Live happily together in a spirit of harmony, and be as mindful of another’s worth as you are your own. Romans 12:16 (TPT)

The Same – Connected Series – Part 2

Go to PART 1  |  PART 2  |  PART 3

Paul believed that we belong to each other; connected, all of us, together. Interwoven. On a basic level, we are all the same: we all have the same value, we are all made of the same stuff, we are all loved.

At the same time, we are vastly different. Same-same, but not. We haven't all had the same experiences, we don't all see life the same way, we don’t have the same values; some of us believe one thing, others believe another. We are colors, we are shapes, we are words; different, vibrant and beautiful.

But also, frightening.

Following on from his quote yesterday, in “The Hungering Dark”, Frederick Buechner said:

“But there is another truth, the sister of this one [that we belong to each other – no man is an island], and it is that every man is an island. It is a truth that often the tolling of a silence reveals even more vividly than the tolling of a bell. We sit in silence with one another, each of us more or less reluctant to speak, for fear that if he does, he may sound like a fool.

And beneath that there is, of course, the deeper fear, which is really a fear of the self rather than of the other, that maybe the truth of it is that indeed he is a fool. The fear that the self that he reveals by speaking may be a self that the others will reject just as in a way he has himself rejected it.

So either we do not speak, or we speak not to reveal who we are but to conceal who we are, because words can be used either way of course. Instead of showing ourselves as we truly are, we show ourselves as we believe others want us to be. We wear masks, and with practice we do it better and better, and they serve us well except that it gets very lonely inside the mask, because inside the mask that each of us wears there is a person who both longs to be known and fears to be known.

In this sense every man is an island separated from every other man by fathoms of distrust and duplicity. Part of what it means to be is to be you and not me, between us the sea that we can never entirely cross even when we would. “My brethren are wholly estranged from me,” Job cries out. “I have become an alien in their eyes.”

It’s the “unknown” between us that sparks fear. And fear is at the heart of most destructive behavior. Fear of what people will say, what they will do; both in response to us and as an advance toward us.

What will happen if we let them in? What will happen if I tell my story? What will happen if I’m vulnerable? How will I respond to someone else’s vulnerability? Will listening to someone else’s story shatter my sense of self and my worldview?

Same-same, but different, you and I. All of us together. Beautiful and terrifying.

So how do we do it? How do we live alongside each other in this crazy world? How do we shake off the fear so we can engage our differences with grace?

The Apostle Paul said:

“Celebrate with those who celebrate, and weep with those who grieve. Live happily together in a spirit of harmony, and be as mindful of another’s worth as you are your own. Don’t live with a lofty mind-set, thinking you are too important to serve others, but be willing to do menial tasks and identify with those who are humble minded. Don’t be smug or even think for a moment that you know it all. Never hold a grudge or try to get even, but plan your life around the noblest way to benefit others. Do your best to live as everybody’s friend.” (Romans 12:15-18 TPT.)

Go to Part 3 – An Island »

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