Community and Purpose

There 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:

• know others deeply and be known deeply by others,
• love others and be loved by others,
• serve others and be served by others,
• hear others and be heard by others,
• celebrate others and be celebrated by others.

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. 

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 how 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. 

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.

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 oppose 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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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. Inclusion has its limits, and those limits are set by the clear shared purpose of a community.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

Asking the Right Questions -- Purpose

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 "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.

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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 plan 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 and that nurtures the world around us toward greater well-being.

The question we can ask then becomes, "What purpose do 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 do 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. 

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.

Mark 10: Inappropriate Shame

Following some difficult words on wealth, Mark 10 contains a third prediction about Jesus' death, which can be taken as a literary device of either foreshadowing or framing the stories of Jesus' activity. We will consider the implications of these predictions at greater length when we come to the passion narrative. Then, there is a request by James and John to be given a place of honor in the kingdom they think Jesus is establishing. As the gospel of Matthew tells the story, it is their mother who makes the request on their behalf, and the gospel of Luke's version not only doesn't mention James and John by name, but also suggests a place of honor for all of the disciples, in contradiction of the message about being of service. Given that the author or editors of the gospel of Luke may well have been attempting to legitimize the authority of the leaders of the early Christian sect, it is perhaps more worthwhile to look at what these passages hold in common.

Incidentally, this same message is conveyed through Jesus' act of washing the disciples' feet portrayed only in the gospel of John. To wash one another's feet in the context of that time and culture was to perform the lowest duties of the most base servant, making the message in the gospel of John even more extreme than the more bland teaching of the gospel of Mark. What is it that the authors are suggesting through Jesus' words and actions? What value does that have for us?

In the first century, as now, prestige had value. One's position in society was an indication of one's worth and value -- a sign of one's merit. James and John are asking here for positions of authority in the new world order they believe Jesus will establish. These fishermen desire to be in positions of power. They seem to have missed the point of Jesus' teaching up to this point. Jesus corrects them by pointing out that things don't have value just because the world thinks it so. He is not establishing a way of being that looks just like the old way of being, just with different personnel. He is establishing a new way of being -- a new way of defining self and others and relationship. He is defining a way of being that does not revolve around having power over other people, but rather of recognizing one's own power to positively effect the lives of others. His disciples, like many believers today, seem to have thought that the rhetoric was just a nice way of expressing regime change and a domineering claim over society. Doublespeak. Spin.

One of the most devastating issues that humanity has yet to deal with effectively is the issue of shame. We use shame to control other people, and it's a very effective control. I think we use shame against others, though, because we don't know what to do with our own shame. Shaming others makes us feel superior, which alleviates our own sense of shame, however inappropriate or misguided any of that shame may be. James and John may have felt some shame at being fishermen and having no real power in their society. There's no real reason for this, except perhaps that they believed what their society said about some people being worth more than other people.

In our own society, we still use shaming others to make ourselves feel better. When one says to a panhandler, "Why don't you just go get a job instead of begging for money?" the panhandler is not often given the chance to respond, "Because I have a mental illness and no access to adequate medical care. I don't even have enough money to keep a roof over my head, and I don't know where my next meal is going to come from. I have no way to shower for a job interview and no clean clothes to change into, and I've developed an addiction because it's the only respite I have from this hopeless way of life."

We have become accustomed to shaming the homeless. We shame the uneducated. We shame the mentally ill. We shame the poor. We shame the unemployed. We shame people who need assistance to provide for themselves and their families. We shame addicts. We even try to find clever ways to shame people who look different from us, come from different cultures than us, speak a different language from us, or love different people than we do. We think of and treat those people as if they are worthless, or if not utterly worthless, at least worth less than we are. Therefore, we can feel proud of our jobs, our education, our homes, our mental health, our resources, our marriages, and our more socially acceptable addictions. We can ignore our own shame because there's someone we can point to who "should" feel more shame than we do. Sometimes our jobs, our education, our homes, and our resources are actually sources of shame for us, so we try extra hard to turn them into points of pride.

Some of our shame is appropriate. The shame that we feel when we have caused harm to another person is appropriate shame. It isn't pleasant, though. So, often we contrive a way to shame the victim in order to alleviate the shame of the culprit. Nowhere is this more blatantly apparent in our society than in the issue of rape. There is nothing that a person can do to warrant being sexually assaulted, and yet by shaming the victims for their behavior or clothing or naivete, the culprits somehow become satisfied that their actions were justifiable or permissible. In all honesty, those culprits most likely feel some degree of shame -- I have to believe that their humanity demands that they feel some degree of shame. Yet, we may not even recognize the feeling of shame if we've spent a lifetime blaming others for our own harmful behavior. We may even see ourselves as victims who deserve more power, authority, wealth, or respect, without ever considering how the pursuit of those things aligns (or fails to align) with our guiding principles or the world we most want to create.

We can't actually even know our guiding principles clearly if we are bound by shame. Even those of us who carry around inappropriate shame (which is probably all of us) have to figure out what to do with that shame. Most of the time, we choose one of two responses. We either give in to lies about ourselves or we combat them with every ounce of our being. Many of us buy into the inappropriate shame that someone put on us and believe that we are lazy, worthless, stupid, ugly, unlovable, incompetent, failures, or at the very least, less important than everybody else. We live out that identity in our decisions and our relationships, playing a role less than the reality of our authentic being. This does not truly serve anyone.

On the other hand, many of us do everything we can to convince ourselves and the world that we are not those things. We overwork ourselves to prove that we are not lazy. We earn as much as we can to prove that we are not worthless. We enter into and remain in shallow or abusive relationships to prove that we are lovable. The problem is that we can never do enough to eradicate the fear that the lies are true -- that deep down inside we are shameful beings. And despite what some people may tell you, no amount of positive affirmation will convince you of something that your mind just doesn't believe.

How do we address inappropriate shame, then? One way is to stop trying so hard to prove ourselves. We may discover some truths about ourselves just from being willing to look honestly at who we are and what matters to us. Dismantling lies that we have held onto since we were kids, though -- that can take some time. It's almost a lifestyle choice to look honestly at why you believe what you do about yourself and to decide who you want to be in the world. Self-examination is a discipline, and like many disciplines, it is often easier to practice in community with other people. Certainly, such a community must be a safe place, and finding that can sometimes be a challenge. If we are committed to releasing inappropriate shame from our lives, however, we absolutely must get to the heart of the lies we believe about ourselves and dismantle them.

How do we know what the lies are, though? Maybe we are honestly ugly or stupid or lazy, right? Well, first of all, the reality of who we are is probably not the same as our poorest, most critical image of ourselves. Secondly, we don't need to define ourselves only by superficial characteristics. For instance, why does our physical appearance matter so much? If it's a matter of wanting to be healthier somehow, there are probably some habits that we can change to improve our physical health. If we're worried about our physical appearance just because we think we need to fit with someone else's ideal of beauty, then that's a lie worth dismantling. Understanding why we believe the things we do about ourselves is hard work sometimes, but what we get out of that is the ability to be more authentic and whole in our lives.

This authentic wholeness is what the conversation in Mark 10 tends toward. Positions of power can't ever convince us that we are worthwhile individuals if we believe or fear that we are worthless. When the title can't convince us, we may try to extend our power or we may abuse our power to control other people's lives. Even then, there is never enough that we can do to prove our own worth if we are trapped in inappropriate shame because of some lie we've been told about our identity and value. When we stop trying to prove ourselves and inhabit our authentic selves more fully, we have the opportunity to see other people more authentically as well. When we recognize our own inherent worth and dignity, we can connect more meaningfully with others. The work of dismantling our lies about ourselves yields the opportunity for us to connect with our own deepest, most noble selves as well. We can create a purpose for our lives beyond trying to prove ourselves or trying to shift our shame to someone else. We can discover what is truly meaningful for us, and we can live that out more consistently, more joyfully, and more courageously.

Ultimately, we can hopefully recognize that we are enough as we are. We do not have to feel shame for not living up to someone else's expectations. We do not have to be anything more than or less than who we are. This is not a selfish declaration, although it is something that focuses on accepting who we are, honestly and authentically. Dealing with our inappropriate shame, dismantling the lies that we believe or fear about ourselves, serves the world too, because it allows us to engage more meaningfully and passionately in creating something better than what we know today. Let's stop carrying around inappropriate shame, and let's stop foisting shame on others. Instead, let's do what we can to find out what a world full of authentic, compassionate, courageous, creative people looks like.