Seeing With the Eyes of the Brokenhearted

Seeing Through the Eyes of the Brokenhearted

Seeing with Eyes of my own Brokenheartedness

“Those who do not weep, do not see.” 

(Victor Hugo, Les Misérables)

“The vast majority of people throughout history have been poor, disabled, or oppressed in some way (i.e., “on the bottom”) and would have read history in terms of a need for change, but most of history has been written and interpreted from the side of the winners.” (Richard Rohr, Franciscan Monk, in his newsletter “Bias from the Bottom”)

Most of us refuse to face the fact that aging brings on a whole variety of disabilities and debilitating diagnoses; often followed by poverty, oppression, and discrimination, bringing this inevitably personal heartbreak closer to home.

And hence we completely miss the most important, accurate, and life-giving way of Seeing this world; currently and throughout history:

“It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short, from the perspective of the suffering.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” (Mahatma Ghandi)

“Safety in a community gets defined by how the most marginal person in the community is treated. We all believe that if people could see into our hearts and know who we really are, we too might be rejected, so we notice how those at the margins are welcomed.” (Emily Sander)

Seeing through the Eyes of the Brokenhearted

Living with Open Hands as an expression of an Open Mind, Open Heart, and Open Will inevitably leads to learning to See and Hear with the heart past the surface level facade to the heart behind the facade, behind the words and actions of individuals and systems. This gives us a Way to See more clearly, more inclusively, more holistically, more deeply, more insightfully, and more extensively.

Seeing through the eyes of the brokenhearted: This is something that I’ve known intuitively my whole adult life. I’m not sure why, but for this I am deeply grateful. I have refused to live my life in segregated settings, as if I am high and mighty, guaranteed untouchability. Inclusion has always been my default response to life; my place in this world, where I belong. I knew in my bones that it was the right thing to do. But only recently in this polarized and divided society, it has become more and more clear both verbally and visually. I can see it, hear it, and describe it. 

Just like the symbol of the open hand that has guided me, I see the symbol of a seeing eye with tears enveloped within a broken heart.

This is in no way a depressing symbol or a negative outlook for me. It is a symbol of wholeness, largeness, and solidarity with those at the bottom, at the edges, in the margins of society, the unseen and unheard, the most vulnerable and the “least of these”. Without a wide open mind, open heart, and open will, without eyes and ears wide open, I’d be seeing and experiencing life with blinders on, seeing only a narrow slice of all that is.

I don’t want to miss any of it. As I see all of the goodness and beauty of life, I also discover my own heart of sadness as I weep with compassion while moving through this world. As we conform to this world, the voices we hear are the loud ones, the winners, the lucky ones, the privileged few, the powerful.

The clanging and clamor of those voices are everywhere making constant and unavoidable noise. I must practice the spiritual discipline of silencing them, being still, and learning to listen for the unheard voices all around us, which is where this life’s true treasures lie, this is where the heart of pain and suffering lives, and it is here that wisdom is given birth and blossoms. This is where the majority of all people live; now and throughout history. And yet so many turn away… with hardened hearts, completely missing life and its fullness and beauty.

These are very significant symbols and principles that have continued to guide my life through the storms and through a myriad of false narratives from culture and its accomplices over the years. The main one, Living with Open Hands, is something that emerged as I began blogging 15 years ago. This is a “Way” to approach life and interact with life in life-giving ways. It is not a belief system or a philosophy as much as it is a guide to check our perspectives and approaches and stay true to being human. Through my experiences and exploration of many types of beliefs and nonbeliefs, this Way has held true as foundational, as a sort of overlay, to see what is in common with other ways of living and believing; a sort of veracity test or heart check.

Too often, organized religion and politics, as they grow and wield power, they inevitably and often unknowingly are corrupted by that power. We can see this over and over throughout history. Some say that religion is the reason for all the wars. I say, if not, religion was never far away from the powers that did start the war. And religion was often used and manipulated to extend or empower empires. Today, in America, this power and influence has again quietly befriended religion over the past 50 years; as wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing usurping Christianity and devouring its sheep.

This blog post is an attempt to describe this symbol that I discovered that has just recently emerged out of the chaos of a politics of violence and a religion that has succumbed to the power and corruption of merging church and state, i.e. Trumpian politics and Evangelical Christians. From history we know this: Power tends to corrupt and ultimate power corrupts ultimately. (Lord Acton, 1834 - 1902)

We have forgotten from whence we have come. We have forgotten the struggle that the vast majority of humanity has endured and still does. We have forgotten who we are because we no longer can see this world from the bottom up, from the edges, from the margins, through a perspective of compassion and empathy; in other words, through the eyes of brokenheartedness, both ours and others.

When Death Comes

When it's over, I want to say: all my life 

I was a bride married to amazement. 

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder 

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

—Mary Oliver

Blending Two Lenses, Two Mantras

1. Living with Open Hands as an expression of an open mind, open heart, and open will; inevitably living life with compassion and empathy.

2. Seeing Through the Eyes of the Brokenhearted, a transformational way of seeing history and the world today; beyond the surface to the principalities and powers along with all of its resulting structural inequalities and systemic oppression.

Living with Open Hands

As already mentioned, the first mantra is a Way of approaching, seeing, and interacting in this world: Living with Open Hands. I have been expressing myself through this blog as I have endured so many storms combined with a constant barrage of illusions and influences in this culture. Open Hands are an expression of an open mind, open heart, and open will; the inner work that comes from connecting with and settling into the silence deep in the center of all things with a wide open heart; listening and waiting and willing.

This long and deep innerwork eventually led me to a paradigm shift, a new perspective on life that illuminates and casts away illusions, breaks through the walls of dogma meant to shelter us from reality and truth, sees through the mirage of all of the conditioning and automatic brainwashings that batter and tatter us from cradle to grave. Truly living with this openness, vulnerability, and honesty that living with open hands brings includes not only an open mind, open heart, and open will but also open eyes and open ears that are able and willing to see and hear the heart beyond the facade of everyday life with compassion and empathy.

~ Compassion has such passion for people that it cannot help but open the heart to “suffer with” the other. (see endnote)

~ Empathy comes from perceiving this world and the heartbreak inherent in it. The person is then willing and able to project oneself into that person’s pain, experiencing it with them and from their perspective. (see endnote)

Wholeness includes the opposites of joy and sorrow, dancing and mourning, happiness and sadness, heartbreak and wholeness.

Seeing with the Eyes of the Brokenhearted

This leads to my second mantra: Seeing with the Eyes of the Brokenhearted. We must go beyond how we interact with the world to the more foundational beliefs and values that are formed by our perspective. In wisdom and truth we grow beyond just “seeing” to “Seeing”. We cannot truly See this world without looking both with the eyes of our own heartbreak and through the eyes of the brokenhearted. 

Most people prefer to just look at the surface, smile and nod; and with a hardened heart, turning away and walking away. But that response to life is like turning our backs on others, truth, reality, and life itself. What I See cannot just be my perception, but it must include the perception of all those that are brokenhearted.

A False Lens of Protection; Security, Comfort, and Certainty

But as we grow and experience pain, suffering, and heartbreak we begin to tell ourselves stories that we wish were true. Stories to ease the fears, anxieties, and uncertainties of the future. We want so much to know for sure. Even though we know that the only thing certain is uncertainty and change. And so we begin to build the wall of protective illusions. Death is probably the greatest terror that is beyond our containment and control, so we build constructs and edifices to man and to the gods to appease man’s fear and the gods’ fearsomeness.

We donn so many protective vices, addictions, and distractions to block out the fears, anxieties, and uncertainties, like
Politics
Philosophy
Religion
Art and Music
Architecture
Fashion
Entertainment
Sports,
And many, many more.

With all of these external influences pounding our minds, battering and tattering our souls, we retreat to look through “rose colored glasses” and tell ourselves distracting stories of comfortableness, security, and certainty to prevent us from looking into the sun of reality and all of the glare of pain and suffering. Don’t get me wrong. Life is beautiful and amazing when we learn to see it without illusion in all of its spectrums of wholeness; goodness and heartbreak, light and darkness, joy and sadness.

In this sense, Heartbreak is not about being broken, but simply the flip side that completes wholeness which is absolutely necessary in order for us to understand the full paradox of life. We cannot be whole without experiencing heartbreak, two sides of one coin. Joy would be hollow without sorrow. Rejoicing would be left meaningless without mourning. And beauty could never be so alive and stunning without the ugliness. Compared with seeing life through rose colored glasses, Seeing life in all of its wholeness is wondrous!

Life is full of surprises. Some are positive but many others may not seem so positive. These surprises, whether positive or negative, are the “stuff” of life that reveals our character. What we do with the good “stuff” is easy: rejoice, laugh, dance, celebrate, or whatever. What we do with the not-so-good “stuff” defines who we are. What we do with it gives our life meaning or despair. BUT WHAT DO WE DO WITH THESE SURPRISES? Our tragedies, broken dreams, failures, losses, etc. can devour us . . . or strengthen us.

“As long as we are mortal creatures who love other mortals, heartbreak will be a staple of our lives. And all heartbreak, personal and political, will confront us with the same choice. Will we hold our hearts open and keep trying to love, even as love makes us more vulnerable to the losses that break our hearts? Or will we shut down or lash out, refusing to risk love again and seeking refuge in withdrawal or hostility.” (Parker Palmer, Politics of the Brokenhearted)

The way of the open heart requires that we FACE ALL of life’s surprises and life’s crashes . . . and learn deeply from them . . . and get up and keep on.

I believe that we all are living with a broken heart, which puts us all in the same boat with all of humankind. I do not mean brokenhearted in any way that diminishes us as human beings. I see it as commonality, solidarity, and equality. I feel that this is also an apt depiction of those that are invisible, marginalized, poor, oppressed, strangers, aliens, orphans, widows, the least of these, those with broken dreams, shattered hopes, or unfathomable loss. 

Seeing with eyes of brokenheartedness puts us in solidarity with those that are willing to admit their brokenness rather than puffing themselves up over others. The first will be last and the greatest will be the least according to Jesus. We don’t take him very seriously in America today, unfortunately (check out Hoodwinked & Hijacked). I believe that if we desire to see life as it really is, we must learn to see through the eyes of the brokenhearted, rather than through the rose colored glasses of our homogeneous bubble.

I know for me that when I look at the country and religion of my childhood, that which I have believed in all my life, my heart is broken wide open to see the immorality and corruption; the sheer cruelty, meanness, fear, and hate that is now being allowed, advocated for, voted for, and carried out at the highest level of this once great country. This is the type of brokenheartedness that does not heal. Instead of turning from those that are brokenhearted, sometimes, we that are brokenhearted must turn away in order to guard our own hearts from the principalities and powers that have caused such great heartbreak. I am embarrassed and ashamed of who we have become in America.

In order to see through the eyes of the brokenhearted, we must stand with them. We must learn what they see and where they look and how they feel; because “they” are “us”. Becoming like a child, we must learn alongside them, allowing them to teach us. 

The Poor

I grew up in a Christian family and church and got a four year degree in religion, bible, and greek (the language of the new testament). It was very clear to me that the central message of Jesus came from the perspective of being with the poor and downtrodden, those that are willing to admit that their hearts have been broken, people living life without pretense or pride, but humbly open to receive and give. Jesus spoke repeatedly of the poor and despised. When he said blessed are the poor in spirit, the word he used for “poor” was not the word in Greek that meant a slave or an indentured servant but rather a beggar in abject poverty with nothing left to give, a total brokenheartedness.

There are two Greek words translated "poor" in the New Testament. The first one suggests the working poor - those who own little or no property. They describe people who possess very little in the way of material goods and earn what they have through their daily labor.

“But the word that Jesus uses to describe the 'poor' literally means to crouch or cower as one who is helpless - like a beggar, or a pauper, or one in abject poverty, totally dependent on others for help and destitute of even the necessities of life. In Galatians 4:9, it is translated ‘beggarly.’

“When Jesus says, ’Blessed are the poor in spirit,’ he does not mean everybody. He means those who know it. Blessed are those people who recognize their inadequacies and their guilt and their failures and their helplessness and their unworthiness and their emptiness (and their brokenheartedness)—who don't try to hide these things under a cloak of self-sufficiency, but who are honest about them and grieved and driven to the grace of God.”
http://crossroadschapel.com/SermonNotes/SER071209ThePoorinSpirit.pdf

Jesus lived with the poor and despised. He was accused of being a friend of sinners by the elite and religious. His disciples were chosen from among those that were poor fishermen and despised tax collectors. To whom was his birth announced first? The lowly shepherds. Where was he born? In a barn and laid in a farm animal food trough.

It seems that many evangelical Christians don’t take Jesus’ life and example seriously anymore but for those that do, we must learn to see through the eyes of the brokenhearted if we are to see at all. And the way to do that is to learn to read all of history, the story of Jesus, and the bible from below, from the margins, with the perspective of the least of these.

Every ViewPoint is a View from a Point

“The vast majority of people throughout history have been poor, disabled, or oppressed in some way (i.e., 'on the bottom') and would have read history in terms of a need for change, but most of history has been written and interpreted from the side of the winners. The unique exception is the revelation called the Bible, which is an alternative history from the side of the often enslaved, dominated, and oppressed people of Israel, culminating in the scapegoat figure of Jesus himself.

“We see in the Gospels that it’s the lame, the poor, the blind, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the sinners, the outsiders, and the foreigners who tend to follow Jesus. It is those on the inside and the top—the Roman occupiers, the chief priests and their conspirators—who crucify him. Shouldn’t that tell us something really important about perspective? Every viewpoint is a view from a point. We must be able to critique our own perspective if we are to see a fuller truth.” (Bias from the Bottom, March 22, 2016, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM)

“There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters from Prison, p.16)

Learning from People with Developmental Disabilities

One of the most profound learning experiences in my life is when I was down and out. I lost everything my american dream deemed valuable; my marriage, my kids (half time), my home, my job, and also my mental health when I was taken by depression. But as we all know, it is the getting up that makes all the difference. For me, I had gotten a new job working with adults with disabilities. And the most profound learning was when I realized that I was no better than anyone that I was working with. We were all in the same place and learning the same stuff about life. Eventually, everyday I would get up and ask myself, what is it that I will learn from these wonderful people today? They became my teachers and have been ever since. Their heartbreak was my heartbreak. And when I became one of the least of these, I finally began to learn and grow and heal.
https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/listening-for-unheard-voices/

Becoming Like a Child and Learning from My Kids

During this time, another profound learning experience for me was when I learned to be fully present with my kids. After the divorce, when they were with me, it was just me and them. Being fully present was the one gift I had left to give. And during that process, I found that in so many ways, they became my teachers. And they continue to be to this day. For this, I am so grateful. My perspective on life is so much greater, deeper, and inclusive.
I am a better man because of them.

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/what-ive-learned-from-my-kids/ 

Tears are the Natural Expression of the Brokenhearted

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and of unspeakable love." ~ Washington Irving. See also, tears of a man.

Tears are not only powerful but they can be critical for healing. I found that during the times that I was divorced, the most painful times of my life, I had to find ways to make myself cry. I found that I would become so numb that I could no longer feel anything, joy or sorrow. So I discovered a spiritual discipline, more out of desperation than anything else. When I realized that I had shut down to protect myself from such excruciating pain, I also lost all feelings. I was comfortably numb. But that is not what I wanted. I wanted to heal. And I wanted to be alive again. So I would make myself go to places to force myself to remember those times that I missed so greatly. I had to make myself cry in order to come alive again. I have become grateful for such heartbreak because it did not let me forget the excruciating pain of others. I could not forget compassion, how to suffer with others. See also at the end, “The Man Teaching Japan How to Cry.”

The Brokenheartedness of Depression and Mental Illness

One of the greatest heartbreaks is depression and other mental illnesses. I am again grateful that I could experience depression several times during the times my life crashed. The pain of being overcome by darkness cannot be described in words, except that I did not just enter into the darkness, I became the darkness. I could no longer see light. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. Hope was snuffed out thoroughly. Death was the only thing I could see and smell and I began to long for it, or anything that would give relief from this inner inescapable suffering. But I knew that if I did not fully experience this pain, then I would not be able to understand the pain of depression in others. It became a transformative experience even though there is no way I could see it at the time.
https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2006/11/06/the-pain-of-depression/ 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/01/12/anatomy-of-melancholy 

The Heartbreak of Prison

A heartbreak I cannot imagine is that of being sent to prison and losing all freedom along with hope for the future. Coming out with a criminal record it is nearly impossible to get jobs, housing, voting, and ever living a “normal” life again. I feel a need to get more involved in order to understand better by re-establishing relationships with ex cons in order to try to understand this world from their perspective. I have seen the heartbreak of families while their loved one is incarcerated and the struggle to get on their feet when they reintegrate into society. There is a lifelong stigma that will follow them until death. “Though only five percent of the world's population lives in the United States, it is home to 25 percent of the world's prison population. 32% of the US population is represented by African Americans and Hispanics, compared to 56% of the US incarcerated population being represented by African Americans and Hispanics. African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.”

There’s an incredible stench of injustice under our noses in the criminal justice system. This is also a heartbreak that we need to understand through their eyes. https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

The Ultimate Brokenheartedness of Suicide

There are 800,000 suicides per year in this world. This is another great heartbreak. For these people, this is a heartbreak that there is no coming back from. For the rest of us, we need to learn to pay attention to them, listen to their voices and their suffering, and be there to just be there. This is what it means to see the world through the eyes of the brokenhearted.
https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#:~:text=Summary,in%202017%20were%20from%20suicide.

Endnotes

The Absolute Necessity of Compassion and Empathy

Seeing this world through the eyes of compassion

1. The heart is wide open and vulnerable to feel the pain of others, to “suffer with” them.
2. We seek out those that are in pain, those that need someone to be there and feel with them.

Seeing this world through the eyes of empathy

1. The heart is open to see a person in great pain and suffering or great calamity
2. Provides passion to project oneself into that person’s experience to expose oneself to and embrace their suffering, to walk in their shoes.

“A compassionate city is an uncomfortable city!
A city that is uncomfortable when anyone is homeless or hungry.
Uncomfortable if every child isn’t loved and given rich opportunities to grow and thrive.
Uncomfortable when any group anywhere in the world is marginalized or oppressed.
Uncomfortable when as a community we don’t treat our neighbors as we would wish to be treated.”
(Karen Armstrong, Charter for Compassion)

Respectable Religion?

“Following Jesus is not a respectable religion, and I suspect it was never meant to be. It is a call to truth, justice and liberation for those oppressed, excluded, and disempowered.”
(Diarmuid O’Murchu)

Compassion & Empathy

These seem to be in short supply today although they are undoubtedly the heart and soul of humanity and all religions.

compassion (n.)

"feeling of sorrow or deep tenderness for one who is suffering or experiencing misfortune," mid-14c., compassioun, literally "a suffering with another," from Old French compassion "sympathy, pity" (12c.), from Late Latin compassionem (nominative compassio) "sympathy," noun of state from past participle stem of compati "to feel pity," from com "with, together" (see com-) + pati "to suffer" (see passion).

empathy (n.)

1908, modeled on German Einfühlung (from ein "in" + Fühlung "feeling"), which was coined 1858 by German philosopher Rudolf Lotze (1817-1881) as a translation of Greek empatheia "passion, state of emotion," from assimilated form of en "in" (see en- (2)) + pathos "feeling" (from PIE root *kwent(h)- "to suffer"). A term from a theory of art appreciation that maintains appreciation depends on the viewer's ability to project his personality into the viewed object.

The God of Silence Speaks Up

Gordon Hempton has spent the past 30 years warning people about the consequences of the disappearance of natural quiet on Earth, which he calls a “solar-powered jukebox.” And now that the world is a little less noisy, he’s asking us, once again, to listen.
https://www.afar.com/magazine/gordon-hempton-quiet-parks-international-saving-quiet?utm_source=pocket-newtab&fbclid=IwAR1SJQVN8fiGGNOSgOhQrM1AylBOkdRDaKG6B1NwmcO0-orz6QaUfOiLgvI

The man teaching Japan to cry

Hidefumi Yoshida is a 'tear teacher'. Through the use of sad films, letters and scenery, he claims to have brought 50,000 people to tears – helping to break down cultural stigma surrounding crying in Japan. "My job is to make people feel refreshed through crying," he told @bbc_reel, suggesting that it is a way to relieve stress and even boost the immune system. Ideally people will not simple shed a tear, but wail – because "the harder you cry, the better you feel".
https://www.instagram.com/tv/CFK39P_M-yu/

A Truly Human Dilemma

“This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression - and with all this yet to die.”
(Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death)

Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMla61cOMtc

Your Raw and Beautiful Heart

From the deep realization of our own basic goodness we develop a tenderness toward ourselves and others.

This then awakens our heart, an empty heart. "If you put your hand through your chest and feel for it, there is nothing but tenderness. You feel soft and sore, and if you open your eyes to the rest of the world, you feel tremendous sadness. This kind of Sadness does not come from being mistreated. You don't feel sad because someone insulted you or because you feel impoverished. Rather, this experience of sadness is unconditioned. It occurs because your heart is completely exposed. There is no skin or tissue covering it; it is pure, raw meat. Even if a mosquito lands on it, you feel so touched. Your experience is raw and tender and so personal.

"The genuine heart of sadness comes from feeling that your empty heart is full. You would like to spill your heart's blood, give your heart to others. For the warrior, this experience of sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Conventionally, being fearless means that you are not afraid or that, if someone hits you, you hit them back. However, we are not talking about that street-fighter level of fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting the world touch your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others." (Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior. pp. 33, 34)

Beautiful People

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen. They are made."
(Elizabeth Kubler Ross)

“A person is oppressed when they are held back, either physically or psychologically, from the goals they aspire to, and the norms of society … oppression is closely linked to devaluation and loss of power.” (Al Condeluci, in “Interdependence”, pg. 16)

“Our society is not set up to cope very well with people who are weaker or slower. More important, we are not skilled at listening to the wisdom of those whose life patterns are outside of the social norm.” (Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, p. 46)

”The human eye is always selecting what it wants to see and also evading what it does not want to see. The crucial question then is, What criteria do we use to decide what we like to see and to avoid seeing what we do not want to see? Many limited and negative lives issue directly from this narrowness of vision.” (John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, p. 62)

Politics of Violence

Is Violence America's Addiction?

How Bad Do We Need Our Fix?

Can Violence can ever be the Answer?

Divide and Conquer has no place in a Democracy.

Violence always begets Violence in this world.

If an ideology is solid and really meant for the common good, then why would there need to be such division? Divide and conquer can never be used for the common good. By nature it is meant only for a common few to dominate.

In this world, we all have some sort of heartbreak. Dashed dreams, broken relationships, ideals trashed, and all forms of dishonor and disrespect. Even though we live in perhaps one of the greatest countries on earth, we are more divided than ever. And it seems to me that we are bent on expanding that breach to an unrepairable level.

"In choosing democracy, we must exhibit tolerance for ideas with which we disagree.  When we choose intolerance, we leave our democratic values behind, which is the real enemy of our Constitution. We must argue, debate and deliberate in good faith. And we must be willing to listen, learn and change our minds." (Intolerance, the real threat to our Democracy) 

Democracy requires dissent. Without opposing sides, we cannot see a broader and deeper perspective so that better decisions can be made. The reason this is so true collectively is that it is also just as true individually. We must learn to see both sides, listen to both sides, and do our best to seek understanding; knowing that no one is better than another person and that sides are nothing more than the stories we allow in our heads. We all have reasons for thinking the way we do. Our values and beliefs are anchored deep in our soul, so much so that they become a part of us. Our values and beliefs become our identity, whether we realize it or not. That’s why when someone disagrees with us, it feels like a personal attack. Because, in a way it is.

And yet, knowing full well that we feel attacked when someone opposes us, we turn around and intentionally attack them back. No longer is it inadvertent or unconscious. Suddenly our emotions flare up and we go at it using our best tactics of war that we have. We all have a very extensive box of war tools that if we proceed without conscience or empathy, can do a lot of damage. We go into a mode of operation that embraces a language of war. Anytime we think we are right, we must make others wrong if they disagree. Anytime we use labels and call names, we demean the other person so that we can gain the advantage. Anytime we dominate the “other”, we have made them the enemy that we become hell bent on destroying.

Magical Thinking

 Magical Thinkers versus Evidence Seekers

Each creates alternative worlds that they believe in.

Each actively seeks for alternative solutions that they then work for.

This brings incredibly extreme polarization in our world today; 

both in the way we see the world and in the solutions we believe in.

What is Magical Thinking?

• Belief that what we think about or say or wish for creates our world

• Belief that what we refuse to think about won't happen

Magical thinking is a term used in anthropology, philosophy and psychology, denoting the causal relationships between thoughts, actions and events. There are subtle differences in meaning between individual theorists as well as amongst fields of study. (Wikipedia)

A negative example is psychosomatic illnesses where a person convinces himself that he is sick and then starts to see those symptoms in himself, whether they are real or not. The person literally makes himself sick though; i.e. thinks himself into sickness. Sometimes it is the stress and worry that actually makes him sick rather than a real sickness. Another example is denial. We think that if we refuse to believe something or think about something, it won’t happen.

There are also examples of magical thinking that are inevitable. A plausible example is gravity. We know that if we fall out of a tree, it will hurt or jump from a building high enough, it is quite certain that we will die. Not because we can explain it or because we believe it, but rather because we have experienced it enough to believe it. Another example is the sunrise. How do we know the sun will rise each day? And how do we know it will rise in the east? It is from our own repetitive experience that we know.

So we should not seek to eliminate all magical thinking from our lives. There will always be some form or other. But we need to bring a healthy dose of skepticism by questioning and inquiring into every aspect of our lives. I think some people are willing to sell their intellect or reasoning ability short because it is just easier to believe certain things, even if it may not be true. Often we convince ourselves to believe in things because it is more comfortable to do so. We like the security of certainty and the comfort of security. There is no one standard for a healthy person to meet when it comes to magical thinking. That is a standard that we each must set for ourselves.

For me, it is a matter of integrity that I not allow my life to be run by magical thinking. I think it is also a matter of our own commitment to truth. Am I willing to do the inner work necessary to discern truth and reality from fiction. When we look at the world and the problems, where do we begin? With magical thinking or by seeking evidence first.

“Magical thinking is defined as believing that one event happens as a result of another without a plausible link of causation. For example: ‘I got up on the left side of the bed today; therefore it will rain.’"

Or “a more nuanced definition of magical thinking would be believing in things more strongly than either evidence or experience justifies.” For reference, see Magical Thinking.

In each field of living there are a variety of spectrums for magical thinking. In spirituality or religion, there is much more tolerance for magical thinking than in science. In psychology there is much more tolerance for magical thinking than in philosophy.

The key is awareness, consciousness of our own thinking. So often our thoughts hijack us into solving problems so that there is no uncertainty. We HAVE to understand and we cannot STAND mystery or uncertainty.

Examples of Magical Thinking

“Trump supporters are far from the machinations of power, so government seems like magic to them. In Trump they’ve found *their* magician.”

Trump’s ability to envision the world he wants and speak it into existence is a sort of superpower. It doesn’t matter whether it is true or not. What matters is that he believes what he says and he keeps on repeating it until his followers believe it too.

Here is a positive example. On the New Amsterdam tv show last night, they saw a need to create a paleontology wing in the hospital so that those that were dying and had no place to go and no one to care for them could be cared for. One of the hospital staff was talking to a person that she just met that was dying of cancer. Nothing else could be done. And he would not talk. He could not express what he needed to be more comfortable. So they began to talk about life in general. He said that he was a professor and had always worked with numbers. Why, the other person asked. He said because he knew they were certain. I know death is certain too but as they talked he realized that in the face of the certainty of death, there is no certainty in death at all. No one knows what’s next because no one has experienced what is next, if anything at all. The staff person said that really numbers aren’t all that certain either. What is the biggest number? How many stars are there? How many snowflakes in a snowstorm?  As they talked he marveled at this uncertainty that he had been working with all of his life. It was then that he realized that it is the fear of uncertainty that he needed to face, not the fear of death. And like any fear, when we face it head on, it inevitably loses its power over us.

Looking at the political polarity today, there is very clearly something going on that is driving the thinking of different groups in very different ways. Some people are not capable of sorting through the complexities of our nation and all of the issues that complicate it even more like COVID 19, racial protests, police brutality, Americans shooting other Americans over differences, people defending their property with guns from peaceful protesters, peaceful protests turned violent by opportunists, the environment, extreme weather, refugees and immigrants, and on and on. If we look at each of the disruptive issues of our time we can see how different groups of people want to solve them. When you get to the root of the possible solutions, we are left with evidence or magic. People have an innate need for certainty and for the most part will do whatever it takes to feel certain, even though certainty is nothing more than another story that we are told and that we tell ourselves. 

When politics stokes fears in the general population using all of the above issues, many people have no idea what to do. When people are full of fear, anger, and loss of control, they reach for any answers that will give them the comfort they want, even when the comfort and security are also just stories in their heads that they are being told and that they then tell themselves. Facts and reality and research take too much work which frankly is beyond the capacity of so many people these days. So a grand savior, a strongman riding in on his “horse” of power proclaiming, “I am the people’s president” accomplishes exactly what this person’s agenda has been all along. Make people scared enough to see him as the only answer, even though he has no answers to offer. It doesn’t matter. The illusion (story) of answers is all people need. Then their faith can take it from there. Faith in what? Anything they choose to believe in. Magical Thinking becomes the only possible answer. Evidence Seekers are the alternative which takes far too much work. Magical thinkers think and speak evidence thinkers into “evil” by using a myriad of labels and name-calling. So there you have it. The polarization of the population between Magical Thinkers and Evidence Seekers. See more in this video clip. It is quite an eye opener.

The Politics of Magical Thinking

Check out this politically balanced article from a conservative perspective. He quotes a twitter post by an old friend that I knew from a church care group that I attended.

James K.A. Smith made a valuable point on Twitter yesterday:

Trump supporters are far from the machinations of power, so government seems like magic to them. In Trump they’ve found *their* magician.

— James K.A. Smith (@james_ka_smith) March 2, 2016

“For the last century, progressives have been critics of local government and civil society. Not without justification, they’ve attacked the corruption, inefficiency, and injustice of political parties, town councils, private charities, and proposed national solutions to otherwise overwhelming problems. Conservatives bear responsibility, too. Dogmatic hostility to unions has helped marginalize the most effective form of association available to workers in large enterprises.

“The problem is that national solutions have rarely been as easy or successful as promised, while purely individual efforts are impotent. Rather than qualified confidence in energetic politics, centralization promotes a vaguely schizophrenic combination of hope that government can do everything with the knowledge it’s failed in the past. Those are the conditions in which magical thinking thrives. It’s especially appealing when the institutions that once allowed citizens to exercise control over their common affairs are neutered or moribund.

“Trump, in other words, is just a symptom. The disease is older, and also more frightening. Once we’ve lost our capacity for meaningful self-government it’s almost impossible to get it back. As Tocqueville foresaw nearly two hundred years ago:

“It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity. I add that they will soon become incapable of exercising the great and only privilege which remains to them.”

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-politics-of-magical-thinking/

Trump, QAnon and The Return of Magic

https://youtu.be/Ca2DSsuE7jI 

This is the video documentary that helped me see the delineation between Magical Thinkers and Evidence Seekers. Very powerful look at social media and conspiracy theories.

A major point made is simply this. Anyone that is making decisions “by my gut” is really a manly way of saying “by my feelings.” No advice, no experts, no research, no facts, no science, just feelings. How does that make you feel about the leader of America and the most powerful person in the world making decisions “by my gut”? Well, we learn to see the world according to what we are told and according to what we wish for. We speak only words that express what we wish for. Anything that disagrees with our wishes is rejected or screened out and not seen at all. This includes such things as reality, facts, evidence. And we wonder why there are so many religious people using magical thinking???

Donald Trump's Magical Thinking

Please watch and share this video and learn how Donald Trump's Magical Thinking is affecting you, your life, your family, and your country!

By Frank Schaeffer the son of great theologian Francis Schaeffer, a founder of Evangelical Christianity. He grew up with other sons of the founders, Jerry Falwell Jr and Franklin Graham. 

In this video, he apologizes for for the part that he had in creating the religious right by joining democracy with evangelical christianity for the sake of power by using a platform of anti-abortion, anti-women, anti-gay, anti-immigrent stoked with fear, rage, and the fear of loss of control of their lives.

The Tyranny of Thought

Welcome to the rat race of the mind.

“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel … like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!”

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/emmahiggs/2020/03/windmills-of-your-mind-the-tyranny-of-thought/

FYI: The Tyranny of the Mind that I refer to here is located in the psychological realm. Keep in mind there are other realms of tyranny (social, cultural, political, educational, religious) that are constantly oppressing us through conditioning, a form of brainwashing.

We must learn to go beyond thought to awareness

Anything expressed is not real… it is nothing but a perception, a concept conjured up in our minds, then formulated with words that are nothing but signs and symbols that can only point to reality.

Our reality is simply a “perception” or an interpretation of the concept or image that our mind creates.

Awareness is beyond thought and comes from stillness. This is where truth lies.

Thought is made up of words and words are nothing more than signs and symbols that point to reality or truth. Words are labels, containers, and hence limitations.

Truth is limitless, boundless, beyond containment by words or thought.

Thought comes from a place of busyness and noise; resulting in worry and fear, regret and discontent. Thought comes from past memories.

Attention comes from a center of silence, presence, stillness, awareness, consciousness within the present moment; resulting in gratitude, contentment, and peace. (see “Thoughts on Thought”)

Truth (reality) is too big to fit in my head, too big to fit in a book.

But nothing is too big to fit in my heart…

Anything that comes from thought must be held suspect. In other words, don't trust anything you think.

Because thought is an automatic, reflexive process that comes in response to stimulation, drama, chaos, and confusion of life. As we experience life, thought has a tendency to take over and take charge by telling us what is really going on. Why does thought need to do that. Thought is originally meant as a survival mechanism to solve problems, to keep us out of trouble, or to keep us alive rather than a victim or some sort of prey. So thought is constantly trying to solve problems, which we really need when there are problems to be solved. But when there are no immediate or urgent problems and we just want to relax, stare at a wall, and unwind, thought continually keeps solving problems even if there are none to solve. Check it out. Sit quietly and pay attention to your thoughts. Notice them. Don’t encourage or discourage them. Just observe them. What do you notice? What are they doing? When a thought arises, count the thoughts that are about the past, the ones about the future, and the ones that are fully present in the here and now. You’ll be surprised how many are totally focused on the past or the future.

1. Thought is constantly chattering about something. So often we’re not even sure what about or why. My theory is that in a world that is mostly safe and secure, thought tends toward boredom because there are very few urgent or life threatening problems for thought to be occupied with.
2. If there are problems that need to be addressed, thought will immediately be doing its duty and working on solving them, knowing it is a matter of survival.
3. If there are no problems, thought is looking for problems to solve. So instead of paying attention to the present moment, here and now, where we all live, thought is digging into the past and into the future, trying to figure out what needs to be done.
• From the past, thought is finding or creating regrets and then trying to fix them or solve them.
• From the future, thought is creating worries and fears that might become a problem, then pre-solving those problems.
• In doing so in the past or future, thought is actually creating problems that do not exist so that it has something to solve; trying to make itself useful.
4. All the while we are missing here and now, the present moment is really all any of us have. And yet we miss it, due to thought hijacking control of our experiences.

Can we learn to harness our thoughts? Harness them for what? If we are not in the middle of urgent problems that need to be solved or urgent situations that are threatening us, then thought has no real purpose. That’s why using techniques to quiet our minds have become so important in modern society. We are constantly running around in the chaos, sort of acting like our thoughts, like a rat on a rat wheel, thinking we are going somewhere, anywhere, but actually going nowhere. The only way to live in the present moment is to calm our thoughts so that we can learn to be aware and conscious here and now without thought distracting us elsewhere.

In the same way that our lives can become a reflection of our monkey mind, so also our lives can reflect boredom from lack of busyness just as thought becomes bored from a lack of problems in our present day life of ease. Even though they are not real, the gods of comfort, security, and certainty feed into this vicious cycle of meaninglessness.


“We modern humans face entirely different day-to-day challenges, but our brains are hardwired to protect us from sabre-tooth tigers. In today’s world we are more likely to be harmed by our own stress response than by any external threat, but our prehistoric brains simply don’t know any better.

“So our minds are producing a constant stream of thoughts (potentially 3,000 per hour), and our Palaeolithic programming causes us to naturally filter out the positive ones in favour of the negative.

“It’s no wonder we get so stressed out.

“I am particularly prone to negative, obsessive thinking, and in the past this has led to debilitating depression and anxiety. I know as well as anyone just how convincing a thought can be, and how easy it is to become trapped in a downward, destructive spiral of negative thinking.

“I also know the profound sense of freedom that can come when I remember that my thoughts do not represent reality.

“It sounds so obvious, but learning to mistrust your own mind takes some serious practice.

“All the wisdom, strategies and techniques I use to keep myself mentally healthy and happy are founded upon these simple but profound realisations:

“My thoughts are just thoughts. They don’t represent reality.

“My mind will naturally focus on the negative, which means I can’t trust my thoughts to be objective.

“Just because a thought enters my mind doesn’t mean I need to pay it attention.

“I have to remind myself of these every single day. But often that brief reminder is all it takes to bring me out of a downward thought-spiral and back to reality.”

Windmills of Your Mind: The Tyranny of Thought

But remember, there is something beyond thought. It is awareness. Another

way to express it is presence, being fully present, fully alive in each and every moment, here and now.

Whenever we face the stories that thought creates, our fears, worries, regrets, failings, shame, poor self image, dramas, and all sorts of stories in our head, we must learn to face those thoughts with full awareness. This unveils the incoherence of thought and gives us a clear view of what is, of reality.

“A mind that listens with complete attention will never look for a result because it is constantly unfolding; like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no perpetuation of a self, of a “me,” which is seeking to achieve an end.”

― Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Book of Life: Daily Meditations With Krishnamurti

“Meditation is a state of mind which looks at everything with complete attention, totally, not just parts of it. And no one can teach you how to be attentive. If any system teaches you how to be attentive, then you are attentive to the system, and that is not attention.”

(Jiddu Krishnamurti)

From a quantum physicist:

"We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive.... You don't decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one who controls each one of us."

(David Bohm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddngc3nhs_I)

“Bohm raises doubts as to whether any form of thought can apprehend what he refers to as the 'unlimited'. As the very nature of thought is to select limited abstractions from the world, it can never really approach the ‘ground of our being’ – that which is unlimited. Yet at the same time, human beings have an intrinsic need to understand and relate to the ‘cosmic dimension’ of existence. To address this apparent disjuncture in our experience, Bohm proposes that attention, unlike thought, is potentially unrestricted, and therefore capable of apprehending the subtle nature of the ‘unlimited’.” (Lee Nichol in the foreword of David Bohm's book, On Dialogue)


For more:

The Limitations of Thought (David Bohm)

And

Thoughts on Thought in Living with Open Hands

Inner Authority

On Prayer

 What is Prayer?

What good is Prayer?

What is prayer when the most consistent and dependable attribute of God is silence?

What is prayer when the most consistent and dependable attribute of God is invisibility?

What is prayer if, no matter how despairingly I cry out, the invisibility and silence stay the same?

What is prayer when the odds of it coming true are the same as without prayer?

What is prayer when the prayer of a righteous person feels like it means nothing? Or does the “fervent prayer of a righteous person availeth much?” James 5:16

What is prayer if my belief in God has disintegrated into the nothingness or impossibility?

What is prayer beside talking to myself?

It seems to me that whether or not my faith in God is ever restored, prayer just keeps on. I keep right on talking to myself as if there is someone else listening. It seems to me to be a basic human trait... talking to myself and/or an imaginary friend.

So maybe prayer is self talk. But what good is it? What does it do? Is it hopeful dreaming? Does it presume an imaginary friend? It sure isn’t Santa Claus showering on us the many things we desire. What is prayer doing? Who is it talking to? Who is listening? Anybody home? One thing we know for sure is that we are listening to our own prayers. Maybe that is what we need most, a voice within reminding us what we have forgotten. We know that we cannot guarantee answered prayers or even acknowledged prayers. Words fall in the void between the cracks sometimes lost forever unless I remember my own words that I cast in the nothingness, the no-thing-ness never to retrieve. Other than my possible acknowledgement of my own voice, there is no other response besides silence and invisibility.

I still find myself talking to myself as if I was praying. I ask myself, who am I talking to? But never is there an answer. Never. Unless it is me. Sometimes I end up answering myself because I so desperately need interaction, a two way conversation, instead of me jabbering away. But on I go, talking and talking, knowing full well that after 62 years, I will get nothing but silence and invisibility. That is proof in and of itself. And ultimately, the best thing for me during those times is silence, quieting the voices in my head.

Often I run out of people to relate to that are even a little bit close to where I am within. Then I listened to an interview with Elie Wiesel on Speaking of Faith. I’m not sure if I found any real definition of prayer but did get a bit of clarification of ways that prayer and faith might, just might, be woven into this life of groundlessness where people tell themselves a story that says they have a big buddy in the sky and that all authority is above the clouds and yet there is nothing to show for that story; nothing but silence and invisibility. But somehow, some of these words from an auschwitz survivor resonate deep within. I guess we all have to work with what we have. After 50 years of telling myself a story contrary to reality, I’m just amazed to hear someone tell a story of heartbreak and despair as I stand in wonder of the hope it gives. Maybe I am not alone. Maybe hope is not a gift from above but a gift we give each other. Or even a gift we give to ourselves. It seems to me that there are ways that we can give ourselves hope, reason to go on, a positive outlook, etc. based on our self-talk. For me, I used to think of myself as totally depraved like my religion taught. Well, after many years that seemed to be working directly against who I am and who I want to be. As I began to see the basic goodness deep within me, I could stop berating myself with self-talk and start looking for and identifying that basic goodness. Now that is a way that “prayer” does a lot of good as self-talk. Self fulfilling prophecy works the same way but in the reverse. If we hear how bad we are enough times, whether from ourselves or from others, we begin to believe it. And it is a very powerful sort of belief that affects everything we do.

Prayer as Becoming Still and Settled

"Deep down, we know that when we step back, breathe, allow our agitation to settle, and simply start paying attention, we often see new possibilities in situations that once seem intractable... only in this contemplative state are we able to touch the truth..." (Parker Palmer, The Politics of the Brokenhearted)

Prayer as a Testament to Despair and Suffering

“Elie Wiesel stands in the modern imagination as a towering moral figure. He’s known for his work on behalf of the Jewish people and also other peoples across the world who face suffering and persecution. At the same time, Wiesel is often cited as an intellectual symbol of reasonable religious despair. In his memoir, Night, which has recently landed on best-seller lists five decades after its publication, Elie Wiesel declared that he lost his faith forever at Auschwitz. Let's explore what that declaration meant and how it has evolved in Elie Wiesel’s life and his perspective on the world.” 

Cairn of Rememberance

So Much Forgotten

So Much to Forget

So Much More to Remember

So Much to Learn
So Much to Unlearn
So Much to Relearn

So much we think we know!

The word “remember” has become more and more significant in my life. So much of what we learn is lost too quickly and so we must find ways to remind ourselves what is important and what we learned through the pain and heartbreak of life. Sometimes it is more important to forget or to unlearn also. For me, there are very specific times that are like a paradigm shift, an eye opener, an awakening. But even when it is something that we must learn to forget, that is also something important to remember. I have a mantra that carries some of this learning: “Much of life is remembering what we already know.”

We are a very forgetful people globally and historically; beginning individually. I’ve been noticing that this is not a modern or a local phenomenon. It goes back to the very First People in each continent where we have discovered and recovered rituals and practices to remind us to remember and the importance of remembering.

For me, since I first began blogging in 2006, my first image was the Open Hand and the significance of that. So most of my posts are reminders of ways of Living with Open Hands as an expression of an Open Mind, an Open Heart, and an Open Will. To take this symbology a step further, I began to visualize each blog post as a cairn of remembrance, my pile of rocks, a monument to which I would return so that I could remember. I describe this further at the end of this post. But first, I’m interested in exploring how humankind has been using these monuments or cairns in a way that reminds and guides them along the way. As I kept blogging, I was reminded of the biblical story of the Israelites in the wilderness, a feeling I could relate to as I entered my Dark Night of the Soul in 2008. The way I understood the story is that they were on a journey to the promised land. But it seems that they kept getting lost along the way. Or, if not lost, they would get distracted and go their own way. Sometimes, I wondered if they even knew what their destination was, so they continued to wander,

wondering as they go. Often I refer to myself as a wondering wanderer and a wandering wonderer. As I describe below, these cairn posts are for me to remember the lessons I learned at that time and place. Often it was not an answer but rather a more clearly expressed question that was significant to me at that time and place. Something I must remember. And so, I found myself going back to these cairns of remembrance and rereading them so I would not forget.

WWJD

WWJD: relevant or irrelevant today?

Remember WWJD? In Christian circles 40 years ago, it posed the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” I remember it best as a leather bracelet worn as a way of identifying with Jesus and often distinguishing Jesus followers from typical church folk that look more to the ritual and rules and reputation that comes from church membership than to Jesus’ life, teachings, and example for living. Later, a movement called Red Letter Christians was formed to take a stand for very similar reasons. Red Letter refers to how some bibles print Jesus' words in red to make them stand out. Thomas Jefferson even had his own bible that had only Jesus' words and teachings in it.

All Lives Matter is a phrase that I've heard Christians use as a way of protesting against Black Lives Matter. It is very important to look at how both of these are being used so that we stop confusing very different issues and functions.

All Lives Matter is an ideology for life. It is a given. It is the umbrella under which all free societies survive and thrive. It is the cornerstone of the family, church, and any good organization or community. But it must remain the umbrella and not get confused with the targeted need within any society. 

ALM is absolutely true but it misses the point when it comes to protests, human rights, and social injustices. ALM is not a name for any protests or any new legislation. Until a need arises, there is no use in doing that. It is not standing up against police brutality and murder or for justice or equality but rather it stands up for injustice and racism as a counter protest, lately against BLM (incredibly). And if freedom of speech, press, and expression is the backbone of democracy, then where does that leave ALM when it is misused against the voices of We The People in BLM? It can become a way of opposing democracy if we are not careful and aware. And the mind boggling thing about it is that it is mostly perpetrated by white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, and Evangelical Christians.

All it takes to stand against people in need are people with hearts that are closed to the plight of the most vulnerable among us. ALM is an ideology that we must use to guide our families, churches, and communities. Everything has its place. But to use it as a stand against BLM is irresponsible. It is a refusal to try to understand fellow human beings and the pain they experience. Suddenly a social justice protest, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble is politicized and weaponized and nullified, which, as we all know, is unconstitutional.

If all lives really do matter then ALL lives need to matter. ALL means ALL. And if one group is excluded or one person is excluded, then ALL NO LONGER MEANS ALL. And therefore, ALL LIVES DO NOT MATTER. And this is what we are seeing in America today. I’ve been struck and frustrated by the absurdity of the "either … or," dualistic thinking of those that say they stand for All Lives Matter but not Black Lives Matter because somehow they think that by embracing one, then you are nullifying the other. But the truth is, our thinking must be “both … and” in order to be coherent and wise, inclusive and unconditional, Christian and American.

Since ALL means ALL then,

if Black Lives Matter, then All Lives Matter.

BUT

if Black Lives don't Matter then All Lives can't Matter

because ALL no longer means ALL.

Before we assume what Jesus might do in America here today, we must take a look at his words and his teachings, if Christians still believe in any of that. And then draw conclusions based on whether Jesus was serious about his own teachings and therefore would follow them today. WHAT WOULD JESUS DO???

Parables for Today

Jesus taught this very lesson in a number of his parables. I love parables because basically it is using an everyday story to illustrate a truth. And in truth, all of our lives are driven by stories. Some people call them myths or narratives. These organize and motivate people individually and collectively (in religion, culture, politics, etc.). No matter if they are true or untrue, myths are foundational to people all around the world. They define who we are and what we do. There are macro narratives, micro narratives, and then there is the parable, a sort of mini story or mini myth or mini narrative. 

So take the idea that we are talking about here, that there is an overarching narrative for everyone: All Lives Matter. That was a guidepost for the family that raised me and for my own kids. I’m not sure why some refuse to understand this but my kids understood right away when Black Lives Matter started that it is about time we wake up and see the racial inequalities that are happening in America and do something about it. It is shameful. It is immoral. It is unjust. And it must be changed. And one way we do this in America is through protests, the voices of the people, and freedom of expression through speech and the free press. Silence is complicity in racism. Please check out all of the types of protests in the United States over the years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United_States

I’ve heard Christians say things like we no longer have a problem with racism today so BLM is a hoax. One prominent person has even called it a hate group. But that person is well known for lying. For further information on racism in America today, here and now, individually, collectively, and structurally; please check out this work in progress: https://livingwithopenhands2.blogspot.com/p/racism.html 

It would be presumptuous for anyone to say definitively that Jesus would be joining the protests but I can say for sure that he would not be opposing them with something like, “No! All Lives Matter!” It would be directly opposed to his own teaching, especially as seen in his parables. Let me remind you by taking a look at his most basic teachings.

Greatest commandment: This is not a parable but it is the heart of Jesus’ teachings. Actually when he was asked by religious leaders of his day what the greatest commandment is, as they were trying to trip him up, he replied, in summary, Love God and Love your neighbor. But when Jesus saw a person in need, he did not respond with a statement like, “All Lives Matter” or “love your neighbor as yourself” and the turn his back on those in need. He used parables to tell us how to love one another.

Who is my neighbor? Jesus answered this with the parable of the

good samaritan. A man had been robbed and beaten, and two religious elites passed by without lending a hand. Then a despised Samaritan man came by and helped the man. When he explained the answer to the question, who is my neighbor, he said it was the one that showed mercy to the man in need, hurt and dying on the road. The religious hypocrites are the ones that said something like, all other lives matter more to us, excusing themselves to walk on by and ignore the great commandment. They decided to let that man die. The Good Samaritan, even though he was despised by all people in the area especially the religious leaders, is the one that saw the need and showed mercy. That is one that acted as a neighbor or as an ally to someone in need. Black Lives Matter is a movement of people that are being oppressed by racism still in America along with allies of this great injustice and inequality. To me, it is really hard to say that Jesus would not be there showing mercy and being an ally to those in need because he would be violating his own teaching and he would show that he is not worthy for anyone to follow him.