Chapter 2, VII. Cause and Effect, p. 32
by Tom Baker
Lesson: Control and Trust
Date: September 12, 2009
Today I have two sources and a little talk/essay that illustrates them both. One source is from the Text of A Course In Miracles and the other is from a channeled document from Frank Griffin. My remarks hopefully illuminate both. First from the Course:
"It has already been said that you believe you cannot control fear because you yourself made it, and your belief in it seems to render it out of your control. Yet any attempt to resolve the error through attempting the mastery of fear is useless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the very assumption that it needs to be mastered. The true resolution rests entirely on mastery through love. In the interim, however, the sense of conflict is inevitable, since you have placed yourself in a position where you believe in the power of what does not exist." (T. Chap. 2, VII. Cause and Effect, p. 32).
The channeled quotes by Frank are in the body of the talk/essay which follows.
I have always tried to avoid disasters. I have lived much of my life worrying about disasters happening to me; yet no matter how much I worried, no matter how clever my strategies, disasters have always found me. Now my disasters may have not been your disasters. Most of my disasters have come in the form of embarrassment, which you might call disasters of pride. The usual disasters have not happened to me, I've always had enough money, plenty of friends, good health, and now a near perfect wife: bankruptcy, loneliness, sickness, divorce----the usual disasters have not happened to me. But embarrassment, I know it well. That's one reason why I tell funny stories about myself. It's like I get to the embarrassment before you do: I'm in control of the embarrassment. It's embarrassing to say but I'm in control of you laughing at me. That brings to mind my most embarrassing moment.
When I was a young priest, ordained probably for about a month, I had a funeral for a teenage girl who had been killed in an automobile accident. I did not know her; she had not been a member of the youth group and she did not attend church. The pastor was afraid of teenagers so he assigned the funeral to me. I was afraid of teenagers too, but was too embarrassed to say so. My initial avoidance of embarrassment led me into more embarrassment than I had thought possible to endure. Since I didn't know the deceased girl I researched her life and character by talking to her friends and family. She loved animals, she wanted to be a veterinarian some day, her favorite color was purple, she hated asparagus, her favorite subject in school was biology, she was the youngest of three, everyone loved her and she loved life. When I stepped to the pulpit I confidently announced that Jennifer loved animals so much so that some day she wanted to be a vet. Jennifer, the baby of the family, loved the color purple, loved biology, and Jennifer hated asparagus. "Everyone loved Jennifer (I gestured to the gathered 500 people) and Jennifer loved life." I felt like I was doing fine but things just didn't feel right; there was an odd hostility to the group; I was getting something wrong, but I couldn't tell what. My preparation had been perfect, my delivery was convincing, I should have been in perfect control of this very difficult rhetorical situation. But the group was looking at me with a mixture of condemnation and pity. As I paused to let it sink in that Jennifer, now dead, loved life, a woman stood up and said very clearly: "Her name was Melissa." At that moment I wanted to join Jennifer or Melissa or whoever it was, in death. Or at least in absence. But embarrassment, oddly enough, makes you more present to the moment and, I must confess, you feel more alive even though you wish you were dead. It's not a pleasant vitality, but it is extraordinarily intense. I apologized right there and, the oddest of odd things happened. I relaxed. I don't remember exactly what I said after the apology but I said it without notes, spontaneously and from the heart. I said something to the effect that I was really sorry Melissa had died but that love was stronger than death and together and with God we would make it. What I remembered most was how I felt---I felt free, I felt joy. Suddenly after more embarrassment than I thought I could take----I felt completely comfortable in my skin.
This memory came to mind when I was reading what Frank Griffin had channeled from what felt like Jesus, both for him and me. Frank and I are doing a little psychic research. He seeks to channel Jesus and I try to figure out if it's Jesus or just a frustrated deceased tele-evagelist doing a good imitation. I had a professional interest in Jesus as a priest, but also a very personal interest as a Christian, sometimes a fervent one, and as a student of a Course in Miracles, which is supposedly channeled by Jesus, I am fascinated by how he is. I have also studied other Jesus material such as God Calling and Love Without End by Glenda Green. Jesus has a kind of vigorous kindness and he always moves toward love and simplicity. In A Course In Miracles he says that the message of the crucifixion is "Teach only love for that is what you are." That is very simple: but also tantalizingly deep. When you feel crucified teach love, for in teaching love you learn you are love and love sees crucifixion as simply a way into resurrection. In effect God says, "You show me the worst you can do and I will show you the best that you are." That was God's teaching moment. In Frank's channeling, Jesus said that our great problem is control: "Control is what you think that you need to be safe. But control is the WORST illusion."
Now of course we almost never admit to being controlling. No one says in their bio for Match.Com: attractive, intelligent, witty, and really controlling. We say rather that we're good planners, watchful parents, attentive spouses. Yet controlling is the major complaint people have about other people, husbands, wives, parents, children: "You are so controlling!" I hear that everyday "Stop controlling me" or, my favorite, "You're the control freak, not me." Well, actually, all of us are the control freak according to Jesus. Here's a Jesus inspired bumper sticker: I am the controlling parent of a controlling child at a control obsessed middle school in a nation that is out of control. Control gives us a false sense of security and keeps us focused on the bad thing that could happen. Paul Solomon used to say that worry was how we pray backwards. For the funeral I tried to worry myself safe. I thought I could control for embarrassment if I wrote an air-tight sermon for Melissa. But I forgot her name. The disaster happened anyway, and thank God it did. That is so much like the controlling human. We create amazing technologies to make peace and banish boredom but we forget who we are; we are constantly on the edge of blowing ourselves up or twittering ourselves to death. Jesus was looking over Einstein's shoulder whispering: split the atom for love, Albert. It's not E=MC squared. It's Joy = Surrender to God x Love squared. Forget relativity, make a Theory of Relationality. Jesus sends emails to Bill Gates that say: "Joy, Bill, joy. Not Microsoft, joy soft or just soft joy. And Jesus texts teenagers and lonely extroverts: Don't twitter, sparkle. Make an oh so subtle shift from IM to I am, then take a moment and be as still as a star. That's Jesus. I'll quote ole Jesus, via Frank:
"You must choose joy. You must claim that you are the source of this Joy, not some love interest. You must consider it pure Joy whenever you encounter the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, in ease and difficulty. By doing this you are in me and I am in you. You are born-anew, the old is gone and the life that you were meant to have is complete."
In short, joy is how love feels when control is forgotten and life, unlimited life lived all out, is remembered.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2009