Where Are The Sheep Of Yourself?

Here's the loose transcript of my sermon from a couple of weeks ago:

Say hello to yourself and your meditation space. Before I begin I'd like to ask that you just take a moment to acknowledge any aspects of yourself that are hanging out somewhere outside yourself today for whatever reason. As you acknowledge them notice how these aspects or parts of yourself contribute to the whole picture of who you are.

I'm going to read a passage from Ezekiel today:

"The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them - to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep."

This passage asks the question - should we not nourish that which nourishes us?

Has our attention, awareness, and energy been focused on so much 'other' happening outside of ourselves that we forget to take the time to cultivate that within ourselves that we know sustains us?

It is easy to take that which is seemingly abundant for granted; afterall it is abundant and those 'other' things that seem scarce or rare often appear more interesting. We may think that perhaps if we can get them we too will be more interesting.

But what happens when along the quest for the illusive other we take for example our own health and well being for granted?

Eventually, our vitality suffers whether it's our spiritual or physical vitality; we may become sick or weak. This is when we can really get into some trouble as our attention is focused outside of ourselves and inside we are compromised.

It can often be difficult to bring our attention back to ourselves when things aren't easy and abundant. We say to ourselves - 'ewww, this is hard, I don't want to be sick, I hate feeling run down' whatever the story line and once again we've failed to connect and tend to ourselves.

From Ezekiel:

"You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them."

So, what might be the ruling as it applies to how we related to these neglected parts of ourselves?

Could it simply be that we stop identifying with our own weakness or unfavorable aspects of who we are and rather than embracing and coming into affinity with them we work hard to separate from them because we don't want to deal with them?

From Ezekiel:

"So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. "

And this is where life can get very complicated - when we walk the earth with parts of ourselves scattered through separation and lack of affinity we inadvertently become prey to the wild animals of all kinds of things ... advertisements, friends, or family, doctors, will tell us of a cure will heal us, or give us more energy, make us look 10 years younger, make us stronger, give us a better life, give us that other that we were searching for while taking our own health, well being and internal riches for granted. In short we become vulnerable to other people's information and ideas.

And you can ask yourself, is this such a bad thing?

From Ezekiel:

"My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on ever high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them."

It is not so much that other people's information and ideas are bad or wrong the tricky bit is that we are no longer seeking within for our own information and wisdom. Our attention continues to be focused outside of ourselves and the wisdom we possess to nourish ourselves is forgotten.

How would it be if we rescued the parts of ourselves scattered on the mountains or lost in the darkness? What would it look like if we shifted our attention from the outside and the other inward to heal and integrate those parts of ourselves that we've separated from? What riches might we rediscover as we nourished the aspects of ourselves once abundant that we may have taken for granted?

I invite you this week to spend some time with those parts of yourselves that you may have taken for granted, abandoned or just plain forgotten about and acknowledge and validate their existence as part of you. As you go through this process or rediscovery you may come to appreciate in a whole new light the sheep of yourself that serve to feed and clothe you and as you do may you come into greater love and understanding of all of the aspects of who you are.