Ampersand Answers: Bothness

I find our inability to accept anything bad about good people,
or anything good about bad people, deeply unhelpful
Because the fact is, we are all both.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, Lutheran minister 

The Question: 

How can I allow for all of us to be all we are always?

 &mpersand Answers:

Well, duh. Any sixth-grader could tell you that. BUT … we don’t always like that we contain both the good and the bad, do we? 

No, we don’t. And what do we do with it when we fall over the bad? Sadly, usually we project it all over other people, and either bury it in ourselves with a coating of shame or deny that it ever existed within us. 

It’s such a waste of time. That pesky Nazarene Rabbi was known for saying, “There is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed.” In that promise, he makes no exceptions. Nothing hidden. 

That means what I hide from me, and what I hide from you. It will all be revealed. 

That’s why it’s easier to own that, yeah, I can be snarky—ooh, can I be. And yeah, I can be a total love-bug. And sometimes on the same days, in the same hour! 

We are all both, and the sooner we own that bothness in ourselves, the sooner we can make the space for that bothness in others. And the more space we make for others, the more space we create for ourselves. It’s basic metaphysical math. 

Another way to say that might be, Do unto others … and I know I don’t have to finish that sentence. Have you treated someone recently in a way in which you would not want to be treated? Go find them, apologize, then ask an open-ended question, and listen, really listen, to what they tell you. 

All humans = the good, the bad, and potentially, the ugly. It’s up to us how we deal with our own, and that of others.

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