Pain As Messenger, Love as Healer

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Just as the stone of the fruit must break, so that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And if you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy. If you accept the seasons of your heart, as you have always accepted the four seasons, you would watch with serenity the winters of your grief. Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility. For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen.  - Kahlil Gibran

It is as old as Job's lament. Why is their suffering? How can we believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God of Love when so many people are in pain and suffering? How can a Compassionate One stand idly by while its offspring cry out in despair? And why is it that we go through painful experiences time and again. Where is the end of the lessons, the end of suffering?

Lately, I have been suffering in my human experience. Once again I've been wrestling with a familiar nemesis - an inner Judas that sabotages my self esteem and brings deep pain.  This seeming enemy of my spiritual growth and well-being drops in on my awareness through a variety of guises and forms. Its message however is unflinchingly constant with a malevolent mantra of "not enough!" Most specifically and personally, "you are not enough."  It usually appears at the doorstep when life is not showing up as abundantly or successfully as I would like. It is masterful at citing those appearances in order to reach a pathological conclusion as to where the problem lies ---with me, it says. Do you understand this mind syndrome that eats at the gut and wrenches the heart? Its refrain is let there be guilt on earth, and let it begin with me! 

Because I've been in the ring with this character for so long I've learned the ropes, so-to-speak, on what does not work in defeating this seeming adversary.

Logic fails - I can't convince this voice that I'm more worthy than its lowly assessment.

Shouting fails - I'm not able to drown out the critical babble with loud affirmations of Truth.

Cornering it fails - There is no corner of my mind where I can contain it.

Sitting on it fails - Suppression, denial, or repression only makes it stronger and usually brings more aggressors into the ring.

I've gone through enough agonizing rounds to discover that doing battle from my dogged resistance to the pain of this nagging voice is ultimately useless. Besides, fighting this mental character is counterproductive. When I fight or resist it I give life and substance to the idea that I could be diminished or harmed by something that exists only in my mind. When I do battle with this voice, I only make it more real. However, when I can see it as a "season of my heart" - a part of my soul's journey to discover its wholeness and true worth, then I can simply be with the pain. I can put down the sword, and bring non resistant awareness to the pejorative thoughts and the ache in my gut.

Ironically, presence turns out to be the most formidable response. Moving closer to the hurt actually prevents the pain from up scaling into all out suffering. As I sit with the experience, and welcome the pain as a messenger that reveals the illusions I hold about myself, a bigger self emerges and well being usually returns.  This is Big Love in action - our God given capacity to bear all things - so that what is unreal loses its grip on our hearts, and we can know our true essence once more. 

It is as old as Wisdom itself, that only in dying to self are we born to the Eternal self. May wisdom open our eyes to see our pain as messenger and open our hearts to allow Big Love to heal us.

Where on Earth is God?

A lot of people readily associate spirituality with a church (or temple or mosque) experience. Many of us grew up with the mindset that you go to church for your spiritual encounters. It was the place to find and strengthen your faith, be comforted, and learn to be a kinder person. Religion for us had ritual, form, and housing.

After I had my fill of worldly destinations that dead-ended and left me hungry for meaning, my spiritual reawakening turned me to seek my answers in a Unity church. That still works well for me and many others. However beyond the Sunday morning revival there are many hours in a week where inspiration is needed.  Where do you find inspiration away from spiritual community?  Do you have havens inside or outside your home where you can "touch the hem of the garment" and feel the Spirit?  Do you have an altar in your home, or a ritual that needs no clergy to bless you?  Is there a place or set of conditions that break you open to the presence of the Divine?  I hope you do.

This year Denese and I built a sanctuary in our backyard.  It had been for years, a neglected area of yard where sparse patches of grass gave way to a mostly barren mud prone landscape.  We tolerated it with restrained contempt season after season. We had no vision of good for this patch of earth. Until this spring when a friend came along who could the see the possibilities for a beautiful sanctuary.  Through his eye for natural beauty and understanding of earths many varieties and ways a plan emerged.  We could not see it but we trusted his eye because like masters his miraculous works went before him to convince us of what was possible for us.

The land was cleared, new soil imported, stones were laid to create a clear path to a water fountain.  A variety of plants were carefully selected that would grow even in low light.  With shovel in hand I went to work. It had been years since I worked in the earth. (Denese is our resident green thumb gardener) Over the course of several days the eyesore was transformed into a sight for sore eyes. Through an alchemy of vision, faith, and works we were blessed with a new sanctuary. 

This place in our yard is now our haven --our most favorite spot to hang out. We find every reason to go there. To share a meal, just sit or read but mostly to drink in the sensual and spiritual quality of the natural splendor. In the early morning and late night it is a special place of peace and serenity.  We find beauty, harmony, a natural wisdom, in our garden. Each day the visible changes remind us of the irrepressible and ever present life force that presses on through every leaf, bud or flower. Every subtle sign of growth; each new bud gives us hope. Our garden teaches us about trust and faith, and letting go. 

We are so grateful for the lesson.  As ministers we take refuge in our rooms for long hours seeking inspiration to create sermons and messages that remind us of the presence of the Divine. All the while mother earth is writing and sharing her divine message throughout all of creation.  If we take the time, open our senses, and attune our hearts to an imminent (as well as transcendent) God we will find ourselves standing on holy ground every day of the week. 

I encourage your attendance at UCOD or whatever spiritual community feeds your soul. And I also encourage your attendance and participation in the magnificent sanctuary that Mother earth has prepared for you in your "own backyard."

We also invite you to direct positive loving energy to the Gulf region for all the good that our prayers and intentions can do to heal the great injury to our beloved earth there.  Join  us in praying in Unity for 100 days this special prayer.

This Sunday we look at the first of our core values, Community:  

In a supportive, inclusive environment guided by shared values, we are a cohesive spiritual community. We each contribute to the enrichment of the whole." 

That statement was written through a shared process by those of you who wanted a community that reflected your deepest values.

Unity Center of Davis is different things to different people, but many see ourselves in the process of being, and becoming, a sacred, cohesive spiritual community. Community gives us a sense of belonging in an environment that supports the shared experience of our human, spiritual journey.  In community, we can share our journey, which can lighten our burdens and deepen our joys.   There is a collective energy in community that can buoy our spirits, especially if we have been struggling on our own.  Jesus said, where two or more are gathered there I am. The shared intention to join with another in order to create a sacred environment is always rewarded by a palpable presence of Spirit not found in solitary practice

Many of you have shared your appreciation for the formation of UCOD because it meets your deepest need for a spiritual community that feeds your soul.  It seems we've called each together to create this energetic field that supports all of us in moving forward in our quest to know ourselves more deeply.  It is not coincidental that our self discovery is best served by getting to know each other at the same time.  This stems from the truth of our oneness. - but that's the topic for another one of our values in a later week.

Many of us found a spiritual home in a Unity community because the message fit around our heart like a warm glove on a cold night. I still remember my first Unity experience in San Luis Obispo, 21 years ago. In the embrace of a loving community, guided by the outrageously humorous and open-hearted God-loving passion of Rev. Richard, I was completely broken open. I laughed and I cried and I fell into the waiting arms of an accessible God, with a Jesus I could relate to. I am deeply grateful to that community and the spiritual leaders that guided my journey home. Rev. Richard and Maureen Levy remain dear friends and inspiring colleagues today.

This morning Denese and I reflected on those early days in Unity, to see if we could pinpoint what happened in us that was so profoundly life changing. What was it that turned us inside out and upside down and gave us fresh inspired outlook on life and our place in the world? What were the insights or aha's that brought about a complete reversal in my view of life; from consummate doubter, the classic prodigal, into an open-hearted seeker of Truth. Those questions led us through a beautiful experience of following the thread of Unity's teachings that led us from the wilderness of suffering in  spiritual desolation to the fertile field of heart centered spirituality. This field of knowing is an inner realm where the Divine is always in residence, and the answers to all of life's conundrums can be found. Quite simply and profoundly it is our understanding of God as Spirit, here, there, everywhere, closer than our very breath. This is the sublime realization ,and it can happen in every instant of remembering. When tempted to believe that life events are the determiner of our happiness, we can awaken from this mad dream, call off the search and reclaim the peace embedded in our hearts. This truly is the good news, the Gospel of Unity. In every moment of remembering this Truth, we can be healed, made whole and freed.

Befriending Dragons on the Path

This week I encountered the full swing across the entire spectrum of human and divine consciousness in a mere 12 hours. On Monday afternoon I was feeling purely blissful, and as I sat with the family enjoying lunch al fresco I said with misty eyes, "Life is so good...I am so grateful and happy!"  By Tuesday morning, I was in the proverbial pit of despair feeling inferior, frustrated and generally lousy on all levels of awareness. 

What happened in the interim to account for this great fall?  Nothing.  Nothing external anyway.  Internally, however, all hell had broken loose and I was replaying a lifetime story of how I was not good enough...a lousy golfer, a struggling piano student, an inadequate minister, and not a particularly good father either. In the dangerous neighborhood of my surface mind I had confronted the dragon of self loathing, and went from seeing life's perfection to beholding nothing but yuck.

Those of us who have been on this path for any length of time have become all too acquainted with the "dragons" on the path. Like every hero's journey, our journey to spiritual enlightenment is fraught with disheartening obstacles that threaten our progress and undermine our resolve. 

These seeming enemies of our spiritual progress can take many forms but universally share the motivation to deny and refute the emerging awareness of our true self.

Our true identity has nothing to do with external definitions of human life. Neither gender, family history, social standing, occupation, material possession or dispossession, nor even internal definitions formed by our beliefs, experiences or personal perceptions of life define our true selves.  To truly awaken we are consistently asked to drop our identification with all forms, including thought forms, and become conscious of our pure Being-ness; the pure consciousness that stands under and behind all that arises in form.

The greatest dragons we confront in our life are the inner demons of our wounds.  Eckhart Tolle calls these elements of the human experience, the "pain body."  He defines the pain body as the "energy field of old but still-very-much-alive emotion that lives in almost every human being---the remnants of pain left behind by every strong negative emotion that is not fully faced, accepted and let go."

Naturally, we would rather take this hero's journey without dealing with these dragons.  Yet the truth, discovered by every spiritual master that has gone the distance to self-realization, is that these apparent obstacles take us to the edge of an abyss, to the edge of the person we fear we are, so that we can take the heroic step that shows us what we are really made of.

What is not real, will not survive the Light of Truth. With courage we can remain present to our pain body, thus discovering our greater self that is the container and the hidden wholeness for all that arises. It is the place where a breakdown can become a breakthrough, where we can awaken through pain, and find transformation through suffering brought to light.

By Wednesday morning I sat with a very good friend who listened with extraordinary presence and compassion while I related my extreme attitude swing of the day before. In the field of acceptance, I was able to notice how I had become a victim of my story about me, not the facts of my life. Like a child who had acted out, I got to see how some deeper need in me had driven me to despair. He invited me to accept my feelings and forgive myself.  I was willing. By Wednesday afternoon, I was able to play the piano a little, plan another golf outing, embrace my humanity as a minister, and see my imperfection as father with kinder eyes.

As I reflected on this experience I noticed that it was one more lesson about bringing Big Love to whatever challenges us. Most specifically I recalled Jesus high teaching about loving our enemies. He surely meant enemies within and without. When we love our enemies (inner or outer types) and can forgive them  they cease to be enemies. Then peace is possible once more.

Walking by Faith, Not Sight

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

-      Helen Keller

       

I recently read a number of quotes by Helen Keller and what struck me was the number of references she made to the importance of sight, vision, light, seeing and beholding. Remarkable advice from a woman who had no physical sight. Though deprived of the view of life that we sighted people enjoy, she developed clear perception of the invisible world that sustained her. "What I am looking for is not "out there", it is in me."

I observed this phenomenon in my own mother who lost most of her sight to macular degeneration in her later years. As her perception of her outer world dimmed she became more convinced of the reality of God's presence within her. I found this remarkable and inspiring. Most of us would assume that it is the great miracles of preference, like sight being restored to the blind that would quicken a person's faith. My mother's faith was not diminished but substantially increased through a great loss. Perhaps it is the vision of one world that costs us the vision of another. Without eyesight, there is still insight, perhaps even more keenly, in the case of Helen Keller and Frieda Schellink.

It is human nature to want to see life working out according to our preferences. We seem to know what would be best for us, make us happy, or serve our life purpose. Yet many of us got what we wanted, and happiness remained at large. Or we avoided some awful fate, and never dealt with our deepest fear. When we ask the question, what is best for us, we must be willing to abandon personal will to make room for soul wisdom.  Then we are lead to our growing edge, the current limit to our capacity to understand our true self. This is the place where we can discover the difference between Life and life situations.  This is the place where we can build our faith in the invisible reality of our Being, as the temporary forms of life change before our eyes, leaving us with a sense of unalterable Life within. While eyesight bears witness to the temporal world, insight reveals the eternal.

To some people, the fruits of their faith are in getting what they pray for. That is visualization; using the infinite universal Power to create according to our will. This is a useful tool, but builds a fragile faith, entirely dependent upon circumstances for its strength. A deeper faith comes when we discover a persistent state of well being, through whatever arises. Jesus said, there will be trials and tribulations in this world. Buddha said there will be 10,000 joys, 10,000 sorrows. Notice they did not say there might be, they said, there will be challenges. If my faith in God is predicated on how my life unfolds in a purely outer sense, I am assured of a wobbly faith, built on sand. Yet if I resist the temptation to "judge by appearances" and seek the kingdom of heaven within my own consciousness, I will be sustained by knowing that I am one with the eternal presence power and love of Spirit, whatever may come.  This is why we pray and meditate, so that we can improve our inner vision and come to know that the presence of Spirit is inseparable from who we truly are. Then the fruits of our practice is a sense of equanimity, perhaps even joy, as we encounter and embrace the outrageous winds of change that will surely come to pass in our life.

Hands on or Hands Off?

As I started to picture the trees in the storm, the answer began to dawn on me. The trees in the storm don't try to stand up straight and tall and erect. They allow themselves to bend and be blown with the wind. They understand the power of letting go. Those trees and those branches that try too hard to stand up strong and straight are the ones that break. Now is not the time for you to be strong, Julia, or you, too, will break.

- Julia Butterfly Hill

Most of us will never learn the lesson that Julia learned while spending days living in a tree. However, most of us will face storms on the ground of our daily lives and face the question, How we will respond to the forces that challenge us? 

Spiritual teachings can confound us when they seem to prescribe contradictory instructions for how to respond to life circumstances. The affirmative, co-creative approach prescribes an, I can make it happen attitude. This approach applies the creative power of our minds to the field of infinite possibilities to declare and claim how life should unfold for us.  It is the power of intention brought to bear upon the unset jello of quantum probabilities that can bring a specific outcome into manifestation.  It often works because, as the latest science confirms, reality is not fixed, but alterable, not objective, but shaped in part by our perception of it.  This is an exciting, empowering principle that can be used for greater good in our lives.

The other side of this principle is a passive wisdom approach. The cliché for it is Let go, let God. It is the capacity to take our hands off the wheel of our lives, and trusting that an unseen Guide will steer us to greater good in our life. This can be a most difficult attitude to cop in the midst of a storm that seems sure to break us.  Our survival instincts and spiritual bravado would have us rear up and take a resolute stance to oppose the ill winds of circumstances that surely seem against us.

Understanding when to steer in the direction of our preferences and when to surrender navigation and control to the master Pilot is not necessarily an either/or proposition.  When we understand that our lives depend on a synergistic collaboration between the Infinite Mind of God and our own conscious awareness, we can be as ready to take the wheel as to release it. We can intend for our good and move confidently in the directions of our preferred life, all the while holding a deep pervasive knowing that Spirit is seeking to live our lives through us and as us.  The recognition of an indwelling love and intelligence seeking to express through the vessel of our life experiences grants us a willingness to surrender, accept and adapt to the path unimagined by our mortal minds.   

Every powerful hero's journey takes the hero to unimagined places, forces him/her to confront their deepest fears, and ultimately brings the adventurer home with an inner reward that enriches the soul precisely because they took the road of greatest challenge. As Joseph Campbell noted, We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.

Love Made Audible

"You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from." 

-   Werner Erhard

You have heard this wisdom before.  If you believe that you are a chip off the old block, a microcosm of the macrocosm, an emanation of the One Presence and Power we call God, then you may have a concept that your true nature, like God's, is love itself.  There is of course a vast experiential chasm between a concept and an inner knowing; as between seeing your birth certificate and being hugged by your mother.

If love is at hand, closer than our very breath, and unlimited as Infinite Presence, then why do we not know and feel its embrace and hear its soothing voice?  Just as infants do not recognize their parents until their perceptual abilities develop, we as children of God do not recognize the still small voice of Love despite its constant whispers in our hearts.  We have a form of psycho spiritual hearing loss where our faculty to hear the Voice of Love is dependent on our need for certain circumstances that make Love's voice audible.

If our partner does not return our loving advance, if children disobey or don't call, if our employer overlooks our accomplishments we may experience a world with little or no love in it. If we experience difficulty or loss, we can subconsciously believe that we are unworthy, unloved, even unlovable.  In such moments the voice of fear drowns out Love's eternal message.

This is the real life-threatening disease facing us. We confuse form with content, and create false idols that, true to form, always shatter our faith.

Love is formless, an eternal energy that cannot be limited or destroyed.  Like its divine siblings of Truth, Wholeness, Harmony, Peace, and Joy, Love arises in abundance to meet all our needs when the conditions are right.  Paradoxically right conditions for love to arise are no conditions at all.  While we may seem justified in prescribing what love needs to look like for us to hear it voice, Truth beckons a different perspective.  Truth asks us to give up form for content; give up the fickle for the eternal and be willing to exchange the illusion of love for the real thing. As ACIM says, When you want only love you will see nothing else....you will hear nothing else.

I am a student of unconditional love.  Every day I am asked to hear differently in order to be spared the deafness experience that prevents me from hearing that all that is being voiced in this world is the voice of love or a call for love.

So in the final analysis it seems that love, stripped of externals, comes not by listening for it, but by listening from it. Since it is what we come from, it's what we need to come from.  If we welcome love, it will be at our doorstep, whispering its reminder that it lives with us, in us and as us. This can save us an enormous amount of suffering as we seek but not find in the world for the love that waits only on our welcome, not on time.