FAITH AND SELF-EsTEEM· CARROLL SAUSSY, PH.D.,

Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology, Weslry Theological Seminary, Washington, DC 20016 Suggests that the origin of self-esteem is in the degree of parental acceptance and love which in turn is a reflection and mediation of the love of Goddess for each person. Claims that above and beyond the self-esteem measures which are rooted in parental, social, and personal realities is the more powerful experience of being accepted and cherished by a Goddess who offers unconditional love at every moment of one's existence. "Oh, God, You knit us together in our mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13) ... "}0u have made us lillie less than a god" (Psalm 8:5).

Self-esteem issues have been significant to me for what easily feels like a lifetime. Christian faith has been central to my life for almost as long as I can remember. On many occasions, both in putting together my own life and in being present to others as they struggle through theirs, I have wondered why the tenets of Christian faith or any faith in a Holy Creator so often fail in increasing low self-esteem. This article grows out of my preoccupation with that question. Let me begin with the faith presuppositions which underlie my reflections on self-esteem. The reader who does not share these claims might not arrive at my conclusions. Perhaps the most central is a belief that ours is a personal God, a Goddess who made us, knows us, loves us and is present to us here and now and always. The faith crisis which most threatened my spiritual life came when I questioned whether God is a personal God; that is, whether God really knows and loves individual human beings. Through what I can only call the gift of grace, that crisis brought me back to a revitalized belief that the Holy One who is creating the universe is a personal Goddess who knows and loves each one of us. We come to genuine self-esteem when we discover ourselves as Goddess knows us, which means we discover ourselves as Goddess cherishes us. That discovery is made through a genuine relationship to God. If a human relationship means anything at all, it minimally signifies that those in relationship carry concern for one another, that they care about what one another are thinking and feeling and doing. The implication of such relating between a human person and the Divine is that our thoughts and actions matter to the Goddess who is intimately present to us and in us. Each of us makes a difference to God.

"This article is a version of a lecture given at Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado, on January 27, 1987.

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Christian faith transforms the Divine-human relationship. Gifted with Christian faith, I believe that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the whole of creation has been renewed; the "self' of the Christian is essentially a unique part in that New Creation, the New Being which is the Body of Christ. The ethical implications of such a belief are global. Members of that body are responsible both to the Divinity and to the human family to share one another's burdens, and most especially to work for a just society. A final faith presupposition is perhaps more psychological than theological. My claim is that while parental love and acceptance of the infant and child is the most essential ingredient in adult self-esteem, mature faith can enable us to move beyond, to transcend the deprivations we may have experienced as a child through rejection and a lack of parental love. Faith not only moves mountains but it can fill valleys as well. As God Loves Us Ours is a personal God, a Goddess who made us, knows us, loves us and is present to us here and now and always. Lived faith in Goddess' total acceptance and love for us is the most powerful provider of self-esteem. To believe that we are totally accepted and loved, to believe it in our muscles and bones and blood cells as well as with our intellect, has got to issue in self-acceptance, selfrespect, and even awe. However, we have a hard enough time believing that those closest to us really accept and love us, much less believing that the Holy One beyond our imagining really accepts and loves us-totally. Yet that faith can be claimed. A man in a mid-life vocational crisis realizes in the midst of a period of intense prayer that God's love and deep acceptance of him transcend any concrete decision he might reach about his life. Overwhelmed by the power of such love, he finds himself dancing in ecstatic joy. A woman whose conviction that Goddess is with her" passionately marks her daily response to the suffering in her world, is told by one to whom she ministers: "Your face says God's beauty to me." A seminarian who struggles through self-doubt into religious conviction declares to a local congregation: "God is creating a beautiful person in me. I ask you to hold me accountable for that 'conviction if I start doubting myself again." These are glimmers from the lives of three people who are being shaped by the discovery of who and what they are, unique human beings loved by God. The Human Condition The discovery of who and what we are is a life-long process. How do we begin to answer the question, "Who am I?" We start with our common denominator: we are human. We have and are both body and spirit, two distinguishable but inseparable constituents of human life which are heavy with consequences. Our body is limited, ages, dies and decays. Our spirit seeks 126

meaning, can transcend limits and neither ages nor dies nor decays. Until we recognize, realize, and accept the human condition, our notions of self and selfesteem will not be based on reality. What is so hard about coming to terms with the human condition? Death is hard. Ernest Becker claims that the fundamental drive in life is to overcome the human condition by denying our limits, most specifically our mortality. His book The Denial oj Death! illustrates how we inevitably come to the awareness of our mortality and then tenaciously cling to an equally inevitable desire to transcend death by constructing strategies, vital lies, illusions, which help us keep the thought of death at bay, to live as if we escape the human condition. Strategies, lies, illusions-these words all refer to the devises one unconsciously designs in order to avoid facing one's limits. In other words, we imagine ourselves into security and then have to defend our illusion or imaginary world. Through lived experience, including frustration when our needs are not met, we become aware of our deep and wide dependence upon mother and/or father, upon spouse or friend or institution, aware of how truly vulnerable we are. We want a guarantee that our caregivers, our support system, will be there for us. As children we imagine that if we win our parent or parents' total approval, acceptance and affection, such perfect caregiving will ensue. Both total attention and total response, of course, are illusions. Does not the illusion of the perfect child of the perfect parent surface again and again in adult illusions? For example, the drive to be number one. What does being number one secure for anyone? For how long? The quality of one's life is in part shaped by the appropriateness of the strategies or illusions one uses in dealing with life in the face of death. For example, if my strategy is that I will avoid all error and so win immortality, I am set up for a constricted life of tension, pressure and apprehension. Whereas if my strategy is that I'll try everything once, my life will be at least adventurous. Of course we know that both illusions are character "lies": I cannot avoid all error, and I cannot try everything once. Becker would see the small child who refuses to share toys "armoring" himself with his own vast supply of resources to make up for the emptiness he feels through awareness of his parents' limits, specifically their mortality. The child next door who gives away all of her toys, on the other hand, lives the illusion that if she is totally generous, she will guarantee herself the central place in the hearts of her parents and of all the universe, and thereby transcend the limits which she has discovered in her parents; namely, their mortality. The adult who collects cars, grown up toys, might well be seeking the same unique place in the universe. Throughout life we invent largely unconscious strategies for keeping the thought of death at bay and thereby preserving our self-esteem: "I will become an excellent teacher ... loyal friend ... good parent ... writer ... politician 'Ernest Becker, The Denialof Death (New York, NY: Free Press, 1973).

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and so win my place in the universe." "We will live here forever." "Everything will work out all right. " All are lies or illusions that give us a sense of significance and permanence. In order to understand ourselves and how we have come to esteem ourselves, we need to reexamine our lived acceptance of the human condition, acceptance of both the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives. Borrowing the term from Michael Jackson, 2 I use defensive self-esteem to describe the evaluation of self that results from living under illusions which keep one from accepting the human condition. Nondefensive self-esteem follows the courage to be human, the courage to be limited and mortal. The infant and then the child (and later the adult) must learn to accept limits, limits which are the child's first awareness of the down side of human life. In pushing against these limits, the infant, the child, the adolescent, the adult, the older adult, will use strategies, lies or illusions. Let me illustrate how the strategies might show up during the various stages of human development, providing defensive self-esteem. I will then show how faith in Goddess, lived acceptance of the fact that we are made by God and are cherished by God, transforms our ways of dealing with the human condition, transforms these very strategies from coping devises into graced self-expressions resulting in non-defensive self-esteem. In brief, the illusions of infancy and childhood involve attachment to others. Adolescent illusions include explorative expressions of self. Adult strategies are essentially generative, while the illusions of older adulthood appear to be more like assumed prizes. I'!fancy and Childhood Illusions: The infant is a bundle of dependency needs crying out for satisfaction. When symbiotically connected with a nurturing parent or caregiver, the baby experiences boundless delight. Freud and later theorists have called the assumed power of thought which follows the infant's experience of such satisfaction one of "omnipotence;' " However I find it impossible to believe that an infant whose life is so fragile and totally dependent on others has any illusion of omnipotence. Attached to a nurturing parent, the center of attention, our needs met, we knew what it is to be blissfully content. The memory of such contentment is never completely forgotten. We remember that one way to deal with feelings of neediness, isolation or powerlessness is to attach ourselves physically or emotionally to another, for as long as I am not alone, I survive. This is the early stage of a life-long need for a life line.

In recent history girls and boys have undoubtedly faced this need in quite different ways. Early in life the girl typically learns that her significance will come through nurturing and child-rearing. Just as she clings to her parent for security, she will later cling to parent substitutes and will allow, will encourage

'Michael R. Jackson, Self-Esteem and Meaning (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 1984), p. 36. 'Sigmund Freud, On Narcissism; Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalysis of Neurosis; Margaret Mahler, F. Pine, A. Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant; Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses.

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children to cling to her. The boy will achieve his destiny by not needing to cling. He will deny himself, spend his life providing for and defending his wife and children and fighting the obstacles in his and their path. The strategies girls and boys design will take different forms. The little girl aspires to be completely loved by another-a predominantly passive strategy. The little boy to be a conquering hero, to bring home his kill-a predominantly active strategy.

Adolescent Illusions: The adolescent uses explorative assertions in expressing her or his sense of self. Again, we can speculate on the sexual differences these illusions might take. The adolescent girl will express her femininity by adorning her body, paying microscopic attention to every detail of dress, make-up, hair. The boy is lured by macho images of strength and power, paying as much attention to his extended body, whatever "body mounted on wheels" he owns or wishes he owned, as to his physical body. A more positive expressive illusion might be identifying oneself with a cause to live by or for and therein discovering one's basic meaning. Another, seeking knowledge or experience as proof of one's significance. Such adolescent character lies can be divided between strategems of the body: beauty, sexual attractiveness, genital sex; drug; health; dance, athletics, physical fitness; collections of things which become extensions of the body; and strategems of the spirit such as living a vicarious life through movie, novel, music, TV; romantic love or some social cause.

Adult Illusions: If the adult has not come to terms with her life-cycle, she may live as if she is a younger person. Undoubtedly we have all known a middleaged adolescent as well as a middle-aged parent who vicariously lives through a young adult child. At times of loss, adults can be thrown back into the childhood strategy of attaching themselves to another in order to feel secure and satisfied. For example, unable to cope successfully with the loss suffered through divorce or death, one might find defensive self-esteem primarily through belonging to the group or being connected to a friend who cares. In truth this person might say, "I don't know where I would be without you." As one goes through mid-life, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny the human condition. Strategies of achieving high levels of success or positions of influence, the illusion of remaining youthful-these illusions go bankrupt and the adult needs to fashion new strategies for getting on with life as one comes closer to death. In their most positive forms, adult strategies tend to be generative in nature: creativity through nurturing offspring and family; social productivity through profession or project of genius, or job, money, status. Self-awareness and an accumulation of knowledge are also character lies which can give the adult a false sense of invincibility. The character armor of older adults takes the form of badges or ribbons: one's wisdom, experience, independence, ability to face aging and death bravely 129

are all illusions that can give one a sense of rising above the human condition. Some older people manipulate dependence, feeling power in their ability to have a child or other adult available to serve them. Strategies are essential if one is to get on with life in the face of death; they are destructive only when they blind us from seeing and embracing the human condition as it truly is: of body and spirit.

How Does Faith Transform the Strategies? Faith in Goddess requires self-knowledge; genuine self-knowledge opens one to the mystery believers call God. At the beginning of his Institutes, John Calvin wrote: Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God [and a subsequent section beginning, "Without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self'] . . . . no one can look upon [her or] himself without immediately turning ... to the contemplation of God, in whom [one) "lives and moves" (Acts 17:28). For, quite clearly, the mighty gifts with which we are endowed are hardly from ourselves; indeed, Our very being is nothing but subsistence in the one God.'

The one who discovers herself as she is known by Goddess would corne to terms with the human condition, because a unique human person is what Goddess knows and loves in each of us. Discovering ourselves as Goddess knows us means recognizing both the possibilities and limitations of human life, the very possibilities and limitations which Jesus the Revelation of God faced, accepted, and lived and died fully. Discovering ourselves as Goddess knows us might mean recognizing the illusions characteristic of each stage through the new eyes of the New Being. Illusions, character lies, strategies for coping would give way to graced expressions of human life. The Infant and Child's Strategies of Attachment: Faith transforms our understanding of the need for connection. Faith sees any human need as a religious need because the Goddess who formed us in our mother's womb is the creator of the human condition. The infant, sensing its utter helplessness and dependency, fear isolation or abandonment, and finds security through attachment to mother or father. The comforted and comfortable, well attached infant experiences blissful satisfaction in the arms of its parent. The creation story describes a God who delights in creation, recognizing on each day that what has been made is very good. Is not the boundless delight we see on the face of the infant as well as the parent a sign or sacrament of the love of God? What Goddess has created, each says to each, is very good. Parent and child, prototype of human relations, point to a Goddess whose very nature is to be in relation. The doctrine of Trinity, recast in more inclusive terms-Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer-is a doctrine of divine relations, including relations with the created and redeemed and sustained.

The person of faith knows that she is never alone, is never abandoned, is 'Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960), Volume I, p. 35-36 and p. 37.

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always attached to a Goddess of love. Process theology is particularly helpful in articulating the transformation of the illusion of attachment into a faith claim about attachment. In process thought, everything, every drop of experience in the universe, is related to everything else in the one cosmic process that pervasively includes Goddess. Goddess is never apart from our thoughts and desires, our strength and our weakness, our loving and hating. Glimpsing the truth about ourselves, our vital and total connection to a Goddess of Love, we can experience and reexperience boundless delight. If we are truly part of one process, every advance, every generous act enhances the whole process; at the same time, every selfish action as well as every cry of pain, belongs to the whole process. Explorative Assertions: Claiming one's privilege as created and known and loved by God-with-us is an overwhelming experience that leads to the ecstatic dance ofjoy. Are we not driven to express our gratitude for such blessing through service? Indeed being loved by God and keeping that love going is a cause to live by and for. Generative strategies follow: using our gifts and talents to enhance the life of another, to enhance the life of the community; caring for the next generation through thoughtful and generous living and giving; caring for the earth we leave for future generations through foresight, or through repairing the damage of brothers and sisters who lacked foresight; projects of genius that contribute to the creative evolution of our community, of our world; all expressions of the fact that we are made by God. And, finally, the prizes: Wisdom, experience, facing one's death with hope and courage, are indeed lived accomplishments that allow one to accept the human condition and witness to another that life, not death, has the last word. Five octogenarians with whom I have been in contact recently come to mind. These women and men have a common message: "I'm something of a maintenance problem to my doctors and family and I'm ready to go if I have to, but given my alternatives, I'd rather stick around."

Self-Esteem and Meaning Another writer who challenges us to understand self-esteem in light of the human condition is Michael Jackson, author of Self-Esteem and Meaning. Jackson believes that self-esteem can only be understood in social and philosophical terms. While self-esteem is always related to a field of meaning, most self-esteem studies lack any critical analysis of the structure of meaning in a person's life. Self-esteem studies include research into the antecedents of self-esteem, the components that account for high self-esteem. Few writers, however, question how one's core beliefs about life, one's philosophy of life or ideology, structures selfesteem. Jackson acknowledges that while self-esteem is complex and irreducible, it is always related to one's ideology, to the idealization of one's ideology, and to a core central conflict in the meaning-maker's world. After reviewing these three layers of meaning, I will suggest how Christian faith transforms Jackson's system for coming to self-esteem. 131

An ideology describes a person's general conceptions about the world and his or her place in it. These conceptions implicitly or explicitly contain a philosophy of human nature, as well as a set of ideals and how one might realize them." Largely through our parents, but through other significant adults and peers, through elementary and religious education, we come to an understanding of who we are, what we value, and how we can go about realizing our values. Idealizations are ideals made concrete in important figures in a person's life. Again, parents are generally the idealizations of their children's values; later significant adults and peers who "wear out values" become standards against which we measure ourselves for self-esteem. The central conflict is an emotional dilemma set up when a parent communicates conflicting messages to the child. For example, assume that a child repeatedly received these messages from her parent: "You must win my acceptance by being successful.' And, "You will never succeed enough to satisfy me." The child's success was more important to the parent than the child herself. As an adult, this individual will have an ongoing struggle between acceptance and success, assuming that unrealistic achievement is necessary in order for one to be accepted. She will be frustrated by every attempt to win approval, convinced that she has not done enough. Greater efforts yield greater frustration. In Jackson's scheme, repetition compulsion is not so much a compulsion but a repeated attempt to find a solution to the central conflict. 6 Jackson distinguishes between defensive and non-defensive self-esteem. If one attempts "to resolve a central conflict without changing the way in which one's identity and one's world have been defined in terms of that conflict,"? one achieves defensive self-esteem. If the daughter described above succeeds enough to be found favorable by a spouse, but still believes acceptance is measured in terms of success, she arrives at defensive self-esteem. Self-esteem is nondefensive when the resolution of a central conflict "includes a change in the way one thinks about one's own identity and the world."8 The same woman would have to recognize that her acceptance has nothing to do with her success or lack of success. How does Christian faith transform Jackson's understanding of self-esteem and meaning? At the core of Christian self-esteem is ideology. Those raised on the Baltimore Catechism repeated year after year the answer to "Why did God make us?" with "God made us to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in heaven." That ideology became incarnate through the faithful life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The lives of the saints and the saints in our lives are further idealizations of the central beliefs of our faith: Goddess is with us and lures us to know, love 'Michael Jackson, op. cit., p. 36.

-tu«, p. 109. nu«, p. 89. -tu«, pp. 123·24. 132

and serve; through that knowing, loving and serving we find happiness. In fact, each one of us strives to re-incarnate that ideology through our baptized lives in Christ: "And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here" (2 Cor. 5: 17). The central conflict we all discover is that while we want to be saints and live for others, we continue to make selfish choices and live for ourselves. Accepting the human condition as Christians means recognizing both our holiness and our sinfulness; we are capable of both great generosity and courage, and of meanness, pettiness and evil. Non-defensive self-esteem comes through recognizing our possibilities and our limits, allowing ourselves to be forgiven, letting our heart of stone be replaced by a heart of flesh. The goal of our Christian lives is to accept our acceptance at the same time that we continue to try to bridge the gap between what we believe and what we do. Essential to process theology is the belief that what we do truly makes a difference to Goddess. Whitehead says, "Everything matters to God." Everything is interrelated in a process that is totally present to God and in God and is God. If all of the sub-atomic particles of matter matter, so much more do beings made in the image and likeness of God. A lived faith in such a divine process is surely a cause for self-esteem. As Gordon Jackson has so powerfully put it: The utter significance and very sacredness of the person who makes a difference within the being of God usually gives to the person who is not overwhelmed by it a sense of worth and destiny that is redemptive beyond my ability to express!

The Dynamics of Self-Esteem My second major claim about self-esteem is this: The experience of being genuinely accepted and cherished as a child is the most essential ingredient in adult self-esteem. An incarnational faith tells me that such acceptance and love is a sacrament or sign of Goddess' acceptance and love. In other words, Goddess' love is mediated through the acceptance and love of the parent for the child. Godlike people are most godlike in accepting and cherishing, in nurturing and providing for other people. Since it is easiest to extend such acceptance and love to one's own children, the parent/child relationship is perhaps the most universal sign of Goddess' acceptance and love. No less a sign of Goddess' love is the acceptance and love extended to those who do not have the same claim on us as our children, and most poignantly in the care and concern extended to those who are least lovable by all human standards. Admittedly there are enormous complexities that account for the differences in the way people view themselves and respond to their destinies. We are all born to imperfect parents who didn't give their children enough love, no matter how much they did love. As Rollo May says, the sad truth is that there is never recompense for deprivations we suffered as infants; none of us gets enough love. "Gordon Jackson, Pastoral Care and Process Theology (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981), p. 178.

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He adds, however, that it is the yearning for love that makes us human. I want to say further that none of us gives enough love as adults; the desire to give love also makes us human.t? How is the acceptance and cherishing essential to self-esteem communicated from parent to child? Watch an affectionate, sensitive mother or father communicating with an infant and you see the foundation of self-esteem being built. The infant might not yet know her boundaries, might not yet have any sense of separateness, but the infant experiences good body feeling through the comforting touching and looking and mutually loving exchanges. I have often puzzled over the life-long significance good looks make in people's lives. While physical appearance seems to have strong influence on how people feel about themselves, generally when you ask people what they most like about themselves or least like about themselves, their responses include qualities of spirit rather than physical features. At the same time, I have been surprised by how little attention the psychological literature pays to physical appearance. A light went on for me when I read that because so much is communicated by the way the parent cares for the infant's body and enjoys looking at the infant, self-esteem "remains so intimately linked throughout human life with our valuations of the attractiveness of our bodies and faces ('good looks'), and with physical well-being more generally." 11 Unless a child is disfigured, the way a small child sees herself or himself is a mirror reflection of how the child is seen in the eyes of her parents. I think of Aaron, age three, cherished by both parents and accepted with some ambivalence by his older sister who lost her three year position as only child with Aaron's birth. He did not notice that I was napping on his parents' bed. He walked into the room, looked at the full-length mirror on the closet door, slowly approached his image in the mirror and said, "Aaron, you're so handsome." And, in contrast, I remember Margaret. Margaret's father abandoned her mother before Margaret was born. Her mother had been with as many as seven men by the time Margaret reached school age. At age seven, she was in play therapy because her teachers urged her mother to get help for Margaret. A physically very attractive but over-weight child, she had few friends at school and was functioning far below her abilities. Margaret spotted the video equipment in the play therapy room and asked me to tape her putting on a puppet show. When the time came for the viewing, Margaret looked visibly upset, admitted her ambivalence about seeing herself on the screen, but then asked to do so. She buried her face in her arms, watching as if she were not watching.

IORollo May, Freedom and Destiny (New York, NY: Norton, 1981), p. 158; p. 33. "John E. Mack, in Preface to John E. Mack and Steven L. Ablon, The Development and Sustenance of Self-Esteem in Childhood (New York, NY: International Universities Press, Inc., 1983), p. 13.

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Blushing and slipping lower and lower into her chair, she said, "I'm so ugly. My arms are too fat. I don't like my hair." Coming to autonomy and self-esteem includes the following needs of the infant/child: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

an empathetic response to her emotional and physiological needs; the ability to tolerate negative experience, such as distress, anger, anxiety; the opportunity to share her experience of boundless delight with the primary parent; a trust on one's inner state; parental guidelines for behavior, both positive (rewards) and negative (limits); a sense of both separateness from and relatedness to others; a sense of competence in developing skills and abilities.

The same general pattern of needs follows in childhood, adolescence and adult life. Self-esteem continues to be based on one's feeling of significance in the eyes of others; one's sense of separateness from and attachment to others; one's trust in inner experience which requires a realistic understanding of ourselves and our world; and one's experience of competence, including confidence in one's ability to learn what needs to be learned. Parental guidelines are replaced, by the end of adolescence, with an inner system of ethics and values. While affirmation from others continues to be important to one's self-esteem throughout life, the person with solid self-esteem is less dependent upon external validation and is able to maintain self-confidence in spite of setbacks and disappointments. 12 Conclusion A central question I brought to this study is: How can our faith more effectively keep our self-esteem on a positive, even keel? I wanted a better understanding of how faith affects self-esteem as well as more effective ways of calling on faith to enhance self-esteem. I realized that I may be a hair's edge from "Christian" exploitation in my growing convictions regarding faith and self-esteem. The words of Dennis Voskuil haunted me: ... a theology of self-esteem is so dangerously vulnerable to utilitarianism. If persons come to Christ expecting to gain self-esteem, hoping to find the key to success, happiness and peace of mind, they have misunderstood the call to conversion and commitment. The call of Christ is to brokenness and suffering and service, not to other-worldly or this-worldly fulfillment."

But self-esteem does not spare one brokenness and suffering and service. Rather, self-esteem enables a believer to hear the call of Christ to identify with brokenness and suffering and service. A theology of self-esteem requires the believer to esteem her neighbor as herself, which hardly means success, happiness and peace of mind when so many of our neighbors are deprived of the most basic human needs without which one can hardly think in terms of self-esteem. "Linda Tschirart Sanford and Mary Ellen Donovan, Women and Self-Esteem (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1984), Chapter 3. "Dennis Voskuil, "The Theology of Self-Esteem: An Analysis," in Craig W. Ellison (Ed), Your Better Self (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1983), pp. 50-59.

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Let me suggest some ways of leaning on faith to arrive at self-esteem. The first and most obvious is prayer. Be with the Goddess who is with you. We can't come close to God in prayer without coming closer to ourselves, without coming closer to ourselves as known by God. When I turn to Goddess in prayer, especially in the midst of personal turmoil, I invariably find perspective. Immediate concerns, as much as they matter to God, matter not so much because of the importance of the particular issue, but matter because these concerns have an impact on the way we are present to ourselves, to others, and therefore to God. In prayer I gain perspective on my own reactivity that allows me to be more realistic, objective and faithful to my destiny as a woman of faith. I have found it extremely helpful to use a mantra in prayer, and then when conflict stirs up self-doubt in my everyday life, I return to the mantra for an immediate faith perspective. Another related path toward non-defensive self-esteem is lectio Divine, the prayerful reading of scriptural passages which reveal the heart of Goddess. Remember not the former things p.or consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Is. 43:18-19) Now our God is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of our God, are being changed into God's likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from our God who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:1718)

Lectio Divine results in scriptural passages becoming truly our own. Relished words become part of our ordinary response to life. "Where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom" invites both Spirit of God and freedom to influence our choices.

A third way is to design new structures through which you can keep your vision alive. Wilen I am aware of denying my gifts and graces or critically comparing myself to others, I ask myself to pause. In the pause I think through what is happening inside. This may include, describing the negative thinking cycle or the specific blockage to myself and then asking how my faith informs both these thoughts and feelings. I believe that if I can choose a new response to the situation I co-create with Goddess the next moment of my life. At times I find it useful to share my resolve with a trusted friend. This strengthens my motivation to change and my conviction that I can and must. Almost two years ago I made a covenant with Goddess that I would give a faith response to situations in which my self-esteem becomes threatened. The pause has become a spontaneous moment of prayer in which I get in touch with the Holy One who works with me to accept myself with my iifts and limits and to keep throwing in my lot with Hers. Summary Self-esteem originates in parental acceptance and love, which is a reflection and mediation of the love of Goddess for each and all of us. Psychologists chart 136

developmental stages in evolving self-esteem, steps through which one moves from a sense of self totally dependent upon one's providers to a sense of self and esteem for self that come more from within, from one's abiding sense of significance and competence as well as one's ability to live up to an internalized set of ethics and values. Above and beyond parental, social and personal standards against which one measures one's self-estimation, the experience of being accepted and cherished by Goddess remains the most powerful provider of adult self-esteem. If through grace we are able to keep the vision of God-with-us-and-for-us alive, a Goddess who offers us unconditional love at every moment of our existence, we can live deeply self-accepting and other-accepting lives. ~

Jesus the Therapist Hanna Wolff The author reveals Jesus as the totally integrated person who shows us what it is to be fully human, and who powerfully models the work of the therapist as evoker of personal dignity and restorer of self-esteem. "Hanna Wolff sees deeply into the person and teaching of Jesus ... and has a remarkable capacity to move from the most searching spiritual principles to the most practical life -applications ... She nourishes not only the mind but also the soul," -JohnA. Sanford, From the Foreword 192 pp., He, 529.95, Paper, $12.95 Available at your local bookstore or directly from Meyer • Stone Books 1821 West Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47401 812-333-0313 (When ordering directly, add S 1 shipping per book.)

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