July 1, 2010
Washin’ Babies.
I’m a therapist, so I take things from that point of view. But I do include people’s faith systems because it affects their reality. Also, because I’m a spiritual inclusivist, I don’t use Biblical platitudes to prescribe behavior, or as having answers such as thou shalt or shalt not. I don’t care what your belief is; I want to know, does it work for you to be a more decent loving person and how do you use it to guide your life.
In the movie the life of Brian by Monty Python, one scene opens with Jesus on the Mount, telling the group “the Beatitudes”. The camera pulls way back where we see Brian and his mother. They are standing on the fringes with some others and we now can barely make out what's being said, so his mother yells out: “speak up”
Brian shushes her.
“Well I can’t hear a thing.”
A man having trouble hearing Jesus says to his wife: “What was that?”
“I think it was ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’”
“What’s so special about the cheesemakers?”
“Well, obviously, it’s not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.”
The Bible can be a dangerous book, It depends, largely, on how you read it with what prejudices and with what intellectual background. Regarded as sacred and authoritative, such a complex collection of histories, legends, allegories and images becomes a monstrous Rorschach blot in which you can picture almost anything you want to discover. Just as one can see animals in the clouds or faces in the fire, fundamentalists "prove" the truth of the Bible by trying to show how the words of the prophets have foretold events that have come to pass in relatively recent times. But scholars of ancient history find the remarks of the prophets entirely relevant to events of their own time, in the ancient Near East. The Biblical prophets were not so much predictors as social commentators. As one of our members remarked not to long ago. I want information on how to live my life now, Not some model for two thousand years ago.
For many centuries the Roman Catholic Church was opposed to translating the Holy Scriptures into the "vulgar tongue.” The Catholic hierarchy included subtle theologians and scholars who knew very well that such a difficult and diverse collection of ancient writings, taken as the literal Word of God, would be wildly and dangerously interpreted if put into the hands of ignorant and uneducated peasants.
Until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century, the Scriptures were not understood exclusively in a narrow literal sense. Much of the Old Testament was regarded as "puerile" if taken literally. The great theologians and scholars recognize four ways of interpreting the Scriptures: the literal or historical; the moral; the allegorical; and the mystical/ spiritual. They were overwhelmingly interested in the last three. It was regarded that most of the Old Testament would be disastrous if taken literally. Concern over the historical truth of the Bible is relatively modern, whether in the form of fundamentalism or of scientific research. Jewish theologians were likewise preoccupied with finding hidden meanings in the Scriptures. The concern of all these theologians was to interpret the Biblical texts in such a way as to make the Bible intellectually respectable and philosophically interesting.
But when the Bible was translated and widely distributed as a result of the invention of printing, it fell into the hands of people who were mostly uneducated who needed the security of a right answer to guide them. Problem was, they used more of the Old Testament to guide them than the new, and not having scholars, looked at it in a concrete way. The superstition would have been relatively harmless if the religion had been something tolerant and specific, such as Taoism or Buddhism. But the religion of the literally understood Bible is chauvinistic and militant. It is on the march to conquer the world and to establish itself as the one and only true belief.
This I think is one of the main problems we seem to be facing today. “Literalism” in all the holy books. Certainly in the Christian tradition, but we're now seeing it at a new level in the Koran, the Torah, the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, and even in Buddhism. Orthodoxy or fundamentalism seems to be rampant.
How is it that people have come to the opinion that the Bible, literally understood, is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Usually because one’s parents and elders, or an impressively large group of ones peers, have this opinion and told us not to question them. In the west, we are told the Christian bible is true. In the Middle East, the New Testament is held to be false and the Jews endorse only the Old Testament. If you are Islamic, the Koran is the only true bible. Other religions have their own sacred writings. Which book you believe depends predominantly on where you were born. You believe what your parents tell you, just like they believe what their parents told them, and so on, since the book was written. For the most part, you are a Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist because your parents were. But this is to go along with the Bandar-log, or monkey tribe, in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Books, who periodically get together and shout, "We all say so, so it must be true!" Or in animal farm where the “sheeple” repeat what is put on the wall of the barn every day.
This is okay if you are trying to find out the appropriate thing as a child. But when one reaches the age of maturity between 20 and 25, one ought to question everything they were taught. The problem is, many people never grow up. They stay all their lives with a passionate need for external authority and guidance; they really don't trust their own judgment. I saw this happen when I was a probation officer for the District Court. There were people who simply traded in their parents, who had provided them structure, for the structure of prison. Again they had somebody to tell them when to get up, when to eat, what to do, when to go to bed. Their housing, clothing, food, and bills were all done for them.
Nevertheless, it is peoples own judgment, that there exists some authority greater than their own. The fervent fundamentalist whether Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Moslem is closed to reason and even communication for fear of losing the security of that childish dependence. They would suffer extreme emotional anxiety if they didn’t have the feeling there was some external and infallible guide in which they could trust absolutely and without which, their very identity would dissolve.
The authority of the Bible, the church, the state, or of any spiritual or political leader, is derived from the individual followers and believers, since it is the believers’ judgment that such leaders and institutions speak with a greater wisdom than their own. I don't see this attitude as faith. It is more along the lines of pure idolatry. As Allen Watts said; “The more deceptive idols are not images of wood and stone, but are constructed of words and ideas and mental images of God.”
In much of the English-speaking world, the King James Bible and now the New International Version, is a rigid idol. All this is taken as the literal Word and counsel of God, as it is by fundamentalist, Jesus freaks, Jehovah’s Witnesses and comparable sects, which by and large know nothing of the history of the Bible, of how it was edited and put together.
The 6000 year old world idea came from Bishop Usher who was a Church of Ireland Archbishop in the 1650’s. He calculated the date of the Creation to have been at 9 p.m. on the 23 October 4004 BC.
In the mid 1800’s John Nelson Darby and the Brethren Movement, came up with the concept of
dispensationalism. It’s an evangelical tradition based on a belief that God relates to human beings in different ways under different Biblical covenants or "dispensations".There are 7. It is where the Rapture was invented.
Then in 1909, an American bible student by the name of Cyrus I. Scofield published The Scofield Reference Bible. It was a study Bible he edited and annotated. It had commentary on the biblical text and contained a cross-referencing system which allowed a reader to follow biblical themes from one chapter and book to another. Scofield's notes on the Book of Revelation are the source for various timetables, judgments, and plagues elaborated by such popular religious writers as Hal Lindsey and more recently the “Left Behind” series.
It is also why you have conservative Christians wanting the God of the Old Testament and really not likeing that wimpy Jesus in the New Testament. They can't wait for what they believe is the rapture so all the heathens can burn in hell. The militaristic vengeful God will be back. The one which tells them what to do exactly.
And speaking of the left behind series; How can people whom promote the living Christ, revel in other peoples pain and suffering. The Germans have a word for this, Schadenfreude. It is German word which means; pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
I've taken to challenging Christians who use the Old Testament as justification. I want them to get a Rabbi to validate their opinion. The Torah really is Jewish sacred writings and they're the experts. Christians would be up in arms if some Jews translated the New Testament. There aren't 10 Commandments. There are 613. Ask any Jew.
In Oklahoma, they recently passed a law saying English would be the only acceptable language and that they could violate the separation of church and state by erecting a replica of the 10 Commandments on capital grounds. The newspaper had a political cartoon that depicted the governor being arrested by a state patrolman because the 10 Commandments were in Hebrew.
I also like the political satirist Louis Black, who describes in his routine the problem with Christians using the Old testament.
“The old testament, which is the book of my people, the Jewish people, that book wasn't good enough for you Christians. Was it?”
"Noooo. You say ‘we've got a better book with a better character.’ And you called your book "new."
"And yet, every Sunday, I turn on the television set, and there's a priest or a pastor reading from my book and interpreting it, and their interpretations, I have to tell you, are usually wrong.”
“It's not their fault, because it's not their book.”
“You never see a Rabbi on TV Interpreting the new testament, do you?”
“If you want to truly understand the Old Testament, if there's something you don't quite get, ask a Rabbi.”
When Leigh and I were visiting friends in Kansas City, I once had a Rabbi tell me, “We have the only group in the world in which someone stole our God, and then hate us.”
There also is another interesting phenomena in this arena. I tell patients; “if I were to put you in a trance and hypnotize you, then as we were talking, gave you the suggestion: ‘Every time I put my hand up to my tie you will get up and leave. And every time I put my hand down…You will sit back down. So hand up, you get up, and hand down, you sit down. But you are not going to remember I said this. When you wake up you will forget I had this suggestion. It will fade in your memory like a dream. Even so, each time I put my hand up, you will get up to leave and each time I put it down you will sit down. So…5,-4,-3,-2,-1, bam! Wake up!”
So, we were talking about your mother…..And after a bit I put my hand up to my tie. You would give me something like; “Oh, It would take too long to go through it, I’ve got something I need to take care of.”
“Okay, see the secretary on the way out to set up your next appointment” as I slide my hand down to the chair arm.
“Well there is this one thing that I can share.”
“Yes, what is it?” As I place my hand back up on my tie.
“Well, I really think it will take too long to detail it out properly”
“Okay, makes sense, See you next week.” As I put my hand down once more.
“There is this one thing!”
“Yes!”
And so it would go until you caught it because it was happening rapidly enough you saw the pattern and would say, “Hey! What’s going on here!”
But if I only did it once,…. Or maybe twice,…. you wouldn’t have caught it.
That’s not even what is important. What is important is, every time you got up,… and every time you sat down,… you would instantly come up with a perfectly logical reason for doing what you are doing. That’s the way our minds are set up. To rationalize every movement we make. Our explanations come after the fact. Humans tend to think; “If I am reasonable then I must be right.” That goes hand in hand. In addition they think; “If I’m right, it must be the truth. And if it is true, then it is a fact.”
How do we refrain from throwing the whole Bible out; bathwater and baby, when much of it obviously isn’t reasonable or even factual. What is useful in the Bible if you’re not a literalist? What kind of guidance can it be used for?
Faith is an openness and trusting attitude to truth and reality, whatever it may turn out to be. This is a risky and adventurous state of mind. When I see religious control freaks, I tell them they have no faith. They generally get upset because they truly believe they do, but it is in the idea of faith not true faith. Real faith is the opposite of control. More control, less faith. More faith, less control. That's the way it works. Belief, in the religious sense, is the opposite of faith because it is the idea that the universe is arranged and governed in such and such a way. Belief is holding to a rock not letting go; faith is learning how to swim just as this whole universe swims in boundless space. In 1633 the Catholic Church Tried Galileo, as a heretic and forced him to recant his view we were in a helio or sun-centered solar system. He recanted to get a life sentence of imprisonment. How long did it take the Church to admit he was correct? When they discovered the earth was round? When the mechanical age started? When we sent men to the moon? No! In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared that the ruling against Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." This is faith?
Man’s basic desire to communicate with the divine source is the common thread which connects most of the world’s major religions. The main aim of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, and Islam is to unite with the creator. The Hindus call this union Nirvana. The Buddhists speak of an awakening, becoming enlightened, or satori in Zen. Taoists discover the Way. Christians receive the Holy Spirit. Muslims completely surrender.
The method each religion developed to achieve or sustain paradise (a direct union with God) shaped the distinct beliefs described in their sacred writings. All the world’s major religions emphasize a body of ethical laws that remind men how they should treat each other and encompass principles of honesty, truth, justice, decency, and high morals.
What makes the Bible relevant today for sophisticated, well educated people is very much like what happens when we experience a baby. The mystery awe, soul touching wonder so many of you have experienced through your own or grandchildren. In that infant we see the wonder the world offers, the promise the future can hold. The exploration of the essence of the Bible is very complicated if you don’t take it literally. We have to sort through what our parents taught us to do vs what we learn ourselves. We have to sort out the baby from the bathwater.
In the movie “Four Chapters” Sachish says:
Once I depended on reason but reason is not enough
and then I depended on hope but hope is bottomless.
Reason or unreason: nothing has worked
I have realized we depend on others for everything, but not religion.
If the Idea is not your own, It kills the soul
Why take God from others? I have to find him myself.
Here are a few of the Biblical stories which have shaped or helped me in my life.
Jonah and the whale. Jonah 1:17
Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
When I was a boy of seven in the early 50’s, With my Catholic background I had the Jonah in the whale story as an incredible one of being trapped and needing to do what your supposed to. I was a sad little boy and in my family, pleasing my parents and trying to do the right thing was virtually impossible. The popular monsters of the day were dinosaurs. I had nightmares almost every night where they chased me. I now know it was an extension of my dad who spanked me and my brothers almost every night. As terrified as I was in the dream, I finally got tired of running and decided to let the dinosaur catch and eat me. I was chewed on and went down his throat ending up in his stomach. Even though I was standing in water and looking at a cavern of ribs ala Geppetto in Pinocchio it was light enough to see. I remember walking through this large cavern of ribs toward the tail which got smaller. Then with a suddenly burst of seven year old insight, decided; “I don’t need this anymore!” I turned to the left and walked right through the side of the beast. I never had a dinosaur nightmare again. I carried forth a belief that even in a helpless situation; I had some power and could believe in myself.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
In the summer of 1969, I had been separated from my wife and child. I had lost my faith, my purpose, my grounding, my religion, and was suicidal. I didn't care about anything including my life.
By a series of events, I connected up my second younger hippy brother who had been fairly estranged from the family. We went out to the coast in Washington State and he gave me LSD. Without realizing it, I ended up taking enough for eight people and overdosed. My first experience with drugs. I was thrown into a bleak desert planet where a process started which can only be called a life review. Every single event came parading before me like shirts on a laundry line. I was the judge of each one and could clearly see how the choices I made were ruining my life. It was very difficult watching myself in that context. One mess-up after another. When it got to the present time, a question formed in my mind, "have I messed up my life so bad I can't fix it?" I was 24 at the time. I asked a shadowy figure a few more questions in the grief of my despair. Through the struggle, I finally came to the conclusion; I still had time to be a decent person. With that, I was instantly transported back to my van overlooking the ocean. I was never the same from that point on and vowed to be thoughtful, kind, and decent. It was redemption.
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Genisis 3:24
After he drove them out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden, a cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
They are put out of Eden because they learned something and can’t be ignorant anymore. The place of peace is blocked by “An angel with a fiery sword. In order for us to get back to “the place of peace”, one must pass through the burning. No asbestos suits allowed. You must go through a gut wrenching situation and come out the other side.
Back in the mid 70’s I co-founded a drug program and named it Parallax. I wanted a name which reflected my philosophy of therapy; a change in the position of the observer, changes what is seen as well as the observer. I nurtured it for four years, and finally got it to the point the city Commission gave us hundreds of thousands of dollars to take it full time 24/7. I was director of counseling, setting up the process to help these lost souls find themselves and make something of their life. Then my partner started betraying me and undercut what I was doing. After a year I was a mess, being sabotaged at every turn. The full impact came when He, his wife and kids, as well as Leigh and I were all out to dinner at a restaurant. His wife scolded one of the kids. When she wasn’t looking, he let the boy get away with what the young one had just been scolded for and had the boy hide it from his mother. It hit me like a bullet. I’m his wife at work! I finally realized it would never be my dream again. I wrote up my resignation the next week. I was leaving my baby. I had to go through that fire to get to the place of peace. I moved on to what became my real calling.
The garden at Gethsemane Luke 22:44).
Jesus is praying and finalizing his life. He has tried to make the three disciples be carful of temptation but they succumbed. He is praying and gets to the point his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” The clinical term is “hematohidrosis. Does this sound like it's something he wants to. “No-daddy-daddy I don't wanna do this! But it is the truth of his life… and he moves on and deals with it.
There is the saying: Unless you can sweat blood sometimes, you will never keep a commitment…, in marriage, in priesthood,… or in anything else. That’s what it takes to be faithful!"
When Leigh and I had been married 5 years, We got into one of those pressure places where she was wanting me to do a lot of things and feeling put upon, started avoiding telling her what was going on with me. It reached the point where I was saying to myself: “she doesn't know who I am or what I'm about, I'm alone.” “So what am I doing this for?”
The answer that came back was; I got married because I didn't want to be alone. But now I'm feeling alone.
“Well that's because I don't tell her anything anymore. So she doesn't know who I am if I'm hiding myself.”
“If I keep deceiving her, how she supposed to know who I am?” “She'll never know who I am.”
“So, the only way for her to know who I am, is to tell her.”
“But then I have to expose myself and tell her everything.”
“You mean like be honest?” “Yes!”
“If my marriage is going to fail, at least it's going to fail because of honesty as to who I am and not because of some fantasy. If she doesn’t like who I really am, then at least we’ll split up honestly.”
And that is when I discovered something. Marriage wasn’t a commitment to the other person. The real commitment is to abject honesty. I had to sweat blood to be 100% honest which was something my mother taught me never to do. It was a new era and created a new depth in our relationship. Later Leigh confided she’d known about the lying and had been patient in waiting for me to get there. That was faith.
A few years ago we saw Martin Sheen on the Graham Norton show talking about his relationship and this very thing.
Gram was remarking on the length of Martin’s marriage and asked how he kept the romance going.
Martin said: “The idea of romance changes once you get older.
“The ideal kind of way to get into a marriage is that you'll promise that person that you will help them become themselves at all costs.”
“So you will tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth at all times.”
“You have to love each other enough to risk telling the truth, and… risk their wrath by telling that truth.
“And most of the time you'll be the only person that will.”
“There is another level to it as well.”
“People talk about happiness-"oh I'm happy with Larry", "she makes me happy", but they rarely talk about Joy.”
“That's the thing that transcends the whole relationship, the element of Joy.”
“Realizing with gratitude and appreciation, the other person has allowed you to experience Joy.”
The Lost sheep parable; Luke 15:4
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6and goes home.
The prodigal son parable; Luke 15:32
But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.'"
In the summer of 1973 I was working for a ranch in Napa Valley at a children’s camp called the Bar-49. There was one Hispanic 6 year old that was living in foster homes who stole my heart. Mike Munoz. He had two half brothers that were black, also in foster homes. What an incredible kid with nothing but hardship facing him. We connected well and he impressed me with his curiosity, intelligence, and sensitiveness. We were in touch by mail for a short while when I came back to Kansas after the summer. Then he went to another foster home and the connection was broken. One of my regrets in life was not going back to California and adopting him. That fall I had to take my ex-wife back to court once more trying to spend time with my two daughters, lost again, and then met Leigh that spring. I didn’t get back to the bay area for five more years.
I have tried to find Mike over the years and had a lot of dead ends. I started using the internet which I thought would make it easier but the Bar-49 camp had closed, the contacts where lost, and the boy had a somewhat common Hispanic name I was probably misspelling. Six years ago I asked a Hispanic cleaning lady at our office about the spelling possibilities. I used what she suggested and ended up with over 350 names in California. Too many.
Five months ago I stumbled on to one of my old address books and tried again. I put his name with San Francisco in the Google search engine on the internet and up popped a guy who was the top chef at a major private club that was the right age now (41). The site had his email so I left a message asking if he’d ever spent time at the Bar-49 camp as a kid. He wrote back the next day; he had, many times, and was curious who I was. The day after that I sent pictures of him and me from back then as well as copies of the letters he had written, one of which he’d put his birthday . He got so excited he called me the following night.
He is as wonderful as I remember him. He managed to fight through all the things I was worried about for him; Abandonment, loneliness, gangs, and drugs. 4 foster homes and 3 group homes and no pictures of his childhood. His half sister, whom I didn’t know about, has 7 kids and is a prostitute. One brother is institutionalized with mental problems and the other in prison. He was taking care of other foster kids when he was 10 and by 17 got himself emancipated. In the taking care of others he got interested in food and in a group home, one of the adults had him go to market with them so he learned about food. He decided to go to culinary school but found he couldn’t afford to do that and live. So it got put off for a decade. A woman took him to Holland at 18 and opened up a whole new world to him as he traveled Europe. A lot of jobs later, he finally got the money and loans to go to culinary school and now is the top chef at an exclusive private club in downtown San Francisco. He also has a personal fitness business with his wife which is going well.
He has his first child who just celebrated his 1st birthday. Two days before I emailed, Michael was lamenting he didn’t have any childhood pictures of himself. Then I sent ones of him and me at the Bar-49 along with a photo of his brother. He said he was reeling as he wondered why someone would care about him and keep mementos of his life. He said he didn’t have any mentors in his life growing up. No one has really cared about him, so he was stunned I had him in my thoughts all these years.
He has had quite a life. He has been married a few years now and has a 10 year old step son he likes a lot. Michael and I are getting to know each other. We are talking on the phone every other week and emailing. He called again last Thursday to tell me about his day. Wonderful! A month ago I mailed a box load of books and toys for his sons one year birthday. Ann Dora and her friend Will, went to San Francisco on vacation a couple of weeks ago and got to meet him. Michael treated them Royalty at his restaurant and prepared a special gourmet lunch just for them. Ann said, He’s wonderful; He’s everything you hoped he was. Leigh and I are looking at how we can get back out to the bay area to visit with him and his family.
These have been a few of my adventures which resonate for me with some of the inspiring stories in the Bible. What are some of yours? How can you use them to bring solace or inspiration?
A few reminders to get you started:
David and Goliath,
The Shepherd's Psalm (The Lord is my shepherd...),
To Everything is a Season
Daniel in the Lion's Den,
Sermon on the Mount (Blessed are they...),
The Good Samaritan,
The Betrayal of Jesus,
The Beatitudes.
But the choices are endless. You’ll know when one speaks to you personally.
And hopefully, the Donkey won’t have to dance on the road.
Amen!
Showing posts with label Sermons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sermons. Show all posts
Monday, August 2, 2010
The donkey on the trail
Children Story
King Balak and Balaam in Numbers 22:2
The children of Israel were exiled and trampling through the countryside taking over the different groups. Now we’re talking over half a million people. Balak was worried his country was next. He sent some runners over to his neighbor, king Balaam asking; if they pooled their forces, they could probably hold the Israelites off.
Balaam slept on it that night, and God came to him in a dream and said: “They’re my people, I’ve bless them, leave them alone” So Balaam told the runner “No!”
So Balak sent a prince to get him to come to his place to try and persuade him to help. That night, in a dream, God told him once more, “You heard what I said, go to Balak and tell him yourself.”
Balaam got on his donkey, and while he's riding through a pass, the donkey starts jumping up and down .Balaam starts hitting the donkey yelling at it to get back on the trail. The donkey suddenly says: “why are you hitting me, haven't I been a good donkey?” And without missing a beat, Balaam says “I don't care get back on the trail!”
At that moment, Balaam’s eyes are opened and he sees a giant Angel with a sword slicing through the place they would've been. Balaam says “good donkey and pats him.”
The angel points his sword at Balaam and says, “you heard what the Lord said, now go tell King Balak.”
So when Balaam gets there he tells Balak what God said, but the next day Balak convinces him to go through a sacred ritual to really see if it's really what God meant.
Balaam has them make seven altars and he does the ceremony. God, like a frustrated parent with a slow child tells him, “You heard what I said; now I want you to bless the Israelites too.”
Balak is real upset when he hears that and says; “You’ve got to understand how serious this is!” So he takes Balaam up on a mountain and shows him the 600,000 Israelites. “Now do you understand?”
So Balaam once again asked for seven altars and makes a burnt offering ritual.
God said; “Now I want you to tell Balak that the Israelites are going to be like a lion and destroy his people.”
Balak was really distressed and tried one more time to get his friend to ask God if this was so.”
In those days people were really dense. I like comedian Lewis Black's comment that they were ten hairs away from a baboon back then.
So Balak took Balaam to a sacred mountain top and built the seven altars again and once more. Balaam did the burnt offering ritual. This time he added in the blessing of the Israelites and any people who would be against them, would be cursed.
Balak was real upset and sent Balaam home.
What is important about this story? Do you have some ideas?
God spoke to Balaam, not just his chosen people.
God told Balaam again and again, just like our parents, until he accepted the message. Sometimes doing the right thing is very hard.
King Balak and Balaam in Numbers 22:2
The children of Israel were exiled and trampling through the countryside taking over the different groups. Now we’re talking over half a million people. Balak was worried his country was next. He sent some runners over to his neighbor, king Balaam asking; if they pooled their forces, they could probably hold the Israelites off.
Balaam slept on it that night, and God came to him in a dream and said: “They’re my people, I’ve bless them, leave them alone” So Balaam told the runner “No!”
So Balak sent a prince to get him to come to his place to try and persuade him to help. That night, in a dream, God told him once more, “You heard what I said, go to Balak and tell him yourself.”
Balaam got on his donkey, and while he's riding through a pass, the donkey starts jumping up and down .Balaam starts hitting the donkey yelling at it to get back on the trail. The donkey suddenly says: “why are you hitting me, haven't I been a good donkey?” And without missing a beat, Balaam says “I don't care get back on the trail!”
At that moment, Balaam’s eyes are opened and he sees a giant Angel with a sword slicing through the place they would've been. Balaam says “good donkey and pats him.”
The angel points his sword at Balaam and says, “you heard what the Lord said, now go tell King Balak.”
So when Balaam gets there he tells Balak what God said, but the next day Balak convinces him to go through a sacred ritual to really see if it's really what God meant.
Balaam has them make seven altars and he does the ceremony. God, like a frustrated parent with a slow child tells him, “You heard what I said; now I want you to bless the Israelites too.”
Balak is real upset when he hears that and says; “You’ve got to understand how serious this is!” So he takes Balaam up on a mountain and shows him the 600,000 Israelites. “Now do you understand?”
So Balaam once again asked for seven altars and makes a burnt offering ritual.
God said; “Now I want you to tell Balak that the Israelites are going to be like a lion and destroy his people.”
Balak was really distressed and tried one more time to get his friend to ask God if this was so.”
In those days people were really dense. I like comedian Lewis Black's comment that they were ten hairs away from a baboon back then.
So Balak took Balaam to a sacred mountain top and built the seven altars again and once more. Balaam did the burnt offering ritual. This time he added in the blessing of the Israelites and any people who would be against them, would be cursed.
Balak was real upset and sent Balaam home.
What is important about this story? Do you have some ideas?
God spoke to Balaam, not just his chosen people.
God told Balaam again and again, just like our parents, until he accepted the message. Sometimes doing the right thing is very hard.
The Blessing
Michael Leary 10/26/08
The Blessing
As a therapist, I hear many people with their life's troubles. Sometimes it's a bad marriage, sometimes it is using alcohol or drugs, sometimes its involvement with someone they shouldn't be, sometimes it is using poor parenting skills. When we sail on the sea of emotion, where ever we start, eventually we end up in a certain, common port. That port for most people is the most avoided, frightening, and shameful place they could ever go.
It would seem that most of the problems 'm asked to help people with come from this place. I have seen many people who have worked desperately to change things in their lives... And not consciously visited that port... Only to have their problems show up in a new form... Sometimes worse than the original. In addition, I've seen people ruin their lives as they try to make up for the damage done so long ago. One of the phrases I use is: "if you use your childhood survival techniques in your adult life, it will ruin your adult life"… because, unwittingly you will replicate what you grew up with. This we see time and time again. The very thing that people are trying to make up for ends up insidiously destroying them. And what they're looking for is what I call “The Blessing.”
To understand how this occurs, imagine yourself as a newborn child. Every child shows up innocent, vulnerable, and precious. In your heart... You are okay. Shortly after your birth you become aware of your parents, especially your mother. Now for children, they don't understand the concept of mother and father. It would seem with our biological needs of affiliation, we actually see our parents as God. Not the God described in the Bible or "out there". These are the people who actually gave you life and keep you alive. You show up and need things from God to let you know what's what and where you fit in it. When kids get a little older and are verbal, you can actually hear them say their parents are Gods. When they say, "my mommy can cook better cookies than your mommy" or "my daddy can beat up your daddy", what they're really referencing is: "mine are the best of the best". Mine are the real Gods, yours are fake. Mine are perfect, and that's what God is...Perfect.
The way God looks at us, talks to us, treats us, tells us who we are. Whether we are acceptable or not acceptable in this world. That experience is "The Blessing". That is: you are wanted and belong here, you are unique and special, you are safe and secure, you are wonderful and loved. When that happens while the child's heart is open they will tend to fulfill the destiny of their soul. They believe they are fine and can focus on what is interesting to them in the world. Their needs are already filled about who they are. Parents tend to give the infant child positive remarks: "That’s good, your right. Look at how smart you are. You’re so pretty or cute". Later on they might say "good job" or "you win!" Parents tend to do that around the world. I call it “jump starting the soul.” The parents hook up their cables to the kid’s heart and get it running till it can run on its own.
Then the child gets to be about… 2. We have a name for two year olds in this country. Remember what it is? Terrible twos! ...Terrorist... Terrified.... Why do we see young kids as terrible? They’re mobile! We have them in artificial environments with things that can hurt them, like electricity or things falling on them. Or, they might break something valuable. So then we say: “No! Bad boy/girl! that's wrong! Quit being lazy! quit lying! don’t be so dumb or stupid!” These and others are used to give the child negative feedback to get the child to behave. Again, parents do this worldwide and we see it as a way to get the child to perform the way the parent prefers the child to behave and comply with the parents beliefs and culture.
The problem seems to come when either positives or negatives are used excessively or negatives are used exclusively. The Childs most important developmental time is the first 18 months and then the second eighteen months till about three. Then the doors to the heart seem to close and the beliefs are set from then on. There are exceptions to this rule but basically it seems to apply. In addition, before the age of seven or eight, children cannot tell the difference between what they do and who they are. Parents try to get compliance by using guilt at an early age but it instills shame not guilt. When this locks in..... The child feels they are "not ok" in their heart and become what we say is "shame based." Instead of being like God and perfect... they conclude they are "Worth-less!" For some, they become hyper performers,… human doings instead of human beings. Others become manipulative, oppositional, and defiant.
What is the difference between guilt and shame? Some people use them interchangeably. “You should feel guilty for that.” “You should be ashamed of yourself.” They are not the same!... Guilt is the difference between a belief and a behavior. If you tell someone you will meet them at noon at a specific restaurant and don't show up...Should you feel guilty? YES! Why?... If you believe in keeping your contracts and don't, there will be your onboard Jiminy Cricket to let you know you are off the road you say you believe in. And the next time you see the person, you will apologize for the inconvenience and try to make it up to them. "I'm sorry, I got held up, and didn't make it. Let me buy lunch for you next time."
Shame, on the other hand, is who we are!... what we believe in our heart of hearts about ourselves. This is what we try to cover up so other people don't see it. How do you hide, I'm a jerk, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm black, I'm a girl, I'm gay? There are people who try.... But it looks pretty pathetic. Everyone has to try to cover it up though because it's our most tender spot. Psychological techniques are used by humans to do this. Denial, avoidance, projection, anxiety, and rationalization are some of the more common ways people use. But underneath, it still lurks.
In the AA format, they have an acronym to deal with this, it's HALTe with a silent e. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Excited. When one of these five dynamics strikes a person, they tend to expose their shame program. There are other ways to expose it also. The easiest is to give a complement, and watch if the person is uncomfortable with it. Because our minds work from a referencing system internally in order to understand what something is…. it will instantly go to the file to comprehend what was just said. If the file is empty or has something distorted in it, the person will…. in a split second, involuntarily indicate nothing was there. They may socially try to cover it… but someone watching will still notice. Then the complementor will know the opposite of what was said is actually true. Good salesmen and predators are trained or learn to intuit this. How many of you have wondered why you bought something you never intended to after a salesman worked his magic on you?
In that cover-up,... People then try to make themselves "worth-more" rather than "worth -less." Typically those take the forms of compulsion or addictions: gambling, eating, shopping, sex, work, sports, prestige, money, religion, entertainment, and so on. We have a number of poster-Children for some of these in society right now: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who is anti-crime. The Reverend Ted Haggard of Colorado Springs who is anti-gay, and Donald Trump. How much money do you have to have to be okay and quit calling other people losers? “The Donald” grew up in a family in which his dad called him “The Pest”. His older brother was the golden boy who eventually broke down under his father's expectations, became an alcoholic, and then killed himself. When Donald was in seventh grade his dad sent him away to a military school. It's all about abandonment and not being good enough. When Donald got to be a senior in high school, his dad then saw he was "the chosen one". But emotionally it was too late.... The program was already in. That's why it looks so ridiculous at this point in his life.
Years ago a freelance reporter from the New York Times was interviewing Marilyn Monroe. She knew Marilyn lived in many foster homes and so she asked her if she ever felt loved. "Once." Marilyn replied, "When I was about seven or eight… the woman I was living with was putting on makeup. She reached over and patted my cheeks with her rouge puff. For that moment I felt loved by her." Marilyn had tears in her eyes when she remembered that event. It was such a small act but it was like pouring buckets of love over the parched life of a little girl starved for affection. Why does that story touch our hearts? Why do you think Marilyn Monroe allowed her body to be exploited in her adult life? Was it only about money or was it about something deeper?
What they are really after is: "The Blessing." To be good enough, special enough, lovable enough. When you can't get it from God/parents, then you try to get it some other way. Affiliation is about belonging. Friends generally are the earliest. After that it's girlfriends and boyfriends. Eventually we tried to get our value from our lover, even marrying to ensure it. But after a while your partner knows they're using a bulldozer to fill the Grand Canyon in your soul. It's never quite enough. At this point, stereotypically, males and females tend to split into two groups. Men go get their value out of work, power, prestige, money, sports or hobbies and women tend to get it from their children, prestige, sexuality, or interests. The problem is,… no one can make up for the hole left by their God/parents. It's a lock and key system. And with children it's particularly messed up because the energy is going upstream. The energy is supposed to flow from parent to child. Not the other way around. When parents need their children to love them, they eat the souls of their own children. Parents are supposed to give it to the child so they can launch. Again It's sort of like jumpstarting a car. You use your love to jumpstart the kids and then they get going on their own. Then they come back because of their love and compassion and not because of neediness and starving. Just because one grows older does not mean it will dissipate. Time does not heal this wound. My own sister tried to get my mother’s blessing twice a year until at 61, it finally cost my sister her life because she was never going to get it.
All those things that people do to get it..... Ultimately fail. Look in your own life and notice how many times you were trying to get someone to think you were okay, to just care about you, to just love you. And notice that even though they might have given you some of that, it always was short-lived. And you could become like a drug addict needing another fix, and another, and another. It never quite was enough. And the reason is because the file was closed so long ago. It's not the "you" who needs it at this point. It's the ghost child inside of us, who still lives there, who is stuck,... that needs it.
That's why we looks so juvenile when that part of us gets out and is so desperate. That little, immature, starving, abandoned child. But the doors to that file in your heart got closed and protected. The only one who can open it at this point is something that will trump your earlier view of God. People try to rationalize their way in. That never works because it's not a reasonable issue for any of us as a human. It happened when we were emotional and so it has to be healed emotionally. People use affirmations as an attempt to heal them and although it can help a little, it never really works because rational mind can't access that unreasonable spot in your heart. It is about your soul, your destiny, who I am, what is my purpose in life, all the sacred questions that the blessing was supposed to give you, as truth! Now it can't be fixed.... It has to be healed... Because we are living beings, not mechanical computers.
"To be blessed" means 'to be favored by God'. Blessings therefore are directly associated with God and come from God. Therefore, to express a blessing is like bestowing a wish on someone who she will experience the favor of God. "May you have a blessed Christmas", therefore can also be translated as: "May you experience the favor of God during this Christmas period."
You heard me talk with the kids earlier. Notice the things that they were hurt about or felt bad about. Notice they all have things about themselves which are important and they feel left out or diminished about. Did you hear the things that they thought would make it better for them?
One of the best things this congregation is doing for the children is singing that silly little song as they leave. Go now in peace, go now in peace, may the love of God surround you, everywhere, everywhere, you may go. That is being instilled deep within their minds and will live on in them.
Somewhere later it will pop up and hopefully give them comfort.
When I was a boy, my three brothers and I lived in a 9 x 9 foot room with two bunk beds. When it was time to go to bed, if you can imagine, we tended to talk and giggle. Our dad would come in and spank us with his belt. We went to sleep almost every night crying. When I married Leigh with the four kids, I decided to change that script. I would go in to kiss them goodnight and made a contract with them that anything they said would not be held against them. Most of the time we stuck to it but there would be a few times I would say, “you know there have to be consequences” and they would say, “yeah, I know.” They got to go to sleep comforted from the day’s issues.
A number of years later the kids were all in high school and Leigh and I were working till 10 o'clock at night and getting home about 10:30 p.m. The kids were responsible for getting themselves up in the morning and therefore went to bed at an appropriate time. They started coming into the bedroom after we got home and arranged themselves around our bed talking until we shooed them to their rooms. Leigh is the one who recognized we did not have dinner at the table during the week anymore and that was one of the times everyone got to talk about what was going on in their lives. They still needed that contact.
When the oldest boy was 22 he came back from Kansas City and after finishing out the day we said goodnight and he went downstairs to go to bed. A short while later we heard from the basement, “come kiss me goodnight!” I looked at Leigh and mouthed, “Come kiss me goodnight?” He was at an age that both of us had been parents with careers. Of course what he was wanting was the comfort and security of the blessing again. To reconnect and know… everything was okay.
In the book The Blessing, by Gary Smalley and John Trent, they list Five Elements that were important to blessings that parents give to children.
1. Meaningful Touch
Standing close, putting your hands on the child's head, and perhaps a kiss to seal the event are all tactile. This speaks especially to children whose love language is physical touch. Meaningful touch communicates love and personal acceptance.
2. Spoken Words
Our children need to hear why we believe in them and what we value. Children who get only silence from their parents interpret that to mean they are unworthy of attention, that something's wrong with them. It can set them on a lifelong search for approval.
Say this to the child so they hear it.
May God bless you and watch over you.
May God shine His face toward you and show you favor.
May God shine His face toward you and grant you peace.
3. Word Pictures of High Value
A blessing gives words of affirmation to your child.
Speak about one of your child's specific positive traits. For example, "You bring light and joy with you wherever you go." Or, "You keep your integrity even when others pressure you to cave in." Express your appreciation for his or her potential. This shouldn't be a prediction (e.g., I know you'll be a doctor just like your grandfather). Rather it should reflect awareness that this child is a work in progress, someone developing with mighty potential for good.
4. Picturing a Special Future
Our kids need hope that the future holds a place for them. You can illuminate a path of promise for them based on their true gifts. For example say, "I can see that your gift for music is going to bring the world a lot of joy."
5. A Commitment to Seeing the Blessing Fulfilled
This means you are declaring your intention and willingness to do whatever it takes to fulfill this blessing for your child. You promise to be there to guide, support, coach, and do whatever it takes to help your child achieve a worthy future. You vow to tend to his or her best interests, which you will discover by becoming a student of your child.
A couple of months ago Leigh and I attend a baby naming ceremony and a covenant of Israel for our Jewish friends in Kansas City. One of the most striking things was having the grandparents recite blessings for the child as well as the parents. The rabbi charged the parents with repeating their blessing to their daughter every Friday so she heard it. This is one of the blessings that was said.
“Every person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before; something original and unique. It is the duty of every person to know and consider that she is unique in her particular character and that there has never been someone like her in the world. Every single person is an individual, a spark of the divine, called upon to fulfill her uniqueness in this world, to make real her greatest potential to be human.”
There are many variations on how the blessing is delivered. Whatever procedure is followed, the blessing is sure to make the child feel special and loved and give the child fond memories. The unconditional love and approval that comes with the blessing is vital to our self-esteem and emotional well-being.
Even if you have adult children, they my still need that spark of blessing. If you know they are still searching, Help them find a way.
• Please Bow your heads
Lord, allow me to go back to that place so deep in my heart where spirituality begins,
Allow me to remember so long ago and get in touch with where all those lonely pains reside,
Help me feel what it was like back then so I can free this child who felt “not good enough” inside me.
Permit me to see my parents were just people trying to do what they thought was helpful.
Help me see that I saw them as just a form of higher power from a Childs point of view.
Allow me now as an adult to see my own higher power in what ever form I can accept and believe in.
Have it be a familiarity to my soul that resonates a truth for me-- deep in my heart.
Let me experience that higher presence actually happening where I can see, hear, and feel---as if I’m actually there.
It might be in a place which I've created,...it might be in a place I've been before that was safe and secure,... It might be in a sacred place,... deep within my mind.
And to that higher power, Allow yourself to ask those questions you have been so afraid of... For so long.
Ask: Is there another person exactly like me in every way? Am I a unique person in this world?
Ask: Am I wanted by you in this universe? Do I belong here?
Ask: Can I be full of wonder and feel “wonder full”?
Ask: Am I lovable? can I both receive and give love?
Now ask another one of the questions you have wanted to know for so long.
Let yourself experience that.
Ask: Am I forgiven?
Experience grace as fully and completely as you can.
Ask: Can I trust-- that you, my higher power, will guide me from now on from this special place?
Know that you can go to this special place from now on and seek help for your life’s issues.
Feel those changes taking place in your body, mind, and spirit.
We ask our higher power that you are with us from now on.
Now take a moment to say anything else you would like and when you are through come back to this sanctuary
Amen
The Blessing
As a therapist, I hear many people with their life's troubles. Sometimes it's a bad marriage, sometimes it is using alcohol or drugs, sometimes its involvement with someone they shouldn't be, sometimes it is using poor parenting skills. When we sail on the sea of emotion, where ever we start, eventually we end up in a certain, common port. That port for most people is the most avoided, frightening, and shameful place they could ever go.
It would seem that most of the problems 'm asked to help people with come from this place. I have seen many people who have worked desperately to change things in their lives... And not consciously visited that port... Only to have their problems show up in a new form... Sometimes worse than the original. In addition, I've seen people ruin their lives as they try to make up for the damage done so long ago. One of the phrases I use is: "if you use your childhood survival techniques in your adult life, it will ruin your adult life"… because, unwittingly you will replicate what you grew up with. This we see time and time again. The very thing that people are trying to make up for ends up insidiously destroying them. And what they're looking for is what I call “The Blessing.”
To understand how this occurs, imagine yourself as a newborn child. Every child shows up innocent, vulnerable, and precious. In your heart... You are okay. Shortly after your birth you become aware of your parents, especially your mother. Now for children, they don't understand the concept of mother and father. It would seem with our biological needs of affiliation, we actually see our parents as God. Not the God described in the Bible or "out there". These are the people who actually gave you life and keep you alive. You show up and need things from God to let you know what's what and where you fit in it. When kids get a little older and are verbal, you can actually hear them say their parents are Gods. When they say, "my mommy can cook better cookies than your mommy" or "my daddy can beat up your daddy", what they're really referencing is: "mine are the best of the best". Mine are the real Gods, yours are fake. Mine are perfect, and that's what God is...Perfect.
The way God looks at us, talks to us, treats us, tells us who we are. Whether we are acceptable or not acceptable in this world. That experience is "The Blessing". That is: you are wanted and belong here, you are unique and special, you are safe and secure, you are wonderful and loved. When that happens while the child's heart is open they will tend to fulfill the destiny of their soul. They believe they are fine and can focus on what is interesting to them in the world. Their needs are already filled about who they are. Parents tend to give the infant child positive remarks: "That’s good, your right. Look at how smart you are. You’re so pretty or cute". Later on they might say "good job" or "you win!" Parents tend to do that around the world. I call it “jump starting the soul.” The parents hook up their cables to the kid’s heart and get it running till it can run on its own.
Then the child gets to be about… 2. We have a name for two year olds in this country. Remember what it is? Terrible twos! ...Terrorist... Terrified.... Why do we see young kids as terrible? They’re mobile! We have them in artificial environments with things that can hurt them, like electricity or things falling on them. Or, they might break something valuable. So then we say: “No! Bad boy/girl! that's wrong! Quit being lazy! quit lying! don’t be so dumb or stupid!” These and others are used to give the child negative feedback to get the child to behave. Again, parents do this worldwide and we see it as a way to get the child to perform the way the parent prefers the child to behave and comply with the parents beliefs and culture.
The problem seems to come when either positives or negatives are used excessively or negatives are used exclusively. The Childs most important developmental time is the first 18 months and then the second eighteen months till about three. Then the doors to the heart seem to close and the beliefs are set from then on. There are exceptions to this rule but basically it seems to apply. In addition, before the age of seven or eight, children cannot tell the difference between what they do and who they are. Parents try to get compliance by using guilt at an early age but it instills shame not guilt. When this locks in..... The child feels they are "not ok" in their heart and become what we say is "shame based." Instead of being like God and perfect... they conclude they are "Worth-less!" For some, they become hyper performers,… human doings instead of human beings. Others become manipulative, oppositional, and defiant.
What is the difference between guilt and shame? Some people use them interchangeably. “You should feel guilty for that.” “You should be ashamed of yourself.” They are not the same!... Guilt is the difference between a belief and a behavior. If you tell someone you will meet them at noon at a specific restaurant and don't show up...Should you feel guilty? YES! Why?... If you believe in keeping your contracts and don't, there will be your onboard Jiminy Cricket to let you know you are off the road you say you believe in. And the next time you see the person, you will apologize for the inconvenience and try to make it up to them. "I'm sorry, I got held up, and didn't make it. Let me buy lunch for you next time."
Shame, on the other hand, is who we are!... what we believe in our heart of hearts about ourselves. This is what we try to cover up so other people don't see it. How do you hide, I'm a jerk, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm black, I'm a girl, I'm gay? There are people who try.... But it looks pretty pathetic. Everyone has to try to cover it up though because it's our most tender spot. Psychological techniques are used by humans to do this. Denial, avoidance, projection, anxiety, and rationalization are some of the more common ways people use. But underneath, it still lurks.
In the AA format, they have an acronym to deal with this, it's HALTe with a silent e. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Excited. When one of these five dynamics strikes a person, they tend to expose their shame program. There are other ways to expose it also. The easiest is to give a complement, and watch if the person is uncomfortable with it. Because our minds work from a referencing system internally in order to understand what something is…. it will instantly go to the file to comprehend what was just said. If the file is empty or has something distorted in it, the person will…. in a split second, involuntarily indicate nothing was there. They may socially try to cover it… but someone watching will still notice. Then the complementor will know the opposite of what was said is actually true. Good salesmen and predators are trained or learn to intuit this. How many of you have wondered why you bought something you never intended to after a salesman worked his magic on you?
In that cover-up,... People then try to make themselves "worth-more" rather than "worth -less." Typically those take the forms of compulsion or addictions: gambling, eating, shopping, sex, work, sports, prestige, money, religion, entertainment, and so on. We have a number of poster-Children for some of these in society right now: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer who is anti-crime. The Reverend Ted Haggard of Colorado Springs who is anti-gay, and Donald Trump. How much money do you have to have to be okay and quit calling other people losers? “The Donald” grew up in a family in which his dad called him “The Pest”. His older brother was the golden boy who eventually broke down under his father's expectations, became an alcoholic, and then killed himself. When Donald was in seventh grade his dad sent him away to a military school. It's all about abandonment and not being good enough. When Donald got to be a senior in high school, his dad then saw he was "the chosen one". But emotionally it was too late.... The program was already in. That's why it looks so ridiculous at this point in his life.
Years ago a freelance reporter from the New York Times was interviewing Marilyn Monroe. She knew Marilyn lived in many foster homes and so she asked her if she ever felt loved. "Once." Marilyn replied, "When I was about seven or eight… the woman I was living with was putting on makeup. She reached over and patted my cheeks with her rouge puff. For that moment I felt loved by her." Marilyn had tears in her eyes when she remembered that event. It was such a small act but it was like pouring buckets of love over the parched life of a little girl starved for affection. Why does that story touch our hearts? Why do you think Marilyn Monroe allowed her body to be exploited in her adult life? Was it only about money or was it about something deeper?
What they are really after is: "The Blessing." To be good enough, special enough, lovable enough. When you can't get it from God/parents, then you try to get it some other way. Affiliation is about belonging. Friends generally are the earliest. After that it's girlfriends and boyfriends. Eventually we tried to get our value from our lover, even marrying to ensure it. But after a while your partner knows they're using a bulldozer to fill the Grand Canyon in your soul. It's never quite enough. At this point, stereotypically, males and females tend to split into two groups. Men go get their value out of work, power, prestige, money, sports or hobbies and women tend to get it from their children, prestige, sexuality, or interests. The problem is,… no one can make up for the hole left by their God/parents. It's a lock and key system. And with children it's particularly messed up because the energy is going upstream. The energy is supposed to flow from parent to child. Not the other way around. When parents need their children to love them, they eat the souls of their own children. Parents are supposed to give it to the child so they can launch. Again It's sort of like jumpstarting a car. You use your love to jumpstart the kids and then they get going on their own. Then they come back because of their love and compassion and not because of neediness and starving. Just because one grows older does not mean it will dissipate. Time does not heal this wound. My own sister tried to get my mother’s blessing twice a year until at 61, it finally cost my sister her life because she was never going to get it.
All those things that people do to get it..... Ultimately fail. Look in your own life and notice how many times you were trying to get someone to think you were okay, to just care about you, to just love you. And notice that even though they might have given you some of that, it always was short-lived. And you could become like a drug addict needing another fix, and another, and another. It never quite was enough. And the reason is because the file was closed so long ago. It's not the "you" who needs it at this point. It's the ghost child inside of us, who still lives there, who is stuck,... that needs it.
That's why we looks so juvenile when that part of us gets out and is so desperate. That little, immature, starving, abandoned child. But the doors to that file in your heart got closed and protected. The only one who can open it at this point is something that will trump your earlier view of God. People try to rationalize their way in. That never works because it's not a reasonable issue for any of us as a human. It happened when we were emotional and so it has to be healed emotionally. People use affirmations as an attempt to heal them and although it can help a little, it never really works because rational mind can't access that unreasonable spot in your heart. It is about your soul, your destiny, who I am, what is my purpose in life, all the sacred questions that the blessing was supposed to give you, as truth! Now it can't be fixed.... It has to be healed... Because we are living beings, not mechanical computers.
"To be blessed" means 'to be favored by God'. Blessings therefore are directly associated with God and come from God. Therefore, to express a blessing is like bestowing a wish on someone who she will experience the favor of God. "May you have a blessed Christmas", therefore can also be translated as: "May you experience the favor of God during this Christmas period."
You heard me talk with the kids earlier. Notice the things that they were hurt about or felt bad about. Notice they all have things about themselves which are important and they feel left out or diminished about. Did you hear the things that they thought would make it better for them?
One of the best things this congregation is doing for the children is singing that silly little song as they leave. Go now in peace, go now in peace, may the love of God surround you, everywhere, everywhere, you may go. That is being instilled deep within their minds and will live on in them.
Somewhere later it will pop up and hopefully give them comfort.
When I was a boy, my three brothers and I lived in a 9 x 9 foot room with two bunk beds. When it was time to go to bed, if you can imagine, we tended to talk and giggle. Our dad would come in and spank us with his belt. We went to sleep almost every night crying. When I married Leigh with the four kids, I decided to change that script. I would go in to kiss them goodnight and made a contract with them that anything they said would not be held against them. Most of the time we stuck to it but there would be a few times I would say, “you know there have to be consequences” and they would say, “yeah, I know.” They got to go to sleep comforted from the day’s issues.
A number of years later the kids were all in high school and Leigh and I were working till 10 o'clock at night and getting home about 10:30 p.m. The kids were responsible for getting themselves up in the morning and therefore went to bed at an appropriate time. They started coming into the bedroom after we got home and arranged themselves around our bed talking until we shooed them to their rooms. Leigh is the one who recognized we did not have dinner at the table during the week anymore and that was one of the times everyone got to talk about what was going on in their lives. They still needed that contact.
When the oldest boy was 22 he came back from Kansas City and after finishing out the day we said goodnight and he went downstairs to go to bed. A short while later we heard from the basement, “come kiss me goodnight!” I looked at Leigh and mouthed, “Come kiss me goodnight?” He was at an age that both of us had been parents with careers. Of course what he was wanting was the comfort and security of the blessing again. To reconnect and know… everything was okay.
In the book The Blessing, by Gary Smalley and John Trent, they list Five Elements that were important to blessings that parents give to children.
1. Meaningful Touch
Standing close, putting your hands on the child's head, and perhaps a kiss to seal the event are all tactile. This speaks especially to children whose love language is physical touch. Meaningful touch communicates love and personal acceptance.
2. Spoken Words
Our children need to hear why we believe in them and what we value. Children who get only silence from their parents interpret that to mean they are unworthy of attention, that something's wrong with them. It can set them on a lifelong search for approval.
Say this to the child so they hear it.
May God bless you and watch over you.
May God shine His face toward you and show you favor.
May God shine His face toward you and grant you peace.
3. Word Pictures of High Value
A blessing gives words of affirmation to your child.
Speak about one of your child's specific positive traits. For example, "You bring light and joy with you wherever you go." Or, "You keep your integrity even when others pressure you to cave in." Express your appreciation for his or her potential. This shouldn't be a prediction (e.g., I know you'll be a doctor just like your grandfather). Rather it should reflect awareness that this child is a work in progress, someone developing with mighty potential for good.
4. Picturing a Special Future
Our kids need hope that the future holds a place for them. You can illuminate a path of promise for them based on their true gifts. For example say, "I can see that your gift for music is going to bring the world a lot of joy."
5. A Commitment to Seeing the Blessing Fulfilled
This means you are declaring your intention and willingness to do whatever it takes to fulfill this blessing for your child. You promise to be there to guide, support, coach, and do whatever it takes to help your child achieve a worthy future. You vow to tend to his or her best interests, which you will discover by becoming a student of your child.
A couple of months ago Leigh and I attend a baby naming ceremony and a covenant of Israel for our Jewish friends in Kansas City. One of the most striking things was having the grandparents recite blessings for the child as well as the parents. The rabbi charged the parents with repeating their blessing to their daughter every Friday so she heard it. This is one of the blessings that was said.
“Every person born into this world represents something new, something that never existed before; something original and unique. It is the duty of every person to know and consider that she is unique in her particular character and that there has never been someone like her in the world. Every single person is an individual, a spark of the divine, called upon to fulfill her uniqueness in this world, to make real her greatest potential to be human.”
There are many variations on how the blessing is delivered. Whatever procedure is followed, the blessing is sure to make the child feel special and loved and give the child fond memories. The unconditional love and approval that comes with the blessing is vital to our self-esteem and emotional well-being.
Even if you have adult children, they my still need that spark of blessing. If you know they are still searching, Help them find a way.
• Please Bow your heads
Lord, allow me to go back to that place so deep in my heart where spirituality begins,
Allow me to remember so long ago and get in touch with where all those lonely pains reside,
Help me feel what it was like back then so I can free this child who felt “not good enough” inside me.
Permit me to see my parents were just people trying to do what they thought was helpful.
Help me see that I saw them as just a form of higher power from a Childs point of view.
Allow me now as an adult to see my own higher power in what ever form I can accept and believe in.
Have it be a familiarity to my soul that resonates a truth for me-- deep in my heart.
Let me experience that higher presence actually happening where I can see, hear, and feel---as if I’m actually there.
It might be in a place which I've created,...it might be in a place I've been before that was safe and secure,... It might be in a sacred place,... deep within my mind.
And to that higher power, Allow yourself to ask those questions you have been so afraid of... For so long.
Ask: Is there another person exactly like me in every way? Am I a unique person in this world?
Ask: Am I wanted by you in this universe? Do I belong here?
Ask: Can I be full of wonder and feel “wonder full”?
Ask: Am I lovable? can I both receive and give love?
Now ask another one of the questions you have wanted to know for so long.
Let yourself experience that.
Ask: Am I forgiven?
Experience grace as fully and completely as you can.
Ask: Can I trust-- that you, my higher power, will guide me from now on from this special place?
Know that you can go to this special place from now on and seek help for your life’s issues.
Feel those changes taking place in your body, mind, and spirit.
We ask our higher power that you are with us from now on.
Now take a moment to say anything else you would like and when you are through come back to this sanctuary
Amen
Is God Evil?
Sermon for University Congregational Church
August 27, 2006
by Michael Leary
Our minister died a couple of days before I did this.
Is GOD Evil?
The other night, there was someone who asked me what I was going to talk about today. I said the title of today's sermon, “Is God Evil?” Without hesitating, they replied, "No!”.. “Now what else are you going to say?" For some people it is an easy answer. For others it is puzzling, confusing, and for some, anger producing. How unfair is this.... Dr. Gary Cox, the man, brought all of us a unique view of spirituality. In his incredible short time as a minister, he has effected more positive changes in people's lives than some ministers do in their lifetime. And because of this, some might hear in their minds a nagging question or statement. “How could God do this, to this wonderful man.” “What lesson is God trying to teach here.” “What is this family supposed to learn?” Especially when they were already there. They all are the example that most of us believe is the dedicated Christian life? Not only have we been blessed what we learned from Gary but the whole Cox family too. We got Leigh and her passion for life as well as their three daughters, Cara, Lisa, and Corinne. Each one in the family has brought a learning and the spirit that Gary has wanted this church to have. Back in April of 2002, Gary did a series on battling evil that gives a very good take on what evil is and is not. My concern today is to reinforce in our time of grief, what he said.
Three decades ago a man was having an affair. His wife caught him and he was banished to the attic for punishment. Shortly after that, his child was playing in their driveway on one of those child scooters which swept him into traffic. The child was killed instantly. It shook the man so deeply that he bought into the belief that he had done a deed so heinous that it warranted God taking his child. He became a fundamentalist and now believes in predestination to assuage his guilt.
Back in the early 60s, when I lived out the airbase, there was a woman and her family who befriended me. Her husband worked with my step-dad at the hospital in McConnell Air Force Base. She confided to me one day that she was driving back from Derby to Wichita on K15. She had a flat tire and pulled over to see if anything could be done. Within a few moments her five-year-old climbed out of the car and was hit and killed right in front of her. Her minister said she must have done something terribly wrong for God to have taken her child. She told me she went crazy for a year, digging through her life with a fine toothed comb, looking for what she did that was so bad... that it warranted God taking her child.
After the year of pure hell, she finally decided that it was the minister who was wrong. There could be learning involved but God taking her child for her sin wasn't it.
Two different people,... two different conclusions. If that woman had done something that she considered bad, would she have concluded it was deserved also? Does God orchestrate such things? The Biblical passage today is from Isaiah 45 in the King James Version.
5. I am the Lord, there is no other, beside me... there is no God. I girded Thee, though thou hast not known me.
6. That men may know from the rising of the sun…and from the West,… that there is none... besides me. I am the Lord and there is none other.
7. I form the light and create darkness; I make happiness and I create evil; I the Lord... do all these things.
Wow, seems pretty definitive. Of course technically we can say he creates evil, he isn't evil. So how do we play with that? Of course there are other places in the Bible over and over where it seems like God is doing a set up. If you've dealt with children, how many of you would set something within reach that was tempting? Isn't that what God supposedly did with the Garden of Eden? John Conley talked about this last week some.
How human of them to be curious. But doesn't it sound like a set up? And of course in the mystical sense, it is to allow for us to learn. As we are learning here today.
When Moses saw the burning bush and God told him... He was to ask Pharaoh for three days journey into the wilderness so they can make a sacrifice to God himself. God then goes on to say how it's going to be a problem so he'll help them out with some plagues. And then in Exodus 4:21
And the Lord said unto Moses, when thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all these wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but “I” will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Now, if you can just imagine yourself as Moses…and this is what the boss just gave you instructions to do. Go ask for a bunch of stuff, but I'm going to make it so he tells you nope, it isn't going to happen. Doesn't this sound like a set up? I mean, can you see Moses just thinking, why don't we cut out the middleman here. And of course one of the great questions is... did Pharaoh even have a choice then?
So what is it? There is story after story like this in the Bible. Is it any wonder the fundamentalist believe it's all predestined. That there really isn't any choice... which takes it out of your hands completely and sets it up to be orchestrated by God. We just go from one moment to the next following a preprogrammed system. You're either in or you're out. Of course it also bumps up against... do you deserve it or not? Other people, much smarter than I, have wrestled with that for centuries. This congregation was just confronted with it... in the worst possible way.
How does the will of God operate? Is it God's will that negatives come into one's life? Did God let it happen?
And If God has a "hands-off" policy,... then... are we on our own... to decide our fate?
What are we going to do,... when we realize it? We can... decide to be better... even unconsciously.
The night after the Reverend William Sloane Coffins' son died, he said he was sitting in the living room of his sister's house outside of Boston, when the front door opened and in came a nice-looking, middle-aged woman, carrying about 18 quiches. He writes,… When she saw me,... she shook her head, then headed for the kitchen, saying sadly over her shoulder, "I just don't understand the will of God." Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her." I'll say you don't, Lady!" For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get through their heads that God doesn't go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels. The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is," it is the will of God. Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that my son Alex die;... that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart... was the first of all our hearts to break.
Wow, what a wonderful statement. God's heart... was the first of all our hearts to break. And I love looking at it that way. I have to believe God's heart was the first to break when Gary was diagnosed with incurable cancer.
But how do we square that up with what we see as evil. Is it a form of sin? Is it evil if it's unintentional? We read about a mother that was loaded on methamphetamine and while passed out let her baby died. Is what she did evil? Are the drugs the evil? What about her life situation being where she was in so much pain she was using the drugs to try to get some semblance of OKness in her life. Is her situation different then the mother that wanted to date some guy and put her children in a car and drown them all. And is that part of God? Sin, is generally seen as a separation from God. That is: When God is not an awareness in your life, and you are estranged, you lose perspective in the spirituality of all things, including yourself.
The Hindus have a process that most of we Westerners are aware of as yoga.
What yoga means is, “a union with God.” In their system, everyone is doing yoga whether they know it or not. They have names for every behavior that humans might do.
Most people are familiar with Hatha yoga. It is enlightenment through physical exercises.
Juana yoga is enlightenment through knowledge.
Raja yoga of is enlightenment through right thought / deed /or action.
Tantric yoga is enlightenment through sex.
Prana yoga is enlightenment through breathing.
Mantra yoga is enlightenment through chanting.
Gary was doing Bhakti yoga, that is enlightenment through devotion.
What the Hindus are amazed at,... is,... we Westerners seem to prefer… Karma yoga.
That is,.. enlightenment through punishment. Sometimes this is also translated as, “your own doing.”
That is… you set yourself up for your own problems to go through.
So… in their system, everybody's on the journey no matter what.
There's another old saying, “God doesn't give you more then you can deal with.”
Well, that came from a nun. I've been to the death camps in Europe, I've had patients who have died from their misery. And we know about children who have had horrific lives, I've seen suffering that killed people, so I don't buy that platitude. That is romanticizing God. I don't believe God works that way. God is supposed to be an inclusive concept. You want to belong to and experience God as part of you.
So how about the Taoists view.
They start out with God is everything. To symbolize that, they draw up the eternal circle. But immediately you have something and nothing. So the universe splits in two. To symbolize that, they make one side white and one black. Because the universe is not static, they show it as the two fishes which are commonly known as the yen yang. The thing is you can't have an absolute with just one side, so they draw it where at its absolute peak it gets contaminated with the other. So in the two dimensional symbol the fish gets an eye of the contrasting color. If it were three-dimensional you would see it undulating and turning. This is a symbol of God. Trying to show God in action. From there we identify the polarities:
White - Black
Right - Wrong
Good - Bad
Out - In
Hard - Soft
Heaven - Hell
Jesus - Satan
Men - Women
Hmm-m-m . Some of you maybe having a reaction with that. That's a common mistake in which people can think there is some kind of relationship with these words vertically in the list. This is a real advantage for men. Especially white men that are seen as good and right with Jesus on their side. It's an easy trap to fall into that has nothing to do with reality. This is simply a model to try and explain a phenomena that men tend to draw up in their favor. You can understand it without making that mistake.
I'm a movie buff. Often I find as much food for thought in this form of entertainment as I do wrestling with scholarly works. But there is a great passage from George Burns in the movie, “Oh God, part two.” That clarifies the duelist perspective.
This scene takes place when Tracy, the little girl, has run away. They are in the train station in God is taking her back to her house.
God says:
running away is never the answer.
Well, can I ask you a question?
Go ahead.
Why do you let bad things happen?
You ask very good questions.... you know Tracy, things that you might think are bad, are not always bad. Sometimes there is a purpose you're not aware of.
What about sickness? What about kids my age who get sick and die? Those are really bad things aren't they?
Those are bad things. Yes, pain and suffering, that's a hard one to explain.
I'll bet.
I know this sounds like a copout, but there is really nothing I can do about pain and suffering. It's built into the system.
Which you invented.
Right, but my problem was, I could never figure out how to make anything with just one side to it.
One side?
So, you ever see a front without a back?
No.
A top without a bottom?
No.
An up without a down?
No.
OK, and there can't be a good without a bad, life without death, pleasure without pain.
That's how it is. If I take the sad away, happy has to go with it. If anyone knows another way, I wish they'd put it in the suggestion box.
We are moving toward some idea that... evil is a label that is part of the process you decide about…. And your curiosity as to how to resolve it is working inside of you.
Again quoting the Reverend William Sloane Coffin:
If you love the good,... you have to hate evil... or your sentimental.
If you hate evil MORE than you love the good... you become a damn good hater.
In the movie Contact, the alien says to the Jodie Foster character: "You are an interesting species.
An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.
You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not.
You see, in all our searching, the only thing that seems to make the emptiness bearable, is each other.
In the movie, Starman. Jeff Bridges is the alien. He says towards the end of the movie:
You are a strange species. Intelligent but Savage. The strong are not supposed to victimize the helpless.
There are things that are Beautiful about you. You are at your very best when things are at their worst.
A year ago yesterday my oldest daughter died of breast cancer. At the funeral, my ex-wife asked me and Leigh along with my stepson to leave. This, after all the grief she had already given us in our lives. I was incensed at this terrible injustice but complied given the circumstances. Gary took his precious time to console me and help me hang on to my faith and beliefs when all I wanted to do was be rageful. He didn't do it by talking a lot. He did it by allowing me to see he embodied the spirit of Christ. From my work as a therapist I know that when people touch their mortality, it often shakes them to their foundation and makes them question their value and purpose in life. I asked Gary how his mortality impacting him. He said it had no effect because his faith was embedded in him already. As Gary like to say, he had a high Christology. Love everyone, Judge no one! It was a part of his being and we were all privileged to see it in him and can use him as a model for us.
Now, this church is in pain. We all are suffering with a huge hole in our spirit.
How do you console yourself when you experience the unfairness and uncertainty of life?
Our faith should make it possible to live in a world with uncertainty.
Back in the 70s, I read a story about a woman in Lebanon when the Shi'ites were shelling it. She took her two little girls, three and five, down to a bomb shelter for protection. As the Muslims were walking the mortars in, the little three-year-old pleaded with her mother, "Mommy, Mommy, pray to Jesus to take the bombs away." The mother, even in her heightened sense of anxiety, knew this was one of those ontological traps. She was trying to figure out the answer,... when her five-year-old popped up with, "Silly, you don't pray to Jesus to take the bombs away, you pray to Jesus to take the fraid away."
Again, William Sloane Coffin:… God gives all of us…minimum protection... maximum support.
Robert Browning Hamilton wrote:
I walked a mile with pleasure
she chattered all the way
but left me none the wiser
for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow
and Ne'er a word said she;
but the things I learned from her
but oh, the things I learned from her.
When sorrow walked with me.
How then, can we, who use Jesus as a model for decency, use him to help us with our fears, and with our pain?
Would you please bow your heads.
imagine yourself being someplace that's beautiful and peaceful for you.
Find yourself just relaxing and feeling very calm… and peaceful there.
Find yourself experiencing as fully and completely as you can… that peaceful environment.
And notice that you are curious about how quickly you are able to… relax and get comfortable.
You might imagine that you can float. That you have become so light that you can just float gently away. Or you might find yourself getting comfortable by getting deeper into your thoughts.
From there, allow yourself to go to a sacred place and find what may be your God,... or may be your Jesus,... or may be your higher power,... or maybe even an important… family member.
And as you come into their presence you can notice how much calmer and peaceful you get.
Allow yourself to interact with them in a way that is soothing and comforting to you.
From deep inside, ask yours how to... heal yourself.
How to... balance yourself and feel whole.
Allow yourself to experience their spiritual presence in a way… that is helpful for you.
allow that connection to help you let go of those negative feelings... and experience truth… in your heart.
That the part of us that it is
grief and sadness,… can transcend... to empathy and comfort.
That fear and avoidance,…. can transcend... to courage and loyalty.
That anger and injustice,… can transcend ... to forgiveness and grace.
That judgment and disgust,… can transcend ... to compassion and kindness.
That control and rigidity,… can transcend ... to having faith and trusting.
That closed mindedness and cynicism,… can transcend... to wonder and beauty.
That possessiveness and stinginess,… can transcend... to joy and contentment.
That selfish and jealous from being alone,… can transcend… to love and belonging.
Now, thank that part of you for helping you discover what you needed today.... And know that you can
contact them this way from now on if you choose to do so.
Allow yourself to take all that you've considered here today and use it to guide you in your quest for your spiritual growth. Allow the love and family within this church to feed and nurture you. Allow our collective grief to comfort you and remind you that you are not alone in your experience.
As we conclude this service, allow your personal spiritual guide to be with you and give you guidance and bring you joy throughout the rest of this day… experience the beauty and energy that surrounds you. ..
Allow that part to continue to help you in a conscious way… as well as an unconscious way.
take as long as you need before coming back… and then open your eyes.
Amen
August 27, 2006
by Michael Leary
Our minister died a couple of days before I did this.
Is GOD Evil?
The other night, there was someone who asked me what I was going to talk about today. I said the title of today's sermon, “Is God Evil?” Without hesitating, they replied, "No!”.. “Now what else are you going to say?" For some people it is an easy answer. For others it is puzzling, confusing, and for some, anger producing. How unfair is this.... Dr. Gary Cox, the man, brought all of us a unique view of spirituality. In his incredible short time as a minister, he has effected more positive changes in people's lives than some ministers do in their lifetime. And because of this, some might hear in their minds a nagging question or statement. “How could God do this, to this wonderful man.” “What lesson is God trying to teach here.” “What is this family supposed to learn?” Especially when they were already there. They all are the example that most of us believe is the dedicated Christian life? Not only have we been blessed what we learned from Gary but the whole Cox family too. We got Leigh and her passion for life as well as their three daughters, Cara, Lisa, and Corinne. Each one in the family has brought a learning and the spirit that Gary has wanted this church to have. Back in April of 2002, Gary did a series on battling evil that gives a very good take on what evil is and is not. My concern today is to reinforce in our time of grief, what he said.
Three decades ago a man was having an affair. His wife caught him and he was banished to the attic for punishment. Shortly after that, his child was playing in their driveway on one of those child scooters which swept him into traffic. The child was killed instantly. It shook the man so deeply that he bought into the belief that he had done a deed so heinous that it warranted God taking his child. He became a fundamentalist and now believes in predestination to assuage his guilt.
Back in the early 60s, when I lived out the airbase, there was a woman and her family who befriended me. Her husband worked with my step-dad at the hospital in McConnell Air Force Base. She confided to me one day that she was driving back from Derby to Wichita on K15. She had a flat tire and pulled over to see if anything could be done. Within a few moments her five-year-old climbed out of the car and was hit and killed right in front of her. Her minister said she must have done something terribly wrong for God to have taken her child. She told me she went crazy for a year, digging through her life with a fine toothed comb, looking for what she did that was so bad... that it warranted God taking her child.
After the year of pure hell, she finally decided that it was the minister who was wrong. There could be learning involved but God taking her child for her sin wasn't it.
Two different people,... two different conclusions. If that woman had done something that she considered bad, would she have concluded it was deserved also? Does God orchestrate such things? The Biblical passage today is from Isaiah 45 in the King James Version.
5. I am the Lord, there is no other, beside me... there is no God. I girded Thee, though thou hast not known me.
6. That men may know from the rising of the sun…and from the West,… that there is none... besides me. I am the Lord and there is none other.
7. I form the light and create darkness; I make happiness and I create evil; I the Lord... do all these things.
Wow, seems pretty definitive. Of course technically we can say he creates evil, he isn't evil. So how do we play with that? Of course there are other places in the Bible over and over where it seems like God is doing a set up. If you've dealt with children, how many of you would set something within reach that was tempting? Isn't that what God supposedly did with the Garden of Eden? John Conley talked about this last week some.
How human of them to be curious. But doesn't it sound like a set up? And of course in the mystical sense, it is to allow for us to learn. As we are learning here today.
When Moses saw the burning bush and God told him... He was to ask Pharaoh for three days journey into the wilderness so they can make a sacrifice to God himself. God then goes on to say how it's going to be a problem so he'll help them out with some plagues. And then in Exodus 4:21
And the Lord said unto Moses, when thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all these wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but “I” will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Now, if you can just imagine yourself as Moses…and this is what the boss just gave you instructions to do. Go ask for a bunch of stuff, but I'm going to make it so he tells you nope, it isn't going to happen. Doesn't this sound like a set up? I mean, can you see Moses just thinking, why don't we cut out the middleman here. And of course one of the great questions is... did Pharaoh even have a choice then?
So what is it? There is story after story like this in the Bible. Is it any wonder the fundamentalist believe it's all predestined. That there really isn't any choice... which takes it out of your hands completely and sets it up to be orchestrated by God. We just go from one moment to the next following a preprogrammed system. You're either in or you're out. Of course it also bumps up against... do you deserve it or not? Other people, much smarter than I, have wrestled with that for centuries. This congregation was just confronted with it... in the worst possible way.
How does the will of God operate? Is it God's will that negatives come into one's life? Did God let it happen?
And If God has a "hands-off" policy,... then... are we on our own... to decide our fate?
What are we going to do,... when we realize it? We can... decide to be better... even unconsciously.
The night after the Reverend William Sloane Coffins' son died, he said he was sitting in the living room of his sister's house outside of Boston, when the front door opened and in came a nice-looking, middle-aged woman, carrying about 18 quiches. He writes,… When she saw me,... she shook her head, then headed for the kitchen, saying sadly over her shoulder, "I just don't understand the will of God." Instantly I was up and in hot pursuit, swarming all over her." I'll say you don't, Lady!" For some reason, nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get through their heads that God doesn't go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fist around knives, his hands on steering wheels. The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is," it is the will of God. Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that my son Alex die;... that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart... was the first of all our hearts to break.
Wow, what a wonderful statement. God's heart... was the first of all our hearts to break. And I love looking at it that way. I have to believe God's heart was the first to break when Gary was diagnosed with incurable cancer.
But how do we square that up with what we see as evil. Is it a form of sin? Is it evil if it's unintentional? We read about a mother that was loaded on methamphetamine and while passed out let her baby died. Is what she did evil? Are the drugs the evil? What about her life situation being where she was in so much pain she was using the drugs to try to get some semblance of OKness in her life. Is her situation different then the mother that wanted to date some guy and put her children in a car and drown them all. And is that part of God? Sin, is generally seen as a separation from God. That is: When God is not an awareness in your life, and you are estranged, you lose perspective in the spirituality of all things, including yourself.
The Hindus have a process that most of we Westerners are aware of as yoga.
What yoga means is, “a union with God.” In their system, everyone is doing yoga whether they know it or not. They have names for every behavior that humans might do.
Most people are familiar with Hatha yoga. It is enlightenment through physical exercises.
Juana yoga is enlightenment through knowledge.
Raja yoga of is enlightenment through right thought / deed /or action.
Tantric yoga is enlightenment through sex.
Prana yoga is enlightenment through breathing.
Mantra yoga is enlightenment through chanting.
Gary was doing Bhakti yoga, that is enlightenment through devotion.
What the Hindus are amazed at,... is,... we Westerners seem to prefer… Karma yoga.
That is,.. enlightenment through punishment. Sometimes this is also translated as, “your own doing.”
That is… you set yourself up for your own problems to go through.
So… in their system, everybody's on the journey no matter what.
There's another old saying, “God doesn't give you more then you can deal with.”
Well, that came from a nun. I've been to the death camps in Europe, I've had patients who have died from their misery. And we know about children who have had horrific lives, I've seen suffering that killed people, so I don't buy that platitude. That is romanticizing God. I don't believe God works that way. God is supposed to be an inclusive concept. You want to belong to and experience God as part of you.
So how about the Taoists view.
They start out with God is everything. To symbolize that, they draw up the eternal circle. But immediately you have something and nothing. So the universe splits in two. To symbolize that, they make one side white and one black. Because the universe is not static, they show it as the two fishes which are commonly known as the yen yang. The thing is you can't have an absolute with just one side, so they draw it where at its absolute peak it gets contaminated with the other. So in the two dimensional symbol the fish gets an eye of the contrasting color. If it were three-dimensional you would see it undulating and turning. This is a symbol of God. Trying to show God in action. From there we identify the polarities:
White - Black
Right - Wrong
Good - Bad
Out - In
Hard - Soft
Heaven - Hell
Jesus - Satan
Men - Women
Hmm-m-m . Some of you maybe having a reaction with that. That's a common mistake in which people can think there is some kind of relationship with these words vertically in the list. This is a real advantage for men. Especially white men that are seen as good and right with Jesus on their side. It's an easy trap to fall into that has nothing to do with reality. This is simply a model to try and explain a phenomena that men tend to draw up in their favor. You can understand it without making that mistake.
I'm a movie buff. Often I find as much food for thought in this form of entertainment as I do wrestling with scholarly works. But there is a great passage from George Burns in the movie, “Oh God, part two.” That clarifies the duelist perspective.
This scene takes place when Tracy, the little girl, has run away. They are in the train station in God is taking her back to her house.
God says:
running away is never the answer.
Well, can I ask you a question?
Go ahead.
Why do you let bad things happen?
You ask very good questions.... you know Tracy, things that you might think are bad, are not always bad. Sometimes there is a purpose you're not aware of.
What about sickness? What about kids my age who get sick and die? Those are really bad things aren't they?
Those are bad things. Yes, pain and suffering, that's a hard one to explain.
I'll bet.
I know this sounds like a copout, but there is really nothing I can do about pain and suffering. It's built into the system.
Which you invented.
Right, but my problem was, I could never figure out how to make anything with just one side to it.
One side?
So, you ever see a front without a back?
No.
A top without a bottom?
No.
An up without a down?
No.
OK, and there can't be a good without a bad, life without death, pleasure without pain.
That's how it is. If I take the sad away, happy has to go with it. If anyone knows another way, I wish they'd put it in the suggestion box.
We are moving toward some idea that... evil is a label that is part of the process you decide about…. And your curiosity as to how to resolve it is working inside of you.
Again quoting the Reverend William Sloane Coffin:
If you love the good,... you have to hate evil... or your sentimental.
If you hate evil MORE than you love the good... you become a damn good hater.
In the movie Contact, the alien says to the Jodie Foster character: "You are an interesting species.
An interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.
You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you're not.
You see, in all our searching, the only thing that seems to make the emptiness bearable, is each other.
In the movie, Starman. Jeff Bridges is the alien. He says towards the end of the movie:
You are a strange species. Intelligent but Savage. The strong are not supposed to victimize the helpless.
There are things that are Beautiful about you. You are at your very best when things are at their worst.
A year ago yesterday my oldest daughter died of breast cancer. At the funeral, my ex-wife asked me and Leigh along with my stepson to leave. This, after all the grief she had already given us in our lives. I was incensed at this terrible injustice but complied given the circumstances. Gary took his precious time to console me and help me hang on to my faith and beliefs when all I wanted to do was be rageful. He didn't do it by talking a lot. He did it by allowing me to see he embodied the spirit of Christ. From my work as a therapist I know that when people touch their mortality, it often shakes them to their foundation and makes them question their value and purpose in life. I asked Gary how his mortality impacting him. He said it had no effect because his faith was embedded in him already. As Gary like to say, he had a high Christology. Love everyone, Judge no one! It was a part of his being and we were all privileged to see it in him and can use him as a model for us.
Now, this church is in pain. We all are suffering with a huge hole in our spirit.
How do you console yourself when you experience the unfairness and uncertainty of life?
Our faith should make it possible to live in a world with uncertainty.
Back in the 70s, I read a story about a woman in Lebanon when the Shi'ites were shelling it. She took her two little girls, three and five, down to a bomb shelter for protection. As the Muslims were walking the mortars in, the little three-year-old pleaded with her mother, "Mommy, Mommy, pray to Jesus to take the bombs away." The mother, even in her heightened sense of anxiety, knew this was one of those ontological traps. She was trying to figure out the answer,... when her five-year-old popped up with, "Silly, you don't pray to Jesus to take the bombs away, you pray to Jesus to take the fraid away."
Again, William Sloane Coffin:… God gives all of us…minimum protection... maximum support.
Robert Browning Hamilton wrote:
I walked a mile with pleasure
she chattered all the way
but left me none the wiser
for all she had to say.
I walked a mile with sorrow
and Ne'er a word said she;
but the things I learned from her
but oh, the things I learned from her.
When sorrow walked with me.
How then, can we, who use Jesus as a model for decency, use him to help us with our fears, and with our pain?
Would you please bow your heads.
imagine yourself being someplace that's beautiful and peaceful for you.
Find yourself just relaxing and feeling very calm… and peaceful there.
Find yourself experiencing as fully and completely as you can… that peaceful environment.
And notice that you are curious about how quickly you are able to… relax and get comfortable.
You might imagine that you can float. That you have become so light that you can just float gently away. Or you might find yourself getting comfortable by getting deeper into your thoughts.
From there, allow yourself to go to a sacred place and find what may be your God,... or may be your Jesus,... or may be your higher power,... or maybe even an important… family member.
And as you come into their presence you can notice how much calmer and peaceful you get.
Allow yourself to interact with them in a way that is soothing and comforting to you.
From deep inside, ask yours how to... heal yourself.
How to... balance yourself and feel whole.
Allow yourself to experience their spiritual presence in a way… that is helpful for you.
allow that connection to help you let go of those negative feelings... and experience truth… in your heart.
That the part of us that it is
grief and sadness,… can transcend... to empathy and comfort.
That fear and avoidance,…. can transcend... to courage and loyalty.
That anger and injustice,… can transcend ... to forgiveness and grace.
That judgment and disgust,… can transcend ... to compassion and kindness.
That control and rigidity,… can transcend ... to having faith and trusting.
That closed mindedness and cynicism,… can transcend... to wonder and beauty.
That possessiveness and stinginess,… can transcend... to joy and contentment.
That selfish and jealous from being alone,… can transcend… to love and belonging.
Now, thank that part of you for helping you discover what you needed today.... And know that you can
contact them this way from now on if you choose to do so.
Allow yourself to take all that you've considered here today and use it to guide you in your quest for your spiritual growth. Allow the love and family within this church to feed and nurture you. Allow our collective grief to comfort you and remind you that you are not alone in your experience.
As we conclude this service, allow your personal spiritual guide to be with you and give you guidance and bring you joy throughout the rest of this day… experience the beauty and energy that surrounds you. ..
Allow that part to continue to help you in a conscious way… as well as an unconscious way.
take as long as you need before coming back… and then open your eyes.
Amen
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