WORLD THREE: OUTCAST TO BLESSER
This is the journey from Emptiness to Fulfillment. Similar in some ways to World One, but the focus is on the Self, being the best one can be. God is within – we are made in God’s Image. Wholeness is important, as are feelings and a sense of community. Christ is our model of this wholeness. Many self-help books are aimed at people in this world.
Conundrum: Fulfillment to be realized/unrealized potential
Sin: To miss the mark Gospel Truth: No one gets through life without experiencing brokenness |
Resolution: Abundant life
Christology: Christ is the model human who teaches me how to be whole and loves me into wholeness Gospel Celebration: "The glory of God is the human being fully alive" (Irenaeus) |
Scripture: Expression of spiritual experiences
God: Lover of the soul/self Salvation: Flourishing of the true authentic "I" Movement: From outcast to blesser |
Conundrum
The conundrum centers on the empty or false self. The weight is a lack of self- confidence, which emerges from an inability to believe in ourselves. This inability leads to self-estrangement which may be experienced as emptiness, invisibility, loneliness, or rejection.
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Shylock's monologue from The Merchant of Venice gives voice to the pathos of those who need to express the self:
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? |
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In the song I've Been to Paradise the singer Charlene raises up the heart ache and yearning that comes from living a life out of touch with itself. She sums it up with the haunting line, "I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me."
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The Beatles Nowhere Man speaks poignantly to the empty life.
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The Nine Inch Nails song Hurt speaks hauntinlgy not just to the empty life, but the empty life collapsed in upon itself. Johny Cash's rendition is as aching as it is beautiful.
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Don't Laugh at Me performed here by Peter Yarrow points to the emptiness of the self that can occur as a result of bullying and being made fun of.
First we encounter the jeers:
Then we encounter the pain:
Finally a taste of Epiphania:
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Resolution
Self-liberation can begin with the recognition of psychological slavery as a patronizing subjugation of those who already have so little by those who have so much. Freedom is experienced as transcending predetermined limits, hierarchical roles, heteropatriarchal patterns, and internal guilt while entering into the wholeness belonging to self-discovery, self-growth, and self-risk.
World Three citizens inhabit a world of mutuality where our exploration into self becomes the vehicle of our exploration into God. Or as the Lutheran theologian Ted Peters has noted, our exploration into God becomes a vehicle for God's and our own exploration into self: "… the questions we pose regarding God become simultaneously questions God poses to us… When we reflect upon biblical symbols such as God's love, God's justice, and God's grace, we can but ask ourselves: Am I loving? Am I just? Am I gracious? … Hence, to enhance our understanding of things divine is simultaneously to enhance our self-understanding."
World Three citizens inhabit a world of mutuality where our exploration into self becomes the vehicle of our exploration into God. Or as the Lutheran theologian Ted Peters has noted, our exploration into God becomes a vehicle for God's and our own exploration into self: "… the questions we pose regarding God become simultaneously questions God poses to us… When we reflect upon biblical symbols such as God's love, God's justice, and God's grace, we can but ask ourselves: Am I loving? Am I just? Am I gracious? … Hence, to enhance our understanding of things divine is simultaneously to enhance our self-understanding."
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We encounter in the song Suddenly Seymour from the play "Little Shop of Horror" the resolution of self-liberation through love which is freely given by the Lover. Said slightly differently, we come to understand ourselves as loved and loveable becasue we explore our self-understanding through the relationship the Lover holds with us:
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In World Two love "binds the tribes of man." In World Three love nurishes and feeds the soul which has been imprisioned by the self.
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We can find in Lady Gaga's super hit Born This Way the triumph of the soul born out of self-exploration and the struggle with meaning making:
The song begins with a reflection of her mother's,
With this image of the creator God who makes those on the margins perfect, Gaga is able to declare:
Here the lyrics are reinforced as the cast of Glee demonstrates by t-shirt messages how they don't fit in due to the things they were born with. |
Spiritual Quest
The quest is to become who I am by living directly rather than vicariously. Where I used to live through my partner, company, social class, nation, etc., I now live directly. It is I who reaches out, enfolding and bringing fullness through my own embrace of life. I give myself to expanding and exploring a broad eros which pushes me into passionate being/becoming. |
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Susan Boyle's story is well known. But in this, the first audition which launched her notoriety, we come into contact with the essential successful quest of World Three: to become who I am by living directly rather than vicariously.
Check out the reaction of the audience before she starts singing. Already the message is she's not good enough. Yet, Susan believed in herself - "I'm gonna rock that audience…" And that's exactly what she did. |
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Tina Turner shares how her faith - Buddhism - feeds her soul and mind and changes how she enteracts with the world from the inside out.
Nam myoho renge kyo means "I devote myself to the Lotus Sutra." The Lotus Sutra carries the key message that Buddhahood - a condition of absolute happiness, freedom from fear and from all illusions - is inherent in all life. This is similar to the Christian emphasis on John 3:16-17 as expressing the core essence of God's love and care through Jesus the Christ. |
For World Three self-loathing may become the identifying factor in lives that never risk putting themselves out there. Also, World Three citizens may become narcissistic as they gaze upon the beauty of their own self-growth.