High powered, well off, entrepreneurs and preachers are banding together to preach the same "gospel" (I KNOW, scary isn't it?): If you don't have the best/newest/most expensive of anything you desire, including perfect health, you aren't believing/praying/wishing/dreaming/imagining/collaging/vision boarding (did yours come from Oprah.com? Mine did!!!) in absolute positivity and perfect faith (never letting a doubt creep in) and are, therefore, sabotaging your entire LIFE. It is, folks, all your fault that you don't have 3 cars, a big screen TV, a nice house, fabulous jewels and perfect health AND a guaranteed "get out of hell" card with a free ride to heaven!!!! Sounds good, right?
The problem is that humans are not geared to be 100% positive, 100% of the time. And the burden of trying to do so heaps guilt and frustration onto an already overburdened nervous system. Trying to live up to these standards is hazardous to your mental health!!!
What started this musing was an email story about a "treasure room in heaven" in which are stored all the blessings that GOD/Divine/Universe wanted to bless/gift you with IF you had simply believed/prayed/wished/dreamed/imagined/collaged/vision boarded in absolute positivity and perfect faith, BUT YOU DIDN'T, so said blessings/gifts are still locked away in said treasure room. Cars, money, health, TV's, clothes, jewels, whatever your little heart desires, is sitting in that room just waiting for you to come up with the right combination of or words to believe/pray/wish/dream/imagine/collage/vision board. And when you GET THAT RIGHT MAGIC COMBINATION of belief/prayers/wishes/dreams/imaginings/collages/vision board, then and ONLY then will you receive your treasure...
What is it I pray/wish/dream for/of? I want the money to go visit my mother (found on the kitchen floor with blood sugar of 30 and almost comatose) before she dies. I want to be able to go see my father (rushed to the hospital with pulmonary edema from feet to armpits/diagnosed with congestive heart failure & enlarged heart ON TOP OF his already diagnosed COPD). I'd like to be able to afford a new pair of jeans from Walmart. I'd like to be able to have enough money to help my daughter, who's man isn't working now for 2 months. When my other daughter lost her job and couldn't find a job for 11 months, I'd have liked to have been able to help out. When my first grandson was born, I'd have liked to been able to go see him (as he spent several weeks in PICU).
On a more frivolous note, I'd like a working car to be able to drive into the woods and walk and rest in nature. I'd like the work I'm doing on exercising and weight to show some progress. I'd like my hair to stop thinning. I'd like the winter depression (happens as soon as we "fall back" into darkness each fall) to leave me alone...
But I have evidently not mastered this magic prayer/belief/dream/imagining combination. Nor has much of the world. And then I beat myself up for not having mastered it. Why CAN'T I figure this out if it's so simple? I'm NOT utterly stupid you know? And it becomes another burden on my sometimes overburdened emotional life, threatening to capsize the fragile boat in which I navigate life. And then I cry...
And then it's OH NO...a negative thought!!!! I've just perpetuated the negativity that has denied me the blessings of life I already don't have!!!! And the vicious cycle goes on and on and on...
Or maybe I'm just a whiny baby? Maybe that's the problem...OH NO!!! Another negative thought!!! LOL. Ohmygosh, it's freaking impossible I tell you...
Oh, and lest you get me wrong, I am totally and amazingly blessed in life with the people I love and who love me. I am blessed with a house in which to live (many in the world have shacks or nothing). I am blessed with the ability to buy food, every month, to nourish my family (3/4s of the world cannot do this). I am blessed with a fairly decent public transit system (even in America, many people don't have this). I have a job (and in this economy, that is such a blessing). I have much for which I am utterly thankful.
Oh, yeah, there are things I don't have that I want, even that I perceive as "needs", but in the scheme of worldly things I am blessed. So don't think this is one of those "oh, she has so much what is she complaining about" things. It's not.
It's a call to examine what kinds of burdens what we think and teach lays on people. And a call to tread more softly with the hearts of the people around us. Truly we can never really see the burdens a heart carries...
