dr. James house<br>all right well good afternoon everybody wherever you are in the world at this time and welcome to reclaiming authenticity finding one's courage to reclaim that which has always always been in you I am dr. James hauke and if you like more information about me or to leave me your comments about Today Show just invite you to visit the website it's www.bbnradio.org so we climbing authenticity that's www.cbs.com reclaiming authenticity I just wanted to just make you aware of it that these broadcasts are Now podcast in case you want to go back to listen and again or you got to go back into the archives and listen to previous shows and just invite you to do that you just go back in through the website then did you notice find the link for that and I just wanted to thank you all again for your support over the<br>last year and like to say that I have an opportunity to continue your support by becoming a monthly subscriber now just a little caveat hear a monthly subscription is not required to listen to my talk shows and you know it doesn't like unlock of Vault or anyting but the subscription is greatly appreciated so that you can just go to the website and click on that link and choose any amount you feel comfortable giving them again thank you for that but it to be with you here today every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time noon Pacific Standard time because each and every week these broadcasts are of spirituality and our mental health if you want to call it in to be part of the live show that number is 888-627-6008<br>that's 888-627-6008 and first-time listeners and just wanted to share a little bit of background in case you're wondering what reclaiming authenticity is all about in this kind of a nutshell here doesn't matter you know who we are or where we were born or into what family we were placed your ours is a world that is just full of relationships and indeed we are social beings who often spend their lives trying to make sense of our world by trying to find our place in the world OK Google being within the context of these relationships experienced tremendous pain and suffering from overt acts of betrayal<br>cruelty that somebody has inflicted or vice versa place at the wrong time many many people bear the scars of the physical psychological emotional and spiritual woundedness one of life's greatest irony is that just as we experience our woundedness in the context of relationships it's also within the context of healthier relationships that we can find our greatest source of our voice our authenticity<br>the difficulties and is often find the courage to discover that which has always been in you heads reclaiming authenticity and when we earn ourselves we often discover those things have always been within us no such as our gifts or our Graces our skills are unique that we come into the world with and I am a firm believer that we come into this world with everything that we need for ourselves and others from day one but I will take a breath into this world we come into the world with the very very best of who we are but it's often through various experiences and you know sometimes give away those parts if not the whole of that uniqueness or that this Menace you know what's special about us and what special<br>perhaps we do do we do this cuz we didn't feel as though we could live up to another person's expectations of us or perhaps maybe we did that uniqueness from others in order to survive various kinds of abuse or perhaps those aspects of ourselves have been to take it away from us and we didn't have the strength to fight back well either way when we become aware that we have done these things it does take tremendous courage to reclaim who we are but we certainly can reclaim our voice our uniqueness our authenticity and this is what reclaiming authenticity is all about and it focuses on the integration of spirituality and our mental health all within this backdrop of our relationships the relationship that we<br>Avatar self the relationship that we have with others and certainly the relationship that we have with God or the Divine the whole reason why I said to gracian in relationships is because as I said this is the backdrop of everything in our lives that always comes back to relationships and the relationship just might be within our own Families how many times have we fought amongst family members birthdays or other celebrations or you know us as we're coming now in to mid-september or middle of it and start getting close to the heart brings out the worst in people so these relationships just might be with co-workers or colleagues or even our friends<br>because whenever we transform and we improve in our lives when we find our healing we're also going to transform others by our presents are Grace and understanding because we're going to see things differently we're going to treat people differently but first and foremost that forgiveness and kindness and compassion has to begin with how we treat ourselves because whenever we are compassionate with ourselves we then could be more compassionate with others and whatever we are more forgiving with ourselves we then can be more forgiving with others and when we are able to live in gratitude with ourselves we didn't discover how this truly opened our hearts to see and live in gratitude with others well how is your heart today<br>I hope your heart as well I hope you are well and I hope that is for any particular reason if you are struggling today that you'll be able to find the rest the comfort and the piece that you need well this is a particular particularly I should say a special broadcast since suicide is September is suicide prevention month and I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about just the other different nuances that are tied up into how to we move forward after a loved one has taken their life it also I wanted to talk about the emotional the mental and the spiritual needs of families long to have met as they continue to struggle with coming to terms with a loved one who has died or or even one who currently has suicide<br>ideation so at the beginning of this broadcast I wanted to provide you to resources that you could use or even pass along to others who are in need the first one being the National Suicide Hotline this is available 24 hours 7 days a week and I mean it never closes so the number to the National Suicide Hotline is 800<br> 273 8255 that's eight hundred two seven three eight two five five and then there is also the American foundation for suicide Soup For Suicide Prevention I'm sorry to get tongue-tied hear the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention there we got this website you can find information to find different support groups throughout the United States wherever you are located weather restate that you're living in and then it gets very specific in two locations cording to city and so forth that website is a f as in Fox SP so the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention. Org okay sounds like I said either if you have the need for those resources great if you know somebody who can benefit from those Resources by all<br> please please please pass that information along to them<br> so just a quick word and I kind of hesitate on using that phrase a quick word cuz it's you know nothing's really quick when we were talking about matters such as you know the depth and the uncomfortableness of suicide but I just wanted to state that before we get into the matter of of suicide I feel like I need to say something about the stigma that is imposed on others by Society okay this is often a heavy unnecessary weight upon wait upon weight as in you know weight you know it's just<br> provide people unnecessarily okay, long way over the decades and decades in society there is still a tremendous amount of stigma shown to people who struggle with a mental illness you know from what's being depicted on TV's and movies to stories that are shared among family members stigma eye stigma eyes are still the marks that others bear in silence and came and I guess we can go back even further we can go back as far as you want because whether it was leprosy and it was say early Biblical times or tuberculosis in ancient Greece or the Bubonic plague in the Middle Ages or the acquired immune deficiency syndrome otherwise known as AIDS in the late Twentieth Century and now that we're in the twenty-first century we certainly have<br> fair share of diseases and illnesses and types of death that are uncomfortable to others but in spite of the historical patterns that are going on since he's half display just this pattern of purposefully disenfranchising people who have contracted such diseases or let's say who have also taken their own my lights by Suicide and initially it was always justify this discovery action down through history was justified as necessary to prevent the further spread of either communicable disease or again we're uncomfortable with this so we'd have to quickly get it out or get it away or something or have people move away but yet many people who ever said interpreted being shall we say quarantined as society's way of displaying contempt for the sick and the wounded<br> and as a result many people felt stigmatized by their their illnesses were they felt shondor alienated from fully participating in their community of person software as persons of value and work and this is certainly true when we start to take a look at the history of suicide and this expulsion shall we say enstrom Society was true not only for people who had a so-called identifiable unacceptable physical condition but it was also for those who had a condition that was not readily seen such as mental illness<br> now ironically it was actually the Greeks who originated the term stick them to refer to bodily signs you know designed to expose something unusual or negative about the moral status of the one who bears that sign and the signs which again were imposed by Society were either cut or burned into a person's body which then advertise his or her condition you know such whether or not that they were a slave or a criminal or a traitor or whatever okay but they were in a sense that it was in a place that couldn't be hidden and so as a result this act of branding so to speak signified to all that the recipient was a blemished person or they were less a ritually polluted and because they were blemish they needed to be avoided especially in public places and<br> such markings were such brandings not only spoiled a person's social identity but it also cut off that person from society and thus forcing him or her to live in isolation in a very unaccepting world and learn from this aspect that it appeared as though there was no way to remove this outward sign let alone recover from the emotional wounding from such harsh treatment and not always spoken clearly distinguishes between people at that the so-called clean versus unclean people or the acceptable people versus unacceptable or The Lovable people versus the unlovable people<br> and within disenfranchised grief people living with either suicide ideation or as well as family members struggling to make sense of a loved one who has taken their own lives Society stigma is more than likely going to be transferred to the surviving loved ones and this is something that I had seen clearly not only within my own studies but I just I seen it with my own eyes I be I just it's just I don't know why this happens it's almost like a guilt-by-association okay and despite its unpopularity it is crucial it's even more crucial today to give voice to people who feel that they have been disenfranchised through whatever you know that they are grieving or mental health or an illness or whatever it is<br> all the more reason to give voice to the people who feel disenfranchised and to embrace them as persons of value and worth and two for the show just again wanted to begin with just a simple definition of just what exactly is suicide and just how do we how do we capture you know just the context of of what we talkin about here so I see and I understand suicide as a result of a person's perception that life is so unbearable that self-inflicted death is the only escape from his or her physical and or emotional pain<br> China and other researchers they expand this you know definition of suicide to include conscious X from a person who situation is such that he or she no longer wishes to continue in it and as a result that you know this this type of death profoundly affects family members and Friends of persons who have found the solutions that their loved ones was you they had proceeded up and that was the only alternative left for them now the taking one's own life may result from just a variety of influences there's never one single solitary factor involved okay and then just to name a few here you know a person may be struggling with severe depression or severe schizophrenia or struggling to maintain their sobriety from say of subsidence<br> abuse or substance dependence or chronic or a terminal illness or a personality disorder anxiety disorder is like I said to name a few<br> now the surviving family members the surviving loved ones are not left with just a tremendous sense of shock and disbelief when they discover that their loved one had committed suicide but they also really struggle with in the intensified feelings of loss or blank or fear or shame or rejection or anger or guilt and many many other unanswered questions and anger is a normal response to any type of loss is suicide survivors have an intensified anger that's often directed at the deceased or could be directed at the mental health system or even at themselves for not recognizing the signs or for not being able to shall we say rescue or protect the deceased<br> now perhaps what's most Troublesome for many people about suicide is the moral issue that's involved you know that is the belief that human beings do not have the right to hasten their own debts and one researcher is Reece r e e s firms that life is sacred and suicide is a self-destructive act disrupting the natural order of living and dying something many people believe is reserved only for God and then furthermore you know when a suicide occurs survivors are often left with bearing this reproach again from society and factor to understand fully the intensity of the grief reaction or even the process of mourning a suicide a member who has committed suicide one really has to go all the way back to how Society has treated sewage<br> you know what was just a historical patterns there and where did this stigma originally come from so let's let's go back here and just look at some cultural attitudes towards the subject of suicide and just how surviving family members have been treated throughout time okay so just for example in the eighteenth-century Europe and 1700 the suicide victims body for lack of a better phrase was often dragged through the streets somebody's were decapitated or thrown to wild animals or even hung upside down and the body was denied a proper burial or would be placed in a sewer or brought to the side of the road with a stake driven through the heart and covered with stones<br> addition and surviving family members were forced to leave their homes without any Goods or property they just had to leave I had to get out of town because again this stigma was being transferred over to them<br> and even to go a little bit further that you know any kind of property or title or the goods of the deceased but I'll be there in 4:50 to the king and then I lost your you know something crazy that there would be no memory of the person's suicide and they're often some trials that were held posthumous Lee to determine whether the victim was insane and therefore well if they were insane than they were innocent of their death and in such findings that prove the deceased's innocent survivors would shoulder less blame and Punishment however with that verdict the survivors would still be burdened with shame and social stigma of their family member being quote on quote insane<br> Century the 800 suicide was believed to be the cause by or caused by genetic influences but by the time of the 20th century the nineteen-hundreds this genetic influence theory was pretty much dismissed okay but today in Western societies suicide is considered a very complex phenomenon which is associated with the psychological biological and social factors and the researcher Kemp argument he cautions Society not the view suicide as a single impulsive Act of Destruction in fact as impulsive as a suicide may seem the people may be the most vulnerable when their deepest values are touched by a events for which they have the fewest resources<br> but also carry the heaviest burdens and and let me say that again because this is an important piece to fully fully understand okay Sue aside is not a single impulsive Act of destruction of Destruction and as impulsive as suicide may seem people may be most vulnerable when their deepest values are touched by the events for which they have the fewest resources and the heaviest burdens of K and this is truly key to not only understanding why people attempt suicide or commit suicide but yet it also gives insight as to you know how do we how do we deal with how do we reach out how do we either minister to or how do we provide Comfort to families whose loved ones had committed suicide instead of allowing let's say<br> society that doesn't quite get it to just continue moving that stigma over to families and act as if well it came from the family the family is the blame or whatever okay and despite you know advances in understanding in this complexity of suicide that social stigma you know remains an ongoing burden for surviving family members and Twine bait I think he had written an article is going way back like I think it's 1969 1970 which stands true today and he states that there are always two parties involved in the pain and suffering that suicide in Flex 1 the surviving family members who always suffer more stigma from society and to the person who had committed suicide okay<br> so two parties are involved in the pain and suffering that when the suicide the person who has attempted suicide or completed the suicide and surviving love wants her surviving family members because of the stigma and as a result you know suicide the Family secret you know it's just like no we're not going to tell anybody cuz we do not feel safe sharing this so it often became the Family secret or maybe it was the neighbors gossip or some sort of source of public blame or or shunning and surviving family members you know just may attempt to conceal the suicide you know Jesus you know didn't just the great haste arranging funerals and seeking to keep the truth from children<br> okay hun and I had not experienced this personally I have seen where it's like during funerals and so forth that everybody in the congregation or in the memorial service stayed knew it was a suicide and I'm just still wanted to remember the loved one but no mention of suicide<br> you know what was permitted out of the sake and get all for the sake of the children they will certainly wouldn't understand and yet by not giving voice to Suicide that also tells me that surviving family members have to withhold their own grief you know they have to hide because there is still the sense of Shame from the water people going to think if we start talking about this and this might be too much for the kids but really it's when we come right down to it is intended to be too much for the family so as a result you know again down through history survivors were kind of doomed shall we say to their own private shame or they were trapped with their feelings of hurt and loss and anger you know I'm just the the morning rituals themselves for a chance for surviving<br> family members are often compromised they were often not permitted just you know by a lack of social support even within their own faith community you know and then dead for example within some Faith communities some clergy have refused to participate in the common burial practices within a particular religious affiliation or domination in fact so maybe even deny burial in a church-owned cemetery but again this is just one layer and you know just continuing on that you know there's many other layers of this we have to consider that the family goes through you know such as witnessing the suicide or finding the body of a loved one you know that the continuing image of death or the pictures of the remains you know may likely result in family members you know having their own PTSD reaction<br> and then certainly one aspect of suicide that profoundly exacerbates the grief reaction for surviving families is that many suicides often occur in the home and this again adds additional layers because the physical remains of the suicide still may be present you know and it does require the family to clean up there might be Blood on the floor or bone fragments and this is all in addition to how then do we plan a funeral or how then do we plan a memorial service and this could be just very overwhelming in and of itself and then dog in back in 1991 he found that 11% of the people that he was working with reported having PTSD symptoms after discovering you know of their loved ones body<br> committed suicide and the survivors of surviving loved ones and reported feeling totally exhausted and unable to resume their daily routines and even of not being a witness or discovering the body the death of their loved one remains a traumatic event for surviving family members cuz they're they're certainly faced with the shock of it but also there may be police investigations you do that contribute to the pain as the death is explored<br> and again society places some of the blame some of the blame for the suicide on the family members and that's offering even less social support than it would for survivors unless a you know a natural death or natural causes and they may feel the you know totally alienated from friends and acquaintances because of this blame rejection and lack of understanding on the part of society<br> now the researchers Calhoun and Allen they discovered that surviving family members tend to be more psychologically Disturbed for Less trusting and more blameworthy then then members family members grieving non-suicidal debts okay but in order to cope with family members may even refuse to discuss the death with friends or co-workers were may try to recreate the events you know in their minds at that led up to the death that if only we could go back if only we could just stop time and take a step back what was going on in the morning leading up to their suicide or even the day before it is completely natural this is normal surviving loved ones still and another researcher noted that widows whose spouses committed suicide<br> they reported just being less forthcoming with those who are around them they felt the need to shut down they felt the need to be guarded and in addition they also reported receiving more blame and guilt from people around them then did widow's grieving non-suicidal death so many many layers to not only understanding why a person would commit suicide or attempted suicide but also how this leaves family members I would really love to hear what's on your heart about this subject so again if you'd like to call in and be part of the show that number is 888-627-6008 and I'll be taking your calls after the break again you are listening to reclaiming authenticity and I'm your host dr. James how I'll be back with you in 1 minute<br> okay welcome back I am dr. James how can you are listening to reclaiming authenticity and we're talkin about suicide and its impact on family members I wanted to give you two resources again I once I did at the beginning of the broadcast I went do it at the second half of the show to resources that you could use or pass along to others who are in need and the first one is the National Suicide Hotline that number is 800-273-8255 that's 800-273-8255 the second resource is from the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention and this is you go on this website the afsp. Org<br> the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention website with you or need of support groups and this helps you find a support groups that are available in your state and or see when halfway through the Journey of our life I found that I was in a gloomy would because the path which led a right was lost and how hard it is to say just what this wild and rough and stubborn Woodland was the very thought of which renew my fear so bitter tis that death is little worse but of the good to treat which there I found I'll speak of what else I discovered there are therefore think and judge it is best for thee to follow me and I shall be your guide and Lead thee hence through an eternal place where thou shalt hear<br> the shrieks of hopelessness of those tormented spirits of old times each one of whom be whales the second death then those show you be holed who do in fire contented are because they come with hope wherever it be until the Blessed folk to whom thereafter if thou wouldst Ascend here they'll be for a worthier soul than I<br> well this is actually the opening scene in Dante's Inferno written will gosh 1213 s goes back a long time but the The Inferno as it's called the wandering of the poet Dante as he Strays off the path of moral truth and he gets lost in this dark wood as a story just as three wild animals threatened to attack him Dante is rescued by Virgil Amanda celebrated Roman poet and is also Dante's idle and when asked why he came at this time virtual says that he felt sorry for Dante and he is an appropriate guide because he has walked this way before I'm certain we all have appreciated being comforted by one or a community who has walked the path before us such<br> losing a loved one to Suicide I just as we need to follow the bread crumbs so to speak of another person who has been there and back we also need to pay attention and listen to what those breadcrumbs are telling us<br> and in different studies with bereavement of suicide survivors there are actually for Unique reactions in this group of people which one we understand these things certainly sheds light on well this is the best way to reach out because the more we know hopefully they'll get the more empathic we become and so when the death suicide context here when the death is a family member survivors experience very strong feelings of guilt and anger a sense of hopelessness a loss of social support and actually an increase in self-destructive behaviors in other words you just don't care anymore you you just like like what's the point because you know or let's say good example of this could be where we get in the car and we usually put on a seatbelt hopefully you do. It's just a matter of like<br> what if I'm in an accident I don't really care I mean it's that kind of self-destructive ideation that behavior okay is perceived as a natural or avoidable survivors often report strong feelings of being stigmatized okay and often accompany you know what the perceptions of everybody left me I feel abandoned I feel shame what do I do with this and asking the case of other deaths that are unanticipated shall we say the survivors of suicide often report feelings of of shock and searching for an explanation of the death or feelings of blame and responsibility as even having caused it<br> addition you know to the trauma of dealing with the suicidal nature of the death survivors report you know having these intense feelings of rejection from the deceased whether or not it was true they just they have these intense feelings of rejection and tanks and again this is to hopefully create awareness and nuts so sweet begin to reach out just just kind of leave all those preconceived notions at the door and just be with the person you know and when we approach the person whose loved one has committed suicide now is not the time for explanations now is not the time to say well you know and and try to offer something like that if that is the worst thing and I mean the worst thing that we can do because there are enough question mark hanging over everybody's head<br> it would be so much better if we could just sit there and hold the space for the person or persons to just be with them in their pain without feeling the need to explain it away and let them know just grieve as they need to grieve and to be there and to be supportive okay so a very strong social support is what is needed all throughout this and surviving family members you know those who had strong religious and or spiritual beliefs they may have mixed emotions again regarding house scripture addresses a person taking his or her own life now that they might even say nothing like what what what does the Bible say does that mean to my loved ones in hell right now or or were you know just like you do is God mad at them or where any other to go reactive type question<br> the working definition that I'm using hair up suicide that that involves a person's perception that life is so unbearable that are self-inflicted death is the only escape from his or her physical and or emotional pain it can also be noted that suicide that hasn't always been viewed in a negative light okay I guess we're taking us into a different context here but sometimes suicide can be viewed as honorable says in the case when a soldier will throw himself or herself on a grenade to save the other soldiers are other people around them<br> but another misunderstanding about suicide is that it is often I just a very selfish Unthinkable act designed only for a person to gratify himself or herself and just cause more pain and suffering for those around them in other words will you'll see when I'm gone you'll feel bad when I'm gone you know and I can't wait to see you realize how much you miss me that kind of spiteful Behavior okay and as a result there is going to be a wide range of thoughts feelings and actions that are present when a suicide has happened which leads many people to ask the question is suicide<br> Unforgivable<br> okay is suicide unforgivable because for many years they conventional thought and Catholic and Protestant churches is that suicide is the unforgivable sin and you know Augustine argued in the 5th Century that suicide was a violation of the sixth commandment you know you shall not murder but later Thomas Aquinas who was a major Catholic Sinker believing that confession of sin must be made prior to one's death he taught that suicide was the most fatal of all sins because the victim had no way of repenting from it so therefore he presume that if a person dies while they are committing the sinful act they are unable to then confessed that soon and ask for forgiveness so as I said you know he just believed that if a person committed suicide there's no way to repent from that<br> up until that time of Augustine you know an in Piqua generally considered suicide as a form of voluntary martyrdom and clearly distinguished it from murder beginning with Augustine no suicide became identified as murder and more specifically self-murder and yet ironically when you go back to history Augustine's case against suicide was not based on the Bible it wasn't based on any other scripture but it was actually based on Plato's writing jobs of Socrates and abetting the suicide is mentioned in his work they do phaedo Fade Out and in the story you know why Socrates welcome you know his own death sentence by willingly drinking Hemlock they Plato argued that to sever the bonds between the body and the soul<br> surely it is to basically usurp a privilege which belonged only to God but still Socrates believe that by will fully committing suicide by drinking Hemlock he would be released from a world of pain and suffering into a place of Peace so again you know there was wide wide you know opinions on whether or not a suicide could be forgivable real or is it on fruit forgivable and even in the context of people who are struggling with a terminal illness you know the terminal illness and suicide actually go hand-in-hand okay because although in in you know our culture and as well as other cultures The Physician assisted suicide is an intense debate you know what is this moral is it shouldn't you be maintaining the<br> Bank of the of life or are we just in the business of relieving a person of their suffering and misery okay and for the most part Studies have shown that people living with a terminal illness contemplate hastening their deaths especially when they reach a level of depression and pain in the process of dying so as I mentioned before in the first half of the show this Mark of you know marginalization the stigma can extend even Beyond Death you not even to those who mourn the death of a loved one from a stigmatized kind of death such as suicide okay and because of this guilt by association just simply because I left the person or I was related to the person you have survivors feel as though they cannot express their grief openly but you know they may be forced to hide their feelings and of course that just worsens the painful process<br> morning okay and it almost presents that replaces people in yo Compass like a double bind here in terms of their bereavement because While most people who mourn the loss of a loved one are free to experience normal grief reactions others whose loved ones carry a social stigma for the type of death and it carries the social stigma they're not necessarily given the right the role or the capacity to grieve as others May and to add to this again as I mentioned these mourners are given little to no social support even religious support to help facilitate their grief and all too often you know people who have experienced loss and grief and mourning and bereavement go through life in search of healing and Grace<br> this is normal this is what's expected but instead of feeling drawn to communities of Faith many people again feel alienated by their wounds and ashamed of their scars for lack of a better work and as they may stare at the all are welcome signs that hang over the entrances of various places of worship they know that acceptance comes with conditions you know perhaps conditions of appropriate circumstances or appropriate relationships were appropriate status and again this is the part that really baffles me because you know the communities of Faith wonder why they keep seeing a decrease in their membership then weekly attendance you know but yet doing the same things over and over again and they expect different results you and I both know that is insanity<br> but you know perhaps the answers lie in the way the communities of faith and societies treat their wounded<br> and and why is it metaphorically speaking why do Faith communities why do certain members of society or culture or whoever you know what is the justification of shall we say shooting our wounded you know a person is already grieving the person is already wounded and who are we to come along to keep even more misery on them because of the say we're uncomfortable with it or because we don't want to look at it or per say let's do this we don't want to deal with it like take it somewhere else and then so it's just you know metaphorically we Heap even more Devastation on a person and then we wonder why they call off sick more from work or we wonder why their productivity goes down at work or we wonder why they've packed up and left<br> well we have to look squarely on ourselves and just asked a question what did we do what did we say<br> to make them feel this way and then what are some things that we can do what are some things that we can say to help them through this because quite honestly this could happen to anyone of us any one of us<br> and then from a pastoral approach here you know communities of Faith should awaken to the fact that they are most effective when they care for the wounded and the scarred Souls of society so people are transformed when they experience that tangible Holiness through a very simple yet powerful Act of redemption<br> I say that again Community sulfate should have wakened to the fact that they are most effective when they care for the wounded and the scarred Souls of society<br> for when they do this people are transformed whenever they experience that tangible Holiness through just a very simple yet powerful Act of redemption feeding One Clothing them understanding loving them and so forth<br> I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Good Will Hunting it's classic Robin Williams he's plays a psychologist and explains to Matt Damon's character that everybody has those little idiosyncrasies that at first glance drive us crazy but in reality those features contain as he said the good stuff and Robin Williams's character goes Honda Give an example that his wife used to expel gas in the middle of the night and it would she said it was so loud she would often wake yourself up but then blame him for the unpleasant odor and he said why was embarrassed for it but I just want along with it and I just chucked it all up to the intimacy and the weirdness that they shared but strange you know but as he put it he felt honored to be able to see hear and yes even smell that side of her<br> because nobody else would be privileged to that and then he says and just when I thought that it couldn't get any weirder Williams explains you know it's been two years since Nancy died that's the stuff I remember<br> but he wasn't bitter because he realized those memories were some of the things that nobody else saw and instead he cherish those things because they were the things that made her his wife<br> I'm convinced that there are things our loved ones dead or said or do or whatever that irritate us and drove us crazy even at times got on our last nerd nerve and and these the things that we are going to miss when they're gone but just like in Good Will Hunting these The Memories We Will relish and and cherish because they are gems their what made our spouses are spouses or what made our mothers and fathers are mothers and fathers grandparents siblings co-workers friends all have left their impression on us and you know since the day when I first held my son in my arms I I kept a jar of broken glass on my desk and every now and again I pick it up just to hold it to look at it and to listen to it and I shake it I just listen<br> and holding this jar always reminds me of two things our Brokenness<br> and God's holiness<br> because whenever I look at it closely I noticed a sharp-edged fragments of a once whole days I listened carefully to the shards as they kind of clanging about when I shake that you are and I'm often reminded of the dissolution disillusionment of many people when they asked a very sincere questions will I've ever be made whole again<br> there are so many fragmented pieces of my life I'm shattered spiritually mentally physically emotionally as I stand before God bearing the scars of my Woods how will I ever be put back together again<br> well there was a emperor of Japan who possessed a very old and very costly bass you know it was a unique Masterpiece in the art of China One and somebody and one day somebody knocked it down and by accident broke it into a thousand pieces and these fragments were carefully collected in the most skilled Master Potter up a whole empire was commissioned to put the vase together but he tried and then went right after another and another and another but in the end only a single artist was left an old monk living with his young pupil in a cave in the mountains and on the emperor's call he came to the palace and he took the broken pieces with them and carry them to his humble workshop and then he set to work and after several weeks the monks show the result of his Endeavor to the pupil<br> and the base had resurrected it's Flawless Beauty and the two months wandered back to the city and delivered the vase to the palace and the emperor was just Overjoyed he just couldn't believe it and the entire you know Palace Just Praise the Perfection of the restored Masterpiece and course this old month was richly rewarded and then gracefully the well one day the young pupil was just rummaging around for something in the workshop when he unexpectedly discovered the broken scraps of the old base and he quickly ran to his master and and he exclaimed look at these pieces not at all did you put them back together<br> however did you only managed to create a vase that is as beautiful as the shattered one and the old monk replied well if you put yourself to work with a heart full of love you will always be able to create something beautiful<br> so many times we look at our Brokenness and shattered pieces from our emotional physical psychological even spiritual wounds and we wonder how they got to go back together<br> and in those moments individuals and families who have walked that path before us tell us to come and follow broken pieces and all and buy and piece-by-piece our lives can be reassembled not in the way that is the safe familiar to us but perhaps into a vessel that is ironically stronger in the crack<br> indeed if we place ourselves into the hands of God who reaches out with a heart full of love towards us we will discover that God is able to create something beautiful out of the rubble I'll talk to James hauke and you've been listening to reclaiming authenticity until we talk again next week everybody please be safe please behave yourself and may God hold all of us in the palm of God pants take care bye bye<br> it's all there just to calm and we'll see you next Friday at noon Pacific on CBS Radio TV<br>