Michael Leary 10/26/08
Blessing Sermon
As
a therapist, I hear many people with their life's troubles. Sometimes it's a bad marriage, sometimes it
is using alcohol or drugs, sometimes its involvement with someone they
shouldn't be, sometimes it is using poor parenting skills. When we sail on the sea of emotion, where
ever we start, eventually we end up in a certain, common port.
That port for most people is the most avoided, frightening, and shameful
place they could ever go.
It
would seem that most of the problems that I'm asked to help people with come
from this place. I have seen many people
who have worked desperately to change things in their lives... And not consciously visited that port... Only to have their problems show up in a new
form... Sometimes worse than the original. In addition, I've seen people ruin their
lives as they try to make up for the damage done so long ago. One of the phrases I use is: "if you use
your childhood survival techniques in your adult life, it will ruin your adult
life"… because, unwittingly you will replicate what you grew up with. This we see time and time again. The very thing that people are trying to make
up for ends up insidiously destroying them.
And what they're looking for is what I call “The Blessing.”
To
understand how this occurs, imagine yourself as a newborn child. Every child shows up innocent, vulnerable,
and precious. In your heart... You are okay.
Shortly after your birth you become aware of your parents, especially
your mother. Now for children, they
don't understand the concept of mother and father. It would seem with our biological needs of
affiliation, we actually see our parents as God. Not the God described in the Bible or
"out there". These are the
people that actually gave you life and keep you alive. You show up and need things from God to let
you know what's what and where you fit in it.
When kids get a little older and are verbal, you can actually hear them
say their parents are Gods. When
they say, "my mommy can cook better cookies than your mommy" or
"my daddy can beat up your daddy", what they're really referencing
is: "mine are the best of the best".
Mine are the real Gods, yours are fake.
Mine are perfect, and that's what God is...Perfect.
The
way God looks at us, talks to us, treats us, tells us who we are. Whether we are
acceptable or not acceptable in this world.
That experience is "The Blessing". That is: you are wanted and
belong here, you are unique and special, you are safe and secure, you are
wonderful and loved. When that happens
while the child's heart is open they will tend to fulfill the destiny of their
soul. They believe they are fine and can focus on what is interesting to them
in the world. Their needs are already filled about who they are. Parents tend
to give the infant child positive remarks: "That’s good, your right. Look
at how smart you are. You’re so pretty or cute". Later on they might say
"good job" or "you win!" Parents tend to do that around the
world. I call it “jump starting the soul.” The parents hook up their cables to
the kid’s heart and get it running till it can run on its own.
Then
the child gets to be about… 2. We have a name for two year olds in this
country. Remember what it is? Terrible twos! ...Terrorist... Terrified.... Why do we see young kids as
terrible? They’re mobile! We have them
in artificial environments with things that can hurt them, like electricity or
things falling on them. Or, they might break something valuable. So then we
say: “No! Bad boy/girl! that's wrong! Quit being lazy! quit lying! don’t be so
dumb or stupid!” These and others are used to give the child negative feedback
to get the child to behave. Again, parents do this worldwide and we see it as a
way to get the child to perform the way the parent prefers the child to behave
and comply with the parents beliefs and culture.
The
problem seems to come when either positives or negatives are used excessively
or negatives are used exclusively. The Childs most important developmental time
is the first 18 months and then the second eighteen months till about three.
Then the doors to the heart seem to close and the beliefs are set from then on.
There are exceptions to this rule but basically it seems to apply. In addition,
before the age of seven or eight, children cannot tell the difference between
what they do and who they are.
Parents try to get compliance by using guilt at an early age but it instills
shame not guilt. When this locks in.....
The child feels they are "not ok" in their heart and become
what we say is "shame based."
Instead of being like God and perfect...
they conclude they are "Worth-less!" For some, they become
hyper performers,… human doings
instead of human beings. Others
become manipulative, oppositional, and defiant.
What
is the difference between guilt and shame? Some people use them
interchangeably. “You should feel guilty for that.” “You should be ashamed of
yourself.” They are not the same!...
Guilt is the difference between a belief and a behavior. If you tell
someone you will meet them at noon at a specific restaurant and don't show
up...Should you feel guilty? YES! Why?...
If you believe in keeping your contracts and don't, there will be your
onboard Jiminy Cricket to let you know you are off the road you say you believe
in. And the next time you see the person, you will apologize for the
inconvenience and try to make it up to them. "I'm sorry, I got held up, and
didn't make it. Let me buy lunch for you next time."
Shame,
on the other hand, is who we are!... what we believe in our heart of hearts
about ourselves. This is what we try to
cover up so other people don't see it.
How do you hide, I'm a jerk, I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm black, I'm a girl,
I'm gay? There are people that
try.... But it looks pretty
pathetic. Everyone has to try to cover
it up though because it's our most tender spot. Psychological techniques are
used by humans to do this. Denial,
avoidance, projection, anxiety, and rationalization are some of the more common
ways people use. But underneath, it still lurks.
In
the AA format, they have an acronym to deal with this, it's HALTe with a silent e. Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired, or Excited. When one of these five dynamics strikes a
person, they tend to expose their shame program. There are other ways to expose it also. The easiest is to give a complement, and
watch if the person is uncomfortable with it.
Because our minds work from a referencing system internally in order to
understand what something is…. it will instantly go to the file to comprehend
what was just said. If the file is empty
or has something distorted in it, the person will…. in a split second,
involuntarily indicate nothing was there.
They may socially try to cover it… but someone watching will still
notice. Then the complementor will know
the opposite of what was said is actually true.
Good salesmen and predators are trained or learn to intuit this. How many of you have wondered why you bought
something you never intended to after a salesman worked his magic on you?
In
that cover-up,... People then try to
make themselves "worth-more" rather than "worth
-less." Typically those take the
forms of compulsion or addictions: gambling, eating, shopping, sex, work,
sports, prestige, money, religion, entertainment, and so on. We have a number of poster-Children for some
of these in society right now: New York
Governor Eliot Spitzer who is anti-crime.
The Reverend Ted Haggard of
Years
ago a freelance reporter from the New York Times was interviewing Marilyn
Monroe. She knew that Marilyn lived in many foster homes and so she asked her
if she ever felt loved.
"Once." Marilyn replied, "When I was about seven or
eight… the woman I was living with was putting on makeup. She reached over and patted
my cheeks with her rouge puff. For that moment I felt loved by her."
Marilyn had tears in her eyes when she remembered that event. It was such a
small act but it was like pouring buckets of love over the parched life of a
little girl starved for affection. Why does that story touch our hearts? Why do
you think Marilyn Monroe allowed her body to be exploited in her adult life?
Was it only about money or was it about something deeper?
What
they are really after is: "The
Blessing." To be good enough,
special enough, lovable enough. When you
can't get it from God/parents, then you try to get it some other way. Affiliation is about belonging. Friends generally are the earliest. After that it's girlfriends and
boyfriends. Eventually we tried to get our
value from our lover, even marrying to ensure it. But after a while your partner knows they're
using a bulldozer to fill the
All
those things that people do to get it.....
Ultimately fail. Look in your own
life and notice how many times you were trying to get someone to think you were
okay, to just care about you, to just love you.
And notice that even though they might have given you some of that, it
always was short-lived. And you could
become like a drug addict needing another fix, and another, and another. It never quite was enough. And the reason is because the file was closed
so long ago. It's not the
"you" that needs it at this point.
It's the ghost child inside of us, that still lives there, that is
stuck,... that needs it.
That's why we look so juvenile when
that part of us gets out and is so desperate.
That little, immature, starving, abandoned child. But the doors to that file in your heart got
closed and protected. The only one that
can open it at this point is something that will trump your earlier view of
God. People try to rationalize their way
in. That never works because it's not a
reasonable issue for any of us as a human.
It happened when we were emotional and so it has to be healed emotionally. People
use affirmations as an attempt to heal them and although it can help a little,
it never really works because rational mind can't access that unreasonable spot
in your heart. It is about your soul,
your destiny, who I am, what is my purpose in life, all the sacred questions
that the blessing was supposed to give you, as truth! Now it can't be fixed.... It has
to be healed... Because we are living
beings, not mechanical computers.
"To be blessed"
means 'to be favored by God'. Blessings therefore are directly associated with
God and come from God. Therefore, to express a blessing is like bestowing a
wish on someone that she will experience the favor of God. "May you have a
blessed Christmas", therefore can also be translated as: "May you
experience the favor of God during this Christmas period."
You
heard me talk with the kids earlier.
Notice the things that they were hurt about or felt bad about. Notice they all have things about themselves
that are important and they feel left out or diminished about. Did you hear the things that they thought
would make it better for them?
One
of the best things this congregation is doing for the children is singing that
silly little song as they leave. Go now
in peace, go now in peace, may the love of God surround you, everywhere,
everywhere, you may go. That is being
instilled deep within their minds and will live on in them.
Somewhere later it will pop up and
hopefully give them comfort.
When
I was a boy, my three brothers and I lived in a 9 x 9 foot room with two bunk
beds. When it was time to go to bed, if
you can imagine, we tended to talk and giggle.
Our dad would come in and spank us with his belt. We went to sleep almost every night
crying. When I married Leigh with the
four kids, I decided to change that script.
I would go in to kiss them goodnight and made a contract with them that
anything they said would not be held against them. Most of the time we stuck to that but there
would be a few times I would say, “you know there have to be consequences” and
they would say, “yeah, I know.” They got to go to sleep comforted from the day’s
issues.
A
number of years later the kids were all in high school and Leigh and I were
working till 10 o'clock at night and getting home about 10:30 p.m. The kids
were responsible for getting themselves up in the morning and therefore went to
bed at an appropriate time. They started
coming into the bedroom after we got home and arranged themselves around our
bed talking until we shooed them to their rooms. Leigh is the one that recognized we did not
have dinner at the table during the week anymore and that was one of the times
everyone got to talk about what was going on in their lives. They still needed that contact.
When
the oldest boy was 22 he came back from
In the book The Blessing, by Gary Smalley and John
Trent, they list Five Elements that
were important to blessings that parents give to children.
1.
Meaningful Touch
Standing close, putting
your hands on the child's head, and perhaps a kiss to seal the event are all
tactile. This speaks especially to children whose love language is physical
touch. Meaningful touch communicates love and personal acceptance.
2.
Spoken Words
Our children need to
hear why we believe in them and what we value. Children who get only
silence from their parents interpret that to mean they are unworthy of
attention, that something's wrong with them. It can set them on a lifelong
search for approval.
Say this to the child so
they hear it.
3.
Word Pictures of High Value
A blessing gives words
of affirmation to your child.
Speak about one of your
child's specific positive traits. For example, "You bring light and joy
with you wherever you go." Or, "You keep your integrity even when
others pressure you to cave in." Express your appreciation for his or her
potential. This shouldn't be a prediction (e.g., I know you'll be a doctor just
like your grandfather). Rather it should reflect awareness that this child is a
work in progress, someone developing with mighty potential for good.
4.
Picturing a Special Future
Our kids need hope that
the future holds a place for them. You can illuminate a path of promise for
them based on their true gifts. For example say, "I can see that your gift
for music is going to bring the world a lot of joy."
5.
A Commitment to Seeing the Blessing Fulfilled
This means you are
declaring your intention and willingness to do whatever it takes to fulfill
this blessing for your child. You promise to be there to guide, support, coach,
and do whatever it takes to help your child achieve a worthy future. You vow to
tend to his or her best interests, which you will discover by becoming a
student of your child.
A couple of months ago Leigh and I attend a baby naming
ceremony and a covenant of
“Every person born into this world represents something
new, something that never existed before; something original and unique. It is the duty of every person to know and
consider that she is unique in her particular character and that there has
never been someone like her in the world.
Every single person is an individual, a spark of the divine, called upon
to fulfill her uniqueness in this world, to make real her greatest potential to
be human.”
There are many
variations on how the blessing is delivered. Whatever procedure is followed,
the blessing is sure to make the child feel special and loved and give the
child fond memories. The unconditional love and approval that comes with the
blessing is vital to our self-esteem and emotional well-being.
Even if you have adult children, they
my still need that spark of blessing. If you know they are still searching,
Help them find a way.
Lord, allow me to go back to that
place so deep in my heart where spirituality begins,
Allow me to remember so long ago and
get in touch with where all those lonely pains reside,
Help me feel what it was like back
then so I can free this child that felt “not good enough” inside me.
Permit me to see my parents were just
people trying to do what they thought was helpful.
Help me see that I saw them as just a
form of higher power from a Childs point of view.
Allow me now as an adult to see my own
higher power in what ever form I can accept and believe in.
Have it be a familiarity to my soul
that resonates a truth for me-- deep in my heart.
Let me experience that higher presence
actually happening where I can see, hear, and feel---as if I’m actually there.
It might be in a place that I've
created,...it might be in a place I've been before that was safe and secure,...
It might be in a sacred place,... deep within my mind.
And to that higher power, Allow
yourself to ask those questions you have been so afraid of... For so long.
Ask: Is there another person exactly
like me in every way? Am I a unique person in this world?
Ask: Am I wanted by you in this
universe? Do I belong here?
Ask: Can I be full of wonder and feel “wonder
full”?
Ask: Am I lovable? can I both receive
and give love?
Now ask another one of the questions
you have wanted to know for so long.
Let yourself experience that.
Ask: Am I forgiven?
Experience grace as fully and
completely as you can.
Ask: Can I trust-- that you, my higher
power, will guide me from now on from this special place?
Know that you can go to this special
place from now on and seek help for your life’s issues.
Feel those changes taking place in
your body, mind, and spirit.
We ask our higher power that you are
with us from now on.
Now take a moment to say anything else
you would like and when you are through come back to this sanctuary
Amen