This recording features the Sunday Talk portion of the service. For the full service watch here.
You Are Not Your Story – Rev. Darrell Jones
DESCRIPTION
Is it true we are not our story? Well yes AND no – it depends on what you choose. Most of us aren’t choosing and if we are, we aren’t choosing wisely the story we tell. This week, get inspired by understanding the power of the story you tell yourself and life. These stories do one of two things: they empower us or zap our potential. What are you choosing?
SUMMARY
Rev. Darrell Jones explores the paradoxical theme “You Are Not Your Story,” teaching that while we are not limited to the narratives we repeat about ourselves, those very stories actively shape our lived experience and either empower our potential or drain it. Drawing on Mark Nepo’s “The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born To Be,” he frames life as a continual process of becoming in which we are simultaneously being torn apart and put back together, and invites listeners to sit consciously in this paradox rather than seek simplistic resolutions.
He emphasizes that the “stories” we tell—especially around worthiness, separation, and scarcity—are powerful uses of creative law: universal consciousness does not discriminate between helpful and harmful narratives but simply creates from whatever is most energized in our minds and hearts. From a Science of Mind perspective, we are “chemists in the laboratory of consciousness,” and our inner stories become the patterns that show up in our lives, for good or ill. He challenges anthropomorphic images of God as a judgmental being outside us, arguing instead for an impersonal creative presence that has no favorites and is always co-creating through our stories.
Using the plural pronouns for God in Genesis (“let us make man in our image…let them have dominion”), Jones reinterprets this language as an ancient recognition of divine complexity and fullness, suggesting that humans, too, are multidimensional beings whose identities cannot be reduced to simple binaries. He extends this to a call for honoring our own “universal intersectionality and complexity,” including experimenting with internal pronouns like they/them as a way of acknowledging our multifaceted nature. Revisiting the notion of “dominion,” he argues that humanity’s role is not domination but stewardship, partnership, and care for creation, and he critiques the ways religious language has been militarized and used to justify exploitation and tyranny.
Jones then turns to “healing the wounds that shape us,” asserting that all experiences—pleasant and painful—train and shape us, much like Mary Morrissey’s metaphor of having black belts in both success and failure. The key, he says, is the meaning we assign to these experiences: our interpretive stories are where we meet the divine and where true creative power resides. He offers practical reflective questions for the week: whether our stories serve the life we are building, whether they help us become more brilliant or keep us tethered to outdated versions of ourselves, and whether they foster or hinder connection, healing, and love.
Acknowledging a common human tendency toward narratives of unworthiness and separation, he calls for courageous engagement with those we perceive as “other,” framing connection, uncertainty, and becoming as inherently risky but spiritually necessary. He critiques the global “spoiled brat” scramble for divine approval and attention, noting that most of our stories deny our fullness, greatness, and possibility as individuals and as a species. In response, he advocates for restorative practices and restorative justice as a way of life, not just a response to harm: cultivating a culture and container of love that can hold both healing and harm, and that invites ongoing checking and revision of our stories about ourselves and others.
Through an example of a burglar and the traumatized family he robs, Jones illustrates how punitive systems often fail to change the underlying scarcity story, whereas restorative approaches can help all parties understand impact, reclaim their humanity, and begin genuine healing. He concludes by inviting listeners to claim “black belts” in both success and failure and to adopt a new overarching story: that everything in life is serving their becoming as the divine embodied, even amid doubt, triggers, and old memories that resurface. Anchored by the refrain “There’s only love,” he closes in prayer, blessing the community to tell stories of possibility, healing, abundance, sufficiency, connection, and restoration, and to remember their own complexity and fullness as expressions of love in action.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Darrell Jones:
My voice. Good morning everybody. Put your hands together for this marvelous ensemble. So over 25 years ago, the reason that I found my way to this teaching into new thought philosophy into a new relationship with life was because of music. And so I was grateful that Paige agreed to sing that song today. And then I was just singing harmony and realize I’ve said this before, but in terms of resonance, in my next lifetime, I want to come back as a background singer. I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I just love laying in the back. But here’s the thing, I love harmony. How cool is that? And actually, I feel like I’m a background singer for the divine because I’m trying to bring harmony into the world. So I don’t have to wait a lifetime. I’m doing it right now.
For those new today, either online or in the room, my name is Reverend Daryl Jones. I go by the pronouns he/him. And today I want to highlight that I also, internally in my mind, I use the pronouns they/them. And I’m going to break that down for you during our talk today. Will you humor me for one more thing? Really quick. Today’s my mom’s birthday. And she’s online. She couldn’t make it physically today, but could we just sing really fast? Happy birthday to you, Karen. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Karen, mom. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, mom. And to all of you online, welcome as well. We are here to continue the conversation today of becoming this month’s theme. And the focus, the fuel for the talk comes from Mark Niepo’s book, The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born To Be.
I love the song that Paige sang there. There’s only love. In this moment, in this place, I remember who I am. Letting fear and worry fall away from me, I open my eyes and see. There’s only love. There’s only love. Love that heals love that sets us free. There’s only love. The challenge is that if you are like most of the humans on this planet, if you woke up this morning and turned on a radio, looked at your phone or turned on the news, everything that was presented to you was complete and total contradiction to the statement that there’s only love. Would you agree? Yeah.
The talk title is You Are Not Your Story. It’s an interesting one because I wanted it to be evocative, like to make this declaration. You are not your story. But at the same time, you are your story. Whatever you’re telling yourself, it’s true. Even if you don’t like it, if you’re repeating the same thing over and, “Oh, I’m just worthless. I’m just worthless.” I love that song Worthy. I got to see India Ari when she released that album and concert. Ugh. If you don’t know India Ari, check her out some amazing songs, but that song worthy. If we’re walking around saying, “I’m not worthy,” but we want to be worthy of something, but we come back to, “No, I’m not worthy. But I want to be worthy of love. I’m not worthy. But I want to be worthy of the promotion. I’m not worthy, but I want to be worthy of thing.” We can want all we want, but if we are repeating a story over and over in our mind that we are not worthy, that’s where the power is and you’re misusing your power.
Does that make sense, everybody?
So is it true? We are not our story? Yes. And no, the paradox, to me, that’s where the divine lives in the paradox. It depends on what you choose. Most of us aren’t choosing the stories that we tell. Let me repeat that again. You think you’re choosing, but you’re not. You’re reacting. Choosing requires you to take responsibility. And if we are telling ourselves a story, the question I ask is, are we choosing wisely? All stories that we tell do one of two things. They empower us or they zap our potential. So what story are you telling? This reading, Mark Nipo, I like him and I don’t like him, to be completely honest with you. And the reason that I know that it’s good is because I sit in that paradox. There’s something about the way he languages things that frustrates me, but it pushes me to my edge of understanding.
So whenever we do a Mark Nepo book, I’m like, “Dang.” And I’m like, “Dang. All right, here we go. ” So it’s interesting, this language, life is difficult and beautiful from our reading today, soft and hard. It’s fragmented and whole. Within a single day, ourselves are both dying and being born. Our tissue is disintegrating and rejoining even while we sleep. Likewise, our consciousness and heartfulness is both fragmented and whole. Within each experience, our understanding of life is being torn apart so new perspectives and insights can rejoin. Like ourselves, the very makeup of who we are is both dying and being born through our moment to moment struggle and being human. That’s frustrating. Is anyone else feeling that? Just you and me, Amy? Okay. All right. So he has this great way of just saying, “Well, this is just the way it is. We’re trying to figure out life and it’s being torn apart.
And at the same time, it’s being put back together.” I’m like, “What do I do with that? How does that help me today?” My hope and desire is that we’re going to get to some place, not a definitive answer. We’re not going to solve all the world’s problems, but how to sit in that paradox, how to sit in being torn apart and being put back together at the same time. Reverend Amy invited me to focus on the idea of healing the wounds that shape us, exploring how our life experience, especially the difficult ones, shape who we are.
I want to start with a quote from Mary Morrissey. Anyone familiar with Mary Morrissey? She’s still alive kicking and teaching. And every once in a while, I circle back to her writings and she’s got this one story that she always tells, and it’s a great story that I think all of us could learn from. She says that she has two black belts. Anyone familiar with this? She has two black belts, one in success and one in failure. And both of them trained her in a specific way to be the person that she is today. We get training from all of our life experience. We get training from all of the stories we tell. And most of us are trying to push away the stuff that we don’t like, the thing that may be disgusting, the thing that we abor, but that’s actually where most of the growth happens, at least that I have found.
Rarely am I sitting on the couch, chilling out, watching, I don’t know, some ridiculous show. That’s not where my growth is happening other than my belly because I’m probably eating something that I shouldn’t be.
It’s when I’m stepping out into my life and I’m bumping up against the hard stuff. So this is what we must first embrace everything, not some of who we are, all of who we are. Get your black belt in both failure and success. We must embrace all the stories we tell ourselves in the experiences that we have had, whether they are easy or hard, traumatic or transformative, good or bad. This is the basic teaching of science of mind, which we follow here at Cityside. There is a universal law that seeks to do one thing. It is singular in its focus. Create.
That’s it. This law discriminates against no thing and no one. It is not selective and it doesn’t really care from the standpoint of being a human. The way that, “Oh, I care about that or I don’t care about that. ” It just gives itself. It cares about everything, but it doesn’t discern what story is working for you or what story is not working for you. It just says, “Let’s create.” One of my favorite Ernest Holmes quotes is, “We are chemists in the laboratory of consciousness. What then shall we produce? What stories are you pouring into the beaker of your consciousness? In the laboratory of your mind, in the laboratory of your living, what are you producing?” The law discriminates against no thing and no one. And if there is something in thought and mind, especially with lots of ton, a lot of emotional energy behind it, the law readies itself, rubs its hands and says, “Let’s go.
” And it pushes out into your experience the very story that you’re telling. It gives fuel to everything, not some things, everything.
This is a critical understanding to those of us who maybe embrace now or grew up embracing the idea of God, spirit, source, universal presence or law as a being outside of us with attitudes, with opinions, with judgments that it withholds and it has favorites. This is making the creative essence of life human-like. We have it twisted most of the time here. In Christianity and Judaism, often there is a passage from the Hebrew and Christian Bible that gets highlighted from the very first book, Genesis, chapter one, verse 26, which reads, “And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the foul of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” I’m going to see how many of y’all were awake.
Did you hear these words that are well over 2,000 years old, these old writings? “Many today say that they do not understand the use of they, them, or plural pronouns by individuals, and yet some of the earliest scribes of the Western world history are using they them pronouns to describe God. “What? Did you hear that? No. No. Let me go back. And God said,” Let us make man in our image. “It doesn’t matter what version of the Bible you look at, there are plural pronouns. God is talking about itself as more than one of the binary. After our likeness, trippy, eh? I had to do a little bit of research on this as the language was just screaming at me and I couldn’t let it go. The use of plural pronouns here for God is commonly interpreted in traditional Christian theology as the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
So they. Alternatively, it is also viewed as God addressing the heavenly court of angels.
I like this one though. Or as plural of majesty used in Hebrew to express the fullness of God’s power, the fullness of God, God is so much, so complex that when addressing itself, it must use plural pronouns. Are you feeling me on this? Are you tracking where I’m going? You think that there are some members of humanity that are actually getting it, getting the complexity of who they are as people on the planet. We are so multifaceted that to only describe ourselves as one dimension of the divine, known as he or she is to oversimplify ourselves. And I’m not saying don’t do it. I still use the pronouns, he, him. And in my internal dialogue, I’m starting to use they and them just to play with things and recognize that I’m so complex, I’m so multidimensional. I’m not just what you see. I’m actually more than what you see.
This depiction of the divine that you call Darrell Amani Jones is just a tip of the iceberg. What I see in you, yes. I look at you and I’m like, that’s Pam. But I know there’s so much more going on that I will never, ever know. And I don’t need to know, but I recognize that there is a diverse complexity that exists within all of us. We are so full that we must address our universal intersectionality and complexity beyond binary existence. Just like God did over 2000 years ago. Okay. Take a deep breath. Sorry. You’re probably thinking, okay, Darrell, what does this have to do with what we’re talking about today, y’all? This speaks directly to our theme in the book this month, becoming. We are the endless practice of becoming. We are constantly becoming who we are and who we are meant to be.
Who you are meant to be and who you are right now is a divine, amazing expression of the universal magnificence. Can I get an amen? Amen. Okay. And a hallelujah. And a hallelujah. And if I may, to continue with my word nerding for a moment, one other thing to highlight from this scriptural passage, and I just feel compelled to do this today because some of the militarization of religion and of scripture and of spirituality, it is not healthy and it is not actually contributing to the story that’s going to allow this planet to heal. And that’s what I’m interested in. Okay. It goes on to say, “And let them have dominion.” They’re using they/them pronouns again, right? “Let them, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the foul of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth.
“Biblically, dominion is the God-given authority delegated to humanity to responsibly rule, steward, and care for creation as representatives of the universe rather than through exploitive tyranny. And if you think that the only people that are being tyrannical are in the White House, you are mistaken. We are all conspiring towards tyranny on this planet.
I am definitely a part of that system. I live here. I live in this country. We may say,” Oh, this isn’t my country. “BS. You live here. It’s your country. Now, I’m not saying that you are making the decisions like other leaders are in the country, but there is so much intertwining in terms of our systems, what we purchase, what we don’t purchase, the things that we take for granted in this country as normal, that make our life easy. Have you ever really gone down the rabbit hole of what gets exploited in order for us to call what we call normal in the United States? It is a humbling thing to do.
Take a deep breath in. Those of you who are here for the first time, I’m sorry. I like to go there. All I’m trying to say is that when we look at some of the holy scriptures and when we are talking about the stories that we tell ourself, we have to slow down and check them. We are not here to dominate the planet. We are here to be stewards. We are here to care for. We are here to manage, work in partnership and co-creation. All right. So let’s get back to our talk title. You are not your story. This is a statement of liberation as opposed to negation, even though I’m using the word not.
Once we all realize that all the stories, not some of them, all of them, they are tools to help us make sense of our life. We can step back and ask a few questions, and I might add critical questions that actually can serve as empowering and be proactive change towards liberation. Is anyone interested in proactive change towards liberation, making this a world and a planet that works for all? Okay. Bless you. So here’s a couple of questions. You don’t need to write them down. I’m just going to rephrase basically the same thing over and over again. And I want to invite you to recognize that I’m saying a bunch of words on the surface right here that you’re hearing, but then your heart is listening to a whole other sub-dialogue that I don’t know what it is. And I just bless and know that the living spirit is sending a message to your heart that you need to hear today while your brain tries to make sense of all this wordiness that I’m using.
Yes? Yes. Okay. So here’s some questions to put into your practice this week. Does this tool, AKA, the story that you tell, does it serve the life that you are building currently?
You know your story, right? Whether you like it or not, there’s a story that is always just right beneath the surface, humming, buzzing. Is that story helping you create the life that you want? Number two, is there a story that I tell myself or others about who I am? Does it help me become more brilliant or does it pull me back into some former version of myself? I was just talking to my wife the other day about the language we use and someone had introduced this idea. We say,” We’re coming back from vacation. “Back to what? She’s like, ” I’m going to go forward from vacation. “If we’re talking about becoming, why would we go back to anything? Becoming has nothing to go with going back. Becoming is about adventure. Becoming is about expansion. Becoming is about getting comfortable with uncertainty. Yikes.
All right. Is this story that you are telling yourself about others helping you or hindering you in your capacity to connect, to relate, to heal and love? So are some of the stories that you’re telling yourself, disconnecting you from connecting to these expressions known as the divine, where healing takes place, where love is in action. Ultimately, all of these questions that I’m asking are ultimately just this one question. Do the stories that we tell hinder or expand my understanding of God as my life? If you don’t like the word God, do the stories you tell hinder or expand your understanding of source as your life? That’s the only thing that’s happening. Source as your life. Are you telling yourself a story that denies that or expands it? If you’re telling yourself a story that denies that, then check the story. I do that every single day because I don’t know about you.
I have a default tendency in my humanity to try to tell me that I am not worthy, that I am disconnected, that those people aren’t like me, that I can’t understand them and they’ll never understand me.
That doesn’t serve anything but disconnection. Do you understand that? Now, is it scary to go, ” Those people that I don’t understand and that don’t understand me, I need to step closer to them? “Yeah, it’s scary, but guess what? God is scary. Connection is scary. It’s an adventure. Becoming is a lot of uncertainty. We must be bold and courageous. If you are alive and awake … Hello? Okay. If you are alive and awake and hearing these words, chances are you tell yourself some stories that really don’t help you or the world. When we continue to do what is called anthropomorphize God, which is a fancy way of saying we make God in our image and likeness as opposed to trying to strive to be in the likeness of that which created all, we place on God this idea that it judges like we do. We place on the universal presence.
This thing that has been in operation longer than history can document, that has been creating and going through all the seasons of life for millennia. We try to oversimplify it and make it like us and say that it’s a bitch and bitchy and it makes judgments and it puts people outside of boxes. Come on.
The latest estimation is that there’s 8.29 billion people on the planet. We’re running around like spoiled brats trying to get our proverbial parents’ attention by acting crazy. That only happens when you tell yourself some interesting stories. Most of the stories we tell ourselves deny our fullness. It denies our greatness. It denies our complexity. It denies our possibility as individuals and as humanity. This brings me back to what Reverend Amy requested for today, healing the wounds that shape us, exploring how life experiences, especially the difficult ones, shape who we are and become. I want to take this a little bit step a little further. First, all of our experiences shape who we are, the good and the bad. Those that we judge or discern as positive or negative. Regardless of what the experiences are, they are shaping us and have shaped us. But our story that we tell, that’s where the shaping happens.
This is where we meet with the divine. This is where we meet with the creative law.
The meaning that we give to our experiences. This is where the power dwells. I’m going to try to do this last part as quickly as I can. I’m just going to do a little flyover. Anyone ever heard of the word restorative practices? Most people understand restorative practices as restorative justice. This is what we do. We come together in a circle at a time of harm to heal. But that is just one singular expression of restorative practices, which is actually a spectrum of exercises. It is a way of being because here’s the truth. We are constantly harming one another. Just the last week, I was with Reverend Amy and Linda at the Centers for Spiritual Living annual meeting. And there was something that was said by one of the staff members from the stage with the only intent of inspiring. And a week later, I sit on the board, we got a note from someone saying,” Do you realize what those words did to me?
Do you realize the impact of those words on others? “So let me tell you, to go back to some biblical language, whether two or more are gathered, there’s going to be pain. There’s going to be misunderstanding. There’s going to be suffering. There’s going to be judgment. There’s going to be condemnation. But what we must do as spiritual beings is engage in practices that offer a culture of restoration, that give us an opportunity to check the stories that we’re telling about ourselves and about one another and about where we are choosing and reacting and being from. Does this make sense? Restorative practices is not about waiting for harm to happen. Restorative practices is cultivating a culture that allows the full spectrum of our experience, that which we call good, that’s what we call bad, that which we call healing, that which we call harmful to have a container and a container of love.
That’s why I love this song. There’s only love. Now, there’s a lot of people that poo-poo and say,” Oh, restorative practices doesn’t work. “Let’s people off the hook.
Has punishment really worked? Now, I believe in consequences, and we have laws in this country. I’m not saying we should do away with laws, but if that simple structure worked, then why did the jail sales continue to expand in their numbers? It’s not working. This is why restorative justice and restorative practices have been invited into life. If someone is a burglar, let’s just say it’s a man. I’ll stereotype that it’s a guy breaking into a house. And I want to say that this burglar has two young kids. Okay? He’s telling himself a story that there isn’t enough.
There will never be enough. No one cares about me. Everyone’s stepping over me. So what does he do? Whatever he thinks he has to do to get what he needs for his kids. He breaks into a house where he sees they have more than enough and steals what he needs. Now, in our traditional justice system, he gets caught. He gets punished because he did breaking and enduring. There are certain things that the judge has to say,” This is what we need to do, “and we can’t deny that. But what does he learn? What does he learn? Do you think he really learns from the punishment? Do you think being isolated in a cell by yourself is going to make you learn what you need to do to not repeat that story again? He still thinks there’s not enough.
He still thinks there’s not enough. But what if there was some coaching and some education and reminding him that there actually is enough, but then also here’s where the restoration takes place. The family that he broke into, they had two kids as well. And every single night, they have nightmares and terrors because someone broke into their home. They don’t feel safe. The parents don’t know how to manage those nightmares and terrors. And when we isolate the burglar and say,” Don’t look at what you did. We’re just going to put you away. Where is there any healing and restoration? Are you Ego feels good because we were like, “Oh, that was bad. That was wrong. We put them away.” If that burglar knew the impact, the father who was doing this for their two kids and realizes, “Oh my gosh, I’m causing this harm. I would never want my kids to wake up with nightmare terrors every single night.” Now, I’m not saying that’s going to solve all the problems, but we must take responsibility for the stories that we tell.
We must encourage one another to take responsibility for the stories we tell because they make us act in ways that don’t always serve in our highest and greatest good. We are technically out of alignment when we talk about being authentic, but I’m not judging anyone or anything because I do the same thing. This is why we practice. This is why Mark Nepo says it is a practice. We are constantly becoming every single day.
So I’m going to wrap us up here. We are all black belts. You have a black belt in success and a black belt in failure. But I want to invite you to start telling yourself a story that everything in your life is serving you becoming the person you are meant to be. The person that you already are, the divine embodied and expressing. Doubt is going to happen. Please don’t set yourself up for disappointment that Darrell’s going to say a prayer today, and then Monday morning you’re going to wake up and be like, “I’m the most magnificent expression of the living God.” Yeah, you might start your day like that, but I guarantee someone’s going to cut you off. Someone’s going to say something. You’re going to get an email, you’re going to have a thought about yourself, you’re going to remember something from when you were four.
Remember something that someone said to you when you were 12. All these things are constantly there. We can’t push them away, but all of those moments are opportunities for us to remember the truth. There’s only love. The second verse of that song, when I lose myself, anyone ever lose themself? Anyone lost themself today? I did already this morning. I was like, where am I going? When I lose myself, when it seems I’ve lost my way, I go inside and quiet my mind and I can hear spirit gently say, “There’s only love. There’s only love. Love that heals and love that sets us free from the story that there is not love.” Let’s take this into prayer. If it feels good to you, bring your hands to your heart, to that place that we generalize as where love dwells in the heart. Connect to your loving heart.
Take a deep, deep, slow breath in and out. And to the best of your ability, let go of all the words that were just said and feel your body. Something is active within your system right now and just feel it. Whether it feels comfortable or uncomfortable, just feel your body in the chair where you are, whether you’re in the room or you’re online, wherever you are is the best place to be because it is the place where love is happening. There is only love. There is only one power. There is only one presence. And it is co-creating with you through your stories. We are not separate from anything. We are a part of it all and all of it is a part of us.
So from this place and oneness and connection to all that is, I bless us this week as we step into the stories of our life, knowing none of them are wrong, but we may need to check the stories that we are telling. And may we all tell stories this week of possibility, stories this week of healing, stories this week of potential, stories this week of abundance and sufficiency, stories this week of connection and coming back together and healing and restoration. May we restore ourselves to our fullness, to the complexity that we are. And from that place, may we not only receive everything that we need, but may we give everything that we are here to offer. I am so grateful for the stories that we tell. May they be the stories of love that we are. And so it is. Peace and blessings, dear family.