The Beginning
It has been a while since I have written on this blog. But wow, have I been writing. I recently finished a paper titled: Forgiveness: The Union of Light and Dark and the birth of True Power. I loved writing it. This is the beginning of a thirty page paper. I hope you enjoy it. I may share the rest in bits, or not. But this is the beginning. Forgiveness and reconciliation is the pathway back to our wholeness. When we forgive, we welcome home parts of ourselves home that we have left behind. Thanks for reading. Enjoy...
In the Aramaic version of the Lord’s Prayer, the line Waskboqlan, Khaubayn, Wakhtahayn, is translated in the English version as, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” A literal translation of this verse is, “Free us from our offenses, as also we have freed our offenders.”1 Facing our offenses, or our darkness, and that in others, is the most important part of reclaiming the transformative, redemptive power that lies within us. When we avoid it, or close the door to our darker parts, they tend to grow and get louder, to get our attention. And, it is forgiveness that returns us, and ultimately our world, to the wholeness that we were born from. It does this because forgiveness is a welcoming of the shadow. It is a wide open door for all parts of ourselves to walk through. Rocco Errico, biblical scholar and author of The Ancient Aramaic Prayer of Jesus, says it is this forgiveness that “strengthens the disheartened soul which has lost its way. It refreshes and renews our hope. It is through forgiveness that we are born again and become like a child. In this way we regain the precious attitude of a willing mind which is ready to learn all over again.”2 Forgiveness brings us into the present moment, into the mind and heart of a child. When we forgive ourselves, reconcile the parts of ourselves that we have left behind, we return to the Now. We are less stuck in the past, and less likely to live from the wounds that have run our lives. We begin to open to this moment, where creativity is alive and swirling; and is bursting to come forth onto this planet. This creative power is earthed within us, in deep dark soil, like a seed. And with patience and faith, we must face, and even embrace, the darkness that we are planted in. And we must be willing to drop the side-taking, and the black and white logic of life. As Parker Palmer, author of the Promise of Paradox tells us, “Our first need is not to release the tension, but to live the contradictions, fully and painfully aware of the poles between which our lives are stretched. As we do so, we will be plunged into paradox, at the center of which we will find transcendence and new life. Our lives will be changed. Both our beliefs and our actions will become more responsive to God’s spirit. But this will happen only as we allow ourselves to be engulfed by contradiction which God alone can resolve. With Jonah, we will be delivered. But first we will be swallowed by darkness.”3 When we take responsibility for our lives, we are challenged to learn how to stay with our experiences and feelings, and take a step into the unknown; rather than drawing a line and planting our feet in the familiar territory of the ego, of the known. We are called to enter the chaos, or contradiction, within. And, this has everything to do with forgiveness, by the grace of God. Palmer speaks beautifully to this, saying that God alone can resolve this tension that lies between the polarities. And it is from this power of grace, that all things are possible; even the possibility of learning how to authentically love a leader of a nation who has caused great pain, within and well beyond, the border’s of the country that he leads. It’s a crazy notion, I know. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, “When you embark on the business of asking for and granting forgiveness, you are taking a risk.”4 We must drop the self righteousness to open this door to the heart. God’s terrain is hard to make sense of. It is not a place many of us are familiar with. We are so used to operating out of what is familiar; the workings of our minds, not our hearts. We must, in some big or small way, be willing to abandon all that we know for a new way of being in the world. And this has everything to do with right timing; each person claiming their piece of this wholeness, no matter what the process looks like. Each being has their piece in this puzzle and who am I to judge what fits and what does not? Because we are born from and in wholeness, we all fit. This way of understanding can blow our minds, if we let it.
To each of us, my question is this, are we faithful enough to enter the darkness, the unknown, just as the Magi, in the biblical Christmas story, stepped out of the known that fateful eve and followed a star in the sky to a new town, a new king, a new Love? And, are we willing, and have we prepared a space, to be transformed by this grace? We are invited to take these steps into the barren landscape of the desert. And, we are asked by that seed, buried deep down within us, something very simple. Sometimes it can be heard as just a whisper, other times a booming command, and it is this: In the deepest, darkest of nights, remember, keep your eye on the star. It is the only way we can be witnesses to grace.
In the Aramaic version of the Lord’s Prayer, the line Waskboqlan, Khaubayn, Wakhtahayn, is translated in the English version as, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” A literal translation of this verse is, “Free us from our offenses, as also we have freed our offenders.”1 Facing our offenses, or our darkness, and that in others, is the most important part of reclaiming the transformative, redemptive power that lies within us. When we avoid it, or close the door to our darker parts, they tend to grow and get louder, to get our attention. And, it is forgiveness that returns us, and ultimately our world, to the wholeness that we were born from. It does this because forgiveness is a welcoming of the shadow. It is a wide open door for all parts of ourselves to walk through. Rocco Errico, biblical scholar and author of The Ancient Aramaic Prayer of Jesus, says it is this forgiveness that “strengthens the disheartened soul which has lost its way. It refreshes and renews our hope. It is through forgiveness that we are born again and become like a child. In this way we regain the precious attitude of a willing mind which is ready to learn all over again.”2 Forgiveness brings us into the present moment, into the mind and heart of a child. When we forgive ourselves, reconcile the parts of ourselves that we have left behind, we return to the Now. We are less stuck in the past, and less likely to live from the wounds that have run our lives. We begin to open to this moment, where creativity is alive and swirling; and is bursting to come forth onto this planet. This creative power is earthed within us, in deep dark soil, like a seed. And with patience and faith, we must face, and even embrace, the darkness that we are planted in. And we must be willing to drop the side-taking, and the black and white logic of life. As Parker Palmer, author of the Promise of Paradox tells us, “Our first need is not to release the tension, but to live the contradictions, fully and painfully aware of the poles between which our lives are stretched. As we do so, we will be plunged into paradox, at the center of which we will find transcendence and new life. Our lives will be changed. Both our beliefs and our actions will become more responsive to God’s spirit. But this will happen only as we allow ourselves to be engulfed by contradiction which God alone can resolve. With Jonah, we will be delivered. But first we will be swallowed by darkness.”3 When we take responsibility for our lives, we are challenged to learn how to stay with our experiences and feelings, and take a step into the unknown; rather than drawing a line and planting our feet in the familiar territory of the ego, of the known. We are called to enter the chaos, or contradiction, within. And, this has everything to do with forgiveness, by the grace of God. Palmer speaks beautifully to this, saying that God alone can resolve this tension that lies between the polarities. And it is from this power of grace, that all things are possible; even the possibility of learning how to authentically love a leader of a nation who has caused great pain, within and well beyond, the border’s of the country that he leads. It’s a crazy notion, I know. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says in his book No Future Without Forgiveness, “When you embark on the business of asking for and granting forgiveness, you are taking a risk.”4 We must drop the self righteousness to open this door to the heart. God’s terrain is hard to make sense of. It is not a place many of us are familiar with. We are so used to operating out of what is familiar; the workings of our minds, not our hearts. We must, in some big or small way, be willing to abandon all that we know for a new way of being in the world. And this has everything to do with right timing; each person claiming their piece of this wholeness, no matter what the process looks like. Each being has their piece in this puzzle and who am I to judge what fits and what does not? Because we are born from and in wholeness, we all fit. This way of understanding can blow our minds, if we let it.
To each of us, my question is this, are we faithful enough to enter the darkness, the unknown, just as the Magi, in the biblical Christmas story, stepped out of the known that fateful eve and followed a star in the sky to a new town, a new king, a new Love? And, are we willing, and have we prepared a space, to be transformed by this grace? We are invited to take these steps into the barren landscape of the desert. And, we are asked by that seed, buried deep down within us, something very simple. Sometimes it can be heard as just a whisper, other times a booming command, and it is this: In the deepest, darkest of nights, remember, keep your eye on the star. It is the only way we can be witnesses to grace.
Comments