This week I have been dwelling on the feeling of being expendable. The feeling or experience of being unimportant in a relationship. A feeling common to a plastic bag as it is being tossed away.
As I have pondered these feelings in my life, and witnessed similar experiences in those around me, I have begun to see this as a common experience within relationships. Ideally, it would not be a common experience, but it occurs none the less. Of all experiences, the feeling of worthlessness or feeling expendable must rank as one of the most painful emotional experiences. There is a certain lack/absence of feeling that occurs. The same absence does not occur when someone directly insults you, or has the initiative to actively hurt you. The experience of expendability comes with an emotion rooted in not even being worth the others time/energy/acknowledgement to hurt you outright. It does not dignify you or the relationship at all.
Personally, I retreat into myself when these experiences occur. I find an uneasy comfort in isolation. It is turmoil, but at least I cannot leave myself, at least I cannot harm myself in the same way. Yes, I can harm myself, I can perpetuate spirals of anger, depression, and self loathing but I cannot divorce myself in an expendable way. The unity of the self does not allow it.
Now, we are in Passion Week. A time of triumph/subversion of Palm Sunday through the pain and break of relationship of Maundy Thursday, Isolation of Friday, death/ internalization/realization on Saturday, resurrection and doubt on Sunday and Monday.
As I bring my thoughts and feelings of expendability to Passion Week, I see them throughout it.
Here are some of the circumstances and relationships where I perceive emotions of expendability:
The disciples must have felt a growing distance as Jesus retreats into himself throughout last supper. The language grows more confusing. It is a funeral with everyone present. I have never imagined that it was a jubilant celebration like many of the other meals depicted throughout the Gospels.
The disciples get a second dose in the Garden. Jesus rejects disciples as he goes to be alone to pray. The disciples fall into an uncomfortable sleep. They cannot be near their friend; he seems to have no relational need. Rejection, disposal.
Jesus gets an equal dose. He returns repeatedly, as if desiring relational/tangible presence, but he does not ask for continued nearness. To his dismay, his friends are asleep. He feels expendable as if not worthy of their continued watchfulness.
I think Judas had a solid/overwhelming feeling of being a disposable pawn. Jesus tells him to go from the supper. How worthless was their friendship? Jesus does not try to persuade him otherwise. Was it ever worth anything? As he enters the garden, I imagine Judas feeling the relationships snap between him and the other disciples. He is more alone then ever before, even while he is physically surrounded by the soldiers there to arrest Jesus. He finds himself in a place of ultimate rejection. I continue to imagine him spiraling out of control as he watches what takes place next. He has no friends and nowhere in himself to rest. Nowhere but an abyss of self-loathing. He played his part as the pawn, now disposed of, he commits suicide, by the garbage dump, as if his final statement to the world.
Eloi Eloi Lama Sabacthani
My God, My God, Why have you expended me?
I will continue to ponder this as I wait for Sunday. I hope you join me in pondering and waiting.
I don't throw my plastic bags away> i keep them as reuse them as garbage bags :)
ReplyDeleteDan, I don't know you, and I sure hope your intention wasn't to be an ass, but did you actually just make that comment? "You're not a throw away..but you're only good for putting shit in."
ReplyDeleteJust seemed a little insensitive, considering Silas' disclosure.
Silas, feeling expandable is something that I have continually wrestled with, particularly through high school. Although I have found healing, satan tries to use these past experiences as a 'way in' on a regular basis. Those pains are some of the worst I've ever felt, and there certainly is a greater loneliness to being expended than to be treated poorly otherwise, just as you were saying.
Thank you for connecting these feelings to the story surrounding Christ's death. The emotional reality of what happened is often lost when we speak of this story, and acknowledging the humanness of all involved reminds me of just how profound and real this event really was.
:) MY intention was not to be mean. I just meant I reuse my bags, thats all. (don't be so figurative, but again its really hard to read tone and body language into text so I'm sorry if it was taken the wrong way) It was meant to be light heated I didn't mean to say that Silas (or anyone) is where you dump stuff in.
ReplyDeleteTo be perfectly honest. I love how raw and honest Silas is about how he felt. I diargee with it but I respect him for it I think that spending the last 24 hours of your life with people you know are going to leave who promised not to leave knowing they would, washing the poop and mud of the feet of someone who was going to sell you out and then praying in anguish for the diciples in the garden fosters anything but feelings of being expendable. But I still respect him for being raw.
Alicia, thanks for your comment.
ReplyDeleteDan, Tone is incredibly difficult to pick up via the internet. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt most of the time. Yet when someone disagrees with another as often as you and I have disagreed over this blog (and I am thankful to continue to engage the blog) it becomes more difficult to take a slight as a fun jest.
Reflecting on the passion week, I see the stories you referenced as aiding my case not working against it. Jesus was physically present with his friends but if he truly knew what was coming the anxiety of death would force anyone to interact at a distance. The washing of the feet is an incredibly awkward moment. The disciples probably experienced a whole range of emotions there. Peter gives us a glimpse of some of the emotions when he does not want his feet washed. I think part of his reaction may have been rooted in a feeling that Jesus was pushing them away through this action. A new awkwardness is found in the experience of foot washing, something is done that changes the rules of the relationship. No longer are they peers, there has been a vast change. How we interpret that change is up to us, but I posit that it may have been experienced by the disciples as an experience of feeling expendable.
I know we disagree with each other a lot,
ReplyDeleteI and honestly I am very sorry if you took it the wrong way. It was my fault for not articulating it well. and for that I apologize. I felt at time I can be the antagonist and thought it would be taken in jest. Cleary I was wrong and I am very sorry.
You are smart and well informed. and I would never think your anything less than that.
I like discussing with you even though most of the time i don't agree with your reasoning and think sometimes you apporach from a very Western North American View, but I do really like how well thought how think through things. I keep coming back because it keeps my mind sharp. Honestly I don't you or I will be find a happy middle in our schools of thought but I am open and willing to listen. and hope that sometimes when I disagree, it helps both us atritulate our arguments (arguments in an academia term not not relational) better than if we didn't
I guess