The quality of loving kindness is already within you, but if you don’t practice daily and deliberately, it is unlikely that a year from now you will be any more loving. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November, 2017
Interestingly, all the qualities that we pray for...patience, peace, joy...are within us, are ours, right this very minute. Even more interesting is that they are useless to us unless and until we practice them as we breathe.
There will ever be reasons to resist, deny, refuse their being...but each are ego-victory reasons. There is no God there, no spiritual growth, the foundation upon which we are building our new life.
As Easwaran has written, But [for spiritual seekers, each irritant] is an opportunity for learning the skills that matter most in life: patience, forgiveness, and freedom from likes and dislikes.
Those who are seemingly the cause of our irritation are transformed into our angels...he is our personal teacher of forgiveness; she is our personal guide to patience. Just because that is not their conscious intent does not mean it cannot count toward our good. Ah, but only by our own response do we benefit.
It happens simply by our willingness to get over our own self. And choose God instead.
Thank you.
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