Radical
Trust
“We must
shift our allegiances from fear to curiosity, from attachment to
letting go, from control to trust, and from entitlement to humility.”
Angeles
Arrien
I have always loved
Angeles Arrien's four basic spiritual principles:
“Show
up, or choose to be present.
Pay
attention to what has heart and meaning.
Tell the
truth without blame or judgment.
Be open,
rather than attached, to outcome.”
Life, she says, will be
“simple” if we but put these into practice. Simple, but not easy.
These principles are a little like the question, “Who am I?” in
their holographic nature. You can spend a lifetime walking around
that question and never light on the perfect answer. And then there's
the problem of identifying who's asking the question in the first
place. Oh, dear.
What does seem valid,
however, is the movement she lists above for having an honest
spirituality. That is the movement from fear to trust and humility.
When we are operating from fear, we do not make good decisions. Fear
is not just hiding in a closet because something might get us; it is
making decisions that reflect anxiety and lack of faith. Trust moves
us from, “What might happen?” to “Wonder what will happen?”
It is the open ended question, “What comes next?”
I know people who are
stuck in absolutely untenable situations simply because they can't
predict, much less control, what comes next. Instead of curiosity,
they have fear. They constantly ask God, “What should I do?” If
the answers they receive, however, are fear-based, they're not coming
from God, but from their own anxiety. What God gives is courage in
the face of fear.
The spiritual journey, if
we have the courage to take it, ends with letting go of fear and
entitlement, and embracing radical humility and trust. We cannot
predict the outcome, but we know that it will be what it will be, and
that's good enough.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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