Everything belongs...

For years, I would begin my classes on the contemplative mind by repeating the same sentence twice:  “Most people do not see things as they are because they see things as they are!” Which is not to see at all. Their many self-created filters keep them from seeing with any clear vision. The whole of life is almost perfectly calibrated to get you out of your own way, which is normally achieved by having to give up control or through a persistent sadness, pain, or fear. Notice how the blind people invariably cry out to Jesus “Lord have pity on me” (Luke 18:39). From our pitiable state, what the recovery movement calls “powerlessness,” we can often recognize that we are our own worst enemy, and from that humiliation, we can learn how to see and love things as they are—and not just as we want them to be. ~R. Rohr