Reflections on the meaning of Christmas December 2023
“Let’s Pretend”
“Let’s Pretend” was a radio program that entertained kids on Saturday morning. They grow out of that when they learn to distinguish between pretending and thinking that’s not. When they learn that not being grounded in facts is being absent rather than present. Remote, inaccessible. Not being there for family and friends who need them because they’re somewhere else, being there for themselves. Lost in make-believe worlds of wishful thinking. One-dimensional cartoons featuring them in the lead role, producing, directing, script-writing, and setting the rules. “Let’s Pretend” for arrested-developed “adults:” “The Truman TV Show.” Adolescent self-absorption. Narcissism. With harmful consequences to them and to those who need them.
Unreality TV made "real" by the two masks of narcissism:
- one the disciplinary “parent” with unquestioned “authority.” The angry, hostile, threatening face of judgment: harmfulness.
- the other the undisciplined “child” with unquestioned “freedom.” The carefree, ingratiating, unthreatening face of non-judgment: harmlessness.
Bad cop and good cop enforcing the "ideal" of “supremacy.” A perversion of the Oneness of Reality that is Innocence without opposites. Of Freedom and Order that complement one another and are inseparable instead of resolute opponents. The “judgment” of “innocence” preserved by projecting “guilt” onto “others.” “Innocence” preserved by projecting the innocence of others back onto itself. One “giving” its “guilt” away, the other stealing “innocence” back. With one purpose: to place "supremacy" beyond questioning. By seduction and intimidation that rob its captives of personhood. That dehumanize with mindless conformity.
Both made-up worlds of wishful thinking. “Ideals” of unaccountability that’s beyond questioning. Impossibilities since thoughts can’t leave their source, there are no “others” in the Oneness of Reality, and perversions of Oneness, Order, and Freedom can’t be real. Nightmares of psychosis reflected in the narcissist’s sees-all, knows-all mirror. The crystal ball of the original illusionist: the misperception of itself in its shadow-opposite by the Child of Logic-Love. The one ancestral Mind that we all share. Seeing in its reflection the “supremacy” of unlimited power and freedom. Nietzsche’s “superman.” Mistaken identity. Self-unawareness. Whose remedy can't be condemnation and punishment but understanding that’s awareness of the mistake. Awareness of Self instead of its reflection that will restore harmony and creativity.
Scripted by self-unawareness
The prefrontal cortex, an instrument designed for “use” by the animal brain, only “knows” “self” that is herd or tribe, not individual. It keeps peace within and among tribes by hiding the menace of anti-sociability behind the pretense of “sociability.” Both masks – amiable pleasantness and angry unpleasantness – serving one overriding purpose: to silence the voices of their captives with mindless docility. To prevent questioning.
The meaning of Christmas that Jesus shares with us: the contradiction of self-unawareness by the gentle loving kindness of Self-Awareness. A lesson that couldn’t come from any part of brain matter. Or from any other instrument invented for use by groups or tribes because the Self that we all share is one Child, one Mind. The beast in the narcissist’s mirror is the mask of a fiction: Child-the-many, ruled by tribal values. The offense to Western morality codified in the 16th century by Niccolo Machiavelli and “legitimized” by the Church. Idolatry of the body demanding of its herd, a “flock” of anesthetized sheep, that it never be questioned.
The underside of Christmas that Jesus never intended to “found.” Re-enacting the glorious “victory” of shadow-reflection over its host with the figure on a cross who dared to question its self-proclaimed “authority.” The “authority” of wounded victimhood: injustice that cries out not for compassion but for damnation and vengeance. Against Self-Awareness for sharing itself for the benefit of the self-unaware. An implicit contradiction of the “infallibility” of the established order. An unchanging status quo guarded by body-animal brains: bulls protecting their sacred pasture. An ominous warning to anyone else who dared to trespass.
The meaning of Christmas isn’t that Caesar or the pharisees be overthrown but that individuals learn to manage their relationship with them. Following the example of Jesus, with explanation that helps the one Child, our ancestral Mind, recover Self-Awareness. To get out of body-dominated “ownership,” “competition,” and conformity and back to Mind-enabled sharing, intimacy, and Creativity. That recognizes that malevolence, the underside of contradiction, isn’t caused by Self-Awareness but by self-unawareness.
The error in the reflection
The attraction of narcissists for absolutes mirrors the event that disabled the Self-Awareness of Free Choice, the Child’s function in Creation, and removed it from Reality. Lack of awareness of opposites built into its own definition and the definitions of values it was given to work with. Missing from the knowledge base it received from its Parents since they can’t be aware of opposites without making them real.
The Child’s apparent attraction to the undersides of Free Choice, Freedom, and Order -- absolutes, impossibilities in Creation – was a consequence of the laws of cause and effect, not their violation. An unintentional mistake that sent the Child to the unreality of self-unawareness where it can learn from experience. By seeing through its cyclical re-enactments, the *triumph” of animal will over Mind, to their cause: the error that projected Love onto its reverse mirror-image reflection. A mask of impossibilities: the “supremacy” of absolute power and absolute freedom that may not be questioned.
A call for maturity, competence, and re-definition
Our military tries not to leave anyone out or anyone behind. It honors the memory of the fallen and sometimes honors enemy combatants too. It respects the individual soldier with values inherited from the original ideal of American democracy. That insisted on individual rights against tyranny and defined what “America” stood for. The value of authority that governs with service and support from the bottom up. To enable Creativity with Growth and Free Choice instead of ruling cruelly, from the top down, to demand conformity with an unchanging status quo.
An ideal and values that have always had opposites but today are losing touch with the Logic of Necessity and passion of Love that contradicted them. Because the ideal, like all values, requires realignment with changing times and changing contexts. With awareness of what context today implies about the correct path forward. A call for Guidance from Logic and Love uniquely qualified to provide it, because only with their help can self-unawareness detect meaning and purpose behind appearances.
Circumstances that seem favorable to a resurgence of the authoritarian mindset are a recurring test of progress toward Self-Awareness. Whose measure is whether the path forward is to be governed by the benevolence of Logic-Love – Mind -- or ruled by the cruelty of predatory animal instinct – body-brain. The only difference between the choice now and the choice in 1776 is circumstances.
The narcissist authoritarian, robbed of independent judgment by its own reverse mirror image, can only impose its own unchanging context on changing circumstances. We need a better guide.
The one whose birthday we’re honoring has the right connections. To the Child’s Parents Logic-Love and their unique talent for seeing beyond fiction. Beyond made-up “reality” to facts and what they mean: a call for learning and growth toward the competence of maturity. Capabilities demonstrated by Jesus’ living among us, by his authorship of A Course in Miracles, and in other ways known only to the individual Minds and lives he’s touched. All it takes is Free Choice questioning. Questioning the status quo. Contradicting. Asking for Guidance.
The gift of good contradiction
Christmas spirit is the honesty of the Voice that explains with the Vision of Logic-Love what lies behind appearances and questions its source, bodies affirming matter with their senses. That agrees when agreement validates Self-Worth and contradicts when it doesn’t. Questions as well as affirms. Minds open to questioning and intimacy in friendship instead of mindless animal brains disguised by “sociability” competing for “supremacy.” Contradiction that helps instead of regimentation that harms. Stands up to the authoritarian reflection in the mirror that can’t tolerate standing up. Helping to define Self as it evolves by understanding the Logic of contradiction in every context. Disciplining independent judgment to anticipate and prepare for pushback that will keep it honest, focused on its task, and striving to excel.
And making sure that it doesn’t take itself or its job too seriously. For whatever it is, it comes with contradiction. The possibility that it may not always be right but sometimes wrong. Not always be correct but sometimes mistaken. The attribute of Authority under the law, defined and defining with opposites, that can never be absolute.
With the gift of good contradiction we can see through the deception. To the Truth revealed by the Vision of Logic-Love, that in all of its attributes the animal brain beast reflected in the mirror is an imposter. A lifeless, loveless code “intending” to end everything. Our shadow-opposite. This is its nature. Its so-called logic that its self-deluded host – us – is supposed to take seriously. An alternate “reality” so illogical and absurd that it can be hilarious. Something between total catastrophe and a Three Stooges food fight.
Jesus in A Course in Miracles encourages questioning and humor too, because getting the “joke” is part of undoing error and getting back to work. So go ahead and laugh. Have a Merry Christmas!
The gift of Christmas
We are all reflections in a made-up world that’s the dream of a Mind thinking it’s a reflection. So we are all narcissist authoritarians in our own way, body-centered personality types more than Mind-centered types, but it’s only a difference in degree.
In a world that’s a shadowland of opposites, a reflection made up of appearances, contradiction can be a very good thing. The contradiction that’s our Christmas gift from our Helper. From the Mind with which we really think: Logic-Love. Where we will find our real thoughts when we aren’t contradicting them with an unreal dream. Good contradiction of bad contradiction. Denial of the denial that put a layer of appearances over Reality-Truth. That substitutes unreal reflection for Real Self.
All of this the role performed by Jesus: an opposite that’s helpfulness in a shadowland of authoritarian opposites – harmfulness. Contradiction on the side of the good guys – conscience. The will not to profit from mistake selfishly but to correct it for the sake of gentle loving kindness. No symbol of pathos on a cross but the living Force of Voice that cannot be silenced. The Voice for Self-Awareness and not self-unawareness. The Voice for Mind and not for its “substitute,” body-brain matter.
The Gift of Christmas. A role model for the ages.
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*Christmas letter 2023. Originally titled “The Gentle Loving Kindness of Contradiction”