Sunday, June 30, 2019

The Other's Shoes


The Mystery within...
Back in April 2013, when I first began my God Never Hurries blog, I wrote a post titled, “Oh Happy Fault” which included this quote from Jim Crace’s novel Quarantine “…for everything that God has made is weak, blemished and imperfect by design.” I asked back then, “What if it is our mistakes that evolve us into more wise, kind, tolerant and humble beings?” My head back then was more narrowly focused on my personal mistakes with a goal toward improvement. But a recent experience has deepened my understanding of love’s puzzle and provided a critical piece for how to love the other unconditionally.

Through a recent mistake of another, I felt the grace to put myself in the other’s shoes.  When I did that, a surge of empathy and compassion for the other overcame my initial agitation. It was huge in helping me understand how unconditional love is possible. I pray I can walk with grace in the other’s shoes the next time agitation sneaks into my being.  

I did a search of my past blogs with the word grace. Following are nine blog post titles that popped up with each blog’s ending What if… question:

Grace Under Pressure – What if we could all go to our heart when the pressure is on?
Grace and Nature – What if we could all practice being more observant of the life going on around us and let Grace bridge the gap in our nature?
Grace in Governance – What if we made a list of the grace we want in our political candidates?
Retreat – What if we remembered there are many paths to the same Energy, Source, Light and Grace more often?
Imperfection – (Richard Rohr:  "We must never live in such a way where grace is not needed hour by hour.")  What if it is our own imperfections that lead us to accept and love one another?
Grow in Grace and Wisdom – What if we could always trust darkness, mistakes, and trials to grow us?
Sharing Grace – What if we all shared what helps us live with grace?
Thresholds – (...it is our troubles that grow us in grace and wisdom) What if we could all welcome the truth our threshold crossings have taught us and continue on with a sense of fragile wholeness?
Ask, Seek, Find – (The profit in suffering comes in the grace in knowing something inside me needs to die so I can experience new life.) What if we could all come to befriend our shadow?

What if we could put ourselves in the other’s shoes when agitation sneaks in?