What Have You Given Up On?

Most of us have a list of reasons why our lives are harder than they should be. Things we didn't choose. Ways we're different. Losses we didn't deserve. And somewhere along the way, we quietly made peace with using that list as a reason to stop pushing.

This week at the Spiritual Gym, we're sitting with a question from a man who earned the right to ask it - a Rabbi who lost his teenage son and still chose to show up for his life. He reframes something most of us treat as a wound into something we might not expect. And it's not a platitude. It's not toxic positivity. It's harder than that - and more honest.

If life has handed you something unfair, something that makes the ordinary harder than it should be - this one's for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Beautiful. Thank you. I love that song. And probably the the the framing of it is so perfect for this message. You know, it's all these moments of when life is not perfect, when things aren't the way you want, when morning doesn't come. This we've been in this series on sin for the last uh month. All this conceptions of sin up until this point, I've really enjoyed. Now, I don't enjoy it when my wife's like, so are you in lack right now? And I'm like, Yes, I absolutely am. But this particular one, this particular conception, I don't know. My brain has had moments where it accepts it and bring moments where it rejects it. It's just like, no, no, I don't want to, I don't want this. Now we've been talking about sin all the way through with this conception of, I don't know about you, but I grew up with this idea of sin that says sin is something that you make a mistake, you do something bad, and some conception of God is angry about it. And depending on the tradition you're from, you get punished. What did Trevor say you get sent to hell for it? Again, another conception. And all the way through that idea, sin as something that's fear-driven. It didn't resonate, it doesn't motivate. And so I asked, what would happen? Jesus tells the story, he says, I've come to bring, to show you how to live abundantly. What would happen if we use sin as a way to get there? Abundant life. Lives where we go, no, no, my life right now is better than it was last year. My relationships right now are better than last year. How I'm living my life, it's it's maybe not better from someone else's metric, but in my metric, I look at it and go, this is better. What if we could use sin to get there? And so we talked about sin as lack. What was that? Can you throw it up for me? I think the way I word it was something along the lines of uh believing that there's something missing, that if you could only get life would be perfect. It's Eve in the garden. The snake that walking-talking snake says to her, If did you know that you are not God? And she's like, I lack being God. And if I eat that apple, I yeah, I'm in. How much of our lives is based in this idea of if only I had something? If only I had health.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

If only I had relationship.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

That lack one. We also talked about separation from self as sin, this idea that says we hide parts of ourselves. We we we pretend that we're something we're not. Over here, we're like, no, no, I got my stuff together. I'm fine. Inside, meanwhile, we're like struggling and wrestling, but we hide this because we don't think this is lovable, we don't think this is appropriate. How many conversations have I had where someone says to me, Oh, I should have hidden that part. The problem though is when we hide parts of ourselves, when someone loves us, we know that they don't love us. They love the mask that we're showing them. Because we know they don't know the parts we hid. And we walk through this life feeling unloved because we've hidden part of ourselves. Last week we explored this idea of sin as disconnecting from the divine inside of ourselves, the spark of the divine inside of ourselves, and the spark of the divine in other people. Looking at somebody else and going, Okay, you know, you're evil. I can treat you like however I need to because you're evil, instead of going, wait a second, no, no, there's some spark of the divine inside of you. That one rung some bells, huh? Because it's so easy to just treat people like, you know, you have no value, you've you stepped over the line. I don't have to do anything with you. I could just, you know, treat you like garbage. Instead of saying, no, there's something inside of you and me. Today I want to take it one other place. It kind of ties a few of these together. But it starts from a parable written by a Jewish rabbi. He's contemporary, he passed away a couple, let's see, in the 80s, maybe? No, that's actually not true. He died a few years ago. His name is Rabbi Kushner. And he wrote a parable. Can you throw it up for me? It's it's um it's gonna show us this conception of sin that is undermining abundant life. And it starts, this parable starts with this idea of a there we go. Once there was a circle that was missing a piece, a large triangular wedge that had been cut out of it. The circle wanted to be whole with nothing missing, so it went around looking for its missing piece. But because it was incomplete, it could only roll very slowly through the world. As it rolled, it admired the flowers along the way, chatted with the butterflies, and enjoyed the sunshine. The circle found lots of missing pieces, but none of them fit. Some were too big, some were too small, some were too square, some were too pointy, so it left them all by the side of the road and kept searching. Then one day it found a piece that fit perfectly. It was so happy. Now it could be whole with nothing missing. It incorporated the missing piece into itself and began to roll. And now that it was a perfect circle, it could roll very fast. Too fast to notice the flowers, too fast to talk to the butterflies. When it realized how different the world seemed when it rolled so quickly, it stopped, left its missing piece by its side of the road, and rolled slowly away, looking for its missing piece. This is written by a man named Rabbi Howard Kushner. He was a rabbi of a temple in uh the states, Massachusetts, I believe. And back in the 60s, he's just been married to his wife, and they they were expecting their first child. And the day that Aaron showed up in their lives, they were ecstatic. Their first child, this is what they dreamed about all their lives. The next three years were, well, as any new parent knows, was a blur. Until uh about two years, three months later, she said, Howard, we're doing this all over again. The wife was in the hospital. She gave birth to um Ariel, their daughter. Can you imagine the joy? Well, the euphoricness, sleeplessness. They now have the child, the second child that they've always wanted. And it it's it's in that moment of profound joy. This is back in the 60s, so they kept mums in the hospital longer. They were in the hospital when the pediatrician for Aaron found them and said, I have some devastating news. Your son Aaron has a disease called Bertoria, which means that he will age incredibly rapidly. For every year of his life, he will look about ten years older. His life will be incredibly difficult. And at the time, no one had lived past twenty with that disease. Could you imagine what they're going through right there? The pure euphoria of new life, of Ariel. And not even a day later, your son will never be normal. Your lives will be doctor's appointments and suffering. Fourteen years later, Rabbi Kushner's wife held Aaron in her arms.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

He was fourteen years old and he died of old age. He was twenty-five pounds when he died.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

Rabbi Kushner trying to wrestle through what this was. What is life? How do we reconcile this? How do I deal with this? He wrote one of the most famous, actually, no, the most famous modern Jewish book ever written. The title is Why Do Good Things Happen? Sorry, Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Why do we have children and have them die at 14?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Looking like a senior citizen at 25 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

Why do we have illness and suffering? Last week I talked about the van killer in Toronto who drove a van down a sidewalk in Toronto. Bad things happen. This last couple weeks we got news that a father, and I don't know how it's all gone, but allegedly has killed his two children here locally.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Bad things happen.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And Rabbi Kushner is trying to wrestle this, figure a way through this. Could you imagine 14 years of watching your child every day you look at them? And if you've seen this disease, they're the children are the size of a children. They look like they're 80 years old. Every day he looks at his child and knows you are dying before my eyes.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

How do I deal with this?

SPEAKER_01 11:44

And when you think about the bad things in the world, it's not just the external things. Those are horrific. But there's this idea. Um, we're gonna go into math. Did someone just groan? Okay, very simply. Do you remember bell curves? Could you throw up the bell curve for me when you have a second? A bell curve is a distribution. You take anything, you plot it on a graph, and anything in a human, this is actually the distribution of male heights currently. It says that the average person, average male, is five foot nine inches. Anywhere between 5'3 and about 6'3 is about 95% of the population. If you're over 6'3, things are more difficult for you. We don't make clothes for people like that. We don't make shoes for people like that. If you're in Japan, they don't make doors for people like that. I'm six feet tall, and I was like, who built this door? Life for people who are not center of the bell curve is harder by definition. Not because some evil cabal of people is like, haha, we're gonna get all the tall people and screw them over. It's not that, but it still is bad. It feels unfair, it feels brutal. If you have a disease, if you have a disease, if you have like, I don't know, whatever the current disease, heart disease, center of the bell curve. If you have some rare autoimmune disease, you're way out in the bell curve. They will not get to figuring out your disease for another thousand years because you're not center of the bell curve.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

People no, let me say it this way.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Chances are each one of us has something that we're not center of the bell curve. When I was in seminary, we had to do this psychological evaluation. It's called the PF 16. It's the evaluation you do before you get checked into a mental hospital. How do you think I did on that one? Actually, the the doctor, no, not the person at the the school, checked the wrong box. You're supposed to like check for lay people, and then they put nice words like you're not psychotic, you're just like, I'm he's struggling in life. They checked the one that for the doctor, the psycho psychology or the um psychiatrist. So they wouldn't even give us our test because they were so blunt and horrible that we all sounded like we were gonna, you know, go crazy. In that test, they tested introversion and extroversion. I am in the top 95th percentile of introversion. I like my quiet time. There is technically 5% of the population who is more introverted than me. Theoretically, I've never met them, but whatever. They're currently at home watching the video. Or what did Dave say? Dave, you went to a pinball thing, so it's like a bunch of introverts sitting at pinball machines. They didn't even talk. Just every once in a while, they kind of all knew to go like this without looking at each other, and then go to the next pinball machine and keep playing. Introverts. Imagine me in Mexico. There's a whole team together. At one point, the team meeting or the team we had the this big kind of open house that Jeff or um booked because he loves a big party. I hid in my bunk bed. I was like, I can literally not be in a group of people for any more time, or I will go postal on this. The world is not built for introverts at my level of introversion. Question: Where are you outside of the center of the bell curve? You know it. Because life is hard there. You'll say things like the world isn't built for me. Things aren't designed for people like me. We can talk about the external bad. But for the ways that we are outside of the bell curve, the center of the bell curve, life is harder. We have a guy who joined our sound team. His name is Eugene. Great guy. But he has a developmental disability. That means he can't read. Center of the bell curve?

unknown 16:56

No.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Do you know how much of the world is based on writing? Let me say it this way. More than you're thinking right now. He first showed up and we said, Oh, we'll send you the manual. Oh, I guess we can't send you the manual. That's not gonna work. Okay, well, all the stations here, they're all lay-oh, wait, you can't read the labels. Unit name, vocal one. How do you deal in a world that is based everything is based on writing? Everything. Like looking through his eyes now, I'm like, I don't even know what to do here. Because of how his brain works, because his brain doesn't create, he can see the letter, but he can't see the word. Everything he does is more difficult. He can't message, he can't answer the phone, even when the phone rings. He can't see who it is unless it's tied to a picture. Every button you've pressed on the internet, well, let me say this, 99% of the buttons you've hit on the internet have words on them, so we know what that button does. He can't read that word. When you're not center of the bell curve, the world is not built for you. And it is hard. And when it feels unfair, I would even use the word it is bad. There's a character in the Bible, his name is Joseph. Joseph and the uh who knows Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? Throw up your hands. Everyone knows that? It's kind of like a famous one. Technicolor dream coat is like a someone got really creative with that translation. We actually don't know what the word means. The word translated technicolor dream coat. There's only one other time that word is used, and it's worth that it's used for a character named Tamar. She's a princess, and something horrible happens to her, and it says she put on the robe, the coat of many colors, the technicolor dream coat. And then in her anguish she tore it. It describes it. It's a robe or a dress that virgin princesses wear. It has long sleeves. I think probably the best translation I can think of is a girly dress. What else does a virgin princess wear other than a frilly dress? Let's go back to the Joseph story. Joseph is wearing what? A frilly dress. It's not the only translation, but it is a very good one. You see, his brothers see him from afar away. And they see, and again in my translation, they see a man wearing a frilly dress that a virgin princess wears. And they snap. Oh, they don't like their brother. Their brothers told them all along that, you know, they're gonna bow down to him. But let's be honest, anybody who's any younger brothers in the room? Am I the only younger brothers? Has anyone, younger brother, dreamed at some point of humbling their older brother, of like kicking their butt or like making them pay for all that they did? Hell yes. So I'm not sure that the story makes sense on that turn, but seeing a man who is way outside of the gender norm expression, seeing a man wearing a frilly dress, I think they snap.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

They want to kill him. Why? Because he's not center of the bell curve.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Here's a man who doesn't wear the clothing that the center of the bell curve wears. And from that moment on, his life is hard.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

Very hard.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Okay. Those ways that we are not center of the bell curve is that parable. These circles that are missing the chunk. That's what I'm trying to get to. Now let's read the parable through our own portions where we are not center of the bell curve, where the world doesn't fit us, where we're like, no, no, we're not like everybody else. Can you throw it up for me? Actually, oh, let me jump jump to this point. Actually, go back to the parable first, can you? Once there was a circle missing a piece.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Once we were not center of the bell curve.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

We went around looking for ways to get to the center of the bell curve. That's what he's talking about here, isn't it? There's some part of us that feels like it's missing because we're not there. And so we roll through the world trying to find our way back to some center. In his metaphor, it's the circle. But the thing is, and this is the part that I friggin' hate. Kushner is saying the direction of health, of abundant life, is not to try to get to the center of the bell curve, to get rid of the pain and suffering of our lives, to get rid of all the things that have hurt. He says when you do that, you actually lose something. The circle starts to roll through the world too quick and you miss it all. This is a man who lost his child, who watched his child spend 14 years aging so rapidly, and then watched him die in his wife's arms at 14, at 25 pounds, looking like he was 90. There has gotta have been times when he was saying, I would give anything, anything to not have experienced this, to not be outside of the center of the bell curve. To have children, you're supposed to have them outlive you, they're supposed to be healthy, they're supposed to take care of you at the end when you look 80. He says, when we sit outside that center of the bell curve, the goal of abundant life is not to try and find a way to the center of the bell curve. It's not to try to get rid of the experiences that we've experienced. And it's funny, not funny. I'd say that that's a bad expression, but it is funny. As I look through the crowd, I know your stories. I know where you're not center of the bell curve for many of you. And some of you, it's health. And I'm looking at you going, you probably look at this story and think the same thing. I would give anything to be a whole circle. I would be any, give anything to not have to deal with the world the way it looks through my eyes as I roll through this world with this big chunk missing. And Rabbi Kushner says, the way to abundant life. Again, he calls it sin. He says, the sin is using the fact that we're outside the bell curve, that bad things have happened to us as an excuse not to strive. But, and this is the part, if he was alive, me and him would have a beer and have a little chat about this. But he says the goal to finding abundant life is not to strive to fix it all. It's sitting in the life that we live. The life not built for introverts of my level of introversion. Why do they make sinks without dividers in between them in public bathrooms? Does anybody know the answer to that? Crazy. He says the goal is not to become something different than we are. The goal is to find the beauty in the midst of it. That's the part I dislike. I've always spent my life striving to become something different, to do better, to overcome. And he says, wait a second. It's in the moments where we're outside of the bell curve. It's in the moments where we're dealing with pain and loss and suffering and health problems and addictions and all that stuff. It's in that moment that you find gold. And I was like, screw you, Rabbi Kushner.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

I want it to go away. I want to be that circle spinning through life. I want to be center of the bell curve.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I want you all to be as introverted as I am. Sorry, I'm just gonna deal with my emotions here for a second. There's not many pastors who do this job while getting divorced.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

I did. It wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

The ten years of relationship that led up to that moment wasn't fun.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Definitely when I talk to pastors, they're like what? How are you even doing this role? How?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

If Rabbi Kushner is right, abundant life was not to try to avoid that experience. It's to roll through life as a person who struggled and went through a divorce while being a leader of a community. There's days when I wished I didn't have that. It's not the dream I had when I first got married. This is the part that's gonna get me emotional. But it makes me love my wife right now so deeply. And feel so damn lucky. Because I've seen what dishealth or lack of health looks like. I roll through life missing a chunk. But it lets me see part of my life in a way I don't know that I would have. Makes me appreciate my relationship in a way that I don't know that I would have without that. I don't know, the pen, you can come up now. I don't know what chunks are missing in your life. I don't know where you look out and you see, not center the bell curve, and you go, the world is not built for me. I don't know where you suffer and have to strive because things just don't work, or you've had experiences in your life, or you're experiencing them right now, and you're going, I would give anything to be a whole circle and rip through my life. And yet, Rabbi Kushner says, much as I would have loved to grow old with my son by my side, I learned something in those moments. Every moment held a preciousness with my son, because I knew it was almost over. Could there be something beautiful even in the brokenness of our lives? In fact, one step further.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Could it be that the brokenness is the thing that creates the beauty? That's what I've been fighting with the last couple weeks.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Because I want to get rid of the pain, I want to get rid of the suffering, I want to get rid of it all.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

And he's saying no, that's the sin.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Could it be that right in the midst of it all is where we find the abundant life? And could it be a sin? Not go to hell sin. But something that undermines abundant life to give up because of where we are right now. I don't know where that hits you, but that's been a tough pill to swallow for me. And yet I look at it and I go. And there is beauty in these moments.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

If we can find them, I think. It's a somber one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

It's one I didn't want to deal with. And yet, as a man who suffered so deeply, I think he's got some truth to what he's saying. The band's gonna play Rainbow again. The beauty of that song is nothing gets fixed. And that's real life, isn't it? The Disney parts of life, everything gets fixed. Bones get unbroken, addictions get kicked, health goes back to normal, relationships get solved.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

But in real life, our lives, we have to do it inside of that. So as you listen, may you flirt with the idea that right here and right now is where there's beauty. And the perfect life that we shoot for is actually the peace that will rob us of that beauty. Sit with that as they play the song.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Could it be there's a rainbow even now? I built this series after reading every instance of sin I could find and recognizing that I grew up in a tradition that was all about fear. I finally, after sitting with this for months, I wrote on my board, what can we use the conception of sin to become? Not fear. No, a life of abundance. Now Rabbi Kushner came in and kind of undermined that a little bit for me today. But I think even he's saying, No, what does abundant look like or abundant life look like in the midst of your life right now?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

But even larger than that.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Take these concepts home. They've been spinning in my mind all along. Wait, where am I in lack? Lack just means I'm obsessed with what I don't have instead of what I do. Where am I hiding parts of myself? Where am I denying the spark of the divine and the people around me? Not because I've done something wrong, but because I'm trying to find a life of abundance and I'm trying to inspire us all to a life more abundant. As you leave this, I hope these words are settled in your heart like they are in mine. I hope they come to you in those moments when you're you're about to go off the path of abundant life and it says, oh, hey, hey, hey, remember, remember.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

There's a different way to be.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Because Jesus said, I have come to show you a life that's abundant.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

And I don't know about you, but that sounds like the best life I could possibly come up with. May we use the conception of sin to find an abundance in each of our unique lives. And may that spill out of us into the world around us as water.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

I'm old school, so I'm gonna say amen again. Amen. Or if you're like that, hell yeah. Have a great week, everybody. Take care.