The Jefferson Bible

Loving our neighbors? That’s (relatively) easy. Much more challenging to love our enemies.

And, perhaps it’s even *more* challenging (and practically relevant) to love the people we *usually* love but may currently find annoying. (Hah.)

Phil Stutz and Barry Michels offer what I consider one of the most powerful Tools to deal with people in those moments. They tell us that we need to get out of the “Maze” in our head in which we’re looping on all the things we dislike about the individual. We need to exit that maze and drop into our hearts where we practice “Active Love.”

I’ve been practicing this for awhile and it’s super powerful. The moment I find myself looping on criticism in my head, I try to visualize dropping out of my head and into my heart and then I beam them love from my heart. May sound kinda weird, but it’s amazing. Try it!!!

As Phil says in our coaching sessions, the trick is to have a tool we can use RIGHT IN THE MOMENT in which we’re operating at less than our highest selves. Active Love is a good one.

P.S. Then there’s Tal Ben-Shahar’s gem I love to come back to: “Why the double standard, the generosity toward our neighbor and the miserliness where we ourselves are concerned? And so I propose that we add a new rule, which we can call the Platinum Rule, to our moral code: ‘Do not do unto yourself what you would not do unto others.’”

Love yourself. Love your loved ones. Love your neighbors. Love your enemies.

That should do it.

P.P.S. Let’s chat about the science of a love a little more here. As we learn in Love 2.0, Barbara Fredrickson tells us that love is something we can practice all day every day by creating “micro-moments of positivity resonance”—those moments when we slow down long enough to authentically connect with someone.

As I mentioned in the Note on Love 2.0, putting that wisdom into practice has probably been the most transformative thing I’ve ever done. It’s that big. Have you tried it yet?

Now, Jesus liked to teach via hyperbole. We won’t get into the details, but of course, there’s no need to be quite so either/or about a little planning for the future and grocery shopping, etc.

Having said that, let’s focus on the most important part of this passage (from my perspective): “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

Eric Butterworth was a Unity minister in New York City. He wrote an amazing book called Spiritual Economics. It’s one of my all-time favorite books and was instrumental in helping me integrate my spirituality and ambition. Here’s how he puts it: “The goal should not be to make money or acquire things, but to achieve the consciousness through which the substance will flow forth when and as you need it.”

In other words: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

Plus: “The mystic ideal, so often missed, is really simple: build on the awareness of ever-present substance and expand your faith in the stability of your own inner wholeness. The things will come too, and in abundance. But they will come out of expanse of your wholeness, not at its expense.”

And: “The important thing is to know yourself, have faith in the cosmic process that will unfold in you like the life force unfolds in the lily of the field which toils not nor spins, and yet ‘Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these’ (Mt. 6:29).”

In other words: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

Stephen Covey echoes this wisdom as well in Primary Greatness. Start with your character, with making a contribution to the world—that’s the essence of primary greatness. The external trappings and rewards? Those are signs of secondary greatness.

In other words: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

What are YOU seeking first? The external rewards and signs of your “success”? Or, a deep, intimate connection with the Divine latent within you?

Remember: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.”

Imagine that: You are nit-picking the little sawdust out of someone’s eye while you have a BEAM in your eye! (Hah.) Much better to focus on our issues than try to fix everyone else’s issues, eh?

In The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, Debbie Ford offers a handy little exercise to help us deal with this: “I realized that I only judged people when they displayed a quality I could not accept in myself. If someone was a show-off, I no longer judged them because I knew that I, too, was a show-off. Only when I had completely convinced myself that I was not capable of a certain behavior would I get upset and point my finger at the other person. Hold your hand straight out in front of you and point at someone. Notice that you have one finger pointing at that them and three fingers pointing back at yourself. This can serve as a reminder that when we are blaming others we are only denying an aspect of ourselves.”

Next time you find yourself wagging a finger at someone else—pointing at the “mote” in their eye—count the fingers pointing back at that beam in your eye.

Here’s another really powerful tool to alchemize our tendency to criticize others into an opportunity to deepen our self-awareness and integrative growth. In The Power of Full Engagement Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz tell us that when we encounter someone difficult or challenging, we should pause and ask ourselves, “How am I that?”

It’s a super powerful, humbling exercise. Anyone bothering you right now? Think of the quality that you find annoying. Ask yourself, “How am I that?” Repeat. Again and again. Let’s do the work to take that beam out of our eyes so we can see the light in other people’s eyes rather than the tiny speck of sawdust.

First, fun historical fact: Back in the day, a talent was a unit of money. A LOT of money. According to Wikipedia, it was worth about 6,000 denari. A denarius was the usual wage for a day’s labor. So, that’s about 20 YEARS worth of work. If you calculate that based on median yearly wage of $26,363, we’re talking $500,000 per talent in today’s dollars.

So, Jesus tells us about the wealthy guy who leaves his servants with a bunch of cash—each according to his ability. He’s very pleased that the first two servants put the money to work and doubled it for him. He’s not so pleased with the last guy who was so scared of losing anything that he buried it. In fact, the lord was FURIOUS with him and cast him out “into outer darkness” to experience “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Yikes. Tough boss, eh? The moral of the story? The kingdom of heaven is just like that. We better use our gifts wisely. And, we don’t need to wait until we die to experience the joy or sorrows of failing to use our gifts. The kingdom of heaven exists RIGHT THIS SECOND. Each moment we have a choice: Step forward into our highest selves or back into safety.

So, don’t bury your talents. Give them to the world. And experience the joy that goes with that flourishing. (Recall that the word for happiness in ancient Greek (the language of the Gospels), was eudaimonia—which literally means “good soul.” The kingdom of heaven exists when we are connected to the best within ourselves—giving our greatest gifts in greatest service to the world.)

P.S. I grew up in a devoutly Catholic family. I can vividly remember my mom grabbing me by my shoulders when I was a young boy after doing something she didn’t like. She admonished me in the strongest possible terms (I have tears in my eyes as I type this): “God gave you gifts. You must give them to the world!”

What are we supposed to do with those talents? Serve. Profoundly.

“Matthew 25: 34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 For I was an hungered, and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

The wise person hears wisdom that resonates and lives in integrity with it. Then, when the inevitable storms of life blow through, they’re safe. Their house is built on a solid foundation.

The foolish person? They hear these ideas, nod their heads and then go on living their life out of integrity with their ideals. When storms blow through their lives, they’re out of luck.

How about you? Are you living YOUR truths? When the wind blows, what happens?

Is now a good time to strengthen the foundation such that those storms make you stronger? What’s the #1 thing you KNOW you could start doing? The #1 thing you know it’s time to stop?

Strengthen your foundation, Wise One.