As I began my readings in my quiet time this morning, the notes I wrote in 2004 in both "God Calling" and Easwaran's "Words to Live By," spoke again to me.
My blinding flash of the obvious as I noted in my "God Calling," i.e., My sister's disrespect of me is my gold...thank you, felt like a brand new blinding flash.
Then, in my Easwaran: My sister in her dissing me is seeking God...my being made to pay (for whatever/wherever her anger stems) is her God. She needs me in order to have something to get over on...I want to let her for my own good.
My sister is a self-described atheist, but her atheism is pretty much based on her anger at God...which, to me, negates disbelief in God, but that's for her to figure out. My role to play started with my BFO that her disrespect is my gold.
In that instant I realized her disrespect as utterly impersonal to me...not mine, meant nothing to me...ah, but only if I did not pick it up....meaning, if I responded, if only by my resistant thoughts without a word being spoken, I owned it.
What a freedom! I knew that to be true, but more importantly I remembered that truth is not selective, cannot be broken apart at will. Ergo, disrespect itself is impersonal. Which meant it was true of any snark or snub or unkindness coming from anybody anywhere...from an elbow in the ribs to a road rager. It says nothing about me or to me so I need not respond...especially not respond in kind.
The next step in not personalizing is remembering which brings the bell-ringer: Once we honestly commit to remembering, we must trust God to intervene in our behalf when, not if, we forget.
Then there's the short form which is my personal golden rule, Just try not to be as nasty as you want to be.
Thank you.
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