Midweek Faith Lift
June 11, 2025
Power and Self-Mastery, Really??
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Passages
May 30, 2025
Spelling Bee Champ Recovers After Stumble
Faizan Zaki, a 13-year-old from Allen, Texas, emerged as the champion of the 2025 Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday night, clinching the title by correctly spelling "éclaircissement" in the 21st round of the finals. Zaki's victory marks a triumphant return after finishing as the runner-up in 2024. This year's competition featured 243 spellers from across the U.S. and several other countries. The final rounds saw intense competition, with Zaki narrowly avoiding elimination after a self-corrected error on the word "commelina." Despite the misstep, he maintained composure and secured the championship.
Faizan Zaki’s spelling bee victory is more than just a triumph of memory and intellect. It’s a metaphor for the spiritual journey. He returned after last year’s near-win, faced moments of doubt mid-word, and still rose to the top. His story reminds us that spiritual growth often comes not from getting everything right the first time, but from persistence, grace under pressure, and the courage to try again. When he nearly misspelled “commelina” but self-corrected, he displayed a great truth: even when we stumble, Spirit offers us the chance to realign, to breathe, and to continue with clarity. Divine wisdom isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence.
And for a little humor….
A wise Zen master is visiting New York City. He goes up to a hot-dog vendor and says, "Make me one with everything." The vendor fixes a hot dog and hands it to the master, who pays with a $20 bill. The vendor puts the bill in the cash box and closes it. "My change?" asks the Zen master. The vendor responds, "Ah, change must come from within."
Our topic today is self-mastery, and I believe that our young spelling champion truly illustrates the fine art of self-mastery. Research has demonstrated that when strong emotions like anger and fear are triggered, our frontal lobe, the problem solving and thinking part of our brain loses power and functions with far less capacity. We literally can’t “think straight” and confusion reigns in our mind. Being on the big stage after 21 rounds spelling words that most of us have never even heard of would require enormous self-mastery, wouldn’t it? I am in awe not just of Faizan Zaki’s spelling memory but his incredible composure and self-mastery in the face of such enormous pressure. That is for sure not in my wheel house!?!?!
The most challenging part of self-mastery is that it usually requires us to change and just like the Zen master, we ask for change from the hot dog vendor. When we hear that it must come from within we ask, “Are you for real?” Or “You must be kidding, right?!” Or my snarky self might be tempted to say to the vendor, “”Yeah, but not in this case, buddy, just open the cash box and give me my change and stop being a wise guy!” I can hear myself say that!
The truth, the Spiritual Truth of Power is that a primary component of realizing that power is self-control or self-mastery. Rev. Linda points out in Divine Audacity, p. 109 how all religious traditions teach self-mastery or self-control. In Judaism, in the Mishna, we read, “Who is strong? He who controls his passions.” From Sikhism, World Scripture, “With the conquest of my mind, I have conquered the whole world.” And from Hinduism, the Bhavagad Gita, 5:23 “That one is disciplined and happy who can prevail over the turmoil that springs from desire and anger here on earth.” And finally from the Christian scriptures in 1 Timothy 4:7 we read, “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and love and of self-discipline.”
This self-mastery is no small thing. It is a major component of the realization of spiritual Power. It is, as Rev. Linda writes, “….our capacity to guide our thoughts, words and actions in integrity with our Infinite Self instead of reacting from only human or egoic impulses.” Our words are powerful; the thoughts that drive our words are also powerful. When they escape our lips unfiltered and without mindfulness, we have the capacity to do harm, to inflict pain and create confusion, conflict and at worst, chaos. I am for sure not alone in thinking in retrospect, “I wish I hadn’t said that!”
The other hazard of not cultivating self-mastery is that we give our power over to others who then are able to yank our chain, hit our hot button and get our goat! A wise woman I once worked with said with much conviction, “They can’t get your goat if they don’t know where it’s tied!” It took me a minute to realize that I am the one that knows where it is tied, and when I run my mouth or get carried away with myself, then I am giving clear signals about where my goat is tied, for sure! Hmmmm….what part of self-mastery do I need to cultivate so that I hit the pause button before I react? Breathe, Deb, breathe! How do I cultivate the self-awareness that leads to self-mastery? That is the big question, for me, for all of us.
My hunch is that our spelling champ, Faizan Zaki worked as hard at cultivating self-mastery as he did at learning the list of words. This work of concentration and focus meant that under pressure, he could maintain mindfulness and composure no matter what. He was one of 243 spellers who all wanted to beat him. He could not think about them, not at all, or he would lose that focus and concentration that we talked about last week. He had to have self-control so that he did not think about the kid right before him who just failed or just succeeded. He had to stay calm, focused and ready for when his next word came. To have this level of self-mastery takes practice, lots of practice before it yields fruit.
When I pause and reflect on this young man’s ability not only to spell words but to also maintain such self-control and focus, I am truly humbled. How often has something someone said derailed my concentration and focus? How often have I argued in my head with what someone said and totally lost the thread of the conversation? This self-mastery is a tough nut! And each day it seems we get lots of practice, don’t we? This is not a one and done because this kind of power is really big and impactful for sure.
Most of us don’t like conflict and will avoid it at all costs in order to “keep the peace.” Does that resonate with anyone? In layman’s terms, we become “people pleasers” who have no boundaries and no backbone, especially in the face of a strong personality or a bully. What I have learned about myself is that I can “not speak up” for a time, a long time, but then when I’ve had enough, well then, I can just explode with anger and words that do not have power because all they have is rage. This is not true spiritual power, it is not even human power. This is human frustration boiling over without clarity, without purpose, without effectiveness.
Where did all that come from, you may ask, and I may not even know myself. That is not power!! That is a pattern of learned behavior that is ineffective in every way. I need to let go of that! When you just go off, people learn to avoid you, not tell you things and on and on. So, what does real power, supported by self-awareness and self-mastery, mindfulness look like, sound like? Well, it is a learning process; a self-awareness and a self-love process.
Cultivating mindfulness and that “observer self” that we talk about so often was a huge component of this for me. The first step was I had to begin to listen to myself as I responded to people. I began to note that every comment did not need a response; sometimes just listening and being silent was the better path. I learned that I didn’t have to answer every question that came my way. I learned to say, “My, that is a really interesting question and it deserves a thoughtful response. I need some time to ponder that one and get back to you.” And then I did think about it and I learned to observe whether the one asking the question came back for a response or not. If not, then the question was just to bait me to find out where my goat is tied! I don’t have to answer those kinds of questions, no matter who asks them. That was a huge learning of self-mastery for me for sure.
My guess is that we all have a story of when we demonstrated true self-mastery and experienced our deep spiritual power. Likewise, we have a story of when we did NOT demonstrate self-mastery and thus did not really express much power, human or spiritual. That is our human/divine journey for sure. What I have learned is that when we speak of our needs from an authentic place of love several things are possible. We can set healthy boundaries, ask for what we need, hear ourselves clearly and get the responses we really want from others.
Remember that old TV commercial, “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” Our words are how we access that true Power of Power that is focus, concentration and self-mastery. We pause, pray, listen inward to the words that are in our hearts and then speak words of power. When we do this, what is most important is that we will hear what we say and know the truth, the spiritual truth of our words. And we will listen, others will listen…that is true power.
Blessings on the path,
Rev. Deb