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I am a pastor and a clinical psychotherapist. My life's passion is defining healthiness from a human perspective and paralleling it to the holiness of God, divine perspective. Shifting perspectives creates a paradigm that is alongside of rather than over and against. The parakalein of God and the paradoxes of humanity are redefined. Humanity is all about winning and yet we are losing ground everywhere. Divinity is all about letting go of the desire to win and the fear of loss. The Divine embraces the world with loving care regardless of anything.

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I Have a Dream

Posted by Don Paine

As the clock and calendar turn to 2012, as the speech of Martin Luther King is begun to be heard in the month that we celebrate his legacy of peace.  I imagine that his dream went beyond the words he spoke on the wings of the spirit in which he lived.  In that spirit I offer this dream:


A Field of Dreams:
That they may be one, Because we are one!!!!!!!
                                                “There is one faith, one hope, one love, one God”

We live in a world of political, personal, national, family, religious conflicts

When we teach our particular faith group that we are the better way, the only way, the best way we insult our fellow communicants and insinuate that we are right and they are wrong.  The system that supports a right and wrong world perpetuates un-healthy competitiveness.  

The Sufi Master, Rumi said:  “There is a place beyond the place of right and wrong, it is an open field, we can meet me there!

Jesus, the Rabbi and Son of God said: “I have lots of sheep that are not of this sheep pen, they too, I must bring so that in the end there is one flock and one shepherd…..All the law and the prophets are summed up in these words, “love God and love your neighbor (no matter what they believe or what they do, or where they live) as you love your inner self”.

Paul said, “Love keeps no score of wrongs or rights………..love always perseveres (I Corinthians 13)
Shifting from the lowest common denominator to the highest common good shifts the system.  It is not about tolerance but about embracing meaningfulness and embracing tolerance toward all of humanity as a gift of transforming love for all people and nations .  This unleashes the kingdom of God within.

Shifting to the Highest common good: Loving God and knowing you are loved by God and loving all living things is good.  This is letting them know they are all cared for in a just and honest way.  

Putting a dome of love over all is truly ruling having dominion over all by being loving toward all.  It is not extracting from creation and using up what God has created because I am the most important part of creation as a human being but I am able as a human being to choose to not extract which contributes to extinction but as expanding the acceptance and embrace of everything as adding to the experience and expression of care which is true expression of dominion over all which his support and sustaining of all, not using, misusing, and/or abusing. It is not about point counter point but about the balance of all points as not to counter each other as if one has to win and the other has to nice.  It is about counter balance so that the system remains in balance and harmony.  To effect this balance the system that generates point counter point needs a process shift to do so.  that process shift is to become nurturing and naturally embracing all parts in the internal system for the healing and sustaining and maintaining of all those parts.  It is through mature dependence, mature responsibleness and mutual respectfulness.  It is letting the Self as God has given it be present for al the parts.  This brings liberty and justice for all to all by welcoming all parts in the justice, com[passion and peace from within where God dwells.


Everything is made to balance and counter balance for the system to be maintained and sustained by everything made being "very good" (Genesis 1:31). When the system is overwhelmed by fear and distrust it is counter -driven. When the system relaxes and trusts its internal core of courage, calm, compassion and care it relaxes into a state of peacefulness where all parts are treated with justice, for all parts are freely received and cared for in equity and with equal right to be heard.  So rather than parts deceiving themselves into believing that they need something they don't need, the parts begin to be cared for from within where the Self lives and loves.  When the parts give up their fear and see the Self and begin to feel cared for the shift begins. Then they receive something they really do need but already have in their interning system.  It is not that they do not need, it is not that the part's behavior is okay.  The behavior is not okay but the part is welcomed and the burden that prompts the behavior of the part begins to shift as well.  In that moment, what is embraced is the part.   The part itself that is embraced for the purpose of healing its burden and false belief that is behind why it is acting out the way it is acting out. When a part is fear driven and self protective it becomes counter productive and driven to eliminate conflict.  It tries to service the conflict by trying to end the conflict, which is counter productive.  The system, therefore, needs a counter intuitive intervention, so enters Internal Family System, offering help and hope to the system.  A systemic shift that says it is not the Self that needs to be transformed. It is the Self that is transforming the system as it offers to all parts the welcome that sets those parts and the system free.  The freedom for the parts is to have all parts know they are cared for and to offer to all pars, equal care and compassion.  The equal care and compassion for all parts is the treatment of justice and peace, that the parts long for. Liberty is for all parts as justice is toward all parts resulting in peace in the internal system.

For the system to change the parts of the system have to stop doing the point counter point thing and to stop countering each other’s part. Then in a shift of  embrace, each part with brings harmony to the system not through agreement but through a respectful and responsible presence that is Clam. compassionate, courageous and creative (THE SELF).  The shift is from a counter point system to a counter balance system that a perpetuates conflict allows inclusion. That self is resilient and redemptive and offers the system of parts, the care and concern they need.  It is not about the self transformation it is about the transforming self.

Billy Graham held a series of meetings here at the Knickerbocker Arena in 1990.  He often said, “in Iowa when the corn fields grow higher than the fences all you see is the open field.  You do not see the things that separate and divide, we are all one in the field of love. It is a field of dreams of which I dream today! If we build a sense of togetherness, it will come.  If we become the wheat in the field there will be no more fences.  We meet in the field of dreams.  The dream is for people meeting not with an agenda to prove their point and counter their neighbor’s points.  The goal is that people will be willing to sacrifice their being right to their being “right hearted toward all people.  In this field we can meet and talk about loving kindness and respectfulness from a place of compassion and calmness.  Maybe then faith can be an asset to creating calmness and compassion in the world village of differences

The only way to live in Peace is to be at peace, which is a breath of fresh air.  To move from the way of condemnation of wrong and condoning of right as I might define it to a way of compassion toward all regardless of right or wrong. This is right to be in peace.  To live in the sacred space of love without conditions and without an agenda. It is the fresh air in t the field of compassion and calm..  Peace is the road to that field. Love is in the field. They are the field.



Don
Rev. Dr. Donald L. Paine, LICSW, AAMFT
Trained Internal Family System Therapist

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