|
Wisdom Story
A friend was speaking to a monk, while they enjoyed hot tea in the monk's hermitage. The friend asked, "You lived many years before becoming a monk. Why did you choose not to marry?" "Well," the monk replied, "I searched a long time for the perfect lady. I spent time with many women. They each had a flaw. One would be beautiful, but mean. Another intelligent, but slothful. I had almost given up, when I met her~the perfect woman. Healthy, intelligent, sensitive, witty, beautiful, diligent, talented...~everything I had ever wanted in a woman." "So, why did you not marry her" "Odd thing," said the monk, "she was looking for the perfect man."
Comments
The above wisdom story speaks of some important lessons.
1. We can have unrealistic expectations of other persons. When we do, we are projecting our unrealistic expectations of ourselves. If we, so to speak, see all the tiny scars on the personalities of other persons, we do the same toward ourselves.
2. Community, being a unity of human persons, cannot grow based on the closeness to perfection of the members. Unity arises in capacity to express compassion regarding the weaknesses of other persons.
Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. 11 But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum? 12 When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” 13 Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”
*Matthew 9.10-13 (NLT)
|
|
3. We must accept, to live at peace within ourselves, not trying to change other persons who choose to be and act in critical ways within community, and we are not to take it upon ourselves to reform their character.
Let the water flow beneath the bridge. Let people be people~that is to say: weak, vain, inconstant, unjust, false, and presumptuous. Let the world be the world still. You cannot prevent it. Let every one follow their own inclination and habits. You cannot recast them, and the best course is to let them be as they are and bear with them.
*Francios de Fénelon (b. 1651) Spiritual Letters
So, do these following things, otherwise you will never live at peace within yourself or advance peace well among your spiritual brothers and sisters:
1. Request and allow the Holy Spirit to lessen your excessive expectations of yourself.
2. Pray to show empathic understanding to all persons.
3. Surrender to God your felt~need to change other persons.
4. Confront other persons only from pure motives, never from your own felt-right and need to do so~here, learn the virtue of silence.
5. Let the Holy Spirit love persons through you~quit trying to make yourself love them as you think you ought to: your ardent effort gets in the way of the Holy Spirit effecting Her work in and through you.
This way is the way of Love~a humbling to our selfish, carnal selves. However, there is no way of Love that does not humble our carnal, false selves. With humbling, the loving, true self shines. We learn the joy of loving persons as they are, for God is loving through us in His oneness with our reborn will and, therefore, we are no longer trying to love them. We are loving them, or rather the true self is loving them. The true self, as you are in~Christ, is only loving, nothing else.
See page 2 for Suggestions For Reflection...
Continued... |
