Spiritual resource to share: self-examination and relationships
I was reading a self-help article in a popular magazine the other day. It suggested that the way out of a snarly relationship issue may be to write a letter to that person (the snarler, no doubt) and share all your concerns and hurts and criticisms. Then after you have written it all down, you (the snarlee) are to erase that person's name and replace it with your own. Then re-read it with your name at the top.
Ouch.
But I saw that there was great merit to this. It is based in part by the timeless idea of casting the log out of one's own eye before removing the speck in your neighbor's. Many of you will recognize this from Christ Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. (See the Bible Matthew chapters 5 to 7.) We won't see what is snarly unless we know it. And we may know it because we may already be acting a bit snarly ourselves. This little letter writing exercise helps to uncover that in thought.
But Christ Jesus' work takes us farther than this exercise. His healing work was based on the principle of perfect God and perfect man. He could see "the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals." In Christian Science, we are taught to see the perfect man, and this starts with ourselves. We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are not a mass of unresolved issues, reactions and temptations. We are made to be the expressed likeness of all that is good, pure, productive and brilliant.
And so are others.
The deepest self-examination takes humility to pierce the self-imposed justifications and condemnations that may be jamming the systems of our thought to reveal God's very loved and lovely man or woman (or child). Letting go of the log of false and hurtful view of ourselves frees us to be at peace with the child whom God has created. This brings more freedom - because now we can see others - without a speck - and in the clearer light of God's creating.
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