There’s two stages to growth from Infantile/Diffuse: the first is into Maturity, which is typically tribal. In Maturity, we’re able to accomplish “grown up” things like running a household and so forth. However, this “Maturity” is not God’s ideal of “Spiritual Maturity,” but rather human-strength-Maturity.

God’s ideal of Spiritual Maturity includes the ability to not only establish a household, but to reach out beyond the household victoriously into the surrounding world. I know, for example, you and Steve are doing precisely that, and coincidentally it is bringing continued victory into your life as you “advance towards” rather than “retreat from” (which is so typically tribal).

Still, there remains the necessity of going back to your Tribe (parents) and redefining the relationship you inherited or built there. This again means “advancing towards” rather than “retreating from.” It’s necessary to “go back home” and engage in relationships there not as the “little girl” you once were, but in your new “Spiritual Woman” identity which is grounded in the faith and hope of Christ. By engaging in those original tribal relationships with this new identity, you’ll begin experiencing freedom from the old “expectations” and patterns. That freedom follows you back into your new “tribe”, and you’ll find yourself thinking & feeling completely different: as a truly grown woman of God.

We’ll be discussing this transformation process more.

You may notice the “diffuse hope” is not extensively detailed, above. This is because there’s a real rough road ahead for those of us from such dysfunctional lifestyles–far more issues than I can get into with this article. But it does mean rebuilding Permanent Love Values, and does not mean imitating the PLV’s which our tribes were based upon. Lisa’s comment is directly tied to the same issue. I do intend to address that soon enough, for the sake of all us bullies!

I grew up in a very tribal home, one where politeness was extolled as the way to get around in the world. Then when i was a teenager I withdrew from my family and became a bully out in the world. I still acted within the acceptable behavioral patterns at home and family functions but out where i spent my time and energy I went from a punk to a bully, I found that even though I would try to be a hard!@$ and would fly from relationship to relationship, treating people like dirt.. I spent alot of effort trying to round other bullies up into a tribe.

I think I started as a seriously weak punk. I mean I got eaten up and chewed and spit out and stepped on and scraped off and thown away. After this experience I “realized” that I needed to become a bully. I befreinded the biggest bullies I could find and threw out all of my love rules to persue the only road I thought possible. Only I was never happy as a bully, I really wanted to be a punk instead. So I tried to turn other bullies into punks.

after failing at trying to bully other bullies into my tribe, I went after some sissies, which I ended up just turning into tramps. when all of this failed I finaly broke down and decided to look into christ.

Then something amazing happened. I accepted christ, found this realy awesome church, and things started to make sense, so I thought.

What I really found at that time was a place where I thought I could have a difuse tribe. A closeknit group of people that bounced around between outside relationships and activities, I still persued sissies unseccesefully, what I beleive I did is take the only patterns for behavior I knew and tried to apply them to christian life. I was struggling to have an exciting diffuse life that was backed by plv’s, and the plv’s I reached for were the ones I knew the best, the values I learned from my parents.

unfortunately as I found out not only are these values incompatible with the diffuse relating I was into, they are almost completely useless in the real world. only allowing you to build relationships with people of similar upbringings.

I really have been digging this love ethics thing because I believe i’m in a place now where I know that how i’ve been approaching things doesn’t work, and I needed a clear new paradigm, something that actually works to live in.
I really needed the guidance into what a christian love ethic actually looked like. So thanks for the hard work keith, and thanks to everone else who devoted their time. I really appreciate the way you’ve put this together in an understandable manner.

I came from a very tight tribe – a messed up tribe – full of dysfunction and bitterness – but a close-knit tribe nonetheless. I and my brothers all fled the confines of our tribe. I fled to college seeking significance and was drawn into the alluring world of the diffuse. (My brothers all fled as well – one found a new tribe among his wrestling buddies, the other found the structure and excitement within the army.)

It was so exciting and “glittery.” The music, the lights and the admiration of college men – those same boys who once rejected a quiet, dutiful daughter and bright, committed student. The charge was indeed very electric.

I left my tribe and threw myself into various relationships – until I encounter a “bully” who took from this naive sissy and as I result I was hurled into the diffuse love sphere. I believe at that time I crossed over from the tribal sphere into the realm of the diffuse – becoming a tramp.

I moved from relationship to relationship. Interestingly enough – it was at this time I started coming to Christian fellowship. I took as many PLF as I could grab – engaging simultaneously in immoral relationships with men from two different home churches. (Yes – sounds sort of trampy to me)

How sick and twisted – was that. I justified my behavior – oh yes – you see I got different feelings from different guys – one was a psychology grad student ( I must have been a case study) – we actually got engaged. He was stable and grounding for me The other was an unstable – drinking emoter – who pursued me intensely – he was fun – rebellious – and little bit dangerous. (Did I forget to mention I got engaged to him as well?)

Why I wasn’t asked to stay away from fellowship – I’ll never know. But God worked with me through the pursuit of female relationships. He pursued me – he loved me.

I knew I was so screwed up – I was living contrary to my tribal rules – I was anything, but the responsible over achiever who had scholarships to college – who had once worked and saved enough money to pay for two years of college – I had changed.

So I guess – my confusion is this. I had very strong tribal ties – then it seems I jumped into the diffuse sphere – not for long – maybe 2 years – then Christ and His body pursued and loved me.

But then, it seems that I never truely lost my tribal ways.

Even though, I entered into God’s family while I was still in the diffuse sphere (I rejected my parents values – on many levels) I always went back to my tribe – at times attempting to resolve old issues or just because I needed the PLV that they offered to me. I felt safe – until they stiffled me and it was as if I was smoothering.

So in my life – it seems as if I have moved between love spheres – moving deeper into depravity and then swinging back the other direction – but able to still deny some of the tribe’s rules – but at the same time longing for the tribe’s acceptance and perceived security.

What is with all that?

I’m looking forward to reading this again.

On a side note, I really like how you did the lay out for this article and how the images are displayed. You’ll have to enlighten me as to how you got the images to align with the text all nice and have that cool shadow behind them.