My last article brought a lot of emails into my computer, all of them most loving……thankyou!
Two however asked me to take the topic a step further……
Brigitte (from Brazil) asked: ……if you could shed more light on the ‘Face of God’ in regards of the unsettling news in Cleveland, Ohio with the 3 girls. We are being challenged to dig deep into our heart to put into practice a compassionate heart….. and see beyond the ‘illusion’
Another correspondent wrote: I found the recent news of the three unfortunate women imprisoned by their captor for ten years very unsettling. Of course it is wonderful they have survived their ordeal, but thoughts of what they must have suffered disturb me, particularly at night when I awaken and can’t get it out of my head. I find news of such things and details of crime very upsetting, it’s not that I want to pretend that these things don’t happen but once an image forms in my head I find it very difficult to get it out.
I realise this is a highly emotive topic; and I also realise that, being a man, my very attempt to address this issue is fraught with danger that I may inadvertently offend those who have been subjected, probably in a milder form, to similar disempowerment by cruel and unthinking males. That said, I shall try to offer a spiritual perspective that may help.
In the Christian Bible, Jesus calls out during his last physical moments “Forgive them for they know not what they do!”.
Quite clearly, the people he refers to knew precisely what they were doing in an everyday physical sense – they were having his physical body killed off. Yet Jesus speaks of them as not understanding what they were doing. That’s because they couldn’t destroy that which is infinite life. So the people he refers to may have thought they were being supremely successful whereas in actuality they were being supremely unsuccessful!
It’s the same with the ‘Cleveland man’. He well knew what he was doing – and how terrible a crime it was – physically, emotionally and mentally. Sadly, he was ‘successful’ in a depraved and heartless way for over ten years. But he obviously didn’t know at all what he was doing at a deeper, far more substantial level of being and awareness.
He was abusing the Divine Presence.
He was denying his real state of being.
He was rejecting the Real; and attempting to assert his own domination over the world.
Like all such fantasies and illusions, his was doomed to failure.
Most of us act similarly, if far less dangerously, at certain times.
I know that there are many times when I have felt hurt and vulnerable and my thoughts turned fearful and selfish: “what about me? It isn’t fair…”. I forgot who and what I was – and in my forgetfulness all my actions became self-centred in a crazy play for ‘survival’.
In my past, when I was often unaware and unthinking I only ever thought about my needs, my pleasures, my future, my safety (as if I could control, manage and manipulate such things to my own egotistic desires!).
I very often went days and weeks totally unaware that I was part of the ‘Face of God’.
Just like that Cleveland Man, in a sense.
Those images that haunt us can also remind us that we’re all part of that ‘Face of God’ – everyone of us.
All part of that ‘Face’…..even those of us who haven’t discovered that yet; or have forgotten.
That can help us heal……we realize we’re far more than our divisible parts like arms and legs.
Far more than our thoughts and emotions, even.
We’re part of Life Itself……consciously remembering what we are……and lovingly, caringly, gently each creating a unique pathway toward the wondrous embrace of our Conscious One-ness!
Surely, that rememberance is our healing.
And, just as surely, in that state it must be just as easy to express compassion and understanding, as Jesus did.
Your thoughts, please!
Love and Blessings,
Les