Lesson #68
Love holds no grievances
What would make a person walk around pissed and upset? What would make a person resentful and want to retaliate against another? The feeling of victimhood. Playing the victim is not a healthy stance to maintain in life. It overlooks and rejects a love for oneself and for the interdependent web of existence of which we all are a part. Grievance separates, it does not join and so grievance keeps us from the experience of being a part of what we truly are, a member of the Body of Christ, a part of the non dualistic Onness.
In Alcoholic Anonymous, in step Twelve, we are asked to carry our spiritual awakening as a result of doing the previous steps to others and to continue the practice of the steps. One of the slogans of wisdom from AA is to take one’s own inventory and not to be taking the inventory of others. When we shift our focus from what we perceive as the mistakes that others make to the mistakes that we have made, and continue to make, we experience peace.
In Unitarian Universalism as we covenant together to affirm and promote its seven principles, we are reminded in the third principle that we are to accept one another and encourage their spiritual growth out of love for one another. This encouragement is a form of nurturance not a form of condemnation for their deficiencies. It is strength based not deficit based.
Today, we are asked to take 15 minutes and review all those toward whom we hold grievances and to release it by looking at the Divine Spark in them rather than what might have hurt us. We are willing to give up making other people responsible for our unhappiness. It is a rising above the unfairness and injury on the ego plane and moving to a place of safety and comfort in the world of the Spirit. If we are truly loving, we love unconditionally not conditionally because we have learned that Love has no grievances.
My Kind Of Church Music
Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
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