Hatred, fear, and grace
Why publish what is mostly a conversation with myself, and a conversation which necessarily can only allude to some events, because greater detail would be to relate stories which are not mine to tell? My hope is that if the first few paragraphs resonate with your own experience, there may be something useful in what follows them. The James Alison lecture to which I refer is rewarding reading, and may help clarify some of my text. I assume his underlying Girardian understanding of humanity and Christian faith.
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I live with a pervasive self-hatred which constantly intrudes upon my sense of myself. It has undermined me for much of my life; I have been inches from suicide, and there is a never quite dormant urge to self-destruct. The burden this has placed on my life-partner is appalling. I fear I see its shadow in my children. God alone knows what damage I have wrought in the congregations I was called to serve.
I can see some of where this comes from. As a little kid, I was one of those who copped the hostility of the others. We had never heard the word "scapegoat," but those of us who were the scapegoats knew without doubt that we were hateful and useless. It was fine preparation for serving a congregation which chose to bolster its faith by scapegoating its ministers. Ironically, that experience was the trigger for profound and life-saving spiritual growth, but it almost destroyed me first. Later, I began to recognise the role a deep shame in my family history had in fostering my self-hatred. James Alison has written that "the ultimate shame is to be the person over against whom the group forms its unity," and "shame reaches us at [deep] levels ... it is felt as something to do with what we are, before anything we have done." 1 I seem to have soaked up shame like a blotter; my self-hatred is founded in my shame at myself. Not for nothing does scripture say sin is visited to the fifth generation.2
I am learning that this is not so much sin understood as the behaviour of an individual, or not only so, but sin also understood as the whole structure of society which builds itself upon, and convinces itself of its own goodness by, the selection of victims who are to be hated. It is this victim creating idolatry which punishes us, not God.3 And the victims, like the communal scapegoat in Mark 5:5, absorb the hatred, and stone themselves for the mob and, too often, pass the role on to at least some of their children.
If self-hatred is a constant within me, so too is the desire to flee, to walk away from everything. As a pensioner in a country which hates homeless people, and where rental is unaffordable, this is an irrational desire. I sense it has to do with my learned hatred of myself, and I find Alison saying, shame "drives us to fight, to flight, or to freeze... unrecognised... to close down and play dead while our apparently reasonable persona rationalizes in public what is really going on."4 Those close to me know how I "close down" when I am in full self-hate mode.
As endemic as the hate, shame, and desire to flee has been in my life, an unavoidable observation for me is the paradox that these things have increased in their intensity during fifteen years which have been a period of intense learning and personal growth. This to the point that I needed to retire early for the simple reason, at base, that I was utterly exhausted. I cannot remember not being tired. To make this clear: as I have learned what was unconsciously driving me, and gained some freedom from that; as I have been given the ability to be a gentler, less judgemental and abusive person; as I have learned some wisdom; and even as I have been astonished at my relief from anger and self-hatred for much of the time, some variation of that hatred seems to have condensed into a well of pain and grief which is deeper than ever. I am not able adequately to express the contradiction of that, even to myself.
My reading of James Alison's lecture Catholicity, Sacrifice, and Shame: Subverting Polarization in Our Contemporary Ecclesial and Political Cultures was interrupted by a bout of despair and self-hatred. Finally coming back to his text, I was startled by his exegesis of Luke 2:35, where NRSV says of Mary, "and a sword will pierce your own soul too." It's often translated as an aside, excised from its original position in the Greek text, and becomes almost an addendum to the text. So NRSV says:
This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’
But the Greek text is more like this:
Behold this [child] is appointed for [the] falling and rising up of many in Israel and for a sign spoken against, and of your soul [there] will go through a sword so that may be revealed of many hearts the thoughts.5
Alison's point is that Mary's experience is central to the original text and so should be central to our translation and reading of the text; it is not an aside. It is through Mary's "treasuring and pondering in her heart" and her beginning to see what the life of her child is about, that our hearts are revealed; that is, that we see the depths of who we are, both as a culture and as individuals. She is one of the witnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah. And to see this, and to live with its implication, both for Mary and for us, is like having a sword go through the heart.
James says that here "we have a text both more Marian and more Catholic than many translators would like." Indeed, the ears of my 1950's and 60's Methodist childhood, conditioned to dismiss the Catholics in the church across the road, blinded me to what he is saying in my first reading of his lecture! On rereading, I find something deeply pro-feminist; a woman is again one of the first witnesses to the significance of the Christ, and… embedded in the text is an extraordinarily important understanding of evangelism and the way our human/societal healing and growth is enabled: We grow and are healed through learning-miming the life of others. The beginning of the long line of witnesses to the Christ from whom I have learned to live the faith, before my partner, before my mother, even before the experience and behaviour of the twelve, is Mary's experience and behaviour.
He claims
the sword piercing Mary’s soul is causally linked to the uncovering of the inner thoughts of many. I’d like to suggest that we have a text both more Marian and more Catholic than many translators would like. She who bore the Word would also bear the pain of witnessing and thus undergoing, she before anybody else, the change of meaning which her child would bring about. And thus that in its interpretation, her reactions of bearing, of pondering and treasuring will be part of the witness, first lived, and then spoken which will lead to all this uncovering.
I have emphasised the word causally. Our living enables and invites miming—imitation, by others, and so causes in the sense that it allows and opens us, and others, to new horizons of living. It is a part of our healing.
He goes on to say
I’ll go with that Marian reading as especially helpful in our post-reformation world since our tendency since then has been to go for the Word, the sword, and the drasticity of changed meaning without attending to the fleshliness, the continuity, the process of undergoing which alone provide a non-arbitrary and ultimately salvific living context to the Creator’s self-speaking as flesh in our midst. (My emphasis)
"Without attending to the fleshliness, the continuity, the process of undergoing": In those words we see the root of so much our sterility in church life. We see Jesus' death and resurrection, and we can describe their import in theological terms—all this is necessary and helpful, but the “ultimately salvific” process is rooted in our fleshliness. Like Mary, we have to live with the piercing of our soul. The reversal and the healing of our enculturation is often a sword to the heart of our being. We have to give up the "ourselves" we have learned and constructed, and have to give up so many pretentions to be living the Way of the Kingdom, because with its absence of violence and death, the Kingdom of God is a "land more foreign" than we can imagine, even though it is our intended home. I think of Kevin Hart’s lines at the end of The Last Day6
There will be time to say the right things at last
To look in the face of our enemy and see ourselves
Forgiven now, before the books flower into flames
The mirrors return our faces
and everything is stripped from us
even our names.
A costing not less than everything, as TS Eliot might say.7
In some sense that stripping of us must begin now. We have done nothing, Jesus has done everything, but we must in some way, as James says, undergo the change. The life of faith is not merely a matter of intellectual assent. That is to lean into a fundamentalist heresy. Rather, as he says a few lines later, Simeon’s prophecy in Luke 2... "indicates a role of grief for those living through … [an] upheaval from which no one, starting with Mary, will be exempt. Indeed we will become living witnesses to it by undergoing it as she did."
How much is it the case, I wonder, that a greater grasp—I mean a deeper apprehension of what Christ has done and what he has shown us, which is always far more "something given" than "something I have worked out," —how much does that, in a sense, cause more grief, or seasons of grief? How much is my pain and self-hatred not only a trauma/socialisation response to my early life in particular, but also a painful letting go? If I didn’t care for the gospel, if I didn’t wish to follow the Christ, would I hate myself as much, or would I rest a little easier in my ignorance and my self-righteousness? Carole Etzler's words rang true when I read them 40 years ago:
Sometimes I wish my eyes hadn't been opened,
Just for an hour how sweet it would be
Not to be struggling, not to be striving,
But just sleep securely in our slavery.
To emphasise the point of this, I note that James later speaks of our having an "addiction to a violent short-cut to becoming human by means of the omnipresent scapegoat mechanism," and so perhaps I should expect that seeking to live outside that addiction will be like breaking any addiction: painful and distressing and full of grief.
He says, too that
The sense of something good having happened for the group in the new creation of peaceful unity, and the need to repeat it so as to maintain peace is never far removed from the sense that the ultimate shame is to be the person over against whom the group forms its unity.
Healing of our addiction has to face that shame, not only because we are all part of human groups and so been formed in shame, but now because that shame will likely be visited upon us as we break rank with the groups which formed us and owned us.
How do we live with the pain of our shame, and with what may be lifelong withdrawal symptoms? Jesus said that his yoke was easy and his burden light.8 How can that be a truthful experience and an expression of our hope and reality, rather that a pious denial when self-hatred (or our particular withdrawal symptoms) tear at us?
I have found three things have helped me.
Seeking and finding an alternative understanding to my inherited theology of the un-godly god who is allegedly loving, yet full of anger, and likely to condemn me to hell. This has been critical for me, but I am loathe to list it as a "Point One" because there is something spiral about my experience of these three things. I suspect, too, that our different personalities and experiences will affect what we find most critical.
It has been an extraordinary blessing to find ways to stop, or hinder, or recover from, the destructive spirals of rumination that accompany, or trigger, my outbreaks of self-hatred. Where I have been projecting my self-hatred upon someone else, I find it helpful to explain to a listener (some people call this talking to yourself J ) just why I value that person so much, and what I have learned from them. It changes what is at work in my mind. I am also committing psalms and prayers to memory, and use these as a litany to drown out the other voices within me.
And I continue to meditate upon Matthew's last parable before his presentation of the Passion Narrative. This is Matthew 25:31-46, and its position means it is a literary "last will and testament" before the crucifixion. I was gratified, therefore, to find that Alison's lecture references the same text. (And I wish that I possessed his facility with words!)
…the love of the poor, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned is not something incidental that superior people do to show their compassion… It is, as St Matthew’s parable of the Sheep and Goats teaches, intrinsic to our being stretched into an ever-greater reality by confronting the precariousness of our goodness, being forgiven for our contempt of misperceived others, and our discovering our sameness with those at risk of shame.9
Key to this parable is understanding that this story of judgment, sheep, and goats, is almost certainly not original to Jesus. He is retelling a trope about the end of the world in which the listeners already know their place, and how they will be judged. The goats certainly know who they are, for the self-adjudged pious sheep of the Shepherd of Psalm 23 have made sure that they know. The parable is a literary sting operation10 ; we settle into the familiar story with its familiar prejudices, and then Jesus turns things on their head. The familiar roles of the sheep and the goats are reversed. As the two groups designated as sheep and goats look at each other, and hear him say to those he has called his sheep, "Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world," it is clear that this is being said to a group peopled predominately by folk everybody "knew" were the goats; that is, the unrighteous ones of the people. This is clear from their question: "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink...?" Even they are surprised!
The King says to those he numbers among the sheep "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me."
Note what is missing: There is nothing here about conducting the right sacrifices or keeping the correct religious rules. This is a profound criticism of the structure upon which culture is built, for everything is built upon sacrifice; that is, upon the threat of death which underlies all our enforcement of the norms of society, all our violence.
We can also miss something which is being said. This was so obvious to Jesus' listeners, and to Matthew's readers, that it didn't need saying: Jesus is not saying look after the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick and the prisoners. That's just rules. He is saying show compassion, sit with, share the vulnerability of, those whom society has adjudged to be the goats. Sickness, poverty, homelessness—all those things, are not simple misfortune. They are, in his world, the visiting of God's wrath. You became sick, you were poor, because of the judgment of God. You deserved it. (We are scarcely different today.)
Jesus is telling us to break the rules! He is telling us to love the people society—our society—has chosen to look down upon in order to feel good about itself. I have called this vulnerable compassion because (at the very least)
this, is not a gentle and easy process. Someone who is no longer run by the hidden shame at the root of their previous system of goodness is also someone who is utterly unmoved by the rewards of honour which their system gives to those who go along with the sacred game. For honour within a sacred system is the cover up of shame. This makes such people tremendously dangerous to the ever-threatened goodness of a sacrificial system.11
Doing this will put us at risk. Despite the proverb12 , a soft answer can threaten and destabilise even those to whom we seek to be compassionate.
It is critical to see that this text is not about "look after the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick and the prisoners," as a set of rules. Doing these things in order to be "good" is what leads to phrases like "as cold as charity." It's why Brian Dickey could title his history No Charity There.11 Rule keeping is a cover up operation which only intensifies our shame and self-hatred because rules work by excluding those who don't keep them, which is one more form of violence.
As a younger minister, I began with rule-keeping. And then discovered a life-giving humanity among those I was trying to help. To have congregants who were in and out of mental health units diagnose me with all the acuity of an accredited psychologist, indeed sometimes more acutely, was a gift of grace, hard-heart softening, and just hilarious: You mean I can just sit here with you in hospital instead of paying $250 an hour!?
I discovered my shame… again. I had decided to carry a decent amount of cash on the days I worked in the city so that I could give it away. And when I came upon a man begging, I gave him the money with a kind word, and walked away horrified because, at the moment of handing over the note, I had looked away from him! I am still shaken by this.
And then I discovered that "the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick and the prisoners" means not only the ones society has chosen to denigrate for the sake of its own righteousness, but those fellow humans I have chosen to denigrate, those who in our denomination seem to reject the humanity of queer folk like me being chief among them. How will I sit compassionately, and peaceably, with them? Finally, I discover that the hungry and thirsty can include those who are close to me. The ones who are in the group of my "weak belonging" as James puts it. Family and friends upon whom I nevertheless project my self-hate.
All this is some of my
being stretched into an ever-greater reality by confronting the precariousness of my goodness, being forgiven for my contempt of misperceived others, and my discovering my sameness with those at risk of shame.14
At the heart of all this is a sword. A walking away from the self-righteous comfort of condemning others. An acceptance of my nastiness and anger at others. The shame of knowing ever more clearly that it's my self-hate that is the problem, not someone else. And the exhaustion of it all. Let alone the fear that someone else's sword will fall upon me.
And then there is grace.
We have had a year to forget, which recently featured a car accident which wrote off our vehicle. Replacing it has pretty much emptied our bank accounts. Two days ago, someone attacked our next-door neighbours' vehicle which has glass like steel that refused to shatter. So, that someone came into our yard and smashed our car windows instead. On the first night, I did not sleep well. I spiraled down into wells of deep hatred for this person. This was a hate filled rage which has at its fuel, now two days later, fear—how will this end? What else will be attacked? Last night, I kept waking up angry with my churning inner voice lashing out in my anger at my "favourite" scapegoats, and beginning to spiral down into the sort of self-destructive mess which can develop into a serious self-hating depression. I am taken aback at just how angry and hate-filled I am.
But yesterday morning we went walking, and met another of our neighbours in the street. And listened. I listened! I was gentle and kind! I didn't hijack the conversation! Me!? Where does this come from!? Who gives me this joyous compassion? This is the stretching, the graceful healing to which those we have learned to reject somehow open us. During my first reading of Jame's lecture, I scribbled a note at the bottom:
a belonging always discovered through the collapse of different kinds of fake belonging [and] a constant letting go so as to be able to receive… which feels like dying…
and as I remember my neighbour's appreciation, I am Graced.
Andrea (June 2024)
A Pastoral Aside
What do we say to those who assail us with a "triumphant faith," or to those Christians who have suffered such attacks? The words below come from another post on this website, and may be helpful.
Well what of those who claim to be healed, and radically so, you ask. The one who stopped drinking instantly? The person whose whole life turned around in a moment? Are you saying this is all exaggeration, something dressed up to sound good in church? Are you not denying the power of the Christ? And making an excuse for yourself?
I am saying that this is often low hanging fruit, and I emphasise that some of the best peaches currently ripening on the tree outside our window, are ones that we can reach with ease. Others are high up in the tree, and beyond our reach.
People do experience profound healing. A sense of God's love for them, which enables a person to stop self-medicating with alcohol, can change a life almost beyond recognition. The love of one single Sunday School teacher can keep a person alive. A teacher who praises a kid's composition and reads it out to the class, can give that child a life. Committing to following the Christ can seem to redirect everything about us! None of that would have happened if I had not followed him, we say. And it is true. We often wonder—I do—what would have become of us if we had not done that!
What I say to you—and to me—in our moments of despair, is that as profound as all that often is, it is the low hanging fruit. Profound as it may be, it is the easier stuff. Often, it has been a dealing with some of the symptoms, rather than the deeper disease. If we are made to feel guilty, if we are asked, "Why have you not gotten over this," it is sometimes a sign that the questioner has not yet seen their own self. They do not yet understand how driven, how pre-determined they, and all people, are. Far less do they realise how our bedrock mental map can flood over any of us and sweep away the low hanging fruits of healing. Or perhaps, at some semi-conscious level, they have glimpsed this, and are shying away in denial, using us and our pain, as a kind of scapegoat. Here, our pain has offended a person, frightened them, and "Why aren't you over this" is an attack to enable their own self-preservation.
Footnotes
1. Catholicity, Sacrifice, and Shame: Subverting Polarization in Our Contemporary Ecclesial and Political Cultures https://jamesalison.com/catholicity-sacrifice-and-shame/
2. Exodus 20:3-5
3. Exodus 20:5 One way to read scripture is to see it as our apprehension of the nature of God at various moments in human history. So at the time of the writing of Exodus, wrath is seen as coming from God. Now, we understand that wrath is us; God is love in whom there is not wrath.
4. Alison, Catholicity...
5. See, for example: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/2.htm
6. https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poems/poem/103-773_THE-LAST-DAY
7. From Little Gidding (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html) (although see https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/tseliotsociety/resources-and-projects/popular-quotations-attributed-to-t-s-eliot/).
8. Matt 11:28-30
9. Alison, Catholicity...
10. The parable is also ironic. On the way home, some listeners suddenly think, "Hang on, if that's all true, why would there be eternal judgement!?" And Jesus says, "Yes! You get it! God is a God of love, not a god of violent judgement."
11. Alison, Catholicity...
12. Proverbs 15:1-2
13. https://www.routledge.com/No-Charity-There-A-short-history-of-social-welfare-in-Australia/Dickey/p/book/9780043012918
14. Alison, Catholicity...
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