"I do not think that word means what you think it means"//What is Trust?

I've been thinking what it means to trust since I went to bed last night. I blame my dear friend (and fantastic writer Seth) for posting an adorable picture of his son and our pastor Steve yesterday. Seth wrote that it was an important moment in their family's life because it was the first time Steve asked his son to trust him. I've been mulling it over precisely because of the weightiness that Seth attached to this question. What does it mean to trust? (And I strongly suggest that it isn't hoping that your fellow youth or co-workers are going to catch you if you fall backwards into their arms...)

This past month has seemed like an adventure in living in a perpetual trust that things will get to an equilibrium. Jack and I have said "trust me [....]" more times than I can count. We, as a society, use this phrase so flippantly at times, to reassure those around us, that I'm not positive that casually asking someone to "trust" involves any movement to trust that individual. Simply, we've lost the thrust behind the word.

I don't pretend to understand developmental psychology or human development so this is mostly conjecture based on experience- but trusting is easier as a child. We don't know what the word necessarily implies, but we're more able to believe that whatever the person asking us to trust them about has our best interest in heart. Riding a bike without the training wheels for the first time was a terrifying experience and even more so when my dad let go, but I trusted him when he said that I wouldn't fall. We believe more easily as children because we haven't had the life experiences yet that close us off from the possible. I'd wager a bet that the majority of people reading this had relatively stable and happy childhoods. At 4, the same as of Seth's son, we hadn't experienced enough emotional pain to disarm our ready ability to trust in those around us. And we weren't jaded enough to not trust those that our families said to trust.

Yet all of that eventually changes. We are hurt by life in great and small ways. Those who we think won't hurt us eventually do, because part of all of our stories is being hurt and hurting others- intentional or not. We close ourselves off to all, save a precious few, of trusting them because genuine trust requires a vulnerability that most of us aren't comfortable resting in for long. The common use of "trust" stands as nothing more than an endorsement for a promise or stated action. I ask people to trust me, but, with the exception of a close number of people, I don't expect the people I'm asking to trust to have any renewed sort of relationship to me.

Genuine trust isn't something we can get to through reason or experience. The kind of trust I think Seth refers to is a type of performative language. By saying I trust you, I actually trust you. Your words and my words are bringing something into existence. In his lectures on Christology, Bonhoeffer posits that one of the reasons we can't adequately describe Christ is that Christ is an event. We can try to make him into a concept or historical reality, but our limited ways of understanding prevent us from fully understanding the complexity of what the God-human pro me really is. Christ isn't a metaphysical concept that can be reasoned to. Christ isn't a historical reality that we can read about and believe in. Christ can only be understood once faith enters the picture.

I'd venture that real trust has to be grappled in the same manner. We can't reason our way to trusting someone, and this isn't to say that we throw reason out and pretend we're blank canvases. Eventually though, trust requires a suspension of certainty on our part and a belief in the sincerity of the other. We choose to trust those that we can be vulnerable with. The significance of marriage and baptismal vows are public declarations of this act.

And that's the weightiness of it. The sincerity in the act of asking someone if we genuinely trust them and the vulnerability in actually trusting them is uncomfortable because it's a leap of faith. I wonder in part if that's why it's so overwhelming to get baptized at South Main. Bonhoeffer says that we find Christ present in the sermon, the sacraments, and the church community. By the point that baptism happens, we've presumably experienced Christ in the sermon and partly in community. We profess our faith and trust, but sequentially we've already done that to get to this point. The overwhelming part is when the congregation is asked to stand witness to this proclamation and invites the baptizee to see Christ working in them and through them as community. In what I hope is a type of transference- by trusting in Christ and seeing Christ in that community, we are overwhelmed by the sincerity of the congregation asking us to trust in them. To genuinely trust in them. It's no wonder that so many people tear up in the process- it's emotional when you choose to trust one person, even more emotional to confess a trust in Christ, and overwhelmingly emotional when a large group of people ask you to see Christ working in them and through them and to then extend your trust to them. I'm glad we do it this way at South Main. I think this might be what Bonhoeffer had in mind (despite being Lutheran and not having adult baptism...)

I hope this makes some sense. I'm only half-way through my coffee and admittedly my musings on a Saturday morning are roughly half-formed. Excitement that I may be synthesizing my seminars into something coherent prompted, in part, this post. Thoughts? I'd love to hear what trust means to someone else. The realization of language and the action language precipitates is beginning to fascinate me more and more.