God's Greatest Truth...Chocolate...or Strawberry

When the intellect, or mind, is exposed to a new idea, concept or experience, it is faced with a choice; incorporate the new information into the existing paradigm or dismiss it as irrelevant. We do this a thousand times a day without even noticing. But...what if we started paying attentioon? Made it more conscious?

This new 'stuff' usually arrives at our 'operating system' via sensory input at some level; either eyes, ears, mouth or nose and when it does, a littel window pops up asking us to choose if we want to "save it, open it now or cancel ". I would pose the idea that just because we decide to hit cancel does not in actuality correspond to whether it had in actual relavance, only whether we thought it did.

If we choose to "open it", perhaps that allows the 'thing' to enter the mind, or intelligence, which deals mostly with logic and past exerience, the lizard brain and gray matter (if I remember my anatomy). I would suggest that choosiing "Save" is like letting it enter our soul, or deeper self, allowing for more long term options and maybe even 'free downloads' and 'upgrades'....perhaps our cerebral cortex, which has many more 'options'. We can commune with our higher source about it and receive all that it can offer, but it requires more time and patience.

I ran across this quote in a book I'm reading that says,

"God's greatest truth is that there is not one way, but many ways home. There are thousands of paths to God and every one will get you there. Indeed all paths lead to God because there is no other place to go."

I have sat with those words all week. It brought up for me the thought that although it was true for me, many people I love and who love me, might not agree, or feel confused as to what it meant. A part of me sought, once again, to reconcile my personal journey with God in the context of what I was raised to believe, how those beliefs have changed over time and how that has impacted others.

I think it's harder for them to ask about it than it is for me to talk about. I'm not actually sure they really want to know, and I respect that. Perhaps it is easier to hit cancel have the story you have told yourself about something so that it will make sense to you or hit open and let your mind give you all the reasons it doesn'tfit with the way you look at things rather than try to comprehend something entirely outside the realm of your personal experience. I am not attached to being believed or validated and the only respect that matters to me is my own. The only one who can truly disappoint me is myself.

I remember when someone tried to teach me to play chess. I didn't really have any internal desire to learn, but I knew how much others liked it and thought it would be 'a good skill to acquire'. But as soon as they started telling me the rules I couldn't keep my brain on. I don't know why but some part of me shut down. Maybe that's what happens for them. When I am asked, I soon find the subject changed. With chess, t all just seemed too hard, and besides, I was perfectly content with checkers. I didn't want to have to 'work' that hard at 'playing a game' I told myself. Games are supposed to be fun.




Perhaps that is what happens when poeple try to unerstand what "happened to me". After many wonderful, personal, spritual experiences in the church of my birth, I began to be lead by that same presence in ways that were slightly intimidating to me at first. Books appeared in my life. I met many amazing people who lived lives of integrity and joy. I had the good fortune to be invited to observe and experience worship within other churches and participate in spiritual practices of many different cultures. I had little fear of doing so, which I get the impression surprises some poeple who have been taught not to experiment outside their current faith under the guise that 'satan will get you if you go too far away'. Well, you might say, "It's a Test". In response I would ask, "would God be so under-handed that he would design a test that he ultimately wanted you to pass, but fill it with trick questions?" I believed, and still believe that if a place or a thing was not good or good for me, I wouldn't feel good being there or doing it, and that would let me know. I had been taught through scriptures, "By their fruits ye shall know them", and I saw good fruit. That same spirit was also telling me that these other things were also true, and sometimes more true. And as I did what I had been taught to do, which was to use faith, and plant the seed and see if it grew, and if it did then it was a 'good seed'. As time paseed I begin to have experiences that would show me that the basic tentants were based in ultimate truth, but the way that religion, in general, tried to get you to be a "good" and the way "good" was defined were merely a distraction to what spirituality was really about for me... being in communion with God, and feeling God's presence within me and being lead through my life so that I might have peace and share than peace and love with others. And I had been taught that if the Spirit was with you, you were on the right track. So why was everyone so upset and concerned?

Now here is where the mind games begin.....

Somewhere along the line I had been told, "Satan will tell you 9 truths to get you to believe 1 lie." I honestly don't know where I heard that, but it was an almost constant voice in my head and some days I felt literally like I was going crazy. I feared I was being lead 'astray' and I just didn't know it yet. In that respect it was an almost hourly choice; follow the Spirit or follow my fears. I chose Spirit, knowing that if that peace ever left me, I would know I was off course. Sort of my own, internal GPS :)

Depending on your beliefs, you may or may not like the questions this experience brought up for me.

How can one person, or a group of people, rationalize and explain what another person, or group of people is experiencing in their own heart, mind and body?

If someone finds God in a place or through a practice, how can it be called into question? Isn't it arrogant and presumptuous to assume that you, who are not in their heart mind and body, can independently judge that experience for them, and render it either valuable or invaluable, true or untrue?

I was given this analogy in meditation:

There are many flavors of ice cream, probably hundreds, and although some are more popular than others, each flavor would have it's own 'fan club', who would argue it was the "Best", or "only one worth eating". Some people wouldn't pick a favorite at all because to them, "ice cream doesn't taste good in the first place, and besides, it's bad for you". There are also hundreds of different types of music.

At one point I'm sure we've all found ourselves having a discussion over food or music in which someone exclaims how wonderul something is, only to be followed by everyone else's 2 cents, followed by the naming of favorites. Somewhere in the mix someone will usually comment, "Really? I don't like that at all!", seeming actually confused by the idea that it is possible to feel differntly than they do.

When it comes to food and music, the conversation usually ends there, and everyone goes their way all warm and fuzzy, because it is socially acceptable to have a different opinion/experience than someone. Other areas are not so innocent.

When it comes to politics we take it up a notch. The right and wrong of it enter in and the exchanges more spicy. But when it comes to God....the rules change.

We take it VERY personally and find ourselves arguing or feeling threatened or fearful; even worrying or praying for others to believe what we believe; believing that it is the only valid belief. Sometimes make it our quest in life to convince others that they either wrong or mislead in their reality and experience with God. I assume I'm stepping on hollowed ground with my family by comparing Mocha Almond Fudge and John Mayer to God, but really........isn't it just a matter of degrees? It' ok if someone doesn't eat your favorite ice cream, but if they don't worship God (and there is only one of them in Western religion) the way you do, then it's a problem.

When are we going to start picketing at Baskin Robbins or praying for people who eat waffle cones or passing out Mozart pamphlets at Rock concerts? Are we not all open minded enough to see that belief is based on subjective experience, and whether we like it or not, we cannot judge another's experiences. In the words of my favorite, hunky lyricist (is it incenstuous to fantasize about someone who could almost be your son?):

"Belief is a beautiful armour
that makes for the heaviest sword
Like punching under water,
you never quite hit what you're trying for"

"Some need the exhibition,
some have to know they tried,
It's the chemical weapon for the war
that's raging on inside."


We extend this pattern of society into parenting as well. All parents are guilty of telling their children, at times, that what the child sees and feels doesn't count. I've been guilty. We do it all the time; assume that the child should take on the preferences, beliefs and apirations of the parents. While our intentions are generally honorable, there can't help but be some element of unconscious, unquestioned beliefs and motivations. What if, in the interest of what is best for the relationship and the child, we were to examine ourselves and our parenting in this area?

We tell them when they should be hungry, what and how much they should eat, what should taste good and bad, whether they should like or wear certain clothing, when they should sleep and stay awake, all by some theoretical idea in our head, based on what exactly? For example, should they automatically be hungry when YOU are ready for them to sit down at the meal you may or may not have enjoyed making for them? But...because perhaps because you had to make yourself prepare it, they better make themselves sit down and eat it when you tell them, or deal with whatever you choose to dole out as a consequence, which for many parents, turns out to be incessant nagging and complaining in the child's general direction. And to what end? Often what we expect of our children, both in belief and behavior is based more on what is comfortable or convenient for us, rather than, in actuality, right or wrong, good or bad. We assign those labels, but if we really look at it....

Is there possibly another way? Could it be that they really ARE hungry even though it's not dinner time, or that they aren't tired even though the clock says it's bed time or you're just good and ready to get them out of your hair?

The children being born at this time are different. They won't so easily have their spirits broken, or bend to our wills. They came with another picture in their minds. Many of them know who they are, and they think you're the crazy one when you try to tell them something that if you stopped for a minute to think about, makes little, if any, sense to them. Perhaps they do see a better way. They have a new vision, and we would do well to listen. What if we acknowledged that just because something has always been done a certain way, and perhaps you were even begrudgingly forced to do it that way, and maybe it even worked that way at at that time, can we not admit that many of the ways things are being done aren't working any more. Or is it just easier to medicate and punish them. Let's face it, they are a round peg, and they may not ever it in your round whole.

One of my favorite stories is of an African tribe that has a tradition that when a woman finds she is pregnant, there is a point in the pregnancy where she goes alone, out into the bush, and listens. She listens to hear the "song of the soul of that child". And when she hears it she begins to sing, and when the rest of the women in the village hear her, they come out and they join her, and they too began singing the song. Then they all return to the village and soon everyone knows the song. So when that child is born into this world, the first thing they hear is that song. They are rocked to sleep with that song, that belongs only to them, and with it they get the message that they are unique, and that they are recongized and valued for just who they are. Then when each milestone of life comes, they are sung it again. It is done in celebration of success. It is sung to console them in times of suffering, and it is sung as they die and cross over. I would ask; have you stopped and listened for your child's song, or do you treat them as one of the crowd, a smaller version of you, too busy to stop and listen and sing to them the reminder of what God knows is true about them? Or do you make the truth of who they are annoying or unacceptable?

None of us get it automatically all figured out just because we become a parent, yet it seems there is this unspoken belief that because our bodies are larger and they came out of our bodies, that gives us a right to tell them what they think and feel. And that they should automatically, out of respect or telepathy, become and do what we decided was best for them. In the meantime, in the background, we have to admit that we are not respecting or expecting half as much from ourselves as we are from them. And to some degree or another, we are just as confused as ever about how to manage certain areas of our own lives. Perhaps we become so invested in them making us look good precisely because, in truth we feel so bad inside about ourselves. Maybe it's not them that disappoint us. Maybe we disappoint ourselves, but it's easier to blame someone else than look in the mirror. It's always easier to demand more from others than we do from ourselves. As Jesus said, "Remove the mote from your own eye before trying to see the beam in your brother's.".....did I get that backwards?

Perhaps if we got out of their business in areas of opinion and belief and get back into our own, and began trusting ourselves from a place deep within, it would allow us to give them the same privilege.

Perhaps we would all do well to consider our own beliefs. Which ones are truly yours personally, based on your experiences? Which ones have just been blindly adopted by osmosis, but aren't working for you any more? How are those affecting your joy and satisfaction? Have you perhaps been eating only Vanilla in a plastic bowl because somewhere along the line someone told you that it was the only flavor, or at least the only one worth trying.....or better yet "people who eat ice cream in cones don't know what they are missing using a bowl and a spoon".

Life is full of choices, and more than 31. And they are all good in their own way.