HRE4O – Church and CultureUnit 2

HRE4O

Units of Study

Unit 1:The Christian Person –Identity

Unit 2:Relationships

Unit 3:Social Justice

Unit 2:Relationships

Love

Building Relationships - Communication

The Meaning of Sexuality and the Christian Tradition

Teen Sex

Risks of Teenage Sex

Gift of Chastity

Dating Violence and Abuse

Loss and Grieving

Love

Assignment #1

What is “love”? Write a personal definition.

Assignment #2

Why is it so difficult to define love?

There are different types of relationships, therefore different kinds of love (friendships, spousal, family, dating, acquaintance, platonic, social, spiritual, business, love-hate, goal-oriented, etc). Some relationships are nourishing while others are a need relationship. Nevertheless we all crave for love. (GK – Greek) (LN – Latin)

Definitions:

Narcissism (self-love)(GK) love or admiration of oneself, to the exclusion of others.

Philia (friendship)(GK) a friendship relationship based on trust, mutuality and freedom.

Eros (erotic)(GK) desire of two people for union of soul and body including sexual expression. For Christians, sexual union implies total commitment of marriage.

Romance:(LN) “sweetness”, eternal passion, “idealized love”, idealized exaggeration of another (movies and novels stuff)

Infatuation:(LN) “Love at first sight” an almost immediate, overwhelming attraction to another, possibly leading to obsession, possibly one-sided.

Familial:(GK) to cherish one’s family, especially the love between parents and children.

Agapé:(GK) unconditional love, hospitality, welcoming, “to wish well” (true friendship, marital love and the nature of God’s love). Love that is committed and willing to endure and suffer for the other.

Assignment #3

What is Christian Love? Write a personal definition.

Consider the following scripture passages:

“God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish, but may have eternal life.”

(John 3: 16)

Jesus said, “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

(John 15: 12-13)

Assignment #4

Read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 13: 4-8 and v. 13) – on the following page.

Once you have finished reading, underline the key words (adjectives) and define/translate them so that you have a clearer understanding of Christian love.

Summarize your understanding of Christian love based on the passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

Love is….

Love is always patient and kind;

It is never jealous;

Love is never boastful or conceited;

It is never rude or selfish;

It does not take offense,

And is not resentful.

Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins

But delights in the truth;

It is always ready to excuse,

To trust, to hope,

And to endure whatever comes.

Love does not come to an end.

In short, there are three things that last:

Faith, hope and love;

And the greatest of these is love.

Paul

(1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 and v. 13)

Types of Intimacy:

Physical Intimacy. It's where we start when we think intimate. But it's both bigger and smaller than sex. It's about how we bring ourselves into the marriage. It's about personal health and fitness, sharing space, and sharing a bed (in sleep as well as sex). It's about our rhythms and our needs for personal time. It's about food and sex and reaching out to comfort, console, appreciate and wildly please our partners. What are your needs around your physical intimacy? What are your partners? How far are you willing to go to make sure your partner feels recognized, safe, appreciated and desired? How far are you willing to let your partner come toward you?

Mental Intimacy. How are you and your partner's thought processes the same and how are they different? How do you discuss things that interest you? How much of your mental life do you share with your partner? Why? What do you do to help your partner share more? What do you do to make him or her shut down? And what about your partner? Shared interests and appreciation for one another's viewpoints is something that will enhance a marriage forever.

Emotional Intimacy. Find balance here. While true with all of these, we are so likely to make our partners the only emotional support we have. This is deadly to a relationship, particularly if something happens. It's also deadly to get all of our emotional support outside our relationship. So we need good friends. We need to be one another's very good friend. (but not only friend!) We need to find activities that we enjoy sharing with our beloveds. This makes marriage fun.

Spiritual Intimacy: what do you believe? Where do you find meaning? What's at the center of your belief system and your spiritual practice? Most people have belief systems and some sort of spiritual observance. It's important to know what yours is and what your partner's is. Don't marry someone expecting them to change. Don't change and expect your partner to come along. Check compatibility early. A lot of people are attracted to people with strong belief systems and then find themselves surprised that those belief systems are important to their partners. Pay attention. And know what you believe.

Moral Intimacy. So few of us talk about this any more. With larger and larger numbers of people being un-churched, our codes of ethics are far more personal. Decisions about right and wrong are made situational and we don't sit down and draw conclusions about what we believe and value based on that train of decisions. Shared life requires knowing what one another values and where your values intersect and where they diverge. Decisions about housing, children, finance, career will be based on your values. If you have worked on this together, you will be working from a shared value system and that will make your marriage far less contentious.

Financial Intimacy. This one's hard. We all come together with so much baggage. Each of has learned things at home (often unstated) and then on our own. We've developed habits both bad and good. We need to be clear with ourselves and one another what our financial histories are. We need to clarify what the financial goals of each individual and the couple are. We need to find a way to make these things work. Who's going to be in charge of the money, how will responsibility be apportioned out?

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Assignment #5

After reading the types of intimacy, which ones do you feel are absolutely essential for a couple thinking of marriage? Why?

Assignment #6

Using the chart on the following page, you are to list at least 10 people – write their name (or initials), how long you have known this person and the relationship to you.

Use the following guideline to score your closeness:

One (1) indicates you are very close, while 10 indicates you are not at all close to this person

Below is a sample “Circle of Relationships”. Feel free to add more circles if you want.

People you can place in your circles are:

Parent(s), siblings, friends, teachers, relatives, co-workers/players, acquaintances, others

Friendship – Consumer or Nurturing

What is the difference between a consumer relationship and a nurturing relationship?

To consume:to acquire and to use things for one’s own enjoyment or gratification

To nurture:to support, to provide for and to enjoy the healthy growth and happiness of another person.

What are the characteristics of a consumer relationship?

Consumer relationships:a relationship based on personal gratification with little consideration for the feelings of the other.

  • Built on individualism, rewards (even at another’s expense), money, greed, competition, gaining control of people and situations, profits (monetary worth of people) etc.
  • Individualistic, controlling, competitive, jealous
  • Success, esteem and security are built by the above
  • The person is seen as a something that can be manipulated
  • It has no limits of what we can and should enjoy
  • Only in it for one’s self
  • It destroys our self-control as we “have to “fulfill our “wants”
  • Never really satisfied; never really happy

Is this the type of life you want? What type of society would be built if this is all that existed?

Assignment #7

Provide two examples of consumer relationship that you know – if you do not know any, list two types of relationships that you would describe as consumer relationships.

What are the characteristics pf a nurturing relationship?

  • Brings satisfaction, mutual growth and pleasure to both persons
  • Helps us to build up a shared history of “good” experiences (joy, gratitude, admiration, mutual support, care, understanding of problems faced by one another, etc.)
  • Allows one to make a commitment to the other

Assignment #8

Fill in the chart on the following page, providing an example of a nurturing relationship that would be the opposite of the consumer relations that is given. The first one is done for you.

Fill in the following chart selecting words from the word list below to complete the chart. No group of words is to be used more than once

Word List

Trusting / Giving, sharing / Hopeful
Willing to risk, able to change / Joyful, spontaneous, honest / Kind, caring, warm to others
Patient (attitude) / Enduring, lasting / Centered on growth and giving

Chart

Consumer Relationship / Nurturing Relationship
Selfish / Giving, sharing
Demanding
Indifferent to others
Untrusting
Plotting, manipulative
Fearful, holding back (unsure)
Centered on rewards
Controlled, limited involvement (hurt/used)
Short-term

Building Relationships – Communications

What is communication?

Communication is the exchange of ideas, feelings or meaning between two or more persons.

Three aspects of communication:

  • Body language
  • Listening
  • Verbal language

Communication is said to be 55% facial, 38% vocal and 7% verbal. Given our desire to be loved and our need to express ourselves, communication is crucial for relationships. It is an important aspect of being an involved and active Christian.

St. Thomas Aquinas notes that communication is essential for all social relations, which unites us to one common end – the universal love of God. In other words, love of God is the very basis of all communication.

Avenues and Roadblocks to Communication

To nurture a relationship through communication requires that we have an open mind. The attitude and preconceived ideas that we bring into our interaction with others determines whether they become avenues or roadblocks to verbal communication.

Avenues / Roadblocks
Trust we act on the assumption that the other person will not hurt us or disappoint us:
We do not demand evidence that the other person is trustworthy and will not let us down / Self-protection we insist on seeing evidence that communication will involve no risk before we attempt to relate to another person.
We are afraid of how we will be seen
Often leads to self-fulfilling prophecy: people stop trying to communicate with us.
Hope we enter into a conversation with someone because we hope it will have a desirable outcome
We don’t however know what the outcome will be / Win-Lose Attitude being right becomes more important than understanding or relating.
Communication is seen as competitive
We use conversation to establish that we are superior
Acceptance we need to accept people as they are, in all their uniqueness and specialness / Stereotyping and Judging any statement which puts someone into a role or category denies their dignity as a person
Stereotyping disregards the person’s individuality and judges him/her on the basis of preconceived ideas.
“I” Message  state observation, feelings, thoughts and wishes.
They express the speaker’s concern but they leave the other person free to respond.
Example: When you stop me while I’m speaking, I don’t feel listened to.
“I” message imply a willingness to take responsibility for one’s own responses. / “You” Message  tend to imply negative judgments of the other person.
They seem to want to annoy and/or anger the other.
Example: You should list more carefully
“You” messages force people to defend themselves.

Personal Communication Skills - I-Messages

When you feel angry and upset with a person, it’s easy to blame that person for what has happened and to lose your temper and yell at him/her. You may accuse the person of betraying your trust by saying something like: “You’re a loser. You told everyone about my problems. You can’t be trusted……” These “you messages” tend to escalate conflict and decrease communication because the other people feel under attack and need to defend themselves by arguing. This limits their ability to empathize with you.

A better way to communicate is by sending “I-messages.” I-messages let you tell people how their behaviour affects you and how you would like them to change without blaming or accusing them. This creates a positive atmosphere for communication and problem solving.

An I-message has the following parts:

  • I feel (state the emotion)
  • When (state the specific behaviour)
  • Because (state the effect the behaviour has on your life)
  • I want (state what you want to happen)

Here are the steps to follow when giving someone an I-message:

  • Say the person's name.
  • Tell them how you feel.
  • Tell them why you feel the way you do.
  • Say what you want to happen.

When giving an I-message, fill in the blanks as appropriate:

______, I feel ______when ______because ______. Please, I want ______.

Examples:

  1. Bill, I feel angry when I'm teased about my weight because it hurts my feelings. Please I want you to stop teasing me.
  1. Sue, I feel sad when rumors are spread about me because they are not true. Please I want you to stop spreading rumors about me.
  1. “Janet, I feel angry when you come into my room without knocking because I don’t have any privacy. I want you to knock first.”

Assignment #1

Instructions:Create “I-messages” for the following situations:

  1. You arrive home from school and find your sister wearing your new sweater.

______, I feel ______when ______because ______. Please, I want ______.

  1. You make an appointment to get extra math help after school. Just as your teacher starts to give you instructions, another student bursts into the room and interrupts.
  1. Your boyfriend/girlfriend gets mad at you when you talk to other people.
  1. You are given more chores to do at home than your brother.
  1. An acquaintance is spreading gossip about you that is not true.
  1. Create your own communication situation:

______, I feel ______when ______because ______. Please, I want ______.

Assignment #2

Avenues and Roadblocks

Read the following four (4) scenarios. For each of them:

a)Identify it as showing either a Roadblock or an Avenue to communication.

b)Identify WHICH avenue or roadblock is being illustrated

c)Justify your answer in one or two sentences.

  1. Brian was feeling very strange. How could the Jamesons move away? What’s worse, how could they sell their house to one of those families? He’d never met someone from their culture before, but he’d heard all about them: they smelled like garlic, they were mostly into construction. Not like most people in the neighbourhood, and they looked like they were greasy. How gross! As he stood there, a young man in jeans, a T-shirt and a gold chain around his neck walked out of the house, looked at him and smiled. “Hi”, he said. Brian just turned around and walked away.
  1. Rob was furious. How could Anna disagree with him? He had said at the start of the relationship that if she ever disagreed, she should tell him, but he had never really expected that she would. If she had a difference of opinion with him now, what would happen if they ever got married? “My mom always does what Dad tells her to do”, he thought to himself. “That’s the way it’s suppose to be. That’s it. It’s my way or no way.”
  1. Kevin stared in disbelief. “How could the boss hire one of them? Is he nuts?” The new man sat down at this desk and began to unload his belongings into the drawers. Suddenly, something struck Kevin deep down inside. He remembered his grandfather telling him what it had been like fifty years earlier when he had been the first Englishman in the accounting firm – the looks … the comments behind his back. Ted got up and walked over to the new man. He extended his hand and said: “Hi, I’. Kevin.”
  1. Maria had had a number of lousy relationships in the past five years. She just kept getting involved with people who would eventually hurt her. How could they all do this to me? She sat in her apartment alone, sipping on a bottle of Jack Daniels. “That’s it”, she thought. “Forget relationships, forget friends, and forget everybody. I’m never going to let anyone hurt me again!” She put on her coat, slammed the door behind her and she left and headed for the library. In the hallway she saw a guy from the office. “How are you doing?” he asked. “You look kinf of down. You want to go for a coffee and talk about it?” “Leave me alone,” she shouted. “Why the hell should you care? There’s no point in trusting anyone.”

Body Language and Listening