Saturday, May 23, 2020
The Unshakeable Voice Of The Kingdom Is First Heard
The following is an exercise of what I’ve been learning to practice in Gravity Leadership Academy.
KAIROS
In Gravity Leadership, we have a name for our practice of awareness of God’s presence and work in our daily lives. We call them “Kairoses.” Over the course of a few days, I recently had a conversation with a friend I will call John the Baptist (for he’s a voice shouting in the wilderness). My “Kairos” from my conversation with John was this: When John didn’t (seem to) understand me or my post, I got extremely anxious. This led to relational difficulty and a sense of conflict between us.
DIG
Why did I get so anxious? What was I feeling in my body? What was I telling myself about the situation that made me anxious? We call this “digging.” Here, we don’t seek after trying to figure out what’s going on. We don’t come up with a theory that explains what we’re feeling or what happened. We don’t do those things so much as simply become aware of what was going on, dig into the darkness underneath the kairos. We can be confident that God is not only present and at work but meeting us in this particular step in our discipleship process, because we know from Jesus’ interactions with his disciples and others that God meets us in reality.
I experienced John’s asking me questions and making suggestions of what I should study – rather than seeking first to get on a footing of mutual understanding – as a threat against my voice, against my place in the world. I even experienced it, in some deep sense (that Van der Kolk talks about in The Body Keeps The Score - LINK HERE), as a threat to my very life-breath. I experienced it as a social break, as exile. Pictured here is a drawing I did back in High School that serves as a kind of icon into my fear of a primordial voicelessness. This wasn't the first time I had experienced distress about something like this.
I responded to that threat presented to me of being misunderstood by compulsively explaining myself to the point of exhaustion and exasperation. I insisted to him that he wasn’t understanding or trusting me. I also insisted that that lack of mutual understanding and trust made actual conversation impossible. In this, I implied to him that he had violated me in some way. Where I experienced a threat to my life-breath, I sought to affirm it by grasping it into my own hands for myself.
And, speaking of my body, all this week, as this was going on, my neck was in a fair bit of pain. And, yesterday, I took two hour and a half naps, because I was so exhausted. My body had been bearing the burden of this. It had been "keeping the score."
BAD NEWS
In Gravity Leadership, we also have a name for the script that seems to be driving or narrating our thoughts, emotions, embodied and enacted bodily responses, and our lives. These either are or describe idols, false stories or images of reality or self in which we implicitly trust as we examine what we’re actually doing. These “idols” that drive us, we find, time and again, replace our trust in God. We call this our “Bad News.”
My “Bad News,” then, was that someone not understanding me is a threat, to my very life, to my acceptance in community, to my having a voice in the important movements of things in the world. So, if someone misunderstands me, I must (have a compulsion) to MAKE THEM understand.
GOOD NEWS
We also, then, have a name for what it looks like to actually trust God in the arena or territory of our lives over which our “Bad News” wants to have sway, wants to take over and reign. Cleverly, we call it “Good News,” lol. This is what we hear God proclaiming to us in grace and truth.
The nature of this “grace and truth” that we hear is shaped by what we know about God, which is articulated in what we refer to as “axioms." God is always present and at work. God’s presence with us does not depend on a metaphysical transaction we make with him. We can trust that He’s always here with us, because otherwise, He’s not God. God is like Jesus, which means that God is love. We may experience the deep difficulties of our anxieties of our kairoses and digging as a kind of “wrath,” but God’s wrath is really the shaking of the foundations of our human systems that aren’t built on His steadfast love. Also, whatever it is, God cares about it more than we do. We are not under pressure to “get the process right” or to be perfect. Whatever the deep desires and true wants are that lie under our kaioses, God cares about them not only more than we could imagine but more than we do ourselves. The love between Father and Son reveal this to us in Jesus and his tender and fierce love toward his disciples. So, God being always present and at work, what He does through you he also does in you. And, because the whole point of discipleship is God’s presence, the goal of discipleship is Divine Union rather than moral perfection or cognitive certainty. Some call this theosis. So, as we come to be more like Jesus, we learn love through embodied participation (not through dispassionate analysis).
In response to my “Bad News” that someone’s not understanding me is a threat to my belonging and acceptance, an affirmation of my placelessness and alienation, and means that I don’t have a significant voice about anything that really matters in the world, the Good news I hear Jesus proclaiming to me is beautiful and life-giving. When I dug into that dark, painful (even physically painful), and difficult to face place in my soul and bared it before God in prayer, what did I hear Him say about it?
“On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom…whatever you bind…will be bound…and whatever you loose will be loosed.” This is from Matthew 16: 18-19. And, notably, it is in response to Peter trusting and showing allegiance to Jesus when the Pharisees didn’t. This affirmation of God's faithfulness or steadfastness also came about when the Pharisees DIDN’T UNDERSTAND Jesus – which led to conflict.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that I’m the new Peter. I not Joseph Smith. The point is, John’s not understanding me is not a threat to my life. That’s a giant lie. Notice how, as I say it out loud and in light of the Good News, it sounds completely illogical and stupid. I never would have admitted this to myself or others openly. Heck, if anyone would have asked, I would have TOLD THEM that two people can have misunderstandings and maintain personal connection. I also would have told them that one person’s misunderstanding another doesn’t mean that the misunderstood has been silenced like Abel. But, the reality is that my body experienced my interaction with John otherwise. And, so what I am doing here as I hear this Good News is submitting my body as a living sacrifice before God.
I also heard this: “I am ‘removing’ or ‘shaking’ ‘created things,’ so that what cannot be shaken remains. You are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. A kingdom of cruciform grace and love, where things are upside down. Where to die is to live, and to submit and listen is for you to be refashioned in the image of the God whose voice comes to reign in what felt to you like death.” – Hebrews 12: 27-29. Conversation isn't actually impossible just because I am misunderstood. I can still listen and respond.
DO
This leads naturally into what, in Gravity Leadership, we call our “Do.” If my body is a living sacrifice before God, then my “Do” is not the application of a principle or theory to which I mentally assent or gain firm conviction about through greater conceptual knowledge. Rather, my “Do” is my actually trusting God in concrete, specific, and measurable ways in the specific arena or territory of my “Bad News” where God’s Good News comes to reign AS I PRACTICE MY “DO.” Yes, this is at times exciting and exhilarating; it fills us with joy.
My “Do” in relationship with John was this: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it may become defiled. Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see God.” – Hebrews 12: 15, 14. “Love does not insist on its own way…is not irritable or resentful." – 1 Corinthians 13: 5. The guides for my DO were already present in the proclamation of Good News.
So, more specifically, concretely, and measurably, as an outworking of a new freedom found in trusting God in the unshakeableness of His goodness, love, and grace, of the Way He showed us and to which He commissions us, I was given the task to apologize to John for “insisting on my own way.” To show GRACE to John in the face of his not understanding or trusting me.
In Gravity Leadership, we also learn that “Love always has a ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’” My ‘Yes” here is that “Love is patient” – 1 Cor. 13: 4. Because trust submits myself to an open horizon where not only might I not be understood but where I listen and receive the voice and message that John holds dear and valuable, I don’t and cannot control what John SEES. Love is my renouncing of my compulsion to make John see what I’m saying, value me enough to hear me, to see ME. “God cares about it more than I do”; the “it” in this case is ME.
So, what I actually ended up doing, in the concrete, was sending John an apology for not being more graceful with him and for “insisting on my own way.” I also asked that he forgive me and affirmed that I value his friendship. And then, after I heard and acted on the "Good News," I felt much lighter and freer. I didn't feel so tired, and, after days of pain, my neck didn't hurt.
DEBREIF
In Gravity Leadership, we also “Debrief” after our "Do." As our Workbook says, Debriefing does two things: it provides accountability and more kairos moments. “Accountability” here does not mean accusation in failure as adversaries or antagonists. In Debriefing, instead, we advocate for one another’s good in grace, truth, and love. Also: “The more we do, the more we see, which brings about more Kairoses…Responding to God’s grace opens up new possibilities that wouldn’t have existed unless we said ‘Yes’ to the grace God was offering…DEBRIEFing is how we continue to pay attention to how God continues to work in us as we DO in response to the good news.”
Prior to my apology to John, as I had been "insisting on my own way," he had stopped responding to me (and, he had told me he was going to do so). When I apologized to John, He responded with forgiveness and by also affirming his valuing of our friendship.
This entire Kairos that I am recapitulating here actually also constitutes a “debrief” on previous kairoses and responses to good and bad news regarding the setting of boundaries in abusive relationships and regarding my processing my response when John and other friends kept telling me I should write a book.
I was berated in the past and, in response, heard the Good News that “I see you, you matter to me, and your perspective is valuable.” My response to that Good News was to set boundaries in the relationships in which I experienced abuse.
Also in the past, knowing my temptation to grasp for my own inflated sense of self-importance, I experienced anxiety when I was repeatedly told I should write a book. In response, I heard the Good News that speech occurs naturally in COMMUNication among COMMUNITY and that authority can only be given away. Authority empowers others. This meant that I did not have to decide whether or not to write a book, that my speech doesn’t bear the pressure of itself being a new creation but is only a report of what God has done. I then began to more purposefully practice empowering others with my speech. I wrote about this HERE (see link).
John’s initial foray into the conversation that led to THIS kairos was: 1. in response to his apparently not understanding the point of what I was saying, 2. telling me I should study something important to him. I did not initially empower him by validating the treasure that he presented before me for my own study or acknowledgement. I instead tried to toe the line between gentleness and asserting myself with an explanation of the point he had missed. It didn’t work, lol. I eventually did empower him by asking how he would address what I was addressing differently from how I had done so to that point.
When he did, that led to a great opportunity for me to clarify my point. Or so I thought. Did I mention that it didn’t work? Lol. I started off the interaction by failing to respond to and enact the Good News I had heard previously about empowering others. Doing so, in this instance, really only became a backup plan to control the narrative the way I wanted. Like the disciples in the gospels, I was engaged in a great exercise in missing the point almost entirely. I ended up misinterpreting his misunderstanding and misapplying my “Do” from a different “Good News” by setting pseudo boundaries with him in a conversation that really only amounted to my “insisting on my own way.”
So, fitting the prototype of a disciple of Jesus quite well (see Mark 10: 41-45), my failure to enact the good news that authority can only be given away by empowering others lead to my having another kaiors (this one) that taught me how to discern between being misunderstood and abused. As an extension of that, this entire episode was also, in one sense, an exercise of spiritual discernment between when it’s appropriate to set boundaries, to foreclose particular actions or words, or to limit possibilities vs when it’s more appropriate to be graceful, open, and patient. John was not being abusive. John was enacting a narrative that’s important to him and, out of that, at least initially asking me genuine questions about how what I was saying related to his own story.
I never would have seen that, though, if I hadn’t dug in and faced my “junk”, if I hadn’t gotten my desires on the table of communion where we are altared into the cruciform shape of Jesus, and if I thus hadn’t had the joy of hearing the Good News of the Unshakeable Kingdom in which I can place my trust “deep in my bones.”
KAIROS
In Gravity Leadership, we have a name for our practice of awareness of God’s presence and work in our daily lives. We call them “Kairoses.” Over the course of a few days, I recently had a conversation with a friend I will call John the Baptist (for he’s a voice shouting in the wilderness). My “Kairos” from my conversation with John was this: When John didn’t (seem to) understand me or my post, I got extremely anxious. This led to relational difficulty and a sense of conflict between us.
DIG
Why did I get so anxious? What was I feeling in my body? What was I telling myself about the situation that made me anxious? We call this “digging.” Here, we don’t seek after trying to figure out what’s going on. We don’t come up with a theory that explains what we’re feeling or what happened. We don’t do those things so much as simply become aware of what was going on, dig into the darkness underneath the kairos. We can be confident that God is not only present and at work but meeting us in this particular step in our discipleship process, because we know from Jesus’ interactions with his disciples and others that God meets us in reality.
I experienced John’s asking me questions and making suggestions of what I should study – rather than seeking first to get on a footing of mutual understanding – as a threat against my voice, against my place in the world. I even experienced it, in some deep sense (that Van der Kolk talks about in The Body Keeps The Score - LINK HERE), as a threat to my very life-breath. I experienced it as a social break, as exile. Pictured here is a drawing I did back in High School that serves as a kind of icon into my fear of a primordial voicelessness. This wasn't the first time I had experienced distress about something like this.
I responded to that threat presented to me of being misunderstood by compulsively explaining myself to the point of exhaustion and exasperation. I insisted to him that he wasn’t understanding or trusting me. I also insisted that that lack of mutual understanding and trust made actual conversation impossible. In this, I implied to him that he had violated me in some way. Where I experienced a threat to my life-breath, I sought to affirm it by grasping it into my own hands for myself.
And, speaking of my body, all this week, as this was going on, my neck was in a fair bit of pain. And, yesterday, I took two hour and a half naps, because I was so exhausted. My body had been bearing the burden of this. It had been "keeping the score."
BAD NEWS
In Gravity Leadership, we also have a name for the script that seems to be driving or narrating our thoughts, emotions, embodied and enacted bodily responses, and our lives. These either are or describe idols, false stories or images of reality or self in which we implicitly trust as we examine what we’re actually doing. These “idols” that drive us, we find, time and again, replace our trust in God. We call this our “Bad News.”
My “Bad News,” then, was that someone not understanding me is a threat, to my very life, to my acceptance in community, to my having a voice in the important movements of things in the world. So, if someone misunderstands me, I must (have a compulsion) to MAKE THEM understand.
GOOD NEWS
We also, then, have a name for what it looks like to actually trust God in the arena or territory of our lives over which our “Bad News” wants to have sway, wants to take over and reign. Cleverly, we call it “Good News,” lol. This is what we hear God proclaiming to us in grace and truth.
The nature of this “grace and truth” that we hear is shaped by what we know about God, which is articulated in what we refer to as “axioms." God is always present and at work. God’s presence with us does not depend on a metaphysical transaction we make with him. We can trust that He’s always here with us, because otherwise, He’s not God. God is like Jesus, which means that God is love. We may experience the deep difficulties of our anxieties of our kairoses and digging as a kind of “wrath,” but God’s wrath is really the shaking of the foundations of our human systems that aren’t built on His steadfast love. Also, whatever it is, God cares about it more than we do. We are not under pressure to “get the process right” or to be perfect. Whatever the deep desires and true wants are that lie under our kaioses, God cares about them not only more than we could imagine but more than we do ourselves. The love between Father and Son reveal this to us in Jesus and his tender and fierce love toward his disciples. So, God being always present and at work, what He does through you he also does in you. And, because the whole point of discipleship is God’s presence, the goal of discipleship is Divine Union rather than moral perfection or cognitive certainty. Some call this theosis. So, as we come to be more like Jesus, we learn love through embodied participation (not through dispassionate analysis).
In response to my “Bad News” that someone’s not understanding me is a threat to my belonging and acceptance, an affirmation of my placelessness and alienation, and means that I don’t have a significant voice about anything that really matters in the world, the Good news I hear Jesus proclaiming to me is beautiful and life-giving. When I dug into that dark, painful (even physically painful), and difficult to face place in my soul and bared it before God in prayer, what did I hear Him say about it?
“On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom…whatever you bind…will be bound…and whatever you loose will be loosed.” This is from Matthew 16: 18-19. And, notably, it is in response to Peter trusting and showing allegiance to Jesus when the Pharisees didn’t. This affirmation of God's faithfulness or steadfastness also came about when the Pharisees DIDN’T UNDERSTAND Jesus – which led to conflict.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that I’m the new Peter. I not Joseph Smith. The point is, John’s not understanding me is not a threat to my life. That’s a giant lie. Notice how, as I say it out loud and in light of the Good News, it sounds completely illogical and stupid. I never would have admitted this to myself or others openly. Heck, if anyone would have asked, I would have TOLD THEM that two people can have misunderstandings and maintain personal connection. I also would have told them that one person’s misunderstanding another doesn’t mean that the misunderstood has been silenced like Abel. But, the reality is that my body experienced my interaction with John otherwise. And, so what I am doing here as I hear this Good News is submitting my body as a living sacrifice before God.
I also heard this: “I am ‘removing’ or ‘shaking’ ‘created things,’ so that what cannot be shaken remains. You are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. A kingdom of cruciform grace and love, where things are upside down. Where to die is to live, and to submit and listen is for you to be refashioned in the image of the God whose voice comes to reign in what felt to you like death.” – Hebrews 12: 27-29. Conversation isn't actually impossible just because I am misunderstood. I can still listen and respond.
DO
This leads naturally into what, in Gravity Leadership, we call our “Do.” If my body is a living sacrifice before God, then my “Do” is not the application of a principle or theory to which I mentally assent or gain firm conviction about through greater conceptual knowledge. Rather, my “Do” is my actually trusting God in concrete, specific, and measurable ways in the specific arena or territory of my “Bad News” where God’s Good News comes to reign AS I PRACTICE MY “DO.” Yes, this is at times exciting and exhilarating; it fills us with joy.
My “Do” in relationship with John was this: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and through it may become defiled. Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see God.” – Hebrews 12: 15, 14. “Love does not insist on its own way…is not irritable or resentful." – 1 Corinthians 13: 5. The guides for my DO were already present in the proclamation of Good News.
So, more specifically, concretely, and measurably, as an outworking of a new freedom found in trusting God in the unshakeableness of His goodness, love, and grace, of the Way He showed us and to which He commissions us, I was given the task to apologize to John for “insisting on my own way.” To show GRACE to John in the face of his not understanding or trusting me.
In Gravity Leadership, we also learn that “Love always has a ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’” My ‘Yes” here is that “Love is patient” – 1 Cor. 13: 4. Because trust submits myself to an open horizon where not only might I not be understood but where I listen and receive the voice and message that John holds dear and valuable, I don’t and cannot control what John SEES. Love is my renouncing of my compulsion to make John see what I’m saying, value me enough to hear me, to see ME. “God cares about it more than I do”; the “it” in this case is ME.
So, what I actually ended up doing, in the concrete, was sending John an apology for not being more graceful with him and for “insisting on my own way.” I also asked that he forgive me and affirmed that I value his friendship. And then, after I heard and acted on the "Good News," I felt much lighter and freer. I didn't feel so tired, and, after days of pain, my neck didn't hurt.
DEBREIF
In Gravity Leadership, we also “Debrief” after our "Do." As our Workbook says, Debriefing does two things: it provides accountability and more kairos moments. “Accountability” here does not mean accusation in failure as adversaries or antagonists. In Debriefing, instead, we advocate for one another’s good in grace, truth, and love. Also: “The more we do, the more we see, which brings about more Kairoses…Responding to God’s grace opens up new possibilities that wouldn’t have existed unless we said ‘Yes’ to the grace God was offering…DEBRIEFing is how we continue to pay attention to how God continues to work in us as we DO in response to the good news.”
Prior to my apology to John, as I had been "insisting on my own way," he had stopped responding to me (and, he had told me he was going to do so). When I apologized to John, He responded with forgiveness and by also affirming his valuing of our friendship.
This entire Kairos that I am recapitulating here actually also constitutes a “debrief” on previous kairoses and responses to good and bad news regarding the setting of boundaries in abusive relationships and regarding my processing my response when John and other friends kept telling me I should write a book.
I was berated in the past and, in response, heard the Good News that “I see you, you matter to me, and your perspective is valuable.” My response to that Good News was to set boundaries in the relationships in which I experienced abuse.
Also in the past, knowing my temptation to grasp for my own inflated sense of self-importance, I experienced anxiety when I was repeatedly told I should write a book. In response, I heard the Good News that speech occurs naturally in COMMUNication among COMMUNITY and that authority can only be given away. Authority empowers others. This meant that I did not have to decide whether or not to write a book, that my speech doesn’t bear the pressure of itself being a new creation but is only a report of what God has done. I then began to more purposefully practice empowering others with my speech. I wrote about this HERE (see link).
John’s initial foray into the conversation that led to THIS kairos was: 1. in response to his apparently not understanding the point of what I was saying, 2. telling me I should study something important to him. I did not initially empower him by validating the treasure that he presented before me for my own study or acknowledgement. I instead tried to toe the line between gentleness and asserting myself with an explanation of the point he had missed. It didn’t work, lol. I eventually did empower him by asking how he would address what I was addressing differently from how I had done so to that point.
When he did, that led to a great opportunity for me to clarify my point. Or so I thought. Did I mention that it didn’t work? Lol. I started off the interaction by failing to respond to and enact the Good News I had heard previously about empowering others. Doing so, in this instance, really only became a backup plan to control the narrative the way I wanted. Like the disciples in the gospels, I was engaged in a great exercise in missing the point almost entirely. I ended up misinterpreting his misunderstanding and misapplying my “Do” from a different “Good News” by setting pseudo boundaries with him in a conversation that really only amounted to my “insisting on my own way.”
So, fitting the prototype of a disciple of Jesus quite well (see Mark 10: 41-45), my failure to enact the good news that authority can only be given away by empowering others lead to my having another kaiors (this one) that taught me how to discern between being misunderstood and abused. As an extension of that, this entire episode was also, in one sense, an exercise of spiritual discernment between when it’s appropriate to set boundaries, to foreclose particular actions or words, or to limit possibilities vs when it’s more appropriate to be graceful, open, and patient. John was not being abusive. John was enacting a narrative that’s important to him and, out of that, at least initially asking me genuine questions about how what I was saying related to his own story.
I never would have seen that, though, if I hadn’t dug in and faced my “junk”, if I hadn’t gotten my desires on the table of communion where we are altared into the cruciform shape of Jesus, and if I thus hadn’t had the joy of hearing the Good News of the Unshakeable Kingdom in which I can place my trust “deep in my bones.”
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