Sunday, March 17, 2019

Step One


Love Your Neighbor

"The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self - to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it."
Barbara Brown Taylor

I wrote yesterday about the Shadow—aspects of ourselves that we try to keep tightly buttoned up; sometimes parts that we don't even know we have. Well, this quote from Barbara Brown Taylor is an accurate description of mine. My shadow likes to feel she knows what's best for everyone; if they would only listen and do exactly as she advises, they would get on better in the world. I know her well—but that doesn't mean that I am in control of her. Once we recognize a part of our Shadow, we still have a long way to go when it comes to not acting it out. In fact, recognizing it in ourselves is only step one. Claiming it as our own—steps two through ten. Not living it out—steps ad infinitum.

Learning to love one's neighbor as oneself assumes that one loves oneself, right? I have found this a difficult chore, too. We are our own worst enemy almost always. So, recognizing Shadow aspects does not give us permission to self-loath. We all have rough edges—we're human animals. We are mammals, born to compete and dominate if we can. Watch any mammal population—almost from birth, they tussle for dominance over one another. Just because we now live indoors and eat cooked food with a fork does not mean we have left that aspect of ourselves far behind. It lives and breaths right inside us and in every other human, as well. Recognizing that helps us to be more compassionate with our animal-self—and with theirs.

We have to fulfill this particular commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself by degrees—infinitesimally small steps. Some would say, over many lifetimes. But that is not an excuse for not beginning. We begin by opening our eyes and seeing that we are just here trying to do the best we can, and others are doing the same. We make mistakes, and mistakes can be corrected. I do believe that all of us want to be “good people,” And good people recognize their capacity for doing harm. They confront that aspect of themselves, not with malice, but with acceptance. And they extend the same respect to others.

                                                          In the Spirit,
                                                             Jane

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