The Very Last Thing I Learned

I read a Wayne Dyer book once a long time ago.  It was the original book that put him on the map, "Your Erroneous Zones."  I was taking a college psychology course and for an assignment I had to select a pop psychology book to read, present and review.  The short version of my review went along the lines of, "He has some very nice thoughts if you happen to be living by alone by yourself in the universe."  I'm very happy that his book wasn't the last thing I ever learned.

In fairness to Dr. Dyer, the sum of that particular book probably isn't the last thing he learned.  He's been through three divorces and a couple of serious health episodes over the years.  Adversity, whether it's of your own making or happens to fall on you out of the sky has a way of teaching you unexpected new things.

Dr. Dyer talks some about Christ.  Here's a quote of his, "I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace."  Certainly Jesus was teaching those things.  He taught a few other things as well.  He was for example teaching the Pharisees that they were white washed tombs.  I don't think that fits with Dr. Dyers listing of Christ's curriculum.  What Dr. Dyer says isn't a problem.  The problem is that he stops.  It seems like his list is the very last thing he learned about Christ.

I am blessed with a number of quality relationships.  I love all my children.  I love my wife.  I love my extended family. I have very good friends.  I haven't yet learned the last thing about any of those relationships.  They keep teaching me new things, both about others and about myself.

It's interesting to me is that I'm still learning things about my mother who's been gone for ten years this year.  I don't have any new facts.  However I have started to reexamine some things about her that I'd glossed over or even ignored completely.  She climbed Mt. Whitney in the early 1950's.  There weren't a lot of women running around at that time who could say that.  In turn, she let me go up the Western slope of the mountain, after having crossed the Sierra from Sequoia when I was 13.  I was with a group and she wasn't along and I know she worried a bit.  She was a member of a folk dance troop that performed in Southern California.  There are a number of other things as well.  I can be a bit slow and it's only recently that I've come to realized that these weren't the kinds of things everyone did.

I think I've been able to keep learning about my mother because some deep part of me recognizes that I haven't learned the last thing about her yet.  The reason that's true now and will always be true as long as I'm alive is because she was (and is) a real human being and I'm still be completed.  I'm starting to believe that real people can never be summed completely.  It makes sense if you believe that humanity was intended for eternity.  It's a bit like the bumper sticker that says "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet."  If God can wait the span of our life times to complete in us what he has for us, I think it makes sense that we should strive to be at least that patient.

I can no longer imagine myself being able to make a statement about Christ of the kind that Dr. Dyer makes above.  How could I?  I can't say I know what Christ taught in totality any more than I completely know and understand my mother.  Both are real and Christ is more present with me just now than my mother is.  How could I have any idea of the totality of Christ's teaching?  I haven't learned it all yet.

We will always argue about what Christ meant when he said this or that.  Some of us will even lie about what Christ said, misrepresent it or turn it into what we feel like he should have said.  It's real easy to understand why people do that sort of thing.  It's because they don't think Christ is real or at least they don't really believe he still lives in the present reality.  If they did believe he was present and real, why would they try to tell him what he thinks?  Christ is fully capable of speaking for himself.  For my part, I find it a lot harder to be patient with that sort of projection than I do to understand it. 

I'm deriving great value from dropping my idea that I knew my mother completely.  I don't think I ever did.  I knew she was very good and that she loved me very much.  As I embrace what some of this new revelation might mean about her, I'm learning more about her all the time.  And really, it all just makes me love and appreciate her more. 

With Jesus it is even more so.  He's a lot bigger than our ideas of love and peace.  He's bigger than any of our formulas for relating to him.  He will tolerate our lack of love, faith and patience even to the point of delivering things to us that we don't deserve.  You know, I'll bet he'd even climb Mt. Whitney if I asked him.