Shake It Off and Step Up

The full text as prepared for the Sunday, August 19, 2012 message:

            I spent a lot of time this week thinking about something I said last week.

            Sometimes I say things that I’ve planned out, and sometimes I say things that I’m already aware of… things I’ve thought about or talked about before.  And sometimes things come out of my mouth that, in retrospect, I realize that I’d never thought of before.

            This idea that I put forth last week was kind of a mash-up of all three, or at least, the inspiration I felt during the week was a new thought for me.

            This is what I’m referring to: last week I talked about how when we catch ourselves being negative – we’re on a spiritual path and we’re heading toward something positive, towards a more expanded experience or a more peaceful experience and we catch ourselves being negative… what we all do, or at least have done… is we get upset with ourselves and we go through this verbal self-abuse about being unconscious when we want to remain conscious.  We do this instead of saying to ourselves, “Oh my gosh, I’m conscious, thank you God!”  and it seems to me that we can’t become conscious, we can’t return to consciousness, we can’t remember to be conscious with out the aid of God.

            Let me repeat that, “I don’t think we can return to consciousness without the aid of God. “

            If that’s accurate than what does that mean?  Every time we recognize we’ve been unconscious, which is the same as saying we’ve returned to consciousness, it must be because we have become aware of the Presence of God!  It must be because the Power and Presence of God has bubbled up into awareness.

            This is the part I was thinking about this week… how that’s what’s actually happening.  it's as though God is tapping us on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, I’m over here” instead of over there… over there being anywhere in which, or any time during which, we are unaware of God… or enmeshed in thoughts of negativity… and God taps us on the shoulder and we are actually available enough to be aware of it.  And God says, “Hey, I’m right here” and this is the part I really began to think about: the power behind saying, “Thank you God.  Thank you for your help.  Thank you for caring enough about me to tap me on the shoulder (so to speak) to say, Hey, I’m here.”  

            It was powerful for me this week to think about those things, and I think that that’s a very powerful way to break the habit of negativity.  

             Maybe we get a little too wrapped up in having this or that negative reaction, negative circumstance or condition, or whatever it is, and we battle against it, we fight against it, we try to overcome it, subdue it, conquer it, destroy it, vanquish it… and that does it keep the battle alive.  If you’re participating in fighting against anything, then you’re in battle with it, trying to dominate it.

            Where is the scripture that says, “Blessed is he who come in the name of dominance…?” Nowhere.

            Psalm 118:26 does say, though, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. You are blessed from the house of the Lord.”  The Lord meaning spiritual activity, “Blessed is the one who come in the name of spiritual activity.  You are blessed from (by) your spiritual activity.”

            There’s this thing… and I don’t know if it’s a dumb thing that guys just do or if it’s rooted in any tradition, but there’s this dumb thing that guys do where each combatant clasps the others forearm and then their hands and forearms are lashed and tied together so you can’t get apart.  Then you tried to beat the living daylights out of each other… until one of you is subdued.

            That, to me, is what it’s like engaging negative thinking in a “fight” kind of way.  All that does is actually bind that to us, and we just keep slugging it out and slugging it out… and much like Sisyphos who rolled the huge boulder to the top of the hill only to have it roll back down again and was compelled to repeat this action over and over again, we continue to fight against that which we do not want.  We continue to strap our hands and forearms to our challenges and wail away at the until we become exhausted and ask for mercy… or we get bloodied and we surrender in defeat because we can’t get away from it, whereas, if we say, “Thank you God, I’ve been unconscious and now I’ve remembered, with your help,” that, metaphorically speaking, takes one of those straps, one bit of binding off, if not all of it.

            So I think this is one good, very easy, very gentle and effective way, to break the binds that hold us to our struggle.  This is an easy step that we all can do.

The other way we have to try to overcome this, in all its variants, in all the ways it might appear for us… and it’s too much for us (not to mention we can’t do it alone anyway).  It’s too big and it overwhelms us when we don’t include the awareness and the remembrance of the Presence of God… and gratitude for that.  So I think this is such a simple step to begin in that way to start to dissolve the power of negativity.

I don’t believe it’s any more difficult than that:

·         to recognize we’ve been unconscious

·         say Thank you, God

·         and then, from there, do whatever our spiritual practice is

 Sometimes when we go to negativity it’s “just” complaint about this or that or resistance to this or that.  But part of the way we’re kept in negativity is by reliving old bad memories; painful hurtful old memories that seem to rise up from time to time… and maybe even frequently… and we accept the invitation to participate in that old hurt again.  We accept the invitation to go back and relive that old hurt and establish that it has some kind of value for us.  If it has no value to us, why would we choose to relive it; to replay it in our hearts and minds again?  I believe that we do not participate in any thinking that we do not think has value for us somehow.  We must find some value in it otherwise we wouldn’t do it.

When old painful memories come up what do you do?  Imagine you had a box full of photographs that represented experiences in your life.  If you picked out one that reminded you of painful times, would you hold it, gaze at it, maybe even touch some part of it and then a wistful smile spreads across your face as you feel a longing to remember it and go back there?

I don’t think so.

Would you feed oats to a dead horse?

What I’m suggesting is when old, painful memories come up, and we become aware of them, that we say thank you God, and we go to our spiritual practice that we already have in place.

If you don’t already have a spiritual practice that you default to, then, once you regain consciousness from your struggle, say thank you and ask, what would you have me do?  From there, take a few moments to settle inside and listen for guidance.  Maybe it’ll come right away; maybe you’ll feel the inspiration in a day or two.

Here’s another way that I think we defeat ourselves… we give up too soon.

There’s a parable about a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer's well. The farmer heard the mule braying, or whatever mules do when they fall into wells. After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what happened, and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially, the old mule was hysterical! But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him.  It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, he should shake it off and step up! This he did, blow after blow. "Shake it off and step up. Shake it off and step up. Shake it off and step up!" He repeated it to encourage himself.

No matter how painful the blows, or distressing the situation seemed, the mule fought panic and just kept right on Shaking It Off and Stepping Up! You're right! It wasn't long before the old mule battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of the well and out of his trouble.

No problem is healed (solved) without the Presence of God at work in our lives.  Sometimes the Presence of God is a conscious act for us and sometimes it occurs in the sub-conscious.

Why not give yourself the benefit of the doubt and invite God into your awareness?

What seemed like it would bury the mule actually blessed him, all because of the positive perspective from which he viewed his adversity. And once we reject the invitation to participate in adversity, in negativity… or once we decide to leave the party and go home, so to speak, to thank God for tapping us on the shoulder to remind us we’ve been unconscious, a blessing has been released and healing is free to move in our life.

My intention was to conclude the service at this point, but as I finished preparing this talk I was prompted by my Inner Guidance (which I think of as the Holy Spirit) to write these words:

“Trust is the main requirement in finding a happier, more peaceful life.  Trust in Me. Trust in the power and Presence of Me.  Why do you doubt what you have not yet fully tried? What difference would it make if you were wrong? Would it be anything more than a temporary departure from what already isn’t working or is working minimally?  “Try Me, you’ll like Me.”  Now go and have fun in life.  Bring good cheer with you in whatever you do.  I love you.”

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