Meditation for 1/2/2014

Daufuskie Island; SC

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free, then discover that the prisoner was yourself.”  - Lewis Smedes

“The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.”  - Ghandi

    So the holiday season is past.  We spent time and effort buying gifts for those we love - we wanted to give things that have lasting value.  Value refers to things that have an enduring preciousness.  So what will endure?  Clothes?  Movies?  Electronics?  What clothes or movies or electronics that we gave anyone five years remain useful and regarded as precious today?

 

     If we could give a gift that would continue giving year around, year after year, and by giving it we get an even greater value returned to us, would we not readily stand in line to acquire it and give it freely to all whom we could?  And yet we have such a gift available, and in its giving we find freedom ourselves.  We can relent on these grudges we hold – these things that we keep in reserve against other people and stand ready to pull them out and use them to gain an edge when we need it.  We can let go of our resentments of real and perceived wrongs that others have done us that we use to fan the fires of our anger when we are trying to avoid facing ourselves.  We can tear down the walls we have built in our mind to block others out and begin to extend bridges to them instead. 

     When we harbor grudges we poison ourselves, we clog our thinking and our judgments and limit our options.  When we fan the fires of our anger with resentment it is our own humanity that gets scorched.  When we build those walls the only one that loses freedom is ourselves – they are but self-constructed and self-perpetuated prison cells.  Love often begins with forgiveness – we create space for it only when we give up all claims to revenge.  Soon we will find that the company of our fellows has a whole new depth, and without realizing it we have started to forgive the one whom we have long secretly held the deepest grudges against – ourselves.  And if we forgive someone else who refuses to forgive us in return?  Well, they are the one that remains a prisoner; our freedom is not 

contingent on what they do.  Let’s find a way to give a gift of genuine value today – let’s give the gift of freedom by finding a grudge we can let go of or a fence that we can mend.  Let’s make the last gift of the holiday season one of true value that we give ourselves.  And if we can find the strength within us to mend fences with everyone we know including our self?  We will have given ourselves the most precious gift – the gift of freedom from the bondage of our past. 

Today, may I be gracious.  D.Emch

Have a great Thursday all.  

David