Parakalein

I walked out of church with my good friend from old days.  Stepped into a cab that would bring me to the airport.

For the next 45 minutes we spoke truth into each others life.  It was not telling each other what we wanted each other to know.

It was about being together in a way that invited the story.  It was not about telling him a truth that I know that he needed to know.  

What I know is the truth that I know is only important to me and if I try to impose my truth rather than exposing my heart.

 I err in the practice the true practice of faith. Story telling is what we as human used to do because there was no knowledge written.

I wonder, as I write, if it would be a better world if we had no knowledge.  If we only had the inner wisdom of love and peace would this be a better world. 

 How can we learn to be willing to put all the knowledge aside and just be in peace and love with another human being.

I did that today in a small measure and a huge measure of wonder filled my soul.  I may never meet this man again but he added to my living and I want 

to believe I added to his.  How did it happen?  He was born in Ghana, Africa and was driving cabs in DC, I was born in Massachusetts a white anglo saxon.  

The wisdom of loving others as we know we want to be loved and being at peace with other each other stories from our lives that contributed to our living.

Our conversation began rather normally.  He asked me why I was in DC.  I explained I was at a conference presenting a workshop.  He asked on what?  I gave him a short capsule:  I was presenting on accepting all parts and all experiences of life as instructors in the course of living life.  Like Jesus who had welcomed all people regardless of anything and helped them achieve peace of heart regardless of anything they had ever done.  He asked for more details revealing that he was a Christian plagued by guilt for 40 years  We talked more about God's grace.  About how God wants us to look him in the eye and tell him what we did wrong and accept the and grow through the consequences.  We people let us off the hook they do not do us a favor for being let off the hook though gracious does not relieve us of guilt and shame.  I reviewed the Genesis 3 story.  I had a part that felt like I was giving him too much stuff but another part of me saw his attentiveness. He nearly stopped the can tuned around and told me that I had just helped him to understand something that he had never understood before  He asked me if he could tell me a story that he had been plagued with since his youth an to this day feels guilty about.

We spoke to each other not out of judgement but out of open heartedness.  I had come from a conmference where I had spoken about things I think are so

important for people to know.  But my "know it part" has learned that it is not as importnatn as it thinks it is.  It is not my knowledge that people need it is the

authentic experience of authentic presence. It is "with" and "in" an openhearted way that we spoke.  We talked about lots of things  and eventually got to speaking about deeper things.  

I am temtped here to tell you the reader things about our conversstation as if you need to know them or I need to tell them.  But it is not about me, nor is it about needs,

It is about divine energy of being present without agenda and with no conditions then letting the moment create itself.  It did.  

So here is one story that came to me in a fresh way due to his story which he chose to share with me.  I told him I would see that story because it was better to make

the point I had than anything I had so he had improved me and my clarity of the compassionate message I want to bring to the world.  Not the world at large.  

But it is the small world of my human existence.  People like Larbi who I meet on my journey are most important. Everyone likes people coming to hear them speak at a workshop but that is incidental to these providential meetings.  It is not people who come to hear me or even who read this blog.  It is People connecting with people with stories, that is what living is energized by.

Larbi told me that at 16 he cut down a neighbors orange tree becasue it had one big juicy orange on it and he wanted that orange.  Inside of him he knew it was wrong.  41 years later he still knows it was wrong.  His father made him go to the person and look him in the eye and tell him that he knew it was wrong but did it anyway.  He was just hungry.

He just wanted the orange but it was wrong to cut the tree down.  He acted without thought for anyone else but his own appetite and need.

The owner of the orange tree told him it was okay as the tree was old and had only one orange on it.   A part of me wanted to scream because saying it is okay when it is not okay contributes to confusion.  It was true that for the owner it was not a big deal but that does not make it okay.  This is where the social system while intending to be gracious becomes confusing and chaotic.

The system of the world only works when there is balance of all truths and balance only works when all parts of the truth are spoken with equity and equanimity.  

It dawned on me that this cab drive just gave me the perfect illustration to make a point that God had introduced me to.  I asked him if i could use it and told him that

it was better that the story I had used to make my point.  He looked at me with curiosity and asked me to tell what it was that I was teaching.   I had by listening to him,

valuing his story earned the right to speak a truth.  ANother truth became clear through this experience. We cannot just tell people truths that we want them to know we need to be invited by our authentic presence in to

the opportunity to speak of truth.  Even then I was careful to speak the truth, that was in me, not as the truth but as a truth.  In the multiplicity of truth there is a greater truth.   This is not relative truths but truths from different [perspectives and perceptions that form different conclusions. This keeps the welcome door always open,  to a part in another person that wants to say no or yes or let me think about it, to anything I say.

So here is the teaching as a story:

When God came into the garden of Eden the day after Adam and Eve had sinned.  Nothing had changed in God.  They (an inclusive way of referring to the male vs female imaging of God - God is not maternal or paternal God is eternal and supernal) that is  came into the garden that day the same way they came in every preceding day.  The only change was in the mind and heart of Adam and Eve.  They were in hiding.  Were about to step over the threshold of peace and love into the world of blame and shame.  No one told them this.  They felt it inside because they knew inside that they had done something against themselves and the blessing of life as god had prepared for them.  They went into hiding because they could not face the God who they had disappointed and inside they had sinned against their own existence.

What died that day was their natural sense of peace and love for all God had given.  The original blessing was still there.  It was not lost.  What was lost was the capacity to see it clearly.  As an injured part that felt shame and to defend itself resorted to blaming someone else.  Thank fully God was above all that and still is.

Larbi told me the following story.  As a 16 year old he cut down an orange tree because he wanted an orange.  He knew it was wrong , no one needed to tell himit was wrong.  He did it because it looked good to eat and he knew that it would be good to eat.  What was wrong was that he cut the tree down to get the orange.  What was not wrong was his desire to eat, to be nourished.  It was a seed bearing fruit so had all the seed of God in it but also the seed of human desire and human fear.  What was wrong was the 16 year old boys willingness to risk wrong but not willing to face the eyes of those he had offended.  He wanted to hide, deny, protect rather than admit, be responsible and respectful. 

When people do wrong they know inside that they have done wrong what they do not know is how to come clean, accept their offending part and with compassion and kindness shift the focus form judgement against the behavior and punishment for the behavior but present a loving acceptance toward the person nurturing the experience of being loved and cared for rather than judged and punished.  AS John spoke: "perfect loving cast out all fear".

Larbi knew he had been wrong but he needed his father to force him to look at his part that did this, and at the person who he did it against.  In both instances the loving caring presence that transforms the conflict of judgment into the compassion of acceptance was present.  What was missing was the consequence for his behavior.  He did not want to get off scott free.  Or rather a part of him while glad for the immediate forgiveness knew it was wrong and the owner telling him that it was okay was not right.  As my mother used to say, "two wrongs do not make a right".  I was careful here and told him that it was not that he needed to be punished.  Punishment does not help.  Neither does just forgive it.  He needed to welcome this grieving guilty part and let it know it was right to look in to the eye of the one he offended and tell him he was sorry.  Then when the owner of the orange tree said it was okay, he needed to say no it is not, let me work on your farm for a day to show you that I accept my responsibility and accountability for wrong.  Just being forgiven is a mistake we often make.  It is when you forgive yourself for what you did that you are set free.  He looked at me as if a weight had dropped off  his shoulders.  I nervously asked him to stay focused on the road.  I will not take from God forgiveness that does not contain accountability and consequences.  Truth and grace are  both necessary for true freedom to be experienced. 

Imagine what would have happened if Adam and Eve after plucking the orange off the tree and eating it, choose to stay in the garden sitting on the bench and when God came into the garden they said:  "Oh God are we glad to see you.  We know we did something wrong in defiance of your standard but we knew you would not be angry or punish us but be present with us, to come alongside of us, to help us to figure out what we do now came into the Garden.  What caused Adam and Eve to go into hiding was their shame, their blaming of each other, and their guilt.  God came into the garden that day in the same way that God did every other day.  With loving presence God came into the garden with compassion and calmness.  It was the inability to look in the eyes of God and be honest and humble.

Larbi thanked me for helping him to get free of a 40 year burden.  I thanked him for giving me a story that makes it all fit together.  It was not an apple.  Apples do not grow in that climate, oranges do.  Oranges are peeled to get to the juice, the truth and to the seeds of life.  We had done that together.  I thank my friend as well who challenged me to not "do mu plan" but be open to another way.  Little did I know God was in that way.