"Killing Dirty Harry"

Let’s begin this time together by taking it way off the charts... all the way out to the radical notion that suggests there’s a subtle grace in getting so completely screwed by someone that your jaws lock down and you fantasize doing a "Dirty Harry" number on the perp. Ever been there?

Sure. I’d bet we all have. Perhaps as recently as this morning. But what’s this business of finding grace right in the middle of a painful chain-yanking? Let’s take a look.

The Sufi master, Pir Vilayat Khan counsels us to "Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity." Just what you wanted to hear... "Be the Mother of the world. Meet the cosmic pain in joy instead of self-pity!" Right?

Check it out. What comes up for you as you consider being called on to share in a "certain measure of that cosmic pain," and to do it with a smile on your face? Is it, "Oh sure, anytime... just bring it on." Or is it otherwise?

And the Jesus ethic certainly doesn’t cut us any slack on this issue. Remember His counsel that echoes that same sentiment? How about, "In the world you will have tribulation, but ‘be ye of good cheer’ for I have overcome the world."

There we have it again. In the face of our tribulations, "Be ye of good cheer," and do it even when the world lays a trip on us that routinely leaves us lost in the reactivity of bitterness and outrage. How’s that for a challenge? But, apparently, that’s our work, at least part of our work this time through; the spiritual work of learning to replace frustration and resentment with compassion and understanding on those occasions we encounter an event that’s bringing us an opportunity to share in a "certain measure of the cosmic pain," and to do it with gratitude that we have been invited to share in that grace.

But why gratitude? Where’s the grace in being invited to embrace a "certain measure of the cosmic pain." What’s to be grateful for? Try this. Could it be in knowing that because you have committed to mastering the spiritual art of forgiveness, a brother or sister’s heart is beating a lot easier out there, somewhere, in the circle of life. Try living in that reality base for awhile and I’m confident you’ll agree that it just doesn’t get any better than that. Can you hear it?

But is the joy of knowing that another human being has been blessed by the touch of your spiritually awakened heart the only grace available in an encounter of the cosmic pain kind? Check this out!

When it comes to considering forgiveness it is wise not to begin with the spiritually uninformed notion that you are doing a favor for someone who hurt you, but with the idea that you are being merciful to yourself. To create the energy of frustration and resentment over anyone or anything is to poison your own heart. And each time you replay the perceived injury in your mind you pump a little more venom into your sense of peace and contentment. If you cease milking the melodrama through an act of forgiveness, viola!, your experience of anger will dissipate back into the nothingness you created it from. How’s that for another face of grace?

So, if you are trying to decide whether someone deserves your forgiveness, you are asking the wrong question. Ask instead whether you deserve to be someone who consistently tastes the sweet nectar of understanding and compassion.

Hanging ourselves out to dry on a line of bitterness, frustration and resentment is not a fun place to be. It hurts. It’s painful. And it’s full of grace. "Full of Grace? How can that be?" you might inquire.

Consider this. What is the consistent desire that accompanies all suffering? Exactly, to be done with it, to heal it, to put it behind us. And the quest for that resolution can lead to seemingly miraculous human encounters.

Consider this powerful story from Jack Kornfield’s book The Art of Forgiveness. It emerged out of a mother’s crying need to quit hurting and experience the grace of becoming a "mother of the world." capable of handling the "magnitude of the pain entrusted to her."

No matter how extreme the circumstances, a transformation of the heart is possible.

"Once on the train from Washington to Philadelphia, I found myself seated next to an African American man who had worked for the State Department in India but had quit to run a rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders in the District of Columbia. Most of the youths he worked with were gang members who had committed homicide.

One fourteen-year-old boy in his program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang. At the trial, the victim’s mother sat impassively silent until the end, when the youth was convicted of the killing. After the verdict was announced, she stood up slowly and stared directly at him and stated, "I’m going to kill you!" Then the youth was taken away to serve several years in the juvenile facility.

After the first half year the mother of the slain child went to visit his killer. He had been living on the streets before the killing, and she was the only visitor he’d had. For a time they talked, and when she left she gave him some money for cigarettes. Then she started step by step to visit him more regularly, bringing food and small gifts. Near the end of his three-year sentence she asked him what he would be doing when he got out. He was confused and very uncertain, so she offered to set him up with a job at a friend’s company. Then she inquired about where he would live, and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home.

For eight months he lived there, ate her food, and worked at the job. Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk. She sat down opposite him and waited. Then she started. "Do you remember in the courtroom when I said I as going to kill you?" "I sure do," he replied. "Well, I did," she went on. "I did not want the boy who could kill my son so indifferently to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That’s why I started to visit you and bring you things. That’s why I got you the job and let you live here in my house. That’s how I went about changing you. And now, the boy you were, that lost, ignorant kid, he’s gone. So now I want to ask you, since my son is gone, and that killer is gone, if you’ll stay here. I’ve got room, and I’d like to adopt you if you let me." Thus she became the mother of her son’s killer, the mother he never had."

And in that moment she also became the "Mother of the world," choosing to embrace her cosmic pain with compassion rather than self-pity."

I don‘t imagine many of us have stories that dramatic, but there’s not a one of us who hasn’t lived through tribulations of one sort or another, those challenging moments that Harry Hart-Browne calls "AFGO’s," (Another Friggin’ Growth Opportunity) that invite us, right where we are, in large and small ways, in our own families and communities, to patiently master the spiritual art of replacing separation and bitterness with connection and compassion over and over again, as many times as it takes to demonstrate that we are "up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to us."

Do not trivialize the effect of each wise action no matter how insignificant it may seem. Remember, just as the recurrent fall of raindrops fills the water bucket, so over time dedicated seekers become rich in compassion through small increments in their commitment to diligently seek the grace of a love that wraps all existence in the soft fabric of the Cosmic Mother’s eternal forgiveness.

Enjoy the Grace!
~ Chad

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