QUESTIONS FOR 11/08/09

What was your definition of love when you were in High School? How has it changed?

Is marriage spoken of romantically in the Bible?

If Jesus was selfless, was he ignorant of himself?

Is it uncomfortable to think of Love as a command?

What is hate?

MYTHS & MISCONCEPTIONS: REAL LOVE CONSUMES #2 “DISINTERESTED LOVE”

“There are three conditions which often look alike

Yet differ completely, flourish in the same hedgerow:

Attachment to self and to things and to persons, detachment

From self and from things and from persons; and, growing between them, indifference

Which resembles the others as death resembles life,

Being between two lives- unflowering, between

The live and the dead nettle. This is the use of memory:

For liberation- not less of love but expanding

Of love beyond desire, and so liberation

From the future as well as the past…”

-T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding, III

 

“More people look for salvation through relationship than in houses of worship.”

This is not to say that relationships are not profoundly important, but rather that we may make them to important.

The Apostle John ends his first letter, which is one of the most definitive writings on Love, with these words: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.”  1 John 5:21

We fall in love with Love, and lose the growth which soul demands. James Hollis

1 John 3:11-24

Love does not judge. It also does not project. 1 John 3:12

Matthew 7:1-5

Are you living your life according to others expectations? Are you asking others to live according to your expectations?

We often spend so much time evaluating others and seeing how they are not meeting our expectations or projections.

Love is able to see other. 1 John 3:16-18

“Who among us (can be) capable of agape or “disinterested love” i.e. love wholly invested in the well being of the other, without the shadow of self-interest cruising beneath the surface like a surly shark?”

Love is obedient and humble

1 John 3:21-22

Matthew 7:7-8

Love is a work of the Spirit

1 John 3:24

What kind of Spirit does God give us?

2 Timothy 1:7

For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

The opposite of love is not hate, but fear

How does fear manifest itself in relationship?

Theologian Fritz Kunkel identifies 4 fundamental types who fall into the problem of power through fear

1. There is the one who would be the “star,” longs for and solicits the admiration of others, thereby seeking external validation for what is not felt within.

2. The “clinging vine” is dependent, having resigned responsibility for self, seeking validation through an identification with the will of the Other.

3. The “turtle” seek protection and security at all costs. This person will marry for money, identify with social position of the Other, take the path of least resistance in avoiding the demands of personal choice.

4. The last is the “Nero” type, one who overtly seeks power, again in direct proportion to his or her feelings of inadequacy. This is the person most identified with persona, the one who needs to have the title on the door, the key to the executive washroom, the flashy car, etc., in order to demonstrate power, and with that power assume enhanced self-worth.

Each represents the place where growth is blocked. Obviously, only if one’s fear can be made conscious can one expect to mature.

There are three basic experiences through which our fear can be transformed and we can truly begin to love:

1. Through suffering

2. Through the recognition of a power (will) greater than your own will at work in our lives

3. By coming to care for someone other than oneself

The two great commandments:

1. Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, strength and mind

2. Love your neighbor as yourself

We love the Other by not needing them to become something for us. We love them for them and learn to discover the beauty that is within them.

In the midst of our sin God showed us love. Not after we became what He wanted us to become.

God reveals to us “Disinterested Love.” Love wholly invested in the well being of the other. This is a love that is mature.

For those fortunate enough to find disinterested love, relationship is transformative. We are far richer after, even with loss and conflict, than we were before. For such richness we may be grateful. We may even come to bless those who have most hurt us, for they have most contributed to our transformation. We may even love them, allowing them to be who they are, even as we struggle to be ourselves on the journey toward our destined end. James Hollis

QUESTIONS FOR 10/25/09

Are you an introvert or extrovert?

Is it hard to imagine that Jesus often withdrew into the wilderness?

Name a weight that one of your parents carries.

What is the danger of personal ignorance?

How is self-awareness sacrificial?

Jacques Lacan says, “The I is an Other.” What does he mean?

MYTHS & MISCONCEPTIONS – REAL LOVE CONSUMES: SELF-AWARENESS AND OTHER

Today we are going to ask a very courageous question: “What am I asking of this Other that I ought to be doing for myself?”

When a person dies we grieve for two reasons:

1. We no longer get to see and interact with that person. They are physically gone.

2. The person who died can no longer carry what we have had them carrying. We must carry it our self

One can achieve no higher or better relationship with the Other than one has achieved with oneself.

It is our lack of awareness and understanding of ourselves which play a major part in the struggles we experience in our relationship with others and God.

Jesus understood this as a child

Luke 2:41-52

Jesus was able to experience beautiful relationships with the Father and others because of his own awareness and understanding of himself.

Over 600 times in the scriptures God and Jesus use the phrase, “I Am”. The phrase “I Am” implies a deep knowledge of oneself.

“I am the Lord your God”

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”

John 15:1

Jesus said the Father knows me and I know the Father

How?

Jesus lived a life of examine.

Luke 5:16

Psalm 26:2

1 Corinthians 11:28

The quality of all our relationships is a direct function of our relationship to ourselves. Since much of our relationship to ourselves operates at an unconscious level, most of the drama and dynamics of our relationships to others and to God is expressive of our own personal psychology. The best thing we can do for our relationships with others, and with the God, then, is to render our relationship to ourselves more conscious.

Self-Awareness

This is not a narcissistic activity. In fact, it will prove to be the most loving thing we can do for the Other. The greatest gift to others is our own best selves. Thus, paradoxically, if we are to serve relationship well, we are obliged to affirm our individual journey.

Ephesians 4:17-24

“Consider the courage of those truly willing to look within and own what they find.”

Making the unconscious conscious, owning our own charged material is an extraordinarily difficult task, no matter how willing we may be. We make the unconscious conscious by examining our patterns, not only in the present but also in our whole history of relationships. We must watch for when and where we are most charged, that is, times when complexes most commonly surface. When our affective response is intense and our rationalizations plentiful, we can be sure that complexes are at work.

Being in an intimate relationship (spouse, parent) is a bit like asking someone to join hands with us, but only after walking across a field in which we have planted mines.

Blaming our partners or children for stepping on mines we have laid is where most couples and families are when they walk into therapy that first hour. The Eden Project by James Hollis

Self-awareness is a process

The process is not linear. It involves a circular, spiral pathway that leads back towards the center of us. It is a journey that demands sacrifice. The constant sacrificing of aspects of us that we may have overly identified with in the past but no longer represents the most authentic expression of our truest self. This can be painful and uncomfortable, but the rewards are vast.

To undertake the willingness to integrate all aspects of ourselves, the honesty to look at what we most deny, and the self-love to live a life most in line with who we really are at the core of our being, are all acts of great courage and bravery. This is the way toward transformation.