St. John Studies

When I was in graduate school, I had a chance to express my research interests and what I chose to study was a negotiation between me and my dissertation director. He had the things he was interested in and I had mine. I knew that I wanted to study something having to do with examining the role of the self-concept and human communication.

Sounds pretty boring doesn’t it?

I remember my time in Lexington, Ky. in the summers [since I had to do this degree around a full-time teaching job] and an episode that occurred in a public park. My wife, son and I were in the park to have some playtime and I saw something that imprinted on my brain. I observed a distraught mother pick up her child and remove him from the park like he was a sack of potatoes. His head was pointed behind her and he was a very “unhappy camper.” As he squawked, I remember thinking that this was a very uncaring way to transport a two or three year old.

None of us are “perfect parents.” Kids don’t come with instruction manuals and as we make an effort to raise our children, we all make our share of mistakes. Of course, I did not know the woman or the child, nor did I know the circumstances of this child’s removal [indeed, maybe he was such a bad child that he deserved to be handled like potatoes]. But this event, at this time of my life, made me think about the effect that “significant others” have on how we grow to see ourselves.

I knew from my study that parents are the most important factors in a child’s early development. A mother and father can bond with a child and from the very beginning they can begin to construct a child’s sense of self. Over time a child will turn to other significant others like siblings, relatives, teachers, babysitters, principals etc. who can imprint their views on a child. We all can relate to this experience.

Depending on what those interactions are, they can really impact how a child sees the world and most importantly how a child sees himself or herself.

Children with positive interactions may be able to develop a positive self-esteem based on positive communications. This is simplistic but if you are told over and over again that you can do something well, you begin to believe that your behavior is acceptable and you repeat that behavior, to ravishing reviews from your significant others; hence a positive self-esteem.

The opposite effect is the child who is told repeatedly that he or she cannot perform well. Of course their confidence is eroded, they exhibit undesirable behaviors, and their significant others inform them they are failing.

I believe in reality that none of us really knows how we really are. We are “constructed” by our life experiences and the reflected appraisal of others. An adult may be convinced that they cannot draw a straight line because they have been told their artistic renderings are awful. Are they really? Maybe they are or maybe they aren’t. I suspect that if an artist is told over and over their work is junk they may begin to see their work as junk.

Pastor Labberton says as human beings “we are inescapably meaning-makers, and we grow up and mature in an intricate process of engagement, reflection, encounter, testing and trying to see and know ourselves and one another” [71].

Depending on how we develop and where we develop, we begin to see other human beings as our equals, our subordinates or our superiors. Some take their status as superior very seriously and when encountering subordinates they don’t want to associate with them. Instead of learning from their encounter, they judge these less powerful people as inferior, uneducated, and “low class.”

This is a problem when the less fortunate among us need our help. When we may be called on to help others, our positive self-esteem should not get in the way, but sadly it does.

Does this fly in the face of what we are to do as Christians?

“For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

Yes…

As a communication teacher, I know that one of the most basic lessons has to do with receiving messages. To keep this simple, hearing is the mechanical reception of sound waves. I used to tell my students that if you have ears that work without any impediment [plugs, loud environmental sound], then you are hearing. The internal working of your ears begins to vibrate.

Listening is another matter. Listening depends upon hearing. You certainly can’t listen without the mechanics of hearing but listening means that mental processes get engaged. You hear a message and mentally begin to decode what it means. You make meaning out of messages [listening].

Pastor Labberton talks about our response to suffering in others’ lives. He says we hear but we do not listen.

Let’s take an example from our television viewing. From time to time we all see videos of refugee children who are in bad living conditions. They look hungry, they are dirty and their everyday living environment appears to be a garbage heap. I am sure that some see those ads and call the number and sign up for the monthly credit card payment [it only takes 80 cents a day to save a child’s life].

The rest of us, don’t do anything. We hear but we don’t listen.

Labberton writes about our mental defense mechanisms.

We are momentarily aware of the needs of the children but we get busy with our lives and simply forget.

We think about the dire living conditions and we hope that something can be done but it is just too much to ponder; it is beyond us so we don’t act.

Some may have a much harder response, a “social Darwinistic” response; some of us have fortunate circumstances and benefits in life and others do not. We are glad we are among the ones who are thriving and it is a shame that others are not.

Others may think “I did not put those kids in that situation; I am not responsible, so why should I feel guilty?”

The list can go on and on.

We find ourselves in a stalemate. There are obvious problems but we choose to do nothing to help.

Jesus says in Matthew 15:19 “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.” Certainly I am not trying to equate murder, adultery and fornication with inaction in the face of horrible circumstances of our neighbors, but our heart is also where inaction starts. Cornel West states “injustice is what shows up when love is absent from the heart.” Edmund Burke said “the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good [people] to do nothing.” As human beings we are not perpetrating criminal acts by inaction but we are not trying to do our part to help people in need. Instead, we use self-defense, self-justification, blame and rationalization.
Our hearts are not stirred.

Labberton says “God’s heart passionately desires justice, starting with the most vulnerable.” If we hear but not listen, sadly our heart remains unengaged.

I don’t often quote a large amount of Scripture in this blog but one of my favorite books in the Bible has Scripture that fits this topic so well: Isaiah 58: 6-9.
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the throngs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and He will say, here I am.”

When those who are less fortunate will cry out to you and me, will we listen and not hear?

Or will we say “here I am.”

“I just feel guilty I am not doing more in the world.”

Just last night I led a book club discussion and the book* closely parallels the book we are studying**. That direct quote is from the book, a tale of a woman’s life that was dedicated to helping those in the world who are less fortunate. She felt guilty from time to time but as I read about her life, I wondered why: she spearheaded project after project to help refugees and illiterate people around the world. She spent her whole life doing this.

I read about her life and I feel shame. I feel guilty because I am not doing more in the world.

Labberton’s book is so hard to read because he has such a hard focus on the needs of people who are suffering. The part of the book we are in now is about human trafficking. I talked to my wife about writing on this subject and she said “Skip it; no one will know.” I am tempted, but Pastor Labberton feels he is doing his job, pointing out what we want to skip, what we don’t want to face; selling young women or young men into sex slavery happens. Ignoring it won’t make it go away.

In fact, ignoring it makes it worse.

Labberton states “For one person to enslave another….The slave owners have somehow come to see themselves in terms that make the ownership of another person appropriate, desirable, or tolerable.” Money is involved of course and ownership of a sex slave puts money in the trafficker’s pocket. For some of these people it is all about power over others. For some it is about the thrill of breaking the law. “As long as they escape consequences, and as long as the profit outweighs the cost, as long as there is social, legal or political blindness that turns away from the real horrors of enslaving others, then slave owners can pragmatically, if not smugly, justify their buying and selling other human beings.”

Let’s get even more into this horrible situation. Human trafficking would never exist without customers. Labberton pulls no punches: “Customers are…engaged in[to] turn[ing] persons into pieces of erotic, disposable flesh.” The fact is customers do not care; they just want their sexual needs met and traffickers have what they want: human beings who are available for rent.

We don’t want to think about this practice. When confronted, we turn our backs, we change the channel or we turn to another section of the magazine.

Then Labberton writes “all people are made in the image of God. All people are intended to bring honor to the God of the universe, to give and receive love from others who bear the image, to have the capacity to think, dream, imagine, sing, hope…human life itself is jeopardized, it not extinguished by our mis-seeing.” In other words, sex slaves are people who are made in the image of God just like we all are and ignoring the problem is not appropriate. Human traffickers are made in the image of God also; that’s really hard to admit.

But then again, paying attention to it may not seem enough. Last night I read a passage about people who do so little: “Too many people use the excuse that they don’t think they can do enough, so they decide that they don’t have to do anything. There’s never a good excuse for not doing anything—even if it’s just to sign something or send a small contribution or invite someone who is hurting over for Thanksgiving” [Schwalbe, 255].
Sadly, doing nothing is the preferred option. It is so much simpler. Our lives are so busy, how can we fit something else in? These problems are so far away; why should I care.

Facing up to reality, putting names to something, putting faces on problems; that is what Pastor Labberton is trying to do with his book so let me give you a couple of names: Stan McMeekan, thirty-seven years old and Cecelia Slade, twenty-nine years old. This couple was arrested for human trafficking. In their hotel room was a fifteen year old girl [name withheld because of age]. They were using her for profit.

Of course this problem is far away.

Not really; it happened in a small town just 12.3 miles from my home, fifteen minutes away and it happened on February 9, 2018.

Maybe I should feel guilty that I am not doing more in the world: hurting people are real, they are in real danger and yes folks, they are very, very close.
Close to all of us.

*The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
**The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor by Mark Labberton

Sometimes we read things and think, “No, not me! I don’t do that!”

We can’t say that about perception or maybe we should use Pastor Labberton’s term “misperception.”*

We all misperceive. It is our nature. We think we know others but we don’t.

As a communications teacher, I sometimes make a great effort at fighting misperception but it is inevitable for two basic reasons: we don’t really know what it is like to be another person and we just can’t spend enough time trying to understand others.
Everyone is a collection of unique experiences. Things happen to us, we react to those things and the events of life become our life. No one lives a life like you do. No one reacts to life like you do. Each person’s collection of memories is different from everyone else’s. Those memories shape the way you respond to future events in your life.

To really get to know other unique human beings it takes spending time with them, time conversing, time working or even time living with them. The problem is that most of us don’t have time to devote to knowing the “others” in our lives and even if we did, we may still “misperceive.” That happens often when someone says something like “I sure did not see them acting that way” or “I did not see any signs of that in their everyday behavior.” Human behavior can be surprising.

The fact of the matter is we categorize people we don’t know using flimsy evidence. We look for signs of their social upbringing. Maybe we don’t look beyond the color of their skin. Sometimes their clothing will cause us to categorize their economic class. In listening to others, we may draw educational conclusions based on their language use, the depth of their knowledge or even the sound of their voice.

We all do this.

Just yesterday, it happened to me. It is hard to admit and my example is going to be fairly harmless but I could use other examples that are more hurtful and just plain shameful. On a trip to Nashville, I left my destination and was driving down the street. To my right walking down the sidewalk was a young woman in pajamas and house shoes. This was in the middle of the day. I commented to my wife that that type of clothing in public was a real “turnoff” for me. The young woman was a “slouch.”

Sounds bad doesn’t it?

Did I know the young woman? Of course not. What did her outfit indicate? I really did not know. Was she a “slouch?” I really had no way of knowing.

And yet I labeled this stranger and worse, I shared my label with my wife.

Labberton begins Chapter 3 with a story of a Bengali Hindu girl who was never picked to play on her school P.E. teams. One day she suffered through the picking process only to be the last one and the captain of the team said “Fine then, I’ll take that ugly, black thing.” You may remember Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent. This solid-bodied Scottish woman was laughed at when she took the stage but she was not laughed at after she sang her song. Then there is a Kenyan boy named David who was shot in the wrist and hand when he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Since other black youths were skirmishing with the police, it seemed appropriate to use force on David even though he was not causing trouble. He was just walking through the area. He survived the shooting but his hand did not. No one got too upset because in his society, he is “dispensable.”

People who really know about human social psychology indicate that it just seems to be human nature to have a fear of people we really don’t know so we label them in order to create some safe distance between them and us. Also, humans have a need for dominance. It hurts to admit it, but we like being “better than others” even if it means we have be cruel in our judgements.

I wonder how God sees our unjust and cruel diminishment of others.

We read in Genesis that we are created in God’s image. We know from Ephesians and Colossians that God’s image of us consists of knowledge, righteousness and true holiness. We know from Psalms that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Yet we don’t act like others are wonderfully made, do we?

We “misperceive” others all the time and erect mental roadblocks to really knowing or helping others.

“No, not me! I don’t do that!”

Yes I do…

And God is not happy with me…

What’s inside is outside…

As a society, too often we “pull the trigger” on a conclusion when we see people act. Maybe that is a good thing; maybe it is not. For the past two weeks, many people in our nation have been talking about the shooting that occurred at a Parkland Florida High School. When something like this happens the discussion is all over the place for days.
In the context of Mark Labberton’s book The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor, there is a lot of discussion of the heart; he says that what is on the inside shows up on the outside, essentially a person’s heart directs his/her actions.

In the school shooting incident, a School Resource Officer at Parkland was seen not going into the school while the shooter was killing students. Quickly many national leaders have labeled him a coward. His inaction is a sign that he was afraid to confront the killer.

They can see into his heart, or can they?

I venture to say they cannot.

He may know why he did not enter the school. God certainly knows why. The rest of us are just folks jumping to conclusions [you may recall the old joke that the only exercise some people get is jumping to conclusions].

This example of the School Resource Officer is just that: an example, but let’s flip this around and discuss the heart some more. Let’s look at the inside [the human heart] and see if that matters to the outside [human actions].

If what is inside shows up on the outside, what can we say about people who don’t know God and when they are called upon to act, they don’t know what to do. Can any human heart tuned into God lead a person to act in a Godly manner? Labberton believes that and I do too.

Life is about choices and I firmly believe that God knows every thought I think before I think it and every decision I am going to make before I make it. As an actor in this life, I admit that I am selfish; I do what I want and sometimes what I want is very careless, very egocentric. Yet I believe in Jesus. I know that I do and as I live my life, I hope to have more Jesus in my heart with every passing day, week, month and year. The more I grow in my love for Him, this will result in me making better choices. Choices that reflect my love of God.

In the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke it says “To share in God’s just and merciful heart means acting that out in public.” Self-interest begins to take a back seat to actions that are in line with God’s agenda. Even external law and social norms begin to take a back seat to actions that are in line with God’s agenda. If one sees an opportunity to show a love for God, a Christian who loves The Lord will perform that act of love.
Before I go too far, the effort to transform a heart is difficult. The devil does not want this transformation to happen and he set snares in our way of growth. Labberton writes that we must place “Christian filters into our hearts…we must abide in a different place, in the heart of God…[We must] find this new life by a daily practice of dying to ourselves and being raised for life in Christ, whose life, death and resurrection make this possible” [55].

Our choices are important. A good decision that I make today, however small, may set me on the road to a better decision tomorrow, a bigger decision tomorrow, a more benevolent decision tomorrow. A bad decision can lead to serious failure or loss in the future. Certainly I am not perfect and I fail, but God loves me anyway. There is no condemnation for those who belong to God. God’s heart is so big He can see us make our mistakes and love us with His glorious unfailing love.

As humans, all of us misperceive. Less than perfect hearts can yield evidence of all kinds of misperception: “stereotypes, labels, epithets, curses, categories, hierarchies and inner and outer rings, all of which frame us, our neighbors, and God with a taxonomy of injustice” [Labberton, 54].

Yes, we can “pull the trigger” and say horrible things about someone we don’t know. Our lack of first-hand knowledge does not stop us, we say the hurtful things anyway.
As if we have the omniscience of God.

We don’t have it; we never will, but He does. He knows what is in the heart of the actor and He also knows what is in the heart of the person who jumps to the conclusion.
It would be much better to let God do His work and attend to the transformation of our hearts for Him.

We have plenty of work to do right there.

Lots of us pay attention to words.

We have to use them to convey thoughts from our minds to the minds of others.

As someone who has studied words, I tend to pay attention to words that come and words that go. That is the nature of language. Here are some simple examples. In the past, one would say “I am going to the gymnasium” where today the shortened popular version of that would be “I am going to the gym.” In the past, we would have breakfast or lunch but today we can have something in-between called brunch [a relatively new word]. Language change is driven by new technologies, new products and new experiences. Can you imagine someone a few years ago knowing what this expression means; “She texted me this morning.” Texted?

I am constantly amazed by the new words that seem to pop up every year. Some folks think that when they buy a large dictionary, they have all the words in English defined in that one book. Sorry, it does not work that way. New words get added to the dictionary every year. A few new words added to the 2017 dictionary are “froyo” a short word for frozen yogurt, “troll” meaning to harass someone through social media and “concealed carry” referring to carrying firearms in public.

Pastor Labberton* spends some pages on a simple expression that has invaded our culture: “not a problem.” Think about it. When someone did something for us in the past, we would say “Thank you very much” to which the helping person would say “You’re welcome.” Today it is common to get a “Not a problem” response. Almost ninety-five percent of the time when this happens, I just let the expression happen, unnoticed. I always note it in my mind but I don’t comment. About five percent of the time, I will say something like “It is a problem; you went out of your way to help me” to which I usually get odd looks. Better to let it go and adapt to the times.

Labberton just won’t let it go.

He feels that “you’re welcome” acknowledges the dignity of the person who has helped you. This small expression communicates the exchange of services or hospitality; it is flexible, “serviceable” and most of all, it is respectful.

On the other hand, “not a problem” looks at the cost dimension of the service provided. The person who does the favor or service is saying to someone you have not inconvenienced me too much, it is not a hassle for me or your need has not overly complicated my life. It is “not a problem.”

In the context of helping those less fortunate in our world, it is a problem to help them. Labberton uses the Biblical example of Jesus helping a leper right after He delivered his Sermon on the Mount. Wow, what a time to show people how to walk the walk; this was it. Lepers in the days of Jesus were to shout their malady so people would know they were coming. They had to yell “Unclean! Unclean!” so others would know to stay away. Labberton equates this to someone shouting to others “I am a problem! I am a problem!” To Jesus that day, it did not matter. When the leper said to Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean”, Jesus replied “I do choose. Be made clean.”

Jesus was a person who had a life with purpose. Yet He chose to extend His life into the life of one who was an outcast in His society. What He did for the leper was a problem but He did not act that way to the recipient of His miracle. His miracle was a service that should have been done; it was just another example of Him loving His neighbor.

Today, if you live a life of means, you don’t want to be a problem. In my experience, it is a rare Christian who admits that they personally have a problem and they need help. When my pastor asks for prayers from our congregation, the prayer concerns are almost all for others and when she asks people to hold up their hands for “unspoken concerns”, the church is full of hands [probably personal problems].

Today, if you live a life of means, it is hard to bridge the social gap and extend your life into the life of a poor person. It is a problem. It is a hassle. It does cost us.

Jesus calls us to help those with less. Jesus goes even further than that. He even calls us to love our enemies.

Let’s just be honest about it all.

To help those less fortunate takes a commitment on our part. It takes time and it may even take money. When we assist others, we may encounter lives that are full of problems. Life is messy in the real world and when we aid folks who really need our help, maybe we should say “you are welcome.”

Is it really honest to say “Not a problem”?

I don’t think so.

∗Author of The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor

I love my adult Sunday school class. It is a collection of people with all kinds of backgrounds, orientations if you will. I have a twenty-year-old and the age goes up from there [maybe to mid seventies, no one is telling, you know the age thing].

This past Sunday, we focused on Isaiah 53 and the author of our book quoted Isaiah 53 with the pronoun “whom” in verse one and in verse two, the Scripture used the pronoun “he.” Now, you may not believe this from my writing, but I do have a couple of degrees in English. I was always a grammar nerd from the 7th grade thanks to a wonderful teacher name Miss Anna Belle Sherer. I loved her use of diagramming and when she introduced that to me, English began to make sense. I could break sentences down and eventually learn to control English to say what I wanted to say [without breaking grammar rules].

I began my Sunday school lesson this past Sunday with a discussion of who is “whom” and who is “he”; the idea being that in reading the Bible [or any writing] you can’t just plunge into a passage without knowing the antecedent for the pronoun [the word the pronoun refers to]. The antecedent tells who the “whom” is and who the “he” is. I don’t know that this little grammar lesson made much impact but it made me think about pronouns and today’s post will be dedicated to those little word substitutes.

Pastor Labberton* spends three pages discussing the pronouns we, us and they and he mentions I and me along the way.

Do we pay attention to the power of these words? What do they mean? How do they bring people together or tear people apart? He has and I have already spent some posts explaining the phrases “this side of things” and “that side of things.” This side denotes the people who have enough means to live a comfortable life. That side denotes those people who don’t have a comfortable life because they are struggling to live [aka “they are poor”]. Those are phrases, not pronouns or “substitutes for nouns”.

But how do little words separate people? How do little words separate the “haves” from the “have-nots.” Labberton states “I forms the basic building block of we. . . .the assumption is that I is the core and we is the product produced by the free choices that lead us into common, shared associations.” I can yield to the power of “we” but it is sometimes hard to put what you feel you need to do above what others feel “we” all need to do. Social groups thrive on the idea of we. Family thrives on the idea of we. Ethnic groups thrive on the idea of we. Of course some of this group identity is good; I feel the idea of a family bonding together is fantastic and if a little word like “we” helps that, that is great.

What is the downside of we? The downside is when people value their own opportunities and don’t desire to share them with others. When people emphasize belonging to the “in group” and want to exclude others. When people are proud of the money or power they have and want to run with other people of means and power and everyone in the group desires to exclude those with less money and power.

Suddenly people with sufficient means to live can feel they don’t want to help others. It is not the “cool thing” to do. Others in their social group don’t do it so let’s not do anything that would challenge the norm.

Then the last pronoun “they” comes in handy. Labberton says “they is a word that can push away…It draws a boundary, a perimeter, a distinction, a separation, a distance. They is a kind of anti-identity, an anti-definition of I or we.”

Now I have put all my dear readers to sleep. We have plunged too far into this discussion of the little words we, us and they.

Let’s be realistic, we use them all the time [I just did, didn’t I?]. Labberton does not want us to feel guilty about using pronouns; he just wants us to pay attention to how we use them. My comments are from his chapter “Paying Attention to Paying Attention.”

The truth is, we often don’t pay attention, do we?

As a people, Christians don’t mean to exclude those with need [maybe some do, but many are open to helping]. The problem crops up when we find ourselves confronted with opportunities to help our neighbors and “I” don’t want to do it. It is too uncomfortable for “me” to assist others. Christians sometimes socialize with other Christians and if “I” want to help my neighbor and others don’t want to do that, “we” won’t.

It is an easy jump to they: Who are they? What do they want? They don’t seem genuine to me. Do you think they are just using the system? They don’t really need our help.

One can easily see the distance that the word “they” creates.

This side of things…

That side of things…

“They” are on “that side of things”…and the fact of the matter is “they” need our help.

*Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor

We all have them.

“Alarms” that tell us what to say and how to behave when we find ourselves surrounded by people we do not know.

Here is what we want.

We want to be around people who are accepting of us. We want to be around people who share our opinions, people who will not judge us negatively. People we share things with.

Pastor Labberton really gets into the social psychology of being with people with the words* “Alarms that neurologically register fear and monitor safety. Body language, smell and eye movement, skin color, style of dress, volume of voice, attitude and so much more end up telling us from very early on whether we feel we are fundamentally safe or not” [48]. These warning bells go off when we are with people we think are “different” from us.

We prefer being safe. We prefer people who are like us…

Most of us never choose to get out of our safe zone [aka “comfort zone”].

Most of us just can’t handle it.

Not only do we not want to deal with people we are uncomfortable around, we find it hard to change our way of seeing the world. We like our habits. We like our routines. We like our boundaries for how we “see” things.

It is just common human behavior to cling to our individual perspectives. We all have experiences that shape us. We learn to categorize people due to those experiences. Our personality is formed by interactions with caregivers [parents?] and important others. Gender shapes us and society’s reaction to our gender. Race certainly makes a big difference in how we perceive and of course culture, our home culture, community culture, and national culture make a big impact.

All this results in a vision we have for the world.

This happens and it is neither good nor bad. It is just how life happens for all of us.
Here is when this process can get bad. When our limited perspective becomes the “only” perspective, when we forget how particular our vision of the world is, when we forget how naturally biased we are, when we forget that we are driven largely by our own self-interests. Labberton says it best: our point of view is never “neutral or comprehensive” but we trick ourselves into thinking it is.

Before we go any further, let’s not beat ourselves up. It is not necessary to do that. No one can understand the world in an “all-compassing” perspective. We don’t have the mental capacity to do that. To a certain extent our natural limiting of information helps us maintain sanity.

Where we fail [or rather I should say where I fail, I need to own this] is when I see opportunities to grow by understanding other peoples’ points of view and I turn my back on them.

Our context of this social psychological discussion is a book about helping our neighbors, so when we discuss our limited perspective, it can really get in the way of offering help.
How likely is an ordinary person to enter a strange culture where he or she may experience discomfort? How likely is an ordinary person to offer help to someone with a very different life experience? How likely is a middle or upper class person with their creature comforts going to forgo those and enter a setting where impoverished people exist?

Sadly, the answer for most of us is, we are not likely to do those things…

Would it not be better to look at interaction with other human beings as opportunities, no matter what their status in life? We can learn new things. We can discover new meanings. We can experience new openness in our lives and along the way, we may give someone else hope. Coincidentally, we may even find ourselves feeling better about ourselves because we helped someone, we may discover that getting out of our comfort zone is not that bad; the fears of difference are not that real . [I venture to say that feeling better, learning new things and diminishing fear are sidelights of this process].

And then we have “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Oh yeah…

That too…

*from his book The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor

In 2006, I saw a popular movie starring Matthew McConaughey entitled “Failure to Launch.” McConaughey played a thirty-something young man who still lived at home with his parents and he had absolutely no interest in leaving their home. The premise of the movie revolved around his parent’s manipulations to get him out of the house. It was funny.

For most of us, getting started on life is not funny; it is hard work. For some it is a daunting task. Working a nine-to-five job for a long span of time can be overwhelming but that is the best way to get a home (which most of us want). Not only do we want a home but we also want a good job with medical benefits. We want other accommodations, good food, nice transportation, recreation. In the beginning, the novelty of getting started is thrilling, but very quickly we spend a lot of our time, effort, attention and money in the quest for more.

As we seek more, some people are glad to work forty hours but I have had some friends who work eighty-hour weeks. They have the idea that they will work as long as it takes to get the job done. They may want promotions or bonuses. Maybe they are big believers in the upward mobility ladder.

I had a friend at work who used the image of the merry-go-round a lot. That is what she felt about work, that it was a merry-go-round but upwardly mobile people don’t believe that. Instead of doing less, they do more.

I wanted a job. I wanted to teach. I wanted to teach college. I wanted a spouse. After accomplishing those goals, my wife and I wanted a child.

Like most of us, that brought concern for the future. I remember trying to secure my family’s future with an insurance policy. I wanted to be secure about life after work so I began investing in a 401K, so my son would not have to support me in my old age.
I never really felt poor.

My concerns about my life just did not go that way. Could they have gone that direction? Of course they could. Both my parents raised me to adulthood so I had a stable foundation. That’s not always the case for many. Education was a stable profession. If you worked at it and learned what is expected, it was not impossible to succeed. In my case, I already loved going to school so why would I not want to be a teacher?
I understood the classroom and I loved being in it to earn my living. And I was a successful teacher. I was blessed to teach thirty-six years and my wife was right along my side for thirty-one years as an elementary teacher and then seven as a tutor. She was a successful teacher too.

We were busy. We did not take time to think about other economic situations. The poor and downtrodden of society seemed so distant from our world. We did not have time to consider what to do for the poor. Actually we were so busy and focused on our own success that we barely considered helping those less fortunate.

Remember my colleague who used the merry-go-round image, well, my wife and I were on the merry-go-round of wanting more. Like many of us in this world, we measured our lives against what we did not yet have. We wanted new stuff, better stuff. The quest for “more” is a very normal life goal for the average American. It is just the way that life is for people who are blessed enough to be successful. Instead of finding folks in life who are getting along with less, we like to compare ourselves to others who have more and we want to be like them.

Should we feel guilty? I think the answer is no.

Should we be aware of the merry-go-round that we are on? I think the answer is yes.
There is a “movement” that has begun in our society that encourages people to live intentionally, paying attention to their choices, trying to raise awareness of how we all fit into society. If we are on a merry-go-round, at least be aware of it and maybe get off from time to time.

In the context of Pastor Labberton’s book , our quest for more gets in the way of helping others. For many of us, caught up in the quest for more, we are like “rubberneckers” on the highway. When we see poverty, “maybe we look, but then the momentum picks back up and we get on with where we are headed. We may not even remember we ever slowed down or saw anything that could keep us from the mall. And rubberneckers never help. They just slow things down and annoy everyone” [Labberton, 46].

You see, we are caught up in the quest. The pressure is on: just keep moving.

How about stopping, getting off and helping others less fortunate (from time to time)…

Novel idea, this intentional living movement.

Good for me.

Good for others.

It is hard to admit this but I waste water.

Do you?

When I brush my teeth at night, I run the water needlessly. When I shower, I spend extra time in there and sometimes I use our Jacuzzi tub which takes several gallons to fill up. I water the garden in the summer whether it needs it or not. I waste water washing the car, leaving the water on as I apply soap to the car when I should really turn it off. This is just a sampling of my wastefulness.

Like most of you, when I turn on the tap, clean water comes out.

I take it for granted.

You see I live on “this side of things.*” Access to clean water is not a problem.
People who live on “that side of things” don’t assume that the tap will always yield water. I can’t relate to this but for some people who are struggling, their day is consumed with two main activities. Where can I get water? Where can I get food?

Pastor Labberton says that the quest for food and water involves “lots of walking, standing, gathering, cutting, carrying, squatting, pounding, grinding, swatting, boiling and hopefully cooking.” Water especially is a problem because water is a commodity that often does not come to someone; you have to go where the water is. The real work is getting the water home after you get some. The main burden of water-gathering around the world falls on girls and women. They can spend hours each day retrieving water.
Human beings can survive twenty-one days without food [complete starvation] but we can only live for seven days without water. Our bodies are 60% water, our cells need water to live, our joints need water for lubrication and water helps us regulate our body temperature. We must have water.

I could focus on the lack of food, electricity, shelter, etc. All that is part of the life of a person struggling with poverty but water is not so common in a poor person’s life. If you are not poor, you don’t have trouble getting water. But can you imagine day and night, struggling to get it. There is worry and fear that you won’t have it, the pressure of an uncertain life. Whereas I have time to engage in hospitality, joy, and love, I don’t have to worry about the essentials of life. I can dream, I can laugh, I can give tenderness to others and receive tenderness. I am not struggling to find water.

For Christians, maybe we should not take water for granted. Our Bibles have several references to water. In fact it is not just water; it is “living water.” John 4: 14 says “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 7: 38 describes water as flowing “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'” Zechariah 14: 8-9 “And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.” Jesus declares in the book of John: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”
As we think about the needs of the poor, it is all about essentials and nothing is more essential than water.

I sit here today planning what to do to show my spouse I love her tomorrow [Valentine’s Day]. Do I have the right gift? Where can I take her to eat a special meal? Can I do something special to entertain her?

What kind of Valentine’s Day would we have if the best gift I could give her was a bottle of water.

I can do better because I don’t live on “that” side of things; I live “this” side of things.
I should thank God that I can “do better” but I should never forget that there are people in our world who would love to have clean water. If they take care of that need, maybe they will have a chance to ponder their need for that other kind of water…
You know… “that living water.”

*Pastor Mark Labberton refers to the lifestyle of people who are not struggling as “this side” and the lifestyle of people who struggle as “that side.” The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor.