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Where can I go that You aren't?
What can I do that isn't for You?
What can I say that isn't just for Your ears?
Does it matter that I don't use your best-known Names?
Do You care about our labels for the Reality that is You?
Do You care that I write this piece for You?
Does Your caring equal my existence?
This book is about the way Christianity makes sense to me. I am not a theologian or a Bible scholar. I haven't attended seminary. What I have read concerning Christian theology has seemed so specialized, so abstract and philosophical, or so dogmatically repetitious that it has discouraged me from reading further. So, in an academic sense, I am eminently unqualified to write this book. Yet perhaps this very weakness is a strength. Perhaps this non-traditional Eastern interpretation of Christianity will stimulate new conceptions or, at least, vitalizing criticisms of the views presented below.
What I write is sometimes raw. The rawness is because I bleed easily when rubbed by rough and thoughtless Christianity. For many, Christianity seems to have become a game of words. It has become filled with referents rather than reverence. There is an in-group quality to denominational and theological disputes, such that I can't make sense of one term except by means of another term which in turn makes sense only in terms of somebody else's term, and so on. Following a theological argument these days is like trying to climb up a hill of rubber bands. I bounce about so much that I cannot keep track of any progress.
You will find that what is written in this book is solidly grounded in everyday life experience. Understanding is built more upon doing, I believe, than on simply intellectual argument and reflection. The emphasis on experiential knowledge rather than intellectual knowledge is rather common in the East. In Japanese there is a word "taiken" which means literally 'body- knowledge.' We might translate it "gut-understanding." Such understanding comes from experience, not from words alone. In Christianity, as in any viable lifeway, it is the "taiken" and not the words, however beatific or educated, which allows us to make sense of the world.
I have written some twenty books about something called Constructive Living. Some readers have noted a trend in my writing toward the mystical, toward the spiritual. If that is so it is regrettable. Because it means that I am using words that make some part of everyday experience look like it is set apart-- mystical, spritual, religious. But there is only everyday experience. If there is to be religion, it must be woven through that everyday experience and not set aside in some special Sunday morning category. It must avoid association with philosophy sections in bookstores and particular types of church or temple architecture; it must shun special garb such as robes and a special vocabulary which only the elite inner circle has learned. We must discover that religion, like ourselves, is nothing special. I trust that the contents of this book will make sense to those people who prefer to substitute the word "Reality" for the word "God" whenever that word appears in the text below.
If there is a spiritual thread woven through Constructive Living then where are the clues which signal its existence? If you mean how many times the word G-o-d comes up in my writings, then the answer is very, very rarely. But if you mean how many times God appears in my writings then the answer is quite often. My guess is that you have never laid eyes on this being you call God in the sense of having actually seen some form (bearded old man, earth mother, or whatever). All you have seen is that stream of awareness that is you. That stream of awareness comes from reality. Constructive Living writing is about that reality. Constructive Living writing is part of that reality. If you are searching for God you must find that Being within your stream of awareness. There is nothing else, no other place to find God.
I hope that this book reminds the reader of experiences past and points to experiential possibilities in the future that will ground the written words in reality-lived. Though many of the ideas come from my life and research in Japan, I fully expect that you will find them familiar somehow. We humans are, after all, so much more alike than different.
I am a Christian, something of an unorthodox Christian, but even the differences among us seem to cause little stir these days. Being a Christian there are both limits to my writing and particular possibilities open only to those who share this faith. But you should know this fact about the author of this book. He is a Christian; he shares the Faith.
I confess that there were times in my life when I consciously tried not to be a Christian, times when I sought to lose my Christian identity because it felt stifling, artificial, even unreal. But to drop this faith like a useless cloak was impossible. Try as I might, this way of looking at the world had become a part of me. Christianity is in some ways like a language. When one hears a new language at first one hears only strange sounds. But in time the sounds take on meaning; they become words. And once one knows the words intimately there is no way to turn the sounds into meaningless sounds again.
What caused me to try to run from this part of myself? Mostly it was selfishness/self centeredness, those two words are the same in Japanese (jiko chushin; literally, 'the self in the center of the mind'). I wanted to know the reasons for some events and customs life kept presenting to me. I suppose that like most Westerners I believed that if I understood life's tragedies I would have a handle on controlling them.
Trained as an anthropologist in Japanese studies and mental health I kept running across the tragedies of human existence-- suicides, natural disasters, insanity, dying elderly patients in nursing homes and hospitals, and the survivors and victims who accompany these tragedies. My research held up to me again and again this hidden shadowed side of human existence in the U.S. and in Japan. Why did such suffering have to occur?
It is God's Will, I was told. Pray and you will understand, I was told. You must simply accept the Diety's Plan for the world whether you understand it or not. How foolish was I to think that God required my understanding and approval to accomplish a proper running of the world. Yet, there was so much that seemed to make no sense at all. As a scholar I had been taught to doubt and explore until my understanding was satisfactory. If I could not comprehend God's Ways, I would not believe in this hidden God. I couldn't make myself be satisfied with easy words; my Christianity must be securely anchored in experienced reality or I wouldn't consider myself a Christian at all.
This book is about what I have come to understand about this world, its tragedies and the strange Christian customs we take so much for granted within it. In these essays are described some of the ways I make sense of this world and this Christian perspective on it. I hope that what I have written below makes some sense to you, too. If not, at least it may cause you to reconsider some of your assumptions and conclusions and, change them or not, resettle them on even more solid ground.
In my view, the main problems in Christianity today center around the translation of general principles and verbal abstractions into daily living. Translation is an appropriate word here because few people seem to have a genuine sense of the concrete applicability of such abstract phrases as "allowing the Holy Spirit to work in one's life" or "living according to God's Will" or "keeping in touch with God's presence." These phrases are frequently spoken, but when lay Christians are asked how, specifically, to achieve these goals they are likely to come up with further abstractions, impracticalities, or blank looks. Of course, Bible reading, prayer, worship, and the like are essential ingredients in spiritual development (another term that deserves careful examination.) Yet most of our lives are spent in cooking, cleaning, talking, holding down a job, sleeping, shopping, and so forth. What has God's Will to do with the decision to put down this book or not, to shift to a more comfortable reading position, to get up for a glass of water, to respond to the slight pain in one's stomach or the tension in the back of one's neck? I believe that God's Will has a lot to do with these "smalltime" decisions, that they are as important as the decisions to read or not to read the Bible, to return thanks at meals or rush into eating, to attend or skip church attendance. I am unwilling to segregate my life into a "God-and-church-related" part and an "other" part.
I suspect that everyone has an inner voice that defines for us what we need to be doing at any moment. My students report this awareness of what needs doing. I certainly have such an inner prompting. If I listen to its moving I am certain that my action is properly directed to do exactly the one thing that God wants me to be about at that particular moment. This inner urging may draw my attention to a piece of lint on the rug that needs picking up or to the discomfort in my legs as I stand here writing (telling me to reposition them) or to the need for spending some quiet time reflecting, thanking, humbling myself.
What mechanism does God use to make that inner voice speak? I don't know. The reality is that it is there. My problems in life center not so much around knowing what I need to be doing now, but rather in getting myself to do what I know needs to be done. When I am properly tying my shoe or stirring cake batter it is an act of worship, it is satisfactorily undertaking the task which God set before me in that moment. It is prayer without ceasing.
I used to think about God's love as an abstract thing, a sort of warm golden syrup that oozed down from heaven and sweetened the world in a general way. When for research I visited natural disaster sites such as the flood destruction at Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado or the tornado path in Monticello, Indiana I wondered where this golden syrup was; I could taste no sweetness there.
I didn't blame God for these tragedies (as if my judgment of responsibility mattered at all). Still, where was His love that permeated the world when the earth shook or the dam broke or the sky erupted in fury? Of course, many people have raised these issues before I began struggling with them. I would like to share with you something of the resolution that satisfies me for the moment.
My interest in Japanese Buddhist-based psychotherapies has taken me to Japan nearly one hundred times. That country has become my second home in a sense. I live there about half of each year. One of the therapies that I have found worth studying is called Naikan. Naikan (literally, "nai"--'inner,' and "kan"--'observation') is a method of looking within or self reflection based originally on the training practices of a subsect of Shinshu Buddhist monks. A lay priest named Yoshimoto modified these methods so that ordinary Buddhist and non Buddhist people could benefit from the Naikan experience. Like much of Buddhism the psychological elements of Naikan can be separated from the religious elements and used quite effectively.
A few years back I made my first visit to a temple in Nara where some thirty people at a time spend a week in Naikan reflection. The procedure is relatively simple to explain. From five a.m. until nine p.m. each Naikan client sits isolated behind an upright screen and reflects upon three themes: what was received from some person, what was returned to that person, and what troubles, worries, and inconveniences were caused that person during specific periods of the client's life. The focus of reflection is changed each hour or two; for example, one often begins reflecting upon one's mother during the pre-grammar school years, then the first three years of grammar school, continuing up to the present in three year groups. Next, perhaps, the client starts over with earliest memories of the father, moving in three year groups up to the present. Then comes reflection on other relatives, teachers, friends, spouse, children, employer, and so forth (see Reynolds, 1983).
At the end of each two-hour meditation period the Naikan guide comes to each client, bows, opens the screen, and asks the client what has been recalled. Usually, the clients report in detail how much the others did for them during the assigned period of reflection from the past, how little was returned to them by the clients, and how many troubles were thoughtlessly caused others. The preferred form of response includes concrete events from the past described in vivid detail such as "I recall riding home one cold winter night in Ohio with my nose buried in Mother's precious civet cat coat to keep my face warm--Mother did that for me" rather than generalizations such as "Every day Mother prepared lunch for me to take to school during the first, second and third grades" or "Mother gave me lots of love."
The guide listens attentively, thanks the client, assigns the next topic, bows in gratitude, and leaves. On those occasions when the client strays from the three themes during his report or has questions or difficulties recalling specific events the guide offers experienced advice. These exchanges usually take only three or four minutes each time. Almost the entire day is invested in recalling the past in terms of the three Naikan themes. Even meals are taken behind the screens while mediation continues. There is no religious teaching, no listening to sermons, no reading of religious literature during this week of self reflection.
You have probably recognized that doing Naikan produces guilt in the clients. That is so. I have done a week of Naikan as a client and several weeks as a Naikan guide at Nara and in the United States, so I have felt the guilt and have observed its expression in others. And the guilt is good. It is not the puny mini-guilt that merely annoys our consciences and interferes with our daily lives as we try to ignore or suppress it. This Naikan guilt is a devastating, overwhelming, life-changing guilt. It calls for genuine repentance and service to others. Moreover, with the guilt comes another feeling, another realization.
I came to see that despite my taking others for granted, despite my using people without thinking, much less without gratitude, despite my causing them trouble, despite my selfish withholding of acts of reparation, despite my gross inability to keep my social ledger balanced in terms of what I received and what I returned, despite all that--I have been loved and cared for by people known and unknown to me. I have been supported, buoyed up by family, friends, teachers, coworkers, shopkeepers, ministers, neighbors, even herdsmen (who raised sheep for the wool in my clothes), farmers (who grew my food), cobblers, computer technicians, and countless others. My body was given to me by two people and their ancestors, my words were taught to me by them and by others, my ideas came from books or teachers or peers or from the nothingness out of which all thoughts emerge. All are gifts. I certainly haven't earned them.
One effect of Naikan is to return the client to a recognition of the moral world in which we live. Social interactions that have become amoral in our eyes and simply instrumental or economic become colored once more with a moral light following Naikan. It isn't that one is taught this moral coloring by lecture or reading. Rather, it grows inductively from reviewing specific past events. There is a kind of purity to this moral view in that it isn't imposed externally on the Naikan meditator. Each client evaluates himself/herself in terms of his or her own standards and inevitably finds that there has been failure to live up to those standards. No teacher defines for the client what was received or returned or what is to be considered a trouble caused another person. Yet everyone seems to have some personal sense of those definitions, and everyone falls short of them. "For all have sinned" finds experiential validation on this personal subjective level as well as on the absolute level ordinarily considered by Christians.
As I think about the past it is clear that this is no best of all possible worlds. Life hasn't been absolutely perfect. But then I have been far less perfect. I have received so much more than I can ever hope to repay this world. Or repay God. For all this reflected care and love is God's. I have come to see God's love not as a general glow in the world but in the specific acts of others, past and present. The gardener who cuts my neighbor's yard and thus beautifies my world, the craftsman who made the doorknob which allows me to come in and out of my room, the telephone operator, the printer of my Bible, the gravedigger at my father's burial, my dependable tennis partner, the students who allow me to be one-who-teaches, and so on and on and on.
I'm beginning to see how I am "assembled" by the world. When others look at me they confirm my existence; when they listen to my words they reassure me that I am here speaking. The floor and table top and chair, even my clothes and these computer keys help define the boundaries of my body. They give me form. There is a Japanese word "ikasarete iru" which means 'to be lived.' I'm beginning to taste it.
This gratitude for loving care extends beyond people to objects and energy, too. The sun, this desk, a light switch, a pen, my cup, electricity, my car--all have rendered service I never properly appreciated as examples of God's love. Nor did I try to return to them some service with awareness of my gratitude to them or to God. What have you done for your minister lately? For your desk? For gasoline? For the sheets on your bed? Do these latter examples sound strange? When you come up with answers to questions about what can be done in service to water, electricity, your car, and your newspaper (as well as to people near and far) you will have understood the suitable expression of gratitude for God's love which I learned in a Buddhist temple in Japan.
I must confess that I cannot sustain such grateful awareness all of the time. It is so easy to slip back into selfish thoughtlessness, into wastefulness of time and people and things. It is seductive to slide into grumbling criticism, to ignore these moment by moment pervasive billboards expressing God's love. It is noteworthy, however, that the folk who do recognize the truth of this detailed expression of God's outpoured love are among the most joyful I have ever met. Furthermore, when I am filled with this awareness I, too, better appreciate my past, my present world, and my God.
I am disturbed by the horde of self esteem and self praise philosophies that have descended on ministers and whole congregations in the Christian world. The notion that we're all okay is a seductive one. I can even believe it some of the time. Frankly, however, I'm not such a swell fellow all of the time. There are moments when I am hateful, spiteful, and surly in my heart of hearts, whether I reveal those emotions to others at the time or not. There are also times when I am self pitying, shallow, lonely, depressed, bored, and stubborn. I write this initial list of my faults not for some twisted pleasure in baring my dark side to you, but because I suspect that you, too, have moments of darkness during which you are not okay either.
Furthermore, whenever I tried to boost my morale with one of those magic phrases like "I can!" my perverse mind would immediately throw up a plethora of examples from my past-- situations in which I couldn't...and didn't. Gradually, it dawned on me that I wasn't to blame for not wholeheartedly buying these very marketable notions, rather I realized that the "I-am-terrific-I-can-do-anything-that-I-set-my-sights-on" philosophies are oversimplifications at best, dangerous lies at worst.
"But, surely," says the Christian, "if God loves me I must be worth something." Of course. I would be the last person to suggest that we are worthless. Far from it; we take our worth from the reality of God's love for us (as expressed through people and other aspects of our world) and not from our own perfection or even our own potential. "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that, not of yourselves lest any man should boast." One might add "out of ignorance or plain foolishness" to the end of that quote.
The point is that I don't have to be much, or even okay to be loved by God. That's a relief because, as I said, sometimes I'm pretty terrible.
But doesn't the Bible tell us to "love thy neighbor as thyself"? To be honest, I've not had much trouble loving myself. However, loving myself and considering myself wonderful and capable of practically everything are quite separate matters. After all, as is asserted above, God loves us in spite of our imperfection.
Well, then, how about having faith in ourselves? Somehow, that notion has always seemed suspect to me. In the first place, a teacher advised me early on that confidence ought to be placed in God, not in myself. In the second place, growing up I discovered that there are all sorts of things I could do even though I had no confidence or faith in myself to do them. Hmmmm...
One destination of all this iconoclastic hippity hopping is in the direction of arguing that above all I am changeable. Aren't you, too? One moment I'm worshipful and reverent, the next moment I'm distracted. It's a good thing that God remains steady.
The function of prayer is communication with God. Certainly. It used to bother me that a God who knew what was in my heart (that is, what was in my mind) before I uttered a word should need to hear my words at all. Looking a bit further it seemed strange that One Who is Perfect should "need" anything at all. Perhaps there are other functions of prayer, functions which spring from human needs. As a child I was taught that "prayer changes things;" I suspect that we are chief among those "things."
Praying--the act, the doing of prayer--provides a daily recognition of who is running this world. By asking for our daily bread we remind ourselves who is providing it and how. When we offer thanks at a meal we consider some links in the chain that led to the food being on our tables. The farmer whose life is in God's hands, the vegetables that live and grow mysteriously, the truckers and grocers, our employers, the craftsmen who made the plates and silverware, and, of course, those who cook for us. Our eating is the end result of God working through dozens of people and processes. Our eating is the gift of many and various objects and efforts.
Many Christians routinely offer thanks to God before meals. I wonder why meals have been singled out from the stream of life as particularly worthy of our gratitude. Why not return thanks before getting up in the morning or before opening a book or before going to the bathroom? These acts are as much dependent on God's graciousness as eating.
So this recognition need not extend only to eating but to work, play, sleep, reading, talking on the telephone, and so on. These actions are culminations of others' efforts by God's hand in our behalf. Prayer reminds us of this truth.
Another function of prayer is to remind us of what is personally important in our lives. What do we choose to pray about? What do we no longer pray about that used to be important in our communication with God. By noticing what we emphasize and what we drop from our prayers we can evaluate the direction of our development. We can see in the table of contents of our prayers the direction our everyday life is taking.
A simple corollary of this function is that the amount of time we devote to prayer reminds us of how important we consider God is in our lives. I suppose that there is some upper limit to this corollary, some point above which one could spend so much time in prayer that everyday work wouldn't get done. I've never even approached that point yet. So if you are troubled by the problem of overly involving yourself in formal prayers I can't offer any advice. "Pray without ceasing" appears to be an admonition to recognize everyday reality as God's creation for us rather than an order to be down on our knees all the time missing the fascinating variety of God's surrounding handiwork.
Perhaps here I could share a few words about my conception of the style of prayer that I find helpful. "Thee," "Thou," "giveth," and such words always made God seem remote and, well, aesthetic somehow. And, forgive me, the ones who prayed aloud with such words always sounded rather artificially pious. I figure that if God can read minds then any language ought to be understandable, even modern English. My public prayers probably startle some listeners the first few times they encounter them.
I am not flip with God, but we are on a first name basis. My Heavenly Father is a respected confidant whose advice is appreciated and who love hasn't let me down yet. I might pray thus:
You made me and put me in this reality, in
this now. Thank you.
Help me see the detailed expressions of your love.
Help me hear your voice guiding me toward what needs to be
done.
Forgive me when I stubbornly refuse to listen, refuse to
act.
More later.
I need to thank God for this reality, yet God doesn't really need to hear my thoughts of gratitude. My awareness and expression of appreciation are part of the training necessary for personal development during this life. This theme will emerge again and again in these writings. In the doing of some act lies the roots of genuine feeling and proper attitudes. It is not that I am first grateful and then I thank God. It is rather that in the process of thanking my Lord the feelings of gratitude ripen and emerge. The prayers of thanksgiving are reminders of what is worthy of gratitude, so the praying creates the thankfulness. In other words, the action creates the feeling.
If God knows what I need why do I have to pray? The answer seems to be that whatever the effects of our prayer efforts are upon God, they have profound effects upon us who pray.
A famous Japanese psychiatrist, Dr. Takehisa Kora, wrote about the relationship between feelings and action. He pointed out that when we take care of something we often come to feel affection for it. For example, if you grow strawberry plants in your garden--faithfully watering them, sheltering them from too much sun, removing snails, fertilizing them, and so forth--you begin to feel an attachment to the (literal) fruits of your labors. The strawberries that you grow may not be as plump or as sweet as the commercially grown varieties yet they are "special" to you. Your behavior has resulted in a certain feeling about your garden fruit. Similarly, you may not feel like jogging as you sit in your bathrobe on the couch trying to decide what to do next. However, if you put on a warm up suit and jogging shoes and walk out of the door, the desire to go jogging may come forth.
Certainly, this principle holds for me with regard to writing. When it is time for me to write I can always think of a number of things that I would rather do. I only rarely feel like writing. Nevertheless, writing is something that needs to be done, and done frequently. It is interesting that as I stand in front of the computer (after all, it's 5 a.m. so if I sit down I'll get sleepy) and prepare the materials for writing, sometimes the desire to write wells up. And sometimes the act of writing becomes a genuine pleasure. Doing first, feeling follows. If I had waited for ideal working conditions, ideal lighting, the perfect inspired mood, and nothing else on my day's agenda to begin writing, this book would not have been written.
Isn't it interesting that so many of Christ's teachings involve behavioral changes in people's lives:
Taking up our cross...
Walking the second mile...
Assembling ourselves together...
Rendering to Caesar...
Entering our closet to pray...
Bringing our tithes...
Confessing our faith...
These acts are aids in bringing about changes in our feelings and thoughts. In the doing of them we change ourselves. Through these behaviors we modify our souls so that we are more adapted to a heaven of any sort. I am arguing here that God doesn't really need our labor, though He may use it; He doesn't need our prayers, He knows our hearts; He doesn't need our tithes, He owns the world. Yet He has given us these behavioral tools for shaping our souls.
Let us consider the singing of hymns for a moment. During the singing we jointly reaffirm our common faith. Then, too, hymns are teaching devices by means of which we learn all sorts of Christian truths. A couple of lesser known virtues of hymns are that in making a joyful noise we may find ourselves beginning to feel more joyful (again, the doing preceding the feeling), and that in singing hymns we are aided in directing our attention in a particular direction. Congregational singing requires that we pay attention to the words, the pauses, the melody. Most of us have had the experience of allowing our attention to drift only to find ourselves singing the wrong verse or, more strikingly, singing when no one else is doing so. The act of group singing (or responsive reading) pulls a certain degree of attentiveness from us or we pay the price of embarrassment.
If you bring your money to a church you will be more likely to become interested in what is being done with the church's money. If you spend your time working in some Christian organization you will be thinking about that organization and very likely developing some attachment for it and for its goals.
Let me be very clear about this point. It isn't necessary to be committed to a cause to begin working on it. It isn't necessary to be filled with love before acting in the service of others. One need not feel strong or faithful or courageous or hopeful before undertaking strong, faithful, courageous, hopeful actions. In the doing of Christianity the faith begins to blossom. To be sure, doing is not the same as faith; but doing prompts faith, even when the faith is but a spark.
So for the person who is considering the revolutionary step of becoming a Christian and for the Christian with a critical life decision to make, there need be no attempt to control feelings or belief or thoughts or attitude. A choice is made to let the matter rest in God's hands, in reality, and then one does what needs to be done. From the deed, from the act may come the satisfaction, the confidence, even the faith. In quite the same manner, to the degree that our behavior slips from our personal Christian standards our faith begins to be undermined, as well. Behavior wags the tail of feelings.
I met a middle-aged fellow who was living in a board and care home for discharged psychiatric patients. He did some rather eccentric things at times--wearing gaudy unmatched socks, talking in a fashion so that one sentence seemed to have little to do with the next, and so forth. But there were times when Wendell seemed to be as normal as anyone. One day I asked him what he thought it would take to get rid of his eccentricities. He informed me that he didn't want to get rid of them. You see, Wendell believed that he had done some pretty bad things in the past. He thought that the only chance he had on Judgment Day would be to stand before God and claim insanity. Seriously. So Wendell couldn't afford to "go sane." It would be too costly for him.
I know in some detail of another fellow, a minister. He killed himself. He was feeling guilty, inferior, undeserving of life. He knew well about God's judgment, but much less about love and grace. He saw the suffering in his life and plunged into death to escape it. An obvious difficulty with the solution of suicide is that, once he succeeded, he couldn't try any other solutions to his problems. Almost any other solution is preferable in that regard.
The notion that life is a training period during which we prepare ourselves for death is not a new one. C.S. Lewis, for one, suggested that what we do during our lives directs our character development in certain directions and that the vector of our character development continues on after we die in the direction of a heaven or a hell. Certainly our time in life is short and needs to be well invested. So much of life is either aimed at readying ourselves for death or trying to run from it even in our thoughts. Ernest Becker's book, The Denial of Death, contains a fascinating argument about the ways in which our efforts to deal with the truth of our mortality permeate our daily lives.
It is important to keep the concept of death separate from the concept of dying. While we are dying we are still alive. I believe that it is wise to prepare ourselves well for dying. Much work has been done in the past decades on the quality of life for the terminally ill. Hospices have sprung up to offer settings in which dying can occur without an exclusive focus on extending life. If dying patients are in extreme pain, for example, it makes no difference that we run the risk of addicting them to a pain-killing drug. We have the means to reduce physical suffering in these cases; there is no merit in forcing humans to be in pain during their last days.
Preparing ourselves well for dying means, among other things, teaching ourselves to accept the reality of God's Will in our daily lives. God's Will is nothing other than the moment-by-moment reality which we encounter. Someday that reality will involve dying for all of us. Suffering occurs when we resist that Will. Resistance is not the same thing as working to change reality. By resistance to God's Will I mean the tendency to go around and around in one's mind with these thoughts:
if only I hadn't...
I wish she hadn't...
My boss ought not...
I wish I were...
It's not fair that they...
Why does he have to keep on...
and so on.
These kinds of thoughts are troublesome. They don't prompt constructive action aimed at changing the way things are. The first steps in improving our lives are to recognize the way things are and to stop daydreaming about the way things might have been. A more promising attitude is reflected in realistic thoughts like the following:
God gave me this nose and this height.
The reality is that I have these parents.
I'm sometimes failing in this class (relationship, job).
She doesn't often appreciate me.
I'm doing well at...
I'm very ill now.
and so on.
Depending on your circumstances these kinds of thoughts may be authentic. They involve paying attention to what God has provided as reality for you at the moment. They involve an acceptance that this is the way things are. Acceptance doesn't necessarily mean liking the way things are, and it doesn't at all mean that you're not going to do anything about the way things are. But acceptance means that you've noticed what's going on and that you're not caught up in the unreality of oughts and shoulds and might-have-beens. When we sit and complain about what faces us (instead of getting down to doing what can be done to change it) we are being prideful and arrogant. Our implied attitude is that we could have done better than this distasteful reality presented to us by God.
"It's time to go to bed now."
"Why?"
"So you can get some sleep."
"Why?"
"Your body and your mind need rest."
"Why?"
"So you can get up all refreshed in the morning."
"Why?"
"In bed, now; you're just playing a game with all those
questions."
A child's game of questioning is transparent. But adults play similar games in much more sophisticated and camouflaged forms. How much of our desire to know how and why is actually an attempt to escape from or to avoid the inevitable? Dynamic acceptance of reality considers the situation and then prompts appropriate action. Whatever change can be accomplished, however much one understands all the possible outcomes of an action, resisting or lightly flowing along we must start from the base reality of the now as the current given conditions. Dynamic acceptance of the reality God has provided us avoids the sidetracks of "if only," "I wish," "they should have," and the like.
Sometimes questioning is appropriate in response to the situation God has presented. Sometimes, as in the illustrative bedtime dialogue sketched above, questioning is attempted delay or attempted avoidance of what needs doing. The key is the purpose underlying the question. It is important to be aware of what we are really about as we confront reality.
It is this very practice of dealing forthrightly with everyday reality which helps prepare us for dying. In other words, one of the fundamental ways we can prepare for dying is by noticing and accepting the reality of our daily lives. Someday that reality will include dying. If we have the habit and strength of character to look straightforwardly at reality we will do so when it includes dying, too. Are you noticing the details of the reality God has sent you? What was playing on the radio as you drove to work? What was being said on television as you prepared dinner? If you aren't paying attention to those aspects of your life situation at the moment it's better not to have them turned on at all. Do you notice the way in which you slice the carrots? Can you describe the clothing of the salesperson at the market, the drapes in the office you visited? Paying attention to everyday reality is preparation for dying. It is also a form of worship. We turn to that topic in the next chapter.
We usually think of worship as participating in a church service or family devotion period. Prayer, the singing of hymns, reading from the Bible, and sharing words of faith and love with other Christians are all common elements of our worship. I believe that there is another form of worship possible, as well. It is a kind of moment-by-moment attention to the fascinating and stimulating world which God has provided for each of us. Earlier I noted that this awareness of everyday reality is one way to prepare ourselves to face inevitable dying. It is also a way of showing appreciation for the richly varied world God awards to us all. That flow of awareness is all that I know, after all. It is the stream of experience I call me. When I fill that stream of awareness with attention to the detail of sensual stimuli (noticing the feel of the carpet on my bare feet, the sounds of a running shower, the forms and colors of the objects on the bookshelves around me at this moment) abounding and surrounding me there is an interest and excitement that easily becomes worship-filled gratitude.
I am not saying that all of life is beautiful and pleasurable. To think so is simple-minded foolishness. To think so is to ignore the tragedies alongside us every day. But our world is rich and stimulating. It keeps on presenting us with an ever-changing array of objects and feelings and thoughts. We notice the variety of God's handiwork when we begin paying attention to the details of life. Those who live in generalities (no one ever loved me, there is no hope, life is good, I should be happy all the time, they always think well of me) miss the elaborate intricacies of life. They seem to miss living altogether. Worship carries with it a tone of enthusiasm, of respectful confirmation. If there is boredom in this world, the boredom comes from within us not from without.
Accepting reality, its pleasures and pains, is an act of worship. Accepting the now, tasting it, touching it, using it well is a message to God of our recognition and appreciation for this now-gift of awareness.
Life always seemed to me such a precious gift. I sometimes wondered how anyone could want to commit suicide. Even on the physiological level our bodies resist death. Holding your breath for even a short period brings about a feeling of panic and great pressure to resume that basic function of life. My research at the V.A. Central Research Unit, the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, and the UCLA School of Public Health put me in touch with case histories of suicide victims, their survivors, and others who had attempted to kill themselves and failed. What was it about these people that made them struggle against this fundamental zeal for life? My search for understanding in this area went beyond intellectual curiosity. For some years of my life I had lived with someone who was suicidal at times. To understand might make me better able to help.
So compelling was my need to fathom this great mystery that the research took me beyond interviews and reading case histories into hospitals and psychiatric aftercare facilities where I lived alongside suicidal patients and their families. My adventures as a researcher patient are written in a series of books-- Suicide: Inside and Out, Endangered Hope, and The Family Shadow. I wanted to try to see the world through the eyes of these patient outcasts from society. Surely, if suicide would ever be understandable it would be in the circumstances of life at the bottom of the heap, in the warehouses for people who suffer from mental disorder.
It has been more than fifty years, now, since my study of suicide began. If there is any single lesson I have learned it is that we are all more like one another than we are different. Those people who destroy themselves, those people who harm themselves in aborted suicide attempts, they are not strange and unfathomable creatures. Most often they are responding to situational pressures that appear to them to leave no alternative but suicide. Those pressures would hurt us, too, if we were in their shoes. Let's look at some examples.
Imagine yourself isolated from your family friends living in an impersonal institution where others make most of the decisions affecting your life. Some of the powerful people who govern you say that they care about your pain, they want to help. Some of those who tell you that are lying. Their behavior shows you that. Still, you must pretend that you believe them, that you are being cooperative, or you will be punished. Other powerful people in your world make it clear that you are just another body in a string of bodies that they are paid to supervise. You are a burden to them. You represent more work for them. They want from you only that you cause them as little trouble as possible. They talk about you and your problems with each other and with visitors even in your presence as if you were not there. They change your daily routine and make new rules without consulting you simply to fit their convenience. They do not thank you, they treat you as a child, they do not trust your judgment in any matter, even your evaluation of what is going on in your own mind. What a hopeless, helpless feeling you would have living in such circumstances.
Let us change the setting somewhat. Picture yourself lying in a strange place with unfamiliar complex equipment all around. People in white uniforms are talking in a technical language that you can't understand. There are no familiar faces nearby. There is obviously something wrong with your body. You can't make your right arm and leg move. Your breathing becomes difficult as your anxiety rises. You want to cry out but find that you can't. Someone snaps at you "Lie still; you'll pull the tubes out." Frightened and miserable you become motionless.
Imagine this situation. You have been living in this same uninteresting room for nine years. The highlights of your days come with the meal trays. Time creeps forward while your thoughts are on the past. No one ever visits. You sleep until you can sleep no more. You fuss with the arrangement of objects on the small table by your bed. You need to use the bedpan. You press the buzzer at the head of the bed. An aide answers over the intercom. You make your request. "I'm busy now. Just go in your bed." "Go in my bed?!" perhaps you heard him wrong. "Yeah, go in your bed. I'll clean you up later." You sink back beneath the covers wondering how long you can wait. Would it help to buzz again? you wonder.
These scenarios may seem extreme to you, but they are not so terribly unusual. As you live them in your imagination the thought of escape at all costs might occur to you, too. Some of our desire to continue living comes from our perception that we can make choices in our lives, that people think we are worthy human beings, that our bodies provide some minimal support for what we want to do, that there are sometimes interesting and meaningful events in our everyday lives, that someone cares enough to visit with us or accept our visits. We don't need to posit wild-eyed craziness, unseen voices, unreasonable swings in mood to understand most suicides. Those acts of self elimination are often quite understandable given the circumstances in which the person is living. And what is most hurtful is usually the absence of expressions of genuine concern by significant others in the victim's world. I know, having lived alongside the "poor and lowly" I felt the slights as they did.
During these research projects funded by the National Institute of Mental Health I went in a bank dressed in old clothes and uncombed hair and felt the cold stares of the tellers, the suspicion, the relief as I left. I sat in the waiting room in the admissions section of a psychiatric hospital dirty and tired and went unnoticed for hours except when I was in the way of janitors mopping the floor. I walked slump shouldered in ghetto areas and heard the jeers, and I sat ignored in a respectable White church. I wanted so much to understand. It is not so complicated, after all. When the world about you sees you as worthless, when it mirrors back to you an image of disgust and disdain, it is difficult to avoid becoming the kind of person that is reflected back upon you.
When I think of suicide prevention I'm not thinking so much of big money grants and urban redevelopment and massive re-education of professional and non-professional staffs in hospitals and churches and schools. I'm thinking of a nod of acknowledgment when someone passes through a doorway, a smile of polite greeting, a courteous word such as "please" or "thank you", an inquiry about how a vague acquaintance is doing, a word of welcome to the newcomer to the block or to the building. I'm thinking of waiting for another person to pass through a bottlenecked doorway first, giving directions in a civil manner, offering information to a stranger. I'm thinking of the extra step for the patient or customer, the extra effort for the ailing friend or relative, the extra minute for the bereaved and the lonely, the extra quarter for the working kid, the extra sympathetic smile for the troubled human being nearby. These gestures cost us very little, yet they signal to those around us that we count them worthy of our attention and concern as humans. How many lives have been saved by listening ears and a caring presence!
When we act to show even simple courtesy to another person, however he or she may be dressed, we are helping them find worth in themselves. We may be helping them to find themselves worth keeping alive.
In our culture we have created hidden institutions for those who are no longer honored or valued or even noticed. These, the "dispriveleged," include the old, the dying, and the disturbed. We have delegated the care of most of such "cases" to public institutions such as mental hospitals, residential care facilities, nursing homes, and public hospital wards. Some of these institutions are more attractive than others, but they all share the function of preserving many people physically with minimal expense. We have the technological and economic resources to "put away" such people and put them from our minds so as to preserve the exciting, enjoyment orientation of modern youth-oriented America. We have taught ourselves the odd mind-flip that psychotherapy is an adequate substitute for human contact, that social welfare is the same as being embraced by society.
Visit some of these cardboard worlds hidden away in our social attic. Spend some time in them. Perhaps you'll wish to invest one day a week in one of them as a volunteer. I can't forget a young Japanese girl diagnosed "schizophrenic" and living isolated and uncommunicative in a California state hospital. She spoke only Japanese. No wonder she was uncommunicative. This unseen nonperson, too, was one of "the least of these, my children."
During my first trips to Japan I made a lot of embarrassing mistakes. One day I ran excitedly onto a tatami mat floor with shoes on to share some new discovery with a friend. Even small children in Japan quickly learn to remove their shoes before stepping up on the delicate tatami. I drank all of the green tea in my cup and found it immediately refilled and drank that cup and again found it refilled and so on until it felt as if my stomach would burst from the liquid. In Japan I later learned to indicate that I was through drinking tea by leaving some in the cup. An empty cup signals the host to pour more. My lack of knowledge on that simple point was ruining my digestive tract.
I felt as if my first days in Japan were a succession of foolish mistakes. I wanted so badly to be a sterling representative of American anthropology, a model visitor. Yet I didn't know how to pay an electric bill. I didn't know my shoe size in centimeters. Getting from place to place took major effort. Leaving a message on the telephone was a hurdle. Evaluating looks and gestures and prices and travel time were beyond me. All the taken-for-granted skills that worked so effectively in my own culture seemed to be out of place in this Asian country. I was less competent than a child. It was necessary to depend on the patience and good will of others in the simplest of everyday matters. It was a confusing, stressful period of time.
Moreover, I made it worse by lying to others. I pretended to understand more of the language than I actually did. It was tiresome and awkward to keep asking the Japanese to repeat what they were saying, to speak more slowly, to explain in simpler terms. So I sometimes nodded and smiled as if I were following the conversation when in fact I was desperately trying to make some sense of it and falling further and further behind. I began to avoid long conversations because my lack of ability to understand might be revealed. I tried to avoid meeting frequently with the same person for fear that an earlier topic might be brought up again in conversation. How difficult social relations became as I organized them around concealing my weakness. Lies take various forms. I was lying about the level of my Japanese language ability.
At that time I was in Japan studying a Japanese psychotherapy form called Morita therapy. The readings and interviews were teaching me that one must accept oneself and one's feelings as they are and go on about doing what needs to be done regardless of doubts, shyness, anxiety, and the like. My research notes were filled with comments about the necessity of focusing on one's purpose, of avoiding the fruitless effort to control feelings, of getting on about living in spite of one's faults. After much too long a time it dawned on me that what was written in the field notes was applicable to my life as well as to my research.
Despite my feelings of incompetence, despite my embarrassment at not being able to operate smoothly in the Japanese culture it was necessary to focus on the research and get on about it purposefully. In order to do the research properly it would be necessary to reveal my lack of fluency in the language. To admit my weakness in this area would be painful (accept the feelings as they are), but then those with whom I talked would pitch their speaking to a level that I could understand. Thus, the interviewing could proceed slowly, but meaningfully (do what needs to be done.) A great burden was lifted from my shoulders as I resolved daily to allow myself to be who I really was, imperfection and all. I could (and can) never become Japanese. That is not my purpose. Making mistakes is natural. Feeling bad about the mistakes is equally natural. Such negative feelings need not interfere with living a constructive life.
When I opened up myself to others and revealed some of my ineptitude it was gratifying to see how social relations improved. The pressure was off of me to present a false image of perfection. Furthermore, some of the others who seemed so cautious and superior felt freer to admit some of their own inability and discomfort. The natural reserve of many Japanese is in part motivated by a desire for protection of the "face" or social image. A spirit of somewhat more open exchange began to characterize some our interactions.
Why is it that a person with Christ in his or her life can't feel competent and joyful all of the time? Why is it that becoming a Christian doesn't prevent us from wanting to present an inflated social image to others? Why is it that God's love isn't enough for our insatiable egos, that we crave the respect and affection of our fellow humans, too? I suppose that there are deep theological and psychological and sociological answers to these questions. For me it is sufficient to recognize that that is the way we are. Knowing that we are that way is the first step in self acceptance. Self acceptance is just a part of accepting reality, the whole reality that God has provided for us, as it is. Knowing that I have the tendency to demand perfection from myself and from others, and knowing that I don't ever come through with that perfection are important pieces of information essential for building a practical, reliable lifeway. Knowing that I am this way, still I can work on changing me by getting done what I can do in life in spite of this imperfect character. It is very important to stop the lying behavior about who I am even though the desire to be thought of as always confident and competent may continue. It is important to do my work well even when I am feeling self doubts. It is important to do service to others even when I am feeling abandoned and unloved. It is important to write the term paper even when I feel inadequate and not in the mood. Feelings will not push around my life. The flaws of my character will spoil my perfection but they will not be allowed to spoil everything that I do.
It seems to me that when Christians talk about Christ being with us all the time we don't mean that we are responsible for being the embodiment of His perfection in thought and feeling and act in every moment. It does have something to do with the fact that He truly knows us, everything about us including our inadequacy, and yet loves us. Always. That constant love may give us courage to accept ourselves as we are, too. Never giving up on the behavior, the deeds, that change us, we keep working on our imperfect characters just because of our desire to please that One who loves us in spite of our imperfection.
Naikan was the Japanese method of self-reflection described above. It is time to take another look at that way of looking at the world. Naikan begins for me with some questions:
Why is it that we fail to notice the specific, concrete ways in which we take from the world every day? Why is it that we are prone to remember what we have given to others and to forget what they have done for us? Why is it that we tend to notice and remember the troubles others have caused us and to forget the troubles we caused them? Why is it?
There is something about us that causes these tendencies, something that makes us store away information that supports the notion that it's our own efforts that got us to the place where we are. We have to make a special effort to notice and remember what we owe to others for putting us here. Why?
Naikan suggests some answers to these questions. You may not like Naikan's answers, but somehow you have to come up with some answers that satisfy you if you sincerely want to understand yourself. I suspect that you are not so different from me. You have these tendencies of selective memory, too.
Naikan offers these answers: From the time I was a newborn infant, even before, in my mother's womb I have been a taker from the world: nutrients from my mother's body, warmth from a blanket someone else made, words from teachers and books, sight from optometrists and lampmakers, water from engineers and chemists, and so on and on. I'm not writing here of some abstract God who gives all those abstract "blessings" we hear so much about. I'm writing about real people (some of whom I've never met) who continue to work to support my life.
I've taken without thought of returning, without words of gratitude, without feelings of gratitude, without even noticing that I was taking. Haven't you? I've accepted tangibles like avocados and typewriter ribbons and even a car, and I've accepted intangibles like smiles and courtesies, all the while thinking that they were my due, that it was natural for people to give them to me, that there was no need to return anything at all to my benefactors. I don't recall ever thanking my parents for the meals they served me, but I do remember complaining when the meals were late or cold or not what I wanted to eat. We're not so different, you and me, are we?
Naikan suggests that we're afraid to face the immense debt that we owe others in our world. We're afraid to face our selfishness and self centeredness and our downright insensitivity. To put the issue in words more familiar to some readers--we fear to face our sinfulness and we resist the need to repent. This fear has twisted our characters. We have to keep using energy to hide this ungrateful side of ourselves from ourselves. We wrongly believe that we have to keep up a pretense of self sufficiency and control over life. We would like to think of ourselves as givers, not takers. We want to see ourselves at least as harmless people. Some people go so far as to believe they give so much that they "burn out."
The truth is that I've caused great trouble to others in my life. I've lied to them; I've stolen their time and their attention. I've killed their dreams, even without noticing what I was about. Perhaps you have done similar wrongs. But in Naikan I don't compare myself with you. I compare myself, using my own standards, with the me I know that I should have been, the me I should be.
Do you remember the three simple themes of Naikan? They are (1) What did that person do for me? (2) What did I do for that person? (3) What troubles and worries did I cause that person? In Naikan no one tells me "That was wrong, you should have done something else," "There you took without gratitude," "Here you paid back kindness with trouble," "This is something received," "That was something returned," "Certainly, that was a trouble you caused her." No one else judges me. I judge myself by my own standards. And I don't meet them.
It's embarrassing to confess that I take more than I give, that I cause more problems than I relieve problems in the world. But it is true. Knowing that if you did Naikan you would probably come up with the same evaluation of yourself is no consolation to me. I fail to live up to my own measure of righteousness. That is terribly disappointing. There is no excuse here that God's standards or Biblical standards are too high for anyone and anyway times are different now from what they were in Jesus' day. When I look at myself in the light of these three simple Naikan questions, defining them in my own terms, I don't measure up. Of course it's disappointing.
But it is also freeing and gratifying in a strange way. It is freeing because I'm no longer afraid to look and see the worst in me. I saw it, see it, and I'm genuinely ashamed and guilty, but I looked. And the looking didn't cause me to die or to crumble. The looking made me want to try to right the balance, to try to give myself away as others have given themselves to me. Not the least of those others was called a criminal and was punished horribly on a cross.
Herein lies the gratification of Naikan. Along with that cold accusing stare into the mirror of the soul comes recognition that despite my cowardliness and phoniness and selfishness other people loved me and took care of me. The world kept on supporting me with warmth and nourishment and recognition and all sorts of pleasures and satisfactions. Undeserving though I was, though I am, you loan me your attention as you read, the air loans me its oxygen, this floor supports my weight, people feed and clothe me and even pay me for writing these essays. It's hard to believe--truly marvelous! Naikan helped me see how wonderful all this support is. Is this not an expression of God's grace to an undeserving sinner? I haven't earned this support. Even while causing troubles to my parents, my friends, my wife, my children and others I kept receiving their service and sustenance.
How can I complain when life doesn't bring everything I want in exactly the order and time in which I want it? Isn't that what I mean when I believe my prayers are unanswered? To be dissatisfied is to feel that I deserve better. Yet I don't deserve even what I get. Naikan helped me to realize the detailed working out of that truth. Such realization is not a mere philosophical, intellectual exercise about the word "sin." It is painfully experiential.
Occasionally, teen-agers and young adults complain during our individual sessions that they are suffering because they have been rejected by parents, friends, teachers, lovers. Further investigation reveals that some of them, in fact, have been rejected by these others. Yet the story is not so simple as that. The rejections have come, more often than not, because the suffering young person has been rejecting, too. They have presumed upon and taken advantage of their human resources without thought to understanding or giving or appreciating or thanking. They have taken until those who loved them have become exhausted and alienated. There is a Japanese verb, amaeru, which describes a passive state of wanting to be cared for and loved despite any problems we cause others. All of us feel the desire to amaeru at one time or another. That feeling originates in helpless infancy as we are cared for by our parents, but it may persist into adulthood as a sort of childish holdover. It represents a basic failure to keep a proper balance between taking and giving and a tendency to ignore what and how much is being received from others.
You may wonder if the West needs Naikan, if something like Naikan would be helpful to modern Christians. I think that the time is ripe for Christian and non-Christian to come to grips with the perspective raised by Naikan. We live in an era of disaffection with some of our Western values and goals. This is a time of second thoughts, of soul searching, of wondering "What is all this for?" A fair number of Christians are wondering, too.
The family, long a haven, an ever faithful cheering section, has warped and buckled under the pressure of individualism and success striving in America. We tend to count the assets and especially the liabilities our parents have bequeathed us, and we wonder if we have made the best deal possible in our marriages. We watch old age from the corners of our eyes, do what seems fashionable at the moment to preserve our health; yet eventually we sicken and die anyway. All the while we cram in life events-- travel, art, television, parties, honors, graduations, promotions--as though storing them in a photo album of experience for review and digestion during some eternal afterlife.
Religion used to provide the organizing framework for that album of existence. Now for many Americans the pages are haphazardly arranged with no suitable beginning or end except a rough chronological order and some captioned successes and joys. And the blank gray pages are far too numerous to be satisfying.
Formal education has failed us, too. Many went to college or on to graduate school in search of an ordered meaning to their experience. Often they found instead trivia, crossword puzzle classes in quasi-English, teachers who were models of life albums with no photos, only words--pretty, faddish, meaningless words-- page after page of them in sentence circles. A few students learned a craft in college--medicine, teaching, law, social work--but in the process of learning these professions they were changed into people with values quite different from those whom they would serve. The reasons for their explorations into education were washed away for many of them by the process of education itself. The captions in their life albums faded. Self interest, success striving, recognition for individual achievement, and tucking away money and power among the pages of the album became the whole of life for some. I know. I taught in schools of public health, social work, and medicine. The changes in many students from entrance into the programs until graduation was clear. "Professionalization" sucked away something warm and empathetic and replaced it with something dry and authoritarian.
And fun. We Americans must have fun, or some version of it. Joy, perhaps, or excitement or thrills or contentment. If not, we believe we have failed. If the edges of our life albums are not gilded they are hardly worth showing others or keeping for ourselves. We think that we need those gilt-edged pages.
Of course, the sketch I present here may be more somber in tone than is reality. It is a hopeful sign that some know there are important photos missing from their life albums. They recognize with vague uneasiness that the pages are improperly organized, that vital headings and even whole sections are missing. We Americans look at others' life albums in our culture and outside of it, too. We compare.
Naikan reflection helps Christians organize their life albums, I believe. It helps us see God's contributions to our everyday lives in practical concrete terms, not merely in abstract generalized words. If you do this sort of self reflection well, you come to appreciate deeply your parents' positive contribution to your existence. You come to see the interrelated web of kindness, consideration and practical work by others that supports you. You come to see yourself swimming in a sea of human events, lifelines thrown to you from all sides. And you see how to throw lines with awareness to others. Your rescue efforts in behalf of others come not from your own strength; for you, too, are treading water to keep afloat while latched onto others' supports. But you begin, little by little, to give to those around you out of gratitude from your own ongoing "salvation." In specific terms you take the trouble to pick up the leaf that someone tracked on a neighbor's rug, you use a single paper towel in the public restroom and then wipe off the mirror with it before throwing it away, you greet your family with a smile in the morning even when you are feeling tired and unhappy, you clean up the sanctuary after services, you keep yourself well groomed for the sake of others around you, and so forth.
It is a warm feeling out here, attached to all those lines of support. Who am I to complain when a line sags or someone fails to show consideration to me in some immediate way? How can we fail to offer what little we have to others? We have taken and continue to take so much; we naturally want to give something back.
Some of the people I see in my office are dissatisfied with the way they were raised. They feel that they deserved better parents. They have learned in school and other therapies to blame their parents for all sorts of current problems in life. Such clients are likely to benefit a great deal from diligent Naikan practice. It helps them see how much they received from their parents, how little they returned to their parents, and the many troubles they caused their parents over the years. No one's parents are perfect. But we are too quick to forget their positive contributions to our lives and the difficulties we created for them as we grew up. Naikan returns the client to a more balanced perspective.
I often use the following illustration with clients who complain that their problems were all caused by improper parenting. Imagine that you are a small child and that you are very hungry. Along comes an adult with food. "Here, eat this food," the adult says. "I work hard to give you this food. You never do what I tell you to do. If you really appreciated all the effort that I put out for you when I ask these little things you would do them gladly for me. Why don't you listen to me when I talk to you?"
You take the food and, for awhile, you aren't hungry.
Along comes another adult. "Here, eat this food," the adult says, smiling. "I know that you are hungry again. Please eat it. I care about you. It makes me feel good to see you eating. This food is my gift to you."
Again, you eat and are satisfied for awhile.
Then along comes another adult. "You can eat this food or not. It's up to you. I don't care one way or the other," the adult says and walks away.
But the food is there and you are hungry so you eat.
The adults reflected different attitudes toward you, the small child. Let's say that the first adult was demanding, controlling. The second adult was loving. The third adult was indifferent. There is no question that it is most satisfying to take food from the loving, giving adult. But in all three cases you were fed and sustained by the food. That you ate is a fact which must not be ignored. Despite their various psychological motives and methods all three adults fed you. It is important to remember this truth, too. No one suggests that the attitudes of the adults should be ignored. The attitudes are part of reality, too. But the attitudes are not the whole story. Another part of reality is the truth of being fed, no matter what the attitude. It is easy and convenient to dismiss the latter truth and focus in on the errors in parental attitudes. Looking at only part of the picture allows one to blame parents for all one's current troubles and evade personal responsibility for them.
One of my first responses after completing a week of intensive Naikan in Japan was to send out gifts and thank you notes to significant people in my life. I'm sure they must have thought it strange to receive a card and gift when it wasn't their birthday or some holiday. The desire to repay the world, God's handiwork, for daily concrete support washes over me in waves at times. Recently, I made an effort to try to repay my neighborhood and found myself again on the receiving end even as I tried to serve. Let me explain:
There was a gas station about a block from my office. In front of the station was a bus stop. Lots of trash accumulated on the station lot because of the pedestrian traffic passing through. It was an eyesore. I sometimes grumbled to myself about the unsightliness of the place. It dawned on me one day that this gas station would be a fine place to practice selfless service. I would volunteer to clean it up.
I gathered together an old broom, a dustpan, and a large plastic trash bag. Dressed in work clothes I went to the station manager and asked his permission to sweep up the lot. You can imagine what was going through his mind. Here was a fellow in old clothes offering to clean his place for nothing. Is this volunteer crazy? What is his angle? Is he casing the place for a future burglary? Yet the manager kindly gave me his permission to go to work. Already, even before beginning to sweep, I was receiving something from the world--permission to serve. How I appreciated the manager's trust! How foolish I would have felt had I been refused!
After about five minutes of sweeping I looked up to see the manager emerging from his office. He carried a long-handled dustpan. "Here, why don't you use this. You won't have to lean over so much with this one." He loaned me the dustpan. What a surprise! I could not give myself away. The world kept returning favors even as I tried to serve it. About thirty minutes later I noticed the manager was out on another part of the station lot picking up trash. What a shock! He was doing my job for me! It seemed as though the more I labored the more I was falling into debt from another's kindness.
I went a second time to sweep that lot, and I've started other small projects aimed at giving myself away. It can't be done. I keep receiving more than can be repaid. There is an old saw "The faster I go, the behinder I get." I feel rather like that. The longer I live the more in debt I am to my God for these clear personal expressions of loving care. The debt extends to this gas station manager, and to the maker of the broom, to the designer of my work clothes, to truck drivers and trash collectors who take away the collected rubbish. To cause myself to die would be no honorable escape. That would be merely evading my responsibility to try to repay. Suicide would also cause more trouble to others. I must keep on living, working to right the unbalanced debt, knowing that I fall farther and farther behind every day. How foolish for us to ever think that our works could save us. How necessary is grace.
Sometimes I find myself thinking of the potato I am peeling as "Potato San" (Mr. Potato) and the water I use to wash my face as "Water San." It feels quite natural now, though I am certain it would have appeared strange to me ten years ago. Of course, I don't consider the potato or the water or the electricity or my keychain or the oven or dinette chair to be persons, even though I think of them as "San." The word reflects an attitude that they deserve my respect and gratitude and thoughts (if not words) of thanks just as does anyone/anything that is doing me a favor or serving me in some way. I don't want to waste Mr. Potato's skin by peeling it carelessly or to thoughtlessly abandon Mrs. Paper's back by using only one side or to frivolously use Mr. Paper Towel's twin when only one towel would serve to dry my hands and then wipe off the cupboard, too.
Perhaps all this sounds odd, but it is a warm and appreciative feeling to be surrounded by these hard-working companions. Could they, too, be relatives of ours? If not God's children, then distant cousins of ours perhaps? After all, they, too, have roles in God's creation.
The wards in that wing of the VA hospital were called "The Cemetery," and "The Dumping Ground" by many of the patients assigned there. The staff called it an "Extended Care Unit". More than half of the elderly vets sent to the ward would die there after a time. It wasn't much of a place to live. Lights went on at 2:15 every morning so that staff could start changing the beds of incontinent patients. All patients were awakened at 4 a.m. although breakfast wasn't served until four hours later. Some of them were forced to use external catheters even though they were not incontinent. It was easier for the nursing assistants to empty a bag of urine than to take the patient to the bathroom. As in most hospital wards life was designed for the convenience of the staff.
These extended care units have been reorganized and relocated since the days of my research on them. At that time I was in the midst of a three-year project looking at attitudes toward dying and grieving. Many hours were spent talking with dying patients on these wards. The research wasn't depressing at all. Most of these fellows were eager to talk. They had no time for the usual social facades, the niceties of gradually getting to know someone, the superficial pleasantries. They had something to say. They needed to pass along something of what they had learned in their decades of lived through experience. There was so little time left for them.
As these old men lay in their beds they didn't need me to teach them about how to die well. Mostly they needed me to listen, just listen. They wanted me to accept what they said without judgment, without criticism. They wanted to be heard, really heard. They had so much from their life experience to teach.
One multiple sclerosis patient had been lying on his back staring at the same ceiling for nine years. Although paralyzed he could control his blinking so that I could run through the alphabet, and he could stop me at the letter he wanted in order to spell out a message. It took a long time for him to get out these words, "For me dying is a pleasure. I look forward to dying. I have nothing to live for." Within a year he was dead. There was no grieving for him on that ward; rather I sensed celebration on his behalf. What he longed for most had happened. The social isolation, the helplessness was gone now. What my friend had needed most was someone willing to communicate with him, someone willing to be there. As I look back it is clear that I wasn't there nearly enough for him.
The depressed and suicidal people that I know intimately seem to need the same sort of contact. When someone tries to cheer them up through jokes and prodding these self-destructive folks simply retreat further into themselves. They see right through false joviality. They don't want lectures or advice or even sympathy. But most of all they don't want to be alone. They are usually most comfortable when someone is willing to be with them, silently allowing them their depressed feelings. Just being there...
In the New Testament is portrayed a Christ who was there for people. He was there for the scarlet woman at the well, for the tax collector, for the common fisherman. He gave himself for them not only in the sense of dying on a cross. He used his few precious years to be there with them and for them and for us.
There are times when the best one can do for our fellow humans is to allow them some space until they have decided that they want to be helped. To force one's help on another is a symptom of one's own insecurity. It results in dependency and inability to cope by the person being "helped." The balanced Christian doesn't seek others to smother with his or her need to nurture and control. Constructive Christians don't need to shore up their own faith by attempting to convince everyone around to support their own fragile belief by believing exactly as they do.
Being available for others takes no special training or formal education. I am struck by the ways in which professional education makes some people technically skillful yet simultaneously undermines their willingness to be available for others. Professionals become distanced by time constraints, by authority and status so that it becomes harder to be with those they have been trained to serve. It does take self discipline to be able to sit with someone who is hurting, who is disfigured by disease, who is smelly, who is dying. That self discipline isn't necessarily learned in a university. It is developed and nurtured over years of putting down the big "me," the big "ego," the "my comfort first" tendency with which we are all born.
In time it is possible to knock down the self sufficiently to turn self consciousness into reality consciousness, and that reality includes the needs of our neighbors. The shift is one from "What does the person next to me think about me?" and "How does this affect my life?" to "What needs to be done in this moment?" and "What are the special conditions and requirements of this situation?" Then, trusting God to give an intuitive sense of what needs doing--to do it.
Rather surprisingly, often what needs to be done in moments of tragedy for others is to be there, just to be there.
Every once in a while a group will ask me to speak on "relationships." Once a student of mine thought that he would like during individual sessions to work on his relationship with men. I surprised him and my audiences by pointing out that we have no relationships. Reality doesn't bring us relationships, Christian or otherwise. Reality brings us this kiss and that handshake and Larry waving from the car and the long talk after dinner and that kind visit when I was down with the flu and so forth. My friend, Bob, is fond of saying that no one eats dinner, we all eat a bite at a time. The accumulation of all those bites we call "eating dinner." He's quite right. There is no way for us to work on "relationships." They are just an abstraction, a general way of talking about the detailed one-by-one things we do with people who are special to us. Those one-by-one acts we can work on all right. That's all we have to work on ever--what we're doing right now.
I've been asked about priorities. Some people try to put Christ first and then others and then work and then recreation and so forth. Their lists sometimes include family and "relationships" up near the top. Again, I was never quite sure what they meant by putting Christ first. It always sounded rather important and good to do, but as much as I wanted to follow such a noble sounding course I wasn't sure how to go about it. It seems to me that when you become a Christian you can't separate out a part of life that doesn't have Christ in it! All the things we do with others, all the things we do with our families, all the things we do at work and play are just brimming with Christ. Because He pervades everything it seems rather strange to try to put him first in a list of priorities. It sounds as if we could categorize a part of life as Christ-oriented (like Bible study and going to church?) and another part as devoted to the family (while leaving Christ out of that part?) and so on. I prefer to think of Christ being involved in everything that Christians do, from lacing our shoes to giving a lecture, from brushing our teeth to making love, from writing a book to watching television. Everything we do as well as everything we have belongs to Christ.
There are an astounding number of "thank you's" and "excuse me's" spoken between my wife and I. We thank each other for the simplest favors like washing dishes or taking out a plate from the cupboard or opening a car door or turning down the volume on the stereo. We take the trouble to apologize when we walk in front of the television or fail to listen with full attention or leave a book lying unread on the couch for a few hours or even when we think we only suspect that we might have inconvenienced our partner. We have come to feel natural about all this politeness. For us it is important. Not only does it express our mutual commitment to niceties and courtesy, it is saying that the other deserves the extra effort and consideration. This custom probably reads very strangely to those who don't know us well. It is the way we are, the way we have learned to be.
We believe that in the doing of appreciation the feelings of appreciation emerge. I mean that it is not at all necessary to feel gratitude when one is saying "thank you." Nevertheless, the thanks must be offered when Lynn has done something for me or I for her, whatever we are feeling at the moment. Her effort deserves my thanks and vice versa. Although, some would probably suspect that the words become automatic and meaningless after a time, I think the effect is rather the opposite. As I say words of gratitude again and again I begin to notice all the things Lynn is doing for me that deserve my gratitude. I cannot make myself feel grateful by my will, but somehow the marking of her efforts with "thank you's" seems to result in my feeling more thankful. The doing itself is important. And then the feeling often follows along after. Can you see how this theme crops up again and again in these pages? The words and postures and songs of worship to God often result in feelings of reverence and worship. The bent knee and bowed head signal and prepare us for a prayerful attitude. Behavior first, then feelings.
When I work with couples who are having troubles with each other I often assign to each of them the task of bringing a gift home during the week and performing a secret service for their mate. These ideas actually come from what Lynn and I do routinely in our marriage. Often the gift surprises are food. Lynn is Japanese American, and in her culture there is the custom of bringing pastries and other small gifts whenever one goes visiting friends. We are best friends so why not bring home something special the other likes to eat? Notes and cards and even artful stickers are not uncommon gifts. Nothing is particularly expensive, but again the principle is that not only does a gift express our caring for one another, but also going to the trouble to select and bring home a gift creates that caring. Behavior then feeling, remember?
The secret service that I assign couples in our sessions of Constructive Living is any small act done to benefit the other person. When I do a secret service for Lynn, for example, it cannot benefit me in any major way and I must not tell or hint to her that I did it. If she happens to discover that I vacuumed her study or if she notices that I scrubbed her bathroom sink or if she discerns that her stockings are no longer drying over the shower rod, well, that can't be helped. Putting the last cookie in the other's lunch, filling the other's car with gas, spending extra time shopping for that special birthday gift--these are all ways of putting ourselves out for each other. One of the things that happens when these secret services are begun as assignments for quarreling couples is that each partner begins to look around for the secret services the other is performing for them. They are curious. Their attitude shifts from one of looking for ways the other is hurting them to one of discovering what the other is doing for them. Not so surprisingly, they sometimes come across services that their mate has been performing for years.
Naikan reflection is very helpful for a marriage. When I stop to consider the specific things that Lynn has done for me today, what I returned to her, and the troubles I caused her I realize anew how much support she provides in my life. When I invest fifteen minutes a day recalling a year of our marriage, again with as much concrete specific detail as possible, the events that emerge reinforce my recognition of how much she has done for me, how little I returned to her, and the troubles I have caused her. I become enthusiastic about trying to right the balance, to serve her more, and to apologize for even the smallest of inconveniences.
Perhaps ninety percent of the difficulties we have had over the years in our marriage have come from that old self-focused pride and selfishness and self centeredness and the I'd-better-take-care-of-me-first attitude. Laziness, insecurity, jealousy, distrust--they all grow from the inflated ego. This foolishness is also what is most likely to be at the root of troubles in Christianity. That's not surprising, though, when one considers that "doing" a marriage is part of our Christianity just as much as singing hymns and commuting to work and studying and gargling. What basically causes trouble in our faith would be likely to cause trouble in the other aspects of our lives, too. The inflated ego worries about whether this marriage (religious belief, job, exercise, book) is paying off for us, whether I am getting my share. The inflated ego prompts us to see ourselves as hard working and deserving of everything that we have and even more. It encourages us to be greedy, pushy, and self protective. It encourages me to prod Lynn when she is going slowly so that she will hurry and not make us late. It matches my desire to look good and show up on time with the inconvenience that rushing will cause Lynn and to choose my needs over hers. Interestingly, the irritation that I feel in those circumstances is partly irritation at myself for being so self centered.
Our disagreements have been trivial and silly. I can remember one period of tension that developed out of a doubles tennis match (ordinarily, we try not to play on the same team when playing doubles). At any rate, when angry with one another we have always understood that courtesy and services don't stop. We carry out our chores and words of gratitude and apology just as if no quarrel were underway. In our view, the other deserves our courtesy and service just because of who they are and because of the role they play in our marriage, and not because of some temporary feeling of affection or appreciation. So, angry or not, disappointed or not, hurt or not, the behavior of caring continues. To be able to separate feelings, which are always changing, from behavior, which is controllable and requires responsibility, is an important aspect of personal development toward which we strive, but it is also a real aid to a successful marriage.
