The American psychiatrist Irvin Yalom is known for his work on the existential dimension of our lives. Borrowing from theologian Paul Tillich, he uses the language of “ultimate concerns” not for God as the ultimate object of all our activity and thought, but for the ground of our being in the givens of life with which we all must contend: death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness.
The vast majority of his work explores those themes, however what first put him on the map was his work on group therapy. We are such social creatures that our interactions with one another deeply touch the core of who we really are. We assemble our sense of self out of how others see and respond to us, and the ways we respond to them reveal much. Yalom points out that whenever we meet new people, and certainly when we sit down with a new group, we start sizing them up: who is more powerful, who is more attractive; who we might like to trust, and who we might like to control. If you secretly poll members of a group about who is the most popular, they will tend to agree fairly quickly.
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With the great and the good assembled at the house of the leader of the Pharisees, Jesus confronts them with a challenging parable, and then speaks directly to the leader.
He tells them that he sees the game they are playing, and how they have sized one another up. They all seem to know where they stand, and they are protective of their places in both the feast and the world. They live in fear of losing face. They cling to external markers of respect.
This is not some insignificant social game, but is in fact as true of their interactions with each other and their host as of their interactions with God. The ways in which they have ordered their lives and their world and have come to understand themselves are on full display, and it’s actually embarrassing how transparent they are. It is a deeply disturbing thing to be caught shoring up one’s social position, and much more to be found trying to falsely cultivate spiritual superiority in the sight of the eternal and ever-living God, who knows all and holds all.
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I am just about at-peace with myself most days. I can tolerate my own company, and I am only slightly unsettled by my own thoughts. I know a good portion of my most obvious flaws, and the people around me don’t make me too uncomfortable with the ones I’d rather not know. I’ve learned, even, that some of the things I hate about myself are not so very bad. This is good.
There are, of course, people who are not so impressed with my charms as those I surround myself with. There are folks who would instantly size me up and see right through me, and have no hesitation about cutting me right to the core, perhaps not so very unlike what Jesus did to that poor Pharisee. Partly correctly and partly out of fear, I limit myself to those situations in which I can continue to think I’m pretty at-peace with myself, in which I can live with who I am, and in which I can imagine I’m doing alright. This is a precarious thing.
I have to ask, then, whether this is how I am with God, too, and of course it is. There are parts of me that I don’t really know how to live with, and which I certainly have not yet figured out how to offer up to God. There is shame and there is pain, as there is for us all, and there are regrets uniquely my own. The stakes are different with God: we risk not just losing face, or a place at the table, but our sense of our own existence, the ground of our being. Something deeper than a confrontation with death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness seems to hang in the balance if we really let ourselves be seen before God.
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Jesus tells the leader of the Pharisees that he has to stop trying quite so hard. He has to stop surrounding himself with the obsequious and precarious people who are just as concerned with social graces and position and power as he is. It’s time for him to let himself be seen, to be found, and to be loved.
If we can let ourselves be in the presence of other people without enlisting them in this internal game about the parts of ourselves we are afraid to see, we will find that we are not so isolated as we fear. If we can be touched, hugged, seen, and loved by someone else without having to buy their affections, then perhaps we are not already numbered among the dead. If we can stand to be who we are among other people who remind us of ourselves, then maybe we are not so isolated, after all. If we stop chasing after illusory security, and let ourselves enter gracefully into the reality of simply being, then we will find that our lives are not so meaningless as we fear.
God is always with us, and we are always with ourselves. God already knows the things we are afraid to face or to admit. Other people already see our sadness and our fear and our shame. It’s okay, and we’re okay, more or less.
We have to stop crowding around the most exclusive tables that will have us, and let ourselves be numbered simply among the living. They don’t bite, at least not much. It is such a gift to discover that others are not, in fact, waiting to destroy us. In fact, if someone really does try to hurt us, to cut us down to size, more often than not we will see that they are hurting, they are afraid, and their efforts are actually quite futile and self-sabotaging attempts to connect.
We always seem to be testing other people to figure out whether and when they will reject us, and what it will take to continue to secure our place at the table with them.
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Life is not a test, it is not a game, it is a gift. Life is ours, and our selves, our souls and bodies, are just this thing we inhabit, by which we are able to have meaningful contact with one another, and in which we can know that we are always being lovingly held in God’s sight. We don’t need grand accomplishments or power or control; we need a bit of love, some food, and that’ll do.
May you know that you are never alone in the trials and insults of life. May you know that your wretchedness is not so unique, and that your sins are already known and understood by the God who made you as you are. May you love, anyway. May you live, anyway. May you seek out those places where you will be celebrated simply for your presence and your being, and let yourself risk loving others who have nothing to offer you but companionship and love in this strange and glorious life.