Tag Archives: devil

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Beloved

B for Beloved. Rumi and Hafiz, the Sufi poets, write about the Beloved.

The Beloved is God and God is the Beloved.

I like thinking of God as the Beloved. That makes sense to me. God should be Beloved, most Beloved of all.

But sometimes I feel abandoned and lost and stressed and grumpy and it feels as if I am longing hopelessly for a connection with the Beloved. Rumi says in his poems that it is the longing itself that is the connection to the Beloved. Then my inner devil gets annoyed and sarcastic and says, “That’s stupid. That’s a Catch-22. So why is the Beloved Beloved if suffering longing is the way to reach Her or Him?” My inner angel gets involved and is all serene and untroubled and says, “Of course longing is a doorway to the Beloved.” Then they both get out flaming swords and proceed to fight. They can’t kill each other though they try. And I sigh and say to the Beloved, “They don’t behave.” Then the angel and the devil both turn on me and say that I should love each one of them best. “No.” I say. “I love the Beloved best, but you are both part of the Beloved so if everything is loved, then you are both loved best.” Then the angel and devil point to each other and say how the other one is just horribly wrong….. they just go on.

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Weekly Angel/Devil Fight: Love everyone

This is my weekly (biweekly, snarls my devil) blog about the arguments between the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other.

Do I really see an angel and a devil? Well, no. But we all use archetypes and we all have all of the archetypes within us. So when I have a dilemma or something comes up, I call the angel and the devil to the internal conference table of my mind and ask for their advice. They are going to give it to me whether I ask or not, so it’s more effective to be polite!

Ok, sometimes it isn’t a conference table. Sometimes it’s a hell scenario with bubbling lava or the fire forest from A Princess Bride… or it could be a field with daisies and a blue sky….

Today I am thinking about what we are supposed to do: Love everyone.

How good are we at that? Not very! Or are we?

My angel: You can love everyone. (The angel is kind and completely confident.)

My devil: Yeah, til they knife you in the back. Right. Go ahead, love them and they’ll treat you like dirt!

My angel: You can love them anyway.

My devil: Paula Pell said, “Be nice to all assholes because it disables them!”

My angel: Yes. You should be nice to those people too. (She doesn’t approve of swearing.)

Devil: sulking.

In my job, I get to love everyone. That is, as a doctor I want to be able to treat everyone and anyone who walks in my office. They can be talking about aliens or refuse to do what I suggest or they can say, “I hate doctors especially YOU.” and I am still supposed and do try to help them. Sometimes it doesn’t work very well. Sometimes we don’t connect or they are going to do the opposite of whatever I say or they return to using heroin. But I still get to try.

In my personal life, I would like to be the same. I am not there yet.

Devil: yeah, and don’t want to be….

Angel: keep trying….

But I can bring something from my job to my personal life. I don’t have to love what people DO and they can be MEAN and I don’t have to LIKE IT. But that is separate from the person themselves: I can still love the person even if they seem to be acting like an idiot and my devil wants to strangle them…..

Devil: oooo, strangle, I like it

Angel: separate the person from the action. Love them anyway.

Keep on trying…..

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My weekly demon

I am in blogging 101.Today is the last day and the assignment: to create a recurring feature. A weekly or monthly or repeating feature. I thought, no, no, I don’t want to do that….

Then I read this blogpost: http://findingmyinnerzen.com/me-mantras/

I like the list. I sent the author a link to my poem “Say yes“. I made this comment:

“I would add one more thing to my list: keep my devils close. Remember the old cartoons with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other? I listen to my devil and I acknowledge what she says. She is riotously and evilly funny, with a running commentary on everything. She will also suggest totally evil over the top inappropriate responses to any time I feel hurt, sad, put upon, cut off by another car, you name it. By listening, I don’t project her onto other people and I don’t do what she says….. but sometimes it really adds perspective when someone says something thoughtless or mean and she goes into Samurai mode, shouting in my ear, “Get the sword! Get the sword! Off with their head!” I go from feeling surprised and hurt to internal laughter at how mean and inappropriate my inner demons are…… It is hard to stay angry and react to others when you are sitting there telling your demon that chopping someone’s head off is not socially acceptable and is unreasonable and is nasty and so forth…..”

Ah. There it is, the idea for my weekly post. I will write a weekly post about some internal inappropriate over reaction from my inner devil. And maybe from the angel too. We all have both. Sometimes the angel and the devil get to arguing and they are just over the top and the whole thing is silly. And the thing is, they cheer me up. The devil suggests doing terrible things but it’s usually a reaction to feeling hurt or sad. The angel tries to protect everyone else from that awful devil. And sometimes they just put an arm around each other and watch the beautiful sunrise and shut up for a bit….

The angel says, “Say thank you to everyone, it’s been a wonderful course!”

Thank you, everyone! Teachers, fellow bloggers, angels, devils, random strangers who stumbled on my blog…..

And my devil whispers, “Not weekly. Biweekly. No way weekly….”