|
Forgiveness is a Season
Sermon by Rosemary M. Lawson
for Sunday, September 11, 2005
I don’t need to remind you that this is the anniversary of devastating loss for thousands of families; the TV channels have already kept those horrible visions of terror in our minds, in much too vivid detail. But I have a different kind of vision I want to share with you, so in preparing for today I stayed open to how the two events could intersect, looking for connection and meaning. As I started to prepare the sermon, I was delighted to learn that the Bible readings for this Sunday are about forgiveness.
From the Old Scripture reading we hear Joseph telling his brothers: “… do not be afraid! …. Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.” So we
have a God interacting with his people in such a way as to even turn great harm into good… a God who provides unconditional love, comfort, and strength so that forgiveness can prevail. Swedenborg would suggest that this is a God who prompts Joseph to go beyond merely forgiving the brothers who had sold him into slavery. Joseph tells them: “Have no fear. I, myself, will provide for you and your little ones.”
The New Testament is clear about the issue of forgiveness as well, when Peter asks: “If another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.” This is the resolution of the tension in the earlier passages of Matthew that Leah spoke about last week: this is the forgiveness of “the Gentile and the tax collector” that God wants us to do.
In one sense, it is wonderful that the lectionary for this anniversary date, this September 11th, should remind us that one of our soul’s tasks is to forgive our enemies. But while we must work toward achieving it, Forgiveness is a season and it arrives when it is ready, not when the calendar says it is due. So if you are surviving a loss, do not take my words to be an admonition to “hurry up and get over it.” Rather, take them as something to explore, with the possibility that you will find your own time for both forgiveness and release from pain.
I promised to share a vision with you.
Back in January, I was feeling pain on what seemed to be a soul level. It precipitated a spiral into depression, a state with which I am much too familiar. As I try to work through it, I feel numb—almost drunk with the heavy emotions—until finally I cannot even talk about it any more. Meditation has been my solace for decades, and in a deep meditative state I have the following vision.
I suddenly see a lovely woman, standing alone, bathed in a brilliant white light. All around her is the deepest blackness, but I can see the whole beam of light, cone shaped, as you can sometimes see a light on a stage. This lovely woman, who is slightly facing away from me, is wearing a long white gown that glows with light. I am drawn to her with a sense of familiarity, wonder, delight. I have the thought “Oh, she’s too young. She can’t be me!”
Immediately comes the response: “Not young, ageless. And yes, I am you!”
I stare in her in amazement, my heart open wide.
In awe I whisper, “But she’s perfect!” The phrase reminds me that I had seen the soul of my husband after he had died. He had been killed by cancer when he was only 32. In his last days, he had looked so awful. But when he returned to me in a vision, he was perfect! Not only well again--handsome, with his mischievous sense of humor and his wonderful smile--but he had also lost all his insecurities and worries and he was perfect!
It had never occurred to me that I could see his soul after he died, but I did, and it was very clear, and very vivid. For over 30 years, I have held that experience close to my heart, and felt it was somehow his generous gift to me. In a parallel situation now, it had never occurred to me that I could see my own soul, and I certainly never thought that my soul would be perfect. This personality called “Rosey” fails far too often for me to believe that. But there she is, in all her mystery.
I bring the vision of my soul into my meditations over the next several weeks, to find the layers of meaning that the vision might contain.
I am stunned by her beauty. She is perfect!
As a youngster, I had experienced sexual abuse. I carried it as shame, and although I never overtly conceptualized it this way, I was convinced that my soul had been horribly disfigured by those events. It wasn’t!
I thought my soul was marred by the shame and rejection I felt from the divorce. Not a blemish!
My husband Tom and I had meditated for healing of a chronic condition he had, that eventually led to cancer. I thought my soul must have transgressed horribly, when our meditations to “cure” Tom failed, and he died. I thought that transgression was on the soul level. We did not transgress, it was not on the soul level, or both.
I have felt intense fury, when I have been falsely accused. My soul is not angry and holds no righteous indignation.
I have felt lonely, anxious, almost homesick, as if I didn’t belong on the planet. My soul has found Home.
Without even needing to use words, my soul conveys to me that all souls are perfect. I am part of All Souls, and all souls are perfect. My molester’s soul, my accuser’s soul, all souls.
I stand erect in the Light in my perfection, as does every other soul. The Light of peace, total acceptance, unbounded Love warms me to the inmost reaches of my being. The Light shines through the eternal blackness of ignorance to provide this stunning display.
******
This vision of my soul was in January of this year. Shortly after that I came to this church, in search of a faith that is big enough to explain how this experience could be. I was looking for a religion that could encompass all souls as perfect beings, and yet contain the souls of the Hitlers, the terrorists who fly airplanes into buildings, the madmen who bomb subways at rush hour.
In my search for a faith, I join the Thursday night reading group, and also start reading Swedenborg by myself. In two months time, I have read most of Heaven and Hell, three books about Swedenborg and his discoveries, and dug into The Heavenly Doctrines on line. And I find it! I read that only God is perfect; not even the angels are perfect. But the influx from God leads our souls toward perfection. And once we go to the spiritual plane we can no longer hide any of our emotions. What we are feeling is immediately apparent to any who look at us.
We no longer feel the pain of losses and betrayals. And by not having all those worries any more, when we depart from the natural world and reach the spiritual world, we suddenly are in a state of great confidence and ease, such as we never experience in the natural. Together, these things make us look perfect, by comparison with our appearance while we are still in the natural state. In the spiritual state, it seems, we are not perfect, but we are in a state of heavenly bliss.
Swedenborg also relates that although all souls are created in the image of God, some of them choose to do really imperfect things. And those who were created perfect but don’t choose to remain that way, have a place where they can take their souls that cannot see the Light, cannot accept love, truth, and doing good works as their guiding principles. A loving God gives them the full choice to reject Him… and they choose other villains as their eternal companions instead of God.
These visions, and reading Swedenborg, make me realize something else. No matter what happens while we are in the natural state, our souls go Home to a place of beauty and light, capable of loving and caring, and prepared to continue to grow and learn forever. So in a sense, you cannot harm another: even in the worst case, they only return Home. You can harm the people who love somebody by taking that person away. But the greatest physical loss, the greatest emotional loss, for all its pain, does not harm our souls. It reminds us that we can love, and by loving, we make ourselves vulnerable. But eventually we take the pain that has become part of us, and learn once again to see the beauty in the world. Once again it is our season to forgive, to laugh, and to explore what other things this world contains while we are in the natural state.
As Swedenborg tells us,
The soul is the human form, from which nothing whatever can be taken away, to which nothing whatever can be added; and it is the inmost form of all the forms of the whole body. And since the forms outside it get their essence and their form from inmost things, [people] are … souls. In a word, the soul is the essential person because it is the inmost person; its form is, therefore, fully and perfectly the human form. Still, it is not life but is the nearest recipient vessel of the life that comes from God…. (Marital Love, 315)
I have found the answer to the mysteries evoked by my visions.
I love this church. It is my spiritual home. This lovely little chapel, and each of you, helps me to renew my faith and replenish my spirit each time I meet with you. Today, from this pulpit, I face a room full of other shining souls!
Namaste.
Copyright 2005 by Rosemary M. Lawson
|
