CENTER POINT THE CENTER FOR SELF-CHANGE NEWSLETTER
Vol. 2, No. 4 - APRIL, 2008
ENTERTAINING GOOD THOUGHTS
I recently had lunch with a Jesuit priest who is also a marriage and family counselor. We had gotten together to share some ideas about the religious imagination. That discussion led to a brief conversation about religious imagination in children - which can range from the simple to the complex.
Some cases can be mere misinterpretations, like the famous image of Gladly the Cross-eyed Bear (from the hymn "Gladly The Cross I'd Bear").
And many people have heard the story of the little boy learning about the mystery of God in a Sunday school class. He was told that God was so unfathomable that even his name was beyond our ability to understand. In the Judeo-Christian tradition the term for God, Yaweh, means only something like "I am" and among Moslems "Allah" means "The God." But the little boy immediately announced that he knew God's name. It was Howard! You could find it right there in the Lord's prayer, he argued: "Our father which art in heaven, Howard be thy name!"
That one may be just an urban legend, but I had a real example from my own life.
I grew up in a small, mainline American Baptist church. I never needed to use a hymn book during services because I knew all the songs by heart. One Sunday when I was fifteen, however, I really wanted to use the hymnal - because I was standing next to a girl I really liked. The song was "O' Come Let Us Adore Him" and the girl was holding the book. So I stepped closer to her and bent down nearer to her face - on the pretext of reading the words.
That's when I became aware of something remarkable which I had never noticed until then.
Whenever I heard the refrain "O' come let us adore him," an image ran through my mind of a large garden with a simple white church in the background. The church door is open to receive worshippers. In the foreground of the garden, a bunch of tomatoes are encouraging several heads of lettuce to go into the church with them by singing "O' come, lettuce, adore him." Eventually, they all sort of bounce down a garden row and into the church.
Now, that was a subconscious image series. I might never have noticed it had I not seen the actual words that morning. It is nonetheless packed with elements of the religious imagination. The garden, with its many rows of various vegetables, could be seen in a way as the Garden of Eden - and as a symbol of fertility. The talking tomatoes bring up the question of the extent of consciousness throughout creation. The green and earthen tones of the garden, in contrast with the bright blue sky, might mark the holistic relationship between heaven and earth. The open door of the church could represent the never-ending invitation to spiritual communion in the company of others. The garden row leading to the church door is reminiscent of the "straight and narrow path" of right action.
I could probably write 20 pages on that. (But not here, eh?)
The priest then presented one of his own.
From very early in his childhood, his Roman Catholic teachers had repeatedly admonished him and his classmates never to "entertain impure thoughts and desires."
Somewhere along the line, he created an image in his mind of a great hall in a medieval castle, with a huge fireplace in the middle of one long wall. In front of the fireplace is a very long table. He is seated alone on one side of the table facing the fire. On the other side, facing him, are a band of outlaws known as "The Bad Thoughts." The table is replete with platters of fowl, beef, fish, and mutton as well as large pitchers of wine. At one end of the hall, to his right, a group of minstrels plays lively music. At the other end, a troupe of acrobats cavorts with glee. He has invited them all there and is happily entertaining them.
He told me that was a very conscious image for him - and a way of rebelling against the nuns and priests whom he felt were trying too hard to control his inner life.
Then one day in seminary he realized that "The Bad Thoughts" were showing up uninvited. And they were becoming rather hard to get rid of. He finally banished them by repeating the Our Father and Hail Mary several times whenever they presented themselves.
That conversation made me realize something about my work for the past 38 years.
Right from the beginning of my practice as a clinical hypnotist and on through all my all work as a counselor, trainer, presenter and consultant I have been primarily engaged in helping people change their lives for the better by encouraging them to do one basic thing:
Entertain Good Thoughts!
That's what a positive suggestion is. That's what a good autosuggestion is. That's also what leads to a transformative perception - a new way of seeing things that creates change. It is what a good counselor aims at.
All these kinds of things involve forms of good thoughts. One way or another, successful change comes from introducing good thoughts into a not-so-good situation.
James P. Carnevale, Ph.D., the director of my graduate counseling program and my professional mentor (with whom I interned for a time) told us more than once that the first thing a counselor must do is to give the client hope.
Hope! There's a great idea - a good thought if ever there was one.
I am intrigued by my Jesuit acquaintance's image of entertaining thoughts.
What if we put as much effort into that as he once did - only in the other direction?
All we have to do is spend some time with ourselves and daydream on good thoughts. That will attract them to us. If we feed them with platters of attention, and offer them the wine of companionship, then before long they will come to our table on their own. They will take up lodging with us, leaving no room for the bad thoughts, negative images, and anxious worries that seek to trouble us.
It doesn't matter so much what the good thoughts are about, as long as they are good and make us smile for a while.
Both goodness and smiling are habit forming.
There is a great deal of hope in that.
J. Kingston Cowart
JOIN THE CENTER CIRCLE
It's easy. Every Wednesday for a few minutes between 10:00 and Noon sit down and turn inward - through prayer, meditation, self-hypnosis or any modality you choose - and send out good thoughts to everyone else in the circle.
I'll be there. How about you?
J. Kingston Cowart www.self-change.com 619.561.9012 Post Office Box 19005 San Diego CA 92159
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