What is your Order of Values?

A minister colleague and mentor of mine once told me to pay more attention to what people do, and less to what they say they value; that if you pay close attention to someone, their actions will tell you their lived values, even as their mouths express different professed values. I immediately thought that this was true of myself… but now I think the truth may be more subtle than this. I think that this perceived dissonance is pointing not at a disconnect in values, but rather an inherent ordering in our values.

Let me use an example from my own life. I have, many times, professed a belief that Global Warming is a real threat, and that taking care of this planet we live on is a religious imperative for myself. I have stepped into pulpits and preached on environmental protection, and on global warming particularly. I even once had someone say, after such a sermon, that I would have made a wonderful “hellfire and damnation” preacher had I stayed a Baptist, based upon how I could preach about the “end times” predicted by scientists studying global warming (that comment was a reality check for me).

And yet, when the opportunity came up for me to serve a ministerial internship just north of Chicago I jumped at it, even though I live on the south side of Chicago and it would mean a regular auto commute for ten months. The intense pace of the internship and often late hours made taking the trains impractical on most days. So, I drove my car the 25 miles there and 25 miles back, at least 4 times a week, for nine months.

Does this mean that I don’t really care about he environment? Not at all. Sometimes, as the recycling piles up in our apartment, and I have to carry it all down and sort it before bed I wish I cared about the environment a little less. What this apparent disconnect between my professed values and my lived values pointed out to me was that there were some things that rated higher on my personal order of values than the environment… in this case, the desire for my wife to keep her job at the University of Chicago, and the value of completing my formation process as a Unitarian Universalist minister.

We could not live in this world if we did not have a way to order our values, but I think that this human tendency to place the things we value in an order of importance and precedence is something we do not often pay conscious attention to. When we sense an apparent dissonance imitrex online canada between professed and lived values, it is often the catalyst for feelings of guilt, shame, and hurt. “I know I should do better” or “I’m not a very good Unitarian”.

If I could write a set of commandments for persons of Liberal Faith, they might begin with “Come to know yourself in love” and “Come to know your fellow humans in love”. There is no guilt that attaches in discovering what your order of values is. And that order of values is constantly changing throughout our lives.

I value my life pretty highly. The idea of continuing breathing as long as I can is pretty important to me. Yet, I have volunteered to risk that life because there are things I value more. Now, if my wife and I had children, I might have to reassess that order of values.

I value ending war in all its forms among humanity. However, there are a few things I value more than ending war, including preventing genocide and protecting my family.

Learning your order of values is not a process of discernment, but one of discovery. What values you have and what order they are in is inherent in all human beings. Discovering what they are, consciously looking at them, gives you the freedom to intentionally change them. It gives you the ability to have a deeper understanding of your own actions and beliefs. It gives you the freedom to step away from some feelings of guilt and even shame that these sensed contradictions might be giving you.

It also allows you to begin seeing the order of values in others. Not just in individuals, but in institutions. Churches operate within the framework of an order of values. Schools operate within the framework of an order of values. Governments operate within a framework of an order of values. Seeing this order, you are then better prepared to navigate your relationships with both individuals and with institutions.

A seminary might value the religious principles of its denomination, but it might value financial solvency more. If you realize this, then you will not be surprised when it makes decisions based upon economics and not upon faith.

A church might value peace, but it might value the emotional health and connection of its membership more. If you realize this, then you will not be surprised when it puts away its peace banners and overt pacifist rhetoric when the child of a member is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Understanding the orders of values that surrounds us, and the order of values that lives within us, we begin to see that we are not all hypocrites, we are just complex.

Yours in Faith,

David