SEAS OF CONTENTMENT AND DISCONTENTMENT

I am a torn soul. I desire to be more content, content with who I am and what I have and do, be free from the bondage of the sea of the world’s greatest capitalistic society which I swim in. It is one thing for my mind to tell me I have enough. It is another thing to live out contentment characterized by inner liberty. Struggling to pursue and maintain greater simplicity and inner liberty has been a constant process. It is the elusive posture of accepting and being content with what is. 

My unique challenge to being content stems from my idealized future fixations. If I am not mindful, I can live happily in the future, not fully engaging the present, what is right in front of me. For example, my future fun and vacation experiences have to outdo—have more fun and subscribe more meaning—than my previous experiences. I discovered this when my wife and I were vacationing in San Diego, a location we have been to many times. One of the main attractions for us as a family is the gastronomic delights of what we consider to be the best fish/seafood tacos. Los Angeles is not bad, but perhaps because of San Diego’s proximity to Mexico, San Diego’s fish tacos seem unbeatable. At one point, I discovered that I was competing with my own previous experiences that somehow, I had to make the current trip better than the previous ones. What this did was rob me of enjoying the present realities that feature a completely different set of circumstances from the previous trips. I was not content with what was, the reality that was right in front of me. 

I also have this great and deep urge to change, dismantle what I consider to be unfair, parochial, unjust, inhumane, and even outright evil. Of course, what I consider is what I consider. What I consider may not be right and even noble. Thus, the invitation is to commit and do my due diligence to discern if it is truly beyond my pet peeve-ness and is part and parcel of the worthy perennial tradition of what is noble and honorable. While contentment is about accepting what is, this state of discontentment is about rejecting what is. It can also be the vision and hope for what should be according to the Bible’s trajectory of God’s Kingdom on this earth as it is in heaven. I am discontent with what is, the reality that needs to be dismantled or corrected. 

God knows that I have been brewing multiple discontentment cups for quite some time now. I am in the process of investigating and discerning whether any of my discontentment holds and whether I should hold them at all. What is mine to bear will most likely not be everything I am currently mulling about and feeling angry at. 

I swim in the two seas of contentment and discontentment. For years, I was not sure whether these two bodies of water ever intersect, being jerked back and forth and almost losing my sanity for many years navigating between the two seas. I know now that this great tension (not a matter of balance) is to be lived, not analyzed. Apostle Paul’s well-documented secret to contentment in Philippians 4:11-12 foundationally speaks to his inner liberty not to be tossed around by the turbulent sea of external circumstances. Paul’s inner disposition remains firm and grounded regardless of the circumstances he may be under. Paul’s inner liberty not only freed himself but behaved almost like a good infectious virus (sorry for this language given what we have been under for more than 2 years) that spread to others around him. 

Paul also was greatly disturbed with what was and thus leaned on to his apostolic edge and prophetic nudge in bringing godly disruptions and changes to the early church. He does not pull his punches and zealously states his case for change on multiple occasions. In his first epistle, the letter to the Galatians (chapter 2), he publicly rebukes Peter and calls Peter hypocritical. Paul demanded change, which subsequently led to the watershed Jerusalem Council’s (Acts 15) decision to swing the doors wide open for the Gentiles to come to Christ without circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. They “reached the decision that we (Jewish Christians) should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God” (v. 19, NRSV). 

I am finding that the motivation for both contentment and discontentment is and should be love. Love anchors and drives both states of contentment and discontentment. In the context of contentment, love protects us from greed, selfishness, and blind pursuit of comfort at all costs. Love orients and positions our interiority to be content with what is. In the context of discontentment, love fights for the greater good, solidarity, inclusivity, and equality. Same love demands change where change is necessary. While Paul may be a great example, I see Jesus as the ultimate example, embodying both contentment and discontentment. Jesus taught us to be content with who we are, what we do, and what we have no matter what our cultural and social contexts may be. Jesus also taught us to be change agents, dismantling dominant narratives of power and control and creating alternative paths of life in the Kingdom. Contentment serves to create greater interior liberty while discontentment propels to change exterior issues that are not in compliance with the values of the Kingdom. I now see it is not two separate seas of contentment and discontentment but one sea of love I swim in.