An Honesty Challenge

I have recently been reading a book by Brené Brown called The Gift of Imperfection. It has been an insightful read and one that I have been challenged by. The basic premise of the book is what is required in order to live a "wholehearted" life. Brown is a researcher who has spent a lot of time researching shame.  And one of the things that she found and was surprised by is that the people who are most successful  at living in a wholehearted way are those who have the courage to be vulnerable and to accept their imperfections.

There is so much more to this book. Every chapter I find things that challenge me to think about the way that I live my life, and I highly recommend reading it if you are open to being challenged to grow. But what I want to talk about here is how reading this is has infiltrated my life in a way that I did not expect.

I started reading this book for personal growth. But I found myself talking about it today in staff meeting at church. And then I found myself thinking about it as I read news stories about white privilege. Because while this book is geared toward the individual, the premises are also true for groups and society.

One quote that stuck out to me: 

"If we want to live and love with our whole hearts, and if we want to engage with the world from a place of worthiness, we have to talk about the things that get in the way - especially shame, fear, and vulnerability."

What I keep thinking about is how we as people are so hesitant to be honest about what is real. We want to keep things the way they are because it is what we know. We want to think things are good the way they are because that doesn't ask anything of us. Change is hard, and it's scary, and we just don't like it. But then we wonder why things don't get better - and even in many cases get worse - in those situations.

• Why is church attendance shrinking?
• Why do things like the events of Ferguson happen?
• Why does the government get nothing done?
• Why do the comments on a news article or Facebook post get so mean so fast?
• Why are we so quick to judge each other?
• Why is depression so prevalent?
• Why is there so much violence in the world?

These are just a few of the questions that I think are important to ask. And the truth is, there are no easy answers to these questions. But we need to face the reality that the only way to improve any of these situations is to embrace the tension of "no easy answers" and ask them anyway. We need to be honest to how we are contributing to these situations.

One that I found myself asking yesterday: Why did I just spend that much money on new clothes when I know there are children starving in the world? Do I really need more?

And when I'm honest - the truth is no, I don't need more. I wanted the things I bought, but I did not need them. Does that truth mean I am going to return all that I bought yesterday? No - in fact I am wearing one of the shirts as I write this post. But being honest with myself about that fact is the first step.

But it's not easy being honest with myself because next time it might mean I don't get what I want. It means that I might begin to feel uncomfortable with decisions I make to benefit myself. It means that I might be challenged to think of myself less and to think of others more.

But isn't that what we have been called to do? Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are to love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbor as ourselves - all the other commandments come from these two. But they aren't easy. They are complicated and messy. And we don't like the mess. We want things to be comfortable. We want things the way we want them. We want to be in control. And then we want the right to be upset when the result is not what we hoped for.

Why are we so comfortable with  the status quo? Why are we so content to commentate on the big problems without ever getting involved in the answers? Because change takes hard work. One more quote from Brené  Brown:

"We don't change, we don't grow, and we don't move forward without the work."

As individuals, as groups of people, as organizations, as a society - the only way anything changes is through hard work. And it begins by doing the hard work of being honest with ourselves about where we are. The question is - are we willing to go there?