Portrait by Tim Mikula
"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy."
- Thomas Merton
A recurring theme for me this year has been amplification. When you pile a significant amount of stress onto any individual or system the weaknesses are amplified. Whatever is festering at the core surfaces. Sometimes this amplification leads to revelation and healthy clarification while at other times it leads to a doubling down on misguided and unhealthy ways being in the world.
We have witnessed this happening to us as individuals, families, organizations, social movements, political parties, nations, and really as an entire species. I have most definitely witnessed this in my own life. Many people have called 2020 an "apocalyptic year" and considering the original greek word "apokalypsis" means an “unveiling” or “revelation” I find this to be precisely suitable.
As I have navigated this year, there are a number of teachings which have helped me to conceptualize and work with some of these amplifications. I offer them to you with the hope that a framework or two may be useful as you move into the new year. I am very much a seeker on the journey and as I am new to most of these concepts myself, I claim exactly zero mastery. Welcome to my inner wrestling match.
Circle of Concern vs. Circle of Influence
This year I often found myself completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by what was happening to our world. I spent a significant amount of mental energy focused on the big picture and wishing that massive groups of people would come to their senses. In reality, my wishing this didn't really accomplish much. It just kept me transfixed by social media or news media. Revisiting Stephen Covey's first habit was helpful. If we are entirely focused on our Circle of Concern and while avoiding our Circle of Influence we are mostly ineffective. I have had to revisit this and ask myself "How exactly can I make a difference?"
"Proactive people focus their efforts in their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern, They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink." - Stephen Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Contemplation
More than anything else this year, contemplative practices have aided me through some very dark days. Our minds are prone to dualistic, black and white thinking. While there is great utility in reductionistic thinking (decision making, science, rationality etc.) it can prove to be a deadly hindrance if it is our only operating system. Complexity, paradox, and mystery are deeply ingrained within our reality. If we are too quick to label, categorize, or narrow things down we tend towards bias and problematic certainty, missing alternate perspectives and deeper levels of truth (often a balancing). If we are stuck in the past or the future we miss the present moment, the only thing that really exists. Contemplation isn't an intellectual posture, it is a practice of quieting the mind and connecting to a deeper source and a clearer way of seeing. It is also the path to the "True Self".
"This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it's always with us... We can be with what's happening and not dissociate. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives." - Pema Chodron
Here is a brief article on Father Thomas Keating's centering prayer
Everything Belongs & The Naked Now by Friar Richard Rohr
The Cloud of Unknowing by Anonymous
Shadow Projection
The past few years I have become fascinated by Carl Jung's Analytical Psychology. An area particularly relevant to 2020 is the concept of "shadow projection". Jung believed that aspects of our personalities that we find shameful are repressed into our unconscious. We then project these parts of ourselves outwards onto other people. This concept explains why we are so quick to label, diagnose, or judge attributes of other people while at the same time missing these same attributes within ourselves. As a part of his path towards "individuation" (or self-actualization), Jung advocates the often painful process of integrating these shadow aspects of ourselves, which means we have to start by doing the difficult work of ruthless honesty. As this year has put a tremendous amount of pressure on us we have witnessed an overload of individual and collective shadow projection, particularly in the political arena.
"A person who is unconscious of themself acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when they see everything that they are not conscious of in themself coming to meet them from outside as projections upon their neighbour" - Carl Jung
Here is a youtube intro to this concept
Here is a blog on "integrating your shadow"
The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung (a fascinating and prophetic book examining this in the context of politics and religion)
The Scapegoat
We are all familiar with the concept of a scapegoat but the depth to which the anthropologist philosopher Rene Girard delves into this mechanism has fascinated me for a few years now. Girard argued that at the root of violence within societies lies "mimetic rivalry" or tension that builds up due to the imitative and competitive nature of desire. In order to maintain in-group harmony, historical tribes projected their rivalry onto animals, people, or groups who were deemed guilty and either driven from the tribe or sacrificed. The basic idea is that group cohesion is maintained and bolstered through opposition of an "other". When you extrapolate this concept outwards it reveals why movements gain steam when they rally around a clearly articulated enemy. This mechanism has been on full display this year as we've watched politics devolve into various forms of political extremism. Girard's exploration of Christ as the innocent scapegoat, undermining the cycle of violence, has also deeply influenced my theology.
"If you scapegoat someone, it's a third party that will be aware of it. It won't be you. Because you will believe you are doing the right thing." - Rene Girard
Here is an article I wrote regarding Christianity, Trump, and Scapegoating
Here is a a great youtube intro to Girard's ideas.
Here is an in depth interview with Girard from CBC's Ideas
The Scapegoat by Rene Girard
True Self/False Self
This is a spiritual teaching which has proven incredibly valuable to me. It examines the illusion of egoic persona contrasted by a divine and unconditionally loved inner self. When we are under stress we tend to double down on clinging to our external identity. Another option is to allow the pressure to crack you open revealing a deep inner stillness. This teaching comes from the trappist monk Thomas Merton. I have found this concept to be both deeply challenging and deeply healing.
"At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal ... which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will ... It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven ... All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered."
- Thomas Merton
Here is a great overview of Merton's teaching on this.
Here is a fascinating and related system (The Enneagram)
New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
True Self/False Self or Immortal Diamond by Richard Rohr
Sacred Objects
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been a voice of clarity for me over the last few years. As has been displayed very clearly this year, our political and religious bodies repeatedly default to dividing people into two camps: good people or evil people. Moral Foundations Theory reveals how our opponents are likely rallied around a different set of values. The five moral foundations identified by this theory are: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degredation, Liberty/Oppression. Our most vocal groups tend to rally around one or two of these "sacred objects" often at the expense of other important values. For example progressives tend to rally around Care/Harm while Libertarians rally around Liberty/Oppression. This is not to say that all positions are equal. Any unbalanced extreme ends up tilting towards tyranny because the shadow elements end up at the steering wheel.
"Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects." - Jonathan Haidt
Here is a great Ted Talk overview
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Assertive Action + Love
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement there has been a much needed awakening to the systemic issues within our society. As I have read through the various views of what "anti-racism" should look like I keep coming back to the tried and true examples of Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Ghandi - all of whom embodied assertive action alongside love. This is the most difficult sort of activism. Christ's Love of Enemy, MLK's Non-Violent Direct Action, Mandela's Truth & Reconciliation, and Ghandi's Satyagraha are all proven to be effective. They share a universal framework and are centered around the restorative power of love which undercuts the fatal dualism of other approaches. Reading through some of their teachings has been deeply clarifying for me this year.
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” - MLK
Truth & Reconciliation youtube doc outlining Mandela's nation saving approach
Letter from Birmingham Jail by MLK
Loving Your Enemy sermon by MLK
Integration
If you are still with me, I have one more concept for you which revolves around two difficult words: "include and transcend". There is a vast amount of research charting distinctive stages of human development. These models reveal that we tend to evolve along a specific pathway as individuals and as an entire species. In the “first tier” stages we battle it out, attacking stages above or below. In the “second tier” or "integral" stages we begin to see value within all of the different stages, recognizing important truths, which need to be integrated, along with shadow elements, which need to be shed. This has been very helpful for me as I have spent much of my life trying to reconcile my traditional upbringing with my rational education and my post-modern generation. I have found real value and serious flaws at every stage. If you are interested in this you should look at the social psychologists Clare Graves & Don Beck's work on Spiral Dynamics, the philosopher Ken Wilber's Integral Theory, or the Jesuit priest & palaeontologist Tielhard De Chardin's Omega Point Theory . It is fascinating to note that Don Beck made 36 trips to South Africa during the late 80's to advise Nelson Mandela using a Spiral Dynamics framework.
“At the Integral stages of development, the entire universe starts to make sense, to hang together, to actually appear as a uni-verse—a “one world”—a single, unified, integrated world that unites not only different philosophies and ideas about the world, but different practices for growth and development as well.” ―
Me, We, Everybody podcast series by Rob Bell (If I could encourage you to listen to one thing this year!)
Here is a brief intro to Spiral Dynamics
Trump and the Post-Truth World by Ken Wilber (Fascinating examination of the current culture wars through an Integral Theory lens)
[Before looking at this material is important to understand that we don't simply graduate from one level to the next. The different levels exist within us at the same time. How far we grow seems to depend on the collective consciousness of our generation as well as our own capacity for self-actualization. We all sometimes revert back to earlier stages, especially under stress.]
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