May
I see that my preoccupation with the faults of others is really a smokescreen
to
keep me from taking a hard look at my own,
as
well as a way to bolster my own failing ego.
May
I check out the "why's" of my blaming.
(from A Day at a Time, a Hazeldon Foundation
book)
I notice when my own energy is low, I start finding
faults with others. I have a couple people in my life I use as my emotional
litmus test. If my heart is feeling gracious, they are OK, if not, the list of
their faults (in my mind) is very long.
Blame is Being
Lazy About My Energy….
Fortunately, we are not helpless and things are not
hopeless. We can become aware of dynamics that affect our energy, like diet and
exercise, rest and relaxation, music and aroma. Too much time in some activities—or
too little time in others—takes a toll. We can become fluent in energy medicine
as self care.
Many of you know about Self Full Body Connection. If not,
check out the free handout showing the positions from the Healing with Energy
tab. The
earlier version of this was called Chakra Connection, by Brugh Joy, and it gave
me back quality of life and inspired me to learn Healing Touch™ to share with
others.
Jin Shin Jyutsu has some very simple technique that work wonders
to move you out of the blame game. Here is a short video about Safety Lock # 13
(located at the breastbone) which rids your thoughts of those inner child
wounds! And remember if you forget
everything else you saw in the video (or did not watch it), you can hold your middle finger!
Linda Beushausen shared this most incredible true storyof forgiveness when she spoke at Pilgrim Congregational Church on Sunday,
August 17. It was posted on February 10, 2013 by Geoff Heggadon. As Linda said, she will probably never have any where near what this woman has to forgive, but when she does face the things in her life that feel too big to forgive, we can all remember what is possible....
The scene is a
courtroom trial in South Africa.
A frail black
woman rises slowly to her feet. She is something over 70 years of age.
Facing
across the room are several white security police officers, one of whom, Mr.
van der Broek, has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of both
the woman’s son and her husband some years before. He had come to the woman’s
home, taken her son, shot him at point blank range and then set the young man’s
body on fire while he and his officers partied nearby.
Several years later, van der Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away
her husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his whereabouts. Then
almost two years after her husband’s disappearance, van de Broek came back to
fetch the woman herself.
How vividly she
remembers that evening, going to a place beside a river where she was shown her
husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit, lying on a pile of wood.
The last words heard from his lips as the officers poured gasoline over his
body and set him aflame were, “Father forgive them…”
Now the woman
stands in the courtroom and listens to the confessions offered by Mr. van de
Broek. A member of the South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns
to her and asks, “So what do you want? How should justice be done to this man
who has so brutally destroyed your family?”
“I want three
things,” begins the old woman calmly, but confidently. “I want first to be
taken to the place where my husband’s body was burned so that I can gather up
the dust and give his remains a decent burial.”
She pauses,
then continues, “My husband and son were my only family, I want secondly,
therefore, for Mr. van der Broek to become my son. I would like him to come
twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with me so that I can pour out on
him whatever love I still have remaining in me."
“And finally,”
she says, “I want a third thing. This is also the wish of my husband. And so, I
would kindly ask someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom so
that I can take Mr. van der Broek in my arms and embrace him and let him know
that he is truly forgiven.”
As the court
assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the room, Mr. van der Broek,
overwhelmed by what he has just heard, faints. As he does, those in the
courtroom, family, friends neighbours—all victims of decades of oppression and
injustice—begin to sing, softly but assuredly: “Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, that saved a wretch like me.” (From J.John & Mark Stibbe)
