Forgiveness: Let It Begin With Me

I'm excited to be teaching my first class at Mystic Academy Tuesday mornings at 10AM SLT in the month of May! My topic will be Self-Forgiveness & the class will be delivered using both voice & text chat. My blog entry below is something I had published in a daily guide magazine IRL & it gives you a taste of what we'll be exploring in the series. I hope you will join us!

"Forgiveness is choosing to love. It is the first skill of self-giving love."
~ Mahatma Gandhi

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you."
~ Lewis B. Smedes

Contrary to popular opinion, love is not a give and take proposition. To get love the answer is not to give love, instead we must become a fuller embodiment of the love of God that we already are.

Love flows most freely from an open heart. As we cultivate a loving heart, we can nurture it faithfully with prayer and meditation work. Sit in the silence with the intention of becoming more loving and the realization may come that forgiveness is in order. The paradox of human experience is living in the illusion that there is someone or something outside of ourselves that has in some way hurt us, or done us wrong.

The deeper we move in our experience of the Oneness of God the more it becomes obvious there is no separation, no “me” or “you”, no “us” and “them”.

Practicing forgiveness can be a firewalk of faith. The amusing part of practice is that as we set an intention to deepen in our loving and to cultivate the quality of forgiveness, we are given many opportunities to forgive.

In the safety of prayer walk into the fire of disbelief and boldly know the only person to forgive is ourselves.

With each heartbeat, a prayer, “I want to be more loving in my heart. I am love.”

With each breath, “I want to be more loving in my heart. I am forgiveness.”

Spirit works in mysterious, beautiful and surprising ways. Never forget Spirit has a keen sense of humor. Know that every seeming misstep on the path is yet another opportunity to forgive. Know that you are deepening in the love of God as you become the living embodiment of a loving and perpetually forgiving heart.

Yes, there is only One present, but know too, you are never alone.

Affirmation:
As I forgive myself I release all illusion. I affirm my Oneness with All of Life. I am Love. And so it is. Amen.

* Published as the reading of the day in the March 2008 edition of the Agape International Spiritual Center's monthly magazine, Inner Visions. All rights reserved.