Charleston: Changed Again
“I have been changed. I am not the same person I was before. Over time, over many experiences, good and bad, I have grown in understanding, awareness and compassion. I have found a deeper sense of peace. I have come to appreciate the importance of love.” Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook page
I know we are called to articulate our truth as best we can, but then I know we must let it go. I try to turn the situation over, to give up the bone. This is hard because the life approach we have been taught has been like a dog with a bone about issues we are passionate about. Never the less, we still admire people who are like that faithful Border Collie with a bone about issues they believe in. We also know the cost to our own body, and mind, and soul for holding on to that bone. There is often no peace. Love is hard to find. The arteries tighten up. When we lose, we think we must try harder. When we win, we are empowered to keep doing it better.
This is my hope for change. We will no longer see life as win or lose. We have a part. We are to step out of our comfort zone and speak out in love and try to make a difference. More and more we know that for every cross there is a resurrection. God brings about the resurrection, rolls away the stone. Our job is to keep looking and listening for every possible sign of love and the resurrection.
We will have set backs in giving up this control, thinking we are in charge of the resurrection, but stark situations where we see where we are not in charge will bring us back to the truth over and over again. Believing that we have control of situations in our lives and in the world involving others is fake news, a fantasy, but there is this sweet voice that whispers in ours ears that keeps telling us we have such good ideas and we need to be a strong woman or man and get our agenda done.
Trying to be connected to something greater than ourselves teaches us that a strong person may be one who pauses and perhaps prays and listens before she speaks as articulately as she can, does the best she can, and then gives up the results to God, who may have a better view of the situation than she does.
Amazing. Is it possible that there may be a better plan than our own!
Joanna joannaseibert.com