Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The 11th Holy Night

The Growing Capacity for Forgiveness
 
 
The Holy Nights and the unfiltered light of the spirit have led us deeply into our soul as an evolving, developing inner moral imagination.  Over and over again, the spiritual hierarchies ask us to reflect on the experience of becoming, the experience of polarities and the experience of freedom.

Do pause for a few sacred moments and consider your personal sense of becoming during these nights. Do you feel different than the way you were before the Holy Nights began?

What about the polarities of human consciousness?  Can you feel a center or see a center between two opposing experiences? Have you sought the awesome and awful point of balanced ambivalence?

And have had any moments where freedom from your numerous identities appeared -  when you realize the spiritual sense of "I" that lives free of all qualifiers, containers and judgments.

If you have experienced any of these awarenesses, tonight's message will be, maybe not easy, but less difficult. If you have some awareness, you have forgiven something.

Without forgiveness, can you become an evolved self, can you live between the ever-present polarities and can you be free?

Tonight look at both aspects of forgiveness - to forgive and to be forgiven. Do you seek both equally?  Just imagine yourself in the inner experience of both.  What do they feel like?  If during the Holy Nights you can truly imagine forgiving and being forgiven, the coming year will be blessed.

Don't go into any of your stories or dramas tonight. The specifics of our stories generally keep us from forgiveness, so release any specifics and just focus on feeling forgiveness.  Feel a release, a restoration, a renewal.  Feel wholeness and lightness.

Now think about the five sense that perceive the world - sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.  How does each sense forgive? Can you forgive easily through one sense? Is there one sense that cannot bear to forgive something that offends it?

Here is another Holy Nights imagination that calls for poetry.  Begin writing down a list of  feeling words connected to forgiveness. Choose three words from the list and use them in a poem (or a paragraph)  about the coming year and how forgiveness will live in your soul.  Please share your efforts.




14 comments:

  1. first I'd like to share a comment I read in a Chapel once:
    Forgiveness is a great idea until we have someone to forgive!
    It always reminds me of the challenge of true forgiveness.
    And now the image that came to me as I reflected on forgiveness....

    Forgiveness laps over all like a gentle tide
    Smoothing the wrongs
    Wrongs of thoughtlessness like to dig or not and how
    Wrongs of need like worm castes
    Wrongs of pride in creation destruction permanence
    Wrongs of right
    All smoothed and soothed
    With the soft strokes of forgiveness
    rippling gently over all
    Forever
    Maybe
    Always
    Forgiving
    Relentlessly
    Reminding
    That all shall pass.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I forgive you with my sight
    My eyes will not pierce you
    I forgive you with my hearing
    My ears will not oppose you
    I forgive you with my taste
    My palate will not rebel against you
    I forgive you with my touch
    My finger will not point at you
    I forgive you with my smelling
    My nose will not recoil from you

    From my thinking you will receive mercy
    The exoneration of your I
    From my speech pardon will come forth
    Absolution for your humanness
    From my feeling you shall obtain indulgence
    Amnesty for you weary soul
    And by my doing you shall not be harmed
    But earn clemency for your drained body

    And by all of this you shall heal
    And your healing will be my healing
    For you see, forgiveness is a necessity in my temple
    And we shall both collect our pearls
    And travel back to All That Is
    Where our adorned gowns we will wear
    And for us our friends will hold a feast.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I can do this. This I am familiar with. The most important change I have ever made in myself is learning to forgive. The love I feel in sharing who I am with the people I love makes me a beautiful person.
    I am warm
    It is ease to be comfortable
    We are equal and united
    family, parents and children.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The calm shroud of peace settles over the forgiven
    While the mistakes and debts of the soul are driven
    Away to the land of calamity
    And are replaced with majestic serenity

    One forgives another for oneself
    For the letting go of a perceived wrong
    Allows for the coming in of peaceful wealth
    And freedom to sing one’s own quiet song

    To forgive does not mean you agree
    It does not mean you are happy or sad
    To forgive means you have become free
    To progress forward and discard the bad

    To be forgiven for one’s transgressions
    Brings relief and peace to the soul
    For the powerful force of dread is lifted
    When forgiveness permeates the whole

    ReplyDelete
  5. I will let go
    Into the openness
    Of trust
    In my soul
    My true nature
    Not that which
    Craves
    Holds on
    Says how it 'should be'
    But that which
    Opens
    Gently
    Into the miracle
    Of what is
    And the wonder
    Of what will be...

    ReplyDelete
  6. I heard her say: “I forgive you”,
    It smelled fishy; I’d done nothing wrong.

    I saw her scornfully smirk,
    Tasting the tension unleashed,

    “Touch me with the light of truth;
    Let all pretense and judgment dissolve”.

    I awakened; the nightmare shattered,
    Antiquated patterns had emerged in the dark.

    Founts of Forgiveness overfloweth; long since given; and, duly received;
    Allowing Soul’s sweet Freedom to slumber, snuggling softly into silken dreams.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 2011, like being in Heaven
    The most import choice for me is Love
    no matter what it’s looking like, sister and forgiveness is my key
    Release from my fears and deep conditioning
    Those old shackles, slave bracelets jingling with every move I make
    Judgments and criticisms of self and others, my brothers
    Keep me separate, keep me from awakening
    Ah yes, I remember, forgiveness is the key
    That ease of being, this movement towards Love
    Will lighten the load and free my soul!

    ReplyDelete
  8. let it go - the
    smashed word broken
    open vow or
    the oath cracked length
    wise - let it go it
    was sworn to
    go

    let them go - the
    truthful liars and
    the false fair friends
    and the boths and
    neithers - you must let them go they
    were born
    to go

    let all go - the
    big small middling
    tall bigger really
    the biggest and all
    things - let all go
    dear
    so comes love

    ~ e. e. cummings ~

    (Complete Poems 1904-1962)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Being forgiven is like traversing the mountainous crags of my troubled soul

    The shame hangs over me like a dense nasty fog

    I am minuscule, and reduced to my unconscious story

    I indulge and read and listen until my I has had enough. Enough!

    My I bids my Will to recognize the story and slays it with the sword of Light

    God's breath whispers to me warmly...to forgive myself

    I open to know LOVE

    ReplyDelete
  10. Soulful longing
    Longing for love and forgiveness
    Forgiveness of self
    Self love
    Love of light
    Light shines through open hearts
    Open hearts forgive

    ReplyDelete
  11. to simply be
    (fresh, growing)
    in clear light
    (soft, glowing)
    to float free
    (warm, flowing)
    o yes, to be
    (by letting be)
    to simply know
    (by letting go)
    that you and i are we

    ReplyDelete
  12. clutching,
    the pain of yesterday.
    releasing,
    loss, resentment,anger.
    encouraging...
    hope
    renewal
    honor

    ReplyDelete
  13. In the midst of this field, I stand
    Free.
    The morning Sun warming my face,
    Releasing me from the long, cold night.

    Just there,
    In a glint of sunlight raying,
    I am
    Renewed,
    Infused,
    In Love with living
    And with all that is.

    Fertile earth sprouts green beneath my feet.
    Brand new blue sky above,
    Gentle, fragrant breeze surrounds.

    Arms open wide, I revolve,
    And behold,
    Wide expanses lead outward in all directions, each
    Ripe with possibility.

    The Song of the Sun:
    New Day Dawning, Sweet Forgiveness

    ReplyDelete
  14. FORGIVENESS.....is
    the Key to Happiness.

    ReplyDelete