...love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons and daughters of your heavenly God (Matthew 5:43–45). "These are the most radical, political, and revolutionary words ever uttered," per John Dear, founder of The Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, in Morro Bay, CA.
Giving up the fight...the fight within...is, not may be, is...the hardest thing I've ever decided to attempt...or attempted to attempt. Giving up the fight with my own judgments, my own opinions, my own rigid, righteous and right no doubt will be my hair shirt till three days after I'm dead.
I suspect the giving up becomes most difficult when we learn to keep our mouths shut which devious art I have perfected. But silencing the mind? Or, not silencing...quieting! Quieting the mind is God's perfect art. Our turning to God for that perfect art is, I'm almost certain, what we are here to learn.
The way varies for each and all of us. For me, the way is what I've learned is "crash and burn." And doesn't that explain why it is so difficult to do? What mentally competent person deliberately sets out to crash and burn? There it is, the answer to its own question...that "mentally competent" qualifier linked with "deliberately" spells the poisonous protected self-interest of "No...I'll think of something else."
To which, inevitably, we fail.
There. At one and the same time, our self-protection is the key that opens the door upon which God knocks. Our dreaded (albeit blessed) crash and burn removes self-protection, self-interest, self-itself.
We pray our thank you as we recognize our own self as the enemy who needs our love...love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. We have met the enemy and s/he is us.
The God of our own understanding, our inner Self, clears our hurdles and brings us Home...daily and/or as needed.
Thank you.
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