ON TAKING NOTHING PERSONALLY

We must get over the idea, when fear comes niggling, that our overcoming it is the right thing to do, that  repeating the mantra by rote, we overcome it. Ah, but our need is to resist it not, to love it, to welcome it because we realize in that moment that this very fear is God in camouflage, and we can safely run toward Him. 

Making peace with our reasoning mind's fears does not remove fear...for which we become grateful. If it weren't for fear, dread, pain and suffering, who amongst us would grow spiritually? Would grow anything but fat, in all probability.

I first read it in a Rohr meditation, and I have come to believe it by experiencing it:  If we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it.

I am often amazed when I look back at how long it takes to internalize (make our own) the wonderful spiritual gems of our Connectors. I suspect that's because I lived from my eyebrows up...by agreeing with what I read, I believed I got it! Comes our awakening...it takes as long as it takes after "getting it" to own it. Or, more to the point, for it to own us. 

Another reasoning mind awakening: Our inner pain and suffering is way too often caused by our relationships with others...with our most near and dear or just friendly acquaintances. 

I have found for us in our walking-around world, we must learn to take nothing personally. There. That's the short form to resist not, love and welcome when suffering the pain of an obsessive mind game of our own making.

It seems naught else will bring us to that hole in the wall where entry is based entirely on our willingness to forgive. 

Our hard lesson learning in taking nothing personally begins with our decision to be a forgiving person...to forgive in the first instance of resistance. That instance is another hidey-hole of God. 

It comes through grace when we realize our powerlessness over our own self-interest. Through our brokenness we accept that to continue responding in kind is simply interchanging negative energy...there is no God in that, only ego.

For me the hard part of the hard lesson is the many times I have hit that wall...turned around, gone back and taken another run at it all on my own. Accepting that wrong way as our right way goes against common sense. Hey! Grab the golden ring, we're heading in the right direction! 

We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.  -- Fr Richard Rohr

Thank you.