Egg-Shell Reality

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As I spend more time in San Antonio, I begin to become a part of its landscape. I explore new coffee shops and walk new street corners leaving bits of memory like bread marking where I’ve been and how I’ve been there. I find, too, that these spaces are marking me, luring me in for more cups of coffee or meals shared with friends. Sometimes, these experiences are shared with others: in waitress-conversations, or with friends during lunch breaks or brief dinners. Undoubtedly I create new relationships in each new place that I find.

The Foundry is a coffee shop on the Near-Northside of town. Ridden with hipsters and churchgoers, it has the cheapest coffee in town: a $1 dollar endless cup. I spend a lot of time there: Along with good cheap endless coffee, the internet is free and fast. It’s also full of large sinking sofas and hard chairs (that juxtaposition lets me “do” work or really do work). Lately, our community has been taking our Community Days there. This is a time when we might all reflect upon readings assigned, or life-experiences. For example, we just finished reading Marcus Borg’s Heart of Christianity. Over two months we sank our bums into those upholstered and padded and springed and woodframed couches.

I have read Borg’s Heart of Christianity before. But it is always interesting to come back to such a book and hear other reflections upon it. It is the type of book, I think, that hits you differently every read. His insights are still amazingly current. Written in the 80’s, Borg sets up a glance of the American religious landscape. Broadly he bifurcates the nation into two factions of Christian believers. Accurately he paints a picture that characterizes individuals as tending toward either the “Early Paradigm” or the “Emerging Paradigm.” As might be gleaned from the titles of these groups, one is more reserved in its opinion of other religions, and religious worldview. The “Emerging Paradigm” is a lens for looking at religion that might encompass many young people in the United States. It inherently sees Christianity in a Global context. The “Early Paradigm” is other-world oriented, it focuses on basic religious belief as a grocery list: If you believe A, B, and C then you’ll be golden for the next life. Focusing on the happenings of this world suddenly become less important compared with the release granted by Heaven.

Regardless of where you and I fit on Borg’s spectrum, it does lead to interesting and new conversation. I would encourage you to check out the book. Give his ideas some thought; look at how your faith community agrees with or doesn’t agree with Borg’s delineation of the American Religious Landscape. In the end, for me, the primary idea, might be encompassed with the emphasis the “Emerging Paradigm” places on working for the Kingdom of God in this world. In simple terms, I’m curious to how our religious faiths call us to be in this world; what do we feel called to do politically, socially and religiously from our faiths?

The church pastor that I organize with was asked to join us for these times. He is a young pastor, who has been in San Antonio for quite a while now; he has worked with the Westside community for over 20 years. For the sake of keeping things simple: Borg would call him a member of the “Emerging Paradigm.” Liberal and active, he is constantly pushing his congregation to take spirituality in new and interesting directions. I agree with this nudging of his congregation. Alive spirituality is never stagnant. We are always moving, ebbing and flowing, with highs and lows. But when we have forgotten to center ourselves around our souls, or hearts, or spirits, we tend to just sit still.

Our conversations with this pastor have been intriguing and long: he tends to be long winded. Nearly always, however, these conversations have been grounded in spiritual work now, in our surrounding community with our neighborhood families.

The most recent chapter that we discussed covered Borg’s idea of Thin Places. A Thin Place for Borg is the space in this world where we feel exceptionally close to the Divine. I’m sure we can all name these spaces in our lives; often a Thin Place is not necessary an actual location, but might be a person, a group of people, a time in history or a time in the day. For a Muslim, the Thin Places might be the five prayers. Writing, reading, running, are common Thin Places for me. It is these moments that actively disrupt the distracted rhythm of my life and allow me to center myself around something other than my “responsibilities.” Yet Thin Places are most certainly geographic spaces in this world. For the pastor, Nature was a common Thin Place. Wordsworth wrote much to this. If you read some of his most well-received poems, they reek of Thin Places. ( ; Look at lines 401-446 of the Prelude). Thin Places might be the moments where we feel most restful. Where everything seems to melt away and we become more in contact with reality around us. Often, I get the sense that I am living my life through two eyeholes. I become aware that my reality is seen through eyes. I become aware of how I am experiencing reality. A Thin Place takes me past this point to the recognition that I am experiencing my reality through an entire body. And my hands, eyes, nose, mouth, lungs, heart, blood are moving and pulsing through my physically, yet this has very little to do with my existence. It is in these moments that I realize the most important things in my life are the relationships; my life is not made up of things I do, but relationships I create.

The pastor made an interesting claim during this conversation. My white porcelain cup of coffee grew cold and as I placed it down, the pastor expressed how he has been going through a sort of numbing with his job. Recently, he has been questioning how much longer he might be able to do this type of work. He needs some sort of re-energizing. And he has found, however, that the majority of the reason why he is nearing burnout is because he has been consistently depended upon to be everything for everybody. Again and again, he has been called upon to come console, to come advise, to come organize, to come tranquilize, to come and simply be. When your presence is constantly desired, eventually, you lose a center. Maybe in response to this consistent dependency, a recent sermon of his was on a TED talk that addressed human relationships (). Agreeing with this TED talk, he has found that the members of his congregation are avoiding the aspect of their interpersonal relationships that re-energize them the most: connection. Connection, the Pastor said, places us most in relationship with others.

Yet Connection, he continued, is established through vulnerability. And we hate vulnerability. Heaven forbid we actually ever share something about ourselves with our neighbors. It is like we are all trapped in little eggs. The outer shells protect us from actually being open to others. We chose those specific instances in which we open up to others. Picture yourself as an egg, with little legs under you. You live in a community of egg-people. Others are just as closed off as you are. You walk around, bumping into others, but never really opening up to them. You occasionally meet in groups: like church. So now picture a group of eggs in a sanctuary: All together. And maybe one or two eggs are open, ready to be in relation with others. This is what society is like today. Naturally, we numb those emotions and states that put us most in a place of vulnerability.

This is where we are. Closed off.

He finished up by cupping his hands together, mirroring the shape of an egg. And moving it around like a walking egg. Like this, he said, we have no chance of relating to others, of being a full and real community of full and real relationships. We never allow others to see our true hearts, souls, spirits, centers. We actively control when we open up to others. We are afraid of really relating to others.

So what happens when we are constantly opening ourselves up to others, I asked. What happens when we aren’t always closed off?


I’m not sure, the Pastor replied. But I think that is what Borg is advocating for: Because we consistently close ourselves off to the world around us, we miss the fact that the Divine is constantly surrounding us; That these Thin Places are those places where we open ourselves.

So, I think I’m going to take my egg-shell reality and break it. Open it up to the world around me. To be in relationship with others, by being honest with them. By recognizing that my community is hurting and that I have the modus operandi that I can control my relationships; that I can control when I am spiritual; that I can control my community. Rather than being in relationship with others in such a way that the vulnerabilities become our strengths.

I have been hosting House Meetings where stories like Nancy’s (The woman from the Eastside of San Antonio I mentioned in a previous blog), the Pastor’s and many others have been circulating more and more. Through these intentional vulnerable conversations, we begin to realize that the worries that keep us up at night are keeping others up at night too. As an egg community, it seems the times we are most open are the wee-morning hours, when we are most alone. When it is most dark and we assume others are sleeping. More of these conversations are to come, and more eggs will be intentionally opening up to their neighbors. This is the work that actively, intentionally creates a Thin Place reality, that consistently and confidently holds our relationships and ourselves. A reality where we realize our own worries are shared by others.


ps. Here's a video that might help illustrate the egg-shell theory I am talking about

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Comments

[Shirley]

What a blog!
Hello Aaron, what deep thinking for someone your age. I checked out the web sites you mentioned and was really impressed with Brene Brown's talk on vulnerability. I have many thoughts about that and would love discussing them with you if a time ever comes. Also "being enough." Actually a hard transition to make. Also heard you are applying to Union Theology also. That, too, would be great! I believe that was Willian Sloan Coffin's school. I remember reading his book, "Once to Every Man and Nation," a great work. Keep sending those blogs, they are riviting. Shirley