ME or WE?

"Its all about me" this cognition is the subconscious voice of the western mind. This ideal powers our ambitions, goals, and dreams. The underlining thought of any child's first fight often stem from one of two places; mine! Or NO! Both serve the purpose of feeding the subconscious human Freud names the Id. As we develop our sense of self and cultural identity, the culture we live in target's and re-enforces individualism. Though we as people all desire to be unique, special, one-of-a-kind, the deepest part of us knows though we experience the world as an individual we also long to experience life as a collective people.

Since the beginning God designed people to be social. We throw party's when someone's born into the group, neighbors participate in community events, churches gather to worship,  and children assemble for their education. A step closer examines family units, gatherings,  deep friendships, and parenting. Our DNA thirsts for CNA (community nurturing and appriciation).

During a recent coffee excursion with my dad, I was reminded of two separate views of community involvement; "the one serving many vs. The many serving one." This traditional Ojibwe philosophy suggests as a people we must help and serve the members collectively; our duty is to function as one contributing member of the Ojibwe tribe. This philosophy looks very similar to Pauls take on the church as he puts it, "the hand cannot say to the foot I don't need you".

Community is not about losing a sense of self it's the fulfillment of our sense of self, identity,  belonging. I think people often are afraid of surrendering individualism believing they will lose their sense of meaning and purpose; in reality embracing our place in God's grand story actually increases our value as people. Jesus does love me in a very deep, personal, and real way, but im kidding myself if I start thinking God cannot move without Wes Wilson's approval. Buying into the American dream of self servitude basically promotes ourselves to God hood and demotes Jesus to a sweaty underprepared college intern to the real guy in charge; me. As my dad once taught my brotherand I in homeschool history class, "the reasom for history is to demonstrate his-story"

So how do you embrace our community and collective identity?  How do we embrace serving our God as a people? How do we live into something much bigger than ourselves?

It begins by replacing one belief with another. We need to start believing two things "it's not about me" and "i am part of something much bigger than myself".

The Meaning of Life; exstientialism and the truth

After many decades of a frustrating search for philosophical answers, Douglas Adams renowned physicist concluded the meaning of life is as follows; 42 will do.

The statement is meant to be read with both nihilism and existentialism. When boiled down to it's core, the argument suggest life's meaning is dependent on individual experience; more relative explanations replace "the truth" with "your truth" suggesting "all truth is relative." Douglas suggests a world devoid of meaning, that life can be as grandiose as the universe or as simple as 42 but we're all matter, chomsmic particles, dust. In his worldview everything is in chaos and disorder; meaningless.

These conversations are full of existential bullets most Christ followers like to dodge Matrix style,  but though his saying may be initially read in direct conflict with scripture does it convay any truth of God's kingdom?

In 2013, i had the eye opening experience of being completely immersed in a severely legalistic Bible institution.  Though they professed to be progressive Christian thinkers, the progress must have been loading at a pace similar to a '98 windows desktop or the roundest dog in the kennel. Their apparent leap of embracing post modernism looked like someone who wore the 2001 championship t-shirt to the 2011 games; a decade to slow. Their unwillingness to adapt me got and my favorite prof in hot water. Many privileged church kids argued, "our teacher is too secular" or "post modernism is NOT good for for the church!"

Is this what Jesus wants for christians?  To avoid the deepening questions of life, living like ostrages?

What if the reason 42 will do isnt because we draw meaning from something meaningless, but rather draw the value over an entire world and culture of meaning? What if our purpose in life isnt linear or single dimensional but rather a complex like the roots of a tree. Any direction the root grows will give the tree life, the root isnt limited to one track or direction, so why do we limit truth to something either completely rigid or completely without structure or meaning? 

42 wil do because it is a root to the grand tree; because either nothing in life has truth and we are meant to forge our own,  or everything in life has truth and God's equipped us with a pickaxe to dig out the secret treasures.

Sympathy and Empathy; Guiding Christian Helpfulness

Verses such as "Do onto others as you would have them do onto you" -Mathew 7:12 and "Love your neighbor as yourself" Mark 12:30 clear demonstrate a christians call to love and serve the world around them. Our call as Christians reflects the traditional Ojibwe practice of Bizimdam"to listen." Unlike the western understanding of this word, Bizimdam starts deeply inward and from there extends to the rest of the world. The principle here is rather obvious however many people zoom by this simple truth like freeways cut through the mystic glory of the smokey mountains; you cannot listen to others if you do not listen to yourself.

Empathy is a hot topic in the field of counseling, social services, and psychology. The premise is basically the ability to feel what others are feeling in a given situation. At weddings we may feel an awkward blend of stress and bliss, a sad movie ending envokes many tears, and hearing a passionate speaker exclaim his destain for injustice may move us to feel the same righteuous indignaton he's furious with. Our lease to others emotions have now become a rent-to-own.

Symphony on the other hand recognizes the feelings of others without aquiring ownership. During an afternoon bus route a very enthusiastic kindergartener sat on the very edge of his seat.  Sitting still was a task he had to aquire; his curiosity compelled him to hop between the aisle and window. Going over a bump, the catapulted from his throne and with a scratch and thud his knee hit the floor. The panic overtook his 5 year old mind, instantly the fright of his experience brought him to tears. Having observed the situation I quickly assessed the injury was only 5% pain and 95% panic. Though I was warm and could sympathize his pain and worry I remained calm and used a soothing voice and comforting words to assure him his injury was not fatal.

To often Christians feel the pressure to own everyone else's baggage. Don't get me wrong we do need empathy but it's important to know how to balance both empathy and sympathy. The challenge is discovering how to rent, not own, others emotions and experiences but still remain faithful, responsible, and caring tenants.

Jesus wants us to practice Bizimdam

.  In both verses prior we should love others as we love ourselves. The falecy many Christians buy into suggests self-sacrifice is a high-end form of humility, I'd argue it's an uglier form of pride. Yes, Jesus came to serve but he didn't put himself lower than others, getting down to ground level was to help others in moving to the top floor.

So what's our response to using sympathy and empathy as followers of Jesus? It's ironically simple and complex; pour your heart out to others without letting your tank run empty.

Yellow

A color that i love yet dislike is yellow. My mixed feelings of frustration and admiration of this color began Easter Sunday when I was in middle school. Being a preachers kid the subconscious pressure put a damper on parts of my childhood, one area being celebrating Easter. When all my friends slept in ate chocolate and searched for colorful eggs, my obligations consisted of delivering flowers to deathly ill nursing home residents,  getting my cheeks pinched by a dozen church elders,  and dressing up in uncomfortable Sunday bests making me stick out like a soar thumb in contrast to my peers.

 Sure we engaged in our churches annual Easter extravaganza, but something always feels different when your dad is the guy in charge, a feeling comparable to being shaperond on your first date or taking your mom to prom. That Easter morning I woke up in a especially frustrated mood. Fighting off a cold newly discovered prepubescent hormones and feeling low self-esteem about my weight did not help anything. My mom, Cathy Wilson is a saint. She rightfully earns this claim by her lifestyle of love, truth,  and integrity but especially is recognized by her consistent love and patience raising four boys and a daring adventurous girl.

The unspoken law at the Wilson home gave mom full reign of Easter, but this Sunday in my early adolescence I decided to pull a cue. She warmly requested I wear yellow, I stubbornly defied her request. My attitude was as cold as Haywards 20° springs but one thing that will melt any boys heart no matter how frozen is the sight of his momma in tears. Seeing my mom weeping over my lack of yellow hung over me like a glummy storm cloud for the remainder of the day.

I did end up getting what I wanted, i didn't have to wear yellow, but was this what I really wanted? Not at all. The petty little things in life seem mountainous in the moment, but ultimately we're searching for something much bigger than our current circumstances. Not wearing yellow was a big deal larger than the moon to 13 year old version of me, but my mother's love ultimately is a planet larger than the sun.

Yellow is now one of my favorite colors. It helps me remember to look outside myself to bigger things. Don't make your momma cry over stupid things, or you'll look and feel like a pre adolescent boy pouting about wearing yellow.