God fully forgives us, but the “karma” of our mistakes remains, and we must still go back and repair the bonds that we have broken.
Image: SadnessEF by Darnok.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
"Spirituality and the Twelve Steps" (Part Two)
"Wounded Healing"
Monday, 24 June 2014
We made a list of all the persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. — Step Eight of the Twelve Steps
God fully forgives us, but the “karma” of our mistakes remains, and we must still go back and repair the bonds that we have broken. Otherwise, others will not be able to forgive us but will remain stuck, and they and we will remain wounded. We usually must make amends to forgive even ourselves. “Amazing grace” is not a way to avoid honest human relationships, but to transform them—now gracefully—for the liberation of both sides. Nothing just goes away in the spiritual world; all must be reconciled and accounted for.
All healers are “wounded healers,” as Henri Nouwen said so well. In fact, you are often most gifted to heal others precisely where you yourself were wounded, or perhaps wounded others. You learn to salve the wounds of others by knowing and remembering how much it hurts to hurt. Often this memory comes from the realization of your past smallness and immaturity, your selfishness, your false victimhood, and your cruel victimization of others. It is often painful to recall or admit, yet this is also the grace of lamenting and grieving over how we have hurt others. Fortunately, God reveals our sins to us gradually so we can absorb what we have done over time. “O God, little by little you correct those who have offended you, so that they can abstain from evil, and learn to trust in you,” we learn in the Book of Wisdom (12:2).
It might take a long time, even years, to “become willing” to make amends. People working on Step Eight learn to make lists, but not of what others have done to them—which is the normal ego style, and a pattern, once practiced, that is very hard to stop. Instead they have been given some new software, a program called grace, a totally new pattern, “a new mind” (Ephesians 4:23; Colossians 3:10-11; 1 Corinthians 2:16). Instead of making lists of who hurt me, I now make lists of people I have perhaps hurt, failed, or mistreated. Making such lists will change your foundational consciousness from one of feeding resentments to a mind that is both grateful and humble.
Adapted from Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps, pages 67-69, 73-74 (also available as CD audiobook)
Gateway to Silence: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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