From my “Vault”-a Good Friday Meditation from 2002: (This one’s for my Christian readers, but if Christianity is not your Practice, you may still find it helpful. Vault posts are from earlier writings/teachings I did from quite a few years ago, but left in my “Vault”, until now.)
A Word of Hope:
32 But after I (Jesus) have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Matt 26:32 (NIV)
A Word of Inspiration:
One Solitary Life
(Jesus) was born in an obscure village, He was the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty years old, and then for three years He traveled around the country, stopping long enough to talk and to listen to people, and help where He could. He never wrote a book, He never had a hit album, He never went to college, He never ran for public office, He never had a family, or owned a house. He never did any of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself.
But when He was only thirty-three years old, the tide of public opinion turned against Him, and His friends all rejected Him. When He was arrested, very few wanted anything to do with Him. After the trial, He was executed by the State along with admitted thieves. Only because a generous friend offered his own cemetery plot was there any place to bury Him. This all happened over twenty centuries ago, and yet today He is the leading figure of the human race, the ultimate example of love.
Now it is no exaggeration to say that all the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever set sail, all the rulers that have ever ruled, all the kings that have ever reigned on this earth, all put together have not affected the life of man on Earth like this One Solitary Life…
–Fred Brock
A Word of Reflection:
“Tetelestai!” The words echoed in the still air just outside Jerusalem. In the Spiritual Realm, the shockwave began to sweep across time and space…Jesus Christ had breathed His last…It began with a Roman centurion confessing: “This man was God’s son..”… the Temple curtain was supernaturally torn in two…tombs were opened…dead people came back to life…and Jesus’ body wasn’t even cold yet… (Matt. 27: 50-54) The New Era was already beginning–but few realized it…
Tetelestai is the Greek word for “It is finished,” the last words of Jesus before he gave up His life. (John 19:30) It is very interesting that John chose that word to translate what Jesus said–it is laced with a deeper meaning…
We view the phrase “It is finished” as Jesus saying: “My job’s done..” Indeed that is part of it’s meaning. But there is more…
Tetelestai means “the debt is paid in full”. Back in that time, when a debt was repaid, the “paperwork” for that debt would have written on it: “Tetelestai” which let everyone know your debt was paid. You owed no more. If you had your house as collateral for a loan, and then paid off your debt, tetelestai was actually written on the side of your home–so everyone would know you had paid your debt.
When John has Jesus saying: “Tetelestai!” in his gospel, he is saying to every believer everywhere: “The debt of sin is paid in FULL. You owe nothing. Absolutely nothing.” Let that sink in a minute… Oh of course, many of us believe this, or think it is a very nice idea. But do we know it down deep, in our hearts?
In the Christian Scriptures, there is reference made to a “Book of Life” in heaven. (Phil 4:3, Rev. 3:5, Rev 13:8, Rev. 21:27) This book contains the names of those who are saved. Imagine what a page from this book might look like…
(Your Name) ——-Tetelestai
All your “sins” are PAID for, in FULL. You have no further “payments” required.
All prior debts you thought you had are cancelled, with NO exceptions.
You don’t have to do “stuff” to make God happy.
Proof of this transaction is demonstrated by nails scars and a puncture wound.
–Jesus
Son of God, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Alpha & Omega, the Bright & Morning Star.
Hello, again. Happy to be back writing to you all!
First off, I want to make it clear in laying out these Approaches to Life (and their Obstacles), I do NOT do them perfectly. I don’t practice these ideas well all the time. I fail often. While I have laid out these concepts very neatly, the reality is not so neat, as life is not that neat! I have laid them out as I did so we could focus on them individually, like Openness and Lightness.
I do practice with these Approaches, and I keep practicing. I am better with these things than I used to be. God has at times moved mountains. Other times, He gave me a shovel. There were times He sent a pastor, a book, or a podcast, telling me to listen and read. He sent birds, or wind and waves, and literal floods sometimes. He/She aligned readings and circumstances quite inexplicably. I journaled, fussed, cursed sometimes, and even had total melt-downs–ask my wife and neighbors.
I’m still here. I got back up. God took my missteps and kept leading me back to the Path, often going a long way with me to Emmaus and far beyond. (Luke 24, Christian Scriptures). That Divine Love truly kept bringing me back from darkness and confusion. I don’t have all the answers, even if I write like I do sometimes. I write confidently on some of these things as my life has born them out, often painfully, but my soul has learned them, somewhat. I share with you, Dear Reader, what I have learned. I heard words like these in my quiet times, I hope you hear them too:
“Stay on the Path, my Son. Stay on the Path, my Daughter.”
So what do I do? How do I stay on this Spiritual Path? How do I do this stuff? What does it look like in Eric’s Life?
How Do I practice with Openess?
I ask God to help me. I literally pray: “Open me, Oh Lord.” ,”Or grant me Openness.” I try to relax my body, and I literally open my arms, like Pastor Bill Hunter from my first post on Openness. I attempt to see where others are coming from. I try to hear what others are saying, and what their body language is saying. Are they upbeat or downcast? Are they “locked in”, or wanting to talk? I try to be open to what I perceive is the Flow of God’s Spirit in the world. What does the Universe seem to be telling me? Is something just “not working”, and I need to abandon my efforts? Maybe the timing is off for a task or conversation. Maybe the timing is perfect, and I need to get to it. I try to be a cooperative presence rather than wrestling with everything and everyone. You’ve met people like this, or you are one, at least some of the time.
I also spend time with Spiritual Readings, in my case, the Bible. For a number of years, I routinely did the ancient practice of praying the “Daily Office” from the Book of Common Prayer. I still believe in the Fixed Hours of Prayer, as Christians call it: Prayer at rising, prayer at Noon, and prayer in the Evening. I also read books/devotionals by others: Richard Rohr, Brian Zahnd, and St. Benedict, just to name a few. I listen to podcasts, such as “Everything Belongs” , or “Turning to the Mystics”from the CAC. (See my Helpful Links Page). I also listen to other items from my Helpful Links page, such as Leo Babauta, or Kimberly Quinlan, so I keep hearing other perspectives. I look at my own mental issues, and how I can be creative with my gifts. I want keep becoming a more Open presence in the World. I want to keep growing.
2. How do I practice with Lightness?
I ask God to help with this too. “Grant me lightness, Oh Lord.” Again, I try to notice tension in my body. This one is hard for me. I take myself way too seriously. I hold too tightly to how I want the world to go. I am far more “heavy” with life than I would like! I find I need to remind myself often of both Openness and Lightness. I do want to emphasize this: Neither of these is something you should work too hard at. It is much more something you relax and receive, rather than a “I will now be open and light!” demand of yourself. More to come on that. Promise.
3. How do I practice with Alignment?
I ask God often to Align me, and re-align me. I ask Him to Align me to His Love-Flow in this world. It is there–sometimes hidden, but it IS there. Sometimes, I am the one that has to manifest it. One of the images I have presently is of falling into a current under the water and being carried by it. So often in my interactions there is the “noise” of my own thoughts and feelings, but then there is a Sense, of Someone else, of Something else. With that Sense, there is a notion of what to do or say. This is where I mention Alignment being a choice.I have to choose to Align with that Inner Sense. It takes time to even cultivate the ability to be aware of it. As James Finley says, I “must calibrate my heart to a finer scale”. Prayer time and reading Scripture, or other Spiritual literature, is one way to start recalibrating your heart, as I already wrote above. Sitting quietly by yourself, and just listening is another.
4. How do I practice with my Ego?
How should I not practice with my ego? This is a daily “dying to self” as we Christians say. I watch myself, not to scold myself, but to observe. As I wrote in a prior post, my basement got flooded, and my finished den has to be repaired, new flooring laid, etc. I then had to put back all the furniture, clean it, rewire all my TV tech, and the like. I wanted it done, and I wanted it done how I wanted it. I got crabby real quick when the TV died upon being set back up. I was annoyed when the cleaning was tedious and time consuming. I was angry I had to do all this work at all! At it’s heart–was my ego! I wanted the den put back. I wanted my hang out place back, I wanted to show off to guests, and I just wanted it done. Putting back together a destroyed room takes time. No one really would care if it was done, but I acted like it was a big deal if it was. So, I had to keep “offering” it up, as in letting it go. The den is all back together, with only my workshop to cleanup-finally.
5. How do I practice with my Expectations?
The same as my ego. I have to loosen my grip on what I anticipate will happen. I just today wrote in my journal the phrase: Be intentional without being intense. In other words, I can have a plan for a given situation, but it may not go the way I want. I do not need to be short, snippy, or mean, because someone did not do what I want, when I want, or how I want. If I believe in this Loving Universe, then I must also accept that things not always working out as I would like is God’s will, and it may even be better than my plan! I need to be OK with how things turn out. More dying to self!
6. How do I practice with Myths?
These can be harder to see in the moment. Sometimes I need to do some reflection via journaling to dig into what narrative I am operating under. To use my den story again, my Myth is that my house should always be picked up and in order. This is ridiculous, unrealistic, and stress-inducing. I was never threatened with a beating if my room was not picked up as a kid, so I am not sure why I believe this. My family did value order and cleanliness, so I must have internalized this, but I do have an attachment to this ideal that is beyond just a preference. If I am overly engrossed in putting my den back together, being cranky when it is not going the way I want, and being unkind to other family members, this is unhealthy. I am doing the Ego-Expectations-Myths Dance. I keep stepping on other’s toes! Ouch.
A Practice I do for all of them:
This is something I call the “Clock Practice”. If you recall an Analog clock with the hands and face of said clock, I try to recall at the “top” of the hour, (XX:00) to literally look up. I pray: “I thank you, I trust you, I praise you, Lord,” borrowing from Sarah Young’s wonderful devotional: Jesus Calling. I truly believe in the power of “Mantra Prayers” or mini prayers, to recenter and refocus our minds and hearts. At the Quarter hour, (XX:15 or XX:45), I try to pray: “May I recognize you Lord, and respond to you.” This is my way of seeing Jesus, or whoever you view as God, as being present in the situations I am in or manifesting in the people I am with. Obviously, the image of God may be absent, or seriously marred in another’s life. But it is there, as I believe we are all Children of God.
At the “bottom” of the hour, (XX:30), I try to look at me, and look over my ego, expectations and myths. I do this briefly, as I may not always be able to do introspection at that moment. But I can notice if I am tense, or angry, or worried about whatever. I have some prayers I use, but I am going to actually break that out as a separate posting, as I want to go into it in more depth.
I do not do this Practice well! I forget often, and I want to say again this is not a Practice, that if you fail at it, you should beat yourself up for it! The Apostle Paul in the Christian Scriptures says to “pray without ceasing”, (1st Thess 5:17), and this is another way to try that.
I say that this Clock Practice is a way to:
Look up. Look out. Look down.
Look up (to God/Spirit). Look out (to Others), and how God is manifesting in others. Look down (inside) to see how you are doing and feeling. Look how God might be coming to you in your own thoughts and feelings. Not every thought and feeling is from the “Devil”. When I even make some effort at this, my day is so much better. I am not feeling churned up and unsettled. I am more peaceful, and attentive to what others are thinking and feeling, and I can be more present to them. This Aligns me more with Love, and I believe it will do the same for you!
These are some of my thoughts. I fail at all of them many times, and try not to be too hard on myself. I spent many years oblivious to all of this, and only began to awaken as life kept hitting me over the head, and God kept saying lovingly: “Please stop the way you are living, Eric.”
I hope you found this helpful, and it brought some clarity on how to live (and love) with these Approaches and their Obstacles. This is my way of imagining it, and how I do it. It is NOT the only way, best way, or perfect way. You may find some of these ideas helpful, some not, or have very different ones. I’d love to hear about them! Let’s all grow in grace, love, and maturity. Let’s be truly renewed humans, partnering with God, as we live our lives here on Planet Earth.
Part Three: Myths. I started this Series writing about the Obstacles to these Approaches to Life I previously posted about. (Go to the Archives Page, and the links are all there. ) These are my thoughts, and I do not pretend this is the only way to look at life, but I sense deeply these are true and helpful. I believe this “Unholy” Trinity of Ego, Expectations, and Myths trip us up in life. They prevent us from being Open, Light and Aligned in the Universe.
We get “stuck” in these, and we cause ourselves so much turmoil. Each element is not “bad”, but can bring heartache if we are unaware of them, and don’t do some work to look at them. I am not a therapist, pastor, priest, or anything remotely “clinical”, so these are my thoughts. These writings should not replace those who are better trained to help you work through whatever issues you may face. But these ideas can certainly help with “framing” situations, and bring you clarity as to how you are reacting to whatever you find yourself dealing with.
As I said in my Ego post, “Aligning with Love is to be a more loving Presence in the world. “ Your Ego, Expectations, and Myths can prevent you from being that. I defined Ego as your wants and preferences in any given situation. I pointed out how our egos can want very mundane things, like a food choice, or deadly serious things, like not wanting to get shot. I went on to make the point that we must be attentive to the world around us, caring for the poor and less fortunate, if we have means. We must get out of our own malformed egos!
In Part 2, Expectations, I wrote about how expectations are our anticipations in any given situation, and our beliefs that something will happen. I noted this is not reality, even if the expectations are very realistic.
Our expectations are our egos forecasting the future.
I wrote that my default is to get angry when my expectations are not met. I do not let my Ego and Expectations be Aligned with Love. We will have trouble in Life, as Jesus told us we would, and we should not be surprised when things go awry. Expectations block our openness and lightness with the universe, if we hold to them too tightly. I finished with imploring us to expect that the Universe is ultimately good, that Love fills it, and that Aligning with that Love is a better way.
On to Part 3: Myths. I originally used to use the term “False Beliefs” for Myths, but I realized we would get lost in what made a belief “false”, so I have updated the term to Myths, and I would also like to add the word Narratives.
What is a myth? One definition is “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the worldview of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” Or, “an unfounded or false notion“. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myth We know of the Greek myths, we know of Creation myths, and even if we believe in them, we know there is an element to them that is telling a story. The myth is narrating for us how we got here, or why the world is the way it is. I would like to submit, though, that you might have myths operating in your own life, right now!
It shows up in how we talk to ourselves. I’m not pretty. I’m not smart. This never works out. It flows right back into our expectations. This won’t work out. I will have to pay more in taxes (again). I will stay single, or my spouse will never change! We have told ourselves, even if we are people of faith, a different Narrative. We say we believe in God, or the teachings of Christ. We say we have a spiritual set of beliefs or practices, but in the real moments of our day-to-day lives, we live according to a Myth: a Myth we were told, and believed.
Someone else Narrated our lives for us, and we Aligned with that.
We may have been too young to know any better! I will not start blasting well intentioned parents and leadership figures, who may have transmitted very messed up messages to us as children or young adults. I also will not belittle the trauma and hurts we may have endured, both emotional and physical, by such figures. Our parents may have been very broken people, who were woefully unprepared to “shepherd our hearts”. Being a parent myself now, I see how easy it is to “blow it” in the little moments of life. I already wrote about my tendency to overreact to things–and I see my son do the same. I narrated for him a Myth: “When life doesn’t go as planned, and it always does-let’s freak out.” I did not model calm handling of Flow-Shift in the Universe to him. I can change, though, and so can he.
I had a Myth inside a Myth in that sentence: “When life doesn’t go as planned,” ( as I planned)–see it? I, Eric, had a plan. What I wanted, and what I wanted to happen. (Ego and Expectations).
One of my Myths is that the Universe should always go the way I want–and why shouldn’t it??
No wonder I am getting so upset. The Universe is not matching up to my beliefs, and my narratives at all! It’s not fair! We all do this–we don’t say it like this, but I think this is some of what is happening in our minds and hearts. We hear and experience things as children that we just “build on” as we grow up. We never realize that the foundation, the Myths and Narratives, may have been faulty from the start! Then we are adults, married with kids, working wherever, and things feel “off”. We’re not “happy”, or we are stuck in dysfunctional patterns. We don’t know why, and we don’t know what to do. There is a metaphorical song playing, over and over, and we can’t get it out of our heads, a song we can’t stop “dancing” to.
In Christianity, there is the notion of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a delightful “Dance” that is quite beautiful, and hard to comprehend, and I will surely get into it at some point. But our Egos, Expectations, and Myths are also dancing in our minds and hearts, an “Unholy” Trinity, as I put it. You and I are often dancing along, and we didn’t even “pick the record”, or digital file!
What do we do? Recognize it. Stop. Breathe. Slow down. Start asking yourself: Who told me this? Did your parents tell you that you were “no good”? Were you condemned to “hell” if you didn’t do this or that? I recall my Dad telling a young 20ish me, before he died, that “You’ll never make any money at that job…,” discouraging me from working in banking. I felt “less than”. I felt I had not lived up to his myths, and expectations: I should be making “more” money. I should have a more “prestigious” job that made him look good, and that made our family look good. To who exactly did we need to look good to? And who cares?
Years later, as my Dad’s life took a very different turn due to his own failure to Align with Love well, I found out I was making some three times what he made in his own line of work! This is not to say I was rich, (I am not), or he was poor, or I was “better” than him. But he gave me his myth, and his narrative. He meant well–and wanted me to be “successful”. But I’ve been in banking for 28 years, have done well, and am liked and respected by my peers. (I hope.) I am successful. I am “doing well”, as America defines it. I am married, have a son, have a house, and now, I am an honest-to-goodness writer. It’s for another blog post the tales of my Dad, some bad, some good, and the profound way he ministered to me after he died. I believe my Dad is now in a much Better Narrative, a deeply True One.
To start concluding: Myths and Narratives are those “deep stories” we were told in our youth. We believed them, but they may not have ever been true. I am not trying to say “religious myths” are all bad, and I intend no offense using that term. But when we coerce people to engage in religious practices to appease God, so he does not smite us, or refuse to love us, that is misusing those myths. It’s what Richard Rohr calls “Primitive Religion”. It’s based on fear and punishment, not love and attraction to a Higher Calling.
I attended a charismatic, pentecostal junior high school, and I recall once a teacher there insisting “God was mad at us”, as we did not raise our hands in the weekly worship service. Good grief! I was 13, and more concerned about looking “cool” than worshipping God. My Reformed Church background did not worship like that, so I was not comfortable with it. Grown-up now, I see that many of the teachers in that school had “conversion experiences”, and had come from a non-Christian background, who were now on “fire for Jesus”. They wanted us to not make the mistakes they made-but telling me God was “mad” at me was not the way to do it! I turned away from God, partly due to moments like that, for a season. I wanted very much to be “good” at whatever authority figure was telling me that God expected, but I couldn’t do it, so I just unplugged from the whole faith for a few years. (No disrespect to those folks-they truly meant well.)
It took years to realize God loved me no matter what I was doing or not doing! I do “raise my hands” now in worship, but not to make God “happy”, but because I want to; I want to say thank you for all I believe He did (and does) in my life!
From myths like those, expectations flow, and our egos too. We think God will bless us, if we raise our hands, or tithe, or attend every church service, on and on. But when the child gets deathly ill, or the marriage implodes, we get angry as we “followed the commandments”. We forgot Jesus refreshed and simplified those 10 Commandments:
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a]38 This is the first and greatest commandment.39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40, NIV)
There is no promise all will be well by doing this! But if we do this, Life is better. It may not feel like it all the time, but I believe it is. It’s better in your heart. It’s better for your heart. Aligning with Love is the way. We may want to argue, but it doesn’t seem like hate, and all the myths, expectations, and ego that feed it, are working all that well in the world! (Be honest.)
I will get to how to work with this “Unholy” Trinity more, as I believe there are some practical things we can do and be that will help. Suffice it to say for now: watch yourself. Not watch yourself to see how you “mess up”, but just observe. What are the myths here? What’s the myths being repeated in the Media? What narratives are being told, good or bad? What expectations flow from those myths, personally or for the world? Where is my ego creating unhealthy expectations? You’ll know that one by how you act: are you sarcastic, cranky, nasty, and the like when it’s not going your way? Now look deeper: Who told you who you were? Who told you how to act or not act? I’m not saying to go out and do anything “bad” or mean–just notice it.
See how you can bring Openness, Lightness, and Alignment to your life happenings and interactions.
Our unreviewed Myths, Expectations, and Egos will cause us trouble
if we do not start to shift our Approaches!
Next week, I will be writing about how I practice with all of this. I intend after each “Series” to show how I work with these, or how I mess up with them. I didn’t get the idea until the end of this second series, but I want to try to make all these “Align with Love” ideas practical, and also show where I have to grow too.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for taking time to wade through all of this. I know it gets long and involved-but I believe your efforts to play along will help you, and everybody else.
On Friday’s I like to put out either a “Vault” item, or something from my other writing project: The Psalms Project. Next week we will wrap up the Series on Obstacles to the Approaches (to Life): Ego, Expectations and Myths-The “Unholy” Trinity. It will be fun and helpful. But on to something much lighter.
The Psalms Project is my attempt to take the spirit of the Psalms and re-apply them and write new ones for today. I am NOT trying to replace the amazing Psalms already in the Bible! I am in no way trying to paraphrase or restate each Psalm, but I do pay homage to them and other Bible passages, of course. I invite you to play along, see what you might identify with or relate to in these. So, here is another Psalm for a Modern Day.
WINTER’S END
Snows melt, and the Earth’s greys and browns of slumber are seen.
Like me sometimes, nature still seems dormant.
But look closely: buds are on so many plants and trees.
Tulips are pushing up.
The chill is not as chilly.
The Sun is higher in the sky and brighter.
Snowmen, reindeer, and mittens are no more, for now.
There is still a waiting-rains to fall; the green of new life to appear.
Pause. Watch. Wait.
Spring is coming—maybe where you live, and to your heart.
Welcome back! On to Part 2. If you are new here, go to the “Archives” Page from the Main Menu, and you will see links to earlier posts. I strongly encourage you to read “Transitions” and “What’s it all about?” so you can get a gist of what I am writing about. As a background to this series, check out “Approaches to Life” as well, as I am now writing about the Obstacles to those Approaches. The first was about how your Ego gets in the way. Stick around–I think you will find this all helpful, encouraging, and dare I say, life-changing.
It’s not life-changing because I am so eloquent, smart, or so persuasive, (I’m not). It is life changing because the Universe is filled with Love, despite appearances, and if you Align with that Love, and deepen into it, you will be a different person. That Love is far beyond whatever feelings you may have felt for another person, sibling, child, or pet. It will transform you. So play along, read, and see what you might find helpful. Onward-
Our Expectations “trip us up” too. We “stumble” in our relationships. We get mad someone is late. We made dinner and it is cold now. That child just will not-will not-do what you ask. You want Spring to come, like me, and the thermometer says 40 degrees F, and you want like 60+.
Expectations are defined as: a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future. It is also simply stated as “anticipation” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expectation. Beliefs and anticipation–not reality. Our egos are forecasting. Expectations are our egos forecasting the future. I want you home at this time. You think if you run to the store at 8PM it will be dead then, and it is mysteriously a zoo. But we are not God, and really can not be sure what will happen, or what someone will do in any given situation. Do not fret that chaos may occur at any time. Many people are very reliable, and many things do indeed happen with clockwork precision.
But what happens internally when your expectation is not met? How do you handle it? My default is to get mad. I say things like: “Are you kidding me?” “This is so annoying!” ‘Why, why, would you do that?” My Ego had it’s wishes, and I anticipated how things would go, how I wanted them to go, how they should go, and you came along and messed it up! (Not you, Dear Reader, but you know you do this, too.)
Now I get angry in these situations. “I will be late for work”, I mutter. As another example, I have a very damaged basement from my Winter flood, that was NOT on my metaphorical Bingo Card. I did not want to have to deal with that. I expected being outside with the birds and fresh air, doing yard work, not down in the basement cleaning and repairing! I can keep being angry. I can be a jerk to my wife, and others, or I can breathe. I can let “Little Eric”, my name for my Inner Child, stomp his feet, and then give him a hug, and tell him” This will be OK.” Because it will.
Overreacting to everything that is not happening as I would like (reactions to my expectations not being met)–does not help! I wish it did, I really do. But it does not. “Flipping out” with cursing and fussing, and yelling about the injustice of this supposedly Loving-Universe, only makes me feel ridiculous and embarrassed. I imagine it is unsettling for others around me, too. (I know it is-who am I kidding?) Yes, I forget my own philosophy, and my own Approaches, sometimes. I forget in those moments when my will is being blocked, when my expectations are not met as I would like, when I want, and how I want. I have not allowed my perceptions and my beliefs to be Aligned with any Love. I behave as as a spoiled, entitled child, until allowing some re-centering to take place. Lord have mercy…
If you are in Christian Practice and Belief, you know there are challenges on this Journey. Jesus told us so. As I quoted in a previous post, “Lightness”, Jesus said we would have difficulties. But He admonished us to take heart, as He had overcome these things. (John’s Gospel, 16:33). He re-narrates our perceptions. He tells us to expect difficulty, and then He will be with us in it, and He will somehow overcome it. In Christian thinking, the now Resurrected Christ is not just floating around somewhere, but actually inhabiting us in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I will go out on a limb and say that even if you don’t believe in Jesus as divine, you can still be influenced and helped by His Holy Spirit. As Richard Rohr said in his book, “The Universal Christ”, we live in a “Christ-soaked world”. That may not resonate with you, or be your Practice, but I believe it is true.
As I have said before in this blog, I believe the Universe is filled with Love, God’s love. When we get angry about how things didn’t turnout as expected, we are saying that we profoundly disagree with how the Universe is running today. That is OK–all is not as it should be. There is war, starvation, disasters, breakdowns, missed opportunities, pure foolishness, and so many other things that seem to disrupt the Flow of the Universe. It is too much right here to delve into all the depths of why bad things happen, and I would not make light of terrible occurrences, and say you should just be OK with tragedy.
As the same time, as I spoke of in my “Openness” and “Lightness” posts, I believe that our Expectations are how we block living withOpenness and Lightness in our day-to-day lives. We can live tight-fisted and closed to avoid hurt and pain, or we can be Open to what the Universe may bring, teach, or give us, and it is NOT always pleasant. We can choose some Lightness in our Responses. In my example of my flooded basement, I can start to see that it is an opportunity to have my den “refreshed”, which will be kind of cool. The damaged pool may give me an opportunity to redo a whole area of my outdoor living, that I wanted to do anyway. I am blessed that I have these options, and that insurance will enable me to rebuild. I know this is not everyone’s experience. A lost home may never be rebuilt, or a broken marriage will not be restored, or that person is never coming back.
We do have to grieve when some of these Expectations are not met. I may be annoyed that my order got messed up at the local fast-food place, but that is truly unimportant. The broken relationship, the college application denied, the destroyed home, the war-torn country, those are all dashed Expectations. I do not mean that Openness and Lightness are to just act like it all doesn’t matter, and be utterly “care free”. What I do mean is to care less about unimportant things. What I do mean is to know that bad things can and will happen at times–don’t act surprised! Some things we can prepare for and minimize their effects, and for other things, there is little we can do. A sudden tornado may give you only minutes to escape!
I still believe even in these terrible tragedies, whether from nature or man-made, God is still working, and is still in the midst of it. I believe we can expect ultimate good to come from even these terrible things, even if we don’t ever see it or seem to experience it. I know some people will not buy into this–and I get it. I am asking for a deeper trust that is hard to get to. But it is there-it can be found, and with it, something wondrous, for ourselves, and for the world. If you have a religious background, you are told “things work for good”. (Paul’s letter to the Romans, Chapter 8, in the Christian Scriptures). Don’t stop believing that. The Universe isn’t “done yet”. (I will unpack that at some point.)
If you are not religious, and have been “suffering” through what seems like religious/spiritual gibberish reading this, just try to have more Lightness with your Expectations. Don’t assume bad at every turn. Breathe, and notice what you were hoping would happen in the situation. Was it realistic? (Religious folk can do this too.) Even if it was realistic, maybe there are reasons the other person(s) couldn’t do it as you liked. Maybe they were ill, had their own tragedies, missed the train, etc. Have some compassion.
Have compassion on yourself. You expected that habit to be gone by now, and it isn’t. You thought you’d be happier, or wealthier, or more peaceful, and you are not. But look a little more deeply–you are reading this. I believe this blog will help you grow, evolve, and mature in your heart and your responses to Life, if you let it. (I am not the only one saying helpful things, and this is by no means the “best blog” out there!)
But if you took time to read a blog called “Align with Love”, you took a few steps. Maybe you know me and desired to humor me, and I appreciate you for that! Maybe you were looking to be more loving, and started to realize: “Hey, this is a way I can be more loving. Somebody is telling me a simple, different way to do it. I can try this. I can do this.” Slowly, falteringly, like a toddler learning to walk, maybe you took one idea and applied it, and it helped. (I hope it did.) I know these notions helped me–that is why I am doing this. As you try to Align more with Love, you will slowly experience a different life, and and a different way of living. It is not easy, but it isan expectation you can have, and it will not ultimately disappoint.
Next week, we wrap up with the 3rd Member of this “Unholy” Trinity: Myths.
Don’t think you live by any? Oh, we do indeed. Stay tuned. Stay Open. Stay Light.
