Inner Eyesight

Spirit, open my heart

    to the joy and pain of living

What has the joy and pain of living been like for you recently? Is your heart really open to the joy and pain of reality?

I confess that most of the time mine is not. When I'm surprised by joy I don't give myself time to really relish it. I'm too busy and focused on my to-do list. But I am getting better at it!

When pain comes, my fear, (Falsehood Experienced as Reality), roars so loud that I am tempted to run away. When I do face the reality I face it like a problem to be solved, rather than a life to be lived. Am I really willing to feel it?

Occasionally, the joy and pain of living happens when we are alone…maybe we receive some good news in an email. Or we read the bad news in the newspaper. But more often, other people are involved…unless we run away.

In St. Paul’s letter to the church in Colossae, he asked them to face openly the joy and pain of living in community. 

He suggested they face it dressed in the wardrobe that God has picked out for all of us as Christians: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline, forgiveness, love, and gratitude. 

He suggested that living in community was like a dance. We listen to the music and we keep in step with the people around us. We don’t go off doing our own thing. The peace of Christ will allow us to do this, if we let it.

May it be so.

Excerpts from Colossians 3 MSG

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.

Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness.

Art from Regent student, Daniela Armestegui