The Basics of Boundaries

A lot of communities are familiar with boundaries. Boundaries are often used to define who is an insider and who is an outsider. Religious communities often use belief as a boundary. (Members of this community believe in X, Y, or Z, and if you don't believe in X, Y, or Z, you can't be a member of this community.) Some communities use behavior as a boundary. (Members of this behavior abstain from alcohol, or pray at certain times of the day, or wear special clothing, and if you don't do these things, you can't be a member of the community.)

Especially for people whose entire social circle is comprised of a single community, these rules and restrictions are a means of controlling people. Stepping out of bounds can mean being ostracized or disowned. This sort of boundary is harmful when shame, rejection, and condemnation are used as enforcement. The message from many religious communities is that certain people are unacceptable, unlovable, or unworthy because they don't fit within the community boundaries. In many cases, boundaries become walls, shutting people out of community, imprisoning people in relationships, or preventing safe self-disclosure, honesty, and affirmation.

Healthy communities, on the other hand, set boundaries based on what behaviors align with the shared values of the community. A healthy community doesn't need to distinguish between insider and outsider, because the community's commonly held guiding principles and shared purpose are clearly defined. Rather than controlling people's behavior, healthy boundaries are collaboratively defined practices that reflect the community's values.

For instance, if a community has decided to practice mutual affirmation, self-disclosure, hospitality, active and unconditional love, and honesty, they may agree that some behaviors reinforce those values and some behaviors run counter to those values. Let's say, for instance, that a community recognizes that gossiping about someone isn't congruent with those five characteristics, but that it reflects those values to speak honestly, directly, and respectfully to a person when there's conflict. The boundary for the community, then, is that communication within the community reflects the community's shared values.

If Alex goes to Bethany to complain about something Charlotte said, that doesn't mean Alex should get kicked out of the community or shamed. It does mean that Bethany has an opportunity to help Alex make a course correction and realign with communication that reflects the high aspirations of the community. Bethany could do this in a variety of ways. She could guide Alex toward speaking directly, honestly, and respectfully with Charlotte -- or even offer to go with Alex if the conversation seems challenging. She could also help Alex empathize with Charlotte. Remaining detached from Alex's anxiety might be challenging for Bethany, and she may be tempted to take sides or spread further gossip about Charlotte (or Alex). Having clear boundaries in the community and giving everyone responsibility for upholding those boundaries will hopefully make it clear to Bethany how she can respond more intentionally.

This is an important point, because many communities have specialized people who are boundary enforcers. If you have a problem with someone, you go to the boundary enforcer and file a complaint, the boundary enforcer looks into the situation and decides if a boundary has been crossed, and then (ideally) a system of justice is activated to provide just consequences. This system lets most people off the hook for enforcing community boundaries. In a large society, this has some benefits. Our national justice system is severely flawed, but it's at least an improvement on vigilante justice or the escalations of retributive violence that happen in some cultures. In smaller communities, though, people can collaborate to create community boundaries that reflect their shared values, and everyone can be equally responsible for enforcing those boundaries by their own intentional behavior. Bethany doesn't need to go running to a community elder to inform on Alex. She's capable of being intentional in her own behavior when Alex's anxiety gets activated.

Each community has to determine for itself what level of boundary-crossing warrants greater attention. There are times when people may be resistant to correction when they are acting in violation of a community's shared boundaries. People can engage in conflict when they are anxious; fear prompts defiance in some folks. It's important for a community to know how it will respond to this kind of anxiety or fear in a way that aligns with its guiding principles and values. Community members should know ahead of time what the consequences are for persistent boundary-crossing, and as many members as possible should be empowered to hold one another accountable to the community's shared values and guiding principles.

Boundaries can also help provide a sense of safety in a community. Background checks for people working with children is a boundary. Clear lines of financial accountability may be another community boundary. Sometimes these sorts of boundaries are rooted in fear and anxiety about people. The same boundaries could flow from a community's intentional identity, however. The difference is not necessarily the boundaries themselves, but the foundation on which the boundaries are built. Well-defined community values and shared vision undergird healthy boundaries.

Healthy individuals have boundaries, too. And individual boundaries may not be identical to community boundaries. One person may choose to be vegetarian, while the community as a whole doesn't make such a choice. It's the responsibility of the individual to clearly state their boundaries, and it's the responsibility of the community to respect the boundaries of individuals. Emile has the responsibility to say, "I won't eat the chicken casserole Devon brought to the potluck, because I don't eat meat." No one has to apologize for the presence of a chicken casserole, because vegetarianism isn't a shared value of the community. Likewise, no one in the community gets to force Emile to eat the chicken casserole, or shame or pressure Emile (or Devon). Radical hospitality may prompt someone to take action to make sure Emile has something to eat, but this can be a loving act that respects the boundaries of those present.

Sometimes personal boundaries are the result of false beliefs, and sometimes personal boundaries are inconvenient for a community. Healthy community can recognize these realities and remain respectful of the boundaries that individuals set, as long as the community's shared values and guiding principles aren't compromised. Say a community decides that its shared values are non-theistic -- that as a community they will not promote supernaturalism through any of their common practices. If Gerry prefers to pray before a meal, it's fine for Gerry to pray. It isn't fine for Gerry to insist that everyone else pray. If Gerry wants to listen to overtly theistic music, that's fine. Gerry just doesn't get to require everyone to sing theistic music together.

The same would be true for a theistic community that determines its shared values to include affirming and promoting affection or gratitude toward a supernatural. If this is a shared value of the community, Fabian's personal boundary of refusing to pray doesn't get to define the practices of the entire community. The community's boundaries also don't mean that Fabian can be forced to pray, however. Fabian can choose not to sing the community's theistic songs, but if the community's shared values include gratitude toward a supernatural, Fabian should expect them to sing praises to that supernatural as a community practice.

For some communities, the challenging part is defining these boundaries clearly so that individuals will know whether their personal boundaries will be in conflict with the community's practices. If a community expects everyone to do something, it's best to be honest and direct about that expectation. Too often, communities claim to welcome everyone and fail to provide a clear indication of what they're welcoming everyone into. It doesn't matter to me if a Christian community acts like they welcome me; if they're going to expect me to participate in blatantly Christian activities, I'm not going to feel welcome. I'm not going to feel like a respected, valued, accepted part of a community that expects me to act in opposition to my own personal beliefs. When a community is clear about its boundaries and practices, and an individual is clear about their personal boundaries and practices, people can easily see whether they are a good fit for the community. Hopefully, a community's shared values and guiding principles are directly reflected in their boundaries and practices.
   
I mentioned that sometimes personal boundaries are the result of false beliefs. As long as those personal boundaries aren't in conflict with the community's boundaries, it's still best to be loving and respectful of those personal boundaries that may be misguided. As a person grows in their ability to practice mutual self-disclosure and honesty, and as a person participates in giving and receiving sincere affirmation and active, unconditional love, their beliefs -- and therefore their boundaries -- may change. People first need to feel safe in community before they can engage in the challenging work of defining personal guiding principles and casting vision in their lives. Respect for their personal boundaries, and clear community boundaries, can help provide that sense of safety.

All of this conversation about boundaries is within the context of a community that is practicing the essential five ingredients we've already explored: mutual self-disclosure, mutual hospitality, mutual active and unconditional love, mutual honesty, and mutual affirmation. Some people may need a lot of help from their community to learn how to establish healthy personal boundaries. Boundaries can also be abused to preserve a community at the expense of the individual, or to create power-over structures rather than power-with systems. This is one reason community boundaries should be collaboratively created by the members of a community, with a clear connection to the shared values and guiding principles of the community. With these elements in place, a community can incorporate one more vital piece to creating greater wholeness in the world: a well-defined shared purpose or vision.

There are several books and web resources that carry this conversation about boundaries deeper, but one of the best is still Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Even though this is touted as a Christian book, Cloud's observations are valid beyond the sphere of Christianity, and his recommendations are easily interpreted into a sound Humanist framework for relationships. He's also released a number of spin-offs that may be helpful to people looking for guidance on setting healthy boundaries in specific relationships.

Asking the Right Questions -- Community

Another question that religion often seems to answer has to do with people's search for community -- a sense of belonging. Religion answers the questions, "Where can I find community? Where can I feel like I belong?" with caveats. You can find community here, if you believe the things we tell you to believe, or at least claim to. Religions are largely based on a set of beliefs, beliefs that often run counter to reality, and in order to be part of the community, you have to at least pretend to buy into those beliefs. Some people are so desperate for a sense of belonging that it seems like a pretty good deal.

A person looking for a sense of belonging enters into religious community and is told what to hope for in an afterlife, how to find a sense of purpose in service to an imaginary supernatural, and what to believe about the way the world works. It's very convenient to have someone tell you what to think, because then you don't have to go through the trouble of thinking for yourself. Some people appreciate that. So, we wind up with entire communities of people who have stopped thinking for themselves, willingly participating in a joint delusion that their emperor is wearing the latest high couture, because it's easier than wrestling with the messiness of reality.

The relationships people develop in these kinds of religious communities often wind up falling short of authentic connection, because the delusions offer easy responses to any concern that might be raised. People say, "I'll pray for you," because it's easier than actually diving into the muck of someone's pain. People say, "Trust God and it will all work out," because they have given up the capacity for taking personal responsibility in their lives. People say, "Those evil people who don't believe the same things we believe are going to hell," because it's easier to write off people who don't conform than it is to engage with people and learn from different perspectives.

And it's no wonder that people opt for easy, quick-fix answers. If they started trying to figure out the nuances of their religion's beliefs, they'd only confuse themselves. Out of one side of their mouths, religious leaders speak about infinite love, and out of the other side of their mouths, they speak with contempt for other human beings. It's more about power and influence than it is about helping people take personal responsibility for their lives, but because people have what seems like a reasonable substitute for community, they don't question it.

Of course, there are some religious leaders who say exactly what I'm saying here. They see possibilities for their tradition to take a different path that focuses on authentic connection and personal empowerment. Yet, they want to hang on to the same delusional foundations in order to create something different. They still want their communities to believe that prayer changes reality, and that a supernatural can take care of things that people are too weak to handle for themselves. It's hard to build a community of personally responsible human beings when you reinforce the belief that there is ultimately a supernatural who is in control.

Even in liberal religious communities, gaining a sense of belonging often requires conformity. It may not even be about belief in a supernatural or the power of prayer. Some religious groups require that their participants be passionate about fighting back against oppressors -- their version of "evil" people. Some religious groups expect people to use non-judgmental, politically correct language. In order to fit in and find community, people have to meet certain belief standards. While the motives may be noble, the end result is often just another set of trite phrases and pat answers.

Whether a religious community leans toward fundamentalism or liberalism, there is a tendency for individuals to stop thinking for themselves and go along with the herd. Those that don't, leave. This isn't just a feature of religious groups, of course. Groups of human beings tend toward homogeneity and mindless conformity. Religious communities amplify the issue by insisting that they know things that they don't actually know -- and often just plain aren't true. A homogeneous, mindless herd of people who believe that an all-powerful supernatural is on their side and is directing their actions can do a lot of damage.

At the same time, communities need clear identities. It's appropriate for a group to make a claim like, "We are people who first and foremost believe in shaming oppressors and fighting back against oppressive systems." Or even, "We are people who believe that prayer is an effective means of changing reality." If you share that belief in common, then you might find a sense of belonging with like-minded folks. Some groups even claim to be welcoming to everyone, but what this claim of hospitality actually means is, "We welcome anyone to come and be like us, and believe what we believe, and do things the way we do things."

Unlike the question of hope in an afterlife (which is better focused on hope in what we can do in this life), and unlike the question of purpose (which is better framed as one's decision rather than a destiny prescribed by a supernatural), the question of community and belonging is an appropriate question for people to ask. "Where can I find a genuine sense of belonging?" and "Where can I find authentic community?" are important searches that everyone engages in. Too often, though, religious communities require people to take the words genuine and authentic out of those questions, and people settle for a less than authentic community because they fear that there isn't anything else for them. People give up their own sense of personal responsibility, their own sense of self, in order to have a sense of community, because there are plenty of places that say, "You're welcome here, if you believe what we tell you to believe. You can belong here, as long as you do things the way we do things."

This question of community is worth a great deal more exploration, but for now it can suffice to say that the right framing of these questions doesn't leave out the most important words: Where can I find a genuine sense of belonging? Where can I find authentic community? We need connection with other human beings that empower us to live into a best possible version of ourselves, not restrict us to living into a best possible version that someone else imagined for us after reading an ancient text through a particularly warped lens. We need community that affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person and allows for people to deepen their own connection to their deepest, most noble selves. Our sense of belonging is most meaningful when we are able to bring our whole selves into that community and find resources to grow and develop as individuals.

As we'll see moving forward, meaningful community includes five important characteristics: (1) mutual self-disclosure, (2) mutually expressed active and unconditional love, (3) mutual hospitality -- or willingness to be of service and to receive from others, (4) mutual honesty in communication, and (5) sincere affirmation. Healthy communities also have the ability to set clear boundaries and to define a central shared purpose or vision, but boundaries and purposes that create wholeness aren't based on delusions. Meaningful community does not require belief in anything beyond humanity. Meaningful community does not need to involve a supernatural. Meaningful community is possible if a group of people chooses to be intentional about putting these ideals into practice.

Before we look more deeply at how we might locate our hope realistically, take personal responsibility for our sense of purpose, and find a sense of belonging and create meaningful community without buying into mass delusions, there is one more basic question that religious pretends to answer. We'll take a brief look at the problem of evil next. In the meantime, don't leave out the most important words in your questions. Finding meaningful answers requires asking the right questions:

How do I live in such a way that I'll be satisfied with how I influence the world around me?
What am I passionate about? What is my personal life dream that creates greater wholeness in the world?
Where do I find a genuine sense of belonging? Where do I find authentic community? 

John 10:22-42 Trailblazing

When you begin to develop your emotional maturity beyond where it has been, an interesting thing often happens. You might start to notice how many people around you are emotionally immature. It isn’t that everybody else suddenly changed. Your perspective changes when you start engaging in some deeper personal work. It can be tempting to just settle back into a comfortable level of emotional immaturity, particularly since you developed most of your relationships at that lower level of emotional maturity. If we want to cast more inspiring vision for our lives, though, we have to experience the growing pains of developing ourselves into the capacity required to journey toward what we want.

This is largely what John 10:22–42 is about. The crowd meets the Jesus character in this passage with hostility, because he’s saying things in a way that challenges their assumptions. He has insights they don’t have, and he wants to share his knowledge with them so that they might grow. Sharing insights with people who are comfortable where they are is often met with defiance, however, even in the real world of the twenty-first century. The Jesus character sets up an example for us as people growing in emotional maturity and developing a clear vision for our lives.

Primarily, he gently sticks to his insights. When you are in a room full of people who are used to doing things a certain way, and you have a revolutionary idea, that room full of people might not want to hear your innovative thoughts. Even if you have researched more than anyone else and tested theories in your own life, people may not be interested in hearing what you have to say. The Jesus character shows patience, attempts to persuade them to consider the merits of his insights, and gives the crowd a chance to let down their defenses a little bit. Then, he moves on. He doesn’t insist that they agree with him. He accepts their belligerence and moves on.

Of course, the explanations that the authors of John express through the Jesus character are a bit difficult to hear. They don’t use plain language. They use metaphors and provocative terminology. It is almost as if the way the ideas are expressed is intended to rouse the ire of the crowd. This is not an example worth following. If you want people to listen to you, use language they can hear. If you want a small band of friends who agree with you and a massive adversarial population against you, use nuanced, unclear, incendiary turns of phrase.

If we translate the words put in the Jesus character’s mouth into greater clarity, we might interpret this passage (John 10:25–38) as:

The exemplar said, “Listen, what I’m doing is well-aligned with my deepest, most noble self, and if you look at my actions, then you know my values. You don’t trust that, because you are used to living by a set of external rules. You’re constantly reacting to your own anxieties and the anxieties of people around you. The people who are connected to their deepest, most noble selves understand what I’m doing. The example that I’m setting—to live by a meaningful set of deep values—is the way to live a truly fulfilling life. Once you have lived into that level of personal satisfaction, nobody can convince you that you ought to be doing something different. What my deepest, most noble self prompts me to do is more compelling than any set of external rules or societal expectations.” 

The crowd responded with violence. The exemplar replied, “Everything I’m doing contributes to the well-being of everyone around me. With which of those actions do you take offense?” The crowd answered, “We don’t take offense at your actions, but at your arrogance. You talk about connection with your deepest most noble self and your principles like you’re better than everyone else.” 

The exemplar replied, “Do you think I consider myself uniquely capable? Do you not realize that everyone has the capacity to connect with a deepest, most noble self? To develop a compelling vision of a best possible version of oneself? Every person has the ability to clarify meaningful guiding principles and live by them with integrity. If you would choose to do so, you would act for the greater well-being as I do. You can see by my actions that my way is noble and beneficial. Your unwillingness to live by my example is what truly limits you.” The crowd wouldn’t relent in their hostility, so the exemplar slipped away.

No matter how insightful, tactful, or purposeful you are, there will be those who take insult at your intentionality and integrity. Some people will assume that because you have a vision of how you will move toward what you most want, they are somehow prevented from moving toward what they most want, even though few people have connected with themselves deeply enough to know what they actually want.

On the other hand, there will also be people who are inspired by your path. Sometimes, we have a tendency to focus more on the people who disapprove of us, the people who call our ideals or even our value into question. Chances are that there are also a few people who are ready to encourage and support us. Sometimes we may need to let them know when we need a little encouragement and support. And sometimes the people who believe in us also challenge us and help bring us back on course when we get distracted.

Part of our own challenge is not to fall into the same trap the crowd of John 10 falls into. When we see someone doing something inspiring or admirable, we might learn something from them that can contribute to our own journey. We may not agree with their reasoning or their beliefs, but if we can tell that they are contributing to building a better world, we can hopefully accept some differences of opinion in service to a greater goal. We don’t need to dismiss the good work that someone does just because they believe something different from us. In fact, we can appreciate and acknowledge someone and still challenge some of their ideas respectfully.

So, it’s important for us to find those people who are more emotionally mature than we are—who are a little further along in their journey than we are in ours. And it’s important for us to recognize that, as we move forward, a lot of people we know are going to resist that forward motion. The people who know us and approve of us as we are today would be most comfortable if we stayed just as we are today. When we grow, we can expect that some people around us won’t like it. Hopefully, they don’t actually pick up stones to throw at us, but even their words of derision or hostility can hurt. Even so, our deep values most likely steer us toward compassion and not retaliation. Most importantly, there will be people who see what we are doing and decide to journey with us, even if they are not the people we started the journey with or even the people we hoped for. 

A Little Experiment: Speak. Practice speaking what's so for you without insisting that others agree with you. It may be tempting to get defensive or "persuasive." How do others respond when you just speak for yourself? Is it different from the way they respond when you try to convince them of something?

Another Little Experiment: Focus. It helps us to grow when we have others sharpening and challenging us in a supportive and empowering way. Lots of people think they know better than you. You may receive advice or "correction" from a great many people if you're willing to listen. Not all of those people are wise, however. Consider how other people are living out their values in their own lives, and choose the people who will offer you the best consistent challenge and sharpening.

A Big Experiment: Forecasting. It is said that if we look at the people we spend the most time around today, we can see what we will be like in five years. So, take a look at the people you spend the most time around. Do they reflect who you want to be in five years? Are you being influenced in a direction that makes sense and is satisfying to you?

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.

Interlude: Good People and Bad People

Our perusal of the gospel of John has brought us to a story in which Jesus heals a blind person. Before we get into the specifics of the story, it occurs to me that some people still wrestle with questions like, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Some people might wrestle with the complementary question, "Why do good things happen to bad people?" especially in a time that once again finds wealth and power concentrated among a very small percentage of people.

In the first century, when a person was blind or otherwise impaired, it was often interpreted as a sign that that person or the parents of the impaired individual had done something wrong. Blindness was a punishment. So was leprosy, infertility, headaches, mobility issues, dementia, and just about anything else that seemed undesirable. Some people still think like this. If something is "wrong" in a person's life, that person did something to deserve it. The Bible (and the religious writings of other faith traditions) even suggests that a good person receives rewards in life and a bad person receives punishments.

This causes a quandary, however, when such thinking is challenged by reality. Sometimes bad people seem to be rewarded, and sometimes good people seem to be punished. This was even a problem for people in ancient Israel. The Wisdom books of Hebrew scripture highlight the struggle. Even as it is asserted that wise, good, faithful, honorable people will be rewarded and foolish, wicked, malicious, people will suffer, there are books that point out that this isn't always so. Job and Ecclesiastes, for example, are writings that directly wrestle with the realization that reality doesn't line up with simple expectations. Good people don't always have an easy life; bad people don't always suffer. The conclusion of Job is that Yahweh is in charge and shouldn't be questioned. The conclusion of Ecclesiastes is that we should enjoy life while we have it and trust that all will be balanced out as Yahweh sees fit.

Over time, people started to think that maybe things wouldn't be judged and balanced in this life, but that people would receive their reward or punishment after this life was over. An eternity in heaven or an eternity in hell would be the ultimate consequence of life. Good people will be rewarded, and bad people will suffer.

The New Testament expresses that we can see who the good people and bad people are by their actions. As a typical example, Matthew 7:16-20: "You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits." Another example is 1 John, in which the author proclaims that the distinguishing characteristic of "children of light" is that they live out the commandment to love. By contrast, "children of darkness" can be clearly distinguished by their expressions of hatred.

Lots of people still believe that there are good people and bad people, and they might even agree with the idea that you can tell the difference between good people and bad people by their actions. Some people are convinced that the eternal souls of good people will go to heaven and the eternal souls of bad people will go to hell. (Incidentally, this is not the message of most Christianities, but that's another matter.) We look around us and it makes perfect sense to say, "That murderer/extortionist/ rapist/thief was just a bad apple," or to be equally impressed by what a "good person" someone is when we see them being generous or helpful. This either/or mindset makes a lot of sense to our brains, and we can often make it fit with our experience if we don't look at people too closely. And it's wrong.

There are no good people. There are no bad people. The allegory doesn't hold that "good trees" only bear "good fruit" and "bad trees" only bear "bad fruit." People make choices. People are capable of making choices that contribute to the well-being of themselves and others. People are also capable of making choices that seem to benefit themselves at the expense of others. The specific actions of people might be reasonably labeled as good or bad, but then you have to define what that means. Maybe good actions are those actions that increase well-being and bad actions are those that cause harm. Some actions would seem to be neutral. The point is that every person is capable of choosing from a whole array of potential actions.

Thus, there are no good people, and there are no bad people. There are just people. People make choices. We like some of the choices that people make. We don't like other choices. We feel badly about some choices we make, and we feel happy about other choices we make. We are people. We make choices. We are not good trees or bad trees, and the fruit of our lives is a whole array of flavors.

As we are able, may we have the confidence and courage to make choices that contribute to the genuine well-being of ourselves and the people with whom we share this planet. And when we choose otherwise, may we have the humility and perseverance to try again. You are not a good person. You are not a bad person. You are a person, and you have the capacity to choose what you will do.

John 6: Fully Consuming Our Values (or how a Humanist interprets symbolic cannibalism)

As with the previous chapter, John 6 is arranged as a miracle story followed by theological commentary. It's possible to take shorter passages and comment on them as distinct ideas, but the text obviously connects the ideas of Jesus providing food for the masses and claiming to be "bread of life". While we strolled through the gospel of Mark, we took a look at some possible lessons from the story of the five thousand being fed. The version of the story in John doesn't diverge all that much from the story as it appeared in Mark, so we can perhaps just make a few comments about that miracle story and move on into this "bread of life" business.

Some have implied that the feeding of the five thousand suggests a creation miracle. This is one possibility, since there's nothing to require miracle stories to match practical reality. Certainly, the people in the story seem to think that it is an impressive trick, because the author has them pursuing Jesus to see more magic. One might wonder, though, what is the point of creating so much more than needed? Twelve baskets full of food is wastefully more than what was necessary to feed the people there. Either the character of Jesus is a poor judge of appetite, or the twelve baskets are symbolic rather than literal. As to what they symbolize, your guess is as good as anyone else's.

It is apparent from the story, however, that people are impressed enough with Jesus' ability to meet their physical needs that they want to coerce or force him into a position of leadership of their own design. Quite possibly they are revolutionaries, ready to find someone to lead them against Rome. Maybe they are less willing to work for their own well-being if there is someone for whom it is effortless. Strange that the crowds will travel great distances and inconvenience themselves in order for someone else to provide for them. Maybe we are simply meant to see these people as those who couldn't provide for themselves—people who were able to pursue Jesus around the countryside because they had no prospects for work that would provide for their basic needs. Or maybe they are just characters in a story that represent something. Maybe the reader is meant to identify with this wonderstruck crowd.

There's some indication that the Jesus character in the gospel of John is positioned as a "new Moses," a spiritual leader who is superior to Moses and who will lead the people of his generation into freedom. In the Hebrew scriptures, the Israelites are led by Moses out of Egypt and into a barren wilderness, where they eat manna (literally "what is it?"), which Moses tells them is the bread that the Lord has given them to eat. So this passage equating Jesus with a provider of food connects him to Moses covertly, but the author(s) of John make this connection explicit in the theological exposition that follows the miracle story.

Incidentally, we're more or less skimming past the bit about the Jesus character walking on water. There simply isn't much to the scene aside from a fanciful bit of Christian mythology. Perhaps this is intended to demonstrate that Jesus is God, since in a Jewish context, God is the one who controls nature. This is an understandable assertion given the beliefs of Christians, but there just isn't much else to draw from it except that Christians find their supernaturally divine version of Jesus to be compelling.

After recounting the tale of miraculous provision of bread and fish for five thousand ill-prepared revolutionaries and Jesus’ escape from their seditionist desires by walking across the sea, the author of John expresses something about the identity of Jesus and the requirements of participating in the kingdom of heaven. We might gain some insight from this passage about our own identities and how we build a better world. True to an internal formula of the fourth gospel, the author conveys this teaching through discourses between Jesus and the hungry crowd, Jesus and the Jews, and Jesus and his disciples. The distinction in these verses centers around “bread that perishes” versus “true bread from heaven.” With the hungry crowd, the author establishes that there really is no comparison between Moses and Jesus, though both spiritual leaders provided sustenance. According to John’s author, Jesus turns the traditional concept of manna on its head. No longer is manna contextualized as heaven-sent, life-giving provision, but it is rather one more example of food that perishes. Everyone who ate of the manna in the wilderness died; by contrast, there is a spiritual bread which nourishes more deeply and abundantly.

Jesus is portrayed here as cunningly insightful with regard to the crowd’s intentions. As with other conversations in the gospel of John, Jesus expresses dismay that people continually want to be amazed with signs and miracles—more eager to have things done for them through supernatural means than they are to assume personal responsibility for their own spiritual maturity. Thus, “bread” in John 6 quickly becomes about much more than physical food; Jesus suggests that preoccupation with one’s appetite for material things will cease to have priority once one gets a taste of more substantive spiritual food. An unfortunate quality of the “bread of life” Jesus offers is that it is a bit more challenging than his listeners are willing to accept, and it is perhaps a challenge to the Jewish authorities that seek to define the spiritual lives of their flocks through precise legalism. While many believers find a reflection of the communion ritual or an assertion of the redemptive power of Jesus’ crucifixion, it’s more likely that the bread of life offered here is a way of being—a path of genuine, fearless love—that threatens to undermine societal structures of control and power.

This isn’t stated explicitly in the gospel, however; the gospel writer simply has Jesus proclaim that he is the bread of life. When the Jewish authorities start to get upset that Jesus claims to have come from heaven, he exacerbates their frustration by claiming that people need to eat his flesh as if it were bread. In fact, he claims that he offers nourishment for the entire world. Jesus even goes a step further and claims that people can only experience heaven if they eat his flesh and drink his blood. At this, even Jesus’ disciples blanch (which in and of itself is enough to suggest that this passage symbolizes something other than a communion ritual, with which an early Christian audience would presumably have been familiar). Beyond that, Jesus then clarifies that he is not talking about physical nourishment but about spiritual nourishment, noting that the spiritual way of life he promoted was something that many people simply could not stomach.

Miraculous provision of food and causing a stir at the temple is all very inspiring, but people even today seem less interested in a teaching that challenges them to live with greater integrity and intentionality. Some Christian thinkers have also seen this passage as dealing with something beyond an uncontroversial communion ceremony. Martin Luther considered this discourse to be a teaching about faith. “Belief in” Jesus is what is meant by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. At the time that Luther was writing on this passage, however, it was apparently unimportant to define what it meant to “believe in” Jesus. Luther doesn’t go into specifics.

While not likely, it’s possible that the gospel writer intended to convey that faith in Jesus is the one true way to an eternal spiritual life that begins at the moment of one’s death, having little to do with one’s actual earthly existence save the singular decision to believe and perhaps the drive to persuade others to make a similar singular decision in anticipation of earthly death. The portrayal of Jesus' commandments, however, suggests something beyond a mere decision to believe. There is a call to live differently, which may or may not have any connection with a belief in an afterlife. There are behavioral implications to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus, and it is likely that the author of John had strong reasons for pointing this out to his own community.

So, we can read John 6 from a perspective that acknowledges Jesus as a model of expected behavior. In the story of the ancient Israelites, Yahweh (through Moses) had provided physical sustenance. Yet, physical sustenance does not provide life; it only delays death. Deep, meaningful, satisfying life must come from something deeper, more meaningful, and more satisfying than mere physical sustenance. Spiritual sustenance is gained through commitment to a way of being, represented here by Jesus’ life and actions. (We can also acknowledge different people who provide equally powerful examples of an inspiring way of being.)

You can’t experience abundant life in small doses, only attempting to exhibit deep love, compassion, and justice when it's convenient. Instead, you have to absorb deeply the very human identity of being loving, compassionate, and just in order to experience abundant life. In the terms of the author of John, you have to take in the very essence of the way of being Jesus represents. “Believing in” Jesus thus becomes synonymous with trusting that the way of life he promotes is possible and preferable. “Believing in” Jesus means recognizing that one must set aside all objections and fears, and consume his way of being into the deepest core of oneself. You don't have to believe that Jesus was a historical fact or that he was any more divine that anyone else in order to wholeheartedly imbibe a loving, compassionate, just way of being.

Incidentally, interpreting the passage this way also takes into consideration the author’s frustration with demands for miracles—actions that ordinary people can't perform. Expecting miracles causes people to rely on some external means of fixing their problems, an external provision of abundant life. What the Jesus character suggests is that there is some personal responsibility for abundant life, fueled internally by individual willingness to transform one’s way of being.

This is as difficult a teaching as cannibalism. Some people have managed to justify actually eating flesh and drinking blood. Fewer people have lived with fearless love as a primary guiding principle. This is an offensive suggestion for both those who have nothing and those who believe they have much to protect, as challenging a call to those people who are oppressed as to those people who benefit from the oppression of others. Living by a principle of universal and fearless love might be exactly what is intended by abundant life, and yet it seems to require more from an individual than it offers to that individual. This is why one must take in that identity completely—to figuratively consume everything about a loving, compassionate, just way of being—to believe in the possibility and desirability of that identity without reservation. Otherwise, our own doubts and fears will always stand in the way of abundant life.

We have to decide where we are in this story about us. Are you a member of the crowd waiting for someone else to be responsible for providing you with a deeply satisfying experience of life? Abundant life can't be given, it has to be lived out. Perhaps you're ready to recognize your own responsibility for living into an identity that reflects a best possible version of yourself. 

Are you in superficial agreement with guiding principles about being loving, compassionate, and just, but doubtful that you can live out those principles in the world? Our guiding principles are there to guide us. When we set them aside for what seem like more reasonable courses of action, we are letting fear get in the way of what we claim to believe. Perhaps you're ready to imbibe your principles more deeply—to take them in completely so that you draw on those values with confidence and conviction.

Are you finding it a challenge to live with integrity and intentionality by guiding principles that contribute to greater well-being in the world, because you seem to give a lot more universal and fearless love than you get in return? Sometimes we have to seek out relationships with other people who are as deeply committed to their guiding principles. And when we aren't getting what we want, it may be because we aren't asking for what we want. If it matters to you that your life reflects your deepest values, perhaps you're ready to seek out the kinds of people who will empower and encourage you in a meaningful way. These aren't always the people who have known us the longest. At the same time, no one can provide the kind of support and encouragement you most want if you don't let people know what you want and need.

A Little Experiment: Act the part. Our actions are fueled by our beliefs, and yet sometimes we have to act on our values even before we are completely confident in our ability to do so. This week, take responsibility for a behavior that reflects a best possible version of yourself, even if you think it won't go so well. If you know what a best possible version of yourself would do, then your behavior will build your confidence in that vision of who you can be.

Another Experiment: Imbibe deeply. If you've done the work in previous weeks of writing down your guiding principles, read over them every day and notice when you have opportunities to live them out. When we make decisions on auto-pilot, we are more likely to let our fear or anxiety guide us. When we are more intentional and thoughtful, our guiding principles can play a bigger part of our decision-making.

One More Experiment: Speak up. Have a conversation with someone you typically expect encouragement and empowerment from. Let that person know what you are trying to change in terms of living more intentionally and with greater integrity to your deepest values. Also, let that person know what you would like from them. They may be excited to be a part of your journey. They may say, no thanks. This can be very difficult to hear, but either way, you will know better what to expect from that relationship. 

John 5:16-47 Values and Personal Authority

After the man from last week's passage was healed, the story goes on in John 5 to describe how the Jewish leaders persecuted Jesus. In a classic case of miscommunication, the Pharisees in the story hear and interpret Jesus' words in the most controversial way possible. The Jesus of this story tries to explain himself more clearly, but the concepts he is describing are difficult to understand and his audience doesn't really want to understand. 

Even though some of the ideas the authors insert into this passage are intended as literal, we no longer find them credible. Today, some may still contend that the dead are going to rise from their graves and be judged by a mighty supernatural. While this might encourage a morality of fear in some, it is obvious that many people are not persuaded to behave differently because of this threat. Even some people who claim to believe in this sort of judgment leading to eternal punishment or reward seem quite willing to do things that most folks would consider to be evil. There is no evidence to suggest its veracity, yet people have believed it for centuries. In all that time, belief in an afterlife has not perfected humanity. So, whether or not we want to believe in the mythology presented here, it doesn't seem fruitful to consider its merits. We are very sneaky in our beliefs, and we will find a way to believe what we want, no matter what is actually written on a page or spoken by a religious authority. There is a bit of the Pharisees' mode of listening in all of us.

What can we gain, then, from this exposition? Jesus seems to be defining his connection to and relationship with God, and he seems to be doing so in a very specific context of an ancient Jewish culture. Since we are not ancient Jews, we have to reframe a few things in order to make it meaningful in our own context. Let's first take a look at exactly what is being said.

First, Jewish leaders were angry because it seemed to them that Jesus was doing something unlawful. Jesus' provocative response was that God was still at work, so there was no reason for people not to work if they chose to do so. The story suggests that the Jewish leaders took umbrage at the implication that Jesus was making himself equal to God. This is a little bit odd, since Jews referred to God as Father long before Jesus -- the Old Testament often compares God to a loving parent, nearly always in the masculine sense. So, this may say something about the authors of John.

Next, Jesus tries to explain himself more clearly, saying that people can only do what is modeled for them, and he considers God to be a worthwhile model. He promises great and astonishing works, and forecasts a future grave-emptying judgment of all people, based on their merits. That is, Jesus promises that people will be judged by their deeds. He doesn't seem to have any other criteria in mind by which people might attain life abundant.

Finally, Jesus says not to take him at his word, but to verify what he says with other reliable witnesses and by the evidence in his life and actions. He points out that people have a limited perspective, and that sometimes they maintain a limited perspective by choice, especially when they can see themselves as superior. Yet, they do not realize how their own perspective ultimately condemns them to a life that is less than what it could be. Specifically, the Jews were relying on their scriptures and their legalistic sense of morality and ethics, yet in so doing, they missed the point of their identity as human beings. 

It's easy to look down on the Jewish leaders here, especially since the authors of John paint such a hostile picture of them. We can all see in ourselves a bit of the behavior we despise in others, though. We all choose not to listen to what someone is actually saying sometimes, especially when we hear something we can pounce on or be offended by. Sometimes, we all choose to judge others more harshly than we judge ourselves. We make sure the laws and rules we live by work in our favor, and we let some of our own behavior slide, even though it is "wrong" by our own standards. And we expect other people to behave the way we want them to behave, even when they haven't agreed to our set of rules. We want to be judged based on our best days, and we want our worst days to be forgiven and ignored. Yet we sometimes hold grudges against other people, and we are loathe to let others live down mistakes. 

It doesn't have to be like that. We don't have to be like that. The problem in all of that messy behavior is that we let our fear count for more than our hope. We are afraid of all sorts of things, and we may not even realize it. Some people are afraid of being overlooked, or of being wrong, or of being caught making a mistake. Being unacceptable. Being judged. Being unimportant. Being taken advantage of. Being alone. Being mistreated. Being ridiculed. Failing. Succeeding. We're afraid of all sorts of things. If we don't manage our fears, we can't live fully. If we don't manage our fears, we can't begin to approach a best possible version of ourselves.

As much as we can see ourselves in the Pharisees' behavior, we can also see ourselves in a different light. We are first and foremost accountable to ourselves. As much as we fear about how other people see us, we can't control other people. We can be responsible for ourselves. One key way for us to manage our fears is for us to have a clear sense of who we are -- to be self-defined. When we allow other people to define us, we fail to take responsibility for ourselves. And often, we take our definition from what we think other people think of us, without ever even verifying if our suspicions are correct. Even when we know what other people think of us, though, our identity is up to us.

One way that we define ourselves is by being very clear about our values -- about the things that matter most to us. This requires a bit of thought, and many people simply don't take the time. When we know what we value most, we can set clearer boundaries for our own behavior and in our relationships with others. We will likely have to go back over our values a few times, especially if we are used to making decisions based on fear. Our first run at defining our values might be based on our fears without us realizing it, and we have to ask some challenging questions and dig a little deeper if we want to get at the principles that we most want to guide our lives. 

You may think that you have a value of keeping someone in your life happy. This is misguided. You do not control another person's happiness. What are you afraid of if this person is unhappy? What belief about yourself is underneath that fear?

You may think that you have a value of making enough money to live comfortably. What is comfortable? Is your definition likely to change as you earn more? Is there a fear of scarcity underneath that value? Or a fear that you won't be acceptable to others if you don't have a certain lifestyle? Money is necessary, but money is just a way for us to do the things we value. Money accomplishes nothing on its own. What is the actual value that will direct what you do with the money you have?

This work is not quick, and it may take a lot of introspection before you arrive at a clear expression of the things that matter most to you. We might not be accustomed to doing this sort of work. It takes a bit of adjustment from our normal way of thinking. And once we've clarified some values, it takes some practice to live by them. Reminders every morning, thinking more intentionally about our decisions, and even talking through possibilities can help us adjust to living with integrity to the values we define.

Our values are part of what I think of as a deepest, most noble self -- a piece of us that is not based on fear, but on a sense of our capability, creativity, and beauty as human beings. Our deepest, most noble selves are always present, even though we often lose connection with what it means to be fully human. We second-guess our own sense of values -- our own identities -- because our fears get in the way. Our own sense of authentic personal authority comes from our deepest, most noble self, even though we sometimes look to other things to feel a sense of authority.

We have the potential for everything that we do to be sourced by our deepest, most noble selves -- for all of our actions and decisions to be based on our real values and guiding principles. If we work toward this level of integrity and intentionality, the results in our lives and in our relationships can be astonishing. We can experience life in a new way, with less of a sense that we are victims at the mercy of our circumstances or other people's whims -- a more vibrant life in which we have a clear sense of purpose and empowerment.

None of this happens by accident in our lives. We cannot continue on auto-pilot and expect anything to change in our lives. As we listen more deeply to ourselves and consider what a best possible version of ourselves might look like, we can live more intentionally into that vision of us. We are inclined to make up stories about ourselves, like "I'm working on that issue," or "One of these days, I'll figure out how to..." We often like affirming, positive words about ourselves. We'll know that what we claim about ourselves is true by what others see in our lives and by the actual evidence in how we behave. Other people won't necessarily approve of changes in our behavior, but when we change how we do things, the people around us will probably notice. If nothing looks different about how we live, chances are, nothing has really changed about how we are living.

The idea is not to have a different set of rules to live by. We have a habit of taking rules and twisting them so that we still think it's fine for us to do whatever it is we want to do. The idea is for us to claim responsibility for our own identities, for our own actions and decisions, so that our experience of life is more fulfilling. And if we are really paying attention to our values -- to our deepest, most noble selves -- our lives are more fulfilling when we are doing things that contribute to the well-being of others. We cannot define ourselves in isolation from everyone else. We are defined in part by the way we relate to others. So, our values and our guiding principles connect to how we are in relationship with other people. 

If the Jewish leaders in the story of John 5 had their way, they wouldn't pay any attention to someone needing help on the Sabbath. Their rules were strict, and they were afraid of what would happen if the rules were not obeyed. When we set aside fear, we can more easily see people as human beings of inherent worth and dignity, and our values can direct our actions more clearly than a set of abstract rules for behavior. This is the point of understanding our values. If we have a clear sense of personal identity and a clear sense of what matters most to us in life, we can more easily make decisions about how we will connect to other people and to the world around us. It is a different way of living than simply going with our automatic reactions, and I would offer that it is a more satisfying and fulfilling way of engaging in life. 

A Little Experiment: Know thyself. This is a repeat of a little experiment from a few weeks back, when I suggested that you write down your values -- the things that matter most to you in life. These are not the ways that you think you need to protect yourself from a hostile world. These are the things that you believe would make the world better for everyone. How do you most want to show up? What do you want to contribute to a better world? Write down your values, even if you aren't living by them very intentionally right now. Read over them a few times this week.

Another Little Experiment: Find the fear. Take one of your values and examine it carefully. Is there some fear about yourself or other people underneath that value? What would that value look like if you let go of that fear? Would it still be something you hold as important? Or is there something more important to you once the fear is out of the way?

One More Little Experiment: Intentional decisions. When you are faced with a decision this week, take a moment and consider your first impulse. Is it reflective of a best possible version of yourself? If so, celebrate that! If not, what option would be a better representation of who you most want to be? What is keeping you from making a decision that lines up clearly with your values?

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.

The "G" Word

I've wrestled with using the word "God" for some time now. I know that there are some people who invent their own definitions in order to keep using the word without necessarily meaning what other people mean by the word.

"God is the space between people."
"God is a person's ultimate concern."
"God is the life force that flows through all things."

This is all well and good, except that I know when I use the word "God" without going into detail to define it, other people are going to conjure up whatever their own image of God is, and most likely they're going to have an image of God that is somehow connected to the Judeo-Islamo-Christian God. Even if they have a different image of God, it's not likely to be identical to my image of God. I keep using capital-G "God" at this point because that term has come to be synonymous with a singular higher power, most often portrayed as intelligent, willful, and benevolent, with a vengeful streak toward people who hold different opinions or lifestyles than the person doing the portraying. Given that I can't control what a listener does with the word, I generally choose not to use the word "God" (unless I'm asking a question about someone's specific claims about their image of a deity).

That doesn't mean I don't have any ideas about God. Aside from acknowledging that no actual gods exist in objective reality -- that indeed there is no credible evidence to support claims of supernaturalism -- I still have some ideas about God. Those ideas extend to any god, goddess, ancestral spirit, fairies, and so on. If I were to use the word "God," I know what I would mean by it. Maybe it's better to get over what other people will do with the word in their interpretation.

God is a word people use to describe a deep part of ourselves. Sometimes, it's easier to imagine that inner part of our being as something outside of us. It's easier to imagine talking to something external to ourselves; it's easier to imagine being comforted by something external to ourselves; it's easier to imagine being loved by something external to ourselves. Some people get so accustomed to imagining this deep part of themselves as something external to themselves that they forget that God is the inner part of their being. They start to believe that what they imagine about God being external to them should be what everyone imagines about God. It's difficult for them to see that, since God is just a word people use to describe a deep part of themselves, everyone is going to have a different image of God.

People have concocted a lot of gods, as it turns out. None of those gods are real, but they are the ideas that were evoked from the inner lives of lots of different people. People feel angry sometimes, so they might imagine a god that is angry about the same things. People are awed by nature, so they might imagine that nature has gods too, that nature has a self. People imagine gods that act and feel the way those people act and feel, and sometimes people imagine gods that act and feel in ways that those people wish they could act and feel. From within different people, many different ideas of gods have emerged. None of those external ideas of gods actually do or feel anything, but they reflect what people do and feel within the innermost parts of their being.

Sometimes imagining that God is something external can be used as a buffer. When people say that God blessed them with certain abilities, they can speak boldly about themselves without seeming egotistical. When someone says that God punished a group of people with a hurricane, that person is actually expressing personal hatred or fear about a group of people and using an external idea of God as a deflector. When people pray that a person will recover from an injury or illness, they are actually expressing their own desire for the person's recovery... which is kind of odd, when you think about it. Why not just say what one wants or feels?

I believe people don't say what they honestly want or feel because they either fear how other people will respond or they fear that they are somehow not enough in their own lives. Using the idea that God is something outside of them allows people to talk about things they would be otherwise afraid to talk about. This doesn't make God real as something outside of them. It just offers people the illusion that they are not actually talking about themselves. It provides a persona on which people can project what they want and what they feel, and this feels safer than vulnerable authenticity.

The ideas people create about gods have inspired lots of stories, and many of these stories hold incredible bits of wisdom. Unfortunately, sometimes people forget to look for the wisdom within the stories and believe that the stories are intended to represent surface-level reality. Stories become "histories" rather than legends, and histories are about recounting factual data. Stories about gods aren't about factual data; they're about the inner development of people -- about growth within a person and between people. When we recognize that God or god (or goddess) is a word we use for something deep within ourselves, then it becomes easier to look at stories about God or gods (or goddesses) as lessons about who we are rather than vessels of factual data. Stories about gods are stories about us; when we make them more than that, they become less useful.

We don't insist that other people have the same innermost being as us. We shouldn't insist that people have the same God as us. Neither is possible. Whatever God you believe in is something you have imagined. If you don't believe me, ask 10 of your adult friends to describe God (or better, to draw a picture of God) using their own words and not quoting any sacred text. How many of your friends describe God exactly as you do? This isn't a matter of blind men describing an elephant. People have different descriptions of God because people have different selves. This is a problem for some, because they expect their God to do something that isn't possible -- something that they are not capable of doing.

Our innermost beings are not capable of producing miracles in the world around us. Our innermost beings are not capable of changing other people. When we forget that God is a word we use for something deep within us -- an intrinsic part of ourselves -- we develop untenable expectations. God is a way for us to forgive ourselves for doing something that goes against our guiding principles. God is a way for us to guide ourselves toward better decisions, greater integrity, or more authentic love for others. God is a way for us to comfort ourselves in the face of loss. Having a word for that deep part of ourselves is useful. Until we make that word mean something more.

When I hear anyone talk about deity or fairies or ancestral spirits or anything of the like, I understand that they are telling me something about themselves. Sometimes translation is difficult when people become more academic in their communication, but I know that these are just ways that say things about themselves that they would otherwise find difficult to communicate. No one can ever tell me anything about God that I don't already know. No one can ever tell you anything about God that you don't already know. I can't worship anyone else's God, and neither can you. I can't know anyone else's God, and neither can you. God is a word we use for something deep inside of us, an intrinsic part of us. We can never know someone deeply enough to truly know their God, but we can appreciate that when people speak of God, they are speaking of themselves. They are speaking of a very deep part of themselves.

I may still avoid the use of the word. It's a messy word because so many people believe that it means something different than what it actually means. I may still strive to speak about what I want and what I feel in a way that is vulnerably authentic and leave God out of the conversation altogether. Should I start using the word "God," though, you'll at least have some idea what I mean. More importantly, I'll have a clear idea what I mean. It helps me listen to people sometimes, except when they insist that their imagination defines objective reality for other people. Maybe this will help you in some way, too. There are probably volumes that could flow from what I've articulated here, but the basic idea that all those volumes would flow from is still fairly simple: God is a word we use to talk about our innermost being.

Isaiah 17: Prophecies and Perspective

Again we find a biblical prophecy that is a bit of a challenge, since Isaiah 17 proclaims some events that have not, as yet, come to pass. Damascus, a city that this passage claims will be a heap of ruins, forever deserted, has been a major city since the second millennium BCE; even today, it has a thriving population and occupies an important cultural and governmental role. There are those who believe that they must defend biblical prophecy, claiming that what Isaiah predicted has simply not yet happened, but that someday it will. This is a convenient way to ensure that no prophecy can ever be demonstrated to have been false -- only to be yet forthcoming. The problem, of course, is that most people who want to put stock in prophecies also want to be able to distinguish between true and false prophecies.

Simply saying that a prophecy hasn't come true yet opens the door for all sorts of prophecies to seem warranted. We can say anything, really -- couched in the framework of a prophecy -- and it can have as much merit as prophecies from the Bible that haven't yet been fulfilled. Of course, there isn't much that we can do with such prophecies. Vague predictions with no time frame don't allow for intentional responses.

"Capitalism will fail."
When? How? What shall we do?
"I don't know, but someday it will fail."
Utterly useless.

Or even more ludicrous and yet equally warranted by these standards:
"Kangaroos will one day rule over men and usher in an era of peace."
Well, peace isn't bad, but I don't know that I want to be ruled over by kangaroos. Maybe we should just kill all the kangaroos now, just to be on the safe side.
"Ah, but the prophecy will still be tentatively true. It will just be something that hasn't happened yet."
But someone else predicts that dolphins will rule the world.
By our loose standards of prophetic veracity, of course, both can be true.

What may be more helpful is to consider what the authors of Isaiah may have been experiencing and what they were attempting to convey. As we have already seen in Isaiah, Rezin (king of Aram) and Pekah (king of Israel) threatened Ahaz (king of Judah) because Ahaz wouldn't join their coalition against Assyria. Isaiah attempted to encourage Ahaz, but the king of Judah was a bit weak-kneed. Isaiah's message about this particular crisis has been, "These rulers won't even exist in a short time." That much was true. Of course, the Assyrian Empire outlasted Ahaz, and Judah remained a vassal state. The people of Judah weren't taken into captivity by the Assyrians -- the people of Israel (the northern kingdom) were.

So, perhaps this passage from Isaiah is really just encouraging the leader(s) of Judah that Damascus isn't going to be a threat to them, whoever is on the throne. Certainly, if taken as a prediction against Damascus, one would think that it would have some bearing on the current events when the "prophecy" was written. After all, if we take the book at face value, this prophecy was intended to be heard by the people alive at that time. It wasn't intended for people thousands of years later, even though some theologians continue to come up with justifications for reading multiple meanings into the ancient texts. As it reads, this chapter of Isaiah is just false. A more generous reading, however, can recognize the intended message that people have a difficult time with perspective. Understanding the passage as a message of hope also explains the bravado of the last couple of verses, "All who stand against us shall be eradicated!"

That which is immediate to us seems urgent to us. Sometimes, that perception is accurate. Certainly, a car veering into our lane is something we should respond to as quickly and safely as possible. Quick fixes are not the ideal approach to a lot of our problems, though. We make better decisions when we manage our anxiety and consider consequences and ramifications beyond the immediate moment. We make better decisions when we are clear about who we are and what we stand for, rather than reacting to what seems like the largest threat in the moment to just make it go away and stop threatening us. The message of this passage, in part, is to recognize that what seems urgent to us in this moment may not really be all that important in the larger scheme of things.

For the ancient writers of this text, this passage is part of a call to faithfulness and righteousness. Since the people's perception of practical reality was directly connected to their supernaturalism, all of the turmoil of war surely may have seemed like the consequences of their own spiritual behavior. It was unthinkable for anyone at the time that all of the circumstances they experienced were purely the result of human beings motivated by human emotions. If we recognize divinity as an intrinsic characteristic of all people, this passage may suggest something else to us. We have no reason to fear that we're going to be decimated if we do not respect the right supernatural in the right way, but we do have some things in our lives that we could improve -- for ourselves and for the people around us.

Consider Isaiah 17:7-11 reworked:

"Someday, people will realize their innermost beings, and they will be aware of their deepest, most noble selves; they will not react to their irrational fears, the anxieties that often seem urgent, and they will not foster a sense of entitlement, the illusion that they know how everything should be. By then, it may be catastrophe that awkens them to themselves; it may be that transformation has to emerge from crisis.

"For you have forgotten your deepest, most noble self,
and have not remembered the best possible version of yourself;
therefore, though your life has some pleasure in it,

and you measure up to some external sense of who you should be;
though you appear successful by some standards,
and your coping mechanisms do their job;
yet your success will be empty,

because your deep guiding principles have been abandoned."

This passage is intended to call people back to a sense of identity -- a sense of integrity with their own claims about who they were. We still need such exhortation. We are still threatened by crises, and we are prone to react to our anxiety without any real sense of our guiding principles. We just want the sense of threat to go away. If we begin now to invest time in understanding ourselves, we can engage in the process of transformation before catastrophe requires it of us. We can become more adept at recognizing our deepest, most noble selves -- the deeply rooted guiding principles that undergird our potential to grow toward the best possible versions of ourselves. We can be more intentional in our responses to the anxieties of life.

Of course, if we are content to have really honed reflexes, to be able to react to any seemingly urgent threat that rears its head, to use someone else's definition of success in our own lives --  we can do that too. We can assume that every fear we have is true. We can be oblivious to the principles that could guide us toward a more deeply satisfying life. The point is that we have a choice.