Rogue Reverend

Finally, Reconciling Choices

1 Corinthians 13:8-12

“For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, Yes.” ~Dag Hammarskjöld

Carol Flinders writes in At the Root of This Longing: Reconciling a Spiritual Hunger and a Feminist Thirst that there are certain precepts that seem to be constants in religious practice: 1) Be silent. 2) Put yourself last. 3) Resist and re-channel your desires, especially your sexual desires, and 4) Enclose yourself. Cut yourself off from the external world.

Flinders maintains that feminism, and I would add that post-modernity, tells us the opposite: 1) Find your voice, tell your story, 2) Know who you are, establish your identity, 3) Reclaim your body and your desires, and 4) Move about freely and fearlessly. Take back the streets.

We have to reconcile the two stances.

I’ve been considering two definitions of reconciliation. The first, most used in an accounting or auditing context, is what we talk about when we reconcile our checkbooks. We compare two numbers to demonstrate the basis for the difference between them, or we balance debits, credits, and totals between two systems. The second definition, used mostly in a theological or relational sense is the reestablishing of friendly relations, either between two individuals or between God and humanity.

We mostly understand reconciliation to mean, “reestablishing friendly relations.”

What if, instead, we think about reconciliation the way that is more like reconciling our checkbooks, looking at two very different totals, demonstrating the basis for the difference between them, and being okay with it?

If we consider Flinders’ options, whether we will be silent or tell our story, whether we will put ourselves last or establish our identity, whether we will re-channel or reclaim our desires and sexuality, or whether we will enclose ourselves or move about freely, we see the hinge here, right? We must reconcile between the two of them, and it hinges on choice.

We cannot and should not be made to be silent or forced to be loud.
We cannot and should not be made to serve or forced to be served.
We cannot and should not be made to be chaste or forced to be sexual.
We cannot and should not be made to cloister or forced to roam.

You see, agency, or the ability to exert personal power in our lives, is a continuum. This continuum is dynamic, changing every hour, every day, every week. It is influenced by many factors: race, age, gender, education level, class, privilege, beauty or lack of it, addictions. Wow. There are so many that I can’t name them all, and each one of these factors has layers to it. And there’s one more, that sometimes I think is the most important one of all: how much agency do you believe that you have?

We read the story of Draupadi. She is the wife of the Pandavas, and she’s one of the main characters in the Mahabharata – one of Hinduism’s two main epics. The Bhagavad Gita is but a part of the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is written in poem form and is the longest in the world.

Draupadi is significant in the texts. She’s a protagonist, someone with her own story, independent of the men who lead us to her, someone who doesn’t kowtow or apologize for wanting good things. She’s also beaten up for it – because she’s not pliant or submissive. She’s clear that she’s not property. She has moods and rages. Plays favorites. She’s human in a way that’s relatable.

Draupadi is married to five brothers, the oldest of which has a gambling problem. He loses everything, including his brothers, and himself in a dice game. Then he loses Draupadi. Draupadi is dragged before the court, all of the evil men who have been cheating at dice all day, attempt to humiliate, shame and degrade her. It is there that we see her true power. From the Palace of Illusions:

The worst shame a woman could imagine was about to befall me—I who had thought myself above all harm, the proud and cherished wife of the greatest kings of our time! Now they sat frozen as I struggled… The sorceress had said, When in great trouble, rest your mind on someone who loves you…

Then—maybe because there was no one else who could help—I thought of Krishna. He owed me nothing; we were not related. Perhaps that was why I could fix my mind on him without being swept away by the anger that arises from expectation. I thought of his smile, the way it would appear on his face for no reason. The sounds of the courtroom faded…Suddenly I was in a garden. There were swans in a lake, a tree that arched above, dropping blue flowers, the sound of water falling as though the world had no end. The wind smelled of sandalwood. Krishna sat beside me on a cool stone bench. His glance was bright and tender. No one can shame you, he said, if you don’t allow it.

No one can shame you if you don’t allow it.

I’m reading a book right now called Blunders, by Zachary Shore. It’s all about the reason why people make mistakes. I can’t say that I understand all the reason why people make mistakes, but I do remember making one or two of them, a time or two.

There are seven types of blunders, according to the author.

1. Exposure Anxiety, the fear of being seen as weak.
2. Causefusion, confusing the causes of complex events. The author uses depression to talk about this, and suggests that maybe we treat brain chemistry as a cause of depression where it might be a symptom of depression. We might be confusing the cause with a result.
3. Flatview, seeing the world in one dimension.
4. Cure-allism, believing that one size really fits all. We get stuck thinking that a theory is universally applicable. When a theory that has worked well in some cases, we apply it to seemingly similar cases and it fails.
5. Infomania, the obsessive relationship to information. There are two types: infomisers, those who hoard information, believing that sharing will undermine their position, and infovoiders, who believe that sealing themselves off from information to keep themselves in an information void will somehow be to their benefit.
6. Mirror Imaging, thinking the other side thinks and acts like us.
7. Static Cling, refusal to accept a changing world. “Static cling prevents us from either recognizing or accepting a changing world. It blindsides our imagination just when a broader view is most essential. In static cling, people cannot accept that their surrounding are in fundamental flux. Instead of soberly assessing those changes and adapting to them, those with static cling resist. Their longing for things remain as they have always been keeps them from prosperity, peace and success.”

The basic premise of the book is that if we avoid these tactical mistakes, we will end up not making a lot of mistakes. Of course, I’m not sure that we can avoid tactical mistakes. If we miss this 7 mistakes, we may make another 8.

Ultimately, decision making is hard. Especially during times of stress, and let’s face it folks, we’re all in a time of stress. One of the things I’ve noticed most about facing the things that I’m facing right now, and my friends, is that our imagination has dried up. We aren’t thinking in the quick, adaptive way that we usually do, because we’re afraid of decisions.

I love today’s Scripture: when I was a child, I thought as a child, acted as a child, but when I grew up, I grew up. That might have been perfect in Paul’s time, but I think about the passage and want to say, “When I was a child, I thought as a child, then I grew up a little bit, and thought a little older, then I grew up a little more, and thought a little differently.”

But ultimately, I have to remember Draupadi, each of us must believe that no one can shame us if we don’t allow it. We have the power to choose in our lives.

______________________

From Dave and Jenny Csinos, our Embodied Reflection

Victor Frankl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family of civil servants. In September of 1942, he and his wife and parents were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in a concentration camp. As a psychologist, Frankl assisted other prisoners in the camp of his own free will. After his liberation in 1945, he went on to write his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, which was originally entitled, From Death-Camp to Existentialism. In this book, he writes, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the people who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Even when he was imprisoned in Auschwitz, where innocent men, women, and children were murdered every second, Frankl never allowed himself to be completely controlled by the Nazis. He recognized the importance of agency; when he had nothing left and possessed seemingly no control. His agency to choose his attitude helped his press forward through this mess and help others as they attempted to do the same.

Like Draupadi, Viktor Frankl looked deep within himself and found that prayer—that glimmer of hope that comes from claiming one’s freedom to have agency. Both Frankl and Draupadi recognized and claimed their agency, even when all hope seemed lost. They knew that they must have the power to make their own decisions, to lead their own lives, and to control their own futures.

Today, we remember the story of Draupadi and reflect on its meanings for our own lives. Where do we sit on the agency continuum? How much agency to we believe we have? The answers to these questions are not easy to find; we must look deep within ourselves and we must do so again and again for, as Lia has told us, this continuum is dynamic and ever-changing.

Let us each come to the table today and cut off a piece of this cloth so we can take it with us as a reminder of Draupadi’s never-ending cloth and the agency that she refused to surrender to those who would harm her.