October 2023

There’s a  story told in Matthew 20, Luke 18, and Mark 10, where Jesus is walking from Jericho to Jerusalem. The details vary, bu,t basically, a blind man (or men) is sitting on the side of the road, and when he realizes that Jesus is passing by he calls out to be healed. People try to shush him, but he gets louder. Jesus hears him, has the blind man come to him and then asks him, “What do you want?” He answers, “Open my eyes, that I may see.”

The Christianity that raised many of us taught us to disconnect from our Self. There was the cute little acronym–Jesus, Others, Yourself=JOY. Put yourself last to find joy. There was the cute little drawing of the train, facts leading the way, followed by faith, and feelings as the caboose. Don’t let your feelings guide you, you’ll run right off the track! 

Beyond that, US American church culture often favors those with privilege and power, in overt and subtle ways, and everyone else learns how to go with the flow to keep those people comfortable and happy. It may have been safer to be others-centered because that helped you to conform, to draw attention away from yourself and the ways that you didn’t fit in. It was safer to teach yourself not to want, to believe that wanting as the problem. Or maybe it wasn’t your faith tradition, but your family culture (or a combination of both!)  that taught you to stay quiet about your desires.