Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation - Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation "Fragile Dignity" for Sunday, 23 March 2014

Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States - Center for Action and Contemplation - Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation "Fragile Dignity" for Sunday, 23 March 2014
Honor and shame are personal commodities that you can lose or gain. . . . Within this system there is no inherent sense of the self. 
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"Subverting the Honor/Shame System"
"Fragile Dignity"
Sunday, 23 March 2014
One of the best ways to study Scripture is to use the lens of cultural anthropology; in other words, to learn about the social setting in which Jesus lived and the problems with which he was dealing. What we find is that the Mediterranean culture at his time was overwhelmingly dominated by an honor/shame system largely based on externals. Actually, we still live that way in the United States and Western Europe, although we pretend we don’t!
Honor and shame are personal commodities that you can lose or gain. They’re what we would call ego possessions. You don’t have them naturally. You have to work for your honor and then show it off and protect it. You have to deny your shame, which is what we would now call the shadow self. At Jesus’ point in history, and frankly with many today, there is no inherent sense of the self. There is no natural dignity that comes from within.
Religion at its best and most mature is exactly what is needed for this problem. Without healthy religion, you have no internal or inherent source for your own dignity and positive self-image. You have to find your status and your dignity externally by what you wear, by your title, by how much money you have, by what car you drive. That’s a pretty fragile way to live. You are constantly evaluating, “How am I doing? How am I looking?” And your dignity can be taken away from you in one moment of loss of public status. This is the insecure post-modern world we live in. It is a moveable famine grounded in a sense of scarcity and “zero sum.” Only true religion inhabits the world of abundance; it even draws upon an infinite abundance.
Adapted from Francis: Subverting the Honor / Shame System (CD, MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence: You are precious in my eyes, you are honored, and I love you(Isaiah 43:4). 
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