Authentic spirituality is always first about you—about allowing your own heart and mind to be changed. It’s about getting your own who right. Who is it that is doing the perceiving? Is it your illusory, separate, false self; or is it your True Self, who you are in God? -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 15, 2019
To me, the first seven words above were a real kick in the consciousness...authentic spirituality is always first about ME? Here's me working ever so diligently to get over me...to put me behind me. Oh, then I read the rest of the sentence, about allowing your own heart and mind to be changed.
There's the sliver of gold, our go-to first step. Being handed a new slant on authentic spirituality, we are gifted with the how-to: We allow our own heart and mind to be changed. To be raised out of reliance on reason into reliance on spiritual.
Not surprisingly, this is the spiritual way we have been learning that we need to rely on. That new way of thinking...spiritually, as in others first. We know that our reasoning mind will ever think of our own self first which is probably why one of the first readings that was given us was the Sermon on the Mount. Face it, the Sermon is all about giving over, giving up, giving in...or, more succinctly, is all about others. As in, the way to find the peace we seek is to put others first.
There. That puts the period to our reasoning mind's security blanket...about the need to stand up for ourself, to never let a snub go unacknowledged, to never let a snark go unanswered. Our thinking resists for reason will have us mentally in the fetal position, passive and feeling put upon. Which cannot be maintained...and shouldn't be...but to stay in reasoning resistance is continuing down that wrong road.
We want peace, peace with each other, peace within ourself. Peace comes by extending peace, and staying with our reasoning mind proves to be untenable. We choose to go beyond reason to authentic spirituality: We seek God's guidance.
Ah, we find the peace that passes understanding.
Thank you.
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