I read a nice response today from Rabbi Rami Shapiro. It was in response to a letter written by a woman who was filled with guilt and remorse because she had been sitting with her mother in her hospital room when she said something horrible to her and stormed out the room. After a moment she came back to apologize but while she was away her mother died. She said she she now carries a pain of sadness for not having had a chance to apologize.
How many of us, in the midst of being tired out, disappointed, worried over something have said things we wish we had not… and sometimes we’ve lashed out with hurtful words.
When a thought moves through, when an emotion arises, as we learn to be still, to take a breath and dive into our heart we are able to respond in Truth, with compassion. The breath frees us from fixing. The breath frees us from complaining, commenting, giving advice. The breath returns us to a place of knowing that we are all an expression of the One life. force.
In our Affirmative prayer class we enter into this experience.
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, join us and experience how to be with our ego without letting it run us. Let us learn to notice these emotions, feelings and discomforts. We realize they are in us yet we are creating in us a capacity to hold a space for Spirit to move in and reveals to us responses filled with wisdom, kindness, compassion.
Even if you never pray with another this class helps us to see into ourselves that any discomfort is just as transient as any thoughts. They are not who we are. Our heart, our essence, our Presence of Being is always in communion with Spirit.
Rabbi Shapiro’s response to the woman’s letter was “no matter how one dies, death is the purging of the ego and the thoughts and feelings that define it.” As she died your mom awakened to the One, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
The ego is not who we are. They are thoughts that we’ve learned. So many of them are culturally conditioned and just not true. Join us this Wednesday as we learn to release ourselves from the ego and begin the Spiritual Transformation of our Life.
Blessings,
Rev Janice
