Another part of 'in-forming surrender.'
In this practice of compassion and gentleness, Christ's mind and heart can become ours. This gentle, generous, thankful heart is not timid. Its boldness comes not from fulfillment or from certainty; it comes from the deeply informed surrender to the way God's unique power works. if we are thankful in all those things, then we can even be thankful when God's Spirit intersects our lives with those "others" who scare us so much. We can encounter differences as providential. We can embrace the mystery of this gift in our lives without fear.
A "deeply informed surrender to the way of God's unique power works" is the way of allowing one's self to unfold with a sense of gentleness. I like that image. It is not an easy place to go. Too often, we hold on and keep our minds settled on that which we know and what we want and what we can control. And yet, our God gifts us with a Spirit of boldness that is willing to step back into the position of surrender so that we may look again at all the things in our life over which we may feel the need to enter into warfare. When we do not have this foundation of hopefulness that is a gift from our God, we will be scared into all sorts of crazy ways of pointing our fingers and casting stones. It is in that act of surrendering to God's power of life that is handed to each of us, that we begin to open our eyes and see that the one who is cast as the 'other' is really a sister and a brother that we have not yet had the time or opportunity to meet more fully. But to meet them with open arms means we must not fear them.
Connection: This reminds me of what I included in a wedding sermon this weekend. It had to simply do with the notion that we are all people of power - the power of being. From there, we connect with others - we draw to others (love) and within that love we honor the other for their otherness and we see to it that we do not trample them or dim their light (justice).
You, O God, empower us to let go and listen to your word - that is enough to ask this day. Amen.
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