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: Shadows, Light, and the Path to Non-Condemnation — Christian Shadow Work, Episode 2 (2023)
In this episode’s exploration of shadow work in Christianity, Patrick and Jonah venture into territory many ”on the way” find challenging: how to face our flaws, weaknesses, and darkness without falling into either denial or self-condemnation.
The conversation begins with a vital distinction between healthy shadow work that leads to authentic humility and the unhealthy wallowing in self-criticism that can become its own form of spiritual ego. Drawing on personal experiences, biblical wisdom from Paul's letters, and the story of the man born blind, they challenge popular religious misconceptions that equate suffering with divine punishment or suggest that true spirituality means instant perfection.
A different view of human shadows emerges. Unlike traditions that demand we either hide our weaknesses or punish ourselves for having them, Christ offers a third way: seeing our shadows truthfully while holding them in a gaze of unconditional love. "There's no condemnation in Christ"* doesn't mean our flaws don't exist – it means they're included in the redemption story, valued as the very ground where divine light does its transformative work.
Most powerfully, Patrick and Jonah reveal how true spiritual wisdom isn't born from perfection but from integrating our shadows. When we speak from a place that has acknowledged darkness and worked through suffering, our words carry a depth and authenticity that spiritual bypassing never achieves. As Christ demonstrated through the cross itself, sometimes our greatest weaknesses become the most profound revelations of divine love.
Some of us struggle mightily with perfectionism or are haunted by past mistakes. Some of us on the way are simply called by Truth to radical honesty on the spiritual path. We hope this episode offers a liberating vision: our entire being—shadows included—is gradually being transformed, through our life in Christ, into a vessel of heavenly light. How might our relationship with ourselves change if we approached our flaws not as evidence of failure, but as sacred ground for transformation?
*Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 1.
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 ccseminary to become a part of an incredible community of support of listeners who interact and engage with the podcast. Okay, enjoy ¶¶.
Speaker 3:Good morning Patrick, jonah greetings.
Speaker 2:Happy Ascension Is that what you say? Yeah, I'm asking Happy Ascension, is that a thing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm asking Happy Ascension, Glorious Ascension Joyous.
Speaker 1:Praise filled. And what is Ascension? Yeah, such a special thing.
Speaker 3:I would love, of course, to be just talking about that in many ways Diving into the Ascension energy.
Speaker 1:We might be going down before we go up.
Speaker 3:There you go. Well, welcome to another episode, another conversation, where two priests seek to deepen, in conversation, the mysteries of Christianity, the light in everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're coming to you into this universe, geographically located in the Toronto Canada area, a little seminary of the Christian community Worldwide Movement for Religious Renewal, movement for religious renewal, and we're on, I think, a big theme in the renewal work Right now, a series. We've just started our second episode. I think I ended up on the title Casting Shadows. Maybe that was the first episode shadow, not shadow casting. Now that sounds like some kind of D and D thing. Shadow casting, no. Um, what role does attention to the shadows we cast play in actually our work in overcoming the divide? And shadows always have to do with light. So we're going to begin with our opening words that we always begin with. This is from the Gospel of John in the 8th chapter, verse 12. Verse 12. I am the light of the world. The one who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so what I remember, Patrick, from our last conversation was we really were diving into this mystery of why, in a way, why look at the shadow? Of why, in a way, why look at the shadow? What value does shadow work if you could say it like that have for Christianity? Why not just focus on the light or banish the shadow, if that's even possible? And it was wonderful, I think, for both of us in the course of the conversation last time to discover that there really does have value. There really is value in looking at the shadow and, out of our own stories, kind of discovering again that there were two main values, and one was this experience of encountering your darkness, encountering your weaknesses, encountering your shadow in a particular way along the path can lead you to a kind of healthy humility. Just a sense. I don't have all the right answers, I make mistakes I can't see sometimes. So finding a right relationship to your shadow can give you the benefit of a type of humility that helps you be a better brother or sister.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said it so beautifully. I thought too of just like it's like ingesting truth, like really truth's relationship to your own person, and the strength of just being more and more truth in truth, in reality in truth.
Speaker 3:so there's this value that knowing the shadow just like shadows exist here knowing the shadow helps us be more real and in a way, helps us that realness helps us be more real with each other, and that was interesting how that came out. That humility, actual, real humility is just kind of being really real, trying to get really factual with who we are. It's not a fake piety that's often understood as humility.
Speaker 1:Right, Humility as a set of physical gestures, so to speak.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, I have to be kind of. I'm small a certain way all the time putting on something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, diminishment.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that as an activity to diminish myself? Right, no, just truth, truthfulness.
Speaker 3:So, this discovery in a way anew, that healthy perception of our shadow leads to healthy social life, leads to healthy social life, starting to bridge that gap between one another that we've talked about so many times. And then there was also another danger that arose, another way of looking at this shadow work, which could be that I get overly involved with my weaknesses, overly involved with my sufferings, and that becomes a strange kind of egotism, a strange kind of self-centeredness that breaks down community life, and I think that was interesting how that came out as well. So in that way, the usefulness of healthy shadow work also means not wallowing and determining that we can find on so many spiritual paths I am nothing, I'm a worm, I'm worth nothing, and a kind of perceived unworthiness can also lead to self-centeredness and community breakdown.
Speaker 1:There's this false light. I'm a star, you all are. Peons self. That is someone who is lacking that truthfulness work.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm a black hole that actually sucks the light out of the room because I'm so self-involved. It's the internalized weight and pressures are pulling on the light in the room and there's a different mode that has a deeply social element in it, born of self-truthfulness.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So maybe in that light we can try to take a step further. And I think what I'm inspired to do today, also in light of this word in our Ascension Liturgy, where Christ now is gradually transforming earthly being into heavenly being, this is a word from our liturgy, from our liturgy. He's here, but he's not leaving the shadows, the darkness, the weaknesses, the difficulties. He's not wallowing in them, he's not denying them, he's not leaving them. He's gradually, like a compost, almost transforming earthly being into heavenly being, with his presence, with his word, with his activity. And so there's just something inspiring to me there in terms of, okay, well, I know in myself I've got this one in me that wants to be the star, wants to deny my weaknesses, wants to kind of have all the answers. I know in myself there's one that wants to wallow and and falls into a kind of self-pity. And so what do I do with those things? Now, I've determined that it's not super healthy. We've determined it's useful to look at the shadow in particular ways. We've determined it's useful to look at the shadow in particular ways. But how do I live with these tendencies?
Speaker 3:And I'm inspired by a word from Paul, because we've been working with that, and he says in Romans 7, 8, in Christ there's no condemnation, and he's just finishing talking about that. In his being there's all kinds of sin, working darkness, shadow In his sheaths, in his members. Even though this is Paul, perhaps the greatest Christian of all time, there is sin working in me. There's these weaknesses, and in Christ there's no condemnation. Yeah so.
Speaker 3:I just, I thought, maybe that.
Speaker 1:That's really exciting. I mean, I think this what would it mean to step into the light and experience that it doesn't condemn me? What is that experience? I really want to get to that, Jonah, but I realize I'm not sure I understand yet what we mean by shadow. Oh, I've heard you list a couple of things that I don't know if I in my life would necessarily have included there, and and I'm suddenly like really interested I don't want to assume, also with our listeners, that they know what, what we're all including or not including in shadow. So I've heard weakness, I've heard sin, I've heard Tendencies toward egotism. You said suffering was shadow. So now I realize I'm in a mush place and I'm longing for light. So can we just take a moment before we get to the In order to get into the non-condemnation I feel like, for example, why would anyone condemn someone who's suffering Exactly If shadow is suffering well? Of course, I sure hope there's no condemnation for someone who's suffering Well and yet there is right.
Speaker 3:We see this all the time right, like, for example there is right. We see this all the time right, for example For example in our for lack of a better term new age spirituality world. If you're sick and you're suffering, you're not aligned with God. Actually there's something off in you. Actually there's something off in you and you very often can feel from someone who's on that path a condemnation spirit because you're suffering, so you're not practicing the secret correctly. Exactly.
Speaker 3:You're not visualizing your best life well enough, or the prosperity gospel If you're poor in the mega churches that proclaim that blessing from God means wealth, and that's rampant everywhere now. Poverty means.
Speaker 1:You're outside of God's blessing.
Speaker 3:You're outside of God's blessing.
Speaker 1:You're outside of God's blessing. You must be in some kind of suffering you've brought upon yourself. There's some wrath of God that you're under. You're under a condemnation. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, for example, in John 9, as we were talking about recently, the story of the man born blind, the question from the disciples of Jesus is who sinned that this one was born blind, his parents or this man? The only reason he's suffering must be because he's suffering, you could say, a consequence, a condemnation, an expression of judgment, and so his suffering is an expression of judgment. So that's what you mean by.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I mean, but it's a really good question. It's actually quite a deep question what really is shadow?
Speaker 1:I just want to call out a shadow in the anthroposophical world I grew up in. Okay, it's the same. Like, oh, clearly that's your karma. Like you brought that on yourself. Same same idea. Like that's that's. You know, don't help that person. Let you know that's just they're. They're getting their just rewards.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a way of looking at karma that is condemnational in a way. Yeah, but I think this is a good question because if we're going to get into Paul's word, that whatever shadow is it's? Not to be condemned if we're connected to Christ. Well, we need to know what shadow is before we can not condemn it.
Speaker 1:That would help me. Yes, okay, so when you use that term, what are some of the things that are connected to it for you? What?
Speaker 3:are some of the things that are connected to it. For you Well, I mean for me, first off, it would just be like things that I see in myself that are weaknesses that don't have the feeling for me those are my full, full humanity, like arrogance, for example.
Speaker 1:So some kind of a way of being, a behavior, a way of bearing yourself, yeah, a behavior, a feeling, a thought, they're all connected. A habit and the inner measuring stick you're using, like how are?
Speaker 3:you determining. Well, that's the interesting thing, right, and I think that's something that's very important for our listeners is that the only way and this is unique to humanity the only way to determine a shadow is with light.
Speaker 3:So you, know, there's no animal that looks and says, oh, I could be better like the tigers or the elephants, I could be better like the tigers or the elephants, I could be better. That's not occurring because they're fundamentally connected with their archetype. We've talked about that. But for the human, if I look into myself and I do often and I see some arrogance, I can only make that discernment because I also feel there's a potential in me. There's another human that I can sense, that is not arrogant, that is more complete, more full, more whole. I can only see that because I can know.
Speaker 1:I could be better. So somehow, the experience that noticing this way of being and that it is not something you aspire to, only comes about because there's some perception, an actual perception of that which you aspire to, that you would call good and this other thing is not good. Right, but even that You're coming to some kind of judgment right.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and I think that that's interesting that you say perception, because that's probably also a gradual experience. At first for me, I wasn't perceiving this subtle good being that I could. It was more, I just knew I could be better Right. But in reality that's a subtle perception.
Speaker 1:Right, because the only way that's possible there is got to be some you're comparing, there's some you're looking at it next to something else. This is the only way you could ever discern, oh, that there's another way I've seen or experienced somehow. Yeah, this is, of course, where psychology often steps in and says well, there are these normative things that people have said in your environment and they say Dave said this is good, this is bad. People have said in your environment and they said Dave said this is good, this is bad, and that has infected your kind of conscious self and now you're determining through your own judgment, regardless of what has come your way from the outside. You're also saying this is what, for me, feels good, this is what for me. You're determining your own through this perception. Could you even say cause I know this is a new thing you're into ugly. There's something ugly about my arrogance and there's something beautiful about true humility. So it's like an aesthetic beauty, feeling sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's that too. Beauty, moral like the ugliness of my arrogance strikes, pokes me in the eye. Yeah, it's like I don't have to philosophize about it, right, it's just like right and it's so universal right.
Speaker 3:It smells bad. We can all, we all have this and do this. It doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 1:If you're a human, you're making aesthetic moral discernments, judgments in your inner being about what's beautiful and ugly right and so that that of course becomes in a whole massive thing to really look at, which is why I think you bring in the no condemnation. How is your scale working? How is your judgment discernment process working? Okay, so, any. So I hear you saying anything that I discern in that. Looking at myself in this aesthetic it's such an awful word but like this beauty sense, the sense of moral beauty that seems to be implanted in our hearts when I turn and look at myself and see a moral ugliness, how am I seeing that and what am I doing with what I'm seeing? But whatever I may see you're saying, that is you could say, oh, not that, something else you're putting. That is, you could say, oh, not that, something else you're putting into this category shadow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:The category shadow, but the shadow changes according to the quality of the light. So that's a big thing, right? Yeah, this is subtle stuff.
Speaker 1:It's a subtle thing.
Speaker 3:But I just also want to say this is also going on when we look out in the world right, when we look at one another.
Speaker 1:Yes, amen. So obviously right. I hope that's how we judge anything. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So like if I look out into the world and I see all this stuff going on and I think I only criticize it or call it ugly because I have in my mind another picture of what it should be or could be or has to be. So that's also occurring all the time when we look at our government, when we look at the nature, when we look at our government, when we look at the nature, when we look at our car, so.
Speaker 1:So there's this absolutely exact for me, beautiful line from the gospels with the judgment measuring stick, with the measuring stick you use on other things and people, that's what will be used upon yourself. There's like a little lawfulness the way I look at the world and how I judge and measure it, measuring it against something, my measuring stick that will be. I will experience that same judgment upon myself. I'll reap what I sow. Yeah, and I often, often experience this in myself and in people in my life. Someone who's deeply critical of the world around them is often it can flip and they can be witheringly critical upon themselves, Just devastatingly so, Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And also encountering people that are deeply critical of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, they keep meeting them, right yeah.
Speaker 3:Because you're deeply critical of everyone, right?
Speaker 1:It draws it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:What you reap, you sow yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow so. So so but we don't have many examples yet so far. We have one thing arrogance. We keep coming back to it. Meh, we're not going to get into why, but what are some? What are some of the things that that you think of? Because I'm still trying to get a sense and feel for for how you think of this shadow yeah, what are some examples then?
Speaker 3:right, right, I mean. This is interesting because, depending on the kind of light you're carrying, the shadow may look different or not. For example, the, the example you used in the beginning, the kind of New Age culture or the kind of deformed anthroposophical culture where I'm looking at a suffering and I'm seeing disconnect from God. For that perception, that's a shadow suffering Because of the quality of light, because the light has determined what's good and bad, what's right and wrong, and it's okay to, for example, criticize that's just your karma but that's a quality of light that in Christ, turns out to be shadow Because it's harsh. It doesn't see in it that suffering is always a potential doorway to the cross.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. So would you say, oh, this is really interesting, jonah. So that so. So, as a human being, I'm seeking also my what inspires me. I'm seeking where I, where I find light. I'm seeking where I find light. I'm seeking light and, depending on what I have found to be the light, that will have its effect on how I see shadow and what shadows I see, or what I name as shadow or a darkness. But I think I feel like that simple process you described of also just being a person and going along and suddenly just noticing something, as if I'm not even on a spiritual path and I just notice something, a character trait or even an actual deed done. You said there's also something just kind of implanted in us, this aesthetic judgment in relationship to a true light. That's what I feel like I heard you say there is a non-arbitrary element as well.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm not necessarily. I'm not suggesting that it's all relative, but a lot of it has to do with the type of light that I'm shining, and at first that type of that light is unconscious because it comes from conditioning from my parents, it comes from the culture, it comes from lots of things.
Speaker 1:Well, this is key for me. Yeah, because that would all be imported. Is there anything intrinsic? Absolutely.
Speaker 3:I would say Christ's light is in every human being period, but it often has to be uncovered Cultural lights.
Speaker 1:So there's like a true light dressed in cultural garments, that's right.
Speaker 3:That's good. That has to be actually found. The Luciferic light, which is very often the light of condemnation, is in most cultures very strongly. That has to be worked with. For example, when I first saw my arrogance, I'd either want to deny it or a subtle form of anger would come up in me. I have to be different. I have to be different. That is unacceptable. I can't be that way.
Speaker 1:So you can feel a banishment yeah, a kind of attack that's the roots of condemnation yeah, okay, so I think I'm hearing two lights. To me it seems like there is a light that is very much just like the sunlight. That is when it dawns. Before it dawns is darkness. You just can't see A light dawns and you can see okay, over there is this, over there is that, you just see something. And then there's a second light that comes in, which is like how do I judge what I see? The first one feels revelatory and totally neutral.
Speaker 1:It's just like look there is a chair on the deck. Now I can go. Who the hell put that chair on that deck? I wanted that to be clear. That's a second layer. What do I do with the information received? And for me, right now, the word I have for that first light in this moral aesthetic perception, the word we have seems to be an English conscience. The word we have seems to be an English conscience, the light that reveals the moral quality of my person in an objective way, just a revelatory way, like the information. Jonah, you were just being arrogant. Just facts, remember our fact work like just, first of all, some facts. Then this second layer is. And now, in what light will I now handle this situation? Respond to the situation? What is my approach to dealing with? The truth revealed is how does that land for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I like how you separated it, although I'm not sure it's that simple. But I think there is something there because, for example, the conscience, as you called it, this objective kind of like the sun that just appears and sheds light, the conscience we've all had these experiences where we've done something, or we've said something and or we've interacted in some way with a human and then at night or the next day we can't let it go. It just kind of keeps coming back and we're like repeating it and there's something niggling at us that we can't expunge, no matter how we twist it Right. So in that way I can see an objective, sun-like part of my conscience that, no matter how I twist it, it's still niggling at me. It's still just saying there's something there that's off. Right.
Speaker 3:And yet the complexity. Part of it is also that the conscience can be schooled. The conscience is also part of how I carry on and look, and I've noticed in myself over these 20 years of trying to live with Christ that the way my conscience works has changed. My conscience was very attuned to condemnation in the beginning, actually, and it's gradually been declothed of the false light. De-clothed of the false light. So the conscience, the conscience in us, also suffers the false lights and has to be purified.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting Because for me, in my experience, it's the light of my own mind that has had to be schooled, the light of my own heart. My conscience has worked in such a way, very objective, just revealing, and it's like then the reactions start. That's like the reactive part of my being which has had had to be a part of the dealing facing itself, and the part of me that hasn't wanted that light to shine like that's's. That's that's trying to find right relationship to the truthful light. But there is a, you know a way in which it's just kind of it's just a it's so interesting it's. It's when I go back and have spent more and more time in that truthful light. In it I find no condemnation In me, I find lots of it.
Speaker 3:No, I hear you there and I think, yeah, for me I just wouldn't. I would also say there's that objective other, because ultimately your conscience is Christ, which is not you. But I would just say, for me there's a learning to hear my conscience clearly, which in effect, in experience is often declothing what I thought was a part of my conscience. Yeah, totally Letting go of. For example, you find this often in counseling work where someone's conscience what they're saying is from their conscience is actually the voice of their father Right, or the voice of their mother voice of their father or the voice of their mother and that has to be let go of, transformed, seen as not actually the true conscience. It's clouded.
Speaker 1:It's shrouded. Yeah, you're not in the, just the information revealed by the light. Yes, you're immediately in all the other judgments about what is seen and the information and the stories and all the reactive things around which, just, if you could slow back down and go back. Let's just go to the dawn and just look at what's revealed and not come yet to any bunches of judgments and things about that. Let's just look.
Speaker 3:Let's just look. So this is another interesting thing. It's like the journey to find the true voice of Christ that is actually the conscience, is not just an immediate ping, but it's often a gradual, even though it's there objectively, a gradual uncovering from what I thought was the voice of goodness in me.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, yeah, and that's very powerful and I heard you talking about that also just in our life that we have to school our gaze.
Speaker 3:School, our gaze yeah.
Speaker 1:And there's this separating the chaff from the wheat that I hear was describing right down into the inner light processes the light that is revelatory and objective and actually just showing something that's true. And then the light that is my own judgment process. You know, a very powerful, very, very powerful example of this was George Ritchie's experience, after he died, standing in the presence of a being from whom he experienced a brightness and a light coming that was brighter than anything. He had the feeling like I need to cover my eyes, they're going to be destroyed, it's so bright. And then he had this experience of seeing his whole life spread out around him in the classic you know this was a very one of the early ones that was published in near-death experiences.
Speaker 1:But seeing just his life, truthfully, and in the presence of also this being, from whom also he experienced unending love just pouring out of him and a question what have you done with your life? And him immediately reacting and he starts searching through all of his story that's right there in front of him like a three-dimensional panorama of his whole biography. It's all happening at the same time. He can explore any scene and he's looking for something that he thinks is going to be worthwhile and he feels he has to stand in the light of this being and show him something that was like well, at least I did this right. And he's searching everywhere and he's just seeing oh my God, I was so petty there, I was nasty there, I was selfish there. And he's just seeing oh my God, I was so petty there, I was nasty there, I was selfish there. And he's just seeing all these things and he's starting to just heap condemnation on himself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then he comes back to this being and he experiences the question again what have you done with your life? And he hears in his question zero condemnation. He's just interested. He's interested to know. And he realized all the condemnation was coming from himself, towards his own life, and none of it was coming from this being, none of it was coming from Christ. But at first he thought so, he thought that kind of condemning judgment was coming from this being Exactly. Right. So this is exactly that.
Speaker 3:Right. So it was almost like his true conscience was uncovered, right. It was a revelation itself, right, that he wasn't aware of because he's so used to the conflagration or the oh yeah, what is the word? Conflation? Conflation of his own judging, condemning, with his conscience, his true conscience.
Speaker 1:So it's like he has the moment comes of a discernment between true conscience and his lower, self-judgment conscience, who's looking for a version of glory of the self that he thinks the higher conscience uses as its measuring rod, which does not.
Speaker 3:And at the same time, the interesting thing is and Paul also had that experience in a different way, experience in a different way the shadows. It wasn't as if the true conscience or Christ was saying oh, those weaknesses or difficulties don't exist. I see them very clearly.
Speaker 1:Like yeah, does he get suddenly go? Oh, no, I wasn't petty.
Speaker 3:No, he was petty, he wasn't like a positivity coach Like, oh no, that's not real, you're the best, you're awesome, you did great. Yeah, yeah. He was, he would just like the woman caught in adultery. He said yeah, those are sins. And his question what actually have you done? Was in relationship to not much, not much, not much good.
Speaker 1:I haven't done much, lord. I've done this, I've done these things.
Speaker 3:And that the seeing is the value like. See it and see it now next to me, beholding weaknesses, beholding manure, beholding shadow, and not condemning it but also saying try again.
Speaker 1:And what rises up naturally, powerfully, with such elemental force like falling in love, such elemental force like falling in love, is the feeling in him. I want nothing other than my life to radiate the same love and light that comes from you, like cause. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3:And that connects to the word that Paul has, as well as Rudolf Steiner that when we come into the presence of this being connected also to my first experience when we come into the presence of this kind of love, when the true conscience has been unveiled, we feel fully human in its light, in its presence and, like you just said, there's nothing I want more than to be in the image and likeness of this. I want to. You are the measuring rod.
Speaker 1:You're the idol. You are the only thing I. You suddenly become that which I judge my life through and by Now. Not for condemnation, but as guide.
Speaker 3:That's so different, as helping guide. So then you can start to work on how, as you discerned your personal judgment, you can work on how your personal seeing is in relationship to that seeing that you experienced from him, and you can make the long journey of starting to imitate that way of seeing. That means also letting go of other ways of seeing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that process that we've just gone through there, that's very familiar to me. And then I have the experience of then looking at if I see myself again, if I'm granted the ability through my work, which I can lean in towards and practice also, sometimes events just open up and I suddenly can see myself, like it happened in George Ritchie's life. But I can also really practice stepping outside of myself and trying to see myself in his light, and then which takes courage, we'll have to get into that, of course. And then what I'm noticing is what are the things in me that are blocking his light and casting a shadow?
Speaker 3:Because shadows are cast by the blockage of light, the blockage of light.
Speaker 1:How can that become more and more transparent to him, to his nature? Yeah, so that becomes something I'm familiar with, but that feels different for me. I wonder also the thing that then George Ritchie looks and sees and goes I was selfish and petty to my younger sibling. I hear you also interested in how. What do I do with that darkness I've generated in the world? How do I move forward with that? Things I've done that I'm ashamed of.
Speaker 3:Right or or or another in other words Right. Or, in other words, when George Ritchie has this experience and he sees those pettinesses, selfishness, qualities in the light of the true conscience, in the light of Christ, it's not as if those immediately just vanish after the experience. Right, they still, you know, they still are there. So how do we relate to them? Again and again, the character traits too, the character traits, whatever it is working to allow Christ's light to shine through them. Allow Christ's light to shine through them, but they gradually fall away, transform.
Speaker 1:Right so that apparently it doesn't happen that you see it and then you change it. From that day forward, never, ever do that again. It doesn't happen. So some things might die, but many, many things you have to continue to live with and work with.
Speaker 3:That's right. Sometimes you can have the experience Once. I see something, and it can be that it just goes, but I would contend, I would submit, that very often there's also a feeling of grace with that meaning it's been lifted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're suddenly outside of it through the gift of the revelation of that light.
Speaker 3:That's right. So that connects to the in the Christian life when we say the word of the gospel wipes out that which lives in, pure in our word, or the might of the adversary is taken from us, Right.
Speaker 1:Or for me, also the word. There is one coming who will separate the wheat from the chaff. So the presence of this power helps me determine what has life in it and what is just dead and needs to go to the fire.
Speaker 3:That's right, there's life in it and what is just dead and needs to go to the fire. That's right, but the experience that has to do with condemnation has more to do with where Paul is describing. That's often misunderstood. As I'm saved, I have the Christ experience and therefore I sin no more. Everything is a-okay from now on. I'm free of all vices and I'm just living in Christ and all things are great. That's very often, especially in the more I would just say fundamentalist movements, the picture that you receive, which then ironically makes a person fall into more self-condemnation because inevitably You're not yet fully transformed.
Speaker 3:You're not fully.
Speaker 1:Oh no, you're definitely making shadows. Still, it's actually also in the long tradition of the Catholic tradition of the way in which sin is dealt with. So how do you deal with your sin? You go to the priest and the priest absolves you, removes them, takes them all away and you're good. You're good. This is the same. Actually, it comes from the catholic. That's actually a damn man. We got to get into that. That's some really dark stuff right there, just severed from your sin, right, however, you do it, whether it's in a conversion experience with the Bible or with a former form of confession.
Speaker 3:Right, which is so ironic that that's become such a powerful force. Because it's not Christian and it's not Paul and it's not Rudolf Steiner and it's not the Bible. In fact it's so. Not that that it's. What we see with Christ is he stays with the sin of humanity. He stays with us to the end of earth evolution. What we see in ourselves, what we see in Paul, is there's these members that still hold thoughts, feelings, patterns, behaviors that are not of Christ, that we have to be in attention with yes, he says press on towards the goal.
Speaker 1:He says press on towards the goal. I'm not saying I've got there already, but encouraged by my life in and with him, I will press on towards the goal. And this is someone who had the Damascus experience. You'd think if anybody got it all cleared out and done in the first encounter, it would have been him on the road to Damascus, in this powerful experience of this being of light who reveals to him that he's been persecuting not only Christians but persecuting the being of light itself. I mean, how he even got up and walked at all is astounding to me. When I persecuted these people, I was persecuting the Lord of light and life. And then he, many years later, writes the letter to the Romans that you're referring to, in which he describes his own continued relationship and work. With his own ways, he blocks Christ's light in the world. So yeah, that's all to say. In no way is one suddenly done. And yet, as you keep saying, there's no condemnation Right this is the why is that?
Speaker 1:What is that?
Speaker 3:Well, what do you? Yeah, so I mean, that's what I wanted to ask Thank you for good.
Speaker 3:It's going in this little bit of a loop. Well, we just spent most of the episode on discovering what shadow is, which is great, but now maybe I can ask my question to you, please, in that way. Okay, so now that we have a little bit more clarity around shadow clarity around shadow and therefore a little more clarity around who this light is, that is in relationship to the shadow, and how I can deform that light or cover up that light with my mind and my culture and my preferences, patrick, how would you, in your own way, in your own life, describe this mystery of okay, we, we come into right relationship with the shadows, but then we're practicing no condemnation? Yeah, Condemnation.
Speaker 1:So I think for me one of the things to name that's just super important is that my current earthly self, my Patrick self, which is not the same as my eternal self in Christ, but my earthly personality the distinction there is just really really key for me. Patrick can participate in eternity, but it is not equal to it. That's very key because otherwise actually I couldn't sin, I would just be an expression of eternal goodness.
Speaker 3:So I've been gifted a self that is freed from God's will, which means I can do things that are other than God's will, that are not good.
Speaker 1:In your Patrick personality quote, unquote lower self but this self desires to be eternal, desires eternity, because separated from eternity is awfulness, is death, and therefore constantly wants to attain eternity now, already. And so the judgment of myself that I find this self wants to do all the time is make a statement that is now good, forever. I am a good person, I am a bad person, I am a finished object. That self wants the end now, wants the ultimate goal already, now. Once the ultimate goal already has, can can fall prey to the hope and delusion that by the end of my current biography I have an opportunity to be a radiant perfection. And that is for me the first, foremost lie, illusion. That's got to go, okay, it's got to go because that's the one that wants to go condemn or bless completely now.
Speaker 1:And the experience of Christ why he doesn't condemn is because he sees me on the way. The way he looks at me is you are a becoming one and we're in a long story of becoming. We don't have to. We're not at anywhere near the point of saying and now we're going to stand before the judges and you're going to get a blue ribbon or not. We're not there. You are still shaping and in the process of forming yourself into who you're meant to be, slow down, we're not doing it. We are not doing that. And in the process of forming yourself into who you're meant to be, slow down, we are not doing that work yet. And the voices that come into your life that want you to be perfect yesterday are your enemy. They're your enemy. That's not how I'm going to work. I'm going to work like the sun does with plants. We're in the story of becoming so that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Okay, so let me stop you there. So what I hear is the shadow. In a way, the weakness is coming from a thought, a way of seeing that I should be perfect now, right now. And I hear you saying, on the one hand, that thought is actually leading toward a condemnative spirit. Right, because if, therefore, jonah's not perfect now, or your wife isn't perfect now, or your kids aren't perfect now, the world's not perfect now, society's not perfect now, or your wife isn't perfect now, or your kids aren't perfect now.
Speaker 1:The world's not perfect now. Society's not perfect now.
Speaker 3:Right, if you're married to that way, that thought, then you're going to be coming down harsh, hard, or?
Speaker 1:you're going to do whatever is necessary to protect a glorified image of yourself.
Speaker 3:Oh right, You're going to do a lot of reputation management.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're going to hire expensive teams. You're going to really work on your Facebook page, right? Whatever you're going to be doing, you're going to be protecting your self image from any association with anything that would tarnish your glory. Right, because you need to be perfect now, right?
Speaker 3:So you've discovered that in yourself and you've discovered that it leads to a condemning spirit or denial spirit, or denial spirit which has a kind of tyrannical quality as well.
Speaker 1:I mean it's the. For me it's one of the scariest spirits I know right and self-protective, narcissistic force right.
Speaker 3:So what I hear also, though, is you're saying I have identified that as something that is shadow in me. Yeah, vanity. And I'm trying to change my mind this is the root word of repentance, repentance, metanoia.
Speaker 1:It's the Christian language for shadow work, for shadow work.
Speaker 3:Which also has to do with our consecration. Rest yourself free from that thought and join with a different way of seeing with Christ. Now, that's combined with then, and I just want to ask you that that's combined with then, this mode of? Okay, I'm trying to rest myself free from that, but what happens in you when you see it like right now or tomorrow?
Speaker 1:What do you do in that moment? What do you?
Speaker 3:do to practice both the resting that you just named and the non-condemnation.
Speaker 1:If you know what I mean, you want to get in there, okay.
Speaker 3:Well, just because, yeah, it's so exciting yeah. Right, because it's so interesting how that could be as soon as I identify something that is shadow and resting has a particular tendency to go toward whipping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, man, we're in some really subtle territory here, I feel like, because it's kind of like with cooking. For me, At first, the kitchen is just I don't understand how does this world work? All I know is how to enjoy food. But the more I get into the kitchen and start using the ingredients and getting to know heat and how it works with different pans and the oil, you know like you just start to get to know the smells and flavors and workings of that world. And for me this work is so like that Like at first it's a little.
Speaker 1:It's a little, um, simple and blocky. You know, like a PBJ it's very simple, Like okay, I feel in his presence utter acceptance and love and truthful revelation at the same time. And so being near that power gives me a distinction between the way I look and the way he looks and just familiarity with his eyes, how he sees me, utterly, loves me, embraces me and doesn't also beat around the bush. Like he's truthful, he's not really interested in comforting my lower self's version of myself. Yeah, you know, just like saying that I'm okay, you're okay.
Speaker 1:That's not what I feel for him. No, I don't either. He's interested in the truth. I can handle, right, and thank God I'm spared the whole truth most of the time. That's another thing, because it might be overwhelming. It's more than I can bear, right. So that's an energy thing because it might be overwhelming.
Speaker 3:It's more than.
Speaker 1:I can bear so that's fascinating.
Speaker 3:I just want to emphasize that as we come to a close. I mean so what I hear you saying is the way you deal with this, this tendency, which I also know myself, this tendency, this weakness, to want to be perfect now and want everything else in my life to be perfect now, including people, not of the Christ Spirit already, but when it arises. You're saying I try to feel him, I try to feel his gaze. I'm just now saying I kind of pray that I can feel his light on that in me, so that I'm reminded, reorientated to the truth, of his truthful, non condemning spirit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how it works for me is because I've spent time and I keep seeking him when I'm in that moment and I suddenly have a gaze inside me that is just disappointed and disparaging of others or myself. I'm familiar with what that smells like when you put it in the pan. That's why I use that thing. Oh interesting, oh wait, Someone's burning it.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got to go get that good ingredient. Yeah, it's totally like that for me. You got to go get that good oil. I'm using that rancid stuff. It's not good Like I. It's again. It's in that, it's in a.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why we have the expression there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. You can smell. Smell. Smell is an is a physical sense that relates to a moral sense. There's knowledge in the nose, or even there's something fishy going on here. You smell. Of course you don't literally smell it's.
Speaker 1:There's a relationship between rot and and and uh, inner moral corruption and the fragrance of a rose and moral beauty. As he takes a big smell, yeah, there's these. So that's why, for me, it's like as you get familiar with this terrain, your perception and discernment increases. Oh yeah, there I am. Or, for example, another one is defensiveness.
Speaker 1:If I'm noticing myself getting defensive, protecting my self-image, over the years I've gotten better at smelling the reality, the moral reality of that defensiveness. Is this a true protection and defense, protection and defense. Or am I keeping at bay an important truth about my person that I don't want to be true and I'm just so familiar with that territory. Now it's like. It's like a little flag goes off. Hold up lower the walls of defense for a time and let this thought in that has come from somewhere else. Let's say outside you and let it work in you and see if it is true or not. Don't stop it. Let it pass the gates and allow it to be possible in your being. If it's not true, it won't stick. It won't stick. Your value is not in the way they see you. Your value is in the way he sees you and he is truth. That's his being. Those who are of the truth hear my voice. He says beautifully in chapter 19 of the Gospel of John.
Speaker 3:I think that's so important. I mean your relationship to the pain of truth, the relationship of just becoming so familiar with the moral smells of these activities. I can totally see. But when you finally this last word, I think that's so connected to why there's no condemnation, because what Paul is experiencing there is. There's no condemnation Because what Paul is experiencing there is.
Speaker 3:There's no sin that is in my being, there's no weakness, there's no tendency that is in my being that would determine for God, for Christ, I'm valueless. Determined for God, for Christ, I'm valueless. He knows, because of his relationship with Christ Jesus, like you're speaking about, feeling how his gaze is upon his heart that I'm valued, I'm loved, no matter what. How else could there be no condemnation, right? So the no condemnation means I'm looking at another human being, I'm looking at myself, in the way that there's an intrinsic deep value Period, that there's an intrinsic deep value period, no matter how many unsavory, stinky behaviors are going on. There's some gold there that I'm valuing above all else, even though there's lots of ore. So the ore is not the thing, the gold is the thing. And the work to gradually work to cleanse the ore, the impurities, is a work, but the value is the gold intrinsically always, Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 1:it's even. Actually the sin is valued too. The John 9,. Again, it's like, well, I'm just going to ignore all those other things and focus my love on that in you which is of gold. Other things and focus my love on that in you which is of gold.
Speaker 1:But in John nine he says his answer to the disciples about what? Who has sinned this man? Or his parents? That he was born blind? His answer is neither. He is in this affliction, he is in this suffering, he's in this darkness and weakness of his blindness so that the creative work and works of God can be revealed in his life. He's included the weakness in the mysteries of the revelation of God's being. That's what's absolutely radical and new about Christianity, actual Christianity. This false Christianity that we keep coming back to again and again values only this false picture of what a saint is, which has no sins in it. This is a picture of. The one I value here today is the one who is the beggar at the side of the door because he is in affliction. I will include all of that as how I reveal my being. Include it, it's valuable.
Speaker 3:That is so important. That's why he drunk the full cup of the sin of humanity. Include it, it's valuable. That is so important. That's why he drunk the full cup of the sin of humanity, christ himself because he saw the value in the process of working with sin. So not only does God love us, no matter what, regardless of what we do, he's also not condemning us, because he's valuing the sin that is in us, because he wants it to lead toward the further revelation of God.
Speaker 1:He's included it in the story, 100%, that is so radical, never been before.
Speaker 3:That sin itself, or the cross itself, suffering itself, can be a way to bring even more of the true nature of love and goodness into the world. So why absolve that? Why cut that off? It's more of the true nature of love and goodness into the world, so why absolve that? Why cut that off? It's actually one of the most valuable things we can possibly have, but it has to do with how we relate to it, as Christ relates to it. So there's no condemnation in Christ, because you're loved no matter what Period and Loved also towards something.
Speaker 3:You're loved towards something which means bringing your sin into something that can be transparent to reveal God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just think about it, just think about it and just think about it, just think about it. The worst, you know. I can look back at my life and probably one of the more annoying for me, uglier parts of my story is I was spiritually oriented very, very early. Truths of reality were clear to me very, very early, but when I would speak about them in those earlier years there was something kind of annoying about it. And what I mean by that is I, having not yet lived long on the earth, I spoke as one who hadn't integrated much shadow, and so the light I spoke with was kind of light from heaven only, and heaven only light doesn't have a depth and richness to it.
Speaker 1:Apparently, god is most and we notice this, like when someone has suffered and been through a lot, or faced and chewed through their own weaknesses, eaten many slices of humble pie. When they talk, when they speak, there's something different in their word. There is something different in their word. True wisdom is a fruit born of suffering and pain and knowing of weakness and darkness. It is not the wisdom of the pre-earthly, it is the light born on the other side of the cross that has a different power to it. Well said.
Speaker 3:So it's clearly integrated. It's clearly integrated. So this integrating, then this shadow integrating, or making our sin into a way that God can be revealed even more, this is exactly what Christ did he made our sin, in the form of the cross, be a revelation of.
Speaker 1:God Revealed His being in that life. Who went through all those things? Yeah, in that life, who went through all those things?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So may this, then this conversation, dear friends, which I'm very grateful for, may it. Uh, remember, it's on Ascension Day, where we celebrate transforming earthly earthly life into heavenly life with heavenly life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Permeating the two, including it lifting the earthly up into the heavenly.
Speaker 3:Making it a further revelation of the glory of God. Amen ¶¶. © transcript Emily Beynon.