Looking Backwards to the Present

I have been reading James Redfield's new novel: the Twelfth Insight. Without reading any reviews, I can predict that the reviewers say the novel was too much a regurgitation of his previous three novels. Perhaps a fair complaint.  I do think that for those who have been troubled by wars fought for religious reasons and with concern for the Middle East they may find interesting his ideas about the shared roots of religions as a ground for connection.  (Although this too is not the most original idea.)

While I certainly enjoyed revisiting what Redfield has to say about synchronistic events - always significant in my own faith life - what I did find interesting was Redfeld's idea that we can use intuition predicatively.  In this novel as the main characters learn/remember to tune into syncrhonicities and the common bond between all of us, they learn when contemplating a possible step to see if they can picture the two most likely possibilities and to use the feedback loop of what they can picture and what they cannot as Light from the
Universe shed upon their path.

This has been helpful to me as I have been recently contemplating one of those places where the spiritual tradition I grew up in goes bump with the beliefs I have come to learn and trust in my adult life.  So my tradition teaches me that when we consider a possible action, to listen in the silence for The Holy Author's divine guidance as to whether this is a right course of action for us.  Certainly within the Christian tradition it frames God as having power over us, although I long ago released that belief for one that is more mutual and collaborative.  There are models out there that talk about a co-creation process with God.  That does not seem quite right either because it implies we know as much as the Creator which is far from my experience.  But in my experience there is our own will and there is the Creator's intent for all life, and yes I like to believe or experience an intention for each of us as well.  Perhaps that is simply our own soul's work and what we have come to do which can place us either in alignment with Spirit or out of alignment with Spirit.

I have written much in other entries about the delicate process of "listening" to God and how the Divine often speaks in symbolic language, metaphor, or in synchronicity.  But this sort of begs the question of how we "plan" our lives.  Christianity would suggest we should not plan our lives but listen for and be "obedient" to God's intention for our lives. (Or in some strands make our own choices while being obedient to Biblical directives). Some strands of new age thinking such as The Secret would seem to suggest that we put out our intention, vision or desire out to the Universe and just manifest that which we wish.  I have deeply appreciated Neale Donald Walsch's attempt to readdress the messages from the Secret in his book: Happier than God.   In this book Walsch clarifies that we can only align with the nature of the universe as it is which he says is all interconnected and for the Good of all.  Thus he says when we attempt to manifest with either harmful intent or selfish intent we actually step out of alignment, and the messages we receive will simply bring us back into alignment for the common good.

So Walsch would say we could plan whatever we want as long as it aligned with the Universe.  Wayne Dyer who of course writes extensively about this in his book The Power of Intention, as well as in his other books, also talks a great deal about how to be in alignment, how to avoid blocks and other pitfalls.  But Dyer, while saying we can not be poor enough or sick enough to prevent other people from being poor or sick, is silent on the question of how we plan or whether our plans can be selfish or create negative effects for others.

Recently, I have been trying to discern whether to commit civil disobedience on behalf of climate change.  In my old model I would listen and not act until I received a clear message to go forward.  So far I have not received such a green light...although in both previous occasions in my life I contemplated a possible action with my mind analyzing the justice and injustice of the situation, and in both occasions just days before The Just One spoke powerfully and clearly with unmistakable direction right before the action with a power I could not have ignored.

In my new model I have been trying to hold a vision of the world re-emerging out of fossil fuel dominated world into one that uses sustainable alternative fuels.  This is very challenging to hold a vision of since both the actions and mindsets that leads to carbon consumption are deeply embedded in our society.  I know a visualizing process taught by Elise Boulding, the founder of modern Peace studies, which if engaged in with great detail can reveal strategic action, but this is different than a spiritual process. The process both Dyer and Walsch talk about would seem to suggest hold the big future vision, (not the yearning or you manifest the yearning) and then let it go in the confidence that the Universe will manifest it.  Dyer does talk about working from the end which he describes as imagining a book already written and then writing  it. This however still doesn't answer for me the question: how do we make yes/no decisions about possible actions?  Oh, the moral from the immoral is fairly easy to discern, but should I take this or action or not is a different question?

This is where Redfield's concept of trying to picture a certain action and the other course (even if that is inaction) and see if we can picture it, provides, I think, an interesting intersection between these two paradigms. It suggests to me for the first time how to listen for the Divine Author's message regarding that which dwells in the future. When I tried to picture myself getting arrested I did not see it, but oddly it was because I did not really see the whole group getting arrested either!  Perhaps this means Obama will not approve the XL pipeline.  Or perhaps as happened in the past two occasions, that as events unfold a new Truth will plant itself in my heart with a correspondingly strong picture of that very arrest.  My hope is in either, both? paradigms will be to listen in faithfulness and obedience to the Greatest Truth as it reveals itself.

God Who? and the Garden of Eden

As I have previously written about (See: God Who 1/12 post) I can frequently go into a “God Who?” state. This is not a state where I doubt the existence of God but rather where I forget The Holy One.  Simply drop into the World and forget that I’m divinely connected to a Higher Power.  What I have also learned after decades of struggling with this is that fear is the surest path into this God who? state.

I was in a relationship that God lead me into and yet when the going got hard I got so scared that I went into the “God who? state” which eventually lead to its end.  I am pleased that at least in the beginning I did a better job of staying connected with the divine.  In one conflict, meeting my partner’s self-righteous anger, I felt defensive and also angry.  However, when the next day we went to sit in silent meditation I remembered in that silence that the position my partner had argued for was one I had been lead to many years ago and in fact reflected the Truth as I knew it.  It was a series of life events, accommodations to life struggles, that had taken me in another direction.  I realized that while my partner’s anger was agitating me that he was in fact calling me back to the Truth as I had found it, and with that clarity I was able to easily change my behavior.  In this incident I did not feel the fear of loosing our relationship and so I was not derailed from listening to and hearing the Holy One’s voice.

In the previous post I talked about how the Story of the Garden of Eden has also something to say about the state of forgetting God.  I’m not a bible fan, but certain stories are powerful allegories, and the story of Adam and Eve is such a story.  It is story of being in a seemingly perfect place, much like love is when we first fall in love.  As anyone who has ever been in love will tell you, as well as quite a bit of research, we sadly cannot stay in that rosy colored classes, oxytocin induced state forever.  Eventually, we come in contact with knowledge that makes us see the world/ our partner as they really are, to come in touch with the difficult places.  However, there is more than one possibility at that point.  There is the exile from Eden or there is the learning of how to navigate love inside of reality, the learning of the lessons The Teacher would have us learn at that point.  But that does require remembering that there is a Teacher and being attuned to that Teacher.  Adam and Eve forgot God, and so they did not receive his guidance but the false guidance of the serpent instead and thus were exiled from Eden.

For myself fear is a sure way to forget God and once the fear of the relationship breaking up hits I go into that frozen fear state.  As I did when I was a scared child I try to think my way out of the problem, I take actions or desperately demand actions out of others.  Both of these are out of the head and not out of the Spirit.  In Adam and Eve terms they are listening to the Serpent rather than the Creator of the Garden.  Unfortunately, when I’m in that scared frozen place nothing seems to help, not being at the Ocean – normally a sure path to the Holy, not sitting in prayer asking for answers…only sometimes can the message be delivered to me through others.  And of course it does not help if both me and my partner are in a state of fear for no Light can come thru either of us in this state.

So what next?  Now comes the learning we do after we have left the Garden of  Eden about how to walk with The Gardener in the World where we now live.

Living with our own Darkness

Recently my daughter did something and she was embarrassed by and she feared the judgment of others. So she kept it secret.  Not really unusual behavior.  All of us have done this at some point in time.  My reaction was mainly that I was sad that she had struggled with it alone and that she has felt so self-judgmental.  It was not the best choice she has ever made, but it was not the worst either.  She was primarily the victim of some bad luck in an arena in which our society is harshly judgmental.

When we talked about it later I told her I did not want her to ever live her life with the feeling that she had to keep secrets or be ashamed of anything because then she would become separated from a part of herself.  "What do you mean she asked?  This was hard to articulate.  I think of her father, my ex-husband, who literally committed a horrible crime.  This was something that he rightfully felt horrible about and carries much guilt about.  Some who read this will say that is a feeling of self-loathing that should never be laid down.  Do we contribute to the Good of the All by keeping ourselves small and in shame?

However, if we believe that all humans are children of a Divine Parent and an Unending Source of Love, then it follows that God has the capacity to forgive us all our diversions from the path of the Holy One. It follows that more good will be done by overcoming our own personal patch of darkness.  I believe that in the journey of the soul that everything we do holds the capacity for learning and growth in the Spirit. When I met her father he was in an Alternatives to Violence Project workshop, a program he participated in for eight years.  I also met Dan in AVP, a friend to this day, who two years ago was released from prison after serving everyday of a 30 year term for committing multiple rapes.

What these two men did represents extremes that most of us do not go to. However, the basic problem is the same; after we do something bad, something regrettable, or something embarrassing there is no taking it back.  Sometimes there are big consequences.  How do we integrate our own darkness into the tapestry of our own life?  How do we make peace with that which we regret and cannot undo?  Trite as the saying is: "How do we make lemonade out of lemons?"

I thought when I met both of them and all the men who came through the AVP workshops that they were doing the only thing we can do with darkness....redeem it. I have quoted the late Rev. Jon Nelson saying: (see 7/11/11 post) "Lean into the pain, that is where the redemptive possibilities lie." If one has come to this life to learn about violence in its most decisive way then to engage in violence and learn first-hand its horrible cost, and to renounce it, and to live without it, is as complete a learning as I imagine one life could achieve. (I believe my own walk as pacifist reflects the learning of many lifetimes, of being both the victim and the perpetrator of violence.)  

The two of them exemplified the two paths people can take in attempting to reconcile with ones own darkness.  My ex-husband could never internally reconcile what he did, so he hid it, and in so doing separated from himself. He could not be at peace in this separated state.  Over time this went beyond not putting down an accurate job history, to actually making up a whole fictional life which he told to others, thus severing himself forever from the Truth.  

Dan on the other hand, chose to tell the truth in prison about why he was there, earning him the lowest place on the prison totem pole and yet allowing him to live with the Truth of who he was.  Thus when he got out he also told the truth on every resume and job application.  He was rejected over and over but was loved by his wife and friends and eventually hired by an acquaintance who appreciated his integrity and his skill set.  He said he had expected to feel out of place when he got out of prison after such a long absence as he had before he went to prison; instead because he walks in his own skin and knows his own intentions towards others he feels deeply at home in the world.  

It has occurred to me that this indeed is the difference between leaning into the pain and not doing so.  When we are so afraid of pain, or of our own darkness that we avoid it, we never learn what it has to teach us.  We live separated from the Spirit whom we are afraid to approach and we live in constant fear of others and their judgment of us if they were to truly know us.  When we have the courage to go through the pain we come out the other side, not unlike a mother giving birth to a child.  The only way out is through, and we are "baptized" by our own struggle and its integrity—or lack of.

I'm not suggesting we just throw ourselves into darkness, or surrender to whatever evil impulse we may feel tugging at us, or lie in depression.  I'm saying that we recognize that darkness exists also on the spiritual path just as surely as night and day co-exist.  And that in whatever darkness we find ourselves we never stop looking for the Presence of the Light.  That we use as a lantern in the darkness the question, "What is my soul trying to learn from this experience?"  Redemption, if there is such a thing, must be in learning the lessons we came here to learn.

Note to reader:  My New Year's resolution was one post a month and I was doing very well until the end of May.  Then came the end of school and two church conferences in July and ...no June or July post.  Please read this as my July post!