Peace Hacks

Many cultures have a word for it. German folk call it “Freudenfreude.” To Buddhism, it’s “Mudhita,” an intentional meditation on the joy of others.

We have a word for it – “compersion” – but I’ll wager that you’ve never heard it; we don’t talk much about other people’s joy, or how we might help them find more. The American dream doesn’t make room for much beyond the more selfish pursuits.

As a 57-year-old who has chased many things – even caught a few – I’ll testify that it’s a dream that doesn’t quite deliver on its promises.

I live in one of the most popular cities in the US, in one of the biggest houses I’ve ever owned, with more discretionary income than I could have ever procured on my own. I travel/rest/play/hobby, etc. – frequently – and have checked most of the boxes on my bucket list.

My attitude towards life, and my experience of her ups and downs isn’t much different than when I attended grad school, living in the ratty (literally) attic “dormitory” of an inner-city church, balancing a financial situation that was constantly in the red. My large car (dubbed “The Holy Spirit” by an irreverant friend) had no AC to shield me from Dallas’ sweltering heat.

If I moved to a hipper city, bought a bigger house, married a more amazing human, kicked a few more bucket list items, got the fame that I’ve always dreamed of, etc., things wouldn’t feel much different than they do now. To this point, whatever joy I’ve experienced has had nothing to do with homes or possessions or whatever other ingredients make up the American dream.

Most of the happiness I’ve found has been associated with friends and family.

On my deathbed, I won’t be remembering how I built a Jeep, for example. I might remember all the fun I had in it with the kids, or that time I drove my hot girlfriend to a brewery and she sang on the ride home.

The top (of the Jeep) was off, the sun was shining, her black hair was flowing in the wind. Open-container laws may have been broken.

I’ll never forget it.

I’ve known for awhile now that my happiness is inextricably tied to others. Recently, however, my understanding has been stretched a bit. Maybe it’s the spawn of parenting; constantly expending my energy on behalf of someone else – “serving others” like never before.

I’m now daydreaming about expending my time, energy, and resources on making others happy, even people who are undeserving. It doesn’t happen often, mind you, but it’s happening. I just don’t know what to do with it, and I’m struggling to give it credibility. The precepts and commandments of the American Dream ring through my head; so powerful that they exert authority over my religion, though it should be the other way around.

I’m no expert at Freudenfreude, but as a beginner its fascinating to take a break from ruminating about the intricate details of my life and reflect instead, for example, on the successes of some of my friends. One built his own church, led it across the Devil’s lawn, and now leads one of the only LGBTQ inclusive churches in Denver.

It’s difficult to think about his success without thinking about my lack of it – envy and shame are the opposite of Freudenfreude. But when I get past the garbage, it’s peaceful and freeing to reflect on what he’s done, and what it must feel like to sit back on Sunday morning in a Synagogue that was built 100 years ago, looking out at the faces of generous, open God-followers who have learned to see and love Queer folk as God does.

Puts a tear in my eye.

Why not spend my time reflecting on the joy of others instead of all the ways I’ve screwed up, or the many things that can go wrong? My mind needs a break, a big one, and this sounds like a new way to move forward.

Erika Weisz, an empathy researcher and postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Harvard University, said the feeling closely resembles positive empathy — the ability to experience someone else’s positive emotions. A small 2021 study examined positive empathy’s role in daily life and found that it propelled kind acts, like helping others. Sharing in someone else’s joy can also foster resilience, improve life satisfaction and help people cooperate during a conflict.

I can also invest in the joy of others, giving away things that are “mine” so that someone can have more fun with them. If I give my money away, I can spend some time thinking about the people who were blessed by it, or just go out and give it directly to people in need. When I’m sad/lonely/depressed/etc., I’ll have their smile etched in my brain for easy access.

Moving forward, I’m not sure how this will look for me and my family, but it’ll need to be a staple, something that I’m sure will move us closer to the peace and hope that we’re looking for.

To do that, we’ll have to convince ourselves that we have everything we need, that there’s not some “thing” just on the horizon that will turn our happiness dial up a few notches, a dream that requires everything we have.

The Bible calls that “idolatry,” i.e., giving power to things that don’t have power. It is openly condemned throughout our holy writ, probably because it results in so little joy and so much heartache.

If we can manage to stop running from the life that’s sitting in our laps, we’ll have room for other, much more productive pursuits, maybe a bit more Mudhita.

 

We boldly call it “The Word of God,” a book that allegedly contains the values, precepts, commandments and stories of God and his people. It is our holy writ, and everything we do and think revolves around it.

For argument’s sake, let’s momentarily agree: that God exists, and the Old and New Testaments actually came from he/she/it, through humans, and contain no appreciable error. Who would argue that we should form a worldview around them and grind whatever grist the mill requires to obey their commandments.

By definition, they would derive from a ken that outstrips ours by much, so we can’t expect them to always make sense, or consistently appear “just” to our much more limited grasp of reality.

But because the Bible appears in written form, we can interpret it just about any way we choose. Antebellum Southern Christians used it to justify slavery, as the Nazi’s did with their project, and the Crusaders with theirs. Prior to the sexual revolution, scripture was used to harass divorced folk. Today, we use it to villify the Gay community.

The many different flavors of Christianity don’t simply draw different conclusions about who might be God’s enemy, we draw different conclusions about what the Bible is all about – the main point of scripture – then use that to govern our interpretations. And so there will always be multiple expressions of Bible-believing Christianity, each seeing a different, overarching narrative in the scriptures that governs what each individual passage says.

A “governing hermeneutic” if you will.

For example, some Christians believe that the most important thing is to stop sinning, with the majority of scripture focusing on “sin management.” To these folks, gaining victory over human weakness defines the crux of the Bible, each passage interpreted with this in mind.

My tribe tends to see the crucifixion of Jesus as the main point, so we spend much of our time talking about how everything in the Bible points back to “the cross.” I call it “staurocentrism,” and it doesn’t work very well as a governing hermeneutic.

One tribe in particular sees a “Save America” message in the Bible: a clear, consistent calling in scripture to fight the Godless sinners who seek the destruction of our country. Say what you will about them; while we sit around talking, they went to Washington and actually stormed the Capitol, because that’s how, ultimately, they read their Bibles.

There are many more expressions of Christianity, each with a different view of scripture’s main point, a hermeneutic that governs their understanding of God’s mind.

Jesus had his own opinion about the thrust of scripture, but it had nothing to do with spirituality, politics, salvation, or any of the other things his followers believe are most important:

” In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” ~ Matthew 7:12

“The Law and The Prophets” refers to the scriptures as they existed in Jesus’ day, what we call the Old Testament. Make no mistake that Jesus affirmed their veracity almost every time he mentioned them. It was just as much “The Word of God” to him as it is to us.

And if the New Testament is equal to the Old, it’s safe to say that Jesus summed up the entirety of scripture with this one simple thought.

If you’re looking for God’s governing hermeneutic, here it is.

This wasn’t a mere passing thought. Jesus was sitting atop the Mount of Olives, delivering his “Sermon on The Mount,” or better, his law; his way of seeing and doing things. This scene would have reminded any first-century Jewish person of an episode in the Old Testament where Moses sat atop Mt. Sinai to recieve the “10 Commandments,” the core of Jewish law.

God’s way of doing things.

So why are there no expressions of Christianity that see The Golden Rule as the main thrust of scripture, subjecting their theological precepts to its authority, plastering “Do Unto Others” on the walls of their sanctuary, singing songs about it, etc?

Honestly, if you asked me – just a month ago – how Jesus summed up the Bible, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. I’ve been a Christian for ~20 years now, with 122 hours of formal study under my belt. I’ve never heard this on Sunday morning and I certainly don’t remember filtering any of our theological ruminations through it during class.

On the rare occasion that we do talk about this, we don’t come close to saying that it sums up our Bible.

It might be that the Golden Rule is not spiritual, or theologically deep enough. It’s too simple, right? Too “humanitarian.” It makes no mention of the crucifixion of Jesus, salvation, sin avoidance, embracing the right eschatology, heaven, hell, or saving America from the homosexual liberals.

Don’t we have bigger fish to fry than treating people the way we want to be treated? Anybody can do that.

But if God’s mind is summed up by the Golden Rule, who has the better faith; someone who doesn’t believe in God but takes “Do Unto Others” seriously, or someone who believes all the right things but almost entirely ignores it?

Wouldn’t it be better to be a godless “Golden Rule” pagan (there are many) than a heterosexual Christian who studies his Bible, attends church every Sunday while regularly hurling condemnations at the non-Christian world via social media?

I’ll remind us (again – sorry for being so repetitive) of Jesus’ rendition of “Judgment Day,” i.e., that moment when God, according to our scriptures, gathers all of humanity to himself and decides who goes to hell.

Nobody will be judged based on religion, theology, adherence to mainstream Evangelical moral precepts, or whether or not we baked cakes for the right people.

According to Jesus, every human will be judged solely on how we treated each other.

Then [God] will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. ~ Matthew 25:41-43

I don’t know how to fit this into my Evangelical belief that all of my sins have been removed, that I no longer face the judgment of God (as St. Paul believed). Why didn’t Jesus throw us a bone here; something like, “If you believe the right things, this doesn’t apply to you”?

Regardless of how we might work this into our soteriology, us Bible-believers are forced to contend with the idea that God wants his followers – more than anything else, before everything else – to treat people as they want to be treated. It’s a law that we all understand, and one that we expect everyone around us to follow, believer or not.

It’s as if this law has been written on the heart of every human.

If I was in jail, or homeless, or without food, or a migrant who left his war-torn country to seek a new home, or a Gay person who grew up hearing that their orientation would land them in hell, et-al., I can tell you exactly how I’d want to be treated.

If the Bible is truly summed up by “Do Unto Others,” our ruminations about how to live as a Christian – from the purely theological to the purely practical and all points in between – should be mercilessly rammed through this filter before we make our conclusions, form our religions, and subject ourselves to whatever culture results.

That would do great violence to most Christian tribes, as it would to the way I do life, spend money, have fun, etc.

It would certainly change my social media game.

It’s much easier to live a life of prayer, Bible study, church attendance, a carefully cherry-picked moral code, and the occasional act of kindness.

But if the overarching, governing rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” we are all sinners of the highest order, damned, in need of a salvation that no human can procure.

Maybe that’s why we buried it.

I’m going to tell you what my religion is. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Period. Terminato. Finito. ~ Gene Wilder 

Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash

I try not to share my physical ailments on Social Media. Health struggles come part and parcel to oldness, and the internet, often awash with old folk posting their ailments, could care less.

Today, however, I must protest. I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis five or so years ago and along with that comes an occasional bout with eczema, i.e., my immune system decides to attack skin instead of joints. For the past two weeks I’ve resembled someone who rolled around naked in poison ivy for an hour or so.

It’s everywhere, and it’s awful. The topical analgesics don’t work anymore, and the steroids they put me on haven’t managed to keep it from spreading. I’ve had to make do with Benadryl, cold plunges, Ambien, fervent prayer, etc., trying to ride this out for the next week or so.

I feel sad, like a sick child watching through a bedroom window while his friends frolic in the summer sun.

Thankfully, my kids are mostly self-sufficient, and Elaine has been stepping in when she can to help with our day-to-day family stuff. The only thing I have to worry about is being uncomfortable. I’m excusing myself from perseverating over bills, people, future, or the many things I spend most of my emotional energy worrying about.

There’s only one issue.

It’s simple, clear, and outside of my control.

That’s a far cry from the nonstop, daily, without-rest worrying that I’m prone to. I’m not physically comfortable by any stretch, but with most of my worries out of the way, the world looks a little different.

Because sitting, lying down, and clothing makes things worse, I’ve taken to pacing back and forth in the cool of our basement, in the style of Adam, basking in the freedom that comes from putting worry in its place.

I keep asking, if my past has been so good, why am I so worried about the future?

Somehow, sequestered down here in the basement, my life feels bigger – fuller than it does when I’m thinking about all the things that might go wrong.

I have spent most of my life worrying about things that have never happened. ~ Unknown

It’s interesting to note how much head-space worry requires, and how much energy I spend nurturing something that has no positive payoff whatsoever. The only power it has is to get in the way of whatever happiness sits an arm’s length away.  I’ve always know this, cognitively speaking, but it takes a drastic, prolonged bout with suffering to make it real.

Sadly, after this skin issue goes away, it won’t be long before I’m back to “normal,” thinking constantly about everything that’s wrong with the world, shrinking my life back into some tiny, mundane thing that nobody wants to live.

I need a plan, some rhythm of intentionality to remind me of the lies that worry tells, and the life that it’s trying to keep me from.

That kind of freedom will require work, alot of it, but freedom never asks nearly as much as bondage.