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NEW president, THEN what?  

Writer's picture: Dan Held MinistriesDan Held Ministries

Gary Larsen, creator of The Far Side cartoons, once drew a scene where Satan and his Chief Foreman were observing some men charged with keeping the fires of Hell burning strong.  Emerging from the flaming pit was one scrawny-looking fellow pushing a wheel-barrow full of hot coals, whistling a happy tune even as his fellow coal miners were grimacing beneath their heavy perspiration.  Satan was captioned as saying to his concerned cohort, “You know, we’re just not reaching that one.”    

 

In the far side of my own peculiar mind, I have to wonder: in the often hellish recesses of today’s world, would the powers that be say they are reaching me?   And how about you?

 

Are there ever days when we, too, defy the demons and manage to somehow cart our own load of hot coals, whistling our own happy tune, while those all around us are suffering?   I’d like to think there are times, maybe even entire days, when the devil himself would admit that, “You know, we’re just not reaching that one.”   

 

My last post here in this space concerned what we can do when our Limbic brain takes a look into the past and then projects a bold assumption of disaster ahead of us all.    I failed to mention in that blog how some people are less inclined than others to make such “worst case” assumptions.   Indeed, those who look back and see no wrongs to repeat will more likely assume something much different; more along the lines of “it can’t happen here” or “it won’t ever happen to me.”   Not all people are capable of assuming the worst.   Some see no evil in the past, so assume no evil ahead.  Some feel immune to crises. Somehow invincible.

 

But for the rest of us?

 

We are the ones who get even more nervous being around folks who aren’t nervous.   We don’t trust those people who do trust other people.   We get anxious when others are in denial.   Pessimistic around Pollyanna.   We perspire all the more when the next guy whistles his way along without being reached.

 

My last blog, then, suggested we shouldn’t deny the possibility of some “worst case scenario” but instead manage our stress by preparing a plan, and another, and another if necessary.   “If this happens, then I will……….” until we feel at least reasonably prepared for the worst.   Whereas denial fails the stress test in most of our minds, facing our fears and making preparations for successfully surviving them can be very therapeutic.   It’s a good way to manage stress.   Preparation in advance of a possible crisis is good.  

 

Yet, it’s not the only way.  

 

Another way to face our fears and manage our stress even in a worst case scenario that, in reality, CAN happen here and CAN happen to us involves protection.   Preparation is part A.   Protection is Part B.   When, not if, the worst thing really does happen, what THEN? What can protect me from being reached by the devil?   What can keep me whistling a happy tune instead of sweating from eternal torment like those other guys in the cartoon?  

 

 Protection in relation to any stressor, no matter how hellish the situation, involves setting boundaries.   No boundaries, no protection.   Secure boundaries, secure protection.

 

So what do I mean by secure boundaries?   I’ll answer by throwing out two important words:  THERE and THEN.

 

So how do we protect ourselves with a THERE boundary?

 

Perhaps one way is to borrow from the example of Jesus of Nazareth, whose story is told on the pages of what we call the four Gospels of the Christian Bible.  

 

In the first of those four Gospels, a book named after Matthew (one of Jesus’s original followers), Jesus talks about the difference between here and there in ways both subtle and profound.  He talks about his Heavenly Kingdom in such a way that it becomes God’s fulfilled HERE and this world becomes a kind of  THERE with its own separate kingdoms and different ways of believing and behaving.   We as readers are invited into God’s new HERE instead of remaining stuck in the suffering of THERE.   Love becomes for us God’s HERE that is so powerful that it can cast out the demonic THERE of fear.   Love creates a protective boundary between itself and fear.   Heaven creates a protective boundary between itself and any earthly Hell in which we live.  (BTW, the place in Matthew's Gospel Jesus referenced as Hell was a place his listeners all recognized as being THERE in their own Jerusalem garbage pit.) 

 

In the last of those four Gospels, a book named after John (another one of Jesus’s original followers), Jesus has this to say: “ I’ve told you this so that my peace will be with you. In the world you’ll have trouble. But cheer up! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 GWT).    The purpose of God’s Kingdom of Heaven as revealed in Jesus Christ was not to lower himself into our own Hell on earth as trauma victims but rather to lift us above that Hell as trauma survivors.  His purpose was not to be crucified but rather to be resurrected.  Jesus becomes for the world that scrawny guy pushing the load of hot coals through Hell while whistling a happy tune.   When we see the empty cross here, we see a protective boundary separating us from the Jesus who was, not is, on that cross THERE.  And we see our new identity as that Far Side character about whom it is said, “You know, we’re just not reaching that one.”   

 

The main conflict within Christianity today is a boundaries conflict.   We can’t agree on which is here and which is THERE.   We have Christian Nationalists who seek a worldly Kingdom THERE in America for themselves, and the rest of us are seeking the Jesus Kindom here in the much greater world God so loves.   It’s something of a citizenship issue where some Christians identify as citizens of heavenly love and others as citizens of American fear.   Some view fearful control as their own “here,” which makes their loving influence into a THERE.  Both sides within so-called Christianity are boundaried and protected, but my choice is to live in the HERE of God’s heavenly love (which draws persons to give influence with others) and not in the THERE of American fear (which drives persons to take control over others). 

         

Which leads me to suggest a second protective boundary having to do with THEN.   The same Jesus of Nazareth who believed God’s Heavenly Kindom was here on earth, and not THERE in some “exceptional” nation or small portion of earth, also believed God’s Heavenly Kindom is being fulfilled now.  We don’t have to live in the THEN.   In any worst case scenario, having a plan for THEN isn’t the same as living out our lives as if we were already inside that time and place.  If we choose to live in the future or in the past (both of which was happening among the people of Jesus’s original audience) and merely visit the present, we are not “now abiding in him and in his love” as he has called us to do.  Loving influence lives in the here and now with our bodies (which cannot live in the “there and then” of the past or future) and only visits the past or future “there and then.”    There is for the Christian a boundary between the present “here and now” and any “there and then” we may find fearfully demanding control. The present moment represents what can be known.   We tend to love most what we know best, all while fearing that which is unknown.     The future, and to a degree even the past, represents more of an unknown.   Living in the “there and then” robs us of the loving influence we can have upon living “here and now” in the knowable present.  This has the effect of perfect fear casting out love instead of perfect love casting out fear.    So when I speak of creating a protective boundary between ourselves and THEN, I speak of living and loving in the "knowable now."   We can then visit the unknowns of tomorrow and yesterday with an actual time boundary so we don’t get stuck living there in some endless, hellish fashion. My own "knowable now" is my mindful breathing, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. This is what then casts out my fear of the unknowable THEN.

 

Okay.   But I thought this was going to be how to protect ourselves from the new President of the United States.   That’s what many people both in America and around the world are now looking for.   Preparation only takes us part way and, yes, we do need to prepare a plan or two or three for the worst case scenario.   Protection, however, may look something more like this.  The United States and its President is THERE.  Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.   That’s one of those earthly kingdoms they have THERE.   But here in God’s Heavenly kindom I don’t treat people that way.   I love and influence people.  I don’t fear and seek to control them like they do THERE in the USA under their new President.  “There is no fear in love” and so I recognize this boundary and use the love of God into which I’m born again as the means to cast out fear and protect myself from its stress in my life.

 

What this new American President is going to do in the future is partly known, partly unknown.   I can visit the past and future and seek to know more than I do now, but there’s no point in my living there.   My time boundary, much like my space boundary, protects me from having to live THEN.   Granted, this represents my own understanding of Jesus and his call in my life to follow him.  To others, it may seem a lot more like Buddhist detachment than anything else, but I contend that Jesus validated much….certainly not all…..of what Siddhartha Gautama believed about his own faith.  Detachment from THERE and THEN is a most effective way to protect our own sanity from what is often an insane world.

 

Jesus was quoted as saying, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” – (MT 6:34).   With that one he probably got a loud “AMEN!” from the Gautama Buddha.   What we most need protection from in this difficult world of Trump’s Autocratic Oligarchy (or Putin’s, or any others now ruling their national kingdoms wherever) most of all is our own temptation to live in the future, borrow trouble, try controlling what we cannot control, try helping those we can’t help, and getting stuck in a THERE & THEN that robs us of our body’s own HERE & NOW with God’s presence and power.  

 

Different way of thinking about protection?  I hope so!  Because I’m hoping each one of us will cause the rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world and their spiritual forces of evil to soon lament together, “You know, we’re just not reaching that one.”    

 

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