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Yesterday evening became just as much a refreshment for me as it was care for another. The convener fed us a simple but hearty dinner in their lovely home, and the simple but gracious acts of hospitality -- magically refilling my water glass -- refreshed me. Responding to the need another on the committee shared how she found she needed to forgive herself, and i think that compassion for one's own shortcomings needs to be an intentional, daily practice of mine. I was so cranky at not being able to follow through on a few commitments to my self yesterday afternoon! I was able to witness to grace. I fear that the one who had needed the committee, in the grip of depression, confused the consequences of an action (coerced in an unjust situation) with being punished by God for a sin. In simple logic, with a premise of a punishing God, one can follow the simple reasoning. God doesn't like X. I did X. All these miserable consequences are following from X. God must be punishing me for doing X.
In a few days, this person may have the miserable consequences lifted or sealed. I know how suicidal facing these consequences make this person, and finding a way that just a few hours of words can help change the perception that God's forgiveness will be indicated by a decision of a bureaucrat seems impossible. But we tried.
And i was glad i was there because i can witness to the presence of Grace, the availability of that resource, if one reaches for it. I so often forget, and do wish Grace would smack me upside the head with a 2x4 more often. Still, it's hard to share the fact that Grace doesn't rectify the injustice in the world: that work remains with us. Knowing the way one's mind is tangled up in depression, the open doors of possibility that depression makes invisible, how can one make clear this paradox of the buoyant power of Grace and the unchanged world?
I refilled the water glass of our subject (aware how meaningful the host's refilling of my glass was for me), and told an abbreviated story of my experiment with drinking water as accepting grace. Sie joked about refusing, about throwing the water at us, about baptizing us with it, but then drank a nice gulp. More than i did when i did the experiment, and i shared my first realization of how my limited first sip was me thinking i didn't deserve Grace, but how it's there and always available.
Our host joked about how Quakerism is a crappy religion because we don't have the rituals to practice to help give one permission to be right in the world ("This is our ritual," i laughed back.) The host spoke of the Navaho blessing rituals and of laying on of hands and suggested our subject practice this drinking of water. The person who shared hir powerful experience of self forgiveness, shared more of how soon after sie went swimming in a lake and submerged hirself, and was aware of a sense of being baptized, reborn.
--==∞==--
These clearness committees are just as much a gift to those who participate as those who are the subject. The power of joining together in love to support one spills over to everyone involved. It is the stripping away of the signs and symbols and invocations to a simple ritual love and compassion.
I linger in the warm memory of that shared sacred space, only minutes away from conference calls in traffic.
May i not compartmentalize this compassion, this awareness, this Grace: let me carry it throughout my day, let it spill over in all my interactions, no matter the surface excuse for being with another.
In a few days, this person may have the miserable consequences lifted or sealed. I know how suicidal facing these consequences make this person, and finding a way that just a few hours of words can help change the perception that God's forgiveness will be indicated by a decision of a bureaucrat seems impossible. But we tried.
And i was glad i was there because i can witness to the presence of Grace, the availability of that resource, if one reaches for it. I so often forget, and do wish Grace would smack me upside the head with a 2x4 more often. Still, it's hard to share the fact that Grace doesn't rectify the injustice in the world: that work remains with us. Knowing the way one's mind is tangled up in depression, the open doors of possibility that depression makes invisible, how can one make clear this paradox of the buoyant power of Grace and the unchanged world?
I refilled the water glass of our subject (aware how meaningful the host's refilling of my glass was for me), and told an abbreviated story of my experiment with drinking water as accepting grace. Sie joked about refusing, about throwing the water at us, about baptizing us with it, but then drank a nice gulp. More than i did when i did the experiment, and i shared my first realization of how my limited first sip was me thinking i didn't deserve Grace, but how it's there and always available.
Our host joked about how Quakerism is a crappy religion because we don't have the rituals to practice to help give one permission to be right in the world ("This is our ritual," i laughed back.) The host spoke of the Navaho blessing rituals and of laying on of hands and suggested our subject practice this drinking of water. The person who shared hir powerful experience of self forgiveness, shared more of how soon after sie went swimming in a lake and submerged hirself, and was aware of a sense of being baptized, reborn.
--==∞==--
These clearness committees are just as much a gift to those who participate as those who are the subject. The power of joining together in love to support one spills over to everyone involved. It is the stripping away of the signs and symbols and invocations to a simple ritual love and compassion.
I linger in the warm memory of that shared sacred space, only minutes away from conference calls in traffic.
May i not compartmentalize this compassion, this awareness, this Grace: let me carry it throughout my day, let it spill over in all my interactions, no matter the surface excuse for being with another.
As usual, I have the perfect icon
Re: As usual, I have the perfect icon
Thank you.