9 Apr
I tend to have a rather nuanced view of the human condition, people aren’t all bad and they’re not all good either. Still, I think a basic level of trust is helpful to get along in our world.
I think we need to trust people to make their own decisions about how they live their lives as long as they’re not hurting others. With that, I wrote up a list of nine reasons I think distrust and suspicion create more problems than they solve.
Click the title below to see the whole list at Life & Liberty:
6 Apr
The idea of problems in life being out of our control is often uncomfortable. And it can be downright scary when we assume that our inability to control the outcomes will lead to all-out chaos.
Sometimes to alleviate our fear of chaos we try to clamp down with obsessive measures of control. But then excessive control creates its own kinds of problems.
Which Will it Be?
If you had to pick…would you rather live in a society with obsessive control or total chaos?
Personally, if those were my only choices, I only want the obsessive control if I’m the one doing the controlling. If you’re the one in charge, I like my chaos just fine.
And isn’t that just the thing? I mean, we don’t want things to be out of our control, but we sure don’t want to be under someone else’s control either.
Fortunately, obsessive control and total chaos are not the only options we have. There is a whole range in between these two extremes.
So, how can we loosen our grip without letting everything fall apart?
28 Mar
This is the third in my series about “Receiving Others as Gifts.” <– Click the series title to see all posts in the series.
When I first wrote here about the topic of receiving others as gifts I mentioned the potential of the gift analogy breaking down into thinking of others as objects. When we push the gift analogy too far and reduce people to “things” we run the risk of taking other people for granted.
I felt this difficulty with the gift analogy as I wrote the previous two entries as I wrote about the value of others. I never want it to sound like I’m urging us to commodify other people in our lives. People are not objects and we should never treat them as “things” to which we are entitled.
I’d like to take some space here to address pitfalls to avoid in how we think of the “giftliness” of others as it relates to receiving their service and companionship.
Are You Being Served?
In my first post of this series I made the case that we often have trouble receiving service from others—and I stand by that analysis—but there is also another tendency that can threaten our relationships with others. Namely, we run the risk of allowing others to do all the heavy lifting for us.
I won’t speak for anyone else, but I know that for me there is a real danger to sit back and rather enjoy being served—selfishly allowing others to do for me what I could easily do for myself. And I can justify it, you know, just to give the other person the joy of serving!
But when we turn the idea of receiving service into asking or allowing someone else do our every bidding, then we have crossed the line. At that point we are no longer honoring the gift that they are to us, we are using them in the worst sense of the term.
Look Who’s Talking
In last week’s post about companionship I talked about how others can help us through difficult times and how they can encourage our best. The nagging thought came to me that this ran the risk of thinking of relationships in terms of just what we can get out of it.
Again, not speaking for anyone else, but for me personally, I know that I like to talk, I like to be heard. If someone I truly trust is especially willing to listen I am especially willing to pour my heart out. Later, when I recognize it, I feel embarrassed if I didn’t inquire much about the other person or if I talked considerably more than I listened.
We hurt relationships when we only think of our companions in terms of what their support means for us. We miss the sheer giftliness of other people when we use up all our time with them for our own needs.
All Good Gifts
When gifts are so plentiful as are our fellow servants and companions along life’s way, it can take special mindfulness to continue to hold others in high regard. If we’re not careful, we too easily go the way of the child in anticipation of a birthday who forgets manners in anticipation of the presents he expects.
And so, for all I have said so far and will continue to say about the gift that others are, as with all good gifts we do well not to take them for granted.
25 Mar
I noted when I first joined the staff at Life & Liberty that I lean libertarian and being over there has given me a chance to work out and express some of that thinking. My column at Life & Liberty today explores the issue of individualism in libertarian thought.
Here’s an excerpt:
I come at my libertarian leanings as a result of my understanding of God and faith. My background is church work and my college course of study was theology. But even before I studied theology in a formal way, my faith was already shaping my libertarian-leaning ideals.
Because I didn’t come at this by studying libertarian political theorists, admittedly I am playing catch-up to understand the landscape of libertarian thought.
I’m learning that one of the big issues in libertarianism is the role of the individual.
Frankly, I am appalled at the hyper-individualism that pops up in some libertarian thought and I’d like to suggest a better way of thinking about the role of the individual as it relates to liberty…
To read the rest of this post, The Trouble with Individualism, click the title.
16 Mar
Oftentimes my first reaction to something is a selfish, arrogant, self-centered thought. However, as an introvert, I am ordinarily able to choose to actually say something more gracious. (Introverts are known for thinking before they speak.)
So, one may reasonably question, what is the truest portrayal of who I am? Is it the self-important first reaction or is it the deliberately-chosen, kinder, gentler words actually spoken?
Whichever is the most true is debatable, but it is certain that my first reaction is the funniest. There need be no debate on that. I can easily get a laugh if I just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.
And speaking of the first thing that comes to mind, it could be argued that my first reaction is the most true. Were I quicker to speak that first thought, there would be integrity between what I think and what I actually say.
Does it necessarily follow that who we really are is exclusively a matter of our first reaction? Can we not be what we first think and what we choose to say or do in response?
If we have the presence of mind to catch ourselves from saying that witty first thought just to get a laugh, is that not saying something about about us? About our character?
See how I work these questions out over at Life & Liberty in my post, How a Well-Chosen Response Can Bring a Smile.
Jennifer Clark Tinker 