OPTIMISM

We are gradually hypnotizing ourselves into a state of chronic pessimism and fear, but in so doing we are placing our beliefs before us in such stark fashion they are becoming impossible to ignore. Everywhere we turn we see victims. An avalanche of terrorism, natural disasters, viruses and allergens is burying optimism. Our children no longer climb maple trees nor skip down the neighbourhood sidewalk unwatched. Like a slow creeping hearing loss that goes unnoticed until its teeth are deeply sunk into the cochlea we are slowly but surely becoming a race of defenders. Life has become less an experience than an enemy to be guarded against. Our media bombards us with the evidence that life is dangerous. But, there is a purpose to it all and we are its creators. We create it to bring our beliefs into stark relief.

Our natural birthright is optimism, but it is secondary to free will. Perception is not a receiver of reality. Perception is the projector of it. Perception, moulded by our beliefs, projects outwardly in physical form abstract representations of our inner states of being. More and more we are coming to believe in victimhood, and so perception projects the belief outward in physical form so that we can see it. I want to make a case for optimism, for it is easier to create in joy and pleasure than it is to create in trauma, conflict and suffering.

Pessimists call optimists Pollyannas. Considering what we are taught about the nature of reality the wonder is not that there are pessimists, but that any of us remain optimists. How any of us stay optimistic about life has to be one of the great mysteries of the past four centuries. We have done a bang-up job through science and religion of making pessimists out of the lot of us. For the evidence we merely need check the sales records for drugs such as Zoloft, Prozac and Xanax. Depression is rampant, and when you are depressed you concentrate almost exclusively on misery. It’s a vicious cycle. Pessimism creates depression, which creates even more pessimistic thoughts, which continues to create the evidence that your belief in pessimism is well warranted. Religion aids and abets pessimism because it tells us that our reward is not in the moment, but in the hereafter, and so we are rarely present in the moment. Religion as currently understood robs us of our innate optimism and like a crowbar it pries us out of the present.

For most of us Baptism is our first religious rite. If only Adam hadn't taken that bite of the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In telling this story to children the problem lies in that they are not sophisticated enough to realize it is metaphoric of our fall into a world of seeming duality, not of sin. The word ‘fall’ suggests a descent from a loftier place. It establishes hierarchy and an understanding that we are spoiled goods. We all come into this world with the sins of our fathers, the dogma goes. Our parents tell us they love us and cherish us, but the big message is that we came with a problem. The story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden is the first blow to our innate sense of optimism. It is the first blow to our self-esteem. As the Woody Harrelson movie tells us, we are “Natural Born Killers,” and we must guard against its expression all our lives.

Trouble continues to dog us after Baptism. We are taught God loves us, but then we’re hit with a contradiction the size of Great Britain. Yes, God loves us, but if we sin we will burn in hell for all eternity. Whatever happened to unconditional love? For those of you that believe that unconditional love is a goal of life why create a concept of God that portrays just the opposite? This contradiction worked its way into our collective psyche like a screw worm works its way into driftwood. To maintain the feeling of ‘We-ness’ and that we are an individual manifestation of an aspect of God is not easy under such a barrage. Pessimism grows. This is but one small facet in the creation of our belief systems. We learned that we are so bad and God’s love for us so great that only a sacrifice so large as the crucifixion of his ‘only son’ could redeem us. Not a good picture for building self-esteem, but great for perpetuating guilt. The historical Jesus sees through much of the veil we have pulled over our eyes and says, ‘I and the Father are one.’ What do we do with Jesus' startling and potentially transforming information? We assign divinity to him alone. God stayed up there, and we remained stuck down here.

The Jesus Seminar came about in 1985 when scholars, led by the late Robert W. Funk, decided to do something about the inconsistencies among some of the words attributed to Jesus in the four gospels of the New Testament. Over the past twenty years more than one hundred scholars from around the world have participated in this semi-annual meeting. There is a thought process, a timber, a resonance that attaches itself to the nature of a human being. If I consistently write of love, peace and understanding and live those words outwardly in my life, people get a sense of who I am and what I am about. The Jesus Seminar came together to find what Jesus may have actually said in the midst of all that which Matthew, John, Mark and Luke wrote that he said. How is the Jesus Seminar important to our understanding of optimism and pessimism? If a case is to be made for optimism then it must have the ring of truth. In Matthew, chapter 6 verses 25-34 Jesus tells us about the universe being well disposed towards us. I will let Jesus' words speak for themselves.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than meat, and the body more than raiment?
Behold the fowls in the air: for they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why take you thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Therefore take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, in wherewithal shall we be clothed?
(For after all these things to do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.
But seek you first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Jesus’ words challenge us to live a life based on optimism and trust. Seth and Elias tell us that we get what we concentrate upon and concentration is based on our beliefs and not on thought. If we concentrate on fear, we will give ourselves the evidence that our belief in fear is appropriate. If we believe the world is populated by thieves we better lock our doors and nail down our valuables because we’re going to meet a thief or two. Being responsible for ourselves is an idea that in itself creates fear in many of us. We like order and rules that map out our course.

Jesus tells us that the way to salvation is through a narrow gate and that few will take it. Many will remain on the wide road. John Sanford in The Kingdom Within says the wide way is the way of mass identity. Individuality is fearful to many that have developed the habit of always comparing themselves to others. Conscious awareness requires an acceptance (non-judgment) of differences.

Jesus’ words have layer upon layer of meaning. Sanford, an Episcopalian priest and Jungian therapist, sees Jesus as challenging us to become conscious. But, like an onion, Jesus’ words have yet more layers of meaning. The narrow gate or constricted passage can also mean the way of self responsibility. The wide way, that of blaming chance, others, or unseen forces for our plight has been our choice for thousands of years. If we become ill, how much easier is it to say, “I am a victim,” than to address the issue we have invited illness into our lives to communicate. If we are alcohol or drug dependent how much easier is it to say that we are genetically predisposed to addiction than it is to question why we have chosen addiction as a life path? What does our addiction have to say to us? It is not telling us we are bad. It is comparing ourselves to others that tell us either we or they are bad or we or they are good. Both are judgments.

The Buddha has said that if you find him along your path you should kill him. His meaning, of course, is that you are responsible for your own footfalls in life; he but shows the way to finding our own path. We have been exceptionally good at following the wide way. The religious dogma is that salvation can be won through a belief in Jesus. But how does that equate to a narrow gate? We have always found it easy to be followers. It is time we believe in ourselves.
Bill Marshall