Sunday, August 31, 2014
Last week I
was in Buffalo conducting a funeral service for my grand-nephew, Jay Sturtz. (A
grand-nephew is the child of your niece or nephew, the grandchild of your
sister or brother.)
At Jay’s
funeral there was a period of time set aside for anyone who wanted to come
forward and speak about Jay. Several people took that opportunity. When it
seemed as though no one else was going to step forward, I returned to my
prepared remarks. After about a sentence I notice Paul walking up to me from my
left side.
“One more person wants to speak” he
said to me and motioned for a young fellow to keep moving from the hallway into
the sanctuary.
His name was Bruce. He traveled to
Buffalo from Canada. I had listened attentively to everyone else who spoke, but
the first words out of Bruce’s mouth made me snap upright on the couch I was
sitting on.
“I never met Jay until today,” he
said.
I don’t know why but I immediately
looked at the body in the coffin, confused.
Here’s the story that shows the big
and caring heart that Jay possessed. Jay was a gamer and loved to play X-Box.
Bruce was someone Jay connected with online as competition. Pretty soon just
gaming turned into online
conversations. Bruce said they talked about a lot of things over the years and
their political conversations were the hottest. Bruce was also a loner. I
didn’t find out until later that he has Asperger’s Syndrome.
People with Asperger’s generally have
trouble interacting with others and often are awkward in social situations.
They also have difficulty initiating and maintaining conversation and yet here
was this young man standing before maybe eighty people he didn’t know, and in
an emotionally charged situation!
“I never met Jay until today, but he
changed my life.”
Bruce went on to say that he and Jay
met each other in online X-Box gaming rooms. Aside from the competition, they
started private messaging each other. Eventually Bruce told Jay that he was
depressed, didn’t like to go outside, was uncomfortable around other people, felt
deprived of power and marginalized. He said that Jay continued to tell him in
conversation after conversation, year after year that he needed to change his
thinking because, “negative thinking never ends in a positive result.” Jay also
encouraged him over and over again to get out of the house and put in some job
applications.
At the funeral, Bruce told us he got
the first job he ever had in his life just a few weeks ago and he wasn’t
depressed anymore; that he had hope in his life and that he owed it all to Jay…
and he felt like he needed to be here today.
What a testament to the power of
love! Now, don’t get me wrong, Jay was no angel. He loved to be inappropriate
in a moment and in a way that would rile people up, and he did this with
intention. In general he was probably a love-him or hate-him guy to the world
around him. Regardless of whether he drove you nuts or you loved him, there was a tender caring person inside.
Bruce was in fear of people and the
world. These words from “Love Without Conditions”:
“Love is the only response that
undoes fear. If you don’t believe this, try it. Love any person or situation
that evokes fear in you and the fear will disappear. This is true not so much
because love is an antidote to fear but because fear is “the absence of love.
It therefore cannot exist whenever love is present.”
Jay counseled that “negative thinking
never ends in a positive result.” Maybe we could change that up a little to
“fearful thinking never ends in a loving result.”
“Our way of thinking creates the
experience of our life” is the way we say the same thing in Unity churches.
Here is a very real story that demonstrates this, yet we are somehow too afraid
to really dive into the deep end of this idea.
“Why are you afraid? Because you
believe that you are neither lovable nor capable of loving another.”
“That belief is the only belief that
needs to be changed. All negativity in your life will fall away as you undo
this simple erroneous belief about yourself.”
“You, my friend, are not what you
think you are. You are not simply an accumulation of all your negative beliefs
and actions. That is who you think you
are but that is not who you are.”
“You are God’s [child]. All that is
good and true about God is good and true about you. Accept this fact, even for
an instant, and your life [will] be transformed.”
What are we waiting for?
“Accept this about another, [that
they are God’s child too and all that is good and true about God is good and
true about them, too], even in this single moment, and all conflict between you
[will] end.”
“What you see is a direct result of
what you believe. If you believe you are guilty, then you will see a guilty
world.”
Maybe it’s easier to reverse this
exercise. However you see the world defines your thinking. See a happy world
and you know your thinking is happy. See a forgiving world and you know your
thinking is forgiving. See an angry, guilty, fearful world, etc., and you know
your thinking is angry, guilty, fearful, etc.
What are you waiting for? Waiting
before we take responsibility for our thinking, waiting before we accept the
fact that no one and nothing makes me feel that way I feel is simply a delaying
tactic. The good news is – and there’s always good news – in time you will tire
of it (delaying). It will not be long before you begin to reject the whole
concept of guilt – individually and collectively – and aspire to “come home,”
as the saying goes.”
“On that day, when you see your good
and that of your brothers as one and the same, all that separates you from [the
awareness and experience of] God will fall away. Then you will know God’s love
for you beyond any doubt; you will know that God has not abandoned you; God
will not/does not punish you. You will know god’s love for you beyond any
doubt. You will know the power of your mind to create and you will choose to
create with God and not apart from God.”
I know you can do it and I have
complete faith in you
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