Lesson 78: Let miracles replace all grievances
One of the slogans I recall most vividly from watching Marianne Williamson’s weekly talks was this: “You can have a grievance or you can have a miracle.”
While I enjoyed the slogan very much, and have repeated it often, today’s lesson invites us to let those words seek deeper into our heart and mind so that we can actually live from this wisdom and not just parrot its sentiments. I won’t sugarcoat it; this lesson is difficult to do, especially for those of us who love our grievances.
Perhaps we should back up and talk about what a grievance is. It certainly is those areas we feel outraged about – the suffering and injustice in the world, the leaders we blame for causing it and those others we blame for not doing anything about the leaders who are causing all the suffering. But grievances can seem tiny as well – that irritation you feel when the lines are long or when you perceive others as hoarding seemingly scarce resources.
Just as there is no order of difficulty in miracles there is no scale of grievances. Tiny grievances are just as prohibitive to miracles as those we consider huge. A grievance is a grievance, no matter how trivial or important it seems and keeps us from experiencing miracles.
This lesson asks us to think about someone with whom we have a grievance. Who are you holding a grudge against? Think about that person.
The one that always leaps to mind, besides my father, of course, is our current president. His manner of being – the lies he tells, his selfishness, greed and other pathologies – drive me around the bend. I cannot fathom why others cannot see that he is a conniving, self-dealing grifter who believes all mechanisms of society, economics and politics should serve his needs alone. Thinking about him increases my anxiety and feelings of anger, isolation and, yes, superiority. I cannot see him as anything but a lowlife who thrives off the suffering of others.
This is quite a large grievance, and if it is preventing me from experiencing miracles in my life, I want to rid myself of it, pronto. This does not mean that I will fall in love with the man. It does not mean that I will believe anything he says. It does not mean that I will not do everything possible to rid our country of his presence in the White House. It does not mean that I will not work to mitigate the fear, suffering and loathing that he produces in our world.
It means that I will let go of my hatred for him. It means that I will ask for a miracle – so that I can see him differently – as a child of God who has been hurt so deeply and lived for so long under ego’s harsh rule that he has no idea that there is another way to live in this world. He has subjected himself to the ruthless dictates of his ego for so long that his light of divinity (yes, he has one) has become so covered with the ego’s hatred and fear that it has become invisible to him.
When I think about him in this way, feelings of compassion for him arise within myself. I can see how wounded he is and from those wounds, he creates more suffering in the world for others – and for himself. He may seem to have everything anyone could need or want in this world, but in reality, he spends most of his time miserable – trading the miracles he could experience for his grievances that he airs in every moment.
That makes me sad for him. He could be having a miraculous life, but he chooses attack, which simply perpetuates his own suffering and sense of grandiosity.
I realize, in this way, he and I are not much different. I do the same thing. I allow him to upset me to the point of launching my own attacks, airing my own grievances and preventing myself from experiencing miracles. The truth is, I can mitigate the damage I perceive him doing in the world without having a grievance about it. I can experience a change in perception and see him as a deeply wounded man who acts unconsciously, causing harm to everyone around him. I can have compassion for him, while still seeking ways to help him and ease his suffering and the suffering he causes.
All those qualities in him are in me – greed, selfishness, hatred, fear – and by working to heal myself and release those feelings within, I heal him as well. None of us are healed alone. When we heal our own grievances, those around us are healed, too.
When we can dwell on our commonalities, instead of our perceive differences, grievances drop away, and Hafiz says we’re opening ourselves up to some pretty mind-blowing miracles.
He writes:
Picture the
face of your Beloved becoming your face.
And His body fitting on your like a coat
you won’t take off again.
Don’t move
so fast now, when such a rare kiss
is being offered. For what lips can really connect
with a body wired to a mind that is darting about
in a manic hurry?
From this
new perspective, look inside the Heart
you have sought so long to be near. Try and go
deep into it. Is it not your own, and mine, too?
Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash