AtQ - What Are You Noticing?
Exploring Powerful Questions
In the latest Talking Note, I explore the idea of contempt. I referenced this viral video.
I shows the speaker, identifying an entire group as “idiots.” I was struck by the viral nature of the clip, and how demeaning an entire group so easily generated support. I’m not naive, nor blind to the fact that this is a common practice. Nevertheless this particular video surprised me.
Contempt is a sneaky temptation to slide into. It is very easy desire, even a consistent in some, to feel that they are good. One easy way to feel that you are good is to position yourself as better than someone else. This is one road to contempt. It doesn’t have to do with whether your actions are of a higher moral quality than someone else, or not. It only has to do with how with think of our relationship to that someone else.
This week’s question can help in drawing our attention to important aspects of our lives that may go overlooked otherwise, helping us prevent ourselves from ending up on a slippery road.
What are you noticing?
Actions are easy to see. A friend stops calling. A boss is unusually short during conversations. A colleague becomes more helpful than before. These are all changes that happen in relationship that are noticeable. They are ways that we notice, “something has changed in you.”
In the framework of spiritual formation the idea is that we are always changing. That is, we are continually immersed in the process of formation. We are always becoming the person we are becoming. We can experience this process passively or actively. The invitation is to become engaged in this important process. If the invitation is taken, the process often begins with our eyes and ears opening to ourselves and the world around us.
We begin to see more than just the actions that are coming out of us. We begin to inquire about their roots. For example, if we notice particular kinds of words coming out of our mouths without resistance, we might ask, “What is working inside of me for this to be the case?”
Contempt itself is not to be taken lightly, and the sneakiness of contempt is quite dangerous. Demean another person (or groups of people) and it is much easier to justify harming them. In what is commonly referred to as the sermon on the mount, Jesus Christ addresses anger and contempt as what leads to the violent act of murder. He presents anger and contempt as the roots that ultimately, especially when given opportunity, express themselves in violence.
If we are hoping to become the kind of person for whom contempt isn’t working within us, then a particular kind of attentiveness is needed. Knowing that our actions and language are an expression of our inner landscape, we can begin to sensitize ourselves by asking questions like:
What are the actions that express contempt?
What is the language that expresses contempt?
Once these are identified we can mind ourselves by asking this week’s question:
What are you noticing?
If we catch ourselves expressing actions or language that we would identify with contempt, we can make note. We can assume that if we express such actions or language with ease, that contempt is working in us. This may sound harsh, but there is no need to feel condemned. There is opportunity for transformation.
The next step is highly personal and may include practices of interruption in addition to envisioning, replacement, and meditation exercises.
The practices we would implement are not meant to alter the organization of our spirit (where action initiates, and where true transformation occurs) through direct effort. We can’t change our will through force of will. Rather they are meant to position us for easier transformation. In the spirit of full disclosure, how exactly the spirit of a person transforms remains a wonderful mystery to me.
Yet, imagine becoming the kind of person from whom contempt has no draw, no pull, no resonance? Imagine moving from the kind of person easily willing to demean someone else, to the kind of person who can speak clearly of evil while remaining in a disposition of love toward the person from whom that evil comes?
The journey begins with becoming attentive to areas of life that we may have taken for granted – a flagrant word that’s thrown in someone’s general direction or the contemptuous thought and reaction to someone’s opinion, for example.
Taking a moment to pause and ask ourselves, “What are you noticing?” is the just one way to start.
As always, we’ll never know unless we keep asking the questions.