Jesus as Mirror

Try looking at Jesus as a mirror of ourselves, who we were originally, who we essentially are now, the divinity within the humanity.  When we see our godhood mirrored in Jesus, we are able to see that same godhood in others, or, if their divinity is so covered as to be unrecognizable, we sense that it is there—somewhere—along with its yearning to be made manifest.

Bob Goff often uses a real mirror, holding it up to individuals and instructing them to accept the fact that God loves them just the way they are.  Then he tells them to see themselves just the way they are and make some choices about who they want to be.

Ann Glover O’Dell

8 August 2007

Be!

When God’s voice said, “Be!”

and all the guilt and anger in me vanished

I began to know as I am known—

to understand in deepest heart

that what our mind has told us we must do

can never be divine directives

because our mind attempts to be God,

not listening for his holy will.

When God said, “Be!”

He gave me new relationship

where tasting, feeling, sensing

takes precedence to thinking and deciding.

When God told me to be

I became a born again as Jesus once described

those apprehending life’s abundance.

 

Ann Glover O’Dell

20 November 2017

To Hell and Back

John Noonan says religion is for people who are trying to keep from going to hell and spirituality if for people who have been there and who don’t want to go back.

In order for us to be in intimate relationship with God, something that is not of God must die within us.  As we witness that death, we experience our own personal hell.  There is no way around it if we would truly know God.

Jesus told his God to work out his will.  Jesus gave permission to whatever would follow.  Jesus cooperated with God’s will.

If a death was necessary for God’s plan to materialize in the life of a man like Jesus, how much more is a death necessary in us.

Ann Glover O’Dell

22 November 2016

The Lamb of God

“ Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sins. . . .” The consciousness of man, whereby God can be fully known in the flesh, is the lamb of God—God’s most precious gift to man (and with it his free will). This is what must be sacrificed—made sacred. For genuine intimate communion with God, man must be made sacred, must be transformed into God’s original design—not pre-consciousness but rather full conscious awareness.

This full conscious communion with God becomes possible as man freely offers his conscious will to God. God gives man his pure lamb of consciousness, hoping man will, after having made a demi-god of it in service to his ego, offer it back to God to be re-purified, made sacred, as only God can.

Our task in this God-man relationship is to “behold” our willful ego that can no longer provide for us what we most want— peace of mind and inner joy. “Behold” in ourselves what needs to die—what needs to become the blood sacrifice—the gift to God—made pure and sacred by his power and returned to us in a sanctified relationship—a communion of our spiritual essence with the essence of God. That communion of essences is indeed the holy meal that God wants to share with each of us.
Ann Glover O’Dell
23 December 2014

(note: The story of one person’s transformation experience may be read on this website under BOOK entitled Humpty Dumpty Hatched.)

Our Name for God

We can use Jesus as our model in our relationship with God and ponder his use of  “Abba” when referring to his father.  God wants to be the same kind of parent to us as he was to Jesus.  He invites us to use whatever name to call him that will evoke for us what  “Abba” did for Jesus.

Our task is to find that name, invent that name that represents what we need God to be to us.  Then use that name in periods of quiet when we are open to experiencing God in greater depth.  We are to embrace that name as our secret with God.  We are to allow ourselves to grow into the deeper relationship that the name affords

Doxology

Praise to Thee, O Lord, Creator of the Universe,

Who brings forth from your earth womb all life.

Praise to Thee, O God, Sustainer of the Universe,

who gives life the abundance Thou designed for it.

Praise Him who places godhood

in the center of our being.

Blow Holy Spirit, Wayward Wind,

with all thy special power

come stir again the old desire

in us who yearn to flower.

Rain into us the fullness

of the morning dew

made into streams

that penetrate our roots.

Make green the carpet of our days

that we, lured into verdancy,

might sprout new buds

and bloom as never even

once upon a time we dreamed.

Press down upon us sunshine

of the vision in your mind

of who we were and are and yet to be,

always within the firm embrace

of thy mysterious trinity.

Ann Glover O’Dell

30 May 2002

GOD’S COMPASSION

As one of the primary attributes of God, compassion is also one of God’s greatest gifts to us.  The more intimate our relationship to God becomes, the more compassionate we become in our relationships with others.

Compassion suggests a great deal more than sympathy or empathy.  Compassion means to passion with, to share the passion of the other—be it fear, pain, sorrow, or despair.  The word has its roots in the womb work of reproduction.  When we are compassionate, we participate in the creative work that each kind of passion produces.

What an opportunity we have each time we allow our innate wombedness to participate with another’s.  Something of God’s goodness is sure to result.

WELL BEING

I recently read or heard, though I cannot find the source in Exodus (the story is worthwhile nevertheless), that before Moses went up the mountain to receive the law, the people brought to the Lord sacrifices of well-being. No explanation given. Perhaps that is what God wants most from us. Well-being. The sense that all is well in our deepest being.

Would God want us to sacrifice that well-being in the sense of giving it up to be destroyed—as an offering to be burned? I think not. What God wants is to experience our well-being—and for it to be obvious and experienced by others. The prophet says a humble and contrite spirit is what God requires as a proper sacrifice. Not to be destroyed on an altar, but rather given away. We give away our well-being as we give away ourselves in simply being in relationship to others. Our well-being, given to us by God, allows us to give ourselves to God as well in relationship.

We cannot achieve the kind of spirit God requires/desires in order to be at one with his Spirit until we have given up our egos—given permission for all that is false in our ego to be destroyed. The ego is what must be burned on the funeral pyre in order for true well-being to rise like a beautiful phoenix from the ashes. The choice is ours. Always. Our free will is never compromiseds

Games We Play

Eric Berne, in his 1964 Games People Play, showed us a side of ourselves we perhaps had not seen.  His list of ‘games’ touched such a chord that thereafter and even now we can hear someone label an attitude of another as a game of ‘Ain’t it Awful’ or ‘Blemish.’

Berne showed how impossible it is to stop someone’s game, no matter how many approaches we take.  And even labeling others’ games may also be a projection of our own.

It is unfortunate that we seem to spend so much time playing personality games that either no one can win or  in order for one to win someone has to lose.  What we all really want are satisfactory relationships with each other.  What we really want is not another episode of ‘Mine’s Better Than Yours’ or ‘Yes, But…’ but rather a game-free environment where we can laugh and joke and exchange creative ideas.  Or at least that’s what something deep inside us wants.

Sometimes I find if I exaggerate the awfulness or suggest a preposterous solution or switch to the awfulness of something that is really quite delightful, I can change the direction of a conversation.  Often it is not easy.  I think perhaps we’ve forgotten how to give each other pleasure and meaning in conversation.  And perhaps this comes from our inability to give ourselves authentic pleasure.

Berne talks about our deep desire for intimacy in relationships, not in sexual terms but rather in terms of our deepest self–the self that wants to be whole, that wants to embrace all of life in order to extract the most meaning, that wants to ponder and explore.  I am convinced that the energy of the universe is concentrated on that win-win desire for everyone.