Someone got your goat? Meditation for 4/9/14

Capers Island; SC

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"The tree of revenge does not carry fruit."  -  Dutch Proverb

"Grace is the voice that calls us to change and gives us the power to pull it off."  - Max Lucado

     Grace is defined as giving free and undeserved favor, honor or credit to someone.  Often the context is the “grace of God,” referring to the fact that when we seek intuitive guidance we are given it freely, regardless of our actions in the past.  The spirit never seeks recrimination against us for our short-comings; an earnest request for connection is always accepted, even after periods of our deepest rebellion.

      But what about our willingness to give grace to others?  Others do things that cause delay us, annoy us, cost us resources and even sometimes injure us.  This can be as minor as someone cutting us off in traffic, representing a lifestyle or belief system we don’t agree with or something as severe as someone causing the death of one we love.  In such cases our instincts cry for us to cause inconvenience, to besmirch, to inflict emotional pain or even injury to an even greater degree than what we perceive we suffered.  Somehow we are convinced that this will both make us feel better about ourselves and thwart the other party from visiting injury on us in the future.  In reality giving grace doesn’t usually even occur to us.  And even if it did, why would we even consider giving it in such circumstances?

     First, let’s look at what happens if we do not give grace.  Holding a resentment does not harm the other; resentments poison us.  And as for revenge – it always sets in motion chains of events that boomerang back on us and cause us even more grief than we already have.  And as to gossiping about someone else in order to alleviate our discomfort – not only does not make us feel better for very long, it ultimately cuts us off spiritually from both the one we gossip about and the one we gossip to.  When we learn to sincerely forgive others, we find that we are by far the biggest beneficiary.

     But what about this grace thing?  How will we benefit from returning an undeserved kindness to someone who harms or slights us?  First, the benefits we receive are unexpected and are not dependent upon whether the other person accepts our kindness or not.  We are fully freed of our anger, and we can come to see that the other person is doing the best they can with what they have – as deficient as that might be.  We free ourselves from the weight of grudges and anger that bog down so many in life.  And as to the other person – darkness never can exist in the presence of light.  When we refuse to prop up negativity with resistance or retaliation, the negativity either dissipates or the person is forced to find somewhere else to exercise it.  It cannot stand on its own.  But more often, the other person realizes that they were in the wrong and responds very positively to our kindness.  Some of our greatest allies in life can come from those who expected retaliation from us but received the opposite.  They usually develop a level of trust for us immediately.

     This is not to say that there is not a time to draw appropriate boundaries.  But putting up walls, holding grudges and seeking revenge are not effective tools.  And ultimately, when we hold ourselves to a higher standard, it is we who benefit the most.

Today, may I be kind.  

Have a great Wednesday !!

David

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