BIG Picture Thinking
Why Can’t We Be Good
Or What I Learned This Summer.
In Jacob Needleman’s 2007 book, Why Can’t We Be Good, he strives to answer Paul’s question of why does he continue to do the things he knows are sinful and cannot do the things he knows are good. Needleman utilizes every tool he can to examine this important question from Socrates and other ancient and modern philosophers through Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.
Or What I Learned This Summer.
In Jacob Needleman’s 2007 book, Why Can’t We Be Good, he strives to answer Paul’s question of why does he continue to do the things he knows are sinful and cannot do the things he knows are good. Needleman utilizes every tool he can to examine this important question from Socrates and other ancient and modern philosophers through Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.
Our great problem according to Needleman is that the tail seems to wag the dog. In other words we continue to let the things of the world tell us what is important and we act and react according to it. As Jerry Porras (et. al.) writes in his 2007 book Success Built to Last: Creating a Life that Matters our 21st century definition of success has moved no further away from philosopher Thomas Hobbes notion of the state of nature and mankind’s eternal struggle. Hobbes, who lived in the 17th Century, says there will always be conflict because man is out for fame, fortune or power – all things found and important in the world but that mean little in the true Christian experience. As long as we let these three things determine success we will be on a treadmill of unhappiness and will be unable to be good.
By a treadmill of unhappiness I mean fame, fortune and power all fail to fulfill humans and once we achieve one level in any of these three categories, we bask in the glow of that success but soon find ourselves needing more fame, fortune or power. The process of adaption takes over and what once satisfied now becomes the ordinary which no longer satisfies and so the cycle repeats itself. In this western world economic culture where spending is supposed to keep everyone happy we will find ourselves in a perpetual state of chasing that which will never appease us. And in this world view, we simply cannot be good.
We’ve digressed a long ways from Needleman to be sure, but let’s return to him now. The solution to allowing ourselves to be good more often than not, he suggests is in a simple response by our Lord Jesus Christ. If we follow His two principle commandments, Love God above all else and love others as you would love yourself, we can be good. Should we go inside ourselves and find a true love for God and ourselves, we can exit the internal world grounded with the knowledge and peace of mind that will allow us to do the things we need to do in order to be good in the world.
Porras would tell us that those who are truly successful in this world are those who love what they do and what they do has meaning for themselves and others. They interviewed over 200 ‘builders’ – people who have had 20 years of continued success … success not measured by fame, fortune and power. Some of these people have found these things for themselves, but only as a side benefit. They never sought fame, fortune or power as an end unto themselves. Many of the people they interviewed earn less than they might have had they taken the road more commonly traveled. These people are in sync with who they are and do their best to ignore the world (family, friends and everyone else) when it tells them they should go and do what everyone else is doing. Someone we might consider successful by these standards could be Nelson Mandela or Mother Theresa.
I’ve thought about these two commandments and why attempting to love God first and loving others as you would love yourself would bring us to a place where we can be good. Here’s what I think at this time … though I reserve the right to change my mind as I transform as a Christian. If you love God, then the stuff from the world doesn’t matter to you. It can’t get to you. It can’t tempt you … as much. We will still fail from time to time because we are sinners, mortals who do fail, but should we do our best to establish a personal relationship with God on a daily basis, then the world loses its power over you and you are in a position to be good a little more often.
Next we need to examine this idea of loving our neighbours as we love our selves. First let’s get this chronological: we must love ourselves. This self love is an accepting love. It does not mean we like our weaknesses and the places in our life where we are often tempted to sin and fail. But we can see our strengths and love them and we can see our weaknesses and love them too. Second once we come close to loving ourselves we need to remember that this is a humble not a prideful love. It can never be a “Hey, I’m a great person,” love but it is more a, “You know, I’m a broken person, but God loves me the way I am and … you know … I guess I love me this way too.” Third, this kind of love does not allow us to remain static. In other words, we don’t love ourselves to the point where we never change our bad habits or sins. We allow God to work within us to transform us so that we have fewer moments of weakness, fewer times when we sin.
And so we love ourselves. What does this do for us in the world? How does this self love stop us from chasing fame, fortune and power and why does loving ourselves allow us to be good? We acknowledge our own weaknesses. We see them for what they are … human. And I believe this allows us to see others for who they are and to be more accepting of them. So when others do things we really dislike, we don’t get as angry for as long … in fact, we let it roll off our backs. It doesn’t matter to us as much as it once did. That’s just another of God’s children doing something that may or may not be inappropriate (who are we to judge?). I do things that are inappropriate and sinful … different things than they do … but my actions might drive them equally crazy! But if they love themselves, they cut me some slack and I cut them some slack and suddenly we arrive at this kinder, gentler place where we can be good, or at least we can become better at being good! And as I hinted at from the earlier Porras reference, we can go out and do the things we need to do for God and ourselves in spite of what the world tells us we should be doing.
These two commandments then release us from the stresses of the world and from other people. When bad things happen, those big random events like losing a job or becoming ill or losing a loved one … well yes, it still hurts, but it doesn’t hurt as much for as long when you are in love with God. And when people do things that hurt us or harm us or simply bug us, we can let those things go to. We let go of the hurt, move to forgiveness more quickly and we can be good. We can forgive them faster and move on to important things because we have forgiven ourselves for our own sins and failings. We will never be perfect at this but we can be … good or should I say … gooder than we were before.
Of course, now I have to do the things required to love God first and love my neighbours as I would love myself. This will be the challenge: you see, in doing this, this is different from what the world would tell me I should do. I should be going out there seeking fame, fortune and power, not reading the Bible, praying and listening (meditating) and thinking about how I can love myself. Doing these things is both hard and easy. It is hard because it means going against the flow of the world economy which says I should buy into fame, fortune and power. It is easy because I can read the Bible and say a prayer and build a relationship with God and myself in simply five minutes a day. I can do anything for five minutes a day. But it is hard to do this when the world keeps me so busy that I forget or I think I can get away with not doing these things today.
And, I have to admit, I think it is easier to attempt to love God and place him first than it might be to do the second commandment … that of first loving myself. We don’t go into that kind of thing much in our culture. That loving yourself thing feels pretty weird to me! And I’m not sure I can do it. I have a lot of sin in my life. How do you love the man and dislike the actions he takes? Aren’t they all one and the same? Well God doesn’t think so. I also have to forgive me my own humanity as God forgives me. If God can see me for who I am and love me … well there’s a clue in there (God is never wrong and is always loving) that suggests I might be able to love me too! If I fail to love myself so that I can become a grounded person and so that I can love others and fulfill the second of these commandments, then have I just sinned? Yeouch! That turned upon me pretty quickly. Maybe I just have to buckle down and do it, weird though it still seems. Hey. I’m a sucker for God, peace, happiness and doing good. I’m just going to have to give it the old university try!
Anyway. That’s what I learned this summer. What about you?
Comments