Bridging the Ideal and the Real

There is power in looking into the darkness as we recognize the parts of us that we repress, collectively and individually especially our cultural obsession with the body and human sexuality. Anything repressed doesn’t go away, it comes out in a distorted form hence perversion and obsession so prevalent around us. He talks about our shadow needing to be loved and how in order to get us to our wholeness, the Self within us will do so even if it creates havoc for the ego and the shadow will importune consciousness. Pittman describes the anxiety that becoming conscious entails, the wounding as we encounter the Self but also that there is meaning in our suffering and to have the faith that nothing will destroy our relationship with God/the imago dei/the Self. This took place at the San Antonio, C.G. Jung Center on May 15, 1998.

Part 1 of a talk given to the Jung Center in San Antonio, Tx on May 15, 1998, McGehee lays the groundwork for ego development as it is the beginning of our becoming conscious human beings. Reframing our failures, our mistakes, even illness and accident, any crisis that leads to suffering is the Self’s way (the God image within) to lead us to greater consciousness. We are accustomed to seeing light as positive and dark as negative but from the Self’s position, darkness is a process we need to enter into instead of avoid or distract from in order to become complete.

This Sunday School class talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on December 30, 1990. There are five childhood fears that McGehee singles out to describe but the biggest of all is non-being. To understand the remedy for that we graduate into our own self hood, our own containment by leaving Mother behind who convinced us we could not live with out her and finding out no one can do our life for us but us. Most of all we each have to find and become our selves, we have to have a relationship with our Creator. Entering into this alone is an undescribeable joy.

This Sunday School class talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on December 23, 1990. The prologue of the Gospel of John carries within it the origin of all things —breath that worded us into existence and the doctrine of grace. To be what we were created to be by God who conceived of you and delights in your presence — your authenticity to be.

This Sunday School class talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on December 16, 1990. Christmas time can be a joy filled time and a time of despair and depression. Pittman weaves our hopes and fears together and skillfully makes them acceptable so that something more substantial can occur when both are integrated.

This Sunday School class talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on April 17, 1988. This story is about his coach at Oklahoma State University and it is so funny that you will love it. It is as he says his chance at reconciliation and becoming real. 

Using a humorous story about an article about a baseball team, Pittman McGehee tells a tale about the cosmic game of life and how Jesus came along to change the game. This Sunday School class talk was given on September 13, 1987.

The ego has its own value system of what quality of life is for us and an essential part of our ego development is to acquire material things, power to get them and self worth derived from having accumulated matter and time. We all want more time. The problem is our ego thinks it's all that is of our psyche. It gets confused when it believes that the more we can acquire of net worth, the more we can justify our worth and being which can lead to narcissism (he describes Donald Trump as an example of what narcissism looks like). Eventually the soul (the subtle body) that we also are is enriched by gifts that the world cannot give us. This talk was given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. at the Christ Church Cathedral Sunday School class in 1991.

This talk is about our human ego and our soul and our imbalanced state that begins by building a lightness and a darkness in order to conform with what is acceptable in our environment and in our society. This leads to a fairly significantly unbalanced view of life. If we ignore the darkness long enough, we’ll become that which we have ignored and there is no other way to become aware without going into the dark, the way of the cross. The teeter totter is always there before us. The Self in us is calling us to the fulcrum. This mp3 is a talk given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 5-29-88 at Christ Church Cathedral Sunday School class in Houston, Texas. 

In this talk, Pittman shares the idea of balance vs integration, coming to a realization that there are some things in our psyche that are just not for us. Attitudes or associations we may have been dealt in our early days by parents, culture, family, etc. and the necessity of embracing that which we most fear. This mp3 is a talk given by J. Pittman McGehee, D.D. on 5-15-88 at Christ Church Cathedral Sunday School class in Houston, Texas.