So we gather to fight

Our monthly sessions with Kim Vargas have become more coaching for me than counseling for us.  Our relationship needs some tweaking, which takes about 15 minutes of her fine-tuning expertise, but my lack of process skills - that is a major undertaking for all of us!  Am forever grateful for such a talented coach & an inspiring team mate.  

Last week was our first foray into life coaching focused on rejiggering some of my most glaring deficiencies.  Building up basic core key processing skills is the #1 foundational skill needing IMMEDIATE attention.  Getting them in place will help everything else move forward.  

Kim delved into the background around the problem.  To me, rooting around with the whys behind my lack of processing skills seemed a waste of our valuable hour.  "It doesn't matter how I got to such a sorry state - all that matters is moving on!", I protested.

Shifting a bit in her chair & wrinkling her nose at tad, as she often does right before saying something especially insightful, Kim replied, "Really?" in the light voice that I've learned usually leads to something spot on.  

But I did not pursue her quiet incredulity; we did not go deeper.

Kim - how just right, on many levels, to discover yesterday that you're in the just right place at the just right time to be my Deborah.  As in Deborah, the prophetess, one of ancient Israel's few female leaders (the only female judge mentioned in the Old Testament).  

     

Change the wardrobe & sure looks about right!

This past Sunday, I wasn't able to join John & a grannie client for church until after the lessons, slipping in next to my hubster just before Erik Buss started delivering his talk, so I hadn't a clue about his focus.

Almost from his first words, Erik had my total attention.  He talked about the negative feelings that can rise up, ones we can clearly identify, even understand, BUT which we seem powerless to change.  

Oh my gosh - he could have been with us in last week's session - it's easy to see what is holding me back, but for eons the will has been slow to match pace making the required changes.  

I sat straight up - powerless is exactly how it feels. 

Erik was talking to ME about gaining control of an out-of-whack life in the face of unimaginably strong forces doing everything in their power to maintain the rotten status quo.

In a nutshell, the Children of Israel had made a mess of their relationship with God.  They were literally not in a good place - the Canaanites had defeated the tribes of Zebulun & Napthali.  

Jabin, king of Canaan, represents the evil love of pride, the swaggering belief that we are the end all & be all, that our family, our nation, our way of acting is the best & deserves to be supreme.  Sisera, his general, represents the lies we tell ourselves to justify our bad behaviors, the ones we tell ourselves to avoid facing issues.

I sat even straighter.  That sounded familiar.

Ah, but neither Jabin nor Sisera counted on Deborah.  One of the rare female leaders mentioned in the Bible, Deborah was a prophetess -and- a "judge" (leader of the Israelites).   

Just as Jabin represents an affection for evil & falsity, Deborah symbolizes an affection for what is true, for interior truth from good.  Jabin knows;  Deborah understands.  She corresponds to the part of us that steps back to look at deeper motivations, reasons for why things are so, longs to do rightly rather than just do.  

Whereas Jabin embodies arrogance, Deborah personifies the true humility that made it possible for her to shake the conquered tribes of Zebulun & Napthali out of their stupor of lethargy & despair, to make them believe in their own power over the evil forces occupying their land.  They were God's people & Deborah was going to free them from their mental spiritual actual bondage!

 

But Deborah was a prophetess, a judge - not a warrior.  As Jabin turned to Sisera, she turned to Barak.  Barak stands for perceptions of what is true - understanding the why, the intellectual embrace of truth that partners with Deborah's desire for it.  
  
Together, they faced Sisera at the head of Jabin's army, leading 900 chariots of iron - sounds terrifying.  

The 900 war chariots symbolize what look like awesome truths but are actually lies, truth taken out of context, bald rationalizations.  Lies that oppress our best efforts for better.  We know how things should be & make attempts to improve, but our own mind - which has been taken over by the lies - beats us back to where we were & threatens to take even more!  

There's no defeating the oppressive behaviors rooted in harmful beliefs, at least until we recognize their awfulness, can fully appreciate the damage done by their falsity.  Speaking for myself, the best I've been able to muster to turning back the negative sense of what I can accomplish is by being overly critical of myself, setting up "must do" tasks that turn out to be too demanding, leaving me even more enmeshed in feelings of self-doubt, more shaken self-esteem.

In order to get a clue about why I act in such dorky ways, it's essential I first truly humble myself, let myself be open to understanding the substance behind why I resist taking what seems the obvious next-best step.  


Jabin & Sisera certainly didn't expect Barak to tell Deborah - a woman! - he couldn't take on the Canaanites without her right there, by his side.  Perceptive Barak realized that while he could see the challenge in front of him, it's Deborah who would help him find the right solution.  

As Erik put it - "Barak is right:  We need to throw all of ourselves in, feelings too.  Intellect does the fighting, but the power to do it comes from the presence of our love for truths, and the good that can come out...  We cannot fight merely by knowing & believing...  we have to also have a genuine love for these true ideas.  We need to bring Deborah along."

At this point in the church service, 

I was leaning so far forward, John was concerned!

So, the forces of Canaan & the forces of Israel gathered to fight.  Sisera backed by Jabin v. Barak backed up by Deborah - false ideas motivated by evil loves going up against true ideas motivated by good loves.  

And here is what Kim was trying to get across to me last week - in order to really recognize & contain harmful feelings, it's necessary to expose the lie, lay bare the falsity protecting it.  

Not sure how I managed, but I did NOT

leap up with a mighty, "Right on!"

Did I actually groan in painful recognition, hearing Erik explain, "Practically speaking, it will be harder than we'd like to focus our minds to exposing the lies because the lies have taken control of the very part of our mind that needs to resist.  But we can do it!"

Just as Erik pointed out, I tend to go after my feelings, rather than my thoughts.  And feelings are the armor protecting the real culprit - my thoughts.  I need to pierce & destroy the armor to get to the greatest enemy.  

Hmmmmm....  Isn't that sort of what Kim was saying?  Think so.

In order to root out my aversion to process & getting things done in the sanest, wisest order, it's necessary to first recognize, "What is the lie?  How is it rationalized (telling rational sounding lies)?"  Once I know what it really looks like, then I can go after it, like Barak went after Sisera's army.  

But the story doesn't end there.  Not in the Bible, not in my life.  It's not enough to conquer the army, we need to address & remedy the harm falsities, rooted in evil, have done.  And that's the story of Sisera & Jael.

After his army was defeated, Sisera fled, seeking refuge in the tent of Jael.  Apparently yielding to his pleas to hide him, she pulled a blanket over him.  Ah, but the woman had recognized that the man seeking her help was actually her enemy.  After literally putting him in his place, under the blanket, she took a tent peg & drove it through his temple.  As we read in Judges 4:22 ~ "Just then Barak came by in pursuit of Sisera, and Jael went out to meet him. 'Come,' she said, 'I will show you the man you're looking for.' So he went in with her, and there lay Sisera with the tent peg through his temple--dead."

 

Another smart, decisive, bold woman!

Unlike Deborah, Jael was a simple woman who was willing to face facts & take action.  Jael was no warrior, yet because she took the best next step right in front of her, the continued threat to her people ceased to be.  She saw the lie, she acted against it. 

Without Sisera to do his bidding, Jabin was ultimately destroyed.  Remove the falsities that protect the underlying evil & the evil can ultimately be destroyed.  

It comes down to having perceptions of what is true rooted in an affection for truth.  Without that, we're just as subjected to a sense of defeat as the tribes of Zebulun & Napthali.  We need to pray to see the lie, to seek the strength to first expose it, then destroy it.  Put all our energies into living from the simple clear teaching that call out to us, but which we keep batting away.  In that way, our true deep love of good and all that flows from it can shine forth.


Sheez....  Did Erik & Kim get together on writing this talk just for me, because it sure feels like it!  Of all of the things he said that literally made me sit up & take notice, this was the one that seriously zinged my spirit, "Practically speaking, it will be harder than we'd like to focus our minds to exposing the lies because the lies have taken control of the very part of our mind that needs to resist.  But we can do it!"

Kim - thanks for shifting in your chair, wrinkling your nose & just asking, "Really?" in that soft way of yours.  You cut through the falsities, got me thinking.  

Erik - you continued the work of exposing the falsities, of showing the army ranged against me & the way to defeat it utterly.


So, we gather to fight.