I thought this picture appropriate for the subject matter of fear and power, even though I begin from the perspective of fatherhood.
Because fatherhood is new to me, I am in the process of discovery. I discover how much my heart beats for the smile of my son, I discover that with every discovery of his, I uncover characteristics of humans which I never knew, I discover how little patience I actually possess (well, I already knew that), and most of all I discover that God is not like a human father, simply because I am too one dimensional. I have discovered that God is more like a mother, father, sister, brother, neighbor, friend, companion, stranger, and spouse. I discovered this, because I continually want my son to experience life, learning that life is not to be feared, but embraced, but I alone am unable to provide ALL the situations and knowledge which he will need to develop as a human being. (Not a human doing, not a human acting, a human 'being') This was a quote I heard, but I can not find who said it, but I want to give this person credit.
I also discover that no matter how much I talk about communal responsibility or the church, we live in the U.S. and Christians for the most part compartmentalize life, which of course includes myself. I can not speak for all people, but I can speak for myself by saying that I see in one dimensional realms and living an integrative life is difficult sometimes.
I can foresee some circumstances which may cause harm or inflict pain in the life of my son and I would of course do everything to prevent these circumstances, but since I am a protectionist, like many from my generation, is this the best course of action? Protectionism is possibly a result of being raised in too much chaos and simply wanting inner peace (protection from chaos) from the dangers in this world or possibly just the opposite, maybe it was raised with too much order and it felt life as sterilized, so it created a little chaos on its own to react against the order (Protection from order). I know that I have said many times, "I don't want my son to do what I have done", and it is interesting that as I learn more about my parent's stories, I usually find that what was hidden, covered over, not revealed by them, I usually struggle with repeating, but what has been laid bare, open, and spoken about has not been that difficult in my life. I am not making an overarching statement about storytelling, but there is something to be said about passing on our stories to our children. Scripture is fairly clear about telling the next generation the narrative, not only of Scripture, but the narrative of life. Think about Pentecost in Acts 2; for the first time, Jews in Israel were speaking the language of those they considered "the others".
I find that one of the key elements in preventing humans from understanding and producing a language which communicates with others has a lot to do with the created social structures which prevented me from connecting with other people, predominantly the poor or others to whom negative labels had been given. In church on Sunday, we read a verse from Mark 11:18, "The Chief Priests and teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him (Jesus), for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching." I thought, Christians over the centuries have not talked that much about fear. We as humans "kill" those to whom we are afraid, so it would seem somewhat of an important issue. This has been true throughout recorded history. From a psychological perspective, if there is no interaction with those we consider "the other", certain negative images will naturally be produced in our brains, since our brains needs schema's to frame ambiguous information. A schema structures information in our brains so that we can make sense of our surroundings, especially with situations which are unclear. These images contained in a schema, create a memory which is drawn to the surface when faced with situations or circumstances which we can not control, which can be called, "Fear". We fear that which we can not control, which is part of the process of discovery I have learned, since I can not control everything that will happen to my son. If I try to control it, I will of course drive a wedge between myself and my son, which is part of the tension of the chaos and order of God's creation. These memories then cause us to frame our inferences or judgments based upon our memories. What happens if our past memories are either negative or even "neutral" (I put neutral in quotes, because neutrality is a myth)?
Think about it from the perspective of the Chief Priests and Pharisees. These leaders held various forms of power in that society. They had formal authority simply from their position as Priests or religious leaders (a form of power); they had the knowledge of Scripture (another form of power); they had associated power, since some were in collusion with the Roman authorities (also another form of power); and here it comes they had access to the Temple, the bank of the 1st century (obviously, economics are another major form of power). Also, remember that the zealots wanted the one form of power that they truly believed would free them from Roman occupation, military power. The Jewish people knew that the religious leaders, even without military power, still held a lot of power, so what happened when Jesus stood against these forms of power? If Jesus simply came against one form of power, say military power, the people could move on and say, "Well, we thought he was going to lead a revolt, oh well." But what happened when Jesus stood against ALL the forms of power in one way or another? Every single human has some form of power, but using power over another is what Jesus is speaking about. I know what has happened when I have been challenged against my numerous forms of power. I have been driven to the point of hatred and anger seething beneath the surface.
I believe that it is important to understand these power dynamics to re-discover how we relate to our children, our spouses, and our friends. Peace!
4 comments:
paul m. pace, i loved your comment on dave and betsy's blog. props.
Hey Liz, thanks again. I posted another response to that guy Dudley Sharp on their blog. I thought it was a good post, let me know what you think. Also, I appreciated the extensive conversation which you had engaged in with that "Person". Peace!
thanks for the kind words and for pointing me to all of the action going on on their blog -- things are getting heated!
i thought your responses were great and i agree with you wholeheartedly. were you always anti-death penalty? i am curious.
Hey Liz, thanks for the props. My feelings on the death penalty have gone through a transition, coming full circle, because when I had immediately become a follower of Jesus in 1992, I could not imagine how the state could execute people as if it were simply part of life. This did not make sense to me anymore, because I felt and experienced the love of God and I knew that it meant something about life on this earth. Then I went to Liberty and slowly the justification seemed to become clearer as to why we as Christians should support the death penalty, so my views changed.
Thank goodness to people like Miroslav Volf who really influenced me towards what I had originally known, but could not articulate, in that he says, "the state should not be designed to punish, but to incarcerate (hold people from further harming others), but we as humans are too one dimensional to punish. We either under punish or over punish, but almost never get it right." His thoughts really resonated with me, because that it very true. He also talks about God as a God of justice, but God's justice is multi-dimensional, since God understands the intricacies involved in situations. I feel this is an amazing and beautiful way to describe the justice of God. Peace!
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