How You Become Like Your Enemies

You have to be stubborn as a mule to budge this stubborn mule.

See the first post in this series:

Love Your Enemies (i.e. Love Yourself)

In a previous post, I talked about how loving your enemies is the key to finding your own wholeness—and ultimately loving yourself. The people we consider our "enemies" often—if not always—represent a projection of what we dislike in ourselves. Therefore, loving them affords us the opportunity to love and accept the broken pieces of ourselves.

On an energetic level, you can't oppose someone without being like them. It's actually impossible! 

Look at this example: Imagine if someone is on one side side of a wall attempting to push it down. You get on the other side of the wall and resist them. In order to do this, you have to push back on the wall in exactly the same way that they are pushing. The two of you may be pushing in opposite directions, but you are pushing in exactly the same way. This is a model of what happens to us whenever we oppose someone and call them our "enemy."

I noticed this when I—literally—had a turf war with a former neighbor. This man had little regard for anyone else's boundaries. He would police his own yard strictly but would overstep into our yard, claiming pieces of it as his own. In order to stand up for ourselves, I found myself quickly spiraling downward until I ended up guarding our yard as strictly as he was guarding his. I got sucked in and sank to his level. 

I grew up in a rural area where there was plenty of land. We had only a vague idea of where our yard ended and our neighbors' yards began. I used to roll my eyes at "city folk" who squandered their time squabbling over inches of yard in dispute. Yet, there I was doing everything short of stretching out a measuring tape to check if we still had all we were entitled to have.

It is healthy to set boundaries, but something went wrong here. The relationship became oppositional—I wasn't just respecting my boundary, I was opposing him. That was a subtle but extremely significant difference. I labeled him my "enemy," and in doing so, I started acting like him. One of us could have overpowered and outsmarted the other and technically "won," but the real story is that we both were in the same space. I lost simply by playing the game. I didn't just lose a conflict, what I lost was myself. I stepped away from my values and took on the values of my "enemy."

I wasted so much time and energy focusing on a small section in the back of our yard, a section that in normal circumstances would not have occupied much of my attention. Whether I became like my neighbor or whether my neighbor brought out a piece of myself that was lying fallow is a curious question to consider. The truth is probably both are in play whenever we go down the path of enemy-making.

So then how do we respond when people legitimately trespass against us? As stated before, it is healthy to set and maintain boundaries. It is not good to be a doormat for bullies. The radical self-sacrifice of the Gospel is not the same as having no self-respect or boundaries. But it is also risky to respond to fire with fire.

I think this is what Jesus was warning us about when he told us to turn the other cheek. A punch in the cheek seems to demand a punch on the cheek in return. However, whether you "win" or not by punching the other person, the other side has controlled you and gotten you to play their game. Play this out long term, and you realize there is no winning as life simply deteriorates into an endless game of king of the hill where no one stays on top for long. You refuse to play their game when you turn the other cheek. You set and live by your own values. Your center is solid and unmovable by others. It doesn't mean you become a doormat. It just means that a peaceful person remains a peaceful person even if others around you are not. It is actually a position of amazing strength.

I think the key in the situation with my neighbor would have been to focus on my own values rather than focus on opposing him, keeping my attention at as high of a level of consciousness as I could imagine. Compassion and patience should have factored in heavily, too. Long term, I could see the opportunity here. Obviously, there was something about my neighbor that made it difficult for me to stay on the high road, fears or old triggers of some kind, and this interaction was a chance to become aware of that and work on it. 

If a situation absolutely demands that direct resistance is needed, try to spend as little time at that as possible. Spend most of your energy creating a new paradigm rather than fighting on someone else's turf (no pun intended).

I'm reminded of the Pink Floyd song, "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert" off their brilliant anti-war album, The Final Cut. The title is a sharp critique of maddeningly endless geopolitical wars over—quite literally—completely arbitrary lines in the desert sand.

Love Your Enemies (i.e. Love Yourself)

from Matthew 5:44

Have you ever noticed that people hate the same qualities in other people that they themselves have?

Bossy people can't stand other bossy people. Nosy people are irritated by other nosy people. Hyper-sensitive people seem to lack patience with others.

You shake your head and think, "you just can't make this stuff up!"

Psychologists call this behavior projection. It is only one of many dysfunctional habits, but in my experience, it's positively uncanny how I see it just about everywhere.

Eastern religions would classify this under the energetic relationships of "karma." I think they are onto something. These patterns run like clockwork, and they are as predictable as Newton's Laws of Physics.

This form of projection helps me to understand the command of Jesus to "love your enemies" (Luke 6:28; Matthew 5:44)

You should love your enemies, because your true enemy is yourself. The qualities in others that offend you so much are keys to missing pieces of yourself.

We like to portray a glossy picture of ourselves—whether it's our resume, online dating profile or Facebook page. But those documents rarely tell the full story of who we are. It's easier to think about the qualities that we like and ignore our less than noble features.

When we hate other people, there is a reason why they irk us so much and get under our skin. There's some unfinished emotional business there. We may try to disassociate ourselves from the parts we don't like to admit that we have and project those traits onto others, instead.  It's a form of denial.

The people who offend us offer us a key to our own wholeness. Because if it is true that our hatred of others is a projection of our own internal baggage, then when we attempt to cut ourselves off from them, we are also cutting ourselves off from a part of ourselves—a messy, dark, dirty part of ourselves, but a part nonetheless. We can't be truly whole unless, by definition, we accept each and every part of ourselves. And in accepting those pieces, we find wholeness—Shalom—Peace—A peace that surpasses all understanding.

You cannot hate someone without turning into them. Even if your dislike others else does not start off as a projection of yourself, if you continue the process of hatred, you will eventually turn into them—at least, the qualities in them that you hate. It's Greek Tragedy. It's what happened to Darth Vader. You are what you hate. The only way out of this inevitable trap is to not hate them:  Love your enemies. Do good to those who hurt you. Prayer for those who persecute you. It all makes sense. Hated will take control over you, which is why love is the path of true freedom.

Jesus brings us to a unity that is both cosmic and microscopic, external and internal. Yes, Jesus is calling all of creation into oneness. But in doing so, let's not forget he is also calling each individual person into wholeness with her or himself in the process.

Our enemies always tell us something about ourselves. Therapists and other healers know that our enemies are always a key to our own growth. Our enemies are our best teachers.

Separation is myth. Oneness is the ultimate reality that Jesus pointed toward. That truth is evident in many shapes and ways, but to me our tendency to project our self hatred onto others shows me the wisdom of Jesus.

I will be further exploring these topics in upcoming posts, stay tuned!

Checklist for Love -- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

 

A New Commandment

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34 (NIV)

Many argue that the Gospel of John passage is Jesus specifically telling the disciples to love other Christian disciples. Elsewhere in Scripture, Jesus is clear that the extent of this love includes everyone--even enemies, outcasts, sinners and anyone not in our comfort zone.

Unfortunately, sometimes "other Christian disciples" and "enemies" are one and the same thing. In any case, the demands of love span from those closest to us to the most distant.

Checklist for Love

Now that we have the commandment to love one another, it begs the questions: How? What does it mean for Christians to love others? This certainly requires deep thought, meditation and practice. Perhaps it calls for trial & error. It is easy to dismiss "love" as merely sentimental, as a feeling rather than an action.

Paul gives us an idea of what love looks like in the famous passage in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. It is a popular reading for weddings, but its reach goes far beyond that.

I like to look at Paul's beautiful words as a checklist. It holds us accountable. "Love one another" is a powerful commandment--jaw-dropping, life-changing, paradigm-altering, heaven-and-earth-shaking, in fact. It is also open ended enough that we can find it all too easy to ignore. The word "love" is so big and the scope is so broad that we can end up doing nothing at all--it goes without saying that we will fall short, which often becomes license for inaction or downright contradiction.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 helps stave that off. Paul keeps the magic of love while stripping it of its needless sentimentality. This where the rubber hits the road, as we shall see.

[The headers below are based on the NIV translation, with the NRSV mentioned from time to time.]

Love is patient

We can all say we feel love. It is easy to say we value love. We can all agree that love is difficult in our complex, sinful world. We can affirm these things, proverbially pat ourselves on the back and then let the discussion die on the vine right then and there. Paul does not allow that. He presses us--So, have you been patient with others?

This is a very different question about love. Do we acknowledge that others are on a path of growth, that they have limitations and blind spots, too? Patience allows space for grace to enter, instead of being drowned out by our impulsive triggers and autonomic reactions.

Love is kind

A mentor of mine would always say that it is better to describe love than to use the word love itself. Love itself is like the sun--the source of all light but almost impossible to look at directly. It is better to understand the sun by looking at the plants that grow from its rays, the rainbows that emit from a prism of raindrops and the colors visible to the eye through shades and shadow.

In other words: I cannot look at the sun, but I like how you look in the sun.

This resonates brilliantly here: Kindness. I absolutely adore this word. It connotes gentleness, compassion, warmth. It is our default stance to others when we approach them in love.

It does not envy

It is interesting that this should be in a list of qualities of love. You might think that envy and love go hand in hand. Can you not love someone so much that you also envy them? Paul suggests no. 

The Christian journey is instead one of gratefulness for the gifts God has given. We can appreciate the gifts that others have without clinging to them. Envy is often more of a sign that we are not loving ourselves than it has to do with the other person. Yes, there are many lovely things about you. Perhaps I can learn from you, but I will not confuse that with wanting to be you to the point where I confuse my own identity with you. To love others, we must first love ourselves. Envy opens the door to objectifying someone else. It begins in self-hate and ends in destroying others.

It does not boast

This is the flip side of envy. People who boast seek to augment themselves, usually at the expense of others. It comes before pride in the list, but it is pride in action, as we shall see below. Whether we envy someone else or boast about ourselves, both express a lack of love for ourselves and a break from the fundamental equality of all people before God.

It is not proud.

It was no accident that Medieval scholars and saints consistently saw pride as the deadliest of the deadly sins. It is a direct affront to God as we claim ourselves as the source of our merit rather than God, from whom all good things flow. Pride therefore makes it hard to express love properly to others, as we have attempted to obstruct the fundamental relationship of God to ourselves.

Pride comes across as an air of superiority. Underneath it all, it probably comes out of a sense of inferiority. Neither is acceptable. Love is a level playing field; it is the great equalizer. We are all children of the God, equal in God's eyes. Pride prevents us from seeing that. Pride creates hierarchy--it says that this person is better or less than this other person.

 

It does not dishonor others

There is a difference between disagreement and dishonoring. We can and should offer each other constructive feedback. The NRSV simply uses the word "rude." Talking abruptly and crudely is not what love looks like.

That being said, a fake politeness that masks a subtle disregard does not work very well either. It does not ultimately matter if someone is polite or not--is the other person being dishonored, slandered, mocked or disregarded by your speech and behaviors?

The Google dictionary definition of "dishonor" says it is a failure to observe an agreement or principle. I love this. The "agreement" is what Scripture tells us--that all humans are brothers and sisters to each other and children of the same God. To "dishonor" someone is to disregard this principle which has been revealed to us through the Christian faith.

It is not self-seeking

I like the NRSV translation: "It does not insist on its own way."

Love is like a dance--it would not be very artistic if one person dragged the other person around the dance floor, caveman style. Instead, they both work together to move in harmony with each other, so that neither is hurt and both can express their gifts.

You probably cannot "insist on your own way" without running the risk of "dishonoring the other person."

It is not easily angered

People often cite Jesus getting angry at the money changers in the Temple as a justification for getting angry. We must remember that Jesus is slow to anger. He does not get angry very often in the Gospel accounts.

We are always looking for little slippery slopes to bypass Jesus' commandment to love. One instance of Jesus getting angry does not give us an unlimited permission to be impulsive or regularly angry. I have heard people reason it through this way: Jesus got angry once, so therefore "anger" is a universally good thing whenever I decide to express it. The actions of Jesus suggest there may be a place for anger--as long as it is measured and very, very rare.

God is slow to anger--are we?

NRSV says love "is not irritable or resentful." Both of those works connote someone who is at the brink of anger, and others around them will feel like they are walking on eggshells.

 

It keeps no record of wrongs.

I admit this is a hard one for me. There has to be a place for healthy accountability. It does no one any good to be a regular punching bag for someone else. But do you define someone by your perceived problems with them or by their noteworthy characteristics? Some people walk around all day dragging that ole ball-and-chain--every pain they have ever experienced. We ought to remember things. We should not sweep problems under the rug. But once they are dealt with, they should be released to the white light of the Holy Spirit.

The NRSV is helpful here. The previous line ends with "resentful" and continues with "it does not rejoice in wrongdoing." That hones in on what I am describing. People can be truly hurt by others, but when they carry that badge of victimhood around so prominently you can sometimes wonder if they are not actually happy that they were injured--it gives them something to complain about. They almost celebrate the injury as a way to make others feel bad by holding onto that resentment and keeping score. Or they overemphasize it as a way to give them license to mistreat the other.

Sr. Helen Prejean--the Catholic sister who works against the death penalty--says it is important how we talk about our sin. She asks: Do you want your worst action to define you as a person? In other words: Is a criminal on death row a murderer who happens to be a person--or are they a person who happens to have murdered someone? It is about how we define ourselves and others. Keeping a record of wrongs can prevent us from truly entering into a relationship with the other person. We have written the sin up and written the person off. It allows us to avoid becoming vulnerable and entering into the mystery of the person before us and be open to what they have to offer.

Jesus was constantly making space and time for people that others had written off. As we shall see, love has the final say, not condemnation.

 

Love does not delight in evil

You can see that this is a dangerous path. What starts with "envy" quickly translates into "resentful," turns into "rejoice in wrongdoing," which ultimately leads into "delight in evil." Paul maps out this descent into the dark side very well in his litany of terms. People become so convinced of their rightness, and so entitled to their anger, that they cross a line into rejoicing in evil often without realizing it. 

It is never good when bad things happen. By definition.

But rejoices with the truth.

This is where things get dicey. Just when someone is about to let go of their preconceived notions, step out of their protected shell and engage with others in openness and vulnerability, this line shoots out like a canon blast and can justify holding on to our petty arguments and divisions.

This is a tricky passage. What do you do if another group holds a belief or has a practice that you do not agree with? Even worse, what if you consider it to be evil? Some people take this line to mean that the only way to hold true to their beliefs is to exclude people who do not fit into that.

Christians have often looked on this verse as a reason to break relationship. However, Jesus rarely did that. He disagreed with many folks but so often in Scripture you see him reaching out. He stays in relationship. He stays in dialogue. He continues to be compassionate, loving and gentle.

Pope Francis recently described a Christian as someone more interested in building bridges than walls. The pontiff nails it. There is a time and a place for walls, yes. But I am not convinced we ever need a wall until someone can demonstrate that they have first worked tirelessly to build bridges.  Until someone can show that building a wall is a last resort--and not the first, impulsive action--then I will stand unconvinced that a wall is either necessary or in line with the demands of love.

Before we snap back reflexively into our comfort zone of divisions and categories of who's right and who's wrong, I'd like to focus on the word "rejoice" here. Sometimes we think of the word "truth" as being the deposit of dogmas and doctrines that our church denomination holds. One of the most popular guiding expressions when it comes to the movement toward Christian unity is called a "sharing of gifts" St. Pope John Paul II used that expression frequently, and it has become a guiding mantra for ecumenism. Simply put, we ought to testify to how God has been working in our lives.  We can share that joy with others. 

To "rejoice in the truth" does not mean we use our beliefs as a justification for divisions and exclusions. Nowhere does it say or imply that. If you disagree, read it again and slowly. This is a celebration.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

As if there were any doubt.

As if this passage has not been abundantly clear.

Can you imagine protecting your enemies?  You should, because this is what love looks like.

Trust is also a hard one. Trust in what, exactly? I hear Paul asking us to give the benefit of the doubt. Can we trust that there is something of the goodness of God in everyone, even our enemies?

Can you never give up hope that goodness will always prevail, no matter how deep the wound or how vast the division? 

All of this culminates in this astonishing capstone:

Love never fails.

Just in case you were looking for an out. Just in case all of the above demands and descriptions of love were still not enough. Just in case you still found a way to escape back into your protective bubble and hurdle proverbial grenades at your opponents, Paul comes out and says it outright: Love hangs in there. Love has the final say. In short, love works and love wins. 

After all, everything besides loves is just a bunch of senseless noise (1 Cor 13:1-3).

Will you hang in there, too?

Love is one of the hardest things to do. We look for any way that we can wiggle out of the demands of love and continue in our ways of divisions. One by one, Paul engages all the reasons we give ourselves to opt out of the path of love.

We all think love is a great idea. But do we think patience is a good idea? How about kindness? . . .and so on down the checklist.

Linus sums up what this post is about so well!



Why I Need the Religious Right

I would like to think I am difficult to categorize.

I hold some conservative views that would surprise my liberal friends. I have other views that would make not just conservatives but even liberals uneasy. I am probably more traditional than conservative and more radical than liberal. I am strongly Catholic but in a way that forever needs explanation--everyday Catholicism is filled with beauty, but the blasé cultural stereotype falls so far short.

 

Since the internet is not in any dire need of more self-indulgence, why am I taking the time to write all this on a blog about Christian unity?

The reason is this: There are a lot of words and phrases you could use to describe me. Each of those words needs context and qualification before they feel right, but there are many hats that fit and many others I can fit into by degree. However, out of all the categories that I can be associated with, out of all the labels that folks might think apply to me, at least in part, the designation “religious right” is almost certainly not one of them.

That is exactly why I need them.

***

The Southern Baptist Convention.

Some would say this is Ground Zero of the Religious Right. A key partisan figure in our society. A hotbed of intolerance. Some would say they manifest everything that is wrong in America. And they have horns and smoke comes out of their noses, too.

Others would call them the daring voices standing up for what is good and traditional. They manifest the soul of small town America. They dig their heels in and resist with all their might the culture's downward slide. Some might say they represent everything that is right in America.

Another way of saying this is: Welcome to the Culture Wars.

***

I would like to think I can find common ground with just about anybody. I enjoy the company of folks all over the religious and political spectrum. I do not just tolerate but enjoy diversity. I love a vigorous debate of opposing, well-formed, sincere views. I soak up just about all forms of diversity, with one notable exception: The intolerance I find within religious or political fundamentalism.

I wonder about the limits of tolerance--is it okay to be intolerant of intolerance?

Or is that just another form of intolerance itself?

***

Throughout my life I have found myself regularly associating with the religious right.

I keep asking—Why me? Why this? Out of all the groups to be in dialogue with, why have I found myself so consistently face-to-face with them? Is this the Holy Spirit jerking my chain or karma playing games with me?

I would absolutely enjoy sharing company with Buddhist monks or Hindu priests. I have a lot in common with many mainline Protestants. But almost as if it's right on the schedule of some cosmic clockwork, I find myself face-to-face with the religious right--whether it be in friendships, work or joint projects.

Don't get me wrong--I have a lot of good things to say about the Southern Baptists in general and the religious right as a whole. Some have become my friends. I have worked together with them in many circumstances. It is not that they are unfamiliar, it is just that--as a whole--they are difficult. For me.

It may be strange to hear that a person who works full-time in reconciliation between Catholic and Evangelical Christians is someone who is not comfortable with a significant part of that role.

But that is exactly the reason--I believe that is why they are in my life: I need the religious right because they are difficult for me.

***

The work of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue has many facets. It is academic; it is social. It takes places at conferences and in meeting rooms with long tables. It happens in the trenches of community service and neighborhood Bible studies. Representatives meet each other everywhere from the pages of peer-reviewed journals to long discussions over a favorite beverage. They share thoughts, they confront differences and they bring messages back to their respective communities.

However, the work does not truly begin--not really--until the moment you find yourself uncomfortable.

***

I have been an activist for much of my life. The bulk of my work has been trying to persuade people—trying to stir up action, trying to convince people, trying to organize people for the sake of the Gospel.  

Trying, trying, trying . . . to do what, exactly? To change hearts and minds, I would say--to help us imagine the Kingdom and work towards that Kingdom on earth, through God's grace.

I fancy myself like that man in Plato's cave who got a glimpse of something important who is desperately trying to turn the heads of everyone else to see. How to form conscience, open eyes, organize for positive change, preach the Kingdom of God--these are the matters I have brooded over for years.

In doing ecumenical and interfaith work, I have to suspend a lot of that. Or at least, change my approach dramatically. In this work--and perhaps in all work--change comes about in a different way.

It is easy to point to a group of people and start criticizing, saying, this is their fault here and this is their fault there. Whether this method actually works or not is another story, but it is easy to do.

I never wanted to be a judgmental activist. I always found that attitude and those methods counter-productive and disrespectful. In fact, I once led advocacy efforts half-jokingly subtitled "peace activism for the rest of us." It was an attempt to be a voice for social justice causes without the self-righteous egoic posturing common in activism which only ends up marginalizing both itself and the causes it champions.

Still, the urge to get others to be different has always somehow been an underlying, motivating impulse.

 

The prophetic voice has always come easily for me.  What has been harder to come by is the wisdom voice. I describe this as accepting others for who they are--beginning every relationship with this deep respect, interest and fascination for who they are--exactly as they are--at this moment. Coming without an agenda. "Patience" is the word that keeps coming to mind here. Letting go. Calming that all-to-quick autonomic impulse to rush into action, defend my views and resist what I fervently believe needs to be clarified or corrected.

There is still a need to advocate for causes--we are not to be paralyzed into inaction. However, a wisdom figure would do this through friendship and invitation rather than through force of any kind, including manipulation, pressure or even sometimes firm argumentation. The first step is respect: Tell me who you are and I will tell you who I am, and before we do anything else let's just sit with that for a while.

(This section owes a debt to Richard Rohr and Walter Brueggeman. See this piece. Brueggemann suggests that the three sections of Hebrew Scriptures--Torah, Prophets and Wisdom--roughly correspond with the three main stages of human development).
 

***

The paradox is that if change is going to come at all, it will come most readily when you quit trying to change things and simply respect everything as it is right now. That moment of sincere acceptance--and it has to be sincere--creates the space for movement.

***

It is easy to write off the Southern Baptists and say these are narrow minded people who are brimming with intolerance. There is always someone they are opposed to. Anti-gay is the current one. Always anti-someone.  Anti-Catholic is an old favorite and reliable go-to. There are still some rather steamy anti-Catholic blogs you can find, and some folks are more than happy to disseminate them through the SBC's twitter hashtags.

Contemplatives tell us the ego defines itself by being opposed to other things, by grouping: I am this so therefore I am not that. In that scenario, however, the end result is that you always need an enemy. You cannot have an identity until there is someone to compare yourself with who is not like you. When the ego needs a fix to affirm itself, it predictably bashes someone. Conflict is inevitable so long as we are living out of the ego stage.

 

They say this is what Jesus meant when he urged people to look beyond the transient nature of this world to discover that which is eternal. The ego is an overall word for this false self of pride, jealousy, competition and other qualities Christians have long identified as sinful--expressions of our "fallen" nature.

***

The religious right is the group I do not know what to do with.

I often try to ignore them. I pretend they just do not exist. 

At first, this sounds reasonable, and it works for a while--we disagree, so I will live my life as I see fit, and they will do the same and we will muddle through life the best we can. We will simply coexist. It is not bad, and heck, at least we are not killing each other.

Our paths inevitably intersect, however. We do share the same planet, after all.

I think to myself that they are the source of all our problems. I say, subconsciously or otherwise: It would be better if their viewpoint simply did not exist.

I might approach my ecumenical work with the silent agenda that the only way for us to move forward is to convert them all to my way of looking at things. At least get them into the ballpark.

This is not to say that there is not a place for legitimate growth. Perhaps we would all be better off if some things were to change. However, I am talking here about a problem which is my attitude and agenda that I bring to the conversation before it even happens. This is the interior work I need to do. I need the religious right to remind me of this.

***
 

Jesus told us to share the Good News. He did not tell us to homogenize the world into our own image. However, this is what I see the religious right doing which I oppose so strongly. In my opposition, my approach has to be something different.

Even naming my concern in the above paragraph could be my ego's sneaky way of getting a jab in. And even stating that covers it up even more by feigning humility while letting the original comment still stand. It's good cop bad cop, ego style. I get to make my jab and then get the redemption that comes via apologizing for the jab. The ego can hide so well behind many layers.

Better people than me have pointed out that this impulse to convert is actually a sinister form of violence--I want to erase all the things about you that are distinctive, everything that I do not like about you which makes me uncomfortable--which ultimately leads me to say: I just want to erase you.

In doing this, my ego derives its identity in its opposition to another group, and the only solution is obliteration of the other--a goal that may never be possible since I need them for my own identity.

If I go through my life telling myself I am tolerant, except for groups that are hard lined fundamentalists, then am I not doing something very similar? How do I witness the one human family if I choose to ignore or metaphorically eradicate people who are difficult for me?

My intolerance to what I perceive as their intolerance is not good enough.

Jesus pointed out that even sinners love their own friends. How we relate to those we consider "enemy" is pivotal to the Christian witness. The paradox is that those we consider our "enemy" are actually much closer to us that we ever care to imagine. The very fact that they trigger us so strongly demonstrates how personal and visceral their resonance with us actually is.

The surprise that comes is that in order to accept others as they are, I must also accept myself as I am--the two go hand in hand. My intolerance of them might be a signpost of an intolerance I have of myself.

Even these people? Even the Southern Baptists? Are they not the ones who are doing all sorts of things I do not like or support?

Yes, even them. Especially them--especially the group you do not want to be in relationship with, that is who you have to reach out to.

***

It is probably no surprise that contemplative religious monks who are sometimes the ones most drawn to ecumenical and interfaith work. It forces you into an encounter with yourself. It provides the raw material for meditation. Encountering someone different, especially someone who makes you uncomfortable, puts you face-to-face with your own jagged edges.

Contemplatives are invested in finding and overcoming unhealthy attachments, to use a Buddhist word. Coming face-to-face with someone who is different gives you an opportunity to work on yourself. Contemplatives take a proactive stance toward their own fears and often go right toward them.

I have read some Southern Baptist blogs. A number of folks are very sympathetic to Catholics and are very willing to work on common areas. There is also a strong, more old school Baptist mindset of people who are very anti-Catholic and not shy about expressing it. It can be hard to read some of that. My first impulse is to want to write back and engage in a debate. That can be a worthwhile thing to do. But for the sake of my own growth, I sometimes hold back and first try to understand.  Instead of that knee jerk defensive response, I cultivate patience and simply accept--accept the situation, accept what is, accept myself in my triggered state and accept the other people.

The reply may still come--but it may come from a gentler, more humbler plateau, a more informed place, a more self-reflective place, rather than a knee-jerk reaction, and is that not just a healthier way to be in relationship with anybody, including a relationship with myself? It's Newtonian--actions cause reactions, angers leads to anger, and violence continues in an unbroken chain throughout the eons--that is, until grace comes in. Letting my triggers constantly manipulate me is a less happy, less empowered place to be. Always reacting and responding from the place of my own triggers makes me feel like I am dangling on an existential fishing line--but I am the only one holding the rod and reel and I can claim the power to change my reaction.

The presence of these knee-jerk triggers then begins to look different. Instead of something to fight back and immediately oppose, they are a beacon on the road map of my own personal growth and self-awareness. Their presence shows me where my unfinished internal work is.

***

The funny thing you find out when you get in relationship with someone is that they are not as one-dimensional as you may have thought--or even wanted. It would be so much easier to put them all in a box with a single label. However, there are always more than small nuances of difference. Despite the best attempts by SBC President Ronnie Floyd to set the tone of this year's Southern Baptist Convention with themes of "clear agreement, visible union and extraordinary prayer," no group is quite that monolithic. There is a spectrum of ideas and a spectrum of people.

It might have been easy for me to write off a group of people as just one thing, only to find out that there are many tones and timbres present. Everyone has a story to tell. It is so tempting to reduce them to just the religious right or just narrow or just intolerant, but I run a huge risk of being guilty of that same thing by rushing to these conclusions.

I need to discover their humanity in all its depth and nuance--and that requires discovering my own and then responding to them from that place.

Getting together sometimes means resolving differences. First and foremost, it means working on our own selves to be okay with difference--why am I uncomfortable around you? That is my problem and I should not make it your problem.

It is when you are intolerant of intolerance you may be called and driven to be a prophetic voice and say this is not right, something has to change. There is no question about that. You may have to do that as a person of conscience. But you have got to be in relationship with that person and that group. You have got to be self-reflective. And in doing that, the person who changes--first and foremost--is you.

The civility we need will not come from watching our tongues.
It will come from valuing our differences.
-- Parker J. Palmer