Category Archives: On Learning to Teach

Removing People from our Audiences:

Further Letters

The following letters are a continuation of my exchange with G. (previous letters in this conversation can be viewed here).

Photo by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

G’s Second Response to Mary :

Hi Mary,

The underlying reason is to my comment in the first place was very simple. I feel have read way too much into it. You have described it as an “attack”. This is completely wrong.
I don’t have emotions that want to attack you or anyone. You have met me several times but I would not say that you know me very well at all. Your last email illustrates this to me.
I challenge people’s actions as being fruitful for what they are trying to achieve. I do this because of empathy towards the person being the subject of the action. Nothing more. Yes, I questioned your judgement. So what! It’s not a big deal. I will do it again if I don’t agree with what you are doing. As with my own judgement, I do not regard your judgement as infallible. We all make mistakes.

You seem very put out about me questioning it. If I think any of my friends have made an error in judgement I suggest it to them.
Why? Because they are my friends and friends can have robust arguments and disagreements without any ill feeling.

After your first email I was satisfied that although I could not see how these people could be as you described them they must have deserved this treatment. Now after reading your subsequent emails to me and your overreaction to a challenge of your authority I am not so sure.

You talk about my treatment towards you.
What treatment? I disagreed with you Mary. If you have misconceived my treatment and thoughts towards you then you have possibly done the same with others.

You do not know me well enough to judge my “desire to love” or my current soul condition. That is why I just ignored those comments of yours.  When you do this with people it is a judgement whether you see it as one or not. Saying whether something is hot or cold is a judgement. If your device for measuring is inaccurate then you have now made a very big mistake. You say that you are telling people the truth about themselves and if they don’t accept it because they are resistive. They can’t handle the truth.

What if it’s not the truth and your perception is wrong?
I say you are being judgemental and unhelpful when you do this.
I have seen more negative consequences than positive.
They feel judged and are hurt if they trust you more than themselves.
Of course they do.

We disagree strongly here and I am not “attacking you”. I am disagreeing with you, questioning the benefits of your actions even though I believe your motives and intentions are good.
Am I not allowed to do this?

Although I would never try to asses someone’s soul condition I do have a pretty good idea on who has a good heart.
Do you honestly think for one minute I think that you and AJ do not have good hearts and every bodies welfare in mind.
You spend your entire life giving to people. On what grounds would I have to be unloving towards you? You are wonderful people. You know that I know you spend every minute of your day giving to others.

On what grounds would I possibly have to attack you or not love you?
Question you sometimes on your judgement? Yes.
Have I committed a crime against you? No
Do I love or respect you any less? No
Am I open to be convinced otherwise? Yes.

Love,
G____

Photo by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

Mary’s Third Response to G:

Hi G____,

There are just so many errors in logic in your email and also a wealth of innuendo and implications. I can’t respond to all of it because it would just take too much time.

You also demonstrate that you don’t understand what Jesus and I are trying to achieve in sharing Divine Truth. e.g. you say “I have seen more negative consequences than positive” demonstrating that you see some things as negative that we don’t see as negative.

You imply that your initial email was a question (not true) and that you emailed in response to your empathy for the people removed. This isn’t logical. Empathy for a person’s emotions alone doesn’t cause you to speak in defense of them or to attack of those who challenge their actions (which is what you have done). It is possible to have empathy and compassion but still stand firm for truth (which is what Jesus and I have done).

I started to respond to everything you have just raised with me and it is becoming an essay and to be honest given how you responded here I don’t think that my explanations will necessarily be read by you anyway. Contrary to what you think I’m not concerned about your disagreement with me. I’m OK to let you remain in disagreement with me and to misunderstand and misrepresent my motivations.

I do love robust discussion of any issues of love and truth which is why I engaged the email exchange with you in the first place. But since you are showing that you can’t actually respond to the points of logic in my email, continuing discussion with you seems pointless.

Robust disagreements and deep discussions about matters of Truth and about God’s Love and Laws are things that make me come alive. This are the kind of conversations I am on earth to have. A sign of healthy and secure people are those who can disagree and have discussions that seek for truth and don’t take personal offense. This is how I engaged with you.

However you didn’t start our discussion with this attitude. You displayed that you had taken personal offense and that you had made a judgement of us before any discussion of truth.

You send me an email that clearly imputed that Jesus and I were not “Supportive, encouraging, kind, sensitive, helpful, friendly, warm and open” and that my behavior made you sick. You didn’t seek clarification of the issue before you made these statements. I then responded in a clearly reasoned explanation of what we did, why we did it and included logical explanation of why your immediate response to defend the unloving person in the situation is problematic for your spiritual growth and the world at large. You now tell me that by doing this I am reading too much into things, “over reacting” and that I’ve responded out of some kind of defense of my “authority”. This is a way of trying to shut me down and ignore what I have said. You even said blatantly that you ignored some of my comments to you. On one hand you say that I should be able to have robust discussion and handle strong disagreement but then when I engage in that maturely with you, you dismiss what I say in the ways that I just listed.

I just want to remind you that it was you that contacted me about this matter and accused me of conduct that made you sick. And also to state that I am allowed to respond to your email to me in my own voice and with my own thoughts and that in doing that, without taking personal offense, I am being a grown up. As someone who listens to Divine Truth a lot I thought that you may be open to a logical discussion about matters of truth but I haven’t found that in this exchange. I know that you listen to Divine Truth material almost daily and I didn’t think that my focus on the bigger picture of your soul condition would be so challenging to you. Often our smallest, routine actions (that we don’t think are problematic) demonstrate a lot about our sin and are the ones that cause us the most problems in our progression on earth and after we pass.

Photos courtesy of Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

Finally, I have to genuinely laugh about even the idea that Jesus or I are in some attached to authority. Not because I am laughing at you but because the idea that I (or Jesus) have any attachment to authority or power over anyone is just so far from what is real. If anything, we both have issues with accepting the “role responsibility” that God desires for us (which is not about authority over others but leadership and responsibility).

We never “lord it over” people or demand their agreement, nor do we become offended or enraged when people disagree with us or ignore us. If we did these things or had the demand that people accept our so-called “authority” we would be vastly unhappy in our current lifestyle since 99.9999% of people in the world either think we are nuts, a joke, deluded, or evil. Even the people who attend our groups routinely resort to treating us with condescension, dismissal or simply voice disagreement with us (just as you have done). So we are pretty used to people not listening to us and voicing their attack and judgement of us. It doesn’t make their attack or judgement right but we have grown enough that it doesn’t cause us problems. And we certainly don’t feel that people must agree with us.

We really love and respect God’s Authority in all things.

The only authority I had in this situation is authority over the Assistance Group. And that is because, given the group was our creation, the atmosphere that facilitates learning, love and truth is our responsibility during the time that we run the groups. With that responsibility comes the “authority” to ask people to leave.

When you disagree with me, I am not leaping to defend myself or taking offense. I responded to you at length primarily because you first initiated contact with me and because the principles involved are important to what we teach. You are allowed to disagree with me and I am allowed to respond to you with my own explanation. I do use a lot of words to explain and I am direct in my language. These things are not a sign of my defensiveness but rather that I desire what I mean to be plain and understandable. I want to reduce the possibility for misunderstanding on your part. I am also passionate about the principles involved here.

I don’t seek out people who attack or disagree with me in private to try and correct them or explain myself. But when a person contacts me, in the guise of giving me “feedback” which is actually attack (as you did) I find it natural that I may choose to respond.

Absolutely everyone who I was close to before I met Jesus disagrees with me in one way or another and I have never felt that they must agree with me. I don’t seek them out to make them “see my point” or respect my “authority” (again – what authority?).

But this interaction is entirely different. You contacted me and I responded, not offended, but in clear language with reasoned explanation of the principles involved including why both Jesus and I took the actions we did and why we believe that those actions are an important part of upholding love and truth.

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you have personally attacked me (and Jesus) e.g. calling me an ‘over reactor’ and someone with ‘authority issues’, someone who ‘made you sick’ and you did so without having any clear evidence for those statements or logic in your arguments. Something in our asking people to leave the last groups brought up emotions for you which you didn’t take responsibility to feel for yourself and instead you chose to dump them on us.  You may wish to call what you feel for the people involved “empathy” or say that you are logically questioning our actions but you haven’t done that in the way that you are communicating with me. Empathy for one group of people doesn’t cause a loving person to attack another group of people.

I notice a lot of people do this, they want to avoid logical discussion of principles and facts that may cause them to change or to see things about themselves and instead respond in knee-jerk comments, poorly reasoned arguments and unloving behaviour. This is what happens when we don’t feel emotions for ourselves, we loose sight of logic and blame others. For example, in your emails to me you question my judgement in assessing who is behaving unlovingly in our groups, imply that we are “destroying” people by asking them to not be there and tell me we are hurting and judging people but then you state that we have good hearts. These sentiments contradict each other.

I understand that you feel that you are being a reasonable, nice guy but your statements and behaviour don’t support that belief or demonstrate that to me. There is clearly a dissonance between your various statements and what you say you feel.

Anyway G____, I feel that the way that you have responded to me in this last email (with further attack, dismissal and ignoring of the principles involved) demonstrates to me that any more correspondence with you on the matter wouldn’t be good use of my time. The only way discussion is fruitful is if we can engage with it logically and without dismissal or condescension towards the other. I have not dismissed any of your comments to me, and I have demonstrated that I have a clear and reasoned understanding of the issues involved. If you were to treat me as I treat you and to actually discuss the principles and ideas involved without imputing things about my motivations or character then I would enjoy the discussion but I don’t see any evidence of you wanting to do that so I’ll finish here.

Bye for now,

Mary

Photo by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

All photo in this post by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins – Thank you

Removing People from our Audiences:

A letter exchange

G’s Letter to Mary & Jesus:

Hi AJ and Mary,

Supportive, encouraging, kind, sensitive, helpful, friendly, warm and open.
These are not words that spring to mind when watching the last set of divine truth videos.
I know you have your reasons for telling all those people to leave but I am struggling with it being loving. I thought they there for assistance not “You haven’t changed, we’re giving up on you now. Please leave!”

To see Mary start a 4 minute video laughing and joking about pulling faces and then in the next breath telling L___ to leave and no longer volunteer after countless years of volunteer work and supposed friendship made me feel a little sick. Another one bites the dust. How many is this now?

“You will recognise them by their fruits.”
I am so confused. You have both taught me so much for which I am grateful but I just don’t get what you are doing in these last assistance groups. Hard love I think is fine except where it is so harsh that every recipient just leaves and wants nothing to do with divine truth ever again.

This makes little sense to me and I feel compelled to comment.
Regards,
G_____

Photos courtesy of Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

Photos courtesy of Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

My Response to G.:

Good morning G____,

I have to say that you aren’t being logical or informed in the writing of this email.

The truth is that both Jesus and I have been extremely kind, supportive and generous with our time with everyone that we asked to leave the assistance group – as each one of those people individually knows. But each person we asked to leave has not been any of those things towards us or towards the other people who attend our groups. Since we offer our time and teaching for free there does come a time when it is important for us to uphold a space that promotes learning for our participants and is comfortable for us to teach in.

The people that were asked to leave had been given many chances to change, ignored all of them and continued to treat us and others very badly. Many of these people have been angry, vengeful or extremely demanding, critical and condescending towards us and other participants during our presentations and towards us outside of presentations. How would we be ethical to the other people in attendance if we left such people in our audiences? It would be like saying “we are here to teach you about being loving and truthful in your lives but at the same time we are allowing people to freely come and be unloving and untruthful towards you and us while you try to learn it”.

If people don’t stand up when others are being unloving then they aren’t neutral, they support the unloving position. This is why we decided to remove those people from the groups.

Regarding the morning I removed L___, I was feeling extremely nervous about doing it as L___ has a long history of becoming enraged with me after me sharing anything that challenges her. In one instance she did not speak to me for 6 months after I made a couple of comments to her about a single addiction she was acting in at the time. While you say that we have had countless years of friendship, I think that you are confusing our kind treatment of L___ and friendship towards her with her being a friend to us.

L___ has always had an extremely high level of demand towards Jesus and reverted to attack or extreme negativity and criticism of him when challenged on these issues. She has also been simultaneously demanding, condescending and critical of me for many years. L___ has many qualities that we enjoy but she has certainly not ever been a friend or loving towards us.

Before removing L__ I was very conscious of not wanting to transfer my nerves to the group we were teaching and I tried to keep things light leading into the morning. (This was actually futile as everyone picked up on my fear anyway). However when it came to addressing L___ it was quite obvious that I was very nervous. I feel though that I was clear with her about the issues (as both Jesus and I have been for nearly 6 years), I wasn’t nasty or unkind and I tried to explain the problems she has to the best that my current condition allows in such a situation. My one regret in sitting down afterwards was that I didn’t publicly thank her for work volunteering towards creating Divine Truth materials for others however both Jesus and I have made this thanks many times publicly and privately in the past. We are grateful, however ‘works’ based on addiction (which is what L__ has been doing) do not excuse poor treatment of others or ourselves.

I understand that you may now feel that we (or I) have become unkind in the way that we approach our public teaching but we certainly don’t have the attitude that you state “You haven’t changed so you have to leave” towards people. We are simply becoming more firm about people who have unloving behaviour towards others during our groups because to do otherwise, to allow these people to stay or to not address these people, is providing a space for that kind of behaviour to continue unchecked. We do not want to support people at our groups to abuse ourselves or others. Many people, like L___, have listened for years thinking they are applying what we teach while at the same time being abusive to ourselves and others.

I don’t believe that you are analysing our removal of people at our last group very fairly or with much logic. You are basically saying that it is OK for people to abuse us, to be angry and condescending towards us for years and years and we should continue giving them as a gift our time and energy and effort. We don’t agree with that. We would prefer to give our time and energy and effort to people who have demonstrated that they are sincere and have a willingness to apply what they are being taught. To share our time with any other kind of person would be an extreme unloving act towards ourselves. You are also not considering how much time we have personally given L___ (which we do not begrudge at all) and not considering that the time that L___ ‘gave’ was not to us but rather so that others could hear Divine Truth.

So G____, we understand that you don’t yet understand love of self, or really understand love of others and while both Jesus and I are very fond of you, I understand that you may no longer feel that way towards us.

I know a lot of other people feel the same way as you do about our recent actions because these actions confront many personal addictions people have and their expectations of what “love” would do. But that is only the world’s definition of “love”. If you believe that “love” is silent and inactive when unloving and untruthful things go on or that a “loving” person must continue for years to put up with abuse and attack of themselves or others without taking any peaceful and truthful action to confront that attack then obviously your own definition of love is flawed and certainly not God’s.

I also think that God’s Truth will necessarily challenge people on many levels (since the world currently lives in so much opposition to it) and so while you are concerned that “another one bites the dust”, we aren’t. We have given L___ yet another opportunity to address her many unloving addictions and attitudes but this time we are limiting her ability to continue her unloving behaviour towards ourselves and others.  She is faced with a choice and if she has a true desire to love she will examine it sincerely and address the issue. And if that happens, I am sure we will see her again.

I ran this email by Jesus and his final comment to me was that he finds it interesting that you continue to have very little trust of his decisions and actions even after years of knowing him.

Love

Mary

Photo by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

G’s Response to Mary:

Ha Mary,

Thank you for your response. It makes perfect sense considering what you have now explained. I guess not knowing the background of these people and their relationship towards you caused me to make an uninformed judgement. It just seemed a bit odd to watch all these people get turfed out of a place they had come to for help.

Sorry for jumping down your throat and questioning your judgement. I guess I just really felt sorry for them as they seemed to me to be vulnerable and destroyed by your decision. If they have treated you as you say then I agree your actions are quite justified and I would probably do the same.

Kindest regards,
G____

Photo by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

My Second Response to G.:

Hi G____,

Since our exchange I’ve been thinking about publishing the emails on my blog or our website. I don’t want to expose L___ anymore than she already must feel, but I do think that many other people probably haven’t considered why we made the choices we did at the Assistance Group or know the full back story.

You mentioned people coming to our groups for “help”.

Jesus and I are teachers. What we teach is the way to establish a relationship with God. So the only way in which we “help” is to teach these principles and to be honest with people as we do so. We don’t present ourselves as gurus or counselors, and in fact, we do a lot to attempt to correct people when they have this perception of us or try to place us in that role. We never want people to be dependent upon us. In fact a key part of forming a relationship with God is become self responsible and to receive “help” directly from God. We talk about this often. And we certainly never view the people who come to our talks in such a condescending manner as to assume that they can’t become self responsible people who can grow towards God. We have confidence that each person can do so.

So the only “help” we offer is to teach what is involved in forming a personal relationship with God (with no need for an intermediary) and we attempt to share what we have learned and the benefits we have gained from developing such a relationship so that people might see the personal benefits of connecting to God.

Often I really question if people come to our talks to receive help in forming this relationship with God. Certainly, for many, I think they come because they like hearing all of the positive, wonderful provisions that God has made for us and the Love that He has for us. I notice that people want to feel “good” and become happier but they don’t like being challenged on what they are doing right now that is unloving or hurtful towards others or even themselves. That is, they don’t seem to want to know about what are the causes of their current unhappiness or to take action to remedy those causes within themselves.

So I can’t really call that “coming to groups to be assisted”. In those cases it looks a lot more like they come to  inspired briefly, to avoid personal sadness and in many cases to be told what to do (which we never do) or to seek to blame others rather than to change personally themselves (something that we never endorse or encourage).

As we teach, one of the essential first steps required in order to establish a relationship with God is to have the desire to see our current condition. In other words, it is impossible to establish and maintain a relationship with God without the desire to accept how we are right now and the desire to bring that condition more in harmony with God’s Love and Truth. When people, such as those we asked to leave our latest Assistance Group, lack the desire to see how their current condition is harmful and justify holding onto that state to the detriment to others around them, then they are not sincere in their desire to be assisted and they are negatively impacting upon those around them who may be more sincere in their desire.

So when people look “gutted” at our removal or firmness with them, in those moments I don’t know how many are truly examining the poor treatment they have been dishing out towards others or towards us for many years; they are often just feeling upset that we are no longer meeting their addiction to making them “feel good” about themselves and their current condition while they continue to treat other people badly without any self reflection about the problem.

I certainly can’t see that our clear and kind interactions with the people we asked to leave have the power to “destroy” them. Every person who we removed from our groups actually forced us to make a decision which would have been unnecessary had they chosen differently.  They had already received a lot of clear and kind feedback on the negative and unloving way they were treating others and they chose not to acknowledge the problem.

Telling the truth is not a destructive act.

This is particularly so when it is done with the kindness with which we did it in the group. And this was after years of patience and explanation of the causes of the problems for each individual involved (many of which were actually recorded and can be viewed in our videos).

Because Jesus and I don’t project hurt or fear onto audiences in response to their harsh treatment towards us, very few people seem to consider whether or not what they are doing or demanding during our presentations is in or out of harmony with love – even if we speak very directly and in no uncertain terms to them about how it is unloving. This is why we decided it was important to take action. We have done a lot of talking to each individual we removed but it had made no impact. We find that acting has far more impact on people than talking and also it alleviates the poor treatment of the rest of the audience.

One larger lesson in all this, which we all much consider for ourselves, is – if a person doesn’t complain, or get angry in response to our unloving behaviour, it doesn’t lessen the compensatory pain we create for ourselves by treating them badly.

Many people choose to believe that if people or the environment around them don’t protest or try to punish them for their behaviour then it must mean that they don’t have a problem in the way that I are or what they are doing to others. But in truth, when a person doesn’t respond in rage or retribution when they are being harmed it only says good things about their condition in love. The person doing the harm may choose to see the lack of protest as confirmation of their righteousness or goodness but in truth they are creating a lot of pain for themselves and perpetuating a lot of unhappiness in the universe.

True humility involves the desire to examine oneself, to reflect and to evaluate our own condition. This means having the desire to become sensitive to the compensatory pain that God’s Laws generate for us automatically while we hold onto error and injured perceptions of love within ourselves. This is the gift of ‘a conscience that bothers us’ which God has so lovingly created. He has done this so that we can independently evaluate our own actions and bring our soul into more harmony with Love.

I notice that very few people have made this step towards humility and therefore don’t examine their own selves or behaviour very much unless people in their environment mount violent opposition or an extremely painful event occurs in their lives.

I think true self responsibility is rarely seen on earth but it a very worthy thing to aspire to. And certainly it is essential if one is to become truly happy or to establish a strong and lasting relationship with God.

On a note for you personally, your response to Jesus and my decision to remove people from our groups demonstrates a lot about how you view Jesus and I, how you view truth, and what you consider to be acceptable treatment of people who give gifts and teach for free.

You clearly view being truthful with others as hurtful – or as you put it “destructive”.

You were willing to judge and criticise Jesus and I without determination of any facts, even after years of knowing us. In those years we have had a number of personal interactions with you, including you visiting our home more than once, and we have never treated you or anyone in our company at those times harshly or with judgement. I feel that our actions should have proven our loving behaviour to you many times over the past 5 years. Your quickness to “question our judgement” demonstrates your own lack of trust of us and your action to “jump down our throat” (as you called it) demonstrates a lack in your desire to love.

You were quick to defend L___ who has been very demanding and unloving towards Jesus, myself and many others who attend our groups And I clearly stated my reasons for removing L___ during the video. So, in your defense of a person who has been abusive you were willing to be attacking of a person who has not been abusive.

Despite Jesus’ clear explanation at the start of the group as to why we were taking the actions we took, you still viewed our removing people as unloving, unkind and uncaring. This indicates that you feel that we should have continued to receive unloving treatment and to allow that treatment towards others while at a free event in which upholding the atmosphere of love and truth is our responsibility. This is saying that more loving and more responsible people should make allowances, “put up with” and never challenge those who are unloving, attacking or arrogant.

This very attitude, that exists all over the earth, is the reason so much injustice and abuse is allowed to continue unchecked. Your willingness to attack us for putting a stop to unloving behaviour in our seminars in a kind and loving way, indicates your alliance with this kind of attitude that perpetuates suffering on the planet.

Lastly, it struck me that out of over 60 hours of free material which we have just posted online all about God and God’s Loving Laws, material which I feel has the potential to be life changing for anyone who engages with it, your only response to us was to be critical and attacking of 4 minutes in which I challenged a woman on her unloving treatment of ourselves.

With my best wishes,

Mary

Photo by Eloisa Lytton-Hitchins

Love Words {Jesus Quotes}

I live with a guy who says great stuff… like all the time…

But then you probably already know that? I’d say I’m preaching to the converted.

Anyway, he saves me from deep pot-holes of doubt and self-deception often… again you’re not really surprised are you?

He inspires me daily. He lifts me up with his faith, and his down-to-earth expression of the most glorious Truths there are.

Quite honestly, I question how we all don’t just sit down and listen.. really listen.. to him more.

I see people get thrown off  by his laid back nature, or the lack of polish or fancy prose in his delivery. He’s fun, he doesn’t put on airs and graces, and he doesn’t demand anything from his listener.. but boy does he say great things.

He also lets us all have our doubts and objections, and our general thrashing it out internally while he speaks. He feels it all, and knows that in our preoccupation with maintaining emotional equilibrium, we often miss half the wisdom in his sentence.

That’s why I write stuff down. Because I sense there’s gold in them there words, and sometimes I need to catch my breath, and revisit, to fully soak them in.

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I think he looks so adorable in this shot – but I’m not sure he likes it.

Even at home, I scribble incredible things he says in the margin of my journals.

While I make the dinner, or he does the laundry, he tells me soul truths, God Truths. They flow easily and unassumingly from him – products, not of doctrine or dogma, but of lived experience.

I swear, on my darkest days, he literally saves my soul. He guides me to the light, he makes poetry out of this existence (and if he read this now he’d probably tell me I’m being too fancy and pomp.. to him he’s just a guy who loves God).

One thing he’s taught me is this (my somewhat awkward paraphrase here):

God’s Truth doesn’t need embellishment or fanfare or dressing-up – its power speaks for itself. When we try to make it fancier, or more palatable to others, we, in arrogance, believe we know better than God about how to reach a person, about how to deliver a gift.

In effect we are saying that the Truth, as simply as it exists, needs modifying, for human consumption.

We are denying that the fabric of God’s Universe is built in Truth, and, as His Children, our souls are designed to respond to pure, unadulterated Truth. If we believe that God’s Truth is said thing, why would we feel it could be shared in a way that seems ‘softer’, ‘prettier’ or ‘kinder’?

Isn’t God the most Caring, Loving character there is?

So wouldn’t sharing His Truth, just as it exists about any given matter, be the most caring and loving thing to do?

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I try to remember when I write, that simple and direct is kind and loving (I’m a bit prone to flowery prose and apt to try to over-explain to get people ‘on side’).

Jesus taught me that if I say it how it is with love, and without pressure for people to agree, or any desire for them to change, then I give a gift.

I give the gift of truth, and I also give the listener the gift of allowing them whatever feelings they have in response. It doesn’t mean that I’ll stand there and absorb abuse from the listener, but neither would I try to stop them from feeling any emotion that might be triggered through our exchange.

God Himself knows, that sometimes its taken me.. eh hem… a long time… to make peace with some of His Truths, and for some He’s still waiting on a call back from me. I haven’t quite given Him the nod on everything He’s trying to teach me – much as logic would compel me otherwise, I’ve got un-felt emotions that make me resist.

So letting others take their time to work through whatever emotions the Truth triggers in them, well that’s love. We’ve all got error that’s going to shake loose at some stage or another. Sometimes a big Truth (or a little one) delivered by you, by me, or by Jesus, might be the very thing that starts that soul-quake in another.

*********

So, reeling myself back in from that tangent, lets get back to the actual ‘Jesus Quotes’ part of this post.

The other night, we were talking, and Jesus casually mentioned a few things to me.

(Did I mention that this man takes my breath away?)

I thought that they were worth a share.

“Love is knowing that you can leave at any time – but wanting to stay anyway.”
Jesus, February 2013

“If you don’t want to have anything to do with love – then the “love” that you’ve had wasn’t any good. (i.e. it wasn’t love in the first place)”
Jesus, February 2013.

*******

A brief postscript:

I’m not sure if my idea to regularly share my ‘Jesus Quotes’ will work here. Are you now reading them now, saying, “Yes so? I knew that?”

At the time he says these things – they are very significant to me. My soul is open and they become a very loving, yet shocking, suckerpunch to my reality.

My intellect (the one usually in control) would smugly say, (despite extreme evidence to the contrary), ‘sure I know that!’

But in the precise moment, these truths strike my soul and suddenly I’m dissolving.

“what, really? Love isn’t about obligation? duty? sacrifice? All that ‘love’ that made me feel guilty, and came conditionally – that wasn’t love?”

Sure I might say I get it with my head – but do I live that, connect to that, really know that?

No.

(And if you are someone who read the quotes above and said ‘so what, not so profound’ – does your life really offer you evidence that your know and live these things?)

Quite simply, when my man says stuff sometimes, its like my heart hears it for the first time.

I cry.

I write it down because I want to revisit these Truths time and again. I know that if they entered my soul (not just my tenacious intellect) that they would change my life forever.

What do you think – does it work to tell you too? Or should I just keep scribbling this stuff in my margins, saving it up for some other purpose?

Note to Self – On Teaching

  1. Its about God, not me. Let God guide me, let myself forget how I look and instead be enveloped by passion for God and the Truths.

    In truth, all wisdom flows from Him and the acknowledgement and honour belongs with Him. I can never compete with God!

    If I try to look good or knowledgeable I am insulting God, I am proud (not humble). I cannot serve Him nor others. I only serve my own ego. In this space God and my guides are bound and gagged – they cannot lead or inspire me.

    Remember humility is the only doorway to Divine Love and Divine Truth.

  2. Be myself, but don’t push my own barrow. i.e. offer my true self, my passion, my personality and my heart to the group, be fully present, but don’t be invested in where we ‘need to go’ emotionally, intellectually or spiritually.

    Allow everyone to go at their own pace, be guided by people’s curiosity, start where they are at.

  3. Champion Truth – both God’s Truth and personal honesty.

    While I won’t be invested in what people get out of the session/ group, I can ensure that our topics, themes and discussions remain focussed around principles of Divine Truth and Love.

    I can maintain an atmosphere of honesty (starting with my own) and challenge error if spoken, displayed or enacted in the group.

  4. If I begin to think I need to have all of the answers I have forgotten point number 1 (its about God, not me).

    I am the child, not the Parent/ Creator. There will always be more to learn. Remember how much I used to love that!

  5. When I model humility, I teach. I also have the most capacity to reach others at a heart level.

    This may be the only thing I do in a session.

    This is not insignificant.

  6. Remember to breathe. Trust that I don’t have to share inspiration all in a rush.

    Lean on God in this place, rather than playing ‘relay’ with Him. i.e. stop connecting to God briefly, receiving inspiration, then rushing away from Him to share the Truth with the group. The reason I do this is because I am afraid to be emotional in front of others.

    Its OK to let grief or gratitude pass through me and be expressed as tears.

    People don’t need to know every emotion I am going through. I need only share my emotional experience if it is an example that adds to the point of the lessons being currently taught.

  7. Encounter fear and embrace it. This is the only way it will leave me. Trust that truth will prevail when fear is not honoured nor believed.

    It is good to have structure and flow but beware of the desire for control. This is a flag for fear and endangers point 2 (don’t push your own barrow).

  8. Remember I don’t have to be perfect.
  9. When I am truly humble I won’t need this list.

Not Drowning, Waving

 “The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”   Thomas Merton – The Seven Storey Mountain

I struggle with feeling insignificant. You wouldn’t know it to look at me because most of my life I’ve been fighting that feeling like crazy. And, I’m ashamed to admit that I’m also apt to get tetchy at anyone who doesn’t help me avoid my gaping lack of self worth. Thus I end up looking stroppy rather than meekly shy and unworthy.
But underneath all the bluster and brashness I feel about the size of a pea. A tiny green pea.
I also care deeply about how you view me. I want to avoid you knowing about my ‘green pea-ness’ at almost any cost. I’d prefer you think of me as worldly, knowledgeable and, if we could arrange it, attractive, kind and considerate too. Underneath I feel I am none of those things. But, did I mention? I don’t want you to find me out.
I firmly believe that to teach well we must honour only that which we wish to teach and not our own part in it. I can’t be full of Truth if I am full of my own self-importance or concerned with my image. Hence when we truly love and want to give the gift of learning to others there is a place we find – where only the Truth and not ourselves matters.

Sometime I strike that balance, a rare magic where I forget all about what you think of me, or how silly my passionate proclamations must look. Instead I am caught up in the beauty of Truth and Gods wonder in everything.

Saturday was not one of those days for me.
On days like Saturday I find myself in a sea of inadequacy. Book group starts I’m floundering in feeling less-than-you and my brain goes to mush.
I don’t want you to know it though. I want rescue… although I haven’t quite figured out how that might work.
AJ arrives – ready to rescue the teaching – and all I can think is how dumb I must seem and how little point there is to me being there…
And that’s where it all goes wrong. I’m still waving, vying for attention, not drowning, and submitting to my feelings. I’m struggling for façade. I still won’t crumble to those emotions so I project out. I want control back.
I want control so that somehow I might prevent the world knowing how insufficient I really am. 
I’m spluttering away in half sentences, trying to keep from drowning, trying to hold back the landslide that really needs to overwhelm me if I’m ever going to be free. I’m looking cranky and cross with AJ.
AJ – who loves me more than almost everything, who values me even when I think we shouldn’t, who involves me in decisions and discussions that I joke are way beyond my pay grade – meaning I have no clue about what we should do since I’m still trying to ward of personal landslides and grappling with humility daily – AJ is there, quietly rescuing truth, aware that I just need to drown, giving me space to do that. He is calm and kind – in the magic place – of loving truth and giving to you.
All the while I’m caught up in my own private melodrama suspecting that you see right through me, but still valiantly attempting to stop you (and the world) from knowing that I really am a tiny pea person, who has no business here.
Its tough and its emotional. And reading my own words I know I see the world through my own error (e.g. perhaps its not entirely true that I’m a tiny pea – but the point is that this is what I feel).
Truthfully I find it hard to share about this stuff, because of the aforementioned dread of you, reader, knowing how small I really am, but also because so many people seem to relish the belief that these feelings are in me because AJ has me in some kind of self-depreciating cycle. If only I could show you all the truth. That I am loved by him so much more than I have ever been by anyone and this is healing me in the tenderest way, in a way I didn’t know was possible.
Since I met AJ my care and respect for myself has grown enormously. Have I told you that I used to drink and smoke and go home with men who didn’t care to know me let alone care to love me? I have wandered around for years trying my best to cover up how desperately bad I feel though addictions and anger. Despite my ‘drowning/landslide private/ public melodrama event’ on Saturday things are actually better inside me than they have been my entire life.
There are days when I do let myself drown in the grief of feeling less-than men and insufficient. I have a long stored up wealth of memories that bear out a painful history of being abused, hurt, overlooked and tortured by men, not to mention I live in a world that has acknowledged me only as ‘whore’ for 2000 years. There is pain to feel and slowly I am submitting more and more.
I’m only disappointed on days like Saturday because my façade, though shaky, still grapples for control. I push out instead of softening inwards. I want you to like me more than I want to love myself. I worry that others, particularly women, use my obvious struggle, to justify their own difficulties with men or with AJ.
I know that such things are beyond my control but truly it would be my hope to challenge you in my humility not offer you validation in my resistance. How can I have you know that crazy, courageous, humility is the only way to freedom and that my pains are my own, and not right to be blamed upon others who love me?
Its so easy to keep blaming men for the feelings already inside, to punish them for the lie that ‘I am less than men’ that I bought and now carry. Regardless of how men may treat me, I will believe this until I am brave enough to grieve it. The sad truth is that the men in my life now had nothing to do with creating these feelings in me. These errors came from men and womenin my past.
I am so grateful that the man who God gave to me loves me. He honours me even when I struggle to do this for myself.
  “Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.”                               Thomas Merton – The Seven Storey Mountain

God, walk with me while I uncover those worthless, hurting parts of myself. Help me towards humility rather than façade and defence. Let my grieving open me to the truth about myself and to the love that already surrounds me. Let me strive to embrace the suffering of the past so that I may open my heart to a hopeful future, full of freedom.