A Matter of Self Image
by Terry McBride 

Sometimes I wonder about the self-image of the people who started the idea about having a saboteur within themselves. You know the small self, that part of them that always separates them from what they want. Or how about the people who talk about their ego as always separating them from God.

How terrible it must have been for them, to think that there was something, within themselves, that would really work against them and the Divine Magnificence they are. Think about it, it must be the same kind of thing, to believe that the devil lives within, or that some part of ones own being is an evil that can not be trusted.

I want to ask these people, "When is it that you are God expressing uniquely as you and when is it that you are your ‘small self’? When is it that you are God out-picturing into form and when are you that part of you that always separates you from God?” It can be complicated to believe oneself separate from God and I want to know how they do it.

Several years ago a good friend, Jody Stevenson, spoke at a Unity church in the Portland area. Her topic focused on the subtle word games we play that talk about duality and separation. She told me that after the service a man came through the line to greet her who was just radiant. She said she could feel him when he was still several feet away. When he came to her he took her hands and said, "I finally got it: God is bald and kind of short. He's not the best dresser and He has bad days." His eyes glistened with tears of joy as He said, "I now understand who I am. I have limiting beliefs and habits and they are not who I am.” Jody said that as he walked away, she could feel the presence of God moving into the social hall, to have coffee.

It seems simple to me. If there is only one power and one presence in the universe and in our lives - God the good, omnipotent - how could there be anything that would separate me from my divine nature?

Oh, I might have a thought or a feeling that I am separate. But, it's just a thought or a feeling. And those kinds of thoughts and feelings do not have any Truth unless I declare them true.

How long must you and I be bombarded with ideas of duality and separation. When do we get to stand just as we are now and be the magnificent out picturing of The Divine? This is the hunger within people today, to know themselves to be holy. Then we read books and attend lectures that lead us to think that we need to be different to really know God. And the "lives of quiet desperation" go on and on.

I wonder, what would happen if we all got what that man got, when he heard Jody? What would our lives be like if we all began to move through our existence here in form, as if we were divinely magnificent? I wonder, when we moved into the social hall to have coffee, would people feel the presence of God moving among them? I suppose it's just a matter of self-image. But then again, there could be some magical list. Maybe God really is bald and short, and you and I who aren't, are in fact separate.