US&THEM-ISM

On Resonate.ca, Marc has shared about a situation of "us and them" he found himself in, and the interrogations this brought him.

I have come to accept that the "us and them" serves two purposes:

1- to draw boundaries
2- to define individuation, trace the contours of individuality

Now comes the real problem: what we do with us&them-ism when it is active in a problematic situation, when "us and them" becomes the polarization of our inability, or unwillingness, to get to the heart of our real individual issues, which also can confuse the real issues: maybe someone needs to be confronted because their attitude hurts others. Or 'they' might think the same.

Any way we look at it, I believe 'us and them' is here to stay. Jesus even clearly states that at the end, there will be a "you and them." The Law of Moses is another example. Here is a quote:

The Rituals Which Set the Rules
"There are rituals, sometimes understood only in retrospect, which mark the turning of a page in the story of one’s life. Without a hint of self consciousness, and with the skill of a practiced teacher, my father, like Jacob of old, passed on the birthright in the only way that he knew. It happened in this way. Two sandwiches, a cookie or piece of cake and a small thermos of coffee, twice a day, mid-morning and mid-afternoon. This was my father’s lunch when he was working in the field. At the age of 6 or 7, it was usually my task, and not an unhappy one, I am pleased to say, to carry this repast out to him."

"These were the days when the farm implements were drawn by horses. While my father quietly ate his lunch, I would pet the horses. On occasion I would slip a stolen sugar cube from my mother’s cupboard into the mouth of my favorite, enjoying the slobbering lips against my palm as much as the animal relished the sweet cube. Such were some of my earliest experiences with raw sensuality!"

"By the time my father had finished the sandwiches and poured his second cup of coffee, I was back at his side, strategically placed for a ritual I had come to expect. Eyeing the piece of cake thoughtfully, he would say, “Well son, I’m not sure I’m up to the cake today, so could you eat it for me while I roll a cigarette?”

"While he performed his own ritual of shaking a measured amount of tobacco out of the small cloth sack into the thin paper, licking the edges with his lips and striking a match on the sole of his shoe to light it, I devoured the cake. The cigarette seemed to lighten the load for him, as well as loosen his tongue. When he talked it was usually as much to himself as it was to me. My role was to listen. It was not, you might say, a real conversation; hardly man to man, and certainly not man to boy! At the same time, in its own way, these times were intensely relational, as I now look back upon them."


"He talked about the horses. Each had names so that they could be startled out of their laggard ways by a shout and maybe a touch of the whip when pulling the plow. Like Santa’s reindeer, horses respond to their names and their master’s voice."

"Star (named for the white splash on his otherwise brown face) is limping a bit, I think we better take a look at his hoof tonight. Might have a stone in it.” That was a promise of course, and that evening we, he and I, would examine the foot and perform the simple operation."

"The ‘we’ was his language of love. He often used it when speaking of his life and tasks including me as a participant. “We will plant corn in this field next year,” he would say, as though I needed to know in order to make my own plans accordingly!"

"I was not just a boy who carried his lunch, but a partner in the enterprise. He had no need, indeed, no language to talk down to me. Nor did he attempt to treat me as a man with the pretense of ‘man talk.’ What a marvelous word is ‘we!”’ While inclusive, it is able to allow for the difference between ‘you and me’ and yet equalizes the disparity of age, gender, race and yes, even religion. What I did when I was alone or with other kids never seemed of much interest to my father. If entering into the games of children and becoming their cheerleader are the skills and duty of parenting, my father was woefully deficient and delinquent. He excelled, however, in the ageless and timeless wisdom of the ‘we.’"

"As it was, the ‘me of we’ was not big enough for both him and me. My life was narrow and my pursuits were trivial. My peers were competitors as much as they were companions. My siblings were rivals as much as relatives. Yet, his utterance of ‘we’ was as deep as the bond of father and son and as broad as the common destiny on earth that bound man and boy in the struggle between faith and fate."

"[...] God did not call me away from the farm to some form of Christian ministry. I did not leave the farm and attend seminary, preparing for a vocation of pastor and eventually teacher, because I heard a specific call from God. It is seldom as simple as that."

"A new and vital life of faith in God, shared with friends and experienced in a community of love and fellowship opened a door which could never again be closed. Through this door my passion spilled out like a river that overruns its banks. At the same time, once this door was open, warm breezes blew in and swept over sleeping segments of my soul. I awakened to what I thought was the sound of God talking, as if to himself, knowing that I was present, “Tomorrow, we will go to those who are like sheep without a shepherd and bring them to a safe place.” It was the ‘we of God’ that reached out and included me!" [Ray S. Anderson - The Soul of God (Wipf & Stock)]

Although I don't think that I have to identify with satanists and rapists and refer to them as "us," I feel there is something in God that has, through the Incarnation, embraced the whole of humanity so as to say "we." And that's quite an exploration into God:

The human heart can go to the lengths of God,

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul men ever took,

Affairs are now soulsize.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God. [Christopher Fry]

I believe we are now entering the core of the Incarnational truth that leaves churchianity, as we called it, to its papier mache replicas of the Gospel. The life of God, as expressed through the life of Christ, and now through the Body of Christ, is inclusive in a way I cannot touch, and maybe through divine impartation I can long to one day attain to that. That kind of love is beyond me. I can do acts of kindness, and sometimes even feel love for the hurtful and abusive one, compassion even, but I have not found a way to walk this way 24/7. I cannot BE love. It is a mystery.

We're purposefully called the Body of Christ. Jesus' body walked the dusty roads and streets, that embraced murderers and prostitutes, the lepers and demon possessed, that body was a vehicle for the soul of God to touch humanity in its fullness. Emptying Himself, God took us in.

Of course there is a place where we have to be careful in our exploration of 'emergence' and not become judgmental. However, it is my opinion that we need something to define the 'before and after' of our evolution, and the 'us and them' of the daily status quo of our particular churches or movements.

Change happens 'within' a community, not outside of it. Otherwise it's just a new thing, not a change. Granted, sometimes, we need to get out to find our way and connect with others, because there is more life in a virtual intentional community than an unintentional local one.

As an aside, Pink Floyd's song "Us & Them" describes the natural, twisted and hurtful way some use the concept of Us VS Them. When paranoia moves leadership:

Us, and them
And after all we’re only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it’s noz what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
And the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
Moved from side to side.
Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it’s only round and round.
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside.

I mean, they’re not gunna kill ya, so if you give ’em a quick short,
Sharp, shock, they won’t do it again. dig it? I mean he get off
Lightly, ’cos I would’ve given him a thrashing - I only hit him once!
It was only a difference of opinion, but really...i mean good manners
Don’t cost nothing do they, eh?

Down and out
It can’t be helped but there’s a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about?
Out of the way, it’s a busy day
I’ve got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.