As long as we are preoccupied with the sins of 'the flesh,' those things we’ve done, said, and gotten wrong over the course of our lives, we will never find the courage to face the larger problems of 'the world.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 17, 2020
Further, humans often end up doing evil by thinking they can and must eliminate all evil, instead of holding it, suffering it themselves, and learning from it.
And there it is, the nut of the matter...there is evil in my own world, and instead of trying to wish it away, I am to hold it, suffer it and learn from it.
To strip that evil down to its bare bones, evil to me is the remorses I suffer over my own misdeeds. For it is the remorses that stoke my belief that I am separate from God.
I am grateful from my toenails up that I was blessed early on with the need to recognize my defects, then admit and atone for them...the essentials if we want and expect to live a life happy, joyous and free of me. All of which prepares me daily for the ongoing "rest of the story."
Holding and suffering unto learning from the pain of my remorses is the dreaded and the blessed next step.
And here comes the pandemic to aid my still more spiritual growth. Within the isolation of this pandemic, I am experiencing both rues, regrets and remorses for the same-old-same-old and a feeling of comfort in going-nowhere-doing-nothing that is alarming...or, worse, should be.
Blinding flash of the obvious: My rues, regrets and remorses that I've prayed for God to lift up, out and away from me have ever been necessary...they built the bridge to surrender. From holding them, to suffering them, to learning from them, to forgiving love.
This ongoing discomfort that I've been feeling is my sliver of gold, a.k.a., God's process lifting my remorses up and out into the light for me to see. To hold. To suffer unto surrender. Into the forgiving love that passes on to others in their own darkness.
Thank you.
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