"We Have Met the Enemy"

Before the Battle of El Alamein, Winston Churchill summoned General Montgomery and suggested that he study the logistics of the battle. Montgomery doubted that he should become involved in such mundane, technical matters. “After all,” he said, “you know what they say, familiarity breeds contempt.”

Churchill looked at the notoriously pompous Montgomery and replied, “I feel compelled to remind you, Monty, that without a degree of familiarity, we could not breed anything.”

After twenty years of sporadic, lukewarm “spiritual warriorship,” I was delighted to discover that I’ve at least cooked to the point of recognizing that Churchill’s pungent insight is just as applicable to the process of spiritual transformation as it was to the Battle of El Alamein... a degree of familiarity with the “logistics” of conflict is essential to the birth of a peace that “passeth understanding.”

If “a degree of familiarity” with the true causative ground of inner turmoil (THE THOUGHTS WE THINK) has not been established, authentic, lasting liberation from self-imposed emotional pain and suffering simply won’t happen. However, if we do accept the premise that spiritually uninformed thinking is the root of our emotional suffering, it follows that our journey of liberation would most effectively begin with the inquiry “what does, in fact, cause the ever-changing quality of our feeling experience?” Interesting question... where might it lead?

Consider this from Charles Fillmore’s teaching in Christian Healing, page 62: “Mental processes enter into all creations... Mind is the one and only creative power, and all attempts to account for creation from any other standpoint are futile... Our most important study, then, is our own consciousness.” Thank you, “Poppa Charlie,” for our starting ground.

In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, Joseph Goldstein confirms Fillmore’s understanding when he observes that “in order to understand our lives it is essential to understand the nature of mind. Everything that we are, everything that we do, has its origin in the mind.” As we begin this “study of our own consciousness” and the forces that condition it we see that mind is in a constant state of change. In an instant it can move from tranquil equanimity to burning rage or passionate desire. One moment we are focused and clear and the next moment lost in some compelling fantasy ushering us right into our next encounter with the “fire and brimstone” of an emotional hell.

Careful observation of the mind at play soon reveals it to be a dynamic playground of constant change conditioned and reconditioned by our brain’s cognitive responses to that ever-changing scenario of form and circumstance we call our lives. As we refine our capacities for “paying attention to what we are paying attention to,” we begin to observe certain patterns of thought emerging. We begin to develop a “degree of familiarity” with the kind of thinking that moves the feeling nature in the direction of greater rigidity, contraction and resistance, thus, more emotional turbulence and pain. At the same time, our diligent mindfulness helps us remember the spiritually informed ideals and values that “set us free” from the emotional bondage of “false witnessing.”

The liberating effect of consistently “paying attention to what we are paying attention to” empowers us to choose to use our minds skillfully in the service of free and flowing relationship with our own earth lives rather than staying lost in the painful illusion of imagined victimhood.

As we continue to cultivate and practice a deepening commitment to “watching our minds like we would watch a rattlesnake,” the self-imposed nature of our emotional turmoil can become distressingly clear. So distressing, in fact, that, in the early stages of that revelation, we may find ourselves fiercely denying the legitimacy of the Gospel of Pogo’s assertion that “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

The Master, Jesus, invited us to put away our pity-parties and our petulance and embrace the “truth that sets us free” . . . namely, that emotional discontent (aka hell) is a totally unnecessary, self-imposed experience that flows out of our tenacious insistence that ISNESS unfailingly match our cherished models for how IT should be, must be, gotta be, oughta be! And don’t miss the subtle causative criteria that must be in place to give an earth circumstance the power to turn our experience into a really bad hair day. For an earth event to have that kind of power we’ve got to be “tenaciously insistent” that it “unfailingly match” our vision for how it “should, must, gotta, oughta be. In other words, we’re setting ourselves up as an Executive Director of the Universe that cuts it no slack at all.

Remember, though, Jesus did not say “don’t have any fun with the creation.” He did encourage us, though, not to make any aspect of it so important (assign it “treasure status) that we would find ourselves “tenaciously insistent” that the any circumstance so valued “unfailingly manifest” as envisioned. Therein lies the fly in the ointment of serenity and contentedness.

I don’t know where you folks are at relative to this issue, but in my rare moments of authentic lucidity I must confess a sobering awareness that I still often find myself wedded to and motivated by the fantasy that I can somehow arrive at an authentic sense of contentment by creating just the “right” mix of earth circumstances.

In my dreams there’s that delicious moment when I’m surrounded by folks who always say exactly what I want them to, and, then, only when and how I want them to say it. . . Softly, adoringly, respectfully, agreeingly, unfailingly.

Of course, in my dream world all world leaders make their decisions only on the basis of wisdom that is spiritually informed, appointments are kept punctually, my cars always operate perfectly, all traffic signals are green for me, no one ever travels slower in front of me than I want to go, my coffee’s always hot and the cream is half & half, eggs are over easy and home fries are soft, seasoned and chock full of onions, two foot putts are never missed and every drive finds the fairway, "round" becomes the criteria for the perfect physique, board meetings last 25 minutes, the church family is never disgruntled, waste treatment systems never fail, sex is always... well, I’m sure you get the picture!

Dream on, pilgrim. That’s probably the kind of fanciful irrationality that inspired Willie the Shake to put Puck up in the laughing tree to observe, “what fools these mortals be.”

But always, in the quiet times, another sense emerges... an uncommon sense of wide spacious wisdom that reveals with undeniable clarity that there simply aren’t enough sense-baths or relationships in the Universe to cleanse my heart of its longing for an experience that simply doesn’t exist in the world of form.

Thus the ”study of our own consciousness” at last brings us out to a clear understanding of the “cause” of all our human suffering. We discover we have been slowly “dying” of a spiritual malnourishment we simply didn’t understand. This seems to be the inevitable outcome of all spiritual practice. The saving Grace of finally knowing that peace and contentment are not products of grasping and clinging to our notions of how the ever-changing world of form “should be,” but rather the immediate outcome of grounding ourselves, unconditionally, in the sacred reality of what is actually present (a.k.a. God).

It is a practice Jesus referred to called “loving God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. It’s about remembering that it’s all Sabbath, beautiful Ones, so let’s dedicate the considerable energies of our Unity Family to continuing to refine our capacities for “keeping it holy” . . . all of it. . . every sacred, challenging, lighthearted, frightening, beautiful, growing and rewarding moment of it.

Enjoy the Grace.
--Chad

© 2002 Rev. Chad O'Shea

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