| sethbarnes | Community and Covenant | 16 Comments on Here’s Why We Need to Be Recognized | Views 229
Here’s Why We Need to Be Recognized
After Asha’s death and Hunter’s funeral last night, I was thinking about why losing someone you love can be so painful over the long haul.
One hard thing about the death of a loved one is to no longer be regularly seen and recognized by that person. We go through life as mindful people. Always thinking, a process called “cognition.” And when we have a thought repeated, it is re-cognition.
Thus, when we show up in people‘s lives after being separated, the thoughts they associate with us are re–cognition. And when we are recognized, the part of us that lives in the mind of another shows up. It is an affirmation that we exist in the world outside ourselves. That we are connected to others. That we at some elemental level exist and matter.
We are wired to need recognition. This is why those old people who still have a spouse live longer than those living by themselves. This is why having a pet is correlated to those who live longer.
Babies need not just touch, but the recognition of family members. Without this, they fail to thrive. One of the great gifts that dogs and other pets give to us is to recognize us after we’ve been away. Asha, my little Morky pup, was so good at this. When I returned from a trip, she would greet me with a celebration dance that lasted for minutes. I felt seen and connected.
People frequent the same places to be recognized and connected. This is why, when churches and other institutions of connection fail to recognize and celebrate their members, they are bankrupt. This is why social media as a primary tool in fostering recognition instead contributes to anxiety. We need to be seen in person to be recognized for who we really are.
One reason that people end their lives is that those who used to recognize and affirm them are no longer present. Their anonymity becomes too much to bear. They can’t carry the weight of loneliness on top of all the other pain in their lives.
We don’t just exist in our own lives, the memory of us exists in the neural pathways of friends and family. And when we show up in their lives, that piece of ourselves gets activated. That re-cognition helps us to understand that we connect to others in the universe.
Understanding this may give solace to those who in some way blame themselves for the suicide of a friend or family member. That person we loved navigated to a place in their lives where they were no longer recognized. And in that isolated place, our love couldn’t reach them. The burden of isolation became too painful to bear.
The trauma of soldiers returning from battle takes on many forms. But one of the greatest sources may be that they are no longer recognized by their deceased teammates.
As painful as that loss may be to those of us left behind, we mustn’t add to it the pain of feeling responsible. Although they may not have been fully aware, it was often their choice to live in that place where they were no longer recognized.
Too many people live in societies where they don’t have the pathways of recognition built into their culture. Maybe they live in rural areas away from other people. Or they live in cities where their identity dissolves into the nameless mass of humanity around them.
If we want to live long, happy lives, we will design our lives to show up and be recognized on a regular basis.
Ultimately, heaven is the place where those we have loved recognize us and show us that our lives have mattered – that we exist outside ourselves. It is the place where God himself recognizes us and tells us who we are.
I owe thanks to those of you who recognize me. Who in your life recognizes you?
Comments (16)
Leave a Reply
I sent this text to a dear friend this week (who is also named Kelley)
Hey Kelley
In our team call tonight I shared an appreciation memory. It was you.
My appreciation about my friend Kelley. Recently I felt so safe with her. So known. A place where it was not only ok to be a mess without judgement. And for my kids to be a mess. And they were still fully loved. A place where I was actually WANTED … right in my mess. Actually Wanted. Not just tolerated.
Kelley at the last word, not just tolerated I was sobbing. The Spirit highlighted this. So often in my life here on earth do I or have I felt merely tolerated rather than delighted in. Known. Enjoyed. Loved.
I have an Immanuel Healing session this week and I will be asking Jesus about this!!!!
Thank you for loving, accepting, and wanting true relationship with me and my family!
Here is her reply!
Kelly
I know each of our families have really hard moments and only knew you know the fullness of yours. But from the outside, looking in, I see that you have a family full of love and joy, and you’ve created a safe place to express feelings and emotions and find healing with really healthy tools!!! I think you & Andrew are doing a really great job.
Seth – YOU also are one who SEES me and acknowledges me. Thank you.
Amen to this sister in Christ.
Seth, from the moment we were led into each other’s sphere, with all the messy backwash of what it means to remain close friends over now 40 years, l knew our journey would have us sometimes in elliptical orbits, but always engaged and with low tolerance for insidious inauthenticity. I’ve had an ethic to celebrate not tolerate a Wheaton College classmate, two years my junior, but always a valedictorian in asking hard questions and diving deep into the raging pools of ambiguity. We haven’t always had the same keen lens observing a shared set of life seasons, choices, tragedies and triumphs. But underneath the shifting tectonic plates of life “making up its mind” l have watched your often prayerful, solitary trek with amazement, regard and love. Men need to model what it looks like to unabashedly show and faithfully model to subsequent generations what the love of an itinerant Messiah looks like in covenant friendships. I still believe in our beautifully broken places we continue to make sand castles on sandy beaches of life’s inevitable ebb and flow. l honor you and Karen again today, from delayed travels in Washington DC, where flags in humility are lowered to half mast, because of a peanut farmer who became a president with peace and reconciliation his path to what some called an abject failure. Heaven knows. And, that is enough.
Butch
Amen to this!
The right side of the brain is the fast track processor. Its processes emotions and feelings before our left side can form the words to describe it. This means as soon as we enter a room with another face (another person) our fast track has assessed if that person is “glad to be with us” if it is friend or foe, safe to approach or we need to retreat. This happens before the left side has words for the encounter.
We can do so much to let people know they are wanted, seen, valued by showing them with our face, with our eyes, that we are glad to be with them.
Delight in your kids when they walk in the room. Pause what you’re doing and connect eye to eye with “eye smiles”. We do this every morning with the kids when they first wake up before we rush into the day.
Kelly, your words are on the mark and profound. Thank you.
Kelly and Butch – I love the deep processing here! I’ve known you both a long time. We’ve maintained relationship digitally, but we forged it in person during times of deep pain. Whether we connect in person or digitally, I see you in 3-D. I see you through the lens of time. I see the grace you’ve needed and the grace you’ve given or struggle to give. And it gives me a context to show up in 3-D.
I watch so many people walk around in a 2-D world. Only digital or when in person, not digging into the hard places where people hide, but long to be seen.
I’ve watched both of you do the hard work to befriend those parts of yourselves that were deeply traumatized and then re-traumatized by evil. It’s work that has brought healing and the grace needed to refrain from judging others when they are struggling as you have struggled. It’s what ultimately equips you to be wounded healers.
Seth, the world feels safe with their “stuff” in the tribe of wounded healers. The only living being who shouldn’t feel safe in your presence is an opossum. l know the secret places. 🙂
ha! And even they need compassion. Just need to know the consequences of disobeying the 11th Commandment: “Thou shalt not enter thy neighbor’s garage and make a home of it without an invitation!”
Remember the emails that I sent you Seth, not too long ago? Of the pain that I’m dealing with? The deep loneliness?
The lack of recognition?
I completely relate. Although I’m not going to kill myself. I’m not in that place of deep despair like that dear young man was. It’s still hurts when people neglect parts of the body of Christ. Like myself.
Christians don’t care enough. “Greater love has no man then him who would lay down his life for his friends”
This is why the church is such a mess.
Sin…
Doesn’t the Bible say that the world will know that we are His disciples by our love for one another? Doesn’t the Bible say that we’re supposed to have fervent love for one another? That means hot and burning love and he’s not talking about this world’s sickening lustful love.
Even when they know you’re going through something they just go on in their little life, in their little bubble.
The church is gone cold and not a very strong representation of the love of Christ.
I lost my job. (Sept 2024)
I Was in a car accident (11/30/24).
No car, no job, no church, no community… I still live in the country town over 50 miles from the city.
As long as these people get their rent payment all is good, I’m sure.. 🥴
The people that I value(d) [and was “told” “you’re like family to us”] haven’t reached out to see if I’m ok (assumptions) and have full knowledge of what happened to me.
Nobody probably could have known that that precious young man who killed himself was in that horrible emotional depth of despair. Yet it’s a lesson to learn. To check on your Christian family who you call your family of Christ. To not neglect one another.
This is just a clarion call for the church to wake up.
And nope….
I’m not going to send some plea to this small community that I am referring to, “Oh please reach out to me.” ” Please let me know you care and did not forget me” That’s rubbish.
If people care about, It will show in their actions. If they are spiritually awake, emotionally awake, and value you. It’s rubbish to speak words and not show it in actions.
~Words~ mean~ very~ little~
It’s definitely time for me to move on from people like this.
Thanks for the startling article.
~S
Sandy – it’s so hard. Why is the church so bad at being the church?
And even this blog site is not the community it once was.
I’m praying for you.
Revelation talks about the church having left its first love. The love is not burning anymore. Thank you Seth.
Sandy, thank you for the gift of transparency. You touched my day. Grateful.
Thank you Butch! Truly.
I’m going to God all the time to keep my heart from being hard. That would compound the trial more. : (
This was outstanding!
Thanks Charlie. Some of these thoughts have been stimulated by our monthly friends’ dinner and your prodding.