This post has taken me longer than most to write, perhaps because it delves into the personal a bit more than the instructive. It seems important to evaluate our perspective of people as we consider how to live in such a way that we are satisfied with our influence in the world, and how we can get what we most deeply want by creating less suffering and greater wholeness. How we see people matters, because how we treat other human beings flows from how we are willing to see them.
I've asserted a guiding principle here that every person has inherent worth and dignity. That means it's part of being human to have worth and dignity. It's this assertion that I want to dig into for a few moments. When I first started this commentary several years ago, I asserted something else -- something complementary to this claim of inherent worth and dignity. I suggested that whatever we call "divine" is really a set of human characteristics -- that the ultimate source of divinity is within human beings. This means that divine character -- the capacity for truth, beauty, and creativity in every person -- is actually human character at its very best. So, an inner sense of divinity is in some ways synonymous with inherent worth and dignity.
And those two ideas are synonymous with having a deepest, most noble self: a part of one's being that authentically expresses one's inherent worth and dignity -- one's divine character -- without fear or anxiety. Who we are when we are at our best. This source of strength, creativity, peace, beauty, wisdom, and love is within every person. It's within you. It's within me. It's part of being human. It isn't supernatural. It isn't an outside entity dwelling within us; it's us. It's who we are at our core. It's our deepest selves once all the fear and anxiety and defense mechanisms are brushed aside. It's the closest thing to a god that will ever exist -- our authentic, loving, laughing, creating selves.
When I was younger, immersed in a Christian perspective, I was taught to express adoration and devotion to something that doesn't exist. I prayed without doubt, and I expressed genuine emotions toward an imaginary being. My emotions and my devotion were real. These were sincere expressions of my deeply held beliefs. The object of those emotions and that devotion, however, was only imagined. It was in my head, but also in my culture -- a shared web of beliefs superimposed on reality. As I gradually dismantled those false beliefs and became more reasoned, there became less of a reason for that devotion and adoration. If there is no god to worship or adore, then there is no purpose for that adoration.
Some people replace a supernatural with natural wonder. There are those who revere nature with the same intensity that others revere an imaginary god. Nature is real and wondrous and awesome and full of surprises. And we can learn so much from observing natural processes. Nature is also relatively unresponsive. Mountains don't respond to praise or adoration any more than an imaginary deity does. Wild animals are just that -- wild. However majestic or awe-inspiring we may find them, animals most often react to human presence through instinct, which is to say they either run away or they defend themselves from a perceived threat. People who forget nature's wildness often suffer brutal consequences.
I count myself among those who are awed by nature, and I love learning things through observing how nature works. Nature doesn't evoke the same sense of adoration and devotion that I once felt toward an imagined god, though. To be fair, I collaborated with others to co-create the god I worshiped, and although we had many similar ideas about this god's character, it's clear that every person who believes in a god believes in a slightly different god than every other believer. There is no objective reality against which a person can test beliefs about a god. The "authoritative" texts that hold ancient ideas about gods don't even have internal agreement, and human beings interpret those texts through a variety of human ideas about gods. So, everyone's god is personal -- a personal creation that agrees in some respects with other people's gods, but a personal creation nonetheless.
Which is to say that what I was feeling deep emotion for and expressing deep devotion to was a product of my own imagination, based on other people's ideas and a collection of ancient writings. My own imagination is part of my own creative nature -- part of my own deepest, most noble self. The problem was that I convinced myself of the reality of something that was not real, and I focused emotional energy on that unreal entity. My creativity convinced me that I could expect something back from that unreal entity, too. Guidance, forgiveness, love, acceptance, peace. If there was any real source of those blessings, it was within myself. I was the one imagining a god, after all. So anything that god provided was coming from within me somehow. Even "nature" cannot legitimately be said to intelligently guide, love, forgive, or accept beings who are a part of natural systems.
Now, this is not to say that human beings are not sources of guidance, forgiveness, love, acceptance, peace, and a whole array of other gifts we extend to one another. People are real and actual sources of blessing to one another. My point is that whatever we perceive as coming to us from a divine source -- particularly from an external supernatual -- must be coming from within ourselves. If the supernatural doesn't exist, and we still gain a sense of forgiveness, for example, that forgiveness has to originate from within us -- the same creative source as the imagined supernatural. Just as my emotions and devotion were real, even though the supernatural object was not real, the forgiveness and love and guidance I experienced were also real. I had the source wrong, but the experience was genuine. I genuinely felt loved, forgiven, acceptable. My own self is the only possible source for those genuine experiences that don't come from other human beings.
This presents a problem, because we also heap judgment, shame, and anxiety on ourselves from within. We believe lies about how worthless, unlovable, or unacceptable we are, and yet we would also seem to be the source of "divine" love and acceptance. No wonder it's so much easier to separate that loving, wise, creative part of ourselves out into an imagined external source. We can receive that guidance and acceptance so much more easily if it seems to come from outside of ourselves. But that's just an illusion. A helpful illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.
Some of the most meaningful time I spend in any given week is working with people in workshops or small groups on connecting with their deepest, most noble selves -- the part of them that can be called "divine" if anything can bear that label. Living with integrity to our deepest values and guiding principles requires of us that we confront old lies about who we are and embrace a sense of love and acceptance for ourselves. This is hard work. Seeing ourselves as having inherent worth and dignity is often harder than seeing that inherent worth and dignity in others.
And this is where my own recent spiritual work has led me to connect the inherent worth and dignity of every person with the idea of a deepest, most noble self -- and the concept of inner divinity (not in any supernatural sense, but just in the sense that human beings are the creators of the idea of divinity and the embodiment of all those qualities that we consider to be divine characteristics). If that sense of overwhelming love and acceptance felt by the religious is actually something that comes from within us, then I have to admit that human beings are capable of divine love, forgiveness, guidance, and all the rest. Whatever "divine" means in this context, human beings are the source. My own self was the source each time I felt loved by God, each time I felt a sense of direction from God, each time I felt a sense of awe and wonder at the unknown, each time I knew a deep forgiveness when I had acted out of alignment with my deepest values. I was the source -- something within me and part of who I am as a human being.
So, if an unreal supernatural was worthy of my adoration and devotion, why would a real human being be any less worthy? Why would the real source of "divine" love, forgiveness, and guidance be less worthy of worship than an imagined source of those same gifts? And if these are human qualities that rise from the deepest, most noble self -- the seat of inherent worth and dignity in every person -- why would that essence within people be less worthy of adoration and devotion than an imagined supernatural external to human beings? If human creativity, beauty, and truth is the source of love, forgiveness, and acceptance, why would I not stand in awe and adoration of such wonder?
This is not to say that human beings are entirely divine, of course. We foster anxiety and fear, we protect ourselves with layers of false selves in order to be safe from perceived threats. We rarely show up as our authentic selves, fully embodying our deepest, most noble selves. Most of what we see of each other most of the time is quite different from that inner divinity, and we taint that inner divinity with our fears and anxieties, too. So we wind up inventing gods that hate and oppress, and we give ourselves permission to hate and oppress as emissaries of those hateful and oppressive gods. This is not a true reflection of our inherent worth and dignity. It's a betrayal of ourselves.
We hold within us this capacity to express what passes for divine love and acceptance, to adore and cherish ourselves and others. Yet we betray that human capacity by paying more attention to fear, and that fear shows itself in myriad behaviors and attitudes. This betrayal doesn't change the fact that the only explanation for feelings of divine love and acceptance and guidance is that they come from within -- that human beings naturally have this potential. That seems worthy of adoration. That potential, that seed, that inner divinity, that deepest most noble self -- that is what inherent worth and dignity references. And for me, at least for now, that seems worthy of awe and adoration.
I see the betrayals of self, of course. I see them more clearly now that I have at other times in my life, both in my own behavior and in the words and actions of others. Yet, I want to reclaim that sense of adoration and love I once focused on the unreal. I want to refocus that same sense of wonder and delight in the only place that it can legitimately be directed -- the inner self of human beings. Not on something beyond nature, but on the very best of what is naturally human. If the actual source of everything I once called divine is within myself and every other person, why would I not worship that human source as fervently as I once worshiped some imagined external source?
Perhaps this is not meaningful to you, especially if you haven't had experience with a religious context. For those who are in recovery from religion, however, perhaps it is of some benefit to acknowledge that it was not all a lie. Maybe we just weren't giving ourselves enough credit.
Showing posts with label divine inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label divine inspiration. Show all posts
Monday, March 21, 2016
Monday, August 27, 2012
Judges 9: Healthy Ambition and the Senseless Fear that Is Selfishness
So far, the book of Judges has been mostly about people who accomplished military victories for the Israelites. After Joshua led a fairly straightforward invasion of the land to which the Israelites felt themselves entitled, it's no small wonder that they had a few enemies. According to the writers of Judges, the oppression the Israelites experienced in the ongoing contest for power in the region is attributed to their disobedience to their god. When the Israelites behave themselves, their god protects them. When the Israelites are bad, their god lets them get overrun by other people who worship other gods. Then, someone comes along and drives back the infidels -- often through some kind of subterfuge -- leading the Israelites into a period of prosperity which inevitably cycles back to their faithlessness, abandonment, and misery.
Abimilek is a bit of a detour from that formula. Here we have a ruthless murderer who worms his way into leadership from within a tribe of Israel's own ranks -- a wicked ruler chosen by a wicked people. He's killed by a nameless woman who drops a millstone on his head and a nameless armor-bearer who mercifully grants him an honorable death. The writer of this tale is clear that God is the one who created the strife that led to Abimilek's downfall, but it seems like unnecessary effort on God's part. A person who is willing to kill dozens of his own relatives just to solidify a tenuous position of political power is likely to rub a few people the wrong way.
The people under Abimilek's rule worshiped a god named or titled "Baal-Berith" (or "lord of the covenant"). It's difficult to say what sort of deity Baal-Berith was. There simply isn't enough factual information about this particular god to know how he was different from the Israelites' other gods. What's clear from the narrative is that the people who put Abimilek in power were motivated by selfish goals. Not all that different from twenty-first century politics. Their own motivations ultimately worked against them. They focused their attention on things that ultimately had no value, and they suffered as a result.
It isn't difficult to look back through history and find people who acted out of selfish ambition, caring nothing for how much harm they did to others in order to get money or power. Some of them passed on a legacy to their progeny that we can still see at work in the world today. Many of them ultimately brought about their own destruction. There are also wealthy, powerful people who act out of a deep desire to have a positive impact on the world. The difference isn't in the value of their bank accounts or the reach of their power. The difference is in how they attained what they have and how they make use of it.
Most of us will not be Abimileks. Most people don't have the capacity to kill seventy siblings and lay claim to a throne. We also aren't likely to be Ghandis or Mandelas. Still, all of us face choices about whether we will act out of selfish ambition or act out of a deeper sense of truth. Let's be clear: Selfishness is just another word for fear. We become selfish when we are afraid that we won't get what we want, that we will be overlooked, that someone will take advantage of us somehow. We believe in the scarcity of whatever it is that we want, and we set our minds so fervently toward a goal that we lost sight of what is important and true about ourselves and other people. We get selfish about things we don't need -- about things that actually may do more harm than good to us and to the people around us. Fear convinces us otherwise.
Here it is, as redundant as it may seem by this point: There is enough. Whatever it is, there is enough. We don't always see clearly how to distribute it wisely and healthily, but there is enough. Enough land, enough water, enough fuel, enough food, enough love, enough power, enough respect, enough time. We live in abundance when we are willing to recognize it.
This isn't to say that ambition is bad, just that the target of our ambition is often misguided. Let us be ambitious and creative in how we can provide clean drinking water to the world, or in how we can ensure justice for all people, or any number of noble goals. There is a place for ambition, and it can power our creativity to have a profound impact on the world. It's the potential selfishness of our goals that warrants examination. When our ambition justifies hurting other people for the sake of our own personal gain, we have stepped out of alignment with our deepest selves. That's the part that is based on some kind of self-deception.
In reality, it's safe for us to acknowledge the value of other people, for us to listen to ideas that came from other people's minds, for us to respect beliefs that are different from our own. It's safe for us to peel back the armor of fear and recognize our worth as human beings is exactly equal to everyone else's. Our value is not based on political title or bank account or education or square footage or how much blood we have shed or what kind of car we drive. We all possess a deep awareness of this truth that surpasses petty fears. We all possess divine beauty and creativity. We all have the capacity to inspire and be inspired. We are all capable of listening and we are all capable of accepting other people's beliefs without feeling somehow threatened.
It may seem that we have a long way to go before we create a world that embraces the value of every person, but the process of creating that world has already begun. It is up to each of us to choose how we will be in our own lives. We don't have to be heroic. We just have to determine how we will dismantle our own fears and create our own meaningful lives. When we act in accord with the truth, beauty, and creativity within us, we cannot act out of selfish ambition. When we choose to acknowledge the value of every person, we will find ways within our means to express that truth. As Ghandi said, "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do."
Abimilek is a bit of a detour from that formula. Here we have a ruthless murderer who worms his way into leadership from within a tribe of Israel's own ranks -- a wicked ruler chosen by a wicked people. He's killed by a nameless woman who drops a millstone on his head and a nameless armor-bearer who mercifully grants him an honorable death. The writer of this tale is clear that God is the one who created the strife that led to Abimilek's downfall, but it seems like unnecessary effort on God's part. A person who is willing to kill dozens of his own relatives just to solidify a tenuous position of political power is likely to rub a few people the wrong way.
The people under Abimilek's rule worshiped a god named or titled "Baal-Berith" (or "lord of the covenant"). It's difficult to say what sort of deity Baal-Berith was. There simply isn't enough factual information about this particular god to know how he was different from the Israelites' other gods. What's clear from the narrative is that the people who put Abimilek in power were motivated by selfish goals. Not all that different from twenty-first century politics. Their own motivations ultimately worked against them. They focused their attention on things that ultimately had no value, and they suffered as a result.
It isn't difficult to look back through history and find people who acted out of selfish ambition, caring nothing for how much harm they did to others in order to get money or power. Some of them passed on a legacy to their progeny that we can still see at work in the world today. Many of them ultimately brought about their own destruction. There are also wealthy, powerful people who act out of a deep desire to have a positive impact on the world. The difference isn't in the value of their bank accounts or the reach of their power. The difference is in how they attained what they have and how they make use of it.
Most of us will not be Abimileks. Most people don't have the capacity to kill seventy siblings and lay claim to a throne. We also aren't likely to be Ghandis or Mandelas. Still, all of us face choices about whether we will act out of selfish ambition or act out of a deeper sense of truth. Let's be clear: Selfishness is just another word for fear. We become selfish when we are afraid that we won't get what we want, that we will be overlooked, that someone will take advantage of us somehow. We believe in the scarcity of whatever it is that we want, and we set our minds so fervently toward a goal that we lost sight of what is important and true about ourselves and other people. We get selfish about things we don't need -- about things that actually may do more harm than good to us and to the people around us. Fear convinces us otherwise.
Here it is, as redundant as it may seem by this point: There is enough. Whatever it is, there is enough. We don't always see clearly how to distribute it wisely and healthily, but there is enough. Enough land, enough water, enough fuel, enough food, enough love, enough power, enough respect, enough time. We live in abundance when we are willing to recognize it.
This isn't to say that ambition is bad, just that the target of our ambition is often misguided. Let us be ambitious and creative in how we can provide clean drinking water to the world, or in how we can ensure justice for all people, or any number of noble goals. There is a place for ambition, and it can power our creativity to have a profound impact on the world. It's the potential selfishness of our goals that warrants examination. When our ambition justifies hurting other people for the sake of our own personal gain, we have stepped out of alignment with our deepest selves. That's the part that is based on some kind of self-deception.
In reality, it's safe for us to acknowledge the value of other people, for us to listen to ideas that came from other people's minds, for us to respect beliefs that are different from our own. It's safe for us to peel back the armor of fear and recognize our worth as human beings is exactly equal to everyone else's. Our value is not based on political title or bank account or education or square footage or how much blood we have shed or what kind of car we drive. We all possess a deep awareness of this truth that surpasses petty fears. We all possess divine beauty and creativity. We all have the capacity to inspire and be inspired. We are all capable of listening and we are all capable of accepting other people's beliefs without feeling somehow threatened.
It may seem that we have a long way to go before we create a world that embraces the value of every person, but the process of creating that world has already begun. It is up to each of us to choose how we will be in our own lives. We don't have to be heroic. We just have to determine how we will dismantle our own fears and create our own meaningful lives. When we act in accord with the truth, beauty, and creativity within us, we cannot act out of selfish ambition. When we choose to acknowledge the value of every person, we will find ways within our means to express that truth. As Ghandi said, "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. ... We need not wait to see what others do."
Monday, August 20, 2012
Judges 6-8: Heroes Rarely Change the World
We love stories about heroes. Super heroes. War heroes.
Mythical heroes. Small town heroes. They are more than merely
average human beings. They exemplify, even if only for a moment, the kind
of people we would like to be. They do the things we would like to think
we would do. If we were able. If we could rise above the
distractions of every day life. If we had a little more power. Or a
lot more power. At the very least, stories about heroes warm our
hearts and give us hope.
And yet, how much of an impact do heroes really have? No matter how many wars are fought, conflict persists between countries and peoples. No matter how many evil plots are foiled in our favorite comics, there are still more villains. Heroes may inspire us for a time, but we slip back into life as usual pretty easily. Certainly, the real people we consider to be heroic make a significant impact on a few people. The firefighter who saves a local family is rightly titled a hero, and that family's existence is forever impacted by that act of heroism. But life goes on. There will be more fires. The family will move on in their lives, and ultimately, the world will keep doing what it does.
In fact, world-changing events often have very little to do with individual actions. The things that change reality on a global scale are often things like diseases, stock market crashes, catastrophes. The moments in history when a single person's efforts are seen as world-changing are often quite the opposite of what we would consider heroic: the assassins or charismatic revolutionaries whose actions spark chain reactions. Of course there are those people who discover or invent the next step in medical, scientific, or technological progress: the Flemings, Einsteins, and Berners-Lees of the world. And there are those individuals who accomplish extraordinary feats: the Lindberghs, Amundsens, and Hillarys that change the way we see human capability. Still, at the end of the day, most world-changing events are more accurately portrayed as group efforts rather than the personal accomplishments of one person.
The book of Judges demonstrates clearly that even an incredibly heroic figure is still likely to have a minimal impact on a culture or society. Gideon, who doesn't at first trust his calling as a hero, accomplishes great things for the Israelites, and yet at the end of his life, they are right back to living the way they were before. Gideon is chosen, for unknown reasons, to serve as God's tool. He actually goes back and forth a bit with God's messenger to make sure the angel has the right guy. Once he's convinced, Gideon destroys the altar his community had raised to a local non-Israelite deity, and he summons his tribe's warriors to join him in fighting against Israel's numerous oppressors.
He still had his doubts, and he took a couple of days to verify that God was on his side. Then, God took a turn testing Gideon by telling him to dismiss the majority of his soldiers. At the ultimate conflict, the Israelites surprised their enemy because of their small numbers and created chaos with trumpet blasts and fires. Cleverness is once again shown as an admirable trait. Gideon had some trouble with other Israelite tribes. To those that chastised him for taking all the glory for himself, he offered soothing diplomacy. Those that ridiculed his efforts and refused to help received Gideon's vengeance once the enemy was dispatched.
Although the Israelites wanted to place Gideon in a role of power, he instead set up a golden shrine for the Israelites to worship. His words deferred power to God, but his actions led his tribe right back to a different sort of idolatry. Maybe he knew that the leadership they offered would be more trouble than it was worth. In any case, when Gideon died, the Israelites went back to their old ways. He was one man in the midst of a culture that was set in its habits, and his efforts ultimately had little impact on that culture.
It seems like a disheartening tale on the one hand, but it is an incredibly insightful tale about the limits of personal control over other people. Gideon served in a way that was meaningful to him, in the way in which he was divinely inspired and empowered. When the offer of leadership was made, he declined. That was a step beyond his willingness or capability. A few of us may be Einsteins or Berners-Lees or Lindberghs -- we may be the ones who discover, invent, or accomplish something that changes the world for large numbers of people. Most of us will have opportunities to be a hero to someone through much less earth-shattering acts. The secret is to follow a deep passion rather than external obligation.
None of the great thinkers or doers whose names we all know spent their energy trying to be heroic any way they could until they found something that would have a big impact. Rather, they focused their time and energy on things that were personally satisfying passions, and the results were profound. Gideon didn't set out trying to get the Israelites to acknowledge him as a leader, and everything he did wasn't perfect. Still, he made a difference in a small way and when it ceased to be inspiring or satisfying, he stopped. The firefighter who saves the family chooses to run into the building (hopefully with specialized training to support that decision). She or he probably expects a little acknowledgement at the end of the day, but it's also to be expected that life will go on eventually. Running into the building is just a part of who a firefighter is. It's honest. It means something personal to the firefighter.
Why spend time trying to be heroic or successful if the things you're doing to be heroic or successful don't really have any personal value to you? It's true that if you spend your time focused on things that have personal value that you may not be heroic or successful in anyone else's eyes, but does that really matter if you are personally satisfied with the results of how you spend your time and energy? You don't owe the world anything. And the world doesn't owe you anything either.
Like Gideon or a firefighter or any number of heroes in newspaper stories all over the world, you will have opportunities to do significant things that will most likely be forgotten by most people. You may even have a chance to do something that will be remembered by a lot of folks. Either way, if you are focused on the things that have deep personal meaning to you -- if you are authentic to your most noble self -- you will have a greater impact that you will ever have the privilege of seeing. You cannot determine whether your actions will change people's lives or the course of society. You don't get to decide whether your actions will be meaningful to anyone else. What you can determine is whether your actions are meaningful to you. The ripples those actions create are out of your control.
And yet, how much of an impact do heroes really have? No matter how many wars are fought, conflict persists between countries and peoples. No matter how many evil plots are foiled in our favorite comics, there are still more villains. Heroes may inspire us for a time, but we slip back into life as usual pretty easily. Certainly, the real people we consider to be heroic make a significant impact on a few people. The firefighter who saves a local family is rightly titled a hero, and that family's existence is forever impacted by that act of heroism. But life goes on. There will be more fires. The family will move on in their lives, and ultimately, the world will keep doing what it does.
In fact, world-changing events often have very little to do with individual actions. The things that change reality on a global scale are often things like diseases, stock market crashes, catastrophes. The moments in history when a single person's efforts are seen as world-changing are often quite the opposite of what we would consider heroic: the assassins or charismatic revolutionaries whose actions spark chain reactions. Of course there are those people who discover or invent the next step in medical, scientific, or technological progress: the Flemings, Einsteins, and Berners-Lees of the world. And there are those individuals who accomplish extraordinary feats: the Lindberghs, Amundsens, and Hillarys that change the way we see human capability. Still, at the end of the day, most world-changing events are more accurately portrayed as group efforts rather than the personal accomplishments of one person.
The book of Judges demonstrates clearly that even an incredibly heroic figure is still likely to have a minimal impact on a culture or society. Gideon, who doesn't at first trust his calling as a hero, accomplishes great things for the Israelites, and yet at the end of his life, they are right back to living the way they were before. Gideon is chosen, for unknown reasons, to serve as God's tool. He actually goes back and forth a bit with God's messenger to make sure the angel has the right guy. Once he's convinced, Gideon destroys the altar his community had raised to a local non-Israelite deity, and he summons his tribe's warriors to join him in fighting against Israel's numerous oppressors.
He still had his doubts, and he took a couple of days to verify that God was on his side. Then, God took a turn testing Gideon by telling him to dismiss the majority of his soldiers. At the ultimate conflict, the Israelites surprised their enemy because of their small numbers and created chaos with trumpet blasts and fires. Cleverness is once again shown as an admirable trait. Gideon had some trouble with other Israelite tribes. To those that chastised him for taking all the glory for himself, he offered soothing diplomacy. Those that ridiculed his efforts and refused to help received Gideon's vengeance once the enemy was dispatched.
Although the Israelites wanted to place Gideon in a role of power, he instead set up a golden shrine for the Israelites to worship. His words deferred power to God, but his actions led his tribe right back to a different sort of idolatry. Maybe he knew that the leadership they offered would be more trouble than it was worth. In any case, when Gideon died, the Israelites went back to their old ways. He was one man in the midst of a culture that was set in its habits, and his efforts ultimately had little impact on that culture.
It seems like a disheartening tale on the one hand, but it is an incredibly insightful tale about the limits of personal control over other people. Gideon served in a way that was meaningful to him, in the way in which he was divinely inspired and empowered. When the offer of leadership was made, he declined. That was a step beyond his willingness or capability. A few of us may be Einsteins or Berners-Lees or Lindberghs -- we may be the ones who discover, invent, or accomplish something that changes the world for large numbers of people. Most of us will have opportunities to be a hero to someone through much less earth-shattering acts. The secret is to follow a deep passion rather than external obligation.
None of the great thinkers or doers whose names we all know spent their energy trying to be heroic any way they could until they found something that would have a big impact. Rather, they focused their time and energy on things that were personally satisfying passions, and the results were profound. Gideon didn't set out trying to get the Israelites to acknowledge him as a leader, and everything he did wasn't perfect. Still, he made a difference in a small way and when it ceased to be inspiring or satisfying, he stopped. The firefighter who saves the family chooses to run into the building (hopefully with specialized training to support that decision). She or he probably expects a little acknowledgement at the end of the day, but it's also to be expected that life will go on eventually. Running into the building is just a part of who a firefighter is. It's honest. It means something personal to the firefighter.
Why spend time trying to be heroic or successful if the things you're doing to be heroic or successful don't really have any personal value to you? It's true that if you spend your time focused on things that have personal value that you may not be heroic or successful in anyone else's eyes, but does that really matter if you are personally satisfied with the results of how you spend your time and energy? You don't owe the world anything. And the world doesn't owe you anything either.
Like Gideon or a firefighter or any number of heroes in newspaper stories all over the world, you will have opportunities to do significant things that will most likely be forgotten by most people. You may even have a chance to do something that will be remembered by a lot of folks. Either way, if you are focused on the things that have deep personal meaning to you -- if you are authentic to your most noble self -- you will have a greater impact that you will ever have the privilege of seeing. You cannot determine whether your actions will change people's lives or the course of society. You don't get to decide whether your actions will be meaningful to anyone else. What you can determine is whether your actions are meaningful to you. The ripples those actions create are out of your control.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Joshua 2-6: When Divine Inspiration Gets Sidetracked by Fear
About half of the book of Joshua is folklore about how incredibly successful this man was as a military leader when the Israelites were slaughtering innocent people and taking their land, wealth, and communities. It's difficult for rational people to look upon some of the content as factually viable, since the stories include things like the sun standing still for a day and such. That being said, there is powerful allegorical value in these stories, particularly the first and most highly developed story about the fall of Jericho. These Old Testament stories were written from the standpoint that the Israelites were better than everyone else because God said so, and all the other people who were living in the area around the Jordan River at the time were expendable because they weren't chosen by God. It isn't a stretch from that perspective to draw "spiritual" lessons from the story about trusting God and overcoming enemies through faith. But what if one approaches from a different set of assumptions?
If we start from the belief that all human life is valuable, that people are worthy of respect regardless of their beliefs, Joshua's acts seem deplorable. The Israelites' actions dehumanize their enemies. If we start from a belief in abundance rather than scarcity, it seems at the very least misguided to drive off or kill people just to claim their resources. Yet we still haven't outgrown that behavior in some respects. And if we start from a belief that houses the character of the divine within every human being, Joshua's actions are inspired, representative of the kind of creativity available to any of us if we are willing to tap into our internal resources and trust ourselves. The problem is not with Joshua's outlandish tactics, it's with the fear he entertains regarding the people of Jericho.
One challenge in reading or hearing any sort of story as adults is that we typically have a set of beliefs in place before we determine what the story has to offer. Our opinions of any new information are based on what we already believe about the world, other people, and ourselves. It is nearly impossible for us to approach new information with a truly open mind, free from any beliefs about reality. For many people who grew up in a Christian context, biblical stories were even used to help frame our beliefs about the world, other people, and ourselves, but we weren't really able to understand the nuances of the stories beyond what adults were telling us to believe. As adults, we have the opportunity to reassess our beliefs and to re-contextualize the stories we know or encounter anew.
If it is true that all human beings hold within themselves the deep truth, beauty, and creativity that we associate with the character of the divine, then we are capable of doing incredible things when we push past the layers of fear that have accumulated over time and embrace that truth, beauty, and creativity within us. With calm patience, we can collapse seemingly insurmountable obstacles that would hold firm in the face of the greatest display of force. Our strength is not in our ability to be violent, but in our ability to be intentional. What happens after the walls come down and we are granted access to new territory, though?
Once again, if it is true that all human beings hold within themselves the deep truth, beauty, and creativity that we associate with the character of the divine, then this truth should inform all of our dealings with other people. When we seek to do harm to others, we are harming a system of which we ourselves are a part. We cannot bring violence to other people without doing some harm to our own identities and well-being. Honestly, our only reason for intending harm toward others is fear, and that fear is almost always irrational. In Joshua's case, there were likely manifold fears that prevented him from seeing the divinity in the people he conquered. He was afraid that his culture could be corrupted, that his people were too weak to hold to their beliefs in the face of alternative practices. He was afraid of death at the hands of the defenders of the cities the Israelites were assaulting. He was afraid of how his people would see him, whether they would hail him as a hero or reject his authority. Understandable fears, but unnecessary fears.
Joshua is a character of fiction, a bit of folklore to build cultural identity for an ancient people. But we experience fears that may seem insignificant by comparison to a leader of an entire society, and those fears still manage to derail our creativity and inspiration. We fear what people will think of us, and we fear what people will do to us. We fear things about ourselves as well, that we will be found out, revealed as imposters or weaklings. We fear that we have to fight for survival, that we have to defend ourselves at every turn. We learned to fear from a variety of sources, and we have practiced that fear until it frames our reality. We have to look beyond that fear to see the truth and beauty and inspiration in the world around us, and we have to look beyond that fear to see the truth and beauty and creativity within ourselves. The more ingrained the fear, the more dismantling we need to do to see what is true.
Dismantling fear is easier said than done. Even the prospect of it brings up a whole new onslaught of fears. Our entire society is addicted to fear, and the thought of disregarding fear is counter-cultural to say the least. It will not happen all at once, but as we are willing to see our own beauty and creativity, and as we are willing to see the beauty and inspiration in others, we will build confidence in that truth. We can bring the walls down with confidence and discover ways to make the world a better place rather than a more violent one. We can create a life that serves our most noble intentions rather than our most fearful ones.
The message of Joshua is a cautionary tale. We have within us immense power. When we tap into that divine essence, we can find inspiration to do incredible things in our lives and in the lives of other people. But when we unleash that power out of fear, we can destroy instead of create. We court the power of judgment and death instead of bringing hope and life. We are capable of either path. The difference is that when we identify ourselves as destroyers, we act in defiance of our true nature. The fear that convinces us that destruction is the only option will never bring us satisfaction, peace, happiness. That fear will always be restless. But we are not destroyers. That is not our identity as human beings, no matter what we have been led to believe or what we have accepted as reality. We are creators. At our core we are capable, strong, life-affirming creators. To deny that is to deny our humanity.
If we start from the belief that all human life is valuable, that people are worthy of respect regardless of their beliefs, Joshua's acts seem deplorable. The Israelites' actions dehumanize their enemies. If we start from a belief in abundance rather than scarcity, it seems at the very least misguided to drive off or kill people just to claim their resources. Yet we still haven't outgrown that behavior in some respects. And if we start from a belief that houses the character of the divine within every human being, Joshua's actions are inspired, representative of the kind of creativity available to any of us if we are willing to tap into our internal resources and trust ourselves. The problem is not with Joshua's outlandish tactics, it's with the fear he entertains regarding the people of Jericho.
One challenge in reading or hearing any sort of story as adults is that we typically have a set of beliefs in place before we determine what the story has to offer. Our opinions of any new information are based on what we already believe about the world, other people, and ourselves. It is nearly impossible for us to approach new information with a truly open mind, free from any beliefs about reality. For many people who grew up in a Christian context, biblical stories were even used to help frame our beliefs about the world, other people, and ourselves, but we weren't really able to understand the nuances of the stories beyond what adults were telling us to believe. As adults, we have the opportunity to reassess our beliefs and to re-contextualize the stories we know or encounter anew.
If it is true that all human beings hold within themselves the deep truth, beauty, and creativity that we associate with the character of the divine, then we are capable of doing incredible things when we push past the layers of fear that have accumulated over time and embrace that truth, beauty, and creativity within us. With calm patience, we can collapse seemingly insurmountable obstacles that would hold firm in the face of the greatest display of force. Our strength is not in our ability to be violent, but in our ability to be intentional. What happens after the walls come down and we are granted access to new territory, though?
Once again, if it is true that all human beings hold within themselves the deep truth, beauty, and creativity that we associate with the character of the divine, then this truth should inform all of our dealings with other people. When we seek to do harm to others, we are harming a system of which we ourselves are a part. We cannot bring violence to other people without doing some harm to our own identities and well-being. Honestly, our only reason for intending harm toward others is fear, and that fear is almost always irrational. In Joshua's case, there were likely manifold fears that prevented him from seeing the divinity in the people he conquered. He was afraid that his culture could be corrupted, that his people were too weak to hold to their beliefs in the face of alternative practices. He was afraid of death at the hands of the defenders of the cities the Israelites were assaulting. He was afraid of how his people would see him, whether they would hail him as a hero or reject his authority. Understandable fears, but unnecessary fears.
Joshua is a character of fiction, a bit of folklore to build cultural identity for an ancient people. But we experience fears that may seem insignificant by comparison to a leader of an entire society, and those fears still manage to derail our creativity and inspiration. We fear what people will think of us, and we fear what people will do to us. We fear things about ourselves as well, that we will be found out, revealed as imposters or weaklings. We fear that we have to fight for survival, that we have to defend ourselves at every turn. We learned to fear from a variety of sources, and we have practiced that fear until it frames our reality. We have to look beyond that fear to see the truth and beauty and inspiration in the world around us, and we have to look beyond that fear to see the truth and beauty and creativity within ourselves. The more ingrained the fear, the more dismantling we need to do to see what is true.
Dismantling fear is easier said than done. Even the prospect of it brings up a whole new onslaught of fears. Our entire society is addicted to fear, and the thought of disregarding fear is counter-cultural to say the least. It will not happen all at once, but as we are willing to see our own beauty and creativity, and as we are willing to see the beauty and inspiration in others, we will build confidence in that truth. We can bring the walls down with confidence and discover ways to make the world a better place rather than a more violent one. We can create a life that serves our most noble intentions rather than our most fearful ones.
The message of Joshua is a cautionary tale. We have within us immense power. When we tap into that divine essence, we can find inspiration to do incredible things in our lives and in the lives of other people. But when we unleash that power out of fear, we can destroy instead of create. We court the power of judgment and death instead of bringing hope and life. We are capable of either path. The difference is that when we identify ourselves as destroyers, we act in defiance of our true nature. The fear that convinces us that destruction is the only option will never bring us satisfaction, peace, happiness. That fear will always be restless. But we are not destroyers. That is not our identity as human beings, no matter what we have been led to believe or what we have accepted as reality. We are creators. At our core we are capable, strong, life-affirming creators. To deny that is to deny our humanity.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Numbers 12-14: Trusting in Divine Inspiration
These chapters of the book of Numbers once more reflect a supreme being with menacing and punitive tendencies. It's a view of God that still exists in many ways today, perhaps because it's easier for us to notice our struggles and mistakes than it is for us to take delight in our accomplishments. Chapter 12 begins with an accusation against Moses, brought by his brother and sister. Speaking for the Israelite god, Moses had commanded that the people remain pure by not intermarrying with the "unclean" people of the land around them. And yet, Moses himself had married a Cushite. This wife may have been Zipporah, whom Moses married before he became the leader of the Israelites, or this may refer to a second wife. The important part of the story is the response to the accusation.
According to the tale, Miriam's lack of respect for Moses got her cursed with leprosy, and she was confined outside of the Israelite camp for a week. She wasn't punished for noticing that Moses' own marriage broke orders everyone else was supposed to live by. The punishment came because of her lack of respect for Moses. The ability to curse people with leprosy seems a bit of an unfair advantage, though. Coming from a perspective that rejects the existence of a supreme being, particularly one who would feel the need to get angry and punish someone for insulting Moses, the simplest explanation is that Moses himself had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Leadership is tough to begin with. When you're trying to tell people to behave one way while you are behaving differently, it becomes even tougher. Aaron and Miriam weren't really making an astounding observation, but the way they went about their accusation was to grumble and gossip behind Moses' back. Had they gone to him and pointed out the discrepancy with a modicum of concern for his own well-being, the story might have gone differently. Sooner or later, the issue of living differently than what you're demanding of other people has to be addressed. You can't just afflict everyone with leprosy after all, and Moses quickly had his hands full with more complaining from people. Quite simply, people are better leaders when they are open to criticism without stooping to petty retaliations, and their followers are more likely to get what they want when they approach the person in charge with love and respect.
Once again, in Numbers 14, the Israelites cry out that they should have stayed in Egypt instead of following Moses out into the wilderness to die. A special team of spies had gone to investigate the land of Canaan, the "promised land" where the Israelites were headed. They came back with a report that the place was indeed bountiful, but it was also inhabited by peoples who were stronger and more numerous than the Israelite forces, willing and able to defend their lands against invasion. So, the people were understandably demoralized. The response from some of the spies was, "If we trust God, there is nothing to fear."
The Israelite god spends a lot of time being angry in this book. He threatens to unleash his wrath on the Israelites, and Moses appeals to his sense of pride, suggesting that if the Egyptians were to hear about all the Israelites dying in the wilderness, they would think that the Israelite god was unreliable and weak. As if The One True God would actually care what the Egyptians think. So God relented and decided that he wouldn't kill the Israelites outright, he'd just deny them access to the land of milk and honey and force them to wander for forty years until they died of natural causes in the wilderness. Because that would look good to the Egyptians. God does strike down the spies who brought back doom-and-gloom reports about the Canaanites, and when the Israelites attempt a foray into Canaan the next day despite the proclamation of divine punishment, they are chased off by the local denizens.
There's a big problem with the whole "God is on our side" philosophy that still infects international politics today. Every military and paramilitary force in existence seems to claim in one way or another that they are in the right, that God is on their side. Can God really be on everyone's side in a war? I suppose betting on all the horses in a race would guarantee that you pick a winner, but it seems ludicrous to assume that a perfect divine being is hedging his bets. Do people actually believe they're going to win in combat because of divine intervention? Or is the whole thing just intended as morale-boosting rhetoric? If taken seriously, false belief can lead people to take some otherwise ill-advised actions, purely on faith that their god will work out the details in their favor. I would like to believe that if there was an intelligent higher power that took an interest in humanity, our ability to reason and work out diplomatic solutions peacefully would be more impressive than our ability to effectively slaughter one another. From the right perspective, a god that promises military victory in this day and age seems like a brutal, bloodthirsty primitive compared to a god that promises the ability to reach a satisfying compromise with minimal bloodshed. Honestly, which seems like more of a miracle?
But the issue for the Israelites boiled down to trust. When the odds seemed against them, were they willing to trust divine guidance, or were they going to doubt every step of the way? Trust eventually led some of them to their destination. Doubt prevented others from realizing the divine promise. The underlying spiritual truth of the story really has nothing to do with plagues and punishments, it has to do with trust.
Within each of us, there is a spark of inspiration that grants us a vision of what we could accomplish. For some people, it's just a momentary glimpse, seemingly little more than wishful thinking. For other people, it becomes a detailed goal, a lifelong aspiration. Sometimes, people create goals that are motivated by greed, that take advantage of other people, that capitalize on loopholes in an unfair system. These kinds of goals reflect a lack of faith in oneself to actually do good in the world. When you believe that it's unrealistic to actually achieve your dreams, it's easy to settle for the next best thing. There are a lot of unhappy, dissatisfied wealthy people in the world who lost sight of their vision of what really mattered to them. Some people manage to accomplish impressive feats without ever realizing the goal that truly inspires them.
It all has to do with how we respond to that "divine" inspiration within us. When we glimpse that inspiration that matches with our most noble intentions for ourselves and other people, we can either trust it or doubt it. When we doubt it, we wind up punishing ourselves, in a way. Denying ourselves the thing that we most deeply desire for ourselves and the world. Settling for less. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we are just being realistic. But when we trust that spark of inspiration and feed it, we can start to see ways to move closer to it. The initial idea may seem out of reach, but when we trust ourselves to create a path toward that inspired target, the very process nourishes the vision.
The feedback we get along the way may not always be what we would like it to be. We may have to adjust our path to fit with reality, but that doesn't necessarily mean setting our sights lower in the long run. It may mean changing the benchmarks along the way, not the ultimate goal. New information may lead us to conclude that what we initially envisioned actually isn't a beneficial target for ourselves and others, in which case we have an opportunity to fine tune our target based on that new information. But we have to first trust our inspiration in order to get to the point of clarifying or fine tuning targets and benchmarks. The journey is rarely a straight line, but the first step is always to trust the inspiration.
According to the tale, Miriam's lack of respect for Moses got her cursed with leprosy, and she was confined outside of the Israelite camp for a week. She wasn't punished for noticing that Moses' own marriage broke orders everyone else was supposed to live by. The punishment came because of her lack of respect for Moses. The ability to curse people with leprosy seems a bit of an unfair advantage, though. Coming from a perspective that rejects the existence of a supreme being, particularly one who would feel the need to get angry and punish someone for insulting Moses, the simplest explanation is that Moses himself had a few tricks up his sleeve.
Leadership is tough to begin with. When you're trying to tell people to behave one way while you are behaving differently, it becomes even tougher. Aaron and Miriam weren't really making an astounding observation, but the way they went about their accusation was to grumble and gossip behind Moses' back. Had they gone to him and pointed out the discrepancy with a modicum of concern for his own well-being, the story might have gone differently. Sooner or later, the issue of living differently than what you're demanding of other people has to be addressed. You can't just afflict everyone with leprosy after all, and Moses quickly had his hands full with more complaining from people. Quite simply, people are better leaders when they are open to criticism without stooping to petty retaliations, and their followers are more likely to get what they want when they approach the person in charge with love and respect.
Once again, in Numbers 14, the Israelites cry out that they should have stayed in Egypt instead of following Moses out into the wilderness to die. A special team of spies had gone to investigate the land of Canaan, the "promised land" where the Israelites were headed. They came back with a report that the place was indeed bountiful, but it was also inhabited by peoples who were stronger and more numerous than the Israelite forces, willing and able to defend their lands against invasion. So, the people were understandably demoralized. The response from some of the spies was, "If we trust God, there is nothing to fear."
The Israelite god spends a lot of time being angry in this book. He threatens to unleash his wrath on the Israelites, and Moses appeals to his sense of pride, suggesting that if the Egyptians were to hear about all the Israelites dying in the wilderness, they would think that the Israelite god was unreliable and weak. As if The One True God would actually care what the Egyptians think. So God relented and decided that he wouldn't kill the Israelites outright, he'd just deny them access to the land of milk and honey and force them to wander for forty years until they died of natural causes in the wilderness. Because that would look good to the Egyptians. God does strike down the spies who brought back doom-and-gloom reports about the Canaanites, and when the Israelites attempt a foray into Canaan the next day despite the proclamation of divine punishment, they are chased off by the local denizens.
There's a big problem with the whole "God is on our side" philosophy that still infects international politics today. Every military and paramilitary force in existence seems to claim in one way or another that they are in the right, that God is on their side. Can God really be on everyone's side in a war? I suppose betting on all the horses in a race would guarantee that you pick a winner, but it seems ludicrous to assume that a perfect divine being is hedging his bets. Do people actually believe they're going to win in combat because of divine intervention? Or is the whole thing just intended as morale-boosting rhetoric? If taken seriously, false belief can lead people to take some otherwise ill-advised actions, purely on faith that their god will work out the details in their favor. I would like to believe that if there was an intelligent higher power that took an interest in humanity, our ability to reason and work out diplomatic solutions peacefully would be more impressive than our ability to effectively slaughter one another. From the right perspective, a god that promises military victory in this day and age seems like a brutal, bloodthirsty primitive compared to a god that promises the ability to reach a satisfying compromise with minimal bloodshed. Honestly, which seems like more of a miracle?
But the issue for the Israelites boiled down to trust. When the odds seemed against them, were they willing to trust divine guidance, or were they going to doubt every step of the way? Trust eventually led some of them to their destination. Doubt prevented others from realizing the divine promise. The underlying spiritual truth of the story really has nothing to do with plagues and punishments, it has to do with trust.
Within each of us, there is a spark of inspiration that grants us a vision of what we could accomplish. For some people, it's just a momentary glimpse, seemingly little more than wishful thinking. For other people, it becomes a detailed goal, a lifelong aspiration. Sometimes, people create goals that are motivated by greed, that take advantage of other people, that capitalize on loopholes in an unfair system. These kinds of goals reflect a lack of faith in oneself to actually do good in the world. When you believe that it's unrealistic to actually achieve your dreams, it's easy to settle for the next best thing. There are a lot of unhappy, dissatisfied wealthy people in the world who lost sight of their vision of what really mattered to them. Some people manage to accomplish impressive feats without ever realizing the goal that truly inspires them.
It all has to do with how we respond to that "divine" inspiration within us. When we glimpse that inspiration that matches with our most noble intentions for ourselves and other people, we can either trust it or doubt it. When we doubt it, we wind up punishing ourselves, in a way. Denying ourselves the thing that we most deeply desire for ourselves and the world. Settling for less. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we are just being realistic. But when we trust that spark of inspiration and feed it, we can start to see ways to move closer to it. The initial idea may seem out of reach, but when we trust ourselves to create a path toward that inspired target, the very process nourishes the vision.
The feedback we get along the way may not always be what we would like it to be. We may have to adjust our path to fit with reality, but that doesn't necessarily mean setting our sights lower in the long run. It may mean changing the benchmarks along the way, not the ultimate goal. New information may lead us to conclude that what we initially envisioned actually isn't a beneficial target for ourselves and others, in which case we have an opportunity to fine tune our target based on that new information. But we have to first trust our inspiration in order to get to the point of clarifying or fine tuning targets and benchmarks. The journey is rarely a straight line, but the first step is always to trust the inspiration.
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