Honor

This post is part of Simple Incarnate: Encircled by Love hosted by the Missional Wisdom Foundation.

“Let your gentleness be known to everyone.” (Philippians 4:5a)

"Isn't it odd. We can only see our outsides,
but nearly everything happens on the inside." (Mackesy)

What is honor? It certainly isn’t a word you scroll past very often. I remember when I was in high school and read Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen for the first time, I was vaguely horrified by the depiction of Edward Farris’s idea of honor. 

Shortened version (Spoilers ahead, however, it has been available for 210 years, so I don’t feel too badly): Edward (a potentially very rich dude), when very young and undiscerning, gets himself engaged (secretly) to a (poor) woman. Edward’s (extremely wealthy) mom is certainly not going to be happy, so they keep the engagement a secret and wait (until the mom dies??). Four years later Edward meets Elinor (another poor woman—although that’s complicated) and falls in love with her. Because he is encumbered, Edward distances himself from Elinor and, even when confronted with disinheritance, doesn’t break his engagement to the first lady (even though she’s pretty terrible and obviously in the relationship for the money) because he must honor his word.

I hated that honor.

Probably, I just loved Edward and Elinor. They were perfect for each other. 

But it raises the question, is honor more than aesthetic? 

The Mackesy quote gives a bit of grit for our cerebral mill. Let’s lay aside the deception that Edward’s first relationship was built on and the mercenary attitude of the first woman, Edward’s honor was external. Pretty darn strong, but epidermal. His sense of honor did not compel him to honesty. He was willing to enter into a marriage with a woman he didn’t love to preserve the appearance of constancy, but he did not honor her with himself. 

When we are humans trying to live in community, what does it mean to live with honor? When Jesus stood in front of Lazarus’s sealed tomb, having, seemingly, failed Mary and Martha, he wept. He honored them with tears. We all know the end of that story, and it is impressive, but the middle is where I see honor. Jesus stood in front of those that loved him and those that hated him, and let his insides meet his outsides. Living in community is hard. You can’t always allow every emotion to reach its full potential, but it is imperative that each member of the community attend to his or her insides. Honor cannot just mean sticking to your word, it must also mean going into the world fully, gently, knowing that the world will make a mockery of your effort. 

So, yes, Edward, perhaps you are honor-bound to Lucy, but you are also bound to yourself and to that which is formed between the two of you. The community of relationship demands that we allow the insides to meet the outsides, mess included. Weeds included.

Dandelions are my favorite flower. It is not because they are the most beautiful or because I love to eat my lawn. I have never been able to get past the bitterness of a dandelion green. It is because they let me into their life. They are a most inviting plant. They aren’t insistent like a prickle burr or demonstrative like whatever plant it is that pops its seeds everywhere when you brush against it. It is not even wrapped in something delicious like apple or watermelon. It simply sends up an orb of joy, an invitation to breath, wind or otherwise. Surely this flower feels a moment of uncertainty before it surrenders its yellow garb for fluff. Will I go unseen, unembraced, unaccepted, or will I fly?

What does it mean to live encircled by and encircling others with love? It means accepting grace and creating spaces where grace can be inviting. Surely, here too there is vulnerability. Sometimes those invitations go unseen, unembraced, unaccepted, and it is hard to know what to do with that. To be utterly vulnerable means we must honor both our mandate to love God and neighbor and to love ourselves. Grace does not only give. Grace demands. Part of being a community of grace is being gentle, open, and forgiving, and, equally, respectful, diligent, and assiduous. 

To dwell in a place with honor requires grit.