standing in opposition

upon discussion of some of my personal goals and mission statement, a colleague and friend told me that he thinks that the way in which i engage others is often a 2nd person you approach. as the church, you need to be focusing on the poor and oppressed more. you are part of the problem when you indulge in mass consumption... blah blah blah. the point is that the way in which i try to invoke change is in an oppositional approach, rather than focusing on we, or even i, approaches to changing the world. how can the church want to take what i think as an important message if i am not part of the church? how can i tell my friend that having 3 coach purses is over-consumption if i own a library of several hundered cd's?

i am not saying that i have been engaging the church or any other populations much with ideas... because i haven't been, but i have this urgency for something better in this world within me and i want to be a world-changer. yet, i am so distracted by good and bad things... and, moreover, i am not focused on becoming better from within first, which is where i need to focus.

my oppositional mindset probably have psychological and sociological roots in the situations of my upbringing, my family, and my current life. and the mindset is much more than how i approach engaging the world for change, it is how i deal with personal matters... which is a problem. whenever i am unhappy, i automatically become someone who blames others... but not out loud in a very open way. i am manipulative. i tell others that i am to blame and invoke them into disagreeing with my and taking the blame, even though in actuality the blame needs to be shared because most often both sides of an argument/confrontation are wrong about something. and perspectives count for alot, as well... i see it differently than he/she does and thus who was the first to screw up is different in our opposing viewpoints.

at this smaller, more intimate, and personal level is where it must begin. i must start to work on my relationships and friendships by focusing on how i can improve upon them rather than how they can improve. this is very true with those closest to me, i need them to see that i am truly putting them before me and before other things in this world that can cause friction between us.

another co-worker gave me a philosophy article about the philosophical views of john lennon. i found the article less than riveting for the most part, probably because most of what is said can be summed up into the lyrics of imagine, which i am already familiar with. it was nothing new until i reread it and saw that this focus shift for me was displayed in mr. lennon. he was an idealist who wanted world peace (i can relate to this) but his focus wasn't on the world, but on contiunally changing himself from the inside. true, i won't declare that God is simply a force or that meditation is necessary to bring you to a higher plane... and i won't learn to be free of worry by experimenting with lsd... BUT the idea is where he got it right. if we all continually tried to be better, world peace would be realized.

one day, when i become a professor, i am sure i'll play devil's advocate and use some of my oppostional tactics to invoke thought and rattling of paradigms. the key is that i am able to know that not everything is about blaming others, but understanding that for change to happen i need to focus on what it is that i can do. i know that it starts from within me and it starts now.