Back in the day, when I was young...hip, slick and cool...there was very little in my world that I did not know. One day the love of my life said a hurtful something to me. Even though he denied saying it, or meaning it that way, or etc., I would not get over it. I would not let it go.
He finally said the magic formula, the full meaning of which took me nearly twenty years to grasp. I consider it an act of grace that I caught the essence of it at the time. He explained that I know him, that I know he would never deliberately say anything hurtful to me or about me. Then he said, and here's the magic formula: I don't deny that you know what you heard, but you can't deny that I know what I said.
This is the magic formula for peace in our time. We could use it like a mantra today and be the better for it. It takes our hurt or our angry (both fear) focus off the speaker and gives us the choice between two reactions...whether to respond from love or from of fear.
It doesn't take very long to learn that to respond from love to what we heard...no matter what our reasoning mind/ego heard...is to immediately walk away in peace in our own head. Responding from fear? There is no walk away...especially in our own head. It will play over and over, it will grow, it will do our thinking for us. All because we chose fear over love and, the key really, to put someone else's name on our own reaction.
Her nasty is not what rides me, it is my thoughts about his nasty that live as a growing bramble bush in my head. S/He is not responsible for my thoughts...I am.
I am a believer that none of this can be accomplished without God's help.
Thank you.
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