"More popular than Jesus." John Lennon, 1966
I grew up the baby of six, in a house predominantly filled with women.
Wonderful women.
Women full of life and laughter.
Women who enriched my sense of what it meant to be a boy, and ultimately a man.
‘Noticing up’ came with the territory I guess. Literally and figuratively. I saw beautiful women who, among so many other things, enjoyed all of the usual trappings of adolescence.
Make-up. Fashion. Boys. (Yes. We mustn’t forget the boys. I could name them. Each and every one.)
I adored my sisters. And I loved my mom also. Still do.
My sisters filled our house with music. Record players seemed to be everywhere and so did the sounds of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
Elton, the Beach Boys, James Taylor, Rod Stewart, disco, the Mammas and the Pappas and everything in between. But mostly there was the Fab Four and their melodious mantras of frenzied freedom.
“All you need is love, (listen for it) …altogether now, na, nana, na na”
“Love. Love is all you need,” they chanted.
I believed it for a very long time. Now I call bullsh*t.
According to Abraham Maslow, not to mention my stomach, we also need food. We need food, water, warmth and rest. And these are just the basic needs. We also need safety and security, and we need to belong. Then there is our desire to accomplish something of value, and to feel like we’ve accomplished something of value. It would seem, that in the end, we would also like to be deeply fulfilled in our lives.
Yet that lyric lingers in my head.
We humans can become very cozy with the voices in our heads. Often, they loop a particular-narrative about ourselves, others and the world around us, that we more or less accept as truth. Like ‘love is all you need.’
Some of them chronical the capital ‘T’ kind of Truths that convey a certain authority to govern the universe. Others represent the small ‘t’ truths that catch our attention and nag at us. Nag at us like some fly hovering around our heads in the black of night as we try to fall asleep. Especially on those cold, winters’ nights when we find ourselves sandwiched between a warm sheet and a stack of blankets.
I’ve experienced the full spectrum.
At their best, these soundtracks fire our imagination and affirm us.
They ignite us for good.
They propel us forward.
At their worst, they are a bagpipe death dirge, flooding us with self-doubt and self-loathing.
They are joy stealers.
And they can be paralyzing.
Most of us do not live in the extremes. We live in middle ground. We live “somewhere between the madness and mundane.1”
But ideas have consequences.
Even in-between.
Perhaps especially in-between.
And I’ve noticed that the words we use to describe the stuff in the middle can often be clumsy and less helpful.
Like the bedtime flies, we hope these perplexing thoughts will go away on their own.
We try to ignore them. It’s human nature.
But we kind of know better.
I’ve discovered the hard way that we need to muster up the courage to face the bedtime chill, hunt down the flies and destroy them like some bloodthirsty gladiator.
Why?
Because I’ve learned that love isn’t all I need. I’ve learned that “love is not the only thing. It’s the best thing. Love is never everything. But it’s the best thing.2” And I’ve learned that if I don’t work out the bad ideas in my life, I can easily get way off-course.
I belong to a tribe commonly referred to as Christians.
Surprising to some, I belong to this tribe by choice.
Our tribe is not perfect. Far from it actually. We can often be our own worst enemies.
In our sacred texts, the central hero of the story invites his crew to other-centred living. At the risk of being repetitive, permit me to repeat that for effect (affect),
Other.
Centred.
Living.
(Insert enormous asterisk here.)
*
(No. Bigger)
*
(Nope. Even bigger)
*
*Members of my tribe – including yours truly - have sometimes confused other-centred living with other-centred management. Which is to say, we’ve grown the need to correct others in their thinking or behavior, often for our own benefit. Erroneously, we developed a need to be right all the time. We’re guilty of talking AT people rather than talking WITH people. We’re guilty of being certain about everything there is to know about this life and the life-after. We’ve been way off-course.
We’re guilty of being rude, brash, and even arrogant. We can be bigoted, self-righteous know-it-alls who are certain that everything they believe is correct, and everything that others believe is corrupt. And we’ve been way off-course.
Worse, in history, we’ve done some pretty crazy sh*t in the name of the One we purport to follow. Oddly enough, in direct contradiction to the easily understood call to other-centred living. I think I understand why. (That’s for another time.) But that’s simply no excuse.
And it’s time we own up to it. We’ve been way off-course.
And It’s time I own up to it. I’ve been way off-course.
If I’ve acted like a jack*ss around you, or mistreated you, or dismissed you and your thoughts… then you have every reason to dismiss me. Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed by some of my own stupidity. I hope you’ll give me a second chance, but if you can’t, I own that. My bad.
I am sorry.
Please forgive me.
Please know this. It was me. I wasn’t practicing other-centred living.
It was me, letting bad ideas masquerading as good ideas take me way off course.
In a strange, ironic twist of fate, I have become the quote that John Lennon uttered one year after my birth. I’ve let bad ideas become more popular than the Jesus I desire to follow. I’ve let the good news become, well, not-so-good. And I believe other-centred living is good news.
Good news.
For peace and justice.
For alienation and reconciliation.
For me and others.
I’m curious,
What ideas do you need to rethink?
Notes
1 Out of the Grey, Diamond Days
2 Mark Heard, Love Is Not The Only Thing
A big turn around for me Paul was a book I read a few years ago called The Myth of Certainty. A more recent visitation is the book The Sin of Certainty by Peter Enns. Also recently (although I haven't viewed it as yet), is a mea culpa by Frank Shaeffer wherein he apologizes for being part of the "certain" people who so distorted north american evangelicalism. Have a wee look.
John Cormier
Posted by: John Cormier | October 31, 2017 at 05:34 PM