When you take a dirty floor ... and make it spotlessly clean, and this polish it until it shines, it radiates back to you the love which you poured into it; the divinity of that floor has been drawn forth.
Part of my bedtime routine when I was a child was to say my prayers with my parents and then confess any wrong I had done during the day. Sometimes I made my parents sad, and myself, too, but my confessions were always followed by immediate forgiveness, by assurances of love, the love of my parents, the love of God. I am grateful for the teaching given me by my parents, because it grounded me in an awareness of God's all-embracing love.
~ from THE ROCK THAT IS HIGHER by Madeleine L'Engle
In our time the impulses of evil have become so powerful throughout earthly evolution that inner powers reaching far beyond what is ordinarily called good or moral will have to be found if humankind is to be able to cope with them. What is so particularly -- and immediately -- necessary in this connection is the mastering of that spiritual process which has been defined as "moral breathing", the beginning of which is forgiveness.
We can forgive! Everyone can forgive what lies within them to forgive. We can forget what ought to be forgotten instead of rummaging about amongst old injustices. We could draw a line beneath all the old that wear us down and which we are not in a position to get to the bottom of. We can hold fast to the idea that what is fruitful is alone true. We must be able to work together again, in harmony and without excluding the people we do not like ... out of love for humankind, for the whole of erring humanity.
When we condemn, we create a world of condemnation for ourselves, and we attract the condemnation of others; when we cling to an offense, we are clinging to precisely what separates us from our own fulfillment. Letting go means not only releasing the person who has wronged us, but releasing ourselves. A place opens up inside us where that person is always welcome, and where we can always meet again face to face... We receive exactly what we give. The more openhearted we are, the more we can experience the whole universe as God's grace. Forgiveness is essentially openness of heart. It is an attitude, not an action.
~ from THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS by Stephen Mitchell
Exaggerated repentance is a reverse form of pride. We are designed to acknowledge our imbalances, adjust for them and MOVE ON. Accepting forgiveness in every moment in which it is required, letting go of yesterday's failures, we move forward in healing... Our processes of healing will show us failures; we must see where we are going before we can adjust the course. However, the healing process does not define us! It is just the manner in which we awaken. It is vital to recognize the false pride of the sinner for what it is: a cop-out, an escape mechanism through which the fearful avoid responsibility -- and, as they eventually find out, salvation.
O Thou, the sustainer of our bodies, hearts and souls, bless all that we receive in thankfulness. All is Thine, and will be returned to Thee. The kingdom, containing within it the knowledge which is the Divine Power itself, and the Glory which is the realization of or essential unity with Thee. Indeed what I am is the Love, the Lover, and the Beloved, yet all is Thine and I give it back to Thee with every breath of my body.
Out of the depths I cry to You!
In your Mercy, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplications!
If You should number the times we
stray from You, O Beloved,
who could face You?
Yet You are ever ready to forgive,
that we might be healed.
I wait for You, my soul waits,
and in your Word, I hope;
My soul awaits the Beloved
as one awaits the birth
of a child, or
as one awaits the fulfillment
of their destiny.
Forgiveness means accepting the core of every human being as the same as yourself and giving them the gift of not judging them. You can be clear about whether or not a person's behavior is acceptable without judging the person. Forgiveness starts with ourselves and extends to others. Accepting that the core of your own being is as precious and wonderful as that of any other person is the greatest gift you can ever give yourself.
~ from MINDING THE BODY, MENDING THE MIND by Joan Borysenko
GREETINGS, friends! May the Silence that dwells in your heart radiate out to bless the world. We each have within us Love and Light that gives us the capacity to forgive one another, to be in solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters and the world.
No one really knows what the soul is, but tremble forth it does and, just as mysteriously, shudders away again...The soul is the name for the unifying principle, power, or energy that is at the center of our being. To be in touch with soul means going back to the sacred source, the site of life-releasing energy, the activating force of life; to venture forth and confront the world in all its marvelous and terrifying forces, to make sacred our hours here; to learn to pay such supreme attention to the world that eternity blazes into time with our holy longing. Soul-making, this.
~ from THE SOUL OF THE WORLD, edited by Phil Cousineau
Fold your wings, my soul,
those wings you had spread wide
to soar to the terrestrial peaks
where the light is most ardent:
it is for you simply to wait
the descent of the Fire --
supposing it to be willing
to take possession of you.
~ from HYMN TO THE UNIVERSE by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
When the energy of the soul is recognized, acknowledged, and valued, it begins to infuse the life of the personality. When the personality comes fully to serve the energy of its soul, that is authentic empowerment. This is the goal of the evolutionary process in which we are involved and the reason for our being. Every experience that you have and will have upon the Earth encourages the alignment of your personality with your soul. Every circumstance and situation gives you the opportunity to choose this path, to allow your soul to shine through you, to bring into the physical world through you its unending and unfathomable reverence for and love of life.
Whoever opens their soul to the "influx of the divine" receives the revivifying experience of a higher world order. A "spiracle of eternal life" or "window on eternity" opens up and frees the soul of too narrow a view of reality.
I call the high and light aspects of my being SPIRIT and the dark and heavy aspects SOUL. Soul is at home in the deep, shaded valleys. Heavy torpid flowers saturated with black grow there.
The rivers flow like warm syrup. They empty into huge oceans of soul. Spirit is a land of high, white peaks and glittering jewel-like lakes and flowers.
Life is sparse and sounds travel great distances. There is soul music, soul food, and soul love.
People need to climb the mountain not simply because it is there, but because the soulful divinity needs to be mated with the spirit.
There is a force at work in the universe that guides all things. To imitate this force is called "falling in line with the Way of Heaven." It is the way of this force to yield. It is the way of this force to endure. Holding fast to the "Way," all things are accomplished by this force. The force does not strive, yet all things obey it. Mystery of mysteries, this force is the Mother of all things; mystery of mysteries, those who know it know the Eternal.
~ Laotse, found in THE SPIRITUAL ATHLETE edited by Ray Berry
Many are avidly seeking, but they alone find who remain in silence... Those who delight in a multitude of words, even though they say admirable things, are empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite your soul to God.
Kay and I went to Walpi, maybe the oldest continuous inhabited village on the continent... Near a stole altar lives an ancient great-grandmother, over a hundred years old, some say. She asked us to come in. Her hands are arthritic but she is a working potter. She not only throws the pots, but paints them afterward. I asked her how she manages to do it, since her knuckles are knotted by arthritis and she is nearly blind with cataracts.
She said, "It's not my hands that make the pot, it's my spirit. My hands are broken by my potteries hold my soul, and that's whole."
~ from THE THEFT OF THE SPIRIT by Carl A. Hammerschlag
BLESSINGS be with you, friends! As we become friends with the Silence, we will begin to hear as loudly as any outer voice our own spirit calling us to soul-making, to that deep inner space seeking to be in complete harmony with the universe.
