Introspection: Showing Myself Grace

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Showing Myself Grace

May grace and peace be yours in abundance.

1 Peter 1:2 (NRSV)

Come sit at the table

Come taste the grace

From "Come as You Are" by Crowder

When I arrived at church one Sunday morning last month, I was reminded that there was a potluck luncheon in the gym immediately after the service.  Though I had signed up one week earlier to indicate that I would be attending, I had forgotten to prepare a dish to contribute.  Because I had not brought anything, I figured I should probably skip the luncheon.  It was a potluck after all, meaning that, if I forget to bring a pot, I'm straight out of luck.

Normally, I'm happy while I'm at church, but that morning I was in a funk for most of the service because, thanks to my thoughtlessness, I was going to miss out on the church luncheon.  After the service I would head home and most likely spend the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself.

As I listened to the sermon that morning, I kept hearing about people sitting down at the table together to eat as a family.¹  I began to consider that, when it came to the church luncheon I was planning to skip, perhaps what mattered the most is not that I paid my entry fee by bringing a dish but that I was at the table with my church family.  I knew that nobody from my church would bar me from attending the luncheon because I had forgotten to bring something, and I knew that I would never bar someone else from attending a church luncheon if he had forgotten to bring something or was unable to bring something.  Why should I not extend the same grace to myself?

I decided to attend the church luncheon, even though I had not brought a dish.  I think I made the right choice, because I enjoyed spending some time with my church family.  I still wanted to contribute in some way, so I made it a point to stay behind and help clean up the gym after the luncheon.

Please note that I don't intend to make it a habit to attend church potlucks without bringing anything.  If nobody brought anything to a potluck, there would be nothing for anybody to eat, so, if one is able to bring something, then one should do so.  What I am suggesting is that being present is more important than getting it right.  A church potluck is an economy of abundance.  People tend to bring more food then they could eat on their own, so there is typically more than enough food to feed everyone.

I think that luncheon was, for me, a lesson in grace.  I had to show myself grace in order to eat lunch with my church family.

Grace is a free gift.  It is something we can never earn, something we'll never deserve, and something we can never repay.  We can only receive it for ourselves and then gratefully extend it to others.  I think that many of us, myself included, tend not to extend to ourselves the same grace we would extend to other people.  If God is gracious to us, then why should we not be gracious to ourselves?  If we believe that grace is meant for everyone except us, then I'm not sure we really believe in grace at all.

If we cannot extend grace to ourselves, then how can we accept grace from anyone else?  How can we accept grace from God?  May we learn to receive the grace given to us; may we learn to pass along that grace to others; and may we learn to give ourselves grace as well.


Notes:

1. Jonathan Tompkins.  "A Traveler's Rest, Part 2."  Travelers Rest United Methodist Church, 08/12/2019.

The photograph featured in this introspection was taken by Pixabay user congerdesign.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Perspective: Weeds and Fig Leaves

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Weeds and Fig Leaves

The Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"

The man replied, "I heard your sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself."

Genesis 3:9-10 (CEB)

I am not a stranger to the dark

"Hide away," they say

"'Cause we don't want your broken parts"

I've learned to be ashamed of all my scars

"Run away," they say

"No one'll love you as you are"

From "This Is Me" by Pasek and Paul

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a story about a landowner who plants wheat in his field.  One night, someone hostile toward the landowner plants weeds in the field.  One day, the household servants report that weeds are growing alongside the stalks of wheat.  They ask the landowner if he wants them to pull up the weeds, and he replies that, if they pull up the weeds, they will inadvertently uproot perfectly good stalks of wheat as well.  He decides that the best course of action is to wait until the harvest and to have the harvesters separate the wheat from the weeds and dispose of the latter.¹

Jesus tells the Disciples that the field represents the world, that the stalks of wheat represent children of the Kingdom of God, and that the weeds represent the children of the devil.²  A lesson we can glean from this parable is that we need to leave the judging to God.  If we take it upon ourselves to decide who is a child of God and who is a child of the devil, we will end up hurting children of God.

I've found that this parable, when applied in a different way, can also serve as a good analogy for perfectionism.  Suppose that the field represents not the world but rather your life.  The wheat would represent the good things in your life, while the weeds would represent the things in your life you don't particularly want other people to see.  When you try to make your field more presentable by pulling up the weeds, you risk uprooting the wheat as well.  In other words, when you try to hide the parts yourself you don't want other people to see, you run the risk of preventing others from appreciating the best parts of you.

Perfectionism, I think, is one of those problems in life that are best viewed not as problems but rather as attempts to solve deeper problems.  Perfectionism is actually a strategy some people use for dealing with shame.  Shame is essentially the fear that, if we allow other people to see us as we are - "weeds" and all - we will be ridiculed, rejected, or abandoned.  Perfectionism then is the idea that, if we can at least appear to do everything right, nobody will ever have any reason not to accept us.³

Researcher Brené Brown, who has written at length about things like perfectionism, shame, and vulnerability, writes,
Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be your best.  Perfectionism is not about healthy achievement and growth.  Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame.  It's a shield.  Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from taking flight.⁴
Brown goes on to say that striving for excellence is concerned primarily with how one can improve and that perfectionism is concerned primarily with what other people think.⁵

I suspect that for many of us, myself included, perfectionism is less about correcting our imperfections and more about hiding them from others.  In my own experience, my fear of being deemed unacceptable has kept me from being seen at all.

Perfectionism doesn't work, because - aside from the fact that perfection is unattainable - no attainable degree of perfection, be it real or faked, can entitle a person to be accepted.  If someone doesn't want to accept another person, he doesn't need to find some imperfection in the other person.  If he cannot find one, he will make one up, turning any part of the other person into an imperfection.  If we're going to be rejected by others, we may as well be rejected for who we are and not for who we pretend to be.

When it comes to the "weeds" in our life, maybe it's not our job to fix ourselves but rather God's job to transform us into who we were created to be.  Maybe we're not always the best judges of what needs to be changed in our lives in how it needs to be changed.

In the Book of Genesis we read that, when God creates the first humans, God makes them the caretakers of a garden.  God tells them that they are allowed to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, with the exception of one particular tree.  Naturally, the humans do the one thing they are forbidden to do.  When they eat the fruit, they suddenly realize that they are naked.  In other words, they feel vulnerable or exposed.  In their shame, they try to cover themselves with fig leaves, and, when they hear God walking in the garden, they hide.  God calls out, "Where are you?"⁶

In the Gospel of John, we read about a woman who meets Jesus at a well.  This woman, who has a string of failed marriages in her past, has walked to the well at the hottest part of the day because she is trying to avoid the other women in town.  Jesus offers her "living water" that will never leave her thirsty again, and, when she expresses an interest in this water, Jesus tells her to go back home and bring her husband to the well with her.  She says that she has no husband, and Jesus says, "You are right to say, 'I don't have a husband.'  You've had five husbands, and the man you are with now isn't your husband.  You've spoken the truth."⁷

When the first humans hide from God in the garden, God calls out to them.  When the woman at the well tries to keep a certain part of her life a secret, Jesus drags it out into the open.  God's response to our shame is to call us out of hiding.

The walls we build to protect ourselves, including perfectionism, inevitably become the walls that imprison us.  There is no proverbial silver bullet that can kill the monster of shame.  To quote the refrain from a certain children's book, "We can't go over it.  We can't go under it.  Oh no!  We've got to go through it!"⁸  Our only hope to overcome shame is "exposure therapy."  In other words, we must become vulnerable.  We must allow ourselves to be seen for who we are and risk being rejected in the hope that we are accepted.


Notes:

1. Matthew 13:24-30
2. Matthew 13:36-43
3. I think it is only right to note that I owe my understanding of shame and it's relationship to perfectionism to Brené Brown.
4. Brené Brown.  The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.  2010, Hazelden Publishing.  p. 56
5. ibid.
6. Genesis 2:15-17; 3:6-10
7. John 4:7-18 (CEB)
8. Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.  We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  1989, Walker Books.

The photograph of the wheat was taken by Magnus Rosendahl and has been released to the public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Sermon: One Thing (2016)

Delivered at Trinity United Methodist Church in Laurens, South Carolina on July 3, 2016

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

One Thing

Audio Version

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

So he told them this parable:

"There was a man who had two sons.  The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.'  So he divided his property between them.  A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.  When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.  So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.  He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.  But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'  So he set off and went to his father.  But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'  But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one — and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.

"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.  He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.  He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.'  Then he became angry and refused to go in.  His father came out and began to plead with him.  But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!'  Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"

Luke 15:1-3,11b-32 (NRSV)

My chains are gone, I've been set free

My God, my Savior has ransomed me

And like a flood, His mercy rains

Unending love, amazing grace

From "My Chains Are Gone" by Chris Tomlin

One major criticism lobbed at Jesus involved the type of company He kept.  One day, when Jesus hears some of His detractors criticizing Him for associating with so-called "sinners," He begins telling parables to help people to see that He, the Son of Man, "came to seek out and to save the lost."¹  Some people refer to these stories as the "lost parables."  First, Jesus tells a story about a shepherd who leaves behind ninety-nine well-behaved sheep to find the one that went astray.  Next, He tells a story about a woman who turns her house upside-down looking for a lost coin.²  Finally, He tells a very powerful story about a rich man who has two lost sons.


The Prodigal Son

The story begins when the younger of the two sons approaches his father and asks for his share of the family fortune.  This request is tantamount to asking his father to drop dead, but, in spite of this display of utter disrespect, his father gives him what he wants.  The young man then leaves his home, moves far away, and begins to live a life of "wine, women, and song."  Eventually his money dries up, and he can no longer afford his hedonistic lifestyle.  Then, to make matters worse, a famine hits the land, and he begins to go hungry.  With no other options, he takes a job working for a pig farmer, a job not fitting for someone who was raised in a Jewish home.

As the young man turns a lustful eye towards the junk he's feeding the pigs, he remembers how well his father treated the household servants.  He then hatches a plan to go back home and beg his father to let him return, not as a son but as a hired servant.  As he nears his home, rehearsing what he is planning to say, his father sees him from a distance and runs out to embrace him.  The son tries to make his spiel, but the father won't listen.  Instead, he calls his servants and tells them to dress his son in the finest clothes they can find and to prepare for a welcome-home party.

Meanwhile, the older son is out taking care of his father's estate, and he hears music and dancing.  He asks one of the household staff what is going on, and he learns that his brother has returned and that his father has thrown him a party.  The older son is enraged.  His worthless brother leaves home, squanders his inheritance doing God knows what, and then comes home to be treated like a king!  He, on the other hand, has never given his father any grief whatsoever and has even spent years busting his hump working for him.  His brother leaves home and does nothing but party and then comes home to yet another party.  Is there no justice? he thought to himself.  I'm the one who does all the work around here!  I'm the one who deserves a party!

The older son confronts his father about this gross injustice, and the father says, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found."

If you took a poll, asking people which of Jesus' parables is their favorite, I would wager a guess that the Parable of the Prodigal Son would be either the most popular answer or a close second.  It is not hard to see why so many people love this story.  It is the type of parable that comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.  It can be a great comfort to anyone who has ever identified with the wayward younger son, for it reminds us that, no matter what we've done, God is always ready to welcome us home with open arms.  At the same time, though, this parable can be deeply discomforting, like so many of Jesus' teachings, because, if we let it, it just might throw a light on some parts of ourselves we would probably rather not see.

One thing I personally like about this parable is how fun it is to psychoanalyze the two sons.  It is probably a safe assumption that the older son has what pop psychology calls a Type A personality.  People with Type A personalities can be described as organized, ambitious, and competitive and are often prone to hostility, irritability, impatience, and stress.  Perhaps the younger brother has a Type B personality.  Someone with a Type B personality is much more easygoing, preferring the enjoyment of life over personal achievement.³

Though we tend to focus on the differences between the two sons, it is important to consider what they have in common.  Neither son seemed to enjoy life at his father's house: the younger son could not wait to receive his inheritance and leave, while the older son thought of himself as a slave.  The main difference between the two is that the older son stayed and did what he was supposed to do while the younger son left and did what he actually wanted to do.  I wonder if maybe the older son's rage did not really come from disgust toward his brother's lifestyle.  I wonder if he was actually envious that his brother actually got the chance to leave home and enjoy his life, while he stayed at home and resigned himself to a life of slavery to his father.  In the words of one preacher, "Maybe the one you've lost is sleeping in your own house."⁴

I wonder if the two sons were both haunted by what my friend Laura calls perceived expectations.  In other words, I wonder if deep down they thought that their father had unreasonable expectations of them.  The older son spent his life striving to earn his father's approval, while the younger son gave up on ever earning his father's approval and simply left home to enjoy life.  Both sons thought of life at their father's house as a life of slavery, but perhaps the two were slaves to nothing but their own flawed perceptions of their father.  When the younger son returns home, hoping to be hired as a worker, his father puts a robe on his shoulders and throws him a welcome-home party.  When the older son objects to his father's gracious treatment of the younger son, the father says, "What's mine is yours."  These are hardly the actions of a slave driver.

I think that some Christians are spiritual Type A's.  Like Jesus' critics, they toil and struggle and strain to please God while setting themselves apart from so-called "sinners."  They turn up their noses at people who live for the moment, reminding themselves that, though others may enjoy their lives now, they will enjoy a much greater reward later on.  Deep down, they're miserable.  The God they strive to please seems to remain hopelessly out of reach.  They beat themselves up on the inside because they cannot measure up to the expectations they assume God has for them.⁵  They envy and resent free-spirited people who seem to enjoy their lives with no apparent trace of guilt or shame.  I know that such Christians exist, because I have been one.


The Prodigal Daughter

In the Gospel, there is another story about a pair of siblings who have conflicting Type A and Type B personalities.

Jesus was very close with a certain family who lived in the town of Bethany.  In this family were two sisters named Mary and Martha and a brother named Lazarus, who apparently had some health problems.  This family was apparently financially comfortable, though not necessarily rich.⁶  We know that Jesus occasionally stayed with this family as He traveled, proclaiming His message about the Kingdom of God.

One evening, while Jesus is staying at this family's house, Martha is busy preparing dinner.  She is keenly aware of everything that is expected of her, as a host and as a woman, and, for some reason, things just aren't getting done.  With society's expectations weighing heavily upon her, she becomes angry with her sister Mary for not lending her a hand.  When Martha cannot take the stress any longer, she loses her temper, walks over to where Jesus is teaching, and interrupts Him, saying, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself?  Tell her then to help me."⁷

While Type-A Martha has been doing her best to be a good host to Jesus, Type-B Mary has been sitting at His feet, listening to Him teach.  In our society, Mary might come across as inconsiderate of her sister, and perhaps a bit lazy, but the world was a very different place when Jesus walked the earth.  In Jesus' day, when a rabbi taught, His disciples sat at His feet and listened.  Women were not educated at the time, so they wouldn't have been chosen by rabbis to be disciples.  By sitting at Jesus' feet, Mary has basically declared herself to be one of Jesus' disciples.⁸  Apparently, Mary has a lot of nerve and no regard for her place in society.

I believe that Mary of Bethany could rightfully be named the "Prodigal Daughter."  Most people incorrectly think that the word prodigal means "wayward."  In one sense, Mary was wayward like the Prodigal Son, because she threw aside everything that was expected of her to do what she wanted to do.  The word prodigal actually means "extravagant."  On another occasion when Jesus and his disciples are staying with the family in Bethany, Mary barges in during dinner, breaks open a very expensive jar of perfume, and pours the perfume all over Jesus.  Some theorize that this jar of perfume, which is worth about a year's wages for a common worker, may have been a gift from her parents to provide for her future financial security.⁹  Then, in an act that would be considered extremely immodest in her day, she lets her hair down and wipes Jesus' feet with it.¹⁰

Mary was shameless and wasteful, just like the Prodigal Son.

As a host, Mary was supposed to help her sister with the housework; instead she sought spiritual enlightenment at the feet of Jesus.  As a woman, she was supposed to be modest; instead, she did things that were considered indecent and wasteful to express some of her deepest feelings.  Mary was not willing to simply be the person her family and her society thought she was supposed to be.  She refused to be a slave to perceived expectations, and she was true to herself.

Mary followed her heart, and Jesus commended her for it.

When Martha tells Jesus to make Mary do what she is supposed to do, Jesus replies, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."¹¹  When one disciple chastises Mary for wasting the expensive bottle of perfume, Jesus comes to her defense.  In one version of this story, Jesus says, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her?  She has performed a good service for me...  Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."¹²


"There Is Need of Only One Thing"

So what is the "one thing" Jesus said was needed - the "one thing" Mary chose - the "one thing" that would not be taken away from her?

St. Paul writes in one of his letters that he has been tormented by something he calls a "thorn in the flesh."¹³  He never states exactly what this "thorn in the flesh" is, but there has been a lot of speculation.  Many think he is probably referring to some sort of physical ailment, perhaps weakening eyesight.  I wonder if Paul might be referring to something else, something he apparently doesn't want to put into writing.  Though the word flesh might refer to a person's body, it is also used in the Bible to refer to the ego or the self.  In another letter, Paul laments, "I'm sold as a slave to sin.  I don't know what I'm doing, because I don't do what I want to do.  Instead, I do the thing that I hate."¹⁴  I wonder if Paul had some sort of character flaw or moral failure that he just couldn't seem to overcome.

If this is the case, then perhaps perceived expectations also weighed heavily on Paul.  He wasn't living up to his own expectations, and perhaps he thought that he wasn't living up to God's expectations either.  Paul was a leader in the Church, so perhaps he felt that he wasn't living up to his calling.  I wonder if maybe he felt the need to maintain what one seminary professor called the "pastor's mystique."  Nobody wants to know that pastors aren't perfect, so sometimes pastors feel the need to constantly guard themselves lest people discover their faults and failures and lose all respect for them.¹⁵

Paul realizes that he cannot overcome his problem on his own, so he begs God to take it away from him.  He prays three times, and things do not get any better.  In Paul's life - as in Martha's kitchen - things just aren't getting done.

Finally, Paul hears God say, "My grace is enough for you."¹⁶

God basically says, "Paul, your 'thorn in the flesh' is not going away.  You are never going to live up to anyone's expectations, not even your own.  But that's alright.  You don't have to be perfect.  I love you, and I accept you just as you are, 'thorns' and all."

I wonder if perhaps the "one thing" Mary received was grace.  Sometimes we think of God's grace as the power from God to do better, but perhaps grace is something altogether different.  According to theologian Paul Tillich, "Grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to men and to society."  Tillich describes God's grace as that which calls out to us in our darkest moments, saying:
You are accepted.  You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know.  Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later.  Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much.  Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything.  Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!¹⁷

Mary was able to flout the world's expectations of her and follow her heart because she had accepted God's grace.  She had accepted that she was already loved and accepted by God.  Accepting God's grace gives us freedom,

• freedom from perceived expectations,
• freedom from the rat race that has engulfed the world around us,
• freedom from the words supposed to,
• freedom the fear of getting it wrong,
• freedom to be who we were created to be.

It's no wonder that the words grace and peace are so often coupled together.  Accepting God's grace gave Mary the freedom to be who she was created to be, a disciple of Jesus Christ.  Mary's place was not in the kitchen but at the feet of her Rabbi.

Sometimes we find ourselves carrying burdens we were never meant to carry, by trying to live up to expectations we were never meant to meet.  We cannot please everyone, and, if we try to meet everyone's expectations, we will become slaves to every person we meet.  For some people, perceived expectations have even become a religion, for they have projected unreasonable expectations onto God in the same way that the two sons in Jesus' parable projected unreasonable expectations onto their father.  Christ said,
Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.¹⁸
If our religion feels more like a millstone around our necks, then something has gone horribly wrong.

Like Mary of Bethany, we are all called to be disciples of Jesus Christ, but each one of us is called to follow Christ in a way that is unique, personal, and natural.  According to C.S. Lewis, when we serve God, we actually become more ourselves than we ever were.¹⁹  I believe this is why Christ says that His yoke is easy.  One recent translation of the Bible paraphrases Jesus' words in this way: "Put My yoke upon your shoulders - it might appear heavy at first, but it is perfectly fitted to your curves."²⁰  Frederick Buechner writes, "The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."²¹  A life of slavery and conformity is the last thing God has in mind for us, so don't make your life any harder than it already is!

Grace allows us to cast aside all the expectations of the world around us; grace gives us the freedom to follow our hearts and the freedom to become fully who God created us to be; and grace welcomes us home those times when following our hearts lands us in a pigsty.  If you have been carrying around the heavy burden of people's expectations, may you fully accept God's grace.  May you accept that you are already loved and accepted by God, and may this love and acceptance bring you peace.

Grace and peace be with you.

Amen.


Notes:

1. Luke 19:10 (NRSV)
2. Luke 15:4-10
3. Wikipedia: Type A and Type B personality theory
4. Kent Dobson.  "Parables: Prodigal Son."  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 06/21/2015.
5. David Seamands describes such Christians in Healing for Damaged Emotions. 1981, David C. Cook.  p. 15
6. Frank Viola.  God's Favorite Place on Earth.  2013, David C. Cook.  p. 17
7. Luke 10:38-40 (NRSV)
8. Wikipedia: Mary of Bethany
9. Viola p. 139
10. John 12:1-8
11. Luke 10:41-42 (NRSV) (emphasis mine)
12. Mark  14:6,9 (NRSV).  Yes, I realize that Mark's account of Jesus' anointing does not identify the woman anointing Jesus as Mary of Bethany, but I really like Jesus' response in this account.
13. 2 Corinthians 12:7
14. Romans 7:14-15 (CEB)
15. Craig Groeschel.  Dare to Drop the Pose: Ten Things Christians Think but Are Afraid to Say.  2010, Multnomah Books.  pp. 9-10
16. 2 Corinthians 12:8-9
17. Paul Tillich.  The Shaking of the Foundations.  ch. 19
18. Matthew 11:28-30 (NRSV)
19. C.S. Lewis.  The Screwtape Letters.  ch. 13
20. Matthew 11:29 (The Voice)
21. Frederick Buechner.  Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC.  1993, Harper One.  p. 119

The Return of the Prodigal Son was painted by Pompeo Batoni in 1773.  Christ in the House of Martha and Mary was painted by Johannes Vermeer in 1654.  The Sharpie tattoo on my left forearm was badly drawn by me in 2013.

Introspection: Living in the Dissonance

My charity: water campaign will be open until the end of June.  If you are interested in contributing to this cause, please check out this link:
Clean Water for Tony's Dirty Thirty.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Living in the Dissonance

They are double-minded, unstable in all their ways.

James 1:8 (CEB)

I saw you pray for change

And then you walked all over me

You wanted what you could not have

And now you are alone

From "The Pursuit" by Evans Blue

I have never visited a psychiatrist for a professional diagnosis, but I'm reasonably certain that I have some form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).  Looking back, I can see that I've exhibited obsessive-compulsive tendencies ever since I was very young.  For example, I remember times from my childhood when I felt as though I needed to say "hello" and "goodbye" to every person I saw.

As someone who attended Christian schools until his high school graduation, I was required to attend chapel services at least once every week.  During one chapel service, when I was in second grade, the pastor requested that, whenever we see a piece of trash on the ground, we pick it up and throw it away.  This was a reasonable thing for him to ask, but unfortunately I took his request a little too seriously.  I remember missing out on significant portions of recess periods because I was too busy picking up tiny pieces of trash and walking them to the trash can.

I'm starting to think that was not exactly what the pastor had in mind.

If you read my introspections from last year, you may or may not have picked up on the fact that I was in a rather bad place when I wrote them.  For me, 2013 was a year marked by stress, anger, frustration, pain, and discouragement,¹ and beneath it all was a sense of personal failure.  I have spent much of my life resentful because I felt that certain people in my life didn't treat me as I thought they should have, yet, when I found myself in their shoes, I discovered that I didn't respond too much better than they did.  I wrestled with God; I wrestled with others; and I wrestled with my shadow self.

A psychologist might use the term cognitive dissonance to describe what I've been feeling.  Cognitive dissonance is the internal conflict a person experiences when he realizes that his beliefs are inconsistent with his actions or desires.²  In my case, I discovered that I was unwilling - or perhaps unable - to do for others what I had wanted other people to do for me.  In the past, I was an emotionally needy person who felt as though his emotional needs were constantly unmet, yet now I actually find myself running away from people whom I think want too much from me.  Once, I felt as though people owed me something, but now I feel as though I'm the one who has gone bankrupt.

This conflict has shaken me to the core, and my self-image has become blurry.  There was a time when I believed that, in the dramatic production that is my life, I was cast as a lovable loser or a heroic underdog.  Now I feel like I'm playing the part of an arrogant, self-serving antihero, if I'm even playing a protagonist at all.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, then you know that there was a time when I was considering a future as a pastor.³  I love to preach, and I love to teach, but I can't say the same about pastoral care.  Given my apparent tendency to bail out on people who seem to be depending on me, I feel as though I probably shouldn't become a minister if I'm unwilling to minister to people.

People who are experiencing cognitive dissonance generally seek to resolve the conflict they feel inside so that they may restore a sense of consistency within themselves.⁴  Looking back, I think that a lot of my writing from last year came out of an attempt to accomplish this.⁵  In my case, I have two options.  Either I can repent of my failure and try to do what I think I'm supposed to do no matter how badly I don't want to do it, or I can rethink what people should be able to expect from each other.  So I keep asking myself,

Did I fail to be there for other people in the same way that other people failed to be there for me?

Or did I expect too much from other people and, by extension, expect too much from myself?

To tell you the truth, I still haven't quite figured it all out.  I keep rationalizing my behavior, but my sense of guilt won't let allow the conflict within me to be resolved.  People keep telling me that I'm being too hard on myself, but when I hear them say this, the first thing I think is that I'm not being hard enough on myself.  I feel as though I'm caught between the two negative extremes of perfectionism and apathy.

Right now, I'm still living in the dissonance.

As a card-carrying United Methodist, I am part of a movement whose founder John Wesley spoke of "going on to perfection."  As someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I think that such language can be quite dangerous if it is not explained properly.  It is important that a person realizes that perfection is a lifelong process by which God leads her to become more and more the person God created her to be.  Otherwise she might fall into the trap of perfectionism and take up a whole host of burdens that God never intended for her to carry.  Perfection is something God initiates within us.  Perfectionism is the emotional disorder we suffer when we try to do it all ourselves.

After listening to Adam Hamilton's recent reflections on the life of John Wesley, I'm convinced that Wesley struggled with perfectionism.  To hear Hamilton speak, Wesley, before he came to an understanding of God's liberating grace, must have been an utterly miserable person who did everything he could to chase after a God who seemed to remain hopelessly out of reach.⁶

I have no business being a perfectionist.  It has been said that the human heart is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."⁷  Though I am reluctant to say that my heart is "desperately wicked," I must admit that, if my heart would have me believe in one way and act in another way, then my moral compass doesn't always point directly north.  Perhaps, neither my rationality nor my guilty conscience is completely trustworthy.  If that is the case, then how in the world am I supposed to know anything about perfection?

We are all broken, so I guess that some confusion and inner conflict are to be expected in this life.  I think that there are are actually some advantages to experiencing cognitive dissonance.  If C.S. Lewis is correct that we all have some sense of what is right and wrong yet fail to live according to it,⁸ then we are all, to some extent, hypocrites.  Personally, I would rather be a painfully self-aware hypocrite than either a blissfully ignorant hypocrite or a hypocrite in denial.  At least the dissonance will keep my ego in check.

I have failed to live up to the golden rule: I have not done unto others as I once would have had others do unto me.  If I've learned anything from my failure, it's that I shouldn't have been resentful toward people when my relationship with them wasn't what I thought it should have been.  For a long time, I harbored feelings of bitterness and disappointment, but my experience on the other side reminded me that a person cannot be everything to everybody.  I know from personal experience that I appreciate when other people cut me some slack when I don't live up to their expectations.  It can be a painfully humbling experience: the fall from one's high horse hurts like hell.⁹

Perhaps there is a corollary to the Golden Rule: Do not demand of others what you would not want others to demand of you.

Normally, this would be the point in the blog post where I come to a conclusion - the point where I wrap everything up and put a nice, pretty bow on top.  Unfortunately, I have no conclusion this time, for I am still processing the last couple of years.  I try to convince myself that I am being too hard on myself, as others have told me, yet I'm still wrestling with myself.  All I really have to offer you, the reader, is the knowledge that, if you feel like banging your head against the wall because you seem to keep blowing it spiritually, you're not alone (as well as my gratitude for your reading while I vent).

Such is life in the dissonance.


Notes:

1. See my introspection "'13" for a summary.
2. Wikipedia: Cognitive Dissonance
3. See my introspection "Why I Do This."
4. Wikipedia
5. See my introspection "I Can't Do It (and That's Alright)" for an example.
6. Adam Hamilton.  Sermon series: Revival - Faith As Wesley Lived It.  The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection podcast, 2013.
7. Jeremiah 17:9 (KJV)
8. C.S. Lewis.  Mere Christianity.  book 1, chapter 1
9. See my introspection "Amazing(ly Painful) Grace."

The photograph of my shadow -  my "shadow selfie" - was taken by me in my front yard.

Introspection: Strive Less, Dance More

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

Strive Less, Dance More

Scripture:

But when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had worked so hard to achieve, I realized that it was pointless - a chasing after wind. Nothing is to be gained under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 2:11 (CEB)

So I commend enjoyment because there's nothing better for people to do under the sun but to eat, drink, and be glad. This is what will accompany them in their hard work, during the lifetime that God gives under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 (CEB)

I don't know what's worth fighting for
Or why I have to scream
I don't know why I instigate
And say what I don't mean
I don't know how I got this way
I know it's not alright
So I'm breaking the habit
I'm breaking the habit tonight

From "Breaking the Habit" by Linkin Park

Over the past three years, my pastor and I have become good friends. She has been what Leonard Sweet might call my "butt-kicker,"¹ always pushing me and challenging me, particularly in regards to my involvement in the church. A number of times she has also found herself to be somewhat of a counselor for me. The poor woman has probably heard more than she wanted about my insecurities and my personal drama.

Recently, I emailed my pastor, fretting about how a text message I sent might have come across to its recipient. She responded, encouraging me to just be myself, as she always advises me. She went on to tell me that we all desire what one of her seminary professors calls the "Three A's": affirmation, approval, and acceptance. She reminded me that God accepts me, approves of me, and affirms me more than any human being ever could.

If you have read my introspections in the past, you know that I often have trouble simply being myself. In the past, I have written about my struggles with self-image, perfectionism, and anger. What my pastor told me about the "Three A's" helped to shed some light on the root of these problems, particularly my perfectionism. I desperately want affirmation, approval, and acceptance from other people. At the same time, I know that I am very flawed, so I feel that I cannot simply be myself. I have to be better than myself: I must cover up all my flaws, and I must say and do all the right things so that I can receive validation from others.

I am a perfectionist, so I am always painfully aware that I am not perfect. I realize that I can never be perfect, no matter how hard I strive to be. This realization along with my desperate desire to be accepted by others leads to a sense of futility, to frustration with myself, and ultimately to rage toward myself.

The inherent problem with the desire for the "Three A's" is the fact that these things cannot be obtained or earned on one's own: they must be given by another person. Someone else must do the affirming, the approving, and the accepting. If one person does not receive the "Three A's" from another person, it is not necessarily the first person's fault. If a person was one-hundred-percent perfect, it would still be the prerogative of another person to withhold their affirmation, their approval, and their acceptance. It is utterly impossible for us to manipulate or force people to react in the way we want them to react to us, no matter how "good" we are.

I believe that my perfectionist complex is rooted in the fact that I grew up exposed to a lot of negativity and criticism. Sometimes this came from the people closest to me, people whom I felt, because of the nature of their relationship to me, were contractually obligated to give me the "Three A's" unconditionally. Instead of feeling affirmed, approved, and accepted, I ended up feeling as though I needed to guard myself and to watch my actions carefully, lest someone become angry with me or whisper about me behind my back. If the people closest to me could not affirm me, approve of me, or accept me, how could anyone else in the world? I once wrote about my own inner dialogue, saying, "It is as if I have a legion of voices in my head, and none of them have anything nice to say about me."² Sometimes, these voices sound like these particular people in my life.

One such person was my grandfather. My grandfather was always there for me when I needed him, but he was not, by any definition, an easy man to be around. He was often grumpy and irritable, and he would express his disapproval toward any flaw he saw in me. Sometimes he would yell at me, but what hurt the most was his shaking his head and sighing as if to say, "You're hopeless!" Every day, I told my grandfather that I loved him, but I actually resented him. He died a number of years ago, but sometimes I feel as though his ghost is still watching over me, shaking his head and sighing about every mistake I make.

The truth is that I probably always had the affirmation, the approval, and the acceptance of the people closest to me, though I usually felt like I did not. Also, it probably didn't help that, for eleven years, I went to a religious school that had extremely strict rules and faculty who loved to remind the students that they were sinners. Any approval, affirmation, and acceptance I was offered growing up was drowned out by the sea of negativity surrounding me. Let's face it, our feelings do not always reflect reality, and criticism always comes through much louder than praise.

A strange thing happened to me this year on Ash Wednesday. I was on my way to work that morning when I realized that I had left my lunch at home. I make this trivial mistake every now and then, but this time, for some reason, I became very angry with myself. For some reason I remembered my grandfather and how he derided me when I made mistakes. I thought about the others in my life who I felt expected more from me than I could deliver. I snapped. There, alone in the car, in the middle of traffic, I screamed out at the top of my lungs,

"IT'S NOT ME - IT'S YOU!!!"

It is truly ironic that this happened on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Lent is a season on the Christian liturgical calendar marked by repentance, introspection, and self-denial. Sometimes people give up something for the duration of Lent as a spiritual discipline - caffeine or chocolate, for example. I had planned to give up all meat for Lent, but, in this loud, beautiful, liberating moment, I also gave up my perfectionism and my hopes of ever earning the affirmation, the approval, and the acceptance of other people. Since that day, I have been less uptight, less demanding of myself, and generally less angry.

In the Book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon calls all human achievements and all human ambitions pointless and a chasing after the wind.³ He says that all that is really worth doing is to eat, to drink, and to enjoy life.⁴ Similarly, I have realized the utter pointlessness of trying to please people. I had tried to put my best foot forward and to hide all my flaws in order to earn approval, affirmation, and acceptance from other people. What did I get from it? Nothing but loneliness, heartache, stress, anger, and digestive problems. I have decided to give up trying to please people, and I have decided instead to simply enjoy my life.

I was introduced to contra dancing when I was in college, but it is only recently that I started dancing regularly. The contra dance is a folk dance similar to the square dance in that a caller directs the dance by calling out dance steps which include the swing, the do-si-do, the allemande, and the promenade. Dancers start out completely dependent on the caller, and the sequence of dance steps might, at first, seem like utter chaos. As the dance goes on, the steps are absorbed into the dancers' muscle memory and the dancers will begin to feel the momentum of one step leading them beautifully into the next.


I have tried to go dancing every week when dances are held. These dances have given me the chance to put my cares aside, to simply enjoy life, and to interact with other people, particularly members of the opposite sex. Dancing has given me a new outlook on life. There are times when I mess up the dance steps. There are times when a girl does not want to dance with me and I have to ask someone else. There are times when I accidentally step on someone's foot. There was even one time when the caller had to come down from the stage to show me what I was doing wrong. If I focus on these things, then the dance is no longer fun, and, if dancing isn't fun, why do it?

It is only natural for us to desire affirmation, approval, and acceptance from other people, but it is utterly impossible for us to earn these things from people, no matter how hard we try. On the other hand, it is completely possible for each of us offer these things to each other unconditionally, with no strings attached. Never strive to be loved; strive only to love. Life is a dance: if it is not enjoyed, then it is wasted. Life is a precious gift from God, so stop the pointless striving, and just enjoy the dance!


Notes:
1 - Leonard Sweet, 11: Indispensable Relationships You Can't Be Without. 2008, David C. Cook. Ch. 3
2 - See my Introspection: "A Legion of Voices"
3 - This is a theme throughout the entire book, but see the first two chapters in particular.
4 - Ecclesiastes 2:24, 8:15

The photograph featured in this introspection was taken by J. Peidle and is public domain.


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.