anger resolution. Almost none of the material that attempts to address anger goes deep enough. Anger is a spiritual emotion -not to be redundant - because it has to do with our sense of human vulnerability. In this presentation I again use the Life Perspectives model because it explains the transition from a very base, self-absorbed and fear-driven existence to one that sees all of life as "an encounter with the purpose of God."As a bonus, this presentation is designed to address not only anger, but its correlatives as well: addiction and relational distancing. It explains all our behaviors in terms of how we handle anger. On the one extreme we find addiction, an anger behavior that coincides with the greatest distance in relationships. So, I often tell clients, addiction is the opposite of relationship. On the other hand, we find a lifestyle of giving, serving and accepting, all of which indicate a larger inclusive life perspective that engages with others at every opportunity.
In the past these talks have always been done on site. That's still a good way to go, as it allows for materials to be circulated and larger groups to participate. In addition, now, thanks to Skype technology, these talks can also take the form of a moderated discussion group at any location - ideal for small group settings with computer availability.
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