Hospitality Is Risky

There are good reasons that hospitality is difficult. It takes time and we’re all so busy. Doing, um, work. So we can buy things. Things we’re just as happy without. And so we can earn respect. The respect of the kind of people whose respect is earned that way.

Hospitality takes time, and hospitality is risky. You might get taken advantage of. Or you might be unwittingly facilitating someone’s self-destruction: there’s a time for offering someone a beer, and a time for resisting that impulse, and we don’t always know which is which. We risk getting it wrong.

I'm asking you to imagine that at the center of your life is the question, “What does this guest need?” Putting that question at the center doesn’t mean we will always know the right answer to that question. But to live in the space of that question – always having our radar up for where the need is, and going toward the need we discern – is a life of healing. The payback is the growing, softening heart.

The risks are worth it. Deep down, we humans don’t crave safety. What we ache for is acceptance, and acknowledgment of our worth. Therefore, embrace others as worthy guests, even if they don’t meet our needs. Even if they scare us. To embrace the worth in the other, even when their actions don’t meet our needs, is a radical notion. It might change your world into one in which you don't have to be smart or witty, deep or cultured, beautiful, young, healthy, enlightened, or handy. All you have to do is open the window of your heart and let the outer light in -- and let the inner light out. In that light, you can see and be seen; love and be loved.

It is revolutionary, risky, and world-rattling. Radical hospitality isn't safe or cozy. Commitment to radical hospitality is challenging. I want to be real with you about not only the good intention, but the skills, the emotional and social intelligence, that it takes to simultaneously maintain boundaries while tearing down walls.

Sometimes we’re up for making the initial opening, but aren’t equipped for the follow-through. I was struck by one example of a family whose heart was, or seemed to be, in the right place, but who just didn’t have the skills and resources to pull it off well.

Tanya and Tracey Thornbury of Montevido, Minnesota, were among the many Americans who, in August 2005, felt it was their duty to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Over the Internet the Thornburys made an offer to open their home to hurricane refugees. They were put in touch with Nicole Singleton, an impoverished 33-year-old single mother of six children, ranging from age 3 to 16, and Nicole’s mother, Dot. The Thornburys, with three children of their own, welcomed Nicole and her children into their home. Tanya Thornbury bought Nicole a bathrobe, pajamas, sandals, helped her find a fob, offered to help make financial decisions about the federal aid. The Thornburys accepted the doubling of their electricity costs and tripling of the natural gas bill. They were good and generous people.

Then problems arose. Nicole’s mother, Dot, refused to live by the rules of the house, allowed her grandchildren to watch violent, inappropriate movies in the presence of the Thornbury kids. The guests wanted to download rap and hip-hop music on the internet, and Tanya said no. Nicole had a boyfriend just released from prison that she was surreptitiously corresponding with – and she revealed to him her new address, which made the Thornburys nervous. Tensions and quarrels began. Six weeks after it began, the merger was over when the Singleton family moved to a donated house in Minneapolis.

From the Thornburys’ perspective, they felt keenly the sting of ingratitude. Tracey Thornbury vowed, “I won’t help anyone again for the rest of my life.” (from Robert Emmons, Thanks!)

Sometimes gifts bring joy. At other times they come with pride, and, the gifts can evoke envy, jealousy, and thus greed, and even hatred. Receiving a gift can place one in a position of inferiority – in which case resentment is be more likely than gratitude. Hospitality requires our humility. It also requires skills and tools.

Among the tools that might have been helpful for the Thornburys and Singletons is a covenant. With a neutral third-party facilitator to help them develop their covenant, they might have been able to clarify what to expect of each other and of themselves. Clarifying expectations at the beginning can be a huge component of creating the space within which hospitality can work.

Congregational life affords a way to sharpen our hospitality skills and habits. Before we're ready to welcome strangers into our individual homes, we can warm up the hospitality muscles by welcoming them more graciously into our collective home, our congregation.

Congregational hospitality may be a little easier in some ways, but it raises challenges of its own. Newcomers might be different from us. If we were to make them feel at home, they might, you know, actually, feel at home. And stay.

We would have to change to be hospitable – to meet their comfort needs. I might need to stretch the way I preach and pastor. They might connect better with different music in worship. They might have different ideas about child-rearing, or what should happen at a committee meeting. Hospitality is inconvenient. It will change us – and transformation is always inconvenient to the interests of the person that we were.

It’s also what we’re here for.

Hospitality is job one. This being human is a guest house.

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This is part 3 of 3 of "Radical Hospitality."
See also:
Part 1: This Being Human is a Guest House
Part 2: Jesus, the Dalai Lama, and Hospitality

This Week's Prayer

“For the sun and the dawn, which we did not create; for the moon and the evening, which we did not make; for food which we plant but cannot grow; for friends and loved ones we have not earned and cannot buy; for this gathered company, which welcomes us as we are from wherever we have come; for all our free churches that keep us human and encourage us in our quest for beauty, truth, and love; for all things which come to us as gifts of being from sources beyond ourselves, gifts of life and love and friendship: we lift up our hearts in thanks this day.” (Richard Fewkes, SLT #515)

Dear Grace – all gifts we do not earn or deserve,

Our hearts and thoughts are with the people of France, where at least 127 are dead and hundreds injured after a coordinated series of attacks Friday night. We know that evil dwells in every human heart, and we pray for peace, for wisdom to find ways to end the despair that is the root of the despicable, and for the courage to commit to building a world of liberté, egalité, and fraternité for all.

This week we remembered armistice day, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 97 years ago. The price of peace is vigilant attention to justice. Let our hearts be ready to pay the ongoing price for armistice – now, at our own 11th hour.

We remember and prayerfully recommit to helping to end such tragedies as:

• suicide bombs in Beirut – and elsewhere;
• genocide in Burundi – and elsewhere;
• arduous, dangerous, and often fatal journeys for refugees from Syria – and elsewhere;
• torture in China – and elsewhere;
• female genital mutilation in Kenya – and elsewhere;

We pray for strength and courage to be agents of love and justice that overcomes such evils.

We know that we have grounds for hope.

• We celebrate the end of the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone.
• We celebrate the free elections in Myanmar, and the peaceful transfer of power from the military junta, showing us that peace and democracy can, at last, prevail.
• While we are saddened at racial hatred manifesting at the University of Missouri, we celebrate the empowerment of black athletes to effect change.

Our lives are filled with blessings not earned or deserved. Let the gifts we have received flow back from us in a river of compassion.

Jesus, the Dalai Lama, and Hospitality

If you are brand new to Unitarian Universalism, bring your hospitality. If you have been a member of one of our congregations for sixty years, you have a special responsibility to demonstrate hospitality for the newer folk.

Radical hospitality goes beyond coffee and donuts and a greeter at the door. It is an orientation of our being that sees everyone as a valued guest.

In Luke, Jesus says: when we are to have a dinner, do not invite your friends or the rich folk.

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” (Luke 14: 12-14)

Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. We are here to serve.

I was at a talk once by Sharon Salzberg. She's a spiritual leader and teacher who, in the course of her training and travels, has had occasion to spend a fair amount of time with the Dalai Lama. They’ve gotten to know each other. She spoke of how the Dalai Lama seems to have an almost-magical radar for suffering – and he goes to it. Once, she said, she had had an accident and broken her leg, and was attending an event on crutches and cast. She reported that the room was full of a hundred or two people gnoshing and talking. The Dalai Lama entered, paused just a moment, then made his way straight to her. He was drawn as if by a magnet to wherever the need for care was greatest. So with a room full of various dignitaries and spiritual leaders, he went right to where the injury was. He held her in the embrace of his gentle attention, and said, “What happened?”

Hospitality is responding to the need. It can start with seeing a coffee cup that needs refilling. In its radical form, hospitality goes to the greatest needs. So Jesus, being the radical he was, told us that it’s not about tending to your friends, tending to the wealthy who can help you get or remain wealthy. It’s about the the poor, the crippled, the blind, the hurt, the outcast.

Go to the need. Go to be with it in care. Love the stranger into the family of belonging.

This is a radically anti-consumerist approach to congregational life. On the consumerist model, the members of a congregation are essentially customers. They pay a percentage of their income – and get a product, a service, in return. They get to see a nice show on Sunday morning, nice classes for the kids, a minister to talk to when you’re troubled. Fee for service. The radical hospitality perspective is completely opposite. The building and grounds legally belong to the membership, but spiritually a congregation belongs not to its present members. It belongs to those who aren’t members – not yet, and maybe never will be – but who need it.

Our message to visitors, first-time or any-time, is: We belong to you. Maybe you only need us for one day, one hour. Or maybe for a couple weeks. Or maybe for the rest of your life. Doesn’t matter. We belong to you. One way of putting that is to say, the church is not ours, it is God’s. Another way is to say, we are not here for our own self-interests. There is something beyond, or deeper, or higher, or wider, than gratification of our own passing impulses. There is a love not encapsulated within our own tastes and pleasures, and we are here to serve love.

In a manner of speaking, it is a fee for service deal after all -- only, the service we're talking about is not the service you get. It's the service you give, the service we give which your financial contribution helps enable this congregation to offer to others.

To get ourselves into that welcoming state of being requires making time, making space, slowing down, and listening to one another. Listening is a healing art. There are books you can read, seminars and trainings you can go to, skills to build for the practice of the healing art of listening. And they’re great. For right now, though, I just want to ask you simply breathe into those words for a moment:

Listening is a healing art.

Do you feel the opening, the spaciousness that comes from that orientation?

Go to the need, go to the other, the stranger, the visitor, the guest. Ask, “what happened?” – or just “how are you?” “What is your quest?” – and listen. That’s giving the gift of hospitality.

What we get in return is that hospitality to others helps make ourselves whole, free from the self-preoccupation and narcissism that flesh is heir to. Hospitality asks, “May I know you better and break down my judgment and categorization of you so that my tight little heart stretches a bit?” In the stretching we make room for the deep longing of our hearts, to build and live in a world where no one is excluded, where all are heard, where no one’s tears go unnoticed.

* * *
This is part 2 of 3 of "Radical Hospitality."
See also
Part 1: This Being Human is a Guest House
Part 3: Hospitality is Risky

This Being Human Is a Guest House

"This being human is a guest house." I love that line. It’s from the 13th-century Persian Sufi Muslim poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi. Here's his poem:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy. A depression. A meanness. A momentary awareness.
They come, these unexpected visitors.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
They may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought. The shame. The malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond. (adapted from a translation by Coleman Barks)

Rumi is telling us: living means being a house for guests. Visitors come. Our job – our only job – is to be a good host.

At any given time, wherever you are, the space around you is a house. You’re the host for whatever enters yours space. Some of the visitors are pleasant – charming even. Others might seem obnoxious. Rumi’s examples are feelings.

Be welcoming and hospitable when joy arrives. I don’t always do that. How about you? I’m too busy to pay her any attention. Or I’m so distracted I don’t notice her in the distance headed my direction, and I don't unlock the door, turn on the vacancy sign, and get some cookies in the oven with a wafting aroma to entice her in. So all I get is a glance at my closed front door as she passes by. Or she does come into the parlor, but I don’t relax and enjoy my ebullient guest: I don’t en-joy. Maybe I think my house – my life, my being – is too shabby an accommodation for such an exalted guest. If I subtly or secretly believe I don’t deserve a grand visitor, I probably won’t be very good at making her feel comfortable.

Be welcoming and hospitable when sadness arrives. I don’t always do that, either. You? I don’t want sadness moping around the place in his drab gray overcoat, out of season and out of fashion. I offer coffee – whatever stimulant is at hand – and I fish for a compliment: “How is that coffee?” I ask. He says, “meh.” I don’t need this, I think. “Maybe you’d be more comfortable at an accommodation down the road,” I say.

Or anger comes knocking. When anger comes for a visit, I find it hard to maintain a good host's balance. A good host is interested and engaged, but not too interested -- attentive while also self-defined, comfortable in his own skin, nonanxious. Anger storms in the door, marches over to the thermostat and turns up the heat. I might try ignoring her -- pretending that it's not getting hot. If another guest were to ask, "Is it getting hot in here?” I'd say “No, not at all. I’m not hot.” That's not being attentive to the reality. Or, alternatively, I might try indulging her. If she asks to change the soft background music to some raucous station, I say "Fine.” If she then asks to turn the volume way up, I say, "Yes, yes.” I join her is some arm-waving, head-banging dance of wrath. You know that dance? That's not being self-defined and nonanxious. Good hosts know not to ignore the spoiled children guests, and know not to indulge them either.

This being human is a guest house. The essential skill – the one skill that sums up everything important in life – is hospitality: the skill of knowing how to be attentive and interested and engaged while also not indulging. It’s being a nonanxious presence: Fully present, yet without taking on the anxiety or reactivity of your guest. What our guests most need is our gracious, calm attention.

This being human is a guest house. My job – really, ultimately, my only job – and yours, too, as best you’re able – is hospitality to whoever comes. Hospitality to the visiting emotions prepares us for hospitality to experience generally -- any experience, including the hospitality to other people.

At Community UU, this month we're exploring hospitality in our Journey Group. That’s where the real growth and deepening is slowly nurtured.

"Radical hospitality” means hospitality that goes to the root, hospitality that transforms everything we do, hospitality as Job One -- and as the foundation of every other job. The radical goes beyond social norms. Radical hospitality goes beyond social norms to love others into the family of belonging. Radical hospitality is a spiritual practice, and spiritual practices need a group. Your individual work to be hospitable supports and strengthens our collective, congregational practice of hospitality, and the shared collective practice supports and strengthens the individual hospitality you carry with you out into all aspects of your life. My Job One – what I believe is your Job One – is also our Job One. Every time a congregation of religious liberals gathers, it gathers to practice, to teach by example and to learn, the gentle art of hospitality -- what William Schulz calls the fragile art, when he says the mission of our faith is

"to teach the fragile art of hospitality; to revere both the critical mind and the generous heart; to prove that diversity need not mean divisiveness; and to witness to all that we must hold the whole world in our hands." (SLT #459)

* * *
This is part 1 of 3 of "Radical Hospitality"
See also
Part 2: Jesus, the Dalai Lama, and Hospitality
Part 3: Hospitality is Risky

This Week's Prayer

“Earth mother, star mother, you who are called by a thousand names: May all remember we are cells in your body and dance together. You are the grain and the loaf that sustains us each day, and as you are patient with our struggles to learn so shall we be patient with ourselves and each other. We are radiant light and sacred dark -- the balance. You are the embrace that heartens and the freedom beyond fear. Within you we are born, we grow, live, and die. You bring us around the circle to rebirth. Within us you dance forever.” (Starhawk, SLT #524)

Dear Earth mother, star mother, Mother of love, of inclusion, of justice and peace:

Our hearts are heavy with the things happening in our world, your Earth. War and persecution have displaced nearly 60 million people from their homes – more than at any time since World War II.

A militant group affiliated with ISIS in Egypt claims responsibility for the downing of a Russian passenger plane. Here in our own country, Islamophobia darkens the land, evidenced by graffiti this week at Virginia Tech by someone threatening to “kill all Muslims.”

On Mon Oct 26, a 7.5 earthquake in Afghanistan killed more than 260. Relief efforts are hampered by the fighting in the region. On Sat Nov 7, a 6.8 earthquake struck Chile, an aftershock of the 8.3 quake on Sep 16.

The endangered saiga antelope of Central Asia are mysteriously and rapidly dying off. More than half the species has died in recent months, perhaps because climate change transformed harmless bacteria into lethal pathogens. The saigas could be extinct within a year.

We are hopeful that this week’s nixing of the keystone pipeline is truly a victory for the environment, as many claim. May it be so.

“We are radiant light and sacred dark;” cells in the body of creation -- creation that brought us into being and lives on after us. We know, too, that kindness persists, that everywhere there are hearts that shine with love, voices that cry for justice, hands that care for life, minds that envision new ways, spirits committed to possibilities of connection and mutuality. May our own hearts, voices, hands, minds, and spirits be among them, growing ever stronger.

Can't Get To Freedom By Ourselves

In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, the character, Lee, is excited about timshel, as translated, "thou mayest." The possibility of acting where there is neither a command ("Do thou") nor a guarantee of an outcome ("Thou shalt") is indeed exciting. It’s very engaging. When no particular authority is commanding and the outcome is up for grabs, then we are called upon to use moral deliberation. Then we bring all our tastes and preferences to the table – they all get to be considered even if they aren’t all gratified. Then we can pursue purposes with integrity with an overarching sense of who we are.

How can you get more Timshel – more of that experience of freedom – in your life? In other words, what might I say today that might function as a cause to help your action be less caused by causes you don’t like and more caused by causes you do?

Practice attention. Just notice what’s at work in you. Noticing that you’re angry, or that you’re scared, noticing the tightness in your chest or throat or shoulders or stomach, noticing the heat rising on your skin, or the contraction of hair follicles that is that hair standing on end feeling – just bringing conscious awareness to these feelings gives them less power over you. Not zero, but less.

Noticing hunger, just paying attention to the sensations, opens up a greater experience of freedom. If we don’t much notice what the hunger really feels like, then we just reflexively grab a bite to eat. But if we do notice it, possibilities of choosing otherwise come into view. We bring our own language of deliberation into the situation, and it might produce a different outcome than just unthinkingly responding.

Or notice when you’re not hungry. Am I reaching for some food when I’m actually not hungry? Noticing where that impulse or habit to eat might be coming from, if it isn’t coming from hunger, allows us the feeling of greater choice – which is to say, it brings the language of deliberation into the causal mix.

If sin is anything that isn’t manifesting your best self -- something that you did that came from an impulse that you would rather have overridden -- the reminder that you have choice – that is, the reminder to bring conscious deliberation into the mix – can be helpful. I was, for example, struck with the blog post by a young woman who struggles with injuring herself, and sometimes with impulses to suicide. She wrote:

'A few weeks ago my friend Austin told me about his favorite passage from John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. In this part of the story, the characters discuss the different translations of the Bible story about Cain and Abel. They found that each translation used a different phrase to describe Cain’s relationship with sin. The King James version says “thou shalt” conquer sin, whereas the American Standard one says “do thou rule.” But the Hebrew word used is “timshel,” which translates to “thou mayest.” And that means there is a choice. With “timshel,” Cain would have a choice to either rule over sin or not. As I sat on the floor listening to Austin speak, my knee shaking with the anxiety of the thoughts in my head, I felt the power of timshel. I knew that while my head was telling me to self-injure, that I needed to self-injure, in reality the words in my head were not “thou shalt” but rather “thou mayest.” I had a choice, and I was able to choose to be safe.' (Emily Van Etten, "Timshel")

Yes. I certainly want to affirm her power to choose to be safe.

Of course, one passage from Steinbeck is not a cure-all. Her struggles returned. Still, any time we can manage to move into the space of conscious choice, bring the forces at work in us into the light of self-awareness, we do, temporarily, open up a little more freedom. At the same time, we should also remember that, in Genesis, immediately after Yahweh tells Cain, “you can be its master,” the very next two sentences are:

“Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Come, let us go out to the field.’ And when they were in the field, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him.”

So one little reminder often doesn’t do much.

Cultivating the habit of constant self-awareness, always noticing the needs, feelings, desires as they arise, this is the practice of freedom. We do this not to suppress or reject the parts that we don’t like, but to own them and embrace them.

To hold ourselves fully responsible – that is, response-able; able to respond to – all of who we are – to own and re-integrate all of ourselves, all the terrible things we’ve done and said and felt and failed to do or say – this is the practice of freedom.

Psychologists use the term “dissociation” to describe a range of detachments from reality. It often has to do with distancing ourselves from a part of ourselves. In extreme cases, it is multiple personality disorder, as the Dr. Jekyll self seeks to sequester and banish the Mr. Hyde self. We are all prone to some form of dissociation – we want to identify with the parts of the self that we like, and get rid of the parts we don’t like. Freedom comes from embracing it all. Cain is banished from the presence of Yahweh and goes to the land of Nod, East of Eden. Freedom comes from bringing your inner murderous Cain back from the land of Nod (the land of nodding off, the land of sleepy unawareness), back into the full presence of the awakened self -- and owning the responsibility for all of who you are. Not indulging every whim, but not suppressing any either. Neither indulging nor suppressing, but aware of and responding to. We do not rule over our sin by banishing it, but by welcoming it into the community of self, by recognizing the legitimacy of its needs.

At the end of East of Eden, the servant Lee begs for the father Adam to give his son, Cal, his blessing. “Don’t leave him alone with his guilt…Let him be free,” pleads Lee. And Adam, as he is dying, whispers one word: “Timshel!” "He thus affirms that Cal has indeed, by accepting responsibility, demonstrated that he is capable of ruling over sin." ("John Steinbeck's Midrash on Cain and Abel")

In the end, freedom and responsibility are not something we can do by ourselves. We need each other creating the community that can show all of us, all of our parts, back into relationship. You have to do your part, but you don’t have to go it alone. Indeed, you can’t do it alone. Freedom means no one is banished. And that takes all of you welcoming all of who you are, all of us welcoming all of us.

A British band called Mumford and Sons has a song titled “Timshel.” Some of the lyrics echo the East of Eden passage we've been looking at:

“And you have your choices,
And these are what makes man great
His ladder to the stars.”

But the song lifts up also the crucial role of one another.

“But you are not alone in this
And you are not alone in this.
As brothers we will stand and we’ll hold your hand,
Hold your hand.”
“I can’t move the mountain for you”
“But you are not alone in this."

Timshel: we can do it. Si se puede. Thou mayest rule over sin – that is, we just might overcome all banishment, heal from our dissociations, enter into a welcoming responsibility. We may become whole through love. We need all of us. That's our ladder to the stars.



* * *
This is part 3 of 3 of "Timshel: Thou Mayest"
See also
Part 1: "You Can Be Its Master"
Part 2: Determinism Is Beside the Point

Determinism Is Beside the Point

The Liberal Pulpit is looking at Genesis 4:7, which reads, "Thou mayest rule over it" (JPS, 1917), or "You can be its master" (New JPS, 1985) -- "it" being "sin."

John Steinbeck's East of Eden is a literary exposition on the Cain and Abel story, and, in particular, gives attention to this one verse. Steinbeck, through his character, Lee, puts the emphasis on free will: thou mayest. And, for Lee, free will is a really super nifty thing. Free will is what

“makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice.”

What is Lee talking about?

When it comes to free will, I am reminded of the debates between free will and determinism into which I used to egg my philosophy students. There were always a few students ready to defend the determinist position, and at least a few others ready to stand up for free will, against determinism.

Determinism is the claim that everything is caused, and happens the way it happens because of its various causes. Determinism is ultimately beside the point, I’m going to say, but it does serve the purpose of helping clarify what is the point -- what is at stake when we strive for greater freedom. What will turn out to be at stake, I will argue, is relationship, community -- all of us welcoming each of us. Through love are we free.

Determinism points out: If freedom means you get to do what you want, where does your wanting come from? Some combination of genetic predispositions and environmental influences produced the want. You get to choose, but you don’t choose the factors that will cause you to choose the way you do. Everything is the product of causes.

Everything, that is, except for certain quantum phenomena that, for complicated reasons of which physicists seem very confident, are entirely uncaused. Under certain conditions the spin of certain particles is absolutely random – NOTHING caused it to spin the way it is spinning and not the other way.

So, if quantum phenomena can be uncaused, can human behavior be uncaused? Well, what if it can? Is that what freedom looks like? If you saw somebody moving about randomly – muscles contracting here and there without cause or reason – we wouldn’t say she was free. Quite the opposite. We’d say she was in the grip of – enslaved by, we might say – some bizarre and horrible neurological condition.

Determinism makes a very logical point. Everything that happens is either the product of causal conditions and forces, or it isn't. If it is, then it's not free. If it isn't, then it's random, and randomness isn't free either. "Free will" is an incoherent concept.

This logical point is sound, but the sort of free will that is thereby defeated is not the sort of free will that any one who yearns for freedom is yearning for. They aren't yearning for some incoherent concept, but for something very real in our experience. What is it?

People who are yearning for freedom are yearning for liberation from some force or condition in their life. It might be a slave master or prison bars or an addiction or bad habit or mental illness or poverty. Someone yearning for freedom isn’t looking to become uncaused. They just want certain causes removed so that happier causes can, instead, dictate their actions. They would like to be guided by purposes that make sense and are rewarding rather than by someone else’s commands and by threats of painful punishment. They would like to have certain specific constraints removed. They would like to be guided by the better angels of their nature rather than by their demons.

Nor does determinism mean we can’t hold people responsible for what they do. If the social practice of holding a given person responsible for a given action helps us maintain an orderly society, then let's keep the practice. Moral disapproval sometimes works. Most of us don’t shout profanity at particularly inappropriate times – because the moral disapproval of those around us has taught us not to do that. Relationships including a shared language of moral deliberation work, much of the time. For people with Tourette’s syndrome, that doesn’t work. We say they aren’t responsible for what they do – which is to say that the shared language of moral deliberation – praise, blame, censure, punishment – is an ineffective causal force for making them change that particular behavior.

Much of the time, though, holding people responsible through use of moral language works just fine. If your teenager has misbehaved and protests that causes made him do it, you can just reply, “Of course. And now let’s see if being grounded will cause better behavior in the future.”

So what I’m saying is this: Thou mayest – you get to choose – doesn’t mean your choice is undetermined, not even a tiny bit. The mixture of influences you didn’t choose and genetic inclinations you didn’t choose – maybe with some randomness thrown in that you also didn’t choose – wholly determines what you will choose. But that’s beside the point because the important question isn't, "Are your actions determined?" The important question is, "What is freedom actually experienced as?"

We don’t experience freedom as uncaused action, so when the determinist points out that there is no uncaused action, this fact is irrelevant to the experience we’re talking about. The real question is how do we experience freedom, and how can we experience more of it?

One: We experience freedom when one of the causes is a shared language of moral deliberation. When an action happens reflexively or habitually or driven by obsessive-compulsive tendency or by any other mental disorder, we don’t experience it as being as free as we do when the language of moral deliberation can play out in our minds and when there’s a real possibility that we will actually carry out the conclusion of that deliberation.

When we say that depression, schizophrenia, and mania aren’t free choices, we’re saying that talking – including threatening and ostracizing – doesn’t do much good. We experience freedom not when our action is uncaused, but when language – particularly the language of deliberation -- plays a key causal role.

Two: We also experience greater freedom when all our tastes and preferences – howsoever unchosen those tastes and preferences are – are allowed at the table. We don’t, in the end, have to act to satisfy every taste, but not squelching or suppressing or denying that we do have the tastes we have is a piece of the experience of freedom.

Three: We experience greater freedom when the causes that are coming from our own body, including our brain, are within the range of normal and healthy, rather than including mental or physical illness.

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This is part 2 of 3 of "Timshel: Thou Mayest"
See also:
Part 1: "You Can Be Its Master"
Part 3: Can't Get To Freedom By Ourselves