A HEAD ON CRASH WITH MY IMPERFECTION!

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Love the Contradictions
Wednesday, June 19, 2019

A recent insight from Richard Rohr that I found both inspiring but also difficult. 

"Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejection and abandonment, all daily humiliations, experiencing any kind of abuse or form of limitation, can be gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul—if we allow them to be. These experiences give us a window into our naked nowness, because very real contradictions are always staring us in the face."
 This is always true but my recent  experience of Septic Shock  brought the reality of my human limitations up close and personal. 

 "Except for God, nothing is perfectly anything. Even as we set necessary and healthy boundaries, we are also invited to forgive what is, to weep over and accept our own interior poverty."  This is a sort of spiritual description of how it felt for me to wake up after surgery in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"In facing the contradictions that we ourselves are, we become living icons of both/and. Once you can accept mercy, it is almost natural to hand it on to others (see the story of the unforgiving debtor in Matthew 18:23-35). You become a conduit of what you yourself have received. If you have never needed mercy and do not face your own inherent contradictions, you can go from youth to old age dualistically locked inside a mechanistic universe." 

That, in my opinion, is the “sin against the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 23:31-32). It cannot be forgiven because there is a refusal to recognize that you even need mercy or forgiveness. You have blocked the conduit that you are.

"John of the Cross (1542–1591) consistently wrote of divine love as the template and model for all human love, and human love as the necessary school and preparation for any transcendent encounter. If you have never experienced human love, it will be very hard for you to access God as Love. If you have never let God love you, you will not know how to love humanly in the deepest way. Of course, grace can overcome both of these limitations."

 Grace can overcome all  limitations.  I felt my limitations so severely when I was  in Septic Shock.  I could not think straight. I was so grateful when my old college friend Terry  appeared in my room.  She was attending the celebration of 100 years of Emmanuel College. She was so funny and so sane.Then my son Joe appeared and brought my husband Yash up from Pawtucket daily. Later Mary Ellen came from New York and her sister Clare--such rocks of   friendship and stability.

"To put it another way, what I let God see and accept in me also becomes what I can see and accept in myself. And, even more, it becomes that whereby I see everything else. This is “radical grace.” This is why it is crucial to allow God and at least one other person to see us in our imperfection and even in our nakedness, as we are—rather than as we ideally wish to be. It is also why we must give others this same experience of being looked upon tenderly in their imperfection; otherwise people on either side will never know divine love. I pray there is at least one person before whom you can be imperfect. I have several in my life, and they are such a relief and joy to be around.

Such utterly free and gratuitous love is the only love that validates, transforms, and changes us at the deepest levels of consciousness. It is what we all desire and what we were created for. Once you allow it for yourself, you will almost naturally become a conduit of the same for others.

Can you let God “look upon you in your lowliness,” as Mary put it (Luke 1:48), without waiting for some future moment when you believe you are worthy? Consider these words inspired by John of the Cross: “Love what God sees in you.” [1]

What does God see in me?  I guess his own IMAGE the bit of divinity that he created and gave to us--my immortal soul.  I tried hard to dwell on that while I was in the ICU and in Septic  Shock but it did elude me. Only the visits of the Chaplain and the Reikei  volunteers conveyed a sense of peace and also a sense that there was a place beyond this. One of the Reikei people said-- you kept on talking about the bright light.  But you were sent back.  Now you must discover--WHAT WERE YOU SENT BACK TO DO?
WHAT WAS I SENT BACK TO DO?

Emily Dickinson - 1830-1886

          Because I could not stop for Death – 

He kindly stopped for me – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring – 
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 
We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed us – 
The Dews drew quivering and chill – 
For only Gossamer, my Gown – 
My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground – 
The Roof was scarcely visible – 
The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were  towards eternity.