Feel With

This Lenten season has been much different than many that I have experienced in my 20+ years of ministry. Part of my own personal Lenten observance each year is to inwardly reflect while journeying through my own struggles toward the freedom and life-producing gift of resurrection. Recently, I have found myself spending more time in sheer contemplation - often shaking my head in disgust, confusion, and utter frustration both with others and myself. This is not because the spiritual disciplines in which I have chosen to partake have caused an overflow of inward processing. Rather, it is the cacophony of situations that I am surrounded with in my daily existence that seem steeped in argumentative banter.
 

Whether it is my T.V. barking at me from my living room, the radio in my car, the computer on my desk, or the smart phone in my pocket, the tone being transmitted is overwhelmingly argumentative. I believe this is partly due to what I read earlier this week in my Lenten devotional. The argumentative tone is simply a symptom of a greater disease. Edward Hays says,

“The roots of the disease lie intertwined with the roots of capitalism, the free market system. Its creed so easily is translated as, ‘I will get as much as I can from you and give you in return as little as possible. If I can, I will give you nothing, while trying to get everything from you.’”

When we take and even prevent people from receiving, we are not just looking for an argument - we are creating one. We become selfish, myopic people, who only begin to see what is best for our own interests, pursuits, and desires. We quickly become consumed with being right, winning the argument, and often conquering or decimating our opponent.

As an Anglican and now a Quaker, I have been taught to value the concept of consensus. At first glance, one may consider consensus the opposite of argument. The reality is that too often consensus means “to get my opponent to agree with my way of thinking.” This could not be further from the truth. Consensus comes from con-sentire, to “feel with” the other. As Edward Hays points out today in my Lenten devotion,

“A true resolution of difficulties comes from feeling what the other feels, desiring a one-mindedness, a one-heartedness. Such a holy state serves the need of others. It’s the kind of service to which Jesus...called you and all his disciples. If the cycle of violence and war, the cycle of sickness seen nightly in the news, is ever to end, the cure must begin in your heart, home and workplace.”

Resolution cannot happen by attempting to win the argument through verbal or physical violence, through withholding friendships or resources, or even creating stricter laws or procedures until people “get it right and in the way I want it.”

The truth is that daily we are surrounded by argumentative banter from selfish and myopic people who try and hold us hostage to their wants and desires, and sadly, too often we are those people, too. Yet, God has called us to transcend these worldly ways and seek consensus in its truest form. As we begin to “feel with” our neighbors and, yes, even our enemies, we then transcend simply “getting the win” or being right. Transcending our argumentative nature comes when we grasp what Jesus taught us about loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.

When we serve, listen, genuinely desire to understand our neighbors, 

we learn to transcend ourselves and “feel with” those around us.

Maybe the reason we are so prone to argue in the first place is simply because we haven’t taken the time to know ourselves (part of what Lent is all about), our own pains, our own sins, our own need to be right, and then allow it to transcend the way we see those who differ from us. It is hard to argue with something you see in yourself - especially when you know it needs to change. Well, back to contemplating...
 

Lord, help us “feel with” those around us so that we can sense your resurrection this Lent, Amen.

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Quotes and thoughts from “The Ascent of the Mountain of God: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent” by Edward Hays.