In regard to methodology, science has tended to say, “What is very difficult to study doesn’t merit study.” And in regard to natural law, science tends to say, “What is very difficult to understand doesn’t exist.” The church has been a bit more broad-minded. To the religious establishment what cannot be understood in terms of known natural law is a miracle, and miracles do exist.
For any single thing of importance, there are multiple reasons.
Many scientists simply do not look at the evidence of the reality of God.
Or even when we determine that people are truly intending to encroach on us, we may realize that, for one reason or another, it is not in our best interests to respond to that imposition with anger.
The perception that we are loving when we fall in love is an illusion. Real love does not have its roots in a feeling of love. Real love often occurs when a feeling of love is lacking.
It may sound strange to laymen, but psychotherapists are familiar with the fact that people are routinely terrified by mental health.
The feeling of being valuable – “I am a valuable person” – is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline. It is a direct product of parental love. Such a conviction must be gained in childhood; it is extremely difficult to acquire it during adulthood. Conversely, when children have learned through the love of their parents to feel valuable, it is almost impossible for the vicissitudes of adulthood to destroy their spirit.
There is clearly a lot of dirty bath water surrounding the reality of God. Holy wars. Inquisitions. Animal sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Superstition. Stultification. Dogmatism. Ignorance. Hypocrisy. Self-righteousness. Rigidity. Cruelty. Book-burning. Witch-burning. Inhibition. Fear. Conformity. Morbid guilt. Insanity. The list is almost endless. But is all this what God has done to humans or what humans have done to God?
The idea that God is actively nurturing us so that we might grow up to be like Him brings us face to face with our own laziness.
If being loved is your goal, you will fail to achieve it. The only way to be assured of being loved is to be a person worthy of love, and.
To nourish the spirit the body must also be nourished.
Sooner or later, if they are to be healed, they must learn that the entirety of one’s adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions. If they can accept this totally, then they become free people. To the extent that they do not accept this they will forever feel themselves victims.
Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs.
Sooner or later, if they are to be healed, they must learn that the entirety of one’s adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions.
But the fact of the matter is that everyone has an explicit or implicit set of ideas and beliefs as to the essential nature of the world.
We know the world only through our relationship to it. Therefore, to know the world, we must not only examine it but we must simultaneously examine the examiner. Psychiatrists are taught this in their training and know that it is impossible to realistically understand the conflicts and transferences of their patients without understanding their own transferences and conflicts.
Yet even more important than role modeling is love.
It is God who is the source of the evolutionary force and God who is the destination... the ultimate goal of spiritual growth is for the individual to become one with God.
And then I realized that Mrs. X. was actually not able to distinguish between Susan and herself. What she felt, Susan must feel. She was using Susan as a vehicle to express her own needs. She was not doing this consciously or maliciously; on an emotional level she could not, in fact, perceive Susan as having an identity separate from her own.
To fail to confront when confrontation is required for the nurture of spiritual growth represents a failure to love equally as does thoughtless criticism or condemnation and other forms of active deprivation of caring.