We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil. – Henri NOUWEN
Henri Nouwen wrote a book, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” that changed my perspective about God and how I see myself as Prodigal son and as the Older on. It’s like two sides of the same coin. It made me understand Carl Jung’s Light and Shadow. It wasn’t a false humility. It was a true confession in search of my inner child I’d ike to call the Wonder Child. Your inner child is the innocence in you that never got touched by wounding society. It’s hiding underneath all the debris of life. It doesn’t grow up it integrates.
Jung was well aware of the reality of evil in human life. Over and over again he emphasizes that we all have a shadow, that everything substantial casts a shadow, that the ego stands to shadow as light to shade, that it is the shadow which makes us human. He wrote, “The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.”
Jesus said in Matthew 7: 3-5: (my interpretation) ke kmal. mechesang el melai ra chieb ra medal a tara rechad e tia chesbochb el blengkangk ra medam. Meaning: a major flaw in oneself which one ignores while criticizing minor faults in others. We are all flawed beings in need of God’s amazing grace. It’s a hard work to renew our mind. But it is possible.
I believe we criticize others to release some of the stress of carrying that heavy plank in our eye. This leads me to understand forgiveness. We are to forgive others as we forgive ourselves. Sometimes I find it easier to forgive others than to forgive myself. It takes courage to face our imperfections. But it’s the only way to be free.
I read of an immigrant rabbi who made an astonishing statement. He said, “Before coming to America I had to forgive Adolf Hitler. I didnt want to being him inside me to my new country.”
Unforgiveness is like a trapped animal — each movement brings pain. When we feel too sensitive of little things, it’s time examine ourselves and forgive those who betrayed, hurt, or made you feel small, worthless.
Lewis Smedes said that when we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner was us. He also said that when we forgive someone we recreate or remade that person in our mind. Forgiveness is preparing the soil to receive the rain so you can grow andbloom.