just be it It’s about the work involved in establishing a dedicated practice to feelings of a bigger belonging through practices aimed at increasing feelings of compassion, gratitude and forgiveness

Perhaps the Question Isn’t, “Do I have the ‘feeling’ of being loved?”

Published on 09/03/10
by randy

The temptation of feeling loved is to blame another for the loss of that feeling.  When suffering happens, when things fall apart, and when change happens in such painful ways, maybe then I’m tempted to question my faith.  In her book, Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett references the authentic words of Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.  She references his questioning of faith in a passage from Wiesel’s Night. He spoke to a loss of desire to live and horrific moments when brutal human acts seemed to murder his God.  Yet, he went on praying, and presented her with the following prayer:

I no longer ask You for either happiness or paradise; all I ask You is to listen

and let me be aware of Your listening.

I no longer ask You to resolve my questions, only to receive them and make them part of You.

I no longer ask You for either rest or wisdom, I only ask You not to close me to gratitude, be it of the most trivial kind, or to surprise and friendship.  Love?  Love is not Yours to give.

As for my enemies, I do not ask You to punish them or even to enlighten them; I only ask You not to lend them Your mask and Your powers.  If You must relinquish one or the other, give them Your powers.  But not Your countenance.

They are modest, my requests, and humble.  I ask You what I might ask a stranger met by chance at twilight in a barren land.

I ask You, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to enable me to pronounce these words without betraying the child that transmitted them to me:  God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, enable me to forgive You and enable the child I once was to forgive me too.

I no longer ask You for the life of that child, nor even for his faith.  I only beg You to listen to him and act in such a way that You and I can listen to him together.

Wiesel’s words highlight the tremendous power of gratitude and forgiveness practice.  This practice is founded in deep, open listening.  It’s grounded in the ‘felt’ sense of never being alone.  Can it be that lasting joy is cultivated through our awareness to and relationship with the present moment as we forever drill deeper in gratitude and forgiveness?

So what do I want?  Short term limited pleasure or long term unlimited joy?

How has my quest for short term pleasure impacted my quest for long term joy?

Unlimited lasting joy sources from gratitude and the ‘feeling’ of never Being alone, always being listened to.

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