I've been thinking about how the pendulum of leadership swings between the autocrat and the anarchist, with Aristotle's "necessary evil" (democracy in all it's guises) vying for the middle ground, I believe we should be aiming to hold together the furious opposites while keeping them both furious and opposite (as GKC put it), as both have value in the proper context.
If you read any of my musings over the last year or two, you'd know I have been wrestling with "the tyranny of institutionalized religion", or such as I perceived it. Don't get the wrong idea, I believe that we're relational creatures made to live in community, and that community needs structure. However, I consider that today's Christian institutions have, by and large, lost a chunk of perspective on leadership. This is perhaps rooted in a distortion of what a biblical hierarchy of leadership should look like, and how the current mode of leader-follower relationships is out of kilter - essentially an expression of abused authority that has resulted in communities ridden with polarized agenda with people behaving badly. Church leadership typically has only a limited legal authority over its members (at least now that the Church-state is no longer), and one outcome has been the splintering of the church into ever more denominations as individuals rebel over every (in)significant disagreement. Amoeba-like, these splinters continue to replicate all the initial problems under different labels. The bulk of today's western nation Christians are in a miserable situation - either retreating into isolation or enraged in condemnation - and have evolved into a single issue voting block with seemingly no considered thought behind their rhetoric. If it were possible, the behavior of many would frighten even Jesus, as one politically conservative evangelical leader (which is not my typical source) so nicely put it, noting: "We wonder why people are turned off by Christianity. I have news for us: it’s not Jesus who is offending people much these days. It’s us, his followers." It seems to me that there is a distortion in the exercise of leadership, contributing to a consequent aberrant behavior of Christian followers. This distortion arises where Christian structures have forgotten to live out the concept of servant leaders. In civil society they still hold onto this idea - theoretically. The concept of servant leadership is inherent in many terms such as the "civil service", and election rhetoric is usually peppered with the promise to be a "servant of the nation". Of course we know that this is seldom the case; elected officials often serving vested interests, or at worst engaged in a power grab to further a particular (personal?) agenda or satisfy an ego. Trump is perhaps the epitome of this; yet even with Trump the evangelical community trumpets rare triumphs of a conservative agenda while staying silent on every transgression of decency and never talking about the grace-less action of the leaders they elected. Servant leadership requires listening and hearing (not the same thing) in order to understand all the important things we'd really much rather not know. In the church we have often replaced servant leadership with selective hearing, a leadership that issues dictates following rule bound decisions that were formulated in an echo-chamber. There are many reasons one could cite for this, and in part this is a natural defense to the incessant complaining that leaders have to suffer through - yet that complaining is itself because those being led have been allowed no ownership of the decisions. Its a vicious circle. Deeply hierarchical leadership is marked by a lack of upstream listening. So what's the alternative to hierarchical leadership? The opposite would be something like anarchy (which often cohabits the same space as ineffectual autocracy). Instead, servant leadership can be thought of as lateral leadership - a leadership that does not depend on hierarchical power. Lateral leadership does not negate authority, but instead exercises authority in a way where what was once dictatorial has now collapsed into partnership. This requires a transparency of actions, trust between individuals, and strong communication. It is not a fast style, but creates a collective ownership of the outcome which leads to a community of strength. An analogy is the family where the parents wield authority through a close relationship with the children. The family engage together to recognize the diversity of interests, and the parents authorize the collective way forward even when disagreement remains. Of course there are some decisions that the parent must make unilaterally, but that happens within a broader family culture of trust engendered by the practice of lateral leadership. A lack of lateral leadership is perhaps why some churches attract so many passive pew-sitters waiting to be spoonfed - because lateral leadership is really challenging. Lateral leadership is Jesus leadership, Pauline leadership, leadership which owns and exercises seniority of authority in a partnership - just like a parent in a family. If more church hierarchies practiced lateral leadership, perhaps we would have fewer passive pew-sitters, more grace, less blind spots, enhanced community, and effective engagement with society. Most of all perhaps Christians would stop hating those who disagree with them, and (re-)learn compassion, become good Samaritans all over again. Afterthought: Conversely, in my workplace (science / research / academia), I recognize a tension that arises from the opposite of the above. Academics are, by nature, maverick and independent, challenging each other on the intellectual foundations, and not readily accepting any "leader". Only begrudgingly do they co-operate within an institutional hierarchy whose leaders (themselves drawn from academia) face a herculean task akin to herding cats. The more I try lateral leadership in academia, the more I find it works in this context when there is a willingness to compromise on personal priorities (but never on truth).
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Today in my twitter feed someone retweeted an inflammatory message in support of Trump.
"Click-bait" I thought, but wanting to avoid my real work for a moment I succumbed and followed the rabbit trail to its source. There I found someone so full of arrogance and self-importance it made my mind boggle; someone who had a blind spot so big you could drive all the bigotry of the world through it. I know people like that exist online, but it still twisted me inside, and made me exclaim "no wonder secular society is so derogatory of Christians". The retweet was of an original from @trumpsterMG (I'm hesitant to even include that link). By this persons Twitter ID you immediately know they are a Trump supporter, but that is not the issue. Consider first what is in this persons profile: "40 yrs ago i demanded God for wisdom only 2nd to Christ. He made it so." OK, so reading that made me breath deeply. But then I browsed their timeline of tweets and found things like:
It is so very tempting to dissect this because it is so easy to point out the deep, deep theological errors and arrogance portrayed by this person (who I suspect would have made a great 1st century Pharisee). It is an interesting challenge that would be great entertainment for an evening of pizza and wine with friends, but perhaps it is more appropriate for a psychiatrist and/or psychologist. In any case it is not a question that merits any substantive discussion here. A far more interesting question is "Why would any rational person retweet from this source?" To retweet says that you align yourself with the contents, and that you accept the credibility of the person behind the original. There are two issues here. First is that if the tweet has content that supports your own position, then a retweet is, on the face of it, warranted. But this places a responsibility on the person doing the retweet to consider the implications of such an alignment. In the case I saw today the content was retweeted by an evangelical Christian, and the content included the statement "Damned Dems want to feminize men PC IS DEMONIC AS HELL" ("Dems" meaning Democrats, and "PC" meaning Politically Correct). And I won't even ask what this person thinks about a Democrat who is a Christian. I am trying to imagine Jesus making such statements (mind boggle moment)! Second, by retweeting one is indicating support for the credibility of the original author. Imagine if a recognized and unrepentant child trafficker said something we would all agree with, like "we should be kind to one another". Or imagine if a tyrannical despot guilty of genocide said "Strong families make healthy societies". Would you align yourself with the character of a person you find reprehensible, no matter how much you agreed with the specific statement of theirs? (Imagine Obama quoting Trump as a positive authority, or Trump citing Obama as a good source!) I ask, because by doing so one communicates something about who I am as a Christian, and purports to say something about the community of Christians that I supposedly represent. Who I cite and quote implies I am citing or quoting because I see that person as an authority and acceptable to be aligned with Christianity. I am an academic; when I write a paper I cite relevant authorities on a topic, not the charlatans, however useful a single statement from them may be to my position. For in being a charlatan every isolated statement made by them rests on the body of their statements as a whole. If the body of statements are rubbish, so the authority of any single statement is lost. Such is the world of retweets. I retweet when I can deem the content and the author to be authoritative (even if I have unresolved disagreements with them). And if I make an unqualified retweet from someone of questionable character, so I align myself, and my position, and my representation of my community with that questionable context - I am in effect saying "here is an authority I can recommend". And the world sees that for what it is, and is quick to brand Christianity accordingly. I can't consciously do that to Jesus. In the end it is as one person famously said: "it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong", and if the shoe fits ... This post necessarily requires setting the stage before getting to the meat of things. If there's one thing about today's world, its the willingness to jump to conclusions. However, because people want the answer without effort, my temptation for you to jump to a conclusion is this: ... when I vote for a candidate I am not voting for the individual, but voting for how well I believe they will exercise the role they will occupy in governance, as part of the established authorities that exist independent of any specific individual, which as a Christian I obey (within limits). If you've not already jumped to a conclusion, here's the long version. It all began when I posted the following on twitter: "Was Trump elected because evangelical Christians forgot how to recognize systemic evil?" It elicited a response that said: "Romans 13:1 no, it's because God raised him up...." From there followed a brief exchange, beginning with my disagreement of this interpretation of the cited verse and evolving into a brief three-way tweet exchange between myself, the original responder, and a (rational) atheist. I concluded by saying that twitter was incapable of supporting the necessary discussion, and that I would write a blog clarifying my position. I'm under no illusion that the person citing Rom 13:1 will be persuaded by what I say here, or that the atheist will immediately becomes a Christian (much as I might desire both outcomes!) Nonetheless, I felt a need to articulate my view if only to clarify my own reasoning (which is what this blog is all about). A: Context: First, a collection of facts about me, as this may help you understand my perspective (ignore this paragraph if it bores you): I am a Christian; of course that means many different things to many people, but you could say I am aligned with the Evangelical position of faith. I don't believe in syncretism or that "all roads lead to Rome", or in a young-earth 7-day creation. I am a scientist and believe that faith is reason'able. At the same time a measure of mystery is inevitable for any finite being; not everything can be humanly rationalized, but that is no excuse for not using our reason. I think the current expression of institutional Christianity has "lost the plot", and that the global church (as a generalization) cultivates many "cultural Christians" who muddy the waters of faith and foster an isolationist mentality. I see the US expression of Christianity as somewhat of an outlier to what happens in the rest of the Christian world. I am not a US citizen, although I lived there for 4 years and visit almost annually for work and social purposes. Finally, GK Chesterton is my favorite author (read into that what you will - pun intended). B: Why I made my original tweet I am deeply troubled by Donald Trump's ethics, deceptions, ego, and his deep distortion of what it means to be a Christian. While I was in London recently (I travel too much) I went to listen to a speaker (John Peters) who leads a theologically orthodox church that is strongly engaged on Christianity in a post-Truth culture (that seems to define Trump'ism quite well). In his talk (on suffering, based on Habakkuk) he said (as a bit of an aside) the following (at 14:53): "I believe that many in the States closed their eyes to evil when they elected Trump ... I just can't get past the obvious character flaws that clearly disqualify this man from holding high office ... if people thought that Hillary was so bad ... then for God's sake and conscience sake, why not vote for a third party ... the fact that he's [Trump] there does not make it God". The principle that "the fact that he's there does not make it God" really struck home, and led to "that tweet"! You see, I grew up under apartheid, with leaders like BJ Vorster and all the associated evils of apartheid including state sanctioned murders, on a continent suffering under the likes of Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe, with personal experience of tear gas and fear, and knowing people who experienced such extremes as the Rwanda genocide. Of course I am aware of all the other big and little Hitlers of history, and one cannot ignore all the rebellions against authorities over the ages (including of course the US revolution). So for someone to say that God raises up all such people of history to their position of authority where they can exercise abuse, and that they must be obeyed ... well, that's disturbing to say the least. It does not gel with my understanding and experience of the God that I am in relationship with, nor with the general tenor and accounts in the Bible. The challenge, of course, is how then to understand the use of "proof texts" from the Bible, specifically in this case, Romans 13:1. C: The challenge put forward: Romans 13:1 Let me begin by quoting the verse: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." [ESV translation] For a start, a basic principle of hermeneutics is that a verse stands in the context of the whole Bible - in context of the communicated character of God - and the Bible has much to say on authorities. At this point I could jump to various commentaries on the verse, or cite different expositions about the verse by various people with whom I agree (or don't agree). However, that would be an argument from authority, and I don't like that. Rather, I would put down my own thinking, flawed as it might be. 1. Rom 13:1 speaks of authorities. The different translations variously speak of authorities (plural), rulers (plural), and governments, and that the authority / power is derived from God. This says two things to me: (a) that we are speaking here about the authority and not necessarily about the person occupying the authority, and (b) the less problematic and logical conclusion that if there is a creator-God, who is necessarily extra-universal (a sub-universal "god" would not be God as we conventionally understand the term), then of course any human authority derives from God. So the verse here is talking about obedience to an authority independent of which person is occupying the position. This is also, of course, subject to that authority not commanding actions that contradict the moral nature of God. An authority that commanded murder would rightly not be obeyed by a Christian. So obedience as described in this verse is (i) to the established governance, and (ii) is relative to the extent it does not command action that goes against God's will. 2. We are not robots. Now some strands of Christianity come close to implying that, even if they don't state it. Some elements of Calvinism, for example, could be argued as taking a position that because of pre-destination there is a finite scope to the responsibility of the Christian. This is the same type of thinking that leads some Christians to say that climate change is a non-issue because God is in control and therefore we couldn't destroy the habitability of the world. However, as a Christian I believe I am a spiritual being (more than the atoms that make me up) created with choice, and that by choice we have broken the intended relationship between God and this mystery that we are, a created physical-spiritual being. Now the atheist would say that there is no God, no spirit, and that we're simply biology trying to find pleasure and avoid pain - or something to that effect. But my experience, my interpretation of the evidence, and my reason preclude me from taking that position (I was a reluctant convert compelled by my reason, and have never regretted it). I know I am more than biology, but of course I can't prove that to you, just as no-one can prove I am only biology. This distinction is important because it speaks to the moral imperative behind choice. Choice for a Christian is about exercising responsibility ... choosing to implement responsibility in accordance with God's character (or not, as we so often do). For example, I have an exceptionally eclectic social circle, and my behavioral choices change with each of them, not so that I deny what I am, but because I have a responsibility to be a friend, and a friend in the normal course of interactions does not offend. Likewise, in my marriage there are "rules", but the rules come because of the relationship, they don't define the relationship. So when it comes to voting, I am (i) being obedient to authority by voting, and (ii) trying to exercise my responsibility of choice in accordance with the character of God. Now of course candidates are not perfect, but, and this is an important point, when I vote for a candidate I am not voting for the individual, but voting for how well I believe they will exercise the role they will occupy in governance, as part of the established authorities that exist independent of any specific individual, and which as a Christian I am to obey (subject to the limits as per (1) above). So my responsibility is more than simply exercising my vote, but to vote in a way that says "I believe, as best I can reason, that this candidate will exercise the God-derived authority in a way that is more aligned with God's intentions than another candidate". Here I return to John Peter's statement: "I believe that many in the States closed their eyes to evil when they elected Trump ... I just can't get past the obvious character flaws that clearly disqualify this man from holding high office". Voting for Trump has nothing to do with Rom 13:1, and everything to do with exercising my God-given responsibility to choose those who would best occupy the authority roles and positions, and to exercise that authority as best possible in accordance with God's character. I argue that voting for Trump was a vote that refrained from looking at evil, that stared only at the promises of possible benefit, and chose accordingly. I know this will upset some people, including some close friends who live in the USA and voted for Trump. I apologize if this offends you, but I can at best only be honest to what I understand to be true. Fortunately, at the end of the day all this too shall pass when both of us will "feel the blast". (listen to the video)! A song written by Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, the bands co-lead singer, purportedly prompted by how Nanna and her brother were separated onto different continents after their parents split up. 'We all live mostly blind to the landscape or terror, suffering, and misery that permeates society. Daily we extend our filter bubbles to build a castle of supposed security, thinking that if we can't see it, then it must not exist. Apparently 85% of people in the USA - where people strive to live in a comfort bubble - are unaware of famine affecting tens of millions. Yet, however much we try and hide, each of us will face those moments when we become aware of a famine inside of us. Douglas Adams describes this as the long dark tea time of the soul: In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul. I was in such a place, sitting on a plane with another 10 hours to go, trying to ignore my situation by listening to the band Tenth Avenue North (video at the end). Then a lyric grabbed my attention: "The light meets the dark". Pedantic as I am, this flipped me into a river of thought only loosely related to the song. The dark is something we all fear in our deepest being - metaphorically, that is. It occurred to me that to talk of when the light meets the dark is poor messaging - at least in the literal sense. This may seem a silly concern, but its important for how we talk about approaching that long dark teatime of our soul - times that recur more often than we'd like. To speak of light meeting the dark is to give dark a positive reality; that is, it speaks as if the dark had substance. But if that were true, then you'd be able to measure dark, to quantify it, to touch it. But dark has no substance, dark is the absence of substance. So far as dark can be said to be anything, it can be said to be a useful term for nothing - a synonym for absence. Darkness is the absence of light, and to measure dark is actually to measure a lack of light, a lack of reality, an absence of substance. (Now, I don't deny there is a reality to evil, but evil is not darkness; evil is when you leave the light, go through the darkness, and come out the other side into something that attempts to be anti-light. CS Lewis's "The Great Divorce" captures the relative realities nicely) Darkness does not exist; the long dark teatime of the soul is the place we've excluded light. Instead of saying "the light meets the dark", perhaps a more useful message is to ask "What is blocking the light?" For where there is an absence of light then there must be something causing this; darkness is a consequence of something of substance keeping out the light. In the physical world this is easy to consider: it could be a curtain, a tree, a cloud, or even the planet between us and the sun. In the song the lyric speaks of light meeting the dark, and there we're really meaning when light illuminates what is blocking the light. To block the light elevates those very obstructions into dark shapes, silhouetted against a residual paleness to form uncomfortable shapes that terrorize us. In this post-truth world of relativism and self-defined values, this is a critical understanding. We know value because, in part, we know the absence of values. You know warmth because you know the absence of warmth - we call it cold. Cold does not exist any more than does dark. Similarly, you know kindness because you've experienced selfishness - an absence of "other-awareness". Everything we are aware of is because we are aware of contrast. So on to Adam and Eve; an illuminating story indeed (double meaning intended). However you may choose to interpret the Biblical account - literally or allegorically - does not matter here. The principle is that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of a tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Until they ate of the fruit they had no knowledge of the absence of good! Yet their action became an obstruction that cast a shadow which haunts us still today, and by which we know the absence of light. This is the normative state of our lives, but not the intended state of our lives. Instead we have a life full of shadows. For light to meet the dark, to fill the shadow, the obstructions need to be removed. This is a simple enough concept. Why then is it so hard to deal with? In this age there are those who claim to know how to open up the dark spaces, but they have largely lost the ability to tell us about it. Instead they describe it in mystical terms, using arcane language, and rituals with seemingly magical incantations that appear to invoke a power at our choosing. Fundamentally, we are powerless to eradicate the dark. Show me anyone who has achieved this, and I'll show you a liar. There is a way; it requires us to accept being powerless and then let someone else do it for us. Simple words again, yet we hide this truth in institutions behind barriers to those walking the street. That's hardly a helpful approach. Why is this? Is it because we are angry at being powerless, so angry at the one with power that we cannot bring ourselves to trust. Being angry and trusting is a situation that is hard to hold together. Is it that we're so used to the dark that we fail to see what lurks there, leading us to trip and fall because of what we don't see (is this what led Christians to vote for Trump?). For the Christian the answer is simple: set aside the institutional complications, for it is really simple. The powerless has to invite help, because the all powerful will not invade. That requires trust, and that needs a conversation, and for Christians that begins with Jesus. "Before sunrise" - a beautiful dance Part 3 (at last)
The heart of conversation is an "exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas" The last conversation counts: it's the capstone to everything you've said until then. Words are so powerful that one sentence can undo years of relationship, or one sentence can draw everything together into a moment of sudden understanding. Perhaps the most important "last conversation" is the one with God (but more on that later). All conversations takes place within a power relationship, and the problem with power is that it can be used or abused, rejected or accepted, faked, assumed, neglected, protected. Each person wields a power of some form, be it physical, emotional, financial, legal, relational, gender, racial, victim, etc. And whereas the power to give or withhold friendship and love is equally in the grasp of everyone, the most pervasive power that permeates society is the power of inequality. This world loves to promote equality but gets it wrong in so many ways. The reality is that there is no equality of capacity; we are all of different capacity. Rather, the fight for equality is about respect and access to opportunity -- fundamentally its about living a reality that recognizes the equality of human value. Language can be used as a martial art - "a codified system and tradition of combat". Relationships, and therefor conversations, are steeped in unequal privilege: racial privilege, gender privilege, genetic privilege, inherited privilege, national privilege, religious privilege, and more and more. We hate to give up any privilege even if we are campaigning for equality. For example, I know I would hate to give up my frequent flier privilege ... "I've earned it" is what I tell myself, forgetting that earning it came about because of my occupational privilege which in turn is dependent on my education privilege which depended on my parental privilege ... and so on! Privilege is not inherently wrong, but privilege is a responsibility to be used and not abused. Yesterday a friend of mine who has been suffering for many years from a persistent health problem said to me "I deserve compensation for my suffering". She was not meaning financial compensation, but a compensation of preferential access to health services and care support. Immediately the conversation was complicated by an implicit power relationship; I was healthy and mobile, she was not. I was in control of my life, she was not. The temptation was to sympathize with platitudes of encouragement, yet the productive path was the harder road of empathy to try and understand how she experiences her situation. Each conversation is a duel or a dance, its our choice. There are a myriad of different types of conversation dance partners and one may quickly identify different power relationships that arise from tensions of difference - these are situations where we have to choose to dance or to fight. They may arise from quite natural and right differences - knowledge, experience, age, etc. - or they may be forced by external factors. Conversations are not about resolving tensions that are right and appropriate. It is a western concept that resolution is always the ultimate objective, that movies, music, and stories must reach a satisfying conclusion. A polarity of positions is helpful and healthy when rightly understood - like a battery that only works when you access both sides, so polarity can bring energy that leads to change. Even more, it's seldom a case of either/or. Living with personal finity means no individual has all power in any conversation; understanding the potential for a tension of difference is healthy so long as our intention is not to abuse it. a) Unequal power conversations. If I am empowered, I have authority. By virtue of having power I need to be that much more careful not to abuse the inherent differential or to limit the other person to only those roles I choose to legitimize. This happens when the empowered person has forgotten to listen, and so objectifies the other by boxing them under a label and failing to recognize that power does not equate to wisdom. It may well be that in relative weakness one more clearly sees an issue in its raw nakedness, while the empowered has spent so many years dressing up the issue that they've lost sight of what it really looks like. Power can be blinding to the person empowered. Think what this means in conversations between male and female, cross-culturally, boss-employee, black-white. It is very hard to step away from the perspective of living with privilege in order to listen to the other side. Even when we have past experiences to draw on, our memories easily sanitize that experience and we lose our conversational ability to empathize - we stand in our position of privilege and fail to engage in productive conversation. Yet the "weaker" partner is not without resources; words are powerful, and so thoughtful, insightful, and considered engagement can quickly neutralize any abuse of power - so long as the empowered is willing to listen. b) Equal but differentiated power relationships. Conversations with peers and friends are the most common example, and they're the backbone of our lives, or should be. There may be differentials in experience or knowledge, but they're accepted because each have different strengths and weaknesses. This type of conversation is the type that most easily evolves into a dance of intellects rooted in mutual respect. Although often age defines what is considered one's peer, it may also be defined by similarity of experience or context ... where there's a shared belonging this inculcates a presumed trust and opens up conversations. Peer conversations thrive when each is secure in who they are. The danger, ever present in any conversation, is that each of us has an element of ambition to be the stronger, to be the "winner". In some ways Facebook, Snapchat, and most social media encourages this dark side, abusing our insecurities about appearing to be less happy, pretty, or successful than one's peers. c) Absolute power differential. There is possibly no perfect example of this form of conversation between two humans, a conversation between the powerless and the all powerful - for it defies comprehension about what a conversation really means. Really the only example of this form of conversation is between us and God. Of course, if you don't believe in God, then this is an abstract concept. But if you, as I do, believe in a God who engages in conversation, it is important to consider this. When one is powerless, conversation happens only through the grace of the all powerful to allow it to happen. And this can only occur when God empathizes ... for no empathy can only result in communications of dictate. There is much to be learned from this about our human conversations: empathy is necessarily the heart of true conversation. God empathizes with the powerless - and he empathizes not merely because he knows all, but he has experienced it all in Jesus. On the other side of the coin we glimpse a fraction of how inadequate we must seem from God's perspective if only we have the courage to consider it. And so a door is opened to conversation. Without this mutual empathy, however limited it may be on our part, all that would be is what we so often see - a ranting and railing at God, the sort of temper tantrums we come to expect from a Richard Dawkins or Stephen Fry. Talking with God is a cross cultural conversation. We are so quick to presume our culture, impose our culture, when we talk with others, and this is a source of huge conflict and mis-understanding. For example the attempted conversations between LGBT and conservatism, patriarchal and feminist positions, racism or nationalism, are all born of an insecurity that kills empathy. Magnify that trauma a thousandfold and you see why humans struggle to hold a conversation with God; we are so hell-bent on resisting a conversation where we have to begin by accepting that it is the powerless talking with the absolute power. When one is powerless, more than empathy is required; we need to know our powerlessness in order to enter a conversation, and we need trust to sustain the conversation. A side excursion while writing part 3 of conversations A. The negative framing:
Daily I seem to walk through a minefield of word bombs, daily it seems I am slightly maimed, and perhaps daily I maim others. We're all anarchists in some dark corner of the soul. I defy anyone to claim otherwise. We all use our words to try and break the power of another, or exert our power over the other. While in another dark corner we're crying in pain from the actions of the anarchists that surround us - our tears are evidence of the pain they've inflicted. And in our futile and sometime infantile attempts at retaliation we proceed to lay our own little word bombs. More than ever, such is the nature of our technological age: a landscape of word bombs both intentional and accidental that lie like unexploded mines inside emails, text messages, and social media threads. Little explosives that lack any neutralizing coating of context, naked words and phrases exposed for injurious misunderstanding or passive aggressive abuse. Just think: how many times in a day do you feel the sting of a word bomb. Maybe a few words in a text message on your phone, a few sentences from a child to parent, a chiding criticism from a parent to child, a throwaway comment from a colleague, or even words from a relative stranger on your facebook page. This torrent of words is like a plane seeding a field with thousands of tiny anti-personnel mines. The "speaker" does not give context for their thoughts, the "listener" fails to consider the contexts that apply - all because the flow of words is so fast that no-one invests the time to craft their language for fear of being left out of the loop. Context creates knowledge out of the particles of reality; divorced from context words are no more than facts isolated from any real meaning, and sometimes not even that. Sometimes they are mere figments of imagination. B. A less negative framing. Daily I walk through a forest of words that provide a feast; little explosions of sustenance. Each can shower me with a spray of insight, vision, clarity - confirming in new ways the subconscious feelings for which I've never been able to find the right expression. These come innocuously hidden in songs, buried in a text, even inspired by an image. But this forest is both growing and dying; choked by weeds of meaningless rhetoric, full of barbs and thorns that strip our mental capacities to reason and leave us naked. A vacuous discourse of unsubstantiated yet deeply alluring opinion that stands in strong contrast to the texts of yesteryear. A writer today may take three pages to say what a yesteryear author would pack into a single paragraph, even into a single sentence. They do so because the audience desires to be spoon-fed a puree of language that leaves them satisfied, yet with nothing to chew on. When did you last read something that made you stop and pause because the richness of the text took your breath away. When did you last savor a single word or phrase because it came wrapped in a context that imbued it with such meaning that a door opened in your soul and the the words said "I see what's in here". This is a depressing age for literature and the arts - a deluge constructed from cloning; a pervasive, automated, and veritable jungle of forgettable fuss. Nonetheless, there are no less fruitful gems to be found than before, only now they are hidden amongst this morass of meaningless relativism. Just as we fill our landfills with garbage and the packaging of trinkets, just as we pour a river of plastic into the ocean and strangle the life of the sea, so we are slowly suffocating the glowing coals of wisdom. I'm no better than others; I contribute my share of garbage. But when I read a good timeless text, and find myself pausing after every paragraph because of how it opened a door to insight, so then I lament for what's being poured into the open mouths and minds of the people of today. And then I ask myself: "what is the source of wisdom?" |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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