A Culture of Self Delusion 

“I’m finding it really hard to keep going.”

~ Mindy

***** 

Mindy and I stumbled across each other a number of years ago. She was the friend of a friend who had struggled for years with drugs and alcohol, along with a mixture of mental health challenges. In addition, her life and living circumstances were filled with family dysfunctions and a special needs daughter.

Over the years we’d been talking, moments of apparent progress came as fits and starts, always followed by slipping and a variety of failures. At times Mindy and I would wonder if she was one of those who just could not find her way to some kind of good and steady life. Somehow, she managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Amid it all we stayed connected and in conversation.

Then one day, we had a very curious conversation. She asked me, “Ron, do you know anything about Unity?”

“Sure,” I replied. “I’ve never told you, but I have often spoken from the pulpit at Unity Communities. They seem to have the capacity to let me be who I am, and to welcome the spiritual message I carry.”

There was a very long pause before Mindy spoke. “Someone invited me to go with her to the service this morning at Unity here in Kansas City. I heard something I just can’t let go.”

“What’s that, Mindy?” 

“The speaker said that what disintegrates us is our pursuit of illusions and delusions. That we keep trying to reach a place that does not exist, and that it can only lead to frustration, and maybe even to despair.”

“I think I understand,” she continued. “I keep thinking I’m supposed to have my shit together. My fundamentalist family and church have convinced me that if I just get it together, I will be happy and live in peace.”

Another pause followed. “That’s bullshit, isn’t it?”

“Pretty much.” I laughed, and she laughed with me.

“Mindy, the great deception in our human culture is that somehow life is supposed to be simple, easy and fulfilling, presumably with little effort on our part, and that if it isn’t, there is something really wrong with us.”

I heard her inhalation as something struck home.

“Mindy, we don't have to suffer or struggle, but the inner work of spiritual growth and psychological development is always going to push us past comfort. It's the design of life and living. Interestingly, when we are able to embrace difficulty with appreciation and perhaps even enthusiasm, we find our spiritual well-being improves. And the research shows our brain and physiological health is enhanced. That's a remarkable thing!”

“I am getting better, aren’t I.”

“Yes, you are, Mindy. I don’t know why your path is so difficult. We’ll never know. But you also got enough spiritual mojo that you’re a survivor as well as a learner. It is working you, and remaking you.”

“I’m going back to Unity,” she added. “It feels like I can be okay there.”

Seeing True in Reality and In Practice™ 

Besides learning to see, there is another art to be learned - not to see what is not. The more we see, the more we are capable of seeing.

~ Maria Mitchell 

***** 

We see things that are not there, or things we imagine, or we believe the stories we make up about life and living. We are translators and storytellers, all of which is based on what we believe to be true. 

What if what we believe is not true?