A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend a week training with Adrian Jackson who runs a theatre company called Cardboard Citizens. Cardboard Citizens are the leading company in the UK using a form called Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) in their work with homeless and ex-homeless people in London. TO was pioneered by Augusto Boal in Brazil and has since been used all over the world as a means of opening up dialogue amongst marginalised communities about how they can best address the issues that face their communities. So much of what we explored during the training week made perfect sense for me and seemed to have a really clear connection with the things of the Kingdom. It was both the most bizarre and the most normal thing to hear phrases that we use in church all the time being used in this context.
We need to meet people where they are
In many ways, it shouldn't be a surprise that I discovered so much Kingdom in a practice of theatre that is concerned with empowering those who have been or are oppressed... in other words a practice of theatre that is concerned with breaking the chains of oppression... wait, where have I heard that before?
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people (Isaiah 58:6)
and remove the chains that bind people (Isaiah 58:6)
I could see so much of Jesus in the work Boal pioneered and I am so excited about the possibilities of using this work for God's Kingdom.
My mind has been very full for the last couple of weeks while I have tried to process all that I experienced during the training week and one thing in particular that I have been left pondering is the concept of truth. As a Christian, I believe in the truth of God's Word, in His Truth and the truth of the gospel and His promises. Truth that often stands opposed to what we see in our day to day circumstances. A higher truth. An ultimate truth.
The course sparked a debate in my mind about objective truth and subjective truth. One exercise that we did involved someone sculpting the rest of their small group into a tableau which the rest of the participants were invited to look at. First, someone would describe objectively what they could see (a man kneeling on the floor with his head in his hands, a woman stands to his left, she has her hands in the air and her eyes are closed), then the group would be asked to comment from a subjective point of view - reading their own meaning into what they see in front of them (they are in a church worshipping and praying to God, for example). All of these answers were true. The objective truth being what everyone could see and agree to, the subjective being what we saw through our eyes that have been shaped by our lives and circumstances up until that point.
It made me think about events in life and how we can't help but hold a subjective truth of the event when we recount it because we see it from our own point of view. The way I describe a particular meeting with someone may be very different from how that person describes the very same meeting. But at the same time, there must be an objective truth of how that meeting went - a truth that is not coloured by the emotions and interests of the people it involves.
Likewise, while as Christians we all hold to God's Truth, we see His objective truth (the Word) through the lens of our own lives - our gifts, passions, circumstances, testimonies... which can lead to us appearing to believe things that seem to contradict each other. So, is it ever possible to see truth in it's pure objective form? Can we ever see things through God's eyes? And is it wrong to see His Truth through a subjective lens?
As I am writing this and wrestling with these questions, I feel compelled to believe that as we grow closer to God, we are able to look more and more through His eyes, to see people and circumstances in the Truth that God sees them. So where does that leave subjective truth?
Surely, we are not saying that our life stories - the things that actually colour our view - are not important? Because we only have to look at Psalm 139 to know that God cares about the details of our lives. And He knows that our experiences in life shape us - look at what Paul writes about endurance and how problems and trials shape us and strengthen us.
So, I am left thinking then, that we must take the subjective truth - the truth of how a circumstance plays in our mind, or the feeling we felt or feel in a situation - to God. We take the truth of what we experienced or are experiencing to Him and ask Him to show us His Truth in that situation or circumstance. We re-align ourselves with His Truth. Not ignoring what felt true to us and brushing it under the carpet when it seems to be in opposition to what we know God's Truth to be, but taking it to Him, placing it in His hands and asking - how can it be this and this?
I have no conclusion. I just know that in my life over the past few months I have found the truth of my circumstances has been difficult to reconcile with the Truth of God's Promises.
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossian 3:1-3)
I think that when we take the truth we hold of our day-to-day and ask Him to help us reconcile it with His Truth it leads us to repentence, or to forgiveness, or to relook at how we dealt with a situation. I think it helps us keep short accounts, allow God to heal our hurts and brings us into greater freedom. I think.
