Refreshing Reflections

Monday: Score Keeping
The True Self (God Self within each of us) not only has the capacity to truly forgive the False Self of others. It can and will forgive even our own ego-based False Self. We can do this not seven times, as Peter asks Jesus, but "seventy times seven" as Jesus replies (Matthew 18:22).

Tuesday: Dual Consciousness
To enter into this training in consciousness is to be faithful to God, to life, to love and oddly, to your True Self. Consciousness is about being attuned to both what’s going on at the surface, and what’s going on deep beneath it. It is dual consciousness, that is, awareness of both the physical and the spiritual dimensions of Life at the same time.

Wednesday: If You Continue In My Power

One kind of power kills us by getting in the way of our spiritual clarity and deep lucidity; the other enlivens us with spiritual awareness and resolve. It's as if one doesn’t care about us except for what it can draw from us to support itself. The other cares so much that it gives of itself to enliven us. Jesus said, "If you continue in my word (power?)...you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

Thursday: Soul Level

The spiritual awareness that comes from stepping back (or is it forward) into prayer gives us the power to recognize our anxieties as outside and separate from our “selves.” From our new vantage point we can experience an inner peace with which to deal not just with the anxiety itself, but with the issues that bring on the feelings of anxiety.

There are no anxieties at the level of the soul. As St. Paul put it, “By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (Galatians 5:22-23 NRSV).

Friday: Dealing in Immensities

We deal in self-gratification and self-aggrandizement. You deal in care and compassion for “the least of these.”  We deal in inadequacies, insecurities and idiosyncrasies.  You deal in courage and integrity, wisdom and truth. I thank you, God, for dealing in immensities.  I will be more mindful of them today.  I will celebrate them and do my best to share them just as freely as you do.

 Amen.