False comparisons, expectations and investments!

Most Ordinary by Patti Digh

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

What are my false beliefs?  Who really wants to answer a question like that?  I have a friend and he would hate to answer a question like that, my wife would hate the question as well.  It seems to me that I have a lot of friends who do not like to be introspective.  I am not sure why that is, but I bet there is an intelligent psychologist who probably knows.  Anyway, as I read this series of questions, it causes me to have to work to try and find the answers.  Some of that work I don't really want to do, just like my friends.  But this work fits a scripture that I love which reads, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

My first point is what a friend pointed out to me this week.  This scripture tells us to present ourselves as holy and blameless to God.  It does not tell to strive to do that, but rather it tells us to present ourselves in that fashion, in that truth, in that belief.  So as I list my false beliefs, they are those beliefs that go against this truth, that I am holy and blameless by the mercies of God.

Now to list all of my thoughts that go against this belief is real work.  In fact, I believe that I will be at this work for the rest of my life.  This is why the next portion of scripture says to do this by the renewing of the mind, by testing ourselves.

So my list will have to include one thought or fear that I have of becoming like my Dad.  Now I am not like my Dad at all.  But I find the same voice that I used against my Dad, will whisper to me with the same feelings and same condemnation that I brought against his addictions and short comings. They are words that tell me I am not worthy of love, that I am a nobody, just like my Dad was.  With these false beliefs at work, my wife can ask me a simple question and I will respond so harshly, because I hear her question through this voice that condemned my Dad.  This can all of the sudden cause an argument about how unjustly I have been accused, when her heart is a million miles from accusing me of what I feel from this false voice.  She is simply asking a question, completely couched in the simple content of the question. And I am responding to the condemnation I hear in this false voice.