Sunday Sermons
LAKE CHARLES COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN
   
The Lake Charles Community Church of the Brethren is a
non-creedal, open and affirming church with only three beliefs
that we hold dear:
· Unconditional love
· No force in religion
· Continuing revelation
Services are on Sunday at 10:30 am. Lunch in the fellowship hall
follow services. Bring a covered dish and join us for good food
and good company!
There is an A Course in Miracles discussion group every
Sunday from 12:30 to 3:00. This group is open and everyone is
welcome.
Comments are welcome, please log in.
ARCHIVE SUMMARY
View by Date
Sun May 17, 2009
Defensiveness is War
Defensiveness is War
I’ve been reading a lot of Byron Katie recently, and have found much of what she says to be really helpful. Something that really helped me was hearing her be completely defenseless. She says something like, “So you think I am too emotional. Maybe you are right. Let me sit with that awhile.” This is peace. What might she have said instead? She might have denied it. “What do you mean I am too emotional? That’s ridiculous. I am nothing like that.” That is war.
I have been in both places, but most often, I have been to war. I can remember being defensive even when I knew my accuser was right. What drives me to defend myself at all cost? Katie says that I do this because I believe my thoughts. I have thoughts which I have not examined, have not questioned, but have simply accepted as truth.
Someone says, “Myron, you are too emotional.” I have a thought that says I have been attacked by this person. I must defend myself. Instead of questioning whether this thought is true, I simply accept it as gospel and set up my defenses. There is another choice, though. Using The Work, I would consider the thought I am being attacked by this person, and ask myself if that is true. Can I absolutely know this is true?
I will have to say no right off because I can see that this might not be his intent at all. Maybe he is trying to help me. Maybe he is projecting his own stuff on me and so cannot see me at all. Actually, I could delete the maybe because I know this is true. That doesn’t mean he is not right.
Now here is a thought. Maybe I don’t understand the nature of attack in this case. Maybe he means to attack me for whatever reason, but choosing to see it as attack is my choice. Perhaps I could see it as a chance to go within to examine my thinking and my motives. In this case, however he might have meant the remark, for me it is not an attack but a gift.
So, no, I cannot know for a certainty that he has attacked me. Katie would then encourage me to notice how this lie affects me when I hold onto it. I put myself back into that place where I heard him say that I am too emotional and I decided he was attacking me. I notice my feelings, my body, my reactions. I see that I tense up, I become agitated and I defend myself through attack.
The way I defend myself is to make him wrong so I can be right. He becomes the guilty one so that I can preserve the illusion of my innocence. I cannot defend myself without attacking him. Even if I make my words pretty and spiritual, it is still an attack, perhaps a veiled attack, but still an attack. Maybe I could try to fool myself and him by saying, “Honey, I know you mean well, but this simply is not true.” Take the pretty words, and gentle delivery away, and what do I have? “You are wrong and I am right.”
If I want to protect my illusory innocence I will have to justify my response by reminding myself that he threw down the gauntlet. He fired off the first round so he is at fault. I am just doing my best not to be taken out by his unwarranted attack. Now I have to gather some ammunition so I can return fire. I have to think of all his faults, all the times he has been wrong and gather them close to me because I will be needing them. I also need to reinforce my embattlements so that he cannot pierce my heart again with his unkind words. All meaningful communication has ceased because we are both busy preparing for war.
And what am I protecting? A lie. An unexamined theory as Katie would say. I listened to the thinking mind, the ego mind, and I believed the thought that he is attacking me. There is more at stake here than simply arguing who is right. There is an underlying idea behind this state of war. To argue who is right it is necessary that I see us as separate. He is over there and I am over here. He has an agenda that is different from my agenda.
God created us whole, one, undivided and forever a part of each other. In a moment of senseless defense I have taught myself that I am divided, separate, weak and vulnerable. And what I teach myself I teach my brother. Wherever we go, we go together. We remain in hell… together, or we go to heaven… together.
In Lesson 135 in A Course in Miracles, it says, “For no one walks the world in armature but must be afraid.” It goes on to say, “Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made. You think it offers safety. Yet it speaks of fear made real and terror justified.” As I defend myself I teach myself that I am one in need of defense, that I have reason to be afraid.
Then Katie would have me put myself in that place again and examine how I would feel if I let go of my story. How would it feel to hear him say that I am too emotional if I did not have the thought in my mind that he was attacking me? I could answer that by saying I would be free, and interested, and curious.
I might even be grateful that he cared enough to chance being attacked. I might feel compassion for him if he was projecting his own stuff because I know how that feels. I could be so open to possibilities. I feel excited just thinking about it. I feel grateful for this gift.
I have experienced not being willing to let my story go. It feels like I can’t. The story isn’t true. It hurts me and yet I cannot bring myself to even imagine what it feels like without the story. That kind of resistance is painful. My saving grace is that I know I am not alone. I go within and ask my Holy Spirit for help. I give whatever willingness I have to this and then I don’t worry about it. I know that if I ask it will be given.
Katie has what she calls the turnaround and this is especially helpful when I am resisting. I had said that that he attacked me and I turn it around to say that he did not attack me. I have seen already where this is at least as true as my original thought. I saw that maybe he was only trying to help me. I saw that maybe he didn’t mean it the way I heard it. I saw that maybe he was only talking to himself, whatever he believed he was doing.
Another turnaround is that I attacked him and I know this is equally true. When I saw him wrong it was an attack. When I blamed him it was an attack. When I wanted him to change it was an attack. I was as good as saying that it is not ok that he be what he is. This is an attack.
Katie says that all our suffering comes not from what is happening to us by from what we think about what is happening to us. I was reading NTI, The Holy Spirit’s Interpretation of the New Testament, and in Luke 13 the Holy Spirit says, “It is your thoughts that have made you suffer. And so, if you would choose freedom, you must also choose freedom from your thoughts.” A Course in Miracles says, “The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see.”
I am not slave to my thoughts, and though they come and go seemingly without my control, I do have a choice as to whether I believe them or not. I have thoughts that are true. Those are the thoughts I think with God. But I also have many thoughts that are not true. Those are the thoughts I think with the ego. They are defensive thoughts because that is the ego’s job. It represents a false system of thought and so must always defend itself. But I am not the ego and so I do not have to believe what it tells me.
The next time I feel attacked by someone’s words I can believe that thought and suffer. Or I can choose not to believe in attack, and simply listen with a child’s open curiosity and consider the possibilities that acceptance opens for me. Perhaps someone reading this will not agree with me and will tell me that I am wrong. And perhaps I will be willing to lay aside my armament and instead go inside to question if they might be right. In so doing, maybe I will become aware of a deeper meaning or a truer way to see.
The difference between holding onto the story and letting it go is the difference between suffering and joy, between war and peace. It is my choice which I experience. I am free to open my mind and loose it from all thoughts that are not the truth. Then my mind will hold only what I think with God.
[0] comments (514 views) |
[0] Trackbacks
[0] Pingbacks
Sun May 03, 2009
I am Essential to the Plan for the Salvation of the World
I stay busy doing my spiritual work just as do you. It is the way I remain faithful to my purpose and the way I achieve my purpose. Sometimes the form of the work varies. The most important work I have ever done has been the lessons from the workbook for A Course in Miracles. This is a mind changing, life altering experience. It has been enhanced since by using the Illumination Journal by Revs Paul and Deb Phelps. Journaling with the Holy Spirit through these lessons has enriched my experience in ways I cannot explain.
I love using the courses from Pathways of Light to inspire and guide me as I do this work. I have found Dan Joseph’s three step process to be invaluable in my work. Everything I do is based on his steps of honestly acknowledging my dark thoughts and feelings, then offering that darkness to God and become willing to release it. And finally, having cleared a space, I now open to a new inner experience of comfort and love. Steady and consistent use of this process has helped me to see things differently.
I have found some of Regina Dawn Aker’s practices to be especially helpful to me. She has taught me to notice that while I have many thoughts, I do not have to believe them. She has also taught me not to be attached to the “I” thought, to be fully surrendered so that the truth of God can be made manifest through me. I practice this by noticing those ideas that I seem to attach to and remembering that I am not that.
Lately I have been using Byron Katie’s, The Work which is helping me to break the cycle of believing my thoughts by questioning them. She calls this inquiry and she makes it very simple through her process. Katie asks that I consider my beliefs honestly and without sugar coating them. She asks that I let the ego run wild and express itself fully. Then she suggests that I question if that is true. Is it really true?
Using her process I then ask myself how I react when I believe that thought, and then I follow that question with one which wants to know who I would be without that thought. Once I have answered these questions, I turn it around, and the see the opposite as true. I then give myself three genuine specific examples of how it is as true, or truer, than my original statement.
All of these processes and many more have helped me so much. This is my life. This is what I do, and have been doing for a very long time. It takes motivation to stick to this kind of effort. It is easy to read about it and think you understand, but that does not change you. It is only the practice of it that creates change. It is easy to practice it for awhile, but it has been my experience that choosing God over ego requires constant vigilance. It is a moment to moment endeavor. What is my motivation?
When I first began this spiritual path, or should I say when I first realized I was on a spiritual path, my motivation was to create a better life. I didn’t like my stories and I wanted new ones. I was unhappy and wanted to change my world so I would be happy. I wanted what is to look like something else thinking that would make me happy. God said, “Ok, let’s start there.” He loves me so much. Wherever I am, there He is.
Then I began to realize that there was a lot more to this than fixing my life. As the Course says in many places, “I am the means God as appointed for the salvation of the world.” How is that for motivation? The salvation of the world depends on me. How could that be?
The ego mind finds that thought to be a fearful thought. It says that probably it was the same thought Jesus had right before they crucified him. It seems to suggest sacrifice and the ego can get really whiny about this. “I have little enough, and now I’m supposed to give it up? I can’t save myself, how am I supposed to save myself?” And of course, the ever favorite, “Why me?”
Jesus knew this would be the ego reaction and he answered it before we even got around to asking. He assures us that crucifixion was his method of teaching and need never be repeated. He tells us over and over in the Course that God does not want our sacrifice. One objection, at least, is true. I cannot save myself. But I am not alone. I am surrounded by enlightened help.
In Lesson 153, Jesus tells us, “We rise up strong in Christ and let our weakness disappear, as we remember that His strength abides in us. We will remind ourselves that He remains beside us through the day, and never leaves our weakness unsupported by His strength.” He also says, “Be not afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that you will reach your final goal.” Thank you, God. Thank you, God!
I was trying to remove the flooring in my room and realized I could not do this alone. I stood looking at it wondering how the job was going to get done. Then once the flooring was up, I still had to figure out how water collected under it. It seems impossible as I follow the water line and realize it does not go into my bedroom and yet, there is water pooling under the flooring. And I still didn’t know how to get the flooring up.
I began to feel helpless and victimized, when I remembered the Work. I looked at that thought, “I am helpless and victimized by this circumstance.” Is that true? Well it seems to be true. Can I absolutely know it is true? Well, no, not absolutely. It might not be true.
How do I react when I believe that thought? I feel afraid. I feel like crying. I feel embarrassed. I feel anxious.
Who would I be without the thought that I was a helpless victim? I would be a person with a problem to be solved. I would be free to solve the problem with a sense of anticipation as I watched the solution come into my mind.
I turn the thought around. I am not a victim. I am not helpless. I am not a helpless victim because there are solutions to my problem and if I can’t find those solutions I can ask for help. There, that is two examples right there. I am not a helpless victim because I have solved many problems.
That was how I did The Work on this particular problem. I stopped the cycle of ego thinking, and ego story telling by questioning the legitimacy of that thought. If I had not done this I would soon have had many ego stories to support my belief in victimhood and helplessness. It would only take me a moment to come up with half a dozen of them.
Instead I used my practice to bypass the ego and to reinforce the truth that I don’t have to believe my thoughts. I still have to get the flooring up, but now I can do it in joy. I look forward to seeing how I solve this problem rather than dreading the anxiety and fear it could have generated had I chosen to believe the lie that I am a helpless victim.
So how does this tie in with my job of saving the world? How could this possibly have anything to do with the salvation of the world? Nothing I experience in this world is real or means anything, not the floor or the leak or the solution. But as I remember my purpose, which is to save the world, I can use this event to heal my mind. As my mind is healed, the Sonship is healed, because my mind is part of the whole Mind of the Sonship.
Let me take this even further. Lesson 115 says, “I am essential to the plan for the salvation of the world.” It does not say I have a little part or even a big part. It says I am essential. I looked up the word essential. It means, of the utmost importance, basic, indispensible, and necessary. That’s me. I am essential to the plan for the salvation of the world. That’s you. You are essential to the plan for the salvation of the world!
Not obsessing over my floor and not feeling victimized and helpless kept me from having a bad day. I was happy all day long with my destroyed floor and no plan of action. That is a miracle all by itself, but it is nothing compared to the real miracle. Because I chose not to believe that thought I saved the world. The world may not look any different to you, but it was essential that I chose not to believe that ego lie.
If I held onto that thought and believed it the world would still be held hostage by the ego belief in separation. It was essential that I let it be healed. It was essential that I forgive the idea of victimization and helplessness because these things are not part of the Son of God. If I hold onto a lie, I cannot hold onto the truth. If I do not hold the truth in the mind of the Son, it is not held. It is in this that my part is essential, as is yours.
This is what I am finally learning about this spiritual work. It is not about making a better life. It is not about me at all. It is not personal. It is about the healing of the Sonship. These are not my thoughts, this is not my body, this is not my life. I don’t need to wake up. I don’t exist. My identity as I experience it in the world is tied to an illusion. It is an illusion.
But I do exist outside that illusion and I want to wake up to that Self which is real. And so I use the ego body and the ego stories and the ego thoughts to awaken the sleeping mind of the Son. This awakening has nothing to do with Myron but that’s ok; I don’t have anything to do with Myron either, other than to use her story as a symbol for the separation belief, and to use her story as a tool to awaken from that belief.
[0] comments (542 views) |
[0] Trackbacks
[0] Pingbacks
|