Community and Active, Unconditional Love

One of the most challenging things about self-disclosure and hospitality is that we have so much fear about our actions being used against us. We've heard horror stories, or we've experienced in our own lives, that sometimes when we share things about ourselves, other people use that information to cause us harm. When we extend hospitality to someone else, sometimes others take advantage. Feeling betrayed is a part of many people's life experience, and this makes trust really difficult.

A community that practices mutual self-disclosure and hospitality addresses some of this threat. If you experience being served by others, it can be easier to serve without fear that others will take advantage of you. If other people are self-disclosing, it can be easier to trust that you won't be betrayed if you share something of yourself. None of this is a guarantee that someone won't take more than they give in a relationship, or betray a confidence out of anxiety. People don't always live in alignment with their deepest values. You and I are included in that. But intentional mutuality helps lessen our fear about being known and serving others.

There is another feature of meaningful, authentic community that figures into this equation, and that is active and unconditional love toward one another. Obviously, this is a mutual thing, too. Active and unconditional love informs why we would choose to know and be known by others -- why we would choose to serve and be served by others. It isn't enough that someone listens to us share something about ourselves, what we hope for is that we'll be understood and accepted. Mutual self-disclosure could still happen in an environment where people heap shame on themselves and one another, and this doesn't really help anybody. What makes a community meaningful is that we have our needs met, and part of what we need is a sense that we are valued and cherished by others. In other words, we need love.

Most of the adoration and value we extend toward other people and receive from others is conditional. We try to earn people's approval, or we make people earn ours. As children, many of us developed a sense of what we had to do or who we had to be in order to earn love and acceptance from others. For some of us, this has meant pretending to be something we're not. We hide our true selves because we believe at some level that who we really are is unacceptable or unlovable, and we show up in a more "worthy" persona that we think will fool people into loving or accepting us. "If they saw who I really am, I'd be rejected, but if they believe the mask I wear, I'll earn love and acceptance."

This impression gets reinforced in communities all the time. As long as you seem to conform to everyone else's beliefs and behaviors, you are given the message that you're acceptable, lovable, righteous, good. But if you veer away from the accepted beliefs and behaviors of the herd, there are consequences. Maybe you are given the message that you're unacceptable. Maybe love is withheld. In many cases, you are no longer treated as an equal participant in that community. In order to get your needs met, you have to do what the community demands. Being valued and loved is contingent upon following the rules -- even if that means pretending to be someone or something you aren't.

Now, healthy communities have boundaries. Behavior that harms people in any way can't be tolerated if a community is to provide safety. Enforcing community boundaries can take a number of forms, though. An anxious reaction to someone violating our boundaries might be to tell them that they are unacceptable -- that the boundary violator is unworthy of love and acceptance. A more intentional response might be to address the offending behavior, so that it becomes a matter of "This behavior is not acceptable" instead of "You are not acceptable." This kind of nuance can be a challenge to master, but it reflects a willingness to distinguish a person from their behavior. People have inherent worth and dignity, and behaviors can change.

It's loving to hold people accountable to a mutually agreed upon set of standards for a community -- a covenant, if you will. Members of a community can decide together, "These are the principles that are going to bind us together, and these are the boundaries that are going to promote us being in alignment with those principles." Then, when someone betrays a confidence or takes advantage of the community's hospitality or violates the community boundaries in some other way, the response can be  more loving toward everyone involved. Instead of a person being unlovable or unacceptable, the issue can clearly be, "This behavior doesn't align with our principles." It's even possible to say, "We love you and care about you, and this behavior isn't compatible with being part of this community."

This really isn't about controlling people's behavior. It's about giving people opportunities to grow into greater emotional maturity. Just about anything a person might do that would violate trust or harm another person is a product of that person's anxiety or emotional immaturity. When our decisions are informed by fears or false beliefs about ourselves or others, we're likely to cause some harm. But we have opportunities to alter our course. We have opportunities to learn and grow and do things differently. We have the potential to clarify our deepest values and guiding principles, and align our actions and beliefs with those values and principles. We have the potential to dismantle our irrational fears and give our word to greater integrity in our lives. We are capable of living into a best possible version of ourselves. Our decision to love others is essentially our willingness to see this same potential, this same capability, in them. So, it isn't about control so much as it is about hope.

At the same time, it's important for people to understand that their behavior has consequences, and that their actions have an effect on other people. None of this is a simple formula. It takes some commitment and some intentional work for a community to consistently focus on people's potential rather than their flaws. Hopefully, a community can establish a sense of active and unconditional love before it becomes necessary to enforce community boundaries. One way this can be done is by responding intentionally to the practices of mutual self-disclosure and mutual hospitality.

Love is apparent when people are accepted as they share who they are. We could respond to self-disclosure by trying to fix people, by judging them, by labeling them, or any number of ways that run contrary to valuing and cherishing a person. When a loving community practices mutual self-disclosure, that self-disclosure is followed by receptivity, acceptance, and validation. There are things that all of us could continue to work on. Validating and accepting where a person is doesn't equate to a declaration that they're done growing. It simply means that they are valued and cherished right where they are in their journey. The reason for growing isn't to gain love and acceptance. The reason for growing is to be more fully alive -- to be more consistently in alignment with a vision of a best possible version of yourself.

Likewise, love is apparent when service is met with gratitude. A community that practices mutual hospitality could come to expect that people will be of service to one another. People's acts of service toward one another may be overlooked or taken for granted if mutual hospitality is habitual for a community. Supplementing this commitment to a mutual sense of welcome with a mutual sense of gratitude and appreciation can foster deeper human connection. When people are willing to express gratitude, even when hospitality is expected, it reinforces a sense of value, care, and love for one another.

Meaningful, authentic community is more than incorporating a set of practices and behaviors into the community's identity. Self-disclosure and hospitality are wonderful, but they aren't enough in and of themselves. We all need to know that we are loved -- that we are cherished and valued. When we don't have this need met by other human beings, we invent sources. We imagine that something outside of ourselves cherishes and values us, even if we don't feel it from other human beings.

Some communities even foster this sense that something supernatural is the source of love. Meaningful, authentic communities recognize the truth that valuing and cherishing people is the responsibility of human beings to one another. We are responsible for expressing love and hope in one another's lives. When we abdicate this human responsibility to something we invent in our imaginations, we rob ourselves and others of full, satisfying human relationship. We miss out on being fully alive and fully human when we pretend that there is some other supernatural source for acceptance, value, and love.

Loving other people isn't safe, and it often isn't easy, but it is the task of human beings in meaningful, authentic community. If we aren't taking this responsibility seriously, we aren't creating authentic community. We're pretending to be less vulnerable and interdependent than we actually are. For this reason, honesty is another key component to meaningful, authentic community. Obviously, we must be honest in our self-disclosure if we expect to be truly known. And as we see here, active and unconditional love requires our honesty in recognizing love as the responsibility of human beings. We'll explore honesty further next week as we continue to consider the essential ingredients to meaningful, authentic community.

Eschatos (for now)

Having concluded the gospel of John, I spent some time considering what to tackle next. The decision was difficult. Continuing with the second third of Isaiah would make a lot of sense, considering that so many believers mistakenly conclude that the book is about Jesus. (The "servant" in the book is more likely an idealized, emotionally mature person in the midst of an anxious society.) The letters of Paul, taken in any sequence, would be useful perhaps, since many of the Christianities that exist today are based more on Paul's flawed thinking than on any of the Christ narratives. Especially with regard to judging people who seem different, Christians frequently rely on the words of Paul to condemn others and spread fear.

However, even these compelling possibilities seem uninspiring, at least for now. Thus, the title "Eschatos" -- last things, endings. I have accomplished several things that I set out to demonstrate when I began this exercise. First, I have shown that meaning can be derived from a text without assuming the historical accuracy of the story in the text. Second, I have shown how one might discard harmful assertions from "sacred" texts in order to bring one's beliefs into alignment with one's deepest values. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I have consistently reflected an atheist/Humanist philosophy that holds human beings in high regard and forms a credible foundation for ethical and moral behavior. I have freely interpreted the text through a lens of my own choosing, as every interpreter does, such that the Bible was brought into alignment with the guiding principle that every person has inherent worth and dignity.

It should be noted that some of the text had to be dismissed or refuted in order to do this. This is because the Bible is a flawed document written by imperfect human beings who often didn't know what to do with their anxiety and fear. Yet, I don't really think anything I have written here will convince someone to read things with an open mind if they're prone to believe in a literal translation of the text. And those who are willing to read things with an open mind don't need my encouragement to do so. In any case, I don't need to continue with this particular project in order to demonstrate how you might first clarify your own guiding principles, and then read whatever text you choose to read with an eye toward deepening your integrity and aligning more intentionally with your deepest, most noble self.

I originally chose the Bible because it's such a strong influence in Western culture, much more so than Buddhist writings, for instance, which might more easily line up with my Humanist assertions. Recently, though, I've been saddened by how flippantly some believers use biblical texts as weapons to harm others. The ideas of bigotry and fear, practices of injustice and hatred, even acts of profound dishonesty and abuse are sanctified by words from this collection of texts that ought have no more importance than any other ancient document.

It is clear that a significant portion of the population interprets the words of the Bible as license to not learn how to think critically, as permission not to develop into fully human vessels of love and light that create wholeness. I find that I am repulsed by words that attribute human worth to the benevolence of a supernatural, not least of all because that imagined supernatural is also used to disguise hate as virtue and fear as righteous indignation. Where I may once have easily interpreted Humanist ideals out of a theistic text, I now find it abhorrent to in any way legitimize words that so many believers use to justify lazy, narrow-minded thinking that keeps people from wholeness rather than fueling a journey toward wholeness.

The idea that there is a supernatural who guards and guides human life is simply wrong. Abdicating one's personal responsibility to the will of an imaginary god is simply irresponsible. Human beings do not derive worth from anything outside of themselves, and they do not need to be cleansed or redeemed by a mystical sacrifice. Human beings have inherent worth and dignity. This means that there is nothing a person needs to do to earn the status of being enough. And there is nothing that can take human worth away from anybody.

Human beings are still flawed. We still give in to our anxiety, and we let our fear make decisions for us. An even more flawed mythology isn't going to help us deal with these issues. What we need is to take responsibility for our own part in the greater system of humanity. Human beings are capable of growing in their emotional maturity. Human beings are capable of developing integrity. Human beings are capable of doing the work of creating wholeness in their lives and in the lives of others. And we don't need a god to do these things. And we don't need a sacred book.

Sacred books and gods are convenient, it's true. But they are also easily abused without dispute. Legitimizing belief in a god for the sake of empowering people to do good things in the world unfortunately opens the door for belief in a god to empower people to feel justified in hatred, fear, and violence. As a species, for the last two thousand years, we have failed to teach people to use their myths properly. Thus, it is better to work to discard the myths and replace them with something more useful and better suited to the task of human development.

There are some tools that are necessary to do a certain job, even though they could be dangerous. We keep those tools around because they are useful, and we take precautions that they are used and kept in a way that maintains a level of safety. It would be irresponsible to do otherwise. Belief in a god is not a necessary tool. For the creation of wholeness, for developing greater integrity, for recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of every person, for growing in emotional maturity, belief in a god is unnecessary. More importantly, belief in a god frequently keeps people from creating wholeness, developing integrity, recognizing human worth, and growing in emotional maturity. When a tool is unnecessary and dangerous, the responsible thing to do is to throw it out.

You can say, "Those people don't believe in the god I believe in. The god I believe in is wonderful." That's nice. You don't need it. If you want the luxury of keeping a tool around because you find it convenient, despite the harmful things so many people do with that tool, I believe it is your responsibility to teach people how to use that tool properly. If you want to hang on to your supernatural, it is not alright that you stand by and watch people do abusive, hateful, fear-driven things in the name of your supernatural. You are responsible for how you allow others to use your tools. If you want belief in a god to remain in public usage, you are responsible for speaking out boldly for what kind of god you're willing for that to be. The people I hear speaking out boldly for their god are only saying things that reflect their fears and anxieties veiled in religiosity.

For me, belief in a god is unnecessary, and sacred texts are unnecessary. These things are too dangerous for me to continue accepting and legitimizing them. Accepting the premise of the importance of the Bible has become a distraction from delighting in life and creating wholeness. I'm grateful for your attention as a reader, and I hope that my words have been meaningful to you thus far. My hope for you is that you find ways to deepen your own connection to your deepest most noble self in everything that you read, and that you continually recognize the truth, beauty, and creativity within you. Live into a best possible version of yourself, and the result will be a better world.

John 9: Being Willing to Have Our Perspectives Challenged

As we observed in last week's interlude, the miracle story in John 9 assumes that there are clear lines that one can draw between people. It is as if people reside in well-defined boxes, and we only want to show approval for people who live in the same box we do. However, there are no "good people" or "bad people." Rather, there are actions which contribute to greater well-being and there are actions that do harm. The same person might engage in "good" and "bad" actions. In fact, we all do.

Perhaps that's the first flaw of the Pharisee perspective. They ask how a "sinner" can offer healing. They operate under an illusion of the world as clearly divided between worthy and unworthy, clean and unclean, loved and unlovable. These are labels that people apply to other people, but they are not reflections of reality. If the same individual can contribute to harm or to well-being, then there is always possibility in human decisions. This offers one reason to recognize that every person has worth and dignity. Every person is worthy of love and respect, even though every action isn't.

Some people will read this story and walk away with the impression that it's about Jesus healing people and the Pharisees judging people. It runs the risk of becoming a "Jesus and Christianity vs the Pharisees and Judaism" debate. This is unfortunate, even though it's probably one of the goals of the authors to lift up Christianity as superior to Judaism. The reality is that physical inconveniences exist even among believers. Belief in Jesus doesn't cure blindness, deafness, epilepsy, cancer, or any other actual physical condition. We get more from this story if we set aside the miraculous backdrop and look at the actual truths involved. When we recall that Jesus can be seen as an exemplar for human beings to emulate rather than a unique superhuman, we stand to get more from the story.

The authors of John portray Jesus as a bit of a provocateur. The character does things that he knows will agitate the Pharisees, but he does some of these things purposefully. John's version of Jesus is willing to publicly acknowledge the flaws in the religious/social system, and he is willing to care for those who are written off by their society. He can't care for every one of them, of course, but he contributes to the well-being of enough people to make a point.

Something is broken about the easy categorization of people into dichotomies. People are not static entities, and we are not made worthless by a bad decision or a bad day. We don't separate easily into neat boxes. The Pharisees can't wrap their minds around someone who doesn't meet their approval performing an action that ought to meet their approval. In the story, they keep questioning the recovered man to find the loophole that will allow them to maintain a worldview that is comfortable and familiar. Instead, they are told that, since they claim to understand things, they are culpable for the harm they do.

Thus, the story says something about ignorance as well. The same harmful action might be more easily forgiven if someone is ignorant about what they're doing than if someone does harm with full knowledge and awareness. We feel no guilt when we don't know we've done something harmful. It's only when we have awareness of the harmful results of our actions that our guilt kicks in to prompt us to set things right, insofar as that's possible. The Pharisees claimed to be knowledgeable and aware, so they must also be accountable for their actions. As they perpetuated and upheld a flawed system that benefited them and harmed others, their own responsibility was magnified.

Of course, some people claim to be knowledgeable and wise when they aren't. The call to accountability might have been intended to allow people a chance to step back and evaluate their awareness. Perhaps our knowledge or wisdom is not as thorough as we believe. Perhaps our easy answers fail to take some portion of reality into consideration. The instructive piece of the story might be found in the differences between the behavior of the Pharisees and the other characters (a trope that is becoming familiar in John).

The characters of Jesus and the blind man and his family were calm, reasonable, celebratory, self-aware. While others may have asked whether the blind man was suffering because of his own sin or his parents', he wasn't perpetuating any such ideas as far as the story tells us. All we know about him was that he was simply unable to see. The Pharisees and their religious worldview tried to concoct an explanation for the blindness that would make sense to them, and in so doing, they gave themselves a reason to look down on the man. They were able to judge people who were (in the Pharisees' opinion) flawed without having to acknowledge their own flaws. That's a pretty comfortable position.

Most likely, the Pharisees said and did what they did because they were afraid. That's what "sin" is after all -- fear put into action. People in positions of power have plenty to be afraid of. They were afraid of acknowledging their own weaknesses or flaws. They were potentially afraid of change, since their system kept them comfortable. They might have been afraid of being wrong. Their way of being wouldn't make sense anymore if they couldn't trust their assumptions about reality. They may even have been afraid of being just like everyone else. Fear prompted them to keep poking at a person who had been made well, rather than celebrating his well-being.

You can probably reason what the implications of this story are for our lives. When our fear drives our behavior, our perspective becomes skewed. We can start looking for ways to protect our worldview rather than looking at the world more honestly. When we choose to live into our principles and values rather than our fear, we can be more tuned in to what we can do to contribute to the well-being of others. We can also be purposeful in our approach to injustice and prejudice, and we can recognize our own flaws and weaknesses without being ashamed of them. This last one may seem a bit odd, but when we can embrace our own humanity, we are less inclined to judge others harshly because of their humanity. When we recognize that there is more that we all share in common than there is that makes us all different and unique, we can partner more easily with one another. At the same time, when we are conscious of our own weaknesses, we can engage intentionally with people who have complementary strengths -- we can learn something from other people.

We do better for ourselves and for the world around us when we don't try to figure out whether a person is worthy or unworthy, good or bad, wise or foolish -- and instead start from the awareness that everyone has worth and everyone has the potential to contribute to a better world. This isn't as easy as pointing at people and making snap judgments based on a little bit of information, but it creates a better foundation for our lives. When we feel prompted to call out someone's beliefs or behavior, maybe we can find ways to do so calmly and without malice. We create better lives and a better world when we are honest about our strengths and weaknesses and we seek out the strengths of others before we start judging their weaknesses. It might even serve us well to keep in mind that what we think of as weaknesses, other people might think of as strengths. The bottom line is that we all still have something to learn, and if our worldview tells us something different, we need to examine that worldview very carefully.

 A Little Experiment: Be curious. When you see someone doing something well, or even doing something differently than you would do it, be curious. Observe what they do. If appropriate, ask them about their process. Don't offer advice or judge, just learn how they do what they do well.

Another Little Experiment: Catch yourself. It's easy to use short, dismissive labels for other people, especially when we want to write them off or explain away actions we don't like. This week, when you catch yourself using a dismissive label for someone, especially when you're feeling judgmental or angry, stop. Often we use the word "just" along with these labels, as in, "She's just clueless," or, "That's just what you can expect from overweight people." Stop yourself when you reduce people to a stereotype or a one-word label and consider what you might not know about them.

One More Little Experiment: You too. Sometimes we use one-word labels to self-criticize and judge ourselves too. We may not know enough about other people to honestly understand their behavior, but we can know ourselves. Be honest about who you are. Don't go overboard in either a positive or a negative self-description, but acknowledge the truth about yourself. Rather than self-critical language -- like, "I'm just stupid," or "I'm worthless" -- be honest. Maybe you didn't have all the information you would have liked when you made a decision. Say that instead of deciding that you're stupid or foolish. Just tell the truth. Try it for a week or two and see what happens.

John 5:1-15 False Identity, Blame, and Healing

Similar to the stories that we observed some time ago in the gospel of Mark, the next passage in John 5 is a healing passage in which Jesus oversees the healing of a paralytic man on the Sabbath and catches some heat for it from Jewish religious leaders. As has become our habit, we will not get bogged down in fruitless discussion about historical accuracy. There is simply nothing in that debate to empower us in our lives. There are a couple of interesting details worth noting in this passage, each of which we will unpack a little bit. First, Jesus does nothing apart from talk to the man. Second, the man then carries his mat around of his own volition. Finally, there is an implication that there will be further consequences based on the man's actions.

Unlike many biblical healing stories, there is no ritual action that takes place here. Jesus simply talks to the man and tells him to get up. Actually, first he asks, "Do you want to be well?" And then he says, "Get up and go on about your life." Perhaps something miraculous took place, or perhaps this man had convinced himself that he was incapable of living his life fully. Once the identity of "cripple" is taken on, it might be easier just to give in to that label and reinforce it through daily actions.

What are the labels in our lives that we accept and carry around for years? Lazy? Incompetent? Worthless? Ugly? Selfish? Stupid? No-talent? Damaged goods? Even though none of these are physical labels, they can be crippling nonetheless. It's likely that someone else put this label on us first, but we had to determine whether to accept that identity and live it out. When these kinds of words come from someone important or influential to us, it's really tough not to accept it as truth.

For many of us, it is not as simple as discarding the label and living into a different identity. The first step we have to take, though, is declaring that we want to be well. We have to know that we want to have a different vision for our lives. As long as we are willing to look for evidence to support the crippling labels we have taken on, we will find plenty of evidence. When we are willing to live into a different identity, we can begin to find supporting evidence of a more empowering set of declarations. This takes time, because we've probably developed a habit of reinforcing a crippling identity. So the story shows us a moment that is symbolic of a long trajectory of personal work. Taking on a more authentic and empowering identity is certainly worth the effort. I point out that it's going to take some time so that we don't get discouraged when our habits don't change in a moment.

The story doesn't end there, though. When the man with the mat recognizes that his identity as a cripple is a false identity, he gets up and carries his mat. He probably knows that it is unlawful to do certain things on the Sabbath in his culture (although the authors of John may be engaging in a bit of exaggeration here, since it was still permitted to carry personal items short distances on the Sabbath). Maybe this fellow was just on his way home when he was accosted. Maybe he was running around town telling everyone that he had recovered from his false identity. There's no telling. It doesn't really matter for the story to make its point.

Whatever he was doing, the man with the mat was not taking responsibility for his own behavior. He was the one carrying a mat. He was the one who had stood up and started walking. Yet, when he is confronted about his behavior, he shifts the blame to someone else. "That other person told me to do this, and so I did it." Really? We recognize immediately how weaselly this response is, and yet, we often say very similar things in our lives.

When anxiety builds, especially when we are personally confronted about our behavior, we often try to make that anxiety go away by finding someone else to blame. "I was only following orders." "This is how I was told to do it." It seems like such a good excuse, but the bottom line is that we are claiming not to be able to think for ourselves. In blaming others for our behavior, we are claiming that we should not be held responsible for what we do. We even go so far as to blame other people for our anger -- and the things we do and say when we're angry.

The bottom line is that blaming others is a dishonest reaction to anxiety. We are responsible for our actions, even if we do something based on another person's advice. It's unfortunate that we are often rewarded for effectively laying blame at someone else's feet. That we get away with it sometimes still does not make it laudable. If we want to become more emotionally mature -- if we want to have a more satisfying and fulfilling experience in our lives -- we must reject the temptation to shift blame to someone else. Certainly, we should be honest about our actions and the influences that we are able to identify. We can do this and still be responsible for our own decisions.

At the end of the passage, the Jesus character tells the man that his new identity still needs care. "What you do next will have consequences." Now, Jesus says something here that suggests that being crippled was a result of some sin that the man committed. This is contrary to what the gospel says elsewhere, and it doesn't help that it has some language that has become rather loaded. Another way to think about it is: If your actions do not line up with your guiding principles, you will know it by the consequences you experience. Even when your actions do line up with your guiding principles, there may be short-term consequences you don't like. All of our actions have consequences. When we live into a best possible version of ourselves, we will have greater peace about how we handle the consequences of our behavior. When our actions are more principled, we stand a better chance of having the experience of life that we want.

The man was either a bit dull or he didn't like the threatening tone of Jesus' warning, because he went back and reported to the Jewish leaders. Even when we claim a new identity, we will be faced with difficult decisions. It takes practice to keep showing up as the people we most want to be in the world -- as people with clear guiding principles, growing in emotional maturity. If we choose not to take responsibility for our identities, we will have plenty of opportunities to slip back into old lies about who we really are, and we will have plenty of opportunities to start believing new lies about who we really are. It's helpful sometimes to consider what others see, but if we choose to take on what others see in us, that's still our choice. We are responsible for our own well-being. We are responsible for our own identities.

Do you want to be well? Stop living into the false identity you've taken on and live into a better vision of yourself. Start now. Take responsibility for your own actions and your own identity. As you clarify your values and guiding principles, commit to aligning your actions and decisions with those values. This is the way of healing.

A Little Experiment: Taking responsibility. The next time you find yourself starting to blame someone else for your own behavior, stop and take responsibility. See what happens when you are authentic and honest.

A Big Experiment: Rebranding. What inauthentic label do you need to be done with? What would it take for you to adopt a new label that more accurately reflects your values and principles? If you can identify one lie about yourself that you've taken on, you can probably extrapolate something true about yourself to live into. For instance, if you have been carrying around that you are incompetent, you might start looking for honest evidence of your competence. It will take time to get rid of an old habitual lie, but this is the path toward a best possible version of yourself.

Isaiah 34-35: Creating Our Own "Holy Way"

The next two chapters of Isaiah are contrasting predictions about the fates of "Yahweh's people" and the fates of everybody else. Some of the symbolic themes from previous portions of Isaiah return here. The blindness and deafness that Yahweh commanded the prophet to enforce (Is 6:9-12) will now be removed. Water, symbolic in much of the prophetic literature, is used here as an assurance of life, but of course only Yahweh's people will have access to the streams and pools of water in the wilderness. After acknowledging the literary context of these prophecies, we might gain something from recognizing one last time the flaws in the suggested dependence upon a supernatural and the Us vs Them perspective of this prophetic writing before considering a more intentional perspective that might better align with our guiding principles.

These are the final poetic chapters of "Proto-Isaiah"; after a short narrative, the book of Isaiah continues with words written at a much later time, as indicated by specific historical references in the text. Recall that no autograph of the book of Isaiah has been discovered, and that the earliest copy we have is from the early first century BCE. On top of that, there are thousands of differences between existing copies of the book. One prevailing conclusion by scholars is that the book was assembled by an editor from disparate writings (perhaps by the same author or school of authors). Thus, the sequence in which the writings appear may have been determined by someone at a much later time than when they were written. The only thing we can honestly assess is the end product, because we don't have anything earlier to examine. At the same time, honest assessment must include the fact that we cannot know the intentions of the author, and that the sequence in which texts are read has an influence on their interpretation.

In fact, "interpretation" may not even be the right word for what we do with such texts. We often read through the lens of our own wisdom and values, and we judge what we read based on what we already believe. The Unitarian Universalist tradition, for instance, currently recognizes six broad sources: direct experience, the words and deeds of prophetic people, ethical and spiritual wisdom from the world's religions, the call to love our neighbors in Jewish and Christian teachings, Humanist teachings, and the spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions. The intrinsic values of Unitarian Universalism were not drawn from these sources, however; the accepted values informed the choices of sources. The whole of Jewish and Christian scripture is not compatible with Unitarian Universalism, just as the whole of Islamic or Humanist teachings is not compatible with Unitarian Universalism. Our values are the scales on which the merits of a particular text are weighed.

This is true of everyone. American Christians reading the Bible do not honestly accept everything within its pages as legitimate timeless ethical and moral truth. They all recognize, to varying degrees, that there are cultural differences between twenty-first century Western society and the ancient Middle-Eastern societies in which the biblical texts originated. They determine the validity of a particular portion of scripture not based on the fact that it is in the Bible, but based on a set of values that they already accept as guiding principles in their lives. To be sure, those values are also supported by some portions of scripture. The call to reconciliation and love in human relationships is a major theme in the Bible, for instance. Yet, this theme is in conflict with passages like Isaiah 34-35, in which it is clear that the enemies of Judah are considered to be the enemies of Yahweh, and proclaiming their destruction is justified in the name of religious superiority. This is incompatible with the values of reconciliation and love.

Even if one interprets Isaiah as saying that human beings are free to seek reconciliation and love because God will take care of those other people, this does not resolve the conflict. The Bible also suggests that human beings are supposed to be emulators of God, and a perception of God as vengeful and destructive creates some problems. Readers of the Bible have to be selective and discerning, and that selectivity and discernment derives from the values through which the pages are read. We are always going to be biased readers. We can only strive to have biases that reflect our deepest values rather than our fears.

This brings us to a couple of flaws in the writing that we have noted before, but which bear repeating. Isaiah 33 and 34 both express a reliance on a supernatural to either punish or provide. There is surely some comfort in the idea that God is going to punish the people you don't like, although laying waste to the environment may be a bit extreme. There is surely some comfort in the promise that everything will be alright for you because God will provide what you need. There are problems with the implied converse of these assumptions, though. What happens when you do not have the things that you need? Has God abandoned you? Are you wicked? Are you being punished, or are you supposed to take comfort in the eventual good things that God is going to do, even if they happen long after you are dead? What about other people who suffer? If God has promised to provide for what his people need, doesn't it follow that people who are hungry or thirsty or oppressed are not God's people, and are thus wicked? The implications of God's partiality and the impossibility of interpreting "divine will" make such promises very problematic, even though they provide some shallow comfort.

Seeing the world as Us vs Them is a natural perspective for people to adopt. We are fearful by nature, and if we let our fear be in control, then we might imagine anything and anyone as a threat. We want to be right, and thus in our anxiety about possibly being wrong, we construct a worldview in which everyone else is wrong and blind to it. Thus, we get to be right at the expense of connection with other human beings, or at the expense of ever growing beyond what we are currently able to do in the world. Our fears are not values.

The people of ancient Judah were put in a position -- as the result of warfare -- in which they were in a constant state of acute fear. Foreign soldiers were laying siege to their cities and taking them into exile. They were not in a position to live by their values. They were living desperate lives. This happened multiple times in the history of Israel, and it is happening in some places today. People cannot live by a set of deep values when their lives are constantly threatened by legitimate, real dangers. It's important to know who is safe and who is dangerous when your life is literally on the line, and it's natural to invent some stories about the people who seem dangerous. In those stories, the people you perceive as dangerous are obviously going to be the bad guys, and when you feel desperate and powerless, the most hopeful story you can tell might seem to be that a powerful superhuman force will punish the bad guys and rescue the helpless victims.

Our tendency, though, is that we sometimes see ourselves as victims when we aren't. We sometimes feel threatened when we aren't. We sometimes believe we are powerless when we aren't. And we still make up stories about the people we perceive as dangerous, even when they aren't an actual threat to our safety and well-being. We have to learn to recognize the difference between actual threats to our well-being and anxiety that originates and thrives inside our own heads. There may be a lot of different people on the planet with a lot of different beliefs and a lot of anxiety prompting them to tell stories about how the wicked will be punished and the righteous will be saved, but in actuality, our well-being depends upon the well-being of everyone else. There is no Them. There is only one big Us. This idea may be as much of a hard sell to the oppressors as it is to the oppressed, but those of us who can recognize this simple truth and start living it out in our lives can influence things toward greater hope for everyone.

This is the real power that Isaiah 34 and 35 miss: Human beings are responsible for human relationships. The problems we create will not be resolved by supernatural intervention. We are responsible for living according to our values. We are responsible for finding solutions to the challenges in our lives. We are responsible to the people around us -- the people with whom we share our lives, our communities, and our world. There is no more empowering and hopeful truth than this. It just isn't necessarily what we want to hear when we look around and see evidence that other people are not behaving very responsibly. Since we can't really control anybody but ourselves, it's tempting to want a more powerful entity to take care of all the irresponsible people in the world and reward us for being so awesome. That isn't going to happen. We need a more reliable approach to navigating our own awareness of human responsibility and the apparent lack of awareness around us.

First, we can be more aware of our values. We are constantly interpreting the things we read and hear through the lens of our values, but we don't often take the time to articulate just what those values are. When we are aware of the ideals that matter most to us, it's much easier to determine how we want to be in particular situations, and it's much clearer when we are reacting out of anxiety or fears that are not aligned with our values.

Second, we can stand to see a larger perspective. When we are willing to bear witness to the actual suffering that takes place in the lives of people in more poverty-stricken countries, for instance, or even in the lives of people in our own neighborhoods, our own sense of suffering might be more realistic. We might be less inclined to play the role of victim inappropriately, and we might be less inclined to demonize other people for petty reasons. Our lives have value, and we need not be so self-sacrificial that we deny ourselves what we need. Still, being honest about our own positions on the spectrum of human suffering can help us live more intentionally.

Third, we can recognize our role in the world. Once we know what we care about most deeply, we can start living more intentionally according to those values. When we are willing to see the realities of people's lives, we can start to see opportunities to influence things toward greater well-being. This might mean funding education for a girl on the other side of the world, or it might mean spending time with people in our own neighborhoods. Our values and our own personal passions will guide us toward ways that we can influence the world, even if it is in some seemingly small way. I personally don't like building or fixing up people's homes, but I know a lot of people who love swinging a hammer. I really love teaching and tutoring people, whether its educating people about human trafficking or tutoring folks in a GED program. Some folks would be terrified to stand up and speak to a group of people. We all have values and passions that can direct us toward meaningful action.

This is how we contribute to a better world. We cannot wait for a supernatural to sweep in and destroy all the people we choose to see as villains and create a lush and thriving landscape just for us. This is not a realistic hope. Such stories might symbolically represent something to us, but our real hope is in our values and our willingness to live intentionally by them. Our ability to recognize our values and live intentionally is not impeded by other people's lack of awareness. This doesn't have to create an Us and Them dichotomy, but it's alright to acknowledge that some of us are becoming more practiced at managing our anxiety. We may be frustrated sometimes by other people, but if we look around, we will probably also spot some people who are living more intentionally. Two or three people with shared values and a willingness to live intentionally might be able to create more together than one person can create alone. Having community with people who have shared values can be a source of hope when we start to feel angry or frustrated.

So, what are your values? What ideals matter most deeply to you?
Where are you on the spectrum of human suffering? Do you need to focus on your own well-being before you consider how you can positively influence other people's lives?
What actions do your values and passions call you toward?
Who are your potential collaborators? With whom will you build partnership and mutual support?

The answers to these questions strengthen weak hands and make feeble knees firm. The answers to these questions inspire courage and help to dismantle irrational fear. The answers to these questions help us see and hear and act and speak with greater clarity. The answers to these questions are our streams in the desert, our refreshment and empowerment in life. The answers to these questions are our Holy Way, and all are welcome to travel on it. (cf. Is 35:3-8)

Isaiah 33: Selective Well-Being Is Not Genuine Well-Being

People make enemies. Usually, people make enemies by their reactivity, when fear drives the bus and prompts people to act in ways that don't align with their deepest values. The leaders of Judah made enemies through political decisions intended to preserve power and protect resources. Unfortunately, their adversaries were operating under an equally false impression of power and well-being. The tyranny of emperors has never been sustainable in human culture, but that still doesn't stop tyrannical people from thinking that they will be the exception to the rule. Tyranny is based on fear, just as Judah's defiance of the Assyrian Empire was based on fear. Of course, when we talk about "Judah's defiance," it isn't as if an entire country rebelled with a common sense of purpose. The entire country suffered, but it was the decision of a single leader (informed by his counselors) that determined the fate of the people he governed. It would be a mistake to assume that everyone in Judah was in agreement about international relations, primarily because most people didn't know that much about the specifics of politics.

Many people are satisfied with not suffering. They don't necessarily care what is going on politically, and especially in other parts of the world, as long as they are not personally suffering. We concoct excuses why other people are suffering while we are not, and we practice behaviors designed to protect what we have and preserve the power we have over our lives and possessions. If we get too attached to having more power than some other people, more wealth than some other people, or (bluntly) more well-being than some other people, we run the risk of making enemies. Being comfortable with a status quo in which some people have greater well-being than other people is not far from being comfortable with the idea that some people are worth more than other people. This is not a path to mutual respect or peace.

Isaiah 33 issues a promise of deliverance from enemies. As many of the promises in the prophetic books, this one is empty. It is an empty promise because it relies on an external supernatural to take care of human problems. This is rather like a child expecting that a parent will clean up any messes and whisk away any consequences that result from the child's behavior. In other words, it is devoid of personal responsibility. The problems that human beings create must be addressed by human beings, and they must be addressed more responsibly than just waiting for a supernatural to decide that it's time to fix things. A supernatural is not going to be your salvation in time of trouble. If we have any salvation, it is in human beings and our capacity to make better decisions than what we have made in the past.

If we take the definition of divinity as something that is within every person -- an inherently human characteristic -- then we might create a workable interpretation of Isaiah 33. Without any attempt to retain the poetic nature of the original text,

People who seek to destroy or betray others in order to preserve an imbalance of power create only the illusion of well-being for themselves. They have to live in perpetual fear of reprisals and spend so much time protecting what they have that they never learn to use it wisely.

Our deepest, most noble selves influence us in a different direction and reveal the values that will lead to more authentic well-being. We cannot lose the voice of our deepest, most noble self; there is no way for us to blot out our truest selves completely. This voice of truth, beauty, and creativity within us shows us the path to mutual well-being, equity, and justice. The counsel of our deepest, most noble selves offers stability in our lives and in our relationships, boundless integrity with ourselves and reconciliation with others, and sustainable insights toward lives free of irrational fear.

People will lose all of the things they try to hold on to out of fearful self-interest. There is no strategy born of anxiety that will pay meaningful dividends. Peace, justice, and genuine well-being come from other sources.

If we heed the voice of our deepest, most noble self, it will be impossible for others not to notice. Our lives will look so different from the lives of those who live by fear that it cannot leave the world unchanged. 

Here are some specifics: our actions would have obvious integrity with our values and our words would be impeccably honest, we would find ways to have what we need without supporting the oppression of other people, we would seek what creates the greatest good for the greatest number of people rather than what provides immediate gratification in our own lives, we would not accept violence as an acceptable solution to human problems, and we would not justify abusive behavior by the ends it is intended to achieve. When we do what we know to be right, by the testimony of our deepest, most noble selves, we will create well-being in every dimension of our lives, and we will promote multi-dimensional well-being in the lives of the people around us. 

The world cannot be sustained by fear. There is no hope in the priority of preserving power and control of resources among an elite few. We don't have to learn what justice and well-being would look like. We already know these things. Yet, there is no point in resentment against those who have lived out of fear. The way forward creates a better world for everybody, where everyone has enough and no one has reason to be afraid.

None of this is to say that it is easy to live with integrity, or even to know what our deepest values are if we have never really thought about it. It takes time and practice to allow our deepest, most noble selves to have greater influence in our lives than the irrational fear and anxiety by which we are accustomed to living. Our greatest strength is that we already know what justice and well-being would look like. We just operate under the impression that it would be impossible to have true justice and well-being for everyone. Maybe we have to start small -- in our own lives and in our own neighborhoods -- so that we can develop greater hope for more people. We know what justice and well-being look like. We just have to commit ourselves to creating that to whatever extent we can.

Thus, it is not the case that power and wealth and well-being are bad things. When our goal becomes preserving our own power and protecting what we have, then we go off the rails and cease to have integrity with our guiding principles. However, it is possible for us to recognize the resources at our disposal and allow our deepest values to determine what we do with those resources. The reality is that some people have more power than other people. Some people have more money than other people. Some people have more intelligence than other people. Some people have advantages in some facet of well-being that others do not have. The point is not to reject what we have haphazardly, but to use the resources at our disposal to create something better than current reality. Rather than trying to preserve and protect what we have (or gain more to hoard for ourselves -- another fear-based reaction), we could be using what we have in ways that align with our deepest values.

Nor is this an entirely selfless position. The underlying message of Isaiah 33 is that what some people think of as security and well-being is just an illusion. Piling up wealth and power for oneself isn't going to create lasting meaningful benefits. True well-being for ourselves requires the well-being of the people around us. When we share our resources with our own neighborhoods, we create better environments for our own lives. When we share our resources with other parts of the world, we create a better future to live into. Our deepest, most noble selves do not encourage us to sacrifice our own well-being for the benefit of others, but to sacrifice our false sense of scarcity and our irrational fears about other people and ourselves, so that we might have genuine well-being in our own lives.

Isaiah 27-28: Authentic Hope

We're going to push through to Isaiah 39, which recounts the illness and naivete of Hezekiah that we saw in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles (about a year ago now). It seemed like a good idea to intersperse the books of prophets with the "historical" books that most clearly connect to them, but given the time it takes to get through a book like Isaiah, this may have been an ill-conceived plan. Still, we'll cover everything eventually, so we may as well continue through the break in Isaiah.

That being said, there's an awful lot that has already been said about the content of Isaiah, with the people of Judah seeing themselves and their religion as superior to all others, without much evidence on which to base that opinion. Isaiah 27 clearly expresses one of the main purposes of this book: to offer hope to people in a pretty hopeless situation. Isaiah 28 balances this with the assertion that hope has to be genuine and sincere in order to be meaningful. Clearly, the author(s) of these chapters believed their own words to be sincere and honest.

It's worth mentioning yet again that there is obvious figurative language going on here, particularly with regard to the sea dragon that Yahweh will kill with his "cruel" sword. Most folks will not look at this and assume an actual sword or an actual sea serpent. A great percentage of the Bible is written in this sort of figurative language, and yet for some reason, many people want to take as much of it as possible literally. Don't be over-simplistic when you read mythology or other ancient writing. Look for the meaning underneath the words and you'll learn a great deal more about the people who wrote the words.

In Isaiah 5, the imagery of a vineyard is used to suggest that the Israelites have fallen short of their calling to create a just and righteous society. This imagery is used again in Isaiah 27 to suggest that all is not lost. There is still hope. The authors forecast a time when Yahweh will guard Jerusalem and there will be no competitors to the city. Fortified cities will be ruins useful only for grazing cattle. If anyone opposes Yahweh in that time (produce something different than what he wants from his vineyard), he will destroy those people. Otherwise, everyone will have a splendid time.

What Yahweh apparently wants from people is a society built on justice, but the authors are also clear that Yahweh wants exclusive adoration as the people's supernatural. Everyone who goes against this monotheistic mandate will be destroyed. So, this idea of creating a just society is not because it will be better for everyone, but because direct assault from the deity will be the response to anything less. This hopeful vision has dark implications. This is not a vision of a time when everyone will get along peacefully because there is greater understanding, this is a vision of a time when people will have peace by force, when the supernatural will take direct action against those who act differently. This is fascism, pure and simple, with a supernatural in the role of supreme commander.

No wonder that the authors desired a different sort of flawless leadership. Isaiah 28 suggests that the religious and political leaders were of little use to the people. They spent their time in drunkenness and lies, and when they had any words of hope to offer, those words were hollow. The chapter indicates that suffering at the hands of enemies is punishment from Yahweh that has a fruitful purpose. However harsh the punishment, it would not last forever, and eventually the people of Judah would be of some use. They would be beaten into usefulness. Of course, this is not a message to individuals, but to the people as a collective. An individual life might not see any purpose behind the suffering, but hope lies in the story of one's people, not in one's personal story.

It is unfortunate that passages like this have been twisted and interpreted into a perverse exaltation of suffering. There are those who believe that suffering makes a person more holy or more honorable, that the experience of suffering is somehow useful in and of itself. Even worse, there are those who believe in a supernatural who desires that people suffer, because they are being purified for some greater work. This is complete rubbish. While it is true that some people come out of experiences of suffering strengthened and determined to do great things, there are many more people who simply suffer, reaping no benefit from the experience. Suffering happens, and some people are able to make sense of it and turn that experience into an asset. This should not be held up as an ideal, however. Needless suffering is not a blessing or a gift.

Moreover, suffering is never something that we should inflict on others, with the expectation that it will make them stronger. There is no supernatural glorification in human suffering, and there is no supernatural who desires human suffering. We experience suffering, and there are potentially some words of hope that can help us through that experience, even help us draw strength from the experience, but those words are not, "God wants you to suffer." Especially those words are not, "God wants you to suffer because he has something great in store for you." Not only is such a claim trite, it is dishonest. There is no god in control of our suffering or in control of what happens in the wake of our suffering.

Often natural processes cause suffering. Nature is unintelligent and has no emotional impulse toward people, so there is no greater meaning to natural suffering. Sometimes people get sick. Sometimes people are caught in an area of natural disaster. It is possible that people can make meaning from the suffering they experience, but the experience itself has only the meaning that we give it.

Other suffering is caused by human action. Some people inflict suffering on others. This is the sort of suffering that we might set our sights on ending. Most of the time, fear is the emotion behind suffering inflicted by human beings, not the tough love of a supernatural. Human beings do horrible things to one another, and it isn't part of a divine plan. People commit atrocities when they give their fear control. Again, we might learn to draw some personal strength from our experiences of suffering, but there is no greater meaning or message than what we give it.

Of course, some will claim that suffering through the pain of surgery is necessary for healing in some circumstances. Suffering the experience of childbirth is necessary for life to continue. Suffering through difficult classes is necessary for the process of learning to take place. Yes. Fine. Draw the definition of suffering as widely as you like. The authors of Isaiah were writing to people who were besieged by foreign armies to the point that many people starved to death or at least considered eating their own children. They had no place to put the bodies of those who died from lack of food or water, and there was no efficacious way to treat the diseases that erupted in a city when it swelled with all of the people who sought refuge in its walls. When the siege was finally broken, many survivors were enslaved by the conquering army, taken to a foreign land with a foreign language and a foreign culture to live out the rest of their days. Their entire lives were shattered. Isaiah says that this was because Yahweh had a plan. He caused this to happen because he was crushing them like grain for bread. This is not a palatable message of hope.

We do not have a supernatural who is going to take control one way or the other. No one will be exacting punishment or crushing us for greater usefulness, and no supernatural will be standing guard over us as we grow into just and compassionate people. There is no real hope in that myth. The real hope is with us. We are the hope of the human story, as individuals and as a collective. Our potential to act in a way that brings justice, equity, and compassion is hope for others. In our own lives hope lies in the understanding that things do not have to be as they are. Hope also springs from the recognition that no one deserves suffering. Our worth and identity are not based on the suffering we endure. Every person has inherent worth and dignity just by virtue of being human; the rest is a matter of experience.

Things do not have to be as they are. This is true in our personal lives as well as in larger systems of power. Whatever suffering that exists in the world because of human action, there is a way to address this suffering. When the government of Uganda recently passed a law against their LGBT citizens, the Quakers established a New Underground Railroad to get people out of immediate danger. This is one small example, but think about your own community. How many organizations exist to help alleviate systemic suffering? From solving the problem of homelessness to ending human trafficking, there are people collaborating right now to build a better world than what we see today.

This is perhaps the most important message of hope: We are stronger together. People are relational, and while we value our individuality, we can accomplish great things when we work together. No one deserves suffering, and yet we can only touch a small number of lives as individuals. When we join our voices and our strengths with others, however, we can become much more powerful forces for justice, equity, and compassion. Our ability to cooperate and collaborate offers profound hope.

Thus, in our own lives, we can be confident that we do not deserve suffering, that there is nothing about our worth or identity that makes it necessary for us to suffer. Our individual suffering does not have supernatural origins or purpose, but we can choose to give our experience meaning. In the lives of others, we can also be confident that suffering is not deserved. When we are able to have an influence in alleviating the suffering of another, we can be vessels of hope. When we stand and act together with others, we can embody hope on an even larger scale.

Mark 9: Faith

After the scene of the mystical transfiguration, Mark 9 continues with another exorcism scene. This same scene is duplicated in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, but there are some striking differences. For one things, the authors of Matthew and Luke do not include the father's famous quip, "I believe; help my unbelief." Perhaps an even more obvious omission is the apparent disagreement between authors about why Jesus was able to do something that his disciples were unable to do. The author of Mark has Jesus say that the kind of demon he exorcised from the boy can only be cast out by prayer (even though the story doesn't say anything about Jesus praying in this scene). The scene is truncated a bit in the gospel of Matthew, but when it comes to this question of why the disciples were unable to help the boy, the author takes the opportunity to have Jesus criticize the disciples' lack of faith. It is such an obviously different answer than the original version of the story recorded in the gospel of Mark that some scribe(s) at some point inserted the bit about prayer and fasting into the Matthew version. (In most translations, this inserted verse is omitted and relegated to a footnote). The author of Luke leaves out the question altogether, choosing not to include anything about the disciples' inability to help the epileptic boy, which makes it a bit awkward when the Jesus character bemoans putting up with the "faithless and perverse generation."

Some "perverse" people in the twenty-first century still consider demonic possession to be an actual thing. Considering the vast amount of research and evidence on the subject, as well as our previous critique on the abusive and manipulative practice of exorcism, we can leave that aside. It is reasonable for us to forgive people living so many centuries ago for thinking that some neurological disorders were caused by supernatural forces. Instead, there is a theme that emerges from the versions of this story in the gospels of Mark and Matthew that seems worthy of a bit of attention, namely the father's plea, "I believe; help my unbelief," and the line about a mustard seed of faith being enough to make a mountain move (which is also duplicated in Luke 17:5-6, just not in connection to this exorcism scene).

Faith is a tricky subject. It essentially means believing something that cannot be proven by available data. Faith isn't intelligent, but that doesn't mean it isn't useful. It's important to realize that a statement of faith is necessarily a claim without any empirical foundation. This trips some people up. They want to believe that their statement of faith is absolutely true, that they can prove it to other people, that they can make other people agree with them, even though there is no actual evidence for the claim. If there were ample evidence to demonstrate the validity of a claim, it wouldn't need to be taken on faith.

Faith can work for us or against us. Some people flatly reject cold, hard data in order to maintain a faith-based perspective; other people manage to incorporate the available facts into a fluid faith that grows and changes as their knowledge grows and changes. There are people in the Creationist (or Intelligent Design) camp that fall into the first category, blatantly disagreeing with scientific evidence in favor of the text of an ancient religious document. Others revise their version of faith in a creator so that it remains compatible with scientific conclusions.

It isn't so dangerous when people are just engaging in fruitless arguments about the age of the planet (although it is dangerous to teach children that they can ignore actual facts in order to keep believing what they want to believe). Thoughtless faith can put people in serious danger, though. Some people have faith that their supernatural will protect them from the venom of poisonous snakes, even if they antagonize said snakes. Some people have faith that their supernatural will heal their child, provided they don't give in and seek competent medical assistance. A recent outbreak of measles within a religious community in Texas that opposes vaccination in favor of "faith healing" is just one more senseless piece of evidence that it's dangerous to rely on a supernatural to do the work of a doctor. Faith that refuses to incorporate verifiable evidence is, frankly, abusive and evil.

Blaming faith isn't really helpful. Intelligent faith helps us create meaningful lives. Insightful faith helps us connect with people and build incredible communities. Faith isn't the problem. Human egoism is. Why in the world would a spiritual leader advise his flock not to get vaccinations or professional medical attention? My guess would be either hubris or stupidity. What do you say to the parents of a 4-month-old infant who contracts measles because a spiritual community refused to take appropriate health precautions? Was the faith of the parents faulty? Or perhaps the 4-month-old had faith that was too weak? I try not to be critical of other people's beliefs, but I get angry about children suffering needlessly because of adults with nonsensical religious convictions.

Still, it's the people who are responsible for the consequences of their actions, not whatever they had faith in. The father who brought his son to Jesus' disciples in the story was looking for a solution. He wasn't committed to pursuing some tenacious assertion about the supernatural, he was trying to get help for his son wherever it might be found. By the time Jesus questioned the father's faith, the poor man was probably exasperated from trying to find someone who could do some genuine good for his boy. And yet, he couldn't just confess blind faith. Even Jesus' disciples had failed him. He had hope, but he wasn't an idiot. His son was seriously afflicted. He believed in the possibility of his son's healing enough to get him to a healer. Whatever he lacked in faith, he certainly expressed a willingness to be persuaded.

We can approach faith like that. We can stake our claim and say, "based on available evidence right now, I believe this." When further evidence presents itself, we have the freedom to adapt our statements of faith. By "evidence," I mean falsifiable data, information that can be verified by outside sources, not just another person's opinion or a slippery thread of logic. For instance, believe in God if you like, but don't ignore scientific data about vaccinations or geology in order to cling to a primitive version of that belief in God. We can allow our God to be as vast or impressive or intelligent or insightful or loving as s/he needs to be in order to accommodate the actual knowledge we have about our natural world. We cannot restrict verifiable data based on our personal beliefs. If we try to do so, we wind up with things like measles outbreaks that could easily have been prevented.

So, since our beliefs don't have the power to modify actual scientific evidence, it only makes sense to allow actual scientific evidence to modify our beliefs. This doesn't diminish our faith in any way; it makes our faith more credible. This doesn't weaken our faith; it strengthens our connection to reality, and thus increases the value of our faith. Digging in our heels and refusing to reconcile our beliefs with cold, hard facts is just another way of refusing to grow. When we refuse to grow, we stagnate. Life is not stagnant. If we are going to have faith, doesn't it make sense to have faith that is alive and able to grow?

Amos: Challenging a Sense of Entitlement and Advocating a Just Society

Of all of the books in the Bible, Amos is perhaps one of the best examples of a teaching that remains relevant to current Western culture, even though it was written in a completely different social, political, and intellectual context. Many times, assertions about the Bible's relevance are used to justify one's own behavior and to pronounce judgment on the behavior of other people, and those who make assertions about the Bible's timeless relevance must necessarily choose some parts to leave out of that assessment. Amos should not be one of those ignored books, even though the message of this prophet may be difficult for some people to accept.

Amos lived at a time when the Israelites existed in a divided society. There were some people who were doing very well -- financially well off, politically influential, religiously pious -- and there was the vast majority of people, who were impoverished and largely ignored. The wealthy lived under the belief that their possessions and influence were rewards for living pious lives, and they were characterized by patriotism and personal pride. They believed that they were entitled to their wealth and circumstances, and they constructed a worldview that justified ignoring, oppressing, or at least looking down upon the vast majority of people. Amos saw this system as unjust, and he saw the state religion as excusing and promoting those inherent injustices. His message to the people of his day was that religious practices mean nothing if they do not inspire people to lead lives of justice and respect toward others. To be clear, "justice" in this sense does not mean that people who have done something wrong will pay for their crimes; "justice" means that people have equal treatment under the law -- that some people in a society are not made to suffer so that others can be comfortable.

The short book of Amos can be summed up with just a few essential points. First, he chastises people not to long for the Day of the Lord, what some people today still talk about in terms of a "rapture" or a "second coming." Amos suggests that those who long for the End of Days do so out of ignorance and an inflated sense of self-importance. Instead, the prophet urges people to care for one another, to stop fearfully hoarding wealth and power at the expense of others, and to actually build a society of equity and fairness. It was perhaps easy for ancient people, as it is for some people today, to place all hope in a supernatural event -- some final accounting that would bring impartial justice and peace beyond human control. Amos says that this is foolish. For Amos, a just and equitable society established and sustained by human beings is not only possible, it is expected. Although he didn't phrase it this way, Amos envisioned a society that reflected the guiding principle that all people have innate value -- or at least that all Jews have innate value. Finally, Amos points to the hardships and challenges that the people have faced as disciplinary lessons that have gone unacknowledged. The entire society has suffered because of the system of injustice and unrighteousness, and yet those who had the power to change things kept heading in the same direction, oblivious. Eventually, Amos threatens, the society will be destroyed because of its inherent injustice and greed.

In American society today, there are some who have confused patriotic fervor with religious piety, and there are some who believe that God rewards religious displays with wealth and power. Some people think that they are entitled to the possessions and the influence they have because of their spiritual practices, and based on that claim, there are obviously others who do not deserve similar wealth or influence. Is there injustice in American society as there was in the time of Amos? Are there any who suffer so that others may succeed? Are there people who brag about their own faithfulness while ignoring or insulting people who have less? Are there people who believe that it is more important to protect what they have than it is to share with those less fortunate?

It's easy for all of us to slip into a sense of entitlement from time to time. We may even want justice, but we often don't want it to cost us anything personally. The kind of society Amos envisioned requires something more. Some of us may even hear the noble voice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reciting the words of Amos 5:24, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Like Amos, Dr. King envisioned a society based on justice -- a culture that supports doing that which acknowledges the human dignity of all people, not because it is profitable or required by law, but simply because it is the right way to treat people. Like Amos, Dr. King knew that building such a society required some hard work.

As a society and as a global community, we have choices about how we view and treat one another. We have choices about the level of social stratification we will support. We have choices about what sort of a difference we will make. If we act out of a sense of entitlement and step on other people in order to reach higher for ourselves, if we look down upon those who have less and assume that those who have less obviously deserve less, we can feed an unjust system as it spirals into self-destruction. If we place a higher priority on justice, equity, and compassion, we might establish a more sustainable society built on the fact that no one truly deserves to be oppressed and no one truly deserves to be an oppressor. It may be difficult to set aside personal comfort or the belief that we have certain entitlements over and above other people. The question is: Is it worth it? Is a better society -- a better world -- worth us giving up a bit of our fear-driven delineations between who is worthy and who is unworthy?

Although Amos does tend to use shame as a tool, there is no reason to spend time feeling guilty or ashamed about our circumstances. Even though we are not entitled to live the lives we have, and even though we don't necessarily deserve any particular quality of life, there is also not a lot of be gained by being ashamed of what we have. It's more a matter of what we do with what we have. For myself, I want to strive first and foremost to see the inherent value in every person. I want to contribute to a society that thrives because people realize that we live in abundance, that personal comfort and convenience are luxuries and not entitlements, and that we all need one another. I want to contribute to a society in which people do not give credence to self-centered, reward-based, prideful religious practices, but instead use spiritual practices as tools to grow as individuals and communities who love, respect, and honor one another. As I read Amos, it seems that this is the kind of society he hoped for. Perhaps the time has come to build it in earnest.  

Philosophy of Spirituality and Personal Rule of Life

As an assignment for a seminary course, I was to create a succinct philosophy of spirituality and a personal Rule of Life. Most participants in the course are coming from a Christian perspective. Rather than redefining any specifically Christian concepts, however, I looked back to pre-Christian shamanism for an organizing principle around which to express my post-Christian, atheist, humanist beliefs.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term "Rule of Life," this is a purposeful structure of disciplines that serve to direct spiritual identity and growth. Members of a monastic community hold in common a particular Rule of Life, based upon a specific spiritual philosophy. An individual can also create a Rule of Life as a baseline of personal accountability. Some aspects of my personal Rule are specific, while others are more general. Should you be inspired to throw down your own Rule of Life, keep in mind that it only really needs to make sense to you, and it should include those things about which you realistically can hold yourself accountable.

So why share a personal Rule of Life publicly? First, I have encountered several misconceptions about atheism recently, and I think sharing this sort of information serves as a plank in the bridge of understanding. Second, I am comfortable with stating publicly those things for which I want to hold myself accountable. I do not think I will perfectly uphold the standard I have set here, but I believe it is a realistic standard to journey toward. Third, perhaps a couple of people in reading this will consider deepening their own personal philosophies of spirituality and Rules of Life, which I believe will only contribute toward a more spiritually mature world.

 

  

Philosophy of Spirituality and Personal Rule of Life

Spirituality is a journey along a four-fold path as a mystic, warrior, healer, and sage, continually moving toward personal responsibility; embracing confidence in the inherent worth and dignity of all people; exchanging irrational fears, beliefs, and vows for bold honesty; and recognizing those truths that must be taken on faith and those that may be evaluated through empirical verification.

A mystic recognizes deep truths and acts out of faith in human value and the interconnectedness of all things.

A warrior stands calm in the face of challenges, confronting irrational fear and injustice in self and in the world.

A healer demonstrates compassion, acts as peace-maker, creates beauty, and speaks difficult truths gently.

A sage constantly learns with an open mind and continually refines beliefs in the face of additional knowledge.

Personal Rule of Life

Recognizing that I can choose in every moment to be intentional in my thoughts and actions—that each moment has the potential to be sacred if I make it so—I journey toward fully inhabiting my capability, creativity, and compassion, inspiring others around me to do the same. Through embracing a four-fold path as mystic, warrior, healer, and sage, I sharpen myself and those around me, and I create a better reality in partnership with the world.

MYSTIC

• I see the inherent worth and dignity of all people, including myself, engaging in times of introspection to remain connected to my deepest, most noble self.
• I bear witness to the interconnectedness of all things, trusting that my bold and authentic actions will have a meaningful impact beyond what I can see.
• I bring forward my natural impishness and humor as a vessel for truth and enlightenment.

WARRIOR

• I dismantle irrational fears and supernaturalism in myself, and I confront irrational fears and supernaturalism as hear-ably as possible when they are expressed by others.
• I stand for justice and equality for all people in my words and actions, including contributing my time and energy to (a) support the efforts of others who are working to better themselves and break systemic cycles of poverty, and (b) create a more accepting and equitable environment for those of minority sexual orientations.
• I am a calm, deeply grounded presence, secure in my own sense of self and comfortable with my vulnerability.

HEALER

• I am available to others, to listen and validate primarily, and to advise when requested.
• I create beauty through music to contribute to a more harmonious world.
• I allow people to fully express their beliefs and feelings without making them wrong, separating dangerous and irrational fears from the beautiful and worthy person who holds them.

SAGE

• I allow myself to be challenged by other perspectives, without assuming that only one must be right and all others wrong, thus allowing for a multiplicity of paths toward peace and equity.
• I read credible authors and researchers to continually deepen and broaden my understanding of people and the world.
• I proclaim without attachment what is so for me and what is true by virtue of empirical evidence.