The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
You can support our work and gain access to more unique content if you visit our Patreon: www.patreon.com/ccseminary
The Light in Every Thing
Re-Post: Casting Shadows, Episode 1 (2023)
Dear Patrons,
Today, June 24, 2025 is the festival day dedicated throughout the world-wide Christian Community to the person of John the Baptist: St. John’s Day. He stood at the banks of the Jordan as “a voice crying out in the loneliness”—a voice calling people to reorient their lives toward the spirit; a voice summoning each heart to radical truthfulness as preparation for the coming grace of God.
In honor of this extraordinary human being, whose earthly mission was to prepare the way, we are sharing episodes from our Christian Shadow Work series, first posted in May 2023. This episode is the first in that series. We hope it may serve you in your own encounter with John’s voice—his call to turn, to see, and to ready the soul for grace.
With gratitude,
Patrick
for The Light in Every Thing team
***
From the first posting:
Our new series takes up the far reaching subject of working with our “shadow,” especially as it relates to the overarching question posed this year, “What divides us?” In this first episode, Jonah and Patrick begin to lay down some of the core elements of working with the shadows we cast in the light of Christ. How do we as individuals relate to the shadow we cast into this world? Can we perceive ourselves accurately? Can we integrate our shadow in a way that bears fruit? How do we relate to the shadows of others, both individuals and larger human communities, such as Christianity as a whole or The Movement for Religious Renewal? Why is working with the shadow part of the Christian path of walking with Christ? These questions and more will be explored together over the coming episodes.
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Hello everyone. This is Patrick Kennedy from the Light in Everything. We're going to be heading into the summer up here in the Northern Hemisphere and, after a very big and full year of work and an incredible path through the letter of Ephesians, together and Jonah and I just want to send you a warm greeting and let you know that we are going to be reposting episodes from our five years of podcasts that we think will be enjoyed by you all over these weeks until we pick our work back up again in September or the end of August. In September or the end of August, if you'd like to find out more of what's happening at the Seminary of the Christian Community in North America, be sure to check out our website at christiancommunityseminaryca or go over to our Patreon site at patreoncom. Forward slash cc seminary to become a part of an incredible community of support of listeners who interact and engage with the podcast.
Speaker 2:okay, enjoy © BF-WATCH TV 2021.
Speaker 1:Morning, Jonah.
Speaker 3:Good morning Patrick. Good to see you, you too. Another day, another episode. Welcome everyone to the Light in.
Speaker 1:Everything. This is a little place in the interwebs where we try to have a different kind of conversation that can open deeper doorways into the mysteries of Christianity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we'll begin, as we always do, with the Gospel of John. Again, jesus said I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, am I walking in darkness?
Speaker 1:right, that's a good, good question, good point so, uh, we're gonna get started with a new theme.
Speaker 1:We've, uh, we had a little Irish interlude there and we're going to try to conclude our year-long theme that we've been taking up since the fall of 2022. That year-long theme has been exploring the question of what is it that divides us, that there is a spirit that seems to be powerfully active in our time, working into human communities, human relationships, human societies, nations, whose mission is to divide human beings from one another, turn them against one another, turn each one of us against one another. That's the characterization of this being. But we sought many different ways to characterize how that division fits into a big story that we are in. We've looked at ways in which that division is taking place. We've looked at the kinds of things we can begin to work on or orient towards to heal that divide, to bridge from heart to heart, mind to mind, hand to hand, bridge from heart to heart, mind to mind, hand to hand. And this last series we want to take up. I guess we had some other plans.
Speaker 1:We actually had some other plans and we were led to go in this direction and I'm really inspired that we want to do this, so okay.
Speaker 3:What is it? What is it? What's the?
Speaker 1:theme. Yeah, it's kind of, I would say, two prongs that, though, on the one hand, you could say the practice of looking at the shadow we cast into this world. How am I, as a human, blocking light? From entering life. How am I not letting light through, but actually blocking it and casting a shadow? What does that work personally, and what does that work within the work of actually, what unites us? What part does it play? And then, how does that get done? Also for movements, for human communities and spiritual communities?
Speaker 1:So we're going to risk getting into also doing the practice of looking at and naming and trying to integrate the shadows of Christianity, who has been a divisive power. Christianity has been a part of what divides people. Christianity as a community of people who confess Christ have also not been serving him, but also serving the one who divides. And that feels really important to name and to also try to look a little bit at the movement we've been involved in. That's a hundred years into its story the Christian community movement for religious renewal. What are its shadows that it has cast into this world Right, and how can we look at all those things in a way that actually bears fruit? That's it.
Speaker 3:Right, because we're not like. I don't hear you saying we're going to criticize, we're going to Right in it with that thing, right Right. We're going to look at the shadow in a way to understand for self-knowledge, institutional knowledge, movement knowledge and then seek to do this thing that you mentioned integration. What do you do with shadows? More like?
Speaker 1:okay, great, I see it. Now what? Yeah, now what? I just feel bad, exactly.
Speaker 3:We just feel ashamed of ourselves. Yeah, that's really key.
Speaker 1:What do we do with?
Speaker 3:shame Right, all of these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do we make amends for the shadows cast? How do we? Because we're going to be also in a world where we're trying not to be divided. That means we are also working with fellow human beings who are all walking around in this world with a shadow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think that's really important, because when we talked about what divides us, we also recognize that the separation is necessary and important right.
Speaker 1:It has it that we're divided from one another as a part of the work of our, the hope of our humanity.
Speaker 3:I'm also separate from you, exactly so that we can be prepared to be united but separate, but myself. At the same time, ie we can be prepared for love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, that's the only way to actual a true love story.
Speaker 3:So then the question becomes if we're separate and we're looking at shadows of ourselves and one another, like you said, looking at shadows of ourselves and one another, like you said how do we relate to that so that we're not divisive, meaning condemning one another?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Dismissing one another, yeah, you could say, in many ways, it's because we're perceiving the shadow elements that we're turning on one another. Yeah right, hey, you're not light. So then, therefore, therefore, you are darkness.
Speaker 3:Therefore, I condemn you to the dark pit of despair and damnation right and I think I mean I know I know so many people that I talk to that have an issue with religion, right Period, period, it's this quality that kind of rises to the top. It's. I have the truth and anytime I see the wrong or the shadow or the dark, I'm going to not just disagree. Yeah, I'm condemning it to the dark pit of hell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm condemning it to the dark pit of hell. Yeah, yeah, kind of vision, a certain, a certain phase in relationship to religious life, which is I grow up into this world, I see there are so many shadows even though there are these shining ideals. I'm going to form a circle of people where we truly live the ideals and just shine, and then we will condemn all those who are failing to shine, betraying the lights. The lights and a kind of zealous, radical commitment to the light that itself becomes a darkness. That's the amazing thing.
Speaker 3:That is a really interesting statement.
Speaker 1:So what I just heard you say is that there is a light full of idealism that we can carry that is actually dark. Yeah, the way we relate to that light and the shadows we see. What do we do with the shadows we see? So so, okay, we're starting to kind of paint the picture right, like how do I relate to other people's shadows? How do I relate to my own shadow? How do I relate to the shadows of larger group beings, for example, whatever nation you're from, your nation has a biography and it has things it has done in its name in the world you're from?
Speaker 1:Yeah, your nation has a biography.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and it has things it has done in its name in the world. Some of those are beautiful, some of those are horrible. Yeah, how do I relate to that? It's just, it's huge. We are not going to get to the end of this as we don't get to the end of anything, of course but it feels really key in trying to look at the power that divides and the activity of soul and spirit that brings unity and connection and bridges the divide.
Speaker 1:It just feels essential that we turn our attention towards the shadow questions, and so I'd like to begin just with one picture that you could say inspires both of us. It's just, like you could say, the heart of the perspective, and that comes from a description of the being of Christ in our worship service that, in North America, has the name the consecration of the human being. So it's a worship service that is to consecrate our humanness, and in that service, this being we love is described. We have this beautiful description that says this being causes hearts to be at peace. So that's the first kind of gift when you're in relationship with this being, your heart enters a more peaceful state.
Speaker 1:The second thing that comes is when you're in a relationship with this being you find your will strengthened. You suddenly, like that weakened, lamed will receives suddenly, like a kind of force, a strengthening. So it makes hearts to be at peace, strengthens wills. And the third activity, the third effect of this being in people's lives is described in the words this one unites human beings. So where Christ is active, human beings are feeling together, feeling united. To me it just feels really beautiful and important to sound that bell. Relative to our whole theme, this is like a core result, fruit and goal of the one called in English language Christ, called in.
Speaker 2:English language Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Brings peace to hearts, strengthens wills and brings this experience of uniting human beings.
Speaker 2:Very important.
Speaker 1:That's partly now how we can discern when the enemy is active.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The opposite force would be how can I break apart human beings?
Speaker 3:Right and or because so many of us actually rarely I'll submit, rarely do we intentionally want to break apart human beings. Most of us are trying to be good, but you can tell when this light that is actually darkness is working in us, when our actions and our thoughts and our deeds have the fruit, the consequence of eroding relationships, eroding unity. Because very often I don't know how it is for you, but in my life I'm thinking, I said that, I did that, I thought that, and all of a sudden it's just doing damage, doing damage, dividing, it's dividing and it's breaking, cutting off, cutting, cooling, and I didn't intend that. But somehow, look at the fruits. Look at the fruits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's an amazing experience, yeah.
Speaker 3:But I love that because you can start to see, using that barometer of the consecration words, if the fruits of my deeds and my thoughts and my actions are bringing people together or helping people feel more united, then Christ is working in me. And the opposite is also true. It's very good, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that picture of this peaceful heart, strengthened will and the sense of union and communion with one another that would come about in relationship with him, why would looking at our darknesses or the ways in which we are not a part of that, looking at the ways in which we block the light of this being, why would that be at all, even helpful or important, like what? Let's just not look at that part and just focus on peaceful heart, strengthened will and we're all together. Why, what? What part does turning our attention to the shadow I cast play, and then also, what is the fruitful way to do that? That's, that's. I just don't want to start to get it, jonah, yeah, why, why, what? Couldn't one say, gosh, that's just feeding actually, something that isn't of him by focusing in on that darkness in the first place? How do you see this work of looking at the shadow as a part of your walk with Christ?
Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting Because I grew up in a family my father was a unity minister which is kind of like the um comes out of the new age movement, new thought movement, and there's a principle in that and my mother too was kind of grew up in this thought that actually you don't look at the darkness. What you do is you focus on the light so much so that it just kind of becomes reality. That's the idea, and actually giving any attention to the dark is just feeding the dark and making it bigger, right. Attention to the dark is just feeding the dark and making it bigger, right. So that is a very real spiritual perspective, especially in our world right now. What do you mean by that? Say that again.
Speaker 3:I mean that mode, that actually focusing looking at the dark in any way is just feeding it.
Speaker 1:Is a darkness, so to speak.
Speaker 3:Making it bigger yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you say it's real, this is something people are really taking up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is a possible spiritual approach to life. It's not the only and it's not everywhere, but well, it is everywhere, but it's not everywhere you met it in.
Speaker 1:Where was everywhere? You met it? In Vietnam.
Speaker 3:Vietnam. I've met it everywhere, yeah. But I remember going to a study group when I was 20. It was one of my first anthroposophical study groups and there was this guy I'll never forget him. He's this older gentleman, very composed, and we started talking about exactly this, the shadow work, and he, he was one of these people who said you know, I just don't even look at the dark, it's just it, just I just look at the light. And so I, when I was 20, I, I, I started to try to practice that and I remember having a conversation it's one of the most conversation with my friend Alicia. She's probably, she's a, she's a listener, she might be listening, but we were friends, We've been friends for a long time.
Speaker 3:And I remember, kind of when I was in this mode of trying this out and I just started to focus in this conversation, I just was focusing on the light and what began to happen was my the difficulties and weaknesses that were coming up in me, the disagreements that were coming up between us. I just ignored, oh wow, and I just kept focusing on the light. What began to happen and this is something that I began to notice was that I just started to A deny any kind of untruth that I was seeing, A deny, any kind of untruth that I was seeing. So I would just deny that anything was wrong. And I began to be more and more pushy and persuasive, Because you don't focus on the disagreement, you focus on how to get to the agreement.
Speaker 3:And, long story short, I found and I found with people, humans, who have adopted this point of view, that eventually it becomes a kind of blindness to my own weaknesses and errors. So I get more and more into denial. I experienced this myself and I become more and more pushy of a particular point of view, tyrannical in my persuasiveness, Because I'm just focusing on the light that I can see and therefore everyone should see that. So I mean, of course it's a long, long story, but basically for me, the reason why it's important to start to look at the darkness in you, the weaknesses in you, the shadows in you, is because it leads to a kind of humility toward the truth.
Speaker 1:Humility toward the truth.
Speaker 3:It leads you to a certain relationship with. It's very easy for me to make an error. I need to be very attentive to that in me which would be in denial to that in me which would want to make its own preferred perspective, everyone's perspective so humility, also in the sense of maybe I feel like I've had an insight into this is this is the truth.
Speaker 1:Do you mean how you hold that insight? Are you like holding it more softly, like?
Speaker 3:but there could be more aspects, so I'm not going to grip too tight and force this on everyone for, For example and I know my blindness so I'm going to not be too tyrannical about it, but always hold the possibility that there's something more. There's something else, yeah.
Speaker 1:So because I'm familiar with how often I've shown myself to be blind and how often I've been healed of that blindness by truth, I can expect there might be a few more healings ahead of me still.
Speaker 1:That's it, the level of which I'm seeing the truth may be very small still. Therefore, I'm going to hold the truth. I've received, gently and with openness to expect there are nuances and depths here which I'm sure are still waiting for me. Yes, gently and with openness to expect there are nuances and depths here which I'm sure are still waiting for me, kind of a yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:So there's a kind of humility. If I'm not in relationship, the simple law, if I'm not in right relationship to my shadow, I don't have, I cannot have the right humility toward what is real and truth.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what would be the opposite? Right, I mean, I feel like that's the key. If I'm not being humbled, I'm going to tend towards arrogance.
Speaker 3:Totally.
Speaker 1:And towards know it all this, yeah, and with know it all this, now I'm omniscient. Now it's about omnipotence. Now it's about enacting my all-knowingness, the truth that I've come to, upon the world. So that feels like a massively key piece relating to my blindnesses. That's a first characterization of a darkness in the shadow, brings, develops humility in me and the expectation that my healing of my blindness may take a long, long time, yeah, and so I'm feeling less and less inclined to ever impose my truths upon anyone else because of my own familiarity with my blindness.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and I think there's one more element there that could be really helpful, connected to the consecration words that you brought, which is he brings peace to hearts, strengthens this unity. This unity, may he grant it to all who look towards him, and the key word there for me right now is grant.
Speaker 1:The unity is granted.
Speaker 3:The unity is granted. The unity is granted so, if I'm aware of my weaknesses and shadows in the right way, not only am I humble in the sense that I don't start to just be tyrannical about everything, but I also begin to know and have the experience. The fruits like peace and unity and strength are granted. They're actually not mine, I can't produce them, but I can orientate myself to them, and that experience that goodness, truth and beauty are gifts, further orientates me to this proper humility.
Speaker 1:So now the not just arrogance, but the issue of pride is in the room. If it's also thanks to me all that I achieve, then that sense of self-importance, also over others, which just has this antisocial effect. If I'm full of my magnificence, it is unattractive and doesn't have the quality of making room for the unique magnificence of others. So so there's some mystery relationship that a truly born humility, not humiliated or humiliation. We'll get into that.
Speaker 3:That's interesting.
Speaker 1:A true born humility is social. It has a social effect. Oh gosh is social.
Speaker 3:It has a social effect. Oh gosh, and true-born relationship to grace or the bestowal of something also is social.
Speaker 1:Well, that's part of it, right, exactly you said the humility is well, I'm humbled because I've seen my blindnesses. I'm humbled because I've continued to notice that truth is so deep and many faceted. I can't, I don't want to, I don't want to pretend I own it all, but this other pieces, like a, like someone who is a baker, yeah, I don't possess peace in my heart, I don't possess all the strength I need for my will, I don't possess the power to feel unified with people. If I don't, then I have empty hands, I have empty pockets, yeah, and I'm looking for that gift. Yeah, and already it just puts me into a very different sense of who I am and what I need and am in need of. And maybe the other extreme would be and I'd be- curious to hear you speak on.
Speaker 1:That is a neediness Right, or I'm nothing but a shadow. Yeah, I'm all. I'm no good, I'm not worth anything and I'm needy, needy, needy, hmm. That would be the opposite picture of like I'm amazing, everyone else is wrong, I'm right, and if you guys would just listen to me, I could unite humanity.
Speaker 3:Right, right, like like everyone's had that thought If I was just president, we could, we could, I could make the world a better place, right yeah?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is interesting because that's another side of it, which definitely exists in the human spectrum of soul experiences, which is I'm a worm, I'm not worthy of anything and I'm unable to access what we're talking about. And of course, that has its religious expression, in a kind of deformed way In some theologies that basically say, yeah, the human being is basically nothing and they have nothing and they can do nothing unless God does everything for them, which is kind of an extreme that leads to let me put it that way, it leads to a resignation. Let me put it that way, it leads to a resignation that makes one think, well, what's the point of being a human being? What am I even doing if I'm just a nothing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for me, it goes so far as actually to denigrate and spit upon the greatest creative work of God which is the human being. There is no greater miracle, more beautiful thing than the human being, and it's the image of the creator, so we can't desecrate or denigrate this to humans.
Speaker 3:Right creator, so we can't desecrate or denigrate this to humans right and it it has to do with also, I think, just um a weakness, a denial, a denial process that is denying, not wanting to accept, not wanting to take hold of the responsibility and the courage necessary to be human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that many powers have been placed in our hands.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That many capacities have been made available to us so we can assert our own selves in this universe as a part of the gifts we receive. I can't say I've got, I made that power. I can't attribute it to my own generation, I didn't generate those powers, and yet I find them available to me to use as I please. Right, and that's extraordinary, and that means well, the universe is waiting, and what will you do with what you have been given?
Speaker 3:Exactly. It's kind of like seeing, maybe, someone who was very gifted. I don't know about you, but I have some people in my class that I remember had huge gifts and there's something tragic in a few of them now that I see that really haven't taken hold of those gifts and made anything of them, that really haven't taken hold of those gifts and made anything of them. In fact they've gone dormant and the shame of not taking a hold of them is now eroding their soul Totally Right.
Speaker 1:So there's something similar and it's classic gospel parables, right when this image of the house, the one who runs the estate, who then gives amounts of money to their different servants to do something with it.
Speaker 2:Yes, it wasn't their money.
Speaker 1:No, but it's given to them to do something with. Right and the divinity is interested that you increase it Right.
Speaker 3:Make it fruitful, Because the ones who make it fruitful increase the money or increase the capacities are brought in to the Father's love.
Speaker 1:It just buries it. And gives it back. You'd think, oh, that's okay. He kept it. He didn't lose anything.
Speaker 3:No, it turns out that's not okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, this is a big theme in the Gospels for sure. So these two sides, the overestimation of myself, yes, that leads to truly antisocial forces of arrogance and pride and prevents processes of humility which is always connecting, has a connecting potentiality always in it. True humility. True humility and the false humility which is attempted to be found by really actually wallowing in my lacks and my need and my weaknesses, being fearful of the incredible gifts that I've been given to try to step in and do everything I can to unfold them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's funny because this false humility, this kind of wallowing word you used or kind of focus on my nothingness, it's actually a funny, interesting kind of egotism, right.
Speaker 1:Right, it's egotism, just like the arrogance and pride is an egotism.
Speaker 3:It's just on the reverse side, because I'm focused on myself.
Speaker 1:Totally self-involved.
Speaker 3:Right and I'm not actually seeing what God is giving, because if I was, I'd be taking that up and turning it into more fruit. So how do I get out of this trap? It's like it gets you coming and going right.
Speaker 1:There's this incredible like the jaws of egotism are there and the top jaw you've got arrogance and pride and self-importance waiting to snap you and on the bottom jaw you've got this actual deepest navel gazing that's wallowing in my own weaknesses and darknesses but actually is completely wrapping me up in myself. How do I get out of those jaws? Like what is a shadow work that is actually health giving and a part of that peace, that strength and that uniting.
Speaker 3:Gosh, I mean, I think I mean before we yeah, we're inching our way more and more. But what comes into my heart right now, as you say, that is just this new picture of what real humility is. It's not this fake piety, you know. It's not absent, of course, in this kind of arrogant, tyrannical zealotry. But real humility is not something that's put on, it's not just a low picture of yourself at all. It's just what is real meaning. You have a right relationship with your shadow and with the tempter that pricks that shadow, and you have a right relationship with God and the graces and gifts he's giving.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's humility there seems to be. A key work is to come into what you've just called right relationship or real. Real, yeah, true, like actual picture of myself.
Speaker 3:Exactly it's so. Humility is nothing more than what is truly real. The humble person is just the one who's actually really real.
Speaker 1:It's increasing ever new their awareness of facts. Yeah, and if somehow, In a totally calm, truthful, without condemnation way, but just letting the truth in. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Letting the truth in. And if somehow I've come to a truth or a point of view that says I have no shadow or there is no adversary tempting my shadow, then I'm going to have problems with humility. And vice versa, if I've come to the sense where there's no being that is bestowing its grace and working to unite human beings, I'm going to have problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd love to take a little loop here. Yeah, so I think if you actually really explore one of the key invitations to success in our time, how do I overcome myself so that I can really reach my full potential? If you live in America or near America, this is a theme you are going to be familiar with. How do I overcome myself and really reach my full potential?
Speaker 3:Yeah, be as effective.
Speaker 1:effective seven steps to whatever you know, like there's some way, like you know, be influence people and gain power and money and success, then you're going to need to be able to get over yourself. It's really they know that they're the ones who are teaching this path and yourself. It's really they know that the ones who are teaching this path and one of the the invitation often is, if you look into many of the different paths that are put forward is to never look at the shadow. Always be focused on your goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And just absolutely commit to them, whatever the effects or causes. Whatever goes wrong doesn't matter. That's ancient history, that's yesterday.
Speaker 1:Get up, start anew and focus on your goals, and there is an initiatory path here, that is to say, a way in which, actually, you can get freed up from the energy you are spending trying to understand yourself, yeah, and committing to goals that you see, you visualize them, you, you do actual meditative, imaginative practices to unite yourself with this picture of yourself as you would like to see yourself in this world succeeding, and you activate all the powers of your humanness to get to that. And you leave your shadow quote unquote behind Meanwhile, as you move through the world, you are generating massive damage, but we're going to leave that aside. But who cares? But the experience can be is actually of a radical power and freedom.
Speaker 3:And that's why it's so attractive radical power and freedom, and that's why it's so attractive. I mean, you just beautifully described what is probably the most popular form of spirituality in our time.
Speaker 1:It's like a Western self-actualization success spirituality, that's right.
Speaker 3:And that's the spirituality that can bless and integrate consumerism like no other.
Speaker 1:And permeate all kinds of forms of Christianity in the West as well.
Speaker 3:Prosperity gospel yeah, that's what it is. The most popular forms of Christianity in North America are run by this mode of spirit, 100% Right down to even just simple levels.
Speaker 1:like somebody.
Speaker 1:I think his name was John Hagee H-A-G-E-E. Oh yeah, I remember he got into this one statement made in the Old Testament that those who bless Abraham and the people of Abraham will themselves be blessed. So ho, you want to succeed in your life, you want your family to do well, you want to get a good job, you want to have money in the bank, you want to have good vacations in multiple houses. Donate to Israel. Yeah, like, just straight up, like this is the, it's like this. Just do that. Do outer blessings of the people of Abraham and you too will be blessed. Like, just like the union of materialistic success with a verse from the Bible Just, yeah, amazing, full on. And we're talking millions and millions and millions of dollars in prayers. It's like very real stuff. We're not just this isn't just abstract.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, and that's just amplified across all kinds of situations. It's also in the East, it's very much everywhere now, yeah, so how do I leverage my religion and spirituality for my own glory?
Speaker 1:Yeah exactly, and yeah, that's on that upper jaw.
Speaker 3:Right. So in that mode then, as you described, the shadow is just something. It's like a speed bump. The shadow, any kind of weakness that you have or any kind of experience of shame that you have. It's nothing more than something to roll over. It's in your way. It's in your way, it's holding you back and so the method is okay. You may notice it, but then get over it. Yeah, three second memory I listened to Ted Lasso last night. I watched Ted Lasso's show. It's great, I love it. But he said you know what you need. You need a three second memory, just get over it.
Speaker 3:And again, there's not. That's a muscle, that's important.
Speaker 1:And we can talk about that.
Speaker 3:Right, there's three. Well, if I say that it'll be so, but that's one way to deal with our shadow. Sometimes there's a part of our shadow, a thought that keeps going over and over in your mind. Exactly, it's no matter how much you focus on it or anything, it's not helpful. Yeah, you have to rest yourself free. Yeah, and focus on something else.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And that's in our consecration service too, right, the human spirit, part of our relationship to our shadow, is to develop the muscle that can rest itself free from the load of sin and, in thinking and willing, join with Christ, join with something else, join with the light. Yes, so it's an extremely useful tool If it's your only tool.
Speaker 1:Right, and how are you using it and to what end? Yeah, it's exactly so. That would be Becomes, really problematic. Becomes, really problematic. That would be the example of you need that force in yourself in order not to fall into the wallowing, yes, to be overwhelmed, yes, by the parts in you that aren't light. That's it. The way in which you're experiencing yourself is not shining, which often. This is another thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, there is therefore what we're characterizing. Another way to say it is there is a self in us that wants to be a shining star, that knows it has actually called to be radiant, and there is a false light, yeah, and the one who's wall? If I'm, if I'm wallowing in my experience of the how I'm not yet light, what I'm longing for often is to be a star, a false star actually, and I'm not. People don't all admire me, people don't all admire me, people don't all love me, and they and you think, the person who's being admired, the person who seems to have that kind of glory, that's the goal. You should talk to the therapists of those who are currently Hollywood stars and just see if that's the case just how wonderful it is to be in that situation, to be admired by everyone.
Speaker 1:Maybe we should go visit all of the rehabs where they're full of. You know, this is a false light.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, patrick, I mean, we're not movie stars, thank the Lord. But you have received a fair share of admiration in your life. Yeah, have received a fair share of admiration in your life. Yeah, I have received a fair share of admiration and and kind of adulation, whatever you want to call it. Has that made your soul healthier?
Speaker 1:better, in your experience, it was I'm really glad you brought this up. I it was always painful, always. I remember I had a moment in 11th grade. We had a wonderful clay teacher. She taught us clay sculpture and the culminating work of our sculptural work was to work on a human head. It's an amazing experience and this is very related to our theme.
Speaker 1:How do we see ourselves? Well, you, if you have to do the work of actually outside yourself, working with material substances, shape a human face and head, a whole three-dimensional head, and and reveal the human being in clay. This is creator work, right? It's very powerful to do that in high school and I'm getting close to finished on my head and my teacher, my clay teacher, comes around and just starts gushing, gushing about the head and gushing about me, saying these superlatives about. I can't remember, thank God, I don't know. It was like her trying to see me. This is really interesting. She's trying to reflect my light back to me, but what I so she's complimenting and it's like when I say gushing, right, it's like it's a little much, right. It's like wow, and you're a man, oh my God. Right, it's like it's a little much right, it's like wow and you're a man, oh my god.
Speaker 1:And she's like 60. You know she's an older adult and I'm 17. I'm a 17 year old male human and I'm aware, at that point in my life, of my weaknesses, I'm aware of my struggling, I'm aware of my hurting, I'm aware of my very much being an unfinished growing being who struggles in their own way, who struggles in their own way, and this person is trying to see me and all they're seeing to reflect is what they see are gifts. And what I did was, I remember, just being full of pain, feeling completely not seen. Just being full of pain, feeling completely not seen, and I decided to take it out on my head and I just started punching it. Wow, an amazing experience about punching. That's a powerful picture to imagine.
Speaker 1:It takes your blows and holds the form. So the form of your fist is left and you can see it right there See it, and it was like this, deeply satisfying thing, and I just had a full session, just it wasn't wild. It wasn't wild, it was pretty methodical. I just beat my head up. Wow, yeah, I just I made it ugly. Right, I made it interesting.
Speaker 3:So so for you, this, this maybe I could call it exaggerated praise, because it felt untrue and generated a kind of anger and rage or dissatisfaction.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that I felt was not feeling seen, mm-hmm, yeah, that what the person the people are seeing are gifts I had that I did nothing for, mm. I was just born with them. Mm, they weren't seeing the person in me, which is the person struggling and working on their life, where I'm alive as a person. The fact that I happened to be able to sing or work with clay or whatever, that wasn't something I had. I was 17. I hadn't done anything.
Speaker 1:How can you praise me? I haven't actually done anything yet, is I just happened to go to a Waldorf school and I happened to be naturally gifted in certain ways. These are all it was like praising. It'd been better if they had praised God, yeah, yeah, how beautiful that God has gifted you with these gifts and how strengthening it would have been to me to say and Patrick, what are you going to do with them? Are you going to fritter them away? Yeah, are you going to do something with the gifts? I would have been like, oh damn, whoa. Yeah, what am I going to do? Because it's more true, it's more real, it's more true, yeah, like, if you're valuing me based on my luggage, what I'm bringing with me in my little bags, then you're identifying those things as me and they're not right, they're not me. So what I felt was extremely lonely. Anytime the praise stuff came at that level, I felt it looked like I was having a community who was appreciating me, and you'd think you'd feel more connected.
Speaker 3:I felt more deeply lonely and unseen, separated, and what I thought was people were seeing something they desired not me as a person, right, because that wasn't even you, so it's like they desired gifts from God.
Speaker 1:Yeah and just, and and you, patrick, was somewhere and now I can praise God that those gifts bless people. Yes, like I can take it differently now. Yes, at that time I couldn't take it. Now, if someone praises a gift, I can praise God that those gifts bless people. Yes, like I can take it differently now. Yes, at that time I couldn't take it. Now, if someone praises a gift, I can be so thankful, hallelujah, that those gifts are a blessing in your life, and I'm clear that what you think is me is not me. That's fine, it's okay. What you're receiving is a gift that I was gifted from God and my job is to somehow let God shine through them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that's very interesting. Could we stop?
Speaker 1:there. Yeah, sorry, yeah, no, no.
Speaker 3:What I mean by stop is, I feel like already, as our conversation has organically grown, what you just said there is an example of a process of integration of shadow into a healthy relationship with that shadow and a healthy relationship with God, like putting it in its place, getting clear, that leads to better community life. Yeah, and you involved Super well said so. How could we? Maybe we can just tease that out a little bit, like at first it was a suffering experience because you felt unseen and you felt lonely and you felt something was untrue, illusion, illusion. People were admiring an illusion and there was something was untrue, illusion, illusion.
Speaker 1:People were admiring an illusion.
Speaker 3:And there was a little bit of anger there. I would just submit oh yeah, how can my adults not see through that Exactly.
Speaker 1:What does that?
Speaker 3:mean Right Disappointment in others. My elders can't see through that yeah how can they be?
Speaker 1:elders I'm 17. I can't see through that. Yeah, how can they be elders I'm 17. I can't be the elder. Yeah, can I? It was very disturbing.
Speaker 3:Well, but that also that word right there, that I need to be the elder in the midst of people who should be elders that is a deep pain and a deep shadow. That probably didn't start there Just a wild guess, right? But that's an example and we don't have to get into the depths of that. But that's an example of a deep pain, a wound that can arise in a community experience that needs to be integrated, needs to be made whole.
Speaker 1:I'm really curious how this was for you, because I feel like that was a massive theme. Growing up in a Waldorf school, which is an unusual education system that has very high ideals, is oriented towards more than just the physical reality but towards the parts of reality beyond the physical and tries to integrate that into the schooling. So, with all beautiful things, I could feel like the whole school felt that that kind of glory, the capacity and gift and shining in that way was the thing and that was deeply disappointing. Yeah, it felt to me like the whole school in general had succumbed to a false light.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:In general. In general, I can see that in the descriptions, and what you were orientated to was wait a minute. I want to. You might not have been able to articulate it then so well, but I want to be seen in my real self, the one that's actually taking steps and working on something and really growing itself, and I want the gifts to be seen as grace, blessings and that would have looked like.
Speaker 1:The gaze that is turned towards me is the same as the gaze towards the person who's really struggling to build that clay head.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you can't compare us. That's the first great sin there. The way you look at it is for that person, where's their growing point? Their growing point might be at a totally different place. Are they coming to their growing point and are they trying to move beyond it trying?
Speaker 2:to move beyond it.
Speaker 1:If they are and I'm over here making a pretty head but not really growing they're doing better work than me. That's for me. That's the spirit gaze that I was looking for. It would never have judged things based on outer successes. Whatever you know, bar, that was meant to measure Right. A teacher, a teacher's gaze, right. And I feel like you had that teacher. That's because I've met her and I've seen her effect in your life. Yeah, who wasn't in love with the illusion of gifts but interested in what is truly going on inside there and what's your growing point?
Speaker 3:That's so well said. It's interesting because I've never really thought about my teacher in that way, actually until this moment. But you're so right, you know, the gift Marianne Gray has is she. She's she's very aware of, yeah, gifts, and I remember she was so. She just really embraced one moment when she asked us to draw the big building of the school and I sat down and I tried to draw the whole thing and she was like wow, you did a really great job. But she said it in a way that was like but that's not the most important thing your talent, your talent. She said it in a way that said okay, now what's the next thing you're going to work on? How are you going to work with that talent? How are you going to take up that gift that you have and do something more? I'll never forget.
Speaker 3:Also, like at one point in grade 8 8th grade we were talking about like what's the best kind of job you can get, where you don't have to, where you can just your money will make money for you and you can just, you know, chill out and not have to work. And I'll never forget it. She says I'm not interested in that kind of job at all. In fact I'm surprised that anyone would be interested in that. She says I love to work. I love to work no matter what it is. And she said to me. She said if you find something to love to work at, you will always be okay. And I'll never forget that because her mode was I'm not looking for a free ride, I'm not looking for comfort, even though comforts abound and it's wonderful and you don't enjoy life but the work is the thing, yeah so.
Speaker 3:So that's true.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that was very, very much the case in that elder yeah, and, and you've told me stories of her challenging you too, oh, seeing where you weren't stepping into your, your possibility, and calling that out of you Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, even to this day. Even to this day, I mean, she's, she just has that mode. So it inspires it in you Because there's a big you know and this is probably true for many of us there's a big part of my shadow that just wants to relax, do nothing and have everything be easy. But if I don't have the right relationship to that reality in me, it can become even more destructive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is an interesting little loop we took, which also just has to do with I think that's the special experience of how we are looked at by someone who is an elder in relationship to us, whose gaze we expect to have more wisdom, outer failures to the true alive growing being at the center of that person's story.
Speaker 3:So that third thing, that's neither the gifted superhuman nor the weak, needy stuck-in-the-mire human, but the growing human, that gaze, that third way of seeing, seems to be a part of what we're looking at Exactly, and I just want to emphasize that I know we're coming to
Speaker 3:an end for this conversation, but I have one more question for you too. Okay, yeah, you too. There seems to be two extremes there, right, like one, I could say, oh well, everything is just a gift and I'm just going to wait and enjoy the gifts that I receive. I could also become needy for that adulation, oh yeah, right, and I could start to do everything, because there's a kind of addictive hit that I can generate by getting the praise from others. Yeah, but it doesn't feel true, so it always leaves me kind of empty. Yeah, so there's definitely two.
Speaker 3:But the question I have for you, though, is I can also see the possibility, through that encounter and that disappointment in the elders, that if you don't do something with that experience in the right way, if you don't integrate that pain that you've discovered in the right way, if you don't integrate that pain that you've discovered in the right way, you could also go the route of a tyrannical judger of all the inadequacies of the elders oh for sure and just be like you suck all the time oh yeah, full of anger. How did that? Can you say anything about how you gradually integrated that pain?
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm not done. I think you can hear in my voice too, there's still pain in it. I think you can hear in my voice too, there's still pain in it, talking out of the pain rather than really fully integrating it and permeating it. But I think you could say this deep longing to understand humans. Why are we the way we are? Why are we blind in certain ways? Why would we ever mistake those kinds of gifts for the person? Why would anyone have a way of looking that doesn't see the true being? Why would we be spiritually blind?
Speaker 1:So, really getting to name the questions and pursue them with all my heart and being, what's going on with humans? What is our story? What is our history? History, how did we used to have elders? What was the role young adults used to go through? Teenagers? How did they come to know what was a true, the true part of me and what was the false part of me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, there were all these rights and rituals and practices where you got to know what was essential and what was inessential. What was the true part of who you are, that is beyond death, and the part that is just dust, that that, or the personality that you're inhabiting. These were all you know. This is just an example of like I had to, and I pursued and continue to pursue truth, the truth of being human and what the earth is, what our story is. And that because I can feel in all of those experiences a kind of confrontation with my own blindness. I don't understand why she would see me that way, why so many of my elders would confuse my gifts with my person. Yeah, my gifts with my person. Yeah, and this long route of just taking my questions really seriously and pursuing them.
Speaker 1:That means I've been begging for light for a long, long time standing at the road being like I am blind and I really want to see, because I know if I do see, then I can step back into life with more love and I won't be full of anger, I won't be condemning, I'll be understanding. Oh, there's a story here, oh, that led, leads to that, and that's of course. We're not getting getting into that, but that's, you could say, the integration work. When riddles hit, when stones enter my clamshell, I work them, I work them over, I I let, I really don't you know.
Speaker 1:Some people have told me all my life, dude, relax, stop being so intense. Right, why can't you just go enjoy a movie, why you got to understand every part of the movie and, like, see it in the light of spirituality, right, like I know you deal with this too. It's like how you guys wish you guys could know. Like jonah comes back from seeing the movie frozen. He's like patrick frozen too. It's full of, like, all of these amazing spiritual truths and christian mysteries. Right, so you can't take experiences in without digesting them spiritually. That's how you're oriented and that's how I'm oriented.
Speaker 3:But I love that. So first, as we close, we came to this part of the shadow work that has to do with overcoming Resting yourself free. Some things are not worth trying to deeply understand If it's just an unhelpful thought that's going over and over and over.
Speaker 3:You need to have the strength to rest yourself free yeah but then there's some shadow parts of the shadow, parts of our darkness, parts of our pain that are calling for a deep, a deepening and a working with a tilling over a composting that bear fruits because of your deeper understanding. They're wanting to be penetrated so that we can have more understanding and compassion for human beings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, understanding that leads to compassion, that even though I might continue to be looked at and people are seeing not the true self activity within me, but have false pictures of who I am, that I'm not, I actually don't. That doesn't hurt me anymore in. Yeah, in the same ways, because I've done and continue to do so much work to see them, yeah, and love them, and love human and understand the human drama, and peace has come Feeling more connected with human beings has come and my will is just, like you know, I need to chill it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need to chill, brother, and so this is the very, very concrete experience. This being is truth. Yeah, Like for real, not ideological, it's the reality of of the universe, is a being who is grow, dawning within me as I grow towards this being, and that his, his, the nature of his truths leads to these kinds of fruits Peace, strength and will union.
Speaker 1:And that's where I think we are and want to go right. It's therefore, in some ways I can't be more close to. I don't have the place I have the best chance at real truth is with myself, because I am that. Everything else is, to a degree, outside of me. So if I'm not willing to practice truth, do truth.
Speaker 2:Work with myself well how can I ever build a foundation?
Speaker 1:for truth work with anything else. No, there's nothing nearer to me than me. But if I'm not willing to do truth work with what is nearest, I'll never find a foundation for the rest of the truth work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a good plug at the end for shadow work. Yeah, yeah, it has to start with yourself. It's the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Because if you start with others, you focus on others and their shadows and the shadows of the world. It remains condemnational.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the fruits are like anger, rage, disappointment, absolutely, but that's maybe that's an important thing to say is, well, it's actually easier to see the shadow of the people around me. That's also true in the material world yeah. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just easier to see the shadows around me. It's actually hard to step outside myself and see myself. Yeah, honestly, it's scary and very challenging, and I think that that's another reason why we just would rather go around it. Yeah, but this is what I'd love to take some more steps with. Great Thank you, patrick. Didn't think I'd end up back in high school clay class, but there we go Beating up your head.
Speaker 2:Thanks everyone, ¶¶, ¶¶. ©. Transcript Emily Beynon you.