others is thus an oblique form of self condemnation. We think we make the picture hang straight on your wall by telling our neighbors that his picture is crooked.”
Fulton Sheen
How difficult it is to kneel in mud and wrestle with all of your own perceived transgressions. How difficult it is to examine your own faults, weaknesses and shortcomings. However, doing so does have positive aspects.
We learn to see our own humanness and therefore, we can begin to notice it in our neighbor. We can learn that looking at ourselves with honesty there is nothing we need to fear. As we hold the Hand of Love Itself, we can learn to look with gentleness and even laughter. Love can and will teach us to be kind to ourselves, as we become more brave. God will love us as much in our humanness as He does every other moment of our existence.
“Why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the great log in your own? How can you say to your brother “Brother, let me take out that splinter I your eye” when you cannot see the great log in your own? Hypocrite! Take the log out of your eye first and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter in your brother’s eyes.”
Luke 6:41–41
Take a Moment to Listen:
Do not fear true introspection my child. For as you look within, you can invite me to look with you. We can look together in gentleness at your perceived shortcomings. If you can accept the kindness with which I see you, you will, in turn, develop patience in accepting perceived faults in your neighbor as well.
I look at all I see in kindness and hope. Love cannot condemn. The more you look at yourself through my eyes, the more peace you will find. Do not fear what lies underneath behavior, for I go with you and I will gently remind you of how deeply you are loved.
As we travel together through your perceptions, I can help you begin to understand the cause of your actions. We can sweep away the cobwebs of fear and leave behind a frightened need you will no longer have.
It is in the kindness of understanding my child, that you will find freedom. Do not fear introspection. It is here that I hold your hand and go with you on this inward journey. It is here that you will find true freedom and blessed peace.
Guided Meditation
Looking honestly at your self is not always an easy task. Looking at others openly and honestly can be difficult as well. This becomes compounded when we believe that God is keeping score with every thought and action we have or do.
Go to your favorite comfortable spot and relax. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Ask God, who loves you without reservation, to guide you on this inner journey. Think for a moment about someone you are having trouble with. Allow yourself to see that person and think about what bothers you about them. Gently ask God to help you see without judgment or criticism. Allow Him to assist you to see through Love’s sight. Give yourself permission to accept His healing love.
Whenever you need to, you can ask God to journey with you, or you can see the ‘splinter’ in your own eye. God wants you to take it out, so that you can see more clearly through His mercy and love.
Your Thoughts/Experience:
“The most powerful form of prayer, and the one which can virtually gain all things and which is the worthiest work of all is that which flows from a free mind. The freer the mind is, the more powerful and worthy, the more useful, praise worthy and perfect the prayer and the work become. A free mind can achieve all things. But what is a free mind? A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or devotion and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God’s most precious will, having gone out of what is its own.”
Meister Eckhart
We are attached to those things that mirror our perception of what is positive: Personal beauty, a talent that the world applauds, a pleasing address and our circle of friends are all attachments making up the fabric of who we believe ourselves to be. Even the way in which we celebrate our notion of God is an attachment. Whose place of worship is correct? Whose form of prayer most likely heard in heaven?
Here lies the challenge: we can suppose that others might have a more superior manner in which to commune with the Almighty and that the communion derived from method a or b or c is acceptable within society, or we are certain that the way in which we celebrate our notion of God is ultimately correct, having been handed down through generations. However, the free mind, we are told, is free to explore that which we may be called in a form that may be different from the methods and ways of general society or even from generations before us. The free mind does not use its ‘little will’ to suppose or impose. The free mind consciously steps away from the ‘little will’ deliberate in its intention to bathe in the very Will of God.
While we certainly have choices to make regarding ways in which to live, our relationships or how to seek God it is the ‘small will’ which is our own, that is doing the choosing. Attachment to our little will, along with all of the choices it decides upon, cannot by its very nature assist us in experiencing communion with Ultimate Love.
“Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”
Colossians 4:2
Take a Moment to Listen:
Come rest your heart with mine. Together we will see through Love’s eyes that which needs to be seen, hear through Love’s ears that which needs to be heard, and embrace through Love’s own what needs to be embraced.
Guided Meditation:
God is with you right this second surrounding you with His love. Take a moment to experience His presence.
Close your eyes and take a deep breath. In your mind, see yourself surrounded by nature. Perhaps you can imagine an old, beautiful tree with knarled, fat branches twisting upward. What kinds of wild life are home to this tree?
There is a small brook that runs by your feet. You can hear the bubbling water as it bounces from the rocks and pebbles. Hear it?
Sit under the tree and relax. Breathe in the peace that you feel here. In that peace God begins to speak to you of His Love for exactly who you are. What does it feel like to hear Him? Can you accept His love for you?
In any language or form God shares his boundless love with all that is created. His love surrounds a shared smile, a quiet moment, a helping hand and a kind word. His love is intertwined with every movement that reflects Love’s Will.
Breathe in deeply. Release your breath. Feel the peace and surety of God’s breath within your heart. How is it that you share His love?
Your Thoughts/Experience:
“But the ultimate reason for our hope is not to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us? Does anything await us at all, or are we alone? Whenever we base our hope on trust in the divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God’s first love.”
Jürgen Moltmann
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