The “long answers” for all of these questions are obviously tied to the book itself. The reason I included the questions at all is that some of the content can be “slippery.” The words sound familiar, and that familiarity can make it easy to rush past the question with tired answers, and to miss what might be new to those of us who adopted tired answers too easily before, and could stand to think about things in fresh ways – to find love in new ways.
1. How do you “manage” people’s impressions of you to protect yourself from their cheap shots?
For me, this topic is tied to a series of larger issues about culture and our roles in it. You can see a video/presentation about one aspect I put together at Pulp Theology here. I think that, being contingent beings who live moment by moment only because our Creator continues to wish it so, people share chronic questions about meaning and value in their lives, and that our societies build elaborate rituals for building or dismantling that sense of meaning in one another. People hate having their sense of worth questioned or denied. They hate having the systems upon which they build their case for worth challenged. And once they establish a base upon which to build, people often pursue “micro-passions” – a myopic fixation on a detail they confuse for a life’s lynchpin. If you are familiar with Ray Krok, the man who made McDonald’s what it is today, you have likely heard about his passion for the french fry. It’s common for a person to develop a micro-passion, a place where they can experience control, where they feel if they pour themselves into the passion they can change the world. And nobody likes to be Ray Krok when somebody else points out, “But dude, it’s just a french fry.”
My whole world is just a french fry, except for the love of my Lord and the delight into which he invites me. I just hate admitting it, and have a proven tendency to go out of my way to keep from having that pointed out to me.
2. How do people in your life tend to misunderstand you or pigeonhole you?
If I’m passionate about my french fry (I’m getting this metaphor from David Brooks and his book On Paradise Drive – he introduces this metaphor on page 213 of my copy), and that’s all I offer somebody, and they agree to see me for my passion without pointing out it’s just a french fry, the prideful part of me that wants to control my world and my emotional exposure will be delighted.
And sometimes the fry I offer people is my failure or brokenness or the kit gloves I manipulate people into treating me with – what my fallen self is looking for is the smallest, most manageable, hopefully applauded self I can be known for.
The people who don’t love me will always agree to play along with that fallen desire. And eventually that oversimplification of my very complex soul will cause me to ache to be known and loved.
I’m more than my fry. I’m more than a neurotic overweight author with an occasional insight or nifty way of saying something. I’m more than any of the list of attributes that apply to me. So are you. That’s the good news and the bad news, all in one, and that news feels a lot like the mystery of an eternally searchable, immediately knowable, completely uncomprehendable God.
3. What benefits do you gain from the way people misunderstand or pigeonhole you?
I get control. I get to feed a deep cynicism that allows me to stay in my own sin rather than having to face the fear that comes with being inspired to action by a delighting God.
4. How have other people been hurt by the roles you play?
We will always play roles. We will always hurt people. The purpose of this question is tied to the chapter about the bruised reed and the lingering threat. We are especially unsafe until we realize that we will always be unsafe.
5. How have you been hurt by the roles you play?
I’ve had to take the long way.
6. Where do you see The Rich Man’s curse of “who am I to complain” in your world?
This question is here to encourage specific admissions. What we admit we can repent of and replace with truth. Many of us need to repent of minimizing our pain and thinking the Cross is not offered to us as much as it is offered to more obviously hurting people. As we do that, we can find the truth that there is plenty of room for all of us with Christ.
7. What is the most “spoiled brat” pain in your world that you’d want God to address?
Go for the spoiled brat answer here – it’s tied to a battle between the portion of you that knows you need comfort and consolation, and the portion of you that believes being grown up or grateful involves rejecting the pains that don’t feel as important. Being sensitive to what happens inside of us does not make us wimpy – it makes us stickier to the love of God.
8. Do you live as though you believe some of your pain is too petty to bother God about? Why? Where did that belief come from?
I do. And the more I’m able to help others, because of money or relationships or authority or whatever, the stronger the pressure within me not to complain to God grows. It’s there because I’m vain and proud and I only want God to control the stuff I want, because I live like I believe in karma more than Christ, and I also seem to think God may not be paying attention on the day when I give him the important stuff, so he’ll screw it up.
See the previous chapter’s discussion questions here.
See the next chapter’s discussion questions here.
