A spiritual experience related by many is encounters with the “deep text.”
In scripture reading that comes when someone is reading and encounters a passage or a series of chapters with intense meaning, puts down a book mark and when they go back to read that section again, finds that the reading they completed is not in the printed text.
Instead they have read and received knowledge and healing from what is sometimes referred to as the “deep text” or the unwritten text. Most of those who report such an encounter had profound connection with the divine associated with it where they made contact with the real meaning of the scripture they were reading.
Many people encounter this in the temple as well, to where they are unaware of the surface text altogether at times.
I’ve come to learn that there is also a deep text in many human interactions. It is the message that exists beyond or other than what the spoken words express. I’ve noticed it with my wife. The constant deep text, regardless of her words, is that she loves me more than I can understand and that she wants me to be successful and happy.
The opposite to the deep text is the false text. In the essay “The Most Dangerous Stories We Make Up” author Berne Brown had the following to say about the false text — a reading we create that is not there — when it is applied to ourselves:
The most dangerous stories we make up are the narratives that diminish our inherent worthiness. We must reclaim the truth about our lovability, divinity, and creativity
Lovability: Many of my research participants who had gone through a painful breakup or divorce, been betrayed by a partner, or experienced a distant or uncaring relationship with a parent or family member spoke about responding to their pain with a story about being unlovable—a narrative questioning if they were worthy of being loved.
This may be the most dangerous conspiracy theory of all. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past thirteen years, it’s this: Just because someone isn’t willing or able to love us, it doesn’t mean that we are unlovable.
Divinity: Research participants who shared stories of shame around religion had less in common than most people guess. No specific denomination has emerged as more shaming in my work; however, there is a strong pattern worth noting. Over half of the participants who talked about experiencing shame in their faith histories also found resilience and healing through spirituality.
The majority of them changed their churches or their beliefs, but spirituality and faith remain important parts of their lives. They believed that the sources of shame arose from the earthly, man-made, human-interpreted rules or regulations and the social/community expectations of religion rather than their personal relationships with God or the divine.
Our faith narratives must be protected, and we must remember that no person is ordained to judge our divinity or to write the story of our spiritual worthiness.
She wrote that people find a false text even in spirituality and faith. The false text is the story we tell ourselves that is not true, and it is 
the one that hurts us the most. When someone is told “you look great” and they hear “you are fat and ugly” they have been overcome by the false text.
I’ve been contrasting the two texts, the deep text and the false text, in relationships and in life.
That leads me to some questions for our readers today.
- What deep texts do you have?
- What false texts afflict you?
- Have you been able to separate tradition and spirituality to find healing and resilience — and if you did, how did you do it?
- Have you ever had someone misread the text that is you?
- Have you ever misread someone else?
- How do you find the deep text in your life?
Wheat & Tares 
Blindly following or blindly rejecting keeps us from the deep text.
I suppose a person will find the “deep text” only when he or she is ready for it — the same text two years before or two years later might be just plain text. It is amazing how these things work.
Finding the “false text” seems so much easier.
I don’t think all shame is caused within human constructs. Somehow, I believe there will be some who will feel very real shame when they are called to stand before God. Rev. 6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
Interesting analogy.
When the false text is part of our core it is a echo of our (false) perceptions and conclusions about ourselves from our childhood. Unfortunately as wonderful as the deep text of love from others is, it is not a lasting antidote rather it only temporary quenches our self doubt. The far more lasting “cure” is psychotherapy (typically using regressive or defense restructuring techniques).
If this had only been live when I wrote the OP, I’d have included it too:
http://www.the-exponent.com/reading-the-book-of-mormon-as-a-young-mother/
This was a good, thought-provoking post. Not sure how to respond (did you really expect people to reveal the “false texts” they struggle with?). People misread the “deep text” in others all the time. Past experiences and interactions color the way we talk about current experiences. People can misinterpret the thoughts and feelings behind what’s currently said when they are unaware of the painful experiences coloring it.
I think you’re right that blind obedience and blind rejection can interfere with understanding the deeper text. Like the mom in the Exponent piece, sometimes we must be completely worn down and broken before really seeing the power of God’s love and the Atonement. The healing and resilience come after uncovering that sure footing. After that, though, obedience or rejection is weighed much more heavily.
I hoped for some discussion. Guess I asked the wrong questions Mary Ann.
Well, it’s like with the Eliza Snow/Rorschach post. In some ways you’re asking people to really examine inner self, interior motivations, personal bias, and deep-seated insecurities. Awesome food for thought, but scary as heck to put forth those types of vulnerabilities in an open forum.
Mary Ann — that makes sense. I thought at least people would complain about others false texts that got on their nerves, and maybe that would move to a deeper discussion.
Complaining about others never moves to a deeper discussion, does it?
Sometimes it does if we complain not about others, but about the false texts that afflict them. It helps us talk about the false texts and not the people, and to separate the people from the texts.
It is important to realize that most people are not the false texts that afflict them, and that the two are very different.
Your approach only works if the others already agree that their texts are false texts. If they don’t already agree, then isn’t your complaining about their false texts really complaining about them?
ji, not when the false texts they are using are their texts about you. It always helps to have a persons own perspective on why they did something, rather than to go with assumptions IME.
HH, The original posting and the comments have been about false texts that one tells him- or herself about him- or herself. We’re not talking about incorrect perceptions that others might hold about you, or that you might hold about others.
Things like “I can never be good enough” or similar false texts.
ji,
question 4 in the OP would suggest otherwise.
I guess I wasn’t clear enough. My apologies.
My hope is that like Berne Brown advocates we will overcome the false stories we tell ourselves. And that we will have stories of healing to share.