Some years ago, in a late evening conversation with my mother, after we had completed a lengthy and personal reflection by her on her life… her experience, her sense of the meaning and significance of it, choices she made, regrets (there were none), and so forth… she paused and innerly reflected for several minutes… in that period of silence, I was sensing something very deep was active within… and then she spoke, “I worry about the children”. The words did not surprise me, they fit my experience of her… but there was something at work within her, present within the spirit and energy of the words, that has been at work within me for a long time… an ongoing questioning process.
And so, recently my processing has taken me to the beatitudes… seeking to see their significance in the context of the work of today. Beatitudes being all about joining in the work… coming from above as opposed to coming from existence… and seeing the first three as being focused on the personal – the inner emptying, being receptive to, work.
Seeing blessed are the poor in spirit… for theirs is the kingdom of heaven… in a sense of surrendering my will, my desires, to Thy will, the intentionality behind the whole of all.
Seeing blessed are they who mourn… for they shall be comforted… bringing to mind my mother’s long ago statement: “I worry about the children”… and my excitedly seeing this as an expression of mourning… mourning in the context of today… the work of today… seeing her, giving to her son, an eventual understanding for the work of now.
Seeing fortunate are the gentle… they shall inherit the earth… a discovery of the original Greek translation of this beatitude… being gentle, but having strength… seeing through a shared process with a friend, that ‘gentle with strength’ has within it the characteristics, the humility, love and compassion for being at one with the earth… in harmony with the earth’s ways… thus inheriting the earth.
And finally seeing the remaining beatitudes in the context of the community, the forming of community, the work of now calls for… the work of creating cultures that work for all My children in the world.
The Living Philosophy of Potential
