Community and Honesty

Honesty 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.

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 appearing 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. 

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.

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 Lying, Sam Harris makes a compelling argument that it's always unethical or immoral to lie. Either way, lying doesn't create meaningful, authentic community. 

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 can 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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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, and they'll learn more about what we appreciate. They'll learn more about what makes our hearts sing. 

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.

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. 

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 knowing 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 offer 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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

Community and Self-Disclosure

We'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.

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.

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.

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?

When you think about it, though, people aren't actually accepting or loving us 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This brings us to the second response, which is meaningful, authentic community in which people practice mutual 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!

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 won't 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.

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.

John 18-19: External Challenges to Internal Integrity

Once again, we might find ourselves relating to various characters in the next portion of the passion narrative in the gospel of John, in which the characters of Jesus and Pontius Pilate interact. This passage is very dramatic and weaves a compelling tale, and although we have noted this time and again, it bears repeating once more that there are no transcripts of a conversation between Jesus and Pilate. The dialogue here is creative license on the part of the author.

We do have a bit of evidence that Pontius Pilate was an actual historical figure (more evidence than we have that Jesus was an actual historical figure, to be frank), but at this time there is no authentic artifact reflecting what the historical Pontius Pilate thought of a historical Jesus, or even that the two interacted at all. What we know of Pilate, however, is that he became increasingly unwilling to bend to the will of Jewish mobs, preferring to have soldiers kill unruly crowds of locals who disagreed with his decisions. The pleading, reluctant procurator depicted in the gospel of John might therefore be a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the author, or this depiction may have been an effort to avoid persecution from Rome, or it may have been to heap the full weight of blame on the Jewish religious leaders in the story. No one can say with certainty what the author was thinking, but we can at least be sure that the image of Pontius Pilate here is not a full picture of the man's behavior in historical reality.

Since we cannot know the full intention of the author, we might as well see what we can draw from the story for ourselves. Can the figure of Jesus still serve as the depiction of an idealized us? Is there something else for us in this passage? As we have observed, the passion story is a central element to most Christianities, but the themes and metaphors of the narrative are present in the tales of many religions and mythologies. Here, strength takes on a distinct quality when anxiety and fear are not the driving forces behind a person's decisions and behavior. The Jesus character might represent to us a self-awareness that goes beyond self-preservation -- a commitment to one's identity and principles that matters more than personal safety.

We plan much of what we do based on the risks involved. Do I say this difficult thing, if it might provoke a reaction I don't like? Is my authenticity worth facing rejection? Are my principles worth dealing with hostility? Are my needs important enough for me to be vulnerable and say them out loud to another human being? Often, our answers are No. We decide that our deepest values are not worth the risks we might face -- that we are not worth the risks we might face -- if we live with authenticity. Our integrity winds up being less important than our sense of personal safety and acceptance.

The passion story may not serve as much encouragement for us to do otherwise. After all, the character who represents us in the story winds up suffering more than we ever want to. The lesson is not that our authenticity will get us crucified, however. The complete perspective of the lesson, as we will acknowledge in the weeks ahead, is that our authenticity leads to being fully alive -- more alive than we can be when we play it safe and act based on a fear for our own safety. Fear and anxiety limit us from being fully alive in our relationships and in our actions.

Impulsive, "honest" words and behavior are not really much better. Just saying or doing the next impulsive thing that crosses our mind doesn't lead to a fully alive life. In fact, most of our impulses are still going to be driven by fear. That's just the way our minds work. The goal is to be intentional and to have integrity between our actions and what we care about most deeply. In the story, then, we see an example of a person who knows themselves so fully that there is no place for fear to drive their behavior.

You might also notice that the Jesus character doesn't insult or provoke Pilate in the dialogue. He states clearly that his purpose as a leader has nothing to do with political power (contrary to what those who claim to follow him have done with his legacy). He clarifies that he is interested in truth, unadulterated and untainted by fear. He suffers torture and abuses at the hands of those who are less emotionally mature, and even in the midst of that profound pain, he doesn't give himself over to anxiety and fear. His integrity is not just about his internal state of being, it has ramifications for how he relates to the people around him.

The author does have Jesus say something interesting, to pursue a theological rabbit trail for just a moment. The last words the Jesus character speaks to Pilate here are, "You would have no power over me unless it had been given to you from above; therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin." The gist of the argument here seems to be: (1) God authorizes people in their positions of power, therefore (2) people are not culpable for exercising that authorized power, and yet (3) those who interpret their power based on biblical principles from the Hebrew scriptures are more guilty than political leaders who use their positions of power to do harm. There is no way around the conclusion that God authorizes people to do harm to others (which is really nothing new from the Old Testament), nor is there any way around the idea that those who do not use their power ethically are guilty of "sin." If the same rules apply to God, then, the only logical conclusion from this theological statement is that God is guilty of the greatest sin, authorizing harm and failing to use power ethically. Of course, none of that really matters if God is a fictional supernatural, but these theological diversions are sometimes intriguing.

What can we say about the Jewish leaders and Pilate in this story? Do we find ourselves in these characters as well? Certainly, the Jewish leaders continue to be caught up in their fear. When a more rational voice tries again and again to offer a more reasonable course of action, they dig in their heels. There are all sorts of fears that could have been fueling their drivenness. At the same time, they are anxious to be technically clean even though there is nothing life-affirming about their behavior. They want to maintain an appearance of being beyond reproach by abdicating the harmful action to someone else. They do not want ownership of their decision, but they are committed to getting what they think they want.

In many cases, we still attempt to use the government in this way. We don't want to be responsible for making the changes we think are necessary, but we want someone to be responsible on our behalf. We don't want to be culpable for the harm that is done to others, but we are strangely comfortable with other people being harmed so that we feel safer. All the while, our own anxiety continues to soar, and our integrity is practically nonexistent. The two operate at inverse proportions. When we are committed to greater integrity and intentionality, our anxiety necessarily shifts to lower priority -- we cannot serve our fear and our deepest values at the same time. The question is whether we will be intentional about which we are serving or whether we will let our fear drive us as the Jewish leaders of this story are unequivocally driven.

Pilate, as he is characterized by the author, seems to be aware of what his values dictate and yet is still unwilling to take responsibility for living with integrity to those values. Where the Jewish leaders have completely lost touch with their deepest, most noble selves, Pilate seems to engage in sincere wrestling between his authentic, life-affirming values and the safety of pleasing other anxious people. (Again, this is a literary fictional character we're talking about and not the actual historical Pontius Pilate.) If his integrity were simply a matter of being internally aligned with deep guiding principles, he would seem to be on track. When his integrity requires managing himself in relationship to other people, however, he faces difficulty. The bizarre picture here is of a person with the greatest amount of authority and legitimate power bows to the most anxious voices in the room, because life-affirming values were given less priority than fear of the consequences of disappointing the least emotionally mature people involved.

This is clearly a picture to which we can relate. We like it when we are the most anxious voices in the room because it feels powerful to get our way. Screaming at someone until we get what we want can feel very vindicating, as long as we get what we think we want. Outrage and indignation seem to be preferred methods for people to force others to bend to their will. These are all fear-driven behaviors, however, and thus they cannot be reflective of our deepest, most noble selves. Whatever life-affirming values you think you have, these go out the window when you choose outrage and hostility as weapons of coercion.

When we fail to exercise our authority in the midst of hostility and coercion, however, we fail everyone in the scenario. Just as the Pilate character in this story, we can become so focused on making angry people go away and stop threatening us that we forget ourselves. We forget that what we care about most is not that every outraged person is mollified. We lose sight of our deepest principles because it seems risky to live with integrity to them when people are screaming at us. We become more interested in defending ourselves and being safe than we are interested in integrity.

We could spend eons peeling back the layers of Pilate's deceptively simply musing, "What is truth?" He is in the midst of an internal conflict, as we all most likely are. The Jesus character seems to know truth, however, and he is apparently calm in the midst of the chaos around him. We might assume that he experienced some internal conflict, especially as he was experiencing the pain inflicted on him. Perhaps he called himself names, as we so often do. Stubborn Fool. Idiot. Masochist. The end result, though, is that the truth he knows is more powerful than the suffering he experiences. The truth he knows is worth his integrity, and while some people assume that this truth has something to do with a supernatural, we will see next week that there is another, more useful possibility for us.

Today's passage shows us three possible points on a spectrum. The Jewish leaders are so driven by fear that they are completely unaware of their deepest life-affirming values. Pontius Pilate is aware of his deepest life-affirming values, and he tries to make them important; he foregoes integrity in the face of anxious aggression, however, and loses himself in order to appease other people. Jesus is not only aware of his deepest life-affirming values, he is unwavering in his integrity, making the moment-by-moment intentional decision to live according to the guidance of his deepest, most noble self rather than living according to other people's anxiety, even though he experiences some pain as a result.

Where are you on that spectrum? Are you aware of your deepest values? Do you place them as a higher priority than your anxiety? Do you find artificial power in using outrage and coercion to alleviate your fear in the moment? Are you prone to give in to other people's anxious demands rather than exercising your personal authority to live with integrity? Or do you live by a standard of authentic power and intention that reflects a vision of a best possible version of yourself?

Wherever you place yourself on that spectrum today, where do you want to be? When you consider what leads to long-term well-being for yourself and the people around you, in what direction would you like to move? If you want a more deeply satisfying experience of life, what will you need to do to move toward that? And what little step are you willing to take today to move in that direction?