Breaking Open 5
[Tension & Renewal - [XXVII]I don’t believe in redemptive violence. Violence begets violence *in the long run* every time. I do, however, know redemptive suffering to be real and meaningful. Good comes from struggle, grace comes from pain, wisdom comes from suffering, love can come from darkness and wounds, generosity from poverty, just to name a few of my own experiences. Life from death is a framework I see throughout all of creation. It’s not popular, but love and compassion and strength and faith can all grow from suffering. Actually, they require it. But those virtues aren’t the natural result of suffering. We just as easily can grow toward depression and numbness or angst and rage. When we try to “deal” with suffering with gimmicky hope (wishful thinking) and cheap love (sentimentality), we drive ourselves toward numbness because our soul is left on the sideline. When our heart is broken open during suffering—we don’t hold back but instead dive further in—we fall in love with the possibilities of redemption, reconciliation, and resurrection. Only with fearless love in the face of unimaginable suffering do we begin to truly hope. [h/t Welwood] Breaking Open 4
[Tension & Renewal - XXVI] Compassion is different than pity. Pity can remain distant, on the surface, and can include a layer of condescension. It doesn’t necessarily compel us to act. Compassion, which sits deep in us, begins at our center and moves us outward or toward the one suffering. It feels the pain. It includes a layer of empathy. It moves us to action. But there are two kinds of compassion, I think. One kind of compassion moves us toward the pain and misfortune, and yet it still remains guarded. It’s suspicious of empathy because empathy is compelling and vulnerable. This kind of compassion seeks generic targets for action. This compassion prefers “issues” and “causes” and the voting booth. The other kind of compassion moves us toward the pain and remains open. It’s dangerous because it leaves us exposed to ever deeper levels of empathy. This kind of compassion is not universal or general; it’s particular and specific. It compels us to know more, be closer, love deeply. It loves this specific neighborhood, that specific family, and this one particular form of suffering. It’s the second kind of compassion that is animated by our soul. It’s a sign and symptom of deep spiritual renewal. Breaking Open 3
[Tension & Renewal - XXV] I could spend 20,000 words dissecting the difference between the heart and the soul. Instead of trying to do that, I’d rather point to a few ways in which they interact. (You can deduce the difference between them if ya want.)The soul is our core, our center, our deeper us, our truest self. We build lives disconnected and sometimes contemptuous toward it. Behind the facade, the masks, the personality, the typologies, and the identities, we have an inner self that is deeply buried and often distant. Our soul doesn’t slink away or grow distant; we simply move further and further from it the more we create the person(a) we want to be. When we allow our heart to break open, as opposed to remain entrenched in a fortified bunker of our own building, we receive an invaluable gift: an invitation back to our soul. Said differently, when we allow ourselves to feel deeply, we enter the deeper core of who we are. This is why even in the depths of grief, we can feel alive, like something is stirring awake in us. Or in the midst of great sorrow we sense something is about to emerge. Like a stirring giant, we awaken to our soul. When we deeply feel—fully embracing the vulnerability of joy or holding the treacherous darkness of grief—our soul breathes and we feel alive. Connection with our soul is a sign of renewal!(Have you ever felt refreshed after a hard, snotty cry? Then you have visceral proof of what I’m talking about.)Breaking Open 2
[Tension & Renewal - XXIV] A friend started tearing up while sharing at a recent Christmas gatherings. He said, “As you get older, you cry more.” I’ve thought a lot about that statement in the last couple weeks. Is it true that a rise in age correlates with a rise in crying? I’ve know grown men that never shed a tear, grow colder, and seem more emotionally stoic than ever before. Clearly it’s not always true. However, what was behind my friend’s statement was a contention that I do believe is universally true: with age comes an accumulation of wounds, and depending on what we do with those wounds warrants different emotional responses. If we open to those wounds, our sensitivity grows and crying becomes easier. If we close off to those wounds, we close out a sensitivity for ourselves and the world. My friend cries more in middle age because he holds his accumulated wounds gently, and as a consequence his heart is compassionately open to the wounds of the world. He reminds me what renewal can look like: grown men crying.Breaking Open 1
[Tension & Renewal - XXIII] We innately hurt on behalf of the world. No one has to tell young children to be sad for the plight of those living on the streets or others that are malnourished. But living with a broken heart is (almost) unbearable. Our first impulse it seems it try to fix the cause of the suffering. All of it. This very second. But we can’t. And so we must turn away from the suffering, ignore it, or build our lives behind a figurative (and sometimes literal) wall so we don’t have to look at it. Eventually we learn that we cannot protect ourselves from pain. Nor can we save anyone else from such pain. And so we numb. Sometimes it’s intentional and obvious, like an overuse of alcohol; and sometimes it’s subtle, like a full schedule and disconnecting from our feeling center. A spiritual revival cuts through the numbing and crumbles the walls of our life that keep us from feeling the full weight of the world. This kind of revival comes with a revelation: “The heart cannot actually break, it can only break open.” A genuine renewal of the heart often looks like a heart (re)breaking open for the world. [h/t Welwood]Not “Milking” Anymore
[Tension & Renewal - XXII]As a child we depend on others for meaning, direction, and survival. We need someone outside of us, especially when we are very young, to give us the means to live. Usually the "someone outside us” is a parent. As adults, meaning and survival no longer come from a parent. Survival should come from the internalized responsibility and habits that sustain us. Between childhood and adulthood is a crucial transition: the long road of maturing. On the front end we are dependent and “milk” (quite literally as infants) our parents for everything. On the back end we ought to cease taking and “milking” from others, and instead, creating and giving away. It is a sign of our immaturity when we rely on “parents” well into our adulthood. But the opposite of immature dependance is not strength or ability or some kind of finger-wagging elitism. The opposite of dependance is maturity, expressed in generatively (that’s a great word—look it up). Spiritual transformation—a deep and true sign of renewal—is marked by productivity and the impulse to create. Create, make, or build something. Give it to a child. Experience renewal. Masculine & Feminine
[Tension & Renewal - XXI]From home and through media we learn a lopsided version of the feminine and masculine. At home our parents are disconnected from genuine community and village elders. Rarely do they maturely and soulfully embody feminine and masculine energy in balance. (It takes a lifetime to learn!) And the socio-cultural norms have twisted our worst tendencies into codified “roles” that only further distort what’s healthy. On the screen, disharmony and conflict are more entertaining than grounded-ness, harmony, and balance. And so we are inundated with unhealthy, lopsided, non-integrated ideas of the masculine and feminine. Consequently, the feminine is associated with nagging, manipulation, engulfing pressure, and codependency. We rarely learn to trust, accept love, and radiate with self confidence under that pressure. The masculine is associated with remoteness, aggression and abuse, and a lack of depth. We grow up suspicious of strength and drive and masculine emotions. I’ve learned that true spiritual renewal manifests NOT in accepting our gender roles without complaint BUT INSTEAD in discovering that both the masculine and feminine “energy” is necessary for self-giving, loving, intimate relationships. (In other words, true renewal bucks the stereotypes and seeks sage mentors.)Pass the Rolls
[Tension & Renewal - XX]I remember hearing an interview with Gregory Boyle and he shared a story about rivaling gang members sitting together and sharing Thanksgiving dinner. It was a profound story because it challenged my understanding of power. What’s more powerful: gang members carrying loaded weapons and waring over turf or former gang members sitting across the table from each other and passing dinner rolls? Or asked a little differently: Is hate and violence more powerful than reconciliation and redemption? It’s not even close, in my opinion. Our understanding of power is so closely related to intimidation, violence, and control that it takes a story as shocking as gang members eating holiday meals together to remind us that there is a different kind of power. A more powerful power is defined by mutuality, solidarity, empathy, forgiveness, and love. A genuine spiritual revival will often include awakening to a nonviolent, non-intimidation-based power. Fear’s Edge
[Tension & Renewal - XIX]What’s your greatest fear? Public speaking or drowning? Never finding love, poverty, losing a job, etc? Is it meaninglessness? The more people I meet that are liberated from their (former) fears because they faced them, the more I realized the greatest fear rarely makes it on people’s list. We’re mostly blind to it.It’s not spiders or rattlesnakes, poverty or homelessness, public speaking or singing. The greatest fear is not really a “thing” at all but a “location.” Right at the edge of feeling your fear—and the whole spectrum of feelings that accompany that fear—is a place of ultimate torment. If you think of fear as a cliff where you fall into the darkness of lacking control, the scariest place is where your toes hang over the edge looking at the abyss. It’s not the abyss but the staring at the abyss that drives people mad and drives them away. We spend our whole lives avoiding the edge because we believe the lie that if we step up to it (And eventually off of it) we will be destroyed. Spiritual renewal happens on the edge. At the scariest place, facing the darkness, ready to take on the lie. Players that Blame
[Tension & Renewal - XVIII]One of my favorite things about coaching soccer is identifying the coachable players early in the seasons and investing heavily in them. I find the players that develop the most from the beginning to the end of the season are those that are open to seeing where they need help and being willing to do the hard work of improving.The player that stunts his or her development the most blames others for their lack of improvement and performance. Whoever is “in front” of them is the target for the blame, be it the referee (who is blind or bias), the coach (who doesn’t have a clue), or teammates (who play horribly). The problem is not that those criticisms are inaccurate; the problem is that all the energy that goes to blaming others depletes the reservoir of energy necessary to do the hardest work of all: looking in the mirror and being honest. This issue of “development” is true in every arena. The workplace. Intimate relationship. Church. When we focus on others as the cause of our difficulties and shortcomings we steal from our future development. Our insecurity increases. Our defensiveness shoots up. And we grow increasingly distant from the possibility of change. A precursor to renewal, to true transformation, is the elimination of blame. Co-dependent Religion
[Tension & Renewal - XVII]If the religious leadership in your life utilizes a belief system to shame, manipulate, or control you, you are not in thriving community, no matter how “successful” it is. You are in a spiritually abusive relationship that is passing as a faith community. If you find it difficult to go without those tactics, you might be co-dependent and your concept of religion rancid. If you feel responsible for the wellbeing of your pastor or priest or faith leader… or you bear the burden of the survival of the institution your leader represents, you’re not dedicated to the community, you’re controlled by your co-dependent relationship to a person in power. That’s not faith; that’s an unhealthy dependence on being needed. If the divine you worship changes “moods” according to your adherence, resents your bad choices, or manipulates events to work out according to their *needs*, you don’t worship the divine. Rather, you adhere to a co-dependent super-figure that you’ve projected onto you sense of the supernatural. Renewal often looks like identifying, naming, and even calling out co-dependency when we see it. Lasting renewal is not co-dependent. It’s marked fundamentally by a humble, grounded, life-giving sense of dependence. Renewal is not Co-dependent
[Tension & Renewal - XVII]Co-dependance is unhealthy and unsustainable. And it’s more insidious and camouflaged than just being "needy.” Co-dependance can hide as a virtue, or for religious folks, as faithfulness. But it’s not. It’s just rationalized unhealth and should be exorcised. Co-dependance is seeing your partner as mad (or any other difficult emotion) and thinking it’s your fault. His feelings are his responsibility. He should be a big boy. Co-dependance is prioritizing your partner’s instability, and putting your wellbeing off until she is stable. Your wellbeing and her stability are not a zero-sum game. She should be a big girl and invest in her own wellbeing so that you both can stand on mutual ground and offer mutual self-giving love. Co-dependance is believing you can change or fix your partner. Only he can change himself. You are not his savior. The foundation of healthy (non-co-dependent) relationships is taking responsibility for your own experience, growth, and wellbeing… and it’s a good sign of renewal. Impossible Standards
[Tension & Renewal - XVI]Most of us have spent our life trying to live up to impossible standards. Don’t get caught up on the “impossible” part, as if I’m referring to expectations that are too high, like straight A’s in HS or getting accepted into Harvard Law School. All standards are impossible at some level if they are externally derived. By trying to fulfill the expectations of others we become adept at seeing ourselves as we imagine others see us. In so doing we’ve effectively alienated ourselves from our own inner reality. Eventually—usually by early adulthood—we've created a few personas to please the expectations of those we seek the most approval from. And we go on living out of these personas until we wake up somewhere in our 40’s or 50’s and we’re miserable. At that point we start looking for causes of our misery. It could be any number of things: an unfulfilling job, impassionate relationship, or middle class lifestyle. (The thing we blame could be anything.)But those things aren’t the cause. At least not fundamentally. Below the whole list of reasons for your misery is that you’ve been alienated from yourself since you were six years old. You’ve been fulfilling everyone else’s expectations and standards for you; the whole while your soul ignored. Renewal—deep spiritual awakening!—looks like addressing your alienation, and rediscovering who you really are. (Coming up with all new standards is just transferring the symptom and continuing the alienation. Your renewal will most likely look like unconditional grace that you offer yourself when you look in the mirror. And being patient. And crying. And that’s okay.) Holy Conflict
[Tension & Renewal - XV]Conflict in intimate relationships is holy work because it is often the manifestation of an unaddressed inner conflict. These conflicts are so difficult because we cling tightly to the identity we have built around those areas of sensitivity. We’ve built full blown arguments for why we're like this or that. Our careers and achievements and income aid our ego in bolstering the story we tell ourselves about who we are.Our loved one challenges the facade by merely being our loved one and seeing behind the curtain. Our loved one is doing us a holy service by merely existing and weathering our unfair and misplaced blame. We can face the confrontation as an opportunity for soul work, or we can shy away from this holy conflict and let our ego continue to be unchallenged, never accessing the more powerful truth of who we are. Ceasing to blame our partner for this holy work is one of the first signs of renewal. Requiring Warriors
[Tension & Renewal - XIV]A revival requires warriors. A warrior, of course, is the symbol of ultimate bravery.But a warrior in the spiritual sense is not merely a religious version of someone on the battlefield willing to sacrifice his or her life for the sake of others. In some ways that version of warrior isn’t brave enough. The highest form of bravery—I speak for myself first here—is to let down our defenses and let our shadows be exposed. The scariest opponent to face is the voice that tells you to keep your hiding places secret and your defense mechanisms well polished. To be a warrior is to bravely face the fear of being exposed so that we can experience the fullness of life when we finally allow light to shine in on our darkness. Re-engagement as Renewal
[Tension & Renewal - XIII]A sign that spiritual renewal is just under the surface is when conflict arises with our loved ones. (That seems counterintuitive.)The reason is simple: whenever we detach or cut ourselves off from a part of our inner self, we suffer from a dis-ease that eventually plays itself out in our outer world (relationships). It’s your loved ones that see past what makes it to the surface. For example, my competitive, tough-guy persona is likely the result of detaching from my sensitive, tender inner self. My loved ones will resist it, knowing that behind my toughness is a gentleness waiting to be accepted and engaged. Conflict is often our cue to re-engage the denied parts of ourselves. Another word for re-engagement is renewal. Self-Concept
[Tension & Renewal - XII]Are you a firefighter, lawyer, or janitor? That’s not who you are; that’s what you do. Are you religious or spiritual or not moved by either? That’s not who you are; that’s a title given to a general mass of people, the characteristics of whom you might identify with. Are you an artist, a socialite, or an athlete? That’s not who you are; that’s a concept—perhaps a self-concept—that your find affinity with. As soon as we identify with a role, a concept, or a group, we’ve accepted a construct. It is our false-self (even if it is generally positive) and we become a caricature of that false self over time. Spiritual renewal looks like letting go of the false-self we’ve identified with and embracing the possibility of emerging as something different. In the Valley
[Tension & Renewal - XI]When I click on the “search” bar in Instagram, the app offers 1000 account suggestions… before I type anything. The algorithm overlords know I’m a young-ish professional male: almost every suggested account offers advice on how to succeed at business, relationships, and investing. I must admit: some of the advice is good. Really good. But there’s something the social overlords don’t know yet (and I hope they don’t read this and learn it from me): Winning and success and achievement teach us *nothing* of spiritual merit after about 35 years old! I mean that literally. Success is a great teacher for the young, when youthful freedom needs the balance of discipline, apathy needs motivation, and insecurity and fear need confidence. But everything I’ve learned after 35, I’ve learned from failure, brokenness, and struggle. After the rush of summiting a few mountains, one learns all the lush growth happens down low in the valley. Second Conversion
[Tension & Renewal - X]Our first encounter with religious truth—our first “conversion,” if you will—creates in us a deep need to align ourselves with big T truth. We change our habits, distance ourselves from our vices, and disassociate with sources (and people) of toxicity. It’s natural that as we take seriously our new understanding of this Truth we judge the world by its tenants. This is why most religious people I know are also the most committed to a harsh justice system, clear moral boundaries enforced in schools and public spaces, and the most public in their opinions about how decrepit the world has become. At some point we experience a second “conversion." Our moral superiority melts. The confidence we have in retributive justice and upholding moral standards softens. And we begin to see our first reactions to the decrepit world was merely a reactive coping mechanism to our own inner decrepit state. That which triggers us "out there" is a mirror for what we wrestle with "in here.” Spiritual renewal like the latter is gentle, patient, and self-reflective. It holds an increasing amount of space for others. Not a gavel.The Little Engine
[Tension & Renewal - IX]The Little Engine that Could offers a great message for children: "You can!" When we’re young and building our ego structure—a necessary tool for survival in this world—we need the message that we can do it. It builds security and promotes maturation, productivity, and a differentiated sense of the self. The Little Engine that Could is a useless, if not negative, message for the spiritual life. Or, “You can do it!” is quite literally the antithesis to the fundamental message that undergirds the spiritual journey. The great journey of the soul begins with “I can’t.” I can’t make sense of this.
I can’t stay clean, sober, steady, stable.
I can’t do this or that anymore.
I can’t handle and deal the present state of things. Spiritual renewal, then, is just a reiteration of this fundamental message. A great struggle with inability is really the only thing strong enough to break down your commitment to your control systems, finely tuned logic, and airtight theories about the world. Struggle and suffering are not the end of the spiritual renewal but the (new) beginning.