The Monster

God is in our monsters and our demons

I was talking to a friend about freedom and grace the other day. In her spiritual journey, she is moving out of law. She is doing what folks like to call, “deconstructing” .

As we talked it became obvious that she is afraid. Afraid that if she removes all the rules, she will self destruct.

You see, she has been told she was bad.

That’s what religion tells us.

And she’s done things in her past that she regrets. So, the “bad person” narrative was validated.

She’s afraid of this bad person inside her. This “sinner.” This monster.

This monster has been caged and subdued for years by her religious beliefs and rule systems. And she is afraid of grace because if she strips away the rules, the monster will be set free.

But what if the monster is god?

If there is such a thing as god, most folks - atheists and believers alike agree that god must be that which is infinite.

Which means there is nothing god is not and nowhere god is not.

God is in light, and love and beauty.

God is in darkness, and apathy and ugliness.

God is in our monsters and our demons.

The picture I chose for this post is a monster that was found in Borneo. No one knew what it was. They put it in a cage because they were afraid of it. It was wild and tried to chew and claw its way out of the cage. The image and story went viral. Finally, there were those who recognized this monster was just a bear that was sick with an illness that had caused it to lose its hair and look grotesque.

We are like that.

We encounter pain and suffering and it makes us sick. We lash out and act in monstrous ways. We look scary and grotesque to ourselves and to others. Our impulse is to cage that monster, to tame that monster. With laws, with religion, with dogmas and rules to follow and deeds to do. We can’t see the pain behind the monster. We can’t see that the monster is no monster at all. Just a lovely, suffering creature that needs food and nourishment, love and healing.

One of the metaphors of the crucifixion is that god is not separate from suffering.

God is the monster.

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More on mercy not sacrifice

Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier.

I used to hear that I must give up everything to walk in the footsteps of Jesus as a call to sacrifice.  But, Jesus himself said, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.   Go and learn what that means.”  

I’ve tried to learn what that means for the past who-knows-how-many years. 

If giving up everything isn’t about sacrifice, then what is it about? 

The following is taken from Awakening is a Destructive Process by Greg Calise and says it pretty well. 

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
― Adyashanti

Awakening is not a walk in the park. It is a ride through hell. It is the tearing down of all of your cherished beliefs and everything you thought about yourself. There is no way around this. We must come face to face with our shadows. It is there that our false ideas of who we are are shattered. It is there that all of our false beliefs are destroyed. We must face these false notions and see them for what they are. This is the only way to heal, to become whole again, to live in integrity.

It is a complete surrender, a process of brutal self-honesty. It is a path of complete acceptance of the truth, no matter how difficult it is to bear. We go through life with so many false notions – of the world, of spirituality and of ourselves. We build up masks and we believe the facades. It’s all a charade. It is all based upon illusions and deceit. We deceive ourselves at every moment, and the world also deceives us at every moment. We live in perpetual cognitive dissonance, justifying the most absurd things in our minds. We constantly lie to ourselves…. and we believe it.

To awaken to the truth that you seek, you must tear down the lies. But we are too attached to the lies. We want to hold on to the illusions and to become enlightened at the same time. That is not possible. But there are hundreds of phony gurus and “spiritual teachers” that will tell you it is. They offer you processes to become happy, fulfilled, calm, find your soulmate, be positive, get the right job, make lots of money, balance the chakras, become healthy and whatever else you may be desiring. This has nothing to do with awakening. This is only polishing the ego. They all lead you right back into the matrix. You may even be lucky enough to get a golden cage, but it is still a cage, and you remain imprisoned in slavery. This is the road that most people choose to follow. This road is well traveled by the herd.

It takes courage, discernment and self-honesty to walk the road to truth and freedom.

The herd is going in the opposite direction. One must be prepared for that, to find comfort in being alone, not understood by others.

As Eckhart Tolle has stated, you don’t have to wait for the dark night of the soul to dismantle your false notions, your false self, your life story. You can consciously take that road. But it demands courage, discernment, and a brutal honesty of yourself. The mind is a very tricky opponent, and will deceive you at every step, as your awakening is the end of its control over you. But it can be done……You must simply allow Grace to act within you.

“As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.”
– Eckhart Tolle

So, the choice rests with each of you. This road is not for the timid or the faint of heart. not at all. But there is no other road. No one will simply wave a magical wand over you.

It is a road of destruction and the question is, “How much are you willing to give up? How much can you endure?” Because on this road, you must give up everything. Every piece of you will shatter. Can you endure that?

“You must die to live.”

The shame of suffering

We become resilient not by denying the reality of brokenness or our feelings of vulnerability and shame but by naming them within relationships of safety and empathy.

This article is about a little girl that died. And about how her parents and her church could not accept their grief. And for six days they prayed for her body to be resurrected.

It says so much about power, religion, lament and shame.

“…shame is the primary biological force that evil uses to disrupt and disconnect us from one another and the reality of God’s love. When our faith isn’t strong enough to remove suffering or conquer death, we often feel deep shame over our insufficiency, an experience that gets reinforced by Christian culture’s over-emphasis on the power of faith to produce healing. Suffering is often treated like something worth praying away rather than a meaningful experience through which we might all better know the God who chose to suffer. When suffering lingers, we often become isolated in shame, suffering silently and privately instead of being pitied or further shamed by endless prayers for healing.”

Read it here:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2019/december-web-only/wakeupolive-heiligenthal-bethel-church-miracle-doesnt-come.html?fbclid=IwAR1QiBmWbm_OSiv4Mmq0VG5AM2m0qSMybYmZr2zYK9oEDIkkiZTOMvPT5VQ

Oneness

Oneness is when you can embrace it all and reject none of it.

A lot of people I talk to are exploring meditation and mindfulness. 

Many say they move away from dualistic thinking and into a sense of oneness as they practice some form of meditation.    

But sometimes, I also hear talk about this journey into oneness as a journey into a place where all is love, light and bliss. 

Let’s be clear.  As soon as we think this, we have moved back into dualism. 

All is NOT love, light and bliss.  There is darkness, pain and suffering.  

Oneness is when you can feel that it is all one.  Love and pain.  Light and darkness.  Bliss and suffering.

Oneness is when you can embrace it all and reject none of it.

Julian of Norwich is one of my favorite mystics. The quote pictured “the fullness of joy is to behold god in everything” is not as simple, nor as religious as it might seem. It’s one thing to behold “god” in a beautiful sunset, a flower, a puppy or a newborn baby. It’s simple to attribute the joy and beauty of life to a god. It’s quite another to behold god in death, suffering and decay.

I don’t pretend to know what god is or to even have a reasonable definition of god. But I can’t help but believe that god IS in everything. In fact , god IS everything. God is simply what IS. The “I-am-ness” of life.

And if that’s the case, then, in fact god is in everything. And we need resist nothing.

It is all one.  It all belongs.   

All is well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well – Julian of Norwich

All manner of thing. 

Oneness.

To comment on this post, click the header “Oneness”

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The betrayal

“Friend, do what you came for”

Life betrays itself every day, all the time in order to continue.  For life to evolve in a forward motion, it must betray itself.

Your DNA has a built-in capacity and necessity for error.  Error that most of the time is meaningless, but every so often is a betrayal of life.  Error that can cause the failure of life to spring forth.  Error that can cause death.

And yet, without this inherent betrayal, life becomes static and cannot grow, change or evolve. 

Life betrays itself so that it can exist. 

What is betraying you today? Your friend? Your employer? Your family member? Your body? Your mind? 

“Behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me at the table.”

To comment, click on the header of this post “The betrayal”

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Mottoes - Part 1 "Be tough"

There are several problems with being tough.  First of all, it’s a lie. 

We all have mottoes - things we say to ourselves or words of so-called wisdom we learned from others along the way.  Mottoes are supposed to be little sayings that encapsulate a set beliefs or ideals that can guide us through life.    The trouble with mottoes is that they often lead us astray.  This is first part of a series on the mottoes I have had in life which did me no good at all. 

We are all made up of each and every experience that ever happened to us.  They are all stored in our subconscious and are influencing us moment by moment without our even being aware.  Although we think our conscious minds are calling the shots in our lives, they are not – our subconscious is mostly what drives us. 

It is our instinct to avoid or recoil from pain and suffering.  It’s a good instinct – a survival instinct.  But often times instincts that are there for our survival, can turn into ways of being that ultimately tear us down.  Our fight or flight response, when it’s ON daily, leads to stress-related illnesses.  Our bodies’ attraction to high fat, high sugar foods …well, we all know where that leads. 

And our avoidance of pain and suffering can also end up nowhere good. 

If there is a part of us that has suffered, we often try to just put it away. 

“Don’t think about it”

“Don’t dwell on it”

“get over it”

“Be tough”  

That was my dad’s motto – be tough.   My dad was a football coach.  He was tough.  His motto "be tough" got him through a lot as a child of an abusive and alcoholic father.  He said it to us as kids - repeatedly.  

There are several problems with being tough.  First of all, it’s a lie.  I’m not tough and neither are you.  We are all weak, and fragile.  We all feel stuff and that is totally OK, totally honest and totally human.     The second problem is that no one can keep up being tough.  If we don't allow ourselves to be weak and fragile, it will come out in our bodies.  We will have muscle spasms, headaches, backaches and any other number of other problems.  Our bodies cry out to us, "HEY!!  Guess what!!  You're not as tough as you're trying to be!"  Our bodies always tell the truth and will try to get us to stop being tough all the time.  Another problem with being tough is that to be tough you have to reject the part of you that isn’t.   And to reject it, you pretty much have to tell yourself that it’s bad, and worthy of rejection.   The idea that some feelings are good and some feelings are bad is built in to our society.  It’s ingrained in us almost from infancy.  So we reject the parts of us that we have been taught are bad:  weakness, fear, anxiety, sadness, confusion, boredom, uncertainty.  When we encounter these feelings, we find ways to get rid of them as quickly as possible:  deny, medicate, blame, lash-out, act out.  Anything we can do to return to “good” feelings like: strength, certainty, happiness, confidence. 

Those “good” feelings are only half of us.  We are rejecting half of ourselves, and rejecting half of others as well.  How can we have lives of love if we reject fully half of all that makes us and everyone else human?  Who is going to love our “dark” side? 

We walk through life feeling lonely and unloved because we have rejected half of ourselves and others have as well.   Imagine what it would feel like if we lived in such a way that the side of ourselves that we keep in the shadows, the things we don’t want people to know for fear of their rejection – were loved and appreciated every bit as much as those qualities we call our strengths. 

It starts with us.   An exercise that I use is a visualization of cradling pain and suffering.  I learned it years ago when I was becoming certified to be a hypnotherapist.   In this visualization, I imagine the thing I am trying to reject in myself.  Maybe it’s a personality trait, a behavior, a past experience, or an experience I’m having right now.   I imagine holding that thing and cradling it like a mother holds and cradles her baby, speaking words of love and acceptance to it.  Sometimes the mother doesn’t even know why the baby is suffering, but the very act of cradling the baby soothes its suffering.   I find in myself that this visualization lets me acknowledge that within me are many, many feelings and experiences that are not tough.  They are soft, and vulnerable, and hurt; and that's OK.....they are loved.

(To comment click at the top on the title of this post - "Mottos - Part 1 "Be Tough")  

My God my God, why have you forsaken me?

In death, God is riven from God’s very self.

“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,lemasabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.”

Elijah didn’t come to save him.  God didn’t come to save him.

It was finished. 

In death.

This is one of the profound elements of the Christian story and one that is overlooked. 

Many people have rejected the idea of a God of life and love due to the tremendous suffering we see all around us.  If there is a loving God, why doesn’t God do something about suffering?  It’s a question we have all heard, or asked, or wondered about.  Maybe we have decided it’s an unanswerable question.  Maybe we have set it aside.  Maybe we have found answers that satisfy us.  Answers like: evil and suffering isn’t from God, but from satan, or from mankind.  Answers like: suffering is due to the falleness of creation.  Answers like:  suffering is what transforms us into the likeness of Christ, therefore it is part of God’s plan.   Answers like: it’s my fault, I didn’t have enough faith. 

But if we are honest, when we are in our darkest hour of pain and suffering, we cry out, “my God, my God WHY have you forsaken me?!”    WHERE IS GOD IN THIS?!?!?   Is God insensitive to my pain?  Does God hear me?  Does God exist? 

Perhaps the answer is not “no, God has not forsaken you.”  But rather, “yes – God has forsaken you.” 

When God forsakes you, God forsakes God’s very self.  

That is one of the profound truths  being revealed in the crucifixion.  In death and in suffering – God forsakes God’s very self.

If God is life and love then every incident of death and evil is God forsaking himself.   Every incident of  pain and suffering is life and love forsaking itself, forsaking you, forsaking all that is life and love.  

But God is not JUST life and light and love because life cannot exist without death.  Death must occur for life to occur and that is the second profound truth in the crucifixion.   Without death there is no life. So in the very nature of life itself, death is built in.  So God is life.  God is death.  And in death, God is riven from God’s very self.   

At the core of God is a forsaking, a giving over to death in order that there may be life.  

“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.”  John 12:23-25

“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” I Cor 15:36

“If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life must lose it” Matt 16:24-25

I used to read these types of verses thinking they were about living a life of self-denial and sacrifice.  Now I see them as verses that tell us that life and death are bound up together.  Without death, there is no life.  We see this clearly in nature and accept it readily.  It’s harder when it’s our life and the things or people we love dearly.  

Wherever there is good – evil is right there.

Wherever there is life – death is.

The plant dies to produce the seed.  Plants die as they are eaten as food.  Animals die as they are eaten as food.  Crazy weird beetle larva paralyze their prey and eat them alive.  A parasite called a strepsiptera eats its mother from the inside out to be born.

In death, life springs forth.    

A couple of years ago I was on a silent retreat.  One of the exercises was to write down all the things in my life that had been pivotal, transformational, life changing.  What had made me who I was today?  It was interesting to see that most of them were painful things.  Suffering.  And yet, most of the suffering had produced life in me, growth, goodness. 

In death, life springs forth.

(To comment, click on the title of this post, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)