If you haven’t gotten your hands on J. Pittman McGeeHee/Damon J. Thomas’ latest book, “The Invisible Church: Finding Spirituality Where You Are”….I heartily recommend that you do.

McGeeHee is an analyst in private practice. He also teaches at the University of Houston (lucky students) and is the director of The Institute for the Advancement of Psychology and Spirituality. He served for 11 years, as Dean of Christ Church cathedral in Houston. Thomas is a writer and editor who lives in Houston.

In the chapter “The Kingdom Within” there is a section labeled, “The Gifts of Paradox”. One paragraph especially stuck out for me today. It says, “If we are to live in the kingdom of God, we must learn to carry paradoxes consciously, for what could be a greater paradox than to be fully God and fully human at the same time, as Christ was, and as we all are?” In fairness to the authors, that appears on page 81 of the book–which is about mid-way through the book–so the authors have done an excellent job of leading the reader up to that little tidbit and then seeing us through to the end of their intent with this book.

For me, what this means to me today is that when I am “God” or the “I Am” or the Higher Consciousness of Lynn, I am operating without the ego interfering. And when I am the human being called “Lynn”, my ego is pretty much running the course. The paradox is to carry both of these within us at the same time. The challenge is to be as conscious as we can about which one is operating at any given point in the day.

I’m wondering if part of what is happening when we are feeling guilty or ashamed is that we know that some action or thought we have done or said has come from our reptilian brain or id ego and that we have it within us to be a better being. That we do have “it” within us to live well and make choices that do not harm ourselves or others. So really, if/when we can become conscious of this then we can ask our higher self/God/the great unknown for guidance in making amends or rectifying what we have done or said and to not repeat it. And my experience with this state is that it is very uncomfortable and as uncomfortable as it is to clean up actions/words, it is much more uncomfortable for me today not to do so. I can surely see why many of us have turned to booze, cigarettes, sex, money or anything that we think will take us away from the pain.

And you know that I know that I am SUCH an unfinished piece of work, right?!! You should have seen me today talking with someone I really care about over the phone about some really uncomfortable stuff that had right in the middle of it, me setting boundaries and owning up to my part of our story. So uncomfortable. But I had an inkling earlier in the week that a way that we had been relating was not working for me anymore and so, I had to speak up about it. I trust this person and their capacity to grow too. I know that we both know that we love each other but still, I will go to the ends of the Earth to avoid making someone else uncomfortable (the peanut gallery that is known as my family can keep their comments to a dull roar–I’m not a teenager anymore!).

What paradoxes are you carrying within yourself today? I guess one more thing I will say about this idea of God and the Human being inside of us is that, for me, I do believe there is something bigger than myself that is in charge but as to where they are (inside or outside) and what they are (unfathomable or human-like) I can’t tell you….because that is the paradox of belief!