I am not what I appear to be to anyone. Anything anyone has said or can say about me is not who I am. I appear but I am not an appearance.
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When we’re with those we feel less than secure with, we use words to “adjust” our appearance and elicit their approval. Otherwise, we fear our virtues might not receive adequate appreciation and our shortcomings might not be properly “understood.” In not speaking, we resign how we appear (dare we say, how we are?) to God.
*Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines.
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I am honored to be called to a spiritual work that, so to speak, has put my reputation on the line for many years - since mid-teenager years. I was naïve enough, early in my work, to assume if I were kind, loving, and sincere, certainly all my "Christian" brothers and sisters would think well of me. I learned quickly that was not so. I learned, in fact, that I was challenged to give up neediness to protect my reputation - as though I had one needing protection. I experienced that regardless of what I did or said, did not do or did not say, my character and action would not stand the test of many persons - mostly persons who wanted to protect the older traditions socially and religiously against anyone who taught that faith is always evolving and needs to be both reasonable and spiritual.
Now, I have learned mindfully to accept myself in the presence of others. I see this as an open door for them to accept both themselves, if they choose, and me, if they choose. If they do not choose, one or the other, I am who and what I am, as they are who and what they are.
A primary Means of Grace in helping me to grow more in detaching from need to focus on protecting reputation has been Silence. Richard Foster, in Spiritual Classics, reflecting on writings by the late John Main, who was founder of the Christian Meditation movement in the 20th Century, writes:
Through the discipline of silence, then, we are learning to place our reputation in God’s hands. We no longer need to be sure everyone understands us or thinks well of us. We let go of even needing to know what they think of us. We are silent.
In Silence we learn to relax in the Presence who says in our deepest being, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (St. John 14.11). We learn to receive, passively and trustingly, the One who makes it possible for us to affirm, “Surely goodness and faithful love will always be with me, and I will live in the House of the Beloved always” (Psalm 23.6).
Silence is an affirmation that in passive, loving openness to Spirit, Love is present and affirming our beauty and goodness in the Beloved. And, thankfully, persons' criticism of me - the "brothers" and "sisters" I trusted to reciprocate love-with-love, - who have often been irrationally harsh - was a stimulus and inspiration for me to go inward to the Inner Sanctum.
There, I found Peace that cannot be given by anyone or anything external to who we truly are. This Peace is Presence - the Beloved - Itself, Himself, Herself. This Peace is our true Being. This Peace is regardless of what anyone esteems us to be or not to be, for the Peace is intrinsic, not extrinsic. I am thankful to each of them who resisted my very human attempts to Love and teach with integrity, for they helped me find the Love that is unconditional and pure in the Most Holy Place, the Heart we are.
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*Lotus of the Heart is a Work of Arem Nahariim-Samadhi ~ a Hospice Chaplain, interspiritual author, writer, poet, and bicyclist. He is someone in love with Life and inviting others to that same ecstasy of Love ~ and, by the way, herein is nothing he claims as his own.
