Reframing false dilemmas

"The human mind prefers to think by comparison and differentiation-from. It starts as a binary system, something like a computer. Polarity thinking is unfortunately a self-canceling system, a form of argumentation that merely lets each side more deeply invest in and identify with their rigid position. Words can always be fashioned to make our point, and even we know (even while we're attempting to make it) that it is not necessarily objective or totally true what we're saying. Ask any lawyer or judge, or husband and wife, if that is not the case (and ask them to please be totally honest). If truth is obvious, why would we ever need a Supreme Court to resolve disputes? And why would even the justices disagree with one another, often vociferously? Thus most groups divide into liberals and conservatives of some sort, thinking that by defeating the other, they will win. This appeals to our competitive nature. The truth, however, is always something other than what one side says about the other (or about who's right about what's wrong).

The creation of false alternatives to force a person into an either-or choice, which can occur even with well-intentioned people, is even more characteristic of hostile or insincere opponents, as we see the enemies of Jesus exemplify. 'Is it permissible to pay taxes to Caesar or not?' they ask in Luke 20:22. Polarity thinking avoids all subtlety, discrimination, and discernment and creates false dichotomies. And if you fight dualistic thinkers directly, you are forced to become dualistic yourself. This is why, classically, Jesus sidesteps the two alternatives by telling a story, keeping silent, or sometimes presenting a third alternative that utterly reframes the false dilemma. Rhetorically, Jesus was really a genius.

Early in their struggles, all nonviolent teachers learn some form of this wisdom, which is also the wisdom of Solomon (recall his brilliant reframing in 1 Kings 3:16-28). If they didn't, they could not be nonviolent, as we see with Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Mother Teresa. For example, I was told personally by the leadership sisters in Calcutta that Mother Teresa never tried to convert a Muslim or a Hindu to Catholicism. She told the sisters that their job was not to talk about Jesus, or even to promote Jesus, but to BE Jesus! Is that radical 'identity transplant' that he invited (where he will actually live our life for us) what we are avoiding with our dualistic thinking? Or does our dualistic thinking just deem it impossible, so why bother? And what do we do about it now that we have exposed the distinction?"

-- Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now

I find myself being seduced into dualistic thinking all the time, and even when I don't participate I find myself being used in conflicts of one vs. another, where my words are twisted to support a harsh, rigid cause of "me vs. him or her." It can be quite annoying, really, but in moments of total clarity it's just plain silly and nothing to fear. The simple truth is that I can't ever "get it right" while operating in a "way of being" designed exclusively to do so. The duality of that is totally self-defeating. There is only the "letting him have me," and everything else that happens is simply a "leading up to that."

And the stunning clarity of the truth about that - the truth of this totally available, yet often avoided "identity transplant" - will be denied, hated, ignored, etc., by those who claim ignorance, when refusal is truer.

"It's so pathetic how we can't live with or even tolerate the things we can't (or maybe choose not to) understand (especially the really, really good things) - how if we can't (or won't) explain or rationalize something we'll avoid, deny, hate, or ignore it, making up all kinds of nonsense to justify our denial of its existence or its importance and meaningfulness."

-- Chuck Palahniuk, in Choke



For example, here's a man ignoring the "stay in your car" warning sign to try and get a better photo of a lioness, even using the sign while even further ignoring it. You can't help people who are committed to going through life acting like this. Talk about a false dilemma - the lion attacking and killing him is an example of a totally false dilemma.

And to bring it home personally, if our spirits are like our car, and to "live as if our bodies are" is like getting out of our car, when God has placed clear warning signs everywhere, then there comes a time when He just can't help us anymore, because we have refused the help, hoping to get a better shot at successful life in this world.

Thank You, God, for absolutely ALL of it!

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html

We love you and are blown away by and so very thankful for your outrageous creativity!

And as for each of us, we are amazed and clear about how we are BOTH infinitesimal in Your vastness as well as uniquely and personally valuable and even essential to You as Your precious child.

Owning your emotions and your faith

Yesterday I came across several situations where people were struggling to "contain" their emotions, using immature faith (an intellectual imposter, or at most a precursor of things to come) in a misguided attempt to squelch their very obvious (even if misunderstood or unconscious) feelings, 'making them (and themselves) wrong' while at the same time being overwhelmed by their own emotions. I want you to picture it, because it looks a little comical - picture someone claiming that they know they are not being godly and know that they should be good or better than this now, while at the same time biting their lip and looking like they'd like to kill someone. This is a double trap scenario, one which misunderstands the realm of emotions as well as the realm of true faith. Emotional awareness is necessary in life and in relationships and requires a deep inner journey. Through taking that journey fully, which first requires your own permission and then the time to do so, it can deliver you to deep, penetrating spiritual awareness (if you are willing to take that whole mysterious ride into the vast unknown) that you don't have to (or possibly even can't) talk about with others who haven't taken their own version of the same journey. But it sure can grease the skids of relationship, allowing one to lay down first the weapons, and then their very lives, in order to love, which is the whole point in the end.

Going into this holiday season, I would highly recommend a journey, not some physical trip to some other part of the country to see family, although that might be included, but an inner journey into your own emotional depths and through, right into the lap of God. It is a daunting ride, and might seem a little too much to consider, but consider this - it could dramatically transform the purity and quality and enjoyment of every family visit, and every human relationship, forever.

"The first step to understanding the language and logic of emotions is to learn how to recognize and feel comfortable with your own emotions. We are constantly 'having' emotions. It is only out of feeling comfortable with our specific emotion in the moment, and having total respect for all of them, that we are then able to empathize with and understand the logic of another person's emotions, and to connect at a deeply meaningful level."

-- Anne Ream

"When you openly 'express' your emotions, either verbally or by 'acting them out,' it does not mean that you have actually 'allowed' yourself to 'have' them. When you fully 'allow' yourself to 'have' your emotions, it dramatically relieves or changes your need to 'express' them. They keys are: 1) to give yourself the full 'permission' to have your very human feelings, and 2) to give yourself the full and rich inner 'experience' of fully 'having' them. And then after that, the form of expression you give them, if you express them at all, becomes a conscious choice, with the factors of appropriateness, commitment, and effectiveness coming into play."

-- Yours Truly

"Having feelings and expressing them are two different animals; and I choose those words carefully because having feelings means having access to the feeling structures of the limbic system in the brain. Expressing feelings means access to the thinking neocortex. The only time expressing feelings is important is if the state of having feelings precedes the expression of them. Then the comprehension is an evolutionary outgrowth of those feelings. Unfortunately, when I was doing insight/psychoanalytic therapy I thought that expressing feelings in a session was tantamount to having them. Not the case. In fact, too often openly expressing feelings can act as a defense against truly experiencing them, smothering one's feelings in a flurry of abstract ideas and verbal noise. When I say 'it is two different animals,' it literally is: the primate (monkey) feeling brain versus the human thinking one. Animals feel even when they have no means to expressing them. ... It turns out that we can’t get well just by expressing our feelings; we can only get well by giving ourselves permission to fully experience them internally."

-- Dr. Arthur Janov, American Psychologist, Psychotherapist, and the creator of Primal Therapy

"Immature religious faith is usually prerational and has not yet passed through the 'rings of fire' - a deeply emotional experience of God, often referred to as the the 'dark nights of purification' - to the transrational. It is what St. Paul refers to as 'milk' instead of spiritual 'meat' (1 Corinthians 3:1-2). Most critics and unbelievers think that the transrational person is operating from the prerational mind, yet they are wholly two different stages. Ken Wilber calls this confusion the common 'pretrans fallacy.' The first stage is necessary and good, but it is also a stage to move through if you want to reach adult faith. To stay too long in infantile religion leaves you vulnerable to being easily scandalized, prone to oppositional thinking, defensive, and generally unable to be inclusive, conversational, and respectful with those outside your small trustworthy circle. What Jesus means by 'being a child' is the initial 'beginner's mind' and vulnerability we are talking about here. He is not idealizing infantile prerational thinking. From the outside the two can look the same, until you draw closer and see that one (the transrational) is free, and the other (the prerational) is either inexperienced or scared, or both. When engaging with one who has not gone through the rings of fire, any attempt to 'prove' the existence of God - or even the reasonableness (or even the existence) of your own faith - will invariably meet with failure. It can be seen as reasonable only by those who have endured and fully experienced the temporary unknowing darkness, the 'childhood,' and have returned on a different level of awareness. For example, see Paul's own experience: the initial blindness; the scales faling from his eyes, as in Acts 9:9,18,20; his retreat in Arabia in Galatians 1:17; and his return transformed. This journey of Paul surely symbolizes the 'unsayability' of deep and genuine faith, and it makes you feel very powerless or even foolish around those who have not made the same journey. It also explains Jesus' frequent, bothersome, and surprising line to his disciples and beneficiaries: 'Don't tell anyone!' No doubt, this was hard for them to hear. But often, to try to talk about the unsayable to the 'crowds' is to trivialize it or to lose its depth entirely. Instead, you get to quietly and victoriously live it, without the empty need to sell or even talk about it."

-- Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now

Being emotionally aware

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

-- John Milton (1608-1674), in "Paradise Lost"

"Genuine confidence on the outside begins by living with honor and integrity on the inside."

-- Brian Tracy

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude."

-- William James

"He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear, when fear is actually nothing to be afraid of."

-- Michel de Montaigne

"Pain is a helpful stepping stone, not a camp ground - a place where joy and life are sown, vs. a burial ground."

-- Alan Cohen

"Transformation occurs when existing solutions, assumed truths, and past feelings and decisions are exposed as unrealistic and self-defeating."

-- Peter Shepherd

"Artificial light is bullshit, artificial darkness equally so. God plants candles in the manure heap for us to find and light through His fire, so that we can see and walk. Our work is to see things for what they really are."

-- Yours Truly

"If we lack emotional intelligence, whenever stress rises the human brain switches to autopilot and has an inherent tendency to do more of the same, only that much harder. Which, more often than not, is precisely the wrong approach in today’s world."

-- Dr. Robert K. Cooper

"Anyone who is unconscious to how the people and events of their past have shaped who they are today, is incapable of being present in the now and having healthy relationships. When we are reacting unconsciously to the emotional wounds and old tapes from our childhoods, we are being emotionally dishonest in the moment - we are mostly reacting to how we felt in a similar dynamic in the past, not clearly responding to what is happening in this present moment. When we learn how to intervene in our own habitual emotional processes so that we are not living life in blind reaction to old wounds, then we start being capable of having healthy emotional intimacy."

-- Robert Burney, in The Dance of Wounded Souls

What many fail to see is that we cannot have the full freedom of spiritual maturity without a healthy level of emotional maturity. While our spiritual maturity will be reflected in the quality of our relationship to God, emotional maturity will be reflected in the quality of our relationships with people. They go hand in hand and support each other in God's cultivation of both. As God's Word clearly says, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." Many may disagree with me here, but in reality I'm no closer to God, really, than I am to the people with whom I struggle or feel I can't fully be me. And our most difficult emotional and relational scenarios are the perfect places where God shows up to shine the light for us to see and walk, and see things for what they really are, as opposed to processing noises and shadows through fear.

You can never compensate - only co- and re-create.

There is no healing or deep, lasting solutions in surface-level thinking, even surface-level religious thinking. The solution is in transformation - not an ego-based compensation, but a spiritually-based co-creation, a God-based re-creation, of what was designed in all along, but needed to be found, which required getting totally lost. It's just wired in us.

And there's a reason for it. It actually sweetens life, to be found and restored, making getting totally lost worth it, and don't worry, you don't have to force it, it'll happen all by itself. But remember, you can resist it (which involves faking it), but like so many of life's inevitables, "resistance is futile."

"And sure as hell this little brat deserved to get spanked. He deserved whatever he got. This is the deluded little rube who really thought the future would be better than the present. Yea, if you just worked hard enough, right. If you just learned enough. Ran fast enough. Everything would turn out right, and your life would amount to something. ... It's hard to swallow, but this is the stupid, lazy ridiculous little kid who just stood shaking, squinting into the glare and the roar, and who thought maybe the future would be brighter. Picture anybody growing up so stupid he didn't know that hope is just another phase you'll grow out of. Who thought you could make something of yourself that would be worthwhile and last forever. It feels stupid even to remember that stuff. It's a wonder he's lived this long, stupid kid. So, if you're going to read this looking for a happy ending, don't. This isn't about somebody brave and kind and dedicated. He isn't anybody you're going to fall in love with. ... So, if you think this story is going to save or inspire you ... If you think anything is going to save or inspire you ... Please consider this your final warning."

-- from the end of the first chapter of Choke, by Chuck Palahniuk



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Red: [Morgan Freeman narrating in "The Shawshank Redemption"] The first night's the toughest, no doubt about it. They march you in naked as the day you were born, skin burning and half blind from that delousing shit they throw on you, and when they put you in that cell... and those bars slam home... that's when you know it's for real. A whole life blown away in the blink of an eye. Nothing left but all the time in the world to think about it.

Red: [to Andy] Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.

Red: [narrating] Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.



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"I think hope is always relevant. But I think the problem with hope is that oftentimes we get sold a hope that is only skin-deep, which is an illusion; it’s kind of like a band-aid over a festering, oozing wound. Things’ll get better, you think, and you kiss it and hope it feels better – but the problems still remain and the wars inside us are still going on. And what this album is an attempt to do is to talk about real pain and real loss and the real crap that goes on every day, and then in that context talk about the hope that lies deeper than the wound. That’s kind of what 'The Beautiful Letdown' is all about: the idea that in this terrible, crazy world, there is hope, there is beauty, and it's only reachable deep down, underneath."

-- Interview with Jon Foreman from Switchfoot, May 18th, 2004

"I've got my hand in redemption's side
Whose scars are bigger than these doubts of mine
I'll fit all of these monstrosities inside
and I'll come alive!"

-- Chorus from "Redemption"
in the Album, "Beautiful Letdown,"
by Switchfoot


Yes, I speak from much experience. I tried the work harder, learn more, run faster things, even "succeeded" at them. And ran myself right into the ground, all while looking really good doing it and getting plenty of applause and encouragement. And I also tried the hopeless thing, getting hard and cynical. Equally empty and meaningless. And then I dug down underneath, and ... oh, here He is, and here is Heaven, right here in the midst of this beautiful mess called me.

"God's kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic — what a find! — and he proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field."

-- Matthew 13:44 (The Message)

Yes, the treasure was a beautiful field hidden way down underneath the noise of my stressed-out overcompensating life. My awakening heart was the accidental trespasser, and what it found "accidentally" (yes, and it took many so- called "accidents") made me ecstatic beyond words. And now I've sold everything to live right here in this field with the treasure, and I sure as hell ain't moving from this crazy, messy heaven, not until I get to the grand, eternal one.


"One in particular. It's got a long rock wall with a big oak tree at the north end. It's like something out of a Robert Frost poem."

-- from Andy's note to Red, letting him know where he buried the treasure just for him, on the outskirts of a little town in Maine

Ah, Frost's "The Road Not Taken," ... yes, I so relate and resonate ...

and I have taken it, ... and have stayed right there in that field.

And oh what a treasure!

Honoring church as an expression of honoring God

I used to think that I was so "damaged by church," so I avoided and/or judged it for a very long time, throughout my twenties and thirties and well into my forties, when in reality I was only damaged by my misinterpreted experiences of it, and by my own ignorance and faulty or naive thinking about God, myself, church, and other people. And He waited, so quietly and patiently for me to grow up, and I'm so glad and grateful that He didn't cheapen my lessons by making it all easier. I naturally misunderstood so many things from my naive, youthful vantage point, expecting way too much of people (including me), and way too little of God, making the people (including me) way too important in the process, participating sheepishly, watching passively, waiting and wanting, while judging everything. Now I recognize how actively cultivated, grown, and polished I am by my church participation, and that I am invited to be my essential part of it fully, all week long, and it no longer fails me, because I am clear that its purpose is not to entertain me or please me, but to grow me and celebrate me, in communion and deep connection with others. I never used to feel that connection, because I hid out in my own darkness and melodrama and therefore never really felt or knew my value to Him. But now, oh baby!

"And exactly none of us get this right, this church thing, and when we relax into our imperfections (both individually and collectively) - dying to them vs. avoiding, denying, overcompensating for, or projecting them onto others - we are free to bask in His perfect love for us and fully receive."

-- from a message I sent out on church back in 2007


Thank You, God, for the gift of the imperfect Body made perfect by You, and for helping me see myself as a simple, yet elegant and totally essential cell in it. And You show me regularly that, although I may think I have matured quite a bit over the years and have come to "know" quite a lot, having gained some useful wisdom through tons of diverse life experiences, I still know next to nothing when compared to the magnitude of Your grand design, and I truly wish to see myself and remain an innocent little boy wrapped in your arms, which is the most blessed state I can ever achieve.


And that would sound something like this:


"And forgive us our trash baskets
(yes, and just keep emptying the trash, Jim),
as we forgive those who put their trash in our baskets."

-- young boy's prayer in church


And that would look something like this:

Avoiding celebrity

"A sign of celebrity is that his hype, image, and name are often worth more than his presence, service, and substance."

-- Daniel J. Boorstin

"Here's a tip to avoid death by celebrity: First off, get a life worth truly living. They can't touch you if you're too busy out there being and doing something really interesting."

-- Kent Nichols

Why would I possibly want to write a book or make a movie or go on television about my amazing life and mission? If I succumbed to the invitations and seductions of pride and vanity that it would take for me to do so, and it didn't generate the huge response and rave reviews my pride and vanity would expect, I would then be both prideful and vain, as well as seriously disappointed. And if it was wildly successful, the result that the world would suggest 'blesses me,' I would, by necessity, have sacrificed the amazing life I was already living to the process of running around talking about it, thereby losing my soul and my time as well. Celebrity and fame actually cheapen and reduce what we are trying so hard to enrich and expand. But if we simply let Him enrich and expand us naturally, which is what He wants and is so willing to to do for us for free, with no burdensome or stressful effort required on our part, and to the point of total peace and fufillment, we don't have to worry about any of this. And anyone He is wanting to touch with our lives (and to allow to touch ours), He will bring to us and create the connection and exchange. We don't have to expand and reach for what He desires to bring. And when we're expanding and promoting and reaching, whose will are we really surrendered to, anyway?

Remember this story? I have a lot of people come at me like the Harvard MBA dude (and it usually smells a little fishy, but it makes for a useful test), and there's nothing to do about it but smile and relax and enjoy the life that instigated it.

The Mexican Fisherman

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village. An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

"Not very long," answered the Mexican.

"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs...I have a full life."

The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you!"

"You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat. With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers."

"Instead of selling your fish to a middleman, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City! From there you can direct your huge enterprise."

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

"And after that?"

"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing. "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"

"Millions? Really? And after that?"

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife, and spend your evenings enjoying your friends!"