Don’t Take Options Off The Table: What if I’m Wrong?
We cannot honestly discern if from the outset we preclude morally good options or assume that God must want what we want. It is not up to us to take options off the table or insist on certain things before discernment begins.” Peter F Ryan, SJ
What if I’m wrong when I look at my neighbor and see greed
when beneath their selfishness
they long for security — just like me?
What if I’m wrong when I look at my neighbor and see hostility
when beneath their aggression
they long for safety — just like me?
What if I’m wrong when I look at my neighbor and see ill will
when beneath their disrespect
they long for affection — just like me?
What if I’m wrong when I look at my neighbor and see arrogance
when beneath their bluster
they long for attention — just like me?
What if I’m wrong when I look at my neighbor and see corruption
when beneath their profiteering
they long for power — just like me?
What if I’ m wrong when I look at my neighbor and see tyranny
when beneath their chaos
they long for control — just like me?
What if my neighbor and I could agree
we are not wrong
we both long
for security, safety, affection, attention, power and control
then turn our attention and welcome
an open-armed strategy?
Peter F. Ryans’s quote is found in to today’s selection in An Ignatian Book of Days by Jim Manney, a series of daily reflections from the Spiritual Wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Throughout the book we hear the voices of St. Ignatius as well as many great thinkers and writers, long gone and present day, each uniquely revealing the way of finding God in all things.And that is my intention; to find God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality in whatever presents itself to me each day in 2024.
Each day I read, reflect and write on the selection, hoping to articulate the ways in which I come to know God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality via personal experience, impelled by the leading of my inner life.
INVITATION
Would you like to join me? The book is accessible on Amazon. Let me know in the comments to this post and sign up to get an email whenever I post. I would love to read your reflections too, public or private messages welcome!
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https://www.debraasis.org
All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being,
Debra AsisDOn’t Take Options Off The table:
