Take off your pity-party pants
You're not that special.
Right now, in this very moment, nearly a year into this pandemic, I would love to be invited to a party. As an introvert, that's an amazing thing to be feeling. Back in the day, before COVID-19 spoiled everybody's party, I would do a lot to get out of going to parties. These days? I'd go to a party in the drop of a party hat. I think a lot of introverts would agree.
However, there are some parties – no matter whether there is a pandemic or not – that you should never agree to attend. Those are invitations to pity parties, whether you are throwing them yourself or others you know are wanting you to attend theirs.
We all know pity parties – and we've all thrown them and invited others to come. This is where we put on our poor, poor, pitiful me pants and whine about how unfair the world is and how others have done us wrong. You want certain types of attendees at these parties. You want them to sympathize with you, if not empathize. You want to hear their tales of woe, and hope against hope that they have stories and problems that are even worse than yours.
I am the queen of pity parties. They are well-organized and well-planned. I even have committees in my head to take care of all of the arrangements like decorations, party favors, arranging a DJ who will play nothing but Sarah McLachlan tunes and a hospitality hostess to arrange seating for the guests.
However, that's where my pity parties tend to break down. While they are elaborate and designed to send any one who enters spiraling into my black hole of depression, they are usually not well attended. Why? Because I am lucky to have surrounded myself with good friends with enough sense and grace to turn down my invitation. I can't understand why, because they're so enticing. They start something like this: "I hate my life! Things are sucking. Nothing is going my way. Everybody else has it better than me!"
Immediately, that invitation gets sent back marked: "Return to Sender" when those around you reply with one question: "Well, what are you going to do about it?"
Pity party – party of one!
I think Jesus' parable of the wedding banquet that he tells to the Pharisees in Matthew 22 is a study on pity parties, though the Pharisees don't see it that way, and neither has traditional Christianity throughout the centuries. Traditionally, this passage is read as God being the king who invites people to his wedding party. Many turn down the first invitations, and in the second round the servants of the king are mistreated and some are even killed as people refuse to come to the party. (Geez, even as a severe introvert I've never killed anyone who invited me to a party!)
The Pharisees, and traditional Christianity, are right to see this part of the parable as people turning down God's invitation to unity – to step out of the ego and into our higher, Divine Self. Many prophets were indeed abused and killed bringing this invitation to God's people.
But, the next part of the story belies the truth of this parable – that the king is not God, but a very human king who represents the way that the Pharisees see God's realm, and not how Jesus would perceive it. This is a pattern in the parables Jesus tells in the book of Matthew. He's trying to expose, through these stories, that the idea of God's realm held by the Pharisees is not the truth, so his kings and landowners and other main players that usually represent God are really representations of the Pharisees and how they see God – as authoritarian and unwelcoming to the outcast and stranger.
With no one coming to his party in this particular parable, the king gets angry and deems all those who would not come to his party to be "unworthy." How many times, in the midst of our own self-pity, have we deemed other people to be "unworthy" because they didn't rush to our pity-party to sit and commiserate with us about how bad the world is and how badly we've been treated? Could this king simply be a human king, consumed with self-pity and the fear that people will see that his subjects have rejected him?
His next move, opening his table to anyone who would come, is traditionally seen as God opening up the invitation to the table as a form of generosity and hospitality. If that is the case, why, in the end, does the king violently eject one guest who wasn't dressed correctly? Certainly, more literal-minded Christians have used this parable to condemn those who haven't believed rightly in Jesus as the only savior and Son of God. But, this act of violence at the end of this story shows us that the king depicted is not the true God, but instead, is the ego's god who would take revenge on those it doesn't find "appropriately" dressed for its pity party.
How many times have we kicked out people who have come to our pity party and not shown the right amount of concern, deference or respect for our feelings? How mad are we when those guests point out that our pity party is nothing but the ego's attempt to make us feel special?
God never ejects anyone from its realm because that would be impossible. The realm of God is where we all truly exist while we're asleep in this bodily world. While we're here, though, the ego likes us to forget what A Course in Miracles tells us: "All of God's children are special, and none of God's children are special." We're all at the table in God's realm, but, that knowledge doesn't stop the ego from singing its song of "poor, poor pitiful me," to get the attention that it wants.
Look upon your gifts!
When we're in the midst of a good pity party, where our table is full of people commiserating in our misery and telling us we're right to think the world has done us wrong, we feel empowered. Well, the ego feels empowered, anyway. When people slow dance to the sad songs of our pity party we feel reassured that we're somebody important and that our wishes for this life should all be fulfilled and its unfair when they're not.
But, in the wise words of my mother, "Sweetie, life is not fair." And I doubt we would really want it to be because we all have different definitions of what "fair" means anyway, right? I mean, if I think having everything I want and not worrying about what you want is fair, then that's fair. Perception of fairness is reality.
The ego, however, wants to keep locked into the perception of unfairness. In Lesson 166 from the workbook the Course, we're reminded that this egoic self that so easily makes itself at home at pity parties, "is your chosen self, the one you made as a replacement for reality. This is the self you savagely defend against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses with proof to show you this is not you."
This pitiable ego-self is not you. Instead, this is the king you have set up to worship, the one who throws open the door to anyone who will stroke it and agree with it that the world is a terrible place and treats you so badly. This is not reality, with a capital R, where we understand that we are all one with each other and with God and that joy is our birthright.
This is the ultimate in fairness. We are all special and none of us are special. We are all entitled to miracles, to joy, to peace and to love. Whenever we are not experiencing any of these things it is a sure sign that we are stuck in the ego's pity party loop. Here we "cower in fear," the Course says, "lest you should feel Christ's touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts."
"Look upon your gifts!" How often, when we are at the height of our pity parties will we violently eject the first guest that suggests we "count our blessings"? I know I've tossed a few of those Pollyannas out on their ear during my pity parties. We don't want to be told of the gifts we have – we want to be reminded of what we lack! This is the ego's reason for throwing the party in the first place.
Honestly, we're afraid to see the amazing gifts we've been given, because then we have to give up this idea that our self-pity makes us special in the world. The Course promises us, if we're willing to loosen the ego's iron grip of self-pity, our natural reaction to all of this fretting about life will result in one thing ... laughter. When we recognize the abundance all around us in every moment the only reaction we'll be able to have is to laugh – not just with delight in the gifts, but at ourselves for ever believing that there was anything lacking in our lives in the first place.
"Where is self-pity then?" the Course asks.
Laughing at your problems
Honestly, I'm always thankful for people in my life who reject the invitation to my pity parties, because that kind of loving response often helps me to refocus and stop seeking to feel special. Instead, I am reminded of the wise words from the Apostle Paul in his letter to the young Jesus community in Philippi. He begins in Philippians 4by trying to settle a dispute between two women in the community. We don't know what was actually going on, but their squabble was affecting the whole community.
Paul advises these women to "be of the same mind" and stop airing their grievances against one another. This, as anyone reading this knows, is never easy, because our ego loves grievances, because they provide most of the party favors, and decorations we need for our pity party. I'm sure these women felt the other had done them wrong and people were choosing up sides and attending the pity party of their choice.
Paul says instead of attending pity parties, we must "be of one mind," we must remember that none of us are special and all of us are special because there is only one of us here. However, we may say -- and maybe the Philippians said it, too – one of these women's actions is really hurting the community. I think Paul would agree with what the Course says later: "Look at the crucifixion, but do not dwell on it."
That means, we are not to disregard the problems in this world. We are not to deny that when people get caught up in their ego, they are capable of doing truly evil things that hurt or destroy others. These are things that happen in this world, for sure. However, we are not to DWELL on it, because when we dwell, we become part of the problem. We get angry, we choose sides, we talk smack about those on the other side. In short, we get fully invested in our ego's belief that this is the real world, when it's not.
Instead, when we acknowledge the crucifixion, we take time to feel our feelings and deal with our emotions, but by not dwelling on them or wallowing in them, we can begin to see those situations and people through the eyes of our higher, Divine Self. From that place, we can take intelligent and informed actions that preserve the dignity of all involved and can bring true justice to the situation.
So, if we're not to dwell on the problem, then what should we be dwelling on? Paul has some great suggestions later in that chapter:
"... whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you."
When we dwell in joy, we will know how to face the problems not just in our own lives, but in the corporate life of this world we have created. When we think on what is pleasing and praiseworthy, we are naturally drawn into the heart of compassion, not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.
Hear the good news: We don't have to keep hosting pity parties for ourselves, or attending those thrown by others, or even the world at large. Instead, we must see the problems in ourselves and in our world clearly so we can then bring that darkness into the light and live in a state of love and instead of wallowing in our fear.
I invite you to laugh at the problems you think makes you special in this world. They don't. They simply make you as stuck in ego as everyone else. In those moments, find something, anything, that makes you rejoice, whether it's the sight of a flower, a blue sky, or a beloved human or animal. Dwell on that and your heart's table will be filled with compassionate and loving party goers who will all want to say: "Oh, yeah."
Music for the Journey
Warren Zevon wrote Poor, Poor Pitiful Me in 1976, but it was a big hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1978. Here’s both versions for your viewing and listening pleasure:
Hey, that sounds like a sermon!
Here it is in that format, if you insist.