January 29, 2017

We cannot create, or help create, a safe space for others without creating one for ourselves.

Not counting getting others to do what we think is best for them and calling that growth, we cannot create a safe space for others’ growth without love – and without growing ourselves.

Simply to love – truly to accept others as they are and to support them in their aspirations, not ours – is to do our best to create a safe space.

Helping oneself and others

"It's true: I do help those who wholesomely help themselves.  Much more do I help and reward them in helping others for, in doing so, they are grace personified."
- God (attrib.)

Being right or being grateful

I have shared my idea that the proverbial tree of the knowledge of good and evil would better be called the tree of the perception of the knowledge of good and evil.  The perception of the knowledge of good and evil is also the perception of right and of wrong.  For every person, that is a very important perception in our daily lives - in our work, in our relationships, and in all our chosen actions.  But it is also very important that we accept it as our perception.  To the extent we believe we know what is right and what is wrong and reject divergent perceptions, we become prisoners of our beliefs.  We become deaf to others' perceptions and blind to others' needs.  How difficult it becomes to love others if, sure of what's right - and whether we express our judgments or not - we deem the differing views, choices, actions and needs of others wrong!
An alternative is consciously cultivating gratitude as more important than being right.  Regarding relationships, in particular, to the extent I cultivate gratitude for, and appreciation of, my wife, my family members, my friends, my colleagues - and all courteous, honest and peaceful citizens - how much happier I am and how much more rewarding and productive are those relationships!

Being right vs. one's growth and others' contributions

"If you are sure you are right, what room is there for you to grow?  What room is there for others, even me, to contribute?"
- God (attrib.)

A sign of the Holy Spirit

God, or the Holy Spirit, is taught and learned.
God is contemplated and debated.
The history of thought about God is studied and debated.
God is accepted, worshipped and prayed to by many.
God is rejected by many, too - some intellectually and, perhaps worse for the individual and for society, some only by rejection of love and kindness. 
For me, one sign of the reality of the Holy Spirit is this: I have never experienced myself as so competent, so complete, or so independent that I was not conscious of having been aided by Something beyond myself, and vastly wiser, more loving and more powerful than I.

New Year's Day, 2017

“Deserve” is a judgment.

What someone deserves, or does not deserve, is a judgment reflecting a conscious or unconscious application of our beliefs about the way things ought to be to the way things are, or to the way we perceive things to be.

Do I deserve to have been born to my parents, in this nation; to have had a peaceful, happy Christmas; or to have a healthy, happy family any more than the people of Aleppo deserve not to have been bombarded and killed or driven from what is left of their homes?  I think not.

Dear God, help me – help us – to appreciate, to steward and to develop Your gifts in this new year and to apply them so that others’ lives will be better for our choices.