FORGIVENESS MADE EASY

Our outer world and its inner significance must come together for there to be any wholeness—and holiness. [A] universal truth: Matter is, and always has been, the hiding place for Spirit, forever offering itself to be discovered anew. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January, 2018

I awoke this morning remembering that the material is the way to the spiritual. With that thought, I wonder if my $2,000 tooth (a material fret) and Gertrude's to-the-naked-eye negative actions (a spiritual gift) aren't those two sides of the same coin. That they are happening concurrently may well tell its own tale.

I wonder, too, if this isn't all part of my initiation? And mayhap part of Gertrude's initiation, too? For me to stay stuck in "seeing" her as a confabulator (thus phony) is to miss my own lesson. My need is to not pick it up, pass it on, worry it or judge it...that just makes it mine, akin to picking up mud and slinging it in my own face.

More importantly, it is not that telling others of my own interpretation (judgment) of Gertrude's actions stays my own spiritual growth, it is thinking those judgments, too. Remaining silent but thinking ill reminds me of the old (ever true) shoutout: War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Same goes for sitting in silence, thinking self-justifying thoughts...a.k.a., you can't get there from here.

I love seeing all this as not only part of my initiation, but part of Gertrude's initiation, too. There it is: Forgiveness made easy.

The $2,000 tooth is still in the crucible.

Thank you.