Jim Palmer's Blog, page 65

We may be looking for peace in the wrong places.

We may be looking for peace in the wrong places.

There is no such thing as “peace of mind.” The mind is in a continuous state of flux. It is the nature of the mind to be restless. Our mind will never be like a still, quiet, tranquil, motionless, placid pond; it is more like the ocean, with waves of thoughts rolling in and crashing down. Don’t look for a quiet mind as a sign of enlightenment, transformation or awakening. The mind is seething with thoughts. Your mind is what it is, and that is not going to change. Neither should you think of your mind as a bother because of it. The mind plays a necessary, indispensable, and extraordinary role in our lives. It’s just that peace is not something that fundamentally happens in the mind.

Consider also, that you cannot find what you have not lost. If you are in search of peace, you are out of luck because peace isn’t somewhere out there to be found or achieved or attained. Peace is not something that goes away that you have to find.

Peace is not a condition to achieve. People speak of wanting to be “at peace,” as if it is some sort of state of being to attain. It’s as if we think of our lives as: “not at peace,” “at peace,” “not at peace,” “as peace,” etc…

Your underlying Self was born out of the unchanging image, likeness, and being of God. In other words, God is the ground of your being. There are many other words we could substitute for the reality we are pointing to when we speak of “God.” Love, wholeness, freedom, and peace are a few that come to mind. So you could say, your underlying self was born out of the image, likeness and being of love, wholeness, freedom, and peace. Love, wholeness, freedom, and peace is the ground of your being.

We can see this reality displayed in the life of Jesus, who exhibited all kinds of different states of mind – sorrow, hurt, anger, frustration, disappointment, weariness, grief, inner turmoil, and yet was aware of his true identity as God’s son, or you might say: Love-Wholeness-Freedom-Peace’s son.

You are a son or daughter of Love-Wholeness-Freedom-Peace. That’s not an I-need-to-find thing; that’s a this-is-who-I-am thing.

Transformation is not about overcoming, improving, fixing or transcending your humanity.

Transformation is not about overcoming, improving, fixing or transcending your humanity.

Brené Brown wrote, “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” Too often the underlying premise of religion is that human beings are inherently bad, repulsive to God, and deserving of God’s wrath. It may not be articulated quite this way but for all intents and purposes the so-called “Gospel” of Christianity-gone-astray demands people to essentially say, “God, please forgive me for being me.” I don’t get why these people don’t consider that we were created in the image of God. Factoring that in, the request would more accurately be, “God, please forgive me for being the me that you made me to be.” Huh???

Religion insists that at the core we are bad – that something is inherently wrong with us that needs to be fixed and overcome. Well, actually, it doesn’t even say it can even be fixed, just forgiven. This message gets pounded in our head continuously, and it erodes that part of us, which Brené Brown pointed out, we need intact to be capable of growth. Religion sabotages our relationship with ourselves, eliminating the possibility of ever taking on the fullness of who God created us to be.

In seminary, I organized God into theological categories

In seminary, I organized God into theological categories such as Christology, soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, missiology, and eschatology. Eventually I discovered instead that it really came down to these categories: (1) Everythingiology – seeing God in, as, and through all things; (2) Everyoneiology – recognizing God as the underlying, unchanging and fundamental essence of all people; and (3) Incomprehensibliology – the futility of systematizing, formulating, concretizing, and institutionalizing God.

I made peace with my religious past.

Some Things I Did, Exploring Spirituality Beyond Institutional Religion:

I made peace with my religious past.

I took responsibility for my spiritual journey.

I stopped dividing up the world into “sacred” and “secular”.

I began listening to and trusting my inner voice.

I started looking past the externals, and relating to the deepest reality I knew was present in every human being.

I quit making my humanity the enemy.

I resisted the need to build a persona around being an enlightened person.

I opened myself to the rhythm and flow of life in nature.

I explored what it meant to truly be “present” in life and became a student of my spiritual aura and energy.

I focused on addressing the root of my suffering.

I paid attention to my deepest desires and passions.

I sought to cast off my fictitious self, and be an authentic and fully-expressed me.

I explored the connection between spirituality and sexuality.

I expanded my relational world beyond religious sub-culture.

I resisted creating a new religion out of my latest discovery.

I operated with the assumption that every human being knew something I needed to know.

I resisted latching onto the latest guru, and began seeing all people as my teachers.

I explored new fields and areas of interest that were largely unknown to me.

I gave up the idea of needing to accomplish some epic thing for God.

I approached my life as a reality I was free to create.

I became interested and involved in the lives of people I encountered naturally along the everyday paths of my life.

I think the worst part of child-abuse is the story you tell yourself about yourself as a result of the abuse.

I think the worst part of child-abuse is the story you tell yourself about yourself as a result of the abuse. 10, 20, 30, 40 years later you can still be telling yourself that same story. In a way, you’ve become your own abuser because that’s all you know.

I learned as a little boy that I was ugly, worthless and a failure. It was the resounding message of my childhood and youth. When you absorb that conclusion into your core at a young age, it’s not surprising then that you go through life finding evidence for it every day, a hundred times a day. It’s not even that you really “find it,” you actually go searching for it. It’s as though it is your sealed fate, and there’s no escaping it. But there is escaping it… not all at once but in time if you’re willing to fight for it. What we believe about ourselves shapes our possibilities for being. Early in life we walk into a story not of our making. But then at some point you realize you are free to write a new one.

Consider it this way.

Consider it this way. “Quieting the mind” is not stopping the thoughts. “Quieting the mind” is stopping the stopping of thoughts. In other words, let your thoughts happen without restraint or attachment.

A man standing on the banks of a stream can either observe a twig floating by, or he can kneel down, reach out, and grab the twig out of the water. Your thoughts are like the twig. See them, acknowledge them, give them whatever proper attention they truly require, and then let them keep floating down the stream.

You were born just fine the first time.

It is not necessary to be born again because you were born just fine the first time. You were born out of the image, likeness and being of God. You can’t do any better than that. John 3:3 is one of the most misunderstood and misapplied verses in the Bible. The passage has nothing to do with “Christian salvation,” and the term “born again” isn’t the correct translation. The term should have been translated “born from above.” What Jesus was saying is that the human mind and body are necessary for navigating human existence, but the Kingdom of God is accessed through the deeper Self, which is the image, likeness and being of God. Knowing the Kingdom of God stretches beyond what can be known through your human equipment, and requires the activation of your divine equipment. You were born with both the first time.

5 ways to determine if what you’re hearing is God

5 quick and easy ways to determine if what you’re hearing really has anything to do with God:

1. If it produces fear, it doesn’t.

2. If it is self-diminishing, it doesn’t.

3. If it motivates hate, it doesn’t.

4. If it produces shame, it doesn’t.

5. If it robs you of freedom, it doesn’t.

Jesus was always picking a fight with religion.

Jesus was always picking a fight with religion.

Maybe it was because religion, which was supposed to help people know God, was often the obstacle hindering it.

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Jesus spoke of being divine AND human.

Maybe it was because he wanted us to know that the two were never in opposition to each other.

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Jesus handpicked the most notorious sinners of his day to become close friends with?

Maybe it was because he was confronting the erroneous notion that some people are not loved and accepted by God.

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Jesus didn’t allow the adulterous woman to be stoned to death as the religious law required.

Maybe it was to obliterate the performance-based mentality of relating to God.

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The religious leaders of the day hated Jesus.

Maybe it was because Jesus wouldn’t play their game.

From the “Dear Jim” Gmail Folder

From the “Dear Jim” Gmail Folder:

“I decided I’d start wearing pants. I know that seems so small and petty, it’s almost laughable, but to a young, IFB ‘good girl,’ it was a huge deal. I thought that maybe if I could at least ‘look’ like an independent woman, maybe I’d ‘feel’ more like one. If I could look ‘normal’ maybe I’d feel a little less… sub-human. I knew there’d be hell to pay when I told him, but I thought surely the few days or weeks of hell on earth would be preferable to the months or possibly years of suffering a divorce would cause. This was my somewhat fractured logic, but I was a woman at the end of her rope and willing to try anything before finally giving up.

The next day I sat down with David and gently told him my decision. I cried when I told him because I knew what was coming. At first he seemed concerned, even sympathetic and curious about why I’d made my decision. Then he began to ‘reason’ with me. When he realized I wasn’t going to budge, he became irate. For at least 4 hellish hours that evening, he yelled, showed me Bible verses, following me around the house, continuing the barrage. He poked his finger in my chest, on my face, and when I tried to lay down that night, he yanked the pillow out from under my head. He put his pale, rage-filled face inches from mine and yelled, “This is my MINISTRY we’re talking about!!”

The next 2 days were more of the same. When I suggested marriage counseling, things got worse. He locked us in the bedroom, pacing back and forth, holding a Bible in one hand, and poking me in the chest and face with the other. Finally, one night, he laid down beside me and told me that he was going to stop allowing me to watch my favorite shows on tv or read my favorite books anymore because they were giving me “ideas”. When I felt the familiar ‘trapped’ sensation rising in my chest again, choking me, when I realized that my tiny world was now becoming that much smaller, I realized I didn’t know what the “will of God” was anymore, but I knew it WASN’T God’s will that anyone, even a woman, live in such oppression.”