As you may recall, a few passages back in the story, Mary (sister of Lazarus) lavished expensive perfume on Jesus' feet, and the disciples were somewhat irate (one in particular). Now, in the first paragraphs of John 13, Jesus humbles himself and washes the disciples' feet. As is par for the course in all of the gospel narratives, the disciples don't quite get it, at least not at the time.
Yes, we have to decide what to do with the assertion that the devil put something into Judas' heart that made his impending betrayal a foregone conclusion. Actually, the way the gospel of John keeps preparing the reader with dramatic foreshadowing about Judas' betrayal is quite interesting. It's as if the authors recognize that everyone already knows the story, and their job is to help place meaning on the details. They do this from their own perspective, of course, but they can't actually know some of the things they assert.
Case in point, they can't know that a supernatural influenced Judas in any way. It was part of their worldview that demons and angels were active in the lives of people, primarily because they had no other explanation for some of what they experienced. Disease was mysterious. Epilepsy and depression and schizophrenia were not even meaningful concepts. As with many people today, luck and coincidence seemed less likely reasons for certain turns of events than the idea that supernaturals were influencing reality in one way or another. We are still prone to making up stories about why people do the things they do, and the idea of demonic influence is still a hot topic in our fictions.
Human behavior has human causes. I don't know that there was an actual Judas, but even in the story, I don't know what was in the mind of the character Judas. I know what the authors of John believed about the situation, but I also know that human behavior is never the result of a supernatural force. Judas' "devil" was his own thoughts and beliefs, his own fears about himself and others. This is influential enough to account for the whole spectrum of human behavior.
Beliefs are powerful, especially fear-laden beliefs. When we read of Judas' betrayal later in the narrative, it would behoove us to interpret the devil entering his heart as his own fears running rampant and unchecked. Although Judas presumably has the same capacity as anyone else for rational thought and intentional management of his fear, he will choose to let his fear guide his behavior. We know people (and we ourselves may sometimes be those people) who continue to let their fear guide their behavior. If we know what to look for, it's easy to see it when it's happening, just as the Jesus character may have seen the telltale signs of fear in Judas' demeanor.
The Jesus character doesn't react with his own fear about Judas. He doesn't kick Judas out. He doesn't plead with Judas. He doesn't berate and embarrass Judas in front of everyone. He doesn't tell Judas that he's wrong. He doesn't argue with Judas. The Jesus character just continues with his own intentional actions with the barest acknowledgment that he knows what's cooking in Judas' mind. The Jesus character keeps teaching and modeling a way of being, even though he is fairly certain that all of his instruction will be lost on this person who is so wrapped up in his own fear that he can't see anything else.
Much has been written in Christian circles about the foot washing scene. It's often a highlight of religious services the Thursday before Easter. In some traditions, this day is called "Maundy Thursday," a name derived from the Latin for "mandate" or "command," taken from the statement at John 13:34, "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." The demonstration of love in washing their feet is only the most recent of many examples of Jesus' love for others. The example set in the story is that love is more powerful than fear -- that in our lives, love-centered behavior is preferable to fear-driven actions.
This is true in our personal relationships as it is true in our professional decisions. If we are driven by fear, we will inevitably act in a way that harms other people and ourselves. If we are principled in our decisions, we are more apt to make decisions with integrity. Saying that love should be at the heart of what we do is not to say that foolish decisions are justifiable if we make those decisions with loving intentions. Wisdom and thoughtfulness are still worthy ideals. We might get side-tracked by a flimsy definition of love as an affectionate emotion. If love is defined as demonstrative concern for another's well-being, however, it becomes clearer that we must be thoughtful in order to contribute meaningfully to actual well-being in someone's life.
The Jesus character in this passage demonstrates concern for the well-being of his closest friends by serving them in a way they don't expect. He takes a vulnerable, humble position with them, and yet he still has his own clear boundaries. When Simon Peter protests, the Exemplar doesn't shift his actions, he gently and firmly explains that he is being thoughtful and intentional in his decision.
Life is full of stress and anxiety. Even though we may not have a friend and teacher about to be executed, and even though we may not be driven into hiding because our group has attracted unwanted attention from authorities, we have no trouble finding things to be anxious about. When we are humbly thoughtful of how we might be of service to other people, it might shift our perspective away from the focus on anxiety that tends to be our default. The Exemplar in this story is not seeking after his own power or fame or reward. He is committed to a particular way of being because it resonates with his deepest values. He wants his closest friends to get that, to see their own potential for living that level of integrity.
We cannot honestly care only for ourselves. Our actions influence other people. We can't not be connected to others. This being the case, it's worth a little consideration how we will influence others. Our fears will suggest certain courses of action. Our deepest values will suggest a different way of being. We get to choose which we will follow.
Showing posts with label interconnectedness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interconnectedness. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2015
Monday, August 18, 2014
Isaiah 38-39: Living in the Present Responsibly
Isaiah 38 and 39 contain two more stories about Hezekiah, both of which are also recorded in 2 Kings, although the version in Isaiah includes a song that does not appear in 2 Kings. Although 2 Chronicles also contains a version of the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib (which we explored last week), including some of the strategic preparations Hezekiah made as the Assyrian army advanced, the Chronicler records only a summary of the story of Hezekiah's illness and leaves out the story about the envoys from Babylon altogether. Perhaps the Chronicler didn't want to record anything that made the Judean king look bad, or perhaps the stories evolved and circulated in such a fashion that the Chronicler didn't have the same information as the authors of Isaiah and 2 Kings. Historically, it looks like Hezekiah fell ill and then recovered at a certain point in his reign. What is more interesting is what the stories about the king might help us see in our own lives.
Out of the varied versions of Hezekiah's illness, Isaiah is the only one that suggests a glimpse at what Hezekiah was thinking. 2 Chronicles suggests that Hezekiah was too proud after recovering from his illness, and that his pride brought suffering on himself and his kingdom; only his humility spared them. Without any details, we can only derive that pride can be dangerous, especially for those in positions of power. More details about applying figs to the king's boils and the shadow on a sundial miraculously moving backward appears in 2 Kings, as it does in Isaiah. There is nothing explicit in 2 Kings to accuse Hezekiah of pride, however. Only in Isaiah does the author include a poem or song that reflects Hezekiah's grief that he would die "in the noontide of [his] days," and his subsequent exuberance about regaining his life.
The poet of Isaiah 38:10-20 observes a few things worth acknowledging. First, there are some things we can't control. There are some illnesses no amount of medicine will cure, and yet sometimes people recover through no conscious or intentional action on their part. There are some decisions that we cannot influence, and yet sometimes we are the unexpected beneficiaries of other people's decisions. Second, when we are miserable -- even if we are not so sick that we aren't likely to survive -- we often wallow in our misery and act as though that misery completely fills our future. We are sometimes overwhelmed with hopelessness in the midst of temporary hardship. Third, we can't celebrate once we're dead, so if we have reason for celebration, we should express it while we are alive. The dead are not grateful or hopeful, and they aren't selfish or hopeless either. If there's something that matters to us, we have to tend to it while we are alive.
To the first observation, there are some who will point out that Hezekiah's illness in the story actually was cured because of something he did; he was in control of his own well-being. Surely, this is often the case in our own lives. Our own habits are often the causes of our misery. If we are willing to change what we do, we might create greater well-being in our lives. In Hezekiah's case, perhaps figs have a curative property that alleviates certain deadly boils, but we know that prayer in and of itself doesn't have any effect on reality. As has been pointed out, wishing for something and asking a supernatural to accomplish it for you is no different from magic. In the absence of any supernatural, we must conclude that we have to do something different if we want our reality to be different. It is this practice of acting in accord with our prayers or wishes that actually changes things. When we are willing to act in accordance with what we want, we change our lives. If prayer or some other religious practice prepares us for acting in accord, then so be it, but in this case it is still human action that makes the difference.
Even then, there are limits to what we can control. When we accurately recognize the limits of our control, we are less likely to be miserable. When we accurately assess the magnitude of our hardship, we are potentially less likely to wallow in our misery. Sometimes, our feelings of hopelessness are completely justified, and our emotions are always true, whether they are actually warranted or not. The more we are able to step back from our own circumstances and see a larger picture of our lives and of the world, though, the more we are able to place our own experience in perspective. This surely takes a bit of practice.
Having some perspective could also help us find things to celebrate. The poet of Isaiah 38:10-20 suggests that just being alive is something worth celebrating, and I'm inclined to agree, even though I haven't just recovered from a deadly illness. It might even be that every moment of our lives is ripe with things that are worthy of celebration, if we are just willing to look for those sources of joy rather than the ubiquitous reasons to feel miserable. There is something to be said for living in the present moment with gratitude for what we have.
Being fully present in the moment cuts both ways, then. If we dwell in the past or focus entirely on the future, we miss our opportunities to act and to create. We often hear that we should strive to be awake to the present. Yet, without any perspective at all, we could lose sight of a larger context. We could get overwhelmed by our temporary misery. We could make foolish or naive decisions that don't contribute to the kind of lives we want or the kind of world we want. In order to be fully present in each moment, we have to understand something about what matters to us -- we have to know our general trajectory at least. Otherwise, we might keep making the same mistakes over and over again, or we might keep veering off course from the things we care about most deeply. Balance and perspective are important.
As an example, we have one last story about Hezekiah, told almost exactly the same in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 39. Some Babylonian envoys pay Hezekiah a visit, and the king shows them around to all his treasures. After they leave, Isaiah warns the king that Babylon will one day be a great empire that will abscond with all of those treasures as well as Hezekiah's own descendants. (This is an indication that the story originated after Hezekiah's death during or after the time of the Babylonian exile.) Hezekiah, thinking only of the present moment and his personal experience, is grateful that there will be peace during the rest of his lifetime.
Living in the present could have some negative long-term consequences if we are not conscious of a larger context. Our lives are like threads in an enormous tapestry, and our actions determine our connection to all the other threads. Littering might make sense to someone living in the present, and yet it creates a less habitable world for other people. Large scale pollution from industry would follow the same logic, except that its effects on future generations is exponentially greater than a litterbug tossing a fast food bag out of a car window at a stoplight. Being fully present in the moment without any sense of the interconnectedness of our our lives and actions can be profoundly irresponsible. While we cannot predict the future well enough to know the eventual results of every action we take, we can at least consider some of the obvious consequences of our actions. We cannot consider the long-term well-being of ourselves and the people around us, however, without some sense of perspective. We might be much more prone to seek out quick fixes to our anxiety if we are just attuned to the present moment. Thus, while we strive to be fully present in each moment so that we can most effectively act in accord with what we want for our lives, the lives of others, and the world we all share, we have to spend some time thinking about how our actions in the moment fit into a bigger picture.
One way that we can do this is by connecting with other people, particularly people in different circumstances from us. We might do this just by walking around our neighborhoods and introducing ourselves, or we might get involved in an organized effort to improve the well-being of a certain group of people. For instance, through tutoring primarily Latino students in a local GED program, I was able to connect with people who are taking steps to improve their lives -- and the lives of their descendants. I gained a greater appreciation for the sorts of sacrifices some people make in order to provide for the basic needs of their families, and I became more aware of how challenging the current system of bureaucracy can be for some of those people. They have to confront challenges I have never had to confront. I have a different set of challenges in my life, and a different set of sacrifices that make sense in the context of the kind of person I want to be and the kind of life I want to live. Connecting with people who seem different from you on the surface can help provide a more informed sense of perspective. It's easier to be aware of how your actions affect the lives and well-being of the people around you when you are more deeply connected to those people.
Another advantage of our time is the ease with which we can gain information about the world. It's also true that we can get lost in internet rabbit trails, and we must be ever more discerning about the biases of the information we find. Still, we have the potential to understand a great deal about how the patterns and habits of our lives affect our own well being, and how our actions impact the lives of people on the other side of the world. We don't have to learn all that there is to know, and we don't have to learn it all at once. The willingness to continually place a little bit of new information into our worldview can keep us conscious of a larger context in the midst of our moment-by-moment decisions. It bears repeating that this willingness to take in new information also comes with the responsibility to make sure that information is valid, to the best of our ability. Since everyone has biases, all of the information we find has been influenced by someone's biases, and our interpretation of that information will be influenced by our own biases. Even so, being aware of a larger global perspective can help us live in the moment more responsibly.
There are probably dozens of ways that people could maintain a larger perspective while striving to be more fully present in each moment. I'll mention one final way, since it so clearly connects to topics from previous chapters. When we know our guiding principles, it's easier to make decisions. When we are conscious of our values, it's easier to know what to do in the moment. Our values and guiding principles are necessarily big-picture kinds of ideas. They automatically connect us with a larger perspective. They are tapestry-sized concepts. When we spend a little time each day reminding ourselves of our values, the principles we want to guide us, or what we envision as a best possible version of ourselves, moments of anxiety have less potential to send us into a tailspin. Our temporary misery is less likely to overwhelm us when we know what we stand for. We are less likely to sabotage our ability to express our deepest most noble selves when we regularly spend time being aware of how we want to show up in life. Once we have identified our values and our guiding principles, a few minutes is all that it takes to tune in to ourselves and be reminded of those deep truths about who we are.
Our lives are threads in an enormous tapestry, and our moment-by-moment decisions determine how we connect with all the other threads and the tapestry as a whole. In order to make the most of our opportunities, we strive to be more fully present in the moment, and yet our sense of integrity suggests that we maintain a broader perspective. We can do this by building connection with the people around us, developing our knowledge about the larger world we inhabit, and being more deeply aware of the values and principles upon which we want to base our lives. In this way, we might recognize our limits and boundaries with greater clarity, more often prevent momentary misery from overwhelming us, and more frequently recognize all that we have to celebrate.
Out of the varied versions of Hezekiah's illness, Isaiah is the only one that suggests a glimpse at what Hezekiah was thinking. 2 Chronicles suggests that Hezekiah was too proud after recovering from his illness, and that his pride brought suffering on himself and his kingdom; only his humility spared them. Without any details, we can only derive that pride can be dangerous, especially for those in positions of power. More details about applying figs to the king's boils and the shadow on a sundial miraculously moving backward appears in 2 Kings, as it does in Isaiah. There is nothing explicit in 2 Kings to accuse Hezekiah of pride, however. Only in Isaiah does the author include a poem or song that reflects Hezekiah's grief that he would die "in the noontide of [his] days," and his subsequent exuberance about regaining his life.
The poet of Isaiah 38:10-20 observes a few things worth acknowledging. First, there are some things we can't control. There are some illnesses no amount of medicine will cure, and yet sometimes people recover through no conscious or intentional action on their part. There are some decisions that we cannot influence, and yet sometimes we are the unexpected beneficiaries of other people's decisions. Second, when we are miserable -- even if we are not so sick that we aren't likely to survive -- we often wallow in our misery and act as though that misery completely fills our future. We are sometimes overwhelmed with hopelessness in the midst of temporary hardship. Third, we can't celebrate once we're dead, so if we have reason for celebration, we should express it while we are alive. The dead are not grateful or hopeful, and they aren't selfish or hopeless either. If there's something that matters to us, we have to tend to it while we are alive.
To the first observation, there are some who will point out that Hezekiah's illness in the story actually was cured because of something he did; he was in control of his own well-being. Surely, this is often the case in our own lives. Our own habits are often the causes of our misery. If we are willing to change what we do, we might create greater well-being in our lives. In Hezekiah's case, perhaps figs have a curative property that alleviates certain deadly boils, but we know that prayer in and of itself doesn't have any effect on reality. As has been pointed out, wishing for something and asking a supernatural to accomplish it for you is no different from magic. In the absence of any supernatural, we must conclude that we have to do something different if we want our reality to be different. It is this practice of acting in accord with our prayers or wishes that actually changes things. When we are willing to act in accordance with what we want, we change our lives. If prayer or some other religious practice prepares us for acting in accord, then so be it, but in this case it is still human action that makes the difference.
Even then, there are limits to what we can control. When we accurately recognize the limits of our control, we are less likely to be miserable. When we accurately assess the magnitude of our hardship, we are potentially less likely to wallow in our misery. Sometimes, our feelings of hopelessness are completely justified, and our emotions are always true, whether they are actually warranted or not. The more we are able to step back from our own circumstances and see a larger picture of our lives and of the world, though, the more we are able to place our own experience in perspective. This surely takes a bit of practice.
Having some perspective could also help us find things to celebrate. The poet of Isaiah 38:10-20 suggests that just being alive is something worth celebrating, and I'm inclined to agree, even though I haven't just recovered from a deadly illness. It might even be that every moment of our lives is ripe with things that are worthy of celebration, if we are just willing to look for those sources of joy rather than the ubiquitous reasons to feel miserable. There is something to be said for living in the present moment with gratitude for what we have.
Being fully present in the moment cuts both ways, then. If we dwell in the past or focus entirely on the future, we miss our opportunities to act and to create. We often hear that we should strive to be awake to the present. Yet, without any perspective at all, we could lose sight of a larger context. We could get overwhelmed by our temporary misery. We could make foolish or naive decisions that don't contribute to the kind of lives we want or the kind of world we want. In order to be fully present in each moment, we have to understand something about what matters to us -- we have to know our general trajectory at least. Otherwise, we might keep making the same mistakes over and over again, or we might keep veering off course from the things we care about most deeply. Balance and perspective are important.
As an example, we have one last story about Hezekiah, told almost exactly the same in 2 Kings 20 and Isaiah 39. Some Babylonian envoys pay Hezekiah a visit, and the king shows them around to all his treasures. After they leave, Isaiah warns the king that Babylon will one day be a great empire that will abscond with all of those treasures as well as Hezekiah's own descendants. (This is an indication that the story originated after Hezekiah's death during or after the time of the Babylonian exile.) Hezekiah, thinking only of the present moment and his personal experience, is grateful that there will be peace during the rest of his lifetime.
Living in the present could have some negative long-term consequences if we are not conscious of a larger context. Our lives are like threads in an enormous tapestry, and our actions determine our connection to all the other threads. Littering might make sense to someone living in the present, and yet it creates a less habitable world for other people. Large scale pollution from industry would follow the same logic, except that its effects on future generations is exponentially greater than a litterbug tossing a fast food bag out of a car window at a stoplight. Being fully present in the moment without any sense of the interconnectedness of our our lives and actions can be profoundly irresponsible. While we cannot predict the future well enough to know the eventual results of every action we take, we can at least consider some of the obvious consequences of our actions. We cannot consider the long-term well-being of ourselves and the people around us, however, without some sense of perspective. We might be much more prone to seek out quick fixes to our anxiety if we are just attuned to the present moment. Thus, while we strive to be fully present in each moment so that we can most effectively act in accord with what we want for our lives, the lives of others, and the world we all share, we have to spend some time thinking about how our actions in the moment fit into a bigger picture.
One way that we can do this is by connecting with other people, particularly people in different circumstances from us. We might do this just by walking around our neighborhoods and introducing ourselves, or we might get involved in an organized effort to improve the well-being of a certain group of people. For instance, through tutoring primarily Latino students in a local GED program, I was able to connect with people who are taking steps to improve their lives -- and the lives of their descendants. I gained a greater appreciation for the sorts of sacrifices some people make in order to provide for the basic needs of their families, and I became more aware of how challenging the current system of bureaucracy can be for some of those people. They have to confront challenges I have never had to confront. I have a different set of challenges in my life, and a different set of sacrifices that make sense in the context of the kind of person I want to be and the kind of life I want to live. Connecting with people who seem different from you on the surface can help provide a more informed sense of perspective. It's easier to be aware of how your actions affect the lives and well-being of the people around you when you are more deeply connected to those people.
Another advantage of our time is the ease with which we can gain information about the world. It's also true that we can get lost in internet rabbit trails, and we must be ever more discerning about the biases of the information we find. Still, we have the potential to understand a great deal about how the patterns and habits of our lives affect our own well being, and how our actions impact the lives of people on the other side of the world. We don't have to learn all that there is to know, and we don't have to learn it all at once. The willingness to continually place a little bit of new information into our worldview can keep us conscious of a larger context in the midst of our moment-by-moment decisions. It bears repeating that this willingness to take in new information also comes with the responsibility to make sure that information is valid, to the best of our ability. Since everyone has biases, all of the information we find has been influenced by someone's biases, and our interpretation of that information will be influenced by our own biases. Even so, being aware of a larger global perspective can help us live in the moment more responsibly.
There are probably dozens of ways that people could maintain a larger perspective while striving to be more fully present in each moment. I'll mention one final way, since it so clearly connects to topics from previous chapters. When we know our guiding principles, it's easier to make decisions. When we are conscious of our values, it's easier to know what to do in the moment. Our values and guiding principles are necessarily big-picture kinds of ideas. They automatically connect us with a larger perspective. They are tapestry-sized concepts. When we spend a little time each day reminding ourselves of our values, the principles we want to guide us, or what we envision as a best possible version of ourselves, moments of anxiety have less potential to send us into a tailspin. Our temporary misery is less likely to overwhelm us when we know what we stand for. We are less likely to sabotage our ability to express our deepest most noble selves when we regularly spend time being aware of how we want to show up in life. Once we have identified our values and our guiding principles, a few minutes is all that it takes to tune in to ourselves and be reminded of those deep truths about who we are.
Our lives are threads in an enormous tapestry, and our moment-by-moment decisions determine how we connect with all the other threads and the tapestry as a whole. In order to make the most of our opportunities, we strive to be more fully present in the moment, and yet our sense of integrity suggests that we maintain a broader perspective. We can do this by building connection with the people around us, developing our knowledge about the larger world we inhabit, and being more deeply aware of the values and principles upon which we want to base our lives. In this way, we might recognize our limits and boundaries with greater clarity, more often prevent momentary misery from overwhelming us, and more frequently recognize all that we have to celebrate.
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