6: Assessing Status
Status and Human Interaction. “Status informs every single interaction between people—no casual movement or gesture is without significance. There are no innocent remarks or meaningless pauses.” We are status specialist, comfortable with our accustomed status, but vulnerable when forced into the wrong status. Status is a seesaw. If one brings themselves up, the other person goes down.
Choosing Status. Status is not innate, but chosen. There is no preferred status. One kind is not better than another.“High status brings certain rewards, but assumes jealousy, envy, and regular conflict. Low status is a way of avoiding conflict and punishment, but at the cost of regular humiliation. Later on in years, people can find it hard to “break the habits of a lifetime” when it comes to the status they habitually play.”
Status and Conventional Relationships. There is a difference between the status people are and the status they play.
Status and Space. How people use space is status driven.
Status and the Church. Interactions in the church also have to do with status.
The Hidden Transcript. In the public life there is a hidden transcript that is often at odds with the public transcript.
Status as a Moral Category. In the NT, status is not all obvious. High status for its own sake is clearly rejected. And if low-status is one’s fate, it should be celebrated in a high status manner. “Discipleship involves a constant questioning, teasing, and subversion of status, both high and low. For the New Testament is all about status, but its message is that, in God’s reign, status is far from static.”
Excerpts From: Samuel Wells. “Improvisation.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/improvisation/id473939687?mt=11