THE ESSENCE OF SELF-ACCEPTANCE

This gift is from God and not of man's deserving. But certainly no one ever receives such a great grace without tremendous labor and burning desire. -- Richard of Saint-Victor

As I walked Ruckus this morning, I thought of how hard we try to not do this, to not do that, just to not...and I thought that if we succeeded, we'd be living a very sterile life. If we 100 percent succeeded in not bad-mouthing anybody (no matter how deserving she was) or never wanted to smack anyone upside his head (again, only when he deserved it) or any of the other wild and hairy (a.k.a., judgmental) thoughts that occur to us hourly, we'd not only be bored, we'd be a bore.

Now there is the nut that excuses us from exchanging our less-than-wonderful thoughts for kinder, gentler ones. There is the ego wanting self-acceptance but going about it all bass-ackward...excusing acknowledged bad behavior on the grounds that the only alternative is to be a bore.

No. The essence of self-acceptance is being free to say to our friends that we'd like to slap Gertrude upside her head, then letting that go. No need to dwell on the right or wrong of our want to, no need to justify it by bad-mouthing Gertrude further. The spiritual goal is, in that instant and without spoken words, to shoot a prayer for our thoughts about Gertrude.

We've got to believe Gertrude is exactly where she needs to be...if we can believe that for ourselves, and we must, we must needs believe it for everybody. So, we pray not for Gertrude but for our thoughts about her. When our thoughts turn to understanding Gertrude, we know our prayer has succeeded, that we have aligned our thoughts with God's thoughts.

Word of warning: This is not an overnight exercise.

"He goes before me to make the crooked places straight."

"But certainly no one ever receives such a great grace without tremendous labor and burning desire."

Thank you.