Deuteronomy 8: 1-10, Carefully Observe

Deuteronomy 8: 1-10, Carefully Observe

1, “You must carefully observe everything that I command you this day so that you may live and increase and may enter and occupy the land which the Lord promised to your forefathers upon oath.”

We live in a culture of “it’s not my fault; it’s “so and so’s” (you fill in the blank) fault.” The Judeo-Christian creation story highlights the prevalence of “passing the buck” even in Paradise. Adam declared, “Eve gave me the apple!”; meaning, “she made me do it.” Eve threw responsibility back to the snake. Like Adam and Eve, we may deny what we have done and refuse to accept responsibility for what our choices and actions have created.

We may resist seeing our selves--our thoughts, our emotional states, our actions, and the outcome these yield. We avoid feeling the discomfort of how our choices and actions, intended and unintended/conscious or unconscious, shape us, our relationships, and our environments (home, office, social groups, churches, nature, etc.) Unfortunately, not seeing insures we will continue to recreate the same states of consciousness within ourselves and the same types of relationships with other people and our environments.

Today’s scripture instructs us to “carefully observe everything” that God has set in motion. Our ego/self often wants to impose its ideas of how things work without first observing the way things are working. There are natural/spiritual laws or principles that govern and create. This is true of our personalities and bodies as well as nature and the environment. The key to changing anything, whether it’s an internal thought process or feeling state, or an external relationship exchange or environmental situation, is starting with what is.

Sometimes, people say, “but I already know what’s happening, and nothing is changing”. We may feel victimized or stuck. We can drop into the paralysis of shame, hopelessness, and despair. We can rage at the injustice we feel and displace the “not yet owned” guilt of knowing we have a part. God often gets blamed in the process. Psychologically, we blame our unconscious or the Self/God Within.

Yet, the holy writing quoted above states that the Divine has made an oath to bring us into greater life. It is up to us to carefully observe how we work, how others work, how nature works, etc. with an eye to what we need to see that our choices and actions may work within the natural/spiritual laws to move us towards greater life. (I believe greater life means an expanding consciousness that allows our lives to be in a perpetual state of improvement.)

I invite you to begin observing more carefully and attentively the processes at work within and around you. When you find yourself blaming another, or denying responsibility for any area or situation in your life, be courageous and look to see your part. Identify the sensations, emotions, accompanying images and memories, etc. that set in motion the affect and behaviors in which you engage. Let this information empower you to make different choices and create different outcomes for yourself.