What's Your Hidden Agenda?

When Rev. Liz Mirante asked Rev. Lynnea Jardine to step in for her on Sunday, she didn’t hesitate, even with about 48 hours to prepare (feel better, Rev. Liz!). Rev. Lynnea went all in on week three of our October theme, Dances with Shadows, and even brought a little gift to the Shadow Dance Floor Meetup: Changing My Dance Changes Your Dance. Everyone got a small round mirror, about an inch across. You can watch the talk here.

The mirrors came with a story from Robert Fulghum. At the end of a lecture, Fulghum asked the speaker, Dr. Alexander Papaderos, a question that's usually followed by nervous laughter:

What is the meaning of life?

Papaderos took the question seriously and pulled a small round mirror from his wallet. As a young boy in Greece after WWII, he'd found a broken mirror on the road and shaped a piece of it into a circle. He used it to reflect sunlight into places the sun couldn't reach. As a grown man, he understood his purpose wasn't to be the light, but to reflect it into the world's dark places.

This month, we’re looking for the dark places in ourselves and in the world around us, and learning how to shine a light on both.

What Is a Shadow, Anyway?

As we've been learning, our shadow selves often run the show behind the scenes. They're the part of us that reacts rather than responds, usually from an unhealed trauma or experience we, at one time, would have called negative.

Rev. Lynnea described a shadow as a hidden agenda, a program that runs beyond our conscious mind. It's not something that's happening now, but it shapes what's happening now. Most of our shadows started in the past, usually as a way to get through something hard. They did exactly what they were supposed to then, but sadly stuck around for when they were “needed” later.

We find them in our relationships, she said, and since we're in relationship with everything and everyone, that means we find them everywhere. Someone steps on our toes or won't look us in the eye, and suddenly we're reacting to something much bigger than the actual in-the-moment experience. We get defensive. We judge. We make it mean more than it does.

Shadow work can be hard and slow. It's also worth it. It's where we find freedom. Freedom is a key principle of Science of Mind, and it's the reason Rev. Lynnea does this work at all. "I want to live my life free," she said.

Shadows Aren't Failures

It would be easy to look at our shadows and see a list of failures: times we responded badly or did something out of alignment with our values. But they're really just old strategies that outlived their usefulness, and once we see them, we get to choose something new.

I'm taking Rev. Lynnea's words to heart, asking myself whether I have a hidden agenda, an old story or outdated belief, that's impacting my job search. Or if it really is just the market. I try to live by Rev. Eric Butterworth's words: It doesn't matter what's happening out there (the world at large), but rather, what's happening in here (our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about reality). Maybe both? But definitely diving deeper to see what shows up. This is why I come here each week. I want to let go of those things that don’t fit anymore.

Moon shadows

I'm not really a Cat Stevens fan, but when Rev. Lynnea mentioned moon shadows, I couldn't help but think of his song. He apparently wrote it in Spain after seeing his shadow in the moonlight for the first time, and it's an optimist's anthem about finding joy, hope, and resilience in the present moment, no matter what comes your way.

We can bring that same openness to our inner work. A shadow can spark wonder and creativity as easily as fear. And a mirror can show us what's possible, too, whether we’re looking at our own reflection or reflecting light on something else.

Bring Your Hidden Agenda Into the Light

In my announcements Sunday, I shared a phrase we’re all familiar with, which Rev. Lynnea mentioned a couple of times: where focus goes, energy flows. With our shadows, there’s another one that fits: what we resist, persists. Ignoring a shadow doesn’t make it go away; it just gives it more power. When we acknowledge it and work with it, we get to choose where our energy goes.

Meditation and prayer train us to respond instead of react. Those little mirrors make this easy to practice. The next time you feel a trigger coming on, take out your mirror or just picture one. Look yourself in the eye and take a deep breath. Then ask yourself if a hidden agenda is running, and come back to what's in front of you.

What Will You Be a Stand For?

The third talk each month turns from the personal to the collective. For Rev. Lynnea, that means peace. "I believe that I must stand for peace," she said. Peace in her lifetime. "Somebody's got to be committed to something."

She also pushed back on how quickly we label hard conversations as political and walk away from them. For her, "It's about my relationship with another human being, and that's the dance."

She recommended a TEDx talk by Valisa Griffin, "The Semantics of Shadow Work", about how facing painful truths, personal and historical, opens the door to real healing.

So what can you be a stand for? What can I? What can we, together? We don't have to do this alone, and that's what community is for. As Rev. Lynnea put it, the world needs you more than ever.

Keep that little mirror somewhere you'll see it this week. And thank you, Rev. Lynnea, for showing up for us.

With gratitude,

Laura

PS: Core Council member Chris Ellard gave us an update on our senior minister search; if you missed it, please watch.