What is intent and does it matter in our dealings with others?

I ask this question in the context of how often I meet people who feel they have been hurt by others, and more often than not, hurt by groups. How many people have we heard tell of feelings of ostracism in a group setting like school, church, work or family? So often people explain their absence from an environment as being related to how they were made to feel.

Now I learned awhile ago that we are responsible for our own feelings and frankly do not have the power “make” someone feel anything anymore than they have the power to “make” me feel something. Still we know what people mean when they say “I feel like an outcast here” or the like because we have all, at one point or another, felt something like this.

From the other side of situation the people who are being accused of causing certain feelings in an individual or group are often shocked to learn they are doing this. The do not believe they are in any way treating anyone poorly or differently and certainly not judgmentally. So then we absolve ourselves on a person by person basis because it does not intend to cause any harm.

Now we are at intent. If we cause hurt in others but we do not intend it are we in any way responsible for how others feel and the impact on them? Often when people learn that someone thinks they are responsible for making another feel a certain way they become offended because they had no idea the person felt this way.

The offense is what suggests that we do not feel we are responsible for others’ hurt feelings when we did not intend to hurt them. We are offended because we do not feel we did anything wrong.

Still I wonder if there is some responsibility…especially in group environments where a certain thought paradigm is generally accepted. Let’s use a school environment as an example. Let us say there is a school that has for years had an environment that fosters a level of social bullying. There is no physical violence but more of an unspoken rule that jocks and pretty girls do not befriend nerds and because everyone looks up to the jocks and pretty girls they begin to ostracize the nerds as well. Before you know it you have a culture that simply ignores or avoids a certain type of person. It becomes subconscious and without intent and when a nerd stands up in class one day and cries out that he or she can no longer take the poor treatment others are legitimately shocked because they really no longer even think about their actions…there is no intent.

Whether we intend to hurt or not is not the point. Is it not our responsibility to “know thyself”? Sometimes our ignorance is intentional both at an individual level and at a corporate level.

Perhaps – when someone says “I feel like I am not wanted here” we might want to listen to them and rather than decide they are not wanted because they are nerds and if they simply transformed into jocks they would be wanted, perhaps we should ask if there is something we can do about ourselves and the environment to help. Is it possible there is a systemic problem?

When someone complains that they feel left out and unwanted which is why you never see them anymore, maybe we should listen instead of defensively coming up with a laundry list of “good” reasons for why they feel this way. “Well they make it hard to connect” etc.

Let me speak now of an environment I know a little about. I have heard many people over the years who have nothing to do with church say that the reason they don’t is because they feel judged, unloved, condemned, isolated, even hated. When those of us who take church seriously hear such things we are shocked and sometimes offended because we truly do not intend any of those things for anyone – no matter who they are, what they’ve done, etc. etc. There is no intent and often because we do not have intent we do nothing about it and assume there is something wrong with the ones who are complaining.

Perhaps we really need to take responsibility even for things we do not intend. Perhaps (just perhaps) we do have an environment that makes people feel judged, hated, condemned etc and we need to change that and stop being defensive. The way to start that change is to simply listen to what these people are saying. To enter into their experience…no matter how difficult.

I read nowhere in scripture instances of Christ creating feelings of guilt, shame and condemnation in thieves, prostitutes, adulterers, murderers, hypocrites…rather he seemed to attract the very people who tend to run from our own corporate bodies. When Peter is confronted by Christ and asked to become a disciple he says “Get away from me Lord I am a sinful man” Christ takes that feeling of shame and looks at Peter and says “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.”

Don’t be afraid…when we here from people that we scare them, that we offend them, that we make them feel ashamed, angry, hated etc. We turn to them and say “Do not be afraid because we are not here to judge, condemn, or create excuses…” Most importantly we do not wait for them to come to us, we emulate Christ and we seek them out and we break down the barriers with love and compassion.

 

clock ticks echo in the dark
like a measure of lost life
time slowly bleeds away

one
drip
at
a
time

gone, gone, gone…

As you know I have been reading through the Aeneid, a poem finished by the Roman poet Virgil about 20 years before Christ and written to establish Rome, Roman culture and language and the new empire established under Caesar Augustus.

The poem is probably the best epic poem I have read so far and the list includes Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s a rare thing for a translation of a poem to be as captivating as I am finding The Aeneid.

So far the best of the poem’s 12 books has been book five (I am on book six). The wandering Trojans under the command of Aeneas has landed on the shores of his friend Ascestes’ land. In celebration of the reunion of the Trojans with their brethren games are held which are riveting in the tension and description Virgil provides.

The games include a phenomenal boat race, running races, archery competition, military, troop maneuvers and a boxing match between an aging champion he is reluctantly coaxed into a match when no one else wants to face a young powerful overconfident giant of a man. Check out the text from the poem describing the match after the older boxer trips and falls to the ground:

“He was seeing red. The humiliation, and with it the sense that his courage was unimpaired, kindled his strength: impetuously battering Dares with lefts and rights, he sent him reeling all around the ring. No pause, no respite: thick as a hailstorm rattling on roofs, came the punches Entellus threw, as he pounded Dares and spun him about with a two-fisted attack. Aeneas refused to let the murderous fray go on – Entellus was blind with rage like a killer, and must be stopped; so he called an end to the bout, saving the punch-drunk Dares from further punishment, and spoke a few words to console him…At his word the contest is over. Dares is led away to the ships by his loyal friends, all groggy, knees sagging, legs trailing behind him, his head lolling from side to side, and spitting teeth and clotted blood out of his mouth.”

What a description! No sports reporter today comes close to the poetry of Virgil. Check out the winner, Escallus’ victory speech and how he accepts the live bull that is his prize.

“Oh goddess-born, and all you Trojans, let this inform you what strength of body I had in my young days, and also from what fate you have rescued and preserved poor Dares.” With these words, Entellus placed himself in front of the bull, his prize for the bout, which was standing nearby, drew back his right fist and brought it down hard from full height just between the horns of the beast: that blow smashed into its skull and dashed its brains out.”

Wow. I cannot say more. Wow. Powerful and brutal.

there is the walking down old streets
with hot asphalt gray with the ages
and the stains of life poured out
it is all in the open without shame

there is the window with water marks
uncleaned but clear enough for this eye
shows budding trees amidst seasonal resurrection
while wind and bird compete for the sky

there is death in the hollow of every living thing
while life sparks hidden in empty crevices of the dead
cars move purposeless beside the old and the young
for the world is a buzz beneath the big, big blue

there is caffeine driven heart’s hope at work
who cares if it’s a fools false or real in the end
now is the best time to live away from past and future
with breath and beating beneath this brazen breast

there is always today, and today and today
forever present to the bounty of ticking time
well fed on what would and will be and is
fat on pregnant possibility

there is nothing but now…only now.

pathos flows like water and wind
from the hearts of those in the wings
it abounds and surrounds in a second
and is gone like a flood in the desert
refreshing it can breathe over your face
then pick up surrounding sand
to strip the flesh from your bones
inconstant as its source

First the snows had come early forcing mole underground at a most anxious time of year, and while well-prepared he never felt that way (which is the secret to being well-prepared I am told). Then after a long and cold fitful winter sleep the water had come in abundance and it was all mole could do to stay afloat and alive as formerly warm snug hole after hole was washed away by the floods.

After two disastrous cycles mole really only had one left before sleeping forever with the ancestors and he had hoped for something a tad more relaxing and luxurious then life had provided so far. There had been times when mole had toyed with the idea of going to the surface and spending more time than a mole ought to spend in the sun…to feel warmth instead of the cold but secure walls of mother earth.

The arms of the earth were all mole knew; they had been a proper midwife when he had been born and they will lovingly hold his bones when his time was up. In between they were to be his shelter, his provider and his all in all. Not the irresponsible wind which came and went as it pleased with hardly a thought for any but itself. Not the sun whose warmth, while pleasing, was distant and unreliable. The earth held all mole needed…the earth could be counted upon.

Still as the days wore on toward the inevitable mole continued in the way moles are expected to continue – he dug, he burrowed, he excavated, all the while eating whatever moved near him and the world was dark and safe. The world was only ever two things to mole…it was either dark or light (although to be honest often it was grey). It was all mole knew…dark, grey and light.

Timeless voices of moles past echoed in his ears about remaining in the dark. It was the way it was and should be for the mole. It was sense and it was creator’s hand in mole’s heart that said the dark beneath the blanket of the earth was what kept mole alive…still when the world moved from black to not-so-black to verging on white their were temptations in the back of mole’s mind that said “push out your nose just a little and smell the freshness of another world” and “burst forth from mother’s clay womb and lay without worry in the sunlit warmth of the dangerous plains above”.

So while these thoughts would come and go mole stubbornly went about the work that was his to complete. It must be done this digging and eating so that he could add his memory to the great storehouse of wisdom that future moles would mine. This was as it should be.

Yet – there was a certain dissatisfaction with it all.

To be disturbed when running down an errant tunnel or losing one’s up and down bearing was understandable for certain, but to find the utter normalcy of one’s life turned topsy turvy made one feel unworthy of the title of mole…at least in one’s own heart. We have but such a small time to do our part before the tunneling ends and another takes up the task…why am I so fearful of the life well-lived, the life lived according to the statutes laid down by the lives of every mole before him and started by the first mole an endless age ago.

The worrying was really no good because a worried mole digs worried tunnels and other moles would not suffer such pathways to be trod. If one was not careful all one’s work would be for naught and one’s tunnels would be blocked and forgotten as if they never existed; as if mole had never been.

And so day after day, month after month the digging continued and the pathways wore straight beneath field and furrow while mole grew tired. The song of the ancients grew louder in his ears and he knew his time was rapidly coming to a close. Mole would join the old chorus and lend his voice to the harmony of countless others singing the same tune.

Still there was a little time. Time enough perhaps to add a solo to thrum and hum of old fathers and mothers whose music was that of the honored earth and her holding hands.

So with that Mole went up. Up and up and up till black became grey and cold earth became warm and the sound of another world high above became clear. Then the rare and brilliant white broke through it all and the familiar pressing safety of the black was gone. There was heat and buzz and swoosh of wind bristling mole’s fur.

There was heat and warmth such as mole had never felt before from above…the sun that had been spoken of so rarely in other’s songs. Lost lyrics that poked through the grand harmony like moles through the earth.

Mole stretched and while stretching sensed threat from above in a way unfamiliar except to say that he knew and fought the urge to hide in hole, losing this dream and falling asleep when the few remaining days were done. Instead he pushed still higher on limbs not used to the room and felt the comfort of different walls enclose him round about. A screech and then the air was all around and mole sang the first solo of sun and sky in the never-ending symphony of the brethren.

Higher mole went while white and light grew brighter and brighter still and the sound of the great family grew loud in his ears. Mole’s voice once joined with the rest soared above them all adding high compliment to the eternal verse and a tug that every young mole hears still to this day in the digging duty.

Mole brought light to the dark and high hope to the ones that came after who learned that while harmony is good there is room to climb the mountain of lives lived to the peak and leap up in heavenly soliloquy.

Old moon’s face is pockmarked with age
pain scarred after endless punishing eons
like Bukowski’s gray visage in the sky
bright and peering down upon me
in the cooling embers of a day now dying

moon give me your crazed wry humour
and teach me to shine despite the dark
while the world gazes in wonder and awe

I sometimes wonder if it is possible to go through life without causing others pain. I wonder if it is the human condition or just the Peter condition. The irony of it all for me is more than anything else in life I loathe causing others pain and yet I seem to have been the source of so much.

Is it possible to go through life and cause absolutely no one pain? This is not a rhetorical question.

If it is not possible then how does one deal with the inevitability of it all? I suspect a kind of triage is required where one determines how each decision will cause others pain and how much. Do we simply act in a way that causes the least amount of pain for someone? It sounds logical but what if a certain action causes three people pain and the one it hurts least is the one you love most? Complicated then eh?

Pain is an interesting capacity we have. Not just us but animals as well. Pain is designed to provide us with feedback that something is wrong. It is an early warning system and we are to respond by locating the source and alleviating. Physically this is fairly straight forward…the closer my hand gets to the flame the more it hurts creating an ever increasing urgency to remove said hand to safety.

Emotional and addictive pain is not nearly so straight forward. Let us say someone is abstaining from a drug that they have become addicted to like crack or heroin. They will feel pain as a result of withdrawal and the quickest way to remove that pain is to get another fix. The problem is this behavior will eventually kill them. In this instance we are to do the counter-intuitive thing and soldier through the pain trusting that on the other side things will be better.

What does emotional pain warn us of? Someone hurts us with words or actions either intentionally or unintentionally and we need to respond somehow – we either soldier through the pain or remove its source…which in this case is the other person. Removing the source can in fact ideally be communicating to the other person that they are causing pain and hopefully they will stop. But what if it keeps happening? Do you keep soldiering through? Do we respond to emotional pain differently than physical pain? How many times must someone poke us in the eye before we decide to turn our head? If we keep looking at them we will eventually become blind.

Pain is often as complex as human relationship. Pain is never so straight forward as if A than B because relationships look a lot like a cobweb…a messed up network of interconnectedness that bears no semblance of logic.

“In this world you will have trouble” said Christ in John 16:33. I pay attention to this because I follow him and need to take what he says seriously. There is little hope frankly in that statement and thankfully he follows up by saying “but take heart! I have overcome the world.” The hope in that final statement is that the trouble is temporary because Christ has overcome it. Still this is a little like telling a migraine victim that, while it hurts now it won’t last forever. Their desire is to simply bury their head in a pillow and tell you to get lost.

Earlier in the verse Christ talks about the pain of childbirth and how once the baby is born the pain that was is overwhelmed by the joy that is. I suppose what he is saying is that we must trust that the time to come and what the kingdom is birthing will overwhelm the current pain…and this is hopeful if we choose to set our sights on the time to come in the midst of the current pain.

If we do not set our sights on the future hope we have,whatever it is, then we are like a woman going through childbirth without actually having the baby. It is torturous and filled with despair.

In the midst of physical pain our future hope is the response of pulling away from the source of that pain. In the midst of emotional pain we must set our sights on a future hope that makes enduring the present pain bearable…

red apple fell on Newton’s brilliant crown
to which he (Newton) cried indignantly
why, oh injurious fruit did you come down?

of a hundred brethren spread ‘cross these boughs
any good natured other would not have struck me
but you, you made this unwise choice, you chose

answer me! why fell you from high place whereon you grew?
then in pensive silence said hurtful globe did gather thought
til in response he simply whispered – “I do not know – it’s what I do…”

to whom am i most near
is it Othello, Macbeth or King Lear?
rather the ever-present fool i fear

but if the moor who then my Iago?
or if Macbeth whence the witches shall i go?
if Lear be i then which daughter be my foe?

for every action it’s true does display a certain thread
but with each act a multitude of responses can be said
the thoughtful bring life while the rushed make dead
like righteous stones thrown, righteous stones of lead