Reclaiming Eden

In my previous post I wrote that the means for our coming to healing and wholeness is to confront the reservoir of our past pain, and especially our Father Wound; and then choose to forgive those who have wounded us. This releases us to embrace the reality of our True Self. We are enabled to do this only to the extent that we have experienced the unconditional love of our Father for us. We can only love to the degree that we have received the love of our True Father. We freely pass on what we have freely received. In effect the love of God is being recycled- nothing of it should be lost.

 In a previous post it was mentioned that we have naïve access to our True Self in early childhood before we develop consciousness. In a sense it is like being in the garden in a similar way in which Adam and Eve were. However, at this time we find ourselves in a social situation that we did not choose to be born into. We are forced to deal with the reality we find ourselves in. That experience can vary from being good or bad; or a combination of both. Through the course of our life we have to confront the wounds that we experience during this time and those that follow on afterwards. The key point is that at this time we had no real choice, other than our response to the situation we found ourselves in. As has been shown, when we develop consciousness we leave that garden experience and become gradually alienated from our True Self.

Our True Father loves us into being when we are born and wants us to return the love he has for us. We have been created for relationship with God and our Father wants us to freely choose to love him back. Because at that stage in early childhood we do not as yet have consciousness our True Self lacks the ability to consciously choose to return our Father’s love for us. Our ultimate end when we access our True Self in the second half of life is to consciously choose to return our Father’s love in an unconditional way; in the same way that his love for us is unconditional. As we move into this space in a sense we return to the garden reality that we have been created to experience. In this process we reclaim the reality of Eden. We come full circle; and the effects of the fall from grace are reversed. It is a movement into consciously choosing to live in union with both God and our True Self. As we do this we reclaim our mandate and God-given purpose of manifesting the image of God that we are in a tangible way. This is a graced state of being in the world.

As has been mentioned this state of being is characterized by ‘descent’. It necessitates letting go of our previous autonomy, self-determination, power and control. It requires surrendering to the power and control of the indwelling Holy Spirit. There is a movement towards embracing and being comfortable with powerlessness. At the same time there is identification with the Apostle Paul when he said: “When I am weak, then I am strong!” Spiritual reality is always about mystery and paradox. To the degree we surrender our power and control to the Lord, it enables the Holy Spirit to empower and direct us. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is then able to work in and through us in ways that we can never even conceive of.

Our call is to live as a co-worker with Jesus. He told his disciples before he ascended to his Father that they must continue the work that he began; and that he modelled for them. He said that after he left them he would send the Holy Spirit to enable them to do this. He said that they would do the same works that he did and even greater works. I believe that in his incarnated body he was bound by time and space. His many followers would have a multiplying effect of exponentially increasing his ministry. They were to be co-workers with him- and be his hands, feet and heart in the world. We too are called to carry on his ministry today as co-workers with him. This becomes more likely and possible as we let go of our False self and embrace our True Self. As we do this we let go of our own agendas; and stop trying to make ourselves look good. It is ultimately not about us. We need to surrender our small agenda to the ‘Big Agenda’. A significant part of embracing our True Self is moving towards discovering our unique individual purpose, and how it fits in with the ‘Big Purpose’.

I believe that our True Self is the place from where our true giftedness flows. Our enemy knows this and that is why he uses our earthly father to wound us here. He wants to prevent us from exercising our true giftedness. We can never express the fullness of our giftedness as long as we are trapped in the reality of our False Self. The gifts that we hold onto in the first half of life; and believe express who we are; are not our true gifts. They are a pale shadow of that which is hidden deep within us. The death of our False Self is excruciating; but it leads to the resurrection reality of revealing the wonder of our hidden giftedness. This is our true glory. This is an experience of what Jesus came to reveal to us- fullness of life. As we reveal our true glory we reveal the glory of God. One of my all-time favourite quotes came from Irenaeus, writing at the end of the 2^nd C:

“The glory of God is people fully alive!”

Questions for reflection:

*Have you experienced the reality of reclaiming Eden?

* Have you discovered and embraced your true giftedness?

Letting go of our False Self

In my previous post I said that because we are so attached to our False Self and perceive it to be who we are, letting go of it is extremely difficult. Moreover, if we decide to allow our False Self to die we cannot choose to manufacture our own demise; or it will merely be an ‘ego-project’. Something external has to impact upon us and bring this about. If we are in control of what happens then it is not an authentic process. It will still enable us to hold on to our False Self that we are deluded into thinking is our True Self. The question of who is in control is always the crucial one.

This normally happens when we reach mid-life. Richard Rohr conceives of the first half of life being characterized by a process of ‘ascent.’ In this time we find a sense of our identity and become established.  It involves a movement towards greater and greater power and control. There is also accumulation of wealth and possessions. From what I have been writing in these posts, it also entails the development of our False Self. He says that in mid-life we experience a ‘crisis of limitation’ which halts this upward trajectory. Something significant will impact on us externally over which we will not have control. This experience ranges from individual to individual and is unique to their life and reality. How they respond to it is crucial. They can fight against it and try and maintain their upward trajectory; or they can allow this external experience to be transformative. It provides the means for them to let go of their False Self and embrace their True Self. Who they think they are in the first half of their life is not who they actually are.

If an individual allows the crisis of limitation to change them, it moves them into the journey of the second half of life; which is a movement into ‘decent’. This is characterized by letting go of the power and control the individual gained in the journey of the first half of his/her life. At the same time it entails embracing their True Self.

We only really access and live out of the reality of our True Self to the degree that we surrender to the movement and direction of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Ultimately it requires surrendering to mystery, because the False Self is no longer in control. It is something that comes about as we move towards living in union with our Father. Whilst we may have certain ‘peak experiences’, this is not a once- off reality that happens in an instant; but a process. It involves a process of dying to our False Self and being reborn as our True Self.

 There are layers of meaning and spiritual reality. On one level Jesus died for us; and in our place. Through this he provided the means for our salvation. On another level we also need to move beyond that reality. The fact is that he gave us a model that we have to follow in. When he called his disciples he told them to ‘follow’ him. That meant to follow in the pattern of his life, death and resurrection. In order for the resurrection of the True Self to take place the False Self has to die. There is no experience of resurrection without the pain of suffering.

 In my previous posts I have outlined the fact that our True Self is hidden beneath our wounds. The suffering involves facing and dealing with the pain of our accumulated past pain. Once we have faced our pain the key to healing the pain is the choice to forgive those who have hurt us. Jesus said on the cross: “Father forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.” Healing comes through the act of forgiveness. Only then are we released from our bondage to our pain and wounds. Jesus clearly enunciated this in the “Lord’s Prayer”, in the verse we find in Matthew 6:12: “….and forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.” There is a condition attached to our healing and release. When we release those who have wounded us, we are released from the power and effect that our wounds have over us. By setting those who have hurt us free, we set ourselves free.

Furthermore, it is through forgiveness that we are set free from the hold that our adversary has over us as well. On a mysterious level, having unforgiveness; and harbouring ill-feeling and grudges against others; gives Satan a hold and power over us. Through this he keeps us in bondage to him. This happens even if we are not consciously aware that we have these poisonous attitudes. These impact on us in ways that we do not realize. There are mental, emotional, physical and spiritual consequences.    

All this is only possible to the degree that we have a personal experience of the deep love of our Father for us. I believe that is why the practice of silence and solitude is vital. Only as we experience the presence of our loving Father are we enabled to know that we are loved. The experience of the love and forgiveness of our Father enables us to forgive others. We can only do it to the degree we have freely received this gift. In turn we give the gift of forgiveness to those who have wounded us. This is the means for our movement into healing and wholeness. This also allows us to access and live out of the reality of our True Self.

Questions for reflection:

*Have you experienced a ‘crisis of limitation’?

*How did you respond?

*If you haven’t experienced it yet, how will you respond when it happens?

Our False Self

In my previous post I wrote about the necessity of fighting for freedom in order to find and live out of the reality of our ‘True Self’. In this post I will consider how our ‘False Self’ emerges. This comes about at the time when we start developing consciousness (around the age of seven).My previous post painted a picture of how when a child is wounded those painful experiences are split off from their conscious awareness and become buried in their unconscious. When as children we develop consciousness a different strategy is used to protect our self from the emotional pain experienced when we are wounded. In order to protect ourselves from our multiple wounds we develop ‘defense mechanisms’ to protect ourselves from further pain. These are meant to protect our True Self. We build a defensive wall of these defense mechanisms. Over time these become thicker and stronger; until they are virtually an impregnable wall. The problem is that instead of protecting us these walls become an effective prison.

In time this defensive wall becomes the only reality we know; because our attention is focused on building it. The problem is that because building the protective wall is our primary focus we come to think that is who we are. It becomes what is known as our ‘False Self’. There is a misperception that our False Self is synonymous with our ego. It is related to our ego, but is not exactly the same thing. Our ego is a functional system that we cannot function without. Our False Self tries to protect our ego by using ‘ego defense mechanisms’. Our False Self is more closely associated with these ‘ego defense mechanisms’: it is probably the sum total of them. It is apparent that our False Self is a distorted perception of who we are.  The thicker and stronger the wall that our False Self becomes; the more removed and alienated we are from our True Self. The reality is that as we get older we forget who we are. 

A useful understanding for me is the conception of contemplative prayer that they had in the Medieval Church. It was understood to be prayer of ‘recollection’. Now recollection has two aspects to it. The first is to:   ‘remember’. We have to remember who we are. It entails getting in touch with our True Self that we have become alienated from and forgotten. The wall that our False Self has built prevents us from accessing the reality of our True Self. The wall has to be dismantled for this to happen. This is achieved in and through contemplative prayer.

The second is to:  ‘re-collect’. Due to the splitting process that has been spoken about there are many ‘splits’ that have taken place within us over time. This has led to inner fragmentation taking place. The movement is towards reconciling these inner splits and bringing the pieces together. It is a process of inner integration. Through this we come to wholeness.

It has taken me a long time to recognize that in order to find and embrace our True Self we have to deal with the pain of our wounds. This is because our True Self is hidden beneath our wounds. I have come to believe that our True Self is in effect the flip side of our primary Father Wound. As we saw in a previous post our Adversary uses our father to wound us at the exact place where our True Self is to be found. Our True Self is the other side of the coin that is our Father Wound. Our wounds are therefore the doorway to our True Self. There is no other way in which we can access it. To use the words of Al Gore, this is an ‘inconvenient truth’.

Richard Rohr says that our wounds are our teachers; and that we must not get rid of our wounds until we have learnt what it is that they are teaching us. Another significant mentor, Sr Deirdre, told me that our wounds are important because it is our wounds that lead us to God (they lead us to our True Self at the same time). It necessarily means dealing with the pain of our buried hurts. This is especially true of our primary Father Wound. I believe that this wound is the key to our healing and deliverance. Yet facing this wound is very difficult and painfull. We have to literally fight for our freedom. There is no other way; or short cut.

[This understanding is at odds with the normal perception of the ‘Good News’ of salvation that the Church puts forward. In this understanding if we come to Jesus there is a perception that you will no longer experience pain or struggle. Jesus has died for us and taken it all away. We are not supposed to struggle.]  

In order to take hold of our True Self we have to let go of our False Self. After living out of the reality that our False Self is who we are for so long, this is very difficult and painfull. In fact when we let go of our False Self it feels as though we are dying. We are in fact dying, but only the False Self dies. And it is not who we actually are.

 Jesus said that in order to find yourself you have to lose yourself. He also said that unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it cannot come to newness of life and bring forth a bountiful crop. I believe he was speaking about letting go of our False Self and taking hold of our True Self.

The reality is that because we are so attached to our False Self and perceive it to be who we are, letting go of it is extremely difficult. Another factor is that if we decide to allow our False Self to die we cannot choose to manufacture our own demise; or it will merely be an ‘ego-project’. Something external has to impact upon us and bring this about. If we are in control of what happens then it is not an authentic process. It will still enable us to hold on to our False Self that we are deluded into thinking is our True Self. I will discuss this in my next post.

Questions for reflection;

·         Are you in touch with the reality of your False Self?

·         Have you confronted your primary wounds?

·         How have you dealt with the pain?

Confronting Our Inner Dread

In my previous post I wrote about the fact that at the heart of our spiritual journey is the necessity of confronting our ‘inner dread’. In this post I want to look at what this entails.

To begin with we have to first ‘unlearn’ much of what we have been taught by our society in order to do so. This is especially so in our rationalistic society. It requires sailing into the uncharted waters of the mystery of our own being. We will find ourselves in darkness here; and will not be in control. Our society teaches us from young to be in control. Richard Rohr defines suffering as any experience where we are not in control. This cuts across physical, mental, emotional and spiritual reality. Surrendering to our inner mystery is therefore an experience of suffering.

The second thing is that movement into our inner reality inevitably confronts us with our past pain. We all have buried hurts; an accumulated reservoir of pain. We therefore do not want to go there.

A further issue is that part of embracing mystery is to recognize that we are involved in a vast spiritual struggle for control. It requires acknowledging that we have a spiritual adversary who wants to wound us; destroy us; and bring us under his control. He knows that our purpose is to manifest the image of God and live in union with God. He therefore does everything he can to prevent that from happening.

I recently read a book by Mark Stibbe called ‘I Am Your Father’, which was very profound. He holds that Satan’s primary strategy is to destroy fatherhood. He was originally Lucifer, God’s chief angel; but wanted to usurp God’s position and have total control. Here we see a manifestation of what sin is about. Through this rebellion he was cast out and became alienated from God. He became the first orphan; separated from his father. Stibbe contends that Satan (which means our ‘Adversary’) entered into an ‘orphan heart condition’; alienated from his father. His strategy is to bring all of mankind into this same state of being. Stibbe says that an essential role that a father plays is to give his children (male and female) their sense of ‘honour’. If they do not receive this the alternative is to become trapped in shame. At the core of their being they are riddled with guilt and shame; and left feeling useless and worthless.

Added to this John Eldridge says that Satan uses our earthly father to wound us at the exact point where our True Self is found. This is the place from where our true giftedness flows. By doing this he attempts to nullify our True Self and our giftedness. He tries to cripple us and ‘take us out’. In this process he also brings us into spiritual bondage. He gains a spiritual hold over us, without our realizing it.

 By using our father to do this he also achieves something else. We derive our initial image of God from our earthly father. We project our experience at the hands of our father onto our True Father. This effectively gives us a distorted image of God; and drives a wedge between us and our True Father. The flip side of this is also a factor. Our perception of who we are is a mirror image of who we believe God to be. If we have a distorted image of God, we will have a distorted image of who we are. It is a vicious circle.

 I believe that in the first seven years of their life a person has naïve access to their True Self. At that point they have not yet developed consciousness. They are perceived to be in a state of ‘innocence’ (they are ‘unwounded’). During this time however wounds do occur, especially the ‘father wound’ that they receive. They are not at this stage able to deal with these wounds. What happens is that their psyche, in order to protect itself, effectively ‘splits off’ the experience of these wounds. In order to anaesthetize itself from these wounds they become separated from the awareness of the psyche and become buried within the unconscious awareness of the person. The problem is that these wounds and the associated pain become ‘buried alive’ within the unconscious. They still continue to affect the person, but at an unconscious level.    

Eldredge says that we continue to be wounded again and again at the same spot that our father wound occurs. This reinforces the crippling effect of the initial wound. It is like an onion which has layer upon layer of wounds around the central core of the father wound. This cripples and immobilizes us.

These are the things that confront us when we enter into our inner world during contemplative prayer. When we move into silence and solitude these realities will inevitably emerge from the dark recesses of our inner being.  This will be difficult and painful. We can therefore only go there to the extent that we have received an affirmation of the love of our True Father for us. It also requires being led by the indwelling Holy Spirit; and being supported, encouraged and empowered to do so. If we do not have this guidance and support from our God-given Counselor it would normally be too painfull to confront our inner dread. However, doing so is essential if we want to move towards experiencing reconciliation, healing and wholeness. We have to literally fight for our freedom and inner wellbeing. The battle will be fierce; but victory is beyond words to describe.

Question for reflection:

·         Are you engaging in this battle?

·         If not, are you willing to do so?