David:     We know that COVID has not gone away, Karen, but as we record this podcast, I believe it’s fair to say that people are starting to get together socially again, at least much more than say six months ago.

Karen:     That’s correct. A lot of people have been vaccinated, so they’re feeling safer and connecting more with other people who’ve been vaccinated perhaps, but yeah, more socialization now than we’ve had for quite a while.

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     That more socialization is a good thing. We just were invited out by close friends.

Karen:     Oh, yes.

David:     For the first time in literally a year.

Karen:     We went to their house and caught up in our lives together, shared friendship, and it was such a relief to connect like that. I don’t think we understand how much we need those significant connections, not just the sort of casual, hi and goodbye things, but where you are really sharing your life with one another.

David:     Yeah, and you have a chance to go in depth.

Karen:     Yes, go in depth.

David:     No interruption.

Karen:     Oh, it’s two or three hours we spent with them, and it was wonderful.

David:     We really miss these kinds of occasions.

Karen:     Yeah, we did. It’s so good to be with them. We love these people.

David:     Yeah, when we say, well, let’s put into a sentence. We very seldom do this right at the very beginning, but I’m going to do that, and then that kind of sets where we’re headed.

As more and more Americans are vaccinated and the fear of COVID lessens so that friends and family are getting together again, now is an appropriate time to correct any dysfunctional behavior patterns.

Karen:     Wow.

David:     Do think some people could follow that?

Karen:     That’s a heavy one. But really appropriate. It’s apropos to this time as we gather in our ear to get back together and see one another. We can stop a little bit and evaluate. Okay, what are some of the dysfunctional patterns that have existed in these social relationships, and what can we do to change those things?

David:     I think this all came together in our minds when we were talking with one of our granddaughters, well, the wife of one of our grandsons.

Karen:     Well, she’s a granddaughter.

David:     She’s a granddaughter as far as it works.

Karen:     Absolutely adorable.

David:     She’s in her 20s.

Karen:     Yeah, early 20s.

David:     Yeah, she said, “I said to the people of my family.”

Karen:     She’s a large family, her own.

David:     Yeah, she said, “When we get together, I’m wanting to change something in the way I interact with you, and I need your help. I am determined that I’m not going to talk about someone who’s not there in any negative way. I think that’s been a mistake in the past, and I’m sorry about that. And I want to change, but I’m afraid that I’m going to need help to change because it’s an established pattern. And I thought that was absolutely incredible. As a shared matter of fact, this is where I am.

Karen:     I just thought, how do you do that at 22? I mean, what an extraordinary insight into dysfunctional pattern where you talk about your sister, you talk about your brother, your parents, and sometimes you sort of emphasize the negative things that are bothering you or you want to complain and lament, and you use those moments to do that. And I just think it’s great that she’s saying, “I’m not going to do this dysfunctional thing anymore. Help me out here, huh?”

David:     And as soon as she did that, I began to think about myself.

Karen:     Whoops!

David:     Dysfunctional family. That was a very hot topic for a long time within the church, but my memory isn’t as good as it used to be, and I had to go back and figure out what some of those dysfunctional patterns were.

Karen:     Well, Jim Dobson had headed into the traits of a healthy family, which was developed by Dolores Kearns, and we’d often heard only what was wrong with families. But this took a focus into positive emphasis. What are the traits of healthy families? And those are the things that we need to aspire to. So, it was a great movement.

David:     Yeah, I agree. Let me go back just by way of review for ourselves and for people who are listening to us. Love that has to be earned, that’s a dysfunctional trait. In other words, yeah, he scored the touchdown. You know, that was my son. As opposed to, “Okay, kid, you missed the check, you got to work harder.” It leads into another phrase that kind of caught me because I knew what that was about, and that’s the doghouse kids.

Karen:     It’s sort of a hierarchical system in these kinds of social units, and we’re thinking of families somewhat, but it can happen in other social situations. Go ahead and explain it, because I have a feeling you were in the doghouse quite a few times.

David:     I was raised in a great family. That prefix has to be there, always. I have to be careful because these are traits that have been passed down through the generations, and this can involve me, where you tend to pay less attention to this grandchild, and they’re kind of put in the doghouse because they are different. And anybody with any number of offspring, you can go over in your mind, and some people are just very easy to love. It’s a beautiful child, and always just charming and intelligent, and then there’s a child that doesn’t quite fit.

Karen:     Quite fit the family mold.

David:     Yeah, what you’re used to. Maybe very independent, and goes his or her own way, and you have to be very careful not to say, “We got to put that one in the doghouse.” It can be done subtly. I know that I have one grandchild that I think of often. I’m going to go out of my way to show that grandchild love, because it’s not going to be easy.

Karen:     Yeah, and sometimes this doghouse position, that assignment comes just by saying, “Well, we never know what to do with Charlie,” or “Oh, Charlie,” and the great big sigh. And then people kind of give up trying to understand where that personality is coming from, or how they think. And when you do take the time to do that, you discover these extraordinary capabilities that you haven’t seen because they are different than the rest of the family. So, we want to be careful not to assign people that kind of roles that are negative or less than others.

David:     Yeah, if there is someone when the family gets together and nobody pays attention to them, I don’t want that to continue. This is a new opportunity for restart.

Karen:     A restart, yeah. As we gather again, during this COVID, interlude the best we can tell right now.

David:     Yeah, blaming and shaming.

Karen:     Oh, that’s a big one.

David:     That was a big one, okay, yeah. “Can’t stand another day with your mother living with a she-sours everything. Nothing has gone right since your mother came and moved into the house,” That is that kind of thing? “She is the huge problem that just wrecks everything else.” It sounds funny, but people actually get into those kinds of modes.

Karen:     Right, instead of solving the problem, saying “What can we do to make a difference and change things.” And the other side of that coin is that the shame, yeah.

David:     Yeah, everything would be all right if you just did what you were told.

Karen:     Yeah,

David:     You just screw up everything.

Karen:     Yeah, yeah. Now, let’s talk about the difference between blaming and shaming.

David:     I think it’s a big difference, which is worse.

Karen:     Oh, I think they’re both bad, but shaming actually goes to the core identity of a person, “You’re no good.”

David:     Okay, so blaming says “It’s your fault.”

Karen:     It’s your fault.

David:     Yeah, yeah.

Karen:     This happened because if you had done such and such, and you didn’t do such and such, and this wouldn’t have occurred.

David:     Yeah, not shaming.

Karen:     It’s “You always do everything wrong. Everywhere you go, you ruin it.” It goes to the core of that person’s identity, and neither one of these are appropriate at any time. And I think when a child or a friend has done something wrong, then we need to say, “How did this happen? How can we keep it from happening again? And if it’s a pattern, let us come close to you and we’re going to figure this out together.” So those approaches are much, much better than-

David:     Those are the healthy family approaches.

Karen:     Those are the healthy approaches, not just family, but social situation or friendship.

David:     They wrote a book on the dysfunctional church family because these patterns go, if they’re in the homes, they’ll go right into the church family.

Karen:     Yeah, they get translated into the church relationships. They really do.

David:     Let’s cover one more. There are probably eight to 10 really big ones like this. This is unhealthy comparisons and competition. “Your older brother made Honorable every time.” That kind of thing.

Karen:     That’s pretty subtle.

David:     It’s not subtle at all.

Karen:     It’s upfront, but it’s subtle as far as what it does to the person who used that kind of thing.

David:     “When your cousin was your age, my dear, she was not only married, but she also had two kids.”

Karen:     How much this goes on? I’m laughing because it’s just so much a part of our social language.

David:     Yeah, unhealthy comparisons and competition. So, what we’re saying is these things are more common than we’re aware of sometimes. And there’s a new start.

Karen:     Yeah, we have an opportunity to say, okay, we’re going to begin gathering as best we can tell, certainly among those who have been vaccinated and with masking, according to CDC, with those who have not been vaccinated yet. And this is an opportunity to identify what those unhealthy patterns are in our social situations and to look at them and say, “Okay, how can I contribute to change? How can I be like the beans’ granddaughter who said, ‘I’m not going to talk about family members if they’re not here?’”

David:     And of course, we’re talking about the changes that need to be made in the lives of the people listening to us because we don’t have to worry about this. We’re very good at everything.

Karen:     Yeah. Why do you think we’re doing this podcast? This topic?

David:     There you go. Expose me. The reason we do these is because we’re working with, actually the truth of the matter is we are working on these. I’ve said in my life, now that we’ve had some of the grandkids come back and say, “Hey, we get to visit with Papa and Nina.” I’ve seen, I have to be a different person. And one of the ways where I’m working on this, which I can name several, but this is one that is not quite as hard for me to talk about it. I enjoy being with the grandchildren, very much the adult grandchildren.

Karen:     All of them, all ages.

David:     There are nine of them.

Karen:     They’re stair steps from eight, I think it is up to 20, mid 20s.

David:     Late 20s.

Karen:     Late 20s, okay.

David:     I enjoy the repartee.

Karen:     You love to get funny and laugh. I love to see you laughing too and everyone’s laughing with you.

David:     Yeah, but I’ve said to myself, “I don’t have that many more times in my life.” You know, I just turned 85. And I need to make sure that I have serious conversation.

Karen:     Well, you have other gifts to give them. You have a theological understanding and I think you had theological conversations with our grandson who is very interested in that kind of conversation.

So, what are the gifts that I can give them that perhaps other people can’t give them because of my years of study of Scripture and my walk with the Lord?

David:     The interesting thing, Karen, is I said to myself, “I have to be careful not to let others pull this into a just enjoyable, delightful time and then I think, well, I think I’m the one who does that as much as anybody.” So, I have to set a tone of more seriousness. Otherwise, I’m going to go out laughing.

Karen:     Yeah, but not having done the best that you could have done with in those social situations.

David:     So, this is a reevaluation time for me.

Karen:     And so, we’re asking our listeners to really use this time to do their own reevaluations. You’re going to see so-and-so or you’re, “Oh, how wonderful this group is going to gather.” So, what are some of the dysfunctional habits that have grown up in that group or certain people in the group and how can you help to avoid it yourself? And then how can you help to alter it into some more positive sorts of conversations and exchanges and activities that this moment before the whole society opens up again, if it does, we get captured and taken up with everything that goes on in our lives. A time for evaluation that we can change things for the positive before we’re just 80%, 100% engaged.

David:     I’m going to go through that long sentence again. We usually call it a key biblical truth. It doesn’t sound very biblical. It just sounds like, oh, I don’t know. The maids, as it come up with this, but I think it is biblical. And I’m going to ask the question when I get to the end of that. Can we think of anything, how these jives with what Jesus taught? Okay.

As more and more Americans are vaccinated and the fear of COVID lessens so that friends and family are getting together again, now is an appropriate time to correct any dysfunctional behavioral patterns. Okay.

Karen:     So, you’re looking for some scriptural basis for this?

David:     I’m just trying to say there. Are we walking step in step with Jesus or not?

Karen:     You happen to be asking the woman who wrote the book, Medicine for Mouth Disease.

David:     Who does that happen to be?

Karen:     Happens to be your wife. I had gone through the scriptures, all of them, and taken out every single scripture that related to the tongue. And David, it is just loaded with scripture. The apostle James writes, “and the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth, come blessing and cursing. My brethren, this ought not to be.”

David:     But you’re dealing with the tongue.

Karen:     With the tongue. “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man out of the goodness of his heart is bringing forth good, but the evil man out of the evil of his heart, bringing forth evil.” And that’s right out of scripture. If you want to do a study on the tongue, just go through proverbs, which I did do, to prepare myself to get over tongue trouble or tongue mouth disease.

And write out, actually write out, have a journal where you write out every single verse that relates to the tongue.

This is one from Proverbs. “A gentle tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.”

So, the way we approach people does have a lot to do with our tongues. Our tongues are indicators of our attitudes and where our heart is and our relationship before the Lord and to the Lord. So, it’s a real thermometer that tells what our condition is, as far as our tongue temperature.

David:     I just have one verse. I’m a little bit intimidated.

Karen:     Sorry about that.

David:     Well, I was thinking of Jesus saying, “How is it that you can see the spec in your brother’s eye?” And it could be a literal brother, you know, and you can’t understand that you got a beam in your ear. So, it’s very easy to, well, that relates to tongue again, doesn’t it? It does talk evil or trash talk.

Karen:     Yeah, trash talk. We’re talking about how to determine now to change dysfunctional patterns that exist in whatever social situations we’re going to be going back into. A lot of that does relate with the symptoms of not doing it well often show up in the way we use our tongue, of not approaching it in a holy way, in a righteous way and with love. So, the tongue is kind of, let’s see how we are talking with one another, what we’re joking if we’re putting one another down with our use of humor.

David:     I think that’s a big thing. I’ll come back to it. Go ahead.

Karen:     But anyway, this is one of the evaluative processes that we are asking our listeners to undergo themselves, not just to listen to the podcast and say, “Oh, that was interesting or, wow, the means is really, must have a lot of trouble. I thought they were better than that.” And then not think anything about it. What we want our listener to do is to say, “Am I contributing to the dysfunction that exists that truly does bother me? It annoys me. I complain about it to other folk. There is a dysfunction. How can it be changed? And what is my role then in helping to change that dysfunction?” So that’s how the tongue relates to our topic.

David:     The whole attitude. We want to get together again. How do I bring the love of Jesus into our family setting, not in a self-righteous way at all? Let me go back to that sentence one more time. I think we’ve talked around it and through it and about it.

As more and more Americans are vaccinated and the fear of COVID lessens so that friends and family are getting together again, now is an appropriate time to correct any dysfunctional behavioral patterns. That makes sense.

Karen:     It does. I have an example of this. We have someone who’s close to us who came from a family where the father was like one of those types. You bomb, you, you know, very wealthy man and very successful in his world.

David:     Not a believer.

Karen:     Not a believer. We’ve noticed that this person is really humorous and very, very funny and fun to be around, but often doesn’t get down into those meaningful conversations where he shares about himself or his struggles or the things that he’s learning. And it’s just easy when you’re with that personality to enter into the joviality and the laughter.

So, one of the things you did was you made a point in your mind to treat that person not the way his father had treated him, which was you bum, you know, you know good, you’ll never make it in the world. It was always critical.

David:     Yeah, and your brother does better than you do.

Karen:     Yeah, and this person learned to deflect all of that stuff then with humor. So, you want to tell what your thought process is?

David:     I feel it in my prayer time. The Holy Spirit said, “You need to be the father in a loving, gracious way.”

Karen:     Surrogate or substitute.

David:     And I’ve tried to play that role and there’s been a really good response to that. You know, all those unhealthy patterns where there. The shaming, the blaming, that kind of thing, I don’t want to perpetuate that in any way, even unconsciously. These are areas where we have to think it through. And we say we don’t want to continue what has been negative and hurtful. We want to be healthy in terms of our Christian life.

Karen:     And regarding that person that we’ve just brought up, instead of allowing him to revert always to humor and joviality and that sort of banter, which is fun. I mean, he’s very clever, is to find ways then to say, “Well, now tell me how you’re doing. How are you handling this situation? I’m interested in knowing what your plans are for your life.”

So, we take it out of the what has become habitual because of a dysfunction into much a more rich and deep and pleasant kind of journey together.

David:     I’m aware that as we say these words, they can be a huge challenge, almost overwhelming sometimes. It’s amazing how one person can make a very major difference in terms of a difficult setting. One person saying, “I think I can change that.” I’m not seeing myself as self-righteous or I’m not seeing myself as the great guru. I just think that if I adjust a little bit here, I can bring healing and love and the presence of Christ into our situation. I believe I’ve been able to do that and not always, but consistently.

Karen:     So, one of the things we would suggest to people who are listening to us is just sit down in quiet, find a quiet time. Be self-reflective and say, “What are the dysfunctional situations I may entering into in the world I have known in the past and that is restoring again in the days ahead? And how do I participate in that dysfunction?

You know, I get pulled into it or maybe it’s my problem that I bring to the group, and it diverts to where I’m coming from and then how can I change it? And another question is, “Lord, help me to understand what positive way of behaving or doing or speaking can I substitute for what was usually in the norm?” And this podcast has given a lot of ideas such as our granddaughter who in her family refuses to talk about other people in the family who are not present, which I just thought was so mature, but there are all kinds of ideas. However, the Holy Spirit is able to take this podcast way beyond anything we’ve even thought of as they personally individualizes that growth in our listeners’ lives.

Outro:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go Podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address, hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all-lower-case letters, hosts@beforewego.show.

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