Have you ever wondered how being nice is remarkably different from being kind? Well, today's enlightening discussion will unravel this intriguing mystery. We venture into the paradoxical world where being kind is often mistaken for just being nice, especially in the Christian faith. We dissect the cultural expectations and the pitfalls of considering niceness as an epitome of Christian virtue, while also exploring regional nuances between East Tennessee and the Northeast.
In the journey towards unmasking kindness, we'll illuminate the importance of clarity and its pivotal role. As we turn the pages of Galatians and Corinthians, we'll bring to light how clarity paves the way for kindness and how it can be a guiding light for business leaders to keep their workforce mission-focused.
As we delve deeper, we'll explore the dynamics of niceness and true kindness in our roles as mental health practitioners. We'll share insights on how to challenge clients in a manner that springs from kindness, even if it doesn't seem 'nice' at the moment. We'll also discuss how kindness plays a vital role in strengthening church relationships. So let’s embark together on this journey of discovery where we redefine the notions of being nice and kind. Prepare to challenge your preconceptions and embrace a new perspective on the significance of kindness over niceness.
Show Notes:
Have you ever wondered how being nice is remarkably different from being kind? Well, today's enlightening discussion will unravel this intriguing mystery. We venture into the paradoxical world where being kind is often mistaken for just being nice, especially in the Christian faith. We dissect the cultural expectations and the pitfalls of considering niceness as an epitome of Christian virtue, while also exploring regional nuances between East Tennessee and the Northeast.
In the journey towards unmasking kindness, we'll illuminate the importance of clarity and its pivotal role. As we turn the pages of Galatians and Corinthians, we'll bring to light how clarity paves the way for kindness and how it can be a guiding light for business leaders to keep their workforce mission-focused.
As we delve deeper, we'll explore the dynamics of niceness and true kindness in our roles as mental health practitioners. We'll share insights on how to challenge clients in a manner that springs from kindness, even if it doesn't seem 'nice' at the moment. We'll also discuss how kindness plays a vital role in strengthening church relationships. So let’s embark together on this journey of discovery where we redefine the notions of being nice and kind. Prepare to challenge your preconceptions and embrace a new perspective on the significance of kindness over niceness.
Show Notes:
Hello, all this is Dr David Hall, with Church Psychology, and let me ask you a question Do you assume that, as a Christian, you are supposed to be nice? Because if that's the case, I have some challenges for you. I do believe that we are all called to live in kindness. What is the difference between being nice and being kind? If you're interested in unpacking that with Matt and I hope you'll stay tuned for today's episode of our podcast Now let's hit that intro of me soon.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Church Psychology, a podcast of the Nagev Institute. We are mental health professionals looking at the intersections of social and behavioral science in the Christian life. Please connect with our free resources in our open community library at churchpsychologyorg. We would be grateful if you would follow, like or subscribe to Church Psychology wherever you are finding us, and also leave us a review as we start. If we are to love the Lord, our God, with all of our mind, it makes sense to work on our head space. Let's get to work Well. Welcome everybody to the Church Psychology podcast. My name is Matt Schooniman. I'm here again with Dr David Hall. Hey, David, hey Matt. Hey, it's good to see you. Good to see you as well For those watching on YouTube. If you do watch on YouTube, David's got his Harry Potter glasses on today.
Speaker 1:It is. It feels a little fraudulent because it does, because I don't. They're not prescription glasses, it's blue light.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:But I've had a day where I'm on the screen a lot. This helps me avoid headaches.
Speaker 2:Well, at least they have lenses and they don't like.
Speaker 1:you can like push through, yeah yeah, it's not just show, it's not a fashion trend that you're doing. Yeah, it's functional, just not in the ways that people assume. But yeah. You look great in them. I would like to, and so it fits. It makes me look smarter, hopefully. Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so well, today, david, let's talk about some things. What do you say?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have an idea. Okay, tell me your idea.
Speaker 1:I wonder if it matches mine. So I was on a good context of why I have this idea. Yes, please, I was in my church. We will do periodically silent retreats. We go to this retreat center up in the mountains and fortunately they're pretty close to the mountains and so it's about an hour drive of a place a bit more remote that it's a retreat center, and we'll do these silent retreats where it's pretty minimal in the sense of what we're doing is really designed for prayer and some selective reading. We don't have our phones available to us, no computers. We have a Bible, usually a journal notebook and some devotional reading idea, but it's a really kind of great time and space to just stop and slow down and I always find them to be very positive. But we will.
Speaker 1:The person that leads these retreats it's volunteer clergy at my church. He's retired but he will kind of set up the event and we do have a church service at night where he'll deliver a short homily. We'll take communion and he's speaking. The rest of us don't, but he's speaking and there was one time that he gave a homily where he was talking about all these people being too focused on kindness and it was in a kind of sense of the world is too focused on this, and I remember thinking at the time of like you know, it's interesting that you choose this topic on a silent retreat, because I can't quibble with you after it.
Speaker 2:I did that I rebuttle you, I rebuttle you.
Speaker 1:But I had a sense of what he was getting at. You need to be very careful when you're disclaiming one of the stated fruits of the spirit, right? But it did get me started thinking of something, and that's the initial story of the context for the conversation today, because, as I thought through what he was getting at, I'm like, okay, how I would say differently what I think he was trying to get at is a lot of people elevate the importance of being nice, and so what I propose to Matt that we could talk about is what is unpacking the difference between being nice and being kind, or niceness versus kindness. So that is what I would suggest for today, hopefully, it lines with what Matt is.
Speaker 2:That's good. When I think about nice, like we've talked about in this podcast, is that we're from the Knoxville Tennessee area. That's where our offices are, and I think we both grew up in the East Tennessee area. I know you've kind of been to different cities since, but we've grown up with the kind of southern cultural expectations of niceties and niceness and so some of that's partly cultural in the sense of I mean there's a lot of aspects we could go in this conversation, but I think that one being that where we are there's that southern niceties that you get a lot. We have a colleague and friend that did not grow up in this area. You grew up in the Northeast, in the New York area, and when you're up in New York it's a way different in the cultural context of how we interact, versus so very direct up there and sometimes not so nice and here down very passive, and sometimes again it's kind of all like fluffy talk right now but like the bless your heart is a common knowledge down here, it doesn't always mean a good blessing.
Speaker 1:That's not a good thing. Yeah, it's a bless your heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah you're an idiot, that's what he's saying yeah, it's not a good thing to have invoked. But taking out of yours and my specific regional context and talking about the church, I think oftentimes there has been this elevation to my pastor friend of mine, because I do think he was getting at something that was important. There has been this elevation of niceties kind of, as that becomes the highest level of Christian virtue. And the challenge that can naturally come out of that is we become people that don't really stand up for very much. We're not willing to challenge other people. If we see other people doing wrong to challenge them. Isn't it really nice to confront? Being confrontational is not nice. Being disagreeable is not nice. And it's often where, for some, what a lot of us see as very kind of core theological things that a lot of different sorts of churches and denominations have gotten looser on. Oftentimes it's been in the desire to be nice Well, we don't want to like.
Speaker 1:this person sees this differently, and it well see I would.
Speaker 2:I would even add and maybe you you'll speak to this when we talk about some of the language behind this but to add a different word other than just nice is polite. Yeah, the kind of manners and the rules kind of set, whether in your family system, in your culture, in your church, of what are what is being polite versus what's not being polite, what's being, you know, having good manners versus not, those things I think bleed into this concept of niceties.
Speaker 1:And they've been elevated in ways that, from a mental health perspective, are not true. Yeah, and I would say from a biblical perspective, represent falsehoods. Yeah, and we can speak to shift into the, the practical bit of the work that met and I do as mental health providers. Politeness and niceness in that way, hmm, causes a lot of issues in families. We see, yeah, because there it's, it's, it's avoidance, it's often a way that either people can manipulate, yeah, it's. We will often work with systems or with families that it's clear they're not necessarily being very authentic with each other. That was a recent episode, met and I did. We're talking about authenticity and how to cultivate that, the importance of that. And, yeah, in the name of being nice, oftentimes we will cultivate a very deep in authenticity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is where you get this concept and and whether it's been claimed this, but in the church culture of a feeling of kind of fake fakeness or fake Christians or they're putting on a mask. You know, you never really know what people are really thinking. They say all these nice things to you but you feel like I'm there's, there's still this boundary, this, this barrier between us and and I think we discussed that in that episode but I think that this high moral value of niceties as kind of the one of the top things has produced a lot of quote, unquote, fake people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very shallow. Yeah, it's very, and so it. If the, the pastor in question, if he had used that word, I would not have had objections, but he didn't use that word. He used the word kindness, and here's the difficulty with that. That is invoked throughout scripture, yeah, as a virtuous posture, a very, a very core virtuous posture. Yeah, it's listed often in 1 Corinthians and in describing love and Christian love, it's one of the main features of it. In Galatians 522.
Speaker 1:It talked about the fruit of the spirit and it was very interesting. This was something that in one of our earlier podcast episodes that you had mentioned, matt, that the idea and talk about the fruit of the spirit that is not being plural, that it's that the fruit of the spirit is a holistic thing, so kindness being a whole part, that you cannot be manifesting the fruit of the spirit and that interpretation without without kindness throughout the whole. So, yeah, similar to a recent episode we did on talk about anxiety, was interested in getting in. What are the root words to some of this? And also, again, my apologies for not being a Greek scholar, but so the, the word that gets translated into New Testament Greek as kindness, or its different variations. Christo Stotes is what I've got for Christo Stotes. This is out of the Strong's. It's translation of what I'm getting is goodness, kindness.
Speaker 1:But in even delving into what is kindness mean, one note I found that was really interesting was talking about this idea of moral goodness and integrity. The sense of this is something. Good is its core. I'll often talk about moral logic. It's the way that we organize or prioritize or rank the importance of things in our lives. It's how do we order things and in that sense it allows for there to be kindness.
Speaker 1:Is all kindness nice? Is a question that I would say absolutely no, because there's so many different examples of that you could say like is this person or is this action representing goodness, moral goodness and integrity? Might that involve confrontation, might that involve rebuke. And I say this all the time to clients because I will have clients sometimes push back on me in some of the things I say to them in the context of therapy and they'll say that's not very nice. And I will say to them it's not my job to be nice, it's my job to care for you, and in this sense too, I've even said it's my job to be kind. But it would be very unkind to point this out. For example, I'll be out in social situations and sometimes my wife will say like hey, you need a mint Now. I don't necessarily take that as very nice that she's telling me that my breath is bad, and I will sometimes get a little prickly about that at first. But you know what? That is ultimately a kind act. She's not necessarily doing it for her own benefit.
Speaker 2:It's often done for another social situations and I want to know that you know to oftentimes.
Speaker 1:you know a good friend is somebody that will be honest with you in the spirit of kindness, even if it's not nice.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I think that that differentiation is helpful to hear. I know, though, that there are some out there like me that hear that and say like, yeah, that's still really tough, and part of this goes to elements of. Again back to what kind of system were you raised in? What were the morality of your church or your family that kind of instilled in you? What is nice versus kind? Or did they maybe not even had that differentiation? So for some to step into this or even consider, okay, kind can be harsh at time, or, what's a good word, difficult at times it could be.
Speaker 2:Conflict producing at times is probably really hard to think about, and you think about personality types too. I am one. You know, david, you and I have been friends for a little while. I think that you're a little better at conflict than I am. You step into it easier.
Speaker 2:I have worked on it for years, and maybe we talk about conflict. I just did one on a on our churches podcast, and it was really, really helpful, but I think conflict is such an interesting topic of where this intersects nice and kindness, niceties and kindness, because nice would say that I am not allowed to step into conflict If I hurt this other person anyway or cause them any discomfort. I'm not being nice. Yet we know, yeah, and we know in therapy and we know in mental health and even Christian belief that at times we do have to rebuke, we do have to challenge, we do have to speak. What's going on in ourself? If to be authentic and integrous is to in a sense say here's what's going on inside of me right now, and that may not be easy for you to hear.
Speaker 1:It is, to your point, about. You know, to do these things isn't nice, and when we have equated niceness with godliness or with true goodness, then it's really easy to see that danger. You know it's funny. You talk about you perceive me as being more comfortable in conflict, and I am, though it is interesting.
Speaker 1:It is a perception, I don't know it is I don't, because I was raised in an environment that saw value in conflict and it's funny. I don't think it's as natural in my personality style. I don't particularly enjoy a lot of conflict, but I do think and this is where I think the culture we set within our families and within our churches about the differentiation between niceness and kindness matters, because I feel if my temperament was formed in a different environment, I think I probably have a lot harder time with conflict. But I was given a lot of overt messaging and examples of it being lived out. But I was told overtly that being clear and being direct and not skirting difficult things is a good way to live and I would see the fruit of that. I would see my family have hard conversations and it'd be hard but things would reach resolution.
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Speaker 2:What's that phrase? Clarity is kindness.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And that to be clear though, at times is not always comfortable, and I feel that that is a helpful way, even okay. So, if there are any business leaders listening, I've been listening. I was listening to a Simon Sinek talk and they were talking about clarity and the importance of it within the structure of an organization and that the retainment of their staff and the kind of focused mission that they would have as the CEO or as the leader really depended on how clear of a message or of a mission are they setting. Are they sticking to the clarity of what they have? But I've known in a bit in situations that at times it's difficult for leaders to be clear, not because they don't have an idea of what they want to do, but their clarity could alienate or remove people from participation in it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 1:And the same way that I would say niceness isn't kindness in and of itself, sometimes it may represent it, that clarity, it's a qualified sort of thing, but it does involve, I guess, the willingness to step into true kindness involves risk is, I guess, one of the things I'm hearing, because it may be a risk, a rupture it may risk, but what I learned in being raised, the way that I was, is I would step into other people's family systems of when I'd be dating somebody, or I would get in proximity to a friend's parents and their siblings and all that and see families that weren't very direct. I remember just thinking like what is going on here, because it felt horrible to me, was it? No one was yelling or shouting at each other or anything like that, everything was really placid, but the sense of tension that just sort of kept on, yeah, palpable. And so oftentimes I was one that would step in, depending on my role. I would step in and I would be really quick to be like what in the world are we? Why is no one saying anything? Why isn't anybody speaking to this directly? And it's just interesting because, even though I don't see myself as a very conflict driven person, I think I was inoculated against the resistance to conflict early and because I was trained to see it as being fruitful. But behind this is and going to what we've looked at so far, the core of kindness is doing a moral good towards self or others. You can be kind to one self. You can kind to other people, be kind to a community, and this is something that is represented as very core to In this word crei stote that we've been looking at.
Speaker 1:Here's where it shows up for those who are interested in cross-referencing different verses. But when kind or kindness is shown, it's this order or a variation of this word. It's in Romans 312, psalm 133, psalm 143, romans 2, 4, 2 Corinthians 6, 6, colossians 2, 12, or 312, colossians 3, 12, titus 3, 4, romans 11, 22. But there are two verses I want to just read, because they're two very famous verses, of where this shows up. It's Galatians 5, 22, which is on the fruit of the Spirit. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness this word crei stote goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is a core If we are called to manifest the fruit of the Spirit. And if we're called to manifest the fruit of the Spirit, it is to look like this this primordial goodness.
Speaker 1:And in 1 Corinthians. You read this one Matt in 1 Corinthians 3,. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 5.
Speaker 2:That's right. It says love is patient, love is kind, and that's that word. Love does not envy, it is not boastful, it's not arrogant, it's not rude, it's not self-seeking, it's not irritable and does not keep a record of wrongs.
Speaker 1:And so love. In that context too is the Greek word agape, though I've heard. I heard CS Lewis call it agape, and I wondered if that's a more accurate one, because he did study Greek, but agape, as I always heard it in sermons. But it is this charitable love and the sense of Christian love, a love that is independent of your emotions or your desires.
Speaker 2:It is the love that God has for us, and it is, and so interesting that passage not to tange it too far on this but so often that passage is used in a marital context or a wedding as their primary verse that they want to read over the ceremony and to some credit I agree with that.
Speaker 2:I mean it is love, but this type of love, being agape, is not the or agape is not the eros which is the more Greek term for the romantic love that we talk about in couples or marital work, but this, being more the Christ likeness or crucifixion love, as it were, applies so much more to how we interact with everybody and you have to live in it in marriage, though, and that's, in some ways, what makes it such an appropriate verse is because if you're going to survive in marriage, you've got to lean into agape love, but it comes out of this moment of eros, but eros is so fickle.
Speaker 2:Right, yes, and as you read it too, there are aspects of kindness has to also play in line with these other attributes that are listed as what is love or what are the fruit of the spirit. Kind of has to be in concert with patience, with goodness. It has to be in concert with not being arrogant or not rude or self-seeking. It is still for the good of another person. It just may mean that you have to say hard things or do hard things If someone's going to knock, walk away and be like oh, that was such a great conversation.
Speaker 2:You know, like I've had really kind conversations in my past that I think the person walked away feeling awful and it's not necessarily because I had done something wrong. Although I walk away feeling that way, I have a lot of self-doubt and I have a really strong internal critic. But God directs me to have some really tough conversations because it's the kindest thing to do for the good of that person, absolutely, and I do not know any intimate relationships, in friendships, in marriage, in close family relationships where this sort of kindness does not need to show up.
Speaker 1:The kindness that isn't nice. So we've delved into the word for kindness as it shows up in the Bible and I was very interested to get into nice, where I geek out in word stuff is. Etymology is interesting to me of looking at the source of words. Is that etymology or etiology? It's one of those two. Yeah, I don't know. I realized in this episode before we were talking about the church at Philippi and listening to it, I referred to the church of the Philippines, which was inaccurate. I didn't hear that it's a little bit.
Speaker 1:It's on our anxiety episode.
Speaker 2:So if you want to catch that Easter egg, I referenced the Philippines and my wife was listening to it.
Speaker 1:She's like could you go and fix that?
Speaker 2:Probably, not Probably. That's what drives her nuts, but I've just got to leave it.
Speaker 1:But it is that for those who did listen to it. I am aware that Paul's letter to the Philippians was the church in Philippi, though churches in the Philippines do also benefit from reading it the same as we do. They matter as just as much. They matter just as much so nice. Nice does not show up in the Bible. It's not, it wasn't so, it's not a thing.
Speaker 1:But I was interested in just the word itself and it was just so fascinating to get into, because there's how I think about it and how Matt and I talked about it, that you could be nice but not necessarily be kind. I've thought about that for a bit, but it's root is in Latin. The root word in Latin is nasecus, but what that means, what nasecus means, is it means ignorant, unaware, not knowing, and how it developed in English is both has negative and positive connotations. That different ways that it's been used is to show words like someone being disillusioned or wanton, which is this idea of like. They're not really. You know, they're not necessarily living right or living with any discipline.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it also can mean modest and chase. It can mean something that isn't profane, but it could also mean something that's obscene. So how do those things work together, yeah, and I think another word that isn't exactly accurate in this but we can think about it, is the sense of innocence, the same way that a young child who has learned a cuss word, as we say in the South Cussan, has learned a profane word and announces this word at the dinner table with grandparents and aunt and uncles there.
Speaker 2:With such gusto and excitement.
Speaker 1:Now they are, in that sense, being obscene or profane, depending on what they're saying, but it comes from a place of ignorance, so it can mean something positive in the sense of like it's not necessarily willful, but it's also not willful. My church tradition we do a regular corporate confession and one of the ways that we confess corporately, the ways that we confess about the ways that we have sinned, for the things that we have done and the things that we have left undone, and it is this idea of what's that that's talked about in biblical languages as the sins of commission, of doing things and sins of omission, right and sometimes niceness can be a willful omission.
Speaker 1:I'm not necessarily being offensive, I'm not stepping into something, but I'm not letting myself become knowledge to take in knowledge. I'm living in ignorance.
Speaker 1:I'm living in this kind of shallow space and it's funny how even different people who speak English will use it differently. So this is a joke. We met and I have talked about Southern culture being polite, but I've had several friends that are English and it's out of relationship with them that I learned this. You're talking to somebody who's English and you show them a work of art or feed them a meal and ask them what they think of it. If they say, oh, that's quite nice, that means it is not good at all, it's not an offensive. They're not trying to be offensive, they're not trying to say like I hate that, but it is not a compliment and it is nice in that context is not good, and so I'm just fascinated. When I got into this, like Nasekius, was this very it's either this kind of in the ways that it is positive, it's in this very kind of shallow, unknowing, ignorant positive, and in other times it's negative, because it is in this ignorance, it is in this being unaware of.
Speaker 2:Well, willful ignorance and ignorant is such a difficult word because often when people hear it it's very abrasive and offensive and really it just means not knowing, Like you just haven't figured it out. But a willful ignorance is, in a sense, I refuse to know, and I think that even in relationships we do this. It's not just intellect or knowledge, but almost a refuse of wisdom and I believe I'm not going to, I'm not going to engage that person or I'm not going to say that thing, Even though I know it's the right thing to do, it's too difficult or it's it would hurt their feelings and I don't want people to swing the pendulum too far and go the other way and it's like, well, I just want to this is back to the whole conflict stuff. But like I don't want to blow someone up with my own, be kind, I'll say the kind thing I'll, I'll rip into them and that's well, that's not kind either, and so. But that willful ignorance makes me think of I know the right thing to do, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am sticking my head in the sand, yeah, I'm turning away. And do you, in the sense of moral goodness and integrity, going back to our initial word of Christos, is are you desiring the good, the true good in that sense, where niceness in that sense is very shallow? Yeah, kindness in the way that we're getting is very deep, very deep, and it's not just like on the surface. Is this like, is this truly good, the same way that you're? You know your child or your dog may not want to get a bath, but it is a kindness to give that to them. It's a kindness to other people around them, but it's also a kindness to them for them to be clean, to forcing your kid to brush their teeth, to go to the dentist, to get shots to experience, to even discipline your child.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is not nice to discipline. That is not a nice thing in the way that nice just mean it can be deeply kind.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so to your point, matt, of you don't want to let the pendulum swing. So far, and that's so much. What our conversations are is holding these things in tension, that sometimes the kind thing does not come across as nice. But that doesn't mean that because it's not nice, of course it's kind. You can be really direct and speaking. You know your truth to somebody in a way. That's deeply unkind.
Speaker 1:That's right Because it's not desiring their good. Yeah, so I want to wrap up in this conversation, matt, and as this is the Church Psychology podcast, so the first to talk about this in the context of what this looks like in our work as mental health practitioners and then to look at this in the sense of the Christian life together. So, again, I've already made some references, but I'm known as a therapist, particularly of being a bit direct. That is that people will seek me out as a therapist because I'm known for that. People will often, when I've had people quit me as their therapist, it's often for that reason that I'm a little too real and I've had to grow as a clinician where I don't want to say like, oh, they couldn't take the truth, like sometimes I have had to really work on blunting some of the sharp shoulders that are coming into things, but my thought You've also been a clinician for a long time, and so what that probably then does is like you get a little bit freer with your spears.
Speaker 1:Sure, like I can do, I have enough age and infirmity at this point that I can say things differently to people. But the yeah.
Speaker 2:That a new clinician like. If any of the new practitioners out there are listening, they're like I would never, never that hesitancy is a little good, it is good it is, you've got to step into it, though.
Speaker 1:But and what really empowered me in this was actually one of my professors in grad school. He's one of my main professors. He was actually the president of the grad school that I attended and he said one of the core things about being a therapist is saying socially inappropriate things to people, and this is the context he used Southern. I was Southern. The school we were in was in Atlanta, georgia, and so in a culture that really elevates niceness, like Southern politeness can. But he said this is really important You've got to be the person that says things to them that their friends, family, spouses are too hesitant to say it because they're afraid of them blowing up, and part of the way I think about it is I don't want my clients to be mad at me, but I have a duty to them to serve them beyond that, and ultimately, I don't exist in their friendship circle.
Speaker 1:I'm an outside person, and I was actually discussing this with one of my supervisors who I helped them in their development and managing their cases that working with a couple and realizing like, okay, this is their really tenuous right now of whether how committed they are in the relationship, but he was presenting to me something to maybe challenge them with that came out of a true kindness. Yeah, wasn't going to come across as very nice, and the question was can they hear it? And my feedback to him was you know, maybe, but I think it's worth it right now because this really feels. You know, it's a risky place and so taking the risk makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And if you are a therapist I challenge you to think about this. And if you're in therapy because I know a lot of therapists that don't do this that are just overly nice yes, and if you want to really get growing therapy you need to ask yourself is my therapist ever kind to me in ways that make me feel uncomfortable?
Speaker 2:That's right, because a lot of times and I've got this from people is that they came from well. There's kind of two pockets. One is that there are people that go to therapy for the sense of someone just to be kind or nice to them and and that warm presence, and they can just say whatever they want, and they just they have this kind of sounding board that they go to. What I've seen in that, though, is that oftentimes that there's not growth. That happens in that person's life. Now there may be incremental things, but in very like a five year period, there's not been a lot of growth.
Speaker 2:Compare that with someone that has been kind to them in therapy and I've done this before, and more often than not, when I have kind but hard things to say, they take it as such a value, like a client would take it as such a value because in other therapy settings they haven't necessarily got that, and so some type of push an old mentor of mine would label it as you need to both entice them and disrupt them, and that was the kind of thing like. I do have to build a rapport with them. I need to be warm and show empathy and and and create a safe environment, and those are all the foundational work of a therapist in the front end. But at some point I need to start disrupting their patterns because that's the only thing that's going to help them grow. It's for their goodness, and that's not easy conversations, and so I've also seen it to where people really much value that in the therapy setting.
Speaker 1:So that's our hot take on that as therapist. Hot and take, hot take. I want to shift over to you, matt, to speak to you first, as you work in the pastoral space as well, yeah, in the Christian life and formation. How would you think about some key points in thinking through kindness over niceness?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean it's what we've already said to some level, but it's kindness is the fruit of the spirit and a definition of love, or a part of the definition of love. And so to be a brother or sister in Christ to those in your church community, you cannot do it without being kind in the kindness that we talk about here and again, reflecting back on old church mentality or kind of the cultural church mentality, especially in the Southeast. It's been a lot of niceties and I think people again, it's the politeness, it's manners, it's these things, but that's become such a large part of their morality or like a defining force of it, like a predominant factor that they hold on to over all others, that they don't have deep relationships, they don't find themselves growing, and so these things hinder the process of becoming more like Christ. Because Christ was kind. I mean he was the one the kindest of us all you know, which would say the thing that was for the good of another person, even if it was hard.
Speaker 2:What's interesting, I find, about Christ is that we always see him as kind of like forceful against the Pharisees, and he was, I mean he would say things that were harsh to them. But I have to believe, and I think about this is that there's a place to which I wonder if that disruption that he would do with them was for the intent for them to see the truth and to follow him. I mean, it wasn't just to blow him up or to cut them off totally. I mean, sometimes you may have to cut them off, but like that type of kindness, like that, I think, was still kindness, is maybe the way I want to put it.
Speaker 1:If you look at his most intimate relationships with his family and with his disciples and his immediate followers, most people were rebuked at different points in ways that are recorded. Even Jesus is his mother at the wedding of Cana. Yeah, she requests that he do something.
Speaker 2:All right, jesus, because woman this isn't my time, well, and he says woman. It's like if I said that to my mom yeah, oh, yeah, it is well, I think about that too. Of Peter. So you know, peter's the one that keeps failing, but the most, I think, one of the most intimate brothers to Christ, in the sense of the way they were bonded. But I think about that. I think it's in John, where he says Peter, satan is asked to sift you, like we, and basically I'm going to let him and when you return, so basically after you fail, strengthen your brothers. I mean, those are harsh things. It's like I'm not going to stop this from happening because you need to walk through it. And so, again, that was kind.
Speaker 1:Yeah To. To wrap up on thoughts of kind of church and church community, I want to do a callback to one of our previous episodes on spiritual bypass and the, which is you put you know I recommend going back and checking out if you didn't listen to that. But the the basic meaning of that idea or that concept is it's a way of using spiritual language to avoid dealing with the realness of something, and I think some of the superficial politeness or niceness that can really permeate a lot of churches looks like that it becomes. This means in which that people skirt around authentic life together, and part of how I understand church is it is a community of people that are desiring to live under the headship of Jesus and to commit to living life together, and that is.
Speaker 1:If you do that well, it is messy because you've got a whole bunch of people from the leadership all the way down that are imperfect. Some people their the effects of sin on their life are much greater than others. And when I say sin in that, that's not just in the sense of sins of the flesh or the spirit, the culpable sins, but it's also sin in the world. We are all touched by sin, by our own actions and by the actions of others, and if you live with people, everyone is touched by that. Everyone is touched by things in themselves that they haven't worked through yet. Everyone is touched by things that have happened to them that they may not have worked through yet and come on the other side of yet perfectly, and some are not. Everyone is as wounded as everyone else, but everyone's wounded, and you've got a bunch of people doing life together and oftentimes our wounds will affect the others around us. And I think the mistake that people have in looking at church is they have this idea that if a church is healthy it is without conflict. But a truly healthy church is one that is always nice and that there's always agreement and ultimately the architecture throughout talks about that.
Speaker 1:To live with your brothers and sisters is to struggle with them, so much. You know, when a lot in the Old Testament, when a writer would be talking about their sense of persecution in the Psalms, a lot of the prophets, it wasn't necessarily the persecution or the trials given to them by a non-Israelite. It was within the people of Israel that they were experiencing it. You know, david was being hunted by the anointed king of Israel. This wasn't Mubalibus or Edomot, it's Philistines necessarily. In fact he had refuge at different points with the Philistines in his conflict with Saul. That's right and it is. We will struggle most with the brethren in that sense and it's something to be grieved, and I think that's when we're in it. I don't think we should necessarily approach it with this kind of flip it like, well, that goes into spiritual bypass, to say, well, god got us and we'll be glory and no, it can really really just be horrible.
Speaker 1:Just all sorts of garbage. But to be willing to struggle in that and to choose to love one another in ways that aren't necessarily nice for me, to seek the kindness of those around me, which means I have to think through and commit to what is truly for their benefit and their good, and sometimes it may be hard words. Yeah, that's really good. And that is where I think we thrive the most as a body. That's right.
Speaker 2:Well, any relationship thrives when it can do that, because we see that within the church and we see that within relationships of marital relationships or friendships. But anytime conflict is approached in a way of opportunity, of depth of connection, it does deepen the connection. When we avoid it, we keep shallow relationships, and so relationships being such a big piece of this that when we approach it with kindness, the true form of what we're talking about, kindness, I think it will deepen relationships.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, this is good, david, Thank you for bringing this topic to the table. We hope that you've enjoyed it and, again, as we've referenced these other episodes, please go back and listen to those and give us your thoughts on it too. So we look forward to talking with you again, and until then we'll say so long. Thank you again for being a part of our latest episode of Church Psychology. If you have enjoyed it, we hope that you will share this episode with others in your life, and please do remember to follow, like and or subscribe to Church Psychology wherever you're finding us, and leave us a review. We look forward to connecting with you again soon.