I was driving out to the coast last weekend on hilly, bucolic Route 98 which passes numerous small, country churches. Besides being curious about the congregations of these rural one room houses of worship, I like to read the signs posted outside that are meant to entice people in. Last year I passed one that was pretty funny about God and the Super Bowl. I respected the pastor’s good sense of humor. Last week I passed a sign that caused a bit of a cringe rather than chuckle. It read, “Our Freedom Came at a Great Sacrifice.” At face value it is a fairly typical church sentiment. Most Christian doctrine believes that Christ sacrificed his life so that we could be feed from sin. The concept of sacrifice goes further back to the Old Testament. Even before Judaism, the most primitive worship of the Gods incorporated sacrifice. Sacrifice is supposed to represent a depth of commitment, and is also meant as a means of atonement for our inherent human sin. We associate sacrifice with a nobility of character. Due to the extreme historical and cultural depth behind the concept of sacrifice, you might find my cringing a tad sacrilegious. I hope you will hang in there with me as I share with you my questioning of the use of this word and explain why I feel that most day to day sacrifice is emotionally unhealthy.
It was after listening to a client of mine share about his mother’s sacrifice that I reached for the dictionary. He, as well as many others, expound on how their parent sacrificed through working, giving up a dream, driving to countless engagements, not buying something they wanted… In doing so he placed his parent on a pedestal while putting himself in a position of undeserving and guilt. On this particular occasion I was compelled to look at the literal meaning of “sacrifice.” What I found on Dictionary.com was, “the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.” My concern lies in the nuance between the words surrender and destruction. When we talk about sacrifice, I believe most of us focus on the idea of destruction rather than peaceful surrender. I say this due to the aspect of guilt that comes along with most sacrifice. My interpretation of the church sign was, “Christ suffered a horrible death on the cross for you, so the least you can do is come in and worship him.”
Let me share why I believe the idea of sacrifice through destruction goes against God. If I had to put my entire belief system into three words they would be, “God is love.” I look at every aspect of life through this lens. I believe in a genuinely loving relationship each person first loves himself, and then there is this perfectly balanced, gorgeous interchange of energy reciprocity with another. If we destruct ourselves, we cannot love ourselves. I don’t believe that God would want us to become less of who we are for any cause. The church sign I saw suggests that Christ lost something of great value for me: his life. Because of this I am supposed to be indebted. I do not believe this. I believe Christ gave his life as a gift in a state of peaceful surrender. Most of us couldn’t imagine sacrificing anything more valuable than life. This is because most of us don’t have an absolute faith in life after death. However, if you have an unshakeable belief in life after death, surrendering your life for something of much greater value is an act of loving yourself. I don’t believe Christ destructed himself for us. I believe Christ surrendered his life as an act of love for us, while loving and honoring himself and his life’s purpose the same time.
Outside of Christianity, I don’t believe that floods or famine are caused by a lack of proper sacrifice. I don’t believe that God needs us to prove our sense of commitment to him by giving up things that are important to us. If God did, to me it would mean that love is conditional. Anything given for a cause should be offered with an anticipatory joy; knowing that what is being surrendered is creating something of much greater value.
When my client was expounding on all that his mother had sacrificed for him my response was, “Really? If you drive a Toyota rather than a Lexus so that you can put the extra money towards your daughter’s college education, is that a sacrifice?” This car lover replied, “No, because the car isn’t as valuable as my daughter’s future.” If a parent gave up a dream of becoming a singer to stay home with her children, it should have been because the journey of parenting was more important to her than the singing. Hence, it would be a surrendering of a dream not a sacrifice that destructs her soul. When someone decides to become a parent it should be well understood that this journey will take time, money, patience, and energy. Providing food, shelter, education, transportation and medical coverage is not a sacrifice; it is the most basic expectation of a parent. Sharing our love through nurturing, listening, connecting should also be a given. There shouldn’t be any sacrifice in parenting. As parent’s we peacefully surrender aspects of our lives that were once important to us (time, energy, money…) so that we can develop and nurture another life. If a parent feels that they are sacrificing, then the person probably didn’t truly understand the intensity of the endeavor. If someone made a misjudgment in their ideas of parenting and does feel they are indeed sacrificing, it only has a sense of nobility if her loss is never sensed by her children.
True martyrs and saints take actions based on an absolute conviction and a strong sense of purpose. There isn’t any intent to make those that come after them feel as sense of indebtedness. I don’t believe that Mother Theresa felt the world owed her anything. I believe that she received boundless amounts of love from those that she cared for. I don’t believe that working long hours in the slums of India was a sacrifice for her by any means. I have never met personally or heard through any media piece a soldier who has fought in a war that communicates a sense of sacrifice or martyring for their service. Due to this I believe that the gift of service they give is indeed a sign of extreme nobility. The reason this shows such high character is because it takes courage to overcome the fear of surrendering body and life, in faith of a higher purpose which is usually unknown.
I believe that when anyone gets a feeling of obligation from someone else’s “sacrifice” then it wasn’t really a noble gift of love, but rather a set up of narcissistic martyrdom. We get a sense of obligation when we hear people say things like, “After all I’ve sacrificed for you…” I do believe that some parents believe that they did sacrifice, “Did you know that I didn’t buy myself a new dress for five years so that I could pay for your ballet lessons?” I think any parent who makes comments like this actually does feel they destructively sacrificed and are resentful for what they gave up. When we, “destruct ourselves for the sake of someone else” we haven’t loved ourselves. A mother who spends year after year staying home cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry at service to her family with no thought to her own needs and passions will end up spiritually depleted and on some level resentful. When we feel depleted, we energetically look for something to fill us. We egoically play the martyr card to get the appreciation we feel we are owed for all we genuinely feel we lost. I don’t believe there is nobility in this sacrifice, only a lack of love for ourselves that we are solely responsible for rectifying.
I feel those of us who will never find ourselves in truly noble circumstances of sacrifice should take the word out of our daily vocabulary. If we are not truly dedicated to a cause, and give up something of value, we will end up feeling resentful in time. Resentment is an emotion that is hard to hide. Then the gift that we have given gets wrapped in a layer of guilt that causes more hurt than love. We are usually mental martyrs before we become vocal ones. I get into pockets of this from time to time. Realize that when this happens, the issue isn’t about the lack of appreciation we are feeling from others. The issue is ours; in not making conscious decisions that reflect a love of ourselves. What we get from playing the martyr is a huge ego feed that somehow our sacrifices makes us a tad superior. We get to be noble and selfless, while our counter parts get to be selfish, lazy and ungrateful. It is an ugly place to be, but there are few of us that don’t go there at some point. The reality is that many of us do make commitments, such as becoming parents, without truly understanding what is required. Know that you are a more loving person if you love yourself first and make decisions that will cause joy rather than resentment. If you can’t peacefully surrender something knowing you are actually going to receive more on the other end, don’t do it. When a child feels they have destroyed their parent’s life just by being alive, they will be left with a feeling that they are inherently a burden and are undeserving of anything wonderful. Not even a free college education is worth the loss of a child’s sense of self.
I do believe that the word “destruction” should remain within the definition of “sacrifice” because there are real examples. I believe that the families of those in service do honorably sacrifice when their loved ones are called to duty. The loss of time, limbs, mental health or life many times mean much more than the cause their loved one is dedicated to. I believe there are soldiers that truly didn’t understand what they were going to give up and feel a mourning sense of sacrifice of what was lost to a cause. There are Veterans that were drafted into service despite a lack of passion for the cause. I think of the rescue workers at the World Trade Center on and after September 11th, who now suffer serious lung ailments that they never could have imagined or were told about. There are other noble examples of sacrifice through destruction but I do think they are rare.
I do feel that sacrificing through surrender is an extremely noble thing to do. All those that nobly sacrifice show the courage to surrender something of extreme value in the absolute faith in something higher. While we may know about it, we will never hear about it from them. This is because they aren’t looking to fill a void through receiving indebted appreciation from others. Those that nobly sacrifice receive extreme satisfaction, love and fulfillment from what is created through their means of surrender.
These ideals on sacrifice would be hard to sum up on a church sign. Figuring out something that is engaging, inviting, meaningful, not guilt inducing and humorous without being irreverent in approximately ten words is a notable task. Even those of us that Twitter would be challenged. However, since it’s not right to criticize without a suggestion, I’ll give it a try.
“MUTTON IS WORSE THAN SACRIFICIAL LAMB TENDERIZED OUT OF THE LOVIN”
I doubt anyone would sacrifice a moment of time to pull into the parking lot for that one. To do so wouldn’t be a peaceful surrender of their time, but a true destruction of self.