Creativity and Integrity:
 Martha, Peter, and a Path to Nonviolent Conflict

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It’s hard to trust that just changing
my own behavior — like, I’m one
tiny human in this giant system.

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What influence do I think I have?

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Yeah.

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And yet, what Girard tells us about
the power of mediation is that the

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way that I show up in the world
is gonna be contagious to others.

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Yeah.

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And if

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I am showing up with greater care,
with less conflict, with more courage,
with more compassion, more attention,

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more presence… that’s gonna be
contagious to other people, and it’s
gonna escalate through the world.

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If

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you’ve ever wondered why religion that
proclaims unconditional love can feel
so full of hatred, shame, and violence,

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you’re not alone — and you’re not wrong to
want something more from Christian faith.

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I’m January Jaxon,

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and I’m Andrew McRae,

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and this is Theology Kills, a podcast
about letting our shame and violence
die so that life and love can thrive.

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There’s a passage in the Gospel of Luke
that stops me in my tracks every time.

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Jesus says, Do you think I have
come to bring peace to the earth?

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No, I tell you, but rather division.

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He goes on to describe a world where
families are torn apart, where people are
set against one another at every level.

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It’s enough to leave a person
going, “Tell me again why we call
this guy The Prince of Peace…?”

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How can the one who brings peace also
be the one who says he brings division?

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This season on Theology Kills,
we’ve been exploring the idea of
creativity as a spiritual practice.

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Not just painting or writing or composing
music, but the deep and faithful work of

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using our inherently creative nature to
bring a new way of being into the world.

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And one of the most important
things we’re called to create
as disciples of Christ is peace.

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But the peace Jesus calls us to is not
the peace of politeness, or silence,
or pretending everything is fine.

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It’s not a peace that avoids conflict
just to keep appearances calm.

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Bad theology tells us to keep the peace by
hiding, blaming, numbing, or controlling.

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It tells us that unity means uniformity.

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That someone or some part of
ourselves will have to disappear
to make everyone else comfortable.

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But good theology?

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Good theology kills false peace.

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It calls us to die to our coping
strategies of shame and blame, the ones
that exile parts of ourselves and others.

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It invites us to the sacred
work of creating peace through
truth, kindness, and presence.

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Not peace instead of conflict,
but peace within conflict.

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When Jesus says he comes not
to bring peace, but division,
I don’t hear a threat.

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I hear grief.

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I hear the voice of someone who
longs for the fire of divine love
to burn away everything false and

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violent in us and is heartbroken
that we’re not yet ready for it.

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How I wish it were
already kindled, he says.

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That’s not the voice of a vengeful
god preparing to split families apart.

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It’s the voice of the incarnate
Christ, fully human and fully divine,

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who sees how deeply we resist the
healing that would set us free.

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Jesus isn’t creating division
in otherwise peaceful humans.

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His presence beside us reveals the
divisions that are already in us
because he’s so radically nonviolent.

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He’s refusing to let us avoid or
hide the fracture lines that run
through our hearts, cracks we’ve

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learned to paper over with politeness,
with avoidance, or with exile.

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In the language of René Girard, Jesus
exposes the scapegoat mechanism,
the ancient collective habit of

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maintaining peace by projecting
our anxiety and aggression onto
someone else kicking them out.

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We feel unified not because we’ve
fully faced the truth, but simply
because we’ve found a common enemy.

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It’s a shortcut to stability.

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And it works — temporarily.

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But soon enough we’ll be at each
other’s throats again, and we’ll have
to find someone else to gang up against.

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Jesus isn’t playing that
painfully human game.

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He refuses to scapegoat even when
the Pharisees try to force him to it.

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He refuses to retaliate even
when violence is done to him.

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And in doing so, Jesus undoes the one
thing we’ve relied on for safety ever
since Eve kicked her vulnerability

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to the curb: our ability to create
false peace through exclusion.

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We are seeing the consequences
of this playing out in our
world right now in real time.

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The reason our political system is
increasingly polarized is because
creating scapegoats doesn’t work anymore.

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Not that both sides haven’t tried.

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But it’s not creating unity, is it?

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Precisely because Jesus’
self-sacrifice revealed once and for
all the innocence of our victims.

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The radical divine reality
that nobody deserves violence.

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Nobody.

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What’s left to us when
that illusion falls apart?

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If we can’t rely on shame, blame,
or exile to maintain peace, what
are we supposed to do instead?

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How do we come back into relationship when
conflict convinces us we’re out of it?

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Psychoanalyst Karen Horney observed that
humans use three types of instinctive
strategies for handling conflict.

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She called them, first, moving toward,
where we collapse ourselves into
the other person’s expectations.

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This is the posture of compliance or what
we might recognize as people pleasing.

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We try to eliminate ourselves to
create uniformity in the relationship
so that the conflict will go away.

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Second, moving against, where we try to
dominate or overpower the other person
into conforming with our expectations.

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This is antagonism.

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We seek to eliminate the other
person in order to create
uniformity in the relationship.

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Or third, moving away, where we retreat,
numb out or dissociate altogether.

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We eliminate the relationship itself
in order to eliminate the conflict.

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These are protective strategies
and they do protect us, especially
if we’ve learned that conflict

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leads to harm or we inherited a
culture that didn’t do conflict.

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But just like the scapegoat
mechanism, these are shortcuts.

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They work, but only kind of.

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Only temporarily.

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The relationships we create with
these strategies are not sustainable
because what they don’t do is heal us.

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Unity is not uniformity.

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We are meant to be wildly diverse parts
of a unity, not uniform cookie cutter
replications of a single picture.

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Just like we talked about in our last
episode, God gave us a wild variety
of parts inside us, a wild variety of

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humans in the Body of Christ, and variety
is the engine that powers evolution.

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We are not meant to all be
a hand or an eye or a foot.

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We’re not meant to all
think and act alike.

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This means that there will
inevitably be conflict.

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Horney’s conflict strategies grant us
temporary stability, but at the cost
of authentic connection and wholeness.

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Jen Johnsen is a Master Wayfinder
Coach who specializes in helping

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smart, self-aware people get back
into presence and personal integrity.

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She was one of my instructors in my
own coach training and the minute
I heard her explain her method for

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conflict with integrity, it felt like
a puzzle piece dropping into place.

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Johnsen builds on Horney’s
psychological foundation with a
simple but powerful framework.

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She maintains that integrity boils
down to three essential elements.

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For integrity to be present, these
three things have to be present.

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She offers three practices we can
incorporate when we realize we’ve adopted
one of the three conflict strategies.

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In Johnsen’s framework, truth is the
antidote to compliance, kindness is the

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antidote to antagonism, and presence
is the antidote to dissociation.

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These three practices
don’t resolve conflict.

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They create integrity, and here’s
an important key: all three of
these practices begin in the body.

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Truth and kindness happen
within the context of presence.

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Without presence, there’s no me in
the room to be in relationship with.

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So let’s look more closely at these
three practices of truth, kindness, and
presence through the lens of scripture.

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We meet Martha and her sister Mary
in chapter 10 of Luke’s gospel.

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Jesus is staying with their family,
leaving the sisters to host, not

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just this teacher, but his entire
entourage of disciples and hangers on.

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Martha is in the kitchen, buzzing around,
trying to manage a million things at once.

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Mary meanwhile is in the living
room just chilling with Jesus and
his buddies sitting around and

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soaking up Jesus’ presence, just
as if she was one of the guys.

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Scandalous!

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Martha is Doing.

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Mary is Being.

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And Martha is doing everything right.

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She’s serving, preparing, managing
the strenuous expectations
of hospitality culture.

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But she’s also collapsing under the
weight of it, trying to keep peace by
meeting everyone’s needs but her own.

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When she finally speaks up,
it’s with a snarl of resentment.

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Lord, don’t you care that my sister
has left me to do all the work?

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This is the compliance instinct
of Moving Toward, and Lord, do I
ever empathize with Martha here.

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Been there, sister.

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Martha is operating from an
either-or mindset of rivalry.

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She’s bought into her
culture’s expectations of her.

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As a result, she sees an impassable
obstacle in the situation.

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Either she can have what she wants,
presumably to rest next to her
sister at the feet of Jesus, or

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her guests can have what they want,
a hot meal and a smiling hostess.

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There’s no win-win in her imagination,
and she’s opted to resolve the

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impasse by exiling herself and her
own desires out of the equation.

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Jesus, though, is not having it.

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My beloved pastor Jami Fecher, said
something I will remember forever, the
last time he preached on this passage.

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He said, “The only time that grace for
the undeserving doesn’t irritate us
is when we are the ones receiving it.”

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Martha is irritated that Jesus is allowing
her sister to be this lazy layabout
when there’s so much work to be done.

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And Jesus is just like, “Yeah, how
about instead of asking her to speed
up, you slow down for a bit and receive

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grace too. I promise the world will
not end. I got that part covered.”

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It’s worth noting that
this isn’t a rebuke.

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The New Testament has a word for rebuke.

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It’s epitimaō.

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It shows up around 30
times in the New Testament.

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Jesus rebukes demons, he rebukes storms.

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He rebukes James and John when they
want to call down fire on an innocent
village for not being properly reverent.

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He rebukes Peter when Peter tries to
insist he won’t allow Jesus to be killed.

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Jesus does not rebuke Martha.

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He just invites her to
slow down and receive.

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But let’s be honest here,
speaking up for oneself is not
a conflict resolution strategy.

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It only resolves things if the other
person is willing to hear our truth.

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Jesus says Martha has a right to simply
be, but there’s a whole posse of hungry

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dudes in the next room who are probably
not going to be so accommodating.

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Martha’s perception of conflict with Jesus
might be resolved, but there’s still a
whole lot of conflict left to endure if

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she takes him up on his encouragement
to rest, and we all know the disciples

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didn’t have the best track record at
imitating their teacher’s kindness.

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So this isn’t a way of getting
out of conflict, not necessarily.

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It’s a way of getting into integrity.

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Integrity rescues us from
the double bind of either-or.

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It opens our perceptions to
additional options, and it makes

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space for us to create futures
we couldn’t previously perceive.

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It doesn’t make conflict disappear.

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It restores our agency and
creative freedom within it.

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Martha still has to choose between
serving and stillness, and there
will be consequences either way.

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Some of them potentially unpleasant.

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But if she speaks for her truth
rather than silencing it, then her

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integrity remains intact regardless of
which action she ultimately chooses.

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Telling the truth restores us
to wholeness when we’ve fallen
into the trap of compliance.

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Peace isn’t a lack of conflict.

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It’s the presence of integrity.

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Later in Luke, in the Garden of
Gethsemane, everything is falling apart.

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Judas has betrayed his friends.

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A crowd of soldiers has
arrived to arrest Jesus.

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The remaining disciples are panicking,
and Peter — ever impulsive — lashes out

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with a sword to defend Jesus, striking
a servant and cutting off his ear.

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This is the Move Against
instinct of antagonism.

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When Peter feels cornered and
betrayed, he tries to control
the moment by overpowering it.

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He exerts his will.

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He tries to force the other party
into conforming with his perspective
in order to eliminate the conflict.

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This crowd is poised on the precipice
of complete mutual destruction.

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Tensions have peaked.

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The stakes couldn’t be higher.

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All it needs is a spark to erupt into
a conflagration that wipes them all
out, and Peter just struck a match.

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But Jesus doesn’t react with force.

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He doesn’t use Peter’s loyalty
as an excuse for violence.

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Instead, he says, no more of this, and
touches the man’s ear to restore him.

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Imagine that with me for a moment.

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Soldiers have come to drag you to your
death and you’re healing their team.

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Kindness in this moment
is anything but passive.

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It’s a patient, painful, and steadfast
refusal to be run by rivalry.

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Kindness breaks the cycle of retributive
violence that’s about to erupt here.

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Kindness restores us to wholeness when
we’ve fallen into the trap of antagonism.

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Whatever else is about to happen — and
we know how this ugly story ends!

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— Jesus remains true to his own nature.

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He acts with integrity.

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He’s not acting to control his
adversaries or get something from them.

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Nothing he does changes anyone’s mind.

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They still drag him off to
a horrific impending death.

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He still gets crucified, but all
the way to the cross and beyond it,

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he’s looking at us with the eyes of
relationship and not the eyes of rivalry.

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Peace isn’t the absence of conflict.

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It’s the presence of integrity.

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The entire book of Job is an object
lesson in our third conflict strategy.

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Job is introduced as a
righteous man, blameless,
faithful, deeply devoted to God.

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He has a large family, great
wealth, and a life that generally

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reflects the ancient world’s notions
of divine blessing and favor.

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But the story shifts to a strange
scene in a heavenly court.

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The prosecution suggests that
Job is only faithful because
life has gone so well for him.

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So God in this story permits
Job to be tested by the accuser.

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Not to see him fail, but to show that
his love is real, not superficial.

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Suddenly, Job loses everything.

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00:01:25,879 --> 00:01:25,949
His wealth, his children,
eventually his health.

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Unlike the average human who’d be looking
for booze or Netflix, or sex or overwork,

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00:01:26,099 --> 00:01:26,249
or any other way to check out and get
some distance from all this misery.

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00:01:26,249 --> 00:01:26,319
Job stays doggedly in
relationship with reality.

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00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:26,369
His wife thinks he’s bananas.

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00:01:26,369 --> 00:01:26,519
In Job chapter two, verse nine, she says,
Do you still persist in your integrity?

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Curse God and die!

214
00:01:26,559 --> 00:01:26,639
In other words, check out,
dissociate, leave reality.

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00:01:26,639 --> 00:01:26,659
Move Away.

216
00:01:26,659 --> 00:01:26,809
His wife literally criticizes
his wholeness and tells him
to just give up and split.

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00:01:26,809 --> 00:01:26,919
Even if it kills him, it’d
be better than this pain.

218
00:01:26,919 --> 00:01:26,979
Why put yourself through all this?

219
00:01:26,979 --> 00:01:27,119
Instead, Job stays present to his
pain, to his questions, and to his God.

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00:01:27,119 --> 00:01:27,139
He rants.

221
00:01:27,139 --> 00:01:27,159
He raves.

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00:01:27,159 --> 00:01:27,179
He weeps.

223
00:01:27,179 --> 00:01:27,209
He demands answers.

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00:01:27,209 --> 00:01:27,319
He begs for surcease, but he
never stops talking to God.

225
00:01:27,319 --> 00:01:27,459
He speaks out loud, all the
blasphemous things polite
religion says he shouldn’t say.

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00:01:27,459 --> 00:01:27,609
He doesn’t get the answers he wants, but
he never lets go of the conversation.

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00:01:27,609 --> 00:01:27,659
He never leaves the relationship.

228
00:01:27,659 --> 00:01:27,699
He stays relentlessly present.

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00:01:27,699 --> 00:01:27,889
His friends come to comfort him, but
they end up offering theology that
blames Job for his suffering, saying

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he must have sinned because surely God
wouldn’t let a righteous man suffer.

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His friends, in other words, are
trying to get him to use the Move

232
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Toward coping strategy, just like his
wife tried to get him to Move Away.

233
00:01:28,299 --> 00:01:28,549
“You must have done something to piss God
off,” they say. “Just own up to it and
God will probably let you off the hook.”

234
00:01:28,549 --> 00:01:28,639
But Job is absolutely
certain of his own innocence.

235
00:01:28,639 --> 00:01:28,819
He’s not going to perjure himself
by admitting to something he
didn’t do, and he’s not gonna let

236
00:01:28,819 --> 00:01:28,999
his friends talk him into people
pleasing or deity pleasing, just to
escape the tension of the conflict.

237
00:01:28,999 --> 00:01:29,079
And in the end, his fidelity is honored.

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00:01:29,079 --> 00:01:29,259
God says Job has spoken rightly not
because his theology is correct,
but because his integrity is intact.

239
00:01:29,259 --> 00:01:29,429
His friends who tried to defend
God instead of staying present
to Job are the ones rebuked.

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00:01:29,429 --> 00:01:29,569
His wife checks out of the story,
and we never hear from her again.

241
00:01:29,569 --> 00:01:29,729
But by refusing to abandon himself
or his relationship with God,
Job hangs onto his wholeness.

242
00:01:29,729 --> 00:01:29,929
And the implication of the Book
of Job is that, in the end, God
uses that wholeness to bless us.

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00:01:29,929 --> 00:01:30,069
I’ve always found it interesting
that, at the end of the Book of Job,

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00:01:30,069 --> 00:01:30,169
his daughters are granted an equal
inheritance with their brothers.

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00:01:30,169 --> 00:01:30,369
For all that he’s suffered through — and
make no mistake, Job has suffered,
and so did the people around him

246
00:01:30,369 --> 00:01:30,489
— the result of staying present to
reality and to himself through that

247
00:01:30,489 --> 00:01:30,609
suffering is that a counter-cultural
justice has been born into the world.

248
00:01:30,609 --> 00:01:30,639
Something’s been created.

249
00:01:30,639 --> 00:01:30,839
Not by Job’s achievement, but by the
transformative power of staying present
to what is, even when it wasn’t pleasant.

250
00:01:30,839 --> 00:01:30,959
Now, if you’re feeling a little
personally attacked here, take a breath.

251
00:01:30,959 --> 00:01:30,989
Notice you’re okay.

252
00:01:30,989 --> 00:01:31,219
Please do not hear me to be saying that,
if you’re being victimized by someone,
you should just sit quietly and take it.

253
00:01:31,219 --> 00:01:31,289
That would be a form of compliance.

254
00:01:31,289 --> 00:01:31,389
That is the opposite of the
argument I’m making here.

255
00:01:31,389 --> 00:01:31,469
The statement I’m making
isn’t a moral one.

256
00:01:31,469 --> 00:01:31,539
There are very explicitly no shoulds here.

257
00:01:31,539 --> 00:01:31,679
The three instincts we’ve explored:
compliance, antagonism, and dissociation…
they developed for a reason.

258
00:01:31,679 --> 00:01:31,789
They’re your body’s way of protecting
you from what feels unbearable.

259
00:01:31,789 --> 00:01:31,969
If you’re in a situation where presence,
truth, or kindness feels unsafe,
please for God’s sake, trust yourself.

260
00:01:31,969 --> 00:01:32,009
Because theology isn’t morality.

261
00:01:32,009 --> 00:01:32,069
It’s about our relationship with reality.

262
00:01:32,069 --> 00:01:32,239
You’re not here to find the way to
do things or even a way to do things.

263
00:01:32,239 --> 00:01:32,329
You’re here to find your way to do things.

264
00:01:32,329 --> 00:01:32,409
Presence can restore your
agency and creative freedom.

265
00:01:32,409 --> 00:01:32,529
And in that space, new creative
options tend to appear, ones that

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00:01:32,529 --> 00:01:32,649
don’t require you to disappear or
destroy someone else to feel whole.

267
00:01:32,649 --> 00:01:32,829
What I’m naming here are not rules to
follow, but possibilities to notice
— that peace comes from integrity.

268
00:01:32,829 --> 00:01:32,899
Job goes through a pretty literal hell.

269
00:01:32,899 --> 00:01:33,059
But like Jacob wrestling with
the angel, Job hangs onto that
relationship until it blesses him.

270
00:01:33,059 --> 00:01:33,169
Truth, kindness, and presence are
not tools for fixing other people.

271
00:01:33,169 --> 00:01:33,299
They’re practices that allow us to
stay whole in the midst of rupture.

272
00:01:33,299 --> 00:01:33,459
They keep us rooted in relationship
first with ourselves, then with
others, and always with God.

273
00:01:33,459 --> 00:01:33,559
Each of them open space for
something new to happen.

274
00:01:33,559 --> 00:01:33,649
Something beyond our usual binaries
of win-lose, right-wrong, in-out.

275
00:01:33,649 --> 00:01:33,859
They let us imagine peace not as the
absence of tension but is the presence
of love and strength within tension.

276
00:01:33,859 --> 00:01:33,909
These postures don’t
guarantee reconciliation.

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00:01:33,909 --> 00:01:34,019
They don’t guarantee safety, but
they do offer us something sacred.

278
00:01:34,019 --> 00:01:34,159
The chance to participate in the eternal
life of Christ, a peace that refuses

279
00:01:34,159 --> 00:01:34,299
to exile or dominate, and instead
creates a whole new way of being human.

280
00:01:34,299 --> 00:01:34,429
So the point of Luke 12 isn’t
that Jesus wanted to divide us.

281
00:01:34,429 --> 00:01:34,579
It’s that his presence in
our lives exposes the places
where we are already divided.

282
00:01:34,579 --> 00:01:34,709
And it does this for the sake of
turning us toward repentance so

283
00:01:34,709 --> 00:01:34,839
that we can realize we’re out of
integrity and come home to it.

284
00:01:34,839 --> 00:01:34,909
We’re not creating peace
instead of conflict.

285
00:01:34,909 --> 00:01:34,959
We’re creating peace within conflict.

286
00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:35,079
Jesus didn’t come to bring the
peace of papering over our division.

287
00:01:35,079 --> 00:01:35,169
That’s the fastest way
to make a wound fester.

288
00:01:35,169 --> 00:01:35,339
He came to bring the peace of
revealing our division so that
those wounds can finally heal.

289
00:01:35,339 --> 00:01:35,529
I’m curious — just based on some
of the things that we’ve talked
about for the last year, how would

290
00:01:35,529 --> 00:01:35,649
you define integrity in the sense
that you think we’re using it?

291
00:01:35,649 --> 00:01:35,769
Well, that’s sort of my first
question I was gonna give you!

292
00:01:35,769 --> 00:01:35,799
So, uh, yeah.

293
00:01:35,799 --> 00:01:35,859
“I know you are, but what

294
00:01:46,089 --> 00:01:50,459
am I?” feels like what I’m about

295
00:02:03,062 --> 00:02:07,062
to

296
00:02:19,664 --> 00:02:23,664
do

297
00:02:36,267 --> 00:02:40,267
here.

298
00:02:52,869 --> 00:02:56,869
I,

299
00:03:09,472 --> 00:03:13,472
I

300
00:03:26,074 --> 00:03:30,074
don’t

301
00:03:42,677 --> 00:03:46,677
know.

302
00:03:59,279 --> 00:03:59,679
So let me tell you what
I’m tempted to say.

303
00:03:59,679 --> 00:03:59,739
Etymologically, the word
integrity implies wholeness.

304
00:03:59,739 --> 00:03:59,859
If you think about integers in
math, we call ‘em whole numbers.

305
00:03:59,859 --> 00:03:59,919
That is, you know, no fractions.

306
00:03:59,919 --> 00:04:00,029
And so a person who quote-unquote
“has” integrity might be thought

307
00:04:00,029 --> 00:04:00,149
of as someone who isn’t fractional
or segmented out in any way.

308
00:04:00,149 --> 00:04:00,309
And how do we square this
with our IFS assumption that
considers the mono-mind a myth?

309
00:04:00,309 --> 00:04:00,439
And then I’m like, well, wait,
maybe we don’t try and square it.

310
00:04:00,439 --> 00:04:00,609
Maybe we have integrity, but we never
have integrity as individuals — that
personal integrity is always about

311
00:04:00,609 --> 00:04:00,749
when, where, and how we become an
integral part to the whole of creation.

312
00:04:00,749 --> 00:04:00,819
I’m kind of inclined in that direction.

313
00:04:00,819 --> 00:04:00,959
And I suspect that I jump past the,
the importance of the individual, I

314
00:04:00,959 --> 00:04:01,099
just skip past that a lot quicker than
I think you do, generally speaking.

315
00:04:01,099 --> 00:04:01,299
And so I was curious with your
reaction to my thoughts here, whether
it would be like, wait, slow down.

316
00:04:01,299 --> 00:04:01,359
I wouldn’t expect you to disagree.

317
00:04:01,359 --> 00:04:01,549
That understanding ourselves as integral
to creation, and that creation is a
whole, I, I don’t expect any pushback

318
00:04:01,549 --> 00:04:01,689
from you there, but whether that says
enough about what integrity is or not?

319
00:04:01,689 --> 00:04:01,759
I’m kind of inclined to say so.

320
00:04:01,759 --> 00:04:01,939
Maybe I took too many math classes,
but when you do calculus, you learn
about infinitesimally small things,

321
00:04:01,939 --> 00:04:02,109
and you find the slope of a line that
shoots off at a tangent from a curve,

322
00:04:02,109 --> 00:04:02,229
and then you learn about integrals,
which is sort of the opposite.

323
00:04:02,229 --> 00:04:02,419
You don’t realize it’s the opposite at
first, but basically you’re just adding
up all these infinitesimally small shapes.

324
00:04:02,419 --> 00:04:02,569
So imagine, you know, like I think
MRI scans do this in a way — they

325
00:04:02,569 --> 00:04:02,699
just look at the body little
bit by little bit by little bit.

326
00:04:02,699 --> 00:04:02,889
But if you just take anything
and then just slice it up into
a bunch of little slices, and

327
00:04:02,889 --> 00:04:02,899
Mm-hmm.

328
00:04:02,899 --> 00:04:03,069
some complicated object, you’re
like, how in the world could I
ever measure the volume of that?

329
00:04:03,069 --> 00:04:03,229
Well, just slice it into all these little,
you know, like a loaf of bread, or—

330
00:04:03,229 --> 00:04:03,249
3D printer.

331
00:04:03,249 --> 00:04:03,259
Exactly!

332
00:04:03,259 --> 00:04:03,339
Everything going down one layer at a time.

333
00:04:03,339 --> 00:04:03,349
Exactly.

334
00:04:03,349 --> 00:04:03,489
And then you can do each layer,
and then you add it all together.

335
00:04:03,489 --> 00:04:03,539
And that’s the integral, right?

336
00:04:03,539 --> 00:04:03,549
Mm-hmm.

337
00:04:03,549 --> 00:04:03,779
And so I sort of started thinking of
well, okay, so if you have all these
individual layers, and we just number ‘em

338
00:04:03,779 --> 00:04:04,009
one to a million, or whatever, maybe as
person being an integral part of creation
I’m more than just one of the layers.

339
00:04:04,009 --> 00:04:04,159
Maybe I’ve got several parts, and so
maybe I’m layer 105, 106, 108, 109, 112.

340
00:04:04,159 --> 00:04:04,209
You know what I mean?

341
00:04:04,209 --> 00:04:04,219
Uh-huh.

342
00:04:04,219 --> 00:04:04,309
And my parts are integral
to what’s going on.

343
00:04:04,309 --> 00:04:04,459
But if you look at them by themselves
— the ones that are me — there isn’t

344
00:04:04,459 --> 00:04:04,569
exactly an integrity to find,
but for the whole of creation.

345
00:04:04,569 --> 00:04:04,659
And maybe I don’t have to go that big.

346
00:04:04,659 --> 00:04:04,879
Maybe there’s a lower level, but what
I’m saying is that in order me to have
an integrity as an individual, maybe

347
00:04:04,879 --> 00:04:05,009
it requires some transcendent other
that’s more than the sum of my parts.

348
00:04:05,009 --> 00:04:05,019
Hmm.

349
00:04:05,019 --> 00:04:05,139
In which case, my integrity
wouldn’t be the sum of my parts.

350
00:04:05,139 --> 00:04:05,279
I’d be integral to but not integrated
in and of myself as a standalone.

351
00:04:05,279 --> 00:04:05,469
So I don’t know, I think that’s
kind of where I lean toward
understanding my integrity as a person.

352
00:04:05,469 --> 00:04:05,569
Personal integrity… meaning…
yeah, it does bring all my parts

353
00:04:05,569 --> 00:04:05,659
together, but only because there’s
something bigger and beyond.

354
00:04:05,659 --> 00:04:05,689
I don’t know.

355
00:04:05,689 --> 00:04:05,749
How does that sound to you?

356
00:04:05,749 --> 00:04:05,859
I’m definitely on board with integrity
requiring something bigger than us.

357
00:04:05,859 --> 00:04:05,919
That feels very true to me.

358
00:04:05,919 --> 00:04:06,049
I do actually think that
personal integrity is not
only possible, but essential.

359
00:04:06,049 --> 00:04:06,229
I don’t think that we’re ever
gonna be perfect at it, and I
don’t think that that’s necessary.

360
00:04:06,229 --> 00:04:06,439
But doing that work and engaging in
that practice of integrity within us is
important, because there’s no way to get

361
00:04:06,439 --> 00:04:06,589
to the integrity that’s beyond us if we
do not also have integrity within us.

362
00:04:06,589 --> 00:04:06,599
Hmm.

363
00:04:06,599 --> 00:04:06,819
And that’s what I’m trying to get
at with so much of the work that
I’m talking about, is that we keep

364
00:04:06,819 --> 00:04:06,999
trying to focus on creating peace out
there and we’re totally neglecting
any experience of peace in here.

365
00:04:06,999 --> 00:04:07,009
Yeah.

366
00:04:07,009 --> 00:04:07,169
But I don’t think we can create it out
there until — like, we can impact it.

367
00:04:07,169 --> 00:04:07,299
We can shift it out there
and we can shift it in here.

368
00:04:07,299 --> 00:04:07,419
There’s two points of access for
change to happen and that’s great.

369
00:04:07,419 --> 00:04:07,579
But if we’re only trying to
change one side of the equation,
it’s gonna keep reverting.

370
00:04:07,579 --> 00:04:07,589
Yeah.

371
00:04:07,589 --> 00:04:07,659
It’s gonna keep expressing
what’s inside us.

372
00:04:07,659 --> 00:04:07,669
Yeah.

373
00:04:07,669 --> 00:04:07,869
The metaphor that I have heard
more than one person use at this
point is this idea of an airplane.

374
00:04:07,869 --> 00:04:07,959
An airplane has God-only-knows
how many parts to it.

375
00:04:07,959 --> 00:04:08,149
It’s got a lot of redundant systems
so that if something does fail
in midair, it’s still able to

376
00:04:08,149 --> 00:04:08,279
keep flying until things can be
landed and that part can be fixed.

377
00:04:08,279 --> 00:04:08,429
So it’s not necessarily this
giant emergency if parts
of us are out of integrity

378
00:04:08,429 --> 00:04:08,439
Mm.

379
00:04:08,439 --> 00:04:08,639
because like an airplane, we have a
bunch of backup systems so that we
don’t go completely off the rails.

380
00:04:08,639 --> 00:04:08,799
Yet at the same time, we exist
in a human cultural context
that is inherently fragmenting.

381
00:04:08,799 --> 00:04:09,009
So for the most part, I don’t think
that any of us manage to achieve total
personal integrity in this lifetime,

382
00:04:09,009 --> 00:04:09,149
although Martha Beck’s definitely takin’
a crack at it and more power to her!

383
00:04:09,149 --> 00:04:09,299
I think of Jesus as a person who is
fully integrated, even though he’s human.

384
00:04:09,299 --> 00:04:09,369
That absolutely does
require God the Father.

385
00:04:09,369 --> 00:04:09,579
It is Jesus’s relationship to God
as his father, as someone who loves
him and loves us as humans, that is,

386
00:04:09,579 --> 00:04:09,719
I think, what makes it possible for
Jesus to be in integrity in himself.

387
00:04:09,719 --> 00:04:09,729
Hmm.

388
00:04:09,729 --> 00:04:09,869
So what that looks like for us,
I think, on the larger scale, it

389
00:04:09,869 --> 00:04:09,989
does look like — like you said the
other day — a sustainable system.

390
00:04:09,989 --> 00:04:09,999
Yeah.

391
00:04:09,999 --> 00:04:10,159
And so what I think that looks like on
the individual level is a person whose

392
00:04:10,159 --> 00:04:10,289
parts can engage in conflict, like we’ve
been talking about, but without rivalry.

393
00:04:10,289 --> 00:04:10,459
They don’t try to kick each
other out or collapse themselves
in favor of the other person.

394
00:04:10,459 --> 00:04:10,609
They are able to just sit in the tension
of, “Everything is not okay!” until

395
00:04:10,609 --> 00:04:10,729
something emerges and catches their
attention as, “This is the way forward.”

396
00:04:10,729 --> 00:04:10,829
But that’s something that they’re
listening for; it’s not necessarily

397
00:04:10,829 --> 00:04:10,939
something that they’re trying to
find or assert or make happen.

398
00:04:10,939 --> 00:04:11,059
And that goes a little bit
back to the Being versus Doing.

399
00:04:11,059 --> 00:04:11,249
So where I think that I see Christ
modeling this most profoundly is
in Gethsemane, where he is like,

400
00:04:11,249 --> 00:04:11,369
“I don’t like what’s coming down
the pike. I don’t wanna die.

401
00:04:11,369 --> 00:04:11,389
This sucks.

402
00:04:11,389 --> 00:04:11,509
Everything is terrible and I’m not
going to pretend that it isn’t.

403
00:04:11,509 --> 00:04:11,519
Yeah.

404
00:04:11,519 --> 00:04:11,579
I don’t want to do this.

405
00:04:11,579 --> 00:04:11,729
If there is any other way that this
can happen, please show me the other

406
00:04:11,729 --> 00:04:11,889
way.” And, “What I want most in the
world is for your will to be done.

407
00:04:11,889 --> 00:04:11,999
And that’s the thing that’s
gonna define what I do next.”

408
00:04:11,999 --> 00:04:12,109
To me, that’s a picture of engaging
in conflict without rivalry.

409
00:04:12,109 --> 00:04:12,119
Yeah.

410
00:04:12,119 --> 00:04:12,229
You know, Jesus isn’t going in
and going, “This is bullshit.

411
00:04:12,229 --> 00:04:12,449
I’m gonna go my own way!” But he’s
also not going in and going, “What
I want here doesn’t even matter, so

412
00:04:12,449 --> 00:04:12,569
I’m not even gonna bother admitting
that I don’t wanna do this.”

413
00:04:12,569 --> 00:04:12,579
Yeah.

414
00:04:12,579 --> 00:04:12,589
No!

415
00:04:12,589 --> 00:04:12,739
He’s real clear about it, and he trusts
that God wants to hear about that.

416
00:04:12,739 --> 00:04:12,969
He prays about it in the garden at length,
yet the decision that he makes ultimately
comes out of that place of integrity.

417
00:04:12,969 --> 00:04:13,159
It comes from a place of relationship
with the Father and what the
Father wants is what Jesus wants.

418
00:04:13,159 --> 00:04:13,179
So, yeah.

419
00:04:13,179 --> 00:04:13,349
Do I think any of the rest of us
can ever quote-unquote “achieve”
Jesus’ level of integrity?

420
00:04:13,349 --> 00:04:13,439
I don’t know that I think
that that’s possible.

421
00:04:13,439 --> 00:04:13,569
But could we receive that degree
of integrity, if we could slow down

422
00:04:13,569 --> 00:04:13,709
and put enough of our baggage down
to receive what God is giving us?

423
00:04:13,709 --> 00:04:13,779
I, I think that’s possible for us.

424
00:04:13,779 --> 00:04:13,789
Yeah.

425
00:04:13,789 --> 00:04:13,939
And as I think you’ve heard me say
before, we’ll never know how far I

426
00:04:13,939 --> 00:04:14,089
could get along the road to that outcome
unless I give it everything I’ve got.

427
00:04:14,089 --> 00:04:14,239
So I’m gonna give it everything I got,
‘cause I wanna go on that adventure.

428
00:04:14,239 --> 00:04:14,469
Now I have the bad habit of hearing
analogies and metaphors and pushing them
to the point where fall apart, but I hear

429
00:04:14,469 --> 00:04:14,679
what you’re saying with regards to — and,
and I appreciate how you’re defining
integrity in a way that moves beyond just

430
00:04:14,679 --> 00:04:14,829
all the component parts, all the pieces,
all the layers that get printed out by

431
00:04:14,829 --> 00:04:14,959
the 3D printer — when you use the airplane
analogy, there’s some redundancy here.

432
00:04:14,959 --> 00:04:15,069
But at least for the airplane,
we’re not concerned with totality

433
00:04:15,069 --> 00:04:15,209
so much, but we are concerned with
whether or not the plane can fly.

434
00:04:15,209 --> 00:04:15,219
Mm-hmm.

435
00:04:15,219 --> 00:04:15,389
And so if there’s a loss of
integrity, structural integrity of
the wings or something, you know,

436
00:04:15,389 --> 00:04:15,519
like to the point that it’s not
flying, there’s a clear line there.

437
00:04:15,519 --> 00:04:15,669
It doesn’t have to be the all-or-nothing
of integral calculus, but there is a clear

438
00:04:15,669 --> 00:04:15,839
point of, I don’t know, this or that, and
it resides in the function of the plane.

439
00:04:15,839 --> 00:04:15,879
Plane’s supposed to fly.

440
00:04:15,879 --> 00:04:15,929
So yeah, stuff’s going wrong.

441
00:04:15,929 --> 00:04:15,939
Okay.

442
00:04:15,939 --> 00:04:15,979
Can we still fly?

443
00:04:15,979 --> 00:04:15,989
Yeah?

444
00:04:15,989 --> 00:04:15,999
Okay.

445
00:04:15,999 --> 00:04:16,029
We got integrity.

446
00:04:16,029 --> 00:04:16,069
No, we can’t fly.

447
00:04:16,069 --> 00:04:16,109
We’re, we’re going down.

448
00:04:16,109 --> 00:04:16,139
Uhhhh, uh oh.

449
00:04:16,139 --> 00:04:16,149
Yeah.

450
00:04:16,149 --> 00:04:16,229
Uh, need to tell the captain about this.

451
00:04:16,229 --> 00:04:16,239
Right?

452
00:04:16,239 --> 00:04:16,369
And so does that part of the analogy,
does that translate to humans?

453
00:04:16,369 --> 00:04:16,559
Do we have a function, a purpose
through which we can define whether
or not we have adequate integrity?

454
00:04:16,559 --> 00:04:16,639
Answering that question
is above my pay grade.

455
00:04:16,639 --> 00:04:16,689
We’ll put it that way.

456
00:04:16,689 --> 00:04:16,779
I didn’t tell you to say what it was!

457
00:04:16,779 --> 00:04:16,839
I just said if it’s there.

458
00:04:16,839 --> 00:04:16,859
Yeah, yeah.

459
00:04:16,859 --> 00:04:16,969
No, the question of whether
it’s there or not — I mean,

460
00:04:16,969 --> 00:04:17,089
as a life coach, I’m probably
supposed to say, “Yes, of course.”

461
00:04:17,089 --> 00:04:17,099
Okay.

462
00:04:17,099 --> 00:04:17,149
But I still remain unconvinced.

463
00:04:17,149 --> 00:04:17,219
So here’s me sitting with my conflict.

464
00:04:17,219 --> 00:04:17,319
I’m just gonna model this in
this conversation, I guess.

465
00:04:17,319 --> 00:04:17,329
Yeah.

466
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:24,789
I know so many people who are invested
in finding their purpose in life, or
who feel like they found it and are

467
00:04:24,789 --> 00:04:24,999
just so excited about the world and what
adventure’s coming down the pike next
because they have that sense of purpose.

468
00:04:24,999 --> 00:04:25,109
I don’t think that purpose is
necessarily a bad thing, although

469
00:04:25,109 --> 00:04:25,249
that too can go off the rails
‘cause humans are good at that game.

470
00:04:25,249 --> 00:04:25,399
And at the same time, I do feel
like there is some role that my

471
00:04:25,399 --> 00:04:25,519
existence on this earth is meant
to play in that larger system.

472
00:04:25,519 --> 00:04:25,639
Like you were talking about, I
am a layer in what’s happening.

473
00:04:25,639 --> 00:04:25,849
I have a role to play in how the
system is growing and developing,
and I want to play that role.

474
00:04:25,849 --> 00:04:25,879
I trust God.

475
00:04:25,879 --> 00:04:25,919
I trust God’s picture.

476
00:04:25,919 --> 00:04:26,009
I trust what God is doing in the world.

477
00:04:26,009 --> 00:04:26,059
I want to do that.

478
00:04:26,059 --> 00:04:26,239
And yet my personal experience of
people searching for purpose is that
they too often want something where

479
00:04:26,239 --> 00:04:26,409
they can slap a label on it and
go: oh, okay, now I know who I am.

480
00:04:26,409 --> 00:04:26,529
And I never have to feel unstable
about that ever again because

481
00:04:26,529 --> 00:04:26,659
this is my purpose and I can just
ignore everything that’s not this.

482
00:04:26,659 --> 00:04:26,669
Yeah.

483
00:04:26,669 --> 00:04:26,849
I’m having a hard time with this
because I don’t necessarily think
that that’s a bad thing, right?

484
00:04:26,849 --> 00:04:26,939
I have a central thing in my life now.

485
00:04:26,939 --> 00:04:27,179
Jesus is the central thing in my life
now where I’m like, it’s not moving me
closer to that, it can just go away.

486
00:04:27,179 --> 00:04:27,309
And we’re, that, that’s fine
and I can just let that shit go.

487
00:04:27,309 --> 00:04:27,409
So like, I don’t think that’s
necessarily a bad thing.

488
00:04:27,409 --> 00:04:27,419
Yeah.

489
00:04:27,419 --> 00:04:27,559
But the question of what we’re looking
for and why is an important one.

490
00:04:27,559 --> 00:04:27,719
If we have objectified purpose as
something to be achieved, things
are gonna go wrong somewhere.

491
00:04:27,719 --> 00:04:27,949
It’s gonna become an idol that we’re
chasing because we think it’s gonna fix
us or make us feel better in some way.

492
00:04:27,949 --> 00:04:27,959
Yeah.

493
00:04:27,959 --> 00:04:28,099
My personal experience of whatever the
heck my purpose is — and I don’t know!

494
00:04:28,099 --> 00:04:28,269
— is just go on the adventure of finding
out what it is that you want in this

495
00:04:28,269 --> 00:04:28,389
world, and then make creative choices
about how you’re gonna pursue it.

496
00:04:28,389 --> 00:04:28,419
Like, that’s it.

497
00:04:28,419 --> 00:04:28,429
Yeah.

498
00:04:28,429 --> 00:04:28,549
That’s the only way that I know
how to summarize that purpose.

499
00:04:28,549 --> 00:04:28,699
Every time I have encountered a question
of what am I supposed to do here?

500
00:04:28,699 --> 00:04:28,819
The answer from God has always
been, “What do you wanna do?”

501
00:04:28,819 --> 00:04:28,829
Yeah.

502
00:04:28,829 --> 00:04:28,839
Yeah.

503
00:04:28,839 --> 00:04:28,979
And obviously there are some answers to
that question that are not healthy, and

504
00:04:28,979 --> 00:04:29,119
I should put them down because they’re
not gonna move me closer to Jesus.

505
00:04:29,119 --> 00:04:29,319
But one of the things that I am
most distressed that I think the
church has lost connection with, at

506
00:04:29,319 --> 00:04:29,519
least in America, is the sense that
purpose is something that is revealed
in us rather than imposed on us.

507
00:04:29,519 --> 00:04:29,529
Yeah.

508
00:04:29,529 --> 00:04:29,559
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

509
00:04:29,559 --> 00:04:29,689
It’s not that we read the Bible and
we know what everybody’s purpose

510
00:04:29,689 --> 00:04:29,829
is, and so this is the picture
that you have to live down to.

511
00:04:29,829 --> 00:04:29,839
No!

512
00:04:29,839 --> 00:04:29,899
It’s, the purpose is in you.

513
00:04:29,899 --> 00:04:30,009
You go about living your
life with your eyes on Jesus.

514
00:04:30,009 --> 00:04:30,039
That’s the model.

515
00:04:30,039 --> 00:04:30,129
What’s going to unfold
in your life from there?

516
00:04:30,129 --> 00:04:30,139
Yeah.

517
00:04:30,139 --> 00:04:30,299
And I, I will only know what my
purpose is as I take my last breath.

518
00:04:30,299 --> 00:04:30,319
If then!

519
00:04:30,319 --> 00:04:30,449
But I don’t have a big enough
perspective on the world and what’s

520
00:04:30,449 --> 00:04:30,589
unfolding to really know what I’m
supposed to be doing or where I fit.

521
00:04:30,589 --> 00:04:30,599
Yeah.

522
00:04:30,599 --> 00:04:30,609
Yeah.

523
00:04:30,609 --> 00:04:30,779
My job is just to keep following joy,
because I know that joy is of the Kingdom.

524
00:04:30,779 --> 00:04:30,879
And that’s not the same thing as
temporary earthly satisfaction.

525
00:04:30,879 --> 00:04:30,939
I’m talking about bone deep joy.

526
00:04:30,939 --> 00:04:31,089
I don’t know how to explain that word
other than a sense that everything fits.

527
00:04:31,089 --> 00:04:31,099
Hmm.

528
00:04:31,099 --> 00:04:31,169
Just a radical acceptance of what is.

529
00:04:31,169 --> 00:04:31,309
Yeah, I would maybe define integrity
as an absence of resistance to what is.

530
00:04:31,309 --> 00:04:31,319
Yeah.

531
00:04:31,319 --> 00:04:31,449
Was any of that helpful or did it
just muddle things even further?

532
00:04:31,449 --> 00:04:31,619
No, my brain just keeps jumping
to various stuff like engineering
models of the bridge sticks together.

533
00:04:31,619 --> 00:04:31,639
It’s solid.

534
00:04:31,639 --> 00:04:31,819
It’s not against the gap that it’s
spanning, but if it’s gonna stand
up, there’s an internal tension.

535
00:04:31,819 --> 00:04:31,879
That’s kind of how it works.

536
00:04:31,879 --> 00:04:31,959
And so I was hearing some of that.

537
00:04:31,959 --> 00:04:32,099
I was also, there’s this comic book
series that I read with my students

538
00:04:32,099 --> 00:04:32,239
that an early theme that’s set out
is like, oh, all the pieces fit.

539
00:04:32,239 --> 00:04:32,319
I like it when all the pieces fit.

540
00:04:32,319 --> 00:04:32,479
But it really bugs me because
when they’re first introducing
that line, “All the pieces fit,”

541
00:04:32,479 --> 00:04:32,659
He’s put together this telescope,
and the girl whose telescope it
is, “Oh, you did that so fast!

542
00:04:32,659 --> 00:04:32,709
How did you do that?

543
00:04:32,709 --> 00:04:32,799
It takes my dad an hour to do it.

544
00:04:32,799 --> 00:04:32,829
He’s an engineer!”

545
00:04:32,829 --> 00:04:32,909
And he’s like, “Oh yeah, I don’t know.

546
00:04:32,909 --> 00:04:33,039
I like it when all the pieces
fit.” And he’s like, “Except these.

547
00:04:33,039 --> 00:04:33,119
You don’t need these.” And he has some.

548
00:04:33,119 --> 00:04:33,169
And my heart just sinks!

549
00:04:33,169 --> 00:04:33,269
And I’m like, “No, Hilo!
Don’t say that to Gina!

550
00:04:33,269 --> 00:04:33,409
All the pieces need to fit!” But
it’s such a great book that, and

551
00:04:33,409 --> 00:04:33,519
I know it’s a throwaway line,
it’s just ‘cause it’s funny.

552
00:04:33,519 --> 00:04:33,569
It doesn’t become a theme.

553
00:04:33,569 --> 00:04:33,579
Yeah.

554
00:04:33,579 --> 00:04:33,669
There’s nobody that has
to be expelled later on.

555
00:04:33,669 --> 00:04:33,789
But my heart always sinks when
I have to read that first.

556
00:04:33,789 --> 00:04:34,009
I’m almost like, “I could scratch out
that panel!” but then I’m like, eh,
it’s, it’s funny. I’ll leave it in there.

557
00:04:34,009 --> 00:04:34,139
So anyway, I heard some of that
when you were saying all the

558
00:04:34,139 --> 00:04:34,239
pieces fit, or yeah, completely
okay with everything that’s there.

559
00:04:34,239 --> 00:04:34,269
Except some stuff.

560
00:04:34,269 --> 00:04:34,309
We don’t need that.

561
00:04:34,309 --> 00:04:34,329
No, no.

562
00:04:34,329 --> 00:04:34,379
I don’t think that’s integrity.

563
00:04:34,379 --> 00:04:34,449
I think that’s the
archaic sacred, actually.

564
00:04:34,449 --> 00:04:34,459
Mm-hmm.

565
00:04:34,459 --> 00:04:34,589
But then, when you were talking about
purpose and when do we recognize

566
00:04:34,589 --> 00:04:34,739
our purpose, and it… I had a kind
of a funny correlation in my head.

567
00:04:34,739 --> 00:04:34,849
I was like, maybe it’s
like how we talk about sin?

568
00:04:34,849 --> 00:04:35,009
Like you don’t really see sin
until it’s over and forgiven,
and then you’re like, oh.

569
00:04:35,009 --> 00:04:35,019
Mm-hmm.

570
00:04:35,019 --> 00:04:35,029
Yeah.

571
00:04:35,029 --> 00:04:35,039
Yeah.

572
00:04:35,039 --> 00:04:35,089
That, that’s what that was.

573
00:04:35,089 --> 00:04:35,099
Yeah.

574
00:04:35,099 --> 00:04:35,279
It, it’s not like you come up against it
and you’re like: oh, sin, what do I do?

575
00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:35,289
What?

576
00:04:35,289 --> 00:04:35,309
Where’s forgiveness?

577
00:04:35,309 --> 00:04:35,349
Lemme go fix it.

578
00:04:35,349 --> 00:04:35,369
You know?

579
00:04:35,369 --> 00:04:35,439
Or find someone who can fix it.

580
00:04:35,439 --> 00:04:35,519
And so maybe it’s the same with purpose.

581
00:04:35,519 --> 00:04:35,669
You’re not given a purpose so that,
okay, I’m gonna go out and do it.

582
00:04:35,669 --> 00:04:35,869
That’s that fundamental split we’re
talking about between Being and Doing
where you’re trying to do so as to become.

583
00:04:35,869 --> 00:04:35,879
Yeah.

584
00:04:35,879 --> 00:04:36,089
Like, if you have your purpose beforehand
and then you’re gonna let that guide who
you are, it’s just a misunderstanding.

585
00:04:36,089 --> 00:04:36,219
And that maybe it’s more like something
that you can only recognize afterwards.

586
00:04:36,219 --> 00:04:36,229
Yeah.

587
00:04:36,229 --> 00:04:36,259
I don’t know.

588
00:04:36,259 --> 00:04:36,379
What do you think about the idea
of drawing a corollary between,

589
00:04:36,379 --> 00:04:36,489
between purpose and sin of like:
oh, yeah, yeah, it’s there!

590
00:04:36,489 --> 00:04:36,619
Just don’t make a fuss about it
until it, until it becomes clear.

591
00:04:36,619 --> 00:04:36,629
Yeah.

592
00:04:36,629 --> 00:04:36,649
I mean.

593
00:04:36,649 --> 00:04:36,719
That reflects my experience of it 100%.

594
00:04:36,719 --> 00:04:36,929
Don’t make a fuss about it until it’s
revealed to you, and then you can
go do something creative with it.

595
00:04:36,929 --> 00:04:36,939
Yeah.

596
00:04:36,939 --> 00:04:36,949
Yeah.

597
00:04:36,949 --> 00:04:36,959
Absolutely.

598
00:04:36,959 --> 00:04:37,089
It is an uncomfortable parallel to
have those two next two each other.

599
00:04:37,089 --> 00:04:37,099
Yeah.

600
00:04:37,099 --> 00:04:37,159
That does make me go, uhhhh,

601
00:04:37,159 --> 00:04:37,189
Wait a second.

602
00:04:37,189 --> 00:04:37,219
Do we really—

603
00:04:37,219 --> 00:04:37,289
Well, what do I do with that?

604
00:04:37,289 --> 00:04:37,299
Yeah.

605
00:04:37,299 --> 00:04:37,429
But yeah, no, the insistence that
all of the parts really do fit.

606
00:04:37,429 --> 00:04:37,469
I really believe that.

607
00:04:37,469 --> 00:04:37,509
I really feel that.

608
00:04:37,509 --> 00:04:37,769
That’s my experience of being a Christian,
is that in Christ there was room for all
of me, and there is room for all of us.

609
00:04:37,769 --> 00:04:37,779
Yeah.

610
00:04:37,779 --> 00:04:37,799
Everything belongs

611
00:04:37,799 --> 00:04:37,809
Yeah.

612
00:04:37,809 --> 00:04:37,889
when that’s the puzzle piece I start with.

613
00:04:37,889 --> 00:04:38,019
We’re not here to achieve our potential,
whatever the fuck that even is.

614
00:04:38,019 --> 00:04:38,129
We’re here to enjoy the experience
of potential unfolding through us.

615
00:04:38,129 --> 00:04:38,139
Yeah.

616
00:04:38,139 --> 00:04:38,269
No, we were close to a definition
of integrity much more succinct than

617
00:04:38,269 --> 00:04:38,409
the rambling that I started with
when you said — how did you put that?

618
00:04:38,409 --> 00:04:38,569
I think the way that I phrased it was
the absence of resistance to what is.

619
00:04:38,569 --> 00:04:38,589
That’s right!

620
00:04:38,589 --> 00:04:38,659
The absence of resistance to what is.

621
00:04:38,659 --> 00:04:38,819
If you have integrity, you don’t need to
prop yourself up over and against what is.

622
00:04:38,819 --> 00:04:38,829
Yesssssssssss!

623
00:04:38,829 --> 00:04:38,839
Yes.

624
00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:38,859
Yes, exactly.

625
00:04:38,859 --> 00:04:39,039
If you don’t have integrity, and
you’re crumbling, you’re gonna look
for something to be over and against.

626
00:04:39,039 --> 00:04:39,049
Exactly.

627
00:04:39,049 --> 00:04:39,059
Yeah.

628
00:04:39,059 --> 00:04:39,129
An absence of resistance to what is.

629
00:04:39,129 --> 00:04:39,199
An absence of rivalry with what is.

630
00:04:39,199 --> 00:04:39,209
Yeah.

631
00:04:39,209 --> 00:04:39,299
Because like the whole is-ought
distinction — what should be,

632
00:04:39,299 --> 00:04:39,429
as opposed to what is — is
kind of a big deal for religion

633
00:04:39,429 --> 00:04:39,439
Mm-hmm.

634
00:04:39,439 --> 00:04:39,459
and morality.

635
00:04:39,459 --> 00:04:39,539
And we usually lump integrity
and morality together.

636
00:04:39,539 --> 00:04:39,729
It sounds like your definition’s — I gotta
be careful though, ‘cause it’s not like
integrity’s over and against morality.

637
00:04:39,729 --> 00:04:39,849
And there’s a difference between morality
that’s received from our human cultural

638
00:04:39,849 --> 00:04:39,989
context and morality that is how God
wants us to relate to each other.

639
00:04:39,989 --> 00:04:39,999
Yeah.

640
00:04:39,999 --> 00:04:40,049
Those are two different things.

641
00:04:40,049 --> 00:04:40,059
Yeah.

642
00:04:40,059 --> 00:04:40,209
Cultural morality is the one that
says: oh, this woman committed
adultery, let’s stone her.

643
00:04:40,209 --> 00:04:40,219
Yeah.

644
00:04:40,219 --> 00:04:40,329
And makes that seem like
obviously that’s the thing to do!

645
00:04:40,329 --> 00:04:40,359
… I have questions.

646
00:04:40,359 --> 00:04:40,369
Yeah.

647
00:04:40,369 --> 00:04:40,579
So yeah, that idea that we know what
ought to be — we have a non-zero
capacity to recognize it, that’s true.

648
00:04:40,579 --> 00:04:40,749
But the idea that we have
the whole picture is just,
that does not land for me.

649
00:04:40,749 --> 00:04:40,899
We just don’t have a big
enough imagination to see
it truly, I don’t think.

650
00:04:40,899 --> 00:04:41,099
But we can trust God to see it
truly, and to tell us what’s
going on in a given situation.

651
00:04:41,099 --> 00:04:41,109
Yeah.

652
00:04:41,109 --> 00:04:41,289
Have, I floated my whole like
heaven and earth thing as
ways to refer to Is and Ought?

653
00:04:41,289 --> 00:04:41,299
No!

654
00:04:41,299 --> 00:04:41,319
Do tell.

655
00:04:41,319 --> 00:04:41,389
Trying to make sense of biblical passages.

656
00:04:41,389 --> 00:04:41,599
I don’t know where I ran into
this, but if earth is What Is
and heaven is What Ought To Be,

657
00:04:41,599 --> 00:04:41,609
Mm-hmm.

658
00:04:41,609 --> 00:04:41,739
then the Temple for the ancient
Israelites was where heaven came to earth.

659
00:04:41,739 --> 00:04:41,819
And then of course in
Christianity, it’s Christ.

660
00:04:41,819 --> 00:04:41,869
It’s where they come together.

661
00:04:41,869 --> 00:04:42,009
And then in Revelation, you read
about a new heaven and a new earth.

662
00:04:42,009 --> 00:04:42,019
Mm-hmm.

663
00:04:42,019 --> 00:04:42,059
Like they’re both new.

664
00:04:42,059 --> 00:04:42,209
What is is different than what was
before, and what ought to be is different

665
00:04:42,209 --> 00:04:42,219
Yes.

666
00:04:42,219 --> 00:04:42,269
than what used to be.

667
00:04:42,269 --> 00:04:42,339
Jesus is doing both of those things.

668
00:04:42,339 --> 00:04:42,359
Absolutely, absolutely.

669
00:04:42,359 --> 00:04:42,429
And interestingly, there is no new ocean.

670
00:04:42,429 --> 00:04:42,559
And God is Maker of Heaven and
Earth and Sea, according to Jonah.

671
00:04:42,559 --> 00:04:42,749
And they’re like, “What?! He’s
the God of the sea and you ran
away from him into the sea?

672
00:04:42,749 --> 00:04:42,779
Like what?” Yeah.

673
00:04:42,779 --> 00:04:42,789
Yeah.

674
00:04:42,789 --> 00:04:42,839
That wasn’t the best idea.

675
00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:42,999
But yeah, whoever wrote Revelation,
there’s no new sea, because if
sea generally is chaos, right?

676
00:04:42,999 --> 00:04:43,009
Mm-hmm.

677
00:04:43,009 --> 00:04:43,059
And this miasma of — mleh!

678
00:04:43,059 --> 00:04:43,079
— anything, everything.

679
00:04:43,079 --> 00:04:43,169
Like, you know, the stuff
that monsters rise from?

680
00:04:43,169 --> 00:04:43,219
How did that go again?

681
00:04:43,219 --> 00:04:43,299
Yeah, that’s the Hebrew,
a Hebrew word: Mleh!

682
00:04:43,299 --> 00:04:43,309
Sorry.

683
00:04:43,309 --> 00:04:43,419
That’s not actually — that’s, I think
that’s Count from Sesame Street.

684
00:04:43,419 --> 00:04:43,449
But anyway, sorry.

685
00:04:43,449 --> 00:04:43,569
Oh man, I’m — on the spectrum of,
like, normalcy to Robin Williams,

686
00:04:43,569 --> 00:04:43,669
I’m leaning, leaning way, way
toward the great, late Robin.

687
00:04:43,669 --> 00:04:43,729
But yeah, there’s no new sea.

688
00:04:43,729 --> 00:04:43,789
Why would you need new chaos?

689
00:04:43,789 --> 00:04:43,819
Chaos is chaos.

690
00:04:43,819 --> 00:04:43,849
It’s not like,

691
00:04:43,849 --> 00:04:43,859
Mm-hmm.

692
00:04:43,859 --> 00:04:43,949
it’s not like we need that to be renewed.

693
00:04:43,949 --> 00:04:43,959
Mm-hmm.

694
00:04:43,959 --> 00:04:43,999
But yes, what is?

695
00:04:43,999 --> 00:04:44,079
Yeah, let’s get a new one of those.

696
00:04:44,079 --> 00:04:44,119
What ought to be?

697
00:04:44,119 --> 00:04:44,139
Revamp that.

698
00:04:44,139 --> 00:04:44,309
The things that used to ought to be,
are not the things that ought to be now.

699
00:04:44,309 --> 00:04:44,319
Mm-hmm.

700
00:04:44,319 --> 00:04:44,479
So I guess when you say an absence of
resistance to what is — and I think

701
00:04:44,479 --> 00:04:44,609
you’re tracking with what I’m talking
about when I say heaven and earth

702
00:04:44,609 --> 00:04:44,619
—
Mm-hmm.

703
00:04:44,619 --> 00:04:44,789
And when I say earth is what is, would you
include in your phrase, lack of resistance

704
00:04:44,789 --> 00:04:44,959
to what is, is what is both what is,
and also there is what ought to be.

705
00:04:44,959 --> 00:04:45,029
That’s an is too, in a way.

706
00:04:45,029 --> 00:04:45,169
And we need not to resist either
the new is or the new ought?

707
00:04:45,169 --> 00:04:45,369
I think the only way to get to
what ought to be is to relinquish
our resistance to what is.

708
00:04:45,369 --> 00:04:45,379
Yeah.

709
00:04:45,379 --> 00:04:45,509
I think we won’t have the capacity
to even recognize what ought to

710
00:04:45,509 --> 00:04:45,639
be, until we are looking with eyes
that are not distorted by rivalry.

711
00:04:45,639 --> 00:04:45,649
Yeah.

712
00:04:45,649 --> 00:04:45,759
And this is — spoiler alert, I’m
probably gonna have to rewrite

713
00:04:45,759 --> 00:04:45,869
the next episode because I caught
myself scapegoating in the text.

714
00:04:45,869 --> 00:04:45,889
Oh no!

715
00:04:45,889 --> 00:04:46,119
Where I was, I was talking about how
comparison was doing all of these bad
things and I was like, yeah, but — nnn.

716
00:04:46,119 --> 00:04:46,179
It can do those bad things.

717
00:04:46,179 --> 00:04:46,369
But comparing ourselves to somebody
we admire is how we grow into new
qualities that we don’t yet possess.

718
00:04:46,369 --> 00:04:46,419
Comparison itself is not bad.

719
00:04:46,419 --> 00:04:46,439
Mm. Yeah.

720
00:04:46,439 --> 00:04:46,509
We need it as a decision-making faculty.

721
00:04:46,509 --> 00:04:46,759
So yeah, I have to figure out what I’m
gonna do with that because I wanna go
back to the Eve and the serpent scenario.

722
00:04:46,759 --> 00:04:46,959
There’s a way in which the whole
thing hangs for me on what I think
is the original misrecognition: the

723
00:04:46,959 --> 00:04:47,079
impression of God as withholding
something that I need to be okay.

724
00:04:47,079 --> 00:04:47,089
Mm-hmm.

725
00:04:47,089 --> 00:04:47,149
That is a misrecognition of God.

726
00:04:47,149 --> 00:04:47,159
Yeah.

727
00:04:47,159 --> 00:04:47,239
God has given us everything that we need.

728
00:04:47,239 --> 00:04:47,379
We can get the idea that we need
something that we don’t currently have.

729
00:04:47,379 --> 00:04:47,579
And we can have an experience of not
having something that we need — there
are people starving in the streets!

730
00:04:47,579 --> 00:04:47,659
They do not have what
they need, demonstrably!

731
00:04:47,659 --> 00:04:47,669
Yeah.

732
00:04:47,669 --> 00:04:47,759
But does what they need
exist in the system?

733
00:04:47,759 --> 00:04:47,789
Yes, it does.

734
00:04:47,789 --> 00:04:47,909
It’s the rest of us not letting
them have what they need.

735
00:04:47,909 --> 00:04:47,979
Somebody else is holding
onto it unnecessarily.

736
00:04:47,979 --> 00:04:47,989
Yeah.

737
00:04:47,989 --> 00:04:48,189
So God has given us what we need
to be okay, and then we’ve done
terrible, terrible things with it.

738
00:04:48,189 --> 00:04:48,319
We’ve done good things too, but we’ve
done terrible, terrible things with it.

739
00:04:48,319 --> 00:04:48,529
There’s just, there’s some way for
me that all of that seems to come
out of that initial distortion of our

740
00:04:48,529 --> 00:04:48,639
perception and thereby the distortion
of our disgust and our desires.

741
00:04:48,639 --> 00:04:48,719
It’s the misrecognition, I
think, that happens first.

742
00:04:48,719 --> 00:04:48,879
And it begins with a misrecognition of
what is, which is that God is for us.

743
00:04:48,879 --> 00:04:48,889
Yeah.

744
00:04:48,889 --> 00:04:48,939
God is never against us.

745
00:04:48,939 --> 00:04:49,069
And so if there’s something that
I lack, well, then that lack is

746
00:04:49,069 --> 00:04:49,179
part of whatever’s happening and I
can just receive that peacefully.

747
00:04:49,179 --> 00:04:49,239
I don’t have to fix it.

748
00:04:49,239 --> 00:04:49,299
I don’t have to fight it.

749
00:04:49,299 --> 00:04:49,359
I don’t have to exile it.

750
00:04:49,359 --> 00:04:49,429
I can just let it be there.

751
00:04:49,429 --> 00:04:53,429
And

752
00:06:08,069 --> 00:06:12,069
it

753
00:07:29,729 --> 00:07:29,939
might be uncomfortable.

754
00:07:29,939 --> 00:07:29,979
Might be really uncomfortable.

755
00:07:29,979 --> 00:07:30,009
Embrace that suffering.

756
00:07:30,009 --> 00:07:30,189
Don’t kick our own discomfort to
the curb, and something really
interesting is gonna grow out of that.

757
00:07:30,189 --> 00:07:30,229
Yeah, no, it tracks.

758
00:07:30,229 --> 00:07:30,429
Basically I heard you saying that it
starts with what is, accepting what
is, and only at that point could

759
00:07:30,429 --> 00:07:30,549
you even have access to entertain
conceptions of what ought to be.

760
00:07:30,549 --> 00:07:30,559
Yeah.

761
00:07:30,559 --> 00:07:30,719
And that accepting what is includes
grieving all of the stuff that
we’re doing that’s violent.

762
00:07:30,719 --> 00:07:30,869
It includes accepting all of the places
where we have not lived up to ought.

763
00:07:30,869 --> 00:07:30,879
Yeah.

764
00:07:30,879 --> 00:07:30,959
And not resisting those
parts of ourselves either.

765
00:07:30,959 --> 00:07:31,079
I don’t mean giving into them
and letting them run the show.

766
00:07:31,079 --> 00:07:31,159
I mean, not resisting an
identity of ourselves.

767
00:07:31,159 --> 00:07:31,279
Like, having a self image of, “I
can’t possibly be a perpetrator!”

768
00:07:31,279 --> 00:07:31,289
Yeah.

769
00:07:31,289 --> 00:07:31,529
If I resist that image of myself, I’m
gonna do all kinds of things over and
against it to prop up a wobbling identity.

770
00:07:31,529 --> 00:07:31,539
Yeah.

771
00:07:31,539 --> 00:07:31,619
But if I can just go: oh, crap.

772
00:07:31,619 --> 00:07:31,629
Yep.

773
00:07:31,629 --> 00:07:31,689
Well, shit, that’s who I’ve been.

774
00:07:31,689 --> 00:07:31,699
Okay.

775
00:07:31,699 --> 00:07:31,809
You gotta help me out of this,
God, it’s really uncomfortable.

776
00:07:31,809 --> 00:07:31,849
But here we are.

777
00:07:31,849 --> 00:07:31,879
This is reality.

778
00:07:31,879 --> 00:07:31,889
Yeah.

779
00:07:31,889 --> 00:07:31,899
Yeah.

780
00:07:31,899 --> 00:07:32,039
This Sunday I was going back to
Isaiah 29 in our Sunday school class

781
00:07:32,039 --> 00:07:32,049
Mm.

782
00:07:32,049 --> 00:07:32,149
and I decided to read the
excerpt from Thomas Merton.

783
00:07:32,149 --> 00:07:32,289
If you remember, I shared that excerpt
where he talks about his little brother.

784
00:07:46,149 --> 00:07:46,619
One thing I’d say about my brother,
John Paul, my most vivid memories of
him in our childhood all fill me with

785
00:07:46,619 --> 00:07:46,789
poignant compunction at the thought
of my own pride and hardheartedness,
and his natural humility and love.

786
00:07:46,789 --> 00:07:46,999
I suppose it is usual for elder brothers,
when they are still children, to feel
themselves demeaned by the company of

787
00:07:46,999 --> 00:07:47,219
a brother four or five years younger,
whom they regard as a baby and whom
they tend to patronize look down upon.

788
00:07:47,219 --> 00:07:47,449
So when Russ and I and Bill made huts
in the woods out of boards and tar
paper, which we collected around the

789
00:07:47,449 --> 00:07:47,659
foundation of the many cheap houses which
the speculators were now putting up as
fast as they could all over Douglaston,

790
00:07:47,659 --> 00:07:47,839
we severely prohibited John Paul and
Russ’s little brother Tommy and their
friends from coming anywhere near us.

791
00:07:51,249 --> 00:07:51,419
And

792
00:08:09,500 --> 00:08:09,660
if

793
00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:22,740
they

794
00:08:33,220 --> 00:08:37,329
did try to come get in our
hut and even to look at

795
00:08:45,289 --> 00:08:47,189
it, we’d chase them away with stones.

796
00:08:47,250 --> 00:08:47,629
When I think now that part of my
childhood, the picture I get of my
brother John Paul is this: standing

797
00:08:47,629 --> 00:08:50,385
in a field, about a hundred yards away
from the clump of sumacs where we’ve
built our hut, is this little perplexed

798
00:08:50,385 --> 00:09:01,345
five-year-old kid in short pants and
a kinda leather jacket standing quite

799
00:09:01,345 --> 00:09:14,890
still with his arms hanging down at
his side and gazing in our direction,

800
00:09:30,972 --> 00:09:34,972
afraid

801
00:09:51,055 --> 00:09:55,055
to

802
00:10:11,137 --> 00:10:15,137
come

803
00:10:31,220 --> 00:10:32,780
any nearer on account of the stones,
as insulted as he is saddened and

804
00:10:32,780 --> 00:10:32,920
his eyes full of indignation and
sorrow, and yet he does not go away.”

805
00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:33,090
And I’m just gonna pause here,
but like, which going away is
Thomas Merton talking about here?

806
00:10:33,090 --> 00:10:33,100
Mm.

807
00:10:33,100 --> 00:10:33,280
We were talking about those three
approaches to conflict and the three
antidotes to those approaches, and it

808
00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:33,470
occurred to me that we were talking
about that presence is sort of a
prerequisite for kindness and truth,

809
00:10:33,470 --> 00:10:33,480
Mm-hmm.

810
00:10:33,480 --> 00:10:33,580
and that there was a logical
priority, among the three.

811
00:10:33,580 --> 00:10:33,800
And so I was thinking about the younger
brother when he’s standing just a little
more than a stone’s-throw away, if Moving

812
00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:33,930
Toward, as opposed to Against, in that
situation would actually be running away.

813
00:10:33,930 --> 00:10:33,940
Right?

814
00:10:33,940 --> 00:10:34,050
That I am somebody who’s
measly and can be run off.

815
00:10:34,050 --> 00:10:34,150
They’re treating me like
somebody who can be chased off.

816
00:10:34,150 --> 00:10:34,390
And so if he had run away scared
or sad or, I mean he was sad, but
that sort of like, ‘Life isn’t fair!

817
00:10:34,390 --> 00:10:34,570
I’m so—” like, while physically he’s
running away, that would’ve been Moving
Toward in the Karen Horney sense.

818
00:10:34,570 --> 00:10:34,600
Is that right?

819
00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:34,630
Do you think?

820
00:10:34,630 --> 00:10:34,640
Yeah.

821
00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:34,760
And so running away scared or
frightened or outraged is Moving Toward,

822
00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:34,780
Or self-blaming.

823
00:10:34,780 --> 00:10:34,820
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

824
00:10:34,820 --> 00:10:34,830
Self-blaming.

825
00:10:34,830 --> 00:10:34,840
Exactly.

826
00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:34,850
Yeah.

827
00:10:34,850 --> 00:10:34,860
Yeah.

828
00:10:34,860 --> 00:10:34,900
Picking up the blame.

829
00:10:34,900 --> 00:10:35,030
If that was Moving Toward, Moving Against
is pretty clear in this situation.

830
00:10:35,030 --> 00:10:35,150
Who are you gonna throw, I’ll
throw rocks at you, or whatever.

831
00:10:35,150 --> 00:10:35,350
I mean, little brothers don’t have
the wherewithal generally to win that
fight, but they could try and fight it.

832
00:10:35,350 --> 00:10:35,360
Yeah.

833
00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:35,390
It’s already clear.

834
00:10:35,390 --> 00:10:35,500
He’s not running away scared
or picking up the self blame.

835
00:10:35,500 --> 00:10:35,550
…he does not go away.

836
00:10:35,550 --> 00:10:35,720
We shout at him to get out of there,
to beat it, and to go home and

837
00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:35,860
wing a couple more rocks in that
direction, and he does not go away.

838
00:10:35,860 --> 00:10:35,950
We tell him to play in some other place.

839
00:10:35,950 --> 00:10:35,990
He does not move.

840
00:10:35,990 --> 00:10:36,180
And there he stands, not sobbing,
not crying, but angry and unhappy and
offended and tremendously sad, and yet

841
00:10:36,180 --> 00:10:36,320
he is fascinated by what we’re doing,
nailing shingles all over our new hut.

842
00:10:36,320 --> 00:10:36,540
And his tremendous desire to be
with us and to do what we are doing
will not permit him to go away.

843
00:10:36,540 --> 00:10:36,800
The law written in his nature says that he
must be with his elder brother and to do
what he is doing, and he cannot understand

844
00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:36,950
why this law of love is being so wildly
and unjustly violated in his case.”

845
00:10:36,950 --> 00:10:36,960
Mm.

846
00:10:36,960 --> 00:10:37,100
So to Move Away in the Karen
Horney sense, would that be to not

847
00:10:37,100 --> 00:10:37,220
be angry, to not be unhappy, not
be offended or tremendously sad?

848
00:10:37,220 --> 00:10:37,270
Would it be a numbness?

849
00:10:37,270 --> 00:10:37,430
Or I, I, I don’t know what, yeah, what
would a Moving Away have looked like?

850
00:10:37,430 --> 00:10:37,560
Yeah, I would imagine that as
an exiling the parts of me that

851
00:10:37,560 --> 00:10:37,680
want to be in this relationship
with someone who doesn’t want me.

852
00:10:37,680 --> 00:10:37,690
Yeah.

853
00:10:37,690 --> 00:10:37,750
Just checking out and not caring.

854
00:10:37,750 --> 00:10:37,860
Yeah, I would describe that as
a numbness or a dissociation.

855
00:10:37,860 --> 00:10:37,960
It’s not necessarily internalizing
any self blame because of Thomas’s

856
00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:38,060
behavior, but it is removing one’s
presence from the relationship.

857
00:10:38,060 --> 00:10:38,140
Does that track with
how you’re reading it?

858
00:10:38,140 --> 00:10:38,150
Yeah.

859
00:10:38,150 --> 00:10:38,320
No, but I’m just, I, I feel like we’ve
got the picture of somebody who is being

860
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:38,460
intensely present and not succumbing to
the Move Away in the Karen Horney sense.

861
00:10:38,460 --> 00:10:38,470
So,

862
00:10:38,470 --> 00:10:38,480
Yeah.

863
00:10:38,480 --> 00:10:38,510
I don’t know.

864
00:10:38,510 --> 00:10:38,740
If we were gonna write a short story
about the same little boy who, who didn’t
have that, what would it’ve looked like?

865
00:10:38,740 --> 00:10:38,860
He describes it as his natural
humility and love at the beginning.

866
00:10:38,860 --> 00:10:38,870
Hmm.

867
00:10:38,870 --> 00:10:38,880
Yeah.

868
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:39,060
I think the three pictures that
come to my mind are the little
brother who internalizes the self

869
00:10:39,060 --> 00:10:39,200
blame and says, oh, if he’s throwing
rocks at me, he must be right.

870
00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:39,330
I must be bad, and goes away in
shame and disgrace and grief.

871
00:10:39,330 --> 00:10:39,470
Or the little brother who is like, “This
isn’t right!” and is constantly determined

872
00:10:39,470 --> 00:10:39,600
to invade his brother’s space and make
himself part of his brother’s life.

873
00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:39,610
Yeah.

874
00:10:39,610 --> 00:10:39,790
Or the little brother who just
understands, “This is way too painful
and I can’t handle these feelings.

875
00:10:39,790 --> 00:10:40,000
So I’m just gonna cut myself off from
the whole thing, and I’m gonna quit
caring about this relationship, and I’m

876
00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:40,140
not gonna go away grieved because I’m
not even gonna feel the grief anymore.”

877
00:10:40,140 --> 00:10:40,150
Yeah.

878
00:10:40,150 --> 00:10:40,350
I’m not going to be sorry to lose this
relationship because I’m gonna stop
caring about it out of self-protection.

879
00:10:40,350 --> 00:10:40,360
Yeah.

880
00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:40,520
But instead he just sits in the tension,
and he’s got that wild degree of presence

881
00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:40,680
because he is present to both what he’s
feeling and to what his brother is doing.

882
00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:40,830
He’s got the kindness because he cares
about his brother and he wants to be

883
00:10:40,830 --> 00:10:40,950
involved in his brother’s life, and
he’s not invading his brother’s space

884
00:10:40,950 --> 00:10:40,960
Yeah.

885
00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:41,040
and trying to force
himself on his brother.

886
00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:41,100
And he’s got the truth telling.

887
00:10:41,100 --> 00:10:41,220
He’s not pretending that he’s feeling
anything other than what he’s feeling.

888
00:10:41,220 --> 00:10:41,250
I am angry.

889
00:10:41,250 --> 00:10:41,280
I am insulted.

890
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:41,320
I am so sad.

891
00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:41,330
Yeah.

892
00:10:41,330 --> 00:10:41,450
And I’m not gonna let you
pretend to yourself that I’m not.

893
00:10:41,450 --> 00:10:41,460
Yeah.

894
00:10:41,460 --> 00:10:41,680
Story got referenced a few times later
in the church service and as, as much
as I tried, people couldn’t help but

895
00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:41,830
just like, “Yeah, we’re not always good
big brothers, but we’ve got a great Big

896
00:10:41,830 --> 00:10:41,980
Brother in Heaven.” The idea of allowing
God to be in that little boy’s position

897
00:10:41,980 --> 00:10:41,990
Mm.

898
00:10:41,990 --> 00:10:42,050
and by choice in a way

899
00:10:42,050 --> 00:10:42,060
Yeah.

900
00:10:42,060 --> 00:10:42,210
like I felt like that was sort
of what was going on in Isaiah 29

901
00:10:42,210 --> 00:10:42,340
with the, when you wake up from
the dream and it just disappears.

902
00:10:42,340 --> 00:10:42,550
The Lord God was about to overwhelm with
these ramparts and mounds and towers
or whatever and just poof it’s gone.

903
00:10:42,550 --> 00:10:42,610
It’s just like, no, that’s not.

904
00:10:42,610 --> 00:10:42,730
“The Lord strikes out with wonder
upon—” you know, befuddlement is, is

905
00:10:42,730 --> 00:10:42,740
Mm-hmm.

906
00:10:42,740 --> 00:10:42,770
is God’s weapon.

907
00:10:42,770 --> 00:10:42,930
And, and so God is in the position of
that little boy and grieved and saddened.

908
00:10:42,930 --> 00:10:42,960
And by choice!

909
00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:42,970
Mm-hmm.

910
00:10:42,970 --> 00:10:43,210
And that’s exactly what I see Jesus doing
in that scene where he is like, “How
long must I be with y’all?” Like how

911
00:10:43,210 --> 00:10:43,390
long do I have to hang out at the edge
of the playground before y’all let me in?

912
00:10:43,390 --> 00:10:43,400
Yeah.

913
00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:43,610
I’m not going to pretend to
be any less sad and angry than
I am, and I am sad and angry.

914
00:10:43,610 --> 00:10:43,660
I want to love you.

915
00:10:43,660 --> 00:10:43,710
Why won’t you let me?

916
00:10:43,710 --> 00:10:43,780
That is very much where God is.

917
00:10:43,780 --> 00:10:43,830
God isn’t the big brother

918
00:10:43,830 --> 00:10:43,840
Yeah.

919
00:10:43,840 --> 00:10:43,860
throwing stones.

920
00:10:43,860 --> 00:10:43,930
Or even choosing not to throw stones.

921
00:10:43,930 --> 00:10:44,020
God is the little brother
asking to come in.

922
00:10:44,020 --> 00:10:44,030
Yeah.

923
00:10:44,030 --> 00:10:44,170
I was gonna talk about this too,
because we’re gonna get into that split.

924
00:10:44,170 --> 00:10:44,340
Moment 1 in the Creative’s
Journey — if anybody hasn’t heard
the first episode yet — it’s a cycle.

925
00:10:44,340 --> 00:10:44,370
It’s 10 moments.

926
00:10:44,370 --> 00:10:44,570
And when I say Moment 1, I’m talking
about an occasion in which there’s
a split between Being and Doing.

927
00:10:44,570 --> 00:10:44,770
Now I asked you in Episode One, when
we get down to Moment 6, there’s
an initiation that’s described as

928
00:10:44,770 --> 00:10:46,369
a descent, a going down, and I was
like, is that a type of floating away?

929
00:10:46,369 --> 00:10:46,419
And we’ve uncovered a bit.

930
00:10:46,419 --> 00:10:46,609
There’s been some dream stuff that
I’ve told you about that makes that
thought carry on new meaning, which

931
00:10:46,609 --> 00:10:47,529
I don’t guess is part of my question,
but I can’t help but recognize it.

932
00:10:47,529 --> 00:10:47,629
But anyway, your response was,
well, it certainly is disembodiment.

933
00:10:47,629 --> 00:10:47,759
Now, not that you aren’t always ready
to emphasize embodiment as a theme.

934
00:10:47,759 --> 00:10:47,799
You are, I think!

935
00:10:47,799 --> 00:10:50,007
But I, I sort of primed your
answer in the way I asked it
about this sort of floating away.

936
00:10:50,007 --> 00:10:50,750
But here we are weeks, uh, months later,
and I’d like to hear your thoughts

937
00:10:50,750 --> 00:10:51,099
on this split between Being and Doing
that ushers us toward creative action.

938
00:10:51,099 --> 00:10:51,209
Is this split disembodiment?

939
00:10:51,209 --> 00:10:51,262
Is this split disintegration?

940
00:10:51,262 --> 00:10:51,315
Yes, yes, of course.

941
00:10:51,315 --> 00:10:51,421
The answers to both those
questions, they’re easy.

942
00:10:51,421 --> 00:10:51,448
It’s yes.

943
00:10:51,448 --> 00:10:52,049
But the interesting question, I think,
might be, do we shed light on different
aspects of this ordeal when we call

944
00:10:52,049 --> 00:10:52,179
the split disembodiment, and when we
call the split a lack of integration.

945
00:10:52,179 --> 00:10:53,419
Is there something there in the
distinction between those two,
or is it more or less synonymous?

946
00:10:53,419 --> 00:10:53,931
It’s a good question.

947
00:10:53,931 --> 00:10:54,454
I don’t think they’re quite synonymous.

948
00:10:54,454 --> 00:10:55,325
I think something really interesting
that you pulled out there.

949
00:10:55,325 --> 00:10:59,189
I think disintegration is the better
word, in general, ‘cause that’s kind
of the larger umbrella, if you will.

950
00:10:59,189 --> 00:11:01,189
Disembodiment and dissociation

951
00:11:05,669 --> 00:11:05,759
are

952
00:11:17,369 --> 00:11:19,830
a type of disintegration,
but not all disintegration
is necessarily disembodiment.

953
00:11:19,830 --> 00:11:19,870
Does that sound fair?

954
00:11:19,870 --> 00:11:19,880
Yeah.

955
00:11:19,880 --> 00:11:19,890
Yeah.

956
00:11:19,890 --> 00:11:19,990
So then, yeah, disintegration
would be the better term there.

957
00:11:19,990 --> 00:11:20,060
And thank you for pulling that out.

958
00:11:20,060 --> 00:11:20,358
I do think that, if you had asked me
that question when we were recording

959
00:11:20,358 --> 00:11:20,720
the first episode, I would’ve
been able to see that and say yes.

960
00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:21,209
But like you said, in the way that you
phrased the question my brain just kinda
went a different direction with it,

961
00:11:21,209 --> 00:11:21,459
which was fine for the first episode,
but I am glad for the chance to bring
it back to that and just point out that,

962
00:11:21,459 --> 00:11:21,599
yeah, I think that that’s what’s going
on there is that it’s a disintegration.

963
00:11:21,599 --> 00:11:21,759
‘Cause in the course of our discussion,
I got a clear picture of Moment 1, the

964
00:11:21,759 --> 00:11:21,889
split that we’re talking about between
Doing and Being, as Doing outpacing Being.

965
00:11:21,889 --> 00:11:21,969
As if by Doing, we could become essential.

966
00:11:21,969 --> 00:11:22,149
And this, this Doing being out
in front, it’s undone by the
ordering of Moments 8 and 9.

967
00:11:22,149 --> 00:11:22,339
The Healing of Our Wounded Being is
8, which will precede the Healing
of Our Wounded Doing, Moment 9.

968
00:11:22,339 --> 00:11:22,529
And I asked you if it would
be at all possible to have an
inverse image of that split.

969
00:11:22,529 --> 00:11:22,709
Could Being outpace our Doing
to such an extent that we lost
sight of Doing anything at all?

970
00:11:22,709 --> 00:11:26,779
And you suggested that it’s not at all

971
00:11:48,533 --> 00:11:52,533
likely

972
00:12:14,326 --> 00:12:18,326
in

973
00:12:40,119 --> 00:12:40,680
our culture because we put such an
emphasis on achieving and Doing, but
it seems, you said, imaginable in say

974
00:12:40,680 --> 00:12:40,847
maybe a monastery, or a critique that
maybe gets lobbed at mysticism, that

975
00:12:40,847 --> 00:12:41,053
maybe their Being goes too far to the
point that there is a lack of Doing.

976
00:12:41,053 --> 00:12:41,999
And I, I wanted to question if you feel
like it’s something you still would

977
00:12:41,999 --> 00:12:43,087
stand to, and more generally, do we
wanna make Being and Doing into a binary?

978
00:12:43,087 --> 00:12:43,739
Like specifically a pair of
equals that get balanced?

979
00:12:43,739 --> 00:12:44,999
Or — on the offhand chance
that somebody’s doing

980
00:12:50,599 --> 00:12:52,399
this wrong.

981
00:12:52,399 --> 00:12:52,802
I hear people say, like, I forget
who, it was probably Thomas Merton or
somebody from Gethsemani, I don’t know

982
00:12:52,802 --> 00:12:52,953
but somebody’s like, oh, you just,
you just stay there and pray all the—?

983
00:12:52,953 --> 00:12:53,489
And the response was like, can you imagine
how much trouble the world would be

984
00:12:56,629 --> 00:12:58,239
in if

985
00:13:01,329 --> 00:13:01,669
we weren’t praying?!

986
00:13:01,669 --> 00:13:03,779
Mmm!

987
00:13:03,779 --> 00:13:43,949
And I found it a very convincing— I,
I mean, it’s a hypothetical argument.

988
00:13:43,959 --> 00:13:43,979
How

989
00:15:25,689 --> 00:15:25,729
do

990
00:15:38,439 --> 00:15:38,519
you

991
00:15:55,110 --> 00:15:59,350
have a

992
00:18:18,825 --> 00:18:22,825
test

993
00:20:42,300 --> 00:20:42,330
case?

994
00:30:35,079 --> 00:30:40,289
But it’s just, yeah,

995
00:32:55,869 --> 00:32:56,285
hold on a second.

996
00:32:56,285 --> 00:32:59,689
Why is our assumption that
this intense and flourishing
prayer life is ineffective.

997
00:32:59,689 --> 00:33:02,740
Like why, why is that the starting point?

998
00:33:02,740 --> 00:33:05,620
So that, that’s not at all what I’m

999
00:33:08,380 --> 00:33:08,580
trying to do.

1000
00:33:08,580 --> 00:33:08,919
But

1001
00:33:14,070 --> 00:33:18,300
I’m just saying

1002
00:33:26,933 --> 00:33:30,933
that

1003
00:33:39,566 --> 00:33:43,566
in

1004
00:33:52,199 --> 00:33:56,199
the

1005
00:34:04,833 --> 00:34:08,833
event

1006
00:34:17,466 --> 00:34:21,466
that

1007
00:34:30,099 --> 00:34:30,750
there were somehow an occasion where
someone was actually inactive in a
way, are we open to the possibility of

1008
00:34:30,750 --> 00:34:30,960
well, oh, maybe inaction is the result
of too much emphasis on Being that
they haven’t got around to Doing yet?

1009
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:31,050
And I wanna say no,
that’s not a possibility.

1010
00:34:31,050 --> 00:34:31,170
If there’s an inactivity, it’s
another symptom of a lack of Being.

1011
00:34:31,170 --> 00:34:31,560
That’s where that inaction
is gonna be sourced.

1012
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:31,740
Because actual Being in the world,
not resisting what is, but Being,
that can only lead to Doing.

1013
00:34:31,740 --> 00:34:32,165
There is no other subsequent
thing, to Being in the world.

1014
00:34:32,165 --> 00:34:32,358
‘Cause the Creative’s Journey
circle, like, this is yours.

1015
00:34:32,358 --> 00:34:32,444
This is January’s, right?

1016
00:34:32,444 --> 00:34:32,659
So I’m not talking about
the Heroine’s Journey or the

1017
00:34:32,659 --> 00:34:32,702
Uh-huh,

1018
00:34:32,702 --> 00:34:32,745
Hero’s Journey.

1019
00:34:32,745 --> 00:34:32,896
I’m just talking about
the Creative’s Journey.

1020
00:34:32,896 --> 00:34:32,960
You own that.

1021
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:33,389
I don’t know if you got it copywrit
yet, but anyway, Moment 10.

1022
00:34:33,389 --> 00:34:33,439
Integration-slash-balance
of Being and Doing.

1023
00:34:33,439 --> 00:34:33,449
Mm-hmm.

1024
00:34:33,449 --> 00:34:33,619
Suppose some overly confident editor
just swooped in with a red Sharpie
and **squeaky marker sound** put

1025
00:34:33,619 --> 00:34:33,749
a scratch through it and was like
integration of Doing back into Being.

1026
00:34:33,749 --> 00:34:33,759
Hmm.

1027
00:34:33,759 --> 00:34:33,829
It implies a hierarchy and an ordering.

1028
00:34:33,829 --> 00:34:34,039
If you saw that edit to your circle,
would you be like, I-I-I-I-I dunno , or
would you be like, I-I-I-I-I dunno

1029
00:34:34,039 --> 00:34:34,269
?
I think what jumps out to me when
you hold up that dichotomy is that if
someone looks like they are Being at

1030
00:34:34,269 --> 00:34:34,399
the expense of Doing, that is a sign
that they have objectified something.

1031
00:34:34,399 --> 00:34:34,529
I think that that’s an indication
of rivalry, to try to have one

1032
00:34:43,669 --> 00:34:43,907
thing at the expense of another.

1033
00:34:43,907 --> 00:34:45,679
And you can objectify, you can idolize,
peace and prayer just as much as
you can idolize worldly achievement.

1034
00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:45,779
But it still ends up being a form of Doing

1035
00:34:45,779 --> 00:34:45,789
Yeah.

1036
00:34:45,789 --> 00:34:45,829
when you’re doing that.

1037
00:34:45,829 --> 00:34:46,019
In a way, what you’re saying is
absolutely true because we can’t
do anything unless we have a body.

1038
00:34:46,019 --> 00:34:46,029
Yeah.

1039
00:34:46,029 --> 00:34:46,079
That absolutely is the prerequisite.

1040
00:34:46,079 --> 00:34:46,089
Yeah.

1041
00:34:46,089 --> 00:34:46,099
Yeah.

1042
00:34:46,099 --> 00:34:46,129
It’s kind of

1043
00:34:46,129 --> 00:34:46,259
To do anything in the material
world, we have to have a body.

1044
00:34:46,259 --> 00:34:46,309
We have to be present.

1045
00:34:46,309 --> 00:34:46,539
And then there’s this extra layer where
we are capable of acting in the world
in a way that is disconnected from our

1046
00:34:46,539 --> 00:34:46,729
Being, that is rivalrous, that is over
and against, that has objectified things
and is acquisitive instead of relational.

1047
00:34:46,729 --> 00:34:46,779
Demonstrably, we can do that.

1048
00:34:46,779 --> 00:34:47,029
And we can do it in such a way that
even our Being can become a form of
Doing, which is another thing that we

1049
00:34:47,029 --> 00:34:47,169
talked about in that first episode,
that it’s so easy to even turn these,

1050
00:34:47,169 --> 00:34:47,299
these practices of putting down our
Doing can turn into ways of Doing

1051
00:34:47,299 --> 00:34:47,309
Yeah.

1052
00:34:47,309 --> 00:34:47,369
if we make them an objective.

1053
00:34:47,369 --> 00:34:47,539
And yet at the same time, what you have
pointed out is true — that in order to

1054
00:34:47,539 --> 00:34:47,709
get to the healing of our Doing, we have
to start with the healing of our Being.

1055
00:34:47,709 --> 00:34:47,799
This one comes first and
then the other happens.

1056
00:34:47,799 --> 00:34:47,919
If our Doing gets disconnected from
our Being, there’s that whole half

1057
00:34:47,919 --> 00:34:48,049
of our experience that’s just been
disowned and is now considered a rival

1058
00:34:48,049 --> 00:34:48,059
Yeah.

1059
00:34:48,059 --> 00:34:48,109
by those parts of us.

1060
00:34:48,109 --> 00:34:48,359
If we understand God to be The Ground of
All Being — that is, humans are and humans
do, and before all of that, there’s God

1061
00:34:48,359 --> 00:34:48,369
—
Mm-hmm.

1062
00:34:48,369 --> 00:34:48,419
Effectively, that’s what we’re affirming.

1063
00:34:48,419 --> 00:34:48,629
Problems ensue when the Doing and the
Being — I wanna say problems ensue when
the Doing and the Being are inverted.

1064
00:34:48,629 --> 00:34:48,679
But is that ever possible?

1065
00:34:48,679 --> 00:34:48,739
Can they ever actually be inverted?

1066
00:34:48,739 --> 00:34:48,749
No.

1067
00:34:48,749 --> 00:34:48,809
I think we wanna say no.

1068
00:34:48,809 --> 00:34:49,039
We just wanna say we can try, or we can
convince ourselves, or be convinced, that
the world is not something where Doing

1069
00:34:49,039 --> 00:34:49,169
springs from Being, but where quite the
opposite — that Doing can generate Being.

1070
00:34:49,169 --> 00:34:49,179
Right.

1071
00:34:49,179 --> 00:34:49,289
And that’s where we get a
phrase like “the self-made man,”

1072
00:34:49,289 --> 00:34:49,299
Yeah.

1073
00:34:49,299 --> 00:34:49,309
Mm-hmm.

1074
00:34:49,309 --> 00:34:49,539
And so when we convince ourselves of
that, and are doing whatever it is we
do to try and become whatever it is

1075
00:34:49,539 --> 00:34:49,689
we think we ought to become, that’s a
Doing that’s grounded by the same Being?

1076
00:34:49,689 --> 00:34:49,729
Or a different Being?

1077
00:34:49,729 --> 00:34:49,829
I think it’s doing that’s
grounded by a disintegrated Being.

1078
00:34:49,829 --> 00:34:49,839
Yeah.

1079
00:34:49,839 --> 00:34:49,929
The disintegration happens
between our Being and our Doing.

1080
00:34:49,929 --> 00:34:50,099
And that’s how those can seem
to get out of order for us, is
they’ve gotten disconnected.

1081
00:34:50,099 --> 00:34:50,119
I gotcha.

1082
00:34:50,119 --> 00:34:50,129
So,

1083
00:34:50,129 --> 00:34:50,229
So in the ultimate sense
there is only one Being.

1084
00:34:50,229 --> 00:34:50,239
Yeah.

1085
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:50,249
Yeah.

1086
00:34:50,249 --> 00:34:50,379
When I use that word integration, I
think I was not necessarily picturing

1087
00:34:50,379 --> 00:34:50,479
two distinct things that were
conveniently balanced on a scale.

1088
00:34:50,479 --> 00:34:50,519
I was picturing oscillation

1089
00:34:50,519 --> 00:34:50,529
Yeah.

1090
00:34:50,529 --> 00:34:50,609
back and forth through
both of these states.

1091
00:34:50,609 --> 00:34:50,619
Gotcha.

1092
00:34:50,619 --> 00:34:50,629
Yeah.

1093
00:34:50,629 --> 00:34:50,859
And so balance in any given moment might
look like 80% Being and 20% Doing, and
that would be balance in that moment.

1094
00:34:50,859 --> 00:34:50,869
Yeah.

1095
00:34:50,869 --> 00:34:50,899
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1096
00:34:50,899 --> 00:34:50,929
I’m with you.

1097
00:34:50,929 --> 00:34:50,939
Yeah.

1098
00:34:50,939 --> 00:34:51,139
So yeah, I’m okay with hierarchy, if we’re
talking specifically about creativity that
creates the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

1099
00:34:51,139 --> 00:34:51,149
Mm-hmm.

1100
00:34:51,149 --> 00:34:51,249
Which is what the Creative
Journey is about, to me.

1101
00:34:51,249 --> 00:34:51,449
That we’re learning to recognize when
our creativity is creating something
that is not that, we are coming home to

1102
00:34:51,449 --> 00:34:51,659
reality, and then we are taking the steps
that are necessary to get our creation
pointed back in the right direction.

1103
00:34:51,659 --> 00:34:51,719
Was that enough of an answer?

1104
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:51,759
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1105
00:34:51,759 --> 00:34:51,779
That’s good.

1106
00:34:51,779 --> 00:34:51,989
‘Cause the reason why I went back to
Episode One wasn’t just to retread
old material, but I felt like there

1107
00:34:51,989 --> 00:34:52,109
was a possible connection between
this and Jen Johnsen, who saw presence

1108
00:34:52,109 --> 00:34:52,219
as having a logical priority with
regards to kindness and truth.

1109
00:34:52,219 --> 00:34:52,229
Mm-hmm.

1110
00:34:52,229 --> 00:34:52,399
And so I was kind of taking that and
laying it on top of our Being/Doing split.

1111
00:34:52,399 --> 00:34:52,619
So instead of seeing Being and Doing
as two things, where either one could
be out in front of the other, no.

1112
00:34:52,619 --> 00:34:52,809
Being is first and primary and will be
healed first, and Doing is subsequent
and will be healed subsequently.

1113
00:34:52,809 --> 00:34:52,909
And in so doing — yeah,
“doing,” Okay. “In so being”!

1114
00:34:52,909 --> 00:34:53,019
Yeah, can we see Being as a
logical precursor to Doing?

1115
00:34:53,019 --> 00:34:53,199
Just as presence comes first,
would we say the same thing with
regards to Being, Being comes first?

1116
00:34:53,199 --> 00:34:53,369
I kind of wanna say yes and that, but for
Being, there would be no Doing whatsoever.

1117
00:34:53,369 --> 00:34:53,519
No aggressive Doing, no obsequious Doing,
no kind and true Doing, just none at all.

1118
00:34:53,519 --> 00:34:53,719
And so the upshot would be that the
navel-gazing mystics, people are
just so caught up in their own mind,

1119
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:53,839
they’re not actually Doing, that they
aren’t a picture of excessive Being.

1120
00:34:53,839 --> 00:34:53,889
No, they’re actually
disembodiment personified.

1121
00:34:53,889 --> 00:34:54,009
They aren’t Being adequately enough
to actually Do anything in the world.

1122
00:34:54,009 --> 00:34:54,089
It’s a lack of Being, not an excess.

1123
00:34:54,089 --> 00:34:54,219
Or is that… yeah, I got more
to this question, but I need

1124
00:34:54,219 --> 00:34:54,359
to stop here and listen for a
moment because I just said a lot.

1125
00:34:54,359 --> 00:34:54,569
I am so grateful to you for bringing
that out, because the way that you
phrased it made me realize something

1126
00:34:54,569 --> 00:34:54,709
about my own framework that I had
not picked up until you said it.

1127
00:34:54,709 --> 00:34:54,869
And that’s that what I’m calling
Doing, in the Creative Journey
sense, Doing IS our creativity!

1128
00:34:54,869 --> 00:34:54,929
That is what I’m talking about!

1129
00:34:54,929 --> 00:34:55,049
And I’m talking about it in both
halves of the Creative Journey.

1130
00:34:55,049 --> 00:34:55,059
Yeah.

1131
00:34:55,059 --> 00:34:55,179
Doing is our creativity on the
whole thing all the way around.

1132
00:34:55,179 --> 00:34:55,219
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1133
00:34:55,219 --> 00:34:55,239
Yeah, yeah.

1134
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:55,319
Our acting in material
space is our creating.

1135
00:34:55,319 --> 00:34:55,409
It is influencing and being
influenced by our context.

1136
00:34:55,409 --> 00:34:55,569
And then hopefully making progressively
more conscious and aware choices about
the influence that we’re accepting

1137
00:34:55,569 --> 00:34:55,699
from our context and the influence
that we are having on our context.

1138
00:34:55,699 --> 00:34:55,899
But that’s why it’s so important that
what I called “living from our Being”
does not exclude our Doing. ‘Cause

1139
00:34:55,899 --> 00:34:56,109
a Being who never Does anything is a
being who isn’t interacting with or
having any effect on those around them.

1140
00:34:56,109 --> 00:34:56,229
And a being who neither impacts
nor is impacted by others is,

1141
00:34:56,229 --> 00:34:56,319
first of all, impossible ‘cause
humans are social animals.

1142
00:34:56,319 --> 00:34:56,349
We’re mimetic critters.

1143
00:34:56,349 --> 00:34:56,359
Yeah.

1144
00:34:56,359 --> 00:34:56,369
Yeah.

1145
00:34:56,369 --> 00:34:56,529
And then even if it was possible,
that being would be impermeable
and therefore not alive.

1146
00:34:56,529 --> 00:34:56,539
Yeah.

1147
00:34:56,539 --> 00:34:56,699
Everything alive is semi-permeable and
everything alive is both susceptible to
and generating this creative influence.

1148
00:34:56,699 --> 00:34:56,709
Yeah.

1149
00:34:56,709 --> 00:34:56,809
Does that sound more like
what you were getting at?

1150
00:34:56,809 --> 00:34:56,829
No, absolutely.

1151
00:34:56,829 --> 00:34:56,859
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1152
00:34:56,859 --> 00:34:56,989
I appreciate what you were saying,
that the Doing is creating all the

1153
00:34:56,989 --> 00:34:57,089
way around, and that like you’re
saying, we’re always creating.

1154
00:34:57,089 --> 00:34:57,149
It’s just a matter of what.

1155
00:34:57,149 --> 00:34:57,369
Is the Doing the ground of your
Being, or is your Being the ground of
your Doing, is what I’m getting at.

1156
00:34:57,369 --> 00:34:57,379
Mmmmm!

1157
00:34:57,379 --> 00:34:57,599
And it seems like on the way around, the
problem, the disintegration happens when
this, I’ll just go ahead and say hierarchy

1158
00:34:57,599 --> 00:34:57,729
because it’s not like being is above
and beyond and domineering our Doing.

1159
00:34:57,729 --> 00:34:57,759
It’s the ground.

1160
00:34:57,759 --> 00:34:57,769
Yeah.

1161
00:34:57,769 --> 00:34:57,909
And as we’re going around the first
half of the circle, it’s an attempt

1162
00:34:57,909 --> 00:34:58,029
to ground our Being in our Doing
that will disintegrate the self.

1163
00:34:58,029 --> 00:34:58,199
Unfortunately, like, I’m afraid
we may be stumbling into a huge,
rather sweeping critique of a giant

1164
00:34:58,199 --> 00:34:58,299
philosophical tradition, because I’m
pretty sure that’s what existentialism is.

1165
00:34:58,299 --> 00:34:58,409
I think that’s what the
existentialists are like, “Yeah, we do.

1166
00:34:58,409 --> 00:34:58,539
And we become through our doing.”
I think that’s what they all say.

1167
00:34:58,539 --> 00:34:58,739
And so just to be like, “Nope, that
can’t be right because our circle
works better, it balances out better,

1168
00:34:58,739 --> 00:34:58,939
if we see it this—” I, I don’t think I
have the credentials to dismiss giant
branches of philosophical history!

1169
00:34:58,939 --> 00:34:59,019
But it is how I feel and think,

1170
00:34:59,019 --> 00:34:59,029
Yeah.

1171
00:34:59,029 --> 00:34:59,159
that in an attempt to create Being through
Doing, we’re gonna disintegrate ourselves.

1172
00:34:59,159 --> 00:34:59,169
Mm-hmm.

1173
00:34:59,169 --> 00:34:59,209
That’s what’s gonna happen.

1174
00:34:59,209 --> 00:34:59,329
And when our Doing springs forth
from our Being, which itself is,

1175
00:34:59,329 --> 00:34:59,469
grounded and we — yeah, I’ll call
that God, I know you call that God.

1176
00:34:59,469 --> 00:34:59,479
Mm-hmm.

1177
00:34:59,479 --> 00:34:59,589
I think we both call it Jesus
too, without much hesitation.

1178
00:34:59,589 --> 00:34:59,719
But even if you’re not that far
yet with regards to wanting to

1179
00:34:59,719 --> 00:34:59,809
affirm Christianity, our Doing’s
gonna be grounded in something.

1180
00:34:59,809 --> 00:34:59,839
That’s our Being!

1181
00:34:59,839 --> 00:34:59,919
And our Being is grounded in some other.

1182
00:34:59,919 --> 00:34:59,929
Yep!

1183
00:34:59,929 --> 00:34:59,979
Like it’s something we’ve received.

1184
00:34:59,979 --> 00:35:00,169
It’s necessary to see that twofold
grounding or whatever, to sort of
wrap our heads around how we can

1185
00:35:00,169 --> 00:35:00,289
integrate our Doing, it’s gonna
be a receptive activity, in a way.

1186
00:35:00,289 --> 00:35:00,359
We’re doing the thing,
but we’re receiving.

1187
00:35:00,359 --> 00:35:00,489
And again, that’s where the pregnancy
metaphor just is so perfect, I think.

1188
00:35:00,489 --> 00:35:00,499
Yeah.

1189
00:35:00,499 --> 00:35:00,509
Yeah.

1190
00:35:00,509 --> 00:35:00,649
So when we were talking through the
various moments of the Creative Journey, I

1191
00:35:00,649 --> 00:35:00,819
asked you if we could practice the moments
or if we just wait on them to happen.

1192
00:35:00,819 --> 00:35:00,959
I think I found a couple different ways
to ask this question regarding agency.

1193
00:35:00,959 --> 00:35:01,159
And you were really quick to not
really worry about that distinction,
in so much as you saw both of

1194
00:35:01,159 --> 00:35:01,269
them as two instances of the same
thin, that being objectification.

1195
00:35:01,269 --> 00:35:01,279
Mm-hmm.

1196
00:35:01,279 --> 00:35:01,419
In the first, if you’re practicing at
something, like, okay, it’s a thing out

1197
00:35:01,419 --> 00:35:01,609
there that gets done and so you do it and
so you make yourself a doer of this thing.

1198
00:35:01,609 --> 00:35:01,799
Or, it’s a thing you wait to
have done unto you, and in
both cases it’s just a thing.

1199
00:35:01,799 --> 00:35:01,909
And you were saying it’s not
a thing, it’s an experience.

1200
00:35:01,909 --> 00:35:02,039
You phrased it as a question, as a
means of understanding this experience.

1201
00:35:02,039 --> 00:35:02,199
The exact question you gave me was,
“What am I trying not to feel right now?”

1202
00:35:02,199 --> 00:35:02,209
Mmm.

1203
00:35:02,209 --> 00:35:02,219
Mm-hmm.

1204
00:35:02,219 --> 00:35:02,349
And if you ask yourself that
question, it’s both you and the world.

1205
00:35:02,349 --> 00:35:02,449
They’re both entailed in a
full answer to that question.

1206
00:35:02,449 --> 00:35:02,459
Mm-hmm.

1207
00:35:02,459 --> 00:35:02,699
It’s not, “What’s out there in the world
right now?” without any self, and it’s
not, “Oh, okay, how do I find myself?” In

1208
00:35:02,699 --> 00:35:02,929
order to answer that question, “What am I
trying not to feel right now?” I need both
to acknowledge myself, and some other.

1209
00:35:02,929 --> 00:35:03,069
‘Cause presumably if, if I’m trying
not to feel it, there’s the me trying,

1210
00:35:03,069 --> 00:35:03,179
and there’s this reality that’s
causing feelings that I’m tamping down.

1211
00:35:03,179 --> 00:35:03,189
Mm-hmm.

1212
00:35:03,189 --> 00:35:03,249
And I need both of those.

1213
00:35:03,249 --> 00:35:03,499
And so I felt like your question was the
sort that you, you simply cannot ask it if
you’re gonna eliminate one or the other.

1214
00:35:03,499 --> 00:35:03,509
Mm-hmm.

1215
00:35:03,509 --> 00:35:03,559
I was struck by that.

1216
00:35:03,559 --> 00:35:03,709
It was a nifty little trick that
you did, and I was like, oh, wow!

1217
00:35:03,709 --> 00:35:03,869
You can’t eliminate either the
presence of the world or the
relevancy of your unique self.

1218
00:35:03,869 --> 00:35:04,019
And I feel like Jesus does the same
sort of trick at least a couple

1219
00:35:04,019 --> 00:35:04,129
times when he says, “Love your
neighbor as yourself,” for example.

1220
00:35:04,129 --> 00:35:04,249
As if you could be loving without
affirming your own selfhood, right?

1221
00:35:04,249 --> 00:35:04,259
Mm-hmm.

1222
00:35:04,259 --> 00:35:04,289
No, you can’t.

1223
00:35:04,289 --> 00:35:04,339
It has to be both.

1224
00:35:04,339 --> 00:35:04,519
Or, “Do unto others —” whatever
the law damn well tells you
you should do, you just do it!

1225
00:35:04,519 --> 00:35:04,579
And them, and them prophets too!

1226
00:35:04,579 --> 00:35:04,619
Mind ‘em and obey!

1227
00:35:04,619 --> 00:35:04,649
Wait, wait, wait.

1228
00:35:04,649 --> 00:35:04,729
That’s not what — that
isn’t what Jesus said.

1229
00:35:04,729 --> 00:35:04,779
Uh, my bad, my bad.

1230
00:35:04,779 --> 00:35:04,819
Went off script there.

1231
00:35:04,819 --> 00:35:05,009
Yeah, “Do unto others what you
would have them do unto you.”
That is the law and the prophets.

1232
00:35:05,009 --> 00:35:05,019
Mm-hmm.

1233
00:35:05,019 --> 00:35:05,029
Right?

1234
00:35:05,029 --> 00:35:05,069
That’s what he says.

1235
00:35:05,069 --> 00:35:05,219
As if there could be any obligation
put upon you by the very One who

1236
00:35:05,219 --> 00:35:05,339
makes you uniquely you, and not take
your uniqueness into account, right?

1237
00:35:05,339 --> 00:35:05,349
Mm-hmm.

1238
00:35:05,349 --> 00:35:05,389
It just doesn’t compute.

1239
00:35:05,389 --> 00:35:05,529
And so, I got to this point where
these two instances of Jesus giving

1240
00:35:05,529 --> 00:35:05,679
instruction that can’t be just about the
self and can’t be just about the other.

1241
00:35:05,679 --> 00:35:05,689
Mm-hmm.

1242
00:35:05,689 --> 00:35:05,759
And it has to be the both.

1243
00:35:05,759 --> 00:35:05,769
Yeah.

1244
00:35:05,769 --> 00:35:05,919
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto
others as you’d have them do unto you.”

1245
00:35:05,919 --> 00:35:06,019
Are we getting at Being
and Doing in a sense?

1246
00:35:06,019 --> 00:35:06,169
What if love is integrated Being, and what
if the golden rule is integrated Doing?

1247
00:35:06,169 --> 00:35:06,369
I think you’re really well onto something
there, because our Being is constituted
by the gaze of the other, right?

1248
00:35:06,369 --> 00:35:06,399
We’re mimetic creatures.

1249
00:35:06,399 --> 00:35:06,569
So of course, gazing at people
with a loving gaze is going
to bring them into Being.

1250
00:35:06,569 --> 00:35:06,579
Hmm.

1251
00:35:06,579 --> 00:35:06,729
It makes perfect sense to me that that
would be a form of integrated Being.

1252
00:35:06,729 --> 00:35:06,909
And that the outcome of that
is treat others the way that
you would want to be treated.

1253
00:35:06,909 --> 00:35:06,949
Well, I want goodness.

1254
00:35:06,949 --> 00:35:06,979
I want freedom.

1255
00:35:06,979 --> 00:35:07,049
I want my needs to be met.

1256
00:35:07,049 --> 00:35:07,129
I assume the other person wants that too.

1257
00:35:07,129 --> 00:35:07,249
How can I facilitate that for them
alongside facilitating that for myself?

1258
00:35:07,249 --> 00:35:07,259
Yeah.

1259
00:35:07,259 --> 00:35:07,459
Not facilitating it for them at the
expense of facilitating it for myself
and not facilitating it for myself at

1260
00:35:07,459 --> 00:35:07,599
the expense of facilitating it for anyone
else, which is mostly what we’re doing.

1261
00:35:07,599 --> 00:35:07,799
But the two of those held in tension
and integrated, where we are oscillating
back and forth between the other

1262
00:35:07,799 --> 00:35:07,939
person’s perspective and our own, and not
getting stagnated in either one of them.

1263
00:35:07,939 --> 00:35:07,949
Hmm.

1264
00:35:07,949 --> 00:35:08,119
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s a
really sharp observation and I’m
grateful to you for making it.

1265
00:35:08,119 --> 00:35:08,189
‘cause I never would’ve
spotted that myself.

1266
00:35:08,189 --> 00:35:08,269
That would’ve been
beyond me, so thank you.

1267
00:35:08,269 --> 00:35:08,359
Sorry, I didn’t have any
arguments on that one.

1268
00:35:08,359 --> 00:35:08,409
I thought you nailed it.

1269
00:35:08,409 --> 00:35:08,419
Yeah.

1270
00:35:08,419 --> 00:35:08,609
So, and then to circle around to
this priority that’s kind of been
the thread through my questions here.

1271
00:35:08,609 --> 00:35:08,829
Before we can get to the point of the
golden rule — doing unto others as we’d
have them do unto ourselves — before

1272
00:35:08,829 --> 00:35:08,969
we get to integrated Doing, we would
need a loving presence in the world.

1273
00:35:08,969 --> 00:35:09,049
We would need to be a loving presence.

1274
00:35:09,049 --> 00:35:09,149
We would need to be formed
from a loving presence.

1275
00:35:09,149 --> 00:35:09,229
We would need to be present through love.

1276
00:35:09,229 --> 00:35:09,239
Mm-hmm.

1277
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:09,359
And without that, how would you
be able to ask the question?

1278
00:35:09,359 --> 00:35:09,379
Oh, yeah.

1279
00:35:09,379 --> 00:35:09,479
What, what would I want
others to do unto me?

1280
00:35:09,479 --> 00:35:09,489
Mm-hmm.

1281
00:35:09,489 --> 00:35:09,519
Like we wouldn’t,

1282
00:35:09,519 --> 00:35:09,609
there wouldn’t be a me
to ask that question.

1283
00:35:09,609 --> 00:35:09,619
Yeah.

1284
00:35:09,619 --> 00:35:09,819
I’m just talking off the top of
my head here, but it’s kind of the
back and forth between formation

1285
00:35:09,819 --> 00:35:09,939
and — I don’t know what the other
word here is, like — manifestation.

1286
00:35:09,939 --> 00:35:09,949
Hmm.

1287
00:35:09,949 --> 00:35:10,119
We have to be formed by love,
if we’re going to manifest
love in the material world.

1288
00:35:10,119 --> 00:35:10,299
If we’re being formed by something
else, then we’re going to form
something else in the material world.

1289
00:35:10,299 --> 00:35:10,469
The Being does have to come first
because the Being will dictate
what it is we’re creating.

1290
00:35:10,469 --> 00:35:10,479
Yeah.

1291
00:35:10,479 --> 00:35:10,489
Yeah.

1292
00:35:10,489 --> 00:35:10,749
Well, I’m gonna throw one at you ‘cause
I asked it a while ago and then we never
got around to it, and you mentioned that

1293
00:35:10,749 --> 00:35:10,969
there might be some untangling to do here,
but the question of, when you overexplain
things, what is it that you’re protecting?

1294
00:35:10,969 --> 00:35:11,029
Oh, yeah, wait, I had a—

1295
00:35:11,029 --> 00:35:11,159
and you were like, “Oh man, my
overexplaining comes in so many flavors!”

1296
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:11,189
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1297
00:35:11,189 --> 00:35:11,409
No, I think I, I remember, I was
like, oh, wow, that got an answer
to that, that came way too fast.

1298
00:35:11,409 --> 00:35:11,569
But when I’m over explaining,
it feels like an invitation
to follow a train of thought.

1299
00:35:11,569 --> 00:35:11,579
Mm.

1300
00:35:11,579 --> 00:35:11,669
I’m not actually that
hung up on the conclusion.

1301
00:35:11,669 --> 00:35:11,789
Most people, if they’re talking
are trying to convey an idea, it’s

1302
00:35:11,789 --> 00:35:17,265
“Oh, there’s a thought. I want you
to get it, and here’s the point.

1303
00:35:17,265 --> 00:35:18,116
Got it?

1304
00:35:18,116 --> 00:35:18,968
Got it.

1305
00:35:18,968 --> 00:35:21,359
Good.” No, that’s, that’s not what’s
going on when I’m overexplaining.

1306
00:35:21,359 --> 00:35:21,498
Mm.

1307
00:35:21,498 --> 00:35:23,879
I’m bringing somebody along on a journey,
like, “This is what I thought. And then
I thought this, and then it was this, and

1308
00:35:23,879 --> 00:35:24,119
then it was this.” And usually somewhere
along that line there is a thing that is
onerous upon me and annoying in the world

1309
00:35:24,119 --> 00:35:24,919
that’s being created in this story. It’s
just this exacerbating, like, “Good grief!

1310
00:35:24,919 --> 00:35:24,959
Can you believe that?!”

1311
00:35:24,959 --> 00:35:24,969
Mm.

1312
00:35:24,969 --> 00:35:25,149
And I want people to get the
frustration of, of not that I’ve
overcome it but to appreciate.

1313
00:35:25,149 --> 00:35:26,331
There’s usually some — and I don’t,
think it’s usually people, but
like yeah, can you scapegoat ideas?

1314
00:35:26,331 --> 00:35:26,764
Or can you scapegoat thoughts?

1315
00:35:26,764 --> 00:35:28,494
I don’t know, but it seems like that
oftentimes when I’m repeating, I
really want people to get the annoyance

1316
00:35:28,494 --> 00:35:29,789
that I’ve been working with, and
I want ‘em to share that with me.

1317
00:35:30,629 --> 00:35:30,809
And

1318
00:35:30,869 --> 00:35:31,699
Mmm.

1319
00:35:31,699 --> 00:35:33,186
that’s actually more important
than any sort of conclusion
or solution to the problem.

1320
00:35:33,186 --> 00:35:36,153
Like usually those, those
solutions are a dime a dozen.

1321
00:35:36,153 --> 00:35:38,526
Anybody can come up with one of those.

1322
00:35:38,526 --> 00:35:39,450
I don’t know.

1323
00:35:51,230 --> 00:35:51,610
But

1324
00:35:58,130 --> 00:35:58,250
to

1325
00:36:19,770 --> 00:36:20,289
really appreciate a problem — that’s
worth communicating when you’re
in a certain frame of mind.

1326
00:36:20,289 --> 00:36:20,319
And, uh, yeah,

1327
00:36:20,319 --> 00:36:20,329
Mm.

1328
00:36:20,329 --> 00:36:20,489
I think that might be more than
occasionally what’s going on
when I over explain things.

1329
00:36:20,489 --> 00:36:20,719
So a kind of Move Against, but moving
against the idea and trying to get other
people on your side against the idea?

1330
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:20,739
Recruiting allies!

1331
00:36:20,739 --> 00:36:20,809
Is that Stage 4 of the cycle?

1332
00:36:20,809 --> 00:36:20,819
Yeah.

1333
00:36:20,819 --> 00:36:20,829
Yeah!

1334
00:36:20,829 --> 00:36:20,839
Yeah.

1335
00:36:20,839 --> 00:36:20,849
Yeah.

1336
00:36:20,849 --> 00:36:20,919
There’s a bit of allies being recruited.

1337
00:36:20,919 --> 00:36:20,929
Yeah.

1338
00:36:20,929 --> 00:36:20,939
Yeah.

1339
00:36:20,939 --> 00:36:21,149
I got to thinking about it because I
was noticing that if someone asked me
what’s my go-to conflict strategy, I

1340
00:36:21,149 --> 00:36:21,259
would probably have answered Move Toward,
which is the self-collapse version.

1341
00:36:21,259 --> 00:36:21,269
Mm-hmm.

1342
00:36:21,269 --> 00:36:21,309
I will people please.

1343
00:36:21,309 --> 00:36:21,409
I will eliminate myself in
order to eliminate the conflict.

1344
00:36:21,409 --> 00:36:21,639
But actually I don’t think that’s true
because when I look at what I’m doing when
I overexplain things, which is often, I

1345
00:36:21,639 --> 00:36:21,869
do do exactly what you were saying, where
I’m trying to get people on board with a
particular idea or picture or whatever.

1346
00:36:21,869 --> 00:36:21,959
But even if that picture looks
self-deprecating, I think

1347
00:36:28,110 --> 00:36:30,029
I’m actually trying to get them to accept
my picture of reality instead of theirs.

1348
00:36:30,029 --> 00:36:30,149
So I think actually what

1349
00:36:36,209 --> 00:36:38,349
I’m doing

1350
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:48,850
there is Moving Against

1351
00:37:16,700 --> 00:37:16,850
and not Moving Toward.

1352
00:37:16,979 --> 00:37:17,885
Even though it looks like I’m
Moving Toward, what’s happening
inside me is very much not

1353
00:37:17,885 --> 00:37:17,914
Oh, okay.

1354
00:37:17,914 --> 00:37:17,944
a collapse!

1355
00:37:17,944 --> 00:37:17,958
Okay.

1356
00:37:17,958 --> 00:37:18,017
You let them think

1357
00:37:18,017 --> 00:37:18,076
January:I think so.

1358
00:37:18,076 --> 00:37:18,090
Okay.

1359
00:37:18,090 --> 00:37:18,134
It’s a fortification.

1360
00:37:18,134 --> 00:37:18,149
Yeah.

1361
00:37:18,149 --> 00:37:18,310
But it important that they
perceive it as a Moving Toward?

1362
00:37:18,310 --> 00:37:18,384
Is that what you’re after?

1363
00:37:18,384 --> 00:37:18,399
Yeah.

1364
00:37:18,399 --> 00:37:18,428
Yeah, yeah.

1365
00:37:18,428 --> 00:37:18,443
Yeah.

1366
00:37:18,443 --> 00:37:18,472
You think?

1367
00:37:18,472 --> 00:37:18,487
Yeah.

1368
00:37:18,487 --> 00:37:18,560
But it’s a manipulation tactic.

1369
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:18,589
It’s not—

1370
00:37:18,589 --> 00:37:18,604
Yeah.

1371
00:37:18,604 --> 00:37:18,619
Yeah.

1372
00:37:18,619 --> 00:37:18,780
That’s totally just a way
of getting them to give in.

1373
00:37:18,780 --> 00:37:19,079
Yeah, no, I think I feel like I do
something very similar, although
I feel like for me, I, I want

1374
00:37:19,079 --> 00:37:19,189
people to think I’m Moving Toward,
but I’m actually Moving Away.

1375
00:37:19,189 --> 00:37:19,209
Mm. Mm-hmm.

1376
00:37:19,209 --> 00:37:19,370
And if they

1377
00:37:46,819 --> 00:37:47,379
can’t tell the difference, that’s

1378
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:20,850
too bad for them, and what do I care?

1379
00:45:20,850 --> 00:45:20,860
Mm.

1380
00:45:20,860 --> 00:45:20,890
I mean, yeah.

1381
00:45:20,890 --> 00:45:21,100
Just because you have a conflict strategy
that you tend toward doesn’t mean you
can’t do all three at different times.

1382
00:45:21,100 --> 00:45:21,110
So

1383
00:45:21,110 --> 00:45:21,120
Yeah.

1384
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:21,130
Yeah.

1385
00:45:21,130 --> 00:45:21,190
We definitely do do all three.

1386
00:45:21,190 --> 00:45:21,210
That’s funny.

1387
00:45:21,210 --> 00:45:21,220
Yeah.

1388
00:45:21,220 --> 00:45:21,330
But you can feint one thing,
like make it look like

1389
00:45:21,330 --> 00:45:21,340
Mm-hmm.

1390
00:45:21,340 --> 00:45:21,430
you’re going left, you’re
really going right, or whatever.

1391
00:45:21,430 --> 00:45:21,620
So that means when that happens and you’ve
convinced yourself you’re Moving Toward,
but you’re really Moving Against, then

1392
00:45:21,620 --> 00:45:21,860
that cure, antidote, what do we do, it is
not, it’s not gonna be truth, it’s gonna
be kindness that you actually need, right?

1393
00:45:21,860 --> 00:45:21,870
Mm-hmm.

1394
00:45:21,870 --> 00:45:21,880
Yeah!

1395
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:22,000
‘Cause if a person were needing
to augment the kindness, but felt

1396
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:22,130
like they were in a position where
they needed to augment the truth.

1397
00:45:22,130 --> 00:45:22,250
There’s a certain sort of truth
telling that is very, very unkind.

1398
00:45:22,250 --> 00:45:22,260
Mm-hmm.

1399
00:45:22,260 --> 00:45:22,270
Yep.

1400
00:45:22,270 --> 00:45:22,410
And the inverse, there’s definitely a kind
of kindness that is very, very untruthful.

1401
00:45:22,410 --> 00:45:22,430
Totally dishonest.

1402
00:45:22,430 --> 00:45:22,440
Yeah.

1403
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:22,450
Yeah.

1404
00:45:22,450 --> 00:45:22,460
Absolutely.

1405
00:45:22,460 --> 00:45:22,690
I mean, that shows up in things as
simple as oh, I’m gonna tell my friend
that I’m gonna go to this party.

1406
00:45:22,690 --> 00:45:22,770
I don’t actually wanna go to this party.

1407
00:45:22,770 --> 00:45:23,010
No part of me wants to go to this
party, but I’m gonna tell them that
I’m gonna go to the party and then

1408
00:45:23,010 --> 00:45:23,150
either I’m gonna go and I’m gonna be
resentful ‘cause I shouldn’t have gone,

1409
00:45:23,150 --> 00:45:23,160
Mm-hmm.

1410
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:23,280
and that’s where my truth should
have been brought into the room.

1411
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:23,490
Or, I’m gonna be passive aggressive
about it and call and cancel at the
last minute and make up some total

1412
00:45:23,490 --> 00:45:23,690
excuse and lie through my teeth
that I can’t actually make it, even
though I said I was gonna come.

1413
00:45:23,690 --> 00:45:23,900
Ultimately, truth and kindness are
two flip sides of the same thing, so
I need more truth in both of those

1414
00:45:23,900 --> 00:45:24,020
instances, but I also need more
kindness in both of those instances.

1415
00:45:24,020 --> 00:45:24,180
One is unkind to me; if I go to the
party anyway, it’s unkind to me.

1416
00:45:24,180 --> 00:45:24,190
Yeah.

1417
00:45:24,190 --> 00:45:24,350
And if I cancel on them at the last
second, it’s unkind to the other person.

1418
00:45:24,350 --> 00:45:24,360
Mm-hmm.

1419
00:45:24,360 --> 00:45:24,470
Both of those things are missing
in both of those scenarios.

1420
00:45:24,470 --> 00:45:24,480
Yeah.

1421
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:24,640
But in terms of if I went to the party
and just sat there in resentment,

1422
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:24,780
then the thing that I need to
bring in is a little more truth.

1423
00:45:24,780 --> 00:45:24,920
I need to be more honest about at least
the resentment that I’m experiencing.

1424
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:25,050
Whereas I think if the scenario
is canceling on the friend at the

1425
00:45:25,050 --> 00:45:25,160
last second, there’s a different
way to handle that that’s kinder.

1426
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:25,170
Yeah.

1427
00:45:25,170 --> 00:45:25,280
Integrity is the thing at
the core of all of them.

1428
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:25,430
So I think that there can be more ways
back in than we necessarily remember.

1429
00:45:25,430 --> 00:45:25,590
We don’t have to feel like, oh, I
have to figure it out in my head,

1430
00:45:25,590 --> 00:45:25,740
which of these things is the thing
that’s missing so that I can fix it.

1431
00:45:25,740 --> 00:45:25,750
No.

1432
00:45:25,750 --> 00:45:25,760
Yeah.

1433
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:25,860
But just noticing which of those
three things feels particularly

1434
00:45:25,860 --> 00:45:26,000
absent in a given moment or context
can give us multiple avenues back in.

1435
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:26,070
Did any of that land for you?

1436
00:45:26,070 --> 00:45:26,859
Yeah, I think so.

1437
00:45:26,859 --> 00:45:27,579
Yeah, yeah.

1438
00:45:27,579 --> 00:45:27,879
So all

1439
00:45:33,519 --> 00:45:33,919
of that aside,

1440
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:45,309
if

1441
00:45:54,989 --> 00:45:55,539
I look at these days, what
does my life look like now?

1442
00:45:55,539 --> 00:45:55,629
When do I know that I’m out of integrity?

1443
00:45:55,629 --> 00:45:55,719
One of the first things I
recognize is resentment.

1444
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,119
Hmm.

1445
00:45:58,119 --> 00:45:58,869
And that connects back to Girard
stuff in a big way, that resentment
is the beginning of that accusation.

1446
00:45:58,869 --> 00:46:00,429
So to me, resentment is one of the
first earliest cues that I’m out

1447
00:46:00,429 --> 00:46:00,729
of integrity somewhere, that I have
some need that isn’t being met, or

1448
00:46:31,179 --> 00:46:31,709
some boundary that

1449
00:46:55,300 --> 00:46:55,700
has been crossed, or something.

1450
00:46:55,700 --> 00:46:55,830
I have collapsed somewhere, or
I have attempted to collapse
somebody else somewhere.

1451
00:46:55,830 --> 00:46:56,070
And then once I get past the resentment
stage, if I ignore it and it continues
to escalate, then I think it starts to

1452
00:46:56,070 --> 00:46:56,230
turn into some really shitty passive
aggressive — like, the most aggressive
passivity you will ever encounter.

1453
00:46:56,230 --> 00:46:56,270
The most aggressive passivity!

1454
00:46:56,270 --> 00:46:56,500
I just become this stubborn rock in the
road that will not be moved, on whatever
it is that I’ve gotten attached to.

1455
00:46:56,500 --> 00:46:56,560
And not in a good way!

1456
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:56,620
In a very, very rivalrous way.

1457
00:46:56,620 --> 00:46:56,640
That’s funny.

1458
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:56,840
Now, it’s funny that you say it
starts with resentment and then
you end up a rock in the road.

1459
00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:56,870
Just that imagery.

1460
00:46:56,870 --> 00:46:57,000
I know you were searching for
something that matched the
intensely aggressive passivity.

1461
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:57,110
But like, a rock in the
road is a stumbling block.

1462
00:46:57,110 --> 00:46:57,120
Yeah!

1463
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:57,140
That is,

1464
00:46:57,140 --> 00:46:57,160
Oh yeah.

1465
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:57,260
That’s the King James translation
of scandal for Girard, right?

1466
00:46:57,260 --> 00:46:57,330
Like, that’s the word that they use.

1467
00:46:57,330 --> 00:46:57,450
Yeah, it’s kind of funny that that
imagery just really overlaps there.

1468
00:46:57,450 --> 00:46:57,470
All right.

1469
00:46:57,470 --> 00:46:57,560
Yeah, I think we, we’ve
had a good conversation.

1470
00:46:57,560 --> 00:46:57,580
Resentment, ah.

1471
00:46:57,580 --> 00:46:57,620
Aggressive passivity, ugh, okay.

1472
00:46:57,620 --> 00:46:57,670
Do we have something else?

1473
00:46:57,670 --> 00:46:57,730
How do we get to integrity?

1474
00:46:57,730 --> 00:46:57,810
Is it lurking behind all that all along?

1475
00:46:57,810 --> 00:46:57,900
Or is it something we have to invite in?

1476
00:46:57,900 --> 00:46:58,030
Is there something we could actually do
to lead ourselves closer to integrity?

1477
00:46:58,030 --> 00:46:58,100
I’m guessing you might have an idea.

1478
00:46:58,100 --> 00:46:58,280
It’s more like a practice for observing
where we are out of integrity and
actually frequently using that

1479
00:46:58,280 --> 00:46:58,410
resentment to flag in our brains that
like, uh, oh, something’s off here.

1480
00:46:58,410 --> 00:46:58,420
Yeah.

1481
00:46:58,420 --> 00:46:58,610
And instead of continuing to point
that finger at other people and point
at where they’re doing things wrong,

1482
00:46:58,610 --> 00:46:58,830
learning to point that gaze back at
ourselves and go, oh, where am I doing
this exact thing that’s pissing me off?

1483
00:46:58,830 --> 00:46:58,850
Oh, okay.

1484
00:46:58,850 --> 00:46:58,860
Yeah.

1485
00:46:58,860 --> 00:46:58,920
Where am I guilty of this?

1486
00:46:58,920 --> 00:46:58,950
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1487
00:46:58,950 --> 00:46:59,140
so the practice this week is the
Integrity Fractal, and this is something
that I started doing accidentally on

1488
00:46:59,140 --> 00:46:59,350
my own because I tend to be a systems
thinker, and I really see those
connections between the way that we

1489
00:46:59,350 --> 00:46:59,500
are at the individual level and the way
that we are at the collective level.

1490
00:46:59,500 --> 00:46:59,670
But it turns out that Martha
Beck also has this exercise
in her Way of Integrity book.

1491
00:46:59,670 --> 00:46:59,820
So if this is something that appeals,
that’s a place to find it as well.

1492
00:46:59,820 --> 00:46:59,970
But I’ve asked you to articulate a problem
that you see at the collective level.

1493
00:46:59,970 --> 00:47:00,190
And then the exercise is, you make a
list of what needs to happen to fix
things at the collective level, and

1494
00:47:00,190 --> 00:47:00,400
then you figure out how to apply that
to your own behavior, which is that
way of interrupting our pointing finger

1495
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:00,520
towards somebody else and pointing
it back at ourself and going, okay,

1496
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:00,650
where am I participating in this exact
dynamic that is irritating to me?

1497
00:47:00,650 --> 00:47:00,660
Yeah.

1498
00:47:00,660 --> 00:47:00,770
Yeah, I didn’t get very far
with actually making the list.

1499
00:47:00,770 --> 00:47:00,880
I was trying to think of
something wrong with the world.

1500
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:00,970
And at first I was
thinking world like cosmos.

1501
00:47:00,970 --> 00:47:01,130
Like what Carl Sagan’s always talking
about, you know, like asteroid
belts and stardust and whatever.

1502
00:47:01,130 --> 00:47:01,170
And I’m like, “‘Wrong’?

1503
00:47:01,170 --> 00:47:01,260
What’s wrong with that?” Like,
that’s, that’s, that’s great.

1504
00:47:01,260 --> 00:47:01,290
Like, you know.

1505
00:47:01,290 --> 00:47:01,300
Mm-hmm.

1506
00:47:01,300 --> 00:47:01,520
But there’s an ambiguity to that word
that was revealed to me — by somebody,
and I don’t remember who now, that was

1507
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:01,660
giving a closer reading to the prologue
of John — where it’s talking about Jesus.

1508
00:47:01,660 --> 00:47:01,880
It doesn’t say Jesus’ name, but Jesus
is referred to as the Word, and the
True Light who comes into the world.

1509
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:01,890
Okay.

1510
00:47:01,890 --> 00:47:01,940
That could be the cosmos.

1511
00:47:01,940 --> 00:47:02,020
And this is literally
the Greek word kosmos.

1512
00:47:02,020 --> 00:47:02,120
That is where we get “cosmonaut”
and “cosmology” and stuff.

1513
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:02,230
It’s from this word world, like
that’s the Greek word, world.

1514
00:47:02,230 --> 00:47:02,440
“Comes into the world.” Okay. That fits.
“He was in the world, and the world
came into being through him,” okay.

1515
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:02,650
And then it says, “but the world didn’t
recognize him.” And at that point
you’re like, wait a second, the world

1516
00:47:02,650 --> 00:47:02,770
is something that can, or fail to,
recognize someone and their importance?

1517
00:47:02,770 --> 00:47:02,870
Are we talking about asteroid
belts and meteors right now?

1518
00:47:02,870 --> 00:47:02,900
And black holes?

1519
00:47:02,900 --> 00:47:03,130
Like is, is Jesus Son of God being like,
“Man, I can’t believe that asteroid
just flew by and gave me no attention!

1520
00:47:03,130 --> 00:47:03,230
But does, does that
asteroid not know who I am?

1521
00:47:03,230 --> 00:47:03,290
They didn’t recognize me at all!”

1522
00:47:03,290 --> 00:47:03,390
Like, is, is Jesus gonna be
indignant with that stuff?!

1523
00:47:03,390 --> 00:47:03,440
The ice moons of Jupiter?

1524
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:03,450
Yeah!

1525
00:47:03,450 --> 00:47:03,550
No, those, I, they’re so
frigid and do they not…?

1526
00:47:03,550 --> 00:47:03,560
So.

1527
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:03,790
I think we need this to make sense of
the prologue and maybe a few chapters
later, when it talks about “For God

1528
00:47:03,790 --> 00:47:03,980
so loved the world,” we’re talking
about people, And yet it’s interesting
‘cause that verse, the True Light that

1529
00:47:03,980 --> 00:47:04,120
shines on all humans was coming into
the world.” We got both “all humans”

1530
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:04,130
Mm-hmm.

1531
00:47:04,130 --> 00:47:04,200
and “the world,” which
is necessarily human.

1532
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:04,320
But… there’s what humans are caught
up in, and then there’s humanity,

1533
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:04,330
Yeah.

1534
00:47:04,330 --> 00:47:04,410
and the True Light is shining on humanity.

1535
00:47:04,410 --> 00:47:04,520
But what we’re caught up
in is us, in some sense.

1536
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:04,570
And that is the world.

1537
00:47:04,570 --> 00:47:04,630
And that’s what God loves, too!

1538
00:47:04,630 --> 00:47:04,640
Mm-hmm.

1539
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:04,740
For God so loved this
mess of us- caught- up.

1540
00:47:04,740 --> 00:47:04,820
He doesn’t just love what we could be.

1541
00:47:04,820 --> 00:47:04,860
I, I really do

1542
00:47:04,860 --> 00:47:04,870
Yeah.

1543
00:47:04,870 --> 00:47:04,890
think, yeah.

1544
00:47:04,890 --> 00:47:05,050
Mr. Rogers had a point when he said
he likes people just the way they are.

1545
00:47:05,050 --> 00:47:05,140
Like, I think he picked that up from God.

1546
00:47:05,140 --> 00:47:05,210
I really think that
was, divinely inspired.

1547
00:47:05,210 --> 00:47:05,230
And so!

1548
00:47:05,230 --> 00:47:05,440
At first I had to get through all of
that, like, “something wrong with the
world?” like nothing’s wrong with it

1549
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:05,580
except people, and I’m like, okay,
but no, this is, this is what we’re

1550
00:47:05,580 --> 00:47:05,710
talking about. The stuff that people
do. And just one thing that’s wrong?

1551
00:47:05,710 --> 00:47:05,800
And I wanted to do something that was big.

1552
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:05,810
Mm.

1553
00:47:05,810 --> 00:47:05,930
And not extremely like petty,
which is most of my, my grumps.

1554
00:47:05,930 --> 00:47:06,020
So anyway, I started thinking
about how there’s, in

1555
00:47:08,300 --> 00:47:09,030
our world today, there are nation states.

1556
00:47:09,030 --> 00:47:09,260
It would seem, for the most part that
the nation states that are big enough
and have the money to do it, vast

1557
00:47:09,260 --> 00:47:09,400
majority of them just assume that
having a standing army is what you do.

1558
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:09,410
Mm-hmm.

1559
00:47:09,410 --> 00:47:09,590
Am I gonna say that what’s wrong
with the world is that there’s
all these armies standing around?

1560
00:47:09,590 --> 00:47:09,670
Like I, I mentioned the
civil disobedience before.

1561
00:47:09,670 --> 00:47:09,770
Thoreau talks about that at
the beginning of that essay.

1562
00:47:09,770 --> 00:47:09,980
Of course, he takes it to an extreme
and he’s like, “Standing armies are
just an arm of a standing government.

1563
00:47:09,980 --> 00:47:10,160
And we need to stop having all
these standing governments.” And
I’m like, “Oh God, I know what

1564
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:10,370
happens to that in another 180
years. So no, Henry David Thoreau.
As much as I love you, no, no, no.”

1565
00:47:10,370 --> 00:47:10,380
But!

1566
00:47:10,380 --> 00:47:10,520
With a standing army, I feel like
at least it could be debated, right?

1567
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:10,690
Does America need a standing
army, or should they have to
muster one when they need to?

1568
00:47:10,690 --> 00:47:10,890
It seems like the fact that we
can’t even debate that, it has to
be taken for granted, is wrong.

1569
00:47:10,890 --> 00:47:10,900
Mm.

1570
00:47:10,900 --> 00:47:10,970
That’s something that’s
wrong in our world.

1571
00:47:10,970 --> 00:47:11,010
It’s kind of big.

1572
00:47:11,010 --> 00:47:11,230
And so the exercise is to make
a list of all that would need to
change for that to be made right.

1573
00:47:11,230 --> 00:47:11,310
So I’m not trying to
abolish standing armies.

1574
00:47:11,310 --> 00:47:11,460
I’m just trying to get politicians
and government leaders to
be willing to debate that.

1575
00:47:11,460 --> 00:47:11,470
Mm-hmm.

1576
00:47:11,470 --> 00:47:11,520
And that seems so otherworldly.

1577
00:47:11,520 --> 00:47:11,750
I feel like I’m closer to asteroid belts
than I am to real life, living, breathing
politicians that I see on my screens.

1578
00:47:11,750 --> 00:47:11,760
Hmm.

1579
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:11,800
So I don’t know.

1580
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:11,900
Do I have enough here to
step into this exercise?

1581
00:47:11,900 --> 00:47:12,040
I don’t feel like I have a list
of all that needs to change.

1582
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:12,120
I just have a fear for — a fear?

1583
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:12,190
Yeah — of just how unchangeable it is.

1584
00:47:12,190 --> 00:47:12,200
Mm-hmm.

1585
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:12,220
The rigidity.

1586
00:47:12,220 --> 00:47:12,230
Yeah.

1587
00:47:12,230 --> 00:47:12,290
Oh, we can work with it.

1588
00:47:12,290 --> 00:47:12,450
So I’ve asked you to articulate a problem
that you see at the planet wide level,

1589
00:47:12,450 --> 00:47:12,460
Yeah.

1590
00:47:12,460 --> 00:47:12,500
the big picture level.

1591
00:47:12,500 --> 00:47:12,720
And what I’ve heard you say is that
one of the big things that upsets
you about the way that humans are

1592
00:47:12,720 --> 00:47:12,840
existing at the collective level is
the unquestionable nature of, “Do we

1593
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:12,980
even need a standing army?” The fact
that nobody can even ask that question.

1594
00:47:12,980 --> 00:47:12,990
Yeah.

1595
00:47:12,990 --> 00:47:13,080
because it is assumed to be a dire need

1596
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:13,090
Yeah.

1597
00:47:13,090 --> 00:47:13,200
to have a standing army, like a
professional class of soldiers.

1598
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:13,250
Am I understanding that correctly?

1599
00:47:13,250 --> 00:47:13,260
Yeah.

1600
00:47:13,260 --> 00:47:13,410
And it gets into the money,
resources, training, and even
the mythos that surround this.

1601
00:47:13,410 --> 00:47:13,570
And this is sensitive, cause people join
up and go and give their life and die.

1602
00:47:13,570 --> 00:47:13,580
Yeah.

1603
00:47:13,580 --> 00:47:13,640
And it has to be meaningful.

1604
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:13,710
And I’m uncomfortable with all of that.

1605
00:47:13,710 --> 00:47:13,890
What if all the same money, resources,
training, and mythic gravitas,
what if that went toward our, I

1606
00:47:13,890 --> 00:47:14,000
don’t know, Department of Education
instead of our Department of War?

1607
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:15,360
So yeah, it’s not that we have this
class of soldiers that worries me
and that nobody questions them,

1608
00:47:35,380 --> 00:47:35,490
and their service.

1609
00:47:35,490 --> 00:47:36,200
I feel like I’m asking this question

1610
00:47:53,660 --> 00:47:54,280
as much for their sake as, as anybody’s.

1611
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:54,290
Hmm.

1612
00:47:54,290 --> 00:47:54,300
Mm-hmm.

1613
00:47:54,300 --> 00:47:54,410
Why is that what we
asked you to do for us?

1614
00:47:54,410 --> 00:47:54,460
We asked everything of you.

1615
00:47:54,460 --> 00:47:54,470
Everything.

1616
00:47:54,470 --> 00:47:54,480
Yeah.

1617
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:54,490
Yeah.

1618
00:47:54,490 --> 00:47:54,550
Why was it readiness for war?

1619
00:47:54,550 --> 00:47:54,690
Why was that what we asked when you
were willing to give us everything?

1620
00:47:54,690 --> 00:47:54,740
That would be my question.

1621
00:47:54,740 --> 00:47:54,870
Which isn’t about them, it’s about
us and what we’ve done to them.

1622
00:47:54,870 --> 00:47:54,880
Mm-hmm.

1623
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:54,890
Mm-hmm.

1624
00:47:54,890 --> 00:47:55,030
Yeah, no I, I think there’s plenty
there to work with because then what

1625
00:47:55,030 --> 00:47:55,160
we do is we take, well, what’s the
problem at the collective level?

1626
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:55,180
Yeah, yeah.

1627
00:47:55,180 --> 00:47:55,350
And the fact that we can even
recognize it suggests that it’s
happening within us as well.

1628
00:47:55,350 --> 00:47:55,360
Mm.

1629
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:55,530
There’s some part of us that’s
flagging that as painful because
we’re experiencing it to some degree.

1630
00:47:55,530 --> 00:47:55,580
There’s an awareness of it.

1631
00:47:55,580 --> 00:47:55,840
So if you had to reflect on that issue,
how is that issue showing up in you, and
the way that you relate to the world?

1632
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:55,920
Where have you invested
in a standing army?

1633
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:55,930
Yeah.

1634
00:47:55,930 --> 00:47:56,140
So if I understand correctly, the
fractal part of this, it’s not
actually a how did I invest in an army

1635
00:47:56,140 --> 00:47:56,320
with missile launchers and nuclear
submarines, but what part of my internal
landscape is analogous to armed forces?

1636
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:56,330
Right.

1637
00:47:56,330 --> 00:47:56,340
Yeah.

1638
00:47:56,340 --> 00:47:56,350
Yeah.

1639
00:47:56,350 --> 00:47:56,560
So if somebody looked at the collective
level and said, well, the thing that’s
really wrong with the world is pollution.

1640
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:56,710
But then they’re eating a bunch of junk
food and smoking cigarettes all the time.

1641
00:47:56,710 --> 00:47:56,720
Yeah.

1642
00:47:56,720 --> 00:47:56,800
Where is that collective
issue reflected in what,

1643
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:56,810
Yeah.

1644
00:47:56,810 --> 00:47:56,860
what their behavior is doing?

1645
00:47:56,860 --> 00:47:57,020
So like if I say a word to you in
a language that you don’t know,

1646
00:47:57,020 --> 00:47:57,030
Mm-hmm.

1647
00:47:57,030 --> 00:47:57,200
it’s a symbol that stands for a thing, but
if you don’t have any knowledge of what

1648
00:47:57,200 --> 00:47:57,360
that symbol stands for, what it means,
you are not gonna have any response to it.

1649
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:57,440
It’s just gonna be a sound to you.

1650
00:47:57,440 --> 00:47:57,450
Yeah.

1651
00:47:57,450 --> 00:47:57,480
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1652
00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:57,690
I think the same thing is happening with
fractal levels and our integrity, where
the reason that I can recognize that

1653
00:47:57,690 --> 00:47:57,910
war is wrong out there in the world is
because there is an experience inside
me of conflict that feels like pain.

1654
00:47:57,910 --> 00:47:57,920
Yeah.

1655
00:47:57,920 --> 00:47:58,070
I can look out there in the world and
maps to something in my experience

1656
00:47:58,070 --> 00:47:58,080
Yeah.

1657
00:47:58,080 --> 00:47:58,130
that doesn’t actually feel good.

1658
00:47:58,130 --> 00:47:58,140
Yeah.

1659
00:47:58,140 --> 00:47:58,340
And so I think that that’s something
that’s happening there in this fractal
integrity exercise where if we are even

1660
00:47:58,340 --> 00:47:58,550
capable of recognizing it in the world
as an issue, it’s only because it is
happening somewhere inside us and it’s

1661
00:47:58,550 --> 00:47:58,680
causing an experience that flags as,
“Oh, I know this, I recognize this.”

1662
00:47:58,680 --> 00:47:58,690
Yeah.

1663
00:47:58,690 --> 00:47:58,720
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1664
00:47:58,720 --> 00:47:58,800
But tell me if you think I’m wrong.

1665
00:47:58,800 --> 00:47:58,880
No I, I, I really like that thought.

1666
00:47:58,880 --> 00:47:58,980
I mean, how do you, how do you defend it?

1667
00:47:58,980 --> 00:47:59,040
How do you argue for it?

1668
00:47:59,040 --> 00:47:59,090
It just sounds right though.

1669
00:47:59,090 --> 00:47:59,140
It just seems like, yeah.

1670
00:47:59,140 --> 00:47:59,190
How else would you know?

1671
00:47:59,190 --> 00:47:59,220
It’s a hypothesis.

1672
00:47:59,220 --> 00:47:59,250
Go test it.

1673
00:47:59,250 --> 00:47:59,270
Yeah, yeah.

1674
00:47:59,270 --> 00:47:59,320
Convince me that I’m wrong.

1675
00:47:59,320 --> 00:47:59,350
Test it out.

1676
00:47:59,350 --> 00:47:59,360
Yeah.

1677
00:47:59,360 --> 00:47:59,540
But yeah, no, the implication being
that, well, among the implications
that for the people that can make

1678
00:47:59,540 --> 00:47:59,670
sense of this terrible stuff that’s
going on in the world, then presumably

1679
00:47:59,670 --> 00:47:59,800
they found some way to make sense of
that terribleness in themself, and

1680
00:47:59,800 --> 00:47:59,810
Mm-hmm.

1681
00:47:59,810 --> 00:47:59,910
that’s what enables them to quote-unquote
“transgress,” is they’ve normalized

1682
00:47:59,910 --> 00:48:00,030
it in their internal landscape, so
it’s not a transgression for them.

1683
00:48:00,030 --> 00:48:00,130
Some part of them has been
burdened with that myth.

1684
00:48:00,130 --> 00:48:00,140
Yeah.

1685
00:48:00,140 --> 00:48:00,150
Yeah.

1686
00:48:00,150 --> 00:48:00,160
Yeah.

1687
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:00,200
That’s a neat idea.

1688
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:00,390
And I know the, uh, The difficult
part about the problem that I’ve
brought up here is that it’s

1689
00:48:00,390 --> 00:48:00,520
implied if you’ve got an army, it’s
‘cause somebody else has an army.

1690
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:00,670
Like, everybody that would
say we need standing armies
would say we need it because

1691
00:48:00,670 --> 00:48:00,710
Those guys have it.

1692
00:48:00,710 --> 00:48:00,750
everybody else has one.

1693
00:48:00,750 --> 00:48:00,760
Yeah.

1694
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:00,910
And so, that means within me there are
warring factions and there’s no one part

1695
00:48:00,910 --> 00:48:01,060
that can set down its army because they
know that the other parts have armies.

1696
00:48:01,060 --> 00:48:01,190
Yeah, I’ve been doing some IFS therapy
and have been startled to learn

1697
00:48:01,190 --> 00:48:01,290
that just how diametrically opposed
— perfectly aligned in exact opposition!

1698
00:48:01,290 --> 00:48:01,340
— some of my parts are.

1699
00:48:01,340 --> 00:48:01,450
It’s really, like, how conflicted,
how conflicted could a person be?!

1700
00:48:01,450 --> 00:48:01,500
Like that’s, it’s, uh, yeah.

1701
00:48:01,500 --> 00:48:01,550
So it’s happened twice now

1702
00:48:01,550 --> 00:48:01,740
I hadn’t thought about those parts having
armies or needing to invest time, money,
resources, training, and mythic gravitas.

1703
00:48:01,740 --> 00:48:01,750
Yeah.

1704
00:48:01,750 --> 00:48:01,760
Each

1705
00:48:07,230 --> 00:48:07,759
of those parts have, they’d be training
themselves to go to war with each other.

1706
00:48:07,759 --> 00:48:07,899
They’d be taking up resources,
which obviously could be
spread around in other places.

1707
00:48:07,899 --> 00:48:07,949
I don’t know about money.

1708
00:48:07,949 --> 00:48:07,999
Do our parts have currency?

1709
00:48:07,999 --> 00:48:08,049
Oh God, I hope not!

1710
00:48:08,049 --> 00:48:08,109
Uh, that would be so disappointing!

1711
00:48:08,109 --> 00:48:08,129
Oh, no.

1712
00:48:08,129 --> 00:48:08,289
I sure hope their economy is one of — oh,
who was it Matthew Clarke talked about?

1713
00:48:08,289 --> 00:48:08,329
An economy of mercy.

1714
00:48:08,329 --> 00:48:08,339
Mm-hmm.

1715
00:48:08,339 --> 00:48:08,349
Mm-hmm.

1716
00:48:08,349 --> 00:48:08,479
Hopefully they’ve got one closer to
that than any sort of legal tender.

1717
00:48:08,479 --> 00:48:08,489
Yeah.

1718
00:48:08,489 --> 00:48:08,529
No, that’s, that’s interesting.

1719
00:48:08,529 --> 00:48:08,619
The intensely, directly oppositional
internal parts, it seems like

1720
00:48:08,619 --> 00:48:08,739
the simplest way to say that
would be, I don’t like myself.

1721
00:48:08,739 --> 00:48:08,749
Hmm.

1722
00:48:08,749 --> 00:48:08,899
And I don’t know if this is part
of the exercise or not, but it’s

1723
00:48:08,899 --> 00:48:09,009
like — I haven’t looked at the
world that way before either.

1724
00:48:09,009 --> 00:48:09,089
Living in a world that
doesn’t like itself.

1725
00:48:09,089 --> 00:48:09,109
Mm mm-hmm.

1726
00:48:09,109 --> 00:48:09,269
So taking what’s going on
with you and assuming it at
the collective level as well?

1727
00:48:09,269 --> 00:48:09,279
Yeah.

1728
00:48:09,279 --> 00:48:09,679
Reversing the fractal?

1729
00:48:09,679 --> 00:48:09,689
Yeah.

1730
00:48:09,689 --> 00:48:09,859
I don’t know if that’s a part
of the exercise, but that’s,
that’s where my brain went.

1731
00:48:09,859 --> 00:48:09,929
That’s part of how I do it.

1732
00:48:09,929 --> 00:48:09,939
Yeah.

1733
00:48:09,939 --> 00:48:10,859
That’s sort of how I came to invent
the exercise for myself, I think, was
that after my ex’s arrest, I could see

1734
00:48:10,859 --> 00:48:11,069
so clearly that the people around me
had needed to scapegoat me because they
needed something to be over and against.

1735
00:48:11,069 --> 00:48:11,179
It was all just

1736
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:57,560
constantly reacting to other people.

1737
00:48:57,560 --> 00:48:58,725
And I could immediately see
that I was doing that too!

1738
00:48:58,725 --> 00:49:00,687
And so the problem that I saw in the world
out there was we don’t have an identity
apart from this over and against dynamic.

1739
00:49:00,687 --> 00:49:00,925
Well, how do we go about finding that?

1740
00:49:00,925 --> 00:49:01,134
How do we go about creating that?

1741
00:49:01,134 --> 00:49:01,609
And in order to figure out how we go
about creating that, I had to discover

1742
00:49:01,609 --> 00:49:01,996
it in myself, because I realized
immediately that I didn’t have it either.

1743
00:49:01,996 --> 00:49:02,026
Yeah.

1744
00:49:02,026 --> 00:49:03,254
And so that has sort of turned into my,
for lack of a better word, ministry in the
world is how do I help people discover,

1745
00:49:03,254 --> 00:49:03,449
and or develop, a personality that
doesn’t depend on being over and against?

1746
00:49:03,449 --> 00:49:04,919
That’s my fractal,

1747
00:49:10,879 --> 00:49:11,549
at least at the moment.

1748
00:49:11,799 --> 00:49:11,829
But

1749
00:49:18,639 --> 00:49:21,119
I mean, you and I have talked before
about your tendency toward condescension.

1750
00:49:21,119 --> 00:49:27,329
And I don’t think

1751
00:49:30,839 --> 00:49:30,959
that you

1752
00:50:07,459 --> 00:50:11,469
are only

1753
00:50:29,036 --> 00:50:33,036
pointing

1754
00:50:50,603 --> 00:50:54,603
that

1755
00:51:12,169 --> 00:51:12,720
at other people.

1756
00:51:12,720 --> 00:51:13,119
I think that you point it
at yourself plenty as well.

1757
00:51:13,119 --> 00:51:13,129
Yeah.

1758
00:51:13,129 --> 00:51:15,463
That’s what came to my mind
when you started describing
that dynamic of standing army.

1759
00:51:15,463 --> 00:51:16,680
That’s what that feels like to me.

1760
00:51:19,699 --> 00:51:20,679
Tell me where I’m wrong, ‘cause
I’m not inside your experience.

1761
00:51:20,679 --> 00:51:20,699
So, yeah.

1762
00:51:20,699 --> 00:51:20,889
Imagining that there are parts of
myself that are just training themselves
to outdo others at their own game.

1763
00:51:20,889 --> 00:51:20,899
Mm-hmm.

1764
00:51:20,899 --> 00:51:20,959
And get the best of them.

1765
00:51:20,959 --> 00:51:20,999
You’re saying that, that.

1766
00:51:20,999 --> 00:51:21,149
I’m asking if the tendency
toward condescension feels like
part of that dynamic to you?

1767
00:51:21,149 --> 00:51:21,309
‘Cause it seems to me from the outside
like it could be, but I don’t know.

1768
00:51:21,309 --> 00:51:21,338
I’m asking.

1769
00:51:21,338 --> 00:51:21,449
Okay, I’m getting my
fractal levels confused.

1770
00:51:21,449 --> 00:51:21,592
Because the world has a
multiplicity of nation states.

1771
00:51:21,592 --> 00:51:21,909
If I project myself in the place
of the world, then the multiplicity
internal to me, like I, of course.

1772
00:51:21,909 --> 00:51:22,099
We’re doing a podcast on IFS,
so like that, that all fits.

1773
00:51:22,099 --> 00:51:22,290
But where is it that it seems
like condescension might fit in?

1774
00:51:22,290 --> 00:51:22,449
Where is it that you see a
possible connection there?

1775
00:51:22,449 --> 00:51:22,671
You and I have had conversations in the
past about you experiencing a tendency

1776
00:51:22,671 --> 00:51:22,845
toward condescension in the ways
that you interact with other people.

1777
00:51:22,845 --> 00:51:22,861
Yeah.

1778
00:51:22,861 --> 00:51:22,877
Yeah.

1779
00:51:22,877 --> 00:51:23,242
And that seems to me to be a way of
being ready to argue with anything
that anybody else brings to the table.

1780
00:51:23,242 --> 00:51:23,432
Being prepared to be against other
people no matter what gets brought.

1781
00:51:23,432 --> 00:51:23,480
Yeah, I gotcha.

1782
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:23,512
I gotcha.

1783
00:51:23,512 --> 00:51:23,845
And that sort of rang a bell for
me with the idea of a standing
army at the nation state level,

1784
00:51:23,845 --> 00:51:23,861
Yeah.

1785
00:51:23,861 --> 00:51:24,051
of just being prepared to be
against no matter what comes up.

1786
00:51:24,051 --> 00:51:24,147
But tell me where I’m wrong?

1787
00:51:24,147 --> 00:51:24,162
Yes.

1788
00:51:24,162 --> 00:51:24,226
No, no, no, no.

1789
00:51:24,226 --> 00:51:24,273
I’m with you.

1790
00:51:24,273 --> 00:51:24,289
Yeah.

1791
00:51:24,289 --> 00:51:24,432
I had switched to thinking
through the actual conflict.

1792
00:51:24,432 --> 00:51:24,702
Cause yeah, I’ve just recently
been aware of what, these parts
might actually say to each other.

1793
00:51:24,702 --> 00:51:24,781
And that hadn’t happened before.

1794
00:51:24,781 --> 00:51:25,115
So like, I was thinking of the actual
conflict, but that wasn’t the problem
that I put forward with the world.

1795
00:51:25,115 --> 00:51:25,194
It wasn’t the actual war.

1796
00:51:25,194 --> 00:51:25,400
It was that everybody’s ready
to go to war, to the extent that

1797
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:25,591
they’re investing all this time and
resources into having a standing army.

1798
00:51:25,591 --> 00:51:25,606
Okay.

1799
00:51:25,606 --> 00:51:25,622
Yeah.

1800
00:51:25,622 --> 00:51:25,781
And so that, preparation and
like, being on war footing.

1801
00:51:25,781 --> 00:51:25,813
Mm-hmm.

1802
00:51:25,813 --> 00:51:25,829
Yeah.

1803
00:51:25,829 --> 00:51:26,003
That is, yeah, that does line up
with condescension quite well.

1804
00:51:26,003 --> 00:51:26,162
Because I mean, that, that
is part of the posturing.

1805
00:51:26,162 --> 00:51:26,764
Like when you’re not at war, you want your
military to look as fearsome as possible.

1806
00:51:26,764 --> 00:51:26,991
That’s the reason why you have a
standing army is — and I’m sure

1807
00:51:26,991 --> 00:51:27,200
even military theorists would
say — so you don’t have to use it.

1808
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:27,710
If you’ve got one that’s imposing
enough and frightening enough,
you won’t have to use it.

1809
00:51:27,710 --> 00:51:27,910
So then if we take it back to
what you feel like would solve the
problem at the collective level?

1810
00:51:27,910 --> 00:51:27,940
I didn’t know.

1811
00:51:27,940 --> 00:51:27,950
Mm.

1812
00:51:27,950 --> 00:51:28,160
I did think as far as like, well,
maybe one nation state that was
powerful would just need to try it.

1813
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:28,240
It seems like that would have to happen.

1814
00:51:28,240 --> 00:51:28,390
There’d have to be a first, it’s not
like everybody would do it at once.

1815
00:51:28,390 --> 00:51:28,500
So there’d have to be one
nation state to go first.

1816
00:51:28,500 --> 00:51:28,630
And then at that point it seems
like, well, is it just luck?

1817
00:51:28,630 --> 00:51:28,790
I don’t know my history and social theory
well enough to know if the very definition

1818
00:51:28,790 --> 00:51:28,920
of being a nation state entails some sort
of military or governing protectorate.

1819
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:30,757
Well, I think it sounds to me like
what you’re describing that you have
a better sense of it at the individual

1820
00:51:30,757 --> 00:51:32,419
level and then you could kind of
apply that to the collective level.

1821
00:51:32,419 --> 00:51:33,442
It’s easier to imagine
in the internal level.

1822
00:51:33,442 --> 00:51:34,349
If one of my parts was able to get over
itself and not worry about training how
to defend itself all the time, and coming

1823
00:51:34,349 --> 00:51:34,469
up with crazy stories about how it’s
always offering the ultimate sacrifice,

1824
00:51:34,469 --> 00:51:34,619
I think I would trust my internal system
not to annihilate that part, you know?

1825
00:51:34,619 --> 00:51:34,629
Mm.

1826
00:51:34,629 --> 00:51:34,649
The world?

1827
00:51:34,649 --> 00:51:34,699
Is that what would happen?

1828
00:51:34,699 --> 00:51:34,709
Yeah.

1829
00:51:34,709 --> 00:51:35,149
I’m curious if we can use the fractal
exercise in the other direction?

1830
00:51:35,149 --> 00:51:35,442
That because you have that experience
of trust in your own inner system,
can you imagine, can you trust that if

1831
00:51:35,442 --> 00:51:35,763
it is possible within you, it is also
possible at the collective level, even
if you can’t see how it would happen yet?

1832
00:51:35,763 --> 00:51:35,874
No, I like you’re taking a positive bent.

1833
00:51:35,874 --> 00:51:35,902
I was.

1834
00:51:35,902 --> 00:51:35,930
I was.

1835
00:51:35,930 --> 00:51:36,000
I was flipping it around.

1836
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:36,181
It’s like if I can’t imagine it
happening in the world, then probably

1837
00:51:36,181 --> 00:51:36,348
there’s a part of me that can’t
imagine it happening inside me.

1838
00:51:36,348 --> 00:51:36,539
There must be a part that’s deeply, deeply
frightened and certain that others are

1839
00:51:48,279 --> 00:51:48,499
gonna annihilate it.

1840
00:51:48,499 --> 00:51:48,779
And so

1841
00:51:48,779 --> 00:51:48,919
That’s

1842
00:51:53,339 --> 00:51:53,429
probably true.

1843
00:51:53,429 --> 00:51:55,169
yeah, so, so I was, I was ready to
go the other way, but you’re like
trying to be more positive with this.

1844
00:51:55,269 --> 00:51:55,299
Okay.

1845
00:51:55,299 --> 00:51:55,319
Um.

1846
00:51:55,319 --> 00:51:55,339
Yeah.

1847
00:51:55,339 --> 00:51:55,399
So say it again?

1848
00:51:55,399 --> 00:51:55,519
‘Cause I was already
jumping the wrong direction.

1849
00:51:55,519 --> 00:51:55,889
Which

1850
00:51:58,499 --> 00:52:00,449
we can explore that too, but
let’s explore your way first.

1851
00:52:00,449 --> 00:52:00,759
That help me if

1852
00:52:06,509 --> 00:52:07,349
I got this

1853
00:52:22,679 --> 00:52:23,709
right, so if, it’s not a big leap for me

1854
00:52:28,829 --> 00:52:29,639
to imagine a part laying down its
defenses, its standing army.And not

1855
00:52:37,829 --> 00:52:38,119
face immediate annihilation

1856
00:52:38,119 --> 00:52:42,119
mm-hmm.

1857
00:53:03,796 --> 00:53:07,796
in

1858
00:53:29,133 --> 00:53:33,133
the

1859
00:53:54,469 --> 00:53:54,819
internal

1860
00:54:34,809 --> 00:55:03,337
landscape then the implication would
be it shouldn’t be that hard to
conceptualize it happening in the world?

1861
00:55:04,489 --> 00:55:04,770
I’m asking can you

1862
00:55:04,770 --> 00:55:04,830
Oh, just, can I imagine it?

1863
00:55:04,830 --> 00:55:04,920
Can you just hold the
space for the possibility

1864
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:04,930
Yeah.

1865
00:55:04,930 --> 00:55:05,080
that this is possible at the collective
level, even if I can’t see how it

1866
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:05,210
would happen, because I can see
how it would happen at my level.

1867
00:55:05,210 --> 00:55:05,220
Yeah.

1868
00:55:05,220 --> 00:55:05,380
And anything that’s possible
at my level is also gonna be
possible at the collective level.

1869
00:55:05,380 --> 00:55:05,390
Yeah.

1870
00:55:05,390 --> 00:55:05,480
I might not know how
we’re gonna get there.

1871
00:55:05,480 --> 00:55:05,540
I mean, part of me can’t.

1872
00:55:05,540 --> 00:55:05,600
Like I can, it’s, it’d be.

1873
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:05,760
I mean, ‘cause I’m American, I think of
the United States and what it’ll be like.

1874
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:05,950
It would make a lot of people
upset and cause a lot of strife,
internal to the United States.

1875
00:55:05,950 --> 00:55:06,070
There would be voices that would
turn that into a rallying cry

1876
00:55:06,070 --> 00:55:06,080
Mm-hmm.

1877
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:06,160
Uh, that’s, it seems like that would be.

1878
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:06,170
Yeah.

1879
00:55:06,170 --> 00:55:06,260
There’s gonna be intense internal
strife within American government.

1880
00:55:06,260 --> 00:55:06,270
Mm-hmm.

1881
00:55:06,270 --> 00:55:06,440
It sounds like the answer to
the question is no, you’re
not really able to imagine it.

1882
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:06,450
Yeah.

1883
00:55:06,450 --> 00:55:06,500
Tell me where I’m wrong.

1884
00:55:06,500 --> 00:55:06,730
Well, but the thing being — we’re getting
a fractal in a fractal here, because like,
in myself, I had one part laying down

1885
00:55:06,730 --> 00:55:06,860
its standing army and the others with
standing armies don’t just attack it.

1886
00:55:06,860 --> 00:55:06,870
Right.

1887
00:55:06,870 --> 00:55:07,010
And so on the level of the United
States, if we defund the DOD

1888
00:55:07,010 --> 00:55:07,110
I don’t think Russia’s gonna
immediately shoot nukes at us.

1889
00:55:07,110 --> 00:55:07,200
I can imagine that, but
inside the United States?

1890
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:07,220
I can’t.

1891
00:55:07,220 --> 00:55:07,370
So it would be, to internalize it
to myself — I can imagine a part, if

1892
00:55:07,370 --> 00:55:07,500
it did lay down its standing army,
not getting attacked by other parts.

1893
00:55:07,500 --> 00:55:07,640
But can I imagine a part actually
laying down its standing army and not

1894
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:07,760
be intensely conflicted about it to
the point that it’s attacking itself?

1895
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:07,770
Mm-hmm.

1896
00:55:07,770 --> 00:55:07,850
And having its own need for parts work?

1897
00:55:07,850 --> 00:55:07,860
Mm-hmm.

1898
00:55:07,860 --> 00:55:07,910
That’s what I can’t imagine.

1899
00:55:07,910 --> 00:55:07,920
Mm.

1900
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:07,930
Yeah.

1901
00:55:07,930 --> 00:55:08,090
Well, I certainly know I’m
in favor of the United States
getting some parts work done.

1902
00:55:08,090 --> 00:55:08,210
But regardless of whether it happens
at the collective level, I mean,

1903
00:55:08,210 --> 00:55:08,340
it sounds to me like you’re already
doing it at the individual level.

1904
00:55:08,340 --> 00:55:08,530
You are engaged in IFS work at
this point, even if you’re just
at the beginning stages of it.

1905
00:55:08,530 --> 00:55:08,710
You’re figuring out how to find
a way to relate that doesn’t
rely on being over and against.

1906
00:55:08,710 --> 00:55:08,720
Yeah.

1907
00:55:08,720 --> 00:55:08,840
What happens when you notice that,
that you’re already doing that work?

1908
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:08,860
Uh, yeah.

1909
00:55:08,860 --> 00:55:09,090
I know noticing is part of doing the
work, but it doesn’t feel like it
to me yet because it’s like I didn’t

1910
00:55:09,090 --> 00:55:09,240
need IFS to tell me that, I can find
myself thinking I don’t like myself.

1911
00:55:09,240 --> 00:55:09,300
Like that, I’ve noticed that before.

1912
00:55:09,300 --> 00:55:09,310
Right?

1913
00:55:09,310 --> 00:55:09,340
So it’s like—

1914
00:55:09,340 --> 00:55:09,360
Mm, mm-hmm..

1915
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:09,460
It wasn’t that the internal
conflict was there was surprising.

1916
00:55:09,460 --> 00:55:09,540
It was just how extreme that it was.

1917
00:55:09,540 --> 00:55:09,550
Mm-hmm.

1918
00:55:09,550 --> 00:55:09,700
So I felt like, yeah, I think the
IFS stuff is helping me notice stuff.

1919
00:55:09,700 --> 00:55:09,880
Part of me feels like there might
be a quantitative difference, with
regards to the amount of noticing.

1920
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:10,060
But it doesn’t feel like there’s been
a qualitative change that I’ve been
totally unaware or unobservant up

1921
00:55:10,060 --> 00:55:10,190
to this point, and now I’m noticing
things that I didn’t notice before.

1922
00:55:10,190 --> 00:55:10,250
That doesn’t, that doesn’t feel true.

1923
00:55:10,250 --> 00:55:10,280
I’m noticing stuff.

1924
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:10,290
Cool.

1925
00:55:10,290 --> 00:55:10,470
I’ve noticed stuff before, so it
doesn’t feel like I’ve started anything
new yet regarding the IFS work.

1926
00:55:10,470 --> 00:55:10,480
Mm!

1927
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:10,550
Not that I don’t think it’s coming.

1928
00:55:10,550 --> 00:55:10,660
I, I think it is, but
I don’t feel like it.

1929
00:55:10,660 --> 00:55:10,790
I’ll concede that this is just my
own ignorance probably, or lack of

1930
00:55:10,790 --> 00:55:10,910
experience, that like, just how crucial
and important noticing is to it.

1931
00:55:10,910 --> 00:55:11,000
There’s a reason we’re talking
about attention next episode.

1932
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:11,010
Yeah.

1933
00:55:11,010 --> 00:55:11,020
Yeah.

1934
00:55:11,020 --> 00:55:11,070
No, that was neat though.

1935
00:55:11,070 --> 00:55:11,100
I enjoyed that.

1936
00:55:11,100 --> 00:55:11,130
That was cool.

1937
00:55:11,130 --> 00:55:11,340
I did not think I had enough put
together to do whatever it is you
have planned, but we totally did.

1938
00:55:11,340 --> 00:55:11,370
That was, yeah.

1939
00:55:11,370 --> 00:55:11,380
Yeah.

1940
00:55:11,380 --> 00:55:11,480
What do you feel like you got out of it?

1941
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:11,580
What’s new for you on
this side of doing that?

1942
00:55:11,580 --> 00:55:11,630
Toward the beginning of this.

1943
00:55:11,630 --> 00:55:11,730
I had told you about
that journal entry I made

1944
00:55:11,730 --> 00:55:11,740
Yeah.

1945
00:55:11,740 --> 00:55:11,950
20 years ago, and I looked for and
couldn’t find, where I was talking
about all the things I hated in,

1946
00:55:11,950 --> 00:55:12,060
in people around me and realizing
I was talking about myself.

1947
00:55:12,060 --> 00:55:12,070
Yep.

1948
00:55:12,070 --> 00:55:12,260
So it felt very familiar, but I had not,
it had never occurred to me to do it on

1949
00:55:12,260 --> 00:55:12,400
a fractal scale, or you know, to switch
levels from systemic to the individual.

1950
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:12,470
Like that had never occurred to me.

1951
00:55:12,470 --> 00:55:12,630
So that was, kind of cool, to just be
like, oh yeah, let’s, let’s do that.

1952
00:55:12,630 --> 00:55:12,670
That makes good sense.

1953
00:55:12,670 --> 00:55:12,850
The other thing that I wanna
highlight about it is that it
means that we always have agency.

1954
00:55:12,850 --> 00:55:12,980
And you and I had a conversation recently
about the mediation of subjectivity.

1955
00:55:12,980 --> 00:55:13,000
Mm hmm.

1956
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:13,190
And how the Divine shows up in
the world in such a way that
it can always be followed.

1957
00:55:13,190 --> 00:55:13,200
Yeah.

1958
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:13,230
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1959
00:55:13,230 --> 00:55:13,350
We can always do what Jesus
would do in any given situation.

1960
00:55:13,350 --> 00:55:13,360
Yeah.

1961
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:13,390
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1962
00:55:13,390 --> 00:55:13,460
And this exercise helps me remember that.

1963
00:55:13,460 --> 00:55:13,620
That when I start to feel really powerless
about the massive size of the forces that

1964
00:55:13,620 --> 00:55:13,780
are at work in our world, like the scale
of the social challenges that face us,

1965
00:55:13,780 --> 00:55:13,790
Yeah.

1966
00:55:13,790 --> 00:55:14,000
and the conflicts that our nations are
engaged in, and the fact that I have
no power at that level whatsoever.

1967
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:14,070
I can start to feel really overwhelmed.

1968
00:55:14,070 --> 00:55:14,260
And when I remember this fractal
exercise, and I can look at, “Okay,
what’s happening on that scale? What

1969
00:55:14,260 --> 00:55:14,440
do I not like about this? What do I not
like about what’s going on in the world?

1970
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:14,450
Okay.

1971
00:55:14,450 --> 00:55:14,580
How is that happening inside me?”
I do have power at this scale.

1972
00:55:14,580 --> 00:55:14,590
Yeah.

1973
00:55:14,590 --> 00:55:14,780
There’s always something I can do at
the level of the individual, in my
personal interactions with other humans

1974
00:55:14,780 --> 00:55:14,790
Yeah.

1975
00:55:14,790 --> 00:55:14,880
that follows Christ and allows
for that divine mediation.

1976
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:14,890
Yeah.

1977
00:55:14,890 --> 00:55:15,110
So it can really, really help to undo
some of that powerlessness that we
feel about how do I change the world?

1978
00:55:15,110 --> 00:55:18,720
And it’s hard to trust that just
changing my own behavior, like, I’m
one tiny human in this giant system.

1979
00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:21,138
What influence do I think I have?

1980
00:55:21,138 --> 00:55:21,484
Yeah.

1981
00:55:21,484 --> 00:55:22,109
And yet,

1982
00:55:26,790 --> 00:55:27,050
what

1983
00:56:11,870 --> 00:56:12,410
Girard tells us about the power of
mediation is that the way that I show up

1984
00:56:43,820 --> 00:56:44,810
in the world is gonna
be contagious to others.

1985
00:56:44,810 --> 00:56:44,820
Yeah.

1986
00:56:44,820 --> 00:56:45,010
And if I am showing up with greater
care, with less conflict, with more
courage, with more compassion, more

1987
00:56:45,010 --> 00:56:45,180
attention, more presence… that’s
gonna be contagious to other people, and
it’s gonna escalate through the world.

1988
00:56:45,180 --> 00:56:45,320
And I personally read Scripture in such
a way that makes that positive escalation

1989
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:45,530
much more exponential than the negative
escalations that we get stuck in.

1990
00:56:45,530 --> 00:56:45,540
Hmm.

1991
00:56:45,540 --> 00:56:45,730
Where it talks about, in the 10
Commandments, how I will punish
the sins of the parents to the

1992
00:56:45,730 --> 00:56:45,840
third or fourth generation of their
children,” or however it’s phrased.

1993
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:45,850
Yeah.

1994
00:56:45,850 --> 00:56:45,950
I can’t remember off
the top of my head, but

1995
00:56:45,950 --> 00:56:45,960
Yeah.

1996
00:56:45,960 --> 00:56:46,120
but then, “I will bless the
thousandth generation those who
love me and keep my commandments.”

1997
00:56:46,120 --> 00:56:46,370
I mean, we can get really tangled in knots
about what an asshole God is for visiting
the sins of the parents on the children.

1998
00:56:46,370 --> 00:56:46,410
That’s a dick move.

1999
00:56:46,410 --> 00:56:46,480
But the way that I read it

2000
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:46,500
Yeah, yeah.

2001
00:56:46,500 --> 00:56:55,070
is that our negative, mimetic,
conflictual activities have consequences
to the third or fourth generation.

2002
00:56:55,070 --> 00:56:55,639
I mean,

2003
00:57:08,979 --> 00:57:09,169
they’ve measured that
at the biological level.

2004
00:57:09,169 --> 00:57:13,559
We have studies

2005
00:57:19,044 --> 00:57:23,044
in

2006
00:57:28,529 --> 00:57:34,239
epigenetics that trauma gets carried on to

2007
00:59:17,784 --> 00:59:21,784
the

2008
01:01:05,329 --> 01:01:05,500
third or

2009
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:08,880
fourth generation.

2010
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:08,900
Yeah.

2011
01:01:08,900 --> 01:01:09,030
Those, those changes
carry on to the third or

2012
01:01:20,789 --> 01:01:25,299
fourth generation, just like

2013
01:01:44,299 --> 01:01:48,299
scripture

2014
01:02:07,299 --> 01:02:11,299
says.

2015
01:02:30,299 --> 01:02:34,299
And

2016
01:02:53,299 --> 01:02:57,459
so the

2017
01:07:07,606 --> 01:07:11,606
consequences

2018
01:11:21,753 --> 01:11:25,753
of

2019
01:15:35,900 --> 01:15:36,759
those traumas last for
three or four generations.

2020
01:15:36,759 --> 01:15:37,139
But when you make the shift — when you
show up with courage, when you show

2021
01:15:37,139 --> 01:15:37,239
up with love — that has consequences
to the thousandth generation.

2022
01:15:37,239 --> 01:15:37,269
Yeah, and it’s.

2023
01:15:37,269 --> 01:15:37,379
It’s so big that it’s hard
to get our heads around.

2024
01:15:37,379 --> 01:15:37,389
Right?

2025
01:15:37,389 --> 01:15:37,549
So like, of course we tend to focus on
the, the stuff that’s easier to see.

2026
01:15:37,549 --> 01:15:37,559
Yeah.

2027
01:15:37,559 --> 01:15:37,739
And it’s easier to see the
things that are wrong than to
see the things that are good.

2028
01:15:37,739 --> 01:15:37,829
They feel more immediate
a lot of the time.

2029
01:15:37,829 --> 01:15:37,839
Yeah.

2030
01:15:37,839 --> 01:15:38,039
But if I can keep that bigger perspective,
alongside the individual perspective,
and if I can trust that changing the

2031
01:15:38,039 --> 01:15:38,299
way that I show up is gonna have echoes
in the world in ways that I will maybe
never even be aware of — but that they’re

2032
01:15:38,299 --> 01:15:38,459
still real, whether I’m aware of them or
not — I’m left with a lot more agency.

2033
01:15:38,459 --> 01:15:38,469
Yeah.

2034
01:15:38,469 --> 01:15:38,669
I’m left with a sense of my own
capacity to show up, that is very,
very different than the hopelessness

2035
01:15:38,669 --> 01:15:38,829
that I feel when I’m only looking at
the big picture where I have no power.

2036
01:15:38,829 --> 01:15:38,839
Yeah.

2037
01:15:38,839 --> 01:15:38,979
And as you’re talking about
love being visited a thousand
generations, I was, yeah.

2038
01:15:38,979 --> 01:15:44,770
I couldn’t help but think about Christ
at Gethsemane, being faced with a giant
systemic thing that’s about to kill him.

2039
01:15:44,770 --> 01:15:44,870
And I’ve tried to make
sense of his prayer before.

2040
01:15:44,870 --> 01:15:45,169
But his, “Not my

2041
01:16:26,259 --> 01:16:26,369
will,

2042
01:18:43,430 --> 01:18:43,859
but yours be done” isn’t a reference,
I don’t think, to like the events
that are gonna happen in the next

2043
01:18:43,859 --> 01:18:44,019
12 to 24 hours, but may my desire be
yours. Don’t let me respond in kind.

2044
01:18:44,019 --> 01:18:44,029
Like,

2045
01:18:44,029 --> 01:18:44,039
Yeah.

2046
01:18:44,039 --> 01:18:44,370
be indignant at the disciples that forsake
me, and become rivalrous with the supposed

2047
01:18:44,370 --> 01:18:44,510
rulers who are just being chased around
by the people they pretend to rule.

2048
01:18:44,510 --> 01:18:44,570
Not my will, but your will.

2049
01:18:44,570 --> 01:18:44,660
That is, may I see them as you do.

2050
01:18:44,660 --> 01:18:44,670
Yeah.

2051
01:18:44,670 --> 01:18:44,820
And that in a very real sense, while
he was subjected to a death that

2052
01:18:44,820 --> 01:18:44,940
was part of a large-scale event,
his victory was an internal one.

2053
01:18:44,940 --> 01:18:45,080
And Christians seem to believe
that it’s carried on for a
thousand generations already.

2054
01:18:45,080 --> 01:18:45,090
Mm-hmm.

2055
01:18:45,090 --> 01:18:45,240
I mean, I’m sitting here 2000 years
later, and my life was changed by it.

2056
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:45,250
Yeah.

2057
01:18:45,250 --> 01:18:45,260
Sooo…

2058
01:18:45,260 --> 01:18:45,270
Yeah.

2059
01:18:45,270 --> 01:18:45,300
somethin’ happened there.

2060
01:18:45,300 --> 01:18:45,310
Yeah.

2061
01:18:45,310 --> 01:18:45,470
I suppose it might be worrisome to some
to hear me say that it was actually

2062
01:18:45,470 --> 01:18:45,600
an internal thing that Jesus did,
there at that moment, that carried on.

2063
01:18:45,600 --> 01:18:45,760
And I guess what we’re saying here though
is it doesn’t have to be an either-or.

2064
01:18:45,760 --> 01:18:45,830
It is never an “either-or” in fact.

2065
01:18:45,830 --> 01:18:46,050
It doesn’t have to be either it was
internal to him, or it was an external
thing that had like societal impact.

2066
01:18:46,050 --> 01:18:46,090
Like, biggest, fattest both-and.

2067
01:18:46,090 --> 01:18:46,100
Yep.

2068
01:18:46,100 --> 01:18:46,110
Exactly.

2069
01:18:46,110 --> 01:18:46,120
Yeah.

2070
01:18:46,120 --> 01:18:46,240
Well, I think that brings us
to the end of another episode.

2071
01:18:46,240 --> 01:18:46,360
If I were to sum up everything
that we’ve talked about today.

2072
01:18:46,360 --> 01:18:46,420
It’d be hard, but I, yeah.

2073
01:18:46,420 --> 01:18:46,500
Tell me what, I could start this way.

2074
01:18:46,500 --> 01:18:46,590
I’d say not everything that
resolves conflict is peaceful.

2075
01:18:46,590 --> 01:18:46,730
In fact, the radical nonviolence
of God will, with regularity,
excavate conflicts long buried.

2076
01:18:46,730 --> 01:18:46,910
Even though before they were tucked
away, and quite conveniently out of
sight, peace doesn’t paper over conflict.

2077
01:18:46,910 --> 01:18:47,020
It peels all the layers
back to get a better look.

2078
01:18:47,020 --> 01:18:47,100
We tossed out a potential
definition for integrity.

2079
01:18:47,100 --> 01:18:47,190
That being an absence of
resistance to what is.

2080
01:18:47,190 --> 01:18:47,400
If you can find stability without having
to fight against what is or fleeing from
something that is, or just disassociating

2081
01:18:47,400 --> 01:18:50,929
from what is, if you don’t have to do
those things, it’s because of integrity.

2082
01:18:50,929 --> 01:18:51,079
And we highlighted Thomas Merton’s
little brother John Paul to serve as

2083
01:19:04,849 --> 01:19:05,319
a depiction of kindness, truth,
and presence all bundled up

2084
01:19:18,549 --> 01:19:18,669
in

2085
01:19:46,750 --> 01:19:47,000
one

2086
01:19:52,600 --> 01:19:52,760
little

2087
01:20:01,149 --> 01:20:01,899
five-year-old boy in short pants.

2088
01:20:01,899 --> 01:20:01,939
That was this week.

2089
01:20:01,939 --> 01:20:02,019
What do we got coming up next week?

2090
01:20:02,019 --> 01:20:02,149
Yeah, so next week we’re gonna get into
the Girardian concept of misrecognition,

2091
01:20:02,149 --> 01:20:02,299
and we’re gonna talk a bit about that
as the root cause of our violence.

2092
01:20:02,299 --> 01:20:02,479
That anytime we’re being violent, against
either ourselves or someone else, it’s
probably because we’re believing a lie.

2093
01:20:02,479 --> 01:20:02,539
We’re believing something that isn’t true.

2094
01:20:02,539 --> 01:20:02,719
And so we’re gonna talk about how the
Crucifixion exposes that misrecognition,
that it’s not a legal transaction,

2095
01:20:02,719 --> 01:20:02,859
but it is a revelation that exposes
the places where those lies are hiding

2096
01:20:02,859 --> 01:20:02,989
in our system so that we can start
unpacking them and healing them.

2097
01:20:02,989 --> 01:20:03,250
And that leads us into a
discussion of repentance.

2098
01:20:03,250 --> 01:20:05,279
I think a lot of people talk about
repentance as, you know, it’s supposed to
be some kind shameful self castigation,

2099
01:20:05,279 --> 01:20:05,649
but we’re gonna talk about repentance
as a kind of remediated perception.

2100
01:20:05,649 --> 01:20:06,409
Mm-hmm.

2101
01:20:06,409 --> 01:20:09,549
So it’s a recognition of our own
misrecognitions, if you will.

2102
01:20:09,549 --> 01:20:09,886
And we’re gonna talk about how lack and
abundance are not equal opposites, but

2103
01:20:09,886 --> 01:20:10,198
that abundance is the bigger reality
within which all of our lack is held.

2104
01:20:10,198 --> 01:20:10,599
And then we’re gonna extrapolate
that even further and talk about
life as the bigger reality than death

2105
01:20:10,599 --> 01:20:10,621
Mm.

2106
01:20:10,621 --> 01:20:10,800
within which this process
of change is held.

2107
01:20:10,800 --> 01:20:10,870
So

2108
01:20:13,080 --> 01:20:13,770
ultimately I would say that it
boils down to, lies don’t merely
give us false information.

2109
01:20:13,770 --> 01:20:14,030
They train our attention
until we create violence in
response to our misrecognitions.

2110
01:20:14,030 --> 01:20:18,030
And

2111
01:20:20,302 --> 01:20:24,302
that

2112
01:20:26,685 --> 01:20:30,685
Christ

2113
01:20:33,067 --> 01:20:37,067
saves

2114
01:20:39,450 --> 01:20:41,390
us by entering that system of attention
and mediation from within — not
imposing things from outside, but

2115
01:31:11,369 --> 01:31:15,689
entering into it

2116
01:31:48,211 --> 01:31:52,211
and

2117
01:32:24,734 --> 01:32:28,734
revealing

2118
01:33:01,256 --> 01:33:05,256
the

2119
01:33:37,778 --> 01:33:41,778
larger

2120
01:34:14,300 --> 01:34:18,850
reality of

2121
01:34:58,995 --> 01:35:02,995
love

2122
01:35:43,139 --> 01:35:45,849
and teaching us how to
see our misrecognition for

2123
01:36:09,080 --> 01:36:09,270
what

2124
01:36:15,890 --> 01:36:16,090
it is.

2125
01:36:16,090 --> 01:36:16,300
That’s

2126
01:36:59,619 --> 01:37:03,969
what we

2127
01:38:08,834 --> 01:38:12,834
got

2128
01:39:17,699 --> 01:39:21,990
coming for you

2129
01:39:36,756 --> 01:39:40,756
next

2130
01:39:55,523 --> 01:39:59,523
time.

2131
01:40:14,290 --> 01:40:18,290
Stay

2132
01:40:33,056 --> 01:40:37,056
tuned.

2133
01:40:51,823 --> 01:40:55,823
Sounds

2134
01:41:10,590 --> 01:41:11,170
good.

2135
01:47:02,929 --> 01:47:03,170
You’ve been

2136
02:00:35,439 --> 02:00:42,379
listening to Theology Kills, a podcast
about letting our shame and violence
die so that life and love can thrive.

2137
02:00:43,250 --> 02:00:50,809
Your hosts are January Jaxson and
Andrew McRae, and season one was
written and produced by January Jaxson.

2138
02:00:51,489 --> 02:00:54,729
Our theme music is Things To
Do In a Day by Simon Lepine.

2139
02:00:56,039 --> 02:00:58,650
Theology Kills is
exclusively listener funded.

2140
02:00:59,199 --> 02:01:03,379
If you’d like to support our work or go
deeper with practices, bonus content, and

2141
02:01:03,379 --> 02:01:07,569
community conversations, join our Patreon
at patreon.com/TheologyKillsPodcast.

2142
02:01:10,489 --> 02:01:14,999
You can find everything we’re
making at www.theologykills.com.

2143
02:01:15,809 --> 02:01:17,219
That’s everything we have for you today.

2144
02:01:17,869 --> 02:01:20,740
Thanks for listening, take care
of yourselves and each other,

2145
02:01:21,209 --> 02:01:21,969
and we’ll see you next time.