December 2009

The Exchange Paradigm

My friend, Wess, spoke on the last few lines of the Lord's prayer this morning in church. In discussing forgiveness, he said some thought provoking things that have been in the back of my mind ever since.

At one point, he talked about the story of the servant who was forgiven an unimaginably large debt but did not forgive a fellow servant who owed him a rather small debt. He said the King operated under a grace paradigm but that the servant operated under an exchange paradigm. When the King found out the servant did not forgive the other servant the much smaller debt after being forgiven a really large debt, the King saw he operated on the principle of exchange, that what you give ought to be what you get. So since he gave unforgiveness, the King joined in the world of exchange and gave him unforgiveness. The King played by the rules the servant chose for himself.

When we choose to hate, when we choose to hold real or imagined wrongs done against another person, we are working under an exchange paradigm. We think the other person is completely wrong and we are completely right. We think they have done great wrong and completely miss the wrong we ourselves have done. We pass judgment on them. We throw them in our own jail. But by putting people in the jail of debt, we ourselves place ourselves in the same cold cell, locked in by the key we ourselves made. If we operate under an exchange paradigm, that includes everyone, including you and me. If we judge others, we will judge ourselves and come out guilty every time. If we cannot forgive others, we will not forgive ourselves or be able to accept anyone else's forgiveness. We will be trapped, and the walls of that trap are not kind. They close in, they shut out the light, they shut out, or shut in, everything good about us. They are like a poison seeping through our bodies and one day it will have seeped through so far, we will no longer recognize ourselves.

Why do we stay? Why do we stay in a self-made prison? Why do we stay in a place that shuts out life from our souls? Why do we hold grudges? Don't we understand that the chains we hold for someone else weighs us down in the floods of grief and bitterness?

When we hold grudges, we see the pain inflicted on us as the larger debt and our own as the smaller. We don't see how much we ourselves have done, how much we need forgiveness. We just see the the junk in someone else's backyard and completely miss our own. We choose not to have the perspective on them we need to be able to forgive. We can also take the hate we hold as part of our identity. Without it, who would we be? Perhaps we have lived with it so long, we forget that hate doesn't belong inside of us. We start thinking the prison is reality, that the walls will always be there and that anywhere outside of them is dangerous and unsafe.

By holding grudges and judgment, by looking down on another person, we play the exchange game. We place ourselves in the judgment lineup without fully realizing we are next in line. The handcuffs we cast always have two locks- one for them, one for ourselves. Hating rents the fabric of our very humanity. It doesn't necessarily rent the fabric of the one despised, but it ALWAYS rents the fabric of the one who hates- it is a tearing apart of our very souls. Not only does it tear us apart but having such hate inside of us spills over into the ones we love and tears them apart as well. Hate is not content to stay inside one person. As it grows, as it festers, so does its appetite. It drives families and friends apart. It drives away those we most want to keep and we don't realize what we've done, what we've lost, until it's too late.

Deciding to take a look at yourself and step beyond the walls is a very scary thing to do. You're accepting that the pain you've known, what you have thought of as reality is not reality. You are accepting there is something more, something you can't control. You have to come face to face with the darker side of yourself and accept yourself just as you are before you can accept the darkness and goodness inside of everybody else. Only by releasing our need to be in the right, will we realize the good, the rightness, in the other.

Life is too short to look down an another. Life is too fleeting to hold a grudge. Life is just too short not to know FREEDOM. Life is too precious to throw it away and that is exactly what you do when you place yourself over another. Do you know how much energy it takes to judge another? Do you realize how much joy it saps from the relationships around you? Do you realize how much hate is costing you every day? If you did, you would no longer look down on them. I guarantee it. Why are you still here? Take up your mat and walk! There is a grace paradigm just waiting to welcome you.

The exchange paradigm puts us in a prison. The unfortunate thing is some people never realize their spirits are locked away. They sit by the bars and think their small cell is all there is. They don't realize there are meadows, mountains, and flowers to run through. Thus, the first step out is to realize what we're in. As soon as we do that, we can start working on the key. It's hard, the key is very dirty after years of disuse and it might even frighten us in the beginning. But as we clean the key and learn how to use it, we start taking the first steps outside of our cell.

What is this key you ask? Forgiveness. Not holding grudges. Not holding things against another person. Releasing them from the debt they owe you. Not thinking yourself righteous and the other unclean. No longer judging the other soul. Even seeing the best inside that person and loving them though they might not ever love you back. It can be done. You don't have to be buddies with them. You don't even have to see them. Forgiving and hanging out with that person are two different things. Sometimes forgiving can lead to a renewed relationship and that is a beautiful, miraculous thing to behold. But at other times, the other person, though you see the best in them, does not see the best in themselves. They are still unsafe for you to be around and that is okay. It shows you are taking care of yourself and keeping good boundaries if you know a relationship with them would be destructive for the both of you. For no matter who hurts the other, both people always get hurt. Those people you can still think well of and love at a distance safe for your soul. Others, you may choose to have a limited relationship with, not close, but knowing there is good for the both of you, you still see and talk to them on occasion but at the same time, remember that as much as you love them, they still have a hard time seeing love in the world around them.

This place outside of the cell is the love paradigm. After you've delved into forgiveness for yourself and others, you are then able to wholeheartedly love those around you. This new love paradigm is where you place love before hate, forgiveness before a grudge. This is a love you don't measure, you don't keep track of. It's a love that gives without expecting a return, a love that gives for the delight of giving, the delight of knowing you've brightened someone's way. This love paradigm is where everyone is treasured for the gift they are. It is to look with Divine eyes and then be brought to our knees by the beauty of each person. This love is given freely, openly, unreservedly. This is the love God gives to us and it is the love that we are naturally meant to give each other.

By living in a love paradigm, our souls live free. If we choose to judge instead of love, we are chained to our judgment. In love, there are no chains. We know our strength, we know God's strength. Then out of that strength, confidence, and self-care, we can pour out our lives into others, even while our own life is filled.

This is a life-giving paradigm and it is so much better than sitting in that cold cell. Only when we leave the cell do we realize how confining the inner prison really was. Only when we take off our shoes and run through the meadows do we see how worth it forgiveness was. How about you give that dirty key a good look? It is made of the knowledge of the love of God for every soul. Let the chains go and take a step out into love.

Last Updated: 12/30/2011