Judge

Higher Up IDEALS1 Comment

Judge

Am I jealous of your ignorance
Because I wish that I were too?
Do I call your innocence, stupidity
Because I can’t do what you can do?

Why do I judge
When I know that I don’t like it?
Is it because I know I’m you
But I have no way to fight it?

Did I create a “heaven”,
To prove that I’m better?
Is it because I think I am now,
And I just want to be forever?

Well if “God” is always right,
If I try to judge I know I’ll fail
So if I refuse to admit this
That’s what will keep me in this “hell”.

I wrote the poem above when I was on a flight from Baltimore to Orlando.  There was a family coming on the plane who had never flown before.  Out of nervousness, the mother kept apologizing for her family and confessing this fact as they loudly found their way to their seats.  They were the last people to be seated on the plane and essentially the rest of us were waiting on them.    My former wife and I were headed to the Sunshine state to spend some time at the Disney parks and go on a cruise.  I assumed that this other family was headed to Disney as well.  Needless to say their children were very excited and it only made sense.  However, despite the plane having several families on-board presumably headed to the same destination, it seemed that many people were judging this other family.

From my seat I could hear the surrounding passengers mumbling such things as, “find your seat already” and “it’s not that hard”.  Even my wife was a little bothered and probably embarrassed.  You see this family who had never flown and was having a very hard time were African-American like us. Now to some people reading this you might think that their ethnicity doesn’t matter, but you’d be wrong.  With a lot of Black people, we tend to take it personally and feel embarrassed if other Black people are doing something that draws public scrutiny.  I could go into the psychological reasons for it, but I will just make it simple and say that in a world that runs largely on first impressions and stereotypes, there is a frequent and underlying fear that what other people do will reflect back on us if we can be identified with those people.  We fear that whatever judgment someone makes about the offenders will be generally projected onto us.

I have found that this tendency is most prevalent in cultures with a dominant sense of collectivism but it happens with all people who see themselves as directly connected with others in some way such as family, teams, political party, nationality, etc.  It is the whole idea of being guilty by association.  I remember being a child and when the news announced a serious crime my family would be praying that the criminal was not Black.  Largely it was because we didn’t want to hear the bad news of another one of us being accused of a crime, but as I learned soon enough, it was also because we didn’t want whatever crime that was committed to reflect on us; further exacerbating the already existing and deliberate tendency of the larger society to view us in a negative light.  At first I couldn’t understand why my family felt that way until I noticed that if the criminal was Black, the newscasters would always state that fact, but if they were White, they would never mention it in their descriptions.

I thought about this as I watched the faces of the people on the plane.  Being the sensitive type, I allowed myself to feel as much as I could trying to get a sense of what was going on with not only the family trying to find their seat, but also with the other annoyed passengers, and my own inner person.  I tried to turn up my compassion and to think more about what the people were experiencing than my own judgments about how I thought people should be.  As I watched the family struggling to get in their seats and find a place for their carry-ons, I thought about what it might feel like to already be nervous about flying for the first time as adults not to mention having excited children tagging along.  I imagined that they probably were feeling very anxious and likely it was this anxiety that influenced their decision to wait until everyone else was on the plane before boarding.  Having never been on a plane before, they would not have known the carry-on situation and therefore did not anticipate having to try and find a place for their stuff because passengers who boarded earlier took their once empty bin.  Add to this that they were on display as all of the other seated passengers annoyingly waited for them to get their seats, and I could only imagine that this whole situation was torture for them.  Consequently, the wife was subtly pleading for compassion by constantly revealing their inexperience while the husband seemed to be pulling an Adam with a face that said, “this was all her idea.”

As for my wife and the annoyed passengers, I already mentioned part of what I felt was getting to her and some of the other Black passengers who barely looked at the family.  There were some passengers who could care less and were just settling in for the flight and then there were those who were projecting their frustration on the family as if they were doing something to them on purpose.  At first my mind wanted to make it a racial thing.  I wondered if the family was White if they would have been less annoyed.  And I think the answer for some of them would have been yes.  Is it personal? Sometimes yes, but more often it is no.  People just tend to have greater affinity for those who they seem to have more in common with.  It is like a programming.  They don’t even know they do it half the time it is so ingrained.  And then there are the people who are just people who are easily annoyed–which in the Metro-DC area is not uncommon.  There are a lot of people who live their daily lives in a rush.  Anything that seems to make getting to where they want to be take longer is subject to the wrath.  It could have easily been a snow storm and they would be angry with nature.  Everything  outside of themselves is an equal opportunity annoyer (made up word).  These stressed out people probably need a vacation more than anyone.  But it is probably likely that they if they were going to Disney, they were going to try and conquer it and ultimately leave their vacation more tired than they were when they arrived.  I’d say that they were as good of candidates as anyone for Jesus’ insight to “forgive them for they know not what they do”.  And then there leaves me.

I tend to be one of those people who is initially intolerant of intolerant people.  I judge people who judge people and condemn those who condemn others.  In reality, this is probably the worse kind of judge because those of us who have this tendency have the luxury of what people call righteous indignation.  We can convince ourselves that we have the “might of right”.  Usually we can point to religious texts like the one below to demonstrate why our point of view is the more accurate one.  Consider Matthew 7:1-6 which admonishes people for judging others.  It would be easy for me to point to this scripture when attacking someone I see of guilty of judging others unfairly.  Used incorrectly, I could do a lot of harm with this scripture.  Much like the away those who are adamantly against abortion can justify killing a doctor who performs abortions, using the “thou shalt not kill” defense, I could come to someone who is judging and say to them, “you are a no good dirty rotten judger of people and I hope that you get what is coming to you because you are just wrong because the Bible says don’t judge.”  And when I did, I am sure that I would have a lot of people supporting me who also have pent up judgments about themselves and the world around them that they are just waiting to project onto someone else so that they can get the nasty feeling of  self-condemnation off of them.  But here’s the thing.  That’s now passages like the one below are meant to work.

As the second stanza of the poem asks:

Why do I judge
When I know that I don’t like it?
Is it because I know I’m you
But I have no way to fight it?

Passages like Matthew 7 are spoken to and from a place of Oneness.  When Jesus speaks to the disciples and others about why we should not judge, he does not do so only from a position outside of us, but from a place within us as well.  He is speaking from the all encompassing reality that we all know and that we all are.  Paul touches on this awareness when he says in Romans 1:20,”For since the creation of the world His [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”  While I will not unpack the full breadth of this passage right now, I will point to the obvious implication made here that all of Creation knows the fullness of its Source.  We are not separate from Source–from God and consequently from one another. Therefore, we have no excuse for living as if the opposite is true.  As the Christ, Jesus lives this reality of Wholeness eternally and speaks to us from this place.  Thus, when he makes assertions like the one you are about to read, it comes from that place.  And from this place his judgments are true, because their only intention is to remind us of who we truly are.  For as it says in 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”  Now, in this Light read the passage below:

Matthew 7:1-6

7 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

This poem Judge attempts to convey the essence of this passage–that the judgments we project onto others naturally returns upon us precisely because, in Oneness, those others are in fact us.  When Christ through Jesus, advises us not to judge, it is because he knows that it is of little effect in transforming our collective consciousness.  Our judgments do not transduce the dark energy of ego resistance into the vibrant all-creative energy of realized potential as we deceive ourselves into believing it will (if you would like this sentence unpacked contact me).  Only consciousness can do this.  This is what Jesus is telling us in verse 3-5 above.  What we often find when we release judgment for consciousness is that once we remove the plank from our own eye, we will discover that there never was a speck in our brother or sister’s eye in the first place.  All we were seeing was our own projected planks out in the world.  However, if after removing the plank from our own eye, we still see a speck in another’s, our conscious Love for them will show us how it can be removed for the benefit of the All.

Rather than unpack the rest of the poem which mentions heaven and hell in the context of being the ultimate in the human struggle with judgment, I will leave you with this expression I found on the bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap, “For we’re all One or none! Listen children, Eternal Father Eternally One!  We’re All One or none! Exceptions eternally? NONE.”  As it pertains to this poem, Heaven is acceptance God’s reality and hell is it’s denial.  When we deny God’s reality to others we deny it to ourselves.  “What we bind on earth we bind in heaven.  What we release on earth, we release in heaven.”  Such is the Way of One.

Nature and Beyond

Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

Nature and Beyond

In every grain of sand, a world
Times three thousand more
There’s more to the natural world than eyes can see
Thus impossible to keep score

Can we count the raindrops
Or the hairs on a single head?
It’s overwhelming to imagine
So we distract ourselves instead

Have you noticed the ants at work
Or a family of deer playing?
Have you listened to the honks of geese
And wondered what they’re saying?

Most of us can’t say so
We have better things to do
When there are things to be bought and sold
Who has time for nature too?

But we are in a relationship
With everything that lives
We can’t seem to get that what we receive
Comes from that which nature gives

So when we take and take and take
Hoarding for fear of lack
We, at the same time, hurt ourselves
Putting knives in our own backs

Now only nature can save us
That’s what it’s trying to do
By revealing to us her secrets
Hoping we’ll get the clue

We know that she is infinitely vast
Yet somehow infinitely small
Jam packed full of paradox
Yet able to contain them all

She gives us room for freedom
As long as we trust her law
Love everything as we love ourselves
And we will be free from flaw

If you doubt, this ask the sparrow
Or the lilies of the field
Like everything else, they live by Nature’s Way
Will we join them in what’s real?

© Copyright 2013 Pedro S. Silva II

I really don’t get how so many of us live our lives as if we are so divorced from Nature.  It really trips me out.  And I’m not just talking about the whole global warming, pollution, and endangered species piece.  I see all of that as symptoms of the underlying disease. It goes deeper than that.  Now, I’m not going to say that I “get it”.  I don’t understand a lot about life. But one thing I do know is that I am a partaker of life.  I am not separate from any life and that which I give to life I receive from life.  We are One with all that is.  This much I know.  And I know that any contrary thought is born out of illusion.  While we try to subdue or defy nature, we do nothing more than subdue and defy our own consciousness of who we truly are as beings in relationship with everything that ever was, is, and will be.  All we have to do is pay attention.  But as it seems, we see paying attention as a threat.  When we distract ourselves from the mirror of call of Creation the consequence is never knowing who we really are.

Lamentations On Forgiveness

Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

You tell me to forgive them
But sometimes it’s so hard
To let go of some of the things that people do
You’d have to be a god

If I loved them and I healed them
And then they turned on me
It’d be better for them if I stayed dead
Because they’d never get away from me

I could not have your power
And deal with what you did
And yet I say I follow you
Who am I trying to kid?

That’s why I still need you to hold me
To keep me in your embrace
To lift me when I can’t lift myself
And shower me with your grace

The above poem pretty much sums up why I seek Christ.  Rather than being an original part of the book, it was actually written to accompany a sermon I did based on the words, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  I’ve been meditating on those words for over 30 years. Ever since I realized that my brother and my fighting would never end as long as I kept hitting him back, I have been using those words as the kind of “true north” of my conscience and my consciousness.  Whenever I find myself agitated and incapable of saying those words, then I know I have some more work to do on myself.  Even though I hate the idea of a crucified savior of the world or even the fact that God’s world needs saving at all, I cannot deny my experience that people do great harm to one another and that most of it is cyclical. I’ve seen many hurt people hurt people.  Some people are so used to being hurt that they live in anticipation of it, often see it when it isn’t even there, and may even go so far as to push others to hurt them in order to confirm the only reality that they have ever known.  I know this first hand and in my experience the idea of Jesus saying, “I am no longer going to contribute to this cycle.” through his willingness to forgive has been the only thing to really work effectively in my own walk.

As the poem demonstrates, I still get stuck on some issues.  Especially since becoming a father, I have found that I need to ramp up my forgiveness practice more and more.  I do not anticipate getting to a point where I will no longer need to work on this, because new things show up everyday.  I am not just talking about things in my personal life.  I see it as my job to forgive anything that disturbs me–anything that agitates my soul and tempts me to look away from the world that Jesus saw where God loves those who do evil with the same love as those who do what we call good.  I should say that I am not delusional, thinking that the world is going to become some utopia where people will be singing happy songs and there will be no pain and yet I work toward it because I am certain that the alternative is less promising.  We already know what doesn’t work in this world.  And yet we still do it.  So the way I see it, is that forgiveness is the most viable option.

So as hard as it can seem sometimes, I am committed to the practice.  But I should say, that forgiveness doesn’t mean anything goes and that there are no efforts to correct those who harm.  In my practice, it simply means that people who do evil are ignorant.  I forgive their ignorance and clean myself from using my pain to justify my reactions.  If I do that then I am doing nothing other than justifying whatever harm they cause based on their pain.  It is a cycle.  So what I do instead is to seek forgiveness first.  Then out of that space, I will take the corrective actions that are in my power to perform.  Hopefully I am working out of inspiration so that I can trust that whatever I do is born of the love out of which the person/offender is created.  The hope is that what I offer helps wake the person up to their own inner reality.  If you’ve ever dealt with someone on drugs who is detoxing, you know that helping them can take a lot of forgiveness and that in order to keep them straight, you sometimes have to look like a real a**hole to get them to see the harm they are doing to themselves and others.  The whole point is that whatever you do is out of love and toward that persons healing.  Surgery could be another good analogy where you look to hurt someone when it is for their own good.  Forgiveness can often manifest like spiritual surgery. It starts by working on yourself which then prepares you to work for others. That’s how I work with Jesus.  I see him as the forgiveness master that undoes the cycle of pain perpetuating pain.  When I get hurt I turn to him.  It helps to draw me out of myself and toward that higher way of being that he offers.  No matter how much I feel sorry for myself sometimes for being the person taking responsibility for forgiveness in some situations, I know that it is the Way.  Ultimately it is all I have to offer.

Faith

Higher Up IDEALS4 Comments

Faith

Though I’ve spoken at length

I haven’t said a word

And all this nothing that I’m saying

Is nothing but absurd

I speak with lies

So that you might hear the truth

I display for you illusion

That you might have proof

Do you know that this life, as most of us engage it, is mostly illusion?  Yes.  In fact, most of our lives have never happened as we have imagined them.  This may feel disconcerting.  I know we want to believe that our lives have meant something and that the stories that we have told ourselves about our lives have real substance. But, the reality is that it is not true.  Are you curious about why I would say such a thing?  You might ask, “What about my role in my family? What about all the ‘good’ that I have done?  What about world peace and saving the planet?  What about my religion?  Do you really expect me to believe that all of that is illusion?  I am somebody.  I am a special person who does special things that mean something in this world.”

Yes.  All of  those things are wonderful.  Yes. Only you could have had the experiences that you have had, are having, and will have.  Yes.  No one can do the work that you do here.  But… the meaning that we give to these things is not universal.  It is subjective and without inherent substance.  The only substance it has is what we give to it. And as such, every engagement that we have with the people, places, events, things etc. is a solitary experience that exists only for the creator of that experience…us.  And the fact is that this imagination of ours is a very awesome gift and a beautiful ability that God has shared with us, but what we do with it is only for us.  It cannot be shared.  And that my friends, is the paradox out of which all suffering is born. We cannot figure out how to get the whole world to go along with our storylines and many of us experience that as very lonely. And sadly, many of us get attached to people who have no interest in our stories, but who we have decided should especially agree to our awesomeness–often family–and we use most of our imagination trying to figure out ways to get their approval.

We want to be unique, special, awesome, and all things wonderful in the world.  But more than anything, we want to be right.  We want everyone to agree with the story we tell ourselves about what our life means–what the world means–and if they do not agree, our world comes apart.  Why?  Well, we want to be right because, on some level, we know that we are the creators of our own experience and yet, when our creations seem to get out of control, we do not want to take responsibility.  Why?  Because when we create a world where we are super special and the central character around which all of life revolves, then it is imperative that we maintain our “rightness” at all costs because without it, it seems that all hope is lost.  To us, being “wrong” is death because somewhere in the beginning of the story that we create for ourselves, we establish our infallibility as the prime directive.  No matter what happens, the story must end with our “rightness”.  Otherwise, it becomes very difficult to orient ourselves in the story.  If the “creator” is not always right then the story may turn out “wrong”.  So what is “wrong”?  Well, for most of us, “wrong” is whatever makes us feel uncomfortable.  And as such, “right” is what makes us comfortable.

Unfortunately, when we get to this point, it means that we have become lost in our own story.  It is like a swimmer who goes too far out into the water and gets tired. They then begin to fear drowning and may very well do so without help. Or better yet, it is like an actor who gets so lost in the character, that they no longer can tell the difference between themselves and the character that they are playing.  That is all well and good for the movies, but at some point and time the person has to be able to get out of character.  If they can’t bring themselves out, then they will need help from someone else.  So how can one do that? Well first off, the person doing the extraction has to be able to live in paradox.  Secondly, they have to decentralize themselves when they enter into another person or group’s story.  Third, they cannot value comfort over discomfort.  Fourth, they must be willing to become whatever the other requires in order to clandestinely guide the other out of the illusion—even if it means looking like a jerk, liar, or hypocrite. You can see this principle at work when people like Jesus went nuts on the moneychangers or when Abraham Lincoln said to Horace Greeley that:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

The ultimate requirement of an extractor, however, is that they have to be willing to die in the story. Think about the likes of Moses and Martin Luther King Jr. who made it to the mountaintop in the stories of which they are a part, but were unable to enter the “promised land” themselves.  Of course the above mentioned Abraham Lincoln did this too.  And if you really want to see this principle at work, you can’t see a better example than Jesus Christ. If the person is not willing to die in the story, then they will, out of necessity, try to shift the story for their own benefit.  They must be other focused or the extraction will definitely fail.  At all times they must work like they will live forever, but be willing to die right now.  And, this death does not simply mean the physical death.  It includes everything from being willing to walk away from a job to having your reputation tarnished.  You must have no attachment to the world that will supersede the prime directive—which is to steadfastly stand in reality while in the presence of illusion.

The above poem explains how this is done.  It requires faith.  Hebrews 11:1-3 teaches “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” (Check out the whole Hebrews Chapter 11 for examples) This is extremely important for someone doing extraction to remember, because if they do not have faith, they will be more likely to rely on their own understanding and be swayed by what things seem to be.  A person operating out of faith knows that the only Universal story is the one that emerges out of the context of eternal life—God’s Story of infinite abundance (If you can call it a story).  If the true story is emerging out of a context of eternal life, then all actions that have as their aim preserving the life of the actor, are illusory at their root.  This is why Jesus said in Mark 8:35 “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s (Good News) will save it.”  And this is precisely why we cannot share our individual stories. To live our lives in such a way that our purpose is to avoid death makes us death’s slave.  This is the ultimate illusion.

Paul makes this clear in Romans 6:16-18 when he says, “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”

Given this summation of things, to live in the fear of death is to be the slave of death. But to live in and toward eternal life is to serve eternal life–the only life there is. When one lives out of this reality, they can understand what Paul meant when he said, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” This has to be the mindset of one working toward the freedom of their friends lost in their own story. In John 15:13 Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”  For many people this may sound like martyrdom.  It is not.  Death is a part of every life.  Ultimately, nothing tells us more about a person’s life than how they face death.  When one understands this, the love that Jesus is talking about becomes clearer as well.  It is this Love, born of faith that sets all people free.  There is no reality beyond the scope of this freedom.  All words fall short of describing this reality.  It must be lived.

Once someone begins living into eternal life, they will wonder why they did not give up their limited story sooner.  They will see their rescuers actions in a different light and they will appreciate the risk that their rescuers took to bring them back to true life.  Some may even choose to share the true life with others.  But none of this is a possibility until they break free from their story–until their feet feel the solid ground. As long as they are in fear they cannot know the love that would enter into their death story in order to bring them to life. For as 1 John 4:18 teaches, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” Those operating from faith must put off fear even when we feel it and trust the promises of love that we have never been forsaken even in our darkest hour.

When right before he died in our story, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” he showed the very depths he was willing to go to free us from illusion.  He put on the lie of death so that we could see life at work.  He lived wholly into every moment even into what we fear most and he did not try to avoid any aspect of it even the worst mental, physical, and spiritual pains that we could imagine–total abandonment, rejection, helplessness, and annihilation of our story.  But as I receive this choice he made in faith, I believe that he and others who have surrendered their own story of who they are for God’s story, have done so to show us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18)” when we go the Way of Life in faith.

Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

Happiness will never last, but joy is eternal.

Higher Up IDEALS's avatarThe Roofless Church

If you are waiting for the day when you will be “happy” all of the time, I have some news for you.  It is never going to happen.  I know that many people don’t like to hear this.  They want to believe that if they could just get in the right situation they can “get happy” and “stay happy”.  What makes people think this, I do not know.  Crying is the first thing most of us do when we enter this world.  As newborns we are equipped to cry when we don’t get what we need and our parents learn the nuances of our cries, but it takes a while before they can tell the difference between our smiles and gas.

Now does this mean that we are predisposed to crying and sadness?  No.  But at a minimum it should tell us that crying and sadness are just as much…

View original post 1,037 more words

We Dig It!

Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

We Dig It

There’s something I feel I must say to you
Don’t get angry just because it’s true
This is something I feel I have to do
Now let me break it down for you
We dig it!

When we see those people with nothing to eat
Somehow it makes us feel more complete
So we dig it.

We see they’re so poor so we’re comparatively rich
But if it were not for them, there would be no rich
How would we know if we all had the same shit?
So we need the poor, ain’t that a bitch
Can you dig it?

Man, so and so’s kid is bad as hell
But it makes my kid comparatively well
So I dig it.

Now here is something else for you
Once again it’s extremely true
Someone has to be down to look up to you
So thank God for losers because I’m one too
Can you dig it?

If it wasn’t for the darkness
Would there be light?
So thank God for the madness
Does that seem right?
This is something I won’t explain tonight.
But still we dig it.

Now there’s one more thing I have to say
None of you are wrong today
If it wasn’t to be, it wouldn’t be this way
It’s all part of the process of becoming OK
Can we dig it?

Luke 18 offers a parable attributed to Jesus that tells the story of a man who, while in so called prayer, compared himself to other people and found himself to be comparatively righteous.

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

How familiar does that sound?  Have you ever looked at other people and thought like the above Pharisee?  I’m sure most of you have.  I know I used to and I would venture to say that 99% of Americans do.  It is part of our indoctrination here.  And I think it is safe to assume that this is done the world over to the same degree.  It clearly was happening in Jesus’ locale and time and as we know it is still happening now.  The fact is that most of us would have no concept of who we are outside of the context of other people.  Like the Pharisee, we compare ourselves to others and either exalt ourselves or look down on ourselves in relation to the people we are comparing ourselves to.  This practice is rampant in humanity and operates at every so called level of society from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich.  From the highest IQ to the lowest.  From the least attractive to the most.  Do you see what I am doing here by calliing up these spectra?  When I say high isn’t that where you want to be?  When I say low isn’t that what you want to avoid?  The question is, who is determining what is “high” and “low”?  As you can see from the parable, Jesus doesn’t use our standards of judgment.  Most of us would be kissing the butt of the Pharisaical equivalent in our own time and circumstances.  We’d believe his hype and step all over ourselves to get into his entourage.

I remember one time some friends asked me to play basketball.  I tried to explain to them that I never cultivated my hoop game, but I was willing to play if they could concentrate on their game instead of mine.  They played all of the time and it was a waste of all of our energies to compare my skills to theirs or to get frustrated if I passed the ball into the bleachers or dribbled on my foot.  They assured me that they could live in the moment and just play for fun and drop the whole competitive thing.  “We’re just playing for exercise”, they swore.  Well, the game began and ten minutes in, I could tell that my partner wanted to punch me in the mouth.  It would not have been the first time I was punched on the basketball court for “making someone lose”, so I knew the signs.  But, this time  I was playing with adults, so I figured the frustration would not get pass the evil eye and the occassional scream of “COME ON!”  So I just did my best.  We were only playing to 21 and my only goal was to make at least one basket before the game was over.  I was actually having fun.  I was in my own world, rating myself solely by how close I actually got to getting the ball in.  Air, air, backboard, backboard, air, rim, rim, backboard.  Then it happened.  There was no hope.  We were going to lose, but I kept playing like the game was as close as one of those Mighty Ducks movies.

According to programming, my teammate was dying inside.  Why did he get me?  “Pass the ball,” he yelled.  I guess the possibililty of losing 21 to 6 seemed more appealing than 21 to 4.  But I took the shot and by God’s grace, we were 1 point higher on the defeat scale. 19 to 7.  I’m jumping up and down.  I made a shot.  And then the game was sealed as the other guys took it home.  As they reveled in their glory and proceeded to throw it in my face, I said, “Yeah.  You destroyed a guy who played the game 5 times in his life and only twice with other people.  Woopity doo.  But did you see that shot I got on you?  I’m only 5’4″ and I got that shot over your 6′ head.  How were you not able to block that?”  Of course he looked at me like I was crazy.  On top of that I took all of the fun out of his gloating.  “If Jesus were calling that game he would have said I won, but who’s keeping score?” I added.  After the dust settled and they decided that I was officially crazy, one of the guys asked me why I wasn’t bothered by the game.  I told him that I knew one of us was going to lose.  That’s just how it is.  If there were no losers, there would be no winners.  He needed me in order for him to feel like a winner.Because I knew that, in reality I had nothing to lose.  My role completes the universal balance.  It’s just how it is.

This is the reality y’all.  The Universe does not need our judgment.  It is pretty pointless in the grand scheme of things.  When we compare ourselves to others and try to determine our status in relation to them, it is an exercise in futility.  As long as we do that we will never be able to truly desire for the fulfillment of all life.  How can we?  How can we be happy for people if we think of them as being better off than us?  How can we see eye to eye with those in temporary need if we think we are in a position to pity them or feel sorry for them?  One of my favorite quotes is from the actor, Kevin Costner.  I read an article he was featured in after he won a bunch of awards for Dances with Wolves.  When asked how excited he was about all of the achievements he said, “Hey, I am just a guy living a life like anybody else.”  And that’s it in a nutshell.  We are all people living lives and making choices.  Comparing ourselves to others and gauging our value based on what other people are doing adds nothing to our lives.

With this poem, I hope the reader is willing to admit that we have this tendency to compare ourselves to others and base our worth on a false sense of value, if in fact that is the case.  We need to know that each and everyone of us is of infinite value to our Creator.  Do you know what it takes to get us here?  It takes everything.  God does not hold back.  God gives everything to everything.  God literally pours God’s entire Being into everything that IS. And then once we become self aware or should I say self conscious, we begin the futile attempts to break it down, categorize it, and judge it according to our limited points of view.  What if we could just stop it all?  What if we could just be with each other, appreciate each other, and just live our lives together?

So the next time you catch yourself putting yourself down or lifting yourself up solely based on other people, just admit it.  No one can really judge you, so don’t judge yourself.  And as Jesus beseeched us, “Judge not, lest thou be judged” (by yourself).

Matthew 7:1-6

Do Not Judge

7 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.6 “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.

The Man I Am

Higher Up IDEALSLeave a comment

The Man I Am

I am the man society made

I had no choice in me

Your anger, your love, your joy, your frustration

Are all that I can be

I am a man without a Voice

All I say is what you need

Never able to speak for me,

Until all of us are freed

Have you ever felt like you had no choice in the person that you are?  It’s as if everything that you do is interpreted in a manner over which you have no choice.  I’ve felt that feeling and I have known many people who have.  Sometimes it works for you–at least until you start to question it–and sometimes it doesn’t.  For a long time it worked for me.  I ended up looking like the good guy no matter what I did because that was the role people assigned to me.  There were even times where I deliberately set out to do wrong and it turned out good.  I couldn’t stand it.  I was trapped by goodness.  I couldn’t even be a jerk if I wanted to. I was what they said I was and there is nothing “they” hate more than being wrong. The ego is so crazy that even when I admitted to being wrong and tried to punish myself, the people who were invested in my goodness would not support my own summation of myself. That is how crazy we are sometimes. Here’s a good example.

When I was in the military, I started out as a super shiny and crispy airman. My uniform was pressed, my boots were shiny, and I was super respectful. I drank the kool-aid in basic training and asked for seconds. I liked the order and the core values and all that rut. When it came time for the reviews, I deserved a 5 out of 5 and expected it. I honored the system, followed it, and deserved to get the scores it said someone who followed it was supposed to get. So when my first supervisor who didn’t know anything about me since he was deployed my entire evaluation period tried to give me a 3, I let him know that wasn’t happening. Everyone else who got to know me in the office knew I was a 5 so they would not accept his recommendation.

I know I sound arrogant, but is it arrogant to call a red rose red? No. I was a 5, because “they” had already decided I was a 5 because I did what 5s were supposed to do. I had paid enough attention in life to know that there was nothing he or anyone could do about it without getting into some serious crazy stuff. Of course, he doubted my take on things and went into the NCOIC’s (Non Commissioned Officer in Charge) to tell him I deserved a 3. His reasoning was that I did not work well with others, because he heard me tell a fellow airman to do his job or get out of my way. Well, after a few minutes, he emerged from the office looking like he was going to cry. He wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I was then called in the office where the NCOIC proceeded to tell me to ignore everything my supervisor said. “Obviously he does not know you. I will do your evaluation and it is a 5.” All I said was, “Ok. Thanks.” After that, my supervisor and I never really talked much. He knew his opinion didn’t count for anything. The irony is, neither did mine.

Fast forward 2 years. I went from shiny and crispy to dull and flaky. I was overweight, angry, and was sweating alcohol. I put getting haircuts off to the last minute and my pseudofolliculitis barbae (that is medical talk for razor bumps) was getting out of hand since I had finally started to grow facial hair. I was a mess and I knew it. On top of it all I was having crazy heart palpitations. I was no longer 5 material even in my own summation–especially in my summation. In retrospect I guess I was in mourning from a relationship ending. But at the time I did not have sympathy for myself so I decided that I was just a punk. I felt so crappy I didn’t even think God wanted anything to do with me. And so out of anger, I turned my projection of God’s imagined sentiment toward me back onto my idea of God and then rejected it. In short, I didn’t even have God to lean on at that time. And I started going out to clubs and drinking and generally trying to make up for lost time when I was “good for no reason”. Still, somehow, like Solomon I was able to see myself acting like a fool with some clarity.

When evaluation time came around again, I was able to be honest on the form where it asked my opinion of myself. Being a little generous for the extenuating circumstances of my break-up, I gave myself a 3.5. I didn’t care that the lower score would effect my ability to get promoted or anything. I still had respect for what the system was designed for. I didn’t think someone acting like I was acting should be headed toward promotion anyway and so I told the truth about my decline. Guess what happened. I got called into the office and was essentially told what my old supervisor had been told. I was not getting anything less than a 5. I protested that it was unfair and that people like me deserved 3.5s or else the whole system would be corrupted. My new supervisor eventually begged me to accept a 5 for his sake and I told him, “I don’t care what you do because this system is fake.” He told me that if it made me feel any better, he would write in my areas of improvement that I talked too much and was too hard on myself. I remained a 5.

So you see. In that case, I was the man that society made. I had no choice in me. Unfortunately, I know several people who did not benefit from this human tendency to see what they want to see. And believe me, I have been on that side too. This place has a way of trying to force you into conformity with the story “they” have already written for us. I could have easily told you a story about brothers in my neighborhood who were convinced that there was “nothing for a nigga to do but sling” after being crushed by the pressures around them or of a friend who was so tired of being looked at like he was going to steal something that he snapped and did it and was consequently labeled a thief. I could have, but I used the example above because I think it is important to know that there are people who benefit from some of our systems who are just as trapped as those of us who don’t seemingly benefit. We’re all in this world together and I think that the sooner we realize that we are serving systems instead of being served by them and serving humanity as a whole, the sooner we will be able to erase the lines we think separate us from one another. Jesus told the religious robots of his time that the Sabbath was created for humanity, not the other way around. The same is true for all of the systems we have in place. I don’t think that there is anything wrong with systems, but when people are being herded into them like cattle forced to play roles that may run contrary to their spirit, those systems need to be questioned. If they are not open to questioning then none of us are free.

This poem calls to consciousness that feeling of despair that colors many of our lives. Like Eminem said, “I am whatever you say I am. If I wasn’t then why would you say I am.” That’s what many of us feel like after years of being fed this story of who we are or who we are supposed to be. I want you to know that we have a choice. When you read this poem, I hope that you acknowledge any feelings that come up around it and then decide whether or not you want to keep allowing them to dictate your life. Because you do have a choice even if it may not seem to be an easy one. The key is to follow Jesus’ advice to the rich young ruler in Luke 18:18-27. If we can do that, then we go from being someone society made to someone God created. That’s where the freedom lives.

One With You

Higher Up IDEALS1 Comment

One With You
They say we’re separate and unequal
But I see You watching me
And you see me watching You as well
Just as it should be

They tell me something’s missing
But everything lives inside of You
And because I know Your Home is in my heart
Everything lives inside me too

That’s why You’re my only Destination
And my Journey along the Way
You are also my Right Here and Now
And the Words with which I pray

You are the Gift that keeps on Giving
And the Giver of the Gift Yourself
My only desire is to give like You
Because You are the only Source of Wealth

That’s why I am so eternally grateful
For the opportunity to know
That the Life in me is the Life in You
Thank You for creating it so

© 2007 Pedro S. Silva II

In the 17th Chapter of John the author of that book depicts Jesus praying for his remaining disciples as well as for the people who will believe in his witness to God based on the testimony of his disciples.  In those prayers, he asks that his present and future disciples stay in the word that he gave them and remain One with God just as he is.  Check it out.

John 17:20-26

New King James Version (NKJV)

Jesus Prays for All Believers

20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

What are we holding back?

This poem takes responsibility for that word that Christ has given. Be One. I equate this with being Real.  Oneness is Reality and everything else is a lie.  I hope that by the time you get through this blog you understand what I mean when I say that lies do not exist. The reality is ONE or none.  That’s it. God is not divisible.  Jesus taught that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Paul taught that “within God we live and move and have our being.”  One of the Hebrew names for God is HaMakom which means The Place. God is our Home people.  We have never left our Home. Can you believe this? You are either One with God or no one without God.  Now for those of you who think that this statement is some kind of religious zealotry, I suggest you reserve judgment until later.  I am not religious.  In fact I do not think that religion is based on reality.  I think that religion is designed to keep the lie at bay.  It ‘s like a big dam that is trying to protect us from being destroyed by illusion.  In order to do that, structures are created as alternatives to the temptation of the world.  This is noble, but it is based on making the lie real, which it is not. The lie says that separation from God is real.  It says that there is somewhere we can go from God’s spirit. It says that God has a divided mind that differentiates between what we call light and dark.  It says that there are people in hell who are away from God.  But, Psalm 139 says:

7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,” Even the night shall be light about me; 12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

So no, I am not religious and I do not think Jesus is either.  For those who think otherwise, I suggest reading the Bible.  In my understanding, Jesus wanted us to wake up the Reality of God and to our own Reality as being One with God.  As the above Psalm says in verse 18, “When I awake, I am still with You.”  It is only a dream that we are not with God. In the poem, I am expressing what I get out of John 17.  We are One with God.  God is in relationship with All.  Jesus compelled us to love one another and to love our so called enemies because God loves All without distinction.  Jesus faced death and gave his life, because he refused to protect himself from a lie.  He denied its reality.  He knew that his life was in God’s eternal Life and in that reality, he received God’s name.  That Name has been declared to us and that Name is One.  It is the Name above every name.  Your name, all of our names are housed in that Name.  If we can’t find our name in that Name, we will never know who we are.

I know that there are a lot of things or experiences in life that may convince you that you are nowhere near God. But I am here to tell you Psalm 139 is true.  There is nowhere we can go from the Spirit of One.  I know, because I have tried. It was in the depths of the hell that I made for myself that I heard my name in the Name. My hope is that if you’re on the journey to know your name that you will find your name within the Name and live your life as One even as Christ is One.  And I hope the testimony of this blog can help facilitate that.