tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57213451130726693492024-02-08T08:36:57.847-06:00The Divine SelfEncouraging Authenticity in Everyday LifeRandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.comBlogger235125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-25843890984471582462016-08-04T11:40:00.001-05:002016-08-04T11:40:30.923-05:00Six Things Your Community Could Be Providing<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">We've taken a look at the necessary ingredients for meaningful, authentic community. Now, we return to the big questions we hope such a community might help us answer.</span></span></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What am I passionate about? What personal life dream of mine creates greater wholeness in the world?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Where do I find a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">genuine </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">sense of belonging? Where do I find </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">authentic </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">community? </span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What fears get in my way? How can I dismantle those fears and understand what I actually want?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How can I get what I most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater wholeness?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Specifically, let's look at the intersection of questions 1, 2, and 5. We've already <a href="http://thedivineself.blogspot.com/2015/12/selfishness-1.html" target="_blank">dismantled the criticism</a> that these questions are <a href="http://thedivineself.blogspot.com/2016/01/selfishness-3.html" target="_blank">selfish</a>. We know that we may have to do a bit of introspection and self-examination to determine meaningful answers to these questions, and that can seem like hard work. On the other hand, these questions are all interconnected, so it's likely that the answers are connected too.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Chances are that we are already engaged in community in some way. Human beings are relational, so it's an intrinsic part of being human to form community. Sometimes, the communities we find ourselves in are by happenstance, and sometimes our participation in them is a conscious decision. Whatever the case, we can choose to be more intentional in how we show up in those communities. This involves knowing ourselves well enough to understand what moves us toward wholeness, and it involves giving ourselves permission to do those things.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Knowing ourselves well enough to understand what moves us toward wholeness is a fancy way of saying understanding what we really want. We have to get past our anxiety in order to know this. When we're anxious, what we want in the immediate sense is for the anxiety to go away. If we can't manage our anxiety well, our autopilot reactions will make decisions for us. We can't get what we most deeply want unless we shift into a more intentional way of choosing our responses. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Sometimes our anxiety is specifically about what we want. We believe that we have to want something noble or grandiose or selfless in order to be "good" people. Or we tell ourselves that we don't deserve what we want, or that we haven't earned it. And we usually don't have a very reasonable sense of what it would take for us to deserve or earn what we most deeply want. Sometimes we even justify not tending to our own needs because we are waiting on a supernatural to arrange our lives differently. And these are just a handful of the nearly infinite roadblocks we put in our own paths. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The first hurdle, then, is recognizing that what we most deeply want is important. When we understand our personal guiding principles -- our internal guidance system -- and can connect what we want with our deepest values, this hurdle becomes easier to cross. Knowing the principles by which we want our lives to be governed gives us a solid foundation for determining whether we are identifying what we deeply want or we are instead just coming up with the most expedient way to make our anxiety go away. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Our guiding principles also give us a way to cast vision in our lives, to imagine what a best possible version of ourselves might look like. This vision is, essentially, a way of identifying what we most deeply want. When we engage our imaginations, we can ask ourselves: What would I look like if I were in complete integrity with my guiding principles? The answer to that question is a vision toward which we can orient our decisions -- and something with which we can realign ourselves when we get off course. And we know when we are off course by recognizing when we are reacting out of anxiety rather than making intentional choices.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Orienting around our guiding principles may give the impression that what we most deeply want needs to be lofty and demanding. This is not necessarily so. Most often, what we most deeply want is not so different from what everybody most deeply wants. We just put a lot of obstacles in our own way, including believing that what we want has to fall into neat categories of either "shamefully selfish" or "impressively selfless". The truth is that what we most deeply want is probably rather simple, and our deepest wants probably help meet other people's needs too.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">If what we most deeply want is a sense of belonging, for instance, the healthy community we create from that desire is going to benefit others as much as it benefits us. Rather than judging what we are passionate about, then, we have the potential to connect what we are passionate about with our deepest values and make intentional decisions in our lives. We can create community around anything, provided it aligns with our life-affirming guiding principles. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">(I'll reiterate here what I've said elsewhere: If you think your guiding principles aren't life-affirming, you haven't uncovered your actual guiding principles yet. You may have uncovered a fear you didn't know about, but our deepest values are not built on fear. Don't make excuses or feel ashamed when you get to this point, just be honest about the fear and keep searching for the deeper life-affirming values that it's covering up.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Being honest about what is fulfilling to us -- and being sharp about distinguishing what we most deeply want from our anxious reactivity -- gives us a way toward creating greater wholeness for ourselves and for the world around us. When we engage in any community intentionally, we have the opportunity to develop deeper understanding of ourselves, more meaningful connection with the people around us, and a greater sense of purpose. Meaningful, authentic community inspires our creativity and provides us with accountability so we can stay aligned with our deepest values more consistently. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The surface level activities of the community don't really matter (provided they're aligned with your life-affirming values). Bowling league, neighborhood parenting co-op, book club, activist organization, community garden, artist collective, whatever. We can be intentional about how we show up in any community, ensuring that our authentic needs are met in legitimate ways and simultaneously contributing toward wholeness in the lives of others. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">If you want a way to consider the strengths and growth edges of your particular community, some research by a couple of students at Harvard suggest six categories of human need that are met by authentic, meaningful community. You can read about their observations of various secular communities at <a href="http://www.howwegather.org/">www.howwegather.org</a>. Their evaluation includes some theistic language, but it's easily ignored or translated. I just mentioned the six categories a couple of paragraphs back, but I'll list them again. If your community does one or more of these things well, that's something to celebrate. If it has challenges with one or more of these areas, that may be something you want to build up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">First, community provides for a basic human need in and of itself. Making sure the community has integrity -- that it is meaningful and authentic, as we've discussed over several entries -- is important. Belonging is important for human beings, but building community with a clear identity in which people are genuinely welcomed and accepted can be challenging.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Second, meaningful authentic community gives people opportunities for personal transformation. When we feel safe and can be honest about our deepest values, community can help us align our lives better. We can grow in our personal integrity and authenticity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Third, meaningful authentic community give people opportunities for social transformation. This means, we develop more mature and intentional ways of engaging in the world around us. We become more aware of how we can contribute to greater wholeness in the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Fourth, meaningful authentic community helps us identify a sense of purpose. </span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Life doesn't have a larger purpose, but human beings are meaning makers -- we determine what will give us a sense of purpose. Even though d</span><span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">efining purpose comes from within ourselves, being in community can inform that journey. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Fifth, meaningful authentic community engages our creativity. Human beings are, by nature, creators. This doesn't mean we are all artistic, but rather that we all have the ability to contribute to creating something new. Community can provide us with collaborators and inspiration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Finally, meaningful authentic community provides us with accountability -- people who will pay attention to what we say we want in our lives and will keep us encouraged and empowered to take the next steps in that journey. When we set public goals, healthy communities will hold us to those goals until we redefine them. People who care about us, care about what we want for our lives.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">If we understand our personal guiding principles, we can identify our deepest wants and needs more easily. Any community can become a place where we engage in having our personal needs met while we contribute toward greater wholeness in the lives of others. Every community can probably become better at the mutual practices of self-disclosure, active and unconditional love, hospitality, truth-telling, and celebration. Every community can probably become better at setting healthy boundaries and clarifying shared purpose or vision. And every community can be evaluated by how well it provides a genuine sense of belonging, opportunities for personal transformation, social transformation, defining purpose, engaging creativity, and offering accountability.</span></span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-4624204209128745322016-06-28T00:26:00.000-05:002016-06-28T02:21:04.229-05:00Community and PurposeThere are lots of different kinds of communities that meet different needs for people. We've been exploring what intentional components contribute to meaningful, authentic community. Mutual self-disclosure, active and unconditional love, hospitality, truth-telling, and sincere affirmation work together to meet people's needs. In other words, people need a place where they can:<br />
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<li>know others deeply and be known deeply by others,</li>
<li>love others and be loved by others,</li>
<li>serve others and be served by others,</li>
<li>hear others and be heard by others,</li>
<li>celebrate others and be celebrated by others.</li>
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Healthy boundaries, on the part of the community itself and on the part of its members, make the community a safer environment for all of these intentional practices. The last necessary piece we need to acknowledge is purpose. When a community lacks a sense of shared purpose, it's more difficult for people to feel a sense of belonging. </div>
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A purpose can be a restatement of shared values. A community's purpose may be to promote a specific value (or set of values) in the world. In many cases, it would still be helpful to clarify <i>how</i> the community intends to promote those values. A community can value the inherent worth and dignity of every person, but it's even more clear when that community says, "We're going to honor the inherent worth and dignity of every person by ending homelessness in our region." That's a clear, audacious purpose that can give people who align with that vision a sense of belonging. </div>
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If someone comes into that community and says, "I care about organic farming," they may not be strongly aligned with the shared purpose of the community. They might not feel like they belong in a community united around a purpose of ending homelessness. This is OK. That individual can decide whether they want to buy into the shared purpose of the community or whether they want to find meaningful, authentic community elsewhere. The community doesn't need to launch an organic farming program. This would potentially compromise the sense of belonging and shared purpose it has already cultivated. Unless organic farming clearly ties in with ending homelessness (and there may be a way that it does), the community can say no to focusing on organic farming. Members of the community already have a clear focus that defines what they want to do in the world.</div>
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Some communities have a clear focus that doesn't create greater wholeness in the world. Having a shared purpose still contributes to a sense of belonging for members of those communities. The KKK may not meet the criteria of our five essential ingredients, but their sense of shared values and purpose is undeniable. It's the clarity of the KKK's identity that makes it possible (and just and compassionate) to <i>oppose</i> the organization. Yet, the KKK still exists today because our society doesn't equip people to manage their anxiety and dismantle their irrational fears. When people find groups that legitimize their anxiety and fear, they feel accepted. They feel as if they belong to something larger than themselves. They feel a sense of safety in the midst of a world that is hostile to their perspective. Fundamentalist religious groups offer the same thing. They reinforce people's anxieties and fears in order to provide a sense of belonging and purpose. </div>
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This is one reason the conversations about essential ingredients for meaningful, authentic community happened before the conversation about clear shared purpose. If you get a sense of belonging from a community because they seem to be anxious about the same things you're anxious about and they seem to fear the same people you fear, run for the door. A shared purpose that fails to create greater wholeness in the world is not a purpose that will ultimately serve you or anyone else. This is not to say that every organization that claims to create greater wholeness is legitimately beneficial, but a purpose that doesn't clearly lead to greater wholeness is not a worthwhile purpose. </div>
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A community's purpose can only be evaluated if it's clear. I once heard a community leader speak at a fund raiser and say, "This organization has done great things in the past, and it was because of your contributions. I don't know what we're going to do next, but whatever it is, it will be because of your support." Not a very inspiring sense of purpose. This organization may have a set of values that a lot of people agree with, but without a clear statement of shared purpose, all the members of that community can run off in different directions doing what they think will support their shared values. And none of them are likely to be as effective as an organization that unifies people around a clear vision. </div>
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Some communities care a great deal about inclusion. This is a wonderful and praiseworthy value, but it cannot be a community's purpose. A clear purpose is actually a specific kind of healthy boundary for a community. Including everyone isn't possible within the context of a clear purpose, because everyone doesn't hold the same values or passions. At best, a community can be inclusive of every person who aligns with the clear shared purpose of the community. But a single community's purpose cannot accommodate every person who walks in the door with a personal agenda. This winds up creating a sense of belonging for nobody.</div>
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Imagine a mosque attempting to be inclusive by serving communion for the sake of a Christian couple that wanted to start attending. That mosque would fail at its purpose of creating Muslim community. It would alienate the majority of its members. It probably would not provide the same caliber of communion experience that a Christian community would provide. It would compromise its clear shared purpose (unless that clear shared purpose was to become a more Christian community). And it would probably fail in its ability to set healthy boundaries. Now, hopefully the community of Muslims that gather at that mosque have a greater shared purpose than simply to gather together and be Muslim. Hopefully, they have a sense of how they want to engage in the larger community to live out their Muslim values in a way that creates greater wholeness. That shared purpose probably does not need to include serving communion, no matter how lovely or insistent that Christian couple may be. <b>Inclusion has its limits, and those limits are set by the clear shared purpose of a community.</b></div>
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Within the boundaries of a clear shared purpose, of course, inclusion can be a powerful value a community holds. True inclusion is a lot of work, though. It often requires a lot of time and energy, and it often means being hyper-conscious of socially accepted metaphors and practices. A group of people recently became offended because the metaphor of walking was used throughout an event. They claimed that this metaphor was a repeated act of verbal violence toward people who use other forms of mobility. This presents a real problem when commonly used phrases or familiar songs (with no intent of excluding anyone from their message) use a metaphor of walking. Being inclusive sometimes means creating new language, and this new language can sound stilted at first. Unless the shared purpose of a community clearly connects with creating new language so that everyone is included in the words used by the community, this call for inclusion can be a hindrance to the community. If an entire community is able to align with the need for new language, however, it can be a powerful unifying and strengthening factor.</div>
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Claims of verbal violence and calls for greater inclusion often fail to take a community's purpose into consideration, however. Angrily insisting that a community accommodate one's personal values is not necessarily the most self-differentiated approach. If you want to be part of a community, and you feel in some way ostracized, the very best approach would seem to be connecting the practices of a community to its clearly stated purpose. Even if a community values the inherent worth and dignity of every person, if its clearly stated purpose is to honor the human value of people around them by distributing shoes, it isn't really appropriate to insist they also build houses, even if building houses would also align with the community's values. If that community is failing to distribute shoes effectively, though, or if its distribution seems to repeatedly avoid a certain neighborhood, there's a clear line of connection to follow. When inclusion clearly connects to a community's shared purpose, it's hard to argue with. </div>
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Personally, I find it difficult to be in communities with religious identities. Songs that praise or petition a supernatural are antithetical to my personal beliefs. Public prayers rarely call upon the strength and capability of human beings, but rather ask an external deity to provide things for people. Speeches or sermons often proclaim things like, "It's all part of God's plan," or, "God is in control." I feel like an outsider in the presence of those songs or prayers or speeches. I can choose to be personally offended, or I can look to the clear purpose of the community. If a community's practices are clearly in alignment with its identity and purpose, then I really have nothing to complain about. I simply won't feel a sense of belonging in that community, because my personal identity and values are different from what the community promotes. </div>
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If the community's practices seem not to be aligned with its clearly stated purpose, however, then I have a reason to speak up. It's often the case that a community and its leaders are unconsciously making assumptions that aren't true. If I feel an affinity for the community's purpose and my values and identity align with the community's stated values and identity, it's up to me to point out how the community's unintentionally exclusionary practices can shift to include my perspective while remaining clearly aligned with the community's shared purpose. When a community lacks a clear purpose, it's much easier for me to feel angry, offended, and alienated, especially if community leaders express a value of inclusion or claim to be welcoming to all people. At the same time, I don't believe that I should be made welcome by every community I might visit. Some communities have a purpose I don't share and don't have any interest in sharing. Neither I nor the community need to change. We all just need to be honest about what we are choosing to make our lives about.</div>
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Just as all of us need a clear sense of purpose to make our lives meaningful, communities need a clear shared purpose. The clearer and more specific the purpose, the more confident people will be in their sense of belonging. The more confident people are in their sense of belonging, the more easily they will participate in the mutual ingredients that make community healthy, authentic, and meaningful for everyone. The more vague a community's purpose, the more tentative people will be in their sense of belonging, and the more likely they will be to feel anger, hurt, or sadness when the community fails to meet their personal expectations. Lacking a clear purpose that's shared by its members means a community will have greater challenges in creating safe space for people to practice those five essential ingredients. It's better for people to leave with a clear understanding of how their personal identity doesn't mesh with the community's identity, even if this means that a community remains small. A community serves its current and future members best by having a clear purpose that all its members can share.</div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-70242488559830324142016-06-01T21:42:00.000-05:002016-06-01T21:42:01.676-05:00The Basics of BoundariesA lot of communities are familiar with boundaries. Boundaries are often used to define who is an insider and who is an outsider. Religious communities often use belief as a boundary. (Members of this community believe in X, Y, or Z, and if you don't believe in X, Y, or Z, you can't be a member of this community.) Some communities use behavior as a boundary. (Members of this behavior abstain from alcohol, or pray at certain times of the day, or wear special clothing, and if you don't do these things, you can't be a member of the community.)<br />
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Especially for people whose entire social circle is comprised of a single community, these rules and restrictions are a means of controlling people. Stepping out of bounds can mean being ostracized or disowned. This sort of boundary is harmful when shame, rejection, and condemnation are used as enforcement. The message from many religious communities is that certain people are unacceptable, unlovable, or unworthy because they don't fit within the community boundaries. In many cases, boundaries become walls, shutting people out of community, imprisoning people in relationships, or preventing safe self-disclosure, honesty, and affirmation.<br />
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Healthy communities, on the other hand, set boundaries based on what behaviors align with the shared values of the community. A healthy community doesn't need to distinguish between insider and outsider, because the community's commonly held guiding principles and shared purpose are clearly defined. Rather than controlling people's behavior, healthy boundaries are collaboratively defined practices that reflect the community's values.<br />
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For instance, if a community has decided to practice mutual affirmation, self-disclosure, hospitality, active and unconditional love, and honesty, they may agree that some behaviors reinforce those values and some behaviors run counter to those values. Let's say, for instance, that a community recognizes that gossiping about someone isn't congruent with those five characteristics, but that it reflects those values to speak honestly, directly, and respectfully to a person when there's conflict. The boundary for the community, then, is that communication within the community reflects the community's shared values.<br />
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If Alex goes to Bethany to complain about something Charlotte said, that doesn't mean Alex should get kicked out of the community or shamed. It <i>does </i>mean that Bethany has an opportunity to help Alex make a course correction and realign with communication that reflects the high aspirations of the community. Bethany could do this in a variety of ways. She could guide Alex toward speaking directly, honestly, and respectfully with Charlotte -- or even offer to go with Alex if the conversation seems challenging. She could also help Alex empathize with Charlotte. Remaining detached from Alex's anxiety might be challenging for Bethany, and she may be tempted to take sides or spread further gossip about Charlotte (or Alex). Having clear boundaries in the community and giving everyone responsibility for upholding those boundaries will hopefully make it clear to Bethany how she can respond more intentionally.<br />
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This is an important point, because many communities have specialized people who are boundary enforcers. If you have a problem with someone, you go to the boundary enforcer and file a complaint, the boundary enforcer looks into the situation and decides if a boundary has been crossed, and then (ideally) a system of justice is activated to provide just consequences. This system lets most people off the hook for enforcing community boundaries. In a large society, this has some benefits. Our national justice system is severely flawed, but it's at least an improvement on vigilante justice or the escalations of retributive violence that happen in some cultures. In smaller communities, though, people can collaborate to create community boundaries that reflect their shared values, and everyone can be equally responsible for enforcing those boundaries by their own intentional behavior. Bethany doesn't need to go running to a community elder to inform on Alex. She's capable of being intentional in her own behavior when Alex's anxiety gets activated.<br />
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Each community has to determine for itself what level of boundary-crossing warrants greater attention. There are times when people may be resistant to correction when they are acting in violation of a community's shared boundaries. People can engage in conflict when they are anxious; fear prompts defiance in some folks. It's important for a community to know how it will respond to this kind of anxiety or fear in a way that aligns with its guiding principles and values. Community members should know ahead of time what the consequences are for persistent boundary-crossing, and as many members as possible should be empowered to hold one another accountable to the community's shared values and guiding principles.<br />
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Boundaries can also help provide a sense of safety in a community. Background checks for people working with children is a boundary. Clear lines of financial accountability may be another community boundary. Sometimes these sorts of boundaries are rooted in fear and anxiety about people. The same boundaries could flow from a community's intentional identity, however. The difference is not necessarily the boundaries themselves, but the foundation on which the boundaries are built. Well-defined community values and shared vision undergird healthy boundaries.<br />
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Healthy individuals have boundaries, too. And individual boundaries may not be identical to community boundaries. One person may choose to be vegetarian, while the community as a whole doesn't make such a choice. It's the responsibility of the individual to clearly state their boundaries, and it's the responsibility of the community to respect the boundaries of individuals. Emile has the responsibility to say, "I won't eat the chicken casserole Devon brought to the potluck, because I don't eat meat." No one has to apologize for the presence of a chicken casserole, because vegetarianism isn't a shared value of the community. Likewise, no one in the community gets to force Emile to eat the chicken casserole, or shame or pressure Emile (or Devon). Radical hospitality may prompt someone to take action to make sure Emile has something to eat, but this can be a loving act that respects the boundaries of those present.<br />
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Sometimes personal boundaries are the result of false beliefs, and sometimes personal boundaries are inconvenient for a community. Healthy community can recognize these realities and remain respectful of the boundaries that individuals set, as long as the community's shared values and guiding principles aren't compromised. Say a community decides that its shared values are non-theistic -- that as a community they will not promote supernaturalism through any of their common practices. If Gerry prefers to pray before a meal, it's fine for Gerry to pray. It isn't fine for Gerry to insist that everyone else pray. If Gerry wants to listen to overtly theistic music, that's fine. Gerry just doesn't get to require everyone to sing theistic music together.<br />
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The same would be true for a theistic community that determines its shared values to include affirming and promoting affection or gratitude toward a supernatural. If this is a shared value of the community, Fabian's personal boundary of refusing to pray doesn't get to define the practices of the entire community. The community's boundaries also don't mean that Fabian can be forced to pray, however. Fabian can choose not to sing the community's theistic songs, but if the community's shared values include gratitude toward a supernatural, Fabian should expect them to sing praises to that supernatural as a community practice.<br />
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For some communities, the challenging part is defining these boundaries clearly so that individuals will know whether their personal boundaries will be in conflict with the community's practices. If a community expects everyone to do something, it's best to be honest and direct about that expectation. Too often, communities claim to welcome everyone and fail to provide a clear indication of what they're welcoming everyone into. It doesn't matter to me if a Christian community acts like they welcome me; if they're going to expect me to participate in blatantly Christian activities, I'm not going to feel welcome. I'm not going to feel like a respected, valued, accepted part of a community that expects me to act in opposition to my own personal beliefs. When a community is clear about its boundaries and practices, and an individual is clear about their personal boundaries and practices, people can easily see whether they are a good fit for the community. Hopefully, a community's shared values and guiding principles are directly reflected in their boundaries and practices.<br />
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I mentioned that sometimes personal boundaries are the result of false beliefs. As long as those personal boundaries aren't in conflict with the community's boundaries, it's still best to be loving and respectful of those personal boundaries that may be misguided. As a person grows in their ability to practice mutual self-disclosure and honesty, and as a person participates in giving and receiving sincere affirmation and active, unconditional love, their beliefs -- and therefore their boundaries -- may change. People first need to feel safe in community before they can engage in the challenging work of defining personal guiding principles and casting vision in their lives. Respect for their personal boundaries, and clear community boundaries, can help provide that sense of safety.<br />
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All of this conversation about boundaries is within the context of a community that is practicing the essential five ingredients we've already explored: mutual self-disclosure, mutual hospitality, mutual active and unconditional love, mutual honesty, and mutual affirmation. Some people may need a lot of help from their community to learn how to establish healthy personal boundaries. Boundaries can also be abused to preserve a community at the expense of the individual, or to create power-over structures rather than power-with systems. This is one reason community boundaries should be collaboratively created by the members of a community, with a clear connection to the shared values and guiding principles of the community. With these elements in place, a community can incorporate one more vital piece to creating greater wholeness in the world: a well-defined shared purpose or vision.<br />
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There are several books and web resources that carry this conversation about boundaries deeper, but one of the best is still <i>Boundaries </i>by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Even though this is touted as a Christian book, Cloud's observations are valid beyond the sphere of Christianity, and his recommendations are easily interpreted into a sound Humanist framework for relationships. He's also released a number of spin-offs that may be helpful to people looking for guidance on setting healthy boundaries in specific relationships.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-38526725792290017802016-05-24T19:02:00.002-05:002016-06-01T14:29:12.125-05:00Community and AffirmationEven in a community where people are engaging in mutual self-disclosure, mutual hospitality, active and unconditional love, and honesty, there are bound to be challenges. Any time more than one human being is in the same place at the same time, the potential for conflict exists. No matter how loving and honest you're trying to be, there will be times that anxiety wins.<br />
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I still have old, well-ingrained habits to defend myself when someone challenges what I say, rather than just accept that they're entitled to their own opinions. Intellectually, I'm all about peaceful disagreement, and in practice I can be in that space most of the time. But when my personal vows get triggered, I go into this zone where I believe I have to prove I'm right in order to be worthy -- I have to defend what I say, because if I'm wrong, I'll be unlovable and unacceptable.<br />
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You've got your own set of vows that you made at an early age, in times of high anxiety, when you decided subconsciously what you had to do in order to be safe, accepted, and loved. Everyone does. And when all of those vows bump up against each other, it causes some emotional friction. Healthy community develops appropriate ways of handling that friction, and those healthy practices become part of the community culture. We'll explore those practices in coming weeks.<br />
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There's one fifth essential ingredient that plays a part in the health of a meaningful, authentic community. In addition to mutual self-disclosure, mutual hospitality, active and unconditional love, and honesty, meaningful authentic community requires mutual affirmation and celebration. I'm not talking about throwing parties for people, although you could do that. Mutual affirmation or celebration is about acknowledging what's awesome about the people with whom you're in community. This has a few functions for community, and it also has a couple of pitfalls to avoid.<br />
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Sincere affirmation is rare. People are constantly being told how they need to improve, or what they need to do differently. Even when it isn't explicit, we compare ourselves to more outwardly attractive, successful, wealthy, happy people and easily focus on what's wrong with us. Few people hear often enough that they are powerful, capable, beautiful human beings. Cultivating a culture of sincere affirmation may seem like overkill, but people need others to accurately reflect their positive attributes back to them.<br />
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You may have heard the equation that you have to say six positive things to balance out one negative comment. This means that -- just by the way our brains process things -- if you hear six positive comments about yourself and one negative comment, you'll have a kind of break-even average opinion of who you are. And we hear negative things about ourselves all the time. Sometimes it's specifically about us, and sometimes we personalize negative comments about a whole group of people. If we're in a marginalized group -- immigrants, people of color, atheists, transgender folks, and plenty of others -- we hear a lot more negative commentary about ourselves than positive. That's one big reason meaningful, authentic community needs to practice mutual affirmation and celebration of one another. We need to hear an awful lot of affirmation before we even consider believing it might be true.<br />
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In order for people to be meaningfully engaged in community, they have to believe something positive about themselves. If people don't believe they have something of value to offer, they wind up not offering anything of themselves. If people don't believe they can make a meaningful contribution, they wind up not contributing anything. When people believe they have value, they can be more fully engaged in creating wholeness with other human beings. And it takes a lot of reassurance for some people to start believe something positive about themselves. We've become convinced somehow that saying too many positive things is coddling, or that people will become egomaniacs. It's a crappy reason not to say something affirming about a person.<br />
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Incidentally, this is why some people find it easier to believe in a supernatural source of love and acceptance. People often do a rotten job of praising one another. Many religions cultivate a perspective that human beings are worthless, weak, and unworthy, and that it takes the perfect benevolence of a superior being to actually love human beings. So, people try to believe that a being who never communicates with them directly and doesn't make itself known in any verifiable way, loves them more than any human being could, and accepts them even though they are thoroughly unacceptable.<br />
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All this is great PR for whatever god you credit with being able to love the unlovable, but it perpetuates the view that human beings are essentially unlovable, unacceptable, and unworthy. <i>An</i><i>d </i>it perpetuates the view that human beings are incapable of providing sufficient love, acceptance, and affirmation to one another. This is patently false, and it's a cruel lie to perpetuate about yourself and other people. You are both lovable and capable of love. You are both acceptable and capable of being accepting. You are both worthy and capable of affirming the worthiness of others. This view of humanity -- of yourself -- is essential to meaningful, authentic community.<br />
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The reason this view is essential is simple. When we believe lies about our own unworthiness or incapability, we are not our authentic selves. Authentic community can't be built from false selves, and false selves can't persist in authentic community. The way to authenticity isn't to shame people for presenting a false self, though. People have been through enough without someone trying to shame them into being authentic. Sometimes, people just need to see the other side of the coin, and they need to see it presented to them consistently and sincerely. We've been told how worthless or unlovable or unacceptable we are so much that many of us think it's true. We need to be told something different about ourselves so it seems safe to be vulnerable enough to be authentic with a community of equally flawed and beautiful, challenged and capable human beings.<br />
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Now, none of this is to say that we should overlook problematic behavior or that we should pretend people's weaknesses don't exist. We all have things we can work on, and we all have growth areas or opportunities for improvement. One of the reasons we appreciate meaningful, authentic community is that we can grow into greater wholeness as individuals -- which we wouldn't need to do if we were perfect. So, healthy community offers feedback that helps people address areas of growth. But it does so in a way that doesn't shame or condemn a person for having things to work on -- or just being imperfect. And some areas of imperfection don't require work -- they're just areas of imperfection.<br />
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Holding up a mirror to someone and lovingly showing them where their actions may not be in alignment with their guiding principles is tough. It's also a really important feature of meaningful, authentic community. We need people who are willing to hold us accountable <i>to the things <b>we</b> say we are going to be or do</i>. Accountability isn't me holding you accountable to what I want you to do. When I hold you accountable to your own vision of a best possible version of yourself, though, that has real value to you. It's a lot easier to hear that sort of feedback from someone who habitually offers sincere affirmation. We can be more vulnerable with people we trust to see the best in us.<i> </i><br />
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You may notice I mentioned <i>sincere </i>affirmation. We still have honesty as a core ingredient, and that honesty still needs to be a part of our affirmation of one another. Saying things that aren't true about a person isn't loving or helpful, even if those things sound positive. Telling a person they're a great musician when they sound like a cat caught in a blender is only going to lead to embarrassment and possibly unnecessary shame down the road. Telling people what's true about them -- over and over again until they believe you -- allows them to see who they are more clearly.<br />
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We don't actually see ourselves very clearly. For instance, I'm afraid of being seen as confrontational or abrasive, so if I say or write anything that could be construed as hostile or unkind, I'm super self-conscious about it. When people tell me how tactful I am, I have to check to see whether they're being sarcastic sometimes, because I'm hypersensitive to coming across as confrontational. Now that an awful lot of people have told me numerous times that I'm a tactful person, I'm learning to trust that I can say things hearably, even when I'm saying something challenging to someone. I've been at this for years, and it's taken years of people saying affirming things to get through all the other noise inside my own head -- most of which has been rattling around in there since I was a kid.<br />
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A community of people committed to offering honest affirmation of one another -- mutually celebrating each other -- can do a lot to create wholeness. People who aren't as worried about being lovable, acceptable, and worthy are better able to cast a vision of a best possible version of themselves. People who feel safe and acknowledged can live by their deepest values and guiding principles more easily. People can live more fully when mutual affirmation is the cultural habit of a community that also practices mutual self-disclosure, mutual hospitality, active and unconditional love, and honesty.<br />
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These five ingredients are not often found all together in communities. Keeping them all in balanced proportions takes intentional effort. Even having all five of these practices in place at all takes some intentional effort. If people are willing to allow these ingredients to define their relationships with one another in meaningful, authentic community, I'm confident that greater wholeness will be the outcome.<br />
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There will be challenges, though. While these five ingredients describe the consistent day-in and day-out intentional practices of a community, it's also important for the community to have a couple of pieces of infrastructure. One of these is clear boundaries within the community -- not defining who is an insider and who is an outsider, but defining safe and healthy behavior in the context of the community. Another is a clear shared purpose or vision. As you might imagine, these two topics will be next up on the docket.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-15097928066822001572016-05-16T09:57:00.001-05:002016-05-16T21:10:01.296-05:00Community and HonestyHonesty is a fourth essential ingredient to meaningful, authentic community. Honesty is obviously necessary for self-disclosure, and honesty works in tandem with active, unconditional love. We should take a look at this in more detail, and we should also consider how truth-telling intersects with hospitality and service to one another.<br />
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Some Christians say that Jesus commanded them to "speak the truth in love," even though it may seem rare to see anyone putting that into practice. It was actually a passing comment made by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (Eph 4:15), but it's still a useful idea. Sometimes we get caught up in being loving (or <i>appearing</i> to be loving, or doing what we think is going to make others love or accept us) and we fail to tell the truth. We might lie about who we really are, what we really want or think or need, what we see in other people, or the dynamics we see at work in a system. When we don't tell the truth, we aren't being loving. </div>
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Of course, we can tell the truth in an unloving way, too. We can be so blunt and direct -- and maybe even confrontational -- that the truth we express isn't very well received. Some people even get the cause-and-effect of this twisted around, thinking that their truth-telling gets a bad reaction from people rather than realizing that the way they express the truth has a lot to do with how others react. Even a lovingly-expressed truth can create some anxiety, but speaking truth without regard for a relationship is irresponsible. Actually, our reason for speaking the truth unlovingly is the same as our reason for not speaking the truth at all: fear. Dealing with our fear or anxiety about ourselves or other people is an important step toward speaking the truth hearably and lovingly. Speaking the truth is necessary for meaningful, authentic relationships, and the context of those relationships is active, unconditional love. So the way we speak the truth is as important as being willing to speak the truth.</div>
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When we aren't honest, it's always because of anxiety or fear. It may not seem that way, because we're so accustomed to a low-level of chronic anxiety that it feels normal. But when we avoid the truth, it's because we fear the consequences of the truth. We lie because we believe that someone else will react in a way that we won't like. We lie because we have something to lose. Some people are convinced that there's nothing wrong with telling a "white lie" to spare someone's feelings or to avoid a lengthy conversation with a stranger or acquaintance when you just don't have the time to spare. In his little book <i>Lying</i>, Sam Harris makes a compelling argument that it's always unethical or immoral to lie. Either way, lying doesn't create meaningful, authentic community. </div>
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There are all sorts of reasons we might value community enough that we're concerned about how people will react to us, though. If we find something meaningful in community, we don't want to do anything to jeopardize those relationships. That anxiety -- that we have something to lose, and we'd better be careful -- can lead us to believe that telling the truth is dangerous. Yet, we can't have the quality of community we really want and need if we keep things at a polite, surface-level veneer of social falsehoods. Community is most valuable to us when we <i>can</i> practice self-disclosure, and hospitality, and active and unconditional love in a safe environment. Letting our anxiety convince us not to be honest in that community means that we are in some way showing up as a false person -- that we're pretending to be someone different from who we really are -- for the sake of being accepted, or loved, or safe. </div>
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Pretending to be someone different from who you really are doesn't mean adopting a deep cover secret identity. It's simple things that erode our ability to be known and accepted for who we are. We pretend to be someone who likes gazpacho, or someone who is alright with a particular kind of humor, or someone who doesn't mind waiting 15 minutes for folks to arrive for a group activity. We may be none of those things, but we value the sense of community so highly that we feel obligated to make some sacrifices -- to give up part of ourselves -- in order to keep or strengthen that bond. Some people just call that being polite, but let's be clear about all of those times when we hide who we really are: When we hide who we really are, we lie. And when we lie about who are are, we can't be known. It isn't self-disclosure when what we disclose isn't really who we are.</div>
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We also can't be as meaningfully served by someone if we aren't honest. Yes, someone can prepare us a meal and we can sincerely appreciate it, even if it isn't our favorite food. But we can also lovingly, gratefully say: "Thank you so much for fixing dinner for me. I usually don't eat meat, but everything else here is delicious." Now, you can say that with a bit of an attitude, or you can be sincere in your gratitude that someone has done something hospitable for you. If you keep that bit of information entirely to yourself -- that you don't eat meat -- you may think you're just being polite, but what happens the next time that person prepares food for you? Do you keep lying? How many meals do you eat before you tell the truth? "Going along to get along" may be easier in some contexts, but it doesn't create meaningful, authentic community.</div>
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Serving others is also more meaningful when we're able to be honest. Some people practice "hospitality" with an ulterior motive. "I'll do something nice for this person, and then they'll owe me one. I can butter them up and then ask for this big favor, and they refuse, I can make them feel guilty." This is in no way hospitality. When we're honest with others about what we want and need, and we're honest about our interest in being of service, there's less anxiety in the exchange of hospitality and service. </div>
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In the context of meaningful, authentic community, we find loving ways to be honest. We don't engage in manipulation or playing safe. We stir honesty in equal measure alongside self-disclosure, service, and active and unconditional love. Then, when we serve others, they can legitimately trust the sincerity of our actions without worrying about ulterior motives. (To be clear, other people might suspect that we have ulterior motives when we are hospitable, but our willingness to be transparent and honest can alleviate those suspicions.) And when others serve us, they'll get sincere gratitude from us, <i>and </i>they'll learn more about what we appreciate. They'll learn more about what makes our hearts sing. </div>
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And while we're being honest, keep in mind that doing something that contributes to another person's well-being also does something for you. Research has demonstrated that altruism feels good. Plus, our sense of interconnectedness suggests that when the lives of people around us are moving toward greater wholeness, our own lives are enhanced. So, there's no need to get caught up in puzzling through the selfishness of service. Hospitality is always of mutual benefit, if you're willing to receive those benefits.</div>
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Even at a purely selfish level, honesty is the best way for us to get what we want and need. When we play manipulation games with people, we're always hoping people will take hints and read between the lines, or maybe that we can ensnare them in a situation where they feel obligated to give us what we want. The problem is that what we actually want requires us to be vulnerable. Having power over other people is a reaction to fear -- maybe fear that we aren't lovable or acceptable, that we don't matter, that someone is going to take advantage of us, or whatever fear might bubble up for you. </div>
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Persuading or compelling someone to do what we want seems to feel good because it alleviates that anxiety and fear for a moment. But it doesn't convince us that we are lovable or acceptable, or that we matter. It's the "consolation prize" of co-existing with others, when "first prize" is actually <i>knowing </i>that we are lovable, valuable, acceptable, worthy human beings. The best possible outcome is for us to get our legitimate needs met by other people who are willing to acknowledge and address those needs in legitimate ways. And we've seen that there's a mutuality built into that equation, because some of the things we need have to do with what we are able to <i>offer</i> to other people. The best way for people to understand and address one another's needs is for them to be honest about those needs to one another. </div>
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It may feel safer to hide parts of ourselves. It may feel vulnerable to admit that we have needs, or to reveal that we have fears about not being lovable or acceptable or worthy. But everyone wrestles with these issues in one way or another. Being human means having needs and being vulnerable. There's no shame in that. It's just reality. Honesty about that reality is one of the key features that distinguishes meaningful, authentic community from so many of the other ways we try to find community. Rather than giving up who we are in order to have connection with other human beings, we show up as we are -- as our authentic selves. We don't carry around shame about who we are, and we don't make demands for acceptance. </div>
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One person can do this, but it may freak out a lot of people, and it might be a challenge to infuse bold honesty into an anxious system where everyone is pretending to be someone they're not. A handful of people with a commitment to be in more authentic relationship with one another have a better chance of transforming an existing system to a more honest, loving, hospitable community. We'll see later on how honesty about current reality is a necessary part of casting vision for the direction of a community as a whole. For now, it's enough to see that honesty is a necessary component to blend with love, hospitality, and self-disclosure. </div>
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There's one more essential ingredient to meaningful, authentic community: affirmation. So, next time we'll explore the importance of being sincerely celebrated, and sincerely celebrating others.</div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-91788537428526026492016-05-03T21:38:00.000-05:002016-05-03T21:38:49.362-05:00Community and Active, Unconditional LoveOne of the most challenging things about self-disclosure and hospitality is that we have so much fear about our actions being used against us. We've heard horror stories, or we've experienced in our own lives, that sometimes when we share things about ourselves, other people use that information to cause us harm. When we extend hospitality to someone else, sometimes others take advantage. Feeling betrayed is a part of many people's life experience, and this makes trust really difficult.<br />
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A community that practices <i>mutual</i> self-disclosure and hospitality addresses some of this threat. If you experience being served by others, it can be easier to serve without fear that others will take advantage of you. If other people are self-disclosing, it can be easier to trust that you won't be betrayed if you share something of yourself. None of this is a guarantee that someone won't take more than they give in a relationship, or betray a confidence out of anxiety. People don't always live in alignment with their deepest values. You and I are included in that. But intentional mutuality helps lessen our fear about being known and serving others.<br />
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There is another feature of meaningful, authentic community that figures into this equation, and that is active and unconditional love toward one another. Obviously, this is a mutual thing, too. Active and unconditional love informs <i>why </i>we would choose to know and be known by others -- <i>why </i>we would choose to serve and be served by others. It isn't enough that someone listens to us share something about ourselves, what we hope for is that we'll be understood and accepted. Mutual self-disclosure could still happen in an environment where people heap shame on themselves and one another, and this doesn't really help anybody. What makes a community meaningful is that we have our needs met, and part of what we need is a sense that we are valued and cherished by others. In other words, we need love.<br />
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Most of the adoration and value we extend toward other people and receive from others is conditional. We try to earn people's approval, or we make people earn ours. As children, many of us developed a sense of what we had to do or who we had to be in order to earn love and acceptance from others. For some of us, this has meant pretending to be something we're not. We hide our true selves because we believe at some level that who we really are is unacceptable or unlovable, and we show up in a more "worthy" persona that we think will fool people into loving or accepting us. "If they saw who I really am, I'd be rejected, but if they believe the mask I wear, I'll earn love and acceptance."<br />
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This impression gets reinforced in communities all the time. As long as you seem to conform to everyone else's beliefs and behaviors, you are given the message that you're acceptable, lovable, righteous, good. But if you veer away from the accepted beliefs and behaviors of the herd, there are consequences. Maybe you are given the message that you're unacceptable. Maybe love is withheld. In many cases, you are no longer treated as an equal participant in that community. In order to get your needs met, you have to do what the community demands. Being valued and loved is contingent upon following the rules -- even if that means pretending to be someone or something you aren't.<br />
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Now, healthy communities have boundaries. Behavior that harms people in any way can't be tolerated if a community is to provide safety. Enforcing community boundaries can take a number of forms, though. An anxious reaction to someone violating our boundaries might be to tell them that they are unacceptable -- that the boundary violator is unworthy of love and acceptance. A more intentional response might be to address the offending behavior, so that it becomes a matter of "This behavior is not acceptable" instead of "<i>You</i> are not acceptable." This kind of nuance can be a challenge to master, but it reflects a willingness to distinguish a person from their behavior. People have inherent worth and dignity, and behaviors can change.<br />
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It's loving to hold people accountable to a mutually agreed upon set of standards for a community -- a covenant, if you will. Members of a community can decide together, "These are the principles that are going to bind us together, and these are the boundaries that are going to promote us being in alignment with those principles." Then, when someone betrays a confidence or takes advantage of the community's hospitality or violates the community boundaries in some other way, the response can be more loving toward everyone involved. Instead of a person being unlovable or unacceptable, the issue can clearly be, "This behavior doesn't align with our principles." It's even possible to say, "We love you and care about you, <i>and </i>this behavior isn't compatible with being part of this community."<br />
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This really isn't about controlling people's behavior. It's about giving people opportunities to grow into greater emotional maturity. Just about anything a person might do that would violate trust or harm another person is a product of that person's anxiety or emotional immaturity. When our decisions are informed by fears or false beliefs about ourselves or others, we're likely to cause some harm. But we have opportunities to alter our course. We have opportunities to learn and grow and do things differently. We have the potential to clarify our deepest values and guiding principles, and align our actions and beliefs with those values and principles. We have the potential to dismantle our irrational fears and give our word to greater integrity in our lives. We are capable of living into a best possible version of ourselves. Our decision to love others is essentially our willingness to see this same potential, this same capability, in them. So, it isn't about control so much as it is about hope.<br />
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At the same time, it's important for people to understand that their behavior has consequences, and that their actions have an effect on other people. None of this is a simple formula. It takes some commitment and some intentional work for a community to consistently focus on people's potential rather than their flaws. Hopefully, a community can establish a sense of active and unconditional love before it becomes necessary to enforce community boundaries. One way this can be done is by responding intentionally to the practices of mutual self-disclosure and mutual hospitality.<br />
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Love is apparent when people are accepted as they share who they are. We could respond to self-disclosure by trying to fix people, by judging them, by labeling them, or any number of ways that run contrary to valuing and cherishing a person. When a loving community practices mutual self-disclosure, that self-disclosure is followed by receptivity, acceptance, and validation. There are things that all of us could continue to work on. Validating and accepting where a person is doesn't equate to a declaration that they're done growing. It simply means that they are valued and cherished right where they are in their journey. The reason for growing isn't to gain love and acceptance. The reason for growing is to be more fully alive -- to be more consistently in alignment with a vision of a best possible version of yourself.<br />
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Likewise, love is apparent when service is met with gratitude. A community that practices mutual hospitality could come to expect that people will be of service to one another. People's acts of service toward one another may be overlooked or taken for granted if mutual hospitality is habitual for a community. Supplementing this commitment to a mutual sense of welcome with a mutual sense of gratitude and appreciation can foster deeper human connection. When people are willing to express gratitude, even when hospitality is expected, it reinforces a sense of value, care, and love for one another.<br />
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Meaningful, authentic community is more than incorporating a set of practices and behaviors into the community's identity. Self-disclosure and hospitality are wonderful, but they aren't enough in and of themselves. We all need to know that we are loved -- that we are cherished and valued. When we don't have this need met by other human beings, we invent sources. We imagine that <i>something </i>outside of ourselves cherishes and values us, even if we don't feel it from other human beings.<br />
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Some communities even foster this sense that something supernatural is the source of love. Meaningful, authentic communities recognize the truth that valuing and cherishing people is the responsibility of human beings to one another. We are responsible for expressing love and hope in one another's lives. When we abdicate this human responsibility to something we invent in our imaginations, we rob ourselves and others of full, satisfying human relationship. We miss out on being fully alive and fully human when we pretend that there is some other supernatural source for acceptance, value, and love.<br />
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Loving other people isn't safe, and it often isn't easy, but it is the task of human beings in meaningful, authentic community. If we aren't taking this responsibility seriously, we aren't creating authentic community. We're pretending to be less vulnerable and interdependent than we actually are. For this reason, honesty is another key component to meaningful, authentic community. Obviously, we must be honest in our self-disclosure if we expect to be truly known. And as we see here, active and unconditional love requires our honesty in recognizing love as the responsibility of human beings. We'll explore honesty further next week as we continue to consider the essential ingredients to meaningful, authentic community. Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-83174244195929214122016-04-25T23:11:00.000-05:002016-04-26T07:47:56.285-05:00Community and HospitalityWhen we cross the threshold of vulnerability and allow another person to know us more deeply, we are conveying a certain amount of trust that the other person will treat that knowledge with some respect. If they were to use what they know about us to hurt us, it would be more difficult for us to feel safe in community with that person. This is one reason mutual self-disclosure is important -- so that there isn't a power differential where one side is entrusted with information without having to risk the same level of vulnerability.<br />
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Self-disclosure actually meets a need, though. We don't just reveal our true selves to people for the sake of building trust and realizing our capacity for vulnerability. We want and need to be known by others, even as we fear that we are unacceptable, unlovable, or unworthy of being known. Mutual self-disclosure directly confronts the fears that we have about ourselves by giving us a chance to be loved and accepted for who we really are, in community with other people who wrestle with their own fears and challenges.<br />
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How we respond to knowing others and being known by others matters a great deal. We are best able to create meaningful, authentic community when our response to knowing others and being known by others leads toward greater wholeness. One way a community creates wholeness is by mutual service toward one another. Another way of saying this is that a community creates wholeness through a culture of hospitality. When our response to knowing others more deeply is to seek ways to be of service to them, we create greater wholeness in their lives and in our own. And when our response to others knowing us more deeply is to be open to how they want to be of service to us, we allow greater wholeness in our own lives, as well as theirs. In fact, if we care about creating a more just, equitable, compassionate world, we want our lives to be about hospitality and service. Community can provide a space for us to practice being the kind of people we want to be in the world.<br />
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Different people have different challenges with the idea of mutual hospitality. It's probably helpful to start by defining what we mean by <i>service</i> in this context. Keep in mind that we are talking about an environment of mutual self-disclosure, so we're assuming a community in which people are not trying to take advantage of one another, but are aiming for authenticity. Manipulating or persuading others is an anxious behavior. So is trying to fix or control other people, even if it's "for their own good." We'll see in a couple of weeks that honesty is another key component to healthy community. For now, it suffices to be clear that we're talking about an environment where people are striving for intentional relationships and not anxiety-driven relationships, and we're assuming that people are learning to hold one another accountable to that aim.<br />
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Like self-disclosure, hospitality contributes to meaningful, authentic community when it's a mutual thing. When service is lopsided in a community or in a relationship, it causes problems. One person's needs in a community are not more important than another person's, even though there may be times when one person has more urgent needs than the other. Being of service to another person doesn't mean fixing their problems or telling them what they should do. And allowing another person to be of service to you doesn't mean you give up personal responsibility for your own behavior and decisions. Instead, hospitality is about caring for another person's well-being without compromising your own -- making choices to be compassionate rather than taking care of an issue out of anxiety.<br />
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Mutual hospitality in a community means that we can confidently care for others while trusting that other people will care for our well-being too. This may be simple acts of kindness that cost us very little, like getting someone another cup of coffee, throwing someone's trash away for them, or opening a door for somebody. These are little acts of hospitality that can become part of a community's culture. When everyone is committed to modeling kindness, it can help create a less anxious environment.<br />
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Hospitality may require more of us, though. Caring for another's well-being may mean addressing bigger issues, like a home flooding or a job disappearing or the death of a loved one. We can't just solve a problem in many of these cases, and that may leave us feeling helpless. Being of service doesn't require us to fix everything, though. We can make sure people know that they're welcome and we can listen with caring ears. We can help people formulate a plan of action and we can support them as they move forward by encouraging them and checking in on their progress, and even holding them accountable to the things they've said they'll do.<br />
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If we listen to a person's needs, we may also be willing to address some of those needs, but it isn't our obligation to do so. If a person needs a place to stay while their home is repaired, hospitality doesn't demand of us more than we can do. We don't need to cash in a retirement fund to pay a person's rent, and we don't need to move out of our little apartment so that they can have a place to stay. Compromising our own well-being out of a sense of obligation is not hospitality -- it's over-functioning. If we have the space in our home to take in someone else, and we choose to accept that inconvenience because we care about another person's well-being, we might offer that gift. Maybe it would be more useful to help that individual think through other people they could reach out to, or maybe we have other connections that we can offer, without taking on the responsibility of working out all the details. Helping people have personal responsibility to the greatest extent that they can <i>is </i>being of service.<br />
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Of course, in some religious communities, it's common to hear easy and unhelpful responses when people are vulnerable and express their real needs. Solutions like prayer or trusting a god to work everything out may keep people from being hospitable beyond their comfort zone, but they do little for the person in need. When someone's hungry, offering to pray for them to be well-nourished is no better than offering them a stone. When someone has lost their job, recommending they trust God to provide for them is just useless. True service to another person has a meaningful positive influence, it doesn't just offer an easy fix or an emotional narcotic.<br />
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Allowing a person to feel grief without trying to fix it or cheer them up can be hospitality. Listening to a person's anger at getting laid off without feeling obligated to solve their employment challenge can be hospitality. Walking beside someone on their journey without trying to tell them where they ought to go can be hospitality. Sometimes we can help people be clear about their own values and figure out their next steps in alignment with those values, but we don't have to figure out those steps <i>for</i> them. Hospitality is about providing what we are willing to provide to contribute to wholeness in someone else's life. Sometimes, that does mean opening our homes to people who need a place to stay, or spending the day preparing and serving food to people who are hungry. When we choose those actions out of our own values (rather than a sense of obligation), we are better able to create meaningful, authentic community.<br />
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There are two sides to mutual hospitality: serving and being served. Some people are more comfortable with one side than the other. Sometimes we are more willing to let our own needs go unaddressed because we believe that another person's needs are more important. Or because we believe that we just matter less. Or because we believe that we should feel shame about our needs. Or any number of other false beliefs. Sometimes we are more willing to let other people provide for us because we believe we deserve it. Or because we believe we're the helpless, powerless victims of our stories. Or because we believe we don't have anything to offer. Or any number of other false beliefs. Whichever side of that mutuality presents the greater challenge for us, we're going to have to do some work if we want it to change. We have to be intentional about our growth if it matters to us.<br />
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Hopefully, it's obvious how important mutual self-disclosure is to mutual hospitality. We can't care for one another well if we don't know one another, and we can't be cared for well if others don't know us. We have to show something of our true needs if we want those needs to be addressed. In the context of hospitality, it's also important to set clear boundaries, but this topic is worthy of a fuller discussion. Before we charge down that rabbit trail, we should take a look at another ingredient of meaningful, authentic community that undergirds both mutual self-disclosure and mutual hospitality: active and unconditional love.<br />
<br />Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-90396689016351931932016-04-20T10:49:00.000-05:002016-04-22T08:02:32.463-05:00Community and Self-DisclosureWe've said that if we want wholeness in our lives, we need meaningful, authentic connection with other human beings. One requirement for meaningful, authentic connection is mutual self-disclosure. We can't live fully in our relationships if we aren't able to reveal who we really are. When we hide our true feelings and needs, we can't reasonably expect other people to know us, to accept us, or to participate in satisfying relationship with us. The best we can hope for is that other people will know and accept the masks we wear. It's up to us to grow in our ability to show our authentic selves to others.<br />
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Self-disclosure is tough, though. We hide our true selves because it seems safer than letting people see who we really are. Somewhere along the way, we learned that we aren't acceptable as we are. We became ashamed of something about ourselves, or we became distrustful of others. Somehow, we decided that it was safer for us to hide who we really are and pretend to be someone else -- maybe someone who didn't have the same wounds and needs and wants that we have.<br />
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The problem is that we all have wounds and needs. No one gets through life without emotional wounds. Some people are more skillful at tending those wounds, but everyone has wounds. No one gets through life without needing something. Some people are more skillful at getting those needs met, but everyone has needs. When we wear masks that hide our wounds and our needs from others, we have very little chance of having those wounds healed or getting those needs met. We walk around thinking that we're fooling people into accepting or loving us, thinking that we are safely hidden behind a false self we've created, carrying our unhealed wounds and our unmet needs within us.<br />
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Of course, we still want to have those needs met, and we still feel pain from those wounds. If we aren't willing to be vulnerable and let other people see those wounds and needs, we try other ways to get what we want from people. We play emotional games in our relationships and in our communities. We try to manipulate people or bully people into doing what we want, while keeping ourselves from feeling vulnerable. Or maybe we try to make the masks we wear as appealing or entertaining as possible, so that people will give us the love and acceptance we want without us having to reveal our true selves. This gives us the illusion of having power -- keeping our real wants and needs secret while figuring out how to make other people give us what we want or need. How much simpler would it be to just tell people what we want or need?<br />
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When you think about it, though, people aren't actually accepting or loving <i>us</i> when we play these games or wear these masks. People are responding to our tactics or the false self we show them, but they aren't responding to our real selves. They can't. We keep our real selves hidden. So, we keep the illusion in place that our real selves are unacceptable or unlovable or shameful because we never give anyone the chance to see who we really are. We're too busy playing games. And before we beat ourselves up too much about that, it's worth acknowledging that we have really good reasons to hide who we really are and show up in masks.<br />
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No one wakes up one morning and just decides to hide who they really are from everyone around them. We learn what's acceptable and what isn't from other people's reactions -- usually our parents or other significant people in our lives when we're very young. We start evaluating ourselves based on other people's fears and judgments, and at a certain point we shift from being honest about who we are to being very concerned about who other people want us to be. Instead of learning about what we need in order to live fully, we create an illusion of ourselves to try to accommodate everyone else. Maybe we create multiple illusions of ourselves for different relationships.<br />
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Sometimes, we encounter communities that encourage us to be vulnerable and self-disclosing, and then those communities betray us. Some organizations want people to be self-disclosing so that shame can be used as a weapon to keep people loyal. Religious organizations are especially practiced at turning people's vulnerability against them, using fear and shame to reinforce beliefs about human weakness and depravity so that people will remain convinced that they need the religious institution. Perhaps other relationships come to mind in which vulnerability and self-disclosure proved to be detrimental. Often, this is because the self-disclosure was one-sided. The priest rarely confesses to the parishioner, for instance.<br />
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Our society is constructed around this practice of creating a false self -- an avatar of sorts. We rarely engage in relationships directly because we're convinced that it isn't safe. Instead, we engage in relationships through the filter of a public avatar we've created to keep ourselves safe while enticing or compelling others to give us what we want or need. One-sided self-disclosure is often risky because other people are still committed to playing emotional power games to get what they want from us, and our self-disclosure would seem to put us at a disadvantage in such games. So, there are two responses to this reality that will help us heal our wounds, get our needs met, and live more fully.<br />
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First, we can recognize that our self-disclosure removes us from the emotional game. Other people may still want us to engage by their rules of manipulation or persuasion, but our willingness to be vulnerable and honest about our wounds and our needs actually puts us in an entirely different arena. The best reason not to hide who we really are is because we aren't afraid or ashamed of who we really are, and getting rid of our fear and shame opens the pathway for us to commit our time and energy toward things that really matter rather than playing emotional power games.<br />
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Of course, dismantling our fears and shame are life-long practices, and we can't wait until we're over all of our fears about who we really are to set our masks aside. Instead, as we develop a willingness to show up authentically, to let people see our true selves, we have the opportunity to build more evidence that our fears and shame are unfounded. We also have to recognize that other people's reactions are usually based on their own fears and beliefs. It's helpful if we can find others who are willing to set aside their masks, too, so that our journey toward authenticity isn't a solo venture.<br />
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This brings us to the second response, which is meaningful, authentic community in which people practice <i>mutual</i> self-disclosure. If the agreement of the community is that people are expected to show up as their true selves and not project some idealized avatar, it becomes easier for everyone to set the masks aside. Ideally, mutual self-disclosure is part of a community's covenant with one another, or is in some way part of its stated identity. If this agreement is clearly stated and not just assumed, a community can hold one another accountable -- hopefully because they sincerely care about contributing to wholeness in one another's lives. So, "You seem like you're hiding something. Is there more you want to say?" becomes more of an invitation than an accusation or interrogation. And, "What do you really think?" is a question that can be taken at face value rather than a coded message that your acceptability is based on your willingness to agree with an authority figure or with the herd. Likewise, it becomes easier to say, "It seems like you're trying to persuade/bully/manipulate me a little bit here. What do you actually want or need from me?" Imagine a community that practiced communicating that honestly, directly, and respectfully with one another!<br />
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None of this means that all your problems will be solved if you are more self-disclosing. Showing up as your true self doesn't guarantee that your emotional wounds will be healed and all your needs will be met. It just increases your chances. People can't really know what you need from them unless you tell them. And hiding your emotional wounds and your needs from other people pretty much guarantees that they <i>won't</i> be effectively addressed. Pretending you don't have wounds or needs doesn't make them go away. Being willing to show up as your authentic self is a more reliable path toward being fully alive. Since this would constitute new behavior for a lot of us, practicing letting others see your true self in a community where other people are committed to the same level of authenticity and vulnerability is better than developing this new behavior all on your own.<br />
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Mutual self-disclosure in community leads to greater ability to be confidently authentic in other areas of your life, and it helps to prevent members of a community from engaging in manipulation, bullying, and enticing others while neglecting their actual wounds and needs. Meaningful, authentic community requires mutual self-disclosure. There are a few other necessary ingredients, as we'll continue to explore in the weeks ahead.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-30025945108027302762016-04-13T07:17:00.000-05:002016-04-13T07:17:05.030-05:00Intersections and Forging a Path Forward<div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Several years ago, I worked with an organization that had a mission statement about transforming people's lives. They primarily went about this mission through weekend workshops, but over time, attendance in these events had dropped below a threshold of sustainability. Since I was in a local leadership position, I asked the question, "What else could we do to accomplish our mission?" </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The response was, "We hold trainings. That's how we accomplish our mission." This was a frustrating, but eye-opening conversation for me. The goal of collaboration between leaders in this organization was not just to provide tools to help people transform their lives, they also had a very specific, narrowly-defined strategy for how they would accomplish what they wanted. I'm no longer connected to this organization, and I don't know if their strategy has shifted. I've moved on to exploring other approaches to creating wholeness. I was committed to their vision for the world, but I wasn't committed to their tactics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">I say all of that to point out: when we consider the big questions we want to ask in life, what we want to create is important and <i>how</i> we are willing to create it is also important. There might be any number of paths that can lead us toward the goal that we envision on the horizon. We can't take every path at once, but we always have the potential to adjust our course. We have to choose how we move forward, and we can also choose to shift our path as we learn more about how we can live into what we most deeply value. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">So, you may recall that our big questions are:</span></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What am I passionate about? What personal life dream of mine creates greater wholeness in the world?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Where do I find a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">genuine </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">sense of belonging? Where do I find </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">authentic </i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">community? </span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What fears get in my way? How can I dismantle those fears and understand what I actually want?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How can I get what I most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater wholeness?</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">These aren't five distinct questions. These questions intersect at a few important points. In fact, for some people, a couple of these questions might seem like different ways of asking the same things. Generally speaking, these questions suggest that there is a way for us to live in the world with integrity -- so that our actions are aligned with our deepest values. We have the potential to create greater wholeness in our own lives and in the lives of other people, and there are some things within us that stand in the way -- namely, the fears that we have embraced about ourselves, other people, and reality. As I look at that short list of questions, though, there is one that stands out to me as the lynchpin. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Authentic community is central to pursuing a creative life dream <i>and </i>to recognizing and dismantling the fears that stand in our way. Relationship with other human beings who are also committed to lives of intention and integrity is a vital component to creating wholeness in the world, and in our own lives. Yet, so often the communities we encounter stifle us, or require us to be inauthentic in order to have a sense of belonging. Some communities are more about self-preservation of the community than they are about the genuine well-being of people. Some communities focus on telling people what to believe or defining what wholeness has to look like. And let's face it, some communities rely on fear and anxiety to control people. How do we find authentic community that actually serves to empower us to live with authentic passion and freedom?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">If you're fortunate enough to have that kind of community, by all means, make the most of it. Don't be lazy and wait for other people to tell you what you should be passionate about. Don't wait for other people to tell you what you most deeply want. Use the gift of having an authentic and supportive community to the fullest. My sense is that a lot of people participate in communities that are merely the best thing available to them. Some people become members of churches even though they don't agree with the teachings of the church, just because they crave a sense of belonging. Some people maintain old associations because they keep hoping that something will change and grow, even though they aren't being empowered by those associations to create wholeness or confront irrational fears. So, again, if you're one of the lucky people who have found community that encourages and empowers you to live fully in alignment with your deepest values, make the most of it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Another option -- the one I'm inclined to pursue at this point -- is to create something better, to build authentic community that actually provides a genuine sense of belonging while also empowering people to do the work they need to do in their own lives. Now, I will say that I've done some work on my own (over the course of years) to clarify my guiding principles and dismantle some of the irrational fears that get in my way. Without a community of people, I felt very isolated and alone for some pieces of that journey. Even a small group of people who understand what you're going for in your life -- empowering and encouraging you to live into a best possible version of yourself -- can make a huge difference. This is why I think community is so vital to being fully alive. Personally, I haven't found a community that effectively (a) offers me a genuine sense of belonging, (b) empowers me to live in a way that is satisfying to me and creates greater wholeness in the world, and (c) equips me to dismantle the irrational fears that get in my way. So, I've set my mind to creating it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">With anything you want to create, it helps to know as much as you can about what you're creating -- to cast a compelling vision of where you're aiming. I think there are five important components to a community that does what I want it to do -- basically, a community that effectively addresses those big questions on which we're focusing. I mentioned these briefly in an earlier post on community: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">(1) mutual self-disclosure, (2) mutually expressed active and unconditional love, (3) mutual hospitality -- or willingness to be of service and to receive from others, (4) mutual honesty in communication, and (5) sincere affirmation. Healthy communities also have the ability to set clear boundaries and to define a central shared purpose or vision. Just like the organization I mentioned at the beginning of this post clearly defined its strategy, a healthy community can clearly express its identity through a commitment to these characteristics.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Over the next several posts, we're going to look at how each of these elements helps people answer all those other questions. Some of that may seem really obvious to you. I'll be honest, some of it seems obvious to me. But I've learned that some things that seem obvious to me are far from obvious to other people, so I figure the best bet is to lay out the blueprint piece by piece. I hope that approach will be valuable and meaningful to you too. </span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-12658088041325091752016-04-05T06:45:00.000-05:002016-04-05T06:45:35.217-05:00Taking God Out of Justice ConversationsRecently, a number of states have passed legislation that demonizes transgender people. Hopefully, it's obvious that these laws are driven by fear, and that this is not a way to get what people most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater wholeness (one of our big questions). Marginalizing and oppressing people who seem different to you may be satisfying in the moment, but it certainly cannot be said to create greater wholeness in the world. Many people have made some very insightful critiques of this trend, and I don't need to repeat them all here. However, I do want to explore briefly how God-based arguments contribute to the problem of persecution more than to the solution.<br />
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I know that when people feel powerless, they look for ways to make themselves feel powerful. And one thing that makes people feel powerful is bullying, and legislation that limits the rights of a minority group in order to make emotionally immature people feel safe is bullying. The whole argument about who is allowed to use which restroom is ludicrous from the start, and it's clear from people's behavior that folks are really not all that concerned about who uses which public restroom. </div>
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If a predator wanted to hurt your daughter in a public restroom, they could do so at any time. They'd have to break the law -- it has never been legal in this country to assault a person in a public restroom -- but they could do it. If you were that concerned about your daughter being harmed in a public restroom, you'd make sure she never went to the restroom unaccompanied -- which is kind of weird, but it's what you would do if you were really that afraid that public restrooms are havens for predators.</div>
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The most important point in all of this is that transgender people are not predators. They're people. Moreover, they're people who use the appropriate restroom for their gender. The fear is not really about predators in the restroom (which has nothing to do with transgender people), it's a fear of transgender people -- which is really ironic, since transgender people are the ones who are being harassed and threatened in this scenario. And this fear of transgender people is connected to a fear of homosexuality, which is less severe than it used to be in the United States. Still, you can hear many a preacher on Sunday morning riling up a congregation from the pulpit by bad-mouthing LGBT folks. </div>
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And that's really where all of this fear gets its legitimacy. When religious leaders fill people with irrational fear (or amplify people's fears), it isn't to create greater wholeness in the world. Fear doesn't do that. Religious leaders have an agenda that is more about preservation of an organization or ideology (or less scrupulously, the preservation of their own lifestyle), and they think that fear is a powerful motivator. Or these religious leaders are so fear-driven themselves that they can't help but spew it all over people.</div>
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Thankfully, there are other religious voices who are less fearful. Amid the persecution and marginalization of transgender people and others, some religious leaders speak out for the oppressed and call for an end to the harassment and fear. They speak of love and connection and community, and all of this is well and good. They see transgender people as human beings worthy of the same rights as any other human being. If they were to stop there, the argument would be sound. Some people choose to bring God into the argument, however, and it immediately becomes a less fruitful conversation.</div>
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When a fearful person claims that God is angry about transgender people or homosexuality or anything else, they have an unassailable conviction. You can say, "Where does scripture say that?" and no matter what the claim is, a person can indicate a scriptural text that supports their belief. The Bible says to love, but it also says to kill people who do anything that isn't good for the preservation of ancient Jewish culture. So, when a person says, "The Bible condemns homosexuals to death," they're right. When they say, "God wants us to kill homosexuals," then we have a problem. And loving believers try to resolve that problem in a number of ways.</div>
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You may say, "The Bible also says <i>x</i>." This simply discredits the Bible to a rational person, because it's making contradictory assertions or commands. A person who has committed themselves to fear is often impervious to this sort of argument. They'll stick to their guns because they believe that they're right, just like you probably will. </div>
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You may say, "That isn't what the Bible means in that passage." Then you have an unresolvable conflict of interpretation. Since everyone makes up their own meaning for scriptural texts, there's very little to be gained from an unwarranted assertion one way or the other. Even biblical scholars who have spent years studying a text disagree on the basic meaning, sometimes proposing outlandish assumptions to justify their view. You don't know what the Bible means any more than anyone else does.</div>
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You may say, "No, God wants us to love." This is a much healthier way to live, and a person who bases their actions on love rather than fear will certainly create more wholeness in the world. There's no solid defense for this claim about God, though. If you can't know what a scriptural text actually means, why in the world would you think you can know what God wants? You think God wants one thing, they think God wants another thing, and neither of you has any evidence one way or the other apart from your own assumptions, feelings, and imaginations. </div>
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I've heard well-meaning theists claim things like, "We are all God's children," only to turn around and hear other people talk about how being God's children means we have to be obedient to God's law or be disciplined by God. I've heard liberal Christians talk about universal salvation -- that Jesus has paved the way for everyone to go to heaven -- only to turn around and hear another prominent Christian voice talk about hell with equal conviction. Using God to justify <i>any</i> behavior is dishonest, because you are the one who decides how to interpret your scripture, and you are the one who determines for yourself what you think God wants. You are the one who decides.</div>
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Now, I've also heard people say that you can define God however you want to. God is a universal force of love. God is nature. God is your conscience. God is the space between us. If you're going to use so flexible a definition for a word that no one knows what you mean unless you define it for them, then the word is useless. Why use it at all? When you know that so many other people in the world define "artichoke" a certain way, why would you decide that when you use the word "artichoke" you actually mean "surround sound speaker system"? Sure, you can allow for everyone to define "artichoke" in a way that is personally meaningful to them, but then meaningful communication between people is impossible. Your personal definition for God is only useful for you. The moment you try to have a meaningful conversation using your personal definition with another person using their personal definition, you will fail. We have to share a common definition for the words we use if we want our communication to be meaningful.</div>
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If you stop using "God" as a stand-in for another legitimate concept, your communication can be more meaningful. Say "love" when you mean love; say "nature" when you mean nature. If we use the words we actually mean, we'll have a better quality of communication. The same is true when it comes to issues of justice. If you believe people should be treated with love and respect, then say "I believe people should be treated with love and respect." Don't try to legitimize your belief by pinning your values on God. People who believe the exact opposite of you will attribute their beliefs to God too, and neither one of you will have any ground to stand on. </div>
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The truth of the matter is that we co-create a society together, and when people are mistreated, marginalized, or bullied, our entire system has to deal with the problem. Some organizations are shifting to unisex restrooms, which is an amazingly loving and affirming way to make oppressive laws obsolete. "We don't care who you are or what gender you are, we recognize your right to use the restroom." How silly that it's necessary to express that, but how wonderful that it's being expressed. Nothing religious need be added to that. </div>
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Perhaps you have ways available to you to ensure that transgender people -- and other folks who are marginalized in our society -- are treated as human beings of inherent worth and dignity. You don't need to justify loving behavior with scripture or claims about God. You can justify <i>any</i> behavior with scripture, so that's meaningless. And you <i>can't </i>legitimately<i> </i>justify any behavior with claims about God, so that's meaningless too. Take a step back from your fear, re-align with your deepest values, and create wholeness in the world. Every person has inherent worth and dignity, and when that is affirmed in our lives and in the systems we co-create with one another, we live into greater wholeness. Anything less than that is fear, and fear has no place in a world made whole.</div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-77501699350215949642016-03-21T21:01:00.001-05:002016-03-21T21:01:41.049-05:00Reclaiming and Refocusing a Sense of AdorationThis post has taken me longer than most to write, perhaps because it delves into the personal a bit more than the instructive. It seems important to evaluate our perspective of people as we consider how to live in such a way that we are satisfied with our influence in the world, and how we can get what we most deeply want by creating less suffering and greater wholeness. How we see people matters, because how we treat other human beings flows from how we are willing to see them.<br />
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I've asserted a guiding principle here that every person has <i>inherent</i> worth and dignity. That means it's part of being human to have worth and dignity. It's this assertion that I want to dig into for a few moments. When I first started this commentary several years ago, I asserted something else -- something complementary to this claim of inherent worth and dignity. I suggested that whatever we call "divine" is really a set of human characteristics -- that the ultimate source of divinity is within human beings. This means that divine character -- the capacity for truth, beauty, and creativity in every person -- is actually human character at its very best. So, an inner sense of divinity is in some ways synonymous with inherent worth and dignity.<br />
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And those two ideas are synonymous with having a deepest, most noble self: a part of one's being that authentically expresses one's inherent worth and dignity -- one's divine character -- without fear or anxiety. Who we are when we are at our best. This source of strength, creativity, peace, beauty, wisdom, and love is within every person. It's within you. It's within me. It's part of being human. It isn't supernatural. It isn't an outside entity dwelling within us; it's us. It's who we are at our core. It's our deepest selves once all the fear and anxiety and defense mechanisms are brushed aside. It's the closest thing to a god that will ever exist -- our authentic, loving, laughing, creating selves.<br />
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When I was younger, immersed in a Christian perspective, I was taught to express adoration and devotion to something that doesn't exist. I prayed without doubt, and I expressed genuine emotions toward an imaginary being. My emotions and my devotion were real. These were sincere expressions of my deeply held beliefs. The object of those emotions and that devotion, however, was only imagined. It was in my head, but also in my culture -- a shared web of beliefs superimposed on reality. As I gradually dismantled those false beliefs and became more reasoned, there became less of a reason for that devotion and adoration. If there is no god to worship or adore, then there is no purpose for that adoration.<br />
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Some people replace a supernatural with natural wonder. There are those who revere nature with the same intensity that others revere an imaginary god. Nature is real and wondrous and awesome and full of surprises. And we can learn so much from observing natural processes. Nature is also relatively unresponsive. Mountains don't respond to praise or adoration any more than an imaginary deity does. Wild animals are just that -- wild. However majestic or awe-inspiring we may find them, animals most often react to human presence through instinct, which is to say they either run away or they defend themselves from a perceived threat. People who forget nature's wildness often suffer brutal consequences.<br />
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I count myself among those who are awed by nature, and I love learning things through observing how nature works. Nature doesn't evoke the same sense of adoration and devotion that I once felt toward an imagined god, though. To be fair, I collaborated with others to co-create the god I worshiped, and although we had many similar ideas about this god's character, it's clear that every person who believes in a god believes in a slightly different god than every other believer. There is no objective reality against which a person can test beliefs about a god. The "authoritative" texts that hold ancient ideas about gods don't even have internal agreement, and human beings interpret those texts through a variety of human ideas about gods. So, everyone's god is personal -- a personal creation that agrees in some respects with other people's gods, but a personal creation nonetheless.<br />
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Which is to say that what I was feeling deep emotion for and expressing deep devotion to was a product of my own imagination, based on other people's ideas and a collection of ancient writings. My own imagination is part of my own creative nature -- part of my own deepest, most noble self. The problem was that I convinced myself of the reality of something that was not real, and I focused emotional energy on that unreal entity. My creativity convinced me that I could expect something back from that unreal entity, too. Guidance, forgiveness, love, acceptance, peace. If there was any real source of those blessings, it was within myself. I was the one imagining a god, after all. So anything that god provided was coming from within me somehow. Even "nature" cannot legitimately be said to intelligently guide, love, forgive, or accept beings who are a part of natural systems.<br />
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Now, this is not to say that human beings are not sources of guidance, forgiveness, love, acceptance, peace, and a whole array of other gifts we extend to one another. People <i>are</i> real and actual sources of blessing to one another. My point is that whatever we perceive as coming to us from a divine source -- particularly from an external supernatual -- must be coming from within ourselves. If the supernatural doesn't exist, and we still gain a sense of forgiveness, for example, that forgiveness has to originate from within us -- the same creative source as the imagined supernatural. Just as my emotions and devotion were real, even though the supernatural object was not real, the forgiveness and love and guidance I experienced were also real. I had the source wrong, but the experience was genuine. I genuinely felt loved, forgiven, acceptable. My own self is the only possible source for those genuine experiences that don't come from other human beings.<br />
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This presents a problem, because we also heap judgment, shame, and anxiety on ourselves from within. We believe lies about how worthless, unlovable, or unacceptable we are, and yet we would also seem to be the source of "divine" love and acceptance. No wonder it's so much easier to separate that loving, wise, creative part of ourselves out into an imagined external source. We can receive that guidance and acceptance so much more easily if it seems to come from outside of ourselves. But that's just an illusion. A helpful illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.<br />
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Some of the most meaningful time I spend in any given week is working with people in workshops or small groups on connecting with their deepest, most noble selves -- the part of them that can be called "divine" if anything can bear that label. Living with integrity to our deepest values and guiding principles requires of us that we confront old lies about who we are and embrace a sense of love and acceptance for ourselves. This is hard work. Seeing ourselves as having inherent worth and dignity is often harder than seeing that inherent worth and dignity in others.<br />
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And this is where my own recent spiritual work has led me to connect the inherent worth and dignity of every person with the idea of a deepest, most noble self -- and the concept of inner divinity (not in any supernatural sense, but just in the sense that human beings are the creators of the idea of divinity and the embodiment of all those qualities that we consider to be divine characteristics). If that sense of overwhelming love and acceptance felt by the religious is actually something that comes from within us, then I have to admit that human beings are capable of divine love, forgiveness, guidance, and all the rest. Whatever "divine" means in this context, human beings are the source. My own self was the source each time I felt loved by God, each time I felt a sense of direction from God, each time I felt a sense of awe and wonder at the unknown, each time I knew a deep forgiveness when I had acted out of alignment with my deepest values. I was the source -- something within me and part of who I am as a human being.<br />
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So, if an unreal supernatural was worthy of my adoration and devotion, why would a real human being be any less worthy? Why would the real source of "divine" love, forgiveness, and guidance be less worthy of worship than an imagined source of those same gifts? And if these are <i>human</i> qualities that rise from the deepest, most noble self -- the seat of inherent worth and dignity in every person -- why would that essence within people be less worthy of adoration and devotion than an imagined supernatural external to human beings? If human creativity, beauty, and truth is the source of love, forgiveness, and acceptance, why would I not stand in awe and adoration of such wonder?<br />
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This is not to say that human beings are entirely divine, of course. We foster anxiety and fear, we protect ourselves with layers of false selves in order to be safe from perceived threats. We rarely show up as our authentic selves, fully embodying our deepest, most noble selves. Most of what we see of each other most of the time is quite different from that inner divinity, and we taint that inner divinity with our fears and anxieties, too. So we wind up inventing gods that hate and oppress, and we give ourselves permission to hate and oppress as emissaries of those hateful and oppressive gods. This is not a true reflection of our inherent worth and dignity. It's a betrayal of ourselves.<br />
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We hold within us this capacity to express what passes for divine love and acceptance, to adore and cherish ourselves and others. Yet we betray that human capacity by paying more attention to fear, and that fear shows itself in myriad behaviors and attitudes. This betrayal doesn't change the fact that the only explanation for feelings of divine love and acceptance and guidance is that they come from within -- that human beings naturally have this potential. <i>That </i>seems worthy of adoration. That potential, that seed, that inner divinity, that deepest most noble self -- that is what inherent worth and dignity references. And for me, at least for now, that seems worthy of awe and adoration.<br />
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I see the betrayals of self, of course. I see them more clearly now that I have at other times in my life, both in my own behavior and in the words and actions of others. Yet, I want to reclaim that sense of adoration and love I once focused on the unreal. I want to refocus that same sense of wonder and delight in the only place that it can legitimately be directed -- the inner self of human beings. Not on something beyond nature, but on the very best of what is naturally human. If the actual source of everything I once called divine is within myself and every other person, why would I not worship that human source as fervently as I once worshiped some imagined external source?<br />
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Perhaps this is not meaningful to you, especially if you haven't had experience with a religious context. For those who are in recovery from religion, however, perhaps it is of some benefit to acknowledge that it was not <i>all</i> a lie. Maybe we just weren't giving ourselves enough credit.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-60005330384892829112016-02-29T23:40:00.001-06:002016-02-29T23:40:17.838-06:00Bold Honesty, Part 3<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just as it's important to be boldly honest about what you really care about, it's important to be boldly honest about our answers to some other questions, especially the questions <span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.48px;">Where do I find a </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.48px;">genuine </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;"><i>sense of belonging? </i>and<i> Where do I find </i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.48px;">authentic </span><span style="background-color: white; font-style: italic; line-height: 18.48px;">community? </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">When we aren't honest about what we really want from community, we wind up in places that aren't authentic for us, where we don't feel like we genuinely belong. When we adopt other people's ideas about what we <i>should</i> want, we aren't likely to get what we actually want and need.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">It may be that what you really want from community is to be told what to think and believe so you don't have to think for yourself. If that's what you want, be honest about that. Other people may criticize you -- hell, <i>I</i> may criticize that desire -- but it's better for you to be honest about what <i>you</i> actually want rather than pretend someone else's expectations are your own. There are plenty of places where you can be told what to believe and where you'll be discouraged from thinking for yourself, so one advantage is that your desire for community will be easily satisfied.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">There's a challenge even in those communities, though, because many times people want to pretend that they are being intellectually honest when they're actually being quite lazy in their thinking. Some people feel some shame about just wanting to be told what to think and believe, so they pretend that they are making rational, well-thought-out decisions. Some people don't want to be seen as stupid or foolish, so they pretend to have rational reasons for believing irrational things. People even make up evidence (read: lie) in order to make the irrational seem rational.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">People say, "Prayer works!" instead of saying, "I just prefer to believe that my prayers have some effect on my relative's illness because otherwise I would feel powerless and grief-stricken. By pretending that I'm doing something useful and meaningful, I feel less anxiety." It's tough for one person to keep up the pretense that prayer has an effect on external reality, but when an entire community repeats an irrational assertion over an over again, it can almost seem rational. OK, not "almost". People literally brainwash themselves into believing something irrational. Despite documented research that suggests that prayer has either no effect or a negative effect on the health of a patient, many people still prefer to pray rather than feel helpless. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Bold honesty can come into play at so many different points in this process. And the outcome doesn't even have to change just because people are boldly honest. People could be honest about their community and admit, "What we say here doesn't actually line up with reality, but it makes me happy, and I prefer being happy." Or people could say, "I don't really believe this, but I like the people here, so I'm going to pretend that I agree with them." That level of honesty would probably stop inside a person's head, but imagine the effect on a community if just one person came out and said, "What we say here doesn't actually make any sense, but I feel happy when I say it. So I'm going to pretend that it makes sense." If what you want from community is for people to reinforce an unreasonable belief that you have the power to alter reality through your intention and words (or your "faith"), be boldly honest that that's what you really want.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">When we listen to the rhetoric of some political and religious spokespeople, we hear blatant lies about public figures, about history, and about supernaturals. Many people are fine with those lies, because the lies match the way they choose to see the world. I know that it's a lie, for instance, that LGBT people are going to hell. For one thing, hell isn't real. For another thing, a lot of LGBT folks are already going through hell just to exist. Some people prefer to believe that their imagined supernatural hates gay people, and is going to punish them for eternity (loving supernatural that it is). </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">They may say trite things like, "Love the sinner, hate the sin," and they may say that their love for the LGBT community is why they fund the psychological torture known as conversion therapy (now, reparative therapy). The truth is that they prefer to pretend certain things about reality, and they prefer to indulge their fear of people who aren't like them. Say so. If you want to participate in a community that either overtly or subtly rejects, persecutes, and marginalizes people who identify as LGBT, be honest. Just say, "I don't understand gay people, and I don't want to take the time to understand them. I prefer to think that they're going to burn in hell than think that they are human beings with inherent worth and dignity." Don't make things up about what your supernatural thinks, because you couldn't know that even if there was supernatural to know something about. Be boldly honest about what you actually know and want, and own it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Now, I know you probably read all of that as being a bit of a rant, and that's fine. The point is that there's no reason to pretend to have noble reasons for wanting what you want. There's no reason to pretend that there's evidence for something just because you want to believe it. Some people may see this as a postmodern nightmare of making truth so relative that it has no meaning, but let me be clear: I'm not saying that just because you want prayer to work, that means it's <i>true</i> for you. The true part is that you <i>want</i> prayer to work, <i>and </i>you're willing to pretend that it does even though you have no falsifiable, replicable evidence. I'm not saying that for some people it's true that LGBT folks are evil. I'm saying that it's true that some folks <i>prefer to believe</i> that LGBT people are evil. If we can get to that level of honesty about the difference between what we know and what we prefer to believe, we will have made great strides forward as a species.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">This all works the other way, too. If you can be boldly honest about what you actually want from meaningful, authentic community, you'll be more likely to find it. A community that lies to you is not authentic, and you won't find a genuine sense of belonging there, unless you honestly want to be lied to. If you want to be in community with people who allow you to express what you believe and accept you openly as your authentic self, be boldly honest about that being what you want. Don't settle for a community where you have to hide who you are just to be around people who seem nice and treat you kindly. <b>It is not nice or kind for people to insist that you believe as they do and encourage you to hide who you are.</b> Keep looking. Now, perhaps more than ever before, there are places where you can find genuine belonging -- not just a sense that if you play by the rules and pretend to be just like everyone else, you can get a false feeling of acceptance. Acceptance is not the same as approval for doing what someone else wants you to do.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">I spent years of my life pretending to be something I wasn't because Christian churches paid me well as a musician, but I couldn't safely say, "I don't believe most of this stuff you sing about and teach, and I actually think a lot of it is harmful." People thought I was wonderful, as long as I pretended to believe what they believed. Their acceptance of me shifted sharply when they learned otherwise. If I am boldly honest, I sometimes even wonder whether my level of atheism and Humanism is welcome in a Unitarian Universalist context. There are so many options for atheists and Humanists to find community now -- authentic community where they are not only accepted as they really are, but encouraged to be even better versions of who they really are. So many churches encourage people to be better versions of who the church says people are supposed to be. Don't settle for that unless it's what you actually honestly want.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">If you want to find a genuine sense of belonging, be boldly honest about who you are and find the people who receive you without reservation. They exist. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 18.48px;">If you want to find authentic community, be boldly honest about what you want. Some folks may want to echo Kennedy and say, "Ask not what your community can do for you; ask what you can do for your community," but I've found that people who are nurtured by their community wind up giving back to that community. It really is alright to start off by asking, "Where do I find community that actually meets my needs?" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">And please, please, please: be boldly honest about what you prefer to believe. Don't shore up your irrational preferences with false data or made-up anecdotes. Just be boldly honest about your biases and prejudices. Be boldly honest about what makes you feel safe and happy. Too much time is spent arguing nonsense with one another, when we could just be honest and say, "This is what I prefer to believe, despite any evidence to the contrary." At the very least, it will make for a more honest world. </span></span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-61328164258564175962016-02-15T09:25:00.000-06:002016-02-15T09:25:24.576-06:00Bold Honesty Part 2<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Seriously considering what you actually care about most can be challenging. Previously, we recognized that it helps to spend enough time asking yourself <i>why</i> you care about what you think you care about in order to get to the most solid foundation. Sometimes it even helps to talk through things with someone else who can respond with open and detached curiosity. (It isn't as helpful to have a conversation with someone who has a tendency to be closed-minded and judgmental.) When what you care about seems not to be life-affirming, you can ask yourself what you're afraid of, work to dismantle irrational fears, and dig deeper to get to what really matters most to you.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Even when we get past the temptation to run what we most deeply want through an <a href="http://thedivineself.blogspot.com/2016/02/bold-honesty-part-1.html" target="_blank">"acceptability filter"</a>, and we're able to say what we really care about with clarity, our ever-active anxious minds can still give us reasons to hesitate. Sometimes we second-guess and question our passions before we even have a chance to be boldly honest about them. Other times, we test the waters of bold honesty about what we want with someone and our first attempt receives a less-than-satisfying response. So we keep what we most want to ourselves, out of shame or fear, which means much less of a chance to create something meaningful.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">A little bit of inward questioning is helpful. That's how we're able to dig deeper and get to the heart of what we really care about. It's important for us to ask ourselves, "Is this life-affirming? Or is this coming from some anxiety or fear I need to deal with?" Our minds ask other questions, though, and some of these inner questions hinder our ability to live into our deepest values. We second-guess ourselves in multiple ways, but two common ways we sabotage ourselves are through thinking our deepest desires are too small or too big for us to care about. Both of these tap into our tendency to feel shame, and as Brene Brown has pointed out in a number of books and <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en" target="_blank">TED talk</a>s, shame is a destructive force that limits our ability to live authentically.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">We might think what we care about is too small and insignificant for us to take pride in. We might feel ashamed that our personal creative life dream isn't big and dramatic and world-changing. All around us we see stories of people accomplishing incredible things. The role-models we have for living into a compelling vision for our lives are people who make international headlines or change thousands of lives. Our deepest life-affirming desire might seem much less significant by comparison -- maybe only affecting our neighborhood or one community. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What we fail to realize is that <i>any</i> life-affirming vision we cast for our lives is going to have a positive influence on the world around us. We know that our actions have ripples -- that what we do has an impact on people we never meet. And yet, when we allow our minds to drag us into (inaccurate) shame about how little and insignificant our goals are, we forget all about how much of our influence is unseen. We may never know how our life-affirming actions in one small part of the world influence an entire system toward greater wholeness. The point is not that we make a big splash, the point is just that we get in the water. If everyone in the world decided to live with greater intentionality and chose one "small" and accessible life-affirming purpose to live into, humanity would thrive like never before. Your job isn't to find a way to change the world. Your job is just to live into your life-affirming values in a way that is deeply meaningful to you. And that begins with bold honesty about what you really care about most. There is no personal life dream that is too small. Everyone who lives on purpose makes a difference in the world.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Our shame is similarly evoked when we dream big, except that instead of being ashamed that our vision is not enough to make a difference, we become ashamed that <i>we</i> are not enough to make a difference. This is also a lie. When we get really honest about what we want for our lives and for the world, we may come up with a mammoth-sized creative life dream. We may realize that what we <i>really</i> care about means enormous change for a huge number of people. We may need allies and collaborators. We may need to learn things we don't yet know and develop skills we don't yet possess. Shame will knock us back from the threshold. Shame will convince us that we can't possibly do what we most want to do, so we'll just have to settle for a life of being less than our dreams. Which means not living into our values because where our values lead us is too scary. If we can be boldly honest about our big, daunting dreams for the world, though, we may find we aren't the only ones who are committed to dreaming big.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">"Scary" and shame are partners in all of this. Our shame is actually a very clever defense mechanism to keep us safe. It's a survival trait that kicks in when what we may want to do seems dangerous. We don't need our shame when we are living into a bold creative purpose, but because we feel anxious about jumping in the deep end, our shame tries to convince us to stay out of the water entirely. Our shame tries to keep us safe by making sure we never take a risk. No risk equals maximum safety. Except that change requires a bit of risk, even when it's positive change. Living into a personal creative life dream requires vulnerability, even when it's an amazing and inspiring vision. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">If our shame wins, we get to feel safe and unfulfilled. If we push past our shame and let our deepest life-affirming values guide us instead, we get to feel vulnerable <i>and</i> fully alive. Believing that what we most deeply want is too small or too big to share honestly with anyone else will mean that we never risk the possibility of having what we want. How crazy is that? That we would know exactly what we want, and never risk having it? That's the survival purpose of shame. Our primitive brain equates less risk with greater chance of survival. But shame is not a separate intelligence guiding our lives and trying to keep us safe. Our shame doesn't know anything we don't know. Our shame is not the voice of a supernatural trying to direct our actions. It's just leftover thought routines we don't need. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Once we know what our deepest life-affirming values are, and once we are willing to live intentionally with integrity to those values, shame is useless to us. Our guiding principles may not always make us feel completely safe, but they will help us take <i>meaningful </i>risks. Our life-affirming values can keep us focused on the kind of person we most want to be, so that the risks we take are part of living into a bolder vision for our lives. We are fueled and empowered by our willingness to be boldly honest about what our deepest life-affirming values inspire us to create.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">One last little piece of this part of the conversation: Other people will sometimes try to take the place of our shame voice. When we are boldly honest, other people -- without meaning harm -- may not have the kind of inspiring and encouraging response we hope for. They may want us to back down from a big creative life dream. Or they may try to convince us that what we want is insignificant and not worth pursuing. They will probably think that they are helping us by "talking sense into us" or by "giving us a dose of reality." And there are times when we certainly need other people to help us clarify what we most deeply want. Sometimes our initial exploration of dreaming big really is unrealistic and could use a little honing. Sometimes, though, people are unconsciously prompted to convince, compel, or coerce us into staying safe -- remaining right where we are and not taking unnecessary risks. This isn't always helpful.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">So, as we become willing to be boldly honest about what we most want to create in our lives and in the world around us, it's important for us to listen openly to multiple voices. One person trying to shame us into giving up on what we most deeply want shouldn't deter us from living into a creative life dream with intention and integrity. Seven people warning us that there are some challenges we aren't considering, however, can help us become clearer about how we can realistically cast vision in our lives in alignment with our deepest life-affirming values. When people's feedback sounds like our own internal shame voice, it's worth acknowledging that their own anxiety and fear may be more important to them than your vision for your life or for the world. When people listen deeply to your own bold honesty and their words help you dig more deeply into how you can live into your deepest values, you may have gained a powerful ally or collaborator. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, Palatino Linotype, Palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">This all means that part of bold honesty is also being willing to listen carefully to the responses we receive -- internally and externally. Our own shame voice will try to keep us safe, but we are capable of being guided by our deepest life-affirming values instead. Other people may try to keep us safe, too. Or they may be inspired by our bold honesty about what we most deeply want. Or they may not have much of a response to us at all. It's important that we listen carefully and thoughtfully. And it's vital that we maintain connection to our life-affirming values -- our internal guidance system -- as we clarify what we care about most and become more fully alive.</span></span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-32812906737365691422016-02-08T19:55:00.004-06:002016-02-08T19:55:51.920-06:00Bold Honesty, Part 1So many of our important questions require the willingness to be boldly honest about what really matters to us. Honesty is essential when we consider how we can be satisfied with the way we influence the world around us, or how to connect our passions with creating greater wholeness, or how to get what we most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater well-being.<br />
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Often we filter what we care about most deeply through an "acceptability test," deciding whether what we want sounds acceptable to other people. The criteria of what we think might be acceptable varies from person to person, and are often based on belief systems that were imposed on us. Whatever the criteria, though, this kind of filtering keeps us from honestly expressing what we most deeply want, which means that we have very little chance of connecting what we care about to creating wholeness in our lives and the world around us.<br />
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One filter I often hear people using is whether something appears in a particular religious text or is endorsed by a religious community. "Feeding the hungry is highly regarded by my faith community, and my 'scripture' considers it laudable, so it seems safe for me to really care about feeding the hungry." This is fine if your actual passion is ensuring that everyone has enough food, but the filter isn't necessary. If you really care about feeding people, you don't need the endorsement of a religious text or community to live into that passion for the hungry. Moreover, some religious communities decide that only certain hungry people are worth feeding, or they decide that feeding the hungry is a means to an end of promoting their particular set of myths. This turns hungry people into targets for proselytization and makes them the victims of the people doing the feeding. It isn't really caring to insist that hungry people listen to your beliefs -- or worse, profess to agree with your beliefs -- before they receive the food they need.<br />
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There's another problem with allowing a religious text or community to be a filter through which you judge what you care about. You may care about transgender people, and yet your religious text says nothing about transgender people (although people in your religious community will probably find ways to interpret your religious text so that it seems to). People in many religious communities are opposed to the existence of transgender people. So your personal reasons for caring about a marginalized group of people -- who have an acute need for acceptance and care -- are potentially trumped by outdated and fear-driven religious beliefs. If you just told the truth that you care about something -- or a group of people -- very deeply, it would be much easier to see how that care can lead to creating greater wholeness and well-being.<br />
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Religions with exclusive beliefs (i.e., you have to believe what we believe in order to go to heaven, or be a good person, or exist) are by definition anti-equality. If a group of people believes that their group deserves special treatment, in real life or in an imaginary afterlife, they cannot simultaneously believe in equality. This is why religious people often seem threatened by demands for equal treatment by marginalized people: Equality for all means the loss of religious privilege, which in the U. S. means Christian privilege. One cannot truly create wholeness in the world and cling to an exclusivist belief system that withholds compassion and care from people who believe something different. If you are honest about what you care about most deeply, you have a better chance of seeing how it connects with creating wholeness in the world.<br />
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Why am I being so anti-religious? Why can't I just write about being honest about how our deepest values connect to creating wholeness? Because it's a real challenge to be honest about what you care about most deeply when so many loud religious voices call equality evil. It's a real challenge to be honest about creating wholeness when so many loud religious voices promote an idea of inherent brokenness. It's a real challenge to be honest about what you value when so many loud religious voices are shouting about what you <i>should </i>value, based on their own strangely-filtered view of the world. Being honest about what you care about isn't always easy, but it is essential to being satisfied with how you influence the world around you.<br />
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Some people run into another challenge when they start being honest about what really matters to them, though. Their first honest statements might be fueled by fears they've been carrying around about themselves or other people, and what they think they care about is an expression of that anxiety. Perhaps you think that what you care about most is just that your child gets a good education and a decent job. Or perhaps you think that what you care about most is that the property value of your home stays high, so you think you're against certain kinds of people moving into your neighborhood. Or perhaps you think that what you care about most is proselytizing to everybody you meet so that they have a chance to believe what you believe about imaginary things.<br />
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It helps to spend enough time asking yourself why you care about what you think you care about in order to get to the most solid foundation. Sometimes it even helps for someone else to be able to ask you why you care about what you think you care about. When what you care about seems not to be life-affirming, you can ask yourself what you're afraid of, work to dismantle irrational fears, and dig deeper to get to what really matters most to you.<br />
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Things like the well-being of your child involve a lot more than selfishly working to make sure they get a better shot at a high-paying career than anybody else's child does. It doesn't create wholeness in anyone's life just to be handed unearned opportunities that they aren't actually prepared to engage responsibly. In fact, fostering authentic well-being in your child's life involves fostering well-being in other people's lives too. Unless you home school your children, groom them to run a family business, and never allow them to meet anyone outside of your isolated community (which may not be a recipe for wholeness), well-being for your children involves well-being in the places where your children learn and play. Caring about your child's well-being ultimately means caring about a neighborhood, or a school, or some environment outside of your family. That doesn't mean that you have to start a non-profit or quit your job to become a full-time volunteer. It just means that you live into your values with a clear sense of connection to the larger world around you.<br />
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So, asking <i>why</i> is a powerful tool to help reveal your honest answers as fears or as deep life-affirming values:<br />
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<i>I care most deeply about proselytizing to everyone I meet so they can believe in Jesus and go to heaven.</i><br />
<i><b>Why? </b></i><br />
<i>Because if they don't believe in Jesus, they'll go to hell.</i><br />
<i><b>That sounds like a fear. </b></i><br />
<i>I mean, because I feel loved and accepted by Jesus and I want other people to feel that too.</i><br />
<b><i>So, what you want is for people to feel loved and accepted. Is proselytizing the best way to do that? Or is there an even better way to live into your desire for people to feel loved and accepted?</i></b><br />
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Maybe you have to ask <i>why</i> several times before you get to something juicy. When you come across a fear, you'll know it because it will not lead to greater well-being for the greatest number of people. Fears may have an Us vs Them component, and fears often crop up when we start thinking outside our comfort zone. Life-affirming values inspire us toward greater wholeness in our own lives and in the lives of people around us. They often allow us to see situations as both/and rather than either/or. The things we care about most deeply may call us toward something bigger than what we can accomplish on our own with our current resources. Or they may simply call us to do exactly what we're already doing, with a different attitude.<br />
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Whatever our deepest life-affirming values may be, if we want to connect them to how we can create greater well-being in our lives and in the world around us, we have to be boldly honest about what they are. We have to be able to say out loud to other people, "This is what I care about most deeply." And in order for us to do that, we have to figure it out ourselves, and that can take a bit of work. Many of us are so used to coasting along without giving a lot of thought to where we're headed, the prospect of even <i>having</i> a vision for what we want to create in our lives seems utterly foreign. It's alright to try a few things on before you settle into what really matters most to you.<br />
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Next time, we'll explore another challenge to being boldly honest about what you really care about. For now, try a little bold honesty yourself and see what happens.<br />
<i><br /></i>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-36542124211029906942016-02-01T13:19:00.002-06:002016-02-01T13:19:37.345-06:00What Blessing MeansHonesty is a big part of finding a genuine sense of belonging and creating authentic community. Intentional and honest communication helps build authentic connection between people. When we choose to use words that have vague meaning -- especially when we know that other people often mean something different by the words we choose -- we compromise our ability to communicate honestly and clearly. This is why I've written elsewhere that it doesn't make sense to "define the word <i>God</i> however you want to," as some communities suggest, because that word already means something in our language. There are other words that have other meanings, so it makes sense to find some word that actually means what you want to say, clearly and honestly.<br />
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<i>Bless</i> is a word that gets a lot of use in American society. We are expected to say, "bless you," when someone sneezes. Someone often offers a public <i>blessing </i>before a dinner or sporting event. When people want to express gratitude, they often say, "bless you," as well. And of course, there are sarcastic uses of the word, like the euphemistic, "bless your heart," when what is really meant is closer to, "I'm baffled by how you even function in the world." An evangelist once quipped that the silence must be deafening when someone sneezes in a room full of atheists, implying that there is no other response to a sneeze other than to offer a theistic comfort. When we set aside sarcasm and consider what we actually mean, though, there may be better choices.<br />
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None of this is to imply that we should avoid any word altogether. If we are thoughtful and intentional about what we are saying, every word can be useful. When we are thoughtless or deceptive in some way, we most likely aren't creating the kind of community or world we most value. So, let's explore what the word <i>bless </i>actually means and see if there are other, more accurate ways we might express what we actually mean.<br />
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A blessing, by definition, is an appeal for divine approval. Whether it is formulaic or spontaneous, to bless something is to "confer or invoke divine favor." In the case of sneezes, back around 600 CE, a sneeze was thought to be the first sign that someone was infected with a plague, so asking for God to bless an individual who sneezed was, in essence, praying for supernatural aid to make an infected person healthy. In the case of this "Justinian" plague, about half the population of Europe died anyway. Even further back in human history, though, it was believed that the soul vacated the body when a person sneezed. Although it may only be for a brief moment, people feared that demons could enter the vacant, soulless person, so a petition for God to bless a sneezer was intended to attract the supernatural's attention to an imminent threat of demon possession. In this case, it would appear that asking for blessing is quite effective, as no person has ever been objectively demonstrated to be possessed by a demon.<br />
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A blessing spoken before a sporting event, on the other hand, is perhaps intended to express gratitude to a supernatural and to appeal to that supernatural for the safety of the players. Oddly, whether or not there are any injuries in the course of the competition seems not to be a reflection on the supernatural in question. A great many Christians in the United States also believe that their god influences the actual outcome of sporting events, so an injury on the other team might be seen as favor from their barbaric divine. Either way, the blessing is an appeal to some external supernatural.<br />
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We also sometimes use the word to indicate human approval. When we go to someone and say, "I want your blessing on this plan," we aren't always asking for the other person to invoke divine favor, we just want to know that the person approves of what we want to do. "I give my blessing," expresses one's personal approval. "Lord, give us your blessing," requests approval from a non-entity.<br />
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In addition to reflexive answers to sneezes, asking for divine favor, and expressing approval, <i>blessing </i>is also synonymous with conveying gratitude. When I hand food to a panhandler, the response is often, "bless you," or more even more accurately, "God bless you." This always strikes me as odd, that this person who has literally nothing but the clothes on their back, believe that they have the ear of a divine being enough to invoke favor on my life, but not enough for that divine being to meet their actual physical needs. I've decided to believe that these individuals don't actually realize that it would be more appropriate to say what they actually mean, which is, "thank you."<br />
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It's the subject of the sentence that makes the whole affair murky. When we say, "bless you," we are actually leaving out the subject of the sentence. It isn't a command, like, "Close the door." When a sentence is a command, the unstated subject is always "you." <i>(You) close the door.</i> But not <i>(You) bless you.</i> The unspoken subject in the case of a blessing is "God." <i>(God) bless you</i>. And I can accept that some people sincerely mean to invoke their imagined supernatural when they offer a blessing, even if I'm confident that their petition isn't being heard by anything superhuman. The problem is that they fail to honestly express what they mean, and that actual human connection suffers as a result.<br />
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Human connection may only suffer a little bit in the case of a compulsory sneeze response, but it suffers much more when people are unable or unwilling to vulnerably express gratitude and say, "thank you." Consider the unspoken subject of the sentence, "Thank you." It isn't a command: <i>(You) thank you</i>. That doesn't make any sense. It's actually a very personal expression: <i><b>(I)</b> thank you. </i>"I feel gratitude for you," must seems worlds more vulnerable than, "May God bless you." When I express my gratitude clearly and honestly, I'm conveying my own emotions, my own connection to you, perhaps even my own need for you as a fellow human being. When I ask that God bless you, it's out of my hands. I don't have to reveal my feelings or my needs. The idea of a god makes a safe and convenient veil behind which people hide their own values and ideas.<br />
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Again, if someone has thoughtfully considered what they mean to say and decide that they authentically and sincerely want to request that their deity of choice show favor in a particular situation or on a particular person, the words "(God) bless you," seem quite appropriate, even if they always keep a safe barrier between people. For example, if a principal wants to tell their students, "God bless you," that seems to be an expression of that individual's beliefs and hopes for their students. It's that part that conveniently goes unsaid that bothers me. If a principal hopes for great things in the lives of their students, it's irresponsible to leave it up to a supernatural. Saying, "I will work really hard so that your time in this school prepares you for success in life," is more vulnerable, but it's a much more compelling commitment than, "I hope someone up there is looking out for you, because I don't have a clue how to help you and you kids are just a mess." It's fine to hide behind a theistic veil, but unless some convincing actions accompany that blessing, <b>a blessing in and of itself accomplishes nothing in terms of human well-being.</b><br />
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I contend that when we are grateful, we can tell people that we are grateful. When we hope for people's safety, we can say, "I care about you and hope you stay safe." When we want our team to win, we can just say, "I want my team to win." Even when we choose to be blindly patriotic, we can just say so without making petitions to a supernatural to favor the part of earth we happen to live on more than other people in other parts of the planet we all share. When we are honest and clear about what we mean to say, we create more authentic connection with the people around us. This is even true of invocations before sporting events or other public celebrations. Rather than "invoking" a supernatural's favor, one can easily invoke a sense of gratitude, and the shared values and common purpose for people to be together. This might be a little more work that a typical "blessing," but saying something meaningful, clear, and honest is worth a little bit of effort.<br />
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The real question, though, is: What do we say when someone sneezes if we're trying to be authentic, honest, and clear? The truth is, there are already many other things that people say in response to sneezes that have integrity with their deepest values without invoking anything supernatural. One could take Penn Jillette's approach and say, "That's funny," although some people may not find that particularly connecting. In Spanish, people say <i>salud</i>; in German, people say <i>Gesundheit</i>;<i> </i>and in Irish, people say <i>sl<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">á</span>inte</i>, all of which essentially mean "good health," which is a way of expressing, "I hope you stay healthy," without invoking divine providence.<br />
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In fact, many cultures have traditional responses to sneezing that have more to do with a person's health than with divine petitions. On the most vulnerable end of the scale is the typical Vietnamese response, which translates to, "Are you alright?" On the most honest end of the scale is the typical Australian Aboriginal response, which is basically, "You have released nose water!" Some cultures hold to the superstition that a sneeze means someone is talking about you behind your back, and in Japan it's common for people to ignore a sneeze altogether.<br />
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Basically, say what you mean to say, not just what you are in the habit of saying, and you will more effectively create satisfying connection with people, find an authentic sense of belonging, and build meaningful community. When we are willing to examine our automatic responses, like using the word <i>bless</i> when we really mean something else, we will also get better at saying what we mean in the rest of our speaking. And if you really want someone to feel "blessed" -- to feel the actual sentiment behind what you are speaking into their life -- take some personal responsibility for acting on that wish for their well-being. If you aren't willing to do that, maybe the most honest thing really is not to say anything at all.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-62496840181489819092016-01-18T10:27:00.001-06:002016-01-19T07:04:37.096-06:00The Connection between Belief and Caring for Others<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">As a reminder, here are the big questions we want to address:</span></span><br />
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<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What am I passionate about? What personal life dream of mine creates greater wholeness in the world?</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Where do I find a </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">genuine </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">sense of belonging? Where do I find </span><i style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">authentic </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">community? </span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What fears get in my way? How can I dismantle those fears and understand what I actually want?</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How can I get what I most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater wholeness?</span></li>
</ol>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">You'll notice that at least three of those questions include some perspective about how we influence the world around us toward greater well-being (or "wholeness"). This is a topic that keeps coming up when I talk with believers, who often have an impression of atheism that equates with utter self-absorption. In one conversation a friend told me that a large number of people only do good in the world because of their belief in a higher power, and that without belief in a higher power, people would be less inclined to help others. I've also heard people say, "You can't really be an atheist. You care about [the homeless/people going hungry in our city/etc.], and atheists don't have any reason to care about other people." First, it's worth taking a look at this idea that only people who believe in a higher power create greater wholeness in the world. Then, we'll see something even more interesting about people doing good in the world. We'll wind up someplace we've been before, a guiding principle that helps us answer our big questions with integrity.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">To begin with, it doesn't take much education about world religions to notice that all of them have something to say about making a positive difference in other people's lives. If it was just one religion that promoted creating wholeness in the world, then we would have something to compare and contrast. In reality, contributing toward the well-being of others is something every belief system holds in common, even though some practitioners choose to draw narrow boundaries around who they feel responsible to. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">People can actually hold two opposing ideas in their heads at the same time. This creates a bit of anxiety and it certainly lacks integrity, but people do it all the time. So, a believer can claim that their loving supernatural wants its followers to be vessels of love and healing in the world and also proclaim hatred for people of a different religion or of a particular sexual orientation. How well practitioners of various religions carry out the mandate to care for other human beings varies widely, but the fact remains that every religious tradition expresses a concern for the well-being of others. This is true of monotheistic, polytheistic, and atheistic traditions.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">This suggests that it isn't actually belief in a higher power that inspires people to care for others, but something inherent in human nature. Every religion invented by human beings includes this concern, so it's obviously a human concern. We know that it's important to care for others and to attend to their well-being. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Our internal guidance system has naturally included this subroutine. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">We also seem to feel burdened enough by the magnitude of that task that we find ways to put fences up around who we're willing to care for. "We'll care for people who think like us, but we'll still hate those other people over there." Or even more predatory, "We'll meet your needs, <i>if</i> you convert to our religion." </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Our tendency to corrupt ideas because of our fear clearly plays a role in how we carry it out, but this idea that we ought to care for other people is inherent to every belief system human beings have constructed. Thus, we can reason that it's a human idea that can persist in the absence of belief in the supernatural.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">We need not rely on reason alone, however. Research on altruistic behavior continues to affirm that helping other people is an inherently pleasurable human activity, regardless of one's faith identity. Even more intriguing is a study published late last year (in <i>Current Biology </i>vol. 25, issue 22), which discovered that children raised without a religious identity are more generous and have a greater sensitivity to justice than peers raised with a religious identity. The study observed primarily Christian, Muslim, and nonreligious families, in six different countries, including the United States. Across all cultures, children in religious households actually expressed <i>less</i> care for others in terms of generosity and justice, despite their belief in a higher power. Clearly, caring for other people is a human trait that exists strongly in the absence of belief in a supernatural. Why and how might belonging to a religious tradition dampen that human tendency?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The research does not delve into reasons why, so this is merely a hypothesis extrapolated from other things we know about how the mind works. Is it possible that when you believe human beings are corrupted and evil that you have less tendency to care about people -- especially people you don't know? Or is it possible that this serves as an excuse to behave as though you are corrupted and evil sometimes? After all, that's just "human nature", right?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Is it possible that believing that a higher power is in control of everything alleviates some sense of personal responsibility to do what is within your power to do in terms of helping others? Believers don't often say it out loud, but if a god is in control of reality, that god must want a significant number of people to be hungry, homeless, abused, and marginalized, since that is the reality we can clearly see. Is it possible that people let themselves be <i>less</i> vulnerably caring because of their belief in a supernatural?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Is is possible that you care less about the people around you if you believe in an afterlife that isn't dependent on one's health, wealth, or success in the real world? After all, if what "really" matters is that you are spiritually aligned with the right higher power, then suffering in this life is superficial and unimportant. So, you don't have to care for the real physical and emotional needs of people -- you just have to make sure that they have the opportunity to be admitted into a better existence when they die. Even as I type this, it seems absurd and mean-spirited, and yet I know of some believers and even some service organizations that are more interested in "saving souls" than they are in making sure people have their physical and emotional needs met.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">In a nutshell, then, I invite you to wonder along with me whether religious beliefs about a supernatural and about human nature actually serve to dampen the natural human tendency to care for others. Consider whether a subtle sabotage on the human capacity to create wholeness emerges through ideas promoted in various religious traditions that "salvation is by divine grace and not by human works", or that suffering will be rewarded in an afterlife, or that we are only really responsible to care for people who believe what we believe, or even just that human beings are wicked by nature. If our beliefs form the foundation of our actions, then there is something about religious beliefs that fuels actions contrary to the mandate to care for others. There is some reason the research finds that the beliefs of children in nonreligious homes allow them to express greater generosity and empathy. Even if my suppositions are off base, there is obviously some connection between belief system and how well a person can live into the human tendency to contribute to the well-being of others.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">As we consider meaningful answers to the big questions we're posing to ourselves, it's vital for us to recognize our interconnectedness with others. Our lives influence and are influenced by other people. There is no way around that fact. It helps to have at least one clear guiding principle that aligns with our natural tendency to care about other people's well-being -- a deep value that undergirds the questions we ask and the answers we explore. I would like to suggest the very basic idea that every person has inherent worth and dignity as a shared guiding principle that fuels a meaningful journey toward a best possible version of oneself.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">That <i>every person</i> has inherent worth and dignity means that we don't choose who is worthy of our attention. It isn't just people who think like you, and it isn't just people who are part of your local community. Every person means every human being in existence. This doesn't mean that you are compelled to meet the specific needs of every person, and it doesn't mean that a person's inherent worth is going to be easy to see all the time. What it means is that you get to choose how you will honor the inherent value of the people around you. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">That every person has <i>inherent </i>worth and dignity means that their worth isn't in question. Your actions toward them are the part you get to decide. You never have to figure out why a person is important or worthy of your time and attention. You don't have to try to fix them or convince them to believe something different that what they currently believe. And you don't have to worry about what sort of afterlife they'll experience. You can focus instead on how your actions and decisions contribute to greater well-being in their lives.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">That every person has inherent worth and dignity also interestingly means that <i>you </i>have inherent worth and dignity. Your value is a natural human quality that doesn't come from some external force or stem from your decisions. It just is. It's part of what it means to be human to have worth and dignity. This means that you can worry less about your own value and the sense of obligation that sometimes accompanies caring for others. You don't have to earn inherent worth and dignity, and nothing can take it away from you. Which means that you can boldly do those things that fuel your passions <i>and</i> influence the world around you toward wholeness -- that you can care about what you really want without apology, and you can trust yourself to find ways to connect what you most deeply want with your natural tendency to care about the well-being of others. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">People care about other people. You don't really gain anything in this arena by believing in a supernatural. Even if you think it's your faith that undergirds your contribution toward other people's well-being, it isn't. People of every faith tradition and of no faith tradition care about other people, and the people with no faith tradition might actually do it a little better, based on recent research. If you're willing, let the idea that every person has inherent worth and dignity steep in your mind for a bit. That one guiding principle can fund a lifetime of growing more confident in yourself and your ability to contribute to greater wholeness in the world. </span></span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-5162607337762590352016-01-04T09:54:00.000-06:002016-01-04T20:01:16.852-06:00Selfishness 3<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">One last little piece of the illusion of selfishness. We've seen that there is no credible evidence for an afterlife where people are rewarded or punished for anything, and we can see evidence all around us that supernaturals are not providing for the real needs of people. We can even see that the figures who serve as examples of behavior in various religious traditions habitually took responsibility for their own well-being, as they were able. Still, we encounter this idea that focusing on your own personal growth is selfish time and again, especially from religious leaders. Perhaps one final piece of the problem is our tendency toward <i>either/or</i> thinking.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Our brains still work in mysterious ways, even as science continues to reveal more and more about human thinking and tendencies. Thinking in either/or propositions is a common way to address issues. "Either I can exercise, or I can sit in front of a screen." "Either I'll be a leader, or I'll be a follower." "Either I can focus on my own well-being, or I can tend to the well-being of others." In logic, this kind of argument is called a fallacy -- a "false dichotomy". This flawed thinking isn't necessarily intentional, but it is lazy. There are so many more options than we usually choose to consider, and we often fail to seek out <i>both/and</i> solutions, maybe because they require a little more work. Our idea of selfishness is caught up in this flawed thinking.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">If there really are only two options that we're willing to consider, it may be simply a matter of changing our thinking habits. "I want to exercise, and I also want to watch a movie. How can I figure out a way to do both?" If we really believe that focusing on our own well-being and tending to the well-being of others are competing goals, then we can change our habit of either/or thinking and ask something like, "How can I be personally responsible for my own life <i>and</i> tend to the well-being of others in a satisfying way?" We can re-frame what seems to be a choice between mutually exclusive options once we are willing to admit that our thinking is problematic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The logical fallacy of our either/or thinking actually disguises something even deeper than the possibility that we can think in terms of both/and propositions. Those who decry selfishness might consider the options to be, "I can do what I want, or I can do what someone else wants." Obviously, to choose what you want is "selfish," and to choose what someone else wants is selfless. Religious traditions often mistakenly teach that selflessness is the preferred option. A more open-minded person might shift to a both/and formula and ask, "How we can we <i>both</i> get what we want?" The most honest question, though, is "What do I <i>really</i> want?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">All of this talk about selfishness only makes sense in terms of surface level desires. When we stay on the surface of our being, we might believe we want things we don't actually want. And we might think we don't want things we actually do want. We might say we don't want to do laundry or wash dishes, but we actually do want clean clothes and dishes. On the surface, we focus on avoiding pain or inconvenience or frustration, but when we get past that and ask what we really want, it becomes clear that doing the laundry and washing the dishes gets us what we actually want. It's a matter of more mature awareness of what we value, not merely a matter of "selfishness."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Likewise, we might say we want something awful to happen to a rude driver, or a malicious co-worker, or an incompetent retail clerk. When we think more deeply about our own lives and experiences, though, we have occasionally done something that inconvenienced (or even endangered) another driver on the road because we were in a hurry or we weren't paying attention. Perhaps we have also made decisions that other people didn't like because it was part of our job. We may even have been thrown off by a simple process because one little thing in our environment was different, or we were distracted by something else in our personal lives. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">As much as we may get angry or frustrated when other people's behavior inconveniences us or challenges us, we actually don't want to live in a world where a sort of vicious karma punishes our every mistake with misfortune. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">We actually want people to be graceful with us when we almost miss our exit on the freeway, or when we make a thoughtful decision that has painful consequences for someone, or when we just have a moment when our brains aren't firing on all cylinders. We want to be known and understood. We want other people to see our inherent worth and dignity -- and to acknowledge and respect our unique abilities and strengths that may have required a lot of hard work to cultivate. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Our anxiety prompts us to hold ourselves apart, to demand something different for our own lives than we hope for in the lives of others. Our fear prompts us to defend our own difficult decisions by mocking the difficult decisions of others. Our fear prompts us to refuse rights to other people because we think their freedom will somehow jeopardize our own rights and freedom. Our fear prompts us toward scarcity thinking, believing that I can't have what I need if someone else gets what they need. Either/or propositions are fueled by our anxiety, just as the idea of "selfishness" is really a way of saying that we allow our fear to convince us that we want something we don't actually want -- our anxiety doesn't let us get past the surface level desires to what we most deeply value.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">When we are able to connect with what we most deeply value, we begin to realize that what we want requires well-being in our own lives <i>and</i> well-being in the lives of those around us. When we are willing to cast a vision of wholeness for our lives -- or our neighborhoods, or our workplaces, or the world -- we see that our lives are interconnected with the lives of others, that we cannot experience wholeness and well-being in our lives without contributing to wholeness and well-being in the lives of others. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Yet we cannot connect with what we most deeply value, what we most deeply want, without learning to manage our own anxiety and confronting our tendency toward lazy thinking. And we cannot learn to manage our own anxiety or confront our mental laziness by focusing on other people. We have to turn our gaze inward and develop our own selves if we want to maximize the meaningful contribution we are able to make in the world.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">So, there is really no such thing as selfishness. There are degrees of emotional immaturity and maturity. There are habits of lazy, flawed thinking that we can change and develop into more mature, intentional thought processes. There are anxious, fear-driven reactions that keep us from living with integrity to what actually matters most to us. And there are more emotionally mature, self-aware actions that align with our deepest values and create greater wholeness in our own lives and the lives of others. Well-being is only an either/or proposition when we allow our flawed, surface level, anxious, scarcity thinking to run the show. When we are honest, we acknowledge that well-being in our own lives is inextricably connected to well-being in the lives of others. And when we focus on our own capacity to clarify our deepest values and live with integrity to those values, we transform the world. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><br /></span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-18888376029318526822015-12-21T14:19:00.000-06:002015-12-21T14:19:11.545-06:00Selfishness 2We're in the midst of examining a criticism that "good" people don't focus on their own wants and needs, but focus on the needs and wants of others. Previously, we acknowledged that shame can cause us to think that we are not worthy of having our needs and wants met, and we asserted that if we want to be fully alive human beings, it's important for us to recognize the worthiness of our own vision for our lives and the world around us.<br />
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There are a couple of other points we need to consider from critics, however, including the belief that we harm other people by focusing on what we want -- essentially, that everyone cannot simultaneously have their wants and needs met. We should also address the argument that Jesus or some other legendary spiritual leader offers a model of self-sacrificial living. In fact, let's tend to that last point first and then move on to the idea that it costs someone else when we focus on what we most deeply want.<br />
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Throughout the history of some religious traditions, suffering has been equated with righteousness or worthiness. This began because the people who engaged in those religious practices were marginalized in their particular society, and they had to do something to explain their suffering in the face of a belief that they were set apart -- "chosen" by their god. Either their god was malicious or powerless, or there was some greater reason for their suffering as marginalized people. Even though some such religious traditions have become more powerful -- even oppressive -- practitioners often still cling to the idea that they are persecuted. Their persecution makes them like a beloved spiritual leader of mythology, and thus their suffering marks them as more holy -- chosen or set apart by their loving god who values their suffering for some reason.<br />
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The fact of the matter is that this coping mechanism creates tons more harm than well-being. Liberal and feminist theologians especially have written quite a bit on the damage done by the belief that suffering makes one more acceptable, lovable, or worthy in the eyes of a deity. Self-sacrifice can be a powerful gesture, but only when it is an intentional choice that one makes to nurture a system toward wholeness. Giving up one's personal safety, in and of itself, does not nurture anything. Choosing between what feels safe and what one actually wants for the world -- a personal creative life dream -- can be worth the risk. There is a big difference.<br />
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Even when one looks at the example of Jesus, for instance, the model of behavior is not self-sacrificial. There is an abundance of examples in the gospel narrative of Jesus going off by himself for solitude. He chooses to fast on occasion, but he never goes hungry when he actually needs to eat. He reprimands people who don't behave the way he wants them to, and he thinks highly enough of his own ideas that he challenges the rationale of religious authorities. He even chastises his disciples when they don't meet his needs or wants. There are moments in which the Jesus of the gospel narratives is downright arrogant, and there is no reason for us to criticize the self-assurance of someone who has conviction about what will bring wholeness to the world. The lessons of the teachings attributed to Jesus have little to do with self-sacrifice and lots to do with being aware of one's own power to transform one's own life and the lives of others.<br />
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Too often, believers seem to focus on one episode at the end of the story, in which religious and political leaders abuse their power with violent retribution toward a person who upsets the status quo. They invent in their heads a Jesus who could have resisted such power, making him a willing sacrifice rather than a victim of oppressive and fear-filled authorities. Yet this behavior is in contrast to the rest of the stories told about the life and actions of a bold and self-confident Jesus who is consistently willing to express what he wants people to do and how he wants people to think.<br />
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Anyone who includes self-sacrifice into their religious values is choosing to imagine that their own wants and needs are inconsequential, which is the same thing as denying their inherent worth and dignity. Some religious traditions thrive on telling people lies about being unworthy, unacceptable, and unlovable -- perhaps making their invented deity look all the more magnanimous for deigning to love such wretches. Do you know how people create wholeness when they think of themselves as inherently unworthy, unacceptable, and unlovable? They don't. Why would they? Their self-image is dominated by weakness and powerlessness. This image of humanity is flawed, fear-driven, and useless, except to those that like having an easy time manipulating the masses. That's the one thing to be said for teaching people that they are weak and worthless -- it makes them a lot easier to control.<br />
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Contrast that with people who believe in their own inherent worth and dignity -- who believe in their own capability and beauty and creativity. People who recognize personal responsibility in their lives ought also recognize that they have the power to wield that responsibility thoughtfully. This means taking the consequences of one's action into consideration. Powerless people don't have choices, but people who are willing to recognize their own power also recognize the ability to choose actions that nurture wholeness in their lives and the lives of those around them. Really, it's the people who live into an identity of being weak, unlovable, powerless, and unworthy who are harmfully self-indulgent.<br />
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There is something that gets in the way of creating wholeness, though, even for those people who recognize their own worth and power and responsibility. Fear. Just as shame convinces us of lies about ourselves, our fear gets in the way of living life as fully as we could. Our fear convinces us that we need certain things in order to be safe, or to prove how lovable or acceptable we are. And we wind up doing the things that placate our fear rather than doing the things we actually want most deeply. Most people don't ever think about what they want for their lives and the lives of those around them because they never get past thinking about what they have to do to be safe, or heard, or respected, or loved, or successful. We don't really know what we want more deeply because we never get past wanting to be free of our anxiety.<br />
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From this perspective, the criticism is absolutely true: Everyone cannot go about alleviating their fears without hurting anyone else. Focusing on our anxiety and trying to make it go away as quickly as possible almost always means we hurt someone else in the process. We also hurt ourselves. Letting fear control us is not the same as tending to what we most deeply want. We don't actually get what we most deeply want by indulging our fear. We need a way to get past our fear and anxiety, and get to the heart of what we really want for our own lives and for the world. And we need a way to know when it is our fear talking and when it is something deeper within us that longs for wholeness.<br />
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The criticism of selfishness really doesn't hold up when we consider the full implication of intentional people living with integrity to their deepest values. Certainly, when we think of the typical fearful behavior of human beings on reactive autopilot, self-indulgence is harmful. That isn't what we're talking about when we encourage living into a best possible version of oneself, or developing a meaningful creative life dream. If our passion is nurturing the world toward wholeness, we have to be competent at nurturing wholeness in our own lives. Respecting our own needs, valuing our own vision, caring for ourselves -- these are behaviors of personally responsible human beings, and it takes personally responsible human beings to create wholeness.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-82157519538313491952015-12-14T09:20:00.000-06:002015-12-14T09:20:50.808-06:00Selfishness 1<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Some people have criticized questions like, "What do I really want?" and "What is my personal creative life dream?" as being too selfish. Their reasoning is that we should focus our attention on other people and not on ourselves. I can only imagine that at some point in their childhood they were reprimanded for being insensitive to what others wanted or needed--for being too focused on their own wants. Children don't have the same capacity as (some) adults to evaluate their wants and needs or bring their actions into alignment with deeper values. Those values are still developing even into adulthood for a lot of people. Let's consider this criticism, though, and see if we are willing to risk being seen as selfish.</span></span><div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The argument, as I understand it from a variety of sources, is that "good" people (which is often synonymous with believers of a particular religious tradition) ought not concern themselves with their own wants and needs, but ought instead to concern themselves with the wants and needs of others. Their reasoning involves a version of some or all of the following points: </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">(1) Good people will be rewarded in an afterlife for suffering here on earth, so demonstrating your goodness by being self-sacrificial in this life will result in your needs and wants being satisfied for eternity. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">(2) Their scriptures affirm that their supernatural will provide what they need, so they need not worry about their own needs. (3) Insisting on what you want causes harm to others because you can only get what you want at the expense of someone else. In other words, everyone cannot simultaneously have their wants and needs met, so your gain means someone else's loss. (4) The example of Jesus (for Christians) or another legendary spiritual leader reflects a model of self-sacrificial living.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">There may be other points offered in support of self-sacrifice and in opposition to selfishness, but these four are the ones I read and hear most often. We should consider each of these arguments in turn, and then consider whether living into a "personal creative life dream" or focusing on what you really want is actually a selfish act. Let's take our time with this over a few weeks rather than brushing past what seems like an important criticism.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">First, though, we <i>can</i> brush past the first point. We've already dispensed with the idea of an afterlife. Being self-sacrificial in this life will get you the experience of self-sacrifice in this life. And maybe it will get you a false sense of superiority or piety. Most likely, it will get you a sense of resentment and frustrated entitlement. What it <i>won't</i> get you is your needs met. No one else is responsible for your life but you. It's nice when other people meet our needs and attend to our wants, but it isn't ultimately their responsibility. Likewise, it isn't your responsibility to meet other people's needs or wants. It's nice when you do, and we'll see why it's important that we connect what we want and need with what other people want and need. Meeting other people's needs at the expense of your own, though, doesn't earn you any points with a supernatural, it just creates voluntary suffering on your part. If you're alright with that, that's your prerogative, but it won't result in a better afterlife for you. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, utopia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The next point is more concerning, because there is some serious potential for harm in living by a belief that you needn't worry about your own well-being because a supernatural will provide everything you need. What does one say about the people of faith who are starving or going without clean water or dying from curable diseases and treatable health conditions? If all of those people were atheists, then it would be a powerful motivator to believe in a god, but this isn't the case. Some suffering people wind up believing that they must have done something wrong, and that their god is now punishing them. Some people believe that others suffer so that there is someone to care for, as if their god causes suffering in some people's lives so that other people can extend care. If this is the case, believers are doing a pretty poor job of it, and their god operates out of a rather twisted morality. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">While it's true that we don't really <i>need</i> that much to live a happy and healthy life, it's also true that those basic necessities are not guaranteed. The ample evidence indicates that people cannot expect a supernatural to provide for their needs. We are responsible for our own lives. And what people cannot provide for themselves, it falls to other human beings to provide. If people continue to go without food or clean water, that's not on a supernatural who made a promise to provide -- it's on us, the rest of humanity who continue on with more comfortable lives instead of attending to the basic needs of other human beings. More specifically, it's on the people who have the resources to improve the well-being of others on a larger scale, but that's jumping ahead a little bit.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">I understand that, for believers, it must seem that there is a supernatural working things out in your life when you get the job you wanted, or when you avoid a nasty traffic collision, or when your child gets a clean bill of health. I attended a graduation recently at which it was said that we were celebrating students' accomplishments, <i>and</i> that they couldn't have done it without God's help. This logical inconsistency made perfect sense to the believers in the room, as if it was the divine will of a supernatural that they should complete the assignments they chose to complete, attend the classes they chose to attend, earn the grades they legitimately earned, and so orchestrate their lives that they complete a degree program. If their god is responsible for those degrees, there is no reason to celebrate their individual achievements. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Actually, if a supernatural is ultimately going to get its way, despite human action, we have no reason to do anything. Where does one draw the line? If we starve or feast, run late or arrive early, succeed or fail, get mugged or walk the streets safely, exercise or sit on the couch -- why should we take responsibility for any of this if a supernatural always works things out to get what it wants. (Which seems like the very definition of selfish, actually.) Of course, then one must ask why an omnipotent loving supernatural wants so many believers to suffer, but believers usually credit their god with the desirable things and blame something else for the suffering. They've invented a powerful evil counterpart to their benevolent god, to make an even more convoluted explanation of suffering that ends up undermining their very definition of their god. It makes for great horror movies, though, so I'm grateful for that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Sometimes desirable things happen to us. Sometimes we even cause them, because we work hard or pay attention or otherwise commit ourselves toward a particular outcome. It's not so unreasonable to think that you will get a job for which you're qualified, for instance. If you think it would take a miracle for you to get hired, you must not think very highly of your skills. Sometimes desirable things happen that we don't think we've earned, like a child getting well after a serious illness. Yet, if we've tended to that child and taken them to doctors and done our part to create a healthy environment, we <i>have </i>contributed to that healing. Perhaps it doesn't feel "right" that one person's child should die from a disease and another person's child should live. It's more convenient to pin it on a god and be grateful. When we think we are undeserving of the desirable things that happen in our lives, there is something less healthy at work within us, however.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">When things go the way you want them to, and you think, "God was watching out for me," or something to that effect, consider this: Are you actually saying that you aren't worthy of good things happening in your life? Why do you think that? Who is "worthy" of getting into a traffic collision? Who is "worthy" of avoiding it? Who is "worthy" of getting a job they aren't qualified for or receiving a degree they didn't actually earn? <b>Our inherent worth as human beings is not tied to what happens to us or what we accomplish.</b> Some of the desirable things in our lives are things we earn, and it is dishonest to suggest that we didn't. You earned your degrees. You worked to develop your skills. And some desirable things are just luck.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Actually, some desirable things <i>must</i> be just luck even if you are a believer who proposes the existence of a benevolent, loving deity. To think that a god spared you from a nasty traffic collision means that your god <i>didn't</i> spare other people. And it's a sure bet that believers are involved in some traffic collisions. You may even know some believers who have been in traffic collisions. Why would your supernatural allow them to be in a traffic collision and spare you? To teach them a lesson that you don't need to learn? What a strange belief system that requires so many convoluted twists just to make reality seem more orchestrated than it is. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">All impish critique aside, whatever your belief in a supernatural, it is<i> shame</i> that causes us to believe that we don't deserve desirable things. It is shame that causes us to believe that we are unworthy of good things in our lives. It is shame that results in us concluding that we aren't worth our own attention and that we must be content with whatever comes our way (by the grace of a supernatural or just by dumb luck). It is shame that suggests to us that we are unlovable or unacceptable, and that we must do something to earn or prove ourselves lovable and acceptable. The idea that a supernatural will provide what we need, and that we must be content with that, is rooted in shame -- a false belief about ourselves. The idea that we must focus our attention on the needs of others and set our own needs aside is rooted in shame. Shame falsely accuses and convicts us of selfishness when we consider too long our own dreams and desires for our lives and for the world, and shame convinces us to keep our lives small and unassuming, perhaps with a veneer of imitation humility that we simply aren't important enough to make a real difference in the world. Shame is bullshit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, utopia, palatino linotype, palatino, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> If we want to live into our deepest values, we must confront our shame. We must recognize the worthiness of our own vision for our lives and for the world around us -- we must recognize our own worthiness as human beings with amazing capacity for truth, beauty, and creativity. We each have something powerful to contribute to the world, and there is nothing selfish in recognizing that. </span></span></div>
Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-16913937151511419362015-12-07T10:00:00.000-06:002015-12-17T15:35:04.018-06:00Asking the Right Questions -- The Problem of Evil<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One last big question religion pretends to answer is: <i>Why is there evil in the world?</i> We might consider "evil" to be synonymous with suffering, for the sake of clarity. Why do people suffer? Religious imagination actually makes this question more complicated that it needs to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some answers offered through religion imagine a whole array of supernatural beings, good and evil, fighting for the precious commodity of human souls. It makes sense that if you're going to invent a supernatural to worship, you would also find it convenient to invent other lesser supernatural beings to answer other troublesome questions. That angels and demons and souls are not real things hasn't stopped religious institutions from perpetuating the idea that human suffering is caused by supernatural activity. Some religious communities even encourage people to invent their own personal stories of encounters with angelic or demonic forces, and the community accepts these inventions as fact in order to bolster a framework that is easily dismantled by thinking through how poorly it aligns with measurable, observable reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Other religious answers are less complex, keeping the supernatural involvement down to one entity who controls all things. In such a mythology, one god is responsible for all of the helpful and harmful experiences people have. The question then becomes why a god would cause harm to weaker, less capable beings. Some conclude that a god is punishing and rewarding people for their behavior, but this idea also becomes difficult to maintain unless the god in question is either capricious or outright malicious. In other words, the idea of an omnipotent supernatural punishing and rewarding people only works if the character of that supernatural makes it unworthy of adoration and admiration.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Observing that people who are devout in their practice of a religious tradition suffer just the same as heathens without a religious tradition should be a fly in the ointment. Some religions answer this complication by suggesting that their god tests the faithful by causing or allowing suffering, and that the reward for this testing happens in an afterlife. We've already dismissed the idea of an afterlife, but it is an easy last resort when a religious leader doesn't want to have to answer for promises of reward. Who can call a person to account when there is no way to verify or deny such a promise of posthumous reward for suffering? One can also perhaps bear the suffering of others more easily (or even callously) if one clings to a belief that an afterlife reward awaits those who suffer in their actual real life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What all of this boils down to is that religions can't satisfactorily answer the question of suffering, but they are all equipped to make something up that can't be verified or falsified. Any valid attempt to refute answers that rely on supernaturals are met with nonsensical replies, like suggesting that one's faith must be strong in order to understand spiritual truths. Or, the oft-abused retort, from New Testament writings, "The wisdom of this world is foolishness to god." So, indoctrination in many religious traditions includes learning rebuffs to protect one from thinking through one's assertions with any sort of integrity to reality. Maintaining a particular religious mythology is more important to some people than finding an answer to human suffering that aligns meaningfully with reality.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One convenient facet of basing answers to suffering on supposed supernatural will or promised reward in an afterlife is that human beings are off the hook. If a god wants someone to suffer, then there is nothing for a human being to do, although perhaps the person experiencing the suffering should be told to straighten up and fly right so that their suffering would end. Likewise, if suffering now leads to reward in an afterlife, there is no reason to address human suffering. Human beings can ignore any suffering of others they find distasteful, confident that those individuals will be well rewarded after they die.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Even more convenient, when religious institutions connect human suffering with their concept of sin, they can justify the mistreatment or oppression of others. When you believe that an individual's suffering is directly tied to that individual's sinfulness or wrongdoing, then the individual can be blamed for whatever harmful experiences happen in their lives. While people within the religious tradition are seen as being tested by suffering, people outside that religious tradition -- experiencing the same suffering -- might be seen as being punished by a god for bad behavior. This allows religious leaders to use religion to encourage the dehumanization of other people. In other words, their answer to human suffering is to willfully cause more suffering.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For this reason, religion cannot meaningfully answer the question it poses regarding the existence of evil or suffering. Even though some religious groups imagine supernaturals that are benevolent and engage in practices that seek to create wholeness, the non-real foundation of their actions is easily corrupted and abused by those who imagine a different sort of supernatural or refuse to address their own culpability. We must look outside religious constructs to find meaningful answers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Human suffering might be put into two categories: suffering caused by nature, and suffering caused by human action. Natural suffering would include all of the hardships people face that are not caused by human activity: weather events, genetic conditions and many diseases, attacks from wild animals, etc. Nature has certain features that are unpleasant for individuals to experience, but overall contribute to a balanced ecosystem. The suffering of human beings because of natural events has no greater meaning, although people can potentially learn things from the experience. Natural events are amoral -- there is no will or purpose behind them. Natural events are just things that happen, and human beings have to supply their own meaning as they recover and rebuild in the wake of such an event.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We still feel grief and pain at this kind of suffering, and that grief and pain can connect us with other human beings or isolate us. We can better manage our grief, though, when we are honest about the source of our suffering.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Suffering caused by human action is different. Sometimes, suffering is the result of human ignorance or negligence, but people are still accountable for their actions. A person might say that they never knew there was a connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer, but their actions are still a contributing factor to their suffering. There is some evidence to suggest that even some "natural" events like wildfires are exacerbated by human activity. The answer to this sort of suffering caused by negligence is two-fold. First, we must learn to more accurately predict the consequences of our actions. Second, we must choose to act in such a way that minimizes suffering and increases well-being for the greatest number of people. There is nothing supernatural in any of this. This way of thinking places responsibility squarely on human beings. This is less convenient than most religious responses to suffering, but it is more realistic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Again, our pain and grief at this kind of suffering is also very real. Recognizing human responsibility is not a way of alleviating that grief. We need one another for that very reason; expressing grief and caring for one another in times of suffering is one of the functions of meaningful, authentic community.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There is another category of suffering caused by human action, however, and this is the most challenging to address because it seems closest to a traditional definition of <i>evil</i>. Some suffering is caused by human beings willfully and knowingly doing harm to other human beings. When a human being uses a weapon to hurt another human being, there is no question of ignorance or negligence. When human beings willfully use chemicals or artillery or biological agents to cause harm, there is no question of ignorance or negligence. There may have been a time when human beings could claim ignorance when they oppressed or marginalized a population, but that time has passed. Human beings have a propensity for willfully and knowingly causing harm to other human beings, and this suffering requires a different response that either natural suffering or suffering caused by actual ignorance or negligence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We cannot blame supernatural forces for the harm that human beings perpetrate on one another. We must look to ourselves in order to find meaningful answers and solutions. The most succinct answer as to the cause of this suffering is that when people experience fear, they react. Fearful people often create suffering. This may seem overly simplistic, but the solution to irrational fear is rather demanding and counter-cultural. When people are accustomed to reacting to their fear (and justifying or dismissing any harm done as a result of their reactivity), suffering is guaranteed. The only way to address human suffering caused by human fearfulness is to address the root fear. While this would ideally become a societal practice, it's more likely that change will begin (and is beginning) with individuals committed to living more intentionally.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are countless examples regarding how fear connects to human beings causing suffering. People are afraid of all sorts of things. We fear scarcity of resources and power. We fear being ignored or taken for granted -- being invisible. We fear being oppressed or exploited. We fear being unlovable or unacceptable because we fear being ostracized and cut off and alone. We fear not having our needs and wants met, and we fear being unworthy of having our needs and wants met. Human beings live in an environment of constant fearfulness. It take real work to recognize what fears are driving us, what we actually want, and how we can move toward what we want in a way that creates wholeness. This is the most meaningful answer to suffering that we can possibly embody, and it will take some time to learn to do things differently, especially if we are accustomed to reacting to fear on a regular basis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As we proceed beyond clarifying the right questions, the goal of dismantling irrational fear, decreasing suffering, and increasing well-being will be a primary topic. For now, it can suffice that we have a viable way of asking questions about suffering that don't resort to religious imagination or the invoking of supernatural will and afterlife rewards. Moreover, we actually have a more meaningful question than <i>Why is there suffering?</i> It is much more potent and evocative for us to ask <i>What fears are prompting me to create suffering instead of creating wholeness? </i>and <i>What am I going to do differently? </i>If a growing number of people are willing to ask the right questions, we can find more meaningful and transformative answers for our lives and for our world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To summarize the interrelated questions we can meaningfully ask and address in the weeks ahead:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What am I passionate about? What is my personal life dream that creates greater wholeness in the world?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Where do I find a <i>genuine </i>sense of belonging? Where do I find <i>authentic </i>community? </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What fears get in my way? How can I dismantle those fears and understand what I actually want?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How can I get what I most deeply want and need by creating less suffering and greater wholeness?</span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-46048807840402550152015-11-30T17:45:00.001-06:002015-12-01T12:46:32.101-06:00Asking the Right Questions -- CommunityAnother question that religion often seems to answer has to do with people's search for community -- a sense of belonging. Religion answers the questions, "Where can I find community? Where can I feel like I belong?" with caveats. <i>You can find community here, </i><b><i>if</i> </b><i>you believe the things we tell you to believe, or at least claim to.</i> Religions are largely based on a set of beliefs, beliefs that often run counter to reality, and in order to be part of the community, you have to at least pretend to buy into those beliefs. Some people are so desperate for a sense of belonging that it seems like a pretty good deal.<br />
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A person looking for a sense of belonging enters into religious community and is told what to hope for in an afterlife, how to find a sense of purpose in service to an imaginary supernatural, and what to believe about the way the world works. It's very convenient to have someone tell you what to think, because then you don't have to go through the trouble of thinking for yourself. Some people appreciate that. So, we wind up with entire communities of people who have stopped thinking for themselves, willingly participating in a joint delusion that their emperor is wearing the latest high couture, because it's easier than wrestling with the messiness of reality.<br />
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The relationships people develop in these kinds of religious communities often wind up falling short of authentic connection, because the delusions offer easy responses to any concern that might be raised. People say, "I'll pray for you," because it's easier than actually diving into the muck of someone's pain. People say, "Trust God and it will all work out," because they have given up the capacity for taking personal responsibility in their lives. People say, "Those evil people who don't believe the same things we believe are going to hell," because it's easier to write off people who don't conform than it is to engage with people and learn from different perspectives.<br />
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And it's no wonder that people opt for easy, quick-fix answers. If they started trying to figure out the nuances of their religion's beliefs, they'd only confuse themselves. Out of one side of their mouths, religious leaders speak about infinite love, and out of the other side of their mouths, they speak with contempt for other human beings. It's more about power and influence than it is about helping people take personal responsibility for their lives, but because people have what seems like a reasonable substitute for community, they don't question it.<br />
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Of course, there are some religious leaders who say exactly what I'm saying here. They see possibilities for their tradition to take a different path that focuses on authentic connection and personal empowerment. Yet, they want to hang on to the same delusional foundations in order to create something different. They still want their communities to believe that prayer changes reality, and that a supernatural can take care of things that people are too weak to handle for themselves. It's hard to build a community of personally responsible human beings when you reinforce the belief that there is ultimately a supernatural who is in control.<br />
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Even in liberal religious communities, gaining a sense of belonging often requires conformity. It may not even be about belief in a supernatural or the power of prayer. Some religious groups require that their participants be passionate about fighting back against oppressors -- their version of "evil" people. Some religious groups expect people to use non-judgmental, politically correct language. In order to fit in and find community, people have to meet certain belief standards. While the motives may be noble, the end result is often just another set of trite phrases and pat answers.<br />
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Whether a religious community leans toward fundamentalism or liberalism, there is a tendency for individuals to stop thinking for themselves and go along with the herd. Those that don't, leave. This isn't just a feature of religious groups, of course. Groups of human beings tend toward homogeneity and mindless conformity. Religious communities amplify the issue by insisting that they know things that they don't actually know -- and often just plain aren't true. A homogeneous, mindless herd of people who believe that an all-powerful supernatural is on their side and is directing their actions can do a lot of damage.<br />
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At the same time, communities need clear identities. It's appropriate for a group to make a claim like, "We are people who first and foremost believe in shaming oppressors and fighting back against oppressive systems." Or even, "We are people who believe that prayer is an effective means of changing reality." If you share that belief in common, then you might find a sense of belonging with like-minded folks. Some groups even claim to be welcoming to everyone, but what this claim of hospitality actually means is, "We welcome anyone to come and be like us, and believe what we believe, and do things the way we do things."<br />
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Unlike the question of hope in an afterlife (which is better focused on hope in what we can do in this life), and unlike the question of purpose (which is better framed as one's decision rather than a destiny prescribed by a supernatural), the question of community and belonging is an appropriate question for people to ask. "Where can I find a genuine sense of belonging?" and "Where can I find authentic community?" are important searches that everyone engages in. Too often, though, religious communities require people to take the words <i>genuine</i> and <i>authentic</i> out of those questions, and people settle for a less than authentic community because they fear that there isn't anything else for them. People give up their own sense of personal responsibility, their own sense of self, in order to have a sense of community, because there are plenty of places that say, "You're welcome here, if you believe what we tell you to believe. You can belong here, as long as you do things the way we do things."<br />
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This question of community is worth a great deal more exploration, but for now it can suffice to say that the right framing of these questions doesn't leave out the most important words: Where can I find a <i>genuine</i> sense of belonging? Where can I find <i>authentic</i> community? We need connection with other human beings that empower us to live into a best possible version of ourselves, not restrict us to living into a best possible version that someone else imagined for us after reading an ancient text through a particularly warped lens. We need community that affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person and allows for people to deepen their own connection to their deepest, most noble selves. Our sense of belonging is most meaningful when we are able to bring our whole selves into that community and find resources to grow and develop as individuals.<br />
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As we'll see moving forward, meaningful community includes five important characteristics: (1) mutual self-disclosure, (2) mutually expressed active and unconditional love, (3) mutual hospitality -- or willingness to be of service and to receive from others, (4) mutual honesty in communication, and (5) sincere affirmation. Healthy communities also have the ability to set clear boundaries and to define a central shared purpose or vision, but boundaries and purposes that create wholeness aren't based on delusions. Meaningful community does not require belief in anything beyond humanity. Meaningful community does not need to involve a supernatural. Meaningful community is possible if a group of people chooses to be intentional about putting these ideals into practice.<br />
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Before we look more deeply at how we might locate our hope realistically, take personal responsibility for our sense of purpose, and find a sense of belonging and create meaningful community without buying into mass delusions, there is one more basic question that religious pretends to answer. We'll take a brief look at the problem of evil next. In the meantime, don't leave out the most important words in your questions. Finding meaningful answers requires asking the right questions:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "utopia" , "palatino linotype" , "palatino" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">What am I passionate about? What is my personal life dream that creates greater wholeness in the world?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Where do I find a <i>genuine </i>sense of belonging? Where do I find <i>authentic </i>community? </span><br />
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<br />Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-23512401448266203172015-11-23T11:21:00.000-06:002015-11-23T11:21:38.583-06:00Asking the Right Questions -- Purpose<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In addition to inventing and answering questions about an afterlife, religion presumes to answer questions about purpose. We've seen that we can meaningfully reframe afterlife-focused questions as "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with the influence I have in the world and with the legacy I leave behind?" We can also phrase questions of purpose without religious assumptions, and answer them more legitimately.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Believers who assume the existence of a supernatural seem to find it perfectly acceptable to ask, "What purpose does God have for my life?" or "What is God's plan for me?" Asking the question in this way accomplishes a few things. First, it suggests that our activities are part of a larger intentional scheme, coordinated by a better-than-human benevolent intelligence. It also removes personal responsibility for determining purpose, since it becomes the responsibility of a supernatural. In addition, it can provide a false sense comfort during challenging experiences to believe that everything is part of a larger plan or purpose that is beyond the individual's ability to perceive.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Before we consider whether framing the question of purpose differently can accomplish more for us, it's worth acknowledging that most people who believe that a supernatural has a secret plan for their lives are also susceptible to influence by religious leaders -- people perceived to have some spiritual authority. For some reason, it's acceptable to think that you are too ignorant to understand what purpose a supernatural might have, but that a professional minister somehow has special insight about what that supernatural wants for your life. This is just another way of abdicating responsibility. As long as someone else is taking responsibility for telling me my life's purpose, I don't have to worry about that. This might benefit some people if the spiritual authority they listen to has their best interests in mind, but it is far too easy for a unscrupulous spiritual authority to manipulate believers who aren't willing to take personal responsibility for their decisions. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">There is something appealing about the whole concept that God has a plan, and your life fits into it in some unique and special way, even though you are just one small piece of the puzzle. It's rather like destiny or fate, but more personal. Thus, when people experience difficult circumstances, they can fall back on this idea that a warm and loving destiny-weaver has a plan, and that everything is going to work out alright. They may even quote a scripture that promises that "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8:28). That can really make a person feel special and comforted, even if it doesn't seem to connect in any way to practical reality.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Just as everyone searches for hope, everyone searches for purpose. We've seen that the question of hope can be addressed in terms of how we live and how we influence the world toward wholeness. The question of purpose can be directed at us as well, rather than at some unreal external force. This might mean a little more work that just letting someone else tell us what to do, and it might mean a little more honesty when we experience challenges. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">Ultimately, we are the only ones who determine our purpose, whether we recognize it or not. If we listen to a religious leader when they tell us what we should be doing, we are still personally responsible for our decisions. We make a choice, even though it seems easy because someone is telling us with authority what a god wants from us. If we just sit at home with a sacred text and derive from that what our purpose must be, we are still the only decision-makers involved in that process. There is no supernatural guiding us. We have just become so unused to hearing our own inner voice that we think it must come from outside of us. Whether we are honest about our responsibility or we pretend that it's beyond our choosing, we determine our purpose.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">This is scary for a lot of folks, especially if they've been taught that they aren't enough. Churches often teach that human beings need some supernatural aid because we aren't enough on our own. They say that we aren't wise enough, or we aren't good enough, or we aren't powerful enough to live purposeful, meaningful lives. They say that we need help from something better than us if we're going to find real meaning and purpose. This degradation of human capability is poison. It prevents people from recognizing their authentic power to make decisions that are personally satisfying and that nurture the world around them. The truth is that human wisdom and goodness and power is all we have, and it is more than enough. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">We find purpose when we take personal responsibility for our decisions -- understanding that we don't control other people, we only control ourselves. When we take the time to determine what is meaningful for us, what we really care about, we can define our purpose with clarity. When we are willing to risk the vulnerability of stepping out of our comfort zone and living into a more ambitious purpose for ourselves and for the world, we nourish our hope as well. This involves asking the question of ourselves, "What do I really care about?" thoroughly enough that we get to a powerful personal statement of purpose. To get there, we have to dig through our irrational fears and the lies that we've accepted about ourselves and other people. This takes some work, and it takes claiming our personal responsibility for our lives. And it has the potential to give us a more authentic sense of meaning and wholeness than abdicating the question of purpose to a supernatural or its representatives.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">What about the idea that we are just one small piece in a bigger plan? That idea actually has some truth to it. There isn't a <i>plan </i>per se, but our actions do take place in a larger system. What we do in our lives can contribute to nurturing the world toward wholeness, but we don't do it all ourselves. Other people who have tapped into their purpose also find meaning in contributing their own piece. We don't have to feel overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done in the world. We can recognize the opportunity to take meaningful action in an area that's important to us. We don't have to feel ashamed that what we do gives us personal satisfaction. Purpose and meaning are not supposed to be self-sacrificial. The point is to do something we find personally satisfying <i>and</i> that nurtures the world around us toward greater well-being.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.48px;">The question we can ask then becomes, "What purpose do <i>I</i> have for my life?" and "How do I live into a personal life dream that creates wholeness and increases the well-being of others?" We don't need supernaturals to tell us what inspires us, or to point out to us what the world needs. We don't need "sacred" texts to set us on the right path. We <i>do</i> have to be honest about our own biases and our own fears, and we need to dig deeper than answers that seem designed to keep us safe. Having a purpose isn't safe. Living into a personal creative life dream is powerful and satisfying, but it requires some vulnerability and risk. That's why we need people around us who can support and encourage us, which leads to another important question about community. We'll learn how to ask that question meaningfully next time. </span></span>Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-27313787581283682472015-11-16T09:32:00.003-06:002015-11-16T09:32:44.024-06:00Asking the Right Questions -- AfterlifeSome people have a problem discarding the idea that a particular book is more sacred than any other. At first glance, discarding a sacred text seems to mean that there is no way to gain authoritative information about some important things. Who decides what's important, though? Many religions make assertions about what questions are important, because those are the questions religious doctrine can answer. But if the questions are nonsense in the first place, the answers can't be very meaningful or valuable. Apart from blindly trusting the assertions of a religious tradition, how do we determine what questions are meaningful? Until we do that for ourselves, we won't really know whether it's safe to discard a potential source of meaningful answers.<br />
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One question that religion seems to spend a lot of time on is, "What happens after I die? And how do I make sure that it's pleasant for me?" This is a nonsense question. First of all, after you die, you start to decompose, and possibly you nourish the earth a little bit. That sounds painful, but you won't feel it. Because you'll be dead. Dead people don't have brain activity. It's part of the definition of being dead. No brain activity, no sensation. Once your brain stops functioning, you're pretty much done experiencing anything you're going to experience. Death is an ending.<br />
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But what about the soul? Where does my <i>soul </i>go when I die? Another nonsense question. Of course, we would have to define "soul" to know how much nonsense the question is, but there are really only two definitions that make any sense in this context. Sometimes when people say "soul" they mean an spirit or immaterial part of a person. This suggests that people are essentially some sort of ether inhabiting a physical form for a time, and that they continue to exist ethereally after the physical body is used up. The problem with this idea is that rigorous examination has never yielded any evidence that people have such an immaterial component.<br />
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Wait a minute, you say, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Wrong again. I know it's a clever phrase, and there's some truth to it, but when rational and scientific inquiry has examined a matter over and over again with consistent results, one can draw some reasonable conclusions from that consistency. Ghosts, spirits, and other supernatural entities make for great stories, but they are not part of reality. A part of us does not actually continue to exist once our bodies cease functioning. So the question of where our soul goes is a meaningless question, if by "soul" you mean an immaterial and immortal part of a person.<br />
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"Soul" can also mean a person's essence -- not an immortal intelligent part of them that continues to have will after their bodies are used up, but the core qualities and ideals they embodied. In this case, one can say that a person "lives on" in the memories of others. A person can leave a legacy that continues to influence the world long after they have died. People create works of art, initiate or contribute to institutions and organizations, usher in social change. All sorts of things that people do continue after they have died. Just in influencing one's own children, family, and friends, we continue to have influence after we are no longer alive. We don't have any choice about how that influence happens once we're dead, but we might consider that our essence continues to persist in this way.<br />
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So nothing happens to an immaterial part of you when you die, but your influence continues in the lives of other human beings. That means that what matters most is not some eternal destiny, but how you influence things in the present tense, while you are still alive and aware and making decisions. The question, then, is not, "How do I ensure a pleasant afterlife?" because there is no such thing. The question is, "How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with the influence I have in the world and with the legacy I leave behind?"<br />
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<i>Wait a minute. What about Heaven and Hell? </i>You know that I'm going to say this is another meaningless question if you're asking about your own actual future existence. It makes sense that we would have developed these ideas as a species. We've never really known what to do with death. Some of the most ancient human-created structures that still exist were built as tombs, places to honor the dead and usher them into some sort of afterlife. Whatever beliefs we developed were designed to provide comfort to the living, though. These beliefs do not describe reality. And it doesn't matter how many people believe in something, just believing something doesn't make it true. Heaven isn't going to pop into existence just because a lot of people believe it exists. And you're not going to develop an immaterial immortal essence just by believing hard enough.<br />
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Religious ideas do offer us some great metaphors, though. The idea of heaven and the idea of hell are very useful. The problem is that so many people seem incapable of understanding what a metaphor is. When you start taking things literally, you abuse the image. Now, people use the idea of heaven as a spiritual carrot and the idea of hell as a spiritual stick. The metaphors have become tools of coercion. If it's possible to free the idea of heaven and the idea of hell from the literal interpretation that seems so prevalent today, they can still be useful metaphors. If we use them as metaphors, though, it's our responsibility to be clear that we're doing so.<br />
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Knowing that a large number of people interpret these ideas literally means that we have to be overly cautious if we want to communicate clearly. Just like we might be sensitive that young children are in the room while Santa Claus is being discussed. It's a shame that our culture encourages people to be rational about believing in Santa Claus, but then <i>discourages </i>rational thought in so many other areas, particularly where religion or consumerism is concerned.<br />
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"Where do I go when I die?" should certainly be on a list of meaningless questions. Any resource that seems to make that question important is a resource we can safely discard. That is, unless we find it useful in a more metaphorical sense, in which case we ought to be very clear about how we're using it. A more meaningful question is, "How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?" A resource that seems to speak to that question is worth examining. That doesn't mean every answer is equally useful or credible, but at least we can begin to articulate the question more clearly.<br />
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We'll articulate some other big questions before looking at where to discover meaningful answers.<br />
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Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-1034026533097464892015-11-11T13:45:00.000-06:002015-11-16T09:35:42.641-06:00Eschatos (for now)Having concluded the gospel of John, I spent some time considering what to tackle next. The decision was difficult. Continuing with the second third of Isaiah would make a lot of sense, considering that so many believers mistakenly conclude that the book is about Jesus. (The "servant" in the book is more likely an idealized, emotionally mature person in the midst of an anxious society.) The letters of Paul, taken in any sequence, would be useful perhaps, since many of the Christianities that exist today are based more on Paul's flawed thinking than on any of the Christ narratives. Especially with regard to judging people who seem different, Christians frequently rely on the words of Paul to condemn others and spread fear.<br />
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However, even these compelling possibilities seem uninspiring, at least for now. Thus, the title "Eschatos" -- <i>last things, endings</i>. I have accomplished several things that I set out to demonstrate when I began this exercise. First, I have shown that meaning can be derived from a text without assuming the historical accuracy of the story in the text. Second, I have shown how one might discard harmful assertions from "sacred" texts in order to bring one's beliefs into alignment with one's deepest values. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I have consistently reflected an atheist/Humanist philosophy that holds human beings in high regard and forms a credible foundation for ethical and moral behavior. I have freely interpreted the text through a lens of my own choosing, as every interpreter does, such that the Bible was brought into alignment with the guiding principle that every person has inherent worth and dignity.<br />
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It should be noted that some of the text had to be dismissed or refuted in order to do this. This is because the Bible is a flawed document written by imperfect human beings who often didn't know what to do with their anxiety and fear. Yet, I don't really think anything I have written here will convince someone to read things with an open mind if they're prone to believe in a literal translation of the text. And those who are willing to read things with an open mind don't need my encouragement to do so. In any case, I don't need to continue with this particular project in order to demonstrate how you might first clarify your own guiding principles, and then read whatever text you choose to read with an eye toward deepening your integrity and aligning more intentionally with your deepest, most noble self.<br />
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I originally chose the Bible because it's such a strong influence in Western culture, much more so than Buddhist writings, for instance, which might more easily line up with my Humanist assertions. Recently, though, I've been saddened by how flippantly some believers use biblical texts as weapons to harm others. The ideas of bigotry and fear, practices of injustice and hatred, even acts of profound dishonesty and abuse are sanctified by words from this collection of texts that ought have no more importance than any other ancient document.<br />
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It is clear that a significant portion of the population interprets the words of the Bible as license to <i>not</i> learn how to think critically, as permission <i>not</i> to develop into fully human vessels of love and light that create wholeness. I find that I am repulsed by words that attribute human worth to the benevolence of a supernatural, not least of all because that imagined supernatural is also used to disguise hate as virtue and fear as righteous indignation. Where I may once have easily interpreted Humanist ideals out of a theistic text, I now find it abhorrent to in any way legitimize words that so many believers use to justify lazy, narrow-minded thinking that keeps people <i>from</i> wholeness rather than fueling a journey toward wholeness.<br />
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The idea that there is a supernatural who guards and guides human life is simply wrong. Abdicating one's personal responsibility to the will of an imaginary god is simply irresponsible. Human beings do not derive worth from anything outside of themselves, and they do not need to be cleansed or redeemed by a mystical sacrifice. Human beings have <i>inherent </i>worth and dignity. This means that there is nothing a person needs to do to earn the status of being enough. And there is nothing that can take human worth away from anybody.<br />
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Human beings are still flawed. We still give in to our anxiety, and we let our fear make decisions for us. An even more flawed mythology isn't going to help us deal with these issues. What we need is to take responsibility for our own part in the greater system of humanity. Human beings are capable of growing in their emotional maturity. Human beings are capable of developing integrity. Human beings are capable of doing the work of creating wholeness in their lives and in the lives of others. And we don't need a god to do these things. And we don't need a sacred book.<br />
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Sacred books and gods are convenient, it's true. But they are also easily abused without dispute. Legitimizing belief in a god for the sake of empowering people to do good things in the world unfortunately opens the door for belief in a god to empower people to feel justified in hatred, fear, and violence. As a species, for the last two thousand years, we have failed to teach people to use their myths properly. Thus, it is better to work to discard the myths and replace them with something more useful and better suited to the task of human development.<br />
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There are some tools that are necessary to do a certain job, even though they could be dangerous. We keep those tools around because they are useful, and we take precautions that they are used and kept in a way that maintains a level of safety. It would be irresponsible to do otherwise. Belief in a god is <i>not</i> a necessary tool. For the creation of wholeness, for developing greater integrity, for recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of every person, for growing in emotional maturity, belief in a god is unnecessary. More importantly, belief in a god frequently<i> keeps </i>people from creating wholeness, developing integrity, recognizing human worth, and growing in emotional maturity. When a tool is unnecessary and dangerous, the responsible thing to do is to throw it out.<br />
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You can say, "Those people don't believe in the god I believe in. The god I believe in is wonderful." That's nice. You don't need it. If you want the luxury of keeping a tool around because you find it convenient, despite the harmful things so many people do with that tool, I believe it is your responsibility to teach people how to use that tool properly. If you want to hang on to your supernatural, it is <i>not </i>alright that you stand by and watch people do abusive, hateful, fear-driven things in the name of your supernatural. You are responsible for how you allow others to use your tools. If you want belief in a god to remain in public usage, you are responsible for speaking out boldly for what kind of god you're willing for that to be. The people I hear speaking out boldly for their god are only saying things that reflect their fears and anxieties veiled in religiosity.<br />
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For me, belief in a god is unnecessary, and sacred texts are unnecessary. These things are too dangerous for me to continue accepting and legitimizing them. Accepting the premise of the importance of the Bible has become a distraction from delighting in life and creating wholeness. I'm grateful for your attention as a reader, and I hope that my words have been meaningful to you thus far. My hope for you is that you find ways to deepen your own connection to your deepest most noble self in <i>everything </i>that you read, and that you continually recognize the truth, beauty, and creativity within you. Live into a best possible version of yourself, and the result will be a better world.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5721345113072669349.post-2057636720716513072015-10-26T16:33:00.001-05:002015-10-26T16:33:24.873-05:00John 21: Second ChancesThe <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+21&version=NRSV" target="_blank">postscript to the gospel of John</a> was created with at least one clear purpose -- to redeem a leader in the early Christian movement from an embarrassing episode of disloyalty. There is some debate as to whether this final chapter of John was written by the same author as the rest of the book. At this point, there are only four or five actual complete copies of the gospel of John from the 4th century or earlier, and even among these there are apparent discrepancies. Whoever added this chapter to the end of the narrative, however, apparently felt it was necessary to address some concern in the community.<br />
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After the resurrected Jesus character prompts a miraculous catch of fish, he asks Peter to affirm his devotion three times, mirroring the three-fold denial of Peter earlier in the story. The Jesus character then foretells how Peter will die (a detail that could not have been included by the author until after this early sect leader's death), and he also mentions how the author of the preceding 20 chapters will die. The author of this postscript mentions one rumor that is being debunked here, although he does so in a way that reassures the reader that it is alright if a community leader dies.<br />
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Symbolism is prevalent here, which is one indication that this is not a report of actual incidents but a story with a metaphorical meaning. The exact number of fish caught is clearly symbolic and not actual, and many people have put forth theories about what that number might signify. There's no point in offering such a theory, however, because there is no way to prove or disprove any clever ideas about the number 153. Fishing and not catching anything until the Christ-figure shows up is also a hearkening back to previous stories, locating the tale within a larger context of Jesus stories. And of course, the three-fold redemption of Peter is highly symbolic, and some commentators have picked apart what fine distinctions might be made between "sheep" or "lambs" and "tending" or "feeding." Maybe the author had some specific nuanced differences in mind, but unless we discover some explanation written by the actual author, we shouldn't put too much stock in a "scholar" who claims to have solved a riddle that doesn't even necessarily exist.<br />
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There's no telling what sorts of rumors, myths, and doubts threatened the community for whom this epilogue was written. Obviously, if they were expecting that the leader of their community would remain alive -- at least until a mystical Christ figure returned -- it would have been something of a shock when that leader died. That could have shaken their worldview and their faith. The author of this story may have felt it necessary to remind people that they had made up this business about having a near-immortal leader, and they were simply wrong. It's a fair reason to write such a tale, if one wants to keep a community united in purpose and focused on promoting a particular set of beliefs and values.<br />
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It isn't hard to excuse first-century people for believing in supernatural beings and Christ figures that would return from Heaven and make everything wonderful for them. What's a little tougher to grasp is how twenty-first-century people still believe in something like a rapture event, and base life decisions around a delusional (and somewhat narcissistic) conviction. There are people in the United States today who make decisions about politics, finances, and who they are entitled to hate, based on an expectation that we would deem utterly insane if they were expecting Odin or Athena or aliens riding the tail of a comet instead of Jesus. None of that is really what this chapter is about though.<br />
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This chapter, should we want to make it meaningful, offers a lesson about the mutuality of second chances, and it suggests something about life that we have a hard time accepting. Regarding the primary interchange between Peter and Jesus, there is the one who has betrayed, and the one who has been betrayed. They both have to do their part in order for reconciliation to occur. The betrayed (the Jesus character) sets aside any animosity or resentment, and the betrayer humbly expresses regret and a renewed willingness to love.<br />
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Sometimes we find it very challenging to reconcile, no matter which side of this conversation we find ourselves. When we feel unloved, it feels vulnerable to reach out to someone and ask, "Do you love me?" It seems like a needy, co-dependent kind of question. Yet, in this story, we see it asked in a very straightforward manner, almost as if it is bringing things back into focus. <i>What matters at the end of the day? Let's start there and see how we want to move forward, given everything that has happened. </i><br />
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And in the story, the response is accepted, with a clear and direct way that it can be demonstrated. <i>You do love me? Alright, here's what you can do to demonstrate that.</i> This isn't quite the same as saying, "Prove it." We all have different things that really speak love to us. Some people appreciate receiving tokens of affection, some people find acts of care most meaningful, and some value words spoken sincerely. The Jesus character is being direct about what means love to him. This means that he knows himself well enough to clearly express what he finds meaningful.<br />
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He also gives Peter a chance to reconsider. <i>Are you sure? I don't need platitudes. Just be honest</i>. There doesn't seem to be any shame in the repeated question, although we might imagine feeling shame if we were on the receiving end. Before long, though, the Jesus character is done asking questions. He leaves the matter alone and the relationship moves forward. If Peter had said, "I can't (or won't) do what you want me to," we might imagine Jesus smiling gently and saying, "Alright. I understand." Can we imagine ourselves doing the same?<br />
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If we can imagine ourselves in this process, we have a clear example of how to invite reconciliation.<br />
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(1) We take the first step toward someone who has done something that we've interpreted as a betrayal or an unloving act.<br />
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(2) We bring things back into focus by asking questions foundational to the relationship. "Do you love me?" or "Is there any point to moving forward with <i>us</i>?"<br />
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(3) We clearly state what we want or need. "<i>This</i> is what means love/friendship/collaboration to me."<br />
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(4) We allow space for the other person's sincere response and trust them to speak truthfully. And we accept the outcome, whether or not reconciliation is possible at this time.<br />
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We can still have boundaries and accept people's sincere responses. We can enforce the consequences of having our boundaries trampled and still be loving people. The people who are closest to us are the ones most likely to challenge our boundaries, and sometimes this is even a way that we grow beyond our comfort zone. There is nothing about this exchange, though, that suggests we ought to be naive or willfully oblivious to someone's dangerous behavior. We care for ourselves and for the people around us when we set clear boundaries and allow there to be consequences.<br />
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Sometimes we find ourselves on the other side of this relationship -- on the side represented by Peter in the story. We discover that we have acted or spoken in a way that isn't aligned with a best possible version of ourselves. We have treated another person in a way that doesn't reflect our deepest values. Peter is patient, too. He is sad, and yet he doesn't have an angry outburst. He doesn't feel the need to defend himself when the question comes a second or third time. He answers sincerely, and (as far as we can tell) he accepts the terms offered by the Jesus character. "If this is what love means to you, I'm willing to do it."<br />
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He can say this, because what the Jesus character wants is not dissonant with what Peter wants for himself. If Jesus had asked him to do something harmful to himself or others, we would see it as manipulation or coercion -- fear-driven behavior. When we set aside our own deepest values in order to prove something to someone else, this is not healthy. When we can see reflected in someone else's request our own vision of a best possible version of ourselves, we can more confidently agree to how love or partnership can be meaningfully expressed and received. <br />
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This story is necessary because of Peter's legendary place in the hierarchy of the early Christian sect. There are a lot of traditions about Peter, including that he was the first pope. Where history has failed to leave clear evidence, people have invented traditions, and it simply would not do for the inaugural leader of the Christian movement to have a blemish on his record. The story of Peter's denial of Jesus was too much for people to accept alongside the favorable traditions and legends they had invented around this figure. He needed a redemption story to balance out a widely known story of significant failure.<br />
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In our own lives, we need stories of second chances, too. We will inevitably fail in our endeavors and in our relationships. Especially if we are committed to growing and learning how to create the relationships and lives we most want. Learning new things almost always means experiencing some failure before we get the hang of a new way of being. Strong relationships and healthy communities are not defined by a lack of conflict or painless co-existence. Strong relationships and healthy communities are places where failure is safe, because people are willing to clean up messes and seek reconciliation. Being connected to other human beings is going to painful, not all the time, but sometimes. It's important for us to have a way to reconnect when we don't live up to a best possible version of ourselves.<br />
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I also said that this chapter suggests something about life we have a hard time accepting. It's about our mortality. The Jesus character tells Peter essentially that he needs to do what's important while he has a chance. We are limited in terms of the time have. The people in our lives who are important to us aren't always going to be here. And it's alright for us to keep living after people close to us have died. We must. But while we have the opportunity, may we do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said in our relationships, and may we do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said to journey toward our own personal creative life dream. We may have a lot of time. We may have a little. The point is to use it well.Randyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08209444621702072458noreply@blogger.com0