Jim Palmer's Blog, page 69
June 22, 2013
There is no drama with your true Self.
At the center of yourself there is no drama. There is no drama with your true Self. The image, likeness and being of God is the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental nature and reality of who you are. That Self is at peace, well, and free. There is no drama there.
Which means that the drama you are now absorbed in is either something you created or you are choosing to involve yourself in.
There is actually no drama in life, there is only what is happening. How we respond to what happens, internally and/or eternally, is what creates the drama.
Of course there are times when the conditions and circumstances of our lives are difficult, and it is certainly normal and appropriate to feel and express all the natural accompanying emotions. There may even be further choices and actions to take related to the difficulty we are experiencing.
But too often, we aren’t doing any of those things. Instead, we get all wound up in histrionics. The main reason for this is that we imagine that we are separated from love, peace, freedom, worth, wholeness, and well-being, and we are forever striving to manipulate and control people and circumstances in order to gain and keep these realities. In a scenario like that, virtually any person can be viewed as a threat, and we become so dependent upon people and circumstances to make us happy that even the mildest disturbance or change throws us into an emotional tailspin.
On the other hand, we are often fearful of pressing too deeply into the reality of our own lives, and become absorbed in the drama of others as a distraction. Whether it’s the drama we are creating ourselves or the drama of others we become absorbed in, both are indications that we are not living inside the truth of who we really are.
June 20, 2013
A new story with a new language
“For many years I awakened each day inside the story of separation. It was nothing more than an illusion but it was the context of my life, defining who I was and determining how I lived. It held a lot of staying power because I attached God to the story, essentially making God the author.
Jim Palmer: Separated (the story of one man’s struggle to find God, love, peace, wholeness, life and liberation)
- God
Yep – that was the book. I was the protagonist, fighting my way through life striving to attain what I imagined I did not have. The story has a strange twist. I turned to religion to solve this dilemma, not knowing religion was the antagonist. It was a case of sleeping with the enemy.
When I tugged on one thread of the story, the whole thing started to unravel. The first thread for me was, God is love. The security of God’s love banished my fears and I kept pulling on the threads of the story, one after another, before I finally got to the truth that there is no separation. Separation is an illusion and lie. I am not separated from God, love, peace, wholeness, life and liberation.
This knowledge required a major transformation of my identity. For many years I showed up in life as “Jim, the separated one,” and lived accordingly. It was something altogether different to show up in life as “Jim AS love… AS peace… AS wholeness… AS life… AS liberation… AS humankind… AS the image, likeness and being of God. I finally understood the significance of Jesus in a way I had never quite gotten before. Jesus said, “I AM the truth.” In other words, the underlying, unchanging and fundamental essence of Jesus was the underlying, unchanging and fundamental essence of me.
The truth had always been right under my nose but religion kept me distracted inside a story of separation, absorbed in fixing a problem I never had. The truth was always Jesus himself – who and what he was, his identity. And now I saw that this was my truth, this was who I am.
But you don’t just go to bed one night as “Jim, the separated one” and wake up the next morning as the other Jim. You can’t turn around the Titanic on a dime. That old way of thinking of being had a truck load of habit energy behind it.
So, I realized I just had to start living as if it were true – that I was not separated but united with God, love, peace, wholeness and liberation. One of the first places I started was with my language. I had adopted a language of separation that reinforced the illusion and lie at every turn. So, I adopted a new language, which included replacing “have” with “is.”
If I “have” something, it is distinct from me… like an object or thing… and it can easily be lost or taken away. If you give me a book, I “have” a book. It’s an object I have. It could be stolen. It could be misplaced or lost. It could even be destroyed or thrown away. Whatever the case may be, there’s no security in “having” something, I could just as easily “not have” it.
What I discovered is that God, my real Self, love, peace, wholeness, life and liberation is not something I “have” like an object. It’s something I am. I don’t “have” Jesus in my life – Jesus IS my life. I don’t “have” love, peace, wholeness, life and liberation; I AM love, peace, wholeness, life and liberation. The kingdom of God is not something I “have” in me; the kingdom of God IS me. There is no separation. God, my real Self, love, peace, wholeness, life and liberation – these can never be misplaced, lost, taken away or destroyed, and I can never be separated from them. Why? Because they are not something I “have”; they are something I AM. You can lose something you “have” but not something you “are.” Even if you don’t know or forget who you are, it still doesn’t change who you are.
So, I started writing a new story with a new language. It was a first step but a critical one in putting to bed the story of “Jim the separated one,” and writing the new one.”
- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge
June 19, 2013
Three things we know for sure…
“Let’s start with three things we know for sure:
1. The human reality is characterized by impermanence and change.
Everything that arises has the nature to change and pass away, which includes anything you can see, touch, hear, smell, touch, taste, and think. Health, finances, possessions, success, thoughts, feelings, relationships, physical appearance, body, mind, abilities, skills, circumstances, etc. The material world around us arises and passes away. Our thoughts and feelings arise and pass away. This is why we cannot attain lasting peace, happiness and well-being by seeking some combination of preferable life circumstances or trying to attain and abide in some continuous spiritual state of happy and serene thoughts and feelings.
To live life skillfully is to respond to situations as the require; by all means do this. If there is something you can do to lessen or remove unnecessary difficulty from your life, it makes sense to do so. But becoming attached to conditions, situations, or circumstances as the source of your peace, well-being and happiness will only lead to suffering. Life is uncertain and unpredictable.
We worth, love, acceptance, security, peace, worth and happiness out there in the world, and the result is that we live in fear.
We fear failure because we have a misplaced dependency upon “success” for value and worth. We fear rejection because We have a misplaced dependency upon others’ opinions and responses to you for acceptance. We fear financial loss because We have a misplaced dependency upon money for peace and security. We fear abandonment because we have a misplaced dependency upon others for love. We fear God because We have a misplaced dependency upon religion that measures your value against your performance. We fear aging or not having the perfect body because We have a misplaced dependency on physical appearance for worth and acceptance. We fear honesty because you have a misplaced dependency on an image of having it all together for a sense of identity. We fear being a nobody because We have a misplaced dependency upon being a somebody for a sense of purpose and meaning and value.
2. We cannot find a fixed, unchanging self.
In terms of that which is characterized by impermanence and change, you are included! We know that our real Self is born out of the image, likeness and being of God. The image, likeness and being of God is the underlying, unchanging, fundamental and permanent essence of our real Self. And yet our mind and body, and all it’s related components, are a part of those things that arise, change, decline and pass away.
That underlying, unchanging, fundamental and permanent YOU, CANNOT be:
your possessions because your possessions arise, change, decline and pass away;
your roles and relationships in life because your roles and relationships in life arise, change, decline and pass away;
your physical appearance or body because your physical appearance and body arise, change, decline and pass away;
your skills and abilities because your skills and abilities arise, change, decline and pass away;
your personal traits and characteristics because your personal traits and characteristics arise, change, decline and pass away;
your thoughts and feelings because your thoughts and feelings arise, change, decline and pass away.
Okay, so where am I? Where is this Self, which is me? Point to it. Locate it. You can’t! And there is something profoundly fundamental about this that we must grasp.
We take ourselves to be an independent, self-existing, solid, separate, self, and this notion is the first domino that falls that leads to suffering. We have no sense of ourselves beyond our mind and body, and falsely assume that our real Self is contained within or somehow synonymous with the mind and body. And yet we cannot really locate and find this person.
3. We encounter suffering.
The result of the first two things is that we experience life as suffering.
You desire love, peace, freedom, and contentment in this world. Don’t you? Your seeking would be complete if you attained them and could keep a hold of them. But that doesn’t happen, does it? You work so hard and the pay-off is so small. You desire and seek these realities but they are fleeting and vulnerable. You have mixed and matched several scenarios in life trying to be happy and it doesn’t last. I bet you’ve experienced your fair share of disappointment heartache in the process.
You experienced the bliss of another’s love, but then you were heartbroken. You were right on target for realizing your dream, but the one thing you never expected happening, happened. You poured yourself into knowing God, but your depression returned. You got the latest technology but now it’s just another thing. You constructed an air-tight and bulletproof theology, became fully vested, but still lay in bed at night, grieving what your life is and what it isn’t. You did church, crammed the Bible into your brain, lived a moral life, and shouted Jesus from the roof-tops, but the peace and freedom and fulfillment never seemed to come or stay around very long.
You raised good kids and have enjoyed a wonderful marriage, you’ve got a good job and great friends, but there’s still emptiness inside. You did the vacation in Europe, but then it ended, and it was time to return home. You gave of yourself sacrificially, but you still felt that dull ache of discontent inside. One day you were in perfect health, the next day in a hospital.
You did it all. You followed the rules. You broke the rules. You wrote the rules. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. The whole seek-and-find thing proved to be pie in the sky. So instead you tell yourself, “Quit whining, suck it up, this life is going to be a crapshoot, trust and obey, be good, don’t mess up, and hold on until heaven.” Or maybe you think you’re too messed up to experience true peace – like you’re hopelessly stuck in the always-striving-but-never-quite-getting-there mode.
This is the basic human condition.
And yet Jesus said the kingdom of God is here, that knowing the truth would set you free, and that there is peace not as this world gives.
How earnest is your desire to know these things Jesus spoke of? Are you willing to risk your comfort and security to know them?”
- Jim Palmer, Notes from (Over) the edge
June 18, 2013
There is a peace that transcends all understanding…
There is a peace that transcends all understanding… a peace not as this world gives… a deeper, lasting, ultimate peace.
But there’s a paradox. Our mind and body wants to have, hold, and experience this peace, and we seek after it. But in our seeking we push it further away.
The peace that transcends all understanding is the fruit of the cessation of all effort. The minute you make peace an outcome to attain, you have driven it away. The fruit IS the outcome, but you cannot be attached to the fruit as an outcome to seek.
The peace beyond knowing is always present, is never diminished or threatened, and never goes away. A cloudy day is not an indication that the sun is absent. Though you can’t see it, the sun is simply above the clouds. Whether you are aware of it or not, peace is the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental essence of your true Self. Peace is not something you ever lack or lose; it’s who you are. The cloud cover is all your seeking and striving of the mind and body.
Consider the possibility that the fruit of detaching from all that striving of your mind and body is a quiescence that you back into… a peace beyond knowing.
June 17, 2013
“There is nothing to writing.”
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
- Ernest Hemingway
“I understand Ernest. You bleed. There are times when writing is torment. It won’t let you take the easy way out. Believe me, I’ve tried many times. But you’re haunted with thoughts of settling, not getting it right. It’s not perfectionism; it’s that you have to fight and claw to the real, raw, naked truth of a thing. You can use the word “sadness” and walk away, but is it really that? Or is it deeper than that, wider than that, bigger than that, more painful than that. Maybe it’s “anguish.” Or maybe there is no singular word and you have to describe it. Maybe it wasn’t sadness, maybe it was” feeling like you were going to die or wanted to.”
You put your writing out there for public consumption and it seems simple enough, but people don’t see the ache that sometimes goes into each word. It’s not only that you’re dipping your pen into the bottle of your own heartache, if that wasn’t bad enough, but it’s the unrelenting demand not to cheapen it with the wrong words. You have to honor what’s in that bottle of pain by getting it right – you owe that much to yourself.
Writing is not gourmet coffee, rainbows and ponies. There are times when writing is maddening. Sometimes I want to scream! Writing is unforgiving. You’re typing away and suddenly an unwelcome memory is thrust upon you, and you think to yourself, “Not going there!” But the writing gods aren’t so easily appeased. They will push and pull you to it, kicking and screaming the whole way. You can fight it; they always win.
Sometimes I wonder why I keep writing. I didn’t really choose writing, it chose me. It’s not just that I “want” to write. There’s a way I don’t have a choice – I “have” to write. I can’t not write. Some days that’s a blessing, other days a curse. It’s work. Sometimes the muse feels like wrestling an alligator. I’ve written chapters, and practically wept the entire way through it. Sometimes I’m utterly exhausted and drained at the end of writing just one paragraph. Cathartic??? It’s more like death by writing.
And then at the end of all of that, if you survive it, you lay yourself bare in words for the entire world to see, all the while knowing you didn’t succeed to even satisfy yourself, much less others. You tell yourself you did the best you could and move on.
For all the erroneous thoughts people have about the life of comfort, ease and fame of an author, people can’t see that it’s more or less a thankless endeavor. For what can you really receive in exchange for the blood you lose that Hemingway referred to? For the rare and few writers who make it big financially, there are a million others like me who struggle to make ends meet just like you.
But just when you are stuck in that moment of frustration and discouragement, ready, willing and begging to walk away from it all, you receive an email from someone who shares how something you wrote helped them… encouraged them, freed them, emboldened them, inspired them, gave them hope, made them feel understood and accepted, or opened their eyes to see themselves differently.
And that’s enough to sign up to bleed another day.”
- Jim Palmer
June 16, 2013
Finding Healing On Father’s Day
It’s Father’s Day, which is a very painful day each year in the lives of many of us who had or have a broken relationship with our father. RELEVANT Magazine asked me if I’d write about it. You can read the article here.
June 14, 2013
I hear a lot about “quieting the mind.”
I hear a lot about “quieting the mind.” Somehow we have this notion that we can or should rid the mind of all thoughts in order to penetrate the deeper truth and reality of things. This would be the equivalent of telling a bird not to fly or a fish not to swim. The mind thinks – end of story. It is a concept-generating machine. That’s just what it does in the same way that a bird flies and fish swim. The mind (and its cognitive functions) along with the functioning of your body is what allows you to have a human experience. The mind is not a problem, and you’re never going to stop your mind from being a mind and thinking.
In a nutshell, this is how it goes. New and different thoughts are continuously bubbling up in your mind like a fountain. They arise spontaneously based on conditions or circumstances. When this naturally occurs, fine. No problem. This is just what happens.
When this can become a problem is when we reach into the fountain, grab a hold of a thought, analyze it, and work it over and over and over in our conceptualizing mind. This can be a problem in two ways. First it can be a problem if we are grabbing a hold of disempowering, destructive or self-defeating thoughts. Secondly, it can be a problem if we are trying to figure out something the mind is not capable of understanding, like the “peace beyond all comprehension,” or the truth and reality that is beyond the capabilities of the dualistic mind.
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.
June 13, 2013
16 things people report about their shedding religion journey
16 things people report about their shedding religion journey:
1. You’re losing your religion but gaining your sanity.
2. Maybe you left church because it wasn’t helping you know God or grow spiritually.
3. You know you are on the right path but trying to explain that path to others is like nailing Jello to a wall, and you often feel misunderstood.
4. Your new life beyond religion isn’t quite as defined as things used to be.
5. You have twice as many questions as you do answers but strangely you’re okay with this.
6. Sometimes you doubt yourself, and crave a religious fix to make you feel better.
7. You desperately wish someone (anyone!) would just accept you where you are right now.
8. Oh, for just a couple of people you could sit down with face-to-face and talk with about all this stuff without the threat of judgment and condemnation!
9. On Monday you feel free, and on Tuesday you wonder if you are going crazy.
10. Christ without Christianity, truth without theology, and community without church makes complete sense to you but it also makes you a heretic among some of your former friends who avoid you in the grocery store.
11. You don’t know how to answer the question, “Are you a Christian?”
12. You refuse to divulge the books you are currently reading because you know it’s going to alarm the people who already think you’ve gone off the deep end.
13. You get nauseated when you hear Christanese.
14. You’re not sure where your Bible is.
15. Suddenly you’re liking the people who were previously classified as “them.”
16. Prayer is more an authentic and powerful desire for the liberation of others and contributing to it, rather than a magic God-wand to save the day.
Does any of this sound familiar?
June 11, 2013
God inseparable from life and living.
God… my next breath
God… the life running through my veins
God… the wind outside my window
God… the music in my ears
God… the sunrise in my eyes
God… the smell of approaching rain
God… the laughter with my daughter
God… the ecstasy with my partner
God… the sorrow in my heart
God… the warm sun on my face
God… my awareness that I am complete and whole
God… the next pair of eyes I meet
God… the feeling of peace inside
God… in my passion
God… in my openness
God… in my sensitivity
God… in my anger
God… in my letting go
God… in my holding on
God… in my wonder
God… in my courage
God… in my fear
God… in my confusion
God… in my heartache
God… as my next encounter
God… as my next text, email or phone call
God… as the next person
God… as me
God… the next moment
God… the next feeling
God… my next creation
God… in all things
God… through all things
God… as all things
God inseparable from life and living.
