Givenness
Dear Mary,
Do you remember that part of the creation story where the Lord God decides that it isn’t good for man to be alone? So, He decides to make some animals. And, in the story, the Lord God brings the animals to Adam so that he can name them.
It’s kind of a funny thought. Scientists tell us that there are around 8.7 million species of animals on the earth. So if Adam was given 1 min to reflect upon each animal before giving it a name, and he spent all 24 hours of each day naming animals, he would have been naming animals for about 16 and ½ years. Try to imagine that, a steady stream of animals being brought before you day and night, and you had to name each one as it came, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 16 and ½ years. So imagine if Adam was able to slow down the process so that he worked only 12 hours a day. Now he would have to name animals for around 33 years. That’s the equivalent of a modern human’s entire work career. Imagine it for yourself. For 33 years, once a minute, you would have to be introduced to a new animal and give it a name, recognizing that in the very next minute a new animal would be coming before you.
So forgive the hyper-literalistic treatment of scripture. It’s not really the point. The idea is to imagine a stream of objects constantly presenting themselves before your consciousness, persistently and interminably. The stream never seems to end. You can’t stop it.
Animals being paraded before you by the creative hand of an almighty God seems perhaps a little hard to relate to. But a constant barrage of objects that you have to deal with every waking moment of every living day on earth, actually sounds pretty much like the way most people describe their own mental experience. If only I had a dollar for everytime I’ve heard someone say, “I wish I could just stop thinking”, I would have a mountain of dollar bills. Although, I’ve never actually helped someone stop this flow, there are some answers about how to make the experience productive and fulfilling rather than exhausting and self-determining.
Here’s the beginning of a secret: You have a self. In fact, at your core, you are that self. But don’t mistake this self for the story that you tell about your “self”, because that’s not really you. Your self-story has a place, especially if you’re using your power of “self” appropriately. But you will never be the story that you, or anyone else, tells about you. The story and the “self” are two different things.
So you, as a self, encounter all these things in your world, in your space, or as I like to say, in your field. Maybe these things in your field come from the outside environment. Maybe these things in your field come from your body – urges, emotional reactions, physical pain. Maybe these things in your field come from your mind – ideas, memories, imaginations. Whatever they may be and wherever they come from, they enter your stream of consciousness just like the animals that came before Adam. And each time it’s like someone is whispering in the ear of your “self” saying, “What are you going to do with this?”
Sometimes this is fun. Interesting objects in interesting environments. Interesting people saying interesting things. Friends lauding your admirable qualities. Beautiful vistas and dramatic architecture. Important and meaningful words written on crisp and recently printed pages. The work is not so hard when the stream of objects are all pleasant and delightful to receive.
But, as we both know, these aren’t the only objects that we experience. Sometimes there are really horrible encounters with really ugly and frightening objects. Of course, most of the ugly and terrifying things don’t actually exist in the environment, although the universe has its share of ugliness. But, strangely enough, most of the ugly and repulsive things in life come from inside of us. Self-doubts, pessimisms, skepticism about the intentions of others, unbelief in the goodness of God, or the goodness of creation, feelings of frustration and emotional injury and loneliness. These also come. Perhaps uninvited, one or several of these always seem to find a way into our conscious streams.
I wonder sometimes at how Adam dealt with the ugly, repulsive, dangerous animals he encountered. The ones that could hurt or kill, the disgusting slimy ones, the sharp ones that could inadvertently cut, the invisible ones that he surely knew were lurking but are so hard to perceive.
What is given, is given. Adam had work to do. He had to name the animals.
Now naming in the ancient Hebrew tradition wasn’t like we understand it today. The power to name was the same as a claim of authority over the things that have been named. If an ancient Hebrew gave a name to something, that indicated he had power and authority over the thing that he, or she, named. Naming implies accepting and exercising authority over the named thing. This was Adam’s work.
This is your work.
When things come to us as given, the first essential thing that can happen – or not – is that we accept the thing “as given”. This is givenness: The willingness to receive, in this particular moment, the thing such as it is – whatever it is. No pre-judgements, but instead a willingness to receive the thing given as an experience in itself without judgement. Judgements will come in due time, or more appropriately said, in the due process of working with the objects that are given into our lives.
Make no mistake, I am not talking about resignation. It’s not que sera sera. Whatever the thing is, it must be dealt with. It has to be responded to. Objects demand responses.
But imagine Adam naming all of these animals and then, one day, suddenly coming upon an animal that he finds so repulsive, he simply refuses to give it a name. The Lord God brings the thing to him and, like a child, he closes his eyes and tries to think about the cute panda bear he got to name the day before. He even says to himself, “Why can’t I just spend more time with the panda? Why are you always forcing me to name these animals? I don’t want this animal, bring me something else”.
Adam’s job was to name the animals. God could have named the animals himself. But in allowing Adam to name the animals, he gave Adam dominion over them.
Your job, my job, is to receive these thoughts – these objects. Not only to receive them, but to receive them with Joy knowing that in accepting them and dealing with them that we gain dominion over them. It might not be clear how that happens, and we can talk about that another time. But no amount of conversation concerning gaining power over your thought life matters if you’re dispositionally unwilling to receive life – the objects of life – those things in your field – as gifts given.
