After The Work

Perhaps you had a teacher you couldn’t stand as a young person, a real disciplinarian. As much as you didn’t want to hear “be disciplined” or “do your homework”, it was the right advice. Sound advice that we didn’t want to hear, but in retrospect we understand it was right. You didn’t like the discipline because maybe we didn’t like the lack of discipline in ourselves, but didn’t want to admit it.

If we pay attention, we can find teachers all around us. It takes requisite humility to accept lessons from teachers we don’t expect. It is spoken about as another paradox of the spiritual life. When we see something that disturbs or aggravates us about someone else, often it is because it is something we do not like in ourselves.

This isn’t about “righteous anger” at injustice, poverty, ect but more of the gut reaction “I don’t like that”. It happens without thinking. For example someone being impatient with others may be a lesson to look within and ask “when am I impatient?” If life can turn from being disturbed by others to seeing others as tutors for ourselves, we are well on the Journey.

Jesus had some pretty hard lessons, one in particular is “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you”. Jesus took this literally as it is well known he was crucified by those he came to save. He also said “forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do.” The road to forgiving others is loving them in humility, only in this case Jesus is blameless. Obviously we are not Jesus.

In order to learn from others, humility is called for in order to accept where we are weak. When disturbed, can we pause and ask “Why does this bother me? Do I struggle with the same? Is what they are saying have any validity?” Perhaps then we can have empathy for others when we realize that maybe that impatient person is having a bad day, and if we are honest, we are also at times impatient.

They become teachers because it calls for self examination and then imagining what it may be like for others. It is easier to love someone if you see them as a fellow human being with their own struggles.

This is no casual teaching. It is challenging to find teachers in those who bother us, much less and “enemy”. It is a remedy for resentment, however, to see them as human and pray for them. Upon introspection, we also gain some knowledge of our own struggles as well. A simple exercise often quoted in recovery circles is to pray “God bless them and change me.” It is a beginning towards self understanding, empathy, and acceptance of life on life’s terms.