Courage

The Mystery within...

Courage to make tough decisions is a frequently recurring need of mine. The gift of fear calls courage forth by heightening my awareness to everything and everyone around me.  The deeper my fear has been, the more heightened my awareness grew until I came to know a loving Source within the natural world and everyone in it. 

Courage led me to search for truth; reject diseased concepts of sin, masochistic obedience, and unholy martyrdom.  My eyes opened to woman’s compliance and its resulting destructive behaviors I knew too well. 

Courage led me to ponder the following recipe for abuse:

Claim masculine superiority.

Refuse to integrate feminine spirituality that honors the body and the earth.

Silence dissenting voices.

Create doctrine and dogma that obscures the sacredness of everyday life.

Claim infallibility.

Courage also led me to edit the Spiritual Works of Mercy and question what if all our beliefs were subject to intellectual and spiritual maintenance?

Grow in grace and wisdom.

Share your beliefs.

Invite positive change.

Bear wrongs patiently.

Forgive offenses willingly.

Be present to the afflicted.

Pray for the living and to the dead.

Courage remains a continuous need in me to remember to embrace my fear; trust my mind, heart and gut, trust the loving Source within, and learn from others’ reactions. 

What if we more often had to courage to grow up and become who we really are?

Evil

The Mystery within...

Healing from past abuse has been occupying my thoughts of late and how evil can be a both/and thing. 

For me, past abuse closed down some ability to feel and made me fearful and compliant with the expectation I should be seen, but not heard.  M. Scott Peck, in his book, “People of the Lie,” spoke of evil as that which kills, either the spirit or our aliveness.  His definition makes it very easy for me to understand evils’ effects.  I also understand, on a deeper level, how looking away from others needing help is another form of evil.  And treating others who commit evil as being less than human, is also very wrong. 

Has my past abuse served me?  Most likely the expectation to be seen and not heard has led me to work to write with clarity.  Learning to live with chaos and numbed feelings allowed me to be a student chaplain in a downtown emergency room with a degree of calm and presence to patients in turmoil.  Seeking peace and refuge in the natural world has brought me to know a comforting Presence; there to teach me what I yearn to understand, by my being present and open to my surroundings.  It has made me a seeker, searching for forgiveness and a desire to share what I am learning about the evolution of love.      

We need one another to become more fully human and heal from past abuse.  My late friend Rosemary gave me her copy of “People of the Lie” many years ago as I began to seek to understand what happened to me and forgive my father.   At the end of Peck’s book I found comfort in these words from the Reverend Charles K. Robinson’s imagining what a Creator, sourced in love, would speak to my father.  

I know you.  I created you.

I have loved you from your mother’s womb.

You have fled—as you know—from my love,

but I love you nevertheless and not the less however far you flee.

It is I who sustains your very power of fleeing,

and I will never let you go.

I accept you as you are.

You are forgiven.

I know all your sufferings.  I have always known them.

Far beyond your understanding, when you suffer, I suffer.

I also know all the little tricks by which you try to hide the ugliness you have made of your life from yourself and others.

But you are beautiful.

You are more deeply beautiful within than you can see.

You are beautiful because you yourself, in the unique person that only you are,

reflect already something of the beauty of my holiness in a way which will never end.

You are beautiful also because I, and I alone, see the beauty you shall become.

Through the transforming power of my love which is made perfect in weakness,

you shall become perfectly beautiful.

You shall become perfectly beautiful in a uniquely irreplaceable way,

Which neither you nor I will work out alone,

for we shall work it out together.

From “Known” by the Reverend Dr. Charles K. Robinson, November 4, 1973 (Duke Divinity School Review, Winter 1979, Vol. 44, p.44). 

What if we could really know what part evil plays in the evolution of love? 

Body/Mind Connection

The Mystery within...

I had a freak accident this past January while walking in a wood with my son and our dogs.  A six inch rotted tree limb fell on my head, knocking me to the ground and temporarily stunning me.  Our walk ended abruptly with a trip to the Emergency Room where I received five staples to close the bloody gash on my head.  Later, when I told my acupuncturist what happened she said,  “It looks like the universe is trying to tell you something.”  I told her, “I’m all ears.”

It will soon be June and I am still feeling residual effects from that bump on the head.   I’m now seeing an Occupational Therapist for cranial sacral massage to see if she can help put things back in order so when I bend over to tie my shoes I can do it without pain in my eyes and head.  We are making progress along with unexpected discovery.

As my therapist’s caring and skillful hands worked to realign what the tree limb had disturbed, traumatic memories from my childhood came flooding back with surprising emotional intensity.  My strong reaction recalled my reading of Dr. Bessel A. van der Kolk’s book, “The Body Keeps the Score” and his words regarding abuse, “The body needs to learn the danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.”  The mystery deepens for me on the body/mind connection and the many layers of slow healing needed from past abuse.  I also became aware there are real steps to successful forgiveness of the other that cannot be passed over lightly.

I reviewed some of Robert Enright’s writing on the process of forgiveness, particularly his caution that we not forgive prematurely before we gain real insight into how much the past injury has affected our life.  Enright states, “A fundamental step in coming to offer forgiveness to an offender is clarifying the nature of the offense and how it has compromised one’s life.”  I guess my body has recently reminded me of that.   

Coming in contact with those strong emotions still hiding in my body was a real surprise. I am grateful for their revelation along with the knowledge that healing from abuse is slow work, and the fundamental steps to real forgiveness cannot be passed over lightly.  It also left me knowing how open and non-judgmental I need to be toward others on their own healing journeys and forgiveness.

What if the universe could be gentler in telling us what we need to know?  Would we still learn?             

Invitation to Reflect

The Mystery within...

Three additional works have been added to the Comfort Messages section of my blog for your enjoyment and reflection.  They are Rumi’s “Guest House” found under Accepting What Is; Reverend Safire Rose’s “She Let Go” found under Letting Go; and Sister Simone Campbell’s “Ode to an Unmade Bed" found under Priorities. 

Rumi’s “Guest House” helps me look for the gift in whatever life presents; Reverend Safire Rose’s “She Let Go” shows me the simple power in releasing past hurts; and Sister Simone Campbell’s “Ode to an Unmade Bed” touches my heart through understanding what is really important.  Each of these authors helps me be more real in the real world.

Wishing you acceptance for what is, the simple power in letting go of past hurts, and a comforted and grateful heart.