I had written almost two thousand words this week, working out this idea, and decided to scrap them all. This is a rewrite. The question this week is simple: what do we have to gain? Two years ago I came upon Dallas Willard’s four great questions of life. They became so formative for me that I gave a TED talk about them. The four questions are as follows:
What is real?
What is the good life?
Who is a really good person?
How does someone become a really good person?
This week’s thinking zeros in on the answers we carry for the second and third questions above. What if there was a way of living through which the outcome would be receipt of the good life, and becoming a really good person. Wouldn’t that be something?
Looking at Answers
Have you ever gotten something you wanted and realized that you actually didn’t want it? Each of us already has answers to all of the four questions of life. They may not be articulated, but they are there. Our thoughts and actions are governed by what we believe to be real. We make choices in pursuit of the good life. Whatever we believe a really good person to be – I suspect we are aiming our formation towards that goal. Our methods are limited or expanded by what we think about the last question. We are operating daily in a web of governing thoughts. Directives for our person that help us know what to do and what not to do in every moment.
Much of this is automatic, thank goodness. Can you imagine having to think through every possible action and choice we make? Attempting this very exercise is part of my course, What We Leave Behind, and is quite eye-opening for participants. In light of this miracle of automation, we might have to journey into inquiry to discover the answers we are running under. Do we believe, for example, that the good life is directly proportional to the square footage of your house? Or do we believe that a really good person is defined primarily by their ability to achieve success in the market?
These are not small questions. They affect much of what we dream about, are frustrated around, and work to achieve. Human beings are directional. We work towards things. Whatever we are working towards is what we hope or aim to gain. Here, there is a question of imagination that needs some reflection. What if the things we are working towards – that is, what we aim to gain – are a small piece of something much larger in depth, breadth, and scope, that we might be able to gain?
Thinking
For much of my life I worked really hard. I mean, I worked like, “I’ll rest when my ability to work is done.” It wasn’t until I was able, with immense support and encouragement, to change my thinking, that I experienced true rest. I couldn’t have even envisioned what real rest looked like before. And therein lies a key. If we are to fully explore what gains may lay before us, we must engage our imaginations. Not just towards a particular vision, but away from the current cycles we may find ourselves in. To do this lovingly and with compassion for past investment in those cycles and the relationships that often rely on them is the work. Yet, in the end, the question of desiring a qualitatively different kind of life is a deeply personal one. It is something that you can’t drag someone else into – encourage, maybe, but definitely not drag.
So how does one begin? One way to start is to think about something that bothers you. Not about others, although I’m sure there is plenty that can be thought of there. No, begin within. Questions like, “Why does that frustrate me?” or “Why am I so easily angered in that scenario?” are great starting places to begin to listen for answers. As we recognize how we are tempted towards responses that aren’t good, we can begin to turn towards possibilities. What if this situation didn’t frustrate me, but rather encouraged me? What if I wasn’t angered in that scenario, but was able to provide peace? It doesn’t just end with the elimination of the bad thing (frustration or anger). It ends with the birth of goodness (encouragement and peace). The goodness is then imparted to those with whom we would have shared the situations. We can become someone for whom the challenges of life are seen as opportunities! But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Good Life
Much of what is promoted as the good life, be it through advertising, or social norms seems to center around a relationship between achievement and some deeper experience. Rest, ease, lightness, little worry, maybe call it leisure, all are bundled up into this image I have of a cruise ship ad. But who gets to go a cruise? You have to have some time and some money to do that – and not everybody gets both of those. The re-thinking here is severe, but possible. Allow me to propose a possibility:
Imagine for a moment someone who experiences rest to such an extent that their inner being is restful. Imagine this same person, while working just the same as everyone else might be, has a sense of ease in their actions. For some reason, they don’t seem burdened in the same way others are, even though they may be going through similar situations. Imagine that this person also has what they need. They may not be living in the lap of luxury, but they are not lacking. All this without constant worry.
One may want to add an additional description – maybe something like, “All this without any work.” That would be going too far I think. For in my own experience, the work only grows, the effort even intensifies. The thing that diminishes is the struggle, the warring, even the anxiousness of spirit that can accompany much of this area of pursuit.
A Really Good Person
Continue to imagine, if your imagination can take it, being a person for whom the life described is your daily experience. Add to this picture a particular kind of character. Imagine being the kind of person for whom the ability to live without lack spawns gratitude and humility. That their lightness and ease of movement though the challenges of the day is accompanied by equal portions of kindness and gentleness. They are patient and honest. Self-composure is a matter of course for them.
Can you imagine not having to practice gratitude, but just having it happen? Can you imagine words of kindness flying out of your mouth after someone cuts you off while driving? Can you imagine being – not working on being, but just being – patient and honest?
These are all possibilities. This is what we have to gain.
A Little Extra for Followers of Jesus
You may have noticed my use of some of Jesus’s propositions, and some of Paul’s descriptions of character traits commonly referred to as the fruits of the Spirit earlier. As an apprentice of Jesus the possibilities mentioned earlier can be a little more touchable. Jesus proposes these ideas as realities of life for those who follow him into the experience of the Kingdom of Heaven, here and now. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It is right next to you. It is right there. If we enter, this is what we get: An entirely new life. A lot of things have to go away in order for that to happen. We may lose a lot, but we have an awful lot to gain. So much that Jesus compared the experience of the Kingdom to a hidden treasure or special pearl. Something so valuable that if you found it, you’d sell everything you had just to go a buy that. Maybe we should to stop for a moment and just think about that.
How much gain could a new life give if it was worth leaving everything else behind? All the self-righteousness we took as knowledge – gone. All the hubris we took as confidence – gone. All the recklessness we took as freedom – gone. All of it – gone.
As apprentices to Jesus, this is what we are learning how to do. We are learning how to become different kinds of people. We are learning how to bless instead of curse. We are learning how to do all the things Jesus said we could – even to the end of loving our enemies. In time we find that we are sharing with others how to do this along the way, too.
Now, can you imagine gaining that kind of life?