Sincerity, shalom, and a personal God
Some thoughts from the walk home from work.
Something that occurred to me on the (hour-long) walk home on Friday, which I'm digesting further as I'm writing about it:
"Empire" is an ideology that involves the primacy of self-interest, which ultimately involves consolidation, domination, and coercion.
"Shalom" is the idea of a state of peace that arises from all things approaching a cosmic harmony, related to ideas such as the principle of "interbeing," and the Tao. It is an alternative to the ideology of empire; its opposite.
In order to approach this peace that is also justice, sincerity is essential.
Sincerity is hard to define. Basically, I think you could say it is totally vulnerable honesty.
I feel like true sincerity is hard to separate from the concept of shalom, because sincerity is a kind of honesty based in the faith that truth is also harmony.
Sincerity and shalom require each other, actually. Where sincerity is present, the deep comfort of shalom -- again, that peace that is also justice -- becomes possible to experience. To the extent that it is absent so is shalom unlikely to be there.
Also, total sincerity requires a faith in shalom. It requires a belief that our own just provision -- our "daily bread” -- will occur if we pursue virtuousness. If you don't believe that you will have all that you need simply by pursuing the good, then the part of you that doesn't believe is more likely to reach for the ideology of empire to get what it needs. Either that, or it will resign itself to the idea that human existence involves some amount of being hopelessly deprived and unfulfilled -- i.e., that shalom doesn't exist. On the other hand, if you do believe that you will have all you need simply by pursuing the good, then the truest sincerity is possible.
Somewhat as an aside, this idea that the pursuit of virtue is all one needs to be safe and bountiful is one of the most basic, and I think one of the most powerful ideas in the Judeo-Christian tradition, by the way. About two thousand words into the Book of Genesis, God says the first thing that is not creation by fiat or a commandment but that more technically is advice. God says, to Cain, "Don't you know that if you do well, you will you be accepted?" In context, the clear implication is that the way to achieve fulfillment is through the pursuit of virtue.
That's not to say it's not the same in other belief systems. But it is one of the key ideas that makes whole Judeo-Christian system work. (And if it doesn't seem that way, because of all the rabid clamoring for Christian nationalism in America, for instance, that's really just a sign of how unskillfully some very, very loud people are following after Jesus. And that's it.)
Shalom is surpassing. And because it's surpassing, it comes by grace, and it is itself a grace. But it's also achieved through getting better at things or, at least, getting better at letting go of certain things.
This helps define sincerity, then, because it means that sincerity is the kind of vulnerable honesty that leads inherently (if gradually) to greater intelligence, more love, and deeper wisdom. (It's related to the practice of vipassana, which is the effort to see things clearly, as they really are.)
So sincerity depends on shalom, and our human experience of shalom depends on our sincerity.
Also, it occurs to me that true shalom and true sincerity both depend on a third thing: which is some form of theism.
I'm not sure I'll be able to articulate the line of thought here, because to fully lay it out involves some abstract philosophy. But I feel like I sense its validity (and I think I could articulate the line of thought if I took the time, and if I thought anybody would want to read it).
The idea, basically, is that if a deep, surpassing peace is possible for all beings, then that has to exist in a universe that not only affords that peace, but also understands it. So in order for a surpassing peace to occur for a human mind, that mind has to be within a surpassing mind. In order for a surpassing fulfillment to occur in a human heart, that heart has to be within a surpassing heart. And in order for a human will to be aligned, it has to align with, and therefore be circumscribed by -- within -- a surpassing will.
Another basic way to phrase the argument is to say that the aspects of shalom that we experience can only be created out of something that contains them, which again would take some time to lay out as a full line of thought. (Though, again, I think it can be laid out -- or perhaps more accurately, it's possible to indicate the region of experience where this can be perceived to be the overwhelmingly most likely reality.)
Maybe an easier point to make it is that in the same way that shalom and sincerity converge, because they depend on each other, sincerity, shalom, and a theistic cosmos converge. In other words, the fullest belief in one relies on a full belief in the other two -- and that to tend to reject one is to tend to reject all three.
This week, I saw a meme on Facebook that said that all atheism is temporary. It struck me as an arrogant thing to say, as a somewhat disrespectful thing to say and, somewhat, as a pugnacious thing to say.
But that doesn't mean that it isn't also true. A popular argument has circulated in the past decade or so that the theistic ethic and the atheistic ethic are equally effective. At the basic level of our person-to-person interactions, I think that's definitely the case. For most of us, the most fulfilling human relations could occur between people regardless of their ontological stance.
But ultimately, I think it's worth considering that those capacities for sincerity, peace, and harmony are comparable only up to a point, and that a deeper consideration suggests that the most absolute forms of sincerity and fulfillment can only be attained as they are attained nested in the mind, heart, and will of a personally accessible God.