{"id":1057,"date":"2012-09-14T10:57:25","date_gmt":"2012-09-14T14:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/?p=1057"},"modified":"2018-07-18T07:46:20","modified_gmt":"2018-07-18T11:46:20","slug":"the-way-of-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/?p=1057","title":{"rendered":"RS33: The Way of the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"St.<\/a>

“For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him (Psalm 22:24). Pictured here is the garden at St. Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, which for some reason reminds me of the Garden of Gethsemane. Photo credit JAT 1997.<\/p><\/div>\n

A:\u00a0 Tell me more about the practice you taught of “taking up the cross.”<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 We got a little side-tracked last time, didn’t we?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 As usual.\u00a0 No straight lines around here.\u00a0 Always curves and meandering paths.<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 Funny how the clearest and truest path to the heart is never straight.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 It took me a long time to figure this one out.\u00a0 But there’s so much freedom, so much peace, in understanding that love isn’t<\/em> linear and isn’t supposed<\/em> to be.\u00a0 It has its own strange rhythms.\u00a0 But in the end it’s stronger than anything I’ve ever known.\u00a0 It’s so\u00a0 . . . so\u00a0 . . . strong.\u00a0 It’s so complex.\u00a0 It’s not a pure strand of anything<\/em>.\u00a0 It’s this amazing tapestry, as you’ve described it before.\u00a0 A tapestry with so many colours and so many songs and so many tears.\u00a0 All woven together into this picture, this portrait, of life.<\/em>\u00a0 Life filled with passion and wonder and awe.\u00a0 Life where you’re constantly surprised.\u00a0 But also life where you don’t mind being surprised.<\/p>\n

J (nodding):\u00a0 It’s very important, the idea of being surprised and not minding.\u00a0 It’s the “not minding” part that sets apart a person who’s listening to his\/her soul and a person who’s not.\u00a0 The soul doesn’t mind surprises.\u00a0 The brain’s Darwinian Circuitry hates surprises.\u00a0 You can tell a great deal about a person’s brain health in the small moments when surprise strikes.\u00a0 The soul takes these unexpected events in stride.\u00a0 The Darwinian Circuitry seizes up and panics and can’t take swift, wise action.\u00a0 The soul continues to be able to act during a crisis.\u00a0 The Darwinian Circuitry comes to a grinding halt.<\/p>\n

A puzzling thing happens when the Darwinian Circuitry panics.\u00a0 Inside the brain there’s a sudden “disconnect” between the decision-making centres and the movement centres.\u00a0 People literally freeze like a deer in the headlights.\u00a0 This is when they’re most vulnerable to lies — to words spoken aloud with authority by people who are in a position of trust.\u00a0 This is when mobs can be persuaded to riot.\u00a0 But it only works — and I want to emphasize this — it only works when people have already panicked.\u00a0 It only works when people have stopped listening to their own souls.\u00a0 You can’t force people who are listening to their own souls to join a mob.\u00a0 They won’t do it.\u00a0 They find no pleasure and no safety in the ridiculous idea that’s floating around of “homo duplex.”\u00a0 Mob mentalities — hive mentalities — are dangerous to the goals of healing, peace, and redemption.\u00a0 Mob mentalities lead to Crusades.\u00a0 Crusades are never a positive thing in the eyes of God or God’s angels.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 It’s interesting how individuals stop taking personal responsibility for their own actions when they’ve agreed to hand over their own free will to a mob leader.<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 For those who can’t hear the inner wisdom of their own soul, it’s a relief to hand over their free will to somebody else.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 It’s a difficult process, reclaiming your own free will.\u00a0 (Sighhhhh.)<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 There’s probably no greater challenge for a human being.\u00a0 Nonetheless, it’s the challenge that all human beings are called to.\u00a0 They must wrestle with what it means to have free will.\u00a0 They must question it, be confused by it, be angry at it, reject it, and finally come to terms with it.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 What you just said reminds me of the stages of grief.<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 That’s exactly what the process is.\u00a0 It’s an experience of working through grief.\u00a0 And, by god, you need forgiveness to get you through it, because somewhere in the middle of the process you’re going to come face to face with the reality of all the times when you didn’t apply your free will in loving and trusting ways.\u00a0 You’re going to feel like a shit.\u00a0 This is where forgiveness sees you through.\u00a0 Forgiveness is the act of free will that allows you to keep going, to get up the next day and keep going even when you’ve stopped denying the harm you’ve created here on Planet Earth.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 This is where you really need a mentor.<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 You need to know that somebody else has already forgiven you so you can find the courage to forgive yourself.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 That mentor can be God.<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 If a person trusts that God the Mother and God the Father forgive her even when she’s been a shit, she can lean on their strength as she struggles to learn from her mistakes and forgive herself.\u00a0 It takes time to learn to forgive, but that’s okay.\u00a0 People have to believe that God doesn’t expect instant results.\u00a0 Indeed, instant results aren’t scientifically supportable or biologically possible.\u00a0 God only expects consistent effort.\u00a0 God will help you if you’re willing to make a consistent effort to be the best person you’re capable of being.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 Warts and all.<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 God doesn’t mind warts.\u00a0 Human beings end up covered in warts and scars and cracked bones and broken hearts in their time on Planet Earth.\u00a0 God forgives you anyway<\/em>.\u00a0 I can’t emphasize this enough.\u00a0 God sees past all the warts and scars and cracked bones and looks straight into your broken heart.\u00a0 You can’t hide a broken heart from God.\u00a0 Nor should you want<\/em> to.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0 It’s so difficult for regular human beings to believe they’re worthy of God’s daily forgiveness.\u00a0 I really struggled with this in the beginning.\u00a0 But I’m glad you persisted!<\/p>\n

J:\u00a0 It changes everything when you’re willing to accept God’s forgiveness.\u00a0 Everything.\u00a0 You find the freedom to move<\/em> — really move.\u00a0 So instead of being nailed helplessly to the cross, immobile, desperate, unable to flow with the changes and surprises of each day, you begin to be able to move.\u00a0 Sure, at first you have to drag the damn cross with you, and it’s heavy, and it hurts.\u00a0 But at least you’re moving!\u00a0 And you’re starting to reclaim your sense of your own self, your own true potential.\u00a0 After a while the cross you’re dragging around starts to feel different to you.\u00a0 It starts to feel less like a heavy burden and more like . . . gravity.\u00a0 A place where you can feel the weight, the seriousness, the reality of honest truth and not be afraid of it.\u00a0 A place where honest truth is your ally, your very foundation.\u00a0 Your centre of gravity.<\/p>\n

A person who has chosen to pursue status (“gaining the whole world” at the expense of honest truth) relates strongly to the image of the crucifix — Jesus nailed to the Cross — because this is the way he or she feels in relation to the world and to God.\u00a0 He feels trapped.\u00a0 Nailed down.\u00a0 Impoverished of health and happiness.\u00a0 Stuck in an endless circle of pain and self-sacrifice.\u00a0 So he thinks the image of the crucifix is right<\/em>.<\/p>\n

By contrast, a person who has chosen the path of knowing free will, love, forgiveness, healing, and redemption sees the cross in very different terms.\u00a0 He sees a symbol of freedom from the self-enslavement of status addiction, a symbol of the courage to be yourself and know yourself and trust yourself in a world that tells you this is impossible.<\/p>\n

To be disenfranchised from Empire is not necessarily a bad thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-3<\/span><\/a><\/div> <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
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A:\u00a0 Tell me more about the practice you taught of “taking up the cross.” J:\u00a0 We got a little side-tracked last time, didn’t we? A:\u00a0 As usual.\u00a0 No straight lines around here.\u00a0 Always curves and meandering paths. J:\u00a0 Funny how the clearest and truest path to the heart is never straight. A:\u00a0 It took me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[249,241,274,308,24,47,55,264,28,189,299,59,133,256],"tags":[291],"class_list":["post-1057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-darwinian-circuitry","category-brain-soul-connection","category-conscience","category-courage","category-divine-love","category-forgiveness","category-free-will","category-honesty","category-jesus-teachings","category-peace-sequence","category-personal-responsibility","category-realspiritik","category-relationship-with-god","category-son-of-man","tag-brain-soul-connection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1057"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2507,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1057\/revisions\/2507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jenniferthomas.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}