Obstacles are opportunities for grace. The dark and difficult aspects of our own nature, brought into the light of love, can actually become doorways to encountering the nearer presence of God.
We are as we actually exist, rather than as we might wish to be. A spiritual practice that seeks genuine transformation of the self will neither shy away from difficulty nor seek it out needlessly but rather deal with situations as they arise and with reactions as they come.
~Robert Corrin Morris
oh how we need each other…..each other’s reflection, each other’s pain, each other’s goodness….
inquiry for today~ what now? in this time of trouble, how will you turn toward the “other?”
to feel wonder through honesty
Real altruism isn’t self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, a guilt-driven sense that we should be good, we should be nice, we should be kind. It is the profound recognition that self and other are not fundamentally different, only apparently different. We now see that the only way that we could love ourselves is by loving others, and the only way that we could truly love others is to love ourselves. The difference between self-love and love of others is very small, once we really understand. Taking this truth into our hearts and actions is truly life changing.
~Norman Fischer