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Posts Tagged ‘Divine Love’

Spark

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2015| 3 Comments »

Spark

Spark

What on earth keeps us going? What is it that gets us to the end of this, our roller-coaster ride that we call life. Of course ego claims the rights to our existence. We live in a dangerous world and ego has carried us over the line, like some Saving Private Ryan Marine type figure, exhausted but mission accomplished. I’m afraid that I can’t agree and here’s why.

Suffering is only in the eye of the beholder, and that eye is our fragmented psyche-soul, the one known as ego. The psyche is here to help us ‘experience’ what appears to be reality, this space-time simulation of existence. It’s the software that helps us feel every up and down on the wave of life. Its settings are either winning or losing, exhilaration or pain. All relational battles that cause us dismay are felt here. All circumstances are interpreted by psyche as a high or a low.

And so we travel along the illusion of time, picking up little victories here and there, along with the painful defeats that edge us ever closer to rock bottom. Now, the power of positive thinking or its New Age equivalent will get us so far. Shiny faced successful gurus point us in the direction of their secret, one usually packaged for the self-help marketplace. Now of course things seem to go better when we’re positive, the power of attraction and all that. Yet, a downer usually lurks around the bend, as we sail along reckoning we’ve got this life thing cracked. The downer in question may be a result of our presumption, but often it’s sent along for our own good. For there’s nothing worse than an ego in full flight, gliding on the winds of its own achievement. No, the downers are needed for us to reach our ultimate but unknown destination.

Now some of us feed ego with all the ammunition that it craves. Paranoia, sees defeats lying along both past and future timelines of our lives. If the sun shines it’s too hot. If everything is freezing over, it’s hell in reverse. The little interpreter within our heads is skewed, leading us into the wilderness of depression and despair. Ego, loves it, feeding our darkness to justify its role as saviour.

Religious belief, particularly the Charismatic/Pentecostal brand that predominates much of Western Christianity, gives us a measure of relief, albeit temporarily. For to be involved, is often not to think, and that definitely nullifies the contradictory ups and downs for a while. Cleverly interpreting the highs as God’s blessing and the lows as Satanic attack, we ride the Christian life, quoting the relevant Bible verses until the big one blocks our path. The Transpersonal Crisis shakes up everything, dislodging our stoical belief in the protection of God, the One who looks out for us. No wonder, such a crisis leaves us disillusioned and broken, for we later discover that ego was the sponsor of our religious ride, an ardent ‘Amener’ who backed our every move.

So then what are we to do. Well, I reckon that we need to turn our attention away from the psyche-soul, our sensor of life, and turn to another hidden participator in the human experience, the real power behind our being, viz. our spirit. Now before you think I’m getting a wee bit too esoteric, please let me explain. When I make something, I leave something of myself in the work concerned. Hopefully in my own writings, there is something of me transmitting itself to you, an inexplicable touch that is received within. Similarly I believe that Source has deposited something of its own Being within us, a spark from the Divine Fire of Creativity. An altogether other that lies deep within our consciousness, waiting for our day of awakening. A pin-hole of Cosmic Consciousness that lets in the Light, that we call God.

Such a spirit is altogether different form our wounded psyche-soul, not having a trace of defensiveness in its essence, for it has been birthed in the Divine. When all around is a high or low, spirit sits quietly, confident in its own Being, waiting for its time of appearing, waiting for ego to burn itself out in the pursuit of happiness and security. And burn itself out it most surely will. So, let’s step back from the spin of ego, smiling as it attempts to recruit us in its dervish dance of salvation. No, rather embrace the Queendom within, the portal of Divine Love, where all is well and shall be well.

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Growing A Church?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2015| 20 Comments »

Growing A Church?

Growing A Church?

Now I’d better own up before I proceed. I used to be a church junkie, albeit a slightly reticent one in my somewhat zealous youth. You see, I believed the evangelistic take on God and his kids. God is working in the world and His agency is the institution belovedly known as church. Back in my Irish homeland, as soon as one came into an experience of the risen Nazarene, one was instantly ushered into a sheep fold under the name of a ‘sound’ church. I was never really sure what a sound church was, for those who embraced the standard orthodoxy seemed to be asleep to me, the only sound being my snoring during the pastor’s sermon. No, for me it was a more radical version of Jesus community, or so I thought. I was a founding member of a Charismatic, (yes, speaking in tongues etc) fellowship that attempted to do things differently. I should have known better though, for all life-giving religious or spiritual movements eventually conservatise, becoming clones of their older predecessors. Northern Ireland was, and still is, peppered with man’s attempt to get Divinity into a box, much like any other Bible Belt area of God’s good Earth.

That being said, I want to look at our fixation at growing a church, to use a trendy but ineffective term that’s doing the religious rounds. If one has a church, a group bang in the centre of Divine Will, then why not grow it – the bigger the better right! Well no, at least in my experience. Here are a few reasons for small is beautiful.

1) God isn’t obsessed by church like most of His/Her kids.

Jesus groups were to be transient expressions of God realignment, not the be all and end all. Packed buildings of Jesus people on Sunday mornings aren’t on God’s agenda.

2) Spiritual life is best shared through conversation and friendship.

The Nazarene hinted at this when talking about the two or three gathered into His name. When a few folk, with open and respectful hearts tune into the Divine in conversation, there is an opportunity for Presence to manifest and flow between those present.

3) Growing churches was never a Divine suggestion.

Growing things is frankly more to do with market share than the Way of the Kingdom/Queendom.

Institutionalised faith needs institutions and institutions need cash to survive. Once established, rigid faith groups frankly need bums on seats to keep going, and of course as we all know failure is never on the agenda for those believing God is with them.

3) Growth is an organic experience and one that is deeply personal.

The numbers game in religious circles, patronisingly disguised as a concern for the lost, is nothing to do with true growth.

Spiritual growth is the growing awareness of who we are, and our place in the Divine Heart. Such growth often follows times of great personal darkness. It cannot be manufactured on the assembly line of programmed religion. Rather it takes place in the desert of aloneness, when Light invades our Darkness.

4) Growth of our group encourages religious competition.

I’m afraid I have to smile when a new church opens up here in Lincoln. The pastor priest will always claim to be in total harmony with the existing churches in the city. Their targets for membership are always the ‘unchurched’, especially the young unchurched who are susceptible to subtle, or not so subtle, love bombing. What often happens though is a case of sheep transference. When the shiny new religious stall is set out, Jesus people sniff out a better pastureland and hop the church fence to enter the new field of fellowship. And so it continues, throughout the ages. Like competing supermarkets, religious groups are in the marketplace of desire. the subliminal message is always this: ‘Our take on Jesus is more authentic than that of other groups, so come aboard!’. The merry-go-round world of church membership falsely feeds the growth dreams of model pastors/priests. We are getting new people so we must be fulfilling God’s agenda.

5) Big numbers inflate ego’s group identity.

When we get high on our numbers, ego is lurking, willing to elevate us to a special status, that of God’s chosen.

Growth is put down to God adding to our numbers rather than our clever marketing or manipulation of broken folk looking for answers. Ego, looks over its sacred empire and gives itself a pat on the back, while giving God all the glory, at least publicly.

It’s empowering to be a member of a large and cutting edge group, though in time the ride will end in disillusionment and tears. It’s at this stage that God may get a chance to have a wee chat with us and bind up our self-administered wounds.

6) Church and its size is irrelevant in the great scheme of things

While caught up in the church growth delusion we tend to see life as a life-saving operation. It’s a case of getting as many folk as possible into the Jesus lifeboat as possible before they check out of space-time. And as most of us know who’ve sailed the seven seas in such a craft, it’s really a delusion, for the boat of salvation is merely a church expansion programme. Divine Love has birthed all and will embrace all, church membership or not. To limit a spiritual coming home to joining a church is a big mistake. For often we leave the integrity of our God encounter at the door to play a different game, one driven by the need to belong and be accepted; a shinier version of the game that we played in our wilder days.

So there you have it. Some wee thoughts why it’s best not to get involved with your church’s expansion drive known as evangelism. Since the days of my evangelistic zeal I’ve discovered that God is big, very big indeed. Faith groups are only part of a world that is loved, a Love without restraints that waits at the city gate for those with ears to hear to listen and respond. The Voice is everywhere, even, dare I say it, in the back pew of my old hemorrhaging church.

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Roller-Coaster Religion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2015| 7 Comments »

roller-coaster 11

Roller-Coaster Religion

In our youth many of us loved to visit theme parks with their precarious, spine-tingling rides of terror. It was cool to be scared and come out safe and sound at the other end, before heading back for another go. It’s got me thinking about the religion of my youth. I reckon it was a roller-coaster ride to beat all roller-coaster rides. The big one where Cosmic powers laid down the tracks of my life, taking me on a topsy-turvy  spin of life and death. I guess I’d better explain.

I got on the roller-coaster when I was converted, when I bumped into the Divine at the Theme Park of Northern Irish religion. now at the time I believed that God was the owner of the Park, but I was mistaken. Like me He/She was just visiting, looking for lonely souls like myself, a Divine pick-up if you like. No, I was quickly ushered onto the Charismatic/Evangelical roller-coaster ride, not by Divine Love, but by the ride operators at the Park, the teachers of a faith, full of excitement and thrill.

At first things sped along nicely, as I ate my Bible snacks on a daily basis, drinking from the fizzy fountain of answered prayers. Just around the first bend though, things started to pick up. We weren’t on this ride for fun, rather we’d been recruited by the Divine, who incidentally was wistfully watching from the sidelines, for the Battle of all battles, the titanic struggle of Good v Evil, or Jesus v Satan. My wee psyche had inadvertently been hijacked for a cause, one that had strapped me in for the long-haul, by the vows of group commitment. For beside me, to the right and to the left, were my brothers and sisters, those fellow warriors who joined me in the cause – an army we were told that would storm the Gates of Hell. Boy, was that a rush. One mass of screaming solidarity flying around our God ordained track of Spiritual Warfare. We couldn’t lose with God on our side or could we?

Of course we had some wonderful ups along the Way, when we glanced far below the Face of Divine Love, smiling at us. Unfortunately we mistook this for Its approval, rather than the compassion that awaited us on our dizzy return. Anyway, it was an adrenalin blast, as we danced, sang, spoke in tongues and fell on our faces in the frenzy of devotion. And there sitting in front of us were our elders, who’d ridden the ride for many years, knowing each twist and turn, stoical in their steadfastness and control. All we had to do was copy them and everything would be all right, as we soared into the very heavens of God.

Of course, the downers followed the ups. There were casualties as we peaked and headed down into the tragedies of life at lightening speed. No matter how euphoric the ride, things got messy at times, both personally and collectively. We were bombarded by the fiery darts of the Evil One as we attempted to claim Northern Ireland for Jesus, through the cries and screams of intercessory prayer. And boy, did he pack a punch, knowing how to hit us in our spiritual solar plexus. Depression stalked our downward path, yet we cranked up and efforts and prepared ourselves for the next upward surge of Spirit. The Sunday sermon told us that it wasn’t an easy ride following Jesus, and so it proved, though not for the reasons that the preacher promoted. For a ride with Jesus and the Devil wasn’t a bed of roses, one that we could easily escape from. If we jumped, Evil had won and we’d pay for it for the rest of our lives. If we stayed we pleased Jesus but had hell to pay.

I managed to stay on the ride for 16 years or so, before I was pushed off , so to speak. Having lost my firstborn son Ben, to cot death at 5 months, I began to doubt the supposed All Powerful Designer of the Ride. Yet, even this wasn’t enough to have me get off the Revivalist track. It took some plain old rivalry with my leader friend to have me finally pushed off, an act of unintended mercy, that paradoxically saved my future, psycho-spiritual bacon. And of course, there was God standing by the kiosk of Compassion, granting me all the time necessary, for my cold-turkey detox from the adrenalin-fuelled track of Revivalist religion.

Eighteen years later, it was time for us to be reintroduced. Not on the Fairground Rides of Programmed Religion, but in the aching emptiness of a human heart. And so it has continued, a courtship of Aloneness, a Union in the fields of Self, far from the victory screams of Satan-obsessed souls.

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Awareness Lane

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2015| 5 Comments »

Awareness Lane

Awareness Lane

‘Two roads diverge in the middle of my life,

I heard a wise man say’

Larry Norman ~ singer-songwriter

I think we’d all agree that life is a journey of sorts. A space-time walk through a kaleidoscope of images and experiences. For some it’s a simple passage, for others the most complex of trips, full of twists, turns and unexpected reversals. It’s amazing that so many of us make it through to old age, even those 60s rock stars who refuse to accept that the glory days are now but fading memories.

One thing regularly appears along our space-time Path, viz. Will Junction. I’d better explain! Life conspires to bring us to a fork in the road, one where we’re presented with two choices, the way of Ego & the Way of Love. Just when we’re sailing along on a seemingly steady course, up ahead lies the dreaded divergence that none of us like to face. One road is wide, a busy, noisy highway if you like, the other a narrow, silent, country lane.

Those of us who wish to get ahead in life, believing the promises and fears of ego, appear to be automatically wired to head down the highway, joining the crowd, those seeking the security of a cultural nirvana. Safety in numbers seems to be the way to go, as we eagerly rush towards our material and status destiny. As long as we keep our inner rev counter at full throttle, we can navigate any obstacles that come our way and make it. So the narrative goes, that regularly broadcasts itself at every junction choice. This is Ego road, the one that ultimately leads to our physical, mental and spiritual burnout. A road of promise, but a road of destruction.

Thankfully, we’re regularly presented with two roads throughout our earthly sojourn. We are not locked into the GPS directives of ego. For, another Path, runs parallel to desire highway, a lane most natural, at one with All. Here, we leave behind the craving to have, swapping it instead for the contentment of being. Letting go of our adrenalin-fuelled drive for status, we discover a sense of quiet ease, as Life takes us where it wills. And beside us on the Journey, walks Another, a reassuring Presence, that ultimately All is well, and shall be well. Here, we catch sight of, perhaps for the first time, a Natural order and balance in our space-time dream. Life and death, joy and sadness, appear to dance together, to carrying us further into that quiet acceptance of Mystery. On this Lane of Awareness we say little but observe a lot, for in our focus lies a revelation of sorts, a knowing that we are already Home.

So how do we tackle these circumstantial junctions of choice, those planted there by Divine Source. Well, simply through the exercise of the most potent of our gifts, viz. will.

Will, is an internal switch that seems to set our psyche-soul direction. It can be a frenzied fan of the Highway, or the calm sponsor of Awareness Lane. If activated by our spirit core, it flows effortlessly in its default choice, leading us into the Path of Peace. Will is our helpmate, once freed from the fear-driven shackles of ego. A most powerful aid in life’s journey, as it paradoxically submits to Divine Desire, that Cosmic Energy that carries us back into the Bosom of Ultimate Source.

So, safe journeying, my fellow travellers. May all roads lead us to Being. May the Lane of freedom, teach us the shocking heights, depths and width of Divine Love.

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Running In Circles

Posted in Divine Love, religion, Spirit, spirituality, tagged , , , , , , on May 12, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Running In Circles

Running In Circles

Trying to escape all things Divine is extremely hard work. For the more we run away, the more frustrated we tend to get. Why? Well, we always seem to end up back at the place where we initiated our attempted break for freedom. Life appears to conspire to bring us back to what we run from, with God being its favourite drop off point.

For those of us who’ve been raised in a religious belief system, the most logical tactic for our planned escape is to ditch God completely, converting to a quasi-confident atheism, with all its promised allure. Out of mind, hopefully out of sight, is its beguiling mantra. Just take up a rigidly atheistic viewpoint and the Divine will leave us alone to enjoy our non-belief in peace. Alternatively, we may prefer to take the slightly less dogmatic agnostic approach to bathe our religious wounds, while swaying to and fro between the opposing belief branches of promise.

Of course, Divine Love lets us have our day of supposed freedom, glad to see us free of our prior religious shackles and metaphysical misconceptions. For God really is into liberty, even if it involves being ignored by those who run a mile from belief systems that go by His/Her Name. So off we dash, running along the remaining track of life, entering each new bend with a renewed vigour and vim as we head for our godless utopia. The old ways lie far behind, distant memories of past metaphysical illusions and pain. ‘Thank God there is no god,’ we cry out in our paradoxical, liberated fervour.

However, the trouble is that we’re not running along a straight track, one that follows the flying crow into the remainder of our space-time existence. For, much to our amazement, we find ourselves running around a circular path that takes us right back to the big Mysteries of life, and eventually bang into a Presence, One that stands tall to block our illusory progress. Yes, at some stage we experience the Track Designer Supreme, stepping out onto Its creation to catch us totally unaware. Thankfully, we’re not frog-marched back into the tepid bath water of our religious past, but into the pulsating Rapids of Spirit Life, an Energy Flow that wells up from our hidden depths within. The Life abundantly as promised by the Nazarene, the Spring of Self from which gushes the endless Source of All.

Only then does it begin to make sense – this topsy-turvy Journey race that ends in healing tears of joy and release. No longer the hurdles of ego, no longer the fear of stumbling on the relational blocks of others, no longer the nightmares of finishing last in the adversarial affairs of humanity. Just a Presence, One that lets us collapse in a heap of sheer relief, just a Presence that allows us to rest before standing up once more to re-engage as Children of Source.

Remember, contrary to ego’s advice, there’s no  place to run and no place to hide. Best to cut short the Great Escape race and fall into the welcoming Arms of Divine Love.

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Clericalism

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 28, 2015| 12 Comments »

Clericalism

Clericalism

I guess there’s always been a bunch of folk who saw themselves as intermediaries of sort between God and man. How come? Well I believe that bizarrely the roots of religious belief can be found in mob violence – the founding murder, so to speak. I’d better explain.

Ancient man lived in small extended family groupings or prototype tribes. When something went wrong in their fight for survival and things began to get a little heated, a scapegoat was quickly found and dispatched in a fit of rage. This unexpected blood-letting released a quasi sense of cathartic peace in the remaining family members, who began to interpret it as the blessing of the Divine Spirit in the Sky! “Ah, so if we kill someone or something on a regular basis, we can obtain the favour of the One above. If we sacrifice to Transcendence, blessings will flow.” The birth of sacrificial religious thought which sadly continues to this day.

Over time, the tribe asked for volunteers to dot he dirty deed and so the priesthood was born. Those not afraid to get blood on their hands in exchange for a new prestige within the community. “We are a cut above the rest,” became their sacred slogan as they sharpened their clerical knives. And so it has continued through the ages. For some the blood is still part of the killing vocation, for others it’s now a symbolic role, dispensing the wine of the slain Lamb on a regular basis. Since time immemorial we have been into blood and so it remains. Further exploration of this obsession is for another day. What I really want to focus on is the sociological residue of such a belief system – the clerical class.

Now, let me say that I’m friends with a number of priests of varying shades. I’m not here to question their motives or their devotion to the Divine; rather I wish to question whether they are needed. Of course, when professional livelihoods are involved the cleric understandably fights back with 2000 years of Christian tradition or even more in the case of the older religions. I can understand that all too human reaction. When we need food on the table for our kids we’ll perform all sorts of pastoral back flips to justify our existence.

No, do we really need a professional class of priests, pastors and dare I say it, Apostles ( for my Pentecostal friends) in order to know God. Do we still require the experts to stand between Divine Source and man? Well, if we still insist on communities that centre around a round of religious gatherings in a purpose-built building, then the clergy still play a role, albeit an organisational one. For, let’s face it, if there wasn’t a paid official to do all the stuff, the whole system would collapse due to apathy. Folk have always wanted a Moses figure to go up the Mount and come back with a tabletised list of instructions from God, especially if they can also perform the role of CEO for the business named church.

I guess I’m saying that we don’t need a bunch of men or women to dispense the Divine for us, for Presence already dwells within. What we may need is one almighty shock to our ego system, that reveals this dramatic truth, one that rarely comes through the dedicated efforts of the clergy. A sudden death, a health scare, a divorce, redundancy etc all have the potential to jolt us into an Awakening experience. The place for answers is within, in the depths of our ego screams. There the Light dwells and we knew it not. Most folk within clerical systems of ministry are nice folk, though not all. Yet, there very existence may divert folk from meeting the Divine, heart to Heart. A little ministerial cul-de-sac that seems to help for a while until a new top-up of concern is needed. Life is messy and it’s there that Divine Love has chosen to dwell.

The trouble is that the priest/pastor/reverend etc can feel that it’s their job to keep the whole God show on the road. This is often done by teaching the particular dos and don’ts of their interpretive tradition. Having joined the clerical class to help mankind they can so easily end up propping up a moral empire based on the interpretive add-ons of their religious tradition. It’s so easy to switch into control mode in the name of the God of freedom. It’s the historical virus that invades the very heart of religious systems. The priest once more stands as judge and jury on the whole God-man thing, tempted to shed blood, albeit verbally on the chosen scapegoat.

Finally, let me tell you a wee story. A couple of years back here in Lincoln, I was out for a walk along the local High Street when I noticed a bunch of Christians doing their evangelistic thing. Always willing to have a chat will fellow God folk, I stopped and entered into a friendly chat with a guy, who turned out to be the pastor of the gang. At first our conversation was friendly but soon it was strongly inferred that I should be a church member and come along to sample his particular brand of gathering. At this point I suggested that the pastor try a wee experiment. Why not stop all church gatherings for a year, when folk could just mix with society at large. After 12 months have a meeting to see how many people had become Christians through contact with his flock. Unfortunately, I saw sheer disbelief in his eyes. “Dylan, I couldn’t do that.” “Why not?” I asked. “Well, frankly my members wouldn’t make it if it weren’t for our church programme.” Enough said. ” The Christ within would wither up and die if the pastor’s flock didn’t get their weekly worship session and sound Bible instruction.

The clerical system at its worst methinks.

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I’m A Holy Roller ~ Get me Outta Here!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I'm A Holy Roller ~ Get Me Outta Here

I’m A Holy Roller ~ Get Me Outta Here

We glibly follow the Nazarene in many guises. One of our favourite ones is the serious disciple, the  believer whose big aim in life is to make Jesus, Lord. We play numerous church and individual basedl games in our zealous attempt at convincing ourselves that we’ve finally handed over the control of our lives to the mysterious Galilean. Now, as a recovering Holy Roller myself, one who played loads of complex Spirit games in my youth, I want to examine why so many Charismatic/Pentecostal folk eventually leave their initial, revivalist brand of choice.

May I be blunt? We can play an extremely plausible role within Spirit-focused faith, or indeed, within the many modern New Age alternatives and still not have yielded to Divine Love. I’d better explain. Ego, our wounded, and often frenetic, psyche-soul, adores religious or spiritual disguises. It’s a past master at the whole Angel of Light thing. Since time began, long ago in the mythic Garden, ego has wrapped itself in its psycho-spiritual skins to hide from the Innocent intimacy of Source, fearing that it has been spurned by Love and placed under a divine fatwa.

The Evangelicals among us were told that ‘the Satan’ used to lead the Heavenly choirs in their harmonic songs of adoration. In other words, a religious worship leader, or alternatively, a pseudo-spiritual vibrational expert. Maybe there’s some elements of truth in there, for ego, the faithful foot soldier of the aforementioned adversarial system, can certainly put on a good show. Ego loves religious devotion with all its directed hoop-jumping. It will commit itself to great depths of suffering and pain, all in the name of God. It will ‘serve’ and ‘love’ till it’s blue in the face and about to expire. Add a controlling pastoral or authoritative voice to the mix and ego will splash its cash to get some of what it appears to have.

Paradoxically, it’s all about trying to impress the Divine while being terrified of its pronouncements. Many of us, whether religious or spiritual, have played this game in our time, on the ever-spinning hamster-wheel of devotion. And yet, we all eventually fall off. Well, to be more accurate, we’re simply pushed off by the intervention of Spirit, in the form of Life. So let’s be clear; ego has vast resources of psychological strength, yet even these remain limited. At some stage in our sojourn Divine Love comes calling, loudly proclaiming, ‘Enough is enough. Time for aReality check!’

Now, it’s at this critical stage in our journey when we Holy Rollers, start rebuking everything in sight, in one last desperate attempt to remain in our religious delusion. ‘God would never let this happen to me – I’m a Holy Roller – get me outta here,’ we scream in frustrated sincerity!

And yet, in reality, this is the day of our salvation. Not the religious joining of a faith system through confessional game play, but rather, a felt and all too painful salvation. For Divine Love has decided to take us through cold turkey, weaning us off our devotional drug in a way that only Transcendence can manage. When Love strikes it heads straight for the dependency jugular. Yes, you’ve guessed it, ego. It only asks one thing – a surrender of control, an end to our illusory state of independence and strength. Of course, like some great lion with a thorn in its paw, ego doesn’t lie down lightly. Thankfully though, Source knows us better than we know ourselves, and the final act of compassion comes swiftly and decisively. We, or more accurately ego, is floored for good. Time for some thorn removal therapy methinks!

I look fondly back to my somewhat heady days as a Holy Roller. Divine Love was extremely gracious to me in many, many ways, and yet, all along It was planning to snatch me from the jaws of ego in the blink of an eye. ‘Do you miss it all’, I’m often asked. Well, to be honest no. Better to have ego, healed and reintegrated, rather than running around in its blind religious fervour.

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Treadmill Revivalism

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Treadmill Revivalism

Treadmill Revivalism

 

Not long after we join a church or para-church movement we’re told, either bluntly, or ever-so subtly, that we’re all on a mission for God. Out there in the big wide world are millions of our fellow-men and women, those who don’t know Jesus like we know Him. The Christian life is one big mission, the evangelising of the whole world no less. If we don’t get it done nobody else will, and to accomplish it we need to commit to our sect of choice.

Of course, there are many varied brands within the Christian flock, but we’re told by much older experienced hands that the holy grail that we singularly seek is  revival. Now I’m all for revivals when they come along, but I’m not so sure that Divine Love is obsessed with them. And lets face it, numerous revivals have been claimed, when they are really no more than subtle mind-control events, hyped up with seductive music and a touch of show biz glamour.

In my dour wee homeland of Northern Ireland, a revival took place in the early 20th century. At the heart of it lay the fiery preaching of WP Nicholson, a travelling evangelist from my home town, who literally scared the hell out of folk. Gifted with the blunt language of the common man Nicholson painted a burning end for those who didn’t respond to his particular take on salvation. So effective was he that his converts returned a mountain of stolen tools to  the Harland and Wolf shipyard, builder of the ill-fated Titanic. Yet, can terror or hell-driven conviction for sin really be the sign of Divine Love at work. I tend to think not.

Anyway, when we’ve signed up to our beguiling new Christian movement we’re informed that something big, really big, is just around the corner , like the visit of the aliens in Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, only holier. Yes, you guessed it – God has plans for a great world revival and we’re at the heart of His planning committee. Of course as a new convert, one eager to please both God and man, we tend to believe such sacred spin. And so our addiction for pre-revival disciplines begins.

I’ve done them all in my time. Prayer and fasting are the biggies for many revival heads. The game plan is simple: the more we pray the more God turns up. The more we fast the more powerful or influential our prayers. Now this raises a few important questions. Why does God not come at the first sign of a request from His followers? Why does giving up our daily sustenance twist God’s arm even more. One begins to wonder if God is really into this penny in the slot, type of faith dynamic.

In my own Charismatic sect of choice, we discovered that an ancient Celtic monastery in our town had established a 24 hour prayer and praise regime during the early medieval period. For over a couple of hundred years Celtic hymns and contemplative prayers were offered up without a moments break. Three 8 hour shifts of chorister monks at full throttle, copying the daily routine of the ancient Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Hundreds of monks travelled from my wee town to the pagan lands of Europe with much success in their attempts to introduce the wild Germanic hordes to the love of Jesus. So, inspired by our ancestors pious dedication we began. The task of continuous prayer through the hours of darkness was handed out to the men of the fellowship. If one refused, a not so subtle demotion in the eyes of our zealous leaders resulted, doubting one’s commitment or indeed manhood. The dear women of our group theoretically covered the daylight hours, when they weren’t being model wives and mothers.

Yep, the Prayer Watch, as it was known, marked us out as one spiritual notch above the rest in the religious Bible of Northern Ireland. As dragged ourselves out of bed at some unearthly hour to tumble down to the church offices to pray with our prayer partner, the spirit was willing but the flesh extremely weak. Boy those were the days – days of madness in hindsight. Of course not everything went to plan. I well remember the night when my partner and I got stuck in a snow drift and couldn’t fulfil our obligations. The poor duo who we were supposed to relieve on watch, had to do our stint as well. I’m sure many employers wondered why once a week their model Christian workers would turn up to work fit for nothing, catnapping their way throughout the paid working day.

I guess we were peer pressured young idealists willing to join the revivalist treadmill. After all, if we put in the effort God would surely deliver – wouldn’t He? Of course it was a recipe for psycho-spiritual burnout. A presented but unreal God who expected us to put in a good penny’s worth in order for others to discover him for themselves.

Is it any wonder that we eventually fall off our religious treadmills, exhausted and somewhat disillusioned by the modus operand of our particular revivalist sect? There is much madness in the Christian world whilst wisdom, true wisdom lies within. So, if you’re tempted to sign up for a spiritual gym with the carrot of revival set temptingly before you, best return to the privacy of your own Self and listen for the still small Voice.

Next week I’ll tackle the crazy practice of fasting as a prayer enhancer. More crazy tales of a semi-starving religious junkie.

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Burn-Out & God

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2014| 4 Comments »

Burn-Out & God

Burn-Out & God

I guess that God knows all about burn-out, having seen so many of us succumb to that particular psycho-spiritual pitfall. The trouble is, most of us recovering religious junkies found God at a young age when we hadn’t yet discovered who we really are, and perhaps more importantly, what God is really looking for in our mutual friendship. Is it any wonder that so many of us ditch the religion and God of our youth to be ‘normal’, and sleep in on Sunday mornings.

I reckon the whole concept of discipleship is partly to blame. To be a follower of the Nazarene is to self deny and take up our cross ad nauseam. Boy, what a life to sign up to. Thousands of church services over our three score years and ten, months spent in intercessory, battling prayer and of course, last but not least the endless voluntary work, known as ministry expected from all good disciples. It all sounds so holy and sacrificial, and if we know anything the Divine is really into sacrifice, especially that of His beloved Son. Some New Testament scholars believe Christianity to be an updated version of Greek Stoicism, and I can see why. Virtue as the highest form of happiness sounds all too familiar to my religious junkie mindset of old. Yes, God is a quality controller who expects from us the high standards of the Nazarene, especially on Sundays.

So where is the flaw in all of this. What exactly is discipleship and is its end result always burn-out. Well, may I humbly suggest that we have lost the Middle Eastern meaning of discipleship. All Jewish Rabbis, at least those of note and a good reputation had their disciples; generally a band of men, who modelled themselves on their master’s lifestyle and teaching. Of course like all discipleship models it had its drawbacks, with rivalry and power struggles always a possibility. Yet, at its essence it was all about following. Yeshua, bar Josef was no different. He asked his motley crew of men and women, to follow him, but was it a journey into dour sacrificialsm? I believe not.

The Nazarene claimed that his yoke was easy and his burden, light. These rabbinical buzz words had a special meaning. Yoke and Burden referred to the general life teaching of a spiritual master. In other words, Yeshua was saying that what he asked of his followers was quite simple and easy to fulfil, in comparison to many of the other yokes and burdens kicking around the Judaism of his day. Peter, James and John and gang were simply to love God and their neighbours in the same way the Galilean did. Just an imitation of sorts, yet not one to be squeezed out of stoical human effort, but one to be channeled from Divine Source, a reflex action of the Love that touches all. The taking up of the cross wasn’t a call to suffering but a call to liberation from the dictates of ego. Such a radical following of the Nazarene, would release the tortured will into the Divine destiny. A letting go to trump all lettings go.

‘I have come to bring life and life more abundantly’ now begins to make sense. A life of realignment and connection with Source, the Love that flows to all, if only we will ditch our old sacrificial thinking. To follow the Nazarene is not to crucify Self, but detach from ego and its incessant, fear fuelled demands. Self is made to flourish and create in the divine economy, not hang on a religious cross and pride itself on its suffering.

So where does that leave all of us religious burn-outs. Well, I reckon that somewhere along the line we have been presented with a form of Christianity whose yoke is far from easy and its burden, heavier than lead. We attempted to slave our way to holiness in the guise of sacrificial love and it back-fired. Our bodies, psyches and spirits had enough and declared so in quite dramatic fashion. ‘Stop’ they cried and so we did, often unwillingly, for the death loving virus within religion is a hard one to shift. Lying in a faithless heap we wondered if we’d ever again feel the Presence that started it all. And of course, in time the call comes, not to stoicism and religious hoop jumping, but to stillness and touch, the compassionate embrace of the Divine Samaritan. The Master has returned.

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Who’s Hiding Inside?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2014| 5 Comments »

Who's Hiding Inside

Who’s Hiding Inside

 

Tucked away within a slime covered oyster, one lying in the murky depths of the swirling ocean, lies a pearl of great price. The divers of indigenous peoples take their life in their hands to dive deep to bring to the surface these watery treasures, for sale and display. Likewise it takes a level of  daring for us to enter the murky depths of our inner world to discover what lies beneath. It’s a dive that many of us refuse to take, particularly, may I tentatively suggest, those of us who claim to follow the Nazarene. Within the confines of both conservative and progressive belief systems, inner diving is looked upon with great suspicion. Labelled as a form of  self-absorption, a wasteful narcissism, we’re advised not to dabble our toes in the waters of Self.

For the conservative disciple, Jesus/Yeshua, is all we need. We keep looking outwards at mental projections of his death and resurrection, believing that we’re somehow saved from an eternity outside the reach of God’s love. Of course a measure of inner knowledge is occasionally suggested, but it refers only to the indwelling Spirit that has somehow come to take up residence within the faithful believer. Now where exactly Spirit is believed to have settled isn’t really explained, with both soul (psyche) and spirit (ours) bandied around as religious buzz words without any real explanation. No, the emphasis is primarily one of relating to an external God, One who is somehow out there. Mission, the evangelisation of others, is the overarching goal of the conservative believer, with very little time left for Self exploration and inner knowledge. Brainwashed that such introversion is for the selfish New Age types, the pearl is left to sit within the encrusted shell of ego, our wounded and dare I say it, unhealed psyche-soul.

For the progressive too, the inner search for meaning is also a somewhat Don Quixote waste of time. Rightly believing the  Nazarene to be a revolutionary of the scapegoating social order, the Progressive sets out of a Love mission to show the compassion of God to others. No airy-fairy pie-in-the-sky love for the Progressive, but a practical siding with the victims of society in a sleeves rolled-up kind of way. For the Progressive the Nazarene is to be found in the tear-stained face of others. A vital part of the salvation narrative but not the whole story. For the Progressive the inner world is one of angst and pain, the drivers of their compassion for wounded others. Yet, they too seem reluctant to explore their own inner world, preferring to explore the inner world of others instead. Much less painful and perhaps much more ego boosting. No, the Progressive follower of the Nazarene tends to see the Queendom-Kingdom without, in the mess of the here and now. The realm of Divine Love within is one that is believed but not really sought. More important things to do in our earthed, yet partial take on the Nazarene and his message.

Both religious tribes tend to view each other with deep suspicion while leaving the inner journey thing to the mystics of other traditions. Such inner travellers are viewed as a bit of a waste of space and those to be pitied with their tales of self-knowledge and an inner Presence. Get into that stuff too much and you’ll soon be living  at the top of an Egyptian desert pole or, more likely, taking a much-needed break in a mental health institution.

No, let’s face it. Inner knowledge isn’t top of the Yeshua followers to do list. Best left to the Mind, Body, Spirit brigade and their supposed, uncaring narcissism. And yet, the divine portal, the pearl of the human spirit, still lies deep within, growing and crying out for expression. And expression it will eventually get.

When the masks of ego fall away during the performance we call life, when the slime of our shell-like ego is washed away in the storms that beset us, when something breaks within, opening the clamp-like grip of our psyche-soul to reveal a touch of Source, the divine deposit that makes us who we are. Our authentic self, that part of us untouched by pain and struggle, that centre that flows into the Energy of God.

And the way in?

Silence and reflection as we lie on the Divine Psychiatrist’s couch, willing to meet our shadow Self with all its warts and deep felt pain. A passer-by on our journey Home, one we can’t ignore but need to embrace as we walk towards the Light. Such sessions aren’t the result of strenuous Self-Improvement effort but the co-operation of a psyche-soul that knows the time has come to relinquish control. The day of ego has passed and Divine Love begins to do its healing, yet painful thing.

Is it any wonder that we keep busy with Jesus? Better an outside Saviour than one who walks with us through the valley of psyche-soul, the valley of death into the pastures lands of spirit-Self and Divine Love.

Now where did I put that mask?

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Scared of Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2014| 9 Comments »

Scared Of Love

Scared Of Love

 

Let’s face it. Most of us are scared of Love, real love that is! Not the sentimental version that sloshes its way around most of our waking hours, but burning love, the real deal. The Love that sees us naked, warts and all and still embraces us with an altogether different kind of acceptance, the very acceptance of Source itself, the One who thought us up in the first place.

Yes, even in its manifested human form we run scared of its all-seeing glance in our direction, swearing as we run for cover in the assurances of ego. Let’s be frank. Most of us at some stage in our earthly sojourn have been terrified of the one they call the Christ. Even His followers are really terrified of Him, believing the sin narrative that Christianity has overlaid Him with. We’re never quite sure if He’ll lay a guilt trip on us in the heady environs of the next life, one that goes something like this:

‘Never forget that I died for you, you undeserving sinner saved by grace!’

No, in our more honest moments we are still wary of the Nazarene, believing religion’s spin on His life, death and claimed resurrection. Such an underlying fear is revealed in our day-to-day avoidance of Love, those times that we prefer the security of insecurity to the Presence of Spirit Breath bubbling up within.

As for those who don’t give religion a second thought! Well, they’ve clearly had enough of the Jesus of Christianity. They’ve observed the Nazarene’s supposed reflection, the Christian believer, from a safe distance and decided, ‘Thanks but no thanks!’ The person of  the Christian Christ terrifies the free running ego. It spells entrapment and a suffocating confinement, a control that they can do without. It’s weird how multitudes quickly proclaim the Nazarene to be a ‘good’ Man before hiding him away in a religious cupboard that they vow to never visit. Yet apart from the religious caricature, there is something that scares folk stiff about the Galilean prophet. Maybe, we suspect that He was onto something regarding our inner life, something that asks us to travel through inner angst into a New World, a World of  reunion and contentment. ‘But He, asks too much,’ declare our wounded egos, those defenders against further rejection and pain.

Yes, this Man certainly rocks our inner and outer worlds. No wonder we run to hide in the Edenic bushes of our misperceived shame. Yet, we run from Love, a Love that has never rejected us nor called us sinners. Hasn’t ego done a great job in keeping us far from Divine Love, shepherding us into the sheep folds of zealous religion, or the hedonistic cities of  quick fix pleasure.

Time perhaps to revisit the Nazarene, on the neutral hillsides of our weaker moments. One Touch is all it takes.

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Little gods

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

Little gods

Little gods

 

The major religions claim that we are made in the image of God, or the  Divine Source. Most of their adherents walk around believing it but without much of a clue as to what it may mean. I guess that sums up most of our metaphysical  beliefs. We just believe them and continue merrily on our way.

In this new little series I thought I’d look at two aspects of the Divine that we can reflect in this space-time reality, viz. creativity and compassion. Today we shall look at creativity.

I guess it’s pretty obvious that Source must be a creator; by definition we wouldn’t be here unless it had done its thing. And what a creation it’s come up with. Surrounded by our man-made concrete jungles we’ve lost touch with the wonders and simple complexities of the Natural Order. To gaze and ponder on a wondrously blue dragonfly is to touch base with a drop of the Mystery that is God. Multiply such experiences by a thousand fold and we are closer to believing that there is a purposeful Designer somewhere out there, perhaps even within.

Yes, Divine Source, this Transcendent Creator is full of intelligence, an intelligence bursting with the passion of expressing itself on the canvas of space-time. Creating is part of the Divine DNA – it can’t help itself, dancing its way through the virtual-reality fields of Being. And, its masterpiece is us, those little humanoids that populate planet Earth. Like a mischievous Rembrandt, the Artist has placed something of Himself in each and every one of us.

One such aspect of this Spirit brushed image is our own ability to create. Like the Divine, we too can’t help ourselves. We have been hot-wired to create. Each of us has been equipped with a well-spring of creative energy with which to express the wonder of our individual perception of Being. Such creativity, brings a flow and sense of purpose to our daily lives. Show me a creator and I will show you one that has phoned Home. In the act of creating, we know we are linked to something much bigger than our psyche-soul; in releasing the energy within we are opening up a conduit with the Divine, a pipeline back to Source.

May I suggest that much of our internal angst stems from a blockage of this creative flow. Stuck in the rat-race we work to survive, often in jobs that call for little or no creativity at all. As we take our dutiful places within the production line of our material world, we yearn for the fields of freedom, space where we can be Me. If this sums up your particular situation what can be done?

Well, I reckon that we all have a little creative project on hold within us. Swamped by the pressures of supposed ‘life’, it lies waiting its release. It lies bubbling under the hardened rock of our ego demands and fear-based control. Getting in touch with our creator within is the first step to release. Being brutally honest with ourselves in the silence of contemplation enables us to hear the whispers of our liberator. Once we know what we really WANT to do, will is on hand to energise our escape from the confines of our non-creative life. As we take the first steps towards our creative project, power flows from somewhere deep within. It is the energy of Divine Passion, released like a caged tiger on the plains of ordinariness. With one leap we are free to be a more authentic version of our Self. Once complete, a new creative surge will present itself to carry us even further forward.

I’d better make clear that this new creativity may or may not be part of our daily 9-5 job. If it is, then much  workplace stress will disappear. If not, then it will find its river course in another slice of our space-time existence. One ounce of creativity outside the workplace will enable our psyche-souls to bear the load of much hum-drum grind. Yet, once experienced even the predictability of our regular jobs may begin to change. For, once the creative genie is released from the lamp of ego boredom, anything is possible.

So, may I suggest that as we set out along the path of creativity, we are on a journey that will inevitably lead to a meeting with the Creator of all creators, the Source I Am. To jump on the creative train is an act of faith or trust, one that can take us to places that we can’t imagine – a place of inner Knowledge and Divine encounter.

Now where DID I put that manuscript?

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AWACs & The Inner Core

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 26, 2014| 2 Comments »

 

Inner Core

Inner Core

 

It’s been a funny few weeks, with my health scare and all. Last Wednesday I saw my friendly maxillofacial surgeon who confidently informed me that I had a case of solar keratosis rather than fully fledged lip cancer. Still wants to take a lip biopsy to confirm his diagnosis but it’s all good news, at least better than it was at my clinical dermatologist’s. Certainly a weight lifted off me and my good lady Zan as we walked from the clinic with a spring in our step. I’m still listening for answers within. Why now is the big question, as I’m on the verge of launching my new book! Is there a connection, a little thorn in the flesh perhaps to keep me grounded in the One I purport to write about.

This has got me thinking again at the power of the psyche-soul. The slightest sign of bad news and its off on one. Like a little defense force it pumps us full of fear, narrowing our inner world down to the goal of survival. Useful I guess for our Neolithic ancestors who ran when an enormous big beast jumped on them from a great height. But today? I suspect that we all have a psyche-soul that’s a bit oversensitive  and paranoid about making mistakes. Having left us open to the primal wounding of infancy, it’s not gone to make the same mistake again. Like some form of psycho-spiritual AWAC , it’s all too ready for signs of danger on our ground of being. Ready to launch counter strikes by our fighter sub-personalities at the drop of a misperception we fly on the wings of feeling.

So when my clinically cool dermatologist mentioned the word ‘pre-cancerous’ my personal little airforce sprung into action, stunning both body and soul into a form of lockdown. The border crossing through which spirit-breath flows and energises our everyday life is closed with immediate effect. ‘No time for this spiritually minded stuff,’ the psyche soul declares. ‘This is an emergency, code red.’

Yet in Reality it isn’t of course. It’s just a blip on the world of form. It just doesn’t feel like that as body and soul conspire to rule our conscious world, pumping it full of dreadful scenarios.’Take tour pick,’ it kindly offers. ‘ All will end up in the big wooden box – oblivion, with no beyond.’ Such a cheerful chap this psyche-soul, armed with its sense of impending doom. What power to sway and send us down the corridors of despair within seconds of its ‘Warning, Warning’ red light.

So how are we to stay sane, equipped with such a potent battery of survival powers. Well of course it’s not the whole story. Behind this little ‘me’ lies another, one from One, the Divine Spark that needs no defending. Non reactive and constantly at peace, this Self gets quickly overlooked in the frantic fray that follows an AWAC warning. Battlestations are where it’s at, but deep within we’re undisturbed and gently pulsating to the calming energy of Divine Love. So it’s all about which layer of reality we plug into. Unless we are a walking, talking Spiritual Master, our psyche-soul early warning system will always kick in. It’s what we do about it that determines our future level of peace.

Psyche-soul tends to see itself higher up the spiritual plane than it really is. It’s a ‘me’ tool for our space-time experience, a self for this world of matter and form. It was not created to control, but to be the junior dance partner in the Waltz of Being. In other words, its perceptions must be seen in the Light of a higher knowledge. The AWAC of psyche-soul isn’t the be all and end all of  perception. It’s limited in its range of Reality perception. No, for a genuine overview of our Being, spirit breath must come into play.

And how do we achieve this when all hell breaks loose? Well, we need to look within, beyond the emotional skirmishes of consciousness, to the place of peace, that dwelling place of Source. Passing down through the layers of fear we’ll find the eye of the storm – the stillness that whispers ‘Enough’. Walking in solitude, meditation, prayer; all help us leave the chattering fears of our AWAC behind. In Silence we touch base with Headquarters and the One who really knows.

So maybe that’s why we’re here in the first place. To walk through this induction process of awakening; to discover in the realm of soul that we are much more, a little drop of the Divine Ocean having its human experience.

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Curve Ball

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 5, 2014| 10 Comments »

Curve Ball

Curve Ball

When we’re floating along the calm ocean of spiritual experience we imagine it to be plain sailing all the way. We are mistaken. When we reach a plateau of Awareness and inner peace we believe it to be the summit. It isn’t. When we’ve hit lots of home runs and are confident of our spiritual strike rate, we are suddenly taken aback by a curve ball. And so it was last Tuesday! I’d better explain.

For the past two summers I’ve ‘suffered’ from a chapped and often cracked lower lip Initially my local doctor, said nothing to worry about and gave me a hydrocortisone cream to settle it down, which it did for a few weeks. It didn’t last, so I resigned myself to the fluctuations of a lip problem that was probably minor in nature.

Until last week that is when my doctor sent me to a dermatologist who within seconds diagnosed my lower lip as a victim of a precancerous skin condition. In  her pristine white coat and emotionless face she delivered her conclusions with cold efficiency. My poor wee psyche was stunned, spluttering a few irrelevant questions in her direction to try to gain a foothold in my quickly vanishing inner equilibrium.

Being a bit of a hypochondriac, a story in itself, I was programmed to hear doctors proclaim, ‘Nothing to worry about Dylan’. This time the old tapes didn’t roll, replaced instead by a clinician’s non-bedside pronouncement. After hearing the gory details of what non-treatment could result in, I was referred to a maxilla-facial surgeon here in Lincoln, who would more than likely recommend an innocent sounding procedure known innocuously as a lip shave!. it is a misnomer – the removal of my lower lip’s surface layer of skin and the creation of a new lip by stretching excess skin from within my mouth to create a new smiling me.

On the way out my dermatologist friend finally added a ‘nothing to worry about Mr Morrison’, as she handed me a tick box form to record my irrelevant impressions of my consultation experience. Too late the damage was done. My old sub-personalities who see death behind every lamp-post had kicked in, transmitting pictures of a grieving Zan  and a  whining wee black doggy frantically looking for her departed master. Oh, the power of fear! It truly is awful in its vice-like grip on our sense of being.

A week later, I’ve regained some sort of perspective on my new pre-cancerous friends living on my lower lip. They are messengers – transmitters of a call to growth and healing. How bizarre that a prodigal prophet should have his lips tell him something isn’t right. Sounds like a bit of a sick Cosmic joke, but there it is for all to see. Time to break camp, leave behind my spiritual ease and take the next climb up Jacob’s ladder, that stairway to heaven that leaves no stone unturned.

I’m listening to my body and the inner wisdom that I believe is there for all of us to tap into. As I seek to journey into my core Self, frantic, fearful little messages try to knock me off course with threats of an early demise. Flap as they will, this is a time for growth, for an expansion of consciousness, for a new awareness of how much we shy away from our destiny as images of Divine Love. So, I’m listening and waiting. All is well and shall be well, is my mantra of choice to steady the ship of my fragile psyche-soul, as we navigate the unknown seas that stretch out before me. To be honest, I was expecting such a catalyst to further growth and the healing of old memories that lie within. Recently, I’ve had a number of incidents with ‘officialdom’ of various shades, that have released an anger deep within me that I thought had been dealt with a while back. I should have known that Divine Love, the surgeon of my soul would come along and do a lip enhancement, to remove the roots of anger that so easily sharpen my words for war.

My desire is to open all to the prescriptive gaze of both Self and Source. I’m seeing it all as a rollercoaster ride, with its ups and downs but one that will serve me well. My good friend and zen student, Matthew Sammut, has encouraged me to write of my journey through this little Shadow Valley in order to encourage others. Either all our God talk and spiritual experiences help us or they don’t. I choose to go within, to a realm more real than the clinician’s black and white pronouncements. There I hope to hear the messages waiting for me on my inner Voicemail. The roots of my anger and damaged lip, and the Wisdom to do what needs to be done.

I’d value all your prayers and healing energies along the way. Let’s see what Divine Love conjures up from the curve ball pitched at my mouth. Hopefully a more authentic and compassionate Irishman whose words heal and restore rather than wound his fellow-man.

Blessings to you all

❤ Dylan

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Families ~ Blessing Or Curse? Part 2: Fathers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 21, 2014| 4 Comments »

Families ~ Blessings Or Curse?

Families ~ Blessings Or Curse?

 

In the first post of this little series I looked at the pros of cons of mothers on the development of our fledgling psyche. Interestingly most folk have kept their comments to themselves after reading it. Perhaps I have unearthed a pain not yet reading for the Light. Perhaps the post was way off mark. Anyway, today I wish to look at fathers and how they influence our psycho-spiritual makeup.

Contrary to popular myth it was the women folk who ruled the roost within the human communities of ancient times. The warrior Amazons of folklore representing a hidden truth that the modern male prefers to ignore. Somewhere in the dark annals of history a shift took place and men rose to the top of the tribal pecking order, at least in theory if not altogether in practice.

Today we again live in a time of flux where the relatively recent social order is once again shifting. Women are once more emerging from under the male dominance of social norms. It is difficult being a mother and indeed a father in such a whirlwind of social change, no matter how beneficial it may prove to the future of mankind.

Having said this, I wish to look at fathers in light of the traditional Middle Eastern take on fathers, one that prevailed in 1st century Palestine at the time of  the Nazarene. Such social norms greatly influenced the religious take on God, pushing the concept of the Divine feminine to the edges of acceptability or into the so-called heretical realms of goddess worship. Yeshua’s contemporaries perceived God as a Father due to their belief that fathers were the source of life. This Divine Source  was by their definition in control as of right. The One who provides the gift of life wields the authority to govern it. Middle Eastern fathers were thus perceived as governors in their own home and as such to be honoured and obeyed.

This model of fatherhood was left unchanged by the developing Christian movement as it spread westwards. Today our Western view of fatherhood is slowly changing but vestiges of the old hierarchical order still cling to our daily family affairs.

So what of our fathers? How have they shaped our psycho-spiritual development. Let me first start with the negatives. Absentee fathers are the plague of our modern world. Willing enough to sow their seed in an act of sensual pleasure many ‘dads’ aren’t so keen on hanging around for long. Many of our inner feelings of abandonment and loneliness can be attributed to the absence of an authenticating male parent. No matter how well our single mothers pour their love and nurture into our fledgling psyche-souls there is a wee gap. At the risk of appearing sexist, I believe that fathers who run away are depriving their kids of something deeply valuable. It is one thing to be loved by a single parent; it’s an altogether different level of assurance to have two parents, both present and engaging in a mutual love. The world appears to be a safer place for those of us fortunate enough to have been raised in such an environment.

Of course many fathers hang around but might as well have left. Fathers who are severely dysfunctional imprint disorder and confusion onto the psyche-soul of their deeply observational kids. Violent mood swings or emotional apathy are vicious psychic wounds that remain with us well into adulthood. Unaware of how messed up our fathers really are we give them the benefit of the doubt by believing ourselves to be at fault. Our childhood reasoning goes something like this: “If I take the blame, then  dad will love me”. Such faulty programming goes with us into life as we seek the approval of further father-like figures, whether future husbands or work-place bosses.

Of course some fathers are dysfunctional in an altogether way, attempting to micro-manage the life of their child.  Discipline and training are the cover stories for what in essence is a form of bullying. The bullying dad who makes his son or daughter do the right thing is a deeply insecure individual, most likely a victim himself of past parental abuse. In this camp we often find the religious zealot who believes that it is his duty to instil the fear of God into his offspring. Nothing of course is further from the truth, but many fathers use God as their cover story for emotional and often physical abuse.

So enough of the bad news! How can a father aid our healthy psycho-spiritual development. Well, obvious as it may seem, he must be a man who is secure enough to change and admit his own frailties, even to his children. If he has frozen on his own path of discovery he will do the same to his kids. Above all he will be a channel of unconditional love, even as one who sets out boundaries for his children. The children must know that they are loved not because of their performance but just because they are.  If dads can convey and model this to their young families then they have sown a seed within their children’s psyche that will bear much emotional health in adulthood.

A father who understands the keys of human development and adjusts the manifestations of his love to suit his child’s stage of maturation is a wise man indeed. For the loving boundary setter of early childhood must morph into the dependable supporter as his growing child sets of on their own journey of Self-discovery.

Above all, the father who believes and trusts that Divine Love is within and authenticating  the life of his child has the right idea. At times of suffering and pain, the good father will be helpless. It is in such times of turmoil that there is nothing left to hold onto but One who is All in All. It’s not easy to believe, for the pain of fatherhood can be psyche-shattering at times. As I stood over the open grave of my wee baby son Ben, back in 1984 I gave him over to the One from whom he’d come. It was as painful as hell but it was the only way. To do otherwise would have been a one way trip to insanity.

So, if  you’ve been deprived by a lack of input or indeed damaged by abusive acts of a loveless man what is one to do? Well, the best plan is to call a spade a spade and get those inner memories out into the open. Left in denial they only fester away and manifest in mental health issues or physical illness. Find an external authenticator, one who can reprogramme those inner tracks of hurt with unconditional love. For some of us this requires therapy or the listening ear of a deep friend, for others serious reading and a willingness to delve into that place of rejection that we’ve never wanted to visit.

May Abba,  the Cosmic Parent of the Nazarene and all mankind, guide us on the Path of inner healing and peace.

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