Confining Groups

This morning I was thinking about confining groups and how personal choice is often superseded. Though it is wonderful to be able to "do whatever we want" and have freedom to explore, being part of a group and considering the needs of others takes precedence.  If we choose to go at it alone-we miss out on opportunities to love and be loved.  I tried to point this out to my students as we explored a water park in assigned safety groups.  There was the expected push back of course as they felt confined.  (It will be worse next week when making tent assignments for our spring camp.)  Who am I stuck with and how are we going to make this work?  It was mildly entertaining to observe their initial reactions, lack of mutual decisions making, how some bailed on each other preferring to explore water features by themselves, others kicked out the less active peers in their group and pawned them off to others.  It's just harder to have fun when you can't do what you want.   It's another testament to how easy it is to take almost any activity and turn it into experiential learning. 

Though I have some one-on-one interaction with my clients, I primarily interact with them in groups. After observing a family therapy session facilitated by my co-worker, my latest intern stated, "That much cooler than any of the groups we do."  Granted, older adolescent girls seemed to be much more insightful than hyperactive little children, but his remarks addressed the power of experiential activities and the satisfaction of helping families come together and work through some of their core issues.  In defense of the satisfaction working with children, facilitating groups help prepare them to return to their most important group-their family.  They can apply lessons in their future relationships with the people they care about most.

I'm reminded daily of how important family is to each of these students in confinement. It might be the unstable girl who just assaulted a student a day earlier who eagerly pulls me aside to read the latest letter from her father and show me her pictures of each family member.  Or sitting down on the floor with a boy who punches himself in the nose and smears his blood all over himself who reports feeling calmer when he thinks about how much his mom loves him.  Or the continually depressed boy who chants about missing his mother when disappointed or frustrated. Or the enthusiasm and anxiety of a student preparing for their first home visit.  Or the tender concern of a parent in treatment team as she requests playing tooth fairy for her son by putting money into his account. It's these acts both big and small that say, families matter, even more so in confinement. Each child exists because a man and a woman came together.  It takes more than one person doing whatever they want to form a group.  Groups give us an opportunity for mutual caring and problems solving.  Groups encourage us to make a decision to love another human being and care about each other's needs. 

 I love how the choice to love another human being was portrayed in the movie, "The Theory of Everything."  It was powerful witnessing the confinement of a brilliant mind imprisoned in an impotent body. Or the self-induced confinement of Jane as she chooses to love and care for a man she knew would lose all control over his physical faculties. I loved how this choice to love each other gave Stephen hope to do more than just wait around to die. I loved the courage represented by each of them as they fought against his disease and found ways to contribute to the world.  I loved Jane's reaction to the phrase in his book addressing "the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God." In their poignant separation, I felt Jane's admission of loving Stephen through the years. I loved the scene in Queen's garden when considering accomplishments leading to his impending knighthood.  Stephen then  remarked, "Look what we have made" and seemed to be referring to their children playing in front of him; that was beautiful-creators of their own universe. I know the movie wasn't an accurate representation of their relationship, but after a screening of the film Stephen Hawking eyes were wet, and so were mine.  Maybe the "theory of everything" really is not summed up in one simple math equation, but in one simple word-love.  

I believe love between a man and a woman creates the most important group in the world-a family.  I chime in with the testimony of the late apostle L. Tom Perry as he states, "the older I get, the more I realize that family is the center of life and is the key to eternal happiness. I give thanks for my wife, for my children, for my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, and for all of the cousins and in-laws and extended family who make my own life so rich and, yes, even eternal. Of this eternal truth I bear my strongest and most sacred witness in the name of Jesus Christ."  I say amen to that, and amen to the power of the group. The personal choice to love within the confines of a group-whether self-selected or assigned is a great blessing and what we really want to do anyway. To subject personal will opens the door to love.