In my previous post about centered sets, I proposed the idea that there is some “Good Life” that serves as the center of the human set. To reiterate, even if all of us would have very different ideas about what that good life is, the idea is still that there’s one center. Now, I have no idea if this is true and I’ll make no attempt to prove it. But I wanted to talk a little bit about how I personally think about this idea of a “center”.
I think it’s probably unsurprising—given that I’m a Christian chaplain—that I put God and specifically Jesus at the center—for me.
But, it’s a feature of centered-set thinking that I’m implicitly acknowledging that I don’t know what’s at the center because I’m not there. I find that this built-in humility is super helpful when I engage others in conversation on these topics—in fact, I think it’s utterly game-changing. I will attempt a listicle to explain why:
- I don’t feel the need to convince anyone of anything. Oh man, that’s so freeing! I can talk very openly and deeply about what’s most important to me and—since I’m not claiming to know anything–I’m much less likely to be preachy or arrogant (sometimes I still find ways to be arrogant, but it’s GREATLY reduced).
- I can embrace paradox. Our life experiences are where we get our information about how to move towards the center and life is fantastically complex and tremendously diverse. So different people will emerge with different ideas about what the center is and how to get there. Many of our conclusions will seem to contradict. Instead of becoming embroiled in arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong,
we have an opportunity to embrace non-dualistic thinking. Maybe it’s like this. Life is like a giant mountain and we’re all trying to get to the peak. My experience of trying to ascend the western side of the mountain might drastically differ from someone who has been hiking on the eastern side. The tools and techniques that I employ and the terrain that I traverse may bear very little resemblance to those of the other side. Hopefully I can acknowledge and embrace the fact that the mountain is so much bigger than I am and that there’s so much that I don’t know. - I can actually listen to and learn from people who are different than me. There’s no need for me to dissipate my energy in getting defensive or feeling threatened by other ways of thinking. In fact, as per the above point, different perspectives and belief systems actually represent incredible opportunity for me to learn new and valuable information about moving towards the center.
We all know that life is filled with distractions. I think it’s one of life’s most important tasks to learn the difference between what is distraction and what is most worthy of our attention and energy. I think that this is an incredibly slow, difficult and non-obvious task—a life-long endeavor. Centered-set thinking is helpful in that it forces the question: what do I most want to focus on in my life?
So, what does it mean for me that Jesus is the center that I’m trying to move towards? Well, the centered-set model is an intrinsically relational paradigm because, rather than being built on the booleans of bounded sets, it’s always focused on my relationship to the center and how that’s changing in time. So if Jesus is at the center for me, I think that’s equivalent to saying my relationship to Jesus is the focus of my life.
Now, I realize that this may sound like familiar religious rhetoric, but hang with me for a second here. By focusing solely on that relationship, here’s what I’m NOT focusing on: I’m not focusing on religious “performance” (following a bunch of rules, adhering to rituals, traditions and spiritual checklists); I’m not focusing on theology and and believing in exactly the “right” things; I’m not focusing on how my beliefs are superior to other beliefs; I’m not focused on how everyone different than me is “doing it wrong” and needs to be “evangelized” to my way of thinking. As discussed in my previous post on centered sets, all these things are bounded set baggage.
To direct all my energy towards more and better relationship with Jesus is an endeavor that boils down to one word: love. And speaking of boiling things down, it seems that no one does that better than Jesus. For instance, famously, when Jesus was asked which of God’s commandments is most important he replied:
Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” (Matthew 22:37-40, MSG)
A centered-set statement if there ever was one! Two interesting things to note:
- Jesus is asked which single command is the most important. He singles out loving God as the most important but also says that that action is incomplete without the compliment of loving others.
- He seems to go beyond saying that these two commands are the most important and also says that everything else hinges on this love for God and others, as if everything else is meaningless and futile without that love.
To me, this means that if I am moving toward the center of greater connection with God, then I will necessarily experience greater connection with other people (something I very much value and desire). All of this sets up a powerful experiential feedback loop (which, incidentally, feedback mechanisms are a tenet of viable centered-set faith). If I find myself experiencing more distance and friction in my relationships, then it’s very likely that I’ve veered off from moving towards the center and I need to recalibrate my course.
So, for me, having Jesus at the center means that I aspire to maximize love in my life: Love for other people, love for myself, love for the earth and love for God. As my closest friends and family will readily tell you, I am woefully lacking in all these dimensions of love. And if it’s just up to me and my own efforts of will power and resolve, I don’t think I’ll be able to really make much progress in growing in love (and I can easily succumb to bitterness and regress instead).
But, I’m not saying that I put some idealized concept of maximized love at the center. God is at the center and God is a person who is alive (for some, Jesus feels like a helpful way to understand God as a person, for others less so). And I guess the important idea here is that, even though I may be utterly inept at finding my way to the center, God is pretty good at drawing people towards God’s self. And, what I (sometimes) find is that my meager, childish efforts to love God and people more are radically transformed into something significantly bigger and better.
And it’s the power and promise and hope of this kind of transformation that I find so compelling and irresistible.