Psalm 1 and Your True Self

In just a few days, we will begin a New Year.  It’s time for us to get used to writing “2014” on our checks, documents, and other paperwork.  (It usually takes me until March to become accustomed to writing the new number!)  A New Year always presents us with a chance to begin afresh, to recommit ourselves to the way we want to live, and to reflect on the priorities of our lives. 

As we begin a new year, I want to invite you to consider the Psalm that is at the beginning of the book of Psalms.  When the editors of the Psalms assembled this book long ago, they carefully positioned Psalm 1 at the beginning.  How can Psalm 1 help us with our own new beginning this January?

"Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers,” the psalm begins.  Psalm 1 begins by casting a vision of how not to live.  According to Psalm 1, there are bad ways to live.  There are unhelpful, unhealthy, unwise ways to organize one’s life.

The psalm continues, “But their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.  They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.  In all that they do, they prosper.”  Likewise, there are good ways to live, ways that nourish health, wisdom, productivity, generativity, joy, and delight.

It occurs to me that what Psalm 1 may be describing is the difference between living according to your true self, and living according to a false self.  The terms “true self/false self” were popularized by the Christian mystic Thomas Merton, and many of us have found them to be very useful concepts for understanding how God wants us to live.  Your “true self” is the “real you,” who you are at your core, the “you” that was created in the image of God.  

When we are living out of our true self, or in congruence with our true self, we will have a strong sense of where we are going in life, but we will not be anxious about getting there.  We will be able to make difficult choices and decisions.  However, when others disagree with our decisions, we will be able to stay connected with them and to continue to love them.  We will not be excessively concerned about what others think of us.  In the language of Psalm 1, we will be like a strong, vital tree nourished by streams of water -- rooted and grounded.

What does it mean when we are living out of a “false self”?  Our “false self” is something like a mask that we put on because we think that is what others want us to be, or because we think that will help us to be successful, or because we think that is what is expected of us.  But this mask, this ‘false self,’ does not come from a deep place within us.  It is imposed on us.  When we are living out of a “false self,” we will tend to be preoccupied with what others think, and we may be restless, always feeling off-center.  Again to use the language of Psalm 1, we will be tossed to and fro, like the "chaff that the wind drives away."

Living from the “false self” may be what Psalm 1 describes as the “way of the wicked,” or the “path that sinners tread,” or “the seat of scoffers.”  It is not the path that God is calling us to, but is a path that is imposed on us by the world or by our fears or by what others think.  The True Self is grounded in God’s love and God’s will, and is deeply rooted, like a tree by a flowing stream.  It is the “way of the righteous.”

What I have found to be particularly helpful about the concepts of “True Self/False Self” is that they have a less moralistic tone.  When many of us hear words like “righteous” and “wicked,” we immediately shift into a very moralistic, legalistic, judgmental way of thinking.  We imagine a stern judge who administers rewards to the righteous and punishments to the wicked.

But when we are able to think in terms of “True Self” and “false self,” we are led to think of our lives in less judgmental ways, and more holistic ways.  Living out of the True Self is not something we do because we’re afraid of being punished if we don’t do it.  It is something that is deeply, deeply good for us.  And because it is deeply good for us, it will in turn be deeply good for the world.  Because we will be bringing our best selves to the world, and it is always true that the greatest gift we can give the world is ourselves, not what we can accomplish or perform.  

What do you think of when you think of your True Self?  What does your True Self love?  What does your True Self want?

The Importance of Grief

Maybe it's because we're in that part of the year when the days are getting increasingly darker.  Or maybe it's because we're moving through the beautifully dark season of Advent in the church.  Whatever the reason, I've been thinking a bit lately about the importance of grief.  Some people might expect that thinking about grief would be really depressing.  But strangely, it hasn't been depressing at all; it's actually been peculiarly comforting. My own sense is that, in the months and years to come, grief is going to be a very important dimension of life, leadership, and ministry in our world.

But this presents a problem.

It presents a problem because our success-oriented, pleasure-oriented, North American culture does not do grief well.  Rather than acknowledging the losses that come to us, and willingly entering our grief over those losses, we tend to force ourselves to smile and say, "I'm doing just fine."  "Strength to strength!" we proclaim. We tend to think that life ought to be successful and pleasant, and because losses don't feel good, we deny them, pretend they aren't that bad, and try to move around or past them.

The trouble is that losses don't just go away.  When we refuse to acknowledge our losses, it's as though they build up inside of us, and they will gradually drag us down.  The degree to which we refuse to acknowledge our own losses (trying to shut them out of our minds) will be the degree to which we are unable to be with others in their losses.  Their losses may remind us of our own (which we are trying really hard not to think about), so we will tend to avoid and keep our distance from them.

Grief obviously applies to the Big Losses of life, as when someone close to us dies.  But there are a myriad of other losses that can come to us.  Loss of a job; a break-up in a relationship; damage to our reputation; financial trouble; someone bullying our child at school; failure at a project; theft of some piece of our property; a decline in the status and prosperity of our country; a drop in confidence in our political leaders; shrinking attendance in churches; and on and on.  At this point in history, we are in the midst of quite a bit of loss.  Grieving is not all we should do in response to these losses; but it is an important component of our response. 

A key task for leaders in the coming years will be to develop our own capacity to grieve our own losses, and to help those whom we lead to grieve theirs. "Blessed are those who mourn," said Jesus, "for they will be comforted."  Grieving our losses will be one key part of moving forward, rather than being something we should avoid at all costs.