The sun is coming out…..

The sun is coming out….

Today was a bit dark and rainy….all day. Kinda like my mood this past weekend. I’ve had a lot of dark moments, a lot of lows. Been really angry and disappointed over someone’s actions. And it’s a time of really feeling like my sense of hope in humanity is really being challenged.

I’ve always sought to find the good in others and surely this hasn’t changed.

Innately, each one of us is an expression of Spirit, of the all loving, all present Being that is the one Mind. Surely we don’t see this character exhibited 24/7 by every human we know let alone ourselves. So choosing to defend that this true nature is the substance of everyone’s character…well some may laugh that this is even an intention or goal I have. But I do and I will keep on striving to defend each person’s spiritual substance, no matter what.

Yet when I feel attacked or when someone I love has been really wronged or harmed, it’s so hard to get past the human emotions of anger and bitterness..of resentment or frustration.

But still I strive and so I must. Because to be influenced by evil never does an ounce of good. …not for myself….not for my sibling…not for the whole of humanity.

I grew up learning the lesson to forgive my enemies. And so I tried to my whole childhood on into adulthood. But back then, I know I had a hard time with this. Because back then I felt like my forgiveness would somehow off them of the wrong they’d done. Like somehow the names they called me or whatever they stole from me (crimes of my elementary peers) was somehow tolerable because I wanted more to be their friend. For years I was taken advantage of I see now because a lot of my peers learned through my behavior that indeed I tolerated verbal abuse. In fact during one 6th grade lunch where the boys were against the girls in this tug of war thing, during my rather chubbier years, I distinctly remember one peer saying ‘Oh, that’s just Tresha the tubbolard. She won’t mind if you call her fat names. We’ve done it so much by now and she’s always your pal in the end.’

Something like that. Oddly enough, this same guy would be my date to the senior prom 6 years later. But what I’m getting to is that in the many years since 6th grade, I’ve learned so much more about the nature of that lesson to forgive your enemies.

To me it’s not at all anymore about growing tolerant of another’s wrong doings. Rather, it’s committing yourself to loving his/her true nature inspite of his/her wrong doing. Forgiveness is like a public affirmation that states “I’m willing to defend your true core and essence and to really love and cherish that about you.’

But here’s what forgiveness is not: it is not tolerance for evil of any kind. It is not weak heartedness that fears standing up for what is principled and what is honorable and what is moral. It is not defending someone’s wrong doing because somehow that wrong doing was justified.

Forgiveness doesn’t even mean you will stay close with another. But it does mean you will defend in your heart of hearts that person’s true substance is spiritual and therefore whole and free from all inclination toward wrongdoing.

The rains have subsided for this evening…and the sun is coming out again at least to share it’s final moments before it sets (and yes, I know, one day I’ll write the truth that the sun really isn’t setting at all, rather is the earth rotating….it just sounds so much more poetic)…and so with that rotation and seemingly setting of the sun, the light is appearing…and so too is it in my heart.

Surely my anger has subsided greatly….surely my frustration and sorrow are subsiding much. And at least for this hour I am finding myself able to move past my anger toward this other and really reach the depth of where I need to be: in cherishing his innate innocence and goodness. For in truth the ray of love he exudes hasn’t ever waned. And so I pray….