Thursday, June 18, 2009
Alternate Reality
Jesus told parables as a way of getting people to see an alternate reality. Those strange little stories have to do with how God sees it all. He dubbed it "Kingdom of God" - or in a more common term "How Deity Really Runs The World." Some of the parables are really delightful, some are rather grim. In some there are people that stumble into untold wealth, in others they are judged and called idiots.
In Jesus' world, everything is turned upside down. The first are last and the last are first. We find him in the eyes of the destitute and the marginalized. He is more likely to be seen through the perspective of a child at play than in a philosophical debate. He is ignored to the demise of those ignoring him. He is no fool. Deity sees through all charades.
In God's world, people do not campaign for their rights. When they are struck, they turn the other cheek. They win without fighting. Despite the difficulties of their lives, they are not prone to worry about their daily bread. Prayer is more their language than politically correct double-speak. They rule the world by doing mundane tasks for others - expecting never to be repaid. Whining is never a sound coming from their lips. They suffer and celebrate at the same time, for in their strange philosophy of life all suffering has mysterious meaning and all celebration is but the beginning of an eternal banquet with God.
Their alternate reality is more concerned with grasping being made in the image of God than tactics that boost one's ever-changing and fickle self-esteem. "Self" is symbolically nailed to a cross, while they work harder than their co-workers for less pay - and do so without complaint. Most of all, they do not settle for being cultural Christians - fair weather friends of the Lord.
It is funny watching them watch the news. Look closely. They have a wry smile. They shake their heads in an ever so subtle manner and have little or nothing to say in response to the pundits that seek to drag the audience into some sort of "either/or" debate. Their world outlives this one. They need not get caught up in the dilemma de jour.
You will like these people when you meet them, or you will hate them for the way they mirror back the common reality picture - in a way that shows you have chosen the lesser perspective. They haunt each era of history and are often victimized. Despite their normal physical deaths, they live on...forever.
Posted by
Dale on 06/18 at 06:49 AM
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Maintaining The Center
Change is all around. The world is frantic to get your attention and to manipulate you for a quick profit. It is distracting. Staying on course is more difficult than it used to be. We live in shallow, trendy, superficial times. It is easy to feel that you are being yanked away from your life's true purpose.
Do not cave into the attempts of others to manage you. We live in Orwellian times. There is a split between the elites and the commons. Most of us are seen as sheep to be sheared. Our "overlords" suffer from more emotional and spiritual maladies than would fill a book on abnormal psychology.
Jesus faced the same thing. The system of his day was rigged by two very powerful religious/political parties (Sadducees and Pharisees). There was a secular government that was somewhere between amoral and totally immoral. Corruption was rampant. Cynicism flourished and ate away at the spiritual strength of the everyday person. Everyone felt used.
One man entered the scene with the ability to stay focused. Rather than be manipulated, he let himself be executed. He made his point and God took him - body and all - out of the hands of the system. Before he died, he called others to be of the same mind.
They can take your job, your house, your car, and your professional titles, but they cannot take your soul - unless you let them. "The soul returns to God who gave it..." is the bottom line to the story. The rest stays here. The overlords face death unprepared. All they acquired is taken from them suddenly. Satan has played his most common trick on the "best and the brightest."
In the mean time, we hold our center. We live in calm resolve. We know the Lord and he knows us. That is all that matters. The rest is just the illusion of power. Death is the great leveler of all things. For some it is the great betrayal of life, for those that hold to their Center, it is just a transition.
Posted by
Dale on 06/17 at 07:03 AM
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Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Nature of Pain
Physical pain tells you not to do something again. Get your hand off the stove! What you are doing will cause scars. You have reached your limit exercising. You have stretched that muscle or joint far enough. Pain is good. It protects us from physical self-destruction.
Emotional pain works along the same lines but is much more complex. It warns us of damage to the soul or to the psyche. Narcissistic injury can last a lifetime. If we could see our damaged souls, we would be amazed that most of us are in psychological wheelchairs. Our wounds are deep and grievous.
A broken bone heals in about six weeks. A broken heart takes decades. Be careful how you treat others. Be careful about your own vulnerabilities. A single word can crush the soul like a falling boulder crushes the body. The flippant words of our current world are bullets in disguise. You will need some armor.
Emotional pain blinds us to our own actions. Everyone acts out in one way or another from it. Sometimes it becomes a lifetime script. Worse yet, we try to "correct" these people by adding more pain to their lives (which makes as much sense as throwing gasoline on a fire).
If we could see our souls as we see our bodies, we would be horrified at the wounds, the scars, and the hobbling we have to do just to get through each day. Emotional pain is more contagious than any virus. It spreads itself around in a thousand forms. It even hides in "do-gooder" actions of the condescending. Beware of rescuers that have not dealt with their own wounded-ness. They will "save" you by hurting you even more.
They wanted Jesus to help stone the woman caught in adultery. The disciples wanted him to call fire down on the ones that frustrated their cause. He refused to do such things. Shooting the wounded was just not his style. We kick others to avoid our own pain. The avalanche that follows buries us all.
Lick your emotional wounds with healing self-talk and prayer. Suck it up rather than pass it along. Grieve and go on. Take time off. Avoid the pain-spreaders like you would a terrorist. Take up the crosses that are yours but do not inflict them on others.
Posted by
Dale on 06/16 at 05:35 AM
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Monday, June 15, 2009
The End Of The End
We live in constant anticipation. We look forward to the end of projects - only to realize that they really do not fully end. The treadmill of life seems to speed up. We want closure so we can relax, but it never really comes to fruition. Life is really an open loop. The most difficult thing to do is to settle down within a routine that has no end. You really cannot "clock out" of life. Death itself is not an end but a new beginning. We might as well relax into what we are doing today and not fall into the illusion of resting at the end - for there is no end.
Addiction dynamics include end-results thinking. There is something about the illusion of arriving that keeps us pressing forward at the expense of embracing the moment or realizing that life itself is non-stop. By pitting ourselves against the cycles of work and play, we feel drained and frustrated. You hear it when people say, "Stop the world, I want to get off!" For some reason, this opens the door to out-of-control compulsions.
The rent, the car payment, the light bill - all come rolling around again. The processes of life are constant. Even suicide is a futile attempt to force an end. Learning to rest in the motion of life is a spiritual art. The merry-go-round is not going to stop, so you might as well enjoy the ride and see what you can learn from it.
You eat a meal, knowing full well that you will be hungry again in a couple of hours or so. The break for lunch is just a stop along the way. Stillness is what you groom while things are happening. Pay attention. There is an eternal paradox happening here: endless activities are best experienced in deep stillness. Declare an end to the end. Someday your grandchildren will have grandchildren. The sun will continue to rise long after you are unable to see it. Our planet revolves endlessly. Day and night are just punctuation points in the story of constant light. Fully grasping your eternal nature will keep you from worry and regret. Those two feelings are also just punctuation points along the way.
Posted by
Dale on 06/15 at 06:17 AM
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Monday, June 08, 2009
Crazy In A Better Direction
We are all a little crazy in our own unique little ways. That is the point of the early chapters of Genesis. "Sin" has to do with being a "little out of round." We do odd things that we rationalize but cannot fully explain. Those that know they are doing such things we call saints. Those that do destructive things without full consciousness, we call sinners. The sooner we recognize just how weird we act, the better. Fully embracing this mysterious dynamic and focusing on a better way of living is called repentance.
One night I caught myself, late at night, waxing my car in the rain. I was doing something pretty weird. I knew I was doing something bizarre, but I could not stop myself. Later, I learned that I tended to wash my car when I felt angry. One winter's day in West Texas, at ten below zero, I again noticed I was washing my car. The water from the robo wash was turning to ice instantly as it hit my vehicle. That was weird. At that point, I knew that washing my car stood for something that I had not yet solved.
To make a long story short, I discovered that I was washing my car as a way of dealing with buried anger. Pretty weird, but I solved the mystery. I came to a deep insight about myself and have gone to a "normal" washing cycle for my automobile (every few weeks or months depending on where I live at the time). The weirdest thing we do is when we defend our compulsions. I had all sorts of rationales for washing my car. The truth is: I was angry and chose to vent it - though fairly constructively to hide it from myself.
We are all a little bit strange. Tracing the roots to our strange behaviors is a journey in and of itself. Do not be afraid to do so. You may not be able to immediately change your compulsions, but you can start being crazy in a better direction. You can do good things for others instead of self-defeating things. You can be constructive instead of destructive.
Crazy things happen to us. Without being aware of these things, we pass the craziness along. Catching ourselves at it is what makes us saints. We wake up to our unconscious acting out. True to form, we usually blame our acting out on others or on circumstances. Noble is the person that can own the weird things he or she does.
Honesty is the bottom line to all of this. Stand up and admit that you do some crazy stuff. At that point, you will automatically begin to change for the better.
Posted by
Dale on 06/08 at 06:04 AM
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