The Inner Pharisee

Last week I was “conferring”,  I was at the Haden Institute, Dream and Spirituality Conference in Hendersonville North Carolina.  I was a tad worried about crossing the border into Trumpland.  Ironically, I had the easiest border crossing I have ever had.  There was only one car ahead of me in the line at the booth and the border guard just asked me what I was going to do in Hendersonville N.C. When I responded I was going to a Conference, he asked what I would be “conferring about”.  I advised “dreams and spirituality” he gave we a funny look (as usually happens), and sent me on my way.

Lorna and I have gone to this conference for many years.  Lorna couldn’t go this year because she had a family wedding to go to in Ottawa.  I had already committed to lead dream groups and a workshop so I  miss the event.  The workshop was entitled The Ego, The Bible, and the Spiritual Journey.  It is based on my book The Ego and the Bible which explores the role of the ego in many of the bible stories   (I would be pleased to give you information about the workshop or the book).  However, enough about the commercial.

In addition to the annual conference, the Haden Institute trains people to lead dream groups and to be spiritual directors.  I have graduated form both programs and find leading dream groups and being a spiritual director to be a very rewarding ministry.   In the approach dreams are considered God’s Forgotten Language; God speaks to us in our dreams but we have forgotten how to listen and understand the language of God in our dreams.  This is true of many ways in which God speaks to us.  My approach to spiritual direction is to help Directees understand how God is speaking to them and how to respond and deepen their relationship with God.

To give you an example God speaking to me in a dream, I awoke one mooring at the Conference and I remembered a phrase that was presented to me in a dream; “policies known and unknown”.  That was all I remembered; it may have been part of a larger dream but I didn’t remember anything else. It was an interesting message but it really caught my attention later at the Eucharist that morning (each day started with a worship service at the beautiful outdoor chapel at the Kanuga Conference Center).  The Rt. Rev. Larry Maze, retired Bishop of Arkansas was presiding and preaching. 

The Gospel for the day was John 9: 1-8; this is the story of Jesus healing the man born blind.  The Pharisees were critical of Jesus doing the miracle because it was on the Sabbath and Jesus broke the Holiness code by working on the Sabbath.  In the sermon (I am paraphrasing here and Larry was much more eloquent) Larry noted that the Pharisees were concerned with maintaining the Holiness Code because it had worked well for the Jewish people.  It had enables them to survive and continue as God’s chosen people for a long time under trying circumstances.  Some people had to suffer because of the code but it was for the greater good and was from God.  However, the Pharisees had allowed the Holiness Code to become an idol and they wanted the Jews to serve the idol rather than God. 

As Larry noted we all have rules which we learned while we were growing up.  They were necessary as we were growing up to help us and to protect us.  We know many of these rules but others are often not in our awareness.  We all have an inner Pharisee who wants us to obey these rules and keep us on the straight and narrow path.  However, for the inner Pharisee these rules are God.  Some of these rules will prevent or hinder us for living life fully as God intends.  They can prevent us from being and becoming the people that God intends us to be.  The message I received in my dream was to explore the “policies known and unknown” in my life which are preventing me from being the person God intends me to be. 

After much work reflection and trial and error and mistakes false starts I have explored many of the rules and regulations and policies which my inner Pharisee want desperately for me to follow.  The dream image is confirming I still have work to do to discover those unknown policies.  I invite you to reflect on what are the policies that your inner Pharisee holds are a god if not God.  

Where's Your Home 2

Last week I wrote about home and asked where your home is.  My sermon this week built on that theme.  The Gospel reading for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity has the Gospel reading from Luke 15 on the parable of the lost coin and the lost sheep (note at churches here in P.E.I. we are following the Book of Common Praise and not the Revised Common Lectionary). 

In my sermon I propose that we are all searching for our true home which is reclaiming our relationship with God or as it is stated in the principles of A.A. a power greater than ourselves.  We often don’t know what it is that we are missing in our lives until we experience it or at least get a hint of what is possible.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”. We are truly only glimpsing through a glass darkly what that relationship will be like. 

As I noted last week when I first truly experienced Anglican worship for the first time I knew I had come home.  There have been experiences of Anglican worship since then which haven’t always lived up to the promise of that first experience.  However, I know without a doubt that the Anglican Church is my religious home. 

What that first experience and subsequent ones have given me is a glimpse of what my faith enables me to know that ultimate relationship will be like.  In my book, The Ego and the Bible, I interpret the myth of the biblical creation story which as a mythopoeic effort to understand our separation from God.  We no longer walk with God in the cool of the evening.  We have been expelled from or as I like to say strongly encouraged by God to leave our earthly paradise.  We were in a preconscious state of union with God.  However, God gave us the gift of consciousness represented by the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

The journey into consciousness and to wholeness one in which we travel towards that re-union with God which will, I believe, occur when our time on this earth has run its course.  In in meantime I hope that the glimpse through the glass that we each experience may become a little less dark.  Blessings.    

So You’ve Written a Book (Part 2)

My Adventures in Publishing (Continued)

I am continuing my account of publishing my first book,  The Ego and the Bible: Stories of Divinely Intended Ego.  I left the account at the point where I had decided it was not worthwhile trying to find a traditional publisher that would accept my book. 

The next step I took was to decide to see about hiring an editor.  My wife Lorna who worked as an editor wisely declined to undertake the task for the sake of marital harmony.  However she was very helpful throughout the process on advising on points of grammar and particularly on the final appearance and format of the cover.  I looked around on line and found a suitable candidate to do the editing.  After contact the candidate and doing due diligence with references and a contract I hired the individual.  Initially it was working out well but unfortunately for me and fortunately of her the person landed a full time job (with I presume benefits and a regular pay cheque) and she felt she was unable to continue with editing my manuscript.  I have no problem with this and she gave me a full refund of my initial deposit despite the initial work she had done.  However, I was in a quandary concerning how to proceed. 

I decided to try the self-publishing route and found a Canadian firm which had a long experience of this type of work.  I was in negotiation with them for a while and they seemed to be a good possibility but found price they quoted to be on the high side; in the range of three to four thousand dollars.  I was hesitant to proceed as I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend this amount on the project. 

About this time I received two pieces of good advice from colleagues who had experience with publishing books.  One, Bob Haden, who self-published his book, Unopened Letters from God, is the president of the Haden institute where I completed programs in dream groups and Spiritual Direction.  He advised that trying to go through traditional publishers was a rather a lost cause and would take years if you ever found one that would agree to publish you book.  This was an individual who was very successful with many contacts that would be interested in his book.  He also gave me good advice about the title.  I originally wanted to use the title ‘Divinely Intended Ego” which was a reference to a phase of Friedrick von Hugel that had resonated with me for many years; ‘divinely intended tension’.  He recommended that I find a more accessible title that would better describe the book—which I did using my original title as a subtitle.  The other person, who had an experience which I could more closely relate to, had a book published through the publishing arm of Amazon, CreativeSpace.  He highly recommended them and found the process and results to be very satisfactory. 

I investigated the possibility of using CreativeSpace primarily based on my colleague’s recommendation.  CreativeSpace is an U.S. based firm as part of Amazon, as is my colleague which gave me some hesitation as a Canadian.  However, after some discussion and consideration I decided to go with CreativeSpace.  The cost for similar services to the Canadian firm was substantially less at about $2,600—about $2,800 Canadian at the exchange at the rate that that time (note to Canadian, the exchange rate has fallen through the floor since then).  So I launched into the world of what used to be called derisively, vanity press but is becoming a creditable way of publishing in the modern age.

 I found the process of working with CreativeSpace overall to be very positive.  I worked with two editors who were professional and did a good job.  I had signed up for a package deal which included two rounds of editing with proofs provided as well a customs design for the cover.  It also included writing of an introductory blurb for marketing and making the book available through Amazon.  Not everything was perfect of course.  I had some difficulty getting used to the editing system where I would have to accept or reject every change proposed by the editors down to every jot and tittle and comma and Em Dash.  This was a long labourious process for someone who is not detailed oriented but is of course necessary to have a good end product.  One assumption one of the editors made was to put commentary on the biblical passages in the past tense without checking with me.  I had put some in present and some in past in my initial manuscript.  After some consideration I decided to go with present tense and had to manually change the manuscript to reflect that.  This was a rather extensive process, however, I am glad I made that decision.

CreativeSpace was very responsive to my questions and issues that I raised by email.  There overall system is quite processional and comprehensive.  However, I discovered that my assumption that the book would automatically be available on Amazon.ca was not correct.  This is a drawback for a Canadian as it makes it more difficult for Canadians to order copies with exchange and duties and shipping.  I don’t believe Amazon.com offers free shipping to Canada whereas Amazon.ca does. However, I have recently discovered that my book is available through Amazon.ca.  However, it is not ‘in stock’ and will probably take longer to obtain through that route.

Finally I have successfully made the book available in Kindle format which was more difficult than I had anticipated.  Kindle is an Amazon company.  However, it doesn’t happen automatically through CreativeSpace.  I had difficulty getting the files into a format that Kindle would accept which was surprisingly not provided by CreativeSpace.  However, the people at CreativeSpace and Kindle were helpful and I was eventually successful without becoming too frustrated which is an accomplishment for a non-computer nerd such as I. 

In conclusion, the process was worth it whether or not I make a profit in the process (perhaps there is a bit of vanity or ego in it).  However, it was a real thrill when my copies of the book arrived and I open the box two days before Christmas.

 

Readers of my sermon might enjoy my book The Ego and The Bible.  It is available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Bible-Stories-Divinely-Intended/dp/1500759155/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419870942&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Ego+and+the+Bible

It is also available on Amazon.ca:

 http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=THe%20Ego%20and%20the%20Bible%20

 

So You’ve Written a Book (Part 1)

My Adventures in Publishing

I have recently had my first book, The Ego and the Bible: Stories of Divinely Intended Ego, published.  I thought I would write about my experience as a way of sharing the experience as well as giving my thought is some kind of perspective.

It has been a process that has been both less and more involved that I had anticipated.  I had not given much thought to getting the book published when I began writing it so I guess I didn’t really anticipate much about it.   On reflection I don’t think I had any particular thoughts about this other than I would start to investigate the publishing process once I had the book written.  I could say that writing was what really mattered and that I had no real desire one way or another for it actually being published.  However, that is not the real truth as I have wanted to have a book or books in print for quite some time.  It was however, a ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ idea rather than something I had actively pursued to this point.

After my most recent retirement—this one from parish ministry—I thought one of my retirement projects would be to actually work at writing a book.  I had a few ideas that didn’t develop into anything specific until the idea that resulted in my book began to take shape.  I was asked recently how I come up with the idea and I must admit my memory is rather fuzzy on this point.  The best I can say is that it didn’t come as a ‘road to Damascus’ experience in a flash of inspiration,  It was more of a process which brought together two of my abiding interests; the bible as the inspired word of God, and the psychology of Carl Jung.  In my reflecting on my own life and studies in Spiritual Direction I have become more and more convinced that the ego is both the greatest gift of God to humankind.  However, it is also the greatest challenge (I won’t say curse even if it sometimes seems that way).  The idea or concept began to come together that, if the bible is comprised, in part, of stories of God’s influence and inspiration for people—which I believe it is—then the stories would be influenced to a lessor or greater extent by the egos of the people in those stories.   I understand egos to be an integral part of people being created in God’s image. 

All this is by way of context for my purpose—which is to write about the process in getting my book published.   One I felt the manuscript was in shape to begin the publishing process. I began to research publishers that might be interested.  I checked the books that were in my bookcases that were of similar focus to see who had published them.  Once I had a list I started to check them out on line and discovered that, I can safely say, all of them wanted the author to do a lot of things which I guess I had considered would be done by the publisher e.g. do a lot of initial editing and come up with a detailed marketing plan.  As editing and marketing are not my strengths, as people who know me will attest, I was rather discouraged.  However, I persevered and considered what I might do in this area.  I got together the details of what one publisher required and sent off the material to what seemed like a good possibility—and waited a bit.  Patience is a virtue.  However, a response did not come out of that void.   I will end the account here and continue the rest of the story in Part 2. 

Readers of my sermon might enjoy my book The Ego and The Bible.  It is available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Ego-Bible-Stories-Divinely-Intended/dp/1500759155/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419870942&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Ego+and+the+Bible

 It is also available on Amazon.ca

http://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=THe%20Ego%20and%20the%20Bible%20