Prayer Room Eight Garden Steps, Step Five First-Plymouth Congregational Church United Church of Christ 2000 "D" Street Lincoln, Nebraska 68502-1698 Office (402) 476-7565 Fax (402) 476-8402

   Step Five-
                    Fidelity

   Psychosocial Crisis: Identity & Repudiation vs. Identity Diffusion    
   Range of Relationship: Peer Groups & Outgroups, Models of Leadership

Fidelity is the ability to sustain loyalties freely pledged in spite of the inevitable contradictions of value systems. It is the cornerstone of identity and receives inspiration from confirming ideologies and "ways of life."

[Erik H. Erickson, The Human Cycle (1968)]

[Fidelity; 20x43 in. Painting by Nadine McHenry. A teenager develops an individual identity.]

Biblical Reference     Joseph reunited with and forgiving his brothers      

    And Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph; is my father still alive?" But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence, So Joseph said to his brothers, "Come near to me, I pray you, " And they came near, And he said, "I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt, and now do not be distressed; or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here,' for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt."

[Genesis Chapter 45, verses 3-8]

Taoist Reference

What is built on rock cannot be pulled down, 
What is held lightly can never be lost,
Meditate on Virtue within yourself,
And you will find the benefit of virtue. ...
So look at someone else as you would yourself 
And treat other families as you would your own.

[Tao Te Ching, Chapter 54]

Plant Selection            Fennel

    In the heat of a Nebraska summer, there grows, quite well, an airy, bronze colored fennel. Perhaps it was the presence of Tiger Swallowtail butterflies or the children who chased them that caused me to notice. This year, as in years past, this patch of fennel has moved. I wonder where it is going. Why must it move? Is it unhappy? What have I done? What must I do?

[Thomas Bare]

Above the lowly plants it towers
The fennel, with its yellow flowers,
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers.
Lost vision to restore.
It gave new strength, and fearless mood;
And gladiators, fierce and rude,
Mingled it in their daily food;
And he who battled and subdued;
A wreath of fennel wore.

[The Goblet of Life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

Foeniculum vulgare. Fennel. The Greeks used it to help lose weight. In India, the fennel seeds are mixed with aniseeds and chewed after meals. Drinking fennel tea is believed to strengthen eyesight. In Indian medicine, fennel is believed to be perfectly balancing: calming nerves while uplifting spirits.

[Thomas Bare]

Step Five: Fidelity

Look on others as yourself.
Treat other families as your own.
To Joseph came his own fidelity 
Forgiving brothers for their betrayals. 
Identities come from acts of kindness, 
Clarity comes from golden virtue, 
Received like seeds from fronds of fennel 
Granting vision, goodness, power.

[Randall E. Dinsdale]

From the program notes for the Abendmusik: Lincoln Eight Garden Steps concert, May 19, 2002.