Thursday, April 29th, 2010
I think of prejudice as social, spiritual, intellectual laziness. It is also uninformed, undifferentiated, a cheap laugh at the expense of someone with feelings and aspirations.
Prejudice comes in lots of flavours. I remember in the 60s (those were my undergraduate years at SFU and the time of the Beatles) that we were told that Vietnamese peasants don’t feel feelings like “we” do. If I remember correctly, this was an argument for escalating the bombing.
Chinese drivers, homosexual degeneracy, women’s emotionality, native drunkenness, “if you can’t do it, teach it” (this was laughingly said to a teacher friend of mine the other day), Jewish political insidiousness, why women can’t preach in the church – there are lots of ways of pre-judging people.
Prejudice serves the relational task of keeping a grouping of people at a distance, whether they are men (“we all know what they want”), or teenagers (“indulged and lazy”), the poor (“they are probably drunks”). Prejudice conserves time and energy – those prejudged become depersonalized “others” not worth the time and energy to find out what they think and believe and feel.
This is becoming a rant and perhaps this is the reason why. I was assumed to be a “religious fundamentalist” in a psychology journal I was reading a while back. It wasn’t only me the author was writing about, but people like me. But it wasn’t the me that my friends and clients know — it was a stylized “stick me,” without depth or texture. And if I was like the “stick me” that was so efficiently dismissed, I would have done the same.
To judge people who love God, devote their lives to worship, and offer their time and finances in service to others, as “fundamentalists” is, it seems to me, religious profiling. I say this about Christians, or Jews, or Muslims, or Sikhs and all others who endeavor to discern God.
The term “fundamentalist” has been used so casually in describing anyone who holds some sort of faith belief – be they a TV preacher, a Hasidic rabbi, a Mormon housewife, or a soldier of the Islamic Jihad – that the word has become hopelessly prejudicial. To call a worshipper a fundamentalist is the racial and social equivalent of calling a black Canadian a “nigger.”
Makes me sad to think about how often God-worshippers like me have pre-judged others.
Tags: emotions, power, wisdom
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Thursday, March 11th, 2010
Imagine that you count your personal resources — things like time, money, spirit, hope, skills, those kind of things. Consider these resources as 100%. Not that you have more or less resources than others, but what you have is your own 100%.
Now imagine that you have problems – this part is not very difficult!
So your problem could be a roof rat that is eating your birdseed (this is actually one of my current problems that I am figuring out how to solve).
Some problems are more complicated: you have been married for 18 years and you have two pretty good kids and a pretty good life, but you are bored. You want more. “Good enough” isn’t good enough any longer. What do you do? Quitting comes to mind. So does bombing the heck out of your spouse with insults, innuendoes and bitterness.
Try this first.
First, measure your problem: add up the good and pretty good in one column; and add up the boring and the frustrating in another column. (By the way, most boredom is actually anger or frustration.) See what percent or amount is problematic.
Now let’s say you have 20% problems compared to 80% that is pretty good. That is, when you write it all down and count it all up, you see that your problems are less than you thought. But you want to solve them nonetheless.
Here is where you might go wrong. With your 100% personal resources and 20% problems, how much of these resources will you invest into solving the problem?
Think about it.
If you invest all of your personal resources into solving the 20% problem, the problem inflates! It becomes cumbersome, awkward, and then eventually the unsolvable “elephant in the room.” The investment of the totality of your personal resources exacerbates the problem.
But if you invested 20% of your resources into your 20% problem, what would happen? Probably the problem would get solved without a whole lot of hoopla. And this leaves you with 80% of your resources left to celebrate and strengthen the good and the pretty good.
This is one of the hardest things to figure out in problem solving and conflict management. Bombing Afghanistan just doesn’t work.
Tags: conflict, power, problem solving
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Saturday, January 30th, 2010
In October 2007, Krista Tippett interviewed Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche. Tippett is the host of “Speaking of Faith” on American Public Media, one of my favourite blog sites and a source of great spiritual-theological gain for me.
Of all of Tippett’s interviews, this interview with Jean Vanier is spectacular — I would say life transforming!
The 90 minute video is a much better investment than watching another edition of “House” (also a favourite of mine!) and you can also download an abbreviated version for your iPod so you can listen to Vanier’s “wisdom of tenderness” while walking or working out at the gym.
Find the interview at http://vimeo.com/462130.
Tags: power, theology, wisdom
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