Human Giving or Human Being?

Philosopher Kate Manne wrote in Dawn Girl: The Logic of Misogyny about a system with one class of people she called the "human givers." The human givers were expected to offer their time, attention, and affection to another group of people called the "human beings." She implied that the "human beings" had an obligation to express their humanity while the "human givers" were required to GIVE their humanity to the human beings. As we can guess, the givers were the women. I am blessed to know many human givers who are male: my husband, my sons, my nephews, my brother, both my brothers-in-law and a bunch of guy friends. But her point is well-taken. I do believe that in our culture, we are trying to address the lopsided role of "giving" versus "being" as it relates to gender differentials.

Regardless, if you feel like you are a "human giver" surrounded by "human beings" - you may be onto something pretty ugly. In the last five years, with the help of people who I learned to trust, I had to come to grips with the fact that I was not supposed to need anything. This was a pattern that was ingrained in me. My personality seems to be vulnerable to this false belief AND my family system certainly supported this belief.

Human givers are supposed to be able to anticipate the opinions and preferences of others and behave accordingly. If they do not figure out how to give the people what they want, they will be shamed, punished or even destroyed.

There could not be a more perfect plan devised to achieve a state of complete breakdown of the human spirit.

Our body, with its instinct for self-preservation, knows that giving up our preferences in favor of serving the opinions and preferences of the collective is a recipe for disaster. Our body tries to alert us to our need for change - it gets sick, has trouble sleeping, starts ruminating, has panic attacks, and loses its capacity for joy. But within the system of "human giving" versus "human being", the system is rigged to teach the helpers that they are SELFISH if they have a political opinion, or a preference, or a need to express their own anger and disappointment.

If this sounds a lot like codependency to you, you are sort of right. But that's for another day's discussion. I wonder, do you think you struggle more with giving or being?

Jesus Shows the Way

Jesus was a good man but he was not such a good god (according to Barbara Brown Taylor) if you compare him to all the gods that came before him. He was not big and strong and demanding that his followers feed his ego. He was like no other god before him - a suffering one.

So let's make a note of that right off the top: we have freedom which gives us liberty but it does not give us license to do whatever feels good. We have the freedom to choose but our choices are boundaried ones. And they cause suffering.

Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.

1 Corinthians 6:12 The Message

Here's why: we are conditioned to think, feel and act in ways that are contrary to what John the Baptist came preaching and Jesus modeled. John the Baptist preached repentance - not out of guilt or shame, but his was a liberation theology - you can be saved from your old life and receive a new one. This assumes of course that our old lives are unsatisfactory. And I see no reason to think that has changed much.

Our survival instincts, long bred within us cry out for the same characteristics ancient mankind attributed to their gods - strength and power and domination. But Jesus did not come to appeal to our lowest instincts, he came to call us to our highest potential - a whole brain experience. He came to transform the world by loving it, not controlling it. Which, interestingly enough, models the same thing God modeled. Here's the thing I will never understand about God. He chose to enter into a partnership with humanity by inviting us to be part of running the world. He did not make us start at the bottom of the pyramid and work our way up into a position of worthiness. Straight after creating Adam and Eve, he says - "Here, run the place." (Genesis 1 - 3 gives us a good look at God's big idea and the rocky launch his concept endured.)

Most of the time it seems that it is more natural for us to run the world based on preferences, on finding a pattern that our brain can accept - us and them. This is our survival instinct - and it looks different for different people. At our house we play team game tag, which basically means Pops and Christian and Norah against Meme. Pops has a great self-preservation instinct, he's always ahead of the kids. Others among us think our survival depends on finding our one true love - who completes us - or finding a group we can belong to who will keep us safe. However our instincts define survival, we are well practiced at it; this has unintended consequences.

What happens when our fears and insecurities cause us to over-react in a frenzy for survival? What happens when we see danger lurking around every corner? Stay tuned.