When Two Scared Porcupines Seek Comfort
Joan was fuming about Jim’s comment. He had made comments like this before. These words had a history of hurt behind them. She was not only hurt, she was angry. Why couldn’t he be more understanding? Ever since she was a little girl, she rarely shared how she felt when she was hurt. Not this time. She was tired of “just sucking it up” and seeking solitude to silently lick her wounds. This time, she surprised Jim with a few sharp and sarcastic comments. From the expression on his face, she could tell she had hit the target. She could tell he was really mad now. She normally sulked and punished him with her silence. This time, she tried a new strategy to protect herself and get him back.
Jim was definitely ticked. He remembered how hurt he had felt growing up when his father had used sarcastic words to provoke him. Joan’s reaction had reopened a wound that had never been resolved from his past. He couldn’t let her treat him like this. He reacted with a new volley of vocal violence and lashing looks. In the moments that followed, the fire was out of control. Words were used like weapons. Destructive dialogue delivered fresh wounds to hurting hearts. Each longed to be understood. Each wanted desperately for the other to somehow see their point of view. Each of them yearned for the other to somehow feel how they had been hurt. Unfortunately they both felt more devalued and damaged.
It’s not safe when two scared and wounded porcupines seek comfort from each other
Jim and Joan are acting like two scared and wounded porcupines that ultimately want comfort from one another. Yet, instead of creating a place of comfort they are caught up in a damaging dialogue. The interaction between Jim and Joan illustrates relational fission. Relational fission occurs when harmful messages provoke harmful reactions that escalate into a cycle of perpetuating relational damage. When what I say hurts you and then you react in a way that hurts me and this triggers a chain reaction of comments that denigrates each person’s dignity.
This process is appropriately named fission as the process resembles the fission that occurs when atoms are split causing the release of nuclear energy by a chain reaction atomic explosions. When proper safeguards are not in place, nuclear fission is terribly destructive and lethal. Similarly, if proper safeguards are not in place in relationships, relational fission is relationally explosive, destructive and lethal. Relational fission creates fallout and damage in relationships. Relational fission occurs when a relationship is not safe. A relationship is not safe when people within the relationship are not allowed to share how they are feeling without fear of condemnation or retaliation. Once relational fission starts in a relationship it is hard to stop.
Relational fission is not uncommon in relationships. It occurs in boardrooms and in bedrooms. It occurs in families, fellowships and friendships. When words, expressions and actions are “adding fuel to the fire”, and attempts to communicate are creating more chaos and confusion, then relational fission is in full force. When you sense you and someone else are “pushing each other’s buttons and you find yourself saying, ”oh no, here we go again”, then you are probably in the midst of relational fission. I’ve witnessed it and sadly I’ve participated in it.
The cycle of relational fission in a relationship may not always occur in one setting but sometimes drag on for days, months or even years. The manner in which relational fission is manifested in relationships is also not restricted to the realm of words alone. The damaging interchange may also be expressed through body language, gestures, emails, sarcasm, slander, tone of voice, avoidance or silence. (Yes, silence can be a weapon to damage as ”silence can be violence” ). Relational fission is at its worst when attempts to resolve conflicts turn into “World War III”. Because of Its destructive and lethal effects, relational fission have caused families to wallow in dysfunction, marriages to dissolve, churches to split and friendships to be forsaken.
Relational fission seemed be very present in the relationship between Jacob and his father-in-law, Laban. In Genesis, we catch a glimpse of their relational fission that lasted for twenty years. Laban lies to Jacob. He pressures him, deceives him and takes advantage of Jacob’s labor. Laban cheats Jacob and changed his wages 10 times. Jacob, in response, never directly confronts Laban, but secretly connives and takes advantage of Laban through their business relationship. As a result, Jacob becomes wealthy. This provokes strong resentment in Laban and Laban’s sons. Two decades of cyclical discord propels Jacob to a drastic act. He decides to flee. Rather than confront Laban, he gathers his family and stuff and makes a run for it.. “Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was running away.” The relational fission crescendo’s as Laban pursues Jacob in intense anger.
It takes Laban seven days, but he finally catches up and confronts Jacob. “What have you done? You’ve deceived me, and you’ve carried off my daughters like captives in war. Why did you run off secretly and deceive me? Why didn’t you tell me, so I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of timbrels and harps? You didn’t even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters goodbye. You have done a foolish thing. I have the power to harm you; but last night the God of your father said to me, ‘Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.’
“Jacob answered Laban, “I was afraid, because I thought you would take your daughters away from me by force”…Jacob was angry and took Laban to task. “What is my crime?” he asked Laban. “How have I wronged you that you hunt me down?...I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you.”
Finally, after 20 years of damaging and dysfunctional relational patterns, Laban offers a redemptive pathway to Jacob, “Come now, let’s make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us.”
So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. He said to his relatives, “Gather some stones.” So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
Laban said, “This heap is a witness between you and me today.” That is why it was called Galeed. It was also called Mizpah, because he said, “May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other… even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you… and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me. May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.”
So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac. He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there.”
Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home.”
Thank God for the covenant that was made at Mizpah between Jacob and Laban. For it was at Mizpah, after 20 years of damage, that Jacob and Laban had a funeral for the relational fission in their lives. It was at Mizpah that a covenant was made to stop the escalating relational damage. It was at Mizpah that bitterness was replaced with blessing and criticism was replaced with a kiss. It was at Mizpah that relational fission was replaced with relational fusion.
Is there a relationship in your life where you have or are experiencing relational fission? Are you in a relationship where attempts to have constructive communication turns into a cycle of destructive dialogue? While relational fission is a complex relational issue, establishing a Mizpah covenant like Jacob and Laban did, might be the best place to start.
Mizpah is a covenant of safety…a place where safe boundaries exist…a place where peace is pursued. In Mizpah those in the relationship say, “I will not go beyond the point where you will be harmed. I value safety over self-protectionism and our relationship is more important than being right”. Mizpah is a place where stones are used to build a testimony of trust rather than being used to hurl at each other. Rocks are used to be a reminder of His redemptive home rather than ruining a relationship. Mizpah is a place where evil Is not returned with evil or insults for insults but rather a place of safety and blessing.
Mizpah is a place where even porcupines can feel safe
