Well, this morning we spoke about allowing Christ to see us and look upon us with that look of love. And so I thought this evening we would carry that thought further and how this can help us in our own looking on ourselves. And it happened that as I was preparing the thoughts for this morning's conference, I read a very fine commentary, at least I think it's very fine, on the Song of Songs by Father Blaise Armand Jean. And I was amazed when I came across these words. The darkened face of the bride does not repulse the one she loves and does not prevent her from being loved. Yes, marred as I am, if I am willing to expose my face to the eyes of the bridegroom, his look does change me.

[01:03]

The bridegroom necessarily transforms what he sees. So this is another aspect of the look of Christ. The look of the bridegroom transforms. It changes the one that he loves. God contemplates his creature and in this look there is a new creation. I've always thought that that verse in the Song of Songs I am my beloved, excuse me, I'm so distracted. The bridegroom's coming. Maybe we could wait for the bridegroom. And there's a verse in that song that I've always felt is very profound. At least for me, it's perhaps one of the most profound in all of scripture.

[02:07]

I am black, but beautiful. And John of the Cross in his spiritual canticle writes, Before you had looked at me, you saw in me ugliness of sin, imperfection, lowliness. Ever since you looked at me, taking away this dark and ugly complexion that made me unworthy of being seen, Now you can well look at me. Your first glance left in me grace and beauty." And I think of Our Lady in her Magnificat. He looked on his handmaid in her nothingness. Henceforth all ages will call me blessed. So this is our true identity.

[03:10]

I am black but beautiful. We are good because God who is good called us into being and his look creates in us beauty and grace. And the Lord revealed to St. Catherine of Siena When I created man, I looked into myself and was seized with love for the beauty of my creature. Of course, there's another side to us, the dark side, the shadow. And we need to look at that too, but with God's vision. This way of seeing ourselves, black but beautiful, weak, sinful, but utterly beloved of the Son of God, and totally redeemed by His love, this to me is the very foundation of Benedictine, Cistercian spirituality.

[04:27]

In one way or another, the Spirit of God will draw us into the truth of self-knowledge. But always that self-knowledge has to be tempered by the mercy of God. I think we can be harder on ourselves than God is toward us. And that's why I think it helps to see ourselves first from God's vantage point. And when we in some way can know or experience God's look of love, then we have the courage to look on ourselves with love. When self-knowledge begins with God's knowledge of oneself, it has a sure foundation. I'd like to carry these thoughts back into the Old Testament and to a person who appeals to me very much, and I'm not exactly sure why, but this person is the patriarch Jacob.

[05:40]

You don't hear a lot about Jacob, and I've never seen very much written just about him, but I think he may be a sign of hope for me. Jacob is definitely not a plastic saint. In fact, when you read about him, his virtue is not very obvious. One has difficulty in justifying some of his dealings in spite of St. Augustine's attempt. And yet Jacob is beloved of God. He's blessed by God. Not only once in the blessing of his father, which he contrived to receive, but at least three other times in the book of Genesis, God blessed Jacob. And one thing I think this shows us is that God's blessing isn't determined by the goodness of the one receiving it.

[06:49]

But God's blessing creates goodness. I think I could also say, you may not agree with me, but I'll say it anyways, I think, that Jacob is something of a mystic. There's something mystical in the two very well-known encounters of Jacob and Yahweh. Jacob meets Yahweh in a dream and in a struggle, and he recognizes him as the Holy One, and he worships Yahweh. He himself experiences the presence, the holiness of God and there's only one response possible. He builds an altar and he worships.

[07:51]

In both meetings between Jacob and God, Jacob is alone and it's at night and he is fearful. In the first encounter, Jacob is fleeing from his country to find a wife from among his mother's family, but also to put some distance between himself and Esau, whom he has just cheated out of his blessing as the firstborn. And he lies down to sleep during his journey to Haran, and then he has a dream. And we know this dream well, and it's often commented on and interpreted even by our Father Saint Benedict. But maybe we could listen to this dream again. And as we can, enter into the heart of Jacob as he experiences this visitation of Yahweh.

[09:04]

Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. When he had reached a certain place, he passed the night there, since the sun had set. Taking one of the stones to be found at that place, he made it his pillow and laid down where he was. He had a dream. A ladder was there, standing on the ground, with its top reaching to heaven. And there were angels of God going up it and coming down. And Yahweh was there standing over him, saying, I am Yahweh, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac. I will give to you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. And so in this dream there's a ladder touching ground, rooted in earth, and reaching to heaven.

[10:11]

The ladder of Jacob's dream is firmly rooted on the earth, and yet it reaches to heaven. This point on earth is a place of meeting, of visitation, of intimate communion with the divine. Yahweh is there and so it is a holy place. This square foot of earth where I rest or eat or walk or speak to my brother or sister. God is here in my ordinary existence on this hilltop These fields and these stones are holy because this is the house of God, the gate of heaven, as we sing in the beautiful office for the dedication of a church.

[11:18]

The ladder stretching to heaven is firmly planted on this earth, and this says to me that nothing is too earthy, too mundane, There's nothing that cannot hold the potential for meeting with the divine. For the very angels of God dance on this point of earth. And this is a tremendous revelation. When Yahweh entered into Jacob's life, he touched him at a very personal level. And he revealed to him the sacredness and the beauty within his own existence. And then he gave Jacob a promise of continuity with the covenant which he had made with his father and his grandfather. And he promised to keep him safe on his journey.

[12:26]

Be assured that I am with you and I will give you this land and I will keep you safe." These words would be to a fearful man what bread would be to a starving man. And Jacob exclaims, truly Yahweh is in this place and I did not know it. How awe-inspiring this place is. And so Jacob continues his journey. I suspect a new man, fortified with this blessing of Yahweh. He enters Haran, and there by the side of a well he meets Rachel, his future wife, the woman for whom he would work seven years. And they seem to him like a few days.

[13:28]

because he loved her so much. This is Jacob's beautiful side, his true self showing. To be able to love with so much faithfulness and self-sacrifice, this is truly human goodness. Now, what he goes on to do with his Uncle Laban's goats and sheep is something else. And I have to confess that I don't understand it at all. But I'm sure you all do, being sheep growers. So maybe you could explain it to me later on. But anyway, at best it was crafty. At worst it was Jacob's dark side taking over. Because for all Jacob's mystical visions, He remains very human, and maybe that's part of why I like him.

[14:32]

And then we come to the last scene of Jacob's life that I'd like to mention, and perhaps it's the most important. Because Jacob wrestles with God, and he demands a blessing from the one who wounds him. I sense that the tone of this visitation of Yahweh was terrifying, not consoling or even awe-inspiring as previously, but very frightening. Again, Jacob is alone at night. He sent his wife and wives and children across the stream for safety. And he stays behind. And a very mysterious being comes to him and wrestles with him until daybreak.

[15:35]

He cannot prevail. And so he strikes Jacob on his hip. And Jacob bears the wound for the rest of his life. This is a very great mystery to me. And the scene holds more questions than answers. But if I go beneath the surface, meaning I find myself, and perhaps you would also, because sometimes I struggle with God. I struggle against what seems to me too difficult, too painful. At times God's actions in our lives may seem that way, too demanding, too wrenching from all that we are or have been.

[16:37]

And so we struggle. We wrestle against God. We try to make things different, or at least we think they ought to be different. And there's a story in the Gospel that captures this human dilemma. Two disciples of Jesus are walking away. The turn of events wasn't what they expected. Things weren't supposed to turn out this way. And they say, but we had thought. We had thought it would be different. I think this desolation in the face of suffering or disillusionment still happens to us today. And probably all of us have met disciples of Emmaus in our lives.

[17:45]

There's a sister in Dubuque. She's the major superior of a very small diocesan congregation, and the congregation has not received any vocations for over 30 years, and there's just a few sisters left. And whenever I meet this superior, I can see the pain etched in her face a little more deeply. And when I ask her how she's doing, she usually says something like, I'm just living each day, and I don't know the future. But I'm sure there are moments when she thinks, I didn't think it would be like this. And I have a friend who was sent to a treatment center for alcoholism. And for over a year, she denied that she was alcoholic.

[18:53]

In fact, she broke the record for this particular treatment center for such a long period of denial. But when she finally could say, I am alcoholic, I'm sure she must have felt in her heart, but I thought it would be different. This wasn't part of my plan. And I know that she struggled hard with God. I also know that in the days and months that followed, she came to a new life. There was resurrection. But haven't we all experienced something like this in our own lives? We may not have expected certain things in our lives to go the way they went. And we can experience desolation.

[19:57]

We see things in ourselves that seem insurmountable. And everything in us wants to cry out, but I thought, like the disciples. We thought he was the one We thought it was His will. We thought He would be with us all the time and that we would experience that presence. And now it's the third day or the third month or the third year. And if someone asks us why we feel despondent downcast, we might say, are you the only one around who does not see that everything's going wrong? Maybe in the church or in the world or in the community or in my life. And so the struggle to accept God and ourselves on his terms and to accept all the conditions of our life is very real.

[21:08]

But this can be a moment of our visitation, this very moment when we find ourselves wrestling with God. And we can do what Jacob did. He didn't run away. He called out and begged a blessing. And we may be wounded in the struggle and have to bear the wound, the failure, disappointment, or the weakness for the rest of our lives. But if we stay with it, we also emerge blessed by God. So often suffering, especially the suffering that comes from accepting God's will in our lives, is an opening, a prelude to a new way of knowing God.

[22:16]

And this deeper knowledge is the blessing. I heard about a man once, this was in Germany, And the man was very prosperous and had a beautiful wife and home. And for some reason, which I don't know, he lost his job, so he lost his security. And within a year or two, he lost his wife to his best friend. And the man was almost near despair. But one evening, he turned to God, as he had many times. But in this turning to God, he found God in a way that he never had before. And he has become a man of very deep prayer.

[23:23]

And prayer has become for him his whole life. Jacob was a man thrice blessed by God. His story is dark but beautiful. In him, perhaps, you and I can find ourselves. And in him, we can look on ourselves and see the beauty of God's image and the dark shadow of our unlikeness to God. But in it all, I think there is the beam of hope. God looks on us with love and mercy, and we also can and really must look on ourselves with love and mercy. I would suggest Psalms 138 and 16.

[24:26]

So if there'd be any, is there time for comments? Pardon? Oh, there's lots of time. Your final phrase was, we also must look at ourselves with love and mercy. Be merciful to ourselves. In the sense of being able to see ourselves as God sees us.

[25:37]

Yes, and believing in the love of God, the mercy that God has towards us, we can be merciful to ourselves. We can not judge ourselves so harshly or just be so down on ourselves as we often are, carrying so much guilt around, but give ourselves that same kind of mercy. Does that make sense to you? Do you think it's possible? There is a strange phenomenon of denial. It's even a bad name because we don't consciously deny anything about ourselves. I mean, occasionally we do. But I mean, it's all... And I remember a woman saying to me once that she wished she'd been caught in depression, because she didn't feel depression, she felt lost, you know, breaking, I think. Denial always has, again, kind of sounds like a judgment that you're deliberately doing something that's clear, but it's just this natural defense power which we all need.

[26:47]

I mean, even in the talk here now, we have to deny some of this, you know, we have to keep certain thoughts out of our head, and it's just the way these slide under the rug. And some of us have a bookmark in the tunnel system, because it disappears and there's no... you don't have any access to it. Except somehow, at a different age, some way it does get... it can get to us, it's not totally... I mean, it's a real strange phenomenon. And it's awfully hard to know how to... well, you know, to be... we have that song about, you know, uh-oh, my hidden faults, and so forth. I'll also help other people. You're referring to a denial of my own negative qualities or my faults? Yes, a denial. Oh, yeah. Well, when I was saying the love and the mercy, it was having recognized and faced those dark sides of myself. I think that has to come first.

[27:48]

So I think we do have to take them in hand in some way. Were you going to say something, brother? Well, I was not aware of the fact that when Jacob left his family and went across the river, and I knew he was alone. There were two together. He purposely went aside. And that's often when you do a picture, It was a moment of dark moments. The thing that I was most afraid to look at, we're trying to emphasize the wound that is permanent. And that's not just permanently, well, we're even going to elaborate. But in any case, what I was seeing was, in Jacob's case, that wound goes on to build something.

[28:50]

the wound gained to taking the rib out. I mean, what was it? The socket? Yeah. You'd like me to operate on you? That ends up being, Known as Mendacium Semisterium. What St. Augustine said about Jacob's lie. It was a mystery, huh? Known as Mendacium Semisterium.

[29:57]

Right. I can't swallow that. I guess not too many people can today, Father. We all carry wounds, but if the wound is transformed, that everything that we saw at that point was a curse. It's actually the thing that God was trying to work with us on. That becomes the strength. As well as where it all comes into contact with us. That's what struck me when you said that. Is it because I said that we can carry the wound, or the weakness, or the disappointment, or whatever, as Jacob was wounded and had to carry that for the rest of his life? Or you can allow it to... Be a springboard for new growth. Yeah, I think you're right. That's what it means. I was saying to myself, so often you almost insist to live in this darkness or this wound as wound and not really look at it as springboard to something else.

[31:12]

Grace in itself. You have this temple on my left cheek, you know. That's my wound, you know. And I got it. But it also could be the thing that might transform me to see myself in another. I'll save myself. How can this temple possibly be a blessing for me? I think that's a good point. Yeah. Me, I see God as being infinite. And all these little things that happen to us, to us, they're chaos. But to someone, it's infinite. There's no chaos. Everything happens. So it's part of the natural. She wants to hear you. I was saying that I see God as being infinite, and to him, the things that appear to us to be chaotic and painful and confusing and that type of thing, to him, they're not.

[32:31]

They're very plain to him. In his infinite being, all things happen, and he doesn't see it as we would see it, couldn't possibly see it that way. part of a whole. Maybe that's what we mean when we say God is holy. We just have to respect it. When you think it's so small and narrow, I think that's what happens when we don't forgive ourselves. We take the shot. The shot of you in the small. I know for myself, that's what usually appears when I suddenly realize that I've done that, then opens up a whole new perspective, a different view that's so much greater than what I planned in the beginning.

[33:33]

Like the promise that Jacob has renewed is so much smaller than his escaping, running away from his brother, That type of thing. You know, to bury your toes in the hands of the stream. God promises in the old birth, in a way. From the structure of your thought, I think you're saying that to get to that experience of being able to offer our soul with the love and mercy that God does, Is it sensible to go through the painful difficulties and sufferings that you were referring to? Yes, in a sense. I don't think that We need to look for them or seek them out.

[34:39]

I think life is going to bring them to us. And it's how we live through those moments of suffering, of disillusionment with life, with ourselves, with events. because all of us are going to experience some kind of painful dissolution in our lives. It's how we live through those that makes the difference. And in coming to know and to accept ourselves through those kinds of events. I wasn't really setting up that we have to have an absolutely traumatic experience. That's right, yeah. Because they will come and they will be part of our personal lives and our communal lives, the life of the church. I just really believe that. It's part of reality. It seems in that sense that

[35:46]

you know, the self, it's all based, it boils down to self-knowledge. And one thing that was very helpful to me, you know, is when we studied this thing of Briggs-Meyer. Meyers-Briggs, yeah. And what happened there, really, is that, you know, Of course, if I'm one way, if I'm an extrovert or introvert, let's say, and somebody's an extrovert, and what happens is that one thinks that the other is bad, I'm right. But at the same time, what's happening is that with the extrovert, you know, kind of his behavior and all that, then can bother the introvert. And this is one of those actual crosses in history. Even in all those, those have really good points. Judging, well, it can be very helpful if you're a hockey referee to be a judge, because the whole game is on your shoulder.

[36:58]

And if you're just the type of, OK, OK, the game won't work, well, But at the same time, what you're aware of, it's a cross, to have that character, so to speak, it's a character, and also it can be called a gift, because in certain instances it's very helpful to have those characters. But while in other circumstances, it's a real burden to have those. And I think it's very important to accept the limitations and the assets of every tractor. But if you don't know it, then that's another problem. Or if the other person doesn't know it, that's what we are. same self-knowledge about yourself and about other people. Yeah, that's what I found very helpful.

[38:01]

At some point we got to know what was the temperament of the other person in the community. And then this eliminates a lot of expectations, because we expect everybody to be average in this, and average in that, and average in that. It's where the point is, people are not just average introvert, extrovert, extrovert, or introvert, or extrovert, [...] or extro But if we don't know... It reduces your level of suffering, doesn't it? No, I think that what's happening is that we make ourselves suffer a lot by expecting so much from so many. From ourselves and others. Expecting things to be peaceful and just copacetic all the time.

[39:04]

we can reduce our level of expectation where it's better off. I think it reduces that level of pain. We don't want to reduce them too far. No, I understand what you're saying. I think it's very true. Our community experienced the same thing when we did the Myers-Briggs. It really did help us. Because in dialogue sometimes you just wouldn't know what was going on. And to realize that some people speak very spontaneously, very quickly, and others, who are a little bit more introverted and slow thinkers, think that these people are saying things that they mean absolutely and will never change their minds. And Caroline and I are about at opposite poles on this. So it really does help a lot to know ourselves and to know others. And how much different a pain is if the block that says, well, it's going to go away in two hours, part of it's there, but it says, well, you have to live with it for the rest of your life.

[40:12]

The same pain is entirely different if you do that with two different houses. Well, as long as you're on the subject of... Well, it's been an amazing occasion. I was just thinking that sometimes when life breaks, it's often we like to live in the conscious side of ourselves, because that's the same in our mess. There's a place you've been talking so far today, at least, tonight, on that dark side, there's that shadow side that we don't know so much about, which is the side that really contains the whole person. If you're always living in the conscious side, in a way, I think you could say the conscious side could also be your permanent tool.

[41:20]

Even though we look at the shadow side, and that's... I don't want to do anything with that, you know. That's my downfall. Every time I try to do it, I trip. And yet, it's trying to learn more about ourselves in that shadow side. If you can, you come to a greater awareness of yourself. I mean, in my case, tuition is my weak side. But after monastery, it's like, what did I... But then when I want to do it, every time I do it, it always seems to be right. But I'm too scared to go that route. I've got to do it in another fashion. And that's kind of... And I just think it's always... We always like to stay in the... It's a little... The safe side. The safe side, the comfort.

[42:22]

The comfort zone a little bit more. I think that's what Brother Michael mentioned this morning about the risk, taking the risk of allowing others to know us. That's very risky for some people. And that would be what you're saying, to go into an area that's not so comfortable, that's not so easy. We think that's the wound, that's the... But in fact, comfort zone could be like that too. And then you end up coming from, you know, You never get out of it. I recall that telling a person that all the time, you live in just this little farm. You never really make for it. I think it was in the early 70s, or in the late 60s, we had a long-term guest, a Jewish rabbi.

[43:23]

During the war, he was incarcerated in Dachau, and during the time he was here, he disclosed the fact that he was a student in one of the yeshivas, and they spoke about Jacob stealing the blessing of Israel. He said, well, why is it? He tried to get us to admire and revere this. liar and his chief. Well, he's so wonderful, badly carried to the hunter. Why should we revere him? He said, what you got him in my was a slap across the face. He said, I guess the teacher wasn't ready to read that result. This was one of the things But it's, again, God's selection, I guess. But simply, he's a hard man to admire.

[44:32]

But I guess with the passage of time, it became about 30 years. Father John Eudes had an interpretation of this passage. It was more the passage of the wrestling. And if I can remember it, and please correct me if you know what I'm referring to, because it was what I remember Father John Eudes saying. It was that in this wrestling, God was in a sense getting back at Jacob for the deceit of his life. And that he was wounded and would carry for the rest of his life his own guilt or the effects of his deceit. But it didn't make him less able to be blessed by God. You can make him say almost anything. Yeah. He's crazy about it. Yeah. It's 42 years old, so you'd think I shot everybody.

[45:59]

That's all it means. Now, do any of you want to explain to me about the sheep? It's cross-breeding, isn't it? It's very superstitionary. Oh, it's just superstitious? Oh, I see. It doesn't make sense to people who understand animals. Oh, I see. I thought it really was true. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay, well that's good to know. Yeah, yeah. I always thought that he was dealing around with transphobic characters, and that the old men didn't know what he was doing. He wanted to go around more often in the short run.

[47:04]

I don't know if they have. I am blonde. Mm hmm. As I understand it from Song of Songs, I don't know about the rest of scripture, and this is subject to correction. The black isn't strictly black, it's tanned or swarthy by exposure to the sun. It's in a pastoral setting and the person has been exposed to the sun and become dark complexioned. And whether or not, at that time, a fair complexion was considered more beautiful, I don't know that.

[48:34]

I'm wondering, John, if that's what it was. Yeah. And beautiful, or less beautiful. I suspect it means that, yeah. I don't know if I heard that the first time. Well, that's the way I was using it, yes. One commentary I read, I think that's particularly important, To be sunburned isn't meant to be an outside agricultural work. In that society, you're not one of the beautiful people. You're one of the laborers. If you say, I'm sunburned, it's because you're saying, I'm low-class, I'm meek, I'm a class that's by and large not attractive. Today, it would have a different meaning and we probably wouldn't use it, but in that context, yeah. I keep coming back to your final thought.

[49:38]

We must look at ourselves in a lot of different ways. It's almost a cliché these days. When I was in high school, everybody I knew the granularity problems, but it was nothing. I think it's still popular. And even having it be cliched doesn't seem to make it any easier to do. So that's one. That's why it's so difficult. I was reading a book on family assistance, and the guy was talking about the incredibility of human action. He said that if someone needs to have an experience of love, it's very hard to say what exactly it is that will break through the defense and enable the person to experience it. If they have too much liberty to do what they want, it creates a feeling of chaos, and that's the opposite of

[50:43]

where there can be no fair dialogue. If there's too much structure and discipline, it can be crushing. And people responded to six identical things in the opposite way. If there's too much structure, somebody's gonna have to be very rigid and rigid. This week's annual event was nice. The article is going to Washington, D.C. She turned around and said, I don't want to get this problem back home. Perhaps it could help, Nathan, if I mention that what I'm doing here is, and it'll come out more tomorrow and the next day, is basing There's Bernard's levels of truth. Now, he doesn't use the first one of letting God look at us with love, but his levels of truth are that we know ourselves.

[51:46]

It begins with self-knowledge. And from knowing ourselves and having compassion, learning compassion from our own weakness, we move on to be able to be compassionate to others. And so it's knowing others with compassion. And that moves on to the knowledge of God, to the truth in God. These are the three levels of truth. So it's the truth in ourselves, the truth in our neighbor, and then the truth in God, which is contemplation. So that's in the back of my mind as I'm doing this. And so... I think that we can only know the truth in ourselves and accept that truth, love that, love the way we are because we come from the hand of God, if we also in some way know that God knows and accepts and loves us. I think it's only possible that way. So that's the structure that I'm using.

[52:50]

It doesn't answer your question of why is it so difficult. I think that we did talk about it this morning, and it's just a reality that it's difficult. Kathleen had a thought about it later that she might want to bring up now. Well, I was just mentioning to Gail afterwards, but for me, I know I had posed a practical question. But how do I now, given the situation of my past or whatever happened to me, how do I now, as an adult, come to know that God loves me? Whatever my situation is, whether it was a happy past or whatever, given whatever it is, how do I come? What lies within my power to do about the situation? And that was, for me, right away, The one scripture, say, I mentioned to Gail, was when Jesus was beginning to preach the good news, which of course, a part of the good news is the good news of God's love for us, was that repent and believe in good news.

[53:58]

It's about the only thing, it seems to me, that lies in our faith. We can't get others to love ourselves if we're not getting love from others. There's really nothing we can do about that. about the only thing, we can come to some knowledge of our path, and that can be helpful. But we can't change that path. And there's lots of things even in our present that we can't change. The only thing we do have power, have power to change, of course, is that it takes the grace of God for ourselves. And there's where, that's why for me that thought of repentance and forgiveness in myself speaks to me about the only thing that does lie in my power to do to make the new world better than what else has gone on. As we were just talking now, too, well, talking about burning degrees of love. Degrees of truth. Degrees of truth, excuse me, which I'm also somewhat familiar with. For me, one of the things that encapsulates Bernard's birth, the truth of myself, is the humility.

[55:03]

But of course, for Bernard very much also, humility is never just being down on yourself. It's a knowledge of one's loneliness that follows very much in the eyes of God, how God sees it. and always with the understanding of that real forgiveness. But it's very difficult. It's pride, in a sense. To hate oneself, it's pride. It's a form of pride, and never a form of humility. And I was just struck as you were talking, Gail, for any of you who have read The Diary of a Country Priest, that's not too many of you have read it. There's a beautiful line at the end, right at the last, at the very last paragraph that the fictional priest himself is writing. And he says, like, how easy it is to hate oneself. True pride is to forget. But it's, to me, true love, I guess, is to forget. But if ever pride could die in us, the perfect love,

[56:07]

that the perfect great would be to love oneself in all simplicity and full with love unto thyself, suffered and loved in Christ. And that probably struck me, how much felt he enumerates the man of pride. This wouldn't account for two things. One, this wouldn't account for the universal phenomenon, which it does seem to be in our culture, at least in Western culture. But I think our trapping of the original sin is no help. When we start out, it's black, it's cold. And it seems like if I want to go back to my roots, that's what it's going to be evil to start with. But I'd say that that does explain the fact that it's something that you just sit there. But the other thing is, you know, people write today about reparenting oneself. And I think there's, it's a good image, the kind of charm within which which didn't get I've got the wrong kind of parenting now that I'm an adult. You know, although I tend to parent myself, it's my parents parenting me.

[57:11]

That's also part of the converging of repentance. It changes how I can be different to myself now than the parents of my parents and so forth. This is about the child within. I think it is a good, for me at least, it's a good image to get at those things that it is. Be a little changeable and, you know, And there is an attitude I take toward myself. Again, as you would towards a child, when you have a lot of hopes and expectations, which are local limits, that's another. There is a, well, there's a child, in a sense, that needs to be repaired. And we're benefiting that, too. We return to him. We keep listening and responding. wandering by the sofa. And again, that's what it is. I don't know if this will be enough paying attention, Your Honor. Keep a second one, otherwise you can insult me one more time for anything else.

[58:14]

And what do you do with your time? But I think that it points up the relationship between the psychological and the spiritual, that we, being in touch with ourselves and knowing something of our inner wounds, and listening to the Word of the Gospel, to repent, to forgive, and to go on. I think that that's a good balancing of the two, because we are human beings. Like the twelve-step program, to start off in the beginning, admitting that you actually have a problem, and to end up realizing that the admission itself is a religious experience. regardless of what kind of situation we're in.

[59:19]

There's no possible way for you to get out of it yourself. When you get through the whole 12 steps, you end up with a man saying that there's some factors in this experience. to ocean higher power. I think really one of the key things, regardless of how you talk about it, whether it's acceptance of oneself or whether it's reparenting or whether it's repentance, it's coming to take responsibility as opposed to, you know, well, mother didn't love me and that's the end of my life, you know. All right, well, talk me through it. That's true, that's right. but the truth is hard and it needs to be tempered with mercy.

[60:32]

That's what Bernard says. You can never face the truth of yourself without the mercy of God. That's probably where I got it, because he says that very strongly. And Bernard's a friend, a favorite of mine, so that's probably what's inspired that I wasn't conscious of it. When we face the truth in ourselves, we must always face that with the mercy of God, because that's how God is towards us. We cannot face the truth of ourselves without that mercy, because it's too hard. It's too difficult. In a sense, it's unredeemed without the mercy of God. What do you think about the possibility that we have this free will? Are we really free to choose what we can or are we stuck? I think we're stuck in the sense of responsibility for who we are and who we want.

[61:34]

It's like I'm stuck because of my miserable past. We really believe that we're free species. We've got power of choice. Now, we can respond to Gloria Russell, some measure. And I would suppose that just to come to go and can take responsibility and exercise some sort of choice is already a work of greatness. We may not be able to change our situation, but we certainly could use our influence on that situation. even when I'm very strong and sick away, and we really don't have a lot of control over him. But my attitudes towards those, you know, can certainly be affected by how I will. I think that this is in fact a line that I recall when we were speaking about the

[62:43]

I am black, but beautiful. He uses the word ugly, that I am ugly because I am thin, but I am beautiful because Christ loves me. He is effective and recommends improvement, but there are lengths beyond that. Yes, good, good. There's also, when dealing with all sorts of difficult experiences in one's past, the act of remembering something, I think, is always something that's very creative when you deal with them. Of course, it's a bit challenging to do that once you're here. She's not at all fond of the story. One of the things that always astounds her is that she's known couples, married couples, with that kind of 20 years of what was an ideal marriage.

[63:49]

They look at each other, and then suddenly it will explode, and all this stuff will come up, and suddenly it seems that the marriage was an absolute disaster from the first. And she's had contrary experiences of people with whom she's never gotten married, and it went like a disaster from the first. And after ten or twenty years, she finally settled down, and finally got something straightened out. But at times, she didn't like it, and I'm flaccid there all the way along. But she said she finally realized that remembering something is a very creative experience. And that the experience of God, the experience of love, human and divine, that I never quite understood. can cause us to remember, sort of recreate our past in such a way that it's... One would see this as catastrophic and pointless in the past, but we've seen that it's structured and kind of leading to something very positive.

[64:54]

How we stick it in the memory bank makes a difference. It's constantly in reprocess as we go along. I used to miss writing four times a year. When I read back, I'm astounded at everything that I wrote at that time. a feeling that I had about that, and I wonder how I'm really going to get through certain times and things like that. But, and then I would say that it's a revelation that I've been there. I'm really empowered, you know, to get me through that. Then, you know, Thanksgiving and things like that. Also, depending on the time period, for many people to be an opportunist seems to be a fault, but at the same time it can be very creative because it's a surprise.

[66:10]

when the ceiling is falling apart, and all of a sudden you get this inspiration to modify the ceiling or attach it in a way that, you know, you... Makes it more beautiful. When you force the ceiling, it forces your imagination. You didn't want the thing to start leaking. But, you know, very often there were surprises. along with God's encounter with the states of consciousness. That's right. Bless you.

[66:53]

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