Tolerating Truth
My Beloved Readers:
I started this new endeavor because I thought I had something that might help others live. That in itself sounds somewhat arrogant. What in the world might I offer someone else in the way of living?
But having followed my own shadow to a deep place of pain, I’ve learned how to get up and get back to real life. Not to living my best life or to self actualizing… both are fleeting and unsustainable. However I am learning how to live and live well, to be fully integrated in my family, my vocation and the world around me. There is deep satisfaction and peace in that position. I don’t know that I’ve “arrived”, but I am closer to contentment and peace than before. And you can live well if, when the time comes, you are willing to face the truth.
What is Truth?
PP - the “og” enlightenment thinker
The famed Enlightenment thinker (that was a joke) Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” And here we must begin to define “truth” which is harder than you think. In our society we are encouraged to “speak our truth.” So what does that mean? What does that have to do with living well? Pilate asked a great question that must be answered.
For purposes of this blog I want to focus on the truth of how others experience you. Often times, when confronted with our own choices, behaviors and actions, we recoil and reject others perceptions and experiences of us. It is one of the more difficult things I’ve ever had to face - the consequences of my own actions in the faces of those I love.
Making Sense of the Past
Over the past weeks I’ve notices somethings in my brain I cannot make sense of. Two years prior, I was asked to take a leave of absence from my role as pastor because I was burnt out spiritually and emotionally. I was done. Left to my own devices, my end was sure, and it was not going to be pretty. Luckily some close friends and my wife started speaking the truth to me.
I did, however, make great strides and returned to my post. I thought the difficult part was behind me and nothing but glory and success awaited me. Yet things in my vocation have remained somewhat difficult. There were more losses and set backs to be faced. And over the last few weeks I found the fermented poison of bitterness in my heart. It sounded a lot like regret and despair. And it was not pleasant to look at.
So over the past weeks I’ve been reaching out to those with whom I had either pain or regret or bitterness. I wanted to make sense of the past and why things went the way the did. “What could have been,” was eating me up inside. And I have learned that as we are able to make sense of the past, our brains become less disintegrated. Our story makes more sense. And, I believe we are better able to live when our stories make sense.
So I had some “TC’s”. You know… tough conversations. I asked some friends their story and their experience of me and our church. I shared hurts and frustrations, but I went seeking to make sense of their story and their perspective. And some of their truth… well… it hurt.
Tolerating Truth
Let me insert a quote from the brilliant German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche:
“The strength of a person’s spirit would then be measured by how much ‘truth’ he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.”
(thinks he killed God. at least killed my pride)
As a Christian pastor, you might think I would be repulsed at the idea of using someone who propagated the idea that the enlightenment had, in effect, killed God. And while I believe that the Son of God did in fact die and then rise again (much to the chagrin of those who killed Him) as a historical fact, Nietzsche’s quote on tolerating truth hit a place of fear in me.
I posses a rather powerful personality. I can wield it to deflect and bend the truth to my liking. And here Nietzsche proved my character weak. In the past, hearing the truth would send me metaphorically to my childhood. I became a boy, pouting when his mother takes away a toy.
Yet this time, as I faced the truth of these friends experience of me, of my vocation and of our church, I did not shrink back from it. I “girded up my loins like a man” and took the truth without need for dilution. And at the end of the conversations, I found myself stronger, willing to change and more resolved to live well. Not only that I made sense of the past a little bit more and by brain was more integrated with the reality of our experience together.
Humility
So now what? Well here let me encourage a little humility. It suits me well and I would be willing to bet it would look good on you. I am not suggesting you become a wallflower who takes it in the shorts over and over again. I am suggesting, when you find yourself in a place of pain or frustration, it might be time for a little truth. And that requires a measure of humility. Humility is in short supply and our society does not value it. But I would be wiling to bet, those who love you the most would think highly of it. So the next time the pain increases, your shadow gets a little darker, you might as someone close to you, “how are you experiencing me?” Let me just say, it won’t go well. The first few rounds of this never does. And that is the point. There is part of you that needs to die because it is useless. With these useless parts of you, you are guaranteed to end up the shadow. And if you are humble enough, you might be willing to sacrifice that part of you without having to have something you love taken away from you. It is much easier to let go of it willingly (the false, the silly, the harmful) than to have it taken away from you.
JS Bower
