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'The Grace of Solitude'
Overlook, Back River, Georgetown Island, ME
NOTE: This writing replaces the prior in the list of presentations, "We the safe space... nonjudgmental presence," which is now inaccessible.
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Jay was an older student. He was from Daytona Beach, Florida. We were being trained to be clergypersons in Christian ministry. At the small Bible college in the panhandle of Florida, we worked in janitorial services to help pay our college expenses. We had never had a cross word between ourselves. Jay was super kind and gentle.
One day at work, I became irate at Jay. I do not recall what I was so angry about. I remember I suddenly became enraged and spoke harshly to him. Later the same work period, I was overcome with guilt feelings. I knew I had behaved disgracefully and irrationally.
I walked back to Jay's work area. I did as my parents had taught me, to ask forgiveness when wronging someone. I did it not, however, for I ought to. I told him how sorry I was, for I wanted to do it. I knew I had been rude. I wanted him to hear my admission. I needed to hear it, also. I could not justify the outburst, and I did not want to. The way I had known Jay to treat me and how I had acted toward him was a disturbing contrast.
When I apologized, Jay responded in the way he always acted, with kindness and gentleness. He showed no upsetness. He spoke no word of reproof. He affirmed all was okay. I walked away at-peace, knowing he had invited me, by his response, to let go the guilt feelings, to walk away feeling innocent, not sentenced as wrong. Jay had modeled for me a graceful presence. We continued our friendship as before, as though this event had never happened between us.
When we taste the grace of forgiveness, we wish to embody that same lovingkindness to others. We learn such gracefulness partly through those times others have been graceful to us despite our falling short of acting kindly toward them.
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Richard Rohr, a Contemplative, Interspiritual Catholic, speaks of non-blaming and graciousness of heart-mind. He refers to memories of confession from his childhood, in Everything Belongs.
Rohr and the other teenage boys would line up to confess to a young Irish priest. Richard describes the older priest as - "the old Irish monsignor [who] was terrible." The more senior priest would yell at the boys. The younger priest spoke positive things about the Divine Love and affirmed to the boys how important their lives were. Rohr recalls, "We'd make up sins just to go in there and talk to him."
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The contemplative way is to be a safe space for others. "Safe space" is used in spiritual training for granting others what has been called "a nonjudgmental presence." The younger priest images this compassionate presence.
Yet, we must offer this to ourselves, also. Often, we treat others with more kindness than we do ourselves. Sitting in the Quiet, we can see how unkind and demanding we can be of ourselves.
Many of us from religion or family have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. Then, we project that onto others. We, then, have unrealistic expectations of others.
So, it is crucial to work with our self-criticism, our self-rejection. We may say, "I have none of that." That is unlikely, especially for one who would say, "I have none of that."
When we learn patient, forgiving kindness from ourselves, we are more likely to give that same graciousness to others - not only in words, foremost in presence. We want to be one by whom others feel entirely accepted when they are in our presence. This gracefulness does not mean giving consent to how someone may act, but we consent to the person herself.
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We have an example of this grace in a Jesus story. Jesus meets a woman who was said to have committed a wrong warranting capital punishment.
Gospel of John 8.1ff (TLB) -
Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and talked to them. As he was speaking, the Jewish leaders and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery and placed her out in front of the staring crowd.
"Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. Moses' law [in the Jewish Scripture] says to kill her. What about it?"
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, hurl the stones at her until she dies. But only he who never sinned may throw the first!"
Then he stooped down again and wrote some more in the dust. And the Jewish leaders slipped away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until only Jesus was left in front of the crowd with the woman.
Then Jesus stood up again and said to her, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?"
"No, sir," she said.
And Jesus said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more [or, stop habitually sinning]."
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The late civil rights activist Howard Thurman, in Jesus and the Disinherited, writes of this encounter and the future implications for this woman -
This is how Jesus demonstrated reverence for personality. He met the woman where she was, and he treated her as if she were already where she now willed to be. In dealing with her he "believed" her into the fulfillment of her possibilities. He stirred her confidence into activity. He placed a crown over her head which for the rest of her life she would keep trying to grow tall enough to wear.
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Jesus' reverence for this woman allowed his act of unconditional kindness to her. Compassion is the natural complement of seeing God-in-the-other. In seeing God-in-the-other, we do not reduce another to what they have misdone, we do not so objectify them. This was not the case with the woman's accusers. As Thurman notes, "To them the woman was not a woman, or even a person, but an adulteress, stripped of her essential dignity and worth." Through such objectification, not only do we not see the other truly, we distance ourselves from the other, as though the other is unclean and we are clean.
Hence, this compassionate kindness, whether we express it to another or ourselves, does not arise first from any moral obligation or pursuit of virtue. In intimacy with Grace, we begin to see with reverence. We see the other differently. Reverencing the other is foundational to spontaneous compassion for others and ourselves. And to reverence someone means to love that someone. Jay did not show compassion to me for he was supposed to, but for he loved me. We reverenced that-of-God in each other enough for me to apologize and him to nonjudgmentally receive the admission of contrition.
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So, it is vital to use our time in Silence to practice self-compassion. "Jesus" represents that of us that says, "I don't condemn you." Yet, it is not enough to hear this from anyone else, even a Buddha or a Jesus; we need to hear it arise from within ourselves. Until it is our word to ourselves, it has not become our word - and it must be our word.
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The soul is free of judgment toward ourselves, or anyone. Our true self is pure. Condemnation arises from the personality. We have been shaped socially to guilt feelings. Others used shamed to control us, including to fit in and not rock the boat. So, self-compassion is an affirmation of our innocence and freedom in Life. We see the difference between what we are and the mistakes we make along the Way - we learn not to confuse the two, identifying what we do - regardless of "good" or "bad" - with that we are. We learn to enjoy being honest with ourselves, knowing there is that within us speaking in the Silence, "Neither do I condemn you." Then, tasting this delicious Grace, we share it with others.
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Jesus, Gospel of Matthew 5.7 -
How fortunate are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on mystical traditions, especially Christian and Sufi, with extensive notes on the teachings and imagery in the poetry.
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