Prices of Love

The Graduate
From juvenile delinquent to Rhodes Scholar. How a bad boy went good. [Excerpted from http://www.guideposts.com/story/juvenile-delinquent-becomes-Rhodes-scholar?page=0%2C1]
By Aaron Polhamus, Oxford, England
Every year 32 American college seniors pass through a grueling application process to win a coveted Rhodes scholarship.
• two years of all-expense paid study at Oxford University in England.
• join a century’s worth of distinguished statesmen, scientists, artists, writers and teachers—men and women who went on to become some of the most successful people in their generation.
• perhaps the highest honor an American college student can receive.
As Aaron filled out the Rhodes application, he half wondered if he was crazy. His record wasn’t great.
Aaron wrote, I got routinely suspended from school, starting in sixth grade. I was expelled outright from my junior high. I’d spent the better part of my early teens hanging out on the streets.
I’d achieved a perfect grade average in the ninth grade—perfect Fs that is—in every class. And I’d topped that year off by getting arrested for vandalism.
I gravitated to a group of guys like me. We’d act out, get suspended—which was more like a reward than a punishment. We’d spend all day wandering the streets, scoring beer, smoking cigarettes and pot.
• That fall I enrolled in Options High School, an alternative education program for at-risk youth.
• Arriving my first day, I saw five squat portable buildings slick with Northwest rain.
• Students milled around, a patchwork of mohawks, body piercings, gang colors. A lot of them looked like users.
• My first class was science. The teacher, Robert LaRiviere, bounded in wearing jeans, a T-shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. He was totally bald. His eyes were a merry blue.
• The dozen students before him were a motley bunch. But he acted like we were the most mature scholars he had ever taught
He smiled and cracked a few jokes, then immediately drew us into an intense discussion. “If there’s one thing I want you to learn in this class,” he said, “it’s how to use your brains. You’re smart kids. The world is a fascinating place. Open yourselves up to it.” The class ended and I realized that I hadn’t once thought about mouthing off.
The world is a fascinating place. Mr. LaRiviere sure was right about that. Was he right about me being a smart kid?
What else had I been closing myself off to?
Usually, whenever the youth group prayed, I zoned out. One morning I looked out at the rain coming down and tried an awkward prayer of my own: God, if you really exist, help me figure out who I am.
The following fall, a counselor at Options, noticing some high test scores,
• invited me to try physics and honors English classes at Bellingham High School.
• By eleventh grade I was attending Bellingham High part-time while simultaneously completing an associate’s degree at a community college.
• After graduation I enrolled at Western Washington University.
• One evening, coming home from class, I found Dad sitting by himself. Being away at college had given me space to reflect on my relationship with my parents.
Dad and I small-talked for a minute, then he looked at me seriously. “Aaron,” he said, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. Your transformation these past couple years—well, it seems like a miracle to me. But I know it’s not just God. It’s your hard work too. And I want you to know that I’m really proud of you.”
• After two years at Western Washington, I transferred to Stanford University in California.
• It was there that I heard about the Rhodes scholarship. A passage from the application caught my eye: “Proven intellectual and academic achievement is the first quality required of applicants,
• will also be required to show integrity of character and interest in and respect for their fellow beings.” Integrity. Interest. Respect. Did that include improbable comebacks?
A few months later I sat before an interview panel of former Rhodes scholars. “We’re fascinated by your background,” they said. “But we’re wondering, do you ever feel like you’re fooling everyone and you’re still that kid from Options?”
I took a deep breath and told them the truth. “Actually, ever since I left Options, I’ve felt like I had to prove myself. But just being here taking questions from you is a huge affirmation. I can honestly say I know who I am. And I’ll know it no matter what happens with this scholarship.”
I guess that was the right answer. This fall I’m studying applied statistics at Worcester College, Oxford.
What prices did Aaron pay for his transformation?
What about the alternative?
•Hang out, drop out, zone out, get high
•No responsibility
•Get material needs met at the expense of society;
Instead he
•Questioned himself; was this all he wanted out of life?
•He dug deeply into himself – why did he like Mr. LaRiviere? What had he missed, what had he tuned out from the world?
•He went through the pain of self inquiry
•He looked at the self-serving, self-absorbed, love of the lesser self and transformed it into its appropriate expression as un-selfish, life-giving love of self.
•The price Aaron paid for his misinterpretation of love was rejection, boredom, destruction of others and himself
•With the transformation he paid the price, at first, of the pain of self inquiry, and then the prices began to look more like rewards. High scores led to high school graduation, and an associates degree simultaneously. Then on to university, to Stanford, and to Oxford.

Ruth 1:15-16
15So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Naomi is the first speaker urging her daughter-in-law to return to her people. Naomi and her husband, Elimelech, moved from Bethlehem in Judah to Moab with their two sons. Elimelech died leaving Naomi with her two sons. These two married Moabite women, one of whom was Ruth. The two sons also died, leaving only the women. Naomi decided to return to Judah. In the scripture Naomi is telling Ruth to return to her own country, Moab.

Ruth’s expression of love and devotion to Naomi is a favorite Biblical story. It is an expression of love in the highest form.
•Love that gives, that frees, the expression of the One spirit
•When we love most truly, we are most unselfish (Wilson, Master Class, 116)
•This form of love includes, . . it fulfills human love, and draws it into fuller expression.
•It wins because it seeks not its own

Mat 22:36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"

Mat 22:37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.


Jesus exemplified this form of love repeatedly.
•Rich young ruler (seeking spiritual redemption, Mk 10:17)
*Woman at the well (Samaritan, outcast)
•Woman in the streets who had an issue of blood (Mt 9:20-22)
•His disciples
•Even the ear of the Roman soldier who came to arrest him (Luke 22:49)
•Each person seemed to Jesus have the potential to become whole (Spong, Jesus for the Non-Religious, 280)

It would be easy to say we aren’t Jesus. That’s true, AND he said we would do greater things.
Jhn 14:12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.
Charles Fillmore, cofounder of Unity, said
of Jn 14:12, that we have not received at all times because we have not demonstrated the power of His name. (MJ 132) When we reach out into the great invisible spiritual substance all about us and think of ourselves as its expression, confidently expecting it to manifest itself through us, it will do so (MJ 132).
We say that God is everywhere present – that means that we walk in God, we breathe God, God breathes us. There is no place that God is not! And God is expressed through us as the Christ consciousness.
(RW, 124) love--The pure essence of Being that binds together the whole human family. Of all the attributes of God, love is undoubtedly the most beautiful. In Divine Mind, love is the power that joins and binds in divine harmony
Earnest Wilson said,
He who was so loving taught us the secret of love; love that is gentle but strong, kind but wise; deep but unselfish (Master Class Lessons, 105].
So IF we love in that way; in such a way that lives as if everyone can become whole, what prices are we likely to pay???
GIVE UP - Love of the lesser self
oUnsure of itself -> acts erratically
oFearful of its life and in panic may act without regard for others
oTries to attain by violence what it should get by intelligence
oMost conscious of outer world values and acts from that viewpoint
oSeeks pleasure and content and tries to hold and possess that which has proven pleasurable
Often resists change and growth: parents cling to their children and discourage development, maturity, and independence
•Children resort to childish ploys to gain favor and attention
•It bids us to grieve when we feel the PHYSICAL separation or loss.
The price is to give up this way of being in the world.
To demonstrate the Highest Self, we must be
Inwardly and spiritually so assured of that good that we are not overcome by outward appearances of loss or disadvantage. We must love ourselves so much that we shall be loving and unselfish toward others and unwilling to insure our own good at their expense. We must transform foolish pride into pride of such dignity that it will not stoop to anything mean or common or unworthy of the kind of person we spiritually sense ourselves to be. We must love ourselves too much to betray the higher self to the lower (Wilson, 113)
Let’s join together in an affirmation from Earnest Wilson
Christ in me rules my emotions.
I love as I would be loved, unselfish, impersonally, in the spirit of Christ.
Today we have a young man who has just completed a program of spiritual development which we call a Life Passage.
John's life was difficult before he met Laurie Jill Wood. He entered the foster care system when he was about 6, and wound up in a group home when he was almost 8. They had just about given up on finding him a home. Laurie Jill was volunteering at that group home, and John joined her as a foster child. She was told she would not be able to adopt him because he needed a father. Finally, when John was almost 10, she was allowed to adopt John.
At this point in his life, he asked to work a program of spiritual development. John’s program has involved developing his awareness of God through the body, mind, and spirit, and to demonstrate those in the community.
In ways John was a lot like our young man Aaron that we met at the beginning of today’s lesson. He was having a difficult time and through the loving support of caring adults, and his hard work, he has transformed his life experience. John will now show you some of what he learned, focusing on the 12 Powers. [Slide show created and narrated by John Wood.]