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Cake or Death


Moving from mindlessness to mindfulness requires discipline. We are asked to remember we can look with our Teacher at the drama unfolding in our lives, or we can simply go with the ego and remain convinced we are the victims of circumstance. This practice is simple to understand, but not easy to do. As we grow in our practice, looking with the Teacher is a choice made more and more frequently. In the beginning, and sometimes even after many years, that little willingness to look can be hard to come by. If we choose the Gone-with-the- Wind response and decide to think about a perceived problem tomorrow, or when we want to scream: “I want it thus!”, our life drama can appear seriously overwhelming.

One of my favorite comedians has addressed this choice in a riff comparing the historical Spanish Inquisition to a fancied (and fanciful) British Inquisition. Eddie Izzard, a Brit cross-dresser possessed of a gentle humor, teases the Church of England hierarchy as far too sympathetic of prospective sinners. When prisoners complain of pain, church elders quickly relent and loosen the bonds. Whereas the Spanish Inquisition ordered sinners to confess their sins or die, the Church of England might have offered this absurd choice: “You must have tea and cake with the vicar OR YOU DIE!”

Cake or death, that’s a pretty easy question. Anyone can answer that!

Cake or death. It really is a no-brainer. The next time we’re tempted to give in to attack mode, or judgment, or anger, or suffering of any kind, we can remember the ease with which we would all choose cake instead of death.

As Jesus puts it: Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? T-23.IV.9.8…Leave not your place on high, but quickly choose a miracle instead of murder. And God Himself and all the lights of Heaven will gently lean to you, and hold you up. T-23.IV.6. 5-6.

You can find cake or death on youtube: YouTube - Eddie Izzard-Cake or Death

submitted by Maggie McMahon
posted April 27, 2011