Encountering the Divine - June 21

 “Encountering the Divine”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, June 21, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Exodus 3: 1-7, 10, 13-14; Matthew 17:1-8; AR 56

Many pastors across this country are preaching about racism today as the United States reels from yet another violent slaughter.  Here I am, a white pastor in front of a white congregation in a very white town in one of the top four whitest states in this country.  It is easy to feel removed from the racism and violence, as if it is somehow someone else’s problem somewhere else.

But if we could imagine such a thing happening here, perhaps it might help us to pause and to walk beside the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in sorrow and empathy.  The black populations of this country live with the daily possibility of such violence in a way most of us (all of us?) here simply cannot imagine.  So sit for a minute and be with the possibility.  Imagine a visitor coming to worship with us, and we welcome him, and he spends time with us. Then this visitor pulls out a gun and shoots nine of us dead right there in front of our eyes. Go ahead. Look around. Pick a random nine. One would be me, because the pastor was killed.  Which other eight? These loved people can’t be dead just as a concept, imagine their bodies slumped where they were sitting, their blood splattered on the walls.  I’m sorry.  But there’s no polite way to go there.

Please, just sit with that for a moment. How enraged and vengeful would you feel?  Could you forgive the shooter within days?  Whatever your emotions, let us all take a moment to surround the whole Charleston, South Carolina community with love and empathy.

I will now continue with the sermon I did write, and pray that the miracle of God’s encompassing love can bring some insight and healing to the helplessness and pain of that event.

“He put His hand on me saying, ‘Do not be afraid.’” This symbolizes spiritual encouragement, and then, because of deep humility, profound adoration. Genuine holy fear comes over us when the Lords life encompasses us, pushing aside our feelings of being in charge. Such an experience can cause an inner trembling and even our hair to stand on end. When we are full of our own sense of life (being in charge), we look at the Lord from our own perspective. But when we are filled with the Lord’s life, we see all things from the Lord’s perspective, (yet somehow retaining a sense of separateness). When we are so encompassed by the Lord’s life, we realize that we are nothing, and that the Lord is everything. (Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Revealed #56)

“The (false) suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it … is the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.” (Eben Alexander, “Proof of Heaven” p 76)

Would you say you have ever had an encounter with the Divine?

If you have, how did it affect you?

My very first class in seminary was “Christian Doctrine.”  It was required for my degree so I had to take it despite being sure, as a (young and arrogant) Swedenborgian, I had a thing or two to teach the professor but very little to learn from him.  I was wrong.

We had to write a four page paper every other week for Professor Kelly.  The course was two semesters long, so we ended up with twelve papers, the final one being, “Why Am I Christian?”  After we handed in each paper, we divided into groups to read and discuss our papers with each other.  I learned and learned and learned.

When discussing, “Why Christian?” it turned out that all three of us in our group were Christian because we had experienced what I can only call a “Divine Encounter.”  Each one of us not only was Christian but was in seminary because we had had a transcendent experience that left us changed, and left us longing for more.

When our small groups returned to the main classroom I began a quick survey of how many other classmates were in seminary for the same reason. Of over twenty-five students in the class, about ninety percent named some sort of Divine encounter as their main reason for being there. It was an epiphany.  I realized that I was not alone. 

When I was thirteen something profound and life altering happened to me, but I rarely speak of it.  It is a sacred memory still, and feels private.  I share the story rarely, and only when it feels safe and worthwhile. 

I was going through some very hard and lonely things.  It was the middle of the night and I was weeping and praying, when suddenly I was in the presence of something wise and loving and powerful beyond imagining. I knew without doubt that I was utterly loved, completely understood, and that every single thing would be okay.  I could see in some unimaginable way how everything would work out, and it all made sense. I felt “the peace that surpasses all understanding.”  And ever since that moment forty years ago I have longed to encounter that Presence again. I also felt completely clear that there was nothing more important than to serve that Presence and help others find it too. 

Many people who have had such experiences have tried to describe it, and they all end up saying that our earthly language is utterly inadequate. And yet we cannot but try to put words on these experiences anyway. My heart shouts with joy and recognition whenever I find these attempts.  I recognize the experience, and it is like hearing a deeply familiar description of a beloved but long-lost friend.

Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander writes about his encounter with the Divine in his memoir, “Proof of Heaven.” 

… the “voice” of this Being was warm and—odd as I know this may sound—personal. It understood humans, and it possessed the qualities we possess, only in infinitely greater measure. It knew me deeply and overflowed with qualities that all my life I’ve always associated with human beings, and human beings alone: warmth, compassion, pathos . . . even irony and humor.” (p 47)

I absolutely know and absolutely love that God has a great sense of humor.

Renowned life coach and frequent Oprah contributor, Martha Beck, writes with her own humor and candor about her several profound spiritual experiences:

If there were a drug that could reproduce the same effect, I would be on that drug right now, and damn the side effects. Imagine a blend of all your favorite things…. Picture these … combined, boiled down into their most concentrated elements of pure joy, then multiplied by trillions and injected into every one of your cells. That might begin to help you imagine what I felt when the sense of Something Bigger emerged in the hurricane’s eye of my life…. The peace and joy were so dazzling, so potent, that I thought they would never fade.” (Leaving the Saints, p 26)

Is it any wonder prophets and angels fall prostrate before this Being?  It isn’t fear that throws one down, it is adoration and genuine humility.  One is swept away by love, encompassed by peace, and able to comprehend the answer to every single “why” ever asked.  Remember this the next time you hear an account of someone falling on their face in “fear” before an angel of the Lord.  Perhaps they are actually afraid.  But just maybe it is an entirely sensible response to finding oneself in the presence of the Source of all Love and Wisdom. The overwhelming sense of great love and care tends to result in worshipful adoration.

There are more marvelous descriptions of these spiritual encounters.  Here is another from Eben Alexander:

Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it’s the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. Omniscient, omnipotent, personal—and loving us without conditions. (p 161)

Alexander sums up the Divine One’s message to every one of us this way: “You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.” (p 71)

 

The first time I read this, I found myself abruptly sobbing. I think it was the sense of recognition, and the deep homesickness for that Presence.  But it was also relief.  Though I have known this truth; though I have experienced this truth; I continue to find myself unable to believe it.

This message of unconditional love is available to each one of us at every moment.  It is we who are unable to hear it—we who are unable to believe it.  I am not even sure this inability is our fault.  It is as if the nature of these bodies dulls our spiritual senses—the density of this physical plane produces heavy static on our spiritual tuners.  But for whatever reason, probably connected with Providence and our freedom, most of us miss the message most of the time.  If I could find the frequency of that Divine Being again, I would do everything in my power to stay tuned in as long as possible.  There is a deep longing to feel that Presence again that has never gone away. This residual longing seems to be a universal legacy of a Divine Encounter.

Accounts of an encounter with God are everywhere, if one is open to finding them.  This is another description from Eben Alexander:

… the answer came instantly in an explosion of light, color, love, and beauty that blew through me like a crashing wave. Thoughts entered me directly. But it wasn’t thought like we experience on earth. It wasn’t vague, immaterial, or abstract. These thoughts were solid and immediate—hotter than fire and wetter than water—and as I received them I was able to instantly and effortlessly understand concepts that would have taken me years to fully grasp in my earthly life. (p 46)

A sense of being deeply loved.  A sense of being completely safe.  Every horrific injustice is made right and everything ever lost is restored for all time.  “No more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain.” (Revelation 21:4)

“You are loved and cherished. You have nothing to fear. There is nothing you can do wrong.”  

Have you had a Divine Encounter?  How did it leave you changed? 

Amen

The Readings

Exodus 3: 1-7, 10, 13-14

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.  Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”

So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” 6 Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.  Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”

And God said to Moses, “I AM the I AM.” 

Matthew 17:1-8 

Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.  And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him.  Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”  And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid.  But Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

Apocalypse Revealed 56

“He put His hand on me saying, ‘Do not be afraid.’” This symbolizes spiritual encouragement, and a resultant profound adoration from deep humility. Genuine holy fear comes over us when the Lords life encompasses us, pushing aside our feelings of being in charge. Such an experience can cause an inner trembling and even our hair to stand on end. When we are full of our own sense of life (being in charge), we look at the Lord from our own perspective. But when we are filled with the Lord’s life, we see all things from the Lord’s perspective, (yet somehow retaining a sense of separateness). When we are so encompassed by the Lord’s life, we realize that we are nothing, and that the Lord is everything. 

Between You and Heaven - approximately what I preached today....

For whatever reason, the sermon simply wouldn't gel this week.  I kept tossing out what I had and trying another angle, only to feel dissatisfied with what was showing up on the page.  I felt strangely non-anxious.  I was revising my notes right up until 9:45, then just brought what I had and trusted the spirit.  It went quite well.  Here is approximately what I said.

“Between You and Heaven”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, June 7, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Zephaniah 3: 14-17; Matthew 16:24-29; DP 320

If we were to believe, as is the truth, that all goodness and truth come from the Lord, and all evil and falsity come from hell, we would not take credit for any goodness, nor condemn ourselves for any evil. 

Emanuel Swedenborg, The Divine Providence, portions of #320

“It is very hard to be truly intimate when we are in some way feeling flawed or deficient.”

Tara Brach

The thing that stands between you and heaven is your own self-judgment.

Let me say that again.

The thing that stands between you and heaven is your own self-judgment.

Heaven involves true authenticity which leads to true intimacy.  All self-loathing is a block to intimacy.

We tend to assume that someone is prideful and stuck on themselves and “thinks they are better than us.” Or we might assume someone hates themselves, and is too hard on themselves, and has no self-esteem.  But these are two faces of the same disease.  Anyone who seems to be narcissistic or superior or full of pride and snobbery is covering themselves with a thick defense mechanism to protect themselves from feeling their terror of being worthless.  

There is a belief and fear deep inside every one of us that somehow we are utterly unlovable.  John Bradshaw calls this “toxic shame.”  Regular shame includes regret over a word or deed or thought we may have experienced.  Toxic shame is the deep core belief that that somehow, something about our very selves is unlovable or is innately too evil to ever deserve love and belonging.

We are born into this imbalance.  We will tend to rush from one extreme to the other, finding difficulty holding a middle ground that enables us to be present with our faults without shame while being comfortable with our gifts without attaching superiority to them.  

Often those who are attracted to churches who have "The Truth" and who set themselves as "being right" over against everyone else's wrongness are those who need to attach themselves to something “perfect” because another part of them feels so utterly worthless.

I remember counseling a woman who belonged to such a church, and who was married to a controlling man, and who had seen enough traumas to be far less functional that she actually was.

She spent a lot of her time blaming her husband for her unhappiness, and asserting that if he would only change, she could be happy.  I listened and reflected and nudged her towards seeing the way she was contributing to the dynamic.  There was a moment when she hung in the space of realization that she had some responsibility….  And from that point she plunged into utter self-loathing.  

She had no space or inner middle ground between being a martyr or being utterly worthless.  It was as if her emotional muscles around her worth were either completely contracted or completely lax, with no ability to hold an even, moderate tension.  Imagine asking someone to walk who can only clench every muscle in their legs or completely relax every muscle, and nothing else.  I realized then how much work was ahead for her to develop the ability to stand in a space where she was neither pure victim nor deserving of annihilation. 

This moment with this woman was one of deep learning for me.  I was looking at what a lifetime of abuse can do to a soul, and also what black and white thinking can do to a soul.  In her mind, either she was all good or all evil.  And the minute she considered that she might be in error in some small way, every aspect of her self-worth collapsed and she believed she was worthy only of the lowest hell.

Until she was supported in building up a place to see herself as neither all good nor all evil, she would be unable to do self-reflection.  She would be unable to observe herself with curiosity and compassion. How could she stand to recognize where she was in error, and then commit to changing her part in any problem, when her inner sense of terror and self-loathing would launch her into raging inner cruelty the minute she recognized a fault?

Underneath her veneer of her own virtue and martyrdom, was a terrified, abused little girl who was sure she was utterly worthless.

There is a law in the universe that is the mirror of the Golden Rule, and it is this: "We give out to others what we tend to give to ourselves."  Anyone who is a verbally critical person and who puts on a show of being perfect themselves, is living with an equally harsh inner dialogue.  The need for their veneer of perfection is precisely because of that relentless, running, inner abuse.

When we are too harsh with ourselves we get judgmental, we martyr ourselves, we feel both inferior and superior at the same time—both from fear.  The superiority and snobbery is a defense mechanism for a terrified ego.  Self-loathing is also a defense mechanism for a terrified ego.

This law does not show up in obvious ways.  You must learn to look for it, and only the eyes of compassion can help you find it.

Many of us live with this harsh inner critic.  A deeply unkind running inner dialogue is much more common than many realize.  Finding compassion for ourselves and others takes work; it takes spiritual work.  You can’t just choose it and expect to be good at it any more than you can choose to be an athlete and instantly be one just by virtue of the choice.  But the intention to become an athlete is a great place to start.

We learn to love ourselves by learning to be kinder to others.  We learn to be more compassionate with others when we work on being more compassionate with ourselves.

e.e cummings said, “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

Paul Boynton said, "Self-responsibility, self-respect and self-esteem go hand in hand. Work on any of these and you automatically see growth in all three."

We are all equally flawed and equally adorable.  It is the self-loathing that blocks us from heaven, not the flaws themselves, or babies wouldn’t be so utterly loving and lovable.  

We must all become like little children to enter heaven.

The thing that stands between you and heaven is your own self-judgment.

Let me say that again.

The thing that stands between you and heaven is your own self-judgment.

Heaven is true authenticity which leads to true intimacy.  And true intimacy is heaven.

Amen.

The Readings

Zephaniah 3: 14-17

Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel!

Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!
For the Lord will remove his hand of judgment and will disperse the armies of your enemy.

And the Lord himself, the King of Israel, will live among you!

At last your troubles will be over, and you will never again fear disaster.
On that day the announcement to Jerusalem will be, “Cheer up, Zion! Don’t be afraid!

For the Lord your God is living among you.  He is a mighty savior.
He will take delight in you with gladness.  With his love, he will calm all your fears.

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

Matt 16:24-28

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?  For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.  Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Divine Providence 320 portions

If we were to believe, as is the truth, that all goodness and truth come from the Lord, and all evil and falsity come from hell, we would not take credit for any goodness, nor condemn ourselves for any evil. 

Once we make these two acknowledgments, we can simply notice the evils within ourselves and, to the extent that we block them from becoming behaviors and we turn away from them because we see they do harm (are sinful), we throw them back into the place of fear and ignorance (hell) from which they came.  

Releasing Resentment - sermon May 3 2015

“Releasing Resentment”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, May 3, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Genesis 37:3-8, Mark 11:22–25; HS 4681 

Heavenly Secrets 4681

The phrase, “And they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him,” symbolizes contempt and aversion. “Not being able to speak peaceably to him” symbolizes aversion, because speaking peaceably to someone requires wishing that other person well.  When the earliest peoples heard the word “peace” they thought of the Lord Himself—for this is the meaning of Peace at the highest level.  An angel’s state of peace in heaven, which is also called “salvation,” is the next highest meaning. The lowest and most obvious meaning for the ancient peoples was the comparable state of a peaceful person on earth, which is a state of spiritual well-being.  Being “unable to speak peaceably to [Joseph]” symbolizes that they were in a state which is opposite to “peace” and includes not wishing the other well. Emanuel Swedenborg

This write-up is based on an extemporaneous sermon which included an interactive portion.  My sermons are rarely extemporaneous, mainly because the congregation is used to having a printed copy to consult while I deliver it.  This also makes it easier to share with friends and send out via email.

But from time to time I will do an interactive service that invites deep self-reflection—maybe once or twice a year.  These often include a call to self-reflection that serves rather like a spiritual spring-cleaning. I think these worship services loosen things up a little bit and shake the dust out of our spiritual thinking.  I recognize that they are not everyone’s cup of tea. Today was one of those.

Resentment.

We all know what it is.  We all live with it.

But think about this saying:  

“Resentment is like eating rat poison and expecting a rat to die.”

Resentment eats us up inside.  It does nothing to hurt the other person or to resolve the cause of the hurt.

So what do we do when we are hurt by or angry at a person or group, or some ideology, and cannot let go of it?  So long as we harbor resentment, it is as if acid is eating us up inside, no one else.  Why do we feel like we are accomplishing something by feeling resentful?

Today I am going to teach you a tool for tackling resentment.  I learned it from my experiences with the Twelve Steps.

In the twelve-step program, a very important and transformative step is the Fourth Step which is: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”  A fourth step is intended to be as comprehensive a self-examination as possible.  It is to be written down.  (It is no coincidence that the Twelve Steps embody all the elements of Swedenborg's “repentance, reformation, and regeneration.”  Bill Wilson, one of the co-founders of AA was married to Swedenborgian, Lois Burnham Wilson, who also founded Al-Anon.)

If you want practical, down-to-earth tools to help you on the path to personal reformation, look no farther than the Twelve Steps.  You don’t have to have an addiction for them to transform your life.

A key reason so many of us avoid a thorough self-examination is that we are afraid of what we will find.  It is rather like inviting a deep home inspection.  What if the inspector finds that the foundation is rotting, the roof is leaking, and the electrical is about to short out?  What if we will be expected to fix it all immediately and we can’t afford to?  What if everyone finds out what a mess we are and we feel terrible shame? Who wants to look in the mirror and see that we are much more overweight than we hoped, or that we have lost more hair than we realized, or that our saggy bits are saggier than ever?  Shame and self-loathing can be insidious, and it is no wonder we avoid them.  But they are not ever the intended outcome of self-examination, nor God’s plan for our eternal happiness.

Maybe one of the things we will discover when we examine ourselves is that we are far too harsh with ourselves?

Think about someone you love and admire.  Go ahead.  Close your eyes.  Who comes to mind?  Who comes to your heart?  Now ask yourself, do you love them because of how they look, or because of how they love?  When you see a photograph of that person, do you pick apart their appearance with a critical eye, or do you just feel happy to see someone you love?

Now, how do you respond to most pictures of yourself?  Unless you are unusually gifted in appearance or are remarkably unattached to your appearance, (or are a narcissist,) you would be like most of us.  Most of us do not respond to pictures of ourselves with the same enthusiasm we do to those of someone we love.  We can be pretty hard on ourselves.  Can we learn to do unto ourselves as we do unto those we love?

So when you do your self-examination, do it with the eyes of love.  Be open to seeing the areas that need work, but know that you don’t need to be afraid of them and that everything can be repaired and healed in time.  Everything.

And so now I invite you to do a mini fourth step.  It will be specific, and you are free to meditate, or look like you are thinking, or daydream instead.  But I do encourage you to give this a try.  This particular fourth step approaches self-examination by looking at our resentments, and I have found it a powerful and transformative tool.  No one will see what you write.  There will be no “sharing” or “soul-baring” following the exercise.  This is for you and you alone.

If this process stirs up something that you wish to talk about later, I am available to listen to and support you in a private setting at some future time.  But at this time, this process is just for you.

So take your paper and mark it into four columns.  At the top of the first column write “I Resent.”  Now, take some time and pick the top three that come to mind.  If you were doing a full fourth step you would list and list and list every possible resentment you could think of from your whole life.  It might be pages and pages.  It could take days.  I know for me, thinking of things I was mad about was easy.  I had no idea just how resentful was until I did this fourth step.

For this morning just pick two or three.  They might be related to a person, or an institution, or even an ideology.  It can be from the past or be quite recent.

All done?

Now at the top of the next column write “Why? What Happened?”  Answer this in the column below in relation to the items you listed in the first column.  Be sure to be as specific as you feel you have time.  This is a time of championing yourself.  I know I tend to find this column easy to fill in too.

All done?

At the top of column three write: “How This Affects Me Today.”  In this column you will continue answering according to the resentments you listed in column one.  Again, be specific.  Do not put, “I am fine,” or “It doesn’t affect me.”  If it didn’t affect you and you are fine, you wouldn’t have listed it.  It wouldn’t even have crossed your mind.  There is something dark still lingering in connection to it or you wouldn’t have picked it as one of your top three resentments.  Believe me when I say, no matter how big or old or hopeless it may look, every hurt can be “cast down and thrown into the sea” with good support and tools, with God’s help and being kind to yourself.

Finished? 

At the top of column four write: “My Responsibility Then and Now.”  Now this is important:  You may have shared in the hurtful dynamic of what happened.  But depending on how old you were and the power dynamic at the time, you may have held no responsibility (even if the ones in power tried to blame you).  It is a completely legitimate response to fill in that you did nothing to invite what happened.  For example, if you were harmed as a little child, you cannot in any way be responsible for what happened to you.  If you are not sure, leave it blank.  It will become clearer later, if you wish to understand and are open to it.

While there are many ways in life that we might have been hurt and did nothing to deserve it, the lingering anger and resentment can follow us and eat away at us long after the event.  Someone who lost a limb or a loved one in the Boston bombing could understandably feel ongoing anger and resentment, and they did nothing wrong to deserve what happened to them.  Such losses are permanent and catastrophic, and one does not “get over” them.  One has to find a way to go on with life despite them.

And here is where the second part—My Responsibility…Now—is especially important.  Our responsibility now is about seeing where we have choices now. 

When I did this exercise, I realized that though I had been hurt deeply as a child, I was still harboring the resentment forty years later.  I was continuing to hold the hurt inside me and I missed no opportunity to bad-mouth the one who hurt me.  I was not approaching that person nor attempting to express my hurt or ask for an apology.  There was even, I admit, a kind of pleasure in feeling so angry and … self-righteous?  I certainly felt better than that person, and I felt entitled to stick little pins in her back whenever I could.

It was uncomfortable to realize that I was now keeping this negative cycle going.  Yet it was a relief, too.  The child in me needed to hear that it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t deserve what happened.  But the adult in me needed to see that I was behaving badly and hurting myself and others now.  I was certainly not treating her the way I would want to be treated—according to the Golden Rule.  While I was feeling spiteful and superior, she was oblivious.  This gave me a feeling of power. While I was gossiping and spinning negative stories about her, she had no idea.  It was not pretty.

I have been on the receiving end of this sort of behaviour and it feels awful.  However I cannot judge when someone does this to me, because I definitely have done it too.

And as hard as it was to see that truth about myself, I was grateful to become aware of it and start to change it.  I did not want to be “that person.”  I had had no idea I was “that person.”  I was too busy being a martyr and a victim.  Was I victimized?  Yes.  Was I now handling it in a mature and spiritually responsible way and owning where I was at fault?  Not until that moment.  And even after that moment, it has taken considerable time and effort to change that long-standing habit of back-stabbing that particular person.

I have been told I’m brave.  But stabbing someone in the back is not brave.  Creating a safe space and talking it out with her would be brave.  I have yet to do that.  I might never actually get that brave.  But I am shifting how I see her and am coming to release the emotions that are eating me up inside. I am biting my tongue when I want to say something mean about her, because that is something I can do that moves me into forgiveness and greater integrity. 

So I will give you time now to explore in that final column the ways you might be part of the ongoing pain.  This is not about blame.  This is about realizing ways we can become free of hurtful emotions that we hadn’t seen before.  Be very gentle with yourself.  Or, just meditate and breathe.  I will give you several minutes to complete this final column.

Forgiveness is a funny thing.  It doesn’t mean that what happened is okay.  It does mean we are releasing all the ways something might continue to hurt us, and that takes time.  It can take years and years.  There is nothing wrong with you if it takes years for you to release all your resentments.  I doubt any of us do release them all in this lifetime. But do know that with each one truly released, life gets lighter, clearer and more peaceful.    

You now may have a potent paper in your hand. It is yours to do with as you wish.  It might be a valuable new friend and reveal a path to a much more peaceful soul.   God go with you.

Amen

Source: http://www.12step.org/docs/Step4_Inventory.pdf

Inventory columns

Column 1: Resentments.

“I resent” List all people, places, things, institutions, ideas or principles with whom you are angry, whom you resent, or feel hurt or threatened by.

Column 2: “Why? What happened?”

The Cause. Be specific as to why you were/are angry or hurt.

Column 3: How It Affects Me Today”

How did it make you feel? How does it still make you feel? Be specific, detailed, and thorough.

Column 4: “My Responsibility Then and Now” 

Where was your responsibility at the time? What is it now?  What might you have done instead? What might you be doing instead today? Where might you be at fault?

The Readings

Genesis 37: 3-8

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a special robe just for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Mark 11: 22-25

 "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. 

"I tell you the truth, if you say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you says will happen, it will be done for you.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive that one, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins."

Know yourself, and become a blessing

"Go forth from your country, your clan and your parents' house and become a blessing for all the families of the earth." (Gen 12:1)

"Lech lecha," the Hebrew command to "go forth" also means to "walk towards yourself."

So this journey is both outward and inward,

freeing yourself from the conditioning of nationality, tribe, ethnicity, race, gender and religion

and devoting yourself to being a blessing--

a catalyst for justice and compassion

to ALL the families of the earth, human and creation. 

~Rabbi Rami Shapiro~

It keeps coming down to the same thing. 

 

Promoting world peace, compassion, and enlightened relationships starts and ends with me. 

(And YOU.)  

It starts with individual, personal, spiritual work FIRST, which then manifests in effective change in the world.  I must "know myself"---all my vulnerabilities, sensitivities, and "character defects" as well as my gifts, strengths, and areas of shining effectiveness, if I wish to be a blessing.  

I must leave my comfort zone, of feeling inferior.  

I must leave my comfort zone of feeling superior.

I must leave my comfort zone of being sure I have all the answers.

I must leave the comfort zone to which I retreat when I feel too stupid for words.

I must be open and honest, not hiding and manipulative.  

I must accept responsibility but not blame, and be willing to assign responsibility without blaming.  (Blame includes a condemning, dehumanizing quality that presumes the superiority of the blamer.)

So long as I hide, because I am ashamed, I am giving power to the lie that others are better than me.  So long as I believe the lie that I am superior, I invite those for whom I harbour contempt to hide and feel ashamed.

There is a third way that is without hierarchy.

It involves humility and humour, frankness and forgiveness, confession and compassion.  It involves a willingness to lead from my strengths without apology, and to ask for help in my areas of weakness without shame.

I must know myself WELL, in all my beauty and brokenness, and recognize how deeply lovable I am ANYWAY, to help the world manifest that wisdom too.

Do you see yourself completely and love yourself anyway?  (No airbrushing.  No strategic drapings.)  It takes work!

I know that when I can see myself completely, and not allow fear of my unlovability to cloud my vision, I will be my most effective in loving others and intuiting ways to contribute.  I will be a blessing.

And when many of us can do this, the world changes.

peace,

Rev. Alison