Jim Palmer's Blog, page 74

7 Religious Rules to Consider Breaking

7 Religious Rules to Consider Breaking:

Rule #1: Don’t cultivate friendships with people of different religions or spirituality.

Rule #2: Mistrust what you most deeply feel.

Rule #3: Limit your experience of God to the people, places and programs associated with institutional church.

Rule #4: Never question the underlying premises you’ve been taught about God.

Rule #5: Believe you need to be rescued from yourself and cured from your own badness.

Rule #6: Resign yourself to the idea that the big payoff happens after you die.

Rule #7: Make it about having correct theology rather than being love in the world.

Jesus didn’t fit.

“Jesus didn’t fit. He had no home in any sect. He didn’t fit in with the Essenes, Pharisees, Zealots, Priests or Rabbis. He did not subscribe to any school of thought, whether it was the school of the great Rabbi Hillel, Philo the philosopher or the school of the Cynics which all had a strong following in his day.

Jesus identified with the whole of humankind irrespective of race, religion or gender. His vision was too transcendent for any sect.

Jesus was not a member of any exclusive group. He recognized that no group could have a monopoly of the supernatural human spirit anymore than they could restrict the working of God’s spirit to their little group.

Jesus’ friends supposed that only one group of people could work in Jesus’ name, whereas Jesus taught that everyone who responds to God’s Spirit and acts in a human way, is a Jesus in his or her own right.

Jesus was not part of any kind of Establishment – not an old one or a new one. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus did not replace Judaism with Christianity. At a later point, others built an Establishment called Christianity, but the itinerant Jesus had nothing to do with that. The very nature of an Establishment is contrary to his itinerant spirit.

Often to their dismay, Jesus’ close friends found that he would not stay in one place long enough for them to consolidate interests and central beliefs or take steps to organize a movement. Jesus always moved on. In fact, one time his three closest friends had a revelation on a mountainside, and wanted to build some kind of structure or monument to capture and display the glory of Jesus. But Jesus, the They wanted to build some booths or some kind of monument to capture the glory of the moment. But Jesus, the incurable itinerant, would have none of it.

Jesus freely taught those who’s heart was open. Some of them followed Jesus and took up his message and way of life for themselves. But it’s doubtful Jesus ever took any steps to organize the church by ordaining twelve apostles, which is more closely aligned with the Old Testament tradition of the twelve tribes and further implies that the organization of the Christian church was the new Israel, began by Jesus. The whole notion of Jesus beginning a new hierarchy ruled by the chair of Saint Peter is a grave distortion of the whole character, life and teaching of Jesus.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

People walked away…

People walked away from religion, feeling there was no chance of ever being enough for God.

People walked away from Jesus, feeling they were okay just the way they were.

People walked away from religion under the weight of being “sinners,” “filthy rags,” undeserving, unworthy, and perpetually falling short in God’s eyes.

People walked away from Jesus, feeling accepted and loved, and entertaining the possibility that maybe they weren’t so bad after all.

People walked away from religion with more rituals to observe, more rules to follow, more laws to keep, and more teachings to understand in order to get it right with God.

People walked away from Jesus, having done nothing more than just be themselves and yet somehow felt complete and whole, and felt something like joy and happiness welling up inside them.

People walked away from religion, carrying the burden of all the things they must do to carry out the plans, expectations and agenda of the religious establishment.

People walked away from Jesus, feeling they could simply live a life of love as he did, and that there was nothing more important than this.

People walked away from religion with a view of the world that divided up life into “sacred” and “secular,” and people into “us” and “them.”

People walked away from Jesus with new eyes seeing God in everything and everyone, including themselves.

There’s always been a secret life of Jim.

“There’s always been a secret life of Jim. Whether it was the kid suffering in silence as he watched his mother self-destruct by alcohol; or the codependent adult who abandoned himself to make others happy; or the Christian leader who quietly questioned Christian orthodoxy; or the appropriate and sensible guy, secretly waiting to extend his tribal tat from his shoulder all the way down his torso; or the life coach who would probably scare his clients if he revealed the tornado of volatile feelings that happen inside him each day… there has always been a side to me I’ve hid from people. Maybe this secret life of Jim meant something was wrong with me; maybe it meant I was an orphan in the world; maybe it meant I would never belong; maybe it meant no one would ever love me – this is what I feared.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

Your life is not what is happening…

“We are in conversations with ourselves most all the time.

Conversations about…

what’s going well and what’s not,

what others think,

what we think,

how we feel,

how something should be different or better,

what was meant by what that person said or did, or didn’t say or didn’t do,

the invariable what ifs,

how abouts,

are you kiddings?,

how we are measuring up,

what needs to change about us,

etc.

The conversation is like a voiceover on our lives.

Your life is not what is happening, it is what’s happening plus what you are saying in that conversation with yourself about what’s happening. That conversation with yourself is like a filter through which we process and apply meaning to life. That inner conversation is subtle but pervasive, inconspicuous but powerful. Life is not something that just happens or happens to you, you are actually creating and generating your experience of life out of that inner conversation and voiceover.

The old credit card commercial asked, “What’s in your wallet?” An instructive and transformative question to be asking in your life would be, “What’s in your conversation?” This is why the scriptures say that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. When we transform that conversation and voiceover in our head, our lives are liberated. Aristotle wrote, ” The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.” For example, you were created out of the image, likeness, and essence of God, which means in every moment you are complete, whole, and free as God made you. However, the voiceover in your head says, “I am inadequate. I am not good enough. Something is wrong with me. I am defective. I don’t measure up.” That deviation from the truth in your mind, which becomes your voiceover, will spread its toxicity through every area of your life.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

Did you just feel that?

Did you just feel that?

There was this… well… communication.

It was like a message or reality that was being transmitted.

I didn’t hear it or see it, but I felt it. I touched it. I experienced it.

It was like the flow of a river, and I was standing in it.

It was some kind of an expression… a presence that was quietly there, wanting me to notice.

It was warm like the sun on my skin.

It felt beautiful.

It was like gusts of peace and freedom blissfully beaming through every molecule of my being.

I felt so alive!

There was no fear, and I knew that there was no reason to be afraid, ever.

I touched something… it was life, it was presence, it was knowing… it was this amazing and mysterious goodness and benevolence that wanted me to know all was well.

It was like the sky, going out in every direction with no end.

Feeling it, I knew there was nothing in all the world more real than what I was touching, and that anything contrary to it could not be real.

Surely you must have felt it.

Peace, which created you, is what you are.

Peace, which created you, is what you are. Your peace is never threatened because you ARE peace.

Beauty, which created you, is what you are. You don’t have to achieve beauty because you ARE beauty.

Freedom, which created you, is what you are. There are no chains that bind you because you ARE freedom.

Goodness, which created you, is what you are. You don’t need to erase your badness because you ARE goodness.

Wholeness, which created you, is what you are. You don’t need to be pieced back together because you Are wholeness.

To “repent” would be to change your mind and awareness of yourself – who and what you are. The forgiveness needed is to forgive yourself for having created a False Self that falls short of the magnificent being God created you to be. You are as God created you – you always have been, you are right now, you always will be. Anything less than love, peace, beauty, freedom, goodness and wholeness is something you/we created that has no basis in God and reality. That is why Jesus said the kingdom of God had come. The kingdom had always been there, and Jesus turned their eyes to it… inside themselves… as themselves.

Does God create something that is bad?

“Too often the Christian religion is obsessed with “sin,” and its entire identity revolves around it. It often proclaims a sin-management gospel, which greatly diminishes the significance of Jesus. According to this view, the core identity of every human being is “sin,” and the significance of Jesus has to do with fixing it. There’s a way this view could be reasonable if it wasn’t for the Christian religion’s mistaken notion of sin, which is something akin to being bad and condemned by God, which is not biblical in my view.

It has always been curious to me that the cornerstone of this version of “the gospel” is the idea that humankind is born with “original sin.” The Bible tells the story of humankind’s relationship to and with God or the divine. The story begins in the Book of Genesis, not with original sin but with original blessing. God created the world and humankind, and declared all of it to be good. Yes, that’s right – GOOD, not bad. If humanity is sinful and therefore cannot be joined with God, how is it that Jesus was both at the same time?

Does God create something that is bad? Does a father disown and condemn his own children? We are the offspring of God. Does it make sense that God would sentence us to eternal conscious torment as punishment for who we are? So much of religious pathology stems from this view of God.

The Bible teaches that “sin” is falling short or missing the mark of who God created us to be and what God desires for us. Jesus did not teach a sin-management gospel. The central message of Jesus in the gospels was about the kingdom of God. Jesus’ main message was, “Repent, for the kingdom of God has come.” The other mistaken notion of the Christian religion is the world “repent,” which does not mean to be sorry for and turn from your wicked ways. Even if this was what “repent” means it doesn’t work because what we resist, persists. But the word “repent” (metanoia) means a deep and profound shift in perception. It means going beyond the way we typically process reality or a transformative change of heart.

Too often the Christian religion is a hindrance to Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom. Everyone’s energies are siphoned off, caught up in sin-management, that there’s very little left for truly stretching out into the truth of who we are, being the kingdom of God, and living in the reality of our original blessing.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

We are born into this world wearing a mask.

“You are created in the image and likeness of God.

God’s being is the source of your being.

You are as God created you.

God created you as whole.

God created you as complete.

God created you as good.

God created you as free.

God created you as beautiful.

God created you as love.

God created you as peace.

God created you as power.

God created you as truth.

God created you as awareness.

God created you as wisdom.

God created you as presence.

God extends outward in, through, and as you.

You are one with God.

This was the message and meaning of Jesus.

But we often do not operate within the reality of who and what we truly are. Instead, we are living through a False Self that contradicts our original and True Self. The only way the idea of being “born into sin” or “born as sinners” is real is that we are born into a notion of ourselves that falls short and misses the mark of who we truly are and were created to be.

Each of us were born into the story of the False Self. The False Self is a separated self – separated from God, separated from love and peace, separated from worth and value. The False Self is a guilty, condemned. incurably broken, flawed, deficient, inadequate, lacking, not-good-enough… self. None of this is true or real except in our own heads. This is why we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. Transformation or repentance is about having a radical change of mind, perception and awareness of who you are. It’s forgiving yourself for having created and lived a False Self, and rising up into the reality of your True Self as God created you. This is essentially what Jesus told the woman who was caught in the act of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. After turning away her accusers, Jesus essentially said, “Why would I judge you? This isn’t even you! How could I judge something that is not real? So, enough with the False Self, okay?It’s time to get on with who you really are.”

We are born into this world wearing a mask. The False Self has become so prominent that the entire created realm, and especially humankind, has been indoctrinated and conditioned into playing the part every day. We don’t even see it, we are not conscious it – we just do it. The False Self is in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the religions and gods we scheme up. This False Self keeps you unaware and disconnected from the very roots of your being.

You and I could probably have a one-hour conversation and we could pinpoint when your particular version of the False Self was born. It normally happens early in life. We develop our False Self in infancy, as a defense against an environment that felt unsafe or overwhelming because of a lack of reasonably attuned caregiving. We grow up and that False Self becomes a mash-up of all our fears and all the ways we externalize our worth and value. There’s a reason why codependency is epidemic – we desperately attach ourselves to anyone and anything that offers some inkling of worth, value, acceptance and love. This is one explanation for the attraction to religion. Religion offers what people think they need – a remedy, solution or salvation from the False Self. We are quite an inventive lot – we create the False Self, which is not real, and then we devise an entire system or methodology (religion) to solve a problem that isn’t real. Religion tends to be about False Self management, which means there is very little awareness or energy left over to live into the truth of who we really are.

The reality is, the most natural and human thing for you is to be love, peace, goodness, beauty, freedom, wholeness, completeness, wisdom, power, compassion, kindness, creativity… in spades. This was the meaning and message of Jesus. When you are not being these things, that is the unnatural state. In fact, that False Self is only real in your mind. Why would you seek to remedy something that is a figment of your imagination? By doing so, you are only giving it more credence. That’s why typical religious thinking doesn’t work. In all it’s effort to fight the False Self, it only empowers it further.

Compliance to religion or even seeking to imitate Jesus will never work. Both in their own way give credence to the false notion that something is wrong with the way you are. The False Self is a pathological guise, preventing and inhibiting the spontaneous gestures of your True Self.

Spiritual growth is burying the illusion of the False Self… and becoming who you really are and always have been. That’s the baptism we need – going down into the waters to shed the self we never were, and rising up into the self we are. Like Jesus, you will hear the divine affirmation in your heart, “This is my son or daughter in whom I am well pleased.”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge

Jesus said we must become like little children…

“Jesus said we must become like little children in order to experience the present reality of God’s kingdom. And yet, so little value and significance seems to be put on children. Western society and religion is sick with adultism. All our metaphors for God are couched in adultism. Some would feel it was even sacrilegious to represent or metaphorise God as a child or youth. That’s just how disconnected we have become from the truth and teachings of Jesus. Adults set the agenda for about everything in Western society, especially religion. Our adult society is are out of touch with the child, including, perhaps especially, the wounded child that is inside ourselves. Desire, passion, adventure, receptivity, creativity, openness, authenticity are but a few natural characteristics of children and youth that are invaluable for spiritual growth and transformation. Too often we think of children as a distraction or little creatures to tolerate and endure, and manipulate and change. But what if instead children are messengers from a world we once deeply knew, but have long since forgotten? Western adultism idolizes the mind and gravely overestimates what it’s capable of. Western adultism is also entrenched in materialism. Maybe that’s one reason why religion gets so messed up and off course – because adults are running the show!”

- Jim Palmer, Notes From (over) The Edge