Domination versus Communion

Under the Domination Paradigm, people are encouraged to think of themselves as identified by their descriptions and to see themselves as real insofar as they are distinct from others. . . . “I am I by virtue of being not-you.” So defined, people feel the insufficiency of their being, which is always vulnerable, always at risk. Consequently, people are insecure and anxious. Strongly pressed to preserve and enhance what being they have, people are easily tempted to believe that helping others may hurt themselves and that hurting others may be the best way to help themselves. After all, the others are “others,” and our first priority is ourselves. “My” well-being has to take precedence over “yours.”

          Beatrice Bruteau (Holy Thursday Revolution)

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Its you and me against the world!

Sometimes it is just “me” against the world

 

This is the modern American mindset

Cultured and nurtured for hundreds of years

 

I am distinct!

I am exceptional!

I am entitled to wealth and power!

 

I am, and I am distinct from you.

And you?

You are mostly likely a threat!

 

Especially if you do not look and think the way I do.

 

Where does this mindset take us?

This human reality so evident in the symbolic stories of the Bible

 

In the stories of the Garden,

Cain and Able,

the Tower of Babel

even Noah?

 

It takes us to a place where we are fragmented and divided as human creatures.

There we are in our isolated magnificence.

There we are in our isolated vulnerability.

 

Needing to “preserve and enhance” what we have

Seeing those around us as competition, as threats.

 

Fearful that generosity is an erosion of safety and power,

and thus, becoming fearful hoarders and worse.

 

Becoming people willing to sacrifice other people for our benefit.

Willing, when in leadership, to not only fail to do what is good for others,

but willing to prevent others from doing good (think Abbott and DeSantis)

 

We become such fragmented and dysfunctional people, the evidence

of our dysfunction glaring in the harsh rays of the sun

beating down on a dying planet.

 

The evidence is everywhere!

In injustice,

Inequity!

Guns.

Climate change.

Authoritarianism (the corporate version of all this).

 

There is “me”

And then there are “others”

And they are of no consequence.

 

But the Sacred demands a different way.

The Jesus Movement makes this clear.

 

With the Sacred we are unified.

We carry all carry the Sacred, One Spirit

We all participate in the Divine

We all are loved

We all are children of God

We are all safe in Sacred Love (although not “safe” in this world).

 

And we are drawn together, not driven apart

With Pentecost, and the revelation that we are Sacred Filled

The Tower of Babel was reverse

Division and confusion became union and understanding

 

The world is a mess

The Jesus Way is the way out of this mess.

 

That way where we do not say,

“here I am by virtue of being not you”

But say instead

“Here I am I by virtue of being in-you/with-you/for-you” (Bruteau).