It’s yours to share... or NOT... the whole idea is, it’s up to you

One of the privileges of my life is when a person opens up and trusts me with their story, their truth, their existential experience, their solemn account of things.  It’s an honour to be trusted in the silent, quiet, even secret spaces of another person’s life.

Conversations as these are, many going deeper than we plan or could have imagined, there are also times when it’s not the right time, or there’s not the space, or that I’m not the right person.  If and as the other person discerns it.

Each of us has the solemn right to share or not share, and to dispute this concept is an abuse of the soul of the person—verily, that’s a kind of spiritual abuse.

Yet, we’ve all had times when someone has tried to force us to share, and especially times we wanted to share but either had nobody to listen or nobody was interested.

This article is more about feeling free to NOT share.

There are many reasons why you mightn’t share your heart or your real thoughts on a matter.  The person, the energy, the space, the opportunity; all these need to be right for the occasion—far too often we’ll perhaps commit to sharing when there’s some level of inner reluctance, and then we feel we’re betraying ourselves (and possibly others) as we speak forth our truth.

Very often we withhold our thoughts and feelings because we know they won’t be appreciated, or worse, we know we’ll be punished for holding these views.

Sometimes we hold back because we’ve shared with a person or in a particular situation before, and we’ve felt betrayed or let down in some way.  It can take courage to commit to sharing again, or wisdom to show continued restraint.

Indeed, a lot of the time when our words are stopped it’s because of wisdom, where the inner voice says, “Not now... not with this person... not in this situation... hold your peace.”  And it’s always good to ask ourselves why, so we can gain the awareness of insight.  Even if we don’t know why, we should still give ourselves permission to withhold from sharing if it doesn’t feel right.

A lot of the time it can be because we don’t want to be vulnerable—or can’t be.  It is, however, a great blessing to be vulnerable, but only in those places that are safe and with people we can genuinely trust.  It’s appropriate to protect ourselves when we feel unsafe.

Just as it takes great faith to share when we feel we can trust the moment, equally it takes great faith to let it go when you’ve invited someone to share, and they’ve declined.

It’s a temptation to become offended that they won’t trust you, but we must dignify the person’s experience—they should never be expected or forced to share, just invited.

To invite someone to share, and to be declined, is still a precious offer and a blessed opportunity to show graciousness.

The opposite to this scenario is when someone opens space for a person to share into.  They remain silent enough to hear what a person wants to say.  This space held open is for the person sharing to share into.  They feel safe to share because they own the space—because it’s given to them by the person holding that space open.

But the trustworthy person doesn’t compel anyone to share—on the contrary, a person shares because they’re free to share or to not share.

There is also no judgement attributed to what a person shares, which really means that the one sharing doesn’t feel judged.  This is sometimes hard for the person listening because they won’t always agree with everything shared.  Theirs is trust that direct intervention may not be required.  They listen, they wait, they trust, they simply hold space.

The one listening and holding space serves the person sharing.

The person sharing needs the space to share into, but the person who doesn’t want to share needs the space closed.  They need to be allowed to remain in superficiality.  They need that protection.  It isn’t yet safe enough for them to share.

There is a time for depth and intimate sharing, just as there is a time for superficiality and distance.

Although everyone needs safe spaces and places to share, equally everyone needs the freedom to refrain from sharing.  One of the best ways of building trust is to allow a person’s “no” to be “no”.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Listening to anger to understand anxiety

Unconscious anxiety, I’ve found, has often been buried deep beneath anger, whether it’s visible frustration with myself or irritability with others or just a general distress.  I see it in myself and others when there’s no time to be gentle and kind toward others and ourselves.

I see it when I respond unkindly (usually and mostly in the home), and every time I analyse why I’ve been grumpy, it’s always because I have a concern or worry or fear or sadness that I can’t do anything about.  The anxiety has a helplessness about it.

A lack of gentleness toward others is a clue to me that I’m not being gentle with myself.

In sum, emotional intelligence is the capacity to be gentle and kind with ourselves and others.  If we’re gentle and kind with ourselves it works out that others are treated well.  Real emotional intelligence is achieved when we can be gentle and kind with others who aren’t, without being their doormat to the extent that they walk over our boundaries.

Real emotional intelligence is standing firm with a smile.

But anger is a shameful thing because it’s evidence that we’ve lost control.  No thinking, feeling human being is comfortable spilling their vitriol over others, just as nobody ought to use their anger against themselves.

When someone does spray their bile at us, and they cannot and will not see the error of their way, they turn away from their own healing, because frankly they’ll not be interested in your healing, if they’re not interested in their own—they mock the concept of seeking healing as a weakness.

If only they knew that their denial is the truest form of weakness because it’s encapsulated in fear.

No, those who behave with narcissistic intent (with entitlement to exploit with no empathy) are set on the goal of destruction.  Their number one weapon is unmerited, unrepented anger, and wherever a target is hit, anger always ends up being a boomerang.

Nobody should be demonised for their anger, for that only makes the shame worse.  If someone won’t do something about their anger, let them face the natural consequences, but the person who does do something to face their anger will see the engine room of anxiety powering the negative emotions underneath.

Every emotionally capable person deals with anxiety.  It’s nothing to be feared; on the contrary, anxiety is truth’s invitation to face it, learn from it, reconcile it through apology, to cope beyond it, and grow in humility accordingly.

Anger needn’t be the huge issue we make of it if only we can be humble enough to say that it’s there, it’s real, it’s harmful to relationships when it’s not reconciled.

All anyone needs to do about their anger is just be honest; “Look, I don’t know why I’m angry at the moment, but I do know it’s founded in the anxiety in me at present.  Please forgive me, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Listening to anger to understand anxiety is a true concern for the real cause of the anger.  Only when we listen non-judgmentally to our anger are we open to learning about our anxiety.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Church, survival hinges on lament, repentance, reconciliation

I was heartbroken to hear the story of the seven fallen feathers—a story of seven young indigenous Canadians whose lives were heinously cut short.  But this story is merely the tip of the iceberg.  The full interview can be heard here.

This is the story of Roman Catholic Indian Residential Schools across Canada and the stolen generations of social genocide that bears the scars of between 10,000 and 70,000 fallen feathers—children that were killed through a racist system propagated by the church.

Poignantly, at Saint Joseph’s Indian Residential School in Thunder Bay, Ontario, many children never came home, as the plaque reads:

“The memorial is placed here to Honour all the children that attended St Joseph’s Indian Residential School. As a Nation we must not forget the children who attended the school but never made it home. Let us honour the stories of the Survivors who are still with us and listen to their stories to be sure this does not happen again.”

Yes, this was a CHURCH school.

This is the problem with the historical church—at its worst, I mean—as it’s always fallen horizontal into bed with tyrannical colonial powers.  In the land grab, too often the church has enabled and even cavorted with the tyrannical colonisers.

The problem we have is not with an institution with the word “CHURCH” painted across it, but it’s anywhere there’s a system of tyrannical powers that seek to cavort with larceny and control with an iron will—where the church says, “Go right ahead, we’ll aid and abet you!”  Such a church is antichrist.

In too many instances, that’s the church—men actually, or a system of ‘powerful’ (power hungry) human beings, rather than a benevolent God, and people walking in that stead.

Think of the relevance of this wisdom from Wade Mullen:

“The abuser comes to steal, not usually by force, but by clever strategies of deception that trick you into voluntarily giving over what the abuser secretly wants to possess, not for your good, but for your destruction.”

The colonisers only interest at all costs is and was the land—possession was always the aim, and deception is always the way.

We live in a world that romanticises concepts of kindness, but it’s a world where far too often it’s the exact opposite that wins the romance of the heart in the powerful.

Then there’s the lazy dolour of a church that panders to governments of the day because governments insist on lording it over society and using the church as one of its prime vehicles to procure the tyranny it wants.

The Way of the Future

Here is the way of the future of the church. Before God, it must become the institution of God, and therefore execute God’s mandate.  This we might see, first and foremost, in its response to the sins it has itself committed. It doesn’t matter if one church sees itself as having not committed the sins—as if one individual body were free of blame.

Society everywhere is looking for the church to live as if it abhors the sins of the stories of historical abuses, and THEN to do something noteworthy about it.  But far too many churches and Christian bodies ignore these sins and instead point the finger at other moral issues—looking externally when it should be taking a hard look within.

It’s time for the church to go to confessional, but not just leave it there in a fake repentance.

There’s a role for lament that underpins the repentance, that also motivates an attitude of unstinting passion to reconcile with those it abused, broke, and even murdered, and with the rest of the anguished and enraged world, via a mode of ongoing repentance.  It’s time to lament forever what was done as impetus for ongoing and compelling action of restitution (make things right as much as they can be).

The fact is there’s a reason why Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) And indeed, all the Beatitudes (verses 3-12) refer to the heart that ought to reflect the church, at any given time, especially when it has procured reprehensible tragedies on societies that relied on it.

One thing as a church we must always reflect is humility—the capacity to value others (yes, even the rights of one harmed individual) above ourselves.

Where the church fails one life it fails Christ.

The Chosen’s Jesus is a Peacemaker

“Have the courage to be disliked.”  When I read it from a Christian site, I recoiled.  I know what it’s saying.  “Don’t be afraid of upsetting people if you have to.”  I agree to that end.  Try not to be upset if you upset people, because some people glory in controlling others through being upset.

But, of course, there’s more.

I want to use The Chosen’s Jesus (played by Jonathan Roumie) to describe a better way.

The Chosen’s depiction of Jesus is that he’s neither afraid when people are upset by who he is and what he does, nor is he intimidated to the point of meeting aggression with aggression.

He stands his ground but is still very much 
committed to the person and the conversation.

The Chosen’s Jesus does this in the latest episode (Season 2, Episode 7) when Jesus is hauled before Quintus, the Roman Praetor in Capernaum, and everyone fears for what might happen—everyone but Jesus.  Of course, any of us who know the Bible narrative know it’s far too early for any harm to come to Jesus—and besides, from The Chosen’s viewpoint, there’s over five seasons to run—that’s 41 more episodes to come to be exact.

Jesus sits in the room with powerful Quintus and doesn’t just put on the guise of calmness.  He IS calm.  In a situation that would either intimidate anyone enough to shrink in cowardice or inspire a foolish fit of rage, Jesus calmly owns the moment—neither with even a hint of snarkiness, nor with any sense of anxiety.

Jesus stands his ground but is still very much committed to the person and the conversation.

Both things—standing our ground when we’re aggressed and staying in connection with the person aggressing us—are very hard for us to do, and to do them simultaneously is doubly hard.  THIS is peacemaking.

The trouble with “Have the courage to be disliked” is we use such an ethos to inspire more than courage because it’s almost impossible to not flip straight from submitting to the aggressor to meeting their aggression with our own aggression—usually through passive aggression (which is still aggression).

We want people to prove how we’ll not put up with their nonsense anymore, so when we do end up displaying courage it inevitably goes beyond assertiveness into aggression.

In the first season of The Chosen, the third episode in fact, Jesus’ character alone in the wilderness is depicted, as well as his prayerful relationship with and dependence on the Father.  It’s a striking episode.  This episode also features a band of children who stumbled across Jesus’ campsite, visited with him, helping him, and are then discipled by him.

There is a teaching that occurs around justice and forgiveness, where Jesus commends the children to be peacemakers.  A situation around conflict emerges, and in context of ‘An eye for an eye’ Jesus tells the children, “You’re to act differently than others.”  The Chosen’s Jesus says, “What if how we’ve been told to behave and to treat one another are wrong?”

At this point, the children, as do we here, sit up to attention.  Different?  We’re to be different?  How so?  It comes from the ancient teaching, “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.”

“Maybe we let God provide the justice, huh?” says Jesus.  “Do not expect Messiah to come into Jerusalem on a tall horse... but he will be most pleased with the peacemakers... this is my reason for being here.”

Jesus wants us to be peacemakers, just as he was a peacemaker, making peace between us and God on the cross.

Years ago, this wasn’t a revolutionary truth—to leave justice to God—but nowadays in much of Christian faith it is.  I myself, have fallen into this error.  It’s okay to be wrong.

Have courage to disliked, sure, just respect those who might be upset because of it.

Where Jesus is really radical is he believes in everyone, and even where they prove obnoxious, he believes in their potential to change.

Think about it.  If we have such a regard for people—viewing them as 10 out of 10, just like God does—we’re more likely to be able to behave like peacemakers because we’re not intimidated by people when they behave abysmally.

You might think, “Well, that’s a waste of time!”  Treating people as we’d want to be treated is more about protecting our heart than it is about the other person.  This is about, “Guarding your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.” (Proverbs 4:23).

The only way we protect our heart against hurting others is to not allow others to hurt us.  Even when people do hurt us, we don’t need to submit to the desire for revenge.  We overcome others’ evil by responding in the good.

There’s no super power like being beyond the carnal need to get back at someone.

The Chosen is accessible FREE through the App—Google it.  Watch it straight away, but start from the beginning. #ComeandSee

Image: from The Chosen.