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.

Perspective: They Did Not Know What They Were Asking

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

Comments are always welcomed.

They Did Not Know What They Were Asking

Then Jesus told His disciples, "If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake will find it."

Matthew 16:24-25 (NRSV)

Would you take the place of this man?

Would you take the nails from His hands?

From "This Man" by Jeremy Camp

One day, while Jesus and His disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, James and John, two of Jesus' closest disciples, made a request.  They asked, "Allow one of us to sit on Your right and the other on Your left when You enter Your glory."  In other words, when Jesus was crowned king, as many believed would soon happen, they wanted the two highest places of honor in His court.

Jesus told James and John that they did not know what they were asking.

Jesus asked, "Can you drink the cup I drink or receive the baptism I receive?"  James and John replied that they could, and then Jesus said to them, "You will drink the cup I drink and receive the baptism I receive, but to sit at My right or left hand isn't Mine to give. It belongs to those for whom it has been prepared."¹

Soon after Jesus and the Disciples arrived in Jerusalem, something happend that would put them on a collision course the people who sought Jesus' downfall.  Jesus walked into the temple, threw out all sellers and moneychangers, turned over the tables, and effectively closed the temple for business that day.  He said, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers."²

I used to think that Jesus simply walked into the temple, saw something He didn't like, and lost His cool.  I am beginning to think that maybe what Jesus did in the temple was an act of protest against the religious establishment of His time, and I'm beginning to think that maybe He had actually planned His demonstration in advance.

If you're like me, you might be tempted to say that Jesus was angry about the apparent commercialism taking place in the temple.  It is important to remember that the sellers and the moneychangers had a legitimate purpose.  It was the week of Passover, and the Jewish people of the day made pilgrimages from far away to make offerings to God at Jerusalem.  The only way to travel such long distances and still have an animal fit to sacrifice was to purchase it near the temple.  Furthermore, the moneychangers were necessary because it wouldn't be proper for the Jewish people to purchase an offering to God using the currency of their pagan oppressors.³

Jesus said that the temple had become "a den of robbers."  I wonder if maybe the religious leaders of Jesus' day knew what televangelists and celebrity megachurch pastors know today, that religion is a good means to gain wealth and power for oneself.  I wonder if maybe the sellers and moneychangers were capitalizing on people's worship, and I wonder if maybe the priests were getting kickbacks.

Jesus might have been angry that there was an unhealthy mingling of church and state at the time.  The Roman governor had a measure of influence over temple affairs because he was able to hire and fire the priests.  Furthermore, King Herod, who renovated the temple, had placed a golden eagle - a symbol of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the chief Roman deity - at one of the gates of the temple.⁴

Jesus went into the temple that day to expose the corruption of the religious establishment, and it was with this act that He signed His own death warrant.  The religious leaders already knew that Jesus was a nuisance.  He claimed to forgive sins; He hung out with the wrong kinds of people; and He and his followers didn't observe all the religious rules.  When Jesus cleaned house in the temple that day, He went too far.  The religious leaders realized that their place of power was under attack, so they stepped up their efforts to take Jesus down.

Jesus told James and John that it was not up to Him to decide who would sit at His right- and left-hand sides.

Do you know who made this decision?

It was Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor.

When Jesus was crowned king, He was crowned not with gold, but with thorns.  He was seated not on a throne, but on a cross, a Roman execution stake.  The chalice from which He drank contained not vintage wine but heartache, suffering, and death.  And the men seated at the places to His right and to His left were convicted criminals.⁵

Jesus said that the temple had become a "den of robbers."  Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their book The Last Week, argue that a "den of robbers" is not a place where robbery happens but a place to which robbers flee after they commit their crimes.  Perhaps the people who worshiped God in the temple were not serving God in their everyday lives.  Instead of allowing their worship to motivate them to live lives of justice, they had replaced justice with worship.  They offered sacrifices at the temple, but they were neglecting the widows, the orphans, the poor, and the crippled.⁶

As Christians, we are not called to simply go to church once a week, sing a few songs, read a few Bible passages, listen to a sermon, toss a few bucks into the collection plate, and go on about our business.  As Christians we are called to do justice by serving those in need and also to fight the injustice that plagues this world.  When we fight injustice, as Jesus did in the temple that day, we might be perceived as a threat by the people who benefit from injustice.  We might even face suffering at the hands of those who are hellbent on maintaining their ill-gotten places of privilege in society.

Good Friday, they day we commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, reminds us that doing the right thing could cost us dearly.  Following Christ just might mean following Him to the cross.

Jesus said that James and John would indeed drink from the same cup He did.  Within a few years, St. James would be executed.⁷  Later on, St. John would be tortured and sent into exile.⁸  The other Disciples would die as martyrs.  Since then, there have been many followers of Christ who suffered and died because they took a stand against injustice.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered because he fought for a dream of a world where all people were treated equally.  Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison because he took a stand against racial segregation in South Africa.

So why anyone would want to follow Jesus knowing that it might lead to suffering or even death?

I have tried to come up with an answer to this question in the last couple of weeks, and I think that it all comes down to faith, hope, and love:

faith that our suffering is not the end of the story and that God will use the tribulations we face to bring new life to other people,

hope that we will all see each other once again on a day when injustice, evil, mourning, and death have finally come to an end,

and love for the people for whom we fight.


For other ponderings on Good Friday and the Crucifixion of Christ, see my previous perspectives "God, Forsaken," "The End of the Story," and "Holy Mockery."


Notes:

1. Mark 10:35-40 (CEB)
2. Mark 11:15-18 (NRSV)
3. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.  The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem.  2006, HarperOne.  ch 2 (section: "Jesus and the Den of Robbers")
4. Borg and Crossan, ch 2 (sections: "The Ambiguity of the High-priesthood" and "The Ambiguity of the Temple")
5. See Mark 15.
6. Borg and Crossan, ch 2 (sections: "Jeremiah and the Temple" and "Jesus and the Den of Robbers")
7. Acts 12:1-2
8. Wikipedia: John the Apostle (section: "The Acts of John Tradition")

The painting featured in this perspective was painted by El Greco in 1600.

Introspection: I Want Clean Water for My Birthday

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

Comments are always welcomed.

I Want Clean Water for My Birthday

I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink.

Matthew 25:35 (NRSV)

All who are thirsty

All who are weak

Come to the fountain

Dip your heart in the stream of life

From "All Who Are Thirsty" by Brenton Brown

I am about to face a great ordeal that I've been dreading for a couple of years now.  Two weeks from now, I will cease to have a 2 at at the front of my age, and I will instead have a 3.  That's right, I'm about to turn thirty years old.  I don't think it's merely the fact that I'm getting older that has me distressed; I think it's rather the fact that I will be turning thirty having crossed significantly fewer milestones on life's journey than other people I know who are roughly my age.

That said, to face getting older and to hopefully get my mind off of my issues, I've decided to do something worthwhile to celebrate my "dirty thirty."

First, I have a question for you, the reader.

How many sources of water do you have in your house?  If you don't know the number off the top of your head, go and count them.

Where I live, there is a faucet in the kitchen and two faucets in the bathroom, including the one in the bathtub.  There is also a spigot outside.  Needless to say, it's pretty easy for me to obtain water, and, though I don't particularly like the taste of tap water, it is drinkable.  I live in a relatively small house, so you might have more faucets in your house than I have.

Now imagine for a moment that you have to walk for miles to fetch water for the day.  Your source of water is not a well, but rather a muddy hole in the ground.  The trek itself is very dangerous, and the water you draw just might make you and your children deathly ill.

It's hard to imagine for those of us who have four or five faucets in our houses, but this is a reality for many people the world.

Organizations like charity: water seek to put a stop to this problem by providing wells, water filters, rain collection devices, and other solutions so that people in developing nations might have water that's actually drinkable,¹

a necessity of life that you and I take for granted every day.

I have started a charity: water campaign, and I'm inviting you, the reader, to celebrate my 30^th birthday with me by helping to provide clean drinking water for people in need.²  My campaign can be found at the link below, along with an informative video about the water crisis around the world.

Clean Water for Tony's Dirty Thirty

Please consider contributing to this effort.  Because I will be turning thirty years old soon, I am requesting donations of $30.00; however, if you cannot spare that much at the moment, any donation would be appreciated.  Also, I ask you to please share this blog post with anyone you think might be interested.

Grace and peace be with you.


Notes:

1. Learn more at http://www.charitywater.org/.
2. In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I learned about this organization from my friend Emily who did a charity: water campaign for her birthday not too long ago.

The photograph featured in this introspection is was taken by Matthew Bowden.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.