Choose
\nthe things of life, not the things of death. \u00a0That’s the gist of our
\nHebrew Bible lesson today. \u00a0Following the ways of God is choosing
\nlife. \u00a0Turning away from God is choosing death. \u00a0In the passage,
\nthese are seen as communal decisions. \u00a0The desire of God is that the
\npeople choose life, but the passage admits it is their choice.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Deuteronomy
\nis written from the perspective of the Exile, where the big question
\nwas \u201cwhy did this happen to us?\u201d \u00a0The answer Deuteronomy gives is
\n\u201cbecause we weren’t faithful to God and to God’s vision for our
\nsociety.\u201d \u00a0Thus, when they look back on their communal life, they
\nyearn to have made better choices, to have been more faithful, to
\nhave chosen the way of life rather than the way of death. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
I
\nhave no idea if more faithful choices on the part of Ancient Israel
\nwould have prevented the Exile. \u00a0It seems a bit unlikely, but who
\nknows. \u00a0It is clear that Ancient Israel was not faithful to living
\nout God’s vision, but it is also clear that the emergence of
\nmega-empires and being a little country at an intersection of major
\ntrade routes was a dangerous reality.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Nevertheless,
\nthe questions of what way we choose to live still resonate. \u00a0It seems
\nuseful to point out that although the words \u201cchoice\u201d and \u201clife\u201d
\nhave particular connotations in the debate over whether or not women
\nhave the right to control their own bodies, the phrase \u201cchoosing
\nlife\u201d has nothing to do with that. \u00a0 Rather, it is about the
\npatterns of decisions that either turn towards God or away from God.
\nTo put it another way, it is about living in a way that enhances life
\nfor everyone and everything, or \u2026. not.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Choosing
\ndeath, in terms of Deuteronomy was oppressing the poor, the widows,
\nthe orphans, and the foreigners. \u00a0It was wanting a king and creating
\nwealth differentiations. \u00a0It was allowing the justice system to
\nbecome unjust for the poor. \u00a0It was putting God second and personal
\nprosperity first.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
While
\nall of that has resonance today, I think there are also personal
\naspects to this metaphor. \u00a0They may make the most sense from the
\nperspective of a person who is nearing the end of their life. \u00a0What
\nare people yearning for more of at the end of their lives? \u00a0What do
\nthey regret? \u00a0What are they grateful for? \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
While
\npeople and their answers are different, patterns certainly emerge.
\nAn article on the topic from Business
\nInsider<\/i>
\noffers 5 of the most common regrets of people at the end of their
\nlives:<\/p>\n
\n1. I
\nwish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life
\nothers expected of me.<\/p>\n
\n2. I
\nwish I hadn’t worked so hard.<\/p>\n
3. I
\nwish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. <\/p>\n
4. I
\nwish I had stayed in touch with my friends.<\/p>\n
5. \n<\/p>\n These \n<\/p>\n The \n<\/p>\n Some \n<\/p>\n In \n<\/p>\n Now, \n<\/p>\n At \n\n<\/p>\n \nNow, I \n\n<\/p>\n \nAs the \n\n<\/p>\n \nNow, my \n\n<\/p>\n Brown \n\u201cSelf-kindness: \nCommon \nMindfulness: \n<\/p>\n So, \n<\/p>\n Perfectionism <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1<\/a>Susie 2<\/a>Bren\u00e9 3<\/a>Brown, 4<\/a>Brown, 5<\/a>Brown, <\/p>\n February 16, 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nI wish that I had let myself be happier.1<\/sup><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n
\ngive us some really good answers as to what are the things of life
\n(courage, authenticity, feelings, friends, joy) and what are the
\nthings of death (expectations, overworking, fear, distance, and
\ndisconnection.)<\/p>\n
\nonly thing I think is actively missing from the list is the choosing
\ndeath of distractions. \u00a0So much of modern life is just a wide-ranging
\nsmorgasbord of things willing to distract us from our feelings, from
\ndiscomfort, from our authentic selves. \u00a0Many of these distractions
\ncome in the form of screens, but not all do. \u00a0It is EASY to numb our
\nselves out, rather than face our feelings, and (oh my!) respond to
\nwhat the feelings tell us about how we need to change our lives. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nof you have heard me say that during my renewal leave I disconnected
\nfrom social media and email. \u00a0It was GLORIOUS. \u00a0I still found myself
\npicking up my phone more than I expected, \u00a0and I eventually got
\ncurious about why. \u00a0Quite often, I pick up my phone to play Sudoku
\n(the only game I permit on my phone). \u00a0And so then I got curious as
\nto why I was doing it. Two reasons: \u00a0either because I was feeling
\nanxious and wanted to be distracted from it or because I was feeling
\noverwhelmed deciding between things and wanted to procrastinate the
\ndecision. \u00a0Those motivations have held true since then as well. \u00a0The
\nsmorgasbord of distraction options that keep us from making hard
\ndecisions, or from dealing with our emotions are things of death. \u00a0 I
\nsuspect they are also things we may regret on our deathbeds, when
\ntime feels precious and like a thing not be wasted away.<\/p>\n
\nan attempt to change that pattern, to be more at ease with myself and
\nless worried about making the \u201cwrong\u201d decision, since coming back
\nfrom leave, I’ve been slowly working my way through Bren\u00e9
\nBrown’s book \u201cThe Gifts of Imperfection.\u201d \u00a0 This week I read the
\nsection entitled \u201cCultivating Self-Compassion: Letting Go of
\nPerfectionism.\u201d \u00a0Brown says \u201cWhere perfectionism exists, shame is
\nalways lurking.\u201d2<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n Now many of us are trained to think that perfection is a GOOD goal,
\nthat it is about striving to be one’s best or self-improvement, but
\nBrown disagrees. \u00a0She says, \u201cPerfectionism is the belief that if we
\nlive perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid
\nthe pain of blame, judgement, and shame. \u00a0\u2026. Perfectionism, at it’s
\ncore, is about trying to earn approval and acceptance.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n (OUCH.)<\/p>\n
\nif I’m honest, I have had an unusually difficult year. \u00a0Almost a year
\nago now, the Church (big C) to which I have committed my life
\ndeclared itself morally bankrupt, and that has been \u2026. heavy. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nthe same time, this church (little c) has been struggling through
\nincredibly difficult decision making that has resulted in much higher
\nanxiety in the system than usual. \u00a0And, as family systems predicts, a
\nlot of the anxiety got passed to
\nme
\nas the leader. \u00a0That’s to be expected. \u00a0That’s what happens when
\nthere is anxiety in a system, it gets focused on the leader.<\/p>\n
\nknow that pastoral ministry is an impossible task to do perfectly. \u00a0
\nThere is a reason why there is no universally agreed upon definition
\nof perfect pastor. \u00a0Context matters a lot in ministry \u2013 so do
\npeople and their expectations. \u00a0Each person in each church has
\ndifferent expectations of what a pastor IS and should be doing, and
\nmost of those aren’t even conscious. \u00a0So those expectations aren’t
\nclearly articulated, and yet there is a hope that they will be met \u2013
\nall of them, from all of the people, all the time, all at the same
\ntime. \u00a0My own expectations are that I should spend about half my time
\non each of the following: visiting the hurting and keeping in touch
\nwith all the people, sermon and worship work, administration and
\nmeetings, keeping up to date with great research and scholarship and
\nteaching it, considering structural reorganization and systemic
\nchange, making change within our communities, meeting people and
\nbringing them to church, maintaining a deep and profound prayer life.
\n At a minimum.<\/p>\n
\nanxiety has risen, my fears of my own failures have gotten sharper,
\nand the critiques coming at me have kept pace with my own fears. \u00a0Yet
\nmy capacities haven’t changed \u2013 I still can’t meet my own standards
\nin any aspect of ministry, and I don’t know that I can meet anyone
\nelse’s either. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nsuspicion is that I’m talking about something more universal than
\npastoral ministry, or even leadership. \u00a0I think that most of our
\nlives have times when we feel like what we’re doing isn’t enough, and
\neven worse there are times when others agree with us about that! \u00a0It
\nfeels awful, and it can be a really ugly downhill spiral. \u00a0This is
\nthe stuff Brown is talking about as perfectionism, and boy oh boy
\ndoes it make sense to me that perfectionism is about avoiding the
\nawful feeling of being judged lacking.<\/p>\n
\nshares about people who are less stuck in perfectionism, and she says
\ntwo attributes make them different, \u201cFirst, they spoke about their
\nimperfections in a tender and honest way, and without shame and fear.
\n Second, they were slow to judge themselves and others. \u00a0They
\nappeared to operate from a place of ‘We’re all doing the best we
\ncan.’ \u00a0Their courage, compassion, and connection seemed rooted in the
\nways they treated themselves.\u201d4<\/sup><\/a><\/sup>
\n She concludes that people were operating from self-compassion, and
\nthat it is LEARNABLE<\/b>.
\n It has 3 parts:<\/p>\n
\n Being warm and understanding towards ourselves when we suffer, fail,
\nor feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating
\nourselves with self-criticism.<\/p>\n
\nHumanity: \u00a0Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of
\npersonal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience \u2013
\nsomething we all go through rather than something that happens to
\n‘me’ alone.<\/p>\n
\nTaking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are
\nneither suppressed nor exaggerated. \u00a0We cannot ignore our pain and
\nfeel compassion for it at the same time. \u00a0Mindfulness also requires
\nthat we not ‘over-identify’ with thoughts and feelings, so that we
\nare caught up and swept away by negativity.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n
\ndifficult as it is, authenticity and choosing LIFE are about facing
\nshame and failure, being vulnerable, and letting go of perfection.
\nI’m really quite sure that our self-judgments don’t happen in vacuums
\nlike we think \u2013 most
\nof us believe that it is OK to be harsher with ourselves than we’d be
\nwith others, but the truth is that judgement itself slips out
\nunaware, and the only way to be truly kind to other people in their
\nvulnerability is to become more gentle with ourselves in ours. \u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\nis choosing death. \u00a0Compassion is choosing life. \u00a0May God help us all
\nas we strive to choose life. \u00a0Amen <\/p>\n
\n\tSteiner, \u201cThe 5 Things People Regret Most on Their Deathbeds\u201d
\n\thttps:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/5-things-people-regret-on-their-deathbed-2013-12<\/a>,
\n\tPublished December 5, 2013. Accessed February 13, 2020.<\/p>\n
\n\tBrown, \u201cThe Gifts of
\n\tImperfection\u201d (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden, 2010), p. 55.<\/p>\n
\n\t56.<\/p>\n
\n\t59.<\/p>\n
\n\t59-60. \u00a0Please note, the same researcher offers other great stuff at
\n\twww.self-compassion.org<\/a><\/p>\n