Plain Jesus: The Turnaround (i) Death of an Illusion

Some jesus sayings The one who loses his life will find it Take up your cross and follow me Give all that you have But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. For the [shared] joy that was set before him, he endured the cross

The ego Disclaimer: this is only one way to define the ego (and Freud wouldn’t like it) The illusion that I am a self that is essentially separate from others and so I need to protect myself from others, desperately seek approval and significance, and be terrified of death

True self We are fundamentally, inextricably connected to others, to God and to the environment around us. We are essentially welcomed and loved. Loving ourselves, loving our neighbours and loving God are one and the same thing – and this is the central and orienting invitation/purpose of our existence Honours individuals and individuality as a unique manifestation of a part of the whole (waves in an ocean)

Death to ego Loving our ego – holding fast to the illusion of the separate self blocks our ability to love – makes us keep slipping into self-defense, self-protection, self-centredness, self- justification, and fundamental anxiety and loneliness. (Healthy loneliness is the pang, the longing to experience the connectedness that is our birthright, free of the illusions that cut us off from the experience)

Original blessing We are created in the image of God, made for interdependent relationship, and fundamentally connected. “We affirm the goodness of God at the heart of humanity, planted more deeply than all that is wrong.” Prior to and deeper than “original sin”

Original sin The tendency for communities and societies to embody and “make real” the ego illusion – the separate self that needs to live afraid and anxious, competitively striving for its own protection We all live as if the ego illusion is real – therefore we are always needing continually to be “saved” – turning from the illusion to the truth “living sacrifice” Central Christian rituals are reminders of our need for ego death – baptism and Eucharist

How do we kill the ego? Understanding it all as an invitation to life and love Embrace discipline, surrender, and sacrificial love as invitation to life/love Receiving unearned love kills the ego (experiencing love or solidarity when we are broken, when we fail, when we suffer, when we are empty) Falling in love with what is around you while knowing you are a part of it all kills the ego Being in nature and remembering that your ego doesn’t matter kills the ego

Mary Oliver I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do.”

Imagine… Imagine: that if there was no hate, if we loved each other, we loved one another, that there would be no war between us (Cree expression and likely inspiration for Lennon) Instead of all the possible questions that could counter this view, what if you just tried to imagine it?