Parakalein

I was at Nyack College to receive an "award" as simply an honoring of the ministry that god has called me to, and has poured into my life through pain and suffering.

The exact quote on the award is: "For exemplifying the Integration of Faith, Learning, and Spiritual Transformation to Fulfill God's Call to a Life of Influence".

This is an honor because it is the reflection of the transforming of my mind into what I believe to be the mind of Christ.  Christ focus was to love people no matter what. So I owe this honor to the Christ who is in me and the me who is in Christ.

In Mark 10 Jesus is approached by a rich man who wanted to know, "What do I have to do to gain eternal life?".  Jesus told him keep the commandments.  The rich man. "I have kept all of them since I was a little boy".  Jesus looked at him and loved him.  Jesus could have spoken for other parts of him like the part that said, "really you want me to believe you have kept all the commandments".  He could have spoken to the rich man's "selfishness", spoken shaming judgment, or just shake his head and walk away.  Please also note that Jesus could have questioned him about his very idea that you "inherit" eternal life.  What Jesus did was from the deepest and core arena of his soul, "he looked at the man with the look of love and compassion".  The look of love is what transforms people. Only when they are willing to be honest with themselves about themselves are they ready to be transformed.  Jesus then said, "sell everything, give up everything you have, give it all away and follow me and you will have riches in heaven".  The text tells us he went away sad in heart because he had great riches.  Was Jesus telling him the way to heaven is "to trade one inheritance in for another? No, he was inviting him to be honest with himself.  Honesty with oneself is the key to personal transformation.  Attacking others or defending or inflating yourself gets in the way.   Peter who was listening said, "we have left it all and followed you" as if he had a part that wanted to be affirmed and promised eternal life.  Jesus said it is hard for the rich to enter heaven as hard as it would be for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle but with God all things are possible.

What is the transformational truth here?  That nothing you do or have is at issue but so many think that is the issue.  Some are sad when they are asked to give up their wealth because they have a lot, their pride because they have a lot, their self condemning parts because we all have inner critics, or their self inflating parts, etc. etc. etc.

Having the look of love in your eyes is what is both transforming and the result of transformation.  It is not about being right in our judgments or in our positions but it is about being right in our hearts toward others.  This is my aspiration and to which God inspires me.  I fail often when I think it is about what I do or when I try to do things to make myself look good.  It is sad when I do not see what God wants me to see.  I walk away sad or I pay the price of "giving it up" and "taking it in".  I like the rich man and the disciples realize it is not about being good or doing good.  It is about goodness, kindness and love in you and coming out of you.  That is letting eternity into the here and now.

Personal transformation is about looking with a transformed mind and heart.  It is not about me it is about me in Christ and about Christ in me.  It is about the "look of love" that transforms all hearts that are willing because the heart that is willing is transformed.

When I was embroiled in church conflict, I wanted to tell everyone the truth.  The truth I wanted to tell everyone was my truth.  Behind that truth was a lie.  Others wanted to tell their truth.  Behind their truth was their lie.

When I was a kid I heard and used the expression:  "Liar liar, pants on fire!"

Today, I know that lies promote other lies and those lies can be presented as truth only to result in a greater lie.

I lie not.  I am scared to death to blog this blog.  Scared that no one will understand and many will misunderstand what I am about to say.  I have learned the brevity and bravery are good friends so I will attempt to be brief:

• The First Lie   "In the Day you eat of this fruit you will be as God, you will not die".
• The Second Lie  "In the Day you eat of the bread and of the cup, you will live and if you do not eat of the bread and drink of the cup you will surely die, go to hell, or at least be annihilated"

So many things people do go un-noticed.

One of my alma maters, Nyack College, Nyack NY www.nyack.edu/homecoming elected me "Alumnus of the Year" for "Transformational Ministry".  I am still unsure who nominated me for this honor.  I am sure that it reflects my life long passion to "make a difference in people's life" and "to help people make sense of non-sense".

"Transformational Atonement" a concept I began presenting a year ago fosters the idea that while Jesus died for our sins for we could not atone for our own wronging doing, he did not die because an angry wrathful God needed a blood sacrifice.  Jesus died to transform the way we live by teaching us to "be willing to sacrifice everything to be set free of trying to hold on to things and be free to let go and gain the peace and love that is transformational".  Transformational atonement sees God's working in Christ as leading us to "be not conformed to the way the world lives and thinks but to be transformed by the renewing of your minds" (Romans12:2).  The renewed mind thinks as God originally created us to think:  "it is not only about me it is always about us".

So I trust you do not hear pridefulness in my blogging about this honor for it is the pain and suffering of my life that has led me to believe in "Transformational Atonement" as a parallel concept to "Substitutionary Atonement".

The award will be presented on Saturday October 13th which happens to be my brothers birthday.  He died suddenly three years ago and his loss, the pain and suffering that it brought into my life is part of where the focus of "Transformational Atonement" came from.  God literally transformed the way my mind was thinking into a renewed sense of God's presence in all things.

I thank God for this honor for all the good that I do as a reflection of the goodness of God in all things and in all people.

Would it be wonderful if there was no pain or suffering in our world?

As I was driving to work this morning I heard an academic minute (NPR) by a microbiologist who was researching why it is that the cellular system has not in the process of natural selection and mutation not discarded "unnecessary parts" that seemed to have no function and therefore were deemed "unnecessary".

He likened it to a construction site building a roller coaster at the sight of a sky scrapper.  An engineer would just eliminate the waste of energy and the waste of space and scrap the roller coaster and just build the sky scrapper.

What the research and study the biologist conducted proved is that while the part seems unnecessary it is preserved because it maintains some hidden role of balance in the system that does not seem necessary but serves a necessary purpose.

I began to muse: what if pain and suffering is exactly that.  While most of us would like to get rid of them they may serve a utilitarian seemingly unnecessary role to balance the system.  All parts of the system are important to the function and survival of the system even if they do not seem so.

So pain and suffering are here to stay.

Perhaps one of their functions is to call forth compassion and courage as partners in living with and making sense of suffering.

I do not like pain and suffering as I watch it happening to others or feel it myself.  It is here and if I hear its message I may hear it say: "Make peace with your pain and suffering and it will lead you into greater courage and compassion".

I was recently at an IFS Conference that focused on healthy togetherness and came up with the following plan for a Couple's Retreat:

Blending together the principles of Internal Family Systems and Parakalein System of Being into redefining being a couple, a family, and Global Community of Life and Faith

Have you ever touched someone in a bruised part and watched them flinch.  A normal touch to a normal arm conveys love and care.  A gentle touch to a wounded spot causes a response in each.  The wounded person winces in pain.  The touching person flinches in fear as he sees the unintentional hurt caused by his inadvertent touch.  For the wounded time and sensitive un-touching combine for healing over time.

Shame blame and guilt bring attention to wounded parts and add to the experience and expression of those wounded parts.  Shame, blame and guilt are protective and defensive parts but they are not redemptive parts.  They lead to the call for calm (non-defensive), compassionate (uncritical), and courageous (unproductive) qualities that invite redemptive healing.  Redemptive healing is healing that returns the person to the former state of wellness through the way of calm, compassionate, courageous, and recreative energy.

The redemptive purpose of Shame, Blame and Guilt is to lead us to the well of Grace, Goodness, and Gentleness that are restorative. Having learned the lesson of hurt and wounds of healing we become more cued into the hurt and wounds of others.  The healing balm is present in the wounded healer.  By the stripes that represent pain and hurt, that evoke shame and blame, and that are mentors of care and compassion we are healed of all strife.

I heard a report on NPR about a special kind of peanut butter produced in Haiti, begun by a humble woman in St Louis, to provide the nutrients that mal-nutiritioned kids need in an easy accessible product. It has been reported to be doing just that in Haiti (rich in peanut farming) and other areas of the world as well.

A second company is building a competitive factory in Haiti to produce the same or a similar product.  They say that it is not about competition.  It seems the original conveyer of the product freely share her focus, purposes and recipe.  Both companies are focused on helping children in an altruistic way.  I mused so why not cooperate adn collaborate rather than compete.  Why not build one huge factory and work together for the shared cause of healthy children.

Then I realized this is human nature at its best and worse in the same moment.eh best is an altruistic focus.  The worse is a particular agenda, a competitive profit focus.

It is similar to church life.  The purpose of all churches is to introduce all people into "inner peace", peace with God and peace form God and into "loving kindness" towards others as the outgrowth of receiving loving kindness form God.  The altruistic focus of all churches is to introduce peace and love into peoples lives so that they live in peace and love.  With such altruistic motives why is there so much competition.  Why do we who go to any church set aside all our particular differences and work together and build one factory that would produce one message to help the world live as one! Churches say it is not about competition but I wonder.  What would happen if we united all the altruistic forces of faith into one movement of and for peace and love, what would happen? Peace and Love through out the earth?

Society does the same as there are so many cancer research centers competing for the cure.  They all want a cure.  They all work for the cure.  They all raise funds for an altruistic cause.  What if they all set aside their particular agendas as an agency or group and combined forces and funds, and cooperated and collaborated as one, what would happen?  A cure for cancer?

Altruistic competition is agenda driven. It is good but Altruistic Compassion, Cooperation and collaboration is the best and betters everyone and everything.

Working as one will result in the world profiting as one but the price is everyone has to not care about their profit but embrace the profit of all.

You may say I am a dreamer.  I am not the only one!  We can live and work as one!

There is nothing so invincible as strong vulnerability
Nothing so vulnerable as invincible strength

John 17:21

"That all of them who believe may be one, even as you Father are in me and I am in you"

The bullet of intimacy is not a bullet fired with a gun but a bullet of love fired in all from above.
As I mediated on this verse it hit me like a bullet that lodged in my heart and brain at the same time. True intimacy is being so into the other person that everything in the other person is in me and the other person being so into me that everything that is a part of who there are is in me.

True intimacy is a shared union of opposites that results in a communion of togetherness that is not about competitive achievements or  compensating opposites but as a complementary differences being more as one that anyone could be separated from the essence of community.

Just as everything that is in the Father is in the Son and everything that is in and known by the Son is in and known by the Father so everything is in all of us and all of us are in everything.

Be in others and in your self with equity and equality and the communion of opposites will heal the burdens that separate people and nations from the truth that we are all the same only different all different yet the same.

We are one.

Live as one and living will be one for all and all for one and all.

Esther and the Feast of Purim are the Old testament illustration of being the salt of the earth (see Esther 5-7, and Mark 9:38-50.

Esther flavored everything and everyone with God's Favor.

She calls all of us through her life to be willing to say, "If I perish, I perish" which fosters humility.
She calls all of us to be willing to sacrifice what we have every right to preserve for the strength to risk everything for the community of people which fosters honor.
She calls all of us to hold on to what is ours and speak truthfully while respecting others which fosters honesty.

Haman and his wife, Zeresh plotted for the annihilation of the Jews in the days of King Xerxes.  They were filled with hatred and erected a gallows of hatred for Mordecai.

Moredecai approached Esther as the woman who God had put in the palace as the Queen.  She could not use her position for herself but for her people she was willing to risk everything even her life.  She stood tall as a woman of honor, honesty, humility, courage and compassion.

With the support of all the people who had fasted adn prayed for three days become a communion of the fellowship of suffers, she boldly and emboldened by them entered the Kings presence uninvited and was accepted and offered up to half the kingdom.  She could have profited herself and sold out her people but she was willing to sell out on profit to cash in on her compassion and courage.

She told the King of Haman's design to kill off all her people clarifying it was not about her anger or hatred as she would have said nothing is it was just about selling them into slavery as they had done that before and thrived. His design was annihilation and sporting slaughter thus humiliating and disgracing her people.  Full of grace in the face of this disgrace she asked for the king to spare the lives of her people.  Hatred always fuels more hatred which is why Jesus teaches to love those who hate.  Flavor them with favor.

Haman who was so consumed by hatred was inviting if not summoning hatred to himself and while intentionally begging the Queen for mercy having witnessed the King's anger, he did so while reclining in her presence which appeared to the King like he was attempting to rape his wife the Queen.  The King ordered him hung on the same gallows he had erected to hang Mordecai.

This is the story of human hatred as it finds its way back to its beginning.
This is the story of human honor, honesty and humility that leads to courage and compassion and returns all things to their beginning in balance and harmony with the creator loving God of all things and all people.

Whether I perish or not is never the issue how I live is always the issue.

Living with an intention to flavor everything with God's favor regardless of anything is to be as Esther,
a salty woman of courage and compassion.

Jesus said, "be the salt of the earth", flavor everything with God's favor.

We went to Castle Island in Boston for the ALS walk to support a friend 47 who is losing the battle but still fighting!  After the walk we went with some of the family to a mall for lunch.  A food court seemed a great idea as everyone could get their own food to their own liking.  I rounded up a section of 4 tables and 12 chairs.  Three of us sat at the table while the guest of honor, our ALS friend, found his way in his huge wheel chair to the sitting area.  As we were attempting to save the space for the group, a woman came and sat down at the end table. She began to unwrap her good to eat at this table which by the way I had cleaned off, wiped down and set up. Somewhat surprised, I politely and quietly spoke to her that we were saving these chairs for our party.

 She loudly and quite undiscerning said, "I am just gonna eat my sandwich, this is not a high school where you can save seats for your friends".  I quietly went to the chair next to her and spoke softly to her letting her know that this was a group from the ALS Walk in Boston and we were saving the space so the ALS patient could have his friends around him at lunch.  She announces that she did not know why this was such a problem that  she would be done before he arrived and that we were rude to save spaces as this is not high school.

Quite frankly I moved from surprised to stunned by her indifference and rudeness.  The too ladies in our group at the other end of the table part of our group were also in shock.  Looking at each other and me in unbelief.

She shacked her head as she got up to leave as if we were the rude insensitive ones and that she was highly offended by our behavior.

She reminded all of us if we live without consideration, compassion, and respect for others it is because we have lost all self respect and other perspective.

I hope she never has a family or firmed suffering from this vicious disease.  The community of compassion and care of the thousands of walkers was not abated by her lack of community or compassion.  I had actually invited her to join us but wanted her to know that the table will be filled with caring supportive people.  With that she got up an left.  Obviously caring and compassionate people are too much for her to stand.

Love wins!

I sat in a room overlooking Monument Beach Bay on Cape Cod, with 28 or so people all introducing themselves.  When it came my turn I said something I had not thought of before it was as if it just cam out of me.  Some of what I said was previously felt, thought or experienced but none of it had been strung together as the string of words came out of my mouth.  Today I know why it happened that way! Here is a recollection of that moment:

(Written as on September 7th, 2012)  "As I sit here today I reflect on this place, a beach where my father taught me to swim some 50 years ago.  I think of how the strangle hold of death has gripped me over the past 7 years.  Nearly 8 years  years ago a young woman client of mine was killed by her husband who then killed himself. I began my IFS (Internal Family Systems....www.selfleadership.org) . Then Nearly 6 years ago, my father died during level 1 training.  Then 3 years ago my brother and Karen Reed (my co-presenter of IFS) both died suddenly 5 days apart.  I descend into the death pangs of hell itself, was depressed, despairing  and had lost all sense of Self or  Calmness or Compassion in me.  With the help of supportive and loving family and wife and with the help of an IFS therapist,  I was immersed in death and emerged out to life.  Out of the depths of despair into the depths of compassion. I am here today, alive and well and wanting to deepen my experience of life and relationships.  Anyone who wants to go swimming with me when we are done I am going swimming in honor of my dad and in honor of new life."

It was well received.

Today, October 1st is the eighth anniversary of the murder of my client who began my journey into a deeper depth of appreciation for life and death than I could ever know without experiencing both the trauma of death and the wonder of life.  A person who shared in the trauma of her death shared today in the wonder of her healing in a special way.  Amazing connections continue to happen in the road that intersects the grace of living and the grief of losing.

I know today better than ever the wonder of this 8 year journey into the depths of Love and Peace of Death and Grief to a renewed sense and presence of the Glory and Grace of God.

Thank you Liza Warner.
You died on this day and you live in so many today!
"Be the Change"