Hans
10-30-2002, 05:14 PM
Beyond Padgett
8. Watering the plant
So long as we are clothed in this temporary dwelling we have a painful longing, not because we want just to get rid of these "clothes" but because we want to know the full cover of the permanent. We want our transitory life to be absorbed into the life that is eternal.
2 Corinthians 5:4
The first Yoga lesson was quite interesting. All participants introduced themselves and explained their reasons, why they wished to learn Yoga.
There were, of course, the most diverse motivations, from the hope to find relief from depressions to the hope to improve one’s posture and flexibility. But one common motif could be heard directly or indirectly from practically all participants:
“I am not unhappy with my religion,” said a catholic woman of some 25 years, “but I am missing something I could not find so far. I want to be near God, I want to find Him, to feel Him,” she stated, expressing what most of the others also felt.
Soul longings — yes, she was conscious of her soul’s longings. Actually, all people feel their soul’s longings, but are not sure what they are about. They don’t understand even what these longings mean, what the object of the longing are. Those longings trigger a restlessness, a discontent in our material mind, which should prompt us to quiet our mind and to give more space to our soul, so that those longings may soar high to the Father, freely and unhampered. But the normal reaction, as it seems, is that the material mind, feeling these longings, adopts them as its own, and transforms them according to its understanding. The object of those longings, then, is not anymore Divine Love or at-onement with God, but the brand-new Mercedes Benz or vacations cruise in the Caribbean.
But this young woman was able to discern the true nature of her longings.
The narrow gate and the hard road lead out into life and only a few are finding it.
Matthew 7:14
The narrow gate and the hard road, what do they stand for? Long before I had found the Padgett messages, I understood that they represented Jesus’ teachings. But if this was so, how could he have said, then, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:30)
When later on I found the Padgett messages, I understood that narrow gate and hard road referred to the obtaining of Divine Love, because only our possession of Divine Love, and the subsequent transformation of our soul, can open up Heaven’s gates to us.
But then, on July 15th, 2001, John the Apostle communicated a somewhat surprising statement in a message:
“I could safely say for D__'s benefit that not much less than half of these populations of non-Christians have actually received small portions of the Divine Love.”
Wondering who those non-Christian owners of Divine Love might be, I made the following (simplistic) assumptions:
I fixed the number of the world’s total population at 6,300,000,000.
I listed all major religions and their percentage of total world population.
I calculated the non-Christian world population.
I calculated the percentages in total non-Christian world population, which non-Christian religions hold.
Let us analyze the findings.
(I have no idea how to format a table in vB script :(, and so, “ ** “ symbolize column borders). If you would like to see the table in a much nicer format, visit Geoff’s message board (http://new-birth.net/discus/messages/3/112.html?1035997613)
Religion ** Adherents ** % total world population ** % Non-Christian population
1. Christianity: ** 2,000,000,000 ** 31.75 ** --
2. Islam: ** 1,300,000,000 ** 20.63 ** 30.23
3. Hinduism: ** 900,000,000 ** 14.29 ** 20.93
4. Secular-Nonreligious-Agnostic-Atheist: ** 850,000,000 ** 13.49 ** 19.77
5. Buddhism: ** 360,000,000 ** 5.71 ** 8.37
6. Chinese traditional religion: ** 225,000,000 ** 3.57 ** 5.23
7. primal-indigenous: ** 150,000,000 ** 2.38 ** 3.49
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: ** 95,000,000 ** 1.51 ** 2.21
9. Sikhism: ** 23,000,000 ** 0.37 ** 0.53
10. Juche: ** 19,000,000 ** 0.30 ** 0.44
11. Spiritism: ** 14,000,000 ** 0.22 ** 0.33
12. Judaism: ** 14,000,000 ** 0.22 ** 0.33
13. Baha'i: ** 6,000,000 ** 0.10 ** 0.14
14. Jainism: ** 4,000,000 ** 0.06 ** 0.09
15. Shinto: ** 4,000,000 ** 0.06 ** 0.09
16. Cao Dai: ** 3,000,000 ** 0.05 ** 0.07
17. Tenrikyo: ** 2,400,000 ** 0.04 ** 0.06
18. Neo-Paganism: ** 1,000,000 ** 0.02 ** 0.02
19. Others: ** 329,600,000 ** 5.23 ** 7.67
Total: ** 6,300,000,000 ** 100.00 ** 100.00
Total Non-Christians: ** 4,300,000,000 ** 68.25 **
When we consider that the group of “Secular-Nonreligious-Agnostic-Atheist” will hardly have received Divine Love, then we would find that out of 100 Moslems or Hindus or Buddhist or any other remaining non-Christians, more than 60 will own Divine Love.
When we assume that religions, which do not recognize a personal God (or no God at all), such as Buddhism, are barely able to awaken soul longings, and that Buddhists therefore cannot be expected to possess Divine Love, then the figures would change dramatically: out of 100 Moslems or Hindus or any other of the remaining non-Christians, more than 70 will own Divine Love. This is an amazingly high number.
This means, that even without the knowledge of Divine Love, all those religions are able to create or promote soul longings in their followers, to a varying extent.
But wait! Did I say “without the knowledge of Divine Love?” Hmmm, when reading the famous prayer of Sri Ramakrishna, one might doubt that Divine Love was unknown, at least, to him:
“Divine Mother (he addresses God as Mother),
Here is ignorance and here is wisdom: take them, for I do not want them. Grant me only the feeling of your pure love.
Here is cleanliness (of mind and body), here are the impurities. What shall I do with them? Let me have only pure love.
Here is good; here is evil. Oh, take them, I do not want them. Let me have only pure love.
Here are the good actions; here are the bad actions. Oh, place me above them, I do not want them. Grant me only pure love.”
But even if it is correct to assume that the term “Divine Love” and its meaning is unknown to most people on earth, this would not be so important, considering that soul longings do exist, and when they find their way to the Father, they will trigger His answer and bring Divine Love to the aspiring souls. This is almost like a “conditioned reflex” in the Pavlovian sense.
Ramakrishna told the following parable:
“Suppose you go to a garden to eat mangoes. Is it necessary that you first count the trees in the garden, which may be in the thousands, and then the number of the branches, which may number in the hundreds of thousands? Of course not. On the contrary, you start eating right away.”
Theoretic knowledge may be useful, but is not absolutely necessary.
Another nice story of how the simplest people may find the Grace of God, was told by Leo Tolstoy.
THREE HERMITS
...three hermits ... lived on an island. Their prayer of intimacy and love was simple like they were simple: “We are three; you are three; have mercy on us. Amen.” Miracles sometimes happened when they prayed in this way.
The bishop, however, hearing about the hermits, decided that they needed guidance in proper prayer, and so he went to their small island. After instructing the monks, the bishop set sail for the mainland, pleased to have enlightened the souls of such simple men.
Suddenly, off the stern of the ship he saw a huge ball of light skimming across the ocean. It got closer and closer until he could see that it was the three hermits running on top of the water. Once on board the ship they said to the bishop, 'We are so sorry, but we have forgotten some of your teachings. Would you please instruct us again?'
The bishop shook his head and replied meekly, 'Forget everything I have taught you and continue to pray in your old way.'
Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home
So, we have seen that it is easy to have soul longings, actually they are innate; they are already there. We have seen that it happens very often that such longings make their way to the Father and trigger His answer. The great majority of people who believe in some kind of personal God possesses Divine Love. So, what does “the narrow gate and the hard road” mean?
Then it happened that a man came up to him and said, "Master what good thing must I do to secure eternal life?"
"I wonder why you ask me about what is good?" Jesus answered him. "Only One is good. But if you want to enter that life you must keep the commandments."
"Which ones?" he asked. "Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother; and Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," replied Jesus.
"I have carefully kept all these," returned the young man. "What is still missing in my life?"
Then Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go now and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor—you will have riches in Heaven. Then come and follow me."
When the young man heard that he turned away crestfallen, for he was very wealthy.
Then Jesus remarked to his disciples, "Believe me, a rich man will find it very difficult to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Yes, I repeat, a camel [or: rope] could more easily squeeze through the eye of a needle than a rich [or: mortal] man get into the kingdom of God!"
The disciples were simply amazed to hear this, and said, "Then who can possibly be saved?"
Jesus looked steadily at them and replied, "Humanly speaking it is impossible; but with God anything is possible!"
At this Peter exclaimed, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What will that be worth to us?"
"Believe me," said Jesus, "when I tell you that in the new world, when the Son of Man shall take his seat on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also be seated on twelve thrones as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Every man who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for my sake will get them back many times over, and will inherit eternal life.
But many who are first now will be last then—and the last first!
Matthew 19:16-30
In spite of so many people holding Divine Love in their souls, we are observing so little effect in this world. Why?
I have explained earlier, that the obtaining of Divine Love does not mean necessarily a change in human attitude. Divine Love may be stored away in the “refrigerator of our soul,” and so disappear, as if it had never existed. The difficulty for us is to activate Divine Love.
Divine Love is a present, a gift, it is as if God had gifted us a wonderful potted flower. It is a gift, but it carries obligations along with it. When we do not water the plant, it will wilt away. This plant requires our daily attention, our continuous care, and so it is with Divine Love.
The question is: How can we activate Divine Love?
Jesus has given the answer in the quotation above from Matthew. Divine Love is activated through high spirituality, and in turn, helps to keep our spirituality high. Spirituality means to concentrate our thoughts and deeds on God, that is, to withdraw partially or completely from this material world, and see it only as a field where we may act in God’s Name, fulfilling His Will. This is called detachment. It is not the detachment of the Buddhists for gaining freedom of pain and suffering, it is the detachment from the material world in order to focus on God, without any sort of distraction.
Analyzing my own situation, I must admit that I am not detached from the material. My spirituality is half-hearted, and my deeds mediocre. And when you analyze your situation, perhaps you may come to a similar conclusion. Now I wonder, how can we expect to receive a bestowal as the apostles did at Pentecost, when we do not “leave houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for my (Christ’s) sake?”
Peter had exclaimed, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What will that be worth to us?" Can we affirm the same thing? Have we left everything and followed Jesus’ teachings?
In some way, we are doing well with what we are doing, but we could do better. We may take one step at a time, and so, little by little respond to the call of our longing:
"Again, you have heard that the people in the old days were told—’Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths’, but I say to you, don’t use an oath at all. Don’t swear by Heaven for it is God’s throne, nor by the earth for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great King.
No, and don’t swear by your own head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black!
Whatever you have to say let your ‘yes’ be a plain ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be a plain ‘no’—anything more than this has a taint of evil.
You have heard that it used to be said ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’, but I tell you, don’t resist evil. If a man hits your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.
If a man wants to sue you for your coat, let him have it and your cloak as well. If anybody forces you to go a mile with him, do more—go two miles with him. Give to the man who asks anything from you, and don’t turn away from the man who wants to borrow.
You have heard that it used to be said ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy’, but I tell you, ‘Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,’ so that you may be sons of your Heavenly Father. For he makes his sun rise upon evil men as well as good, and he sends his rain upon honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even tax-collectors do that! And if you exchange greetings only with your own circle, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do that much.
No, you will be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:33-48
Now, as this last article comes to its conclusion, I would like to quote the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, a jewel of our Christian mysticism...
Lord make me an instrument of thy peace
where there is hatred, let me sow love
where there is injury, pardon
where there is doubt, faith
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
and where there is sadness, joy.
Lord grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
So be it.
THE END
8. Watering the plant
So long as we are clothed in this temporary dwelling we have a painful longing, not because we want just to get rid of these "clothes" but because we want to know the full cover of the permanent. We want our transitory life to be absorbed into the life that is eternal.
2 Corinthians 5:4
The first Yoga lesson was quite interesting. All participants introduced themselves and explained their reasons, why they wished to learn Yoga.
There were, of course, the most diverse motivations, from the hope to find relief from depressions to the hope to improve one’s posture and flexibility. But one common motif could be heard directly or indirectly from practically all participants:
“I am not unhappy with my religion,” said a catholic woman of some 25 years, “but I am missing something I could not find so far. I want to be near God, I want to find Him, to feel Him,” she stated, expressing what most of the others also felt.
Soul longings — yes, she was conscious of her soul’s longings. Actually, all people feel their soul’s longings, but are not sure what they are about. They don’t understand even what these longings mean, what the object of the longing are. Those longings trigger a restlessness, a discontent in our material mind, which should prompt us to quiet our mind and to give more space to our soul, so that those longings may soar high to the Father, freely and unhampered. But the normal reaction, as it seems, is that the material mind, feeling these longings, adopts them as its own, and transforms them according to its understanding. The object of those longings, then, is not anymore Divine Love or at-onement with God, but the brand-new Mercedes Benz or vacations cruise in the Caribbean.
But this young woman was able to discern the true nature of her longings.
The narrow gate and the hard road lead out into life and only a few are finding it.
Matthew 7:14
The narrow gate and the hard road, what do they stand for? Long before I had found the Padgett messages, I understood that they represented Jesus’ teachings. But if this was so, how could he have said, then, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:30)
When later on I found the Padgett messages, I understood that narrow gate and hard road referred to the obtaining of Divine Love, because only our possession of Divine Love, and the subsequent transformation of our soul, can open up Heaven’s gates to us.
But then, on July 15th, 2001, John the Apostle communicated a somewhat surprising statement in a message:
“I could safely say for D__'s benefit that not much less than half of these populations of non-Christians have actually received small portions of the Divine Love.”
Wondering who those non-Christian owners of Divine Love might be, I made the following (simplistic) assumptions:
I fixed the number of the world’s total population at 6,300,000,000.
I listed all major religions and their percentage of total world population.
I calculated the non-Christian world population.
I calculated the percentages in total non-Christian world population, which non-Christian religions hold.
Let us analyze the findings.
(I have no idea how to format a table in vB script :(, and so, “ ** “ symbolize column borders). If you would like to see the table in a much nicer format, visit Geoff’s message board (http://new-birth.net/discus/messages/3/112.html?1035997613)
Religion ** Adherents ** % total world population ** % Non-Christian population
1. Christianity: ** 2,000,000,000 ** 31.75 ** --
2. Islam: ** 1,300,000,000 ** 20.63 ** 30.23
3. Hinduism: ** 900,000,000 ** 14.29 ** 20.93
4. Secular-Nonreligious-Agnostic-Atheist: ** 850,000,000 ** 13.49 ** 19.77
5. Buddhism: ** 360,000,000 ** 5.71 ** 8.37
6. Chinese traditional religion: ** 225,000,000 ** 3.57 ** 5.23
7. primal-indigenous: ** 150,000,000 ** 2.38 ** 3.49
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: ** 95,000,000 ** 1.51 ** 2.21
9. Sikhism: ** 23,000,000 ** 0.37 ** 0.53
10. Juche: ** 19,000,000 ** 0.30 ** 0.44
11. Spiritism: ** 14,000,000 ** 0.22 ** 0.33
12. Judaism: ** 14,000,000 ** 0.22 ** 0.33
13. Baha'i: ** 6,000,000 ** 0.10 ** 0.14
14. Jainism: ** 4,000,000 ** 0.06 ** 0.09
15. Shinto: ** 4,000,000 ** 0.06 ** 0.09
16. Cao Dai: ** 3,000,000 ** 0.05 ** 0.07
17. Tenrikyo: ** 2,400,000 ** 0.04 ** 0.06
18. Neo-Paganism: ** 1,000,000 ** 0.02 ** 0.02
19. Others: ** 329,600,000 ** 5.23 ** 7.67
Total: ** 6,300,000,000 ** 100.00 ** 100.00
Total Non-Christians: ** 4,300,000,000 ** 68.25 **
When we consider that the group of “Secular-Nonreligious-Agnostic-Atheist” will hardly have received Divine Love, then we would find that out of 100 Moslems or Hindus or Buddhist or any other remaining non-Christians, more than 60 will own Divine Love.
When we assume that religions, which do not recognize a personal God (or no God at all), such as Buddhism, are barely able to awaken soul longings, and that Buddhists therefore cannot be expected to possess Divine Love, then the figures would change dramatically: out of 100 Moslems or Hindus or any other of the remaining non-Christians, more than 70 will own Divine Love. This is an amazingly high number.
This means, that even without the knowledge of Divine Love, all those religions are able to create or promote soul longings in their followers, to a varying extent.
But wait! Did I say “without the knowledge of Divine Love?” Hmmm, when reading the famous prayer of Sri Ramakrishna, one might doubt that Divine Love was unknown, at least, to him:
“Divine Mother (he addresses God as Mother),
Here is ignorance and here is wisdom: take them, for I do not want them. Grant me only the feeling of your pure love.
Here is cleanliness (of mind and body), here are the impurities. What shall I do with them? Let me have only pure love.
Here is good; here is evil. Oh, take them, I do not want them. Let me have only pure love.
Here are the good actions; here are the bad actions. Oh, place me above them, I do not want them. Grant me only pure love.”
But even if it is correct to assume that the term “Divine Love” and its meaning is unknown to most people on earth, this would not be so important, considering that soul longings do exist, and when they find their way to the Father, they will trigger His answer and bring Divine Love to the aspiring souls. This is almost like a “conditioned reflex” in the Pavlovian sense.
Ramakrishna told the following parable:
“Suppose you go to a garden to eat mangoes. Is it necessary that you first count the trees in the garden, which may be in the thousands, and then the number of the branches, which may number in the hundreds of thousands? Of course not. On the contrary, you start eating right away.”
Theoretic knowledge may be useful, but is not absolutely necessary.
Another nice story of how the simplest people may find the Grace of God, was told by Leo Tolstoy.
THREE HERMITS
...three hermits ... lived on an island. Their prayer of intimacy and love was simple like they were simple: “We are three; you are three; have mercy on us. Amen.” Miracles sometimes happened when they prayed in this way.
The bishop, however, hearing about the hermits, decided that they needed guidance in proper prayer, and so he went to their small island. After instructing the monks, the bishop set sail for the mainland, pleased to have enlightened the souls of such simple men.
Suddenly, off the stern of the ship he saw a huge ball of light skimming across the ocean. It got closer and closer until he could see that it was the three hermits running on top of the water. Once on board the ship they said to the bishop, 'We are so sorry, but we have forgotten some of your teachings. Would you please instruct us again?'
The bishop shook his head and replied meekly, 'Forget everything I have taught you and continue to pray in your old way.'
Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home
So, we have seen that it is easy to have soul longings, actually they are innate; they are already there. We have seen that it happens very often that such longings make their way to the Father and trigger His answer. The great majority of people who believe in some kind of personal God possesses Divine Love. So, what does “the narrow gate and the hard road” mean?
Then it happened that a man came up to him and said, "Master what good thing must I do to secure eternal life?"
"I wonder why you ask me about what is good?" Jesus answered him. "Only One is good. But if you want to enter that life you must keep the commandments."
"Which ones?" he asked. "Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, honour thy father and thy mother; and Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," replied Jesus.
"I have carefully kept all these," returned the young man. "What is still missing in my life?"
Then Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go now and sell your possessions and give the money to the poor—you will have riches in Heaven. Then come and follow me."
When the young man heard that he turned away crestfallen, for he was very wealthy.
Then Jesus remarked to his disciples, "Believe me, a rich man will find it very difficult to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Yes, I repeat, a camel [or: rope] could more easily squeeze through the eye of a needle than a rich [or: mortal] man get into the kingdom of God!"
The disciples were simply amazed to hear this, and said, "Then who can possibly be saved?"
Jesus looked steadily at them and replied, "Humanly speaking it is impossible; but with God anything is possible!"
At this Peter exclaimed, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What will that be worth to us?"
"Believe me," said Jesus, "when I tell you that in the new world, when the Son of Man shall take his seat on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also be seated on twelve thrones as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Every man who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for my sake will get them back many times over, and will inherit eternal life.
But many who are first now will be last then—and the last first!
Matthew 19:16-30
In spite of so many people holding Divine Love in their souls, we are observing so little effect in this world. Why?
I have explained earlier, that the obtaining of Divine Love does not mean necessarily a change in human attitude. Divine Love may be stored away in the “refrigerator of our soul,” and so disappear, as if it had never existed. The difficulty for us is to activate Divine Love.
Divine Love is a present, a gift, it is as if God had gifted us a wonderful potted flower. It is a gift, but it carries obligations along with it. When we do not water the plant, it will wilt away. This plant requires our daily attention, our continuous care, and so it is with Divine Love.
The question is: How can we activate Divine Love?
Jesus has given the answer in the quotation above from Matthew. Divine Love is activated through high spirituality, and in turn, helps to keep our spirituality high. Spirituality means to concentrate our thoughts and deeds on God, that is, to withdraw partially or completely from this material world, and see it only as a field where we may act in God’s Name, fulfilling His Will. This is called detachment. It is not the detachment of the Buddhists for gaining freedom of pain and suffering, it is the detachment from the material world in order to focus on God, without any sort of distraction.
Analyzing my own situation, I must admit that I am not detached from the material. My spirituality is half-hearted, and my deeds mediocre. And when you analyze your situation, perhaps you may come to a similar conclusion. Now I wonder, how can we expect to receive a bestowal as the apostles did at Pentecost, when we do not “leave houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for my (Christ’s) sake?”
Peter had exclaimed, "Look, we have left everything and followed you. What will that be worth to us?" Can we affirm the same thing? Have we left everything and followed Jesus’ teachings?
In some way, we are doing well with what we are doing, but we could do better. We may take one step at a time, and so, little by little respond to the call of our longing:
"Again, you have heard that the people in the old days were told—’Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths’, but I say to you, don’t use an oath at all. Don’t swear by Heaven for it is God’s throne, nor by the earth for it is his footstool, nor by Jerusalem for it is the city of the great King.
No, and don’t swear by your own head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black!
Whatever you have to say let your ‘yes’ be a plain ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be a plain ‘no’—anything more than this has a taint of evil.
You have heard that it used to be said ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’, but I tell you, don’t resist evil. If a man hits your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.
If a man wants to sue you for your coat, let him have it and your cloak as well. If anybody forces you to go a mile with him, do more—go two miles with him. Give to the man who asks anything from you, and don’t turn away from the man who wants to borrow.
You have heard that it used to be said ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy’, but I tell you, ‘Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,’ so that you may be sons of your Heavenly Father. For he makes his sun rise upon evil men as well as good, and he sends his rain upon honest and dishonest men alike. For if you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even tax-collectors do that! And if you exchange greetings only with your own circle, are you doing anything exceptional? Even the pagans do that much.
No, you will be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5:33-48
Now, as this last article comes to its conclusion, I would like to quote the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, a jewel of our Christian mysticism...
Lord make me an instrument of thy peace
where there is hatred, let me sow love
where there is injury, pardon
where there is doubt, faith
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
and where there is sadness, joy.
Lord grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
So be it.
THE END