Sacrificing Values

Sacrifice means to give up something of value in honor of some higher power.  Traditionally - sacrifices are made willingly by those who chose to give up something of value to a perceived or actual being of influence greater than themselves.  Also in traditional practice - sacrifices are made UNWILLINGLY by those influenced to do so under suppression of a being perceived or actually greater than themselves.

When something of value is given up a void is created.  In that void new things of value emerge - the essence of sacrifice.  Before something completely new enters, the old must be destroyed.  What is given up and what emerges varies substantially - things of value can be quite diverse.  

Values are the fundamental basis for how we interact in our environment.  How those values serve us is reflected in our interactions and our community.  Values define who we are as those values manifest in our actions.

When our values are challenged, our fundamental existence is put to the test as an individual and as a community.  From the test, a variety of outcomes become present.  The values may be reinforced, or more well defined, or the values may lose favor and not serve the individual or community

Values differ amongst individuals, and amongst individuals and the community, and amongst communities.

How, then, can we live with such diversity of values?  What will you do to maintain who you are?  Will you change jobs if you have a conflict of values?  Will you maintain friendships with people of different values?  Does it matter what their values are? - Who your friends are.  Will you move to a community where your values are accepted or will you demand to be accepted in a community with values different than yours?  Will you distance or leave your family if you are not accepted or do not accept them?  Are there values you want to give up?  Are there values you want to possess?  Are there values you are unwilling to yield?  Will you give up who you are to fit into a community?

Just as values define who we are, how we fit-in supports our existence in the higher community - no individual exists without some form of higher community, no matter how distant the individual appears.  The same is true for community - no community exists without some other lesser, parallel, or higher community.  How these individuals and communities interact is defined by their shared values and their mutual allowance of differing values.

What is this about shared values and mutual allowance?  The essence of positive, healthy, expansive relationships acknowledges boundaries and expectations predicated on values.