To penetrate...to look back, to turn around, to turn from looking outward, seeking answers out there, to looking inward, penetrating within, and finding God there.
It is in looking back that we find our true teacher, and it becomes more precious the longer we live seeking spiritual growth. We get to experience the many different levels of our earlier blinding flashes...acceptance, for one. At 80+, my acceptance of acceptance has changed dramatically...so many levels, all within. Most, when first recognized, have been batted down as "old" thinking.
For instance, there is we must learn to stand up for ourself, which was true when we first got it. So we learned how, perfected the art and were heading toward rigid, righteous and right. Our spiritual growth opened a new door, and we felt the lack of God in our self-actions...the good in guilt.
We found at the new level that it is not for us that we need to stand up, speak up, be present...not for us but for the other. In trust, we recognize that the other is not the one being attacked...no, the other is the one doing the attacking...the one we are resisting.
Comes the dawning, our perceived enemy is fear in disguise, and nothing turns us to God faster than fear. Gratefully, we accept our answer is to love your enemy as yourself...clearly not by self-will, or by self-knowledge for that matter. Through God alone can we accept this new reality.
By God's will, God's way, we stand up...willing to be ready, ready to be willing, to do our part in making good trouble, as our late beloved John Lewis knew it to be. We need not fear, nor expect to be called to cross Mr. Lewis' Edmond Pettus Bridge, but every personally courageous act we take for the benefit of the other is our Bridge.
From Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle: What he wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. There. That's our Edmond Pettus Bridge.
Thank you.
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